AnarchoBolshevik

Incredibly enough, in late 1943, the [Third Reich] commissioned the construction of 200 CR.42 biplanes to the FIAT factory. These aircraft were to be used as bombers for anti‐partisan operations. 73 aircraft were effectively built and transferred to the Luftwaffe, equipping the Nachtschlachtgruppe 9 (Night assault group) that operated in Yugoslavia and central Italy.

Although the contents of this article may seem trivial to some, I felt compelled to share this because the findings don’t jive well with the stereotypical oversimplification of Fascist Italy’s military consisting of poorly equipped weakling. This is a good reminder.

Events that happened today (September 24):

1884: Hugo Schmeisser, Axis arms designer (whom, I’ve read, frequently influenced Schicklgruber and Göring’s decisions), started existing.
1922: Ettore Bastianini, Axis aviator, was born.
1945: Hans Geiger, Axis physicist, expired.
1978: Freiherr Hasso Eccard von Manteuffel, Axis general who was born into a Prussian noble family and eventually lectured at the United States Military Academy at West Point, mustered up the decency to finally drop dead.

Pictured: Eleftherios Venizelos hunched over a table to sign this treaty with Fascist Italy. Benito Mussolini stands to his left.

Quoting Penelope Kissoudi’s The Balkan Games and Balkan Politics in the Interwar Years 1929–1939: Politicians in Pursuit of Peace, page 40:

The first initiatives in the improvement of Greek–Italian relations were taken by the dictator Pangalos in the years 1925 and 1926. [160] After the collapse of this régime, the [Rome] hastened to propose a treaty of arbitration between Greece and Italy. The 1926 Greek–Italian trade agreement paved the way for closer financial collaboration and provided the possibility of future political agreement. [161]

While an autocrat intentionally improving his government’s relation with Fascist Italy may be unsurprising, what is notable is the continuity between the autocracy and the pseudodemocracy that followed. Indeed, relations with Fascist Italy only continued to improve after the autocracy collapsed.

In July 1927, the Greek Foreign Minister Andreas Michalakopoulos and George Kafandaris, Minister of Finance (from 1926 to 1928), paid a visit to Rome. They both aspired to closer financial cooperation with Italy as well as [Fascist] support of the Greek demand for a bank loan from the League of Nations. [162]

Greek–Italian relations entered a new phase when, by the end of 1927, Michalakopoulos, returning to Athens from Geneva, took the opportunity to meet Mussolini. [163] Discussions between the Greek Foreign Minister and the Italian Premier paved the way for the Greco‐Italian treaty of September 1928 agreed by Venizelos and Mussolini. [164]

Venizelos, for those of us unaware, was a Liberal politician whom the Entente supported against Greece’s monarchy, which was neutral in World War I. Since most Greeks had no interest in getting involved in another war, Venizelos’s régime had to exercise a reign of terror to discipline the general population. It may be hard to believe that the commoners preferred monarchism over Liberalism, but it makes sense given how the Entente imposed a Liberal régime on Greece, which, unlike the monarchy, was pro‐war. This is why the author’s assertion that ‘much of the country was behind him’ (again?) should be treated with caution.

That aside, it should be striking that a Liberal Minister of Finance deliberately sought closer financial cooperation with a Fascist state.

The preservation of friendship with Britain and France, the re‐establishment of relationships with Italy and the Balkan neighbours and agreement with Turkey took precedence over all other issues. […] Venizelos […] focused on respect for the territorial status quo. He was opposed to revisionism and [now] dedicated to peace except in case of unprovoked attack. He aspired to avoid foreign entanglements that would either align Greece with some of the great powers or might compel it to rely upon a great power. More significantly, the establishment of friendly relations with Balkan neighbours was priority. [168]

Page 41:

One of the most difficult tasks Venizelos had to accomplish was to persuade London, Paris and Belgrade that the establishment of diplomatic relations with Rome signified no alienation by Athens of its traditional friends. He made clear from the beginning that he would utilize the potential agreement with [Fascist] Italy to compel Yugoslavia to waive excessive claims on Greece and to accept his own conditions for a treaty between the two sides. [169]

Although the prerequisites for successful negotiations between Rome and Athens had been well prepared by Foreign Minister Andreas Michalakopoulos in late 1927, Venizelos's initial effort towards the restoration of good fellowship between [Fascist] Italy and Greece did not initially meet with a positive response. [170] Nonetheless, Greek–Italian relations would be soon restored due to the strong determination of the Greek premier.

The appointment of Alexander Karapanos, former ambassador in Rome, a man who was highly esteemed by the [Fascist] government, as Foreign Minister was the first sure step in achieving Greek–Italian rapprochement. [171] For this reason, it was a suitable time for the Greek premier to meet Mario Arlotta, the [Fascist] Ambassador in Athens, and discuss with him his intention to visit Rome for the purpose of concluding a Greek–Italian agreement. His visit to Rome was to be followed by a visit to Paris. [172]

Venizelos aspired to remove obstacles and dissipate Mussolini’s doubts. He was successful. During Venizelos’s visit to [Fascist] Italy, Mussolini expressed unqualified satisfaction with the initiative taken by his Greek opposite number and the unambiguous attitude of Greece towards [Fascist] Italy. [173] The two sides thus entered into fresh negotiations and the draft of the treaty submitted to the [Fascist] government was fully accepted. [174]

The Greco‐Italian treaty of amity, reconciliation and juridical settlement was eventually agreed in Rome on 23 September 1928. [175] The discussions between Venizelos and Mussolini were aimed at a political rapprochement that could ensure the vital interests of both sides. In consequence, the talks focused particularly on unreserved [Fascist] support for Greece at diplomatic level and on relations between Greece, France and Britain. [176]

The desire for the preservation of good relations between Greece and the great powers and unconditional cooperation with their satellites in the Balkan peninsula stimulated the Greek premier to reject on principle any tempting proposal for a treaty of alliance with Italy. Thus [Rome] did not get all it wanted, but [Athens] got much of what it wanted. Venizelos’s subsequent visit to Paris was designed to reassure the French government that there was no thought of rescinding the agreement with France, which had settled matters touching on Greek war debts. [177]

Page 42:

On 30 September 1928, Venizelos left Paris and travelled to London. Baron Oliver Harvey, British diplomat, in his report on Greek–British relationships, made at the request of Lord Cushendun, who was Foreign Secretary in Chamberlain’s absence, emphasized two crucial points. The first concerned the positive position of the British government on the Greek–Italian treaty, while the second touched on London’s concern for the interests of British companies in Greece. [179]

Venizelos met no serious difficulty in persuading the British rulers of his good intentions. The British government realized that the rapprochement between Greece and Italy, under the terms of the League of Nations, was no threat to British interests in the eastern Mediterranean. [180] Sir Percy Loraine stated, in late 1928, that he had no doubt about Venizelos’s reliability and his good intentions.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

Events that happened today (September 23):

1861: Robert Bosch, Axis industrialist, was born.
1890: Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus, Axis field marshal (who failed miserably in his assault on Stalingrad), was rude enough to exist.
1916: Aldo Romeo Luigi Moro, Axis university student and draftee, was born.
1942: The Matanikau action on Guadalcanal commenced: U.S. Marines assaulted Axis units along the Matanikau River.
1968: Pio of Pietrelcina, fascist cleric, expired.

The colonial administration of the liberal era went to great lengths to reach out to Libyan notables, an approach known as the ‘politica dei capi’. This approach culminated in 1919 with the passage of the Libyan Statutes that extended Italian citizenship and afforded a measure of political representation to ‘native’ élites, though identifying who was ‘native’ in the Libyan territories was open to the interpretations of those taking census data, often with little knowledge concerning the ethnicities and identities of peoples in the region (Dumasy 2004–2005, 11–34).

Critics condemned this approach as expensive and ineffectual since it placed individuals with questionable influence on the Italian payroll while limiting direct state control to a few urban centres on the coast. Following Mussolini’s 1922 March on Rome, the colonial administration rejected conciliatory approaches and denounced previous treaties with regional élites in favour of military action to increase the territory under direct control of the [Fascist] state.

The use of violence escalated after 1926 when the military campaign known euphemistically as the ‘reconquest’ of the Libyan interior began in earnest, during which Italian forces (mostly composed of Eritrean troops) instituted a reign of terror.^3^ Assuming the direct complicity of the entire population, they rounded up tens of thousands of civilians and placed them in internment camps in an effort to isolate armed rebel groups.

The capture and execution of the Sanusi military commander Omar al‐Mukhtar in 1931 in the remote oasis of al‐Kufra gave proof to the effectiveness of this wave of military actions (Labanca 2002, 2005, 2012).

Despite this broad shift in the style of colonial rule, one can identify a measure of continuity from the liberal to the fascist era, especially in the period before the ‘reconquest’ began in earnest. The conciliatory approach to colonial rule that characterised the liberal administrations and the willingness to employ violence that characterised the fascist era often coexisted; it seems more useful to think of the Italian approach to colonial rule as shifting along a continuum of violence instead of switching from one mode to the other.

Even while the liberal administrations in the first decade of occupation focused their attentions on the establishment of power‐sharing relationships, they remained prepared for direct military action (Labanca 2012, 99). Even the idea of a ‘reconquest’ emerged before the transition to the Fascist administration under Federzoni’s predecessor as Minister of Colonies, Giovanni Amendola. Likewise, the practices that characterised a liberal style of colonial administration did not end abruptly in the early 1920s.

Colonial governors continued to negotiate with notables even as the military destroyed villages in the Libyan interior, and Mussolini engaged in a public relations campaign in an attempt to deflect international condemnation for the treatment of civilian populations.^4^

(Emphasis added.)

Events that happened today (September 22):

1882: Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel, Axis field marshal, stained the earth with his existence.
1905: Eugen Sänger, Fascist aerospace engineer, was delivered to the world.
1906: Ilse Koch, Axis war criminal, arrived to worsen life.
1939: The Third Reich held a farewell parade in Brest‐Litovsk.
1941: On the Jewish New Year Day, the SS massacred 6,000 Jews in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. (Those were the survivors of the previous massacred that took place a few days earlier in which about 24,000 Jews were executed.)
1957: Soemu Toyoda, Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff, expired.
2000: Saburō Sakai, Axis naval aviator, died.

In a very under-reported letter to the United Nations Security Council, Aboubacar Daddo, the United Nations Representative stationed in Niamey reported a long series of egregious violations of international law committed by France against the new government in Niger.

In the letter, the ECOWAS sanctions against Niger are denounced as being against regional and international law – without any authorization sought from the Security Council; the French ambassador’s presence in Niamey in defiance of the Nigerien request for him to leave is seen as similarly problematic while France’s refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the cancellation of the military pact linking it to Bazoum is in itself illegitimate, according to this United Nations expert.

Worse still, the letter goes on to document that on Aug. 9, French troops released terrorists whose leaders were then convened in a meeting with a view to attack Nigerien positions in the three border regions. Not to speak of repeatedly violated Nigerien airspace by French aircraft. But when the new Prime Minister of Niger, Ali Lamine Zeine, writes to the Secretary General of the UN to inform him that he will be representing his country at the Assembly General opening in New York this month, António Guterres responds that “You are not invited.”

The bombing took place less than four weeks after the historic March for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, D.C., and four months after a Children’s Crusade march that was savagely attacked in Birmingham. On May 3, 1963, 1,000 Black elementary, junior high and high school students left their classes to take part in the crusade action against segregation.

The notorious police commissioner, Bull Connor, gave orders to the racist police to unleash vicious dogs and firefighters to aim water in high-pressure fire hoses on these young people before many of them filled jail cells when they refused to end their march. This incident, which created national and international outrage, prompted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to write his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

At the rally, Rhoda Gibson, founder of the Massachusetts Chapter of ADAPT, gave a history of the struggle against Rotenberg. She played an audio clip of screams from Andre McCollins, a child who was tortured and shocked at Rotenberg many times, because he wouldn’t take off his coat.

Gibson explained that 80 percent of Rotenberg’s residents are disabled children of color from New York state, where Andre’s mother, Cheryl McCollins, is leading a movement to pass “Andre’s Law” to ban sending children from New York state to Rotenberg to be shocked and tortured.

In 2016, ADAPT organized a protest in which over 200 people, mostly wheelchair users, converged on the Rotenberg after ADAPT took over several Massachusetts trains to transport protesters to the center. This action was supported with the solidarity of many transit workers who assisted in getting folks on and off the trains.

A book about this struggle, “Pain and Shock in America: Politics, Advocacy, and the Controversial Treatment of People with Disabilities” by Jan Nisbet, with contributions by Nancy R. Weiss, is now available from Barnes and Noble and Amazon or online (free with trial membership) at tryscribd.com. A video of this rally is available by clicking the link: tinyurl.com/5n7upa6u.

The organizers invite individuals, organizations and peace advocates worldwide to endorse and attend an international peace conference to “stop the Third World War” in Rome on Oct. 27-28, 2023. Already, over 86 organizations from more than 33 countries have signed on to the list of demands, urging immediate action to defuse the tensions and promote dialogue. These organizations recognize the active role the international working class must play in dismantling NATO, the attack dog of U.S./European [neo]imperialism, as a precondition to achieving lasting peace.

By endorsing the list of demands, you can add your voice to the growing coalition that advocates for:

• The immediate halting of arms shipments to Ukraine.
• An end to the sanctions on Russia, as well as the cessation of the Russophobic campaign.
• The invalidation of the statement condemning Russia as a terrorist state.
• An armistice between the belligerent forces, allowing for peaceful negotiations.
• The establishment of a truly neutral and democratic Ukraine.
• The cessation of the arms race and the dissolution of NATO.

Your endorsement can make a difference. We urge you to join us in Rome and be part of this historic event. Only the popular struggle of the international working class can defeat the forces of U.S./Western militarism and [neo]imperialism.

Navigate to internationalpeaceconference.info/ to sign on and endorse.

Díaz-Canel stressed that, “It is necessary to remove the international barriers that have hindered access to knowledge by developing countries and their use of such determining factors for economic and social progress.”

Following Wednesday’s presidential meeting, Maduro and Xi supervised the signing of 31 bilateral cooperation documents focused on boosting collaboration in areas from oil, scientific development and tourism to “enriching the variety of trade goods.”

The main agreements include [the People’s Republic of] China’s support in the construction of [the Bolivarian Republic of] Venezuela’s special economic zones (SEZs), poverty reduction efforts and boosting the South American nation’s national electric grid, significantly strained due to a years-long lack of investment.

The allied nations likewise signed an agreement between China Meheco pharmaceutical company and Venezuela’s public health system to transfer technology and knowledge for the maintenance of medical equipment, to build and remodel hospital facilities, as well as to supply medicines and materials to the Caribbean country.

In a special broadcast of his weekly program from China, Maduro went on to highlight that Caracas will begin exporting agricultural products such as coffee and avocados to the Chinese market.

One aspect of the new China-Venezuela alliance that caught international headlines was the agreement for space exploration, which will “take the first Venezuelan man or woman to the moon on board a Chinese spacecraft,” said President Maduro. In July, Venezuela became the first Latin American country to join the China-led International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) to build a base near the moon’s south pole within the next decade.

Additionally, Caracas and Beijing agreed to deepen cooperation between legislative bodies and advance collaboration in industrial, green and sustainable development, mining projects, digital economy, culture and education exchange.

Organizers have developed a slide show exposing the dangers of Zenith trains and the CEI Hub storage tanks. Their goal is to reach all 95 Portland neighborhood associations and collect residents’ signatures on a petition letter to city officials.

On Sept. 6, protesters packed the Portland City Council demanding councilors “Stop Zenith Energy” and rescind the land-use permit granted to the company.

Over the last few years, Portland and state groups and organizers have rallied, called, written, educated the public, sued the company, written songs and lobbied elected officials. Protesters dumped soil across the train tracks and planted an ad hoc garden. They held a 60-hour vigil at the facility and scheduled kayaking protest trips along the Willamette River storage facilities.

ETA: Industrial Timber Conference Disrupted By Protesters; Windows Busted Out

Emergency measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic had begun to offer working families a step up out of extreme poverty. Introduced in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan, President Biden’s pandemic-relief package, the expanded child tax credit helped pull some families out of poverty. Had the extended tax credit remained in place, child poverty would have been nearly 50 percent lower in 2022.

However, faced with opposition from Republicans and members of his own party, Biden dropped efforts to extend this program. The result was a dramatic rise of poverty rates, especially among children, in 2022, when the poverty rate rose to 12.4% from 7.8% in 2021 — the largest one-year jump on record.

(Emphasis added.)

According to reports from Libya, the dams had no maintenance during the last 12 years, there was no warning system in place, there were no popular organizations to provide emergency service and during the first week there was no organized rescue operation, either from the two contesting Libyan régimes or from foreign organizations.