Category: History
Peace & Justice History for 10/12:
| October 13, 1934 |
| The American Federation of Labor (AFL) voted to boycott all German-made products as a protest against Nazi antagonism to organized labor within Germany. |  |
| Watch The U.S. and the Holocaust 2022, A new documentary by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october13
Interesting!
Misinformation: how the printing press fuelled witch trials
October 11, 2024 Ellen Phiddian
The printing press – and a particular manual it printed – played a big role in early modern witch trials, according to a fascinating new study.
Between 1450 and 1750, some 90,000 people were put on trial for being witches across Europe. About 45,000 of these people were executed.
Reasons for the fervour of this “witch craze” are murky. People had believed in witches for centuries, but brutal witch-hunts weren’t nearly as common until the 15th Century.
A study published in Theory and Society uses data on witch trials and witch-hunting publications to suggest that manuals may have been a big contributor.
In particular, they believe the Malleus maleficarum, which was first published in 1487, could explain a lot of the uptick – alongside trials in neighbouring cities.
“Cities weren’t making these decisions in isolation,” says lead author Dr Kerice Doten-Snitker, a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, USA.
“They were watching what their neighbours were doing and learning from those examples. The combination of new ideas from books and the influence of nearby trials created the perfect conditions for these persecutions to spread.”
The researchers tracked the “ideational diffusion” – the spread of an idea, and behaviours linked to it – of witchcraft by looking at trial data and publication data from 553 cities in Central Europe.
They looked specifically for the publication of witch-hunting manuals, like the Malleus maleficarum.
This book contained a detailed explanation of “demonology” – the theory of witchcraft – as well as practical advice on finding and convicting witches.
“At the time of its appearance, there was only a shaky consensus among learned authorities on the crucial questions of who witches were, what they did, and why they had supernatural powers,” write the researchers in their paper.
“The willingness of [author Heinrich] Kramer to expound confidently on these questions is part of what made Malleus so influential.”
Each new edition of the Malleus maleficarum was linked to an increase in witch trials in the city where it was printed.
“The printing press did not cause the inception of the elaborated theory of witchcraft, but our results show that it fostered its spread,” write the researchers.
The team believes this ideational diffusion can be seen in many other areas.
“The process of adopting witch trials is not unlike how modern governments adopt new policies today,” says Doten-Snitker.
“It often starts with a change in ideas, which are reinforced through social networks. Over time, these ideas take root and change the behaviour of entire societies.”
Originally published by Cosmos as Misinformation: how the printing press fuelled witch trials
https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/social-sciences/printing-press-witch-trials/
Peace & Justice History for 10/12:
October 12, 1492 Natives of islands off the Atlantic shore of North America came upon Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who was searching for a water route to India for Spanish Queen Isabella.  |
| October 12, 1945 Pfc. Desmond Doss became the first conscientious objector ever to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Doss, a Seventh Day Adventist, enlisted in 1942 but refused to carry a rifle or train on Saturdays. On the island of Okinawa, under heavy Japanese fire, he saved the lives of 75 sick and wounded soldiers by lowering them, one by one, down a 400-foot cliff.  The guest house at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is Doss Memorial Hall in his honor. Read more (includes movie trailer) |
| October 12, 1958 A Reform Jewish Temple in Atlanta (the city’s oldest) was firebombed with fifty sticks of dynamite in retaliation for Jewish support of local black civil rights activists. The Temple’s Rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was outspoken in his support of civil rights and integration, and was a friend of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. before he became well known nationally.  From Georgia PBS |
| October 12, 1967 British zoologist Desmond Morris stunned the world with his book, “The Naked Ape,” a frank study of human behavior from a zoologist’s perspective. Morris had earlier studied the artistic abilities of apes and was appointed Curator of Mammals at the London Zoo. Read more |
| October 12, 1967 “A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority” appeared in The Nation and the New York Review of Books. 20,000 signed it, including academics, clergymen, writers. It urged “that every free man has a legal right and a moral duty to exert every effort to end this war [Vietnam], to avoid collusion with it, and to encourage others to do the same.” This document became the main basis for the federal government’s criminal prosecution (for encouraging draft evasion) of five of the signers: Dr. Benjamin Spock, Marcus Raskin, Mitchell Goodman, Michael Ferber, and the Reverend William Sloane Coffin. Read the Call |
| October 12, 1970 Lt. William Calley was court-martialled for the massacre of 102 civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai; far more actually died during the incident.  The full sad story  Lt. Calley |
| October 12, 1977 “Regents of the University of California v. Bakke” was argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The question: Did the University of California violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by practicing an affirmative action policy that resulted in the repeated rejection of Bakke’s application for admission to its medical school? Read more |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october12
Red State Fear
Telling the men in our lives the reality of our lives
Read on Substack Jess Piper Oct 10, 2024
(Note from Ali: Jess wrote the anti-misogyny rant I was thinking of.)
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
~Maya Angelou
I go solo camping often. I head up to the North Shore in Minnesota or down to Northwest Arkansas and hang out a few days by myself or with my daughter. My husband is a big ole, corn-fed country boy who will not sleep on the ground, so we leave him at home.
I love to sleep outside, but the very thing I hate about camping is sleeping outside — exposed. As a woman, this is something I think about a lot. When I wake up for some unknown reason and wonder if I heard something in my sleep. Or, I wake up to actually hearing something or someone. I get scared. I get nervous. I wonder why in the hell I do the things I do and take the chances I take.
And then I go back to sleep and wake up on Lake Superior or Devil’s Den and hike to waterfalls and forget it all until it is time to go back to sleep outside. Love and hate.
Lake Superior, Split Rock Lighthouse State Park.
I once asked my husband if he’s ever afraid when he is alone. He laughed out loud.
“Of what? Why would I be scared?”
I tend to be an overthinker, but I can’t tell you how many times I have wondered about his statement of fact. He is not scared. Of men or animals or most of the danger I intuitively see around me. He has nothing to be scared of — he is physically imposing and there is not one law on the books that will harm him.
He has never worried about walking at dark. Or encountering someone on a trail. Or sleeping outside. Or most of the things that take up a lot of my mental space.
He has lived his life completely unencumbered by his environment, even as a resident of a red state. A homegrown Missouri man.
Sure, the Missouri GOP trifecta, a supermajority, has defunded the schools and let our roads crumble and closed hospitals and generally made a nuisance of themselves, but that is exactly what they were to him. An inconvenience. Annoying. Turds in the punchbowl, but nothing to get too riled up about.
He was just living his life.
He didn’t see it. Not because he is not empathetic. Not even because he doesn’t pay attention to politics. It’s because he has lived his life with a privilege he didn’t know existed until I pointed it out. Because, until he saw the world through his daughters’ eyes, through my eyes, these things just never occurred to him. He didn’t deny privilege, he just didn’t see it. He isn’t uncaring or a dolt — he just had absolutely no experience being marginalized. I had to tell him.
Once he saw it, though, he couldn’t look away. He was disgusted. He understood.
This is where I should mention something that I have spoken of in front of safe men. When I tell them that I have been sexually assaulted as well as almost every woman I know, they are astounded. When I tell them of sexual harassment, they are amazed. And then, one day it clicked for me. These are good and safe men and the predators know it. They don’t hurt women while they are around. They don’t talk about it or joke about it, because these men wouldn’t put up with it. The good guys have often really not been a witness to the behavior we have endured because they are just that…good guys.
I am not making excuses for the menfolk.
The men in my life will attest to the fact that I constantly push them to see what we see. I am hard on them. I ask that they look beyond themselves and be an ally to others. To be a witness and bear witness.
We don’t need protectors, but we do need witnesses.
As a woman, as a mom of girls and granddaughters, I have no degree of safety in Missouri and I know all of my girls fall into the same category. They are not safe from sexual assault or rape. They are not safe after a sexual assault or rape. They will likely be dismissed, or worse, blamed. They would be forced to bear the child of their rapist. They would likely be forced to co-parent with their rapist.
Missouri has a total abortion ban with no exemptions for rape or incest. Not that it would matter…I am sure there is some process to that exemption as well and I really hate the notion that a woman or girl can’t have bodily autonomy unless she has first been violated.
Writing that sentence made me sick at my stomach.
Missouri women have been denied care because of the abortion ban. A Kansas OBGYN, Dr. Ahmed, shared a story last week about her Missouri patient who suffered a miscarriage:
“She came in for a follow-up still bleeding,” said Dr. Ahmed. “Turns out there was some tissue that was still there. Retained tissue in that setting can become infected, can cause a lot of bleeding, so I discussed with her the options.”
The patient decided on medication and Dr. Ahmed says she prescribed it. But the following morning, she received a fax from Walgreens on Stateline after prescribing Misoprostol or Cytotec for the miscarriage stating, “Under Missouri law medication abortion is now illegal. Please advise patient to fill across Kansas border”.
Missouri has also had a 25% decrease in OBGYN residency applicants willing to come to our state because of the ban. That decreases care for all women, not just pregnant women.
We aren’t safe in Missouri.
The good news is that Missourians will get to vote on Amendment 3 in a few weeks. This amendment will restore abortion rights in Missouri. We will be the first state to overturn a complete ban.
The bad news is that our bodily autonomy is even put to a vote. That geography dictates our rights. That random folks will get to decide if we are first or second-class citizens. That we have been treated as less than. That our rights have been up for debate.
This is red state shit. We are used to it. It is constant and it is something we live in fear of every day. It is the thing I point to when I am speaking to the men around me. I never let them daydream their way back into complacence. I don’t let them fade into the peace of not knowing…of not being engaged. I don’t let them forget the fear of the women around them. I keep them awake.
Woke. (Emphasis mine- Ali)
I don’t want to be scared of living in Missouri anymore. I don’t want anyone to be scared in their home state. This is why we have to speak on it. Say it.
The reality is that we cannot gain our rights back without involving men. I have such good men in my life. Would they have voted yes on Amendment 3 without me telling them? I’d say yes. Would they be as rabid in telling other men around them to vote yes if I had not worked on them for so long? Maybe not.
It’s not that we are dealing with self-centered jerks. It’s that they didn’t know what they didn’t know.
Now they do.
~Jess
Peace & Justice History for 10/11:
It’s National Coming Out Day!
| October 11, 1987 More than half a million people flooded Washington, D.C., demanding civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans, now celebrated each year as National Coming Out Day. Many of the marchers objected to the government’s response to the AIDS crisis, as well as the Supreme Court’s 1986 decision to uphold sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick.   The AIDS quilt, first displayed in 1987 in Washington, DC The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was first displayed there, bringing national attention to the impact of AIDS on gay communities, a tapestry of nearly two thousand fabric panels each a tribute to the life of one who had been lost in the pandemic. |
| Brief history of National Coming Out Day https://www.advocate.com/exclusives/2019/10/11/coming-out-day-brief-history |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october11
OT Distraction Stuff About A Good Human/Genius I Admire
Peace & Justice History for 10/10:
| October 10, 1699 The Spanish issued a royal decree which stated that every African-American who came to St. Augustine, Florida, and adopted Catholicism would be free and protected from the English. |
| October 10, 1963 The Limited Test Ban Treaty—banning nuclear tests in the oceans, in the atmosphere, and in outer space—went into effect. The nuclear powers of the time—the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union—had signed the treaty earlier in the year. In 1957, Nobel Prize-winner (Chemistry) Linus Pauling drafted the Scientists’ Bomb-Test Appeal with two colleagues, Barry Commoner and Ted Condon, eventually gaining the support of 11,000 scientists from 49 countries for an end to the testing of nuclear weapons. These included Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, and Albert Schweitzer.  Linus Pauling Pauling then took the resolution to Dag Hammarskjöld, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, and sent copies to both President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev. The final treaty had many similarities to Pauling’s draft. It went into effect the same day as the announcement of Pauling’s second Nobel Prize, this time for Peace. |
| October 10, 1967 The Outer Space Treaty (Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies) demilitarizing outer space went into force.It sought to avoid “a new form of colonial competition” as in the Antarctic Treaty, and the possible damage that self-seeking exploitation might cause. Discussions on banning weapons of mass destruction in orbit had begun among the major powers ten years earlier.  1949 painting by Frank Tinsley of the infamous “Military Space Platform” proposed by then Secretary of Defense James Forrestal in the December 1948 military budget. Read more |
| October 10, 1986 Elliott Abrams, then assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (in closed executive session) that he did not know that Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, a White House employee in the Reagan administration, was directing illegal arms sales to Iran and diverting the proceeds to assist the Nicaraguan contras. Abrams pled guilty in 1991 to withholding information on the Iran-contra affair during that congressional testimony, but was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.  Elliott Abrams  Presidents George W. Bush & George H.W. Bush  Oliver North Read more about the pardons |
| October 10, 1987 Thirty thousand Germans demonstrated against construction of a large-scale nuclear reprocessing installation at Wackersdorf in mostly rural northern Bavaria. |
| October 10, 2002 The House voted 296-133 to pass the “Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq,” giving President George W. Bush broad authority to use military force against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, with or without U.N. support.  |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october10
Let’s talk about Trump, Biden, Putin, and secrets….
Peace & Justice History for 10/8:
| October 8, 1945 President Harry S. Truman announced that the secret of the atomic bomb would be shared only with Great Britain and Canada.  |
| October 8, 1982 The Polish Parliament overwhelmingly approved a law banning Solidarnos´c´ (Solidarity), the independent trade union that had captured the imagination and allegiance of nearly 10 million Poles.  Solidarnosc leader Lech Walesa, 1982The law abolished all existing labor organizations, including Solidarity, whose 15 months of existence brought hope to people in Poland and around the world but drew the anger of the Soviet and other Eastern-bloc (Warsaw Pact) governments. The parliament created a new set of unions with severely restricted rights. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october8
Scottie's Playtime 