nothing_23's Journal: old notes

During the first war on terrorism, the Reagan years, U. S.-sponsored state terrorism in Central America left hundreds of thousands of tortured and mutilated corpses, millions of maimed and orphaned, four countries in ruins. Also in the same years, the Reagan years, Western-backed South African depredations killed about a million-and-a-half people and caused sixty billion dollars of damage in neighboring countries.massive international terrorism backed by the United States and Britain and others. I don.t have to speak of West and South-East Asia, South America, or much else.
Following the Haymarket bombing incident, Albert Parsons and several other anarchist leaders were arrested. Parsons, convinced of his innocence, had turned himself in on the day of the trial; the others had been arrested earlier. Despite the absence of evidence linking them to the bombing, they were convicted, and the trial became a cause cèlébre for the American Left. Emma Goldman admired their passionate commitment and believed they were innocent. The guilty verdict and the stirring defiance of the jailed leaders had an important influence on Goldman and inspired her initial interest in the American anarchist movement.
Protest demonstrations flared across America and Europe. On November 11, 1887, Albert Parsons and three other anarchists were executed. The inscription on the four men's tomb echoed the final words of one of the victims: "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today."
In 1893, Illinois Governor Peter Altgeld, convinced of the Haymarket defendants' innocence after a lengthy review of the trial, pardoned the anarchists who had received long prison sentences for their alleged role in the Haymarket bombing.