Giuseppe "Pino" Pinelli (1928 - 1969) was an Italian railroad worker and anarchist who fell to his death on this day in 1969 while being detained by Italian police. His death became the subject of the play "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" by Dario Fo.

Pinelli was a member of the Milan-based anarchist association named "Ponte della Ghisolfa", and was also the secretary of the Italian branch of the Anarchist Black Cross. He organized young anarchists in the "Gioventu Libertaria" (Libertarian Youth) in 1962 and helped found the "Sacco and Vanzetti anarchist association" in 1965.

A few days before Pinelli's death, Italian fascists from the "Ordine Nuovo" orchestrated a bombing campaign in Milan; one bomb in Piazza Fontana killed 17 people and injured 88. The bombing was blamed on Italian anarchists, and Pinelli was detained along with many other leftists, including Pietro Valpreda, who was falsely convicted and served eighteen years in prison.

Just before midnight on December 15th, 1969, Pinelli fell to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan police station. Three police officers interrogating Pinelli, including Commissioner Luigi Calabresi, were put under investigation in 1971 for his death, but legal proceedings concluded it was due to accidental causes.

Calabresi was later gunned down at his home in 1972, for which left-wing journalist Adriano Sofri was convicted in 1997.

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  • TerminalEncounter [she/her]
    ·
    2 days ago

    People who wanna fix racism before capitalism usually don't actually want to change anything about capitalism. Maybe a reform or two.

    Whence racism for people like that? There's no materialist analysis, it just happens. A materialist analysis for racism would be something like they tried to do slavery with whites and indigenous americans but they could either leave or escape and live on the land, so black people stolen from Africa who don't speak the local language and who cannot move in the social circles of the new America and whos knowledge cannot yet enable their survival in the new world are perfect they're literally marked by their melanation. This process kept ticking over and due to economic demands of slavery and the particular plantation economy of the US south kicked it up, the false race consciousness (of white people primarily) of the 20th century let class consciousness be washed out in the noise. In this analysis, to fix racism in the US at least - the economic base must be addressed and their must be a revolution to enable it.

    In the analysis of the hapless lib, I guess they hope for some trinkets or black faces in high places?? But otherwise leave the system that creates racism in tact