Maggie's Farm

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Tuesday, April 15. 2014

Two plaques

Seen in the West Village last week, one on a firehouse and one on an old brownstone:



Posted by Bird Dog at 04:58 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

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"Emma Goldman - who loved her freedom and hated yours, lived here."
#1 NJSoldier on 2014-04-15 07:29 (Reply)
Exactly.
#1.1 Bird Dog on 2014-04-15 07:41 (Reply)
Upon reading her Wiki article, I am surprised that she wasn't deported decades earlier. Basically from the minute she reached the States in her early twenties, she was a very vocal anarchist agitator- and more.

To her credit, she wised up up about the Soviet Union.
QUOTE:
In March 1921, strikes erupted in Petrograd when workers took to the streets demanding better food rations and more union autonomy. Goldman and Berkman felt a responsibility to support the strikers, stating: "To remain silent now is impossible, even criminal."[123] The unrest spread to the port town of Kronstadt, where a military response was ordered. In the fighting that ensued, approximately 1,000 rebelling sailors and soldiers were killed and two thousand more were arrested. In the wake of these events, Goldman and Berkman decided there was no future in the country for them. "More and more", she wrote, "we have come to the conclusion that we can do nothing here. And as we can not keep up a life of inactivity much longer we have decided to leave."
Had she taken longer to reach her conclusion about the Soviet Union, she would have been stuck there.
QUOTE:
oldman found it difficult to acclimate to the German leftist community. Communists despised her outspokenness about Soviet repression; liberals derided her radicalism. While Berkman remained in Berlin helping Russian exiles, she moved to London in September 1924. Upon her arrival, the novelist Rebecca West arranged a reception dinner for her, attended by philosopher Bertrand Russell, novelist H. G. Wells, and more than two hundred others. When she spoke of her dissatisfaction with the Soviet government, the audience was shocked. Some left the gathering; others berated her for prematurely criticizing the Communist experiment.[126] Later, in a letter, Russell declined to support her efforts at systemic change in the Soviet Union and ridiculed her anarchist idealism.
Emma Goldman might have been labeled Politically Incorrect, given how she shocked that audience.

She reached a conclusion about the Spanish Civil War similar to one that George Orwell reached in Homage to Catalonia.
QUOTE:
Goldman began to worry about the future of Spain's anarchism when the CNT-FAI joined a coalition government in 1937—against the core anarchist principle of abstaining from state structures—and, more distressingly, made repeated concessions to Communist forces in the name of uniting against fascism. She wrote that cooperating with Communists in Spain was "a denial of our comrades in Stalin's concentration camps.
She was an Anarchist, not a Stalinist. But as I said, I do not disagree with her being deported, just that it should have happened much earlier.
#1.2 Gringo on 2014-04-15 12:26 (Reply)
Overhead nearby, "Daddy, what's 'deported' mean?"

"… and what's a 'soviet' union?"
 
#2 Ralph of New London (Link) on 2014-04-15 08:47 (Reply)
Glad to know she was deported to where she really wanted to be. The Soviets, likely not so much.
#3 Sam L. on 2014-04-15 10:18 (Reply)
My thoughts on the plaques themselves are somewhat different than NJSoldier's, though I agree with him.
First, while none of this is "Ozymandias", I've always found these kinds of honors to be strange. A plaque on a bridge, for example, which outlines who the governor, mayor, and 25 city councilmen were, along with the architect and chief engineer. As far as I'm concerned, the architect and chief engineer were the only meaningful names necessary. The rest was just a bunch of guys who won popularity contests and got to say "put my name on that" or got to redistribute public funds to their buddies.
Second, I wonder if Emma's plaque was paid for privately by people who liked her. If so, that's rather ironic, isn't it? If not, why would we spend public funds on a person who probably would not have wanted a plaque, but more importantly was deported? Even if you think her deportation was unjustified (as I do), she did many other things which were designed to diminish and undermine the liberty of others. Simply because it's what she wanted.

I like plaques that add to a site, giving context or providing a lesson to younger folk. Like this one:
http://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/where-was-nathan-hale-really-hanged/
#4 Bulldog on 2014-04-15 10:26 (Reply)
It's also a pretty cool site...
#4.1 Bulldog on 2014-04-15 10:27 (Reply)
My buddy advised I'd possibly this way blog. He was entirely correct. This kind of offered truly made my own morning. You can not believe that purely just how a whole lot occasion I'd put in with this info! Thank you so much!
#5 Fildena 100 (Link) on 2014-04-15 13:12 (Reply)
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
#5.1 Kondratieff on 2014-04-15 15:50 (Reply)
After reading the Wiki, a useful idiot seems she, Emma. As emulated by her fellow travelers today. A wasted life sustained by the capitalist structure she abhorred.
#6 XRay on 2014-04-15 22:05 (Reply)

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