Emma Goldman: An Exceedingly Dangerous Woman Page #3

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You can't vote in anarchism

You can't get coalitions with various

other groups to get anarchism

Anarchism is the most

extreme of all

And therefore how

that balances

with needs and the feelings

and the routines

of everyday life

was a huge problem

for American anarchists

and anarchists worldwide

How can I deal

with the fact that I

haven't got any rent?

That's a huge gap.

Anarchism as

a political philosophy

is almost

jaw-droppingly nave

If freedom is

a good inclination

if suspicion of state power

is a good inclination

the question is how is that

to translate into

practical politics?

I think, she was a

serious political theorist who

actually thought

an anarchist movement

you could create this kind

of self-governing world

Anarchism is sort of

the noblest of all dreams

It seems to me in some ways

it's almost a

profoundly Christian dream

though people never talk

about it that way

Well, why do people..

stick with their god

It's what they have

It was her god

that revolutionary ideal

he was a very religious woman

if you think about it

But Goldman also believed

that to create

a more perfect society

acts of political violence

were occasionally justified

a belief shared by

her friend and lover

Alexander Berkman

Violence would soon begin

to dog her every step

June 1892

A strike at the

Andrew Carnegie-owned steel plant

in Homestead

Pennsylvania

escalated into one of the bloodiest

labor battles the country had seen

The Homestead strike

came during a period

of intense unrest

Thousands of men and women

fought for the right to strike

to form unions

and to establish a forty-hour work week

They were met with force

from police

from soldiers

and from the hired armed guards

of the Pinkerton Detective Agency

On June 25th

workers called a strike

Henry Clay Frick

plant manager

closed the mill

and locked them out

Then he called

in the Pinkertons

Two weeks later

in the middle of the night

300 Pinkertons

crammed onto barges

nd were towed ten miles up

the Monongahela River

to Homestead

Armed workers were waiting

on the river bank

At dawn

a pitched battle broke out

Twelve hours later

three Pinkertons

and seven strikers

lay dead

To us, it sounded like the awakening

of the American worker

the long-awaited day

of resurrection

In Alexander Berkman

it stirred something deeper

It was the moment for

what anarchists called

"propaganda by the deed"

a political assassination

His target:

Henry Clay Frick

Emma and Sasha and their friends

live in virtual reality

There is therefore

an element of

folly

in their attempt to solve

this country's problems

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