 |
|||
|
|
|
 Tony Platt on Wall Street Terror AttackPosted on Mar 13, 2009
By Tony Platt The narrative arc of this book is very familiar: An unexpected terrorist attack takes place in September, targeting an important symbol of power in the heart of New York City; everyday people suffer tragic deaths; the media saturate the nation with images of mangled bodies and tales of heroism; there is an aftermath of recriminations, roundups and xenophobia, followed by acrimonious political debates that pit the need for security against protection of civil liberties. Except the focus of this book is not on what we now know by shorthand as 9/11, but on the bombing on Wall Street that killed 38 people and wounded hundreds on Sept. 16, 1920—the single most dramatic act of political violence in this country until Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City 75 years later.
The Day Wall Street Exploded
By Beverly Gage
Oxford University Press, 416 pages
Despite its sensational title, Beverly Gage’s “The Day Wall Street Exploded: The Story of America in Its First Age of Terrorism” is a thoroughly documented work of investigative history and a corrective to the American tendency, in the words of Richard Hofstadter, to practice a “remarkable lack of memory.” Gage challenges the assumption widely expressed after 9/11 that “terrorism is something utterly new in the American experience, a horror without a past.” To illustrate this point, she focuses on the rise and fall of the American anarchist movement from the 1880s through the 1920s, and the state’s response to early 20th century radicalism, which talked up “propaganda by deed” and to back up its rhetoric made considerable use of dynamite, Alfred Nobel’s contribution to science in 1866. Gage also tackles the analytical impasse created by right-wing depictions of anarchists as crazed bomb-throwers and left-wing apologies that portray anarchist radicals as romanticized victims of government conspiracies. “There were bombs and those who believed in bombs,” she argues, “and there was also scapegoating, stereotyping, and false accusation.” “The Day Wall Street Exploded” revisits the first part of the 20th century as an important moment in the development of what historian William Preston Jr. called the “internal security state.” American historians have extensively explored the Red Scare, Palmer Raids, political deportations and anti-radical hysteria of the 1910s and 1920s; Gage’s original contribution is to witness these ominous events through the perspective of participants in radical organizations, and in the police and intelligence agencies that aspired not only to defeat the left but also to make anti-radicalism into “a litmus test for entry into American politics.” Beverly Gage has turned her Columbia University dissertation—recipient of the prestigious Bancroft award in 2004—into an engaging first book. From her podium as an assistant professor of history at Yale, she is quickly making a reputation as a public intellectual, her opinions appearing in The New York Times Magazine, Slate and PBS’ “News Hour.” Recently recognized by the History News Network as a “top young historian,” Gage draws upon her journalism skills practiced at the New Haven Advocate to fashion a lively narrative, leavening solid research with deft prose and expressive sketches of her leading subjects. Occasionally style trumps substance as Gage tries to meet expectations of the book’s hype as “a thrilling historical detective saga,” but overall she succeeds in making a serious subject accessible to a broader audience.
The book is roughly divided into two parts: The first introduces us to the world of American anarchism, a product of the 19th century’s ferocious industrialization and class divide; the second to the architects of a modern system of law and order that shaped 20th century counterinsurgency. Gage provides a portrait of the militant American left from the eruption of labor strikes in the 1880s to the Russian Revolution. We get sympathetic snapshots of all the key players and organizations: the anarchist leader Johann Most, who “helped to transform the neutral substance of dynamite into a great political symbol”; Emma Goldman, the “figurehead of American anarchism,” and her partner in militancy, Alexander Berkman; the labor leader Big Bill Haywood, “the American apostle of dynamite” who “projected a magnetism far beyond his physical frame”; and Sacco and Vanzetti, advocates of an “unabashedly revolutionary form of anarchism,” whose 1927 executions became an international cause célèbre. Gage also brings us inside the internal debates about the use of violence against commercial and political targets taking place within anarchist, Bolshevik and socialist organizations. What’s missing from this U.S.-centered analysis, however, is an exploration of how the issue of political violence was viewed within mainstream labor, women’s and civil rights organizations. From reading Gage’s book you wouldn’t know, for example, that a huge debate was taking place within the contemporary African-American movement about whether or not violent self-defense was preferable to nonviolent protest. “I believe it would be better for the Negro’s soul to be seared with hate than dwarfed by self-abasement,” argued a black leader in the early 1920s. Anarchism in the United States was never a mass or popular movement. In the mid-1880s, the country’s largest anarchist group had no more than 6,000 members, mostly German immigrants. And of these committed militants, notes Gage, only a few subscribed to tactics of “scorching vengeance.” Moreover, the violence of the left paled against the ruthless violence used by cops and private militias against striking workers, and the thousands of untimely deaths caused by unsafe working conditions in mines, mills and factories. Yet, when revolutionaries turned to violence, the results were spectacular: the Haymarket bombing in Chicago in 1886 that left seven cops dead and 60 injured; the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901; the 1910 firebombing of the Los Angeles Times building; the 1916 bomb that killed 10 spectators at the Preparedness Day parade in San Francisco; and the 1919 bomb that sheared off the front of the house of the U.S. attorney general. In 1920, a group calling itself “American Anarchist Fighters” left leaflets near the site of the Wall Street explosion, demanding, “Free the political prisoners, or it will be sure death for all of you.”
1
2
NEXT PAGE >>>
Advertisement Previous item: 'Big Love' Causes Scene With Mormon Church Next item: CNBC Does Damage Control After Stewart-Cramer Showdown CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment |
Will Mortgage Settlement Avoid Repeating Obama’s Foreclosure Failures?
Email
Print
Share
Digg
Facebook
TwitThis
StumbleUpon
Reddit
YahooBuzz
Email
BlinkList
del.icio.us
Fark
Furl
Google
LinkedIn
Mixx
MyShare
NewsVine
Propeller
SphereIt
Technorati
YahooMyWeb
Newsletter 
Become a Fan
Follow Us
Subscribe
Tags|Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|FAQ: Comments and Moderation
Copyright © 2012 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
By cyrena, March 20, 2009 at 8:25 pm Link to this comment
I’m just now catching up with things here at Truthdig, and this is another one for the bravo corner. Great review, and I’m delighted to say that I’m planning to purchase this work by Ms. Gage. I’d like to read more from Tony Platt as well. Good stuff.
I particularly appreciate the way he wound it up…
But it’s a pity that Gage did not take the opportunity to make clear what is implicit in her book: that the repertoire of post9/11 repression—punishment without trial, rendition, demonization of immigrants, racial profiling, left baiting and invasion of privacy—was shaped by events in the 1910s and 1920s when for the first time the
government orchestrated and led campaigns to limit political dissent, whipped up rightwing populism and justified suspension of the Constitution in the name of national security. Sen. Hiram Johnson’s critique of the Republican Party in 1920 as “bowing to a hundred repressive acts” works just as well as a critique of the legacies of the Bush administration. To paraphrase the senator’s most famous maxim, the first casualty of counterterrorism is truth.”
This provides us with the prompt to further explore what Ms. Gage may not have covered, for whatever the reasons. Most importantly, we can use the senator’s most famous maxim (the first casualty of counterterrorism is the truth)to examine each and every one of these truth casualties so that they can be healed/restored via exposure to the light.
Report thisBy robert m puglia, March 17, 2009 at 9:50 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
wall street is a terror attack
Report thisBy Purple Girl, March 15, 2009 at 3:32 pm Link to this comment
Funny when we talk about Terrorist Attacks no one ever mentions those committed by the Religious Right. No mentions of the Clinic bombing which were so in vogue esp in the early 80’s. The MD assasinations. Even the Atlanta Olympic pipebombings . Yet a least a few times a year some sociopath from the religious right committs some atrocity- Drags a black man behind a pick up, Beats and Ties a gay man to a fence post on the open plains of WY, opens fire at a kids church recital.
Report thisI am far less concerned about being killed by an islamic terrorist from the M.E., than I am a hopped up self righteous zealot from AL when I step out of my house. Tell me the Value of the Female Citizen held by ‘pastor’ Huckabee when he claims an embryo has the Right to “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” thus abortion and stem cell is ‘unamerican’ and a sin. Gee Huck you think you might have forgotten a citizen who has been actually born in that logic? The woman, The parkinsons patient,the paraplegic?
Now that Pres Obama has lifted the ban on stem cell research should these facilities beef up security? I think so- History has proven these people have no ethics or Morals. They will kill an innocent just to make their point (like those at the Olympics).
The only difference between our “Christian” sociopathic extremeist and the Islamic ones, is that the Muslims are willing to kill themselves as well in the process.
What is most interesting between these two terrorist Groups is that ideologically they are exactly the same- same judgemental and oppressive doctrines- only difference is the ‘sacred Cow’ they idolize and Worship.Which is far above and beyond that they Even have for God- since they both have proven they hold the 10 Commandments in No regard whatsoever.there are no (*)after any of those very straight forward creeds.“Love thy neighbor”, ‘Thou Shall NOT Kill”, “Thou shall not Covet”,“thou Shall Not Bear False Witness”...‘One and Only One’ means not Jesus or Mohammad or David- at the most they were all just merely Fleshy Vessels utilized by God, but Not actually God.Genie in a bottle- The Genie has the power to grant the Wishes,Not the Bottle, It is merely the Genie’s container (or prison)
The fact that they are willing to break every golden Rule of Human engagement to prove their point means they have none, therefore it is time to take off the kit gloves and call these maniacs what they are- All are terrorist to humanity regardless of which Symbol or ‘Cow’ they idolize and Worship.
As for the Criminals on Wall Street et al- theyhad better hope we convict them on Economic Treason and hang them. Otherwise we might find them guilty of lesser crimes which carry life sentences- How’s 50 yrs in General population with a Sadistic Roommate with the nick name Chester the Molester, Sound?
Justice can also be a Dish Best served Cold.
By prgill, March 15, 2009 at 1:28 am Link to this comment
Great book review. Must reading for the TD community.
My first reaction is that this book is about a violence begat by violence, about internecine hatreds nurtured by a dialogue among the deaf, by a dialogue among society’s unhearing and uncomprehending, dominant and dominated.
The lack of diversity in America’s public dialogue is troublesome, to say the least.
What is the point in currying favor among distant peoples if you cannot even get along with your neighbors? What will it take for us to remember that all democracy is essentially local?
American society has for too long acted as if growth and expansion were the only model worth pursuing. What may have been true in our youth cannot possibly be true for our middle age. Perhaps it is time we reconsidered the model.
Report thisBy Volma, March 14, 2009 at 11:10 pm Link to this comment
oh oh after re-reading my comment, I noticed more than one mistake, I said radical left wing gun toting etc…I really meant right wing….But how could a group of people who think so wrongly be called right wing???Really….Well I guess, or so I think I have been told is that as part of psych ops throughout the world, it’s common or standard operating procedures to create terrible acts or deeds that would make the average person angry and/or fearful for their lives, and scapegoat the targeted group for the dirty deed…Rowan Atkinson’s video is great, good to get a laugh, it’s too stressful to look at all the shit without happiness breaks…Makes me feel pretty defeated with all the bad news, that seems to be hopeless and defeatist type scenarios….Empowerment, is that anything but a psycho babble propaganda type word to make liberals feel (like me) that I actually can change this huge overgrown spiderweb on top of spiderweb of corruption, greed, lies and general nastiness????Oh well, life goes on…
Report thisBy Volma, March 14, 2009 at 12:47 pm Link to this comment
Project Censored.org has a really good investigative report that you can download as a PDF file, read at your leisure called “Deconstructing Deceit: 9/11, The Media, and Myth Information” Thanks, “crimes of the state blog” for the link to the McVeigh information…I could really never understand the motive or real reason for the event, or how a truck load of explosive made from home made products could do so much damage…The propaganda about McVeigh, and also the assault and destruction of the Branch Dividian, group by our government…The message I got from all of this was clear, the government is watching you and will make sure that any groups that form will never have enough power or weapons to take over, even the local city hall…It always amazes me when the gun toting left wingers scream about their rights to own guns, protect their property and liberty if need be, even against the government…The government, or powers over us, want us to believe that we are free, and the spiel about the right to own gun, within a conservative “love America or leave it mentality”...There is a conservative militia, eager and willing to kill off the liberal, Godless, commies at a moments notice…Will the truth really set us free in America, when the power structure has such enormous controls in place to stay in power at all cost? Sad that even a book written about the history of anarchism, misses the point, blames the victims who are fighting oppression and the powers that victimize them…To omit the early civil rights, women rights movements, and skew the book, is typical of historians…History is skewed to give the advantage to the rich powerful people who actually gain more security through propaganda…I really have no honest hope for the human race, we will destroy ourselves and each other, or the earth and/or meteors, whatever will rid itself of us…We are like a growing deadly virus that Mr. Smith call’s us in “The Matrix”...
Report thisBy Crimes of the State Blog, March 13, 2009 at 12:02 pm Link to this comment
“Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City 75 years later.”
Did McVeigh put those demolition charges on the supporting columns?
The Oklahoma City bombing investigation of Benton K. Partin, Brigadier General, USAF
Live News confirms bomb squad removed unexploded bombs from Murrah building
Report this