TortureGate has me thinking about our Country's past - i.e lynching

We must not overlook our past:

http://www.musarium.com/withoutsanctuary/main.html

edit: graphic imagery

I discovered it a few months ago. You might want to add a warning that there are some very graphic pics on the site.

Unfortunately, I discovered it while researching some of my family's past. If you go through the entire site -- and I highly recommend it when you have the time -- you'll see a few pics from Oklahoma. I have this horrid knowledge that some of my ancestors were there.

Didn't expect to see Old Pete on DU.

And not that long ago...posing with victims?

People brought their children to lynchings.

where the practice of lynching originated. John Lynch, a farmer in the area, used to string up his errant slaves by their thumbs for punishment and a warning to other slaves. Lynch's activies spread to others in the Jim Crow South and degenerated into more extreme torture, death for individuals, and mass murders.

Jeez Louise!

now has his throne in the Senate.

But the foolish old bigot is a pet peeve of mine, and a discrace to my party.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/10/1417258&mode=thread&tid=25

I know a lot of people don't respect him, but his words are very profound, especially in this case. He compares Abu Ghraib to other times in America's history.

I know he wouldn't be surprised!

I can't let this go!

"100 Years of Lynchings" By Ralph Ginzburg. The book is just a collection of newspaper accounts. What really stands out is the peculiar rage that would swell up, the excitement of a lynching. The rage was so bad that in many cases, when the victim said that the guy caught wasn't the perpetrator, they lynched him anyway. Somebody would always cry out, "remember the crime" whenever doubt was debated.

I see the same peculiar rage going on now. When doubt is raised about whether Iraq had anything to do with 9-11, you hear people hollering "but have you forgotten the people who died"? i.e. "remember the crime". We don't care about evidence when the rage gets going. Any dead sandn*****er will do.

nice, fitting parallel there solomn: "remember the crime." they're using the exact same logical fallacy to push their point.....

was just arguing about lynchings and genocide in general today in america in response to some peoples' self-righteousness about america and "terra".... this stark reaffirmation of those points was welcomed..... people need to be reminded.

My sister has it and loaned it to me to read. It was depressing to read. A couple of the names were of mine and I know they are probably my ancestors from Louisiana.:-(

Hmmm.

A cousin of my great-grandfather in Louisiana was never heard from after venturing near the bayous. No reason, no word. Nothing.

for those that think that we now live in The Federation, they are sadly mistaken.

:kick:

I am very sorry about your family tragedy! There have been far too many starting with 400 years of the worst crime committed in the history of mankind followed by an unending series of betrayals, degradations, abandonments, ghetto slavery, etc...

I send my true condolences and prayers to your family.

They have no idea what happened. Rumor had it that the night riders were out and he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and they got him.

The level of indifference was the kicker for me. No investigation, he was just...gone. :shrug:

It's like I don't even see the US military as people anymore.

People who publicized and condemned lynchings were blamed for giving the South a bad name and airing dirty laundry. Sort of like Rummy saying the leaking of the abuse photos was the problem, not the abuse itself.

the guy who did it at home, they strung up whoever was there.
They sold hotdogs like at a carnival. People from miles around would get the word and a party atmosphere would develop.

I remember reading Freeper posts right before the war started. Everytime Bush would announce a speech, they would get excited and talk about getting out the beer and popcorn and have superbowl like parties over the bombing to come. It sickened me and made me think of lynchings. Then when the announcement actually came, they were overjoyed to sit back and watch it all on their tvs.

The parrallels are frightening.

The extreme political repression during World War I has been largely forgotten. Many prominent leftists were arrested merely for exercising their rights to free speech. (It may be no coincidence that this coincided with a peak in racism and lynchings.)

"The Espionage Act was passed by Congress in 1917 after the United States entered the First World War. It prescribed a $10,000 fine and 20 years' imprisonment for interfering with the recruiting of troops or the disclosure of information dealing with national defence. Additional penalties were included for the refusal to perform military duty. Over the next few months around 900 went to prison under the Espionage Act.

"Criticised as unconstitutional, the act resulted in the imprisonment of many of the anti-war movement. This included the arrest of left-wing political figures such as Eugene V. Debs, Bill Haywood, Philip Randolph, Victor Berger, John Reed, Max Eastman, and Emma Goldman. Debs was sentenced to ten years for a speech in Canton, Ohio, on 16th June, 1918, attacking the Espionage Act.

"On 23rd August six members of the Frayhayt, a group of Jewish anarchists based in New York were arrested. Charged under the Espionage Act, the group were accused of publishing articles in the Der Shturm that undermined the American war effort. This included criticizing the United States government for invading Russia after the Bolshevik government signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.

"One of the group, Jacob Schwartz, was so badly beaten by the police when he was arrested that he died soon afterwards. Mollie Steimer was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment. Three of the men, Samuel Lipman, Hyman Lachowsky and Jacob Abrahams received twenty years."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWespionage.htm


And here's some more on this last case, from Emma Goldman's autobiography:

"Then came the arrest of a group of our young comrades in New York, comprising Mollie Steimer, Jacob Abrams, Samuel Lipman, Hyman Lachowsky, and Jacob Schwartz. Their offence consisted in circulating a printed protest against American intervention in Russia. Every one of those youths was subjected to the severest third degree, and Schwartz fell dangerously ill as a result of savage beating.

<snip>

"The war for democracy was celebrating its triumphs at home as abroad. One of its characteristic features was the dooming of Mollie Steimer's group to long prison terms. They were all mere youths. Yet United States District Judge Henry D. Clayton, a veritable Jeffreys, sentenced the boys to twenty years' imprisonment and Mollie to fifteen, with deportation at the expiration of their terms. Jacob Schwartz had been saved His Honour's mercy; he had died on the day of the opening of the trial, from injuries inflicted upon him by police blackjacks. In his Tombs cell was found an unfinished note in Yiddish, written in his dying hour. It read:

"Farewell, comrades. When you appear before the Court I will be with you no longer. Struggle without fear, fight bravely. I am sorry to have to leave you. But this is life itself. After your long martyr--"

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/living/living2_48.html

examine the world. We are coming from such an unhealthy place of self denial that we cannot possibly achieve the ends that our leaders speak of. Bringing freedom and democracy to the world? Phhtphh! We haven't achieved that here!

How can we see ourselves as the 'good guys' otherwise? The sorrid past of slavery is worse by comparrison. The public just doesn't know about the details...the rapes, the sodomy, the castrations, the brutalities, the lynchings with women and children standing at the foot of the hanging trees, picnics after the lynchings, family outings to see those hanging from trees and bridges. This is Americas true history along with the equally horrible atocities visite upon the Native Americans, who like the Iraqis, were made out to be the villans for fighting for their own land.

:kick: