MikeDunnAuthor

Working Class Historical Fiction from the not so gilded age. Labor History. Social justice. An injury to one is an injury to all!

https://michaeldunnauthor.com
@michaeldunnauthor.bsky.social
https://www.historiumpress.com/michael-dunn

Pronouns: He/him

#Solidarity #Sabotage #GeneralStrike
#HistoricalFiction #WorkingClass #LaborHistory
#WomensRights #antifascism #AntiImperialism #LGBTQIA+ #EndAbleism #TransRightsAreHumanRights #SelfDetermination #ClimateChange

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nprofile1qqs9hkxch2vjusuw284rvuycu50esf2797738zp3dxu3u9ee9dzatyspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qcf4w28

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npub1t0vd3w5e9epcu502xecf3eglnqj4utaazwyrz6derctnj2696kfqc4ycmr

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Last Notes

2026-04-05 16:17:55 UTC

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2026-03-31 00:32:02 UTC

This is the asshole you want for POTUS?
He totally supports US wars, incl against Iran. And now he's saying he supports mandatory military service.
https://nypost.com/2026/03/26/us-news/gavin-newsom-floats-idea-of-mandatory-national-service/

2026-03-29 14:52:30 UTC

Today in Labor History March 29, 1935: French illegalist anarchist Clément Duval died. He was a major influence on other illegalist anarchists of the era, including members of the Bonnot Gang. In 1886, Duval robbed the mansion of a Parisian socialite. He was condemned to death, but his sentence was later commuted to hard labor on Devil's Island, French Guiana, setting for the novel Papillon. According to Paul Albert, "The story of Clement Duval was lifted and, shorn of all politics, turned into the bestseller Papillon." In a letter printed in the November 1886 issue of the anarchist paper Le Révolté, Duval famously declared: "Theft is but restitution carried out by an individual to his own benefit, being conscious of another's undue monopolization of collectively produced wealth."
#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #prison #devilsisland #papillon #clementduval #bonnotgang #novel #fiction #books #author #writer @nprofile…wzey
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2026-03-26 14:19:13 UTC

Pretty much what we're seeing right now.
https://kolektiva.social/system/media_attachments/files/116/295/897/873/854/839/original/8258fe310f6e45ac.jpg

2026-03-26 13:50:31 UTC

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2026-03-20 15:38:25 UTC

It's actually 771,480 unhoused people in the U.S., as of 2024 and the 15 million vacant homes is an accurate count as of 2024, as well. That's roughly 10% of the nation's entire housing stock.
And yes, the Pentagon is asking for another $200 billion for its insane war on Iran because, according to Hegseth, “It takes money to kill bad guys.” This, on top of the already record high Pentagon budget of $800 billion, at a time when they are already spending $1 billion/day on the war in Iran, when the U.S. debt is already $39 trillion.
https://endhomelessness.org/state-of-homelessness/
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-vacant-homes-are-there-in-the-us/
https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-us-pentagon-972ec1bd956a2c3633e6ab7fff389791
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2026-03-09 18:34:22 UTC

A recent global survey showed that Gen Z males have more traditional—some might say backward—views on how to treat women than millennials, Gen X, and boomers. Is this what happens when a generation is raised on podcasts?
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a70639512/gen-z-gender-roles-survey/

2026-03-08 17:14:58 UTC

Today in Labor History March 8, 1971: The Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI stole 1,000 documents from the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. They later released the documents to newspapers, revealing the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, which harassed, imprisoned & murdered US political dissidents. According to Noam Chomsky, 40% of the documents were dedicated to political surveillance. James Ellroy wrote about the burglary in his 2009 novel, “Blood’s a Rover.”
#workingclass #LaborHistory #fbi #cointellpro #noamchomsky #jamesellroy #novel #books #writer #author #surveillance #journalism #prison #murder @nprofile…wzey
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2026-02-28 16:26:56 UTC

Yet the poll numbers in support of war are just as bad and Trump did virtually nothing ahead of time to prime the public, like previous regimes have done.
As of January 14, 2026:
70% of U.S. public opposes war with Iran
Only 18% support the war
60% of Republicans weren't sure if they'd support such a war
https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3945
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2026-02-25 15:19:15 UTC

Yes, and we can fund genocide abroad, but we can't provide healthcare domestically.
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2026-02-25 14:43:01 UTC

Today in Labor History February 25, 1908: The Washington Post proposed that all anarchists should be executed (whether or not they had been convicted of any crime). This came two days after anarchist Giuseppe Alia shot a Catholic priest, Father Heinrichs, in Denver.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #massexecution #FreeSpeech #GiuseppeAlia #WaPo #assassination #deathpenalty
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2026-02-22 19:33:30 UTC

300 million workers (1 out of every 4 people) shut down India last week in the largest strike in history.
Virtually completely blacked out by the western media, in corporate solidarity, because this is the future the bosses all fear the most.
The strike was called jointly by labor unions and farmers groups to demand the withdrawal of the four new labor codes and the recently signed trade deals with the US and the EU. Workers and farmers were joined by students, women’s organizations, and other civil society groups who came out in solidarity.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/02/12/300-million-on-the-streets-in-a-historic-national-strike-in-india/
#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #india #students #women #solidarity #classwar
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2026-02-22 18:19:44 UTC

If you work for wages, you're working-class, regardless of your skin color or the color of your collar.
If you work for wages, you have more in common with an immigrant farm worker, a call center worker, a teacher, nurse, dishwasher, or elevator repair person than you'll ever have with Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg.
They spend a sh*tload of money to obscure this simple truth.

2026-02-10 15:18:04 UTC

Sure, the Dems will save us from this hellscape.
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2026-02-05 14:50:27 UTC

Today in Labor History February 5, 1994: A jury convicted Byron De La Beckwork of murdering civil rights leader Medgar Evers, only 31 years after the fact. Edgars fought to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi, end segregation of public facilities, and expand voting rights for African Americans He was the first NAACP field secretary in Mississippi. He was also a decorated US Army veteran who served in World War II.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #medgarevers #civilrights #assassination #racism #mississippi #naacp #segregation #BlackMastadon #blackhistorymonth
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2026-02-05 14:45:15 UTC

Today in Labor History February 5, 1958: The U.S. Air Force lost a Mark 15 thermonuclear bomb in the water near Tybee Island, near Savannah, Georgia. The B-47 bomber was on a simulated combat mission. It collided with an F-86 fighter plane, midair, and jettisoned the bomb in order to make an emergency landing without detonating it. Sources vary on whether it was a “dummy” bomb, or if it had a plutonium core. If it was a “dummy” bomb, it still carried 400 lbs of conventional high explosives, enough to do considerable local damage. However, Assistant Secretary of Defense W.J. Howard, told Congress that the Tybee Island bomb was a "complete weapon, a bomb with a nuclear capsule" and one of two weapons lost that contained a plutonium trigger.
For a truly terrifying history of the history of nuclear weapons systems and accidents involving nuclear weapons in the United States, read Eric Schlosser’s “Command and Control.”
#workingclass #LaborHistory #nuclear #bomb #atomic #hbomb #hydrogenbomb #georgia #books #nonfiction #author #writer @nprofile…wzey
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2026-01-28 20:15:31 UTC

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@nprofile…a2ln I think it's worse than that, particularly with the politicians. They take money from AIPAC which is literally a lobbying arm of the Israeli government, and in exchange they do the bidding of that government, helping to whitewash their crimes and attempt to bamboozle the US public.
They also cynically and stupidly throw anyone under the bus who they think right wingers dislike, in hopes that they'll win their votes and somehow defeat those running to the right of them, while at the same time ignoring and disregarding what their constituents really want and need: climate action, good paying jobs, free Healthcare and college, relief on their taxes, their food and housing bills, drug rehab, housing for the unhoused, etc.

2026-01-28 15:21:49 UTC

So, he stood up to Trump, but he's still an awful piece of shit who should never be president, or even governor.
To those who continue to argue that voting against genocide supporters like Biden and Harris (or refusing to vote at all, since they were all genocide supporters) was the reason why we're now living under fascism, perhaps you ought to look at all the other Dems in Congress paved the way for fascism, who've facilitated it by supporting the continued funding of ICE and vilifying immigrants; who've done nothing but wring their hands about fascism; who've jumped on the bandwagon with Newsom in throwing trans people, people with disabilities, the unhoused, those with mental illness all under the proverbial bus.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-01-18/ty-article/.premium/not-a-big-fan-of-bibi-gavin-newsom-says-no-genocide-in-gaza-but-bashes-israels-conduct/0000019b-d223-d2f8-af9b-f3f3dc180000
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2026-01-28 14:56:46 UTC

Today in Labor History January 28, 1935: Iceland became the first Western country to legalize therapeutic (elective) abortion. The Soviet Union legalized it in 1919. And the Nazis legalized abortion in 1935, but only to get rid of what they considered genetically inferior people. They prohibited women of Protestant German heritage from having abortions.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #reproductiverights #abortion #iceland #soviet #communism #nazis #genocide #eugenics #Choice
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2026-01-28 03:04:31 UTC

The Kneecap movie is good, worth seeing if you haven't Already.

2026-01-26 21:42:40 UTC

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2026-01-24 17:10:04 UTC

Today in Labor History January 24, 1961: A B-52 bomber, carrying three 4-megaton Mark 39 nuclear bombs, broke up in mid-air, dropping its nuclear payload over North Carolina. Five crewmen successfully bailed out of the aircraft and landed safely. Another ejected, but did not survive the landing. Two others died in the crash. Each of the bombs had more than 250 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb. Each one was large enough to create a 100% kill zone within an 8.5 miles radius. A supervisor of nuclear safety at Sandia National Laboratories said that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe." However, there is evidence that the switch of at least one of the bombs was set to ARM. No one knows why none of them exploded. And while the authorities were able to recover the uranium core from two of the bombs, one of them is still lost somewhere in North Carolina.
For a truly terrifying look at just how many times we were just a hair trigger away from a major nuclear accident, read Eric Schlosser’s “Command and Control.” Also consider that we are currently in a massive resurgence of the nuclear arms race, with potential flashpoints in Ukraine, Israel, China, and Iran.
#nuclear #atomic #bomb #NorthCarolina #missile #coldwar #hiroshima #EricSchlosser #nonfiction #books #author #writer #russia #ukraine #china #israel #iran #palestine @nprofile…wzey
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2026-01-16 15:04:40 UTC

The Minneapolis General Strike that is set for Jan 23, 2026 will not be the first General Strike in that city.
In July 1934 Teamsters, affiliated with the Communist Party, initiated a General Strike in Minneapolis. It was a wildcat strike and occurred in defiance of the Teamsters' conservative national leadership, which opposed strikes. During that strike, police shot at picketing strikers, killing two and wounding 67. An eyewitness said he saw a man stepping on his own intestines and another carrying his own severed hand.
https://youtu.be/hr7cTjkAY14
#workingclass #LaborHistory #generalstrike #minneapolis #police #policebrutality #communism

2026-01-15 19:59:19 UTC

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@nprofile…v67q we have to convince people that it's worth using a sick day, or going without pay for a day.

2026-01-15 02:49:02 UTC

GENERAL STRIKE JAN 23!!!
A broad coalition of Minneapolis labor unions and community organizations is calling for a general strike to take place next week with the goal of forcing federal immigration agents to leave their city.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/minneapolis-ice-general-strike

2026-01-14 19:40:51 UTC

What could possibly go wrong?
Elon Musk's Grok AI is being adopted by the Pentagon. That's the same AI that called itself the Hitler Mecca. And the same one recently banmed by Indonesia and Malaysia for its deep fakes of kiddy porn and nonconsensual pornographic images of real people.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-grok-ai-pentagon-growing-backlash/
#GROK #ai #musk #porn #deepfakes

2026-01-14 14:58:54 UTC

Today in Labor History January 14, 1921: Anarchist environmentalist writer and philosopher Murray Bookchin was born in New York to Russian Jewish immigrants. Before the age of 10, he had joined the Young Pioneers, a communist league for children. As a young adult, he served as a union shop steward for the United Electrical Workers and later, as an autoworker, was active in the 1945-1946 GM strike. In the 1950s he started writing about the environment and, some say, was the first to introduce “environmentalism” and “ecology” to radical politics. He had a vision of an ecological society based on participatory, grassroots politics, in which municipal communities democratically plan and manage their affairs through popular assembly, which he called Communalism, or Libertarian Municipalism. This tendency has been a major influence on PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, as well as the Kurdish People's Protection Units and the Rojava Autonomous Region in Syria. Bookchin’s 1995 book “Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism” critiqued the tendency of many anarchists toward primitivism, anti-technologism, & individual self-expression at the expense of forming a social movement.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #MurrayBookchin #environment #ecology #books #writer #author #nonfiction #union #strike #LibertarianMunicipalism #pkk #kurdish #syria @nprofile…wzey
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2026-01-12 15:34:24 UTC

Not sure where they're getting that 30,000. I'm seeing 16,800 cancellations so far, which is still a great start!
And it is due to both fear and solidarity. "Would you have gone to a World Cup game in Nazi Germany?"
https://www.rawstory.com/world-cup-2674872045/
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2026-01-05 22:03:12 UTC

Here's a really cool find: Hypomyces cervinigenus, a parasitic fungus that attacks other fungi, sending its mycelium throughout the host, until all that's left is the shell or shadow of the host covered in a ghostly white veil made up of parasitic mycelium. This was also found in the Carmel Valley, California.
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2025-12-20 18:41:17 UTC

Who Own the Media:
*Elon Musk, X, Net Worth $681 Billion
*Larry Ellison, Paramount Global (CBS, MTV, Comedy Central) & trying to buy Times Warner, Net Worth: $370 billion
*Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, Net Worth $264 billion
*Jeff Bezos, Washington Post, Net Worth: $215 billion
*Michael Bloomberg, Business Week, Net Worth: $104.7 billion
*Carlos Slim Helu, New York Times, Net Worth: $99.1 billion
*Sheldon Adelson, Las Vegas Review Journal, Net Worth: $29.8 billion
*Rupert Murdoch, Wall Street Journal, Net Worth: $24 billion
*Anne Cox Chambers, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Net Worth: $17 billion
*Laurene Powell Jobs, The Atlantic, Net Worth: $15 billion
*Patrick Soon-Shiong, Los Angeles Time, Net Worth: $8.5 billion
*Marc Benioff, Time, Net Worth: $5.8 billion
*John Henry, The Boston Globe, Net Worth: $5.7 billion
*Chatchaval Jiaravanon, Fortune, Net Worth: $115 million
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2025-12-20 18:20:40 UTC

Today in Labor History December 20, 1971: Doctors Without Borders was founded by French doctors and journalists in the wake of the Biafra succession. Their first mission was in support of victims of the 1972 Nicaraguan earthquake. In the mid to late 1970s, they provided aid to refugees from the Khmer Rouge. They spent 9 years (1976-1984) in Lebanon during their civil war. They’ve spent decades in Africa helping in the battles against AIDS and Ebola. Their volunteers have been attacked by soldiers, kidnapped and bombed. In 1999 they won the Nobel Peace Prize.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #DoctorsWithoutBorders #msf #medical #healthcare #aids #ebola #civilwar #palestine #gaza #nobelprize #civilians #CeasefireNow #FreePalestine #EndTheOccupation
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2025-12-10 15:24:29 UTC

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2025-12-09 15:08:33 UTC

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2025-12-02 15:28:51 UTC

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2025-11-29 16:28:59 UTC

No, the D.C. shooter was NOT an Afghani terrorist brought to the U.S. by Biden.
He was a CIA operative. This was blow back.
And increasing National Guards in our cities will not make us safer. It'll just put all of us at greater risk of violence.
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/27/nx-s1-5623041/national-guard-shooting-suspect-cia-unit-afghanistan

2025-11-25 14:55:18 UTC

Today in Labor History November 25, 1946: St. Paul teachers, led mostly by women, walked out of their classrooms in American’s first organized teachers’ strike. 1,165 teachers and principals (all represented by the same union) remained out until Dec. 27 in what they called the “strike for better schools.” 90% of teachers voted to strike. Conditions were deplorable. Classrooms designed for 35 students often had 50. Teachers had to buy textbooks for students, yet they were among the lowest paid teachers in the nation.
#workingClass #LaborHistory #teachers #strike #union #students #children #school #women #wages #saintpaul #minnesota
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2025-11-18 15:03:33 UTC

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2025-11-16 16:37:47 UTC

Today in Labor History November 16, 1938: LSD was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel. The original intention of the lab was to create a new drug that stimulated the respiratory and circulatory system. It was not until April 19, 1943, that he would first sample the new drug, when he accidentally absorbed some, leading to his famous bike ride home. After an initial period of anxiety and terror, he began to settle in with the experience, which he described as such: “In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.” April 19 is now celebrated as Bicycle Day.
In 1947, Sandoz began providing the drug to researchers under the trade name Delysid. Throughout the 1950s, researchers began using the drug to treat mental illness. Humphry Osmond gave LSD to alcoholics who had failed to recover through other methods. After 1 year, 50% were still sober, a success rate that was significantly higher than any other then known method of treatment. Early experimenters and proponents of the drug included the writer Aldous Huxley, the anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and actor Cary Grant. The CIA gave it to many unwitting victims as part of their infamous MKULTRA program researching mind control. There were also willing MKULTRA volunteers, like Ken Kesey and Allen Ginsberg. And, for a short time, the working class had legal access to inexpensive trips.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #lsd #psychedelic #alberthofmann #drugs #mkultra #cia
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2025-11-15 06:55:33 UTC

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@nprofile…7u2s I doubt it's going to cause an end to carnivorism

2025-11-14 19:14:44 UTC

Is meat-eating a deadly habit?
Could become one if you've been bit by a Lone Star tick, which can cause alpha-gal syndrome, making you allergic to mammalian flesh.
CDC estimates nearly half a million Americans may have the syndrome.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/tick-borne-disease/new-jersey-mans-death-first-one-be-tied-tick-related-meat-allergy
#publichealth #ticks #meat

2025-11-14 19:08:25 UTC

Is esting meat

2025-11-02 17:51:01 UTC

Sure, if the masses just stopped using plastic straws and started driving electric cars the climate crisis would end.
https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/climate-plunder-how-a-powerful-few-are-locking-the-world-into-disaster-621741/
https://kolektiva.social/system/media_attachments/files/115/481/360/006/739/523/original/98597340e0f0b5b3.jpg

2025-11-02 17:43:16 UTC

Local police in at least in 1 California city are boosting patrols to defend corporate grocery chains from shoplifters, as millions of Americans lose SNAP and WIC benefits.
https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/barstow-patrols-grocery-stores-snap-food-stamps-southern-california/
#workingclass #classwar #poverty #hunger #police #snap
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2025-10-24 14:14:57 UTC

In 1971, Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart published “How to Read Donald Duck,” a book-length essay critiquing Disney comics as capitalist propaganda for U.S. corporate and cultural imperialism. It became a bestseller throughout Latin America and is still considered a seminal work in cultural studies. It was first published in Valparaiso, Chile when Allende was in power. Pinochet banned it and conducted public book burnings.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #disney #anticommunism #antilabor #unionbusting #communism #witchhunt #huac #fbi #union #censorship #bookburning #BookBans #Chile #allende #pinochet #dictatorship #writer #author #books #comics @nprofile…dpnf
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2025-10-24 14:09:34 UTC

What liberal magic did SF Mayor Lurie, rich brat heir to the Levis fortune, work on Trump to get him to back off?
He, and tech bro billionaires Marc Benioff, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, promised Trump that he'd work hand in hand with Pam Bondi to get SF's fictional crime wave under control.
"Please, Boss, just give us a chance to terrorize our own citizens ourselves, first, before you send in the Gestapo."
Yes, rather than resist the fascists, Lurie & the tech bro oligarchy want to turn SF into a Vichy government.
As most intelligent, well-read people know, violent crime in SF, as in all the "blue" cities Trump has invaded, is way down. Homicides, for example, are running at their lowest rate since 1954, at a rate of 1.33 per 100,000 people, whereas the National average is nearly triple that at 4.49 homicides per 100,000 people.
Perhaps Trump & his brain, Stephen Miller, were more receptive to Lurie's pleas because of the tech bro oligarchs' & Trump team's mutual support for the dystopian Dark Enlightenment & their hopes to turn SF into their own private Singapore.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/us/daniel-lurie-trump-san-francisco.html
https://www.newsweek.com/how-bad-is-san-franciscos-crime-problem-examining-the-numbers-10910934
#trump #ice #gestapo #immigration #crime #police #sanfrancisco #darkenlightenment

2025-10-14 13:50:56 UTC

Today in Labor History October 14, 1913: The Senghenydd colliery disaster occurred in the United Kingdom, killing 439 miners. It was the country’s worst mining disaster ever. In May 1901, three underground explosions occurred at the same colliery, killing 81 miners. The cause of the 1913 explosion is unknown. 60 victims were younger than 20. 8 were only 14 years old. 542 children lost their fathers in the disaster and 205 women were widowed. The disaster is portrayed in two works of historical fiction: Alexander Cordell's “This Sweet and Bitter Earth” (1977) and “Cwmwl dros y Cwm” (2013) by Gareth F. Williams.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #coal #mining #disaster #workplacesafety #workerdeaths #historicalfiction #HisFic #novel #books #author #writer @nprofile…dpnf
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2025-10-13 14:41:24 UTC

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2025-10-12 18:09:03 UTC

Bills that were defeated:
*Don't Say "Gay" or "Trans" at Work
*Ban on Pride flags at government building, incl schools
*Ban on DEI in govt agencies
*Ban on localities supporting protections for LGBTQ people and other minorities
In 2024, 21 of 22 anti-LGBTQ bills were defeated in Florida.
https://www.eqfl.org/every-anti-lgbtq-bill-defeated-2025
#lgbtq #homophobia #transphobia #florida #resistance #antifascism
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2025-10-12 17:31:13 UTC

The Merchant of Death is Dead!
Alfred Nobel did not think of himself as a merchant of death. He thought of himself as a pacifist and a humanitarian. But he was really just a war profiteer and a narcissist, whose legacy of misery and death live on to this day.
Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden on October 21, 1833. But when he was only four, his father Immanuel moved the family to Saint Petersburg. There he set up a factory developing torpedoes and explosives. He also produced the first central heating equipment in Russia. And he also invented the veneer lathe, which was instrumental in the production of plywood.
As a child, Alfred Nobel had only eighteen months of formal schooling. But with private tutors, he learned to speak English, Russian, French and German. He was unusually intelligent, but sickly and brooding. To compensate for his weak physique, he memorized dictionaries and translated Voltaire. He particularly loved the English poets, Byron and Shelley. However, poetry was not a manly enough occupation for the son of Immanuel Nobel. So, in 1850, at the age of 17, Immanuel sent Alfred to Paris to study chemistry with Ascanio Sobrero. A few years earlier, Sobrero had invented nitroglycerin, a powerful, but incredibly unstable explosive. As a result of his fear of nitro, he kept his discovery secret for over a year. And when he finally did share his secret with Alfred, he insisted that he leave it alone.
Alfred did leave nitro alone, at least for a few years, while he went to America to further his studies in chemistry. During his four years in America, his family made armaments for the Crimean War, in which over 300,000 people died. After the war ended, the family business went under. But his older brother, Ludvig Nobel, started a new business producing cast iron shells, rifles and gun carriages for Russia. Ludvig sent their brother Robert out to purchase wood for gunstocks, but Robert invested the money in oil, instead. Thus, Robert and Ludvig became pioneers in the Russian oil industry. At one point, their Branobel Company, in Baku, Azerbaijan, produced 50% of the world’s petroleum, giving Rockefeller a good run for his money. At least until the Bolsheviks arrived, when the Nobel family was forced to sell out quickly to their nemesis Rockefeller, and his Standard Oil Company.
Alfred became a shareholder in the family oil business, but his real passion was explosives. So, he began experimenting with nitroglycerin in his family’s old armaments buildings. In 1863, he invented a detonator and blasting oil, a mixture of nitroglycerin and black powder. It was somewhat less dangerous than pure nitro and demand was high. But delivery of the stuff was risky. Deadly explosions were common. Often, the wagons were driven by drunk farm boys. To address this problem, Alfred built them one-legged stools to sit on during transport so they wouldn’t fall asleep. And to reduce casualties at work, production was done in wooden sheds, separated by earthen walls. Only one or two men were allowed to work in each shed, so that accidents couldn’t kill more than two people. Yet, in 1864, an explosion killed five employees, including his kid brother Emil.
Undeterred, Alfred continued his experiments, developing the blasting cap in 1865. In 1866, his German factory had a serious accident. However, during the clean-up process, he discovered a stable mixture of nitroglycerine and a local sand that didn’t explode when dropped or heated. He called his new invention dynamite. It quickly became key to the rapid expansion of mining and railroads and, of course, the brutal exploitation of the working class. And this, in turn, led the rapid acquisition of Gilded Age wealth.
In 1875 Nobel invented gelignite and in 1887, ballistite, a predecessor of cordite. He was living in France at the time and offered to sell the rights for the new explosive to the French government. But they declined, choosing to go with Poudre B, which had been invented by French scientists. So, he sold his ballistite to Italy. France promptly accused him of High Treason and he fled, like a thief in the night, to Sanremo, Italy.
One day, while Alfred Nobel was relaxing over breakfast, he read the following headline: “Le marchand de la mort est mort! The merchant of death is dead!” He nearly choked on his biscotti. It was a mistake, of course—it was his brother Ludvig who had died, not he. Yet the implications were obvious. The world saw him as a death monger, a murderer, not as the brilliant scientist, inventor and pacifist he thought he was. So, he decided to rewrite history. He bequeathed his entire fortune to a foundation that would award scientists, authors and do-gooders who conferred the “greatest benefit on mankind.” And for that, when most people hear his name, they think of the Nobel Prize.
During his lifetime, Alfred Nobel did indeed donate money to peace groups, but he never participated in their activities. He was friends with peace activists, like Bertha von Suttner, herself a future Nobel Peace Prize winner. But he consistently ridiculed them for being impractical and idealistic, for talking too much and doing too little. He insisted that the best strategy for creating an everlasting peace was to produce a weapon so devastating that war itself would no longer be possible. “Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your congresses: on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilized nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops.”
Almost fifty years after Nobel’s death, the first nuclear bomb was created in the U.S. Within a few years, the USSR had their own. Soon the UK, France and China had nuclear bombs, too, making the threat of mutual annihilation a reality. Yet wars still continued, even between nuclear powers. Right now, the U.S. military is at risk of potential nuclear conflicts with China and/or Russia. Thanks in part to its nuclear arsenal, Israel can bomb Palestinian civilians and assassinate Arab and Persian diplomats and scientists without fear of serious reprisals. Pakistan and India have routine and deadly skirmishes along their border, in spite of their nuclear weapons. Nobel was wrong: the threat of mutual annihilation is not bringing us closer to peace.
The same could be said for his peace prize, particularly when it’s given to people like Henry Kissinger (1973), who facilitated bloody dictatorships in Chile and Argentina, genocides in Bangladesh and East Timor, and carpet bombing of Cambodia. Or Elihu Root (1912), the U.S. Secretary of War who oversaw the brutal repression of the Filipino independence movement. And let’s not forget Shimon Peres, Yitzak Rabin and Yasser Arafat (1994), who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize despite their histories of human rights abuses. Or Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), who has denied the genocide against the Rohingya. Or Cordell Hull (1945), who, in 1939, led the opposition to accepting a boatload of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany into America. As a result, the boat was redirected back to Germany, where one quarter of its passengers were exterminated.
And there are so many other recent examples, like Barack Obama (2009), who did virtually nothing for world peace prior to becoming president, but after the prize began assassinating civilians with his drones and arresting more immigrants than his predecessor, George W. Bush. Or Mikhail Gorbachev (1990), who sent tanks into the Baltic republics less than a year after winning his “peace” prize, killing numerous civilians.
And older examples, like Woodrow Wilson (1919), who sent troops to occupy Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, and to “intervene” in Cuba, Honduras and Panama. He also oversaw the Palmer raids that led to over 10,000 arrests and over 500 deportations of union leaders, peace activists, socialists and anarchists. And he was an outright racist and apologist for slavery. Or Menachem Begin (1978), who four years after receiving his “peace” prize launched the bloody invasion of Lebanon, and who refused to fire Ariel Sharon, even after the Kahan Commission found Sharon culpable for the Sabra and Shatila massacre and recommended that he be removed from office.
It is also worth mentioning that Nobel owned Bofors, which he converted from a steel producer to an armament’s manufacturer, and which continues to make heavy weaponry to this day. It is now a subsidiary of United Defense Industries, an American corporation. And Dynamit Nobel, a descendant of a company Nobel created during his lifetime, continued to make weapons well into the 1990s.
Alfred Nobel died in Sanremo, Italy, in 1896, alone and depressed, not surprising for a man who valued profits and weapons over human relationships. During his lifetime, he traveled a lot for business, but despised and mistrusted his business associates. As a result, he developed few, if any, lasting friendships. Victor Hugo called him the wealthiest vagabond in Europe. He was worth $250 million at the time of his death. His Paris estate had an enormous library, stables for his collection of Russian horses, and greenhouses for his orchids. Yet he seldom seemed happy. He suffered migraines and illness throughout his life and he never got married.
Some said he was a misanthrope, possibly a misogynist. Supposedly, he didn’t think much of democracy, either, and he opposed women’s suffrage. Nevertheless, people still seem to associate his name more with peace and scientific progress than with death and warfare. In this respect, Nobel was a booming success.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #nobel #nobelprize #war #humanrights #imperialism
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2025-10-10 17:46:06 UTC

Think flying is dangerous and unpleasant now? Just wait. U.S. transportation secretary Sean Duffy wants to fire all air traffic controllers who are calling in sick right now because the government isn't paying them and Trump has suggested that some workers would not get back pay.
I believe that's called slavery- forcing people to work without pay- for those unfamiliar with the term. And it's called a job action when workers do something proactive about unfair labor practices like this.
Perhaps soldiers, too, will mutiny and refuse to serve in Chicago and Portland because they also aren't getting paid.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx25833wxy9o

2025-10-03 13:52:38 UTC

Today in Labor History October 3, 1932: All 164 students at Kincaid High School in Illinois walked out to protest their school’s use of scab labor to provide heating coal, in solidarity with their fathers who were striking against Peabody Coal. Also known as the Father-Son strike, the actions came on the heals of the creation of the new Progressive Miners of America (PMA). Thousands of Illinois miners joined the new union in protest of wage concessions by John Lewis of the UMWA. The strikers went to all scab mines and forced the workers to join their new union or leave the mine. They also picketed UMWA mines to protest their wage concessions.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #coal #mining #union #strike #NationalGuard #students #education #protest
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2025-09-15 14:16:46 UTC

Seems more relevant now than ever in our lifetimes. However, the state has a monopoly on violence, incarceration, and most other forms of social control, including the determination of what, exactly, should be defined as intolerance. Consequently, forms of intolerance that support the interests of the state are permitted, and even encouraged, while forms of dissent that oppose the interests of the state can be deemed unacceptable intolerance and be punished. For example, many Western states have determined that intolerance of Palestinians and pro-Palestinian demonstrators is acceptable intolerance, while deeming criticism of Israel and Zionism to be forms of intolerance that will not be tolerated, punishable by being fired from your job, expelled from your university, prevented from flying abroad, pepper-sprayed and beaten by the police, and jailed.
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2025-09-10 14:14:38 UTC

Yes, it's not just repression for the masses. It's also the most massive looting of the country ever by a U.S. president.
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2025-09-10 14:09:24 UTC

And the favorability of capitalism is at an all-time low. Not just in the U.S., either. People in Nepal are rising up against the gross wealth inequality between the politicians and ruling class and the rest of the public. And in France, workers and students are in the streets protesting their government's attempts to impose austerity on them to pay for their debt crisis.
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2025-09-10 14:03:47 UTC

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2025-09-10 14:02:43 UTC

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2025-09-10 14:02:14 UTC

Today in Labor History September 10, 1898: Anarchist Luigi Lucheni assassinated Empress Elisabeth of Austria with a sanded-down file. The authorities promptly caught Lucheni. He claimed he had come to Geneva to kill any sovereign as an example for others (Propaganda by the Deed). He said he used the file because he couldn’t afford a stiletto. During his trial, he discovered that capital punishment had been banned in Geneva. Furious, he demanded that his trial be moved to a less civilized canton so he could be martyred. On October 19, 1910, he was found hanged in his cell. The authorities cut off his head and stuck it into formaldehyde and transferred to Vienna, where it was put on display in the Narrenterm pathology museum. They displayed it there until 2000.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #assassination #atentat #LuigiLucheni #austria
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2025-09-10 13:58:51 UTC

Today in Writing History September 10, 1960: Alison Bechdel, American author and illustrator was born. She is most famous for her “Dykes to Watch Out For,” comic strip. And for her “Bechdel Test,” originally intended as a joke in one of her comics, but which has since become a routine metric used by critics as an indicator for the active presence of women in a film.
#workingclass #lgbtq #lgbtq #alisonbechdel #women #feminism #DykesToWatchOutFor #comics #artist #writer #author #books @nprofile…jgdx
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2025-09-10 13:53:19 UTC

Today in Labor History September 10, 1963: 20 black children were integrated into Birmingham schools in spite of opposition by the city. Martin Luther King, James Bevel & Fred Shuttlesworth led the campaign of nonviolent direct action to integrate Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most segregated cities in the nation. Over a thousand were arrested during the campaign. Bull Connors ordered the use of high-pressure hoses and attack dogs on juvenile protesters. Racists bombed the Gaston Motel, in a failed attempt to assassinate King.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #civilrights #nonviolence #civildisobedience #MartinLutherKing #alabama #bombing #racism #JimCrow #BlackMastodon
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2025-09-10 13:42:51 UTC

Today in Labor History September 10, 1897: A sheriff and deputies killed 19 striking miners and wounded 40 others in Lattimer mine, near Hazelton, Pennsylvania during a peaceful mining protest. Many of those killed were originally brought in as strikebreakers, but then later organized and joined the strike. The miners were mostly Polish, Lithuanian, Slovak and German. The massacre was a turning point for the UMW. Working and safety conditions were terrible. 32,000 miners had died from 1870-1897, just in the northeastern coalfields of Pennsylvania. Wages had dropped 17% since the mid-1890s.
The strike began in mid-August, when teenage mule drivers walked off the job to protest the consolidation of stables, which had forced them to walk much further just to get to work. After a scuffle between drivers and supervisors, two thousand men walked out, as well. Soon, all the mines in the region had joined the strike. Most of the men who weren’t already members of the UMW quickly joined the union. Up to 10,000 miners were now on strike. The mine owners’ private police, known as the Coal & Iron Police (miners called them Cossacks, for their brutality), was too small to quash the strike, so they called on the sheriff to intervene. He mustered a posse of 100 Irish and English immigrants, who confronted the miners as they marched toward Latimer, on Sep 10. Along the way, they joked about how many miners they were going to kill.
The massacre provoked a near uprising. The sheriff called for the deployment of the National Guard, which sent 2,500 troops to quell the unrest. 10 days later, a group of Slavic women, armed with fire pokers and rolling pins, led 150 men and boys to shut down the McAdoo coal works, but were stopped by the National Guards. The sheriff, and 73 deputized vigilantes, were put on trial. However, despite evidence clearly showing that most of the miners had been shot in the back, and none had been armed, they were all acquitted.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #coal #mining #union #strike #latimer #massacre #police #policebrutality #policemurder #immigration #nationalguards
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2025-08-17 17:31:07 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…q3ga
Hasn't been a living wage for the past 50 years or longer

2025-08-17 16:35:03 UTC

Hate to say it, but this stat is more than 10 years old. The corporate leach who runs that company is making a lot more than that today. Plus, he no doubt gets far more than that in non-wage compensation.
The federal minimum wage is still only $7.25/hour, same as it was in 2008. Only difference is that today that $7.25/hr is even further from a living wage than it was then. And if you are a new worker, under the age of 20, they can pay you a "training" wage of only $4.25/hr.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/dunkin-donuts-ceo-who-earns-10-million-claims-to-be-outraged-by-15-minimum
https://www.minimum-wage.org/federal
#workingclass #minimumwage #livingwage #classwar #poverty
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2025-08-15 13:44:34 UTC

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2025-08-15 13:38:32 UTC

Yeh, why give people free money directly?
they'd just waste it on useless things like food, housing, medicine.
Why not give it, instead, to poverty pimps and corporate vultures, who convert those public dollars into huge profits, subsidies, and tax write-offs.
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2025-08-06 17:37:26 UTC

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2025-08-03 15:03:26 UTC

Seneca Village was established in 1825.
And there were dozens of freedom towns throughout the U.S., including the deep south. Hobson City, Alabama. Abila and Victorville, CA. New Monrovia and Newtown, FL. Mossville, Louisiana. Lincoln Park, MD. Parting Ways, MA. Timbuctoo, NJ. Blackdom, NM. Hayti and Soulville, North Carolina. There were 13 different Freedom Towns just in Oklahoma. 18 in Texas.
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2025-07-27 17:31:14 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…373e
Actually, several Jewish groups have criticized this asshole's behavior

2025-07-27 17:10:51 UTC

California's leading Republican candidate for governor, Kyle Langford, has a platform that includes incinerating unhoused and unemployed people in concentration camps, like Auschwitz, which he called a "beautiful work camp."
He also wants to force undocumented immigrant women to marry incels to avoid deportation. Immigrant men just get deported.
https://www.newsweek.com/republican-kyle-langford-proposes-forcing-migrant-woman-marry-2060334
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/california-governor-candidate-calls-auschwitz-solution-for-homelessness-sparks-critisism/ar-AA1JnFpI
#fascism #nazi #immigration #california #kylelangford #concentrationcamp #antisemitism #extermination #republican #auschwitz
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2025-07-26 16:42:13 UTC

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2025-07-25 16:53:26 UTC

4-Day work week, 32 hours/week, no reduction in pay caused no loss in productivity for businesses. Indeed, companies' profits increased 1.4%. In other words, they CAN pay us more, while letting put in fewer hours, and still make a huge profit.
How?
They cut out the useless, time-wasting shit like boring meetings and busy work. But it also gave workers more free time to be with friends and family, pursue hobbies, rest, recover from the pressures of work. And the work, itself, felt less stressful. There was less burn-out. Workers took fewer sick and personal days. Resignations dropped in half.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02295-2
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/24/the-most-surprising-benefits-of-a-4-day-workweek-from-researcher-whos-studied-thousands-of-cases.html
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-four-day-workweek-reduces-stress-without-hurting-productivity/
#workingclass #workhours #wages #workingconditions
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2025-07-20 17:13:23 UTC

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2025-07-18 16:47:15 UTC

Today in Labor History July 18, 1934: “The American Mercury” accepted Emma Goldman's article, "Communism: Bolshevist & Anarchist, A Comparison.” However, it was not until a year later that it was published, in a truncated form, as "There is No Communism in Russia." Goldman had been deported by the U.S. in 1919, during the Palmer raids, and sent to Russia, where she lived with her comrade, Alexander Berkman, for several years. She was initially supportive of the Bolsheviks, until Trotsky brutally crushed the Kronstadt rebellion, in 1921, slaughtering over 1,000 sailors and then executing over a thousand more. After this, she left the USSR and, in 1923, published a book about her experiences, “My Disillusionment in Russia.” H.L. Menken founded “The American Mercury,” in 1924, and published radical writers throughout the 1920s and ‘30s. A change of ownership in the 1940s led to a shift to the far right, including virulently antisemitic articles.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #EmmaGoldman #russia #soviet #ussr #communism #kronstadt #rebellion #massacre #writer #author #writer #books #journalism #magazine @nprofile…jgdx
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2025-07-17 16:12:11 UTC

How to know if you're living in a police state...
The US government has added the DNA of approximately 133,000 migrant children and teens to a criminal database, which critics say could mean police treat them like suspects “indefinitely.”
https://www.wired.com/story/dhs-and-doj-face-new-pressure-over-collecting-childrens-dna/
#fascism #policestate #gestapo #ice #immigration #children #dna #privacy #police

2025-07-17 15:43:41 UTC

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2025-07-11 16:11:17 UTC

Today in Labor History July 11, 1943: The nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army launched a massacre of Poles in Nazi-occupied Eastern Galicia. The attacks, which continued until 1945, targeted mostly women and children, and included rape, dismemberment and immolation. 50,000-100,000 died in the attacks, which were directly linked to the policies of the fascist Stepan Bandera's Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, whose goal was to purge all non-Ukrainians from the future Ukrainian state. Bandera is considered a hero by many of the Ukrainian nationalist militias that are currently active in the war with Russia, and many of them also subscribe to goal of purging Ukraine of all non-Ukrainians. In 2016, the Parliament of Poland passed a resolution recognizing the massacres as genocide.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #fascism #nazis #ukraine #StepanBandera #nationalism #poland #genocide #massacre #women #children #rape
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2025-07-02 17:00:58 UTC

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2025-06-27 14:55:54 UTC

Today in Labor History June 27, 1880: Helen Keller was born (1880-1968) in Tuscumbia, Alabama. In addition to being an early advocate for disability rights, she was also a radical socialist for women’s suffrage and birth control, the rights of workers and world peace. She supported the NAACP and was a founding member of the ACLU. She also joined the IWW and wrote for them from 1916-1918. In 1933, the Nazi Youth burned her book, “How I Became Socialist.” However, like many people of her era, from both the right and the left, she supported the eugenics movement and once claimed that the lives of infants with severe cognitive impairments were not worth saving. She published 12 books. Her most famous was her autobiography, “The Story of My Life,” (1903).
#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #hellenKeller #disabilityrights #socialism #feminism #aclu #naacp #eugenics #ableism
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2025-06-26 17:39:38 UTC

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2025-06-10 15:02:20 UTC

Yes, incredible that our incarceration rates, alone, were not enough to convince Americans they were living in an authoritarian state. However, the recent actions by ICE, supported by riot police, national guards, and US marines, combined with Trump's violations of the Posse Comitatus Act, and his repeated violations of court orders, are doing a pretty good job of fixing that oversight.
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2025-06-06 15:29:51 UTC

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2025-05-27 16:11:10 UTC

It's not trans people, immigrants, scientists, student activists who are causing our economic woes....
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2025-05-19 13:39:35 UTC

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2025-05-19 13:19:41 UTC

Today in Labor History May 19, 1928: A coal-mine exploded in Mather, Pennsylvania, killing 195. It was the seventh worst mining disaster in U.S. history and the second worst in Pennsylvania history. The disaster was likely caused by a methane and dust explosion triggered by an arc from a battery-powered locomotive.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #mining #disaster #WorkplaceDeaths #disaster #pennsylvania
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2025-05-14 13:52:20 UTC

Today in Labor History May 14, 1940: Emma Goldman (1869-1940) died in Toronto, at the age of 70. She had been raising money for anti-Franco forces in Spain. Goldman emigrated to the U.S. from Lithuania in 1885. The Haymarket Affair radicalized her and attracted her to the anarchist movement. She planned the assassination of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, along with her lover Alexander Berkman. However, Frick survived and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. After that, she renounced “propaganda by the deed.” Nevertheless, she continued to agitate for women’s and workers’ rights and for anarchism. And she went to prison numerous times for “inciting to riot” and for distributing information about birth control. She also went to prison in 1917 for “inducing persons not to register” for the draft. When she was released, the U.S. deported her, and 248 other radicals, to Russia. She initially supported the “workers’ revolution.” However, after learning about the violent suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion by the Bolsheviks, she denounced the Soviet Union.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #EmmaGoldman #soviet #russia #haymarket #birthcontrol #feminism #revolution #riot #antiwar #rebellion #prison #kronstadt #rebellion #fascism #antifascism
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2025-05-12 16:25:11 UTC

Today in Labor History May 12, 1940: Edgar Lion, a 20-year-old Austrian Jewish student at the University of Edinburgh, was arrested by British police and shipped off to the Isle of Man with thousands of other Jewish detainees. The British government locked them all up in hotels surrounded by barbed wire. He was later deported to Canada, where he was interned with 2,300 other Jewish refugees in camps alongside German Nazis and forced to perform brutal physical labor for virtually no pay. “There were real Nazis interned with us! They were Nazis who happened to be caught by the war in Great Britain. They were bragging, and they kept telling us, ‘wait till Hitler wins the war, we’ll cut all your throats!’”
As appalling as the Trump administration is, with its arrests, deportations, and use of brutal concentration camps for innocent immigrants, as well as many legal residents and citizens, it is a misrepresentation of history to suggest that this sort of behavior is similar only to that of the Nazis, and is somehow extraordinary for modern democracies like the U.S., Britain and Canada. Concentration Camps, with forced labor, brutal living conditions, and sometimes torture and violence against inmates were operated by numerous so-called democratic Western nations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and even today. Australia used them during both World Wars, and currently runs some for refugees on Nauru and Manus Islands. During both World Wars, Canada imprisoned 8,579 male "aliens of enemy nationality" in concentration camps with forced labor, including thousands of Jews. They also interned Japanese residents. Denmark, Sweden and Finland also had concentration camps. French concentration camps, along with the torture and starvation inflicted on their inmates, and the casualties from its war of conquest in Algeria, resulted in up to 1 million deaths. And then there were thousands of Jews who were imprisoned in concentration camps under the Vichy government, most ultimately deported to Germany, where they were executed. Even Germany’s legacy of concentration camps predates Hitler, with deadly camps utilized during the Herero and Namaqua genocide they committed in Africa (1904-1908). In addition to their internment of Jews during World War II, Britain also ran offshore and land-based gulags in Ireland in the 1920s, which housed over 500 men, under brutal conditions, without charge or trial. They also ran concentration camps on the Isle of Man during both world wars.
The U.S., in particular, has a long, sordid history of using concentration camps that precede the ones they used during World War II to imprison Japanese-Americans. The first document U.S. concentration camps used for a specific ethnic group occurred in 1838, when President Van Buren imprisoned Cherokee in camps at Ross's Landing (Chattanooga, Tennessee), Fort Payne, Alabama, and Fort Cass (Charleston, Tennessee). Many died in these camps from disease and hunger. In 1962, Minnesota executed 38 Dakota warriors in the largest single-day mass execution in U.S. history. President Lincoln pardoned another 361, but placed them in a concentration camp. And in the following winter, another 1600 Dakota men, women and children were forced into other concentration camps. Up to 300 died from disease in these camps. Thousands of other indigenous people were forced into U.S. concentration camps throughout the 1800s and early 1900s. The U.S. also operated brutal concentration camps for prisoners and civilians during its war on the Philippines in 1901. During the 1950s-1960s, the U.S. maintained concentration camps for political dissidents, primarily communists, but officially never used them. More recently, there are the examples of Abu Ghraib, in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cub. Under Reagan, there were plans to imprison thousands of Central American Solidarity activists in concentration camps. And today, Trump continues to talk about sending “homegrowns” to offshore gulags in El Salvador, Guantanamo Bay, and Africa.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #fascism #nazis #prison #concentrationcamps #humanrights #antisemitism #colonialism #imperialism #worldwar #trump #hitler #reagan #guantanao #elsalvador #cecot #abughraib #indigenous #japanese #philippines
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2025-05-12 15:27:17 UTC

Today in Labor History May 12, 1916: The authorities executed James Connolly on this date for his role in the Easter Rising, which took place in Dublin, the month prior. The uprising sought to end British rule and create an independent Ireland. 485 people died in the fighting, including 143 British soldiers and cops. The rest were mostly Irish civilians. The British took 3,500 prisoners and sent 1,800 to internment camps. They also executed sixteen of the rebel leaders, sparking outrage among the Irish public. Connolly was an Irish republican, socialist and union leader. Prior to the Easter Rising, he lived in Scotland and participated in Scottish socialist organizations. After that, he emigrated to the U.S., where he cofounded the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), along with Lucy Parsons, Mother Jones, Eugene Debs and Big Bill Haywood. He also founded the Irish Socialist Federation in New York. In Ireland, and was a leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union. He also participated in the Dublin lock-out, one of the largest and most severe labor disputes in Irish history.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #jamesconnolly #IWW #dublin #easterrising #union #strike #ireland #independence #socialism #colonialism
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2025-05-09 17:37:18 UTC

Th people of Mexico are fighting for a 40-hour work week! Meanwhile the “leftist” president has been negotiating with the business community and not listening to unions or the workers themselves.
The government is proposing to gradually reduce the standard work week to 40 hours by 2030.
This is not acceptable! We demand a 40-hour work week now!!
Down with greedy business people!
Free time is not a luxury!
We are not only our productive version.
Not a minute more for capital.
More rest, less work!
📸:Frente Nacional Por Las 40 Horas
Yoxlas40horas Tijuana
#YoPorLas40Horas #workingclass #mexico #protest
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2025-05-07 18:32:00 UTC

Solidarity with Marcy Rheintgen, the 20-year- old trans student who deliberately defied her state's fascistic and sexist bathroom restrictions in a courageous act of civil disobedience.
"I'm here to break the law" she said before entering the bathroom at the state capital. Police arrested her as she came out. She faces 60 days in jail.
In Utah, activists flooded a gender policing tip line with hoax reports. No reason you can't do that in Florida, too, and in all of the other 12 states that have these ridiculous laws.
Remember, these anti trans laws oppress ALL women including cis women, who are increasingly being told to prove their sex, like the cis lesbian couple in a Boston hotel, or the cis Arizona woman, arrested for using a Walmart bathroom. J
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/trans-students-arrest-violating-florida-bathroom-law-thought-first-rcna199697
#transrightsarehumanrights #fascism #sexism #transphobia #police #bathrooms #florida #directaction #civildisobedience #solidarity

2025-05-07 15:10:56 UTC

Yesterday, I was assaulted in affluent Noe Valley, San Francisco, in the middle of the day, in an unprovoked attack by a person who I think was having a drug-induced mental health crisis. He was being chased by someone else who he had assaulted, but he managed to take a swing at me as he passed by. I am perfectly fine. Just a bit of a bloody swollen lip. But I was pissed off when it happened and my initial response was to chase after him, too, thinking I'd catch him and give him a few good punches in return. But when I caught up to him, he was already face down on the sidewalk, surrounded by cops. Two of them had shotguns aimed at his head.
The cops said he had assaulted several other people, too, during his rampage. They asked me if I wanted to press charges. When I realized he was having a mental health crisis, I said no, even though I still angry about being punched.
What would you have done?

2025-05-06 13:48:47 UTC

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2025-05-04 16:48:31 UTC

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2025-05-04 16:42:12 UTC

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2025-05-03 16:45:20 UTC

Today in Labor History May 3, 1937: The May Days began in Catalonia. This was a counterrevolution by the Spanish Republican government against radical workers and anarchists. Prior to this, the communists, socialists and anarchists had been allied against Franco’s nationalists. However, anarchist workers and their militias controlled most industries, which they had collectivized, while the communists controlled the central government and finances. As a result, this brought the various groups into conflict. To make matters worse, the Communist Party of Spain was taking orders from Moscow. And they wanted to separate the two struggles: revolution against the ruling class versus war against the nationalists. In contrast, the POUM and the anarchists saw the two struggles as one and the same. The anarchist faction included the Friends of Durruti Group and the CNT (a confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions).
#workingclass #LaborHisotry #anarchism #civilwar #spain #fascism #antifascism #durruti #communism #Revolution #trotsky #franco #moscow
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2025-05-01 18:01:02 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…e82f
Don't call it a strike. Just remind them that you're just doing your job....by the book.

2025-05-01 13:58:33 UTC

I can tell you what happens if only a few do it: they get harassed by their admin, possibly even fired (if they haven't yet achieved tenure).
I can also tell you what happens if everyone does it, because I have seen this, too. It's called Working To Rule. It's a classic and effective type of job action that is similar to a strike, but allows you to still collect paychecks. When we did it, admin buckled within a week. Much harder to pick off and punish individuals when the entire staff maintains solidarity.
#strike #worktorule #solidarity #union #teachers #school #education
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2025-05-01 13:27:22 UTC

Today In Labor History May 1, 1886: The first nationwide General Strike for the 8-hour day occurred in Milwaukee and other U.S. cities. In Chicago, police killed four demonstrators and wounded over 200. This led to the mass meeting a Haymarket Square, where an unknown assailant threw a bomb, killing several cops. The authorities responded by rounding up all the city’s leading anarchists, and a kangaroo court which wrongfully convicted 8 of them, including Albert Parsons, husband of Lucy Parsons, who would go on to cofound the IWW, along with Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, and others. Worldwide protests against the convictions and executions followed. To honor the wrongfully executed anarchists, and their struggle for the 8-hour day, May first has ever since been celebrated as International Workers Day in nearly every country in the world, except the U.S.
You can read my complete bio of Lucy Parsons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/24/lucy-parsons/
#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #haymarket #bombing #policebrutality #police #prison #execution #deathpenalty #GeneralStrike #IWW #lucyparsons #motherjones #EightHourDay #mayday
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2025-04-25 13:51:55 UTC

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2025-04-19 16:30:02 UTC

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2025-04-19 15:48:52 UTC

Today in Labor History April 19, 1943: The 50,000 Jews remaining in Warsaw began a desperate and heroic attempt to resist Nazi deportation to extermination camps. Their armed insurgency became known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. There had been over 3 million Jews living in Poland prior to the Nazi occupation. The Nazis rounded them up and forced them into crowded ghettos. The Warsaw ghetto had 250,000-300,000 Jews living in abominable conditions. Roughly this same number of Jews were slaughtered at the Treblinka concentration camp within the two months the Nazis started deporting them. The Jews managed to stockpile Molotov cocktails, hand grenades, military uniforms, and even a few pistols and some explosives. However, the resistance was crushed by the Nazis on May 16.
#workingclass #LaborHistory #holocaust #antisemitism #WarsawGhettoUprising #jews #poland #warsaw #WorldWarII #nazis #genocide #resistance #uprising #insurrection #fascism #antifa #antifascism
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2025-04-11 17:05:53 UTC

Major public health groups and doctors call for RFKJr's resignation or firing.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/anti-science/public-health-groups-call-kennedy-resign-or-be-fired-biomed-sector-airs-concerns
#publichealth #rfkjr #HIV #aids #hhs #cdc #nih #vaccine #antivax