Rad Geek People's Daily

Today, March 15^th, 2004 CE, is the 2,047^th anniversary (give or take the relevant calendar adjustments) of the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar–the butcher of Gaul, the annihilator of the Republic, the destroyer of the Great Library of Alexandria, the harbinger of five centuries of absolutist tyranny, and the explicit archetype of every brutal prince, absolute monarch, and fascist dictatorship in the ancient, medieval, and modern history of Eastern and Western Europe. At last, as dictator-for-life Caesar increasingly threatened the elevation of his coup d’etat into an explicit monarchy, a group of Senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus rose up, taking the title of Liberatores, and stabbed Caesar 23 times in the Forum.

Today is also only two days after (again, give or take the relevant calendar adjustments) the 123^rd anniversary of the assassination of Czar Alexander II of Russia, an autocratic self-styled Caesar who, in spite of making a tremendous step forward for freedom by emancipating the serfs, also fostered the ultra-reactionary Three Emperors League with Austria and Prussia, began his reign with the senseless and devastating Crimean War, continued to pursue vigorous warfare against Turkey and conquests in the East, and imprisoned and murdered hundreds of liberal, socialist, and anarchist students. On March 13, 1881 he was killed by a bomb thrown by an anarchist in an act of Propaganda by the Deed.

In honor of the event, I’d like to suggest a new holiday. Let’s celebrate March 15 as Tyrannicide Day (observed)! Two tyrants’ deaths bundled together into one day of celebration; it’ll be just like President’s Day, except cooler.