Archive for March, 2013
Reclaim Out History: April 1-15
Apr. 1, 1932: Five hundred school children with haggard faces and tattered clothes, parade through Chicago’s downtown to Board of Education offices to demand the school system provide them with food. Now Mayor Rahm is taking away their schools. 1949: Untelevised birth of Gil Scott-Heron.
Apr. 2, 1980: Pres. Jimmy Carter signs the “Windfall Profits Oil Tax.” How times have changed… 1982: President Reagan authorizes broad powers for federal government to withhold public information on “national security” grounds. His was the most secretive administration until Li’l George took office; his predilection for hiding shit has been exceeded only by our current Great Leader.
Apr. 4, 1979: Pakistan: Another benevolent US ally, Pres. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of Benazir, hanged for ordering murder of three political opponents while in office, Rawalpindi.
Apr. 5, 1981: Stating the Obvious Dept: Pres. Ronald Reagan is declared a public moron, Berkeley, California.
Apr. 6, 1917: US enters World War I, declares war on Germany; 56 Congresspeople oppose US entry. Pres. Woodrow Wilson, re-elected on an antiwar platform, does an about face. Thousands of Americans are suddenly declared “anti-American,” considered “traitors” for opposing US entry into a war that will leave 10 million dead. Thousands are jailed, harassed, tarred and feathered, lynched, forced to get on their knees and kiss the American flag, castrated or killed, etc., by such outstanding icons of “patriotic” virtue as the American Legion–basically for maintaining the original antiwar position which got Wilson elected President. The government, police, and vigilantes across the nation destroy printing presses, labor halls and offices, burn books and papers, all for the “War for Democracy,” a war which was to end all wars. Yep.
Apr. 7, 1927: First televised political demonstration occurs. The revolution, however, is not televised. 1948: World Health Organization (WHO) formed in Geneva, with the stated goal of making health care available to everyone in the world by the year 2000. Keep trying. 1970: California Gov. Ronald Reagan, displaying the empathy and humanism that would later mark him as one of the great political leaders of the 20th century, announces his attitude towards student civil rights activists, dissenters, and Vietnam War protestors: “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.”
Apr. 8, 1885: Troops invade Panama to “protect US interests.” Heh, heh. 1956: Six recruits at Paris Island Marine Base (South Carolina) drown when their drill instructor, Staff Sergeant Matthew McKeon, disciplined them for “minor disorderliness” by marching them into a tidal swamp. The few, the proud, the jarheads.
Apr. 9, 1874: Muckleshoot Indian Reservation established. (The casino and amphitheatre came much later.)
Apr. 11, 1938: Richard Whitney, five-term president of the New York Stock Exchange, sentenced to five to 10 years in prison for grand larceny. Where is that judge today when we need him?
Apr. 12, 1900: American Empire begins in earnest as Puerto Rico is surrendered to the US military authority with the Foraker Law (Organic Act of 1900), establishing civil government and “free” commerce between the island and US.