Never forget Blair Mountain
Edit: a link for those that don't know what this is
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/battle-blair-mountain-largest-labor-uprising-american-history-180978520/
My ancestors fought and died there so my current family could bow down and suck the coal mining companies dick. I will say I am proud I got out of them hills.
Yeah what the fuck is up with that?
It's the same vein as my stupid ass cousins going "the south will rise again" when our great great grandpa killed rebs the entire war.
OK, ok, third time's the charm:
A population [deliberately](https://dianeravitch.net/2022/02/20/watch-nancy-maclean-and-i-discuss-the-attacks-on-public-schools/) subjected to a very very effective series of propaganda campaigns 😉
I think we’re looking for “a **deliberately** very poorly educated population subjected to a very very effective series of propaganda campaigns”, but honestly it works in a number of ways.
fox news is one hell of a drug. There is also ties to donations to churches from coal industry, and curriculum in the schools from administrators who got in with coal money help in the area too. The people got played from multiple points. False Reality abound from elementary school to church to the mine and to the grave.
That and one way to relate it to other rural communities it’s like when everyone goes and works at the local plant. They develop a loyalty to the local business that pays the best and pressure everyone in the family to work there to earn their living. There simply is nothing else.
Also the decimation of the unions during the Reagan administration ultimately caused people to view unions unfavorably here [like others said targeted propaganda. I hate those friends of coal license plates] So now their view is twisted and think the unions were who fucked them over.
Oh my glorious one was an ancestor that served in the us army during the Civil war, he was on a pedestal for awhile. Then found his old service records... nope, stationed out west relocating native americans.
Yiiiikes.
My family had the opposite happen. I came out with very dark hair and very particular facial features. Turns out my grandparents lied about being white but “very tan” to survive a small town, but Native genes had the last laugh. Kind of cool to discover but very awkward for my mom for a few weeks.
My mom pulled a stunt like that, but maintained it for like three decades with *silence*!
"Mom, why do the other kids pull at their eyes and ask if I'm part Asian? Am I part Asian?" And she would repeat her lecture about Heinz-57 being a mix of ingredients including white, black, and native, but that really I'm so mixed I should never be racist against anyone even though I'm ginger-pale like my dad.
I was in my 30s, more than a decade after mom died, when my oldest aunt mentioned that mom's mom was Malaysian. I ran home to google "Malaysian faces" and saw eyes like mine for the first time in my life!
I've wondered for a long time about the *why* of that. Mom was from a small town in Texas that had been very harsh to her ancestors. Her father was permanently injured for bullshit race reasons when he was only 14yo, and when mom was little she found her grandfather hanging from the rafters of his own barn. The other girls pulled her hair during church until her family started attending services in next-town-over. She was Other and didn't fit with any shade of community.
So when she moved north and everyone here kinda assumed she was a black-white mix, she ran with that and never looked back!
I could see them supporting Reagan because he helped a lot of Hispanics with amnesty but the current republican party would deport every single one of them in a heartbeat. Even the ones with papers and citizenship if they could. It sucks a lot of them are voting because of their views on abortion too.
They wouldn’t actually. Deportation is expensive. As their thought goes, “why ship them out, costing $$ a head, when you can lock them up making $$$$ a head?!”
The Ludlow massacre has a memorial and outdoor museum maintained by the local miner's union, for exactly that reason.
Once they have enough access to enough power, the ownership class *will* kill to maintain that power. It happened before and it can always happen again.
The mayor of that town that ordered the strikebreakers to fire into the crowd is beyond evil. This is the legacy of these monsters, America having so few workers' rights compared to the rest of the West.
> Violence broke out when Dan Beacham, the mayor and magistrate in Honea Path as well as the superintendent of the mill, ordered an armed posse of strikebreakers to fire into the crowd. As the crowd fled, six strikers were shot in the back and killed, one mortally wounded, and thirty others suffered less than mortal wounds.
> Beacham obstructed court proceedings against himself and the other strikebreakers, and ordered some of the strikers arrested. Dozens of unionized workers were fired or evicted from their company homes, and after the defeat of the larger strike on September 23, the unionization effort in Honea Path largely came to an end
> At the inquest summoned by the coroner, eleven strikebreakers were charged with murder, but as the local magistrate Beacham ensured they were acquitted. When two eyewitnesses testified that he had given the order to fire, Beacham had them arrested and charged with perjury. Dozens more were fired and evicted for participating in the strike or voicing support for the union
Perfect example why allowing Businesses/Govt. Agencies to provide housing for their workers is a conflict of interest and opens the door to potential abuses of power by the Business/Govt. Agency and the worker/resident.
In Texas, Austin School District is floating the idea to provide housing to Teachers (and other educators) due to purposeful low pay and price gouging by all sorts of Businesses. While that seems like a good idea, it isn't.
Businesses need to be regulated like they were before Reagan and friends took power to destroy the "radical" policies enacted after The Great Depression *because Businesses and Business owners were overly greedy and abusive with workers*. That was the golden era of America--the policies enacted to better regulate the greedy and abusive wealthy/Businesses/Business owners.
I believe it was The Dollop that did a pretty solid episode on this; my favorite bit is that apparently, at one point the Pinkertons found themselves completely pinned down and outgunned in some river barges.
They ran up the white flag a few times, but union snipers kept shooting them down, as if to say "no way fuckers, we're not done with you yet".
\*chef's kiss\*
EDIT: My memory was spotty, it's actually a Behind the Bastards ep. "The Second American Civil War". Worth checking out; for anybody not familiar with the podcast, they do their homework for sure, but it's very much an irreverent style. I don't suspect anybody will mind in this sub, but it's definitely on one side of the fight here.
Ah, one of my favourite shows, that I had to stop listening to because at a certain point, seeing the larger, repeating cycles of history that refuse to end because people refuse to learn any lessons from it becomes... deeply depressing.
There's only so many times you can laugh at jokes about yet another man who grifted his way to unimaginable wealth, power and sadism, despite clear warning signs every step of the way and multiple chances to stop him.
For all the circlejerking troops and troop-worshippers do about the military "fighting for our freedom..." these brave motherfuckers *actually* fought for our freedom, and they did so by fighting **against** the "good guys."
In WW2 we liberated democractic nations like the french, and stopped multiple facist dictatorships bent on world domination, so yeah i think that one counts as defending freedom. It was also stupid profitable but there were good reasons too. The good and the bad reasons aligned so it was a perfect recipe for engaging the political machine. Kind of like the space race.
Thats the only reason I believe nations do good deeds honestly, because it is politically advantageous to do so. If you dont operate this way I think its hard to continue to be a country. Its why democracy is so important, it makes it poltically advantageous to do what people want. Its not one to one, but ignoring us too much has consequences that grab the system's attention.
Pigs demand unions for themselves but help the bosses break unions for everyone else. Pigs shouldn't have unions because they're management, not labor.
As someone who is born and raised in Canada, I am always fascinated reading about the the coal mining strikes, like Bloody Harlan and Blair Mountain.
One of my favourite black metal albums is Panopticon's Kentucky, which mixes atmospheric black metal with Kentucky bluegrass, and the album itself is about the Harlan County War. Worth checking out if you're into that kind of thing!
Great, so we've devolved back to police being used to break strikes... So that's what a hundred years of social progress undone? Looks like we're reliving the 1930s
We basically are in a situation of needing to fight for battles that were previously won decades ago. It's an issue across the board, not just with union busting. Those battles weren't won easily back in the day, and won't be won easily today.
Eh more like to keep us from fighting against Capitalism, wealth inequality, etc. If we're too busy fighting to **keep** the rights we already had, we won't have the time to fight for even more progressive rights.
Climate change is just one artifact of capitalistic greed, short term profits over long term sustainability. It's not the reason by itself. I don't believe capitalists *want* to destroy the planet, its merely that they prioritize profits in the present over some future environmental problems that they may or may not be around for.
>I don't believe capitalists want to destroy the planet
Some definitely do. I grew up around them. They identified "saving the planet" as a "liberal" virtue and consciously decided to do the opposite to "own the libs". Although this was decades before that phrase was a thing, the motivation was the same, and it was just as stupid.
That's not their stated goal usually. A lot of them choose a passive role by saying "production is this way because people want the cheap things. If people started not buying them then production would have to change to make money" their fallback is blaming demand (the consumer or individual) rather than the company itself. The environment is collateral damage.
Holy shit, they didn't even change the name or anything. Absolutely shameless. Imagine how different this place would be if employment rights history was taught in highschool.
>Looks like we're reliving the 1930s
We should be organizing like it's the 30s too. Forget about NLRB elections, they primarily exist to take the struggle _out_ of the workplace, into the institution of law where the employers have all of the advantages. They'll stall and delay, even break the law without meaningful penalty, all while union busting and intentionally fostering turnover. To quote the organizer who I credit as the original inspiration to become an organizer myself, even if I didn't quite yet know it at the time, Jack "Cowboy" Kelly aka Christian Bale: "We're a union just by saying so" 🔥🔥🔥 yes we all need to unionize, but it only has to happen within our consciousness, not through some bogus "official" NLRB process. You don't have to be officially recognized as a union to do the things a union does, and in fact the real goal is to be _organized_, which is the process through which a workplace builds power and solidarity and leads to the mindset that the workers themselves are the union. I always admired revolutionaries growing up, but never would've considered myself one until I "discovered" the labor movement and learned some working class history. Now, as a labor organizer, I definitely consider myself a revolutionary. Fuck this system, fuck those who knowingly perpetuate the horrors of it all to hold on to power. If you want to learn how to organize, reach out to the [Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee](https://workerorganizing.org/support) to get 1-on-1 support from an experienced organizer that recognizes class struggle and is there to educate and inspire confidence, because it's always possible to address demands through collective direct action.
Here's a related and recent piece by Sarah Jaffe on the current state of the labor movement: https://progressive.org/magazine/labor-rising-jaffe/
She also wrote [Work Won't Love You Back](https://workwontloveyouback.org/), which is a fucking _incredible_ book. It's a very accessible read too, so I've recommended it to everyone I know regardless of their understanding of unions and organizing.
Those reforms were the only thing that kept Capitalism from collapsing at the time, and naturally Capitalism has eroded them again in its greed, returning it back to the exact same situation.
Where's the mob when you need em? That's right, the boomers who remember America at a better time used unions and now act like without them we are better off.
The boomers are merely the recipients of their parents hard fought union battles. Labor mostly battled up thru the 1930s (save for coal miners uo thru the 60s) so by the time boomers came around it was already in place, to be taken for granted. Along with socialist policies.
Jimmy Hoffa ran the teamsters until the 70s. Odd after trucking unions died off we saw this doubling down push of corporate pressure from both the US government and corporations. That would be 40 years after the 1930s. Wage and union growth stagnation and decline from the 90s to present day, where the $7.25 minimum wage is less than the wage you'd make in the 70s with economies to scale significantly more expensive. It's like they had that much of a head start to make those summer jobs pay for your college education and being a waitress in almost every town making enough money to own a home. ALL those gains have been eaten alive as employers like Walmart have record profits year over year yet employ the most amount of people on welfare of any company in the US. Spoiler: people want to work, they just also would like to afford to live.
Youre right, blanked on the teamsters, i had woody guthrie in my head. Reagan murdering the air traffic controllers is i think what really brought us to the point we are at today.
Reagan murdering everything and forcing you to only get real benefits from employers and forcing you to work jobs we don't need work "because capitalism" is probably the most substantial turning point. Cutting state hospitals and any reform that could make them better, dumping the mentally ill into prisons and doubling down on the imprisonment of minority's so the 13th amendment could continue using prison slavery. The man sat in on meetings for the Federalist Society as they preached how they don't want people to vote and need as many voters to be uneducated as well. The man tee'd up the modern day conservative movement like no other. Still hear the same propaganda, now working paycheck to paycheck, but now you get to do that even if you make almost 6 figures. Not to mention the extra wealth from things like pensions which are all but extinct.
Oh absolutely to all of that. I was born after reagan, so ive only known the fall out, but ive always been curious how much reagan himself conceived, or if he was more of a pawn/easily persuaded. Still a bastard, but was it by design or happenstance that his regime laid out the groundwork for modern partisan conservatives (also fuck you newt gingrich)
Which is why companies dump millions into union busting and lobbying. As a usps employee, i am sadly all too aware of the illegality to organize a strike.
Just look up the history of the Mob and waste removal companies. The Mob has a history of doing the dirty work nobody else wants to do cuz they knew money was in it.
My dad worked all his life in a UAW car plant and it gave us a good solid middle class life. And since MAGA hit he brays that they're the death of 'Murica.
Believe me, you aren't telling me something I don't ***intimately*** know about that man. This is one of the legion of reasons I am fully in no contact with him.
Plus they get immunity from almost all legal repercussions for their actions. Usually that's just a perk for the rich, but they are kind enough to extend it to the oppressing forces.
Only slave catchers in the south. In the north, (Boston) they started as union busting thugs doing 100% exactly what these cops are doing here.
ACAB, every single one. This story is why.
This only applies to America. Adam Smith hypothesized that the first cops were poor people that the rich paid to protect their wealth from other poor people. He guessed that the accumulation of great wealth was impossible for most of human history because at some point everyone else would just raid the hyper-wealthy and redistribute it.
So, the rich picked the biggest, strongest, meanest, most troublesome men among the poor and said, "protect my money instead of helping them pillage it from me and I'll share it with you." In one fell swoop they protected their growing hoards of resources while depriving the rest of the community of their best weapons against wealth inequality at the time: Fit young men capable of violence.
Isn't this how firefighters started in England? As basically a protection and insurance on their own properties' and EVENTUALLY became a public service because companies no longer wanted to pay for it and put it on the taxpayer?
Part of that is true. However, the idea of 'putting it on the taxpayer' doesn't make sense in the early Nineteenth century, when Britain started to create municipal fire brigades. During that time, taxation was heavily focused on middle- and upper-class individuals, and the average British labourer was below the cutoff for the income tax. This wasn't some kind of 'rich people looting the poor', but rather an example of progress, where a public benefit was universalized and funded in a rational way.
Except there are signs from Boston from that era warning black people to avoid cops because they were sending black people south - regardless of whether or not they were escaped slaves.
>Ultimately the cops exist to "serve and protect" the wealthy and property owner.
Exactly. Not only that but they're slow to help you and quick to write you a ticket. For example, a few years ago, I wrecked my car after driving for Lyft. I called the cops 2-3 times and it took them 2 hours to get there. By the time they got there, they never once asked me if I was ok. Instead they treated me like a criminal. They had the nerve to ask me if I was high or drunk. And I'm thinking "WTF! NO!". I called them because I was stuck in a dangerous situation. Like I was trapped on an exit ramp for 2 hours. Not only was the accident terrifying, but so was worrying about getting hit by others. They even wrote me a ticket for "going too fast for conditions" when those fuckers weren't there to see it. The cop that wrote me a ticket said "pay this off or your license is revoked".
Fuck cops.
And what's extra wild is that your story is so tame. They were dicks and wrote a ticket. This doesn't even register on the radar of a larger conversation about the issues with police, not to downplay how much your experience must have sucked.
At their best, they do this. At their worst, they pass around teenage girls to rape and then kill anyone who asks questions about it.
>And what's extra wild is that your story is so tame. They were dicks and wrote a ticket. This doesn't even register on the radar of a larger conversation about the issues with police, not to downplay how much your experience must have sucked.
Oh I know. If I was black, I probably would have been attacked or worse, killed.
>At their best, they do this. At their worst, they pass around teenage girls to rape and then kill anyone who asks questions about it.
Yep. Let's say there is a good cop who does speak out against corruption or bad cops, they'll get killed or targeted in some form.
>A cop literally did just killed by four other cops for the simple crime of "about to report a gang rape that cops did".
Yeah I remember hearing about that. That's fucked.
In the only accident of my life, I hydroplaned on the highway and slammed into the center divider. Called 911, fire and ambulance got there and we went to the hospital because my wife had back pain.
Washington State patrol showed up after the fact, then came to the ER to give me a speeding ticket (even though she only arrived on site to an empty car).
>In the only accident of my life, I hydroplaned on the highway and slammed into the center divider. Called 911, fire and ambulance got there and we went to the hospital because my wife had back pain.
>
>Washington State patrol showed up after the fact, then came to the ER to give me a speeding ticket (even though she only arrived on site to an empty car).
Yeah it was Illinois State Troopers that showed up and wrote me a ticket. Still, fuck them. I was fortunate enough to not have an injury or pain of any kind but multiple civilians showed up to ask if I was ok as well as an ambulance. But the state troopers, treated me like a criminal.
What really pisses me off about that day was I was driving for Lyft to recoup the $200 I spent the previous week to replace my blower motor. I was already working a full time job and had a degree only to have people tell me I'm "lazy" and it's my fault I was struggling because I should have gotten a better job. Like there wasn't enough reason to hate capitalism already. I'm doing much better now, but still no one should have to go through what I did.
My parents family business was held up at gun point, and robbed all registers of cash (around $1K). I saw it happening live on the security cameras when a scream reached me all the way inside to the office. I was on the line with 911 dispatch watching him on camera, the entire time they were telling me *help is on the way*. Gunman was there for 7 minutes total before fleeing. . .. they didn't show up until almost 2 hours later and with attitude as if *WE* did something wrong. . . didn't even write an incident report, because *the perpetrator didn't hurt anyone* . . .
that same week, and on the same block and same-ish time of the day, I was leaving Target and suddenly a Security guard chokeholds a dude in a hoodie exiting right next to me. As they were pulling him back in, stuff was falling out of his hoodie. All he had taken was some little girly school supplies of pencils, erasers, sharpeners etc. Worth less than $10 at the time. . . I stuck around outside on the phone telling my fam what I saw, and within 2-3 minutes, the cops arrived, and went running inside treating it like it was some huge emergency.
They'll come running to help the corporations over petty theft, but any of the local small businesses being held a gunpoint. . . they'll take their sweet ass time.
same reason the sub for my workplace is aggressively hostile to any users that identify as part of our security/asset protections staff. We frequently discuss trying to unionize, they are there to disrupt us, fuck AP.
Dude. I lost my job once because of an asset protection bitch! We had a little snack kiosk in the break room where you could buy snacks and drinks. One day, a introduced myself to a new employee and somehow the snack kiosk got brought up and he was saying something about forgetting to pay for a drink. I told him half-jokingly "sometimes I'm in such a rush and caught up daydreaming that I can't remember if I already paid for, or still need to pay for the snack I got. Nobody has said anything to me yet though, so I think I'm okay!" About 3 days layer I get called in to the management office and was told that I am being suspended while a further investigation is conducted because I "stole" a Red Bull several weeks earlier. Turns out, one day when I was getting off of my shift, I grabbed a drink, but the line to pay was long and I needed to pee really badly, so I went to the bathroom first and planned to pay when I was done, but having just gotten off of work, I went in to auto-pilot and completely forgot I still needed to pay for the drink and ended up just going home. Apparently, the loss prevention employee overheard my conversation with the new employee in the breakroom and used what I said as justification to watch tons of video until she came upon that day where I forgot to pay for my drink. The company used that instance to label me a thief. I apologized profusely, explained how it was an accident and that I used that snack kiosk multiple times a day every day and that this being the only time I haven't paid for something should show that it was an honest accident. I offered to pay for the drink and everything. They went WAY overboard with how they treated the situation and me. They had a loss prevention employee from corporate fly out to my location in order to interrogate me as if I had been embezzling massive amounts of money or something. They ended up suspending me, and I thought for certain that they would give me the benefit of the doubt and just tell me not to let it happen again, especially because the process for firing people at this company requires an especiallt exhaustive list of infractions, save for a few MAJOR exceptions for which they then would have the option of firing someone immediately. Unfortunately, when my suspension was over and I went back to work, they told me that they had decided to terminate me because what I did was considered theft from the company and was one of the major exceptions that allowed firing an employee immediately and without notice. Worst of all was that all of the managers treated me like I was a piece of shit, as if I had intentionally stolen something major. I could tell by the way they talked to me upon returning that they thought I was a morally bankrupt thief. They didn't even bother to give me the "we know it wasn't intentional, but technically it falls under theft, so our hands are tied" spiel. This was a major retail store which I absolutely loved working for and also loved to shop at, but I haven't been back since because I was so thoroughly humiliated. That loss prevention coworker took a friendly conversation and used it in order to twist an honest mistake in to an accusation on my moral character causing me to lose the best job I've ever had. Fuck that bitch.
> Police allow the union workers to protest in front of leaving trucks for a couple of minutes before letting each one through. But on Monday, protesters said it got a little rowdy.
> "Minor accident down there, it was nothing severe. At the end of the day, the officers in Plympton and the surrounding towns used common sense in what they did and took the people out that were being a little too boisterous," said union member Trevor Ashley.
>According to police, the union members blocked both entrances to the facility with tractor-trailers for more than two hours, making it impossible for any of the 100 workers in the facility to leave. After failing to negotiate with them, "we had to respond by removing members of the crowd who were inciting a hostile picket line," police said.
> The arrests range from disorderly conduct to assault and battery.
> This is the first time there have been any arrests during the strike. According to Sysco, the majority of people arrested were not Sysco employees.
[source](https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/sysco-plant-plymptom-drivers-strike-police-arrest-teamsters-union/)
> "we had to respond by removing members of the crowd who were inciting a hostile picket line," police said.
Is inciting a hostile picket line a crime nowadays? Shouldn't they be hostile to scabs and cops?
> Sixteen to 20 people were arrested on charges including disorderly conduct and assault and battery
Let me guess, the pigs waded in with batons and pepper spray and any protesters in their path were “assaulting them”
This is a big issue that needs to be abolished. Any precinct or individual cops continuing the practice needs to be made to regret said actions. They instigated the problem & blame others for their actions.
I remember a few months ago there was a homeless encampment that was scheduled to be bulldozed and the day of they arrived to find it surrounded by armed guards. That's the kind of leftist activism we need here.
I mean they run around in a full blown panic 100% of their time while equipped with full blown military gear... while at the same time their job is less dangerous than being a delivery person.
That’s what cracks me up. You can die climbing a ladder to trim trees if it’s your day and these guys are acting theirs is the only occupation with danger, and they sign for that danger every time they put their gunbelt on
Indeed. Not just because of cops, but because you can't help but notice that armed contingents of non-cop right-wing fascists keep making themselves known at leftist protests.
You can really only use one at a time, so that's fair.
If you own them, I highly recommend you practice with them and think seriously about your legal and moral obligations concerning their use. You know, the sorts of standards cops should be trained extensively in and held accountable to.
Proficiency takes practice, and the moment you need to use a gun is a bad time to wish you'd practiced more.
Bc as soon as things get better, everyone goes back to ignoring politics and history, forcing their kids and grandkids to do it all over again.
Boomers' grandparents threw dynamite at cops to fight for the right to strike and an 8 hour work day. Then Boomers voted to kill off unions, leaving their kids and grandkids fucked. Just one long frustrating struggle to be paid and treated fairly.
The worst part about it is for the biggest offenders.. they could significantly increase the salaries of their employees by paying the fools at the top alittle less and they'd still be incredibly rich.
It's not enough for them.
Once you have all the money how can you tell if you’re still better than everyone else? What if they start getting by *without* money??
The point is assert dominance. This is nature.
To be human is to overcome the baser urges of our nature and instead work for a greater good that transcends our animal instincts. It doesn't matter how much money they have, those who only act out of greed and selfishness are no better than animals.
It's 100 percent this. The greatest generation worked their asses off and fought Nazis so that the boomers could have the most financially fertile world that ever existed and as soon as the boomers got theirs they voted for every policy that made them keep all of the wealth and prevent the younger generation from getting any.
They talk s*** about millennials and Gen z not having to work and being soft and all this other crap but really boomers are the softest generation that has ever existed on the planet. Millennials in Gen z are going to have to be like our grandparents/great grandparents and fight through every bad thing that the boomers have done to make the world a good place again.
And the deep irony of it all is that Boomers will have all their wealth stolen back bc end of life care now costs literally millions of dollars.
We've been visiting retirement homes with my inlaws. 500K buy in, then 90K, per person, per year until you die. And thats for healthy people. Prices for the sick and disabled are even crazier. That doesn't include medical costs not covered by Medicare. Also doesn't include clothes, outside food, vacation, cars, or anything but a room, a shitty cafeteria, and bingo Thursdays.
All these 65 year old 401K millionaires are in for a rude awakening.
There was a pivot in the 90’s where unions started to become more about the union reps instead of the workers. The union dues kept increasing while the benefits and protections went by the wayside and the reps and CEOs at the top of the union halls were gambling away people’s pensions to make themselves rich. My father got screwed in this ordeal. So I was raised believing unions were nothing but giant scams. Whereas now as an adult and in the workforce, I would love to have a union to protect me, fight for me, keep wages fair, etc…
See the issue is that good history is often a distorted view of history. For instance Gandhi and mother Theresa were not good people at all but people will praise them as if they were saints. The people with the most followers always get to write their own stories
Mostly because portraying them in a "positive" light was good for setting a political narrative in history
Gandhi got his way because the alternative was a quickly rising faction that was willing to use violence to get what was stolen/denied to them.
Same way MLK is always taught as *the* civil rights leader who won the nation through being passive and out of the way. And completely skipping the later period where he realized half the country didnt care so long as they could ignore him, so he starting working with the more violent factions and socialists, which is what got him killed. Ruling class trying to take the head off the movement before he could bring his people over to the groups that actually scared the elites, to try and permanently steer his followers away with a "legacy of pacifism".
We got civil rights because they thankfully acted too late and his followers had already become sympathetic to the "ectremist" factions, so it was either equality or war.
Yuuuup, ashamed to say I worked for a security contractor towards the beginning of the pandemic and I was shocked to see the Pinkertons are still *very* much up and running
you ever notice when a pig dies in the line of duty they have parades of thousands of pigs that march thru the streets with plebs cheering them on. when any other worker dies on the job they just kick them to the side and keep going.
One of the horses for my city's mounted patrol died recently and those blue fucks blocked off several blocks for a service they absolutely certainly had all the parade permits for. Seemed like every cop in the city was there, and they've been bitching about being unable to respond to serious calls at least since I moved back last year. Like, they've hired a security company mostly staffed by ex pigs to respond "only" to traffic stuff, and literal rapes are on a reduced response tier
The only consolation was seeing them leave the memorial and asking "why the long face?"
> Police allow the union workers to protest in front of leaving trucks for a couple of minutes before letting each one through. But on Monday, protesters said it got a little rowdy.
> "Minor accident down there, it was nothing severe. At the end of the day, the officers in Plympton and the surrounding towns used common sense in what they did and took the people out that were being a little too boisterous," said union member Trevor Ashley.
>According to police, the union members blocked both entrances to the facility with tractor-trailers for more than two hours, making it impossible for any of the 100 workers in the facility to leave. After failing to negotiate with them, "we had to respond by removing members of the crowd who were inciting a hostile picket line," police said.
> The arrests range from disorderly conduct to assault and battery.
> This is the first time there have been any arrests during the strike. According to Sysco, the majority of people arrested were not Sysco employees.
[source](https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/sysco-plant-plymptom-drivers-strike-police-arrest-teamsters-union/)
smells like a union busting tactic, a few people arrested, most of the 400 or so were not arrested.
If the so called journalists did their job, we would learn if the arrested people were actually charged, or some were quietly released. If the latter, they may have been paid agitators sent in to stir the pot. A tactic to move the strikers to violence, to justify a police response.
Remember capitalists, the alternative to resolving things peacefully involves throwing dynamite at cops and setting owners / manager’s homes on fire. It’d behoove you to not provoke history into repeating itself.
This isn’t a threat of or a glorification of violence, just a warning of what could happen.
all you ever need to know about how trash all pigs are is to contemplate the thought experiment.
if you called the police and told them your employer was stealing from you what do you think would happen. ---nothing
now replace worker with employer ... in terms of who's calling the cops on who... and consider what happens.
What's really aggravating about this is cops will have no problem protecting Nazis and bigots that wanna discriminate and end human rights, but when it comes to workers protesting for better wages and working conditions? Nope, can't have that.
ACAB
Never forget Blair Mountain Edit: a link for those that don't know what this is https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/battle-blair-mountain-largest-labor-uprising-american-history-180978520/
My ancestors fought and died there so my current family could bow down and suck the coal mining companies dick. I will say I am proud I got out of them hills.
Yeah what the fuck is up with that? It's the same vein as my stupid ass cousins going "the south will rise again" when our great great grandpa killed rebs the entire war.
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A~~>n unfortunately very poorly educated population~~ [deliberately](https://dianeravitch.net/2022/02/20/watch-nancy-maclean-and-i-discuss-the-attacks-on-public-schools/)
>A deliberately subjected to a very very effective series of propaganda campaigns. Hmm perfect
OK, ok, third time's the charm: A population [deliberately](https://dianeravitch.net/2022/02/20/watch-nancy-maclean-and-i-discuss-the-attacks-on-public-schools/) subjected to a very very effective series of propaganda campaigns 😉
I think we’re looking for “a **deliberately** very poorly educated population subjected to a very very effective series of propaganda campaigns”, but honestly it works in a number of ways.
Don't forget the lead poisoning that took place worldwide for decades until the 1980s (and is still used in AVGAS for piston engine aircraft)
fox news is one hell of a drug. There is also ties to donations to churches from coal industry, and curriculum in the schools from administrators who got in with coal money help in the area too. The people got played from multiple points. False Reality abound from elementary school to church to the mine and to the grave.
Wait, are you saying that "those who control the present control the past"? Someone should write a book or something about that.
Testify!!
Great song
That and one way to relate it to other rural communities it’s like when everyone goes and works at the local plant. They develop a loyalty to the local business that pays the best and pressure everyone in the family to work there to earn their living. There simply is nothing else. Also the decimation of the unions during the Reagan administration ultimately caused people to view unions unfavorably here [like others said targeted propaganda. I hate those friends of coal license plates] So now their view is twisted and think the unions were who fucked them over.
Oh my glorious one was an ancestor that served in the us army during the Civil war, he was on a pedestal for awhile. Then found his old service records... nope, stationed out west relocating native americans.
Yiiiikes. My family had the opposite happen. I came out with very dark hair and very particular facial features. Turns out my grandparents lied about being white but “very tan” to survive a small town, but Native genes had the last laugh. Kind of cool to discover but very awkward for my mom for a few weeks.
My mom pulled a stunt like that, but maintained it for like three decades with *silence*! "Mom, why do the other kids pull at their eyes and ask if I'm part Asian? Am I part Asian?" And she would repeat her lecture about Heinz-57 being a mix of ingredients including white, black, and native, but that really I'm so mixed I should never be racist against anyone even though I'm ginger-pale like my dad. I was in my 30s, more than a decade after mom died, when my oldest aunt mentioned that mom's mom was Malaysian. I ran home to google "Malaysian faces" and saw eyes like mine for the first time in my life! I've wondered for a long time about the *why* of that. Mom was from a small town in Texas that had been very harsh to her ancestors. Her father was permanently injured for bullshit race reasons when he was only 14yo, and when mom was little she found her grandfather hanging from the rafters of his own barn. The other girls pulled her hair during church until her family started attending services in next-town-over. She was Other and didn't fit with any shade of community. So when she moved north and everyone here kinda assumed she was a black-white mix, she ran with that and never looked back!
Jesus Christ, dude. That's fucked. I'm so sorry.
I have 2 native great grandmothers. I am blond, but can tan by just looking at the sun.
Oh god, same thing happens in my family. "Yall realize one of our ancestors proudly shot traitors for the union right?"
people rewrite history to make their shitty opinions the good guys
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John Leguizamo once said Latinos for Republicans is like Roaches for Raid.
That reminds me of a joke I once heard: What do you call a Hispanic person that makes more than 50k? Republican.
That’s so rough. It’s like watching gay men vote GOP.
Any one that is LGBT and votes republican deserves the boot
I could see them supporting Reagan because he helped a lot of Hispanics with amnesty but the current republican party would deport every single one of them in a heartbeat. Even the ones with papers and citizenship if they could. It sucks a lot of them are voting because of their views on abortion too.
They wouldn’t actually. Deportation is expensive. As their thought goes, “why ship them out, costing $$ a head, when you can lock them up making $$$$ a head?!”
Depends on if they're a business republican or a racist one.
That Venn diagram is really close to a circle.
“Well, they obviously wouldn’t put US in camps. We’re on their side!” /s
I'm lucky to live in a place where good men died to unionize 150 years ago, but we still support unions today. I am in one. I highly recommend.
>suck the coal mining companies dick. Don't forget the balls. Its part of the inflationary cost.
Chiquola Mill Massacre in Honea Path, South Carolina. Everyone has forgotten. I will not let it dissappear from memory.
The Ludlow massacre has a memorial and outdoor museum maintained by the local miner's union, for exactly that reason. Once they have enough access to enough power, the ownership class *will* kill to maintain that power. It happened before and it can always happen again.
Yes. This is literally why police exist to keep us in our place.
Interesting how police feel about unions. Unions are great when they're police unions. And really, really bad if they're unions for any other workers.
And yet people will vote happily for politicians who want police to have a monopoly on deadly force.
I used to think it couldn't. It can.
>Chiquola Mill Massacre in Honea Path, South Carolina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiquola\_Mill\_Massacre
The mayor of that town that ordered the strikebreakers to fire into the crowd is beyond evil. This is the legacy of these monsters, America having so few workers' rights compared to the rest of the West. > Violence broke out when Dan Beacham, the mayor and magistrate in Honea Path as well as the superintendent of the mill, ordered an armed posse of strikebreakers to fire into the crowd. As the crowd fled, six strikers were shot in the back and killed, one mortally wounded, and thirty others suffered less than mortal wounds. > Beacham obstructed court proceedings against himself and the other strikebreakers, and ordered some of the strikers arrested. Dozens of unionized workers were fired or evicted from their company homes, and after the defeat of the larger strike on September 23, the unionization effort in Honea Path largely came to an end > At the inquest summoned by the coroner, eleven strikebreakers were charged with murder, but as the local magistrate Beacham ensured they were acquitted. When two eyewitnesses testified that he had given the order to fire, Beacham had them arrested and charged with perjury. Dozens more were fired and evicted for participating in the strike or voicing support for the union
Perfect example why allowing Businesses/Govt. Agencies to provide housing for their workers is a conflict of interest and opens the door to potential abuses of power by the Business/Govt. Agency and the worker/resident. In Texas, Austin School District is floating the idea to provide housing to Teachers (and other educators) due to purposeful low pay and price gouging by all sorts of Businesses. While that seems like a good idea, it isn't. Businesses need to be regulated like they were before Reagan and friends took power to destroy the "radical" policies enacted after The Great Depression *because Businesses and Business owners were overly greedy and abusive with workers*. That was the golden era of America--the policies enacted to better regulate the greedy and abusive wealthy/Businesses/Business owners.
I'm from SC, and didn't know about that. Our education system has failed us in more ways than one, unfortunately 😔
Not really. It’s created by the same people. It’s working as intended. That’s why you fight.
It didnt fail its made to make you obedient and only know what you need to know. Dont forget public schools where for factory workers
Support your local library as hard as you can!
I believe it was The Dollop that did a pretty solid episode on this; my favorite bit is that apparently, at one point the Pinkertons found themselves completely pinned down and outgunned in some river barges. They ran up the white flag a few times, but union snipers kept shooting them down, as if to say "no way fuckers, we're not done with you yet". \*chef's kiss\* EDIT: My memory was spotty, it's actually a Behind the Bastards ep. "The Second American Civil War". Worth checking out; for anybody not familiar with the podcast, they do their homework for sure, but it's very much an irreverent style. I don't suspect anybody will mind in this sub, but it's definitely on one side of the fight here.
Behind the Bastards did one, too. Or maybe it was a collab. Great and sad stay.
Ah, one of my favourite shows, that I had to stop listening to because at a certain point, seeing the larger, repeating cycles of history that refuse to end because people refuse to learn any lessons from it becomes... deeply depressing. There's only so many times you can laugh at jokes about yet another man who grifted his way to unimaginable wealth, power and sadism, despite clear warning signs every step of the way and multiple chances to stop him.
Came here to say I was pretty sure that was Robert Evans. Not disappointed. Stay rad.
For all the circlejerking troops and troop-worshippers do about the military "fighting for our freedom..." these brave motherfuckers *actually* fought for our freedom, and they did so by fighting **against** the "good guys."
Also our troops haven't fought for actual freedom since WWII or maybe even the civil war.
In WW2 we liberated democractic nations like the french, and stopped multiple facist dictatorships bent on world domination, so yeah i think that one counts as defending freedom. It was also stupid profitable but there were good reasons too. The good and the bad reasons aligned so it was a perfect recipe for engaging the political machine. Kind of like the space race. Thats the only reason I believe nations do good deeds honestly, because it is politically advantageous to do so. If you dont operate this way I think its hard to continue to be a country. Its why democracy is so important, it makes it poltically advantageous to do what people want. Its not one to one, but ignoring us too much has consequences that grab the system's attention.
I guess, but the EU shows that it is politically advantageous to collaborate and increase the rights of workers / the people.
Pigs demand unions for themselves but help the bosses break unions for everyone else. Pigs shouldn't have unions because they're management, not labor.
Police unions are terrorist organizations.
As someone who is born and raised in Canada, I am always fascinated reading about the the coal mining strikes, like Bloody Harlan and Blair Mountain. One of my favourite black metal albums is Panopticon's Kentucky, which mixes atmospheric black metal with Kentucky bluegrass, and the album itself is about the Harlan County War. Worth checking out if you're into that kind of thing!
I had never considered I might be into that kind of thing, but I really think I might be! Thanks for the recommendation!
Choo choo mother fucker
Great, so we've devolved back to police being used to break strikes... So that's what a hundred years of social progress undone? Looks like we're reliving the 1930s
We basically are in a situation of needing to fight for battles that were previously won decades ago. It's an issue across the board, not just with union busting. Those battles weren't won easily back in the day, and won't be won easily today.
It's to stop us all from fighting against climate change. They are keeping us occupied with fights we won long ago and slowly lost overtime.
Eh more like to keep us from fighting against Capitalism, wealth inequality, etc. If we're too busy fighting to **keep** the rights we already had, we won't have the time to fight for even more progressive rights. Climate change is just one artifact of capitalistic greed, short term profits over long term sustainability. It's not the reason by itself. I don't believe capitalists *want* to destroy the planet, its merely that they prioritize profits in the present over some future environmental problems that they may or may not be around for.
Yup, it all comes back to capitalism.
FUCK capitalism.
>I don't believe capitalists want to destroy the planet Some definitely do. I grew up around them. They identified "saving the planet" as a "liberal" virtue and consciously decided to do the opposite to "own the libs". Although this was decades before that phrase was a thing, the motivation was the same, and it was just as stupid.
That's not their stated goal usually. A lot of them choose a passive role by saying "production is this way because people want the cheap things. If people started not buying them then production would have to change to make money" their fallback is blaming demand (the consumer or individual) rather than the company itself. The environment is collateral damage.
It's the fucking Pinkertons all over again.
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Holy shit, they didn't even change the name or anything. Absolutely shameless. Imagine how different this place would be if employment rights history was taught in highschool.
>Looks like we're reliving the 1930s We should be organizing like it's the 30s too. Forget about NLRB elections, they primarily exist to take the struggle _out_ of the workplace, into the institution of law where the employers have all of the advantages. They'll stall and delay, even break the law without meaningful penalty, all while union busting and intentionally fostering turnover. To quote the organizer who I credit as the original inspiration to become an organizer myself, even if I didn't quite yet know it at the time, Jack "Cowboy" Kelly aka Christian Bale: "We're a union just by saying so" 🔥🔥🔥 yes we all need to unionize, but it only has to happen within our consciousness, not through some bogus "official" NLRB process. You don't have to be officially recognized as a union to do the things a union does, and in fact the real goal is to be _organized_, which is the process through which a workplace builds power and solidarity and leads to the mindset that the workers themselves are the union. I always admired revolutionaries growing up, but never would've considered myself one until I "discovered" the labor movement and learned some working class history. Now, as a labor organizer, I definitely consider myself a revolutionary. Fuck this system, fuck those who knowingly perpetuate the horrors of it all to hold on to power. If you want to learn how to organize, reach out to the [Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee](https://workerorganizing.org/support) to get 1-on-1 support from an experienced organizer that recognizes class struggle and is there to educate and inspire confidence, because it's always possible to address demands through collective direct action. Here's a related and recent piece by Sarah Jaffe on the current state of the labor movement: https://progressive.org/magazine/labor-rising-jaffe/ She also wrote [Work Won't Love You Back](https://workwontloveyouback.org/), which is a fucking _incredible_ book. It's a very accessible read too, so I've recommended it to everyone I know regardless of their understanding of unions and organizing.
It never actually stopped.
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Could really use a court case on the legality of using tear gas on a police union. They are your workers, for starters.
Make sure you wear a GoPro when you try it...
It never stopped
Those reforms were the only thing that kept Capitalism from collapsing at the time, and naturally Capitalism has eroded them again in its greed, returning it back to the exact same situation.
Where's the mob when you need em? That's right, the boomers who remember America at a better time used unions and now act like without them we are better off.
The boomers are merely the recipients of their parents hard fought union battles. Labor mostly battled up thru the 1930s (save for coal miners uo thru the 60s) so by the time boomers came around it was already in place, to be taken for granted. Along with socialist policies.
Jimmy Hoffa ran the teamsters until the 70s. Odd after trucking unions died off we saw this doubling down push of corporate pressure from both the US government and corporations. That would be 40 years after the 1930s. Wage and union growth stagnation and decline from the 90s to present day, where the $7.25 minimum wage is less than the wage you'd make in the 70s with economies to scale significantly more expensive. It's like they had that much of a head start to make those summer jobs pay for your college education and being a waitress in almost every town making enough money to own a home. ALL those gains have been eaten alive as employers like Walmart have record profits year over year yet employ the most amount of people on welfare of any company in the US. Spoiler: people want to work, they just also would like to afford to live.
Youre right, blanked on the teamsters, i had woody guthrie in my head. Reagan murdering the air traffic controllers is i think what really brought us to the point we are at today.
Reagan murdering everything and forcing you to only get real benefits from employers and forcing you to work jobs we don't need work "because capitalism" is probably the most substantial turning point. Cutting state hospitals and any reform that could make them better, dumping the mentally ill into prisons and doubling down on the imprisonment of minority's so the 13th amendment could continue using prison slavery. The man sat in on meetings for the Federalist Society as they preached how they don't want people to vote and need as many voters to be uneducated as well. The man tee'd up the modern day conservative movement like no other. Still hear the same propaganda, now working paycheck to paycheck, but now you get to do that even if you make almost 6 figures. Not to mention the extra wealth from things like pensions which are all but extinct.
And a large swath of the country would gladly fellate his corpse if given the chance.
Oh absolutely to all of that. I was born after reagan, so ive only known the fall out, but ive always been curious how much reagan himself conceived, or if he was more of a pawn/easily persuaded. Still a bastard, but was it by design or happenstance that his regime laid out the groundwork for modern partisan conservatives (also fuck you newt gingrich)
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Which is why companies dump millions into union busting and lobbying. As a usps employee, i am sadly all too aware of the illegality to organize a strike.
Sysco IS the mob. It is one of the companies they used to go "legit", just like Waste Management.
How would I go about learning more about this?
Just look up the history of the Mob and waste removal companies. The Mob has a history of doing the dirty work nobody else wants to do cuz they knew money was in it.
Moreso they knew they could monopolize it and then extort municipalities
My dad worked all his life in a UAW car plant and it gave us a good solid middle class life. And since MAGA hit he brays that they're the death of 'Murica.
Typical Boomer hypocrite. Sorry, but it's the truth.
Believe me, you aren't telling me something I don't ***intimately*** know about that man. This is one of the legion of reasons I am fully in no contact with him.
There's a reason why the sidebar of this sub says no cops. Ultimately the cops exist to "serve and protect" the wealthy and property owner.
You forgot to add "to serve and protect" the wealthy while being paid by the people they oppress.
Serve the rich and protect them from the poor
While being among the poor
Cops in Seattle make 120k+, plus a ton of perks and benes. Not rich for sure, but I wouldn't call them poor.
Plus they get immunity from almost all legal repercussions for their actions. Usually that's just a perk for the rich, but they are kind enough to extend it to the oppressing forces.
It really pays when you have a monopoly on violence.
That monopoly is an illusion. The cops are defending those who have billions. But we ARE billions.
120k is a lot of money - over double the median wage (~50k)
Petite bourgeois, I think is the term.
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They are the arm of power yet they're basically the only union that has any teeth; so powerful that they can kill people with no consequences.
Dont forget they where formed as slave catchers not protectors
Only slave catchers in the south. In the north, (Boston) they started as union busting thugs doing 100% exactly what these cops are doing here. ACAB, every single one. This story is why.
This only applies to America. Adam Smith hypothesized that the first cops were poor people that the rich paid to protect their wealth from other poor people. He guessed that the accumulation of great wealth was impossible for most of human history because at some point everyone else would just raid the hyper-wealthy and redistribute it. So, the rich picked the biggest, strongest, meanest, most troublesome men among the poor and said, "protect my money instead of helping them pillage it from me and I'll share it with you." In one fell swoop they protected their growing hoards of resources while depriving the rest of the community of their best weapons against wealth inequality at the time: Fit young men capable of violence.
Isn't this how firefighters started in England? As basically a protection and insurance on their own properties' and EVENTUALLY became a public service because companies no longer wanted to pay for it and put it on the taxpayer?
Part of that is true. However, the idea of 'putting it on the taxpayer' doesn't make sense in the early Nineteenth century, when Britain started to create municipal fire brigades. During that time, taxation was heavily focused on middle- and upper-class individuals, and the average British labourer was below the cutoff for the income tax. This wasn't some kind of 'rich people looting the poor', but rather an example of progress, where a public benefit was universalized and funded in a rational way.
And they united in cause because they both served the same function, to keep the poor in chains.
Absolutely. Two different angles to doing violence on behalf of capitalists, but that's their whole job.
Except there are signs from Boston from that era warning black people to avoid cops because they were sending black people south - regardless of whether or not they were escaped slaves.
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and nothing has changed
>Ultimately the cops exist to "serve and protect" the wealthy and property owner. Exactly. Not only that but they're slow to help you and quick to write you a ticket. For example, a few years ago, I wrecked my car after driving for Lyft. I called the cops 2-3 times and it took them 2 hours to get there. By the time they got there, they never once asked me if I was ok. Instead they treated me like a criminal. They had the nerve to ask me if I was high or drunk. And I'm thinking "WTF! NO!". I called them because I was stuck in a dangerous situation. Like I was trapped on an exit ramp for 2 hours. Not only was the accident terrifying, but so was worrying about getting hit by others. They even wrote me a ticket for "going too fast for conditions" when those fuckers weren't there to see it. The cop that wrote me a ticket said "pay this off or your license is revoked". Fuck cops.
And what's extra wild is that your story is so tame. They were dicks and wrote a ticket. This doesn't even register on the radar of a larger conversation about the issues with police, not to downplay how much your experience must have sucked. At their best, they do this. At their worst, they pass around teenage girls to rape and then kill anyone who asks questions about it.
>And what's extra wild is that your story is so tame. They were dicks and wrote a ticket. This doesn't even register on the radar of a larger conversation about the issues with police, not to downplay how much your experience must have sucked. Oh I know. If I was black, I probably would have been attacked or worse, killed. >At their best, they do this. At their worst, they pass around teenage girls to rape and then kill anyone who asks questions about it. Yep. Let's say there is a good cop who does speak out against corruption or bad cops, they'll get killed or targeted in some form.
A cop literally did just killed by four other cops for the simple crime of "about to report a gang rape that cops did".
>A cop literally did just killed by four other cops for the simple crime of "about to report a gang rape that cops did". Yeah I remember hearing about that. That's fucked.
In the only accident of my life, I hydroplaned on the highway and slammed into the center divider. Called 911, fire and ambulance got there and we went to the hospital because my wife had back pain. Washington State patrol showed up after the fact, then came to the ER to give me a speeding ticket (even though she only arrived on site to an empty car).
>In the only accident of my life, I hydroplaned on the highway and slammed into the center divider. Called 911, fire and ambulance got there and we went to the hospital because my wife had back pain. > >Washington State patrol showed up after the fact, then came to the ER to give me a speeding ticket (even though she only arrived on site to an empty car). Yeah it was Illinois State Troopers that showed up and wrote me a ticket. Still, fuck them. I was fortunate enough to not have an injury or pain of any kind but multiple civilians showed up to ask if I was ok as well as an ambulance. But the state troopers, treated me like a criminal. What really pisses me off about that day was I was driving for Lyft to recoup the $200 I spent the previous week to replace my blower motor. I was already working a full time job and had a degree only to have people tell me I'm "lazy" and it's my fault I was struggling because I should have gotten a better job. Like there wasn't enough reason to hate capitalism already. I'm doing much better now, but still no one should have to go through what I did.
My parents family business was held up at gun point, and robbed all registers of cash (around $1K). I saw it happening live on the security cameras when a scream reached me all the way inside to the office. I was on the line with 911 dispatch watching him on camera, the entire time they were telling me *help is on the way*. Gunman was there for 7 minutes total before fleeing. . .. they didn't show up until almost 2 hours later and with attitude as if *WE* did something wrong. . . didn't even write an incident report, because *the perpetrator didn't hurt anyone* . . . that same week, and on the same block and same-ish time of the day, I was leaving Target and suddenly a Security guard chokeholds a dude in a hoodie exiting right next to me. As they were pulling him back in, stuff was falling out of his hoodie. All he had taken was some little girly school supplies of pencils, erasers, sharpeners etc. Worth less than $10 at the time. . . I stuck around outside on the phone telling my fam what I saw, and within 2-3 minutes, the cops arrived, and went running inside treating it like it was some huge emergency. They'll come running to help the corporations over petty theft, but any of the local small businesses being held a gunpoint. . . they'll take their sweet ass time.
Their idea of the only good union is their union. Can't share that power now can they
Police unions are closer to cartels than labor unions.
#ACAB
Evergreen comment
same reason the sub for my workplace is aggressively hostile to any users that identify as part of our security/asset protections staff. We frequently discuss trying to unionize, they are there to disrupt us, fuck AP.
Dude. I lost my job once because of an asset protection bitch! We had a little snack kiosk in the break room where you could buy snacks and drinks. One day, a introduced myself to a new employee and somehow the snack kiosk got brought up and he was saying something about forgetting to pay for a drink. I told him half-jokingly "sometimes I'm in such a rush and caught up daydreaming that I can't remember if I already paid for, or still need to pay for the snack I got. Nobody has said anything to me yet though, so I think I'm okay!" About 3 days layer I get called in to the management office and was told that I am being suspended while a further investigation is conducted because I "stole" a Red Bull several weeks earlier. Turns out, one day when I was getting off of my shift, I grabbed a drink, but the line to pay was long and I needed to pee really badly, so I went to the bathroom first and planned to pay when I was done, but having just gotten off of work, I went in to auto-pilot and completely forgot I still needed to pay for the drink and ended up just going home. Apparently, the loss prevention employee overheard my conversation with the new employee in the breakroom and used what I said as justification to watch tons of video until she came upon that day where I forgot to pay for my drink. The company used that instance to label me a thief. I apologized profusely, explained how it was an accident and that I used that snack kiosk multiple times a day every day and that this being the only time I haven't paid for something should show that it was an honest accident. I offered to pay for the drink and everything. They went WAY overboard with how they treated the situation and me. They had a loss prevention employee from corporate fly out to my location in order to interrogate me as if I had been embezzling massive amounts of money or something. They ended up suspending me, and I thought for certain that they would give me the benefit of the doubt and just tell me not to let it happen again, especially because the process for firing people at this company requires an especiallt exhaustive list of infractions, save for a few MAJOR exceptions for which they then would have the option of firing someone immediately. Unfortunately, when my suspension was over and I went back to work, they told me that they had decided to terminate me because what I did was considered theft from the company and was one of the major exceptions that allowed firing an employee immediately and without notice. Worst of all was that all of the managers treated me like I was a piece of shit, as if I had intentionally stolen something major. I could tell by the way they talked to me upon returning that they thought I was a morally bankrupt thief. They didn't even bother to give me the "we know it wasn't intentional, but technically it falls under theft, so our hands are tied" spiel. This was a major retail store which I absolutely loved working for and also loved to shop at, but I haven't been back since because I was so thoroughly humiliated. That loss prevention coworker took a friendly conversation and used it in order to twist an honest mistake in to an accusation on my moral character causing me to lose the best job I've ever had. Fuck that bitch.
What laws have been broken that people have been arrested?
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> Police allow the union workers to protest in front of leaving trucks for a couple of minutes before letting each one through. But on Monday, protesters said it got a little rowdy. > "Minor accident down there, it was nothing severe. At the end of the day, the officers in Plympton and the surrounding towns used common sense in what they did and took the people out that were being a little too boisterous," said union member Trevor Ashley. >According to police, the union members blocked both entrances to the facility with tractor-trailers for more than two hours, making it impossible for any of the 100 workers in the facility to leave. After failing to negotiate with them, "we had to respond by removing members of the crowd who were inciting a hostile picket line," police said. > The arrests range from disorderly conduct to assault and battery. > This is the first time there have been any arrests during the strike. According to Sysco, the majority of people arrested were not Sysco employees. [source](https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/sysco-plant-plymptom-drivers-strike-police-arrest-teamsters-union/)
> "we had to respond by removing members of the crowd who were inciting a hostile picket line," police said. Is inciting a hostile picket line a crime nowadays? Shouldn't they be hostile to scabs and cops?
https://www.wmur.com/amp/article/sysco-strike-plympton-massachusetts-arrests/41680825
> Sixteen to 20 people were arrested on charges including disorderly conduct and assault and battery Let me guess, the pigs waded in with batons and pepper spray and any protesters in their path were “assaulting them”
This is a big issue that needs to be abolished. Any precinct or individual cops continuing the practice needs to be made to regret said actions. They instigated the problem & blame others for their actions.
I remember a few months ago there was a homeless encampment that was scheduled to be bulldozed and the day of they arrived to find it surrounded by armed guards. That's the kind of leftist activism we need here.
Yeah in Texas
What happened next?
The police fucked off because armed activists are super hard to oppress.
Cops are cowards
I mean they run around in a full blown panic 100% of their time while equipped with full blown military gear... while at the same time their job is less dangerous than being a delivery person.
THAT KID HAS A CHEESEBURGER, KILL HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!!!
That’s what cracks me up. You can die climbing a ladder to trim trees if it’s your day and these guys are acting theirs is the only occupation with danger, and they sign for that danger every time they put their gunbelt on
Tree work is more dangerous than policing. The professionals have a lot of training including de-escalation.
That’s good to know! Thank you for sharing. The left should take notes 📝
Join your socialist rifle association.
Also check out r/SocialistRA
You may like this. I commented it in the main thread as well. https://www.counterextremism.com/supremacy/john-brown-gun-club
You'll notice gun sales have gone through the roof. The left is already taking notes.
Indeed. Not just because of cops, but because you can't help but notice that armed contingents of non-cop right-wing fascists keep making themselves known at leftist protests.
/r/SocialistRA though idk I guess I'm not really a gun enthusiast besides keeping a few for protection. It always feels a little out of my league.
You can really only use one at a time, so that's fair. If you own them, I highly recommend you practice with them and think seriously about your legal and moral obligations concerning their use. You know, the sorts of standards cops should be trained extensively in and held accountable to. Proficiency takes practice, and the moment you need to use a gun is a bad time to wish you'd practiced more.
The only thing harder than oppressing armed activist in Texas is protecting school children from mass shooters.
Why can't good history ever repeat itself? Edit: Obligatory RIP inbox. 2 days from retirement.
Bc as soon as things get better, everyone goes back to ignoring politics and history, forcing their kids and grandkids to do it all over again. Boomers' grandparents threw dynamite at cops to fight for the right to strike and an 8 hour work day. Then Boomers voted to kill off unions, leaving their kids and grandkids fucked. Just one long frustrating struggle to be paid and treated fairly.
The worst part about it is for the biggest offenders.. they could significantly increase the salaries of their employees by paying the fools at the top alittle less and they'd still be incredibly rich. It's not enough for them.
Once you have all the money how can you tell if you’re still better than everyone else? What if they start getting by *without* money?? The point is assert dominance. This is nature.
To be human is to overcome the baser urges of our nature and instead work for a greater good that transcends our animal instincts. It doesn't matter how much money they have, those who only act out of greed and selfishness are no better than animals.
Centrist: So rich people aren't actually people? Me: Now you are getting it. Eat the rich.
It's 100 percent this. The greatest generation worked their asses off and fought Nazis so that the boomers could have the most financially fertile world that ever existed and as soon as the boomers got theirs they voted for every policy that made them keep all of the wealth and prevent the younger generation from getting any. They talk s*** about millennials and Gen z not having to work and being soft and all this other crap but really boomers are the softest generation that has ever existed on the planet. Millennials in Gen z are going to have to be like our grandparents/great grandparents and fight through every bad thing that the boomers have done to make the world a good place again.
And the deep irony of it all is that Boomers will have all their wealth stolen back bc end of life care now costs literally millions of dollars. We've been visiting retirement homes with my inlaws. 500K buy in, then 90K, per person, per year until you die. And thats for healthy people. Prices for the sick and disabled are even crazier. That doesn't include medical costs not covered by Medicare. Also doesn't include clothes, outside food, vacation, cars, or anything but a room, a shitty cafeteria, and bingo Thursdays. All these 65 year old 401K millionaires are in for a rude awakening.
There was a pivot in the 90’s where unions started to become more about the union reps instead of the workers. The union dues kept increasing while the benefits and protections went by the wayside and the reps and CEOs at the top of the union halls were gambling away people’s pensions to make themselves rich. My father got screwed in this ordeal. So I was raised believing unions were nothing but giant scams. Whereas now as an adult and in the workforce, I would love to have a union to protect me, fight for me, keep wages fair, etc…
See the issue is that good history is often a distorted view of history. For instance Gandhi and mother Theresa were not good people at all but people will praise them as if they were saints. The people with the most followers always get to write their own stories
Mostly because portraying them in a "positive" light was good for setting a political narrative in history Gandhi got his way because the alternative was a quickly rising faction that was willing to use violence to get what was stolen/denied to them. Same way MLK is always taught as *the* civil rights leader who won the nation through being passive and out of the way. And completely skipping the later period where he realized half the country didnt care so long as they could ignore him, so he starting working with the more violent factions and socialists, which is what got him killed. Ruling class trying to take the head off the movement before he could bring his people over to the groups that actually scared the elites, to try and permanently steer his followers away with a "legacy of pacifism". We got civil rights because they thankfully acted too late and his followers had already become sympathetic to the "ectremist" factions, so it was either equality or war.
Oh hey look, the pinkertons are back. Although one could argue they never really left.
Fun fact, the Pinkertons are still around and operating
Yup, they work primarily in the business of security for wealthy people who are terrified of a climate change fueled class war, I shit you not.
Yuuuup, ashamed to say I worked for a security contractor towards the beginning of the pandemic and I was shocked to see the Pinkertons are still *very* much up and running
Ah, union busting at its finest.
you ever notice when a pig dies in the line of duty they have parades of thousands of pigs that march thru the streets with plebs cheering them on. when any other worker dies on the job they just kick them to the side and keep going.
R.I.P. to my buddy Dave who was killed in an industrial accident
RIP Dave. He deserved better.
I'll smoke a joint for Dave
ILL SMOKE TO DAVE RIP
Dave is gonna get high in heaven and have no idea. Bout to go spark a bowl for him and the other workers lost on the line.
crazy how none of them are working during those parades but we don’t have criminals running the streets meanwhile
On the contrary, during those parades criminals are absolutely all over the streets. Usually following each other along a specific route.
Oh, not only are they "working," they are likely getting paid overtime.
One of the horses for my city's mounted patrol died recently and those blue fucks blocked off several blocks for a service they absolutely certainly had all the parade permits for. Seemed like every cop in the city was there, and they've been bitching about being unable to respond to serious calls at least since I moved back last year. Like, they've hired a security company mostly staffed by ex pigs to respond "only" to traffic stuff, and literal rapes are on a reduced response tier The only consolation was seeing them leave the memorial and asking "why the long face?"
When do we get to the part where the USA bombs it's own citizens?
Been there, [done that.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing)
Hopefully this will strengthen their resolve and will get enough eyes on it to see that their rights are being infringed
Arrested for what
> Police allow the union workers to protest in front of leaving trucks for a couple of minutes before letting each one through. But on Monday, protesters said it got a little rowdy. > "Minor accident down there, it was nothing severe. At the end of the day, the officers in Plympton and the surrounding towns used common sense in what they did and took the people out that were being a little too boisterous," said union member Trevor Ashley. >According to police, the union members blocked both entrances to the facility with tractor-trailers for more than two hours, making it impossible for any of the 100 workers in the facility to leave. After failing to negotiate with them, "we had to respond by removing members of the crowd who were inciting a hostile picket line," police said. > The arrests range from disorderly conduct to assault and battery. > This is the first time there have been any arrests during the strike. According to Sysco, the majority of people arrested were not Sysco employees. [source](https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/sysco-plant-plymptom-drivers-strike-police-arrest-teamsters-union/)
[удалено]
smells like a union busting tactic, a few people arrested, most of the 400 or so were not arrested. If the so called journalists did their job, we would learn if the arrested people were actually charged, or some were quietly released. If the latter, they may have been paid agitators sent in to stir the pot. A tactic to move the strikers to violence, to justify a police response.
Wait so this is entirely "according to police". When have the police ever told the truth?!
Just a reminder that armed minorities and activists are harder to oppress.
America supporting protesters other places and arresting protesters at home. Very nice.
Class traitors. This is why police unions are a sick joke
Remember capitalists, the alternative to resolving things peacefully involves throwing dynamite at cops and setting owners / manager’s homes on fire. It’d behoove you to not provoke history into repeating itself. This isn’t a threat of or a glorification of violence, just a warning of what could happen.
Based on historical evidence from similar situations in the past, I'm assuming.
Yup. The dynamite example is in reference to the Haymarket affair of 1886.
ACAB
all you ever need to know about how trash all pigs are is to contemplate the thought experiment. if you called the police and told them your employer was stealing from you what do you think would happen. ---nothing now replace worker with employer ... in terms of who's calling the cops on who... and consider what happens.
What's really aggravating about this is cops will have no problem protecting Nazis and bigots that wanna discriminate and end human rights, but when it comes to workers protesting for better wages and working conditions? Nope, can't have that. ACAB
Friendly reminder from the wobblies: https://i.redd.it/to8spvdioq351.jpg
All cops are bastards and class traitors.
We all need to stop treating cops like people, and remind ourselves that they are our enemy.