Illusions are at the mercy of any winds that blow. Reality even when it is sad is better than illusions. For women in power to have a realistic outlook on most things and believe every effort we make now has a reaction has won plaudits not by bonhomie but by a quiet, no frills stress on competence. To relate the steps by which the prominent female figure turned into the uncompromising radical not the sweet sentimentalist of women's magazines days for many it is the awareness of the impact she has as a celebrity that obviously weighs upon her. "The greatest thing about having people recognise you is that you can try to make a positive difference."
Leading by a consensus of change rather than favoured brass knuckled methods "I feel like Joan of Arc at times." It is the life of shame that leads to blindness but there is confidence in the wonder that despite conditions so bad humanity has advanced so far. A belief faces of change can push beyond wallowing in periodic bouts of angst. "I may be a dreamer, but dreamers are necessary to make facts."
HELEN KELLER
Source Link: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/keller-helen/works/1910s/16_01_16.htm
Why I Became an IWW ________________________________________
First Published: An interview written by Barbara Bindley published in the New
York Tribune, January 16, 1916
Source: Helen Keller: Her Socialist Years (International Publishers, 1967)
Transcription/Markup: Anonymous/Brian Baggins
Online Version: Helen Keller Reference Archive (marxists.org) 2000
________________________________________
I asked that Miss Keller relate the steps by which she turned into the uncompromising radical who now faces the world as Helen Keller, not the sweet sentimentalist of woman's magazine days. "I was religious to start with," she began in enthusiastic acquiescence to my request. "I had thought blindness a misfortune." "Then I was appointed on a commission to investigate the conditions among the blind. For the first time I, who had thought blindness a misfortune beyond human control, found that too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial conditions, often caused by the selfishness and greed of employers. And the social evil contributed its share. I found that poverty drove women to the life of shame that ended in blindness.
"Then I read H.G. Wells' Old Worlds for New, summaries of Karl Marx's philosophy and his manifestos. It seemed as if I had been asleep and waked to a new world--a world so different from the beautiful world I had lived in."For a time I was depressed"--her voice saddened in reminiscence--"but little by little my confidence came back and I realized that the wonder is not that conditions are
so bad, but that humanity has advanced so far in spite of them. And now I am in the fight to change things. I may be a dreamer, but dreamers are necessary to make facts!" her voice almost shrilled in its triumph, and her hand found and clutched my knee in vibrant emphasis.
"And you feel happier than in the beautiful make-believe world you had dreamed?" I questioned.
"Yes," she answered with firm finality in the voice which stumbles a little. "Reality even when it is sad is better than illusions." (This from a woman whom it would seem all earthy things are but that.) "Illusions are at the mercy of any winds that
blow. Real happiness much some from within, from a fixed purpose and faith in
one's fellow men--and of that I have more than I ever had."
"And all this had to come after you left college? Did you get none of this knowledge of life at college?"
"No!"--an emphatic, triumphant, almost terrifying denial--"college isn't the place to go for any ideas. "I thought I was going to college to be educated," she resumed as she composed herself, and laughing more lightly, "I am an example of the education dealt out to present generations. It's a deadlock. Schools seem to love the dead past and live in it."
"But you know, don't you," I pleaded through Mrs. Macy and for her,"that the intentions of your teachers were of the best."
"But they amounted to nothing," she countered. "They did not teach me about things as they are today, or about the vital problems of the people. They taught me Greek drama and Roman history, the celebrated achievements of war rather than those of the heroes of peace. For instance, there were a dozen chapters on war where there
were a few paragraphs about the inventors, and it is this overemphasis of the cruelties of life that breeds the wrong ideal. Education taught me that it was a finer thing to be a Napoleon than to create a new potato.
"It is my nature to fight as soon as I see wrongs to be made right. So after I read Wells and Marx and learned what I did, I joined a Socialist branch. I made up my mind to do something. And the best thing seemed to join a fighting party and help their propaganda. That was four years ago. I have been an industrialist since."
"An industrialist?" I asked, surprised out of composure. "You don't mean an IWW--a syndicalist?"
"I became an IWW because I found out that the Socialist party was too slow. It is sinking in the political bog. It is almost, if not quite, impossible for the party to keep its revolutionary character so long as it occupies a place under the government and seeks office under it. The government does not stand for interests the Socialist party is supposed to represent."
Socialism, however, is a step in the right direction, she conceded to her dissenting hearers.
"The true task is to unite and organize all workers on an economic basis, and it is the workers themselves who must secure freedom for themselves, who must grow strong." Miss Keller continued.
"Nothing can be gained by political action. That is why I became an IWW."
"What particular incident led you to become an IWW?" I interrupted.
"The Lawrence strike. Why? Because I discovered that the true idea of the IWW is not only to better conditions, to get them for all people, but to get them at once."
"What are you committed to--education or revolution?"
"Revolution." She answered decisively. "We can't have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution
and see what it will do now.
"I am not for peace at all hazards. I regret this war, but I have never regretted the blood of the thousands spilled during the French Revolution. And the workers are learning how to stand alone. They are learning a lesson they will apply to their own good out in the trenches. Generals testify to the splendid initiative the workers in the trenches take. if they can do that for their masters you can be sure they will do that for themselves when they have taken matters into their own hands. "And don't
forget workers are getting their discipline in the trenches," Miss Keller
continued. "They are acquiring the will to combat.
"My cause will emerge from the trenches stronger than it ever was. Under the obvious battle waging there, there is an invisible battle for the freedom of man."
Again the advisability of printing all this here set forth. And this finally from the
patience-exhausted, gentle little woman:
"I don't give a damn about semi-radicals!"
Gradually, through the talk, Helen Keller's whole being had taken on a glow, and it was in keeping with the exalted look on her face and the glory in her sightless blue eyes that she told me: "I feel like Joan of Arc at times. My whole becomes uplifted. I, too, hear the voices that say 'Come,' and I will follow, no matter what the cost, no matter what the trials I am placed under. Jail, poverty, calumny--they matter not. Truly He has said, 'Woe unto you that permits the least of mine to suffer.'"
ANGELA MERKEL
Source Link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187212,00.html
By Michael Elliott Sunday, Apr. 30, 2006
At the time of her election almost six months ago, Angela Merkel, Germany's first woman Chancellor and the first leader since unification to hail from the formerly communist East, was written off by commentators. The leader of the conservative Christian Democrats was forced to lead a coalition government in which many important positions were held by Social Democrats. But the Chancellor now boasts stratospheric approval ratings, and the improvement in the German economy is commonly put down to the "Merkel effect." A nation that had been wallowing in one of its periodic bouts of angst is now so transformed that the newspaper Der Spiegel recently ran a cover calling Germany the "Land of Smiles." Says Henning Kagermann, CEO of software giant SAP: "I'm convinced she really is the right person for Germany."
A physicist by training, Merkel can sometimes seem dull. She has won plaudits not
by bonhomie but by a quiet, no-frills stress on competence. Instinctively biased
toward free markets and the cause of liberty—growing up in communist East Germany will do that for you—she has already nudged German foreign policy back
toward its traditional closeness to Washington. Now she has to tackle the challenges that still face the world's third largest economy. She is likely to do so not by the brass-knuckles methods favored by some U.S. conservatives but by leading a consensus for change. For Merkel, 51, is a European to her fingertips. Literally: she typically communicates with her ministers by text messages from her cell phone. You don't get more Euro than that.
MIRANDA KERR
Source Link: http://www.fightingoverme.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=82094
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