alanjjohnstone
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ALB, i think you answered your own question elsewhere.
Quote:I think you've misunderstood the reason for continuing to argue with critics like Pig. It's not to convince them (some of them are pretty pig-headed) but to deal with the arguments and prejudices they put forward as these are held by others who might be more amenable, as well of course to inform ourselves and hone our arguments.Gnome, i understand the frustration, especially after the time i spent sincerely addressing CP's position. Now i will merely fact-check him and perhaps use some of his statements to post some historical details. We no longer require to engage in direct conversation but simply use as a spring-board for other ideas and our own interpretations.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/20/china-100-cities-populations-bigger-liverpool One reason is that the government is actively encouraging rural residents to urbanise. China aims to have 60% of its people living in cities by 2020, up from 56.1% currently, and the World Bank estimates a billion people – or 70% of the country’s population – will be living in cities by 2030.Thousands of government officials have campaigned across the country to convince farmers to move to newly built urban districts, turning centuries-old villages into ghost towns.Another factor? China’s centre is moving west. Guiyang, for example, topped a few lists of the best-performing Chinese city last year, as the once-sleepy capital of the country’s poorest province saw a boom in cloud computer servers and telecommunications, with e-commerce giant Alibaba a major investor.Factories are moving inland from the coastal regions in droves. Xiangyang and Hengyang, both now home to more than 1 million people, are swelling as low-end manufacturing moves to cities with cheaper labour.
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-attended-new-york-military-academy-2016-12For non-American readers in the USA, a military academy is a sort of special school, very alike to our public schools where our own military elite begin their training in the schools' cadet forces.Trump's cost of tuition was $41,210 a year at the school, which ranks No. 128 on a list of the best boarding schools in the US. Bush the draft dodger, joined the Air National Guard to avoid being sent to Vietnam.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_military_service_controversyBill Clinton was in the ROTC and submitted his name to the draft but did not get selectedObama, nor Hillary Clinton served in the military but famously Hilarity once claimed fictiously that she arrived in Bosnia under sniper fire and when challenged said it was the threat of sniper fire and had to rush from plane to car for safety. Newsreels show her being received by a delegation od school girls and being presented by a posy of flowers..there was never ever any urgency to get out the field of potential fire. But i have no wish to discredit anyone, even members of the capitalist class who decline to participate in the slaughter of fellow-workers. After all, the days when the rich and wealthy war-mongers could avoid the military call-up as in the Civil War by paying a less fortunate to do the fighting in their stead has now passed.
I think we make a mistake if we identify all politicians with one another exactly. Obama was not Hilary but closer to her than he is to Trump.As always politicians represent sections of the capitalist class. When a SPGB speaker was asked what part of the capitalist class did the Communist Party represent, our wit quickly answered, the undertakers. There has always been a division between the protectionist and the free trader, the isolationist and the interventionist, the liberal an the conservative, the statist and the laissez faire and in the specific US circumstances , the Federalist and the antebellum tentherist. The lines, of course, become blurred and overlap and require constant adjusting. The people are always betrayed and disappointed. Consider the post-American Revolution.Whisky Rebellion."Small farmers also protested that Hamilton's excise effectively gave unfair tax breaks to large distillers…Small distillers believed Hamilton deliberately designed the tax to ruin them and promote big business" – Sound familiar?16,000 armed militiamen that crushed the rebels were led in person by two principal Founding Fathers, President George Washington and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, the author of both the central bank and the whiskey tax legislation.(After the tax drove small producers out of competition, Washington went into the whiskey-distilling business, becoming by the time of his death the largest whiskey-entrepreneur in Virginia, if not the nation.)Shays Rebellion"Daniel Shays was a poor farmhand from Massachusetts when the Revolution broke out joined the Continental Army … In 1780, he resigned from the army unpaid and went home to find himself in court for the nonpayment of debts. He soon found that he was not alone in being unable to pay his debts, and began organizing for debt relief…Other Central Massachusetts towns also played prominent roles in the rebellion including Shrewsbury, which supported a staging area for a large march of 400 individuals on the Worcester courthouse in 1786 in an attempt to block the foreclosure of mortgages" Sound familiar?Shays’ Rebellion was put down by a smaller mercenary army, paid for by well-to-do citizens who feared a wholesale attack on property rights."… the uprising was the climax of a series of events of the 1780s that convinced a powerful group of Americans that the national government needed to be stronger so that it could create uniform economic policies and protect property owners from infringements on their rights by local majorities…These ideas stemmed from the fear that a private liberty, such as the secure enjoyment of property rights, could be threatened by public liberty – unrestrained power in the hands of the people. James Madison addressed this concept by stating that "Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power."By 1700, three-fourths of the acreage in New York belonged to fewer than a dozen persons. In the interior of Virginia, seven individuals owned over 1.7 million acres. By 1760, fewer than five hundred men in five colonial cities controlled most of the commerce, shipping, banking, mining, and manufacturing on the eastern seaboard. In Colonial America, the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting much poorer. In those same years, the poor–those who owned no property–represented 14% in 1687 and 29% in 1770. In 1687 in Boston, the top 1% owned about 25% of the wealth. By 1770, the top 1% owned 44%. The Founding Fathers were the 1% and the constitution was to protect their self-interest and to stop the 99% gaining any benefit from the American revolution. George Washington was worth more than half a billion in today's dollars.Little has really changed fundamentally. As i said elsewhere, i wish ordinary Americans appreciated their own history more. To talk of elitist power today as something new is to forget its roots and to actually praise the oppressers as spokesmen for liberty and treat their imposed laws under the constitution as admirable achievments is to forget actual real history and fall victim to propaganda and ruling class ideology. Real fake news has beome the the history text-books of America's schools collegesand universities.
A History to be proud of and to be told about Auto-Lite Strike (1934) The city of Toledo was financially devastated by the Great Depression. The Willys-Overland automobile company, the city's largest employer, declared bankruptcy. The city's largest bank collapsed, along with most of the city's banks and savings and loan associations. Unemployment in the city reached 70 percent.The strike against Electric Auto-Lite in Toledo, Ohio, was the first of a three strikes in 1934 that forged a new American labor left. The strike is notable for a five-day running battle between roughly 6,000 strikers and 1,300 members of the Ohio National Guard. Known as the "Battle of Toledo," the clash left two strikers dead and more than 200 injured. After passage of the National Labor Relations Act, union membership swelled. Still, the American Federation of Labor stuck to craft unionism, the principle that unions should be organized by trade, rather than by industry. This made organizing areas like the auto industry difficult. The AFL authorized “federal labor unions,” temporary, cross-union organizations designed to win limited concessions around specific strikes. It was also a multi-employer union, and its members belonged not only to the Electric Auto-Lite Company but also to the Bingham Stamping and Tool Company and the Logan Gear Company (both subsidiaries of Electric Auto-Lite) as well as the Spicer Manufacturing Company. Because of this diverse membership, workers at one employer could strike and the union would remain financially solvent. Auto-Lite workers, organized around FLU 18384 walked out, demanding recognition of their union and a 10 percent increase in wages. Employers met halfway, giving a 5 percent wage increase and offering negotiations later this year. When a contract failed to materialize, workers walked out. The strike began to collapse until the American Workers Party, led by Dutch A.J. Muste, intervened and organized the unemployed to prevent strikebreaking. It is not clear how the AWP became involved in the Auto-Lite strike. But by the end of April, its leaders (Budenz in particular) were deeply involved in planning strike strategy. The AWP's first step was to ring the Auto-Lite plant with thousands of unemployed workers, effectively sealing off the grounds. An injunction limiting the number of union and LCUL pickets to 25 at each entrance to the two-building plant was defied. The firm hired approximately 1,500 strikebreakers as replacement workers to re-open the plant and start production. The company also hired armed guards to protect the replacement workers, and the Lucas County sheriff's department deputized large numbers of special deputies (paid for by Auto-Lite) to assist the company's private security personnel.Additionally, Auto-Lite purchased $11,000 worth of tear and vomit gas munitions. City and company officials began to worry that the Toledo police, who were disaffected because of wage cuts and layoffs, were beginning to sympathize with the strikers and were no longer reliable. A little over a month into the strike, demonstrations numbered over 10,000. Sheriff’s deputies began making arrests and beat an elderly worker. Open street fighting erupted between police and strikers, leading to workers seizing a fire hose and turning it back on police. When police began using tear and vomit gas, striking workers attacked the Auto-Lite plant with bricks and stones, burned police cars and used the inner tubes as slingshots. 900 (later rising to 1,350) Ohio National Guardsmen, eight rifle companies and three machine-gun companies cleared a path through the picket line, and the sheriff's deputies, private security guards and replacement workers were able to leave the plant.The National Guardsmen charged with bayonets, forcing the crowd back. Again the mob advanced. The soldiers fired into the air with no effect, then fired into the crowd—killing 27-year-old Frank Hubay (shot four times) and 20-year-old Steve Cyigon. Neither was an Auto-Lite worker, but had joined the crowd out of sympathy for the strikers. At least 15 others also received bullet wounds. While Auto-Lite picketers battled police, 51 out of 103 union locals voted in favor of a general strike. A company "union" calling itself the Auto-Lite Council injected itself into the negotiations, demanding that all replacement workers be permitted to keep their jobs. In contrast, the union demanded that all strikebreakers be fired. The Toledo Central Labor Council continued to plan for a general strike. By now, 68 of the 103 unions had voted to support a general strike until 85 of the CLC's member unions had pledged to support the general strike By the end of the week, violence and street battles died down. While the strike ultimately secured relatively modest reforms — recognition, an additional 5 percent wage increase and a minimum wage of 35 cents per hour — it led to intense unionization in the city. Toledo, Ohio remains one of the most unionized cities in America today. Instead of a general strike the Toledo CLC held a victory rally at which 20,000 people paradedWest Coast Waterfront Strike (1934)The Industrial Workers of the World first began organizing longshoremen under the auspices of the Maritime Workers Union. Most longshoremen, however, belonged to a company union, which handled all hiring. The Communist Party attempted to organize maritime workers under the Maritime Workers Industrial Union, part of its push for red unions during their abortive “third period.” The MWIU never gained mass acceptance, but it did provide a home for aging IWW militants like Harry Bridges. Soon the National Industrial Recovery Act led to a spike in union membership. On the docks, this meant growth in International Longshoreman’s Association numbers. After union leadership accepted an agreement brokered by the Roosevelt Administration and company leaders, the west coast ports exploded. On May 9, 1934 every West Coast port shut down as every longshoreman walked out. Beginning in San Pedro, the strike quickly spread to Oakland, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. In San Francisco, the longshore strike coincided with a four-day general strike. The employers recruited strikebreakers, housing them on moored ships or in walled compounds and bringing them to and from work under police protection. Strikers attacked the stockade housing strikebreakers in San Pedro on May 15; two strikers were shot and killed by the employers' private guards. Similar battles broke out in all the other ports. Strikers also succeeded in slowing down or stopping the movement of goods by rail out of the ports. Some Teamsters supported the strikers by refusing to handle "hot cargo" – goods which had been unloaded by strikebreakers, although the Teamsters' leadership was not as supportive. By the end of May Dave Beck, president of the Seattle Teamsters, and Mike Casey, president of those in San Francisco, thought the maritime strike had lasted too long. They encouraged the strikers to take what they could get from the employers and threatened to use Teamsters as strikebreakers if the ILA didn't return to work.The more conservative leadership of the general strike assumed command over the entire west coast port strike, dismantling into its constituent parts. Strikes, albeit localized and cut off from one another, continued as longshoremen and seamen returned to work. Employers on the ports conceded to many smaller demands, further emboldening the workers. ILWU stops work every July 5 to commemorate “Bloody Thursday,” the day of pitched battles between labor and capital. Police fired tear gas canisters into the crowd, then followed with a charge by mounted police. A group of strikers surrounded a police car and attempted to tip it over, prompting the police to fire shotguns in the air, and then revolvers at the crowd. One of the policemen then fired a shotgun into the crowd, striking three men in intersection of Steuart and Mission streets. One of the men, Howard Sperry, a striking longshoreman, later died of his wounds. Another man Nick Bordoise–an out of work cook who had been volunteering at the ILA strike kitchen–was shot and like Sperry, died in hospital from his wounds. As strikers carried wounded picketers into the ILA union hall police fired on the hall and lobbed tear gas canisters at nearby hotels. At this point someone reportedly called the union hall to ask "Are you willing to arbitrate now?" The National Guard moved in that evening to patrol the waterfront. Similarly, federal soldiers of the United States Army stationed at the Presidio were placed on alert. The picketers pulled back, unwilling to take on armed soldiers in an uneven fight. Thousands of strikers, families and sympathizers took part in a funeral procession, stretching more than a mile and a half, for Nicholas Bordois and Howard Sperry. The march made an enormous impact on San Franciscans, making a general strike, which had formerly been "the visionary dream of a small group of the most radical workers . . . a practical and realizable objective." After dozens of Bay Area unions voted for a general strike over the next few days, the San Francisco Labor Council voted to call a general strike. The strike lasted four days. Non-union truck drivers joined the first day; the movie theaters and night clubs closed down. While food deliveries continued with the permission of the strike committee, many small businesses closed, posting signs in support of the strikers. Reports that unions in Portland and Seattle would also begin general strikes could potentially spread. An agreement to independent arbitration ended the strike but not the suppression. The National Guard and other authorities collaborated on vigilante raids on union and Leftist offices. The West Coast Waterfront Strike led to a rebirth of union militancy. Initially considered a defeat and a victory for the employers by some many longshoremen and seamen did not. Spontaneous strikes over grievances and workplace conditions broke out as strikers returned to their jobs, with longshoremen and teamsters supporting their demands and employers conceded many of these battles, giving workers even more confidence. The union soon exploited the "quickie strike" tactic to extract many concessions from employers. Even though an arbitrator held that the 1935 Agreement prohibited sympathy strikes, the union's members nonetheless refused to cross other unions' picket lines. Longshoremen also refused to handle "hot cargo" destined for non-union warehouses that the union was attempting to organize. The ILWU has frequently stopped work for political protests against, among other things, Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, fascist intervention in Spain's civil war, South Africa's system of apartheid and the Iraq War.Minneapolis Teamster Strike (1934)The Minneapolis General Strike of 1934 grew out of a strike by Teamsters against most of the trucking companies operating in Minneapolis, a major distribution center for the Upper Midwest. While the Auto-Lite Strike played a crucial role in growing the Workers’ Party while, the Minneapolis Teamster Strike is closely tied to the history of the American Trotskyist movement.Prior to the strike, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters brought new meaning to the term “conservative union.” The IBT opposed strikes in almost any form. Its rules required a two thirds vote of the membership to authorize any strike action and that gave the International President the power to withhold strike benefits if he believed that a local union had struck prematurely and it also divided its members into separate unions along craft or industry lines: ice wagon drivers in one local, produce drivers in another, milk drivers in a third, and so forth.Unfortunately, for bosses and conservative union bureaucrats alike, the three Dunne brothers and Carl Skoglund, members of the Communist League of America (Opposition), a group sympathetic to Trotsky, were working in Minneapolis at the time of the strike. They quickly recruited erstwhile Republican truck driver Farrell Dobbs who became a Trotskyist simply because he thought they were the most militant opponents of the trucking bosses. They began by organizing coal drivers through a strike in the coldest part of 1933 that ignored both the Teamsters cumbersome approval procedures and the ineffective mediation procedures offered under the National Industrial Recovery Act. The union had prepared for the strike in a number of ways. It rented a large hall that could be used as a strike headquarters, kitchen and infirmary. It organized a women's auxiliary to staff the headquarters. Finally, it entered into discussions with the sympathetic leaders of organizations of farmers and the unemployed to obtain their support for the upcoming strike.On May 16, 1934 commercial transport in Minneapolis ground to a halt. The striking teamsters allowed farmers to bring their goods directly to grocers, but otherwise the city was effectively shut down. Employers formed a goon-squad called the Citizen’s Alliance to physically attack striking truckers, hoping to force them back to work. After a brief settlement, the truckers went back on strike, leading to a quasi-general strike — union sympathy boycotts of “hot goods” would have shut down the entire city had truck drivers not taken turns delivering essential goods. Minneapolis Police and private guards beat a number of strikers trying to prevent strikebreakers from unloading a truck in that area and waylaid several strikers who had responded to a report that scab drivers were unloading newsprint at the two major dailies'. Fighting intensified when the police, augmented by several hundred newly deputized members of the Citizens Alliance attempted to open up the market for trucking. The fighting resumed on Tuesday, May 22. The picketers took the offensive and succeeded in driving both police and deputies from the market and the area around the union's headquarters. Two deputies, one a member of the board of directors of the Citizens Alliance, were killed in the fighting.Other unions, particularly in the building trades, began to strike in sympathy with the Teamsters. The American Federation of Labor Central Labor Council in Minneapolis offered financial and moral support for the strike, allowing the union to coordinate some of its picketing activities from its headquarters. The employers and the union reached an agreement on a contract that provided union recognition, reinstatement for all strikers, seniority and a no-discrimination clause. The membership approved it overwhelmingly. The union thought that it had the employers' agreement to include the "inside workers", the warehouse employees as well as the drivers and loaders. When the employers reneged on that agreement the strike re-commenced. The union's leadership ordered its members to picket without carrying any clubs or weapons of any sort. The police, on the other hand, armed themselves with riot guns. The police opened fire on the strikers. Two strikers were dead and sixty-seven wounded. Governor Olson declared martial law and mobilized four thousand National Guardsmen, who began issuing operating permits to truck drivers. National Guard troops seized strike headquarters and placed arrested union leaders in a stockade at the state fairgrounds. Although the strike was gravely weakened by martial law and economic pressure, union leaders made it clear that it would continue. A federal mediator got acceptance of a settlement proposal, incorporating the union’s major demands. The settlement was ratified and the back of employer resistance to unionization in Minneapolis was broken and led to the inclusion of “inside” workers. In the aftermath of this strike thousands of other workers in other industries organized with the assistance of Local 574. Another more lasting effects Farrell Dobbs organized truckers throughout the entire Midwest whose efforts led in turn to the transformation of the Teamsters from a craft union, made up of locals with a parochial focus on their own craft and locality, into a truly national union.The Akron Rubber Strike (1936)One big strike was staged in 1913 by the Industrial Workers of the World and led by Bill Haywood. The rubber companies broke that strike through the tactics of organizing a Citizens' Police Association, comprising 1,000 vigilantes, and the establishment of martial law. Other unionization efforts were thwarted, through the use of spies, widespread firing of men for union activities, and other forms of intimidation, and by factional warfare within labor's own ranks. The AFLinstead of keeping these industrial workers together in one big union, distributed them among 13 separate ones. Under the cumbersome system of craft organization workers couldn't make headway. The Akron work-force pressed for an international of their own, and in 1935 William Green received a charter. The delegates insisted on electing their own officers.Factory workers including those who worked for all three major rubber makers in Akron, Ohio faced poor working conditions, low wages, and benefits close none. In 1929 the average pay of rubber workers was $1,377; in 1933 had been cut to $932. Thousands became jobless. Those who remained in the factories were driven mercilessly under the conveyor-belt system of production. These conditions resulted in workers establishing the United Rubber Workers in 1935, who organized the fist major strike in the Akron Rubber Industry. The United Rubber Workers belonged to a larger organization, the newly founded Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The CIO consisted of an umbrella organization for multiple unions. These unions worked together by providing both moral and material support to CIO-member unions, especially when these member unions went on strike. The strike began as a protest against a plan created by Goodyear to reduce wages and increase the pace of production. The workers utilized the concept of the "sit-down" strike. In the past, when workers went on strike they would leave the factory to join picket lines. Company owners often hired "scab" laborers to cross the picket lines and continue production. The practice of using scab labor made it difficult for striking workers to obtain their demands. In contrast, in a sit-down strike, workers quit working but still occupied their places within the factory. This process meant that the factory owners could not send in additional workers to continue the job. In addition, factory management was more reluctant to use private security forces or other strikebreakers to intimidate the striking workers, as that approach threatened destruction to plant property. Akron's mayor attempted use police force to put and end to the strike, but officers refused to do so when they confronted the thousands of organized workers. By conservative estimates, 10,000 pickets had gathered. Practically every one was armed with a baseball bat or stick.The strike was successful in getting Goodyear to negotiate better contracts for the worker with the United Rubber Workers. Flint Sit-Down Strike (1936) The Flint Sit-Down Strike set new benchmarks for labor militancy in the United States. It changed the United Automobile Workers (UAW) from a collection of isolated locals on the fringes of the industry into a major labor union and led to the unionization of the domestic United States automobile industry. Before the Depression there were 470,000 auto workers. The number fell by half, as did the wages, which had been reduced from $40 per week to about $20. Because these harsh times still haunted the workers, job security was an important issue. The workers could be fired by any foreman anytime. When the UAW picked a fight with General Motors in Flint, it had its work cut out for them. Flint was a company town and GM kept spies in the plants to prevent unionization. Wyndham Mortimer, the UAW official put in charge of the organizing campaign in Flint, recalled the only safe way to organize was to bypass the existing locals and meet with Flint autoworkers in their homes, keeping the names of new members a closely guarded secret. The victory of the Akron rubber workers revealed the full power of the sit-down strike for the first time. The tactic of seizing possession of, and holding, great plants was not entirely unknown to the workers of the United States, but nothing like its mushrooming during the struggles of the mid-thirties had ever been seen before. In the sit-down strike the workers found a weapon Also taking inspiration from the French workers’ movement, American workers no longer felt content with pickets. Instead, they occupied the factories, thwarting the usual lock-out and hire strike-breakers response of employers. In a conventional strike the union takes its members outside the plant and attempts to prevent the employer from operating by discouraging other employees from entering. In a sit-down strike, the workers physically occupy the plant, keeping management and others out. The Flint sit-down strikers did just that. Faced with a tough fight in Flint, UAW workers occupied the factory, electing their own officials and organising food deliveries. The union called for supporters to gather at Cadillac Square in Detroit as a show of strength. The overflowing crowd of 150,000 supporters surprised even the union sympathizers and gave the union the self-confidence they needed to show its power and solidarity. The police attempted to enter the plant the strikers inside the plant turned the fire hoses on the police. When cops attempted to retake the factory with tear gas, the strikers’ wives threw rocks through the windows, keeping the tear gas from collecting in the building. The strikers dubbed this "The Battle of Bulls Run," a mocking reference to the police ("bulls").The strike finally succeeded in 1937, giving the UAW a massive boost in legitimacy. Over 100,000 GM workers joined the UAW on the heels of the strike, with the UAW’s ranks increasing from 30,000 to 500,000 in the course of a year. Future UAW president Walter Reuther made his reputation in the Flint Sit-Down Strike, known as “the strike heard ‘round the world.” The pension and wages won by the workers raised the standard of living for the whole country.
Marcos, i always find it a pity that Americans never wish to learn about their own history and prefer romatic myths to reality. Imagine if Hollywood gave as much time and effort to the labor union wars than it does to the "wild west". Another thread mentions a movie being made about Eugene Debs, but why hasn't there been more on the Wobblies or the 30s factory sit-ins. All had the drama and heroism that ordinary American could associate with. The best they could offer is the Molly Maguires and later Robert Redford's Matewanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountainhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Labor_WarsDecember 4, 1874 Mine operators in Pennsylvania reduce wages, and 10,000 miners go out on strike. The Molly Maguires, a group of mostly Irish miners, plan attacks and use violence against the operators and foremen. Twenty of the Molly Maguires will be sentenced to death by hanging. July 14, 1877The Great Railroad Strike begins in Martinsburg, West Virginia when the Baltimore & Ohio railroad company reduces wages for the second time that year. The strike spreads to other states, and state militias are mobilized, resulting in several bloody clashes. At least 10 workers die in Cumberland, Maryland.May 4, 1886A day after a union action in support of the eight-hour workday results in several casualties, labor leaders and strikers gather in Chicago, Illinois to protest police brutality. A bomb is thrown at policemen trying to break up the rally in Haymarket Square, creating chaos that results in the deaths of seven policemen and four workers. The clash is known as the Haymarket Affair. July 6, 1892Steelworkers on strike at the Homestead Steel Works in Homestead, Pennsylvania fire on Pinkerton guards hired to keep order by general manager Henry Clay Frick. A Pinkerton Guard named John W. Holway later recalls, "…there were cracks of rifles, and our men replied with a regular fusillade. It kept up for ten minutes, bullets flying around as thick as hail, and men coming in shot and covered with blood." The governor of Pennsylvania orders that state militia intervene and 8,500 National Guard arrive. Known as the Homestead Strike, the action ends four months later. July 4, 1894U.S. Army soldiers intervene in the Pullman Strike. Two months earlier, factory workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company owned by George Pullman walked out in protest of a wage cut, and their strike disrupts the nation’s railway system and mail delivery. After President Grover Cleveland orders federal troops to Chicago, Illinois, the strike ends, and the trains start moving again. September 10, 1897 In Lattimer, Pennsylvania, 300 to 400 striking coal miners march to demonstrate support of the UMWA. Police under the direction of Luzerne County Sheriff James F. Martin order demonstrators to disperse. The march continues, and the police open fire, killing 19 miners. It is known as the Lattimer Massacre.May 9, 1900More than 3,000 Saint Louis Transit Company workers go on strike in St. Louis, Missouri in an attempt to receive recognition for the Amalgamated Street Railway Employees of America. On June 10, 1900, three transit workers are killed when a group of wealthy citizens fire upon them. The strike lasts until September, after the deaths of 14 people.May 12, 1902Miners in eastern Pennsylvania strike for shorter workdays, higher wages, and recognition of the UMWA. President Theodore Roosevelt threatens to take over the mines with militia, forcing the unwilling operators to negotiate. The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 ends with a 10% increase in pay for most miners. June 1902West Virginia coal miners strike, both in sympathy for the miners in Pennsylvania and with the stated goal of achieving union recognition in West Virginia.January 1, 1912A government-mandated reduction of the workweek goes into effect in Lawrence, Massachusetts, resulting in pay cuts at textile mills. In response to the decrease in wages, textile workers go out on strike. Soon after, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) arrives to organize and lead the strike, and the mayor orders that a local militia patrol the streets. Local officers turn fire hoses on the workers. After two months, mill owners settle the strike, granting substantial pay increases.April 18, 1912In southern West Virginia, the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike begins in Kanawha County, just 30 miles from the state capital of Charleston. Miners demand that their wages match those earned by unionized miners nationally. Mine owners hire the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to break the strike. Violence erupts, and by September, Governor William Glasscock declares martial law. It is not until July 1913, after the violent deaths of more than 50 people, that the last miners will lay down their arms.April 20, 1914The Colorado National Guard and guards from the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company attack a tent colony in Ludlow, Colorado housing 1,200 coal miners striking for union recognition. More than 20 people, including two women and 11 children, are killed in what would come to be known as "The Ludlow Massacre."January 1, 1917Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney assume official duties as executive officers of UMWA District 17 in Charleston, West Virginia. Keeney began working in the mines as a child but was inspired by Mother Jones to educate himself and become a labor leader. He becomes one of the key leaders of the miners throughout the Mine WarsFebruary 1919A "general strike" is called in Seattle, Washington to advocate for the role of organized labor. Catalyzed by wage grievances of shipyard workers in the city's prominent port, 65,000 workers walk out for five days. The strike is nonviolent, but plays into the Red Scare of the time.September 9, 1919Police officers in Boston, Massachusetts strike for better working conditions, higher wages, and recognition of their union, and around three quarters of the police department fails to report for work. The police department fires the strikers and recruits a new force.October 6, 1919The U.S. Army takes control of Gary, Indiana, and martial law is declared after steelworkers clash with police. The steelworkers are on strike to secure the right to hold union meetings. Although 365,000 steelworkers participate nationwide, the Great Steel Strike of 1919 is defeated.May 19, 1920A contingent of detectives from the Baldwin-Felts agency arrive in Matewan, West Virginia to evict striking coal miners. After several evictions, Mayor Cabell Testerman and Chief of Police Sid Hatfield confront the detectives and attempt to arrest them. A shootout erupts, leaving the mayor, two miners, and seven Baldwin-Felts agents dead. The shootout is known as the Battle of Matewan or alternately, the Matewan Massacre. Sid Hatfield is later tried and acquitted for murder, causing celebration among miners who see Hatfield as their champion.July 4, 1920Four men are shot in a battle between union miners and sheriffs in McDowell County, West Virginia. The violence is part of an ongoing struggle for recognition of the UMWA in Southern West Virginia.May 19, 1921Following the "Three Days Battle," during which hundreds of coal miners attack coal mines along the Tug River in Mingo County, West Virginia, Governor Ephraim Morgan declares martial law. He places Thomas Davis, a veteran of the Spanish American War and WWI, in charge of the state police, a battalion of 800 "special police," and a 250-man "vigilance committee." Davis and his men imprison several miners without charges.August 26, 1921 West Virginia miners prepare to march toward Mingo County to assist men imprisoned under martial law there. U.S. General Harry Bandholtz meets with local UMWA leaders Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney, warning them that they will be held personally responsible for unlawful actions UMWA members, and if the miners do not stop their march they will be "snuffed out." Frank Keeney gives a speech to a crowd of armed miners gathered in Madison, West Virginia and the miners agree to disband, but rumors of atrocities committed by a county sheriff named Don Chafin soon reignite the conflict and send the miners marching toward Mingo County again. To reach Mingo County, they will attempt to pass through Logan County where Don Chafin, his men, and the West Virginia State Police oppose the marching miners.August 30, 1921President Warren Harding issues a proclamation ordering the marching miners and Logan County defenders to disperse by noon on September 1. Leaflets issuing the proclamation are dropped on both sides by airplanes. Neither side complies. Fighting between armed miners and the Logan County deputies and defenders ensues.September 2, 1921U.S. Army troops, requested by General Bandholtz, arrive in West Virginia and are deployed the following day. With both sides anticipating the arrival of the troops, hostilities cease and the battle is over. The number of lives lost is unknown, but is estimated to be at least 16.April 25, 1922Bill Blizzard, the de facto leader of the miners at Blair Mountain, goes on trial for treason against West Virginia in the same courthouse in Charles Town, West Virginia where John Brown had been sentenced to death in 1859. He is acquitted on May 27, 1922.January 31, 1936A series of sit-down strikes begins at a Goodyear Tire plant in Akron, Ohio when workers sit down at their usual workstations. Management is reluctant to attack the workers for fear of damaging company property.May 30, 1937Workers at the Republic Steel Plant in Chicago, Illinois protest the company officials’ refusal to sign a union contract. When the picketers refuse to disperse, members of the Chicago Police Department deploy tear gas and shoot and kill 10 demonstrators on the picket line. The event is coined the Memorial Day Massacre.October 16, 1953A strike spreads in the sugar cane fields of Reserve, Louisiana when sugar companies refuse to recognize the National Agricultural Workers' Union as a bargaining agent. State troopers patrol the roads to "head off violence." The local paper reports that "union members refusing to work will be evicted from their company-owned homes." The strike is called off in November with no gains for the workers.November 4, 1970A bomb explodes at the United Farm Workers (UFW) union office in Hollister, California during the largest strike of farmworkers in U.S. history. It is rumored to come from a rival union, competing to represent the farmworkers.August 24, 1974A mine supervisor at Duke Power Company shoots and kills a striking miner during a clash following UMWA efforts to recruit miners at Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky. Duke Power Company refuses to negotiate with union miners, and they hire prisoners on work release to guard the mines.
Trump was never a war hero, having been a draft-dodger during the Vietnam War but he may well share the belligerent racism of slave-owner and slave-trader Jackson.He made his money from property speculating, buying and selling land which had been reserved by treaty for the Cherokee and ChickasawInvasion of Spanish FloridaWars against the native AmericansRecognised the illegal state of TexasBut most shamefully the ethnic cleansing of the "civilised tribes", Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole nations.I'm sure there will be an attempt to say Trump and Jackson share a desire to drain the swamp of political patronage but the end of Jackson's career was the economic crisis of 1837 when many of his ill-advised policies came home to roost.But certainly they may well be akin "Jackson is the slave of the majority: he yields to its wishes, its propensities, and its demands–say, rather, anticipates and forestalls them. Jackson stoops to gain the favor of the majority; but when he feels that his popularity is secure, he overthrows all obstacles in the pursuit of the objects which the community approves or of those which it does not regard with jealousy. Supported by a power that his predecessors never had, he tramples on his personal enemies, whenever they cross his path, with a facility without example; he takes upon himself the responsibility of measures that no one before him would have ventured to attempt. He even treats the national representatives with a disdain approaching to insult" – http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch18.htm
I think it was ALB who drew my attention to the old Cold War and this new Cold War in that it exposes the myth that there was some sort of deep-rooted ideological differences between the USA and the Soviet Union, in the pastIn fact, what's happening now reveals that the rivalry has always been about conflicting geo-political strategies which can go back as far as Tsarist Russia V. The West, nothing very much to do with economic theories.Just as religion provided a convenient cloak to disguise motives, the US and USSR, played out their Free Enterprise V. State Communism to minimise all the similarities.
The thing i find with politics is the lack of history. Everything is thought of as novel when a different label or cover is put on it…such as "fake news", for instance. Obviously, history doesn't repeat itself exactly but i think Marx was on to something when he suggested history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.Theodore Roosevelt was the outsider politician who became president = TrumpHenry Wallace was the "radical" who failed to become president = SandersI think other folk can contribute their own examples
I always cite this when discussing the Russian Revolution"Diseased and infected at infancy"
Quote:"DURING the whole period I was active in the Trotskyist movement, I accepted the view that the revolution of October 1917 was a great leap forward on the road to socialism, and that the regime it established was a healthy workers’ state until it started degenerating from 1923-24 onwards with the ascendancy of Stalinism and the defeat of the Trotskyist opposition. Since then a closer examination of the actual history of the revolution has led me to question this view. As early as the summer of 1918, the Bolsheviks had lost the support of large sections of the working class and of the peasantry, and were ruling dictatorially……The disillusion of the workers was expressed in a declaration by the striking workers at the Sormovo factory in June 1918: "The Soviet regime, having been established in our name, has become completely alien to us. It promised to bring the workers socialism, but has brought them empty factories and destitution." A workers’ protest movement, the Extraordinary Assemblies of Factory and Plant Representatives, was formed in March 1918 with a membership of several hundred thousand at the height of its influence in June.The response of the Bolsheviks was to nationalise the factories, replace workers’ control by one-man management, and dissolve the oppositional Soviets. By the summer of 1918 with the departure of the Left SRs from the government and the suppression of their uprising, and the Red Terror unleashed by the Cheka, the Bolshevik one-party dictatorship was in place. Any popular control from below of the Soviets or the government had disappeared.In addition, there is ample evidence that the hard core of devoted self-sacrificing Bolshevik party cadres were already being swamped by careerists and corrupt elements in the party and Soviet institutions. In September 1919, a report landed on Lenin’s desk showing that the Smolny was full of corruption.In the light of these facts, one can no longer uphold the Trotskyist thesis that from 1917 to 1923-24 the Soviet Union was a "healthy" workers’ state, and that the degeneration into bureaucratic dictatorship took off only afterwards……All one can say is that the "workers’ state" that was born in October 1917 was premature and infected from infancy. Unfortunately, as it degenerated, it infected the working-class movement internationally, and proved an obstacle on the road to socialism.My old comrade, the late Alex Acheson, who joined the movement in the 1930s and remained a committed Trotskyist till his death last year, once said to me: "It might have been better if the October Revolution had never occurred." What factors or actions by the participants might have resulted in the non-occurrence of October and a different outcome? Assuming that nothing is inevitable until it has happened, and that "men make their own history", there are three possibilities.Firstly, that Lenin’s April Theses that set the Bolshevik party on the road to the October insurrection had been rejected by the party. Let us recall that up till Lenin’s arrival in Petrograd, the Bolshevik leadership was pursuing a policy of critical support for the Provisional government. They felt this was consistent with the view that since the Russian bourgeoisie was incapable of bringing about a bourgeois revolution, this task would have to be carried out by the proletariat supported by the peasantry, but that the revolution could not go immediately beyond the stage of establishing a bourgeois republic. In February, the Petrograd proletariat had carried out this "bourgeois revolution" with the support of the peasant soldiers. Now that the bourgeois republic was in place, the next stage was not the immediate struggle for working-class power, but a relatively prolonged period of bourgeois democracy. Lenin now abandoned this view which he had himself defended under the slogan of "the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry", and argued for no support for the Provisional Government, and for agitation for power to the Soviets. He swung the Bolshevik party to this policy. But it was not inevitable that he should have done. The Bolshevik party might have continued its policy of critical support for and pressure on the February regime.Secondly, even after his steering the party on its new course, Lenin had to fight again in October to commit the party to insurrection against the opposition of Zinoviev, Kamenev, etc. It is not inconceivable that Zinoviev and Kamenev might have carried the day. Then there would have been no October.Thirdly, even after October there was, as I have pointed out, a very real possibility of a coalition Bolshevik-Menshevik-SR government, based either on the Soviets or a combination of the Constituent Assembly and the Soviets as organs of local power and administration. This possibility foundered against the mutual intransigence of the Bolshevik hardliners on one side and the Menshevik and SR right-wing on the other. But in both camps there were conciliatory wings, the Menshevik Internationalists and some Left SRs and the Bolshevik "moderates" – Kamenev, Rykov, Nogin, etc……..A coalition government of Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and SRs, having a much broader based support than a purely Bolshevik one, would have been able to confront the White Armies more successfully, and thus shortened the Civil War, and reduced the destruction of the economy……..It can also be argued that the attitudes and actions of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, SRs, their leaderships and individuals, were themselves determined by the whole of their past histories and ideological roots, and they could not have acted otherwise than they did. That what happened was inevitable. But this is to look at events from a distance and with the hindsight of 1997. What happened happened. But in 1917-18, these parties, leaderships and individuals did have a choice of actions….Apologies for the full quote. The original website link seems to have disappeared
As most folk know on this list, despite the Party's reservations about Debs, i have a very big place in my heart for him and it is not before time that he was commemorated.
I'm not really qualified to comment on this article but i think it may arouse some interest from others and perhaps LBird might be provoked by it.Mostly it is based on Thomas Kuhn, if the citations is to go by, who i have never read.http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/03/historical-materialism-versus-historical-conceptualism/One thing that i noticed was:
Quote:but revolution, contrary to Marx, can be both corporeal and incorporeal, mental and physical, material and immaterial, meant to establish a new set of governing concepts and ideas over another set, which ultimately organize productive forces and relations of production, both mental and physical, into new social formations and new ways of thinking.I thought that ideas (incorporeal/mental/immaterial) did take on a life of their own and became a material condition. Surely, Marx didn't overlook when religious beliefs which were perhaps based on materialism at first, transcended their origins and became a cause in themselves. I think the article presents Marx as very determinist and perhaps because of the intellectual needs of his time he did over-emphasise the economic and material ( i am sure there is a quote from Engels conceding this)
There was indeed a very great American, mcolome1 – Mark Twain
Quote:Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering aboutQuote:Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood of his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man"- with his mouth.
