The Reichstag Fire In 1933, Marinus van der Lubbe, a dissident communist from the Netherlands, burned down the Nazi parliament. Immediately, the Communist Party feared blame would be placed on them, and they began a campaign to smear and bad-jacket van der Lubbe, calling him a mentally handicapped or psychologically unstable homosexual (to them, this was an insult), […] Posted in: False Accusations

The Mapuche The Mapuche, an indigenous nation from South America, were never defeated by Spanish colonizers. The Mapuche are a decentralized or “circular” society and fought back against colonization much more effectively than the hierarchical Inca. In fact, after beating the Spaniards, their territories were recognized in perpetuity. This treaty was only broken in the 1880s when Chile […] Posted in: Masks throughout history

Sherlock Holmes Guy Ritchie’s 2011 film, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, includes one of Hollywood’s favorite tropes, the deluded revolutionaries. In this case, anarchists carrying out bombings in 1890s Europe are a tool of the evil Professor Moriarty, bent on driving the major powers to a world war so that he could profit through his newly acquired armament industries. […] Posted in: The Man Says

Genoa 2001 In July 2001, the 28th G8 summit took place in Genoa, Italy. 200,000 people protested, and the spectacle of the summit was disrupted by heavy rioting. Police militarized the city and attacked protesters indiscriminately, torturing many detainees. A Black Bloc of anarchists from across Europe damaged banks and corporate property, while many other protesters participated using […] Posted in: False Accusations

The Battle in Seattle This 2007 Stuart Townsend movie with Woodie Harrelson and Charlize Theron, portrays the anarchists as a fringe group in the 1999 Seattle WTO protests that stole the show. They also suggest the police infiltrated the Black Bloc to incite rioting and property damage. It’s no surprise that Hollywood wants to rewrite the story of a […] Posted in: The Man Says