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Gulf Today
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Reclaiming the US Flag for ‘No Kings Day'
Paul Loeb, Tribune News Service Will marchers carry flags on "No Kings Day"? On June 14, more than 1,000 local demonstrations will challenge President Donald Trump's North Korean-style military parade for his birthday with our defense of democracy. The 14th is also Flag Day and the 250th anniversary of the US Army. The flag can't replace protest signs. But it complements and amplifies them. The demonstrations send a message that even as Trump and his allies wrap themselves in their flags, they are betraying the best of America. They highlight a culture of corruption where the only Americans who matter are allies of Trump at the top and persons or institutions who would challenge this become subjects of attacks. Our flags make clear, in contrast, that we are defending Americans' fundamental right to speak out, without which all other rights become meaningless. They're a message to all who agree with us but also to all those Americans who voted for Trump or stayed home, rejecting both candidates. Because to change the direction of our country, the support of at least some of these people will be essential. As "No Kings Day" reminds us, 'The flag doesn't belong to Donald Trump. It belongs to us.' But at most anti-Trump protests, flags have been absent or marginal. I counted one when several thousand people marched in Seattle this past May Day, plus scattered Uncle Sam and Statue of Liberty images. That may be because carrying the flag feels uncomfortable, a false embrace for many who've marched to challenge American wars, call out racial injustice, or push back against corporate power. But the flag also stands for legacies of courage and sacrifice that should give us all hope and strength, like the classic World War II image of GIs raising it over Iwo Jima. The flag represents the imperfect but essential mechanisms of democracy that Trump's regime so profoundly threatens, ones that allow us to keep working for justice. In defending these mechanisms and the rule of law, Thomas Jefferson condemned the very Alien and Sedition Acts whose remnants Trump is now abusing. These acts created the power of kings, Jefferson warned, writing of threats to the 'constitutional rights and liberties of the States and by the suspicions of the President, or be thought dangerous to his or their election, or other interests, public or personal.' These acts first targeted 'the friendless alien,' Jefferson wrote, but 'the citizen will soon follow.' Flags have long been part of the protest tradition and may have even more impact when those speaking out are being marginalized or attacked. American labor activists from the radical IWW union carried them at the Lawrence Textile 'Bread and Roses' Strike. They fly next to Martin Luther King Jr. in photos from the 1963 March on Washington and his talks at anti-war rallies. This year, demonstrators who helped defeat South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's dictatorial power grab waved South Korean flags along with their signs. Some recent anti-Trump rallies have featured them. But they need to become protest staples to help take the flag back. A recent Vietnam trip reminded me of the power of national pride. Americans are welcomed now, even as museums, statues, and street names commemorate heroes in what they call 'the American war,' and the related fights against the Japanese and French occupations. But Vietnam also honors 13th, 15th, and 16th-century kings who resisted and eventually defeated repeated invasions by the Chinese and Mongols. The country's leadership could have dismissed them as the embodiment of now-discarded feudalism. Instead, they present their stories as part of a continuing story of resistance, a history they highlighted during the war as Ho Chi Minh and other leaders talked of fighting for their country, not communism. Whatever the limits of Vietnam's current regime in terms of democracy, this worked because the roots of national patriotism ran deeper than any particular ideology. The threat to American democracy that those of us marching address is internal, of course (with help from white South African billionaires Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and David Sacks). But the lesson of patriotism and national pride as a wellspring of resistance still holds true. I've learned to appreciate those who bring flags to social justice protests. And I finally bought my own the other week at my local hardware store to complement a 'Don't Putinize America' sign I plan to carry. The young woman at the counter's initial look seemed to mark me, an older white man, as a likely Trump supporter. When I said I was buying it for the Trump protest, 'No Kings Day,' she broke into a grin. No matter our anger or disappointment for America failing to achieve much of what it should be, we need to defend what we have had and the possibility of what could be. Making the flag our own helps us do that.
Otago Daily Times
02-06-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Murder a WW1 loose end
Cyril Cromar, a New Zealand soldier murdered in the German city of Cologne in 1919. — Otago Witness, 4.8.1925 An echo of the war which principally affects Dunedin has now reached finality. It's a hard life The matter is that of the murder of Private Cyril Cromar, of the 1st Otago Infantry Battalion, by a German on the banks of the Rhine in 1919. Mr W.O. Clark, of Dunedin was in company with the deceased and two young women, Clark being on one seat with his friend and Cromar some 100 yards away on another seat with his friend. Suddenly several German larrikins came on the scene and surrounded Cromar and behaved in a threatening manner. At that moment Clark ran up and, just before he reached Cromar, a shot was fired, and the latter fell dead. The German police assisted the military police and five of the assailants were arrested and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. One man escaped, and it was not until early last year while alighting from the Berlin express at Cologne that a German detective recognised the man. He was arrested and brought before the court and remanded. As the Army Council decided that Mr Clark's evidence was essential, the New Zealand Government was communicated with and, as a result, Mr Clark was requested to go to Cologne as a witness at the trial of Fram Swaboda, which will take place when Mr Clark reaches Cologne. It is understood that Swaboda is to be represented at the trial by Dr Steiner, a leading German counsel. Mr Clark would depart aboard the Corinthic at Wellington on June 11 and would therefore leave Dunedin on Tuesday next. Have you ever, or never, sat uncomfortably in church, with a sensation that the posterior bones and the naked wood of the pew were too closely combined? Have you shifted uneasily, trying hard to keep mind and ear attentive to prayer and praise and discourse? Well, if the answer is in the affirmative, as conscientiously it surely must be, think of Heaven. You sing of Jerusalem the Golden, and of the special place reserved for you — and you dream with lazy religiosity of harps and jasper pavements and golden crowns and cushy seats. — by 'Wayfarer' Throwing a wobbly It is not clear why Mr Holland, as leader of the official Labour Party, thought it necessary or politic to champion the cause of the revolutionary firebrand against whom the Attorney-General, exercising statutory powers, has thought right to issue an order of deportation. He cannot be in agreement with the wild doctrines expounded by the undesirable visitor in the interests of IWW propagandism. From him, however, the seamen's and waterside workers' organisations in Wellington have apparently taken their cue, and they have passed resolutions of protest against the issue of an order of deportation. "The constitution I believe in is that of the IWW, and if we study it a bit more and allow some of these so-called foreigners to come in and help us, we shall probably make this country a little better than it is to-day"; such is the mildest profession of faith of the man who is to be deported, and it was preceded by more extravagant utterances. Sir Francis Bell has pointed out that it is not unlawful or seditious to advocate the wildest forms of Socialism or Communism; "what is unlawful and seditious is to advocate murder and violence as legitimate methods for the attainment of political ends." — editorial Not on a Sunday At a meeting of the Dunedin Presbytery yesterday morning the Rev J. McCosh (East Taieri) reported that, as there were rumours that a Sunday train service would be instituted from Dunedin to Mosgiel, a petition was being circulated and was receiving strong support from all the Protestant churches in Mosgiel and the surrounding country. A very large number of residents of the district had signed the petition urging the Railway Department not to commence services on Sundays and, if it had no effect locally, it was intended to send a deputation to place the petition before the Minister of Railways in Wellington. The Moderator (the Rev W. Simpson) said that the matter was already before the Public Questions Committee. He had been informed that the Port Chalmers railwaymen did not like working on Sundays. The Presbytery approved of the action of the Mosgiel churches. — ODT, 3.6.1925 (Compiled by Peter Dowden)
Sydney Morning Herald
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
In attempting to deport a troublemaker, Australia helped create a martyr
Along the Kremlin Wall in Moscow lies the grave of Paul Freeman – buried beside Soviet leaders and revolutionaries. An unlikely resting place for a prospector who once worked the copper fields of outback Queensland, Freeman's story is a gripping – and unsettling – glimpse into Australia's postwar history. His journey from the bush to Bolshevik martyrdom began in obscurity. Born around 1884, probably in Germany, he later registered as an American citizen and worked as a miner in Pennsylvania and Nevada before settling in NSW in 1911. At Broken Hill, he joined the Australian Socialist Party, later aligning with the militant Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), nicknamed the Wobblies, and emerging as a vocal anti-conscription activist during the 1916-1917 debates. After prime minister Billy Hughes banned the Wobblies in 1917, Freeman moved to Cloncurry, Queensland, where he worked in the mines and later prospected independently, naming his shafts with defiant flair: The International, Four Slaves, and Freedom. His anti-war activism, coupled with rumours of a rich copper discovery, attracted powerful interests. In January 1919, Freeman was arrested under the War Precautions Act and transported to Sydney, then placed aboard the Sonoma for deportation. Officially, the charge was a failure to notify authorities of a change of address, though it seemed more personal. W.H. Corbould, general manager of the Mount Elliott Mining Company, was later named as the source behind Freeman's removal. Freeman's deportation quickly spiralled into farce. After being refused entry to the United States, he spent months aboard the Sonoma, crisscrossing the Pacific. In desperation, he launched a hunger strike. When the ship docked in Sydney, more than 10,000 rallied at Pyrmont wharves to free him. A police baton charge left several injured, including future federal Labor minister Eddie Ward. Under public pressure, the government removed Freeman from the ship, but not from custody. His deportation resumed in October, this time to Germany. His expulsion, the Australian Worker declared, had cast 'a searing spotlight' on wartime authoritarianism. Between 1916 and 1920, the government expelled scores of radicals, unionists, and 'enemy aliens' under sweeping emergency powers in what some historians have called the most extensive deportation campaign in Australian history. In 1920, Freeman entered Soviet Russia, where he travelled through Petrograd (now St Petersburg), modern-day Kyiv and Murmansk. Although his bid to represent the IWW at Communist International (Comintern), a movement of communist parties advocating for a global socialist revolution, was unsuccessful, Freeman gained prominence and stood for election to the executive committee in 1921. That same year, he was sent on a covert mission to Australia to rally support for the Red International of Labor Unions, but returned to Moscow in time for the Comintern's third congress. Freeman died on July 24, 1921, in an accident involving an experimental monorail near Kursk. He was travelling with his comrade, 'Commissar Artem' (Fedor Sergeeff). Pravda, the primary propaganda tool of the Communist Party after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, carried news of his death on its front page. He was buried with honours at the Kremlin Wall – a rare distinction for someone once cast out of Australia as a threat. Conspiracy theories have long surrounded Freeman's death, with some speculating the accident was orchestrated, given his growing influence in the Soviet movement and his mission to unite Communist factions. Historians, however, deem this theory unlikely. But his death reverberated across the international labour movement, none more powerfully than in Industrial Pioneer, where his comrade Tom Barker offered a stirring eulogy. 'Paul Freeman was one of that great army of the tireless, world-tramping, universal IWW,' Barker wrote, recalling how they first met in 1916 in Broken Hill, riding together through a desert storm from the jail to a comrade's funeral. Years later, they reunited in Moscow, where Freeman confided he planned to remain in Russia, never imagining the fatal accident that awaited. Barker described Freeman as a fearless agitator who crossed continents with the World Revolution 'ever foremost in his mind'. His legacy, Barker believed, would live on 'in the deep levels of the mines of Broken Hill', and even among 'the lonely shepherd and the migratory worker' who might picture Freeman beneath the Kremlin Wall. Though others buried there had 'greater names', none, he said, would 'honour it one iota more than all that is mortal of Paul Freeman'. Loading To Barker, Freeman was 'as true a man as ever stood in shoe leather', one of the outlawed and deported 'old guard' of the Southern Hemisphere, now resting in the revolutionary heart of the Soviet Union. The solemnity of Freeman's resting place contrasts sharply with today's Moscow – once a magnet for global revolutionaries, now a city increasingly isolated from the world. But Freeman's story is one of transformation – of a working-class agitator made into a symbol of revolutionary defiance by the very powers that sought to erase him. His fate reveals the deep tensions in a society emerging from war: a state anxious to restore order, and a labour movement increasingly unwilling to be silenced. In attempting to deport a troublemaker, Australia helped create a martyr. And in doing so, it unwittingly etched the name of Paul Freeman into the radical annals of the 20th century – forever remembered, far from home, beneath the shadow of the Kremlin.
The Age
11-05-2025
- Politics
- The Age
In attempting to deport a troublemaker, Australia helped create a martyr
Along the Kremlin Wall in Moscow lies the grave of Paul Freeman – buried beside Soviet leaders and revolutionaries. An unlikely resting place for a prospector who once worked the copper fields of outback Queensland, Freeman's story is a gripping – and unsettling – glimpse into Australia's postwar history. His journey from the bush to Bolshevik martyrdom began in obscurity. Born around 1884, probably in Germany, he later registered as an American citizen and worked as a miner in Pennsylvania and Nevada before settling in NSW in 1911. At Broken Hill, he joined the Australian Socialist Party, later aligning with the militant Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), nicknamed the Wobblies, and emerging as a vocal anti-conscription activist during the 1916-1917 debates. After prime minister Billy Hughes banned the Wobblies in 1917, Freeman moved to Cloncurry, Queensland, where he worked in the mines and later prospected independently, naming his shafts with defiant flair: The International, Four Slaves, and Freedom. His anti-war activism, coupled with rumours of a rich copper discovery, attracted powerful interests. In January 1919, Freeman was arrested under the War Precautions Act and transported to Sydney, then placed aboard the Sonoma for deportation. Officially, the charge was a failure to notify authorities of a change of address, though it seemed more personal. W.H. Corbould, general manager of the Mount Elliott Mining Company, was later named as the source behind Freeman's removal. Freeman's deportation quickly spiralled into farce. After being refused entry to the United States, he spent months aboard the Sonoma, crisscrossing the Pacific. In desperation, he launched a hunger strike. When the ship docked in Sydney, more than 10,000 rallied at Pyrmont wharves to free him. A police baton charge left several injured, including future federal Labor minister Eddie Ward. Under public pressure, the government removed Freeman from the ship, but not from custody. His deportation resumed in October, this time to Germany. His expulsion, the Australian Worker declared, had cast 'a searing spotlight' on wartime authoritarianism. Between 1916 and 1920, the government expelled scores of radicals, unionists, and 'enemy aliens' under sweeping emergency powers in what some historians have called the most extensive deportation campaign in Australian history. In 1920, Freeman entered Soviet Russia, where he travelled through Petrograd (now St Petersburg), modern-day Kyiv and Murmansk. Although his bid to represent the IWW at Communist International (Comintern), a movement of communist parties advocating for a global socialist revolution, was unsuccessful, Freeman gained prominence and stood for election to the executive committee in 1921. That same year, he was sent on a covert mission to Australia to rally support for the Red International of Labor Unions, but returned to Moscow in time for the Comintern's third congress. Freeman died on July 24, 1921, in an accident involving an experimental monorail near Kursk. He was travelling with his comrade, 'Commissar Artem' (Fedor Sergeeff). Pravda, the primary propaganda tool of the Communist Party after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, carried news of his death on its front page. He was buried with honours at the Kremlin Wall – a rare distinction for someone once cast out of Australia as a threat. Conspiracy theories have long surrounded Freeman's death, with some speculating the accident was orchestrated, given his growing influence in the Soviet movement and his mission to unite Communist factions. Historians, however, deem this theory unlikely. But his death reverberated across the international labour movement, none more powerfully than in Industrial Pioneer, where his comrade Tom Barker offered a stirring eulogy. 'Paul Freeman was one of that great army of the tireless, world-tramping, universal IWW,' Barker wrote, recalling how they first met in 1916 in Broken Hill, riding together through a desert storm from the jail to a comrade's funeral. Years later, they reunited in Moscow, where Freeman confided he planned to remain in Russia, never imagining the fatal accident that awaited. Barker described Freeman as a fearless agitator who crossed continents with the World Revolution 'ever foremost in his mind'. His legacy, Barker believed, would live on 'in the deep levels of the mines of Broken Hill', and even among 'the lonely shepherd and the migratory worker' who might picture Freeman beneath the Kremlin Wall. Though others buried there had 'greater names', none, he said, would 'honour it one iota more than all that is mortal of Paul Freeman'. Loading To Barker, Freeman was 'as true a man as ever stood in shoe leather', one of the outlawed and deported 'old guard' of the Southern Hemisphere, now resting in the revolutionary heart of the Soviet Union. The solemnity of Freeman's resting place contrasts sharply with today's Moscow – once a magnet for global revolutionaries, now a city increasingly isolated from the world. But Freeman's story is one of transformation – of a working-class agitator made into a symbol of revolutionary defiance by the very powers that sought to erase him. His fate reveals the deep tensions in a society emerging from war: a state anxious to restore order, and a labour movement increasingly unwilling to be silenced. In attempting to deport a troublemaker, Australia helped create a martyr. And in doing so, it unwittingly etched the name of Paul Freeman into the radical annals of the 20th century – forever remembered, far from home, beneath the shadow of the Kremlin.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Don't whinge, millennials: it's your fault you can't afford to rent in London
'Come, all ye workers, from every land, come, join in the grand industrial band'. There is Power In a Union was originally written in 1913 for the Industrial Workers of the World, a union that focused its efforts on organising migrant workers in lumber and construction camps. Trying to unionise these workers made perfect sense to the socialist ideals of the IWW, who saw it as a way to preventing employers from using them to undercut native labour. Such were the foundations the unions of old were founded upon. But the self-interest of members can no longer be taken for granted as the raison d' être of modern 'unions'. Take the example of the hapless London Renters Union. In reply to shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp's assertion that 48 per cent of London's social housing is occupied by people who are foreign-born, suggesting that 'The UK cannot serve as the world's social housing provider', the union argued that only 75 per cent of London social renters hold UK passports. That 75 per cent of London social renters hold UK passports does not disprove that 48 per cent of London's social housing is occupied by people who are foreign-born, nor that they are proportionally more likely than private renters or owner occupiers to be economically inactive. Moreover, it is not a stunning victory for the London renter that 1 in 4 people enjoying massively subsidised housing does not have a UK passport. Surely we ought to be outraged that nearly half of the social housing in our nation's capital, some of the most expensive real estate in the world, is occupied by those who were born abroad. It will surprise no one that the London Renters Union places the blame for the UK housing system and the extortionate rates London renters pay squarely at the foot of the Government, banks, developers and landlords. Their point is that 'NOBODY should be forced to live at the whims of rip-off private landlords, NOBODY should be priced out of their communities. EVERYBODY should have access to public housing.' This is an interesting idea to explore. Public housing, despite the claims of the Left, does not come cost-free; it is sustained by taxpayers. Given that those being charged extraordinary rates by private landlords – and those supposedly represented by the LRU – are the ones most likely to be providing the tax base to fund it, one would expect the union to advocate for policies that actually reduce rents, like building more housing and reducing immigration. But by insisting on a universal and unrestricted right to social houses, regardless of tax contribution or national belonging, they are agitating against the interests of their own members; the more social housing is allocated to first-generation migrants who are net fiscal drains, the greater the tax burden on those London renters who have to shoulder the costs. Housing is a scarce resource: more demand with a static supply raises prices. When immigrants first arrived in large numbers into London during the 1960s, they often lacked the local connections necessary to secure a spot on the housing list, leaving them in low-quality private rentals. Many saw this as unjust and advocated for reform, leading to the current needs-based system. Under the new rules, a large Bangladeshi family living in substandard conditions could accumulate enough points to be prioritised over young local white residents, who may have been waiting for years. This may explain why boroughs like Tower Hamlets have a massive over-representation of those with migrant heritage compared to the native population. The London Renters Union, in defending a housing model that prioritises those who are more likely to be economically inactive rather than workers struggling under to pay private rents, serves capital rather than its members. It was once said that mass migration meant you had to compete with the world's richest on the housing market and the world's poorest on the labour market: the LRU is proving that renters have to fight their own 'union' too. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
