On this day, 9 October 2014 the Greek ‘riot dog’ Λουκάνικος (Loukanikos: “sausage”) died peacefully in his sleep. Loukanikos was the most famous of the Athens stray dogs who joined demonstrations and riots against the police murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos and later against austerity measures. Inhaling police tear gas and other chemicals during the many riots in which he participated, led to a deterioration of his health, he was adopted and retired out of the city in 2012. He died at the approximate age of 10.
READ ONCategory: ACTIVISTS & HEROES
Left Anticommunism: the unkindest cut (CLASSICAL ESSAY—REPOST)
MICHAEL PARENTI— Having never understood the role that existing communist powers played in tempering the worst impulses of Western capitalism, and having perceived communism as nothing but an unmitigated evil, the left anticommunists did not anticipate the losses that were to come. Some of them still don’t get it.
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When Bernie Sold Out His Hero, Anti-Authoritarians Paid
BRUCE LEVINE—Wilson’s venom for Debs was such that even after the end of the war, Wilson announced, “This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration.” Wilson even denied a pardon for Debs when it was recommended because of Debs’s poor health by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (notorious for his “Palmer Raids,” incarcerating and deporting dissenters). It was the Republican president Warren Harding, following Wilson, who commuted Debs’s sentence in 1921.
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Two Long-Standing American Traditions: Committing War Crimes & Ignoring International Law
RS AHTHION—Now people may think the American people would be against this. That they would be for the prosecution of American soldiers. That surely if American soldiers were guilty of crimes against humanity they would be for the prosecution of those. However it’s worth remembering Hugh Thompson bravely stood between a murderous platoon of US troops who brutally murdered 500 vietnamese civilians (mostly women and children). When Hugh Thompson returned home he was vilified by the American public. [As usual these vile chauvinist cowards took it out on the most helpless of creatures. See our addendum for full detailes about this genuine American hero. )
“I’d received death threats over the phone…Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up.”
– Hugh Thompson