On this day, 12 May 1916, James Connolly was executed by firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin. He was sentenced to death by the British authorities for his role in leading an armed revolt that had aimed to establish an Irish Republic. Because he had been wounded in the fighting, he faced the firing squad tied to a chair.
Politically, Connolly was a complex character. Born in Edinburgh in 1868, he participated in workers’ struggles in Scotland, the United States, and Ireland. He at times wrote and acted as an industrial syndicalist or a party socialist, and at different stages of his life he was active in the Industrial Workers of the World and the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, as well as the Scottish Socialist Federation, the Socialist Labour Party of America, and the Irish Socialist Republic Party.
He maintained contradictory positions on nationalism, and in the final years of his life he abandoned trade unionism in favour of a cross-class conspiracy. He supported imperial Germany in WW1 and romanticised the feudalist Gaelic society of yore as “a country in which the people of the island were owners of the land upon which they lived, masters of their own lives and liberties, freely electing their rulers,” and living in “a system evolved through centuries of development out of the genius of the Irish race, safeguarded by the swords of Irishmen, and treasured in the domestic affections of Irish women.”
But while his analysis and methods are open to debate, his commitment to the emancipation of the working class is beyond question.
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The CW Picks Up DC Universe's Swamp Thing Rights -
Ah, just the broadcast rights, I was worried we were going to get a new Swamp Thing series with the network’s usual… lazy approach to make-up.
Y’know, making Swamp Thing a conventionally attractive bloke with maybe one or two leaves stuck on him.
(via dberl)
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(via horrorbmoviepunk-deactivated202)
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horrorbmoviepunk-deactivated202:
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About The Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement
The Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement is a political movement dedicated to freeing people from bondage and building resistance in the United States. We situate our political movement in the context of the abolitionist struggle against slavery and continue in the tradition, from Nat Turner to the Black Liberation Movement. We believe the Civil War was never resolved and the system of slavery transitioned into the prison industrial complex. Our struggle today must begin from this starting point. Lastly, as revolutionary anarchists, the abolitionist struggle must be extended to the state and capitalism, the perpetrators of oppression. The revolutionary movement in the US today is at a cross roads, as fascist movements are expanding, and the state becomes increasingly authoritarian. The Rojava Revolution, in northern Syria, provides us with a model for revolution today with its foundation in communal and council based political organization and militant defense.
Short Term Goal: The Underground Railroad
We will create networks for those facing detention, incarceration, deportation, or white supremacist violence to escape and live with dignity. We invite revolutionaries to help build a contemporary underground railroad, outside the reach of the state. Revolutionaries, social centers, and antifa groups that are already active can help build greater infrastructure of resistance to support those fleeing the state. From this foundation, we set the political framework for the next stages.
