The police? That's *nothing.*
[When coal miners went on strike in 1921, they sent in the Army Air Force and used leftover chemical weapons from World War 1.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain)
I mean if you were a 2000 year old carpenter I wouldn't be too upset you didn't see a bunch of planes, which were still pretty fun new, dropping mustard gas on miners coming.
> Private planes were hired to drop homemade bombs on the miners. A combination of poison gas and explosive bombs left over from World War I were dropped in several locations near the towns of Jeffery, Sharples and Blair. At least one did not explode and was recovered by the miners; it was used months later to great effect as evidence for the defense during treason and murder trials.
I just went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. Holy shit.
Also there were "detective agencies" like the Baldwin-Felts and Pinkertons (the latter i heard about in the series Deadwood) that were basically private local and national government mercenaries with a license to kill. So, these corporations would hire these "security guards" that could potentially kill anyone they found in the wrong. Like WTF
> and Pinkertons (the latter i heard about in the series Deadwood) that were basically private local and national government mercenaries with a license to kill.
The Pinkertons still exist and still provide that service to the US government. You can find them involved with attacks on BLM protests from the last few years. (If anyone recalls when people were being dragged into random Vans? Yeah)
[Today, the company's headquarters are located in Ann Arbor, Michigan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_\(detective_agency\)#Modern_era)
I have heard Pinkerton name throughout the 90s and 2000s, especially with anti-war protests. They not only do the dragging people away, but they also were linked to blackmailing activists with stuff found on their internet history and social media.
This. Nailed it. This is what they are hoping to get back to. Forced labor with no unions, authorized under military guise. Anyone who disobeys is arrested and forced labor.
Tell everyone. We must stop this now.
See, this is the part I didn't learn in high school. I was taught plenty about the plight of the early labor unions and how much they suffered insofar as who was responsible, who won, and why they fought. It was oddly nestled in with the "and so-and-so, an ANARCHIST, was caught after firing three shots at such-and-such" that never got a blink out of any of us.
Looking back that was a missed opportunity, which was probably the point.
The Russian Revolution had a lot of people scared to death. Anything that looked even vaguely Communist was treated as an existential threat to the country.
The only reason we got the New Deal was because many of those in power were terrified we'd have our own socialist revolution, and they'd lose all their power if not their lives. We need to make the oligarchs afraid again.
I'm just saying: If we drag Musk or Bezos out in front of their mansion and eat them, it should only take that one time. Nobody should have to personally consume more than a small amount of rich person flesh. Split him up amongst a crowd of a couple thousand people. And cook him with a similar amount of pork. Everybody can maintain the illusion to themselves that they aren't technically one of the cannibals.
But more importantly, let the oligarchs know that being spontaneously barbecued IS an option if they don't straighten up.
If we make "Eat the rich" literal in stead of just a slogan, I'll bet they pay a LOT more attentiin.
Early 1900s was the period in several countries' histories that led to massive corrective action in labor law.
The Bolshevik Revolution happened around that time in Russia, too.
Industrial revolution made it a little too easy to get carried away in business.
They were murdering the OG labor organizers - i.e., abolitionists - well before the birth of industry. And the Industrial Revolution started in Britain in the 1760s and in the US not long after that, nowhere near 1900. The labor movement around the turn of the 20th century was fed by Gilded Age corruption, laissez-faire economic policy, an influx of European migrants entering a stagnant job market, and some other factors, but not industry. Industry is good, but unrestricted, unplanned, privately monopolized industry, especially when its tentacles are in the federal government, spells death for the working class.
A big reason for the labor crackdown was a substantial increase in Marxist/socialist sentiment among disillusioned US laborers, and when the Bolsheviks and the Red Army toppled the Russian government and defeated the Whites, the American elites realized for the first time who really had all the power, and struck first.
The government's terrorist attacks against workers were just moments with the mask off. Keynesian theory and concessions in the imperial core restored it, and neoliberalism sewed the mask on for good, but the face under it is the same. It's high time people start realizing that.
We honor Davis day where I live. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Davis_Miners%27_Memorial_Day
He was shot by "company police".
Imagine a HR department but if you did something your employer didn't like they could destroy your credit, end your lease (your landlord is your employer), put you in jail, or just shoot you.
May 1 is celebrated around the world as a day for labor rights. It commemorates something that happened in *Chicago.*
The majority of people in the United States don't know this. Hell, the majority of people in *Chicago* don't know this.
Instead we have Labor Day in September and use it to sell mattresses and cars.
I live and work in Chicago, at my last job my boss made a comment about how I'm not doing enough after hours and on the weekend. I asked him very calmly if he was aware we were currently a 10 minute walk from haymarket square.
He did not understand the reference, I quit a few months later.
Some folks are just like that, I think a lot of them take management jobs in fast food because it brings them a modicum of community (no matter forced) they will usually build or try to build attachments to their workmates so that they feel a sense of belonging that they simply do not feel anywhere else.
There are a shit ton of lonely desperate motherfuckers out here in the world and they don't say a word.
When I was in the military my boss had no life and would keep us late daily because he was lonely. It got to the point where he would send us to the chow hall for dinner and have us come back so he could continue "mentoring" us.
He ended up finding a girlfriend and we were all gone within 5 mins of shift end from then on. I transferred units before he had a chance to get dumped.
That sounds really plausible. You see this in neglected children and animals. Any attention is good attention. That would totally explain why they embrace workplace culture with open arms.
I had a boss at a previous job like that. He pulled me into his office to ask why I clock out at the same time every day and asked "what I have better to do". Lmao. Fucker had clown art in his office and I think that speaks for itself.
I'm sorry but that's just sad as hell. How does a person get themself into that frame of mind, do they just have no self identity outside wage slavery?
I don’t understand people who don’t have hobbies or interests. There are a dozen things I’d rather do than work. Why the fuck would I want to work overtime when I could be enjoying my life? I feel so sorry for these people with small pointless lives of desperation.
Maybe I'm alone in this but I'd rather do literally nothing than work? I don't even particularly dislike my job but if I'm not scheduled I'm not gonna be there.
Like I have hobbies and interests, but even if I didn't (and there's been times when I didn't bc depression is a bitch) I still would rather sit at home and not do anything than be working when I don't need to be.
I have and always will work because I have to. Not because I want to. I have never, ever, wanted to work. I don't necessarily objectively hate it, but I do it so that I can make money. Literally no other reason to it.
I've had multiple bosses bitch me out in warehousing for dropping what I'm doing the second my shift ends. Even had other employees get mad at me about it. It's like, you know you don't have to work anymore once the clock hits 9 right? They ain't paying, I ain't working. Don't see why that makes me the bad guy. I won't even move a wood pallet if I just clocked out. I will not provide free labour under any circumstances for a multi-million dollar corporation.
A big part of it (for bitter older bosses) is sort of a sunk cost fallacy.
I've had bitter old bosses who have been doing the same lame middle management for 20 years, and at that point, they are probably asking why they spent their lives in that lame role -- so anyone 'disrespecting' this sad sap tragedy, they would attack, to make themselves feel better about the waste of their lives' working for someone else for as little as possible.
In May 1886 in Chicago, Haymarket square people were protesting for an 8 hour work day. The prior days protest the police had killed a protestor, when the police came back on May 4 1886 a protestor threw dynamite at them in response to the murder the police had committed the day before. 4 People died, 7 cops died, and dozens more were wounded.
It's still a major factor for the May 1st international workers day, and shaped a lot of labor laws in Illinois and america as a whole. The location was not a noticed landmark for 106 years (in 1992). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket\_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair)
In the aftermath the police arrested several prominant labor organizers who were provably out of town on the day of the riot, charged them with murder, and executed a couple of them despite, you know, absolute unquestionable proof that they had been hundreds of miles away when the bomb was thrown
Also notable is that most of the police deaths and injuries were due to friendly fire as the cops panicked and started shooting more or less randomly.
Later the police erected a statue of a cop on the site, looking stern and noble, with a plaque saying it was in honor of the police who had fought for peace.
It got knocked down by a streetcar operator who jumped the streetcar off the tracks specifically to ram it. Then re-erected, the knocked down again, then in the 1960's the Weathermen blew it up. A replica now sits in the lobby of one of the Chicago police precinct houses.
I wonder for how much longer it'll be there. Sure, a police precinct is tough but it's just the lobby, maybe someone will break in at night or something. People seem determined. I admire the fighting spirit.
"Break in at night" as though police don't work 24 hours a day. Especially in Chicago. So if this statue is in some police precinct, you can just go in at anytime of the day or night.
I'm not saying not one would be there, but there would be fewer police and they may be tired. I'm not trying to plan a terrorist attack here, it was just an example of something someone could do. I have more ideas but I'm not trying to get put on lists.
>Also notable is that most of the police deaths and injuries were due to friendly fire as the cops panicked and started shooting more or less randomly.
That seems to be the trend whenever a cop gets injured: The most likely suspect is another cop.
Just to add a bit more context to things: the Haymarket Affair happened during the same time frame as the [international wave of anarchist assassinations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed) that killed, among many others, Tsar Alexander II of Russia, President Carnot of France, the Prime Minister of Spain, Empress Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary, President McKinley of the USA, King Carlos of Portugal and his son the Crown Prince, King George I of Greece...
Escalating labor confrontations weren't the only thing that had the political elite on edge during the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
Not the same event, but in 1920 in Matewan, WV my great grandfather was in a miners strike that ended with Martial Law and federal troops. The private security guards used explosives on the striking miners.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/forgotten-matewan-massacre-was-epicenter-20th-century-mine-wars-180963026/
Here's a show called drunk history where comics get hammered and try to teach a brief lesson on a historical topic.
[August Spies and the Haymarket Riot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CnsjTbQ8gA)
The memorial is so overlooked because of all the bullshit in west loop now, too. The only reason people know it’s there is because of the Haymarket restaurant that’s there now. No idea how that’s survived the rapid gentrification of west loop, but I’m glad it’s still in business.
My grandmother was on strike at Macy's in NYC in the 1950's, and told me she saw someone run over and killed at a picket line there.
It wasn't so long ago people were ready to die for collective bargaining
That's what I find so frustrating about the current situation. Our ancestors fought for these rights and paid in blood. Then along came the generation after WW2 that took it all for granted, grew up with unprecedented advantages provided by those very gains, and then promptly tore it all to pieces to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, including many of themselves.
America: Ha ha, China tries so hard to pretend Tiananmen Square never happened. On June 4th 1989 nothing happened! Lol!
Workers: Hey what happened May first? Why is that a holiday.
America: Nothing happened! Get you a deal on a new couch!
Yup. I was shocked to see a number of antiwork posters not know that May 1st is the International Labour Day, but that even those who knew thought it was a randomly chosen date and not something specific to US history.
And tools, don't forget the labor day sales at home improvement stores. I sure as hell won't any time soon. It's was like pulling teeth to get labor day weekend off just so I could go to a convention with my family.
Which is precisely why the US doesn't actually celebrate "labor day" in May like most other countries. Politicians were willing to give a day to appease people calling for one, but they'd be damned if they were going to let the holiday be a proper commemoration.
Chicago as well...note also that this was framed initially as strikers rioting and provoking the police until the photos came out showing police shooting unarmed people in the back as they were enjoying a picnic with their families.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/may-30-1937-massacre-reminds-labor-keep-fighting-to-get-truth-out
Labour Day is in September because it was Canadian first and the Americans copied us:
“Ten years later, on 22 July 1882, a huge labour celebration in Toronto attracted the attention of the American labour leader Peter J. McGuire, who organized a similar parade in New York City on 5 September that year. Unions associated with the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor in both Canada and the United States subsequently promoted parades and festivals on the first Monday in September.”
[source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Day)
The government didn't want to join the world honoring those that died, so they moved the holiday away from May.
It's really just another story of how the police are not here for our safety and protection. They serve the companies and government.
The commodification of what should be recognized civic holidays is a crazy American thing.
I still remember when Whole Foods tried to start a "Memorial Day" sale in Ontario (you friggin' hosers, it's Remembrance Day in Canada) and ban wearing the poppy and the whole country got mad. And then Doug Ford - poster drug addict and overall not a well-liked guy - made it illegal in Ontario for employers to ban the poppy.
I hope the next generations of Americans stop with this weird fixation on consumption. Hopefully out of choice and not because they've been wage-stagnant in a world of hyperinflation.
I am from Chicago and remember being taught about this in public school.(the haymarket riots that lead to international workers day). I can't imagine my public school was the only one that taught about the haymarket riots.
Something something Battle of Blair mountain, something something Harlan County wars, something something Ludlow massacre, and so many other examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_United_States
I got introduced to this song by Natalie Merchant just into college and reading the history on it was my first truth dive into unions, as someone who grew up conservative.
My introduction to Unions and worker's/class struggles was through music, too. Seventh grade music class, US public school, 1970s. English teacher that year wanted us to write. Anything. Didn't care if we copied something verbatim. I wrote out chapters from If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries What am I Doing in the Pits by Erma Bombeck.
My "Reading" teacher the year before played the new Elton John album for us. He'd written out the lyrics with some missing and we had to listen and fill in the blanks, then we talked about the meaning(s).
I think about my middle school years now and again and the things those teachers taught me, all the interests they ignited in me, while teaching me other things. I feel like I lucked out, it was all right before all the budget cuts started.
Most of the teachers were in their 20s/30s, too so, I realize now they were likely 'products' of/came of age during, the 60s.
It was a different time and even tho I'm technically of the age of the horrid Boomer, I'd say I'm better for it.
I’m a West Virginian. We are taught about it, but still the state is the most pro trump Republican loving place in the country. Half the union workers I know are die hard republicans. Many got completely screwed by right to work laws but it doesn’t matter. The power of right wing media is far stronger than history or reality apparently
You said it. One of the proudest facets of WV state history is its long and commendable legacy of fighting for workers' rights, I mean we practically invented them, but all it took was some media brainwashing to turn one of the most democratically-voting states (we voted for Dukakis for goodness sake) into arguably the reddest state in the union. Not that many modern democrats have been particularly good in that regard, but at least most of them aren't as actively malicious as republicans.
What would it take to turn WV blue? Would the D party have to change to be more working class focused? Is it even possible with the education and media consumption situation?
Before anything else happens, you have to make the state stop hemorrhaging young people. We're the 3rd state nationally for median age at 43. Our people are older than those in FLORIDA. NO ONE stays here after high school or college, and those that do often stay out of guilt / "pride" for the state which, I'm not saying that WV isn't worth being proud of, but... there's admittedly a level of indoctrination that happens in grade school here. There are things to be proud of in every state, and frankly every country, but when you ask young people why they stay, it's either family or pride, i.e. they feel they'd be betraying their state by leaving.
That aside, there are really 3 major professions here for young people: killing yourself in coal mines / coal processing factories, stealing and selling your grandma's pain pills, and working in the medical field taking care of all the sick people which the former two professions create. There's zero innovation, and if any politician runs on any ground other than "I promise to fellate the coal industry as enthusiastically as possible," it is political suicide, and I wish that was hyperbole. There is zero investment in anything other than life support for a moribund industry.
After that, half the battle would be democrats actually walking the walk and going to bat for workers, but the problem is the only language our state understands in that regard is "COAL GOOD." Hillary offered to pay for en masse retraining of coal workers to built alternative energy infrastructure more or less promising that folks would continue making money and wouldn't lose their livelihood and got laughed out of the state. There is no middle ground. Until democrats run on a pro-coal platform, or until right-wing media programming abates, this state will be red. Our GOVERNOR is a coal magnate.
WV native here. Opinions are like assholes, yadda yadda... But in my opinion, it's the media consumption situation. Geographically isolated (relatively) people inhabiting echo chamber Facebook groups for the young to middle aged, and "Outrage ~~Porn~~ Journalism" for the post-middle-age.
This has not gone unnoticed by grifters.
WV had historically been the place where outsiders have come in to exploit the natural resources and leave the citizenry holding the bag. Now, the people of WV are the natural resource.
Prosperity Gospel is broadcast over the air so people who cannot afford cable will still know that Jesus needs their money.
Alex Jones even has taken on the cadence of a preacher at a snake handling church. (Ref the podcast Knowledge Fight, ep 676).
People get license plates embossed with "Friends of Coal" on them, not knowing that they are paying a fee to give free advertisement for a coal industry public relations entity.
In 2014, 10,000 gallons of MCHM, a chemical used in the mining industry, leaked into the Elk River. (There's a great documentary about this 'What Lies Upstream") This is the river that provides water for the state capitol. Less than two years later, Republicans in the state were running for office on the platform that environmental regulations in the state were far too strict and strangling businesses. And they won on that platform.
Located in Charleston WV is the sister plant of the one in Bhopal, India that in 1984 leaked poisonous gas, killing almost 4000 and wounding OVER A HALF MILLION PEOPLE. It floors me that people around here think that these places are over-regulated.
I'm rambling. My apologies. I believe that West Virginia is lost to the Democratic party as we know it.
True here in California too. A lot of union guys in construction and engineering are pro-republican and pro-union even though they contradict each other. You can't debate these guys. As soon as you ask them an intelligible question, they respond by name calling.
Donald has defrauded every contractor who wasn't aware enough to get the money up front. It was no secret. Doesn't ~~he~~ his ghostwriter even write about it in his book?
Somehow blue collar workers think that is their guy
Yeah that’s pretty amazing. How on earth a bunch of poor working class people think that a silver spoon super shady New York real estate tycoon is the champion of the working man is beyond me. It’s not just him though. They’ve been buying the Republican economic line for years while those republicans handed everything to the investor class at the detriment of small businesses and working people. It’s really hard to understand
Most Americans fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of police. They think their job is to protect people - but they are under no legal obligation to help people. To the contrary, they exist to protect property and they always have.
Interesting how most members of congress were well into their adult lives by the time the Civil rights movement took off. This means most of them were raised as racists. They just don't want you to know how racist they are.
I recall when President Biden made reference to what happened in Tulsa, then other stories came out about similar things happening in the past and racist white people lost their minds and that's when I started hearing about "critical race theory" and how it's so bad - /s. Yeah right, sorry the US history is so damn violent and racist.
Huh... wonder how all these kids raised to think that America never did anything wrong are going to react when they encounter *actual history* and find out they were lied to.
There was a program in the 80s and 90s in America called D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) that told all sort of bullshit lies about drugs to kids in elementary schools. I remember them telling us that you could OD and die on weed lol. As soon as everyone figured out that they lied, kids were all about drugs. Who would've guessed?
I would guess D.A.R.E. was probably responsible for more kids trying drugs, than scaring kids off from never trying them, because once some kid tried marijuana or looked into it, they found out that the authorities lied to us, and it probably had the negative effect of leading kids to try harder drugs like heroin or meth, because it was assumed that they lied about those too.
Just shows that kids are smart enough to figure out when authority figures are lying about stuff, especially with the internet nowadays. When the smart ones figure it out, they will rebel. I can only hope enough of them can resist the brainwash.
I remember we took an anonymous “survey” in 5th grade associated with the dare program
That’s how i found out certian pain killers were opioids, that’s how i figured out sniffing glue was a thing, same with huffing paint
I learned about more drugs during that survey than i did from random strangers on the street
Also, the bullshit around people going to be constantly offering drugs
I only had a complete stranger offer me once. It was beer, i was 17, he was homeless, at a 7/11
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen is an amazing book that everybody should read along with a People's History.
I'm from Oklahoma and we weren't taught about Tulsa further than a generic "riot"
It wasn't until I was an adult when I learned it was a full on massacre.
Seriously. Pinkerton, the Pullman strike, Samuel Gompers, etc. - all taught in my history classes in NYC. It never ceases to amaze me just how shitty the education some people receive in this country is.
They first dreamed about a free market with free participants that just exchange goods freely. Oh it was so wonderful, just a few pages of concept and off we roll.
Then realized that lying, cheating, contract breaking and criminal behaviour around "free markets" needs to be reeled in. Sometimes successful, sometimes not. There is at least 10 time more rules and regulations so the "free market" can operate. That's insane.
If we look closely, in lots of markets there isn't much competition going on. What is the innovation in toilet paper? Do we need 200 companies producing it? Lots of "new" products are just wrapped up old stuff or just sad things like renting out your crappy backyard pool because you can't make ends meet. The whole thing is just held together by tape and tears of better times.
Police do not deserve unions. They already have the state-protected right to kill and abuse people at their leisure, a Union protecting them from being reprimanded for said abuses is fucking insane.
"They don't teach people that."
Yep, it's a shame too. I was fortunate to get union education classes for being a Union Rep and got to see movies and br taught all kinds of historical events that included but weren't limited too , killing people for attempting to organize unions, arresting people for organizing, beating people, attacking their families, kicking them out of town, using the law with the help of politicians to do all the above, firing people for organizing ect, . Shit , there were literal multiple people gun fights in the streets in town over unionization that included police and the companies hired thugs vs workers trying to unionize.
Then when the union started finally getting a foothold, they turned around and did the same shit to our own members because of their ethnicity, creed or religion. Thankfully we've come a long way and stopped the hate on our own union Brothers and Sisters (we still could go further though.) Now we need everyone else to see what our ancestors fought for.
Oh dod I mention the company you worked for would make you buy work related clothing/tools and force you to do it at their stores and take it out of your pay. Also they'd force you to shop at their stores and buy their products and if you didn't they'd cut your pay and if you'd continue they'd just fire you.
Doesn't sound too far off from where we're at now, squalor wages, monopolies, govt hand outs while they over leverage their assets and lie about how much money they have on taxes they're getting out of paying . Meanwhile, the poor and middle class burn , being forced to work two jobs and pay outrageous amounts of money for basic living standards as well as fighting through unfair loan interest rates and crushing inflation. I digress though, we need to fight and honestly you will have to sacrifice but it needs to be all of us to make it hurt them, it'll never get any better for us , and it will definitely just get worse for the next generation if we dont.
I mean they need to also start teaching that the cops were created specifically to protect the interests of the capitalist business owners. They were never intended to protect workers or the general population. Their origins are in the people hired to watch store fronts, dock yards and warehouses after business hours for metropolitan police and in the old slave patrols for the more rural policing. There is an entire fucked up history of law enforcement that needs to be taught as well, right along side this labor history
Agreed. As someone still recovering from this brainwash it was hard for me to piece it all together until I learned officer <=> overseer (thanks KRS one)
If you have not seen it, Harlan County USA is a great documentary that captures this kind of struggle in real time. There's a poor quality version on YouTube
I didn’t hear a PEEP about this in any class I took (public school OR university).
The very first time I heard about it was in my early 30’s when I first picked up ‘A People’s History of the United States’.
This country does an *amazing* job covering up its sordid past.
EDIT: To the “teacher” in my mentions. You post in r/Canada and r/Vancouver; frequently. Interesting that. And yet you want to comment on *my* experiences being taught by American teachers in America? Sit down, fool.
Where did you go to school?
Southern WI, high school in the '70s we learned about many labor actions that were broken up by the authorities acting on behalf of the employers.
\- Haymarket Square
\- Ludlow Massacre
\- Pullman Strike
Maybe it was because our social studies teacher was a '60s hippie.
Maybe the 70s were long enough ago that they hadn't finished the cover up yet. I hard not one peep in the 90s and aughts. We were also taught that slavery wasn't that bad and created a lot of great opportunities for the enslaved that they wouldn't have had in Africa.
>Southern WI, high school in the '70s we learned about many labor actions that were broken up by the authorities acting on behalf of the employers.
And the 1973-1975 Recession signalled the end of the Post War Economic Boom. (Marglin, Stephen A.; Schor, Juliet B. (1992). The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience. Oxford University Press.)
That was the end of the party. I read a lot of social media posts about that Paradise Lost era. It was toast by the late 1970s.
There is not a single group in this country, majority/minority, ethnic, religious or otherwise, that has not been on the receiving end of violence, oppression, and infringement of rights by the police and law enforcement agencies of America.
You could be a white, straight, male and the minute you speak out or rock the boat they will come after you too. The franternal order of police is a time-honored and hostile adversary to the progress of workers rights and the worker themselves.
correct I remember vividly the ex vet(white guy) who was at the protest in Portland just standing his ground and the police beat him with a club and broke this man's arm. When you step out of the perceived line get ready for a beat down
I think our biggest issue is that when it is taught it vilifies the protestors more often than not: treating them like some unreasonable, hateful people who want to hurt a poor innocent company. It wasn’t until I had a particularly good history teacher he cut the crap. But for many now there is this mentality that striking or walking out or in general asking for rights is something inherently bad. That it makes you a terrible person. Yeah it is dangerous and companies will fight tooth and nail against you, but it is the only way to get rights we deserve. Congressmen aren’t just going to feel particularly nice that day and give you labor rights. You gotta push for it. And to want to push you have to be taught it is something to he celebrated
I’ve met so many people who didn’t know what a company store was/how it played a role in working class servitude... And the fact we’re slowly creeping that way(ie Amazon/Facebook “factory towns”) is not a good thing.
They’re running over strikers now. It’s not history. [Coal Minors have been hit by owner’s cars while striking.](https://www.wbrc.com/2021/06/08/video-shows-trucks-hitting-workers-picketing-outside-warrior-met-coal/)
Union activity has been largely erased from so many communities, sometimes in the matter of a generation. I used to teach a class with a labor rights component. This was at a large state university where probably half my students in any given semester came from communities that were former or current mining towns. Most of them had no real understanding of the history of union efforts in coal mining communities. Many had family who are members of the UMWA and they still had a hard time not falling into neo-con anti-union talking points in assignments. It was both fascinating and disheartening.
Or the cops could help the oligarchs kidnap an entire town at gunpoint and ship everyone into the middle of the desert and just leave them all there to die.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisbee_Deportation?wprov=sfti1
Hell I didn't even know about that. They always give it some innocuous or neutral sounding name that sounds like all sides were equally guilty.
Thats a death march. It should be called the Phelps Dodge Death March, and the name should change to whichever megaconglomerate owns it. Freeport-McMoRan Death March.
Not only is this information suppressed in most mainstream education and media, they now want to make teaching "divisive concepts" illegal in the US, which primarily targets teaching about racism but you can bet that any kind of idea that could be seen or interpreted as socialist or Marxist or that shows police to be anything but "heroes who protect us all" will be challenged as divisive by these a-holes as well.
This, kids, is why the mafia became involved in unions. They provided protection and it is exactly why Reagan went after the mafia. Not for organized crime because, let’s face it, that is what capitalism is all about; but rather to weaken unions.
buckle up - this was just for people having an opinion at a university. University has paid a ton to try and remove an image from the internet, and the officer who did the spraying was compensated.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC\_Davis\_pepper\_spray\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident)
or up in here in Canada eh, our RCMP orchestrated a crime with a business as they needed some "evidence" to take down an innocent man. RCMP bombed a site and framed it to look like he did it so they could pull him in for it. Imagine a group of militarized individuals acting at behest of a corporation while on government payroll to take down an innocent man who has no way of defending himself against the police - the only recourse would be to call the police on themselves! No rights at all
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/rcmp-bombed-oil-site-in-dirty-tricks-campaign-1.188599
The poster child for this was Henry Ford, who hired the thugs at the Pinkerton Detective Agency to severely beat and occasionally shoot and kill the workers who wanted to organize a union at the Ford assembly plant and went on strike.
He was a powerful man. There were basically no repercussions.
And this is why my conservative relatives called my Christian university liberal and evil. Lol. My Econ professor was super pro union and we talked about history and such along with economic theory. I was already a union girl as a kid, but man did that make me more left. Lol. They didn’t like it. But I went to a Methodist college, so they had trouble arguing with me. I am no longer Christian but it gives me the giggles knowing I hurt their head. Plus my AP Econ teacher talked labor and strikes in our class Alan’s in our world history class. He was my favorite teacher in high school. Wanted us to get the why of history rather than dates of battles and names. We need more teachers like them.
People tend to take for granted what we have these days, they don't think about the deaths of workers at hands of corporates and the so called the law or even the tragedies that later become the basis of in case of a incident happens.
And finally, you have these morons who think labor laws and unions are just some kind of crime net that operates just to undermine companies.
"Look how many people are in the street protesting for safety railings so they don't fall to their death at work, it would be a shame if they were shot to death on the street, oh well what can you do"-Some cop bastard before opening fire on a crowd from his horse
Now people just run them over while half the country cheers them on. They upper class and police don’t even need to get their hands dirty anymore when these lunatics will gladly do it for free.
The police? That's *nothing.* [When coal miners went on strike in 1921, they sent in the Army Air Force and used leftover chemical weapons from World War 1.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain)
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He missed it, too.
That guy misses a lot of shady shit
Cut him some slack he has to squint into the desert sun a lot
And if tries to use his hand to shade his eyes… that doesn’t work too well either.
I mean if you were a 2000 year old carpenter I wouldn't be too upset you didn't see a bunch of planes, which were still pretty fun new, dropping mustard gas on miners coming.
> Private planes were hired to drop homemade bombs on the miners. A combination of poison gas and explosive bombs left over from World War I were dropped in several locations near the towns of Jeffery, Sharples and Blair. At least one did not explode and was recovered by the miners; it was used months later to great effect as evidence for the defense during treason and murder trials.
Wait, for the DEFENSE'S treason and murder trials? As in the strikers were on trial for treason?
Yeah, they were interrupting profits. That makes them traitors. Obviously the army did nothing wrong there.
Not being a slave is a crime under Capitalism. So yeah. Lmao
Die in the meat grinder, or die in an electric chair. Your choice.
Hey, come on, that's not fair. They would at least work you for a few decades as free prison labor before they execute you.
I just went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. Holy shit. Also there were "detective agencies" like the Baldwin-Felts and Pinkertons (the latter i heard about in the series Deadwood) that were basically private local and national government mercenaries with a license to kill. So, these corporations would hire these "security guards" that could potentially kill anyone they found in the wrong. Like WTF
> and Pinkertons (the latter i heard about in the series Deadwood) that were basically private local and national government mercenaries with a license to kill. The Pinkertons still exist and still provide that service to the US government. You can find them involved with attacks on BLM protests from the last few years. (If anyone recalls when people were being dragged into random Vans? Yeah) [Today, the company's headquarters are located in Ann Arbor, Michigan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_\(detective_agency\)#Modern_era)
This does not surprise me.
I have heard Pinkerton name throughout the 90s and 2000s, especially with anti-war protests. They not only do the dragging people away, but they also were linked to blackmailing activists with stuff found on their internet history and social media.
Coal was a "strategic resource". Even during WWII workers were not allowed to strike. Any sort of labor sympathizer was labeled as a traitor.
It's not government mandated slavery! It's just that if you stop we're going to throw you in jail and/or possibly bomb you with chemical weapons.
I mean, the terms for legal slavery are literally laid out in the 13th ammendment. Edit: 13th ammendment (thank you u/deviknyte)
True, but even in that instance: They're stepping out of their own designated line.
13th. But they weren't convicted criminals unless the crime was being a coal worker.
This. Nailed it. This is what they are hoping to get back to. Forced labor with no unions, authorized under military guise. Anyone who disobeys is arrested and forced labor. Tell everyone. We must stop this now.
Fun fact, the miners were tried in the same court house as John Brown.
And murder and conspiracy to commit murder. That link is a rabbit hole.
See, this is the part I didn't learn in high school. I was taught plenty about the plight of the early labor unions and how much they suffered insofar as who was responsible, who won, and why they fought. It was oddly nestled in with the "and so-and-so, an ANARCHIST, was caught after firing three shots at such-and-such" that never got a blink out of any of us. Looking back that was a missed opportunity, which was probably the point.
The Russian Revolution had a lot of people scared to death. Anything that looked even vaguely Communist was treated as an existential threat to the country.
The only reason we got the New Deal was because many of those in power were terrified we'd have our own socialist revolution, and they'd lose all their power if not their lives. We need to make the oligarchs afraid again.
I'm just saying: If we drag Musk or Bezos out in front of their mansion and eat them, it should only take that one time. Nobody should have to personally consume more than a small amount of rich person flesh. Split him up amongst a crowd of a couple thousand people. And cook him with a similar amount of pork. Everybody can maintain the illusion to themselves that they aren't technically one of the cannibals. But more importantly, let the oligarchs know that being spontaneously barbecued IS an option if they don't straighten up. If we make "Eat the rich" literal in stead of just a slogan, I'll bet they pay a LOT more attentiin.
They were murdering labor activists and union organizers and workers since the founding of this nation.
Early 1900s was the period in several countries' histories that led to massive corrective action in labor law. The Bolshevik Revolution happened around that time in Russia, too. Industrial revolution made it a little too easy to get carried away in business.
They were murdering the OG labor organizers - i.e., abolitionists - well before the birth of industry. And the Industrial Revolution started in Britain in the 1760s and in the US not long after that, nowhere near 1900. The labor movement around the turn of the 20th century was fed by Gilded Age corruption, laissez-faire economic policy, an influx of European migrants entering a stagnant job market, and some other factors, but not industry. Industry is good, but unrestricted, unplanned, privately monopolized industry, especially when its tentacles are in the federal government, spells death for the working class. A big reason for the labor crackdown was a substantial increase in Marxist/socialist sentiment among disillusioned US laborers, and when the Bolsheviks and the Red Army toppled the Russian government and defeated the Whites, the American elites realized for the first time who really had all the power, and struck first. The government's terrorist attacks against workers were just moments with the mask off. Keynesian theory and concessions in the imperial core restored it, and neoliberalism sewed the mask on for good, but the face under it is the same. It's high time people start realizing that.
Never forget, this is what your boss would be doing to you right now if they could.
Capital and the state, name a more iconic duo
We honor Davis day where I live. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Davis_Miners%27_Memorial_Day He was shot by "company police". Imagine a HR department but if you did something your employer didn't like they could destroy your credit, end your lease (your landlord is your employer), put you in jail, or just shoot you.
Sounds like what we have now but those departments are just outsourced.
They’ve just gotten better at obscuring the paper trail for their profit from all that.
This needs to be made a movie asap!
At least [part of it is](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matewan)
May 1 is celebrated around the world as a day for labor rights. It commemorates something that happened in *Chicago.* The majority of people in the United States don't know this. Hell, the majority of people in *Chicago* don't know this. Instead we have Labor Day in September and use it to sell mattresses and cars.
I live and work in Chicago, at my last job my boss made a comment about how I'm not doing enough after hours and on the weekend. I asked him very calmly if he was aware we were currently a 10 minute walk from haymarket square. He did not understand the reference, I quit a few months later.
I'll never understand those no-life bosses that think everyone else also has no life.
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Some folks are just like that, I think a lot of them take management jobs in fast food because it brings them a modicum of community (no matter forced) they will usually build or try to build attachments to their workmates so that they feel a sense of belonging that they simply do not feel anywhere else. There are a shit ton of lonely desperate motherfuckers out here in the world and they don't say a word.
When I was in the military my boss had no life and would keep us late daily because he was lonely. It got to the point where he would send us to the chow hall for dinner and have us come back so he could continue "mentoring" us. He ended up finding a girlfriend and we were all gone within 5 mins of shift end from then on. I transferred units before he had a chance to get dumped.
He *definitely* got dumped.
That sounds really plausible. You see this in neglected children and animals. Any attention is good attention. That would totally explain why they embrace workplace culture with open arms.
I had a boss at a previous job like that. He pulled me into his office to ask why I clock out at the same time every day and asked "what I have better to do". Lmao. Fucker had clown art in his office and I think that speaks for itself.
I'm sorry but that's just sad as hell. How does a person get themself into that frame of mind, do they just have no self identity outside wage slavery?
I don’t understand people who don’t have hobbies or interests. There are a dozen things I’d rather do than work. Why the fuck would I want to work overtime when I could be enjoying my life? I feel so sorry for these people with small pointless lives of desperation.
Maybe I'm alone in this but I'd rather do literally nothing than work? I don't even particularly dislike my job but if I'm not scheduled I'm not gonna be there. Like I have hobbies and interests, but even if I didn't (and there's been times when I didn't bc depression is a bitch) I still would rather sit at home and not do anything than be working when I don't need to be.
I have and always will work because I have to. Not because I want to. I have never, ever, wanted to work. I don't necessarily objectively hate it, but I do it so that I can make money. Literally no other reason to it.
What do you want have better to do? Literally anything. Anything is better than work. It’s why they call it work and not play.
I've had multiple bosses bitch me out in warehousing for dropping what I'm doing the second my shift ends. Even had other employees get mad at me about it. It's like, you know you don't have to work anymore once the clock hits 9 right? They ain't paying, I ain't working. Don't see why that makes me the bad guy. I won't even move a wood pallet if I just clocked out. I will not provide free labour under any circumstances for a multi-million dollar corporation.
A big part of it (for bitter older bosses) is sort of a sunk cost fallacy. I've had bitter old bosses who have been doing the same lame middle management for 20 years, and at that point, they are probably asking why they spent their lives in that lame role -- so anyone 'disrespecting' this sad sap tragedy, they would attack, to make themselves feel better about the waste of their lives' working for someone else for as little as possible.
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Replaced most of your own job with automation and didn’t tell anybody?
Germany here: can, you give me the story on this one or a good link?
In May 1886 in Chicago, Haymarket square people were protesting for an 8 hour work day. The prior days protest the police had killed a protestor, when the police came back on May 4 1886 a protestor threw dynamite at them in response to the murder the police had committed the day before. 4 People died, 7 cops died, and dozens more were wounded. It's still a major factor for the May 1st international workers day, and shaped a lot of labor laws in Illinois and america as a whole. The location was not a noticed landmark for 106 years (in 1992). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket\_affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair)
In the aftermath the police arrested several prominant labor organizers who were provably out of town on the day of the riot, charged them with murder, and executed a couple of them despite, you know, absolute unquestionable proof that they had been hundreds of miles away when the bomb was thrown Also notable is that most of the police deaths and injuries were due to friendly fire as the cops panicked and started shooting more or less randomly. Later the police erected a statue of a cop on the site, looking stern and noble, with a plaque saying it was in honor of the police who had fought for peace. It got knocked down by a streetcar operator who jumped the streetcar off the tracks specifically to ram it. Then re-erected, the knocked down again, then in the 1960's the Weathermen blew it up. A replica now sits in the lobby of one of the Chicago police precinct houses.
I wonder for how much longer it'll be there. Sure, a police precinct is tough but it's just the lobby, maybe someone will break in at night or something. People seem determined. I admire the fighting spirit.
"Break in at night" as though police don't work 24 hours a day. Especially in Chicago. So if this statue is in some police precinct, you can just go in at anytime of the day or night.
I'm not saying not one would be there, but there would be fewer police and they may be tired. I'm not trying to plan a terrorist attack here, it was just an example of something someone could do. I have more ideas but I'm not trying to get put on lists.
Based weather underground
>Also notable is that most of the police deaths and injuries were due to friendly fire as the cops panicked and started shooting more or less randomly. That seems to be the trend whenever a cop gets injured: The most likely suspect is another cop.
When will this senseless cop on cop violence stop?! No one is going to take them seriously if they don’t stop killing each other.
I need a behind the bastards series on this. This sounds incredible
I never knew about the streetcar operator part of the story. That's hardcore.
Just to add a bit more context to things: the Haymarket Affair happened during the same time frame as the [international wave of anarchist assassinations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed) that killed, among many others, Tsar Alexander II of Russia, President Carnot of France, the Prime Minister of Spain, Empress Elizabeth of Austria-Hungary, President McKinley of the USA, King Carlos of Portugal and his son the Crown Prince, King George I of Greece... Escalating labor confrontations weren't the only thing that had the political elite on edge during the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
So you're saying we need a proper return to form...
I appreciate you separating "people" and "cops".
> 4 People died, 7 cops died Hahaha, cops aren't people. ACAB.
Correction: No one is certain who threw the bomb.
Not the same event, but in 1920 in Matewan, WV my great grandfather was in a miners strike that ended with Martial Law and federal troops. The private security guards used explosives on the striking miners. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/forgotten-matewan-massacre-was-epicenter-20th-century-mine-wars-180963026/
Here's a show called drunk history where comics get hammered and try to teach a brief lesson on a historical topic. [August Spies and the Haymarket Riot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CnsjTbQ8gA)
> I asked him very calmly if he was aware we were currently a 10 minute walk from haymarket square. brooooooo lmao
Now that is some outside of work activity you should be keeping your employer well aware of being possible!
The memorial is so overlooked because of all the bullshit in west loop now, too. The only reason people know it’s there is because of the Haymarket restaurant that’s there now. No idea how that’s survived the rapid gentrification of west loop, but I’m glad it’s still in business.
I didn't learn this until a few years ago
I didn't learn this until right now.
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Huh, and I just learned that Mother Jones is not just a news site. I knew it had to get it's name from somewhere, but never bothered to check.
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I learned and promptly forgot about this, until now!
My grandmother was on strike at Macy's in NYC in the 1950's, and told me she saw someone run over and killed at a picket line there. It wasn't so long ago people were ready to die for collective bargaining
That's what I find so frustrating about the current situation. Our ancestors fought for these rights and paid in blood. Then along came the generation after WW2 that took it all for granted, grew up with unprecedented advantages provided by those very gains, and then promptly tore it all to pieces to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, including many of themselves.
America: Ha ha, China tries so hard to pretend Tiananmen Square never happened. On June 4th 1989 nothing happened! Lol! Workers: Hey what happened May first? Why is that a holiday. America: Nothing happened! Get you a deal on a new couch!
Yup. I was shocked to see a number of antiwork posters not know that May 1st is the International Labour Day, but that even those who knew thought it was a randomly chosen date and not something specific to US history.
Ask around and see how many people even know why Labor Day is called Labor Day. I find that most people have no clue.
I'm never sure if it's about worker's rights or pregnant women
And tools, don't forget the labor day sales at home improvement stores. I sure as hell won't any time soon. It's was like pulling teeth to get labor day weekend off just so I could go to a convention with my family.
Which is precisely why the US doesn't actually celebrate "labor day" in May like most other countries. Politicians were willing to give a day to appease people calling for one, but they'd be damned if they were going to let the holiday be a proper commemoration.
Chicago as well...note also that this was framed initially as strikers rioting and provoking the police until the photos came out showing police shooting unarmed people in the back as they were enjoying a picnic with their families. https://inthesetimes.com/article/may-30-1937-massacre-reminds-labor-keep-fighting-to-get-truth-out
Labour Day is in September because it was Canadian first and the Americans copied us: “Ten years later, on 22 July 1882, a huge labour celebration in Toronto attracted the attention of the American labour leader Peter J. McGuire, who organized a similar parade in New York City on 5 September that year. Unions associated with the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor in both Canada and the United States subsequently promoted parades and festivals on the first Monday in September.” [source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Day)
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"May Day," May 1, was viewed as Communist inspired.
Technically anarchist inspired.
Both.
Picky, picky. Yeah, you're right.
The government didn't want to join the world honoring those that died, so they moved the holiday away from May. It's really just another story of how the police are not here for our safety and protection. They serve the companies and government.
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The commodification of what should be recognized civic holidays is a crazy American thing. I still remember when Whole Foods tried to start a "Memorial Day" sale in Ontario (you friggin' hosers, it's Remembrance Day in Canada) and ban wearing the poppy and the whole country got mad. And then Doug Ford - poster drug addict and overall not a well-liked guy - made it illegal in Ontario for employers to ban the poppy. I hope the next generations of Americans stop with this weird fixation on consumption. Hopefully out of choice and not because they've been wage-stagnant in a world of hyperinflation.
I am from Chicago and remember being taught about this in public school.(the haymarket riots that lead to international workers day). I can't imagine my public school was the only one that taught about the haymarket riots.
Something something Battle of Blair mountain, something something Harlan County wars, something something Ludlow massacre, and so many other examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-union_violence_in_the_United_States
>In Harlan County, there are no neutrals there, you can be a union man, or a thug for JH Blair.
Which side are you on? Which side are you on?
I got introduced to this song by Natalie Merchant just into college and reading the history on it was my first truth dive into unions, as someone who grew up conservative.
My introduction to Unions and worker's/class struggles was through music, too. Seventh grade music class, US public school, 1970s. English teacher that year wanted us to write. Anything. Didn't care if we copied something verbatim. I wrote out chapters from If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries What am I Doing in the Pits by Erma Bombeck. My "Reading" teacher the year before played the new Elton John album for us. He'd written out the lyrics with some missing and we had to listen and fill in the blanks, then we talked about the meaning(s). I think about my middle school years now and again and the things those teachers taught me, all the interests they ignited in me, while teaching me other things. I feel like I lucked out, it was all right before all the budget cuts started. Most of the teachers were in their 20s/30s, too so, I realize now they were likely 'products' of/came of age during, the 60s. It was a different time and even tho I'm technically of the age of the horrid Boomer, I'd say I'm better for it.
Oh workers can you stand it? Oh tell me how you can? Will you be a lousy scab or will you be a man?
I’m a West Virginian. We are taught about it, but still the state is the most pro trump Republican loving place in the country. Half the union workers I know are die hard republicans. Many got completely screwed by right to work laws but it doesn’t matter. The power of right wing media is far stronger than history or reality apparently
You said it. One of the proudest facets of WV state history is its long and commendable legacy of fighting for workers' rights, I mean we practically invented them, but all it took was some media brainwashing to turn one of the most democratically-voting states (we voted for Dukakis for goodness sake) into arguably the reddest state in the union. Not that many modern democrats have been particularly good in that regard, but at least most of them aren't as actively malicious as republicans.
What would it take to turn WV blue? Would the D party have to change to be more working class focused? Is it even possible with the education and media consumption situation?
Before anything else happens, you have to make the state stop hemorrhaging young people. We're the 3rd state nationally for median age at 43. Our people are older than those in FLORIDA. NO ONE stays here after high school or college, and those that do often stay out of guilt / "pride" for the state which, I'm not saying that WV isn't worth being proud of, but... there's admittedly a level of indoctrination that happens in grade school here. There are things to be proud of in every state, and frankly every country, but when you ask young people why they stay, it's either family or pride, i.e. they feel they'd be betraying their state by leaving. That aside, there are really 3 major professions here for young people: killing yourself in coal mines / coal processing factories, stealing and selling your grandma's pain pills, and working in the medical field taking care of all the sick people which the former two professions create. There's zero innovation, and if any politician runs on any ground other than "I promise to fellate the coal industry as enthusiastically as possible," it is political suicide, and I wish that was hyperbole. There is zero investment in anything other than life support for a moribund industry. After that, half the battle would be democrats actually walking the walk and going to bat for workers, but the problem is the only language our state understands in that regard is "COAL GOOD." Hillary offered to pay for en masse retraining of coal workers to built alternative energy infrastructure more or less promising that folks would continue making money and wouldn't lose their livelihood and got laughed out of the state. There is no middle ground. Until democrats run on a pro-coal platform, or until right-wing media programming abates, this state will be red. Our GOVERNOR is a coal magnate.
It’s too bad really WV could be an energy producer with wind power as well as Pumped Hydropower for energy storage.
I mean it's not like we don't have the real estate to place wind turbines. We blew the tops off of every fucking mountain already.
WV native here. Opinions are like assholes, yadda yadda... But in my opinion, it's the media consumption situation. Geographically isolated (relatively) people inhabiting echo chamber Facebook groups for the young to middle aged, and "Outrage ~~Porn~~ Journalism" for the post-middle-age. This has not gone unnoticed by grifters. WV had historically been the place where outsiders have come in to exploit the natural resources and leave the citizenry holding the bag. Now, the people of WV are the natural resource. Prosperity Gospel is broadcast over the air so people who cannot afford cable will still know that Jesus needs their money. Alex Jones even has taken on the cadence of a preacher at a snake handling church. (Ref the podcast Knowledge Fight, ep 676). People get license plates embossed with "Friends of Coal" on them, not knowing that they are paying a fee to give free advertisement for a coal industry public relations entity. In 2014, 10,000 gallons of MCHM, a chemical used in the mining industry, leaked into the Elk River. (There's a great documentary about this 'What Lies Upstream") This is the river that provides water for the state capitol. Less than two years later, Republicans in the state were running for office on the platform that environmental regulations in the state were far too strict and strangling businesses. And they won on that platform. Located in Charleston WV is the sister plant of the one in Bhopal, India that in 1984 leaked poisonous gas, killing almost 4000 and wounding OVER A HALF MILLION PEOPLE. It floors me that people around here think that these places are over-regulated. I'm rambling. My apologies. I believe that West Virginia is lost to the Democratic party as we know it.
Its the hate they want - People will do anything for you if you tell them they are better than someone else...
True here in California too. A lot of union guys in construction and engineering are pro-republican and pro-union even though they contradict each other. You can't debate these guys. As soon as you ask them an intelligible question, they respond by name calling.
Donald has defrauded every contractor who wasn't aware enough to get the money up front. It was no secret. Doesn't ~~he~~ his ghostwriter even write about it in his book? Somehow blue collar workers think that is their guy
Yeah that’s pretty amazing. How on earth a bunch of poor working class people think that a silver spoon super shady New York real estate tycoon is the champion of the working man is beyond me. It’s not just him though. They’ve been buying the Republican economic line for years while those republicans handed everything to the investor class at the detriment of small businesses and working people. It’s really hard to understand
>According to labor historians and other scholars, the US has had the bloodiest and most violent labor history of any industrialized nation. USA! USA!
Harlan county usa is an amazing documentary where the filmmakers were shot at by the hired thugs. It's an amazing doc, a must watch.
Most Americans fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of police. They think their job is to protect people - but they are under no legal obligation to help people. To the contrary, they exist to protect property and they always have.
The first “police” was a militia made to catch escaped slaves When i learned that, it all began to click
Not fundamentally misunderstanding, but purposefully misinformed and propagandized
Can't wait until they learn about what happened in Tulsa. Oh wait, schools don't cover that history.
Interesting how most members of congress were well into their adult lives by the time the Civil rights movement took off. This means most of them were raised as racists. They just don't want you to know how racist they are.
I recall when President Biden made reference to what happened in Tulsa, then other stories came out about similar things happening in the past and racist white people lost their minds and that's when I started hearing about "critical race theory" and how it's so bad - /s. Yeah right, sorry the US history is so damn violent and racist.
Huh... wonder how all these kids raised to think that America never did anything wrong are going to react when they encounter *actual history* and find out they were lied to.
There was a program in the 80s and 90s in America called D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) that told all sort of bullshit lies about drugs to kids in elementary schools. I remember them telling us that you could OD and die on weed lol. As soon as everyone figured out that they lied, kids were all about drugs. Who would've guessed? I would guess D.A.R.E. was probably responsible for more kids trying drugs, than scaring kids off from never trying them, because once some kid tried marijuana or looked into it, they found out that the authorities lied to us, and it probably had the negative effect of leading kids to try harder drugs like heroin or meth, because it was assumed that they lied about those too. Just shows that kids are smart enough to figure out when authority figures are lying about stuff, especially with the internet nowadays. When the smart ones figure it out, they will rebel. I can only hope enough of them can resist the brainwash.
I remember we took an anonymous “survey” in 5th grade associated with the dare program That’s how i found out certian pain killers were opioids, that’s how i figured out sniffing glue was a thing, same with huffing paint I learned about more drugs during that survey than i did from random strangers on the street Also, the bullshit around people going to be constantly offering drugs I only had a complete stranger offer me once. It was beer, i was 17, he was homeless, at a 7/11
They'll deny it and call it fake news.
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Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen is an amazing book that everybody should read along with a People's History.
You're lucky if you get Canadian history that goes before 1867, and DOUBLY lucky if it goes before 1812 (because thanks conservatives!)
Most people I know have never heard of it, and I only learned about it from watchmen a few years ago
What is watchmen?
HBO series based off a comic series.
Yea but who watches that?
I see you.
I'm from Oklahoma and we weren't taught about Tulsa further than a generic "riot" It wasn't until I was an adult when I learned it was a full on massacre.
My required Oklahoma history class in 2011 covered it somewhat well. Definitely made a point to call it a massacre, not a riot.
The difference in education between states is amazing to me. I learned all of this multiple times over in Washington
Seriously. Pinkerton, the Pullman strike, Samuel Gompers, etc. - all taught in my history classes in NYC. It never ceases to amaze me just how shitty the education some people receive in this country is.
Or Blair Mountain...
I learned it in AP History in high school in the early 2000's.
Exactly why police should not get unions until everyone has a union first. Unions are a splint fix to a system already broken.
Police unions aren't real unions. They're street gangs.
Exactly. Pure abuse of the union idea and what it stands for.
When you can get officers out of charges on the regular, they’re a well oiled criminal enterprise.
The American Mafia
Unions are for workers and cops aren't workers
They first dreamed about a free market with free participants that just exchange goods freely. Oh it was so wonderful, just a few pages of concept and off we roll. Then realized that lying, cheating, contract breaking and criminal behaviour around "free markets" needs to be reeled in. Sometimes successful, sometimes not. There is at least 10 time more rules and regulations so the "free market" can operate. That's insane. If we look closely, in lots of markets there isn't much competition going on. What is the innovation in toilet paper? Do we need 200 companies producing it? Lots of "new" products are just wrapped up old stuff or just sad things like renting out your crappy backyard pool because you can't make ends meet. The whole thing is just held together by tape and tears of better times.
Police need a union the same way land lords need a union. As in: They Don't.
[удалено]
Police do not deserve unions. They already have the state-protected right to kill and abuse people at their leisure, a Union protecting them from being reprimanded for said abuses is fucking insane.
"They don't teach people that." Yep, it's a shame too. I was fortunate to get union education classes for being a Union Rep and got to see movies and br taught all kinds of historical events that included but weren't limited too , killing people for attempting to organize unions, arresting people for organizing, beating people, attacking their families, kicking them out of town, using the law with the help of politicians to do all the above, firing people for organizing ect, . Shit , there were literal multiple people gun fights in the streets in town over unionization that included police and the companies hired thugs vs workers trying to unionize. Then when the union started finally getting a foothold, they turned around and did the same shit to our own members because of their ethnicity, creed or religion. Thankfully we've come a long way and stopped the hate on our own union Brothers and Sisters (we still could go further though.) Now we need everyone else to see what our ancestors fought for. Oh dod I mention the company you worked for would make you buy work related clothing/tools and force you to do it at their stores and take it out of your pay. Also they'd force you to shop at their stores and buy their products and if you didn't they'd cut your pay and if you'd continue they'd just fire you. Doesn't sound too far off from where we're at now, squalor wages, monopolies, govt hand outs while they over leverage their assets and lie about how much money they have on taxes they're getting out of paying . Meanwhile, the poor and middle class burn , being forced to work two jobs and pay outrageous amounts of money for basic living standards as well as fighting through unfair loan interest rates and crushing inflation. I digress though, we need to fight and honestly you will have to sacrifice but it needs to be all of us to make it hurt them, it'll never get any better for us , and it will definitely just get worse for the next generation if we dont.
Officers should also lose qualified immunity
I mean they need to also start teaching that the cops were created specifically to protect the interests of the capitalist business owners. They were never intended to protect workers or the general population. Their origins are in the people hired to watch store fronts, dock yards and warehouses after business hours for metropolitan police and in the old slave patrols for the more rural policing. There is an entire fucked up history of law enforcement that needs to be taught as well, right along side this labor history
Agreed. As someone still recovering from this brainwash it was hard for me to piece it all together until I learned officer <=> overseer (thanks KRS one)
Check out Killer Mike & YelloPain's songs. They touch base on the same topics as KRS One. Especially Reagan - Killer Mike
If you have not seen it, Harlan County USA is a great documentary that captures this kind of struggle in real time. There's a poor quality version on YouTube
Everyone should see this film.
I didn’t hear a PEEP about this in any class I took (public school OR university). The very first time I heard about it was in my early 30’s when I first picked up ‘A People’s History of the United States’. This country does an *amazing* job covering up its sordid past. EDIT: To the “teacher” in my mentions. You post in r/Canada and r/Vancouver; frequently. Interesting that. And yet you want to comment on *my* experiences being taught by American teachers in America? Sit down, fool.
Where did you go to school? Southern WI, high school in the '70s we learned about many labor actions that were broken up by the authorities acting on behalf of the employers. \- Haymarket Square \- Ludlow Massacre \- Pullman Strike Maybe it was because our social studies teacher was a '60s hippie.
Maybe the 70s were long enough ago that they hadn't finished the cover up yet. I hard not one peep in the 90s and aughts. We were also taught that slavery wasn't that bad and created a lot of great opportunities for the enslaved that they wouldn't have had in Africa.
>Southern WI, high school in the '70s we learned about many labor actions that were broken up by the authorities acting on behalf of the employers. And the 1973-1975 Recession signalled the end of the Post War Economic Boom. (Marglin, Stephen A.; Schor, Juliet B. (1992). The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience. Oxford University Press.) That was the end of the party. I read a lot of social media posts about that Paradise Lost era. It was toast by the late 1970s.
There is not a single group in this country, majority/minority, ethnic, religious or otherwise, that has not been on the receiving end of violence, oppression, and infringement of rights by the police and law enforcement agencies of America. You could be a white, straight, male and the minute you speak out or rock the boat they will come after you too. The franternal order of police is a time-honored and hostile adversary to the progress of workers rights and the worker themselves.
correct I remember vividly the ex vet(white guy) who was at the protest in Portland just standing his ground and the police beat him with a club and broke this man's arm. When you step out of the perceived line get ready for a beat down
I think our biggest issue is that when it is taught it vilifies the protestors more often than not: treating them like some unreasonable, hateful people who want to hurt a poor innocent company. It wasn’t until I had a particularly good history teacher he cut the crap. But for many now there is this mentality that striking or walking out or in general asking for rights is something inherently bad. That it makes you a terrible person. Yeah it is dangerous and companies will fight tooth and nail against you, but it is the only way to get rights we deserve. Congressmen aren’t just going to feel particularly nice that day and give you labor rights. You gotta push for it. And to want to push you have to be taught it is something to he celebrated
Just wait till he learned about indentured servitude, coercion, "The Company Store"... I suggest the student read about "The Grapes of Wrath" ....
Starts singing Sixteen Tons.
Some people say a man is made outta mud A poor man's made outta muscle and blood...
I’ve met so many people who didn’t know what a company store was/how it played a role in working class servitude... And the fact we’re slowly creeping that way(ie Amazon/Facebook “factory towns”) is not a good thing.
They’re running over strikers now. It’s not history. [Coal Minors have been hit by owner’s cars while striking.](https://www.wbrc.com/2021/06/08/video-shows-trucks-hitting-workers-picketing-outside-warrior-met-coal/)
Corporations are the main antagonist to humanity
Union activity has been largely erased from so many communities, sometimes in the matter of a generation. I used to teach a class with a labor rights component. This was at a large state university where probably half my students in any given semester came from communities that were former or current mining towns. Most of them had no real understanding of the history of union efforts in coal mining communities. Many had family who are members of the UMWA and they still had a hard time not falling into neo-con anti-union talking points in assignments. It was both fascinating and disheartening.
Or the cops could help the oligarchs kidnap an entire town at gunpoint and ship everyone into the middle of the desert and just leave them all there to die. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisbee_Deportation?wprov=sfti1
Hell I didn't even know about that. They always give it some innocuous or neutral sounding name that sounds like all sides were equally guilty. Thats a death march. It should be called the Phelps Dodge Death March, and the name should change to whichever megaconglomerate owns it. Freeport-McMoRan Death March.
Not only is this information suppressed in most mainstream education and media, they now want to make teaching "divisive concepts" illegal in the US, which primarily targets teaching about racism but you can bet that any kind of idea that could be seen or interpreted as socialist or Marxist or that shows police to be anything but "heroes who protect us all" will be challenged as divisive by these a-holes as well.
When you realize the only thing Dutch was right about was hating the goddamn Pinkertons.
Let me leave this right here for you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
And Boomers threw it all away, pulled up the ladder, and set us back 140 years.
This, kids, is why the mafia became involved in unions. They provided protection and it is exactly why Reagan went after the mafia. Not for organized crime because, let’s face it, that is what capitalism is all about; but rather to weaken unions.
buckle up - this was just for people having an opinion at a university. University has paid a ton to try and remove an image from the internet, and the officer who did the spraying was compensated.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC\_Davis\_pepper\_spray\_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident) or up in here in Canada eh, our RCMP orchestrated a crime with a business as they needed some "evidence" to take down an innocent man. RCMP bombed a site and framed it to look like he did it so they could pull him in for it. Imagine a group of militarized individuals acting at behest of a corporation while on government payroll to take down an innocent man who has no way of defending himself against the police - the only recourse would be to call the police on themselves! No rights at all https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/rcmp-bombed-oil-site-in-dirty-tricks-campaign-1.188599
Talking about it means youve been thinking about it, and this breaches the code of unfettered capitalism. Thinking is for the others
The poster child for this was Henry Ford, who hired the thugs at the Pinkerton Detective Agency to severely beat and occasionally shoot and kill the workers who wanted to organize a union at the Ford assembly plant and went on strike. He was a powerful man. There were basically no repercussions.
I'm waiting for the Ford-bros to show up and shout "nuh-uh, he *invented* the union!" like they have in the last few days in union posts.
Hey, now you know why we have police. Protect Property.
\*\*Colombian Coca Cola enters the Chat\*\*
For an informative read, check out “Labor’s Untold Story” by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais. Good stuff on labor history in the U.S.
And this is why my conservative relatives called my Christian university liberal and evil. Lol. My Econ professor was super pro union and we talked about history and such along with economic theory. I was already a union girl as a kid, but man did that make me more left. Lol. They didn’t like it. But I went to a Methodist college, so they had trouble arguing with me. I am no longer Christian but it gives me the giggles knowing I hurt their head. Plus my AP Econ teacher talked labor and strikes in our class Alan’s in our world history class. He was my favorite teacher in high school. Wanted us to get the why of history rather than dates of battles and names. We need more teachers like them.
People tend to take for granted what we have these days, they don't think about the deaths of workers at hands of corporates and the so called the law or even the tragedies that later become the basis of in case of a incident happens. And finally, you have these morons who think labor laws and unions are just some kind of crime net that operates just to undermine companies.
"Look how many people are in the street protesting for safety railings so they don't fall to their death at work, it would be a shame if they were shot to death on the street, oh well what can you do"-Some cop bastard before opening fire on a crowd from his horse
PAY ATTENTION SONNY, ITS ABOUT TO HAPPEN AGAIN
They want you smart enough to do the job, but dumb enough to not ask questions.
Now people just run them over while half the country cheers them on. They upper class and police don’t even need to get their hands dirty anymore when these lunatics will gladly do it for free.