On this day in 1911, the Japanese government executed twelve anarchists, including radical journalists Kanno Sugako and Kōtoku Shūsui (shown), as part of a widespread crackdown on left-wing activism. Among those executed were Uchiyama Gudō, a Buddhist priest and socialist who spoke out against the Meiji government for its imperialism and advocated for conscripted soldiers to desert en masse.
The pretext for this crackdown was the "High Treason Incident", a plot to assassinate the Emperor of Japan. The incident began when police searched the room of Miyashita Takichi, a young lumbermill employee, and found materials which could be used to construct bombs, concluding that there was a broader conspiracy to harm the imperial family.
On the basis of this plot, the Japanese government rounded up leftist activists from all over the country. 24 of the 26 defendants actually brought to trial were sentenced to death, despite the evidence against nearly all of them being circumstantial.
Among those executed anarcha-feminist journalist Kanno Sugako (some sources say she was executed on January 25th). At the age of 29, Kanno became the first woman with the status of political prisoner to be executed in the history of modern Japan.
Prior to his execution, Kōtoku Shūsui etched this message on the wall of his cell: "How has it come about that I have committed this grave crime? Today my trial is hidden from outside observers and I have even less liberty than previously to speak about these events. Perhaps in 100 years someone will speak out about them on my behalf."
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Is there a word for that situation when some probably well-meaning but woefully uneducated lib is ranting about something and coming up with a bunch of solutions to problems that Marx & co. already figured out like two hundred years ago? Then you try to tell them that "yeah if only there was some german santa-looking philosopher who had written something about that hmmm" and they just won't have it while all you can do is Jim-face at the camera. There should be a word for that.
I don't know but my friends were discussing how they would fix the housing market and every time this happens I want to scream at them that nothing they're talking about will work because the people who own everything won't get richer doing it.
"Oh if we just had an empty unit tax there would be more supply and rent would come down!" NO! NO! IT! FUCKING WOULDN'T! THEY'D FIND SOMETHING ELSE EVEN IF THEY COULDN'T STOP THE LAW! THEY'LL ALWAYS FIND SOMEONE ELSE! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The number of times I've gotten to reply to my lib friends, "Oh, so you mean 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?'" and they say "Yes!" and I call them a dirty commie and they get mad is too damn high.