On this day, 21 November, 1897, revolutionary Jewish textile worker Mollie Steimer was born in Russia. She emigrated to New York in 1913 and was radicalised while working in a garment factory. For producing leaflets opposed to the US invasion of revolutionary Russia, Steimer was sentenced to 15 years’ prison, but she maintained her political activity and was arrested eight more times while on bail during her appeal before she was deported to Russia.
In Russia Steimer continued her revolutionary activity and was arrested by the Bolsheviks and sentenced to two years’ exile in Siberia. At this point she and her partner went on hunger strike and were eventually deported instead to Germany. Steimer continued her activism until her death aged 82.
This is a short biography: https://libcom.org/history/mollie-steimer-1897-1980-paul-avrichhttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1859010294284112/?type=3
Finally getting around to reading this after snagging a copy on a trip to Chicago *thinks* four and five years ago and huh, you know guys, I think the Schwarzenegger movie took some liberties with this.
Shame there’s no way to update this story and do a more faithful, more modern adaptation. I mean, c’mon, “Guy can’t pay his family’s medical bills, so he goes on a dystopian game show where he’s hunted by a surveillance state and the fascist killers they employ to win the money” How is *that* prescient?
In case you think the Rittenhouse verdict is an aberration, here are four other examples of the US justice system permitting fascists to use lethal violence against their opponents with total impunity:
In 1979, three dozen KKK members got the police in Greensboro, NC to turn a blind eye to the ambush they were planning for an anti-racist march. The KKK members fired on the anti-racists, killing five and wounding ten others. No one was ever convicted.
Dan and Spit were two young anti-racist organizers in Las Vegas. In 1998, a gang of nazis lured them out to the desert and shot them to death. Two of the nazis were acquitted of the murders in a trial 16 years later; a third was never even charged.
It is folly to expect the US justice system - or any country’s legal system - to hold fascists accountable for the violence they visit upon their opponents & our communities. Community-based organizing and collective self-defence are all we have to protect ourselves from their terror.
Nov. 19 — Another empowerment of white supremacy occurred today, and it was endorsed by President Joe Biden, who blessed the jury decision exonerating a racist killer.
We demand federal charges be brought against Kyle Rittenhouse in a real trial with a jury representing the community of Kenosha, Wis.
We demand the prosecution of white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys, with which Rittenhouse made a public appearance, and others that have proven to be violent racist, terrorist organizations. Fascist, racist, terrorist organizations have no right to exist.
We demand justice for Ahmaud Arbery, whose killers are now on trial in a Georgia court like the white supremacist-friendly court in Wisconsin.
Victories, like the conviction of George Floyd’s killer Derek Chauvin, are vital and important to move forward. But it must be remembered that this victory came from the militant protests demanding it. As we have just seen, that progress can be stolen as soon as the local, state and federal government feel the heat of militant street activism is off.
Not only is it necessary to keep up the heat, but also to better understand the necessity of bringing down this system.
