Mike B)
**********************************************************************
>From as early as the 15th century the red flag was known as the "flag of
defiance".[1] It was raised in cities and castles under siege to indicate
that there would be "no surrender".[2][3]
It is known that from about 1300, Norman ships would fly red streamers to indicate that they would "give no quarter" (take no prisoners) in battle. This usage persisted into the 17th century, when the flag was adopted by Buccaneers, who were pirates of French origin operating in the West Indies. Buccaneers would initially hoist the Jolly Roger to intimidate their foes. If the victims chose to fight rather than submit to being boarded, the pirates would then raise the red flag to indicate that once the ship had been captured, no man would be spared.[1]
The red flag first became associated with revolutionary left-wing politics during the French Revolution, when it was adopted by the Jacobin Club.[2] The Jacobins controlled the insurrectionary Paris Commune during the assault on the Tuileries, the September Massacres, and throughout the Reign of Terror.
In 1797, when sailors of Britain's Royal Navy mutinied at the Nore on the mouth of the River Thames, they hoisted the red flag on several of the ships.
The flag became the symbol of the Merthyr riots of 1831, in South Wales, when workers took over the town for five days, until they were massacred by soldiers. Their flag is said to have been a shirt soaked in calf's blood by Dic Penderyn.
Socialists and radical republicans in the 1848 French Revolution adopted the red flag, ostensibly as a symbol of "the blood of angry workers." Supporters of the more moderate French Second Republic, which had been established in the first phase of the revolution, rallied to the tricolore. The red flag subsequently became the banner of the Paris Commune in 1871, at which time it became firmly associated with socialism. This tradition was bolstered in the rallies in Chicago in 1886, which resulted in the execution of some of the Haymarket Eight.
In pre-civil war Russia the red flag was used as a symbol of warning. Villages that were afflicted by disease or plague would fly the red flag from the highest building in the village or town. The use of the Red flag by the Red Army in the civil war confused White Army soldiers, who supposedly, upon seeing a red flag flying from a village or town held by the Bolshevik forces, would believe that place to be diseased and would leave it alone.[3]
[The rest is history...]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag
**************************************************************************
The Red Flag Play MIDI
The Red Flag (James O'Connell, 1899)
The worker's flag is deepest red It shrouded oft our martyred dead; And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold Their life-blood dyed its every fold.
cho: Then raise the scarlet standard high!
Beneath its folds we'll live and die.
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
We'll keep the red flag flying here.
Look 'round, the Frenchman loves its blaze, The sturdy German chants its praise, In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sung Chicago swells the surging throng.
It waved above our infant might When all ahead seemed dark as night. It witnessed many a deed and vow, We will not change its color now.
It suits today the meek and base, Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place, To cringe beneath the rich man's frown, And haul that sacred emblem down.
With heads uncovered swear we all To bear it onward till we fall; Come dungeons dark or gallows grim, This song shall be our parting hymn.
from the IWW songbook. note: Originally set to The White Cockade, it's now usually sung to
the gloomier O Tannenbaum JB http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/Red_Flag.htm
Macht kaputt, was euch kaputt macht! http://www.iww.org/culture/official/preamble.shtml
Sick of deleting your inbox? Yahoo!7 Mail has free unlimited storage. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/mail/unlimitedstorage.html