June 24, 1904
–Troops arrested 22 workers in Telluride, Colorado, accused them of
being strike leaders and deported them out of the Telluride district.
This was a repeat of events in March, in which 60 union miners were
deported. (From the Daily Bleed)
Palmer disciplining labor?
June 24, 1917 – The IWW Domestic Workers Union supplied sandwiches to dozens of draft resistors in the Duluth, Minnesota jail. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 24, 1917 – The Russian Black Sea fleet mutinied at Sevastopol. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 24, 1919 – After the house of Attorney General Palmer was attacked on June 2, 1919, the Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani and his colleagues on the newspaper "Cronaca Sovversiva"
were expelled from the country. Palmer oversaw the mass deportation of
dozens of labor leaders, anarchists and communists, in addition to mass
arrests.
June 24, 1943
– Otto Rühle (1874-1943), German Left communist of the Spartacist
League (along with Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Mehring), died in Mexico. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 24, 1969
– Blacks rioted in Omaha, Nebraska, after police killed African
American teenager Vivian Strong. Rioting lasted for four days. Omaha had
seen race riots in 1968, 1966 and numerous labor dispute riots throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)
June 24, 1971
– Seventeen workers were killed in a water tunnel in Sylmar,
California, as the second explosion in two days rocked the worksite. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 2, 1780 – The Gordon Riots
began on this date in England and lasted through June 9. The riots began as a
pogrom against Catholics. However, it grew into a mass worker insurrection that
included ex-slaves, impressed sailors and debtors, English, Irish, Italians,
Germans and Jews. The insurrectionists liberated two thousand prisoners and destroyed
every major prison in London. Rioters also destroyed the homes members of the
ruling elite, as well as toll houses and the Bank of England. The rich fled the
city in terror. (From the Daily
Bleed)
Harriet Tubman, c1885
June 2, 1863 – Backed by three gun boats, Harriet
Tubman and her forces freed 750 slaves and set fire to the plantations from
which they were liberated. (From the Daily
Bleed)
Cananea
June 2, 1906 –U.S. rangers arrived at Cananea,
Sonora, killing 22 striking Mexican miners. (From the Daily
Bleed)
Bisbee Deportees Rounded Up in Ballpark
June 2, 1916 – The IWW (Industrial Workers of the
World) Mesabi Iron Range strike began in Minnesota. The Western Federation of
Miners (WFM), which organized the 1907 Mesabi Range Strike, was uninterested in
organizing miners in 1916, leaving a vacuum that the much more radical IWW
gladly filled. The Wobblies sent many of their top organizers to help and
succeeded in recruiting many of the people who served as strikebreakers in 1907
to join the current strike. Carlos Tresca, an IWW leader, was arrested for
murder in conjunction with the strike, but was released without trial. Tresca
went on to oppose Mussolini and the fascists, as well as the Stalinists in the
USSR. He was assassinated in 1943. The Mesabi Strike was suppressed violently
by police and vigilantes, with numerous strikers being jailed. The struggle was
a precursor to the infamous labor deportations, in Bisbee, Arizona in July,
1917, in which 1,300 Wobblies, their supporters, and even innocent bystanders,
were rounded up, forced into cattle cars, and dumped in the desert after 16
hours without food or water. (From the Daily
Bleed, Minnesota Historical Society and Wikipedia)
Palmer Disciplining Labor
June 2, 1919 – Anarchists
carried out a series of coordinated bombings across the Eastern United States,
damaging the homes of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who had launched the
first Red Hunt against unionists, commies and anarchists, as well as then
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Rooselvel. (From the Daily
Bleed)
June 2, 1921 – The IWW hall in Tampico was raided.
In response the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) called a general strike,
winning the right to have their hall. (From the Daily
Bleed)
June 2, 1936 – Anastasio Somoza took over
Nicaragua as dictator. (From the Daily
Bleed)
June 2, 1952
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal for President Truman to have
the Army seize the nation’s steel mills to prevent a strike. 600,000 CIO steelworkers immediately began a 53-day strike.
(From Workday Minnesota and the Daily
Bleed)
June 2, 1962 – 7,000
Russian workers marched in Novocherkassk to protest wage cuts and price
increases. The military killed at least 24. (From the Daily
Bleed)
June 2, 1977 – Native American activist Leonard
Peltier was sentenced in Fargo, North Dakota, to two consecutive life terms for
the killing of two FBI agents, despite the fact that there was no evidence
linking him to the deaths. (From
the Daily Bleed)
June 2, 1989 – 10,000 soldiers were blocked from
entering Tiananmen Square, in Beijing, by 100,000 citizens protecting
pro-democracy students. (From the Daily
Bleed)
Victims of the Red Scare Awaiting Deportation at Ellis Island, 1/3/20 (from Wikipedia)
January 24, 1920—Palmer
raids (or first Red Scare), which began on January 2, continued
throughout January, resulting in the arrest of 3,000 labor activists and
suspected anarchists and communists in 30 cities and 20 states. (From
the Daily Bleed)
January 24, 1937 -- The United Auto Workers (UAW) organized their first aircraft local. (From the Daily Bleed)
January 24, 1981 – Millions of Polish workers walked off the job in support of Solidarity’s demand for a 5-day work week. (From the Daily Bleed)
November 15, 1881 – The "Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions" (FOTLU), a precursor to the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was founded on this date. (From the Daily Bleed)
November 15, 1919 – The main headquarters of the New York City Wobblies (IWW) was ransacked and destroyed by agents acting under the US Attorney General Palmer. The Palmer raids were part of the first U.S. communist witch hunt, starting well before the more well known McCarthy purges. It was also were J. Edgar Hoover cut his baby teeth. (From the Daily Bleed)
November 15, 1922 –A General Strike was called by the anarchosyndicalist-inspired union FTRE. The strike united nearly all the workers and craftsmen in Guayaqui, but was brutally suppressed that ended in a massacre of the workers. (From the Daily Bleed)
Buenaventura Durutti
November 15, 1936 – On this date, 1,800 militiamen from the anarchist Durutti Column entered Madrid to fight the fascists. Madrid was the first large city in the world to be subjected to a fascist attack as a prelude to WWII. By November 18th, only 700 of the 1800 anarchist militiamen were still fighting. Many had died and others had deserted because they had gone solong without food or sleep. Durutti persuaded some to return to their positions, but was himself mortally wounded on November 20. (From the Daily Bleed)
November 15, 1938 - The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) had its first constitutional convention. (From Workday Minnesota)
November 15, 1987 – 6,000 antigovernment strikers sacked the city hall of Brasov, Romania. (From the Daily Bleed)
November 7, 1912 – Enest Riebe's "Mr. Block," IWW labor comic strip first appeared in print. Mr. Block was one of the best-loved features in the Wobbly press. Joe Hill wrote a song about "Mr. Block," who was a boss-loving, American Dream-believing, self-sabotaging knucklehead. Some call Riebe the first "underground" comic book artist. (From the Daily Bleed)
Mr. Block (by Joe Hill)
1. Please give me your attention, I'll introduce to you
A man who is a credit to the ["Our] old Red White and Blue["]
His head is made of lumber and solid as a rock
He is a common worker and his name is Mr. Block
And Block [he] thinks he may be premier [President] some day
Chorus
Oh Mr. Block, you were born by mistake
You take the cake, you make me ache
[Go] tie a rock on your block and then jump in the lake
Kindly do that for Liberty's sake!
2. Yes, Mr. Block is lucky - he got a job, by gee!
The shark got seven dollars for job and fare and fee
They shipped him to a desert and dumped him with his truck
But when he tried to find his job he sure was out of luck
He shouted, "That's too raw! I'll fix them with the law!"
3. Block hiked back to the city but wasn't doing well
He said "I'll join the union, the great AF of L".
He got a job that morning, got fired by the night
He said, "I'll see Sam Gompers and he'll fix that foreman right!"
Sam Gompers said, "You see, you've got our sympathy."
4. Election day he shouted, "A Socialist for Mayor!"
The comrade got elected [and] he happy was for fair
But after the election he got an awful shock
[When] a great big socialistic bull did rap him on the block
And Comrade Block did sob, "I helped him get his job!"
5. Poor Block he died one evening, I'm very glad to state
He climbed the golden ladder up to the pearly gate
He said, "Oh Mister Peter, one thing I'd like to tell
I'd like to meet the Astorbilts and John D Rockerfell!"
Old Pete said, "Is that so? You'll meet them down below!"
Tune: It Looks to me Like a Big Time Tonight. from Al Grierson,
by Joe Hill, in 13th ed. of the Little Red Songbook
November 7, 1915 – Emiliano Zapata proposed a new labor law that included an 8-hour day, prohibition of work for children under age 14, worker cooperatives to run factories abandoned by owners, and a fixed minimum wage. (From the Daily Bleed)
German Revolutionaries Summarily Executed, March 1919, During Counter-Revolution from the Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)
November 7, 1918 – The imprisonment of 600 sailors during the Kiel Mutiny in Germany led to a general uprising. Within months, the Independent Social Democrats, who were heading the provisional government, were overthrown by the Bavarian Raterepublik, composed of Workers', Soldiers', and Farmers' Councils. Those fighting the socialists included anarchists and anti-authoritarian communists like Erich Mühsam, Gustav Landauer, Ernst Toller and Ret Marut (who became known as the novelist B. Traven after fleeing the counterrevolution and living in exile in Mexico). (From the Daily Bleed)
IWW Union Office Ransacked During Palmer Raid
November 7, 1919 – The first Red Scare, or "Palmer’s Reign of Terror," began in the U.S. on this date with the imprisonment of 3,000 anarchists without bail at Ellis Island. During the Palmer raids, hundreds of anarchists, communists, union leaders and other radicals were rounded up, imprisoned, deported and even killed. (From the Daily Bleed)
November 7, 1959 - The U.S. Supreme Court used the Taft-Hartley Act to break a steel strike. Taft-Hartley was passed in 1947, in the wake of the 1946 Oakland General Strike. It severely limited strike activities, specifically prohibited sympathy strikes and General Strikes, and was essentially a giveaway to employers helping pave the way for the progressive weakening of the U.S. labor movement. (From Workday Minnesota)
June 24, 1904
–Troops arrested 22 workers in Telluride, Colorado, accused them of
being strike leaders and deported them out of the Telluride district.
This was a repeat of events in March, in which 60 union miners were
deported. (From the Daily Bleed)
Palmer disciplining labor?
June 24, 1917 – The IWW Domestic Workers Union supplied sandwiches to dozens of draft resistors in the Duluth, Minnesota jail. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 24, 1917 – The Russian Black Sea fleet mutinied at Sevastopol. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 24, 1919 – After the house of Attorney General Palmer was attacked on June 2, 1919, the Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani and his colleagues on the newspaper "Cronaca Sovversiva"
were expelled from the country. Palmer oversaw the mass deportation of
dozens of labor leaders, anarchists and communists, in addition to mass
arrests.
June 24, 1943
– Otto Rühle (1874-1943), German Left communist of the Spartacist
League (along with Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Mehring), died in Mexico. (From the Daily Bleed)
June 24, 1969
– Blacks rioted in Omaha, Nebraska, after police killed African
American teenager Vivian Strong. Rioting lasted for four days. Omaha had
seen race riots in 1968, 1966 and numerous labor dispute riots throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)
June 24, 1971
– Seventeen workers were killed in a water tunnel in Sylmar,
California, as the second explosion in two days rocked the worksite. (From the Daily Bleed)
Victims of the Red Scare Awaiting Deportation at Ellis Island, 1/3/20 (from Wikipedia)
January 24, 1920—Palmer raids (or first Red Scare), which began on January 2, continued throughout January, resulting in the arrest of 3,000 labor activists and suspected anarchists and communists in 30 cities and 20 states. (From the Daily Bleed)
January 24, 1937 -- The United Auto Workers (UAW) organized their first aircraft local. (From the Daily Bleed)
January 24, 1981 – Millions of Polish workers walked off the job in support of Solidarity’s demand for a 5-day work week. (From the Daily Bleed)
Naomi Wolf’s expose on the federal role in the crackdown on the Occupy Wall Street movement, “The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy,” has been making the rounds in the liberal blogosphere, getting replayed here and here, for example. In her piece,Wolf calls the violent crackdown on OWS protesters a “civil war” by the U.S. government against its own constituents. She believes that Congress is colluding with Obama to suppress the people they are “supposed to represent” and they are doing it because they have “started entering the system as members of the middle class (or upper middle class) – but they are leaving DC privy to vast personal wealth.”
In other words, Wolf sees a conspiracy by an upstart class of 1%-er wannabes to keep secret the fact that they are enriching themselves on the backs of the 99% so that the 99% will continue to vote for them and so they can continue their nefarious plot to become members of the ruling elite.
Of course there are numerous sinister and disturbing aspects to the crackdown, not the least of which has been its level of violence and the use of military hardware. But the violence is not unprecedented, as Wolf and others decry, nor even deadly.
So far, no one has been killed by the police at OWS protests, though hundreds of workers and activists were killed by the police in other protests and strikes over the past 130 years. In the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, for example, 10 workers were shot dead by militias just in Maryland and 20 more in Pittsburgh. Many others were killed and injured by militias, police and federal troops in other cities, too. There were numerous other labor struggles in which labor activists were shot and killed by police, militias, private security or vigilantes, on behalf of the bosses (e.g., Homestead, Everett, Columbine, Ludlow, the Battle of Virden, the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903-4, the Battle of Blair Mountain). There were also the massacres of the 60s and early-70s, like Kent State, Jackson State, Southern University and Orangeberg, and the political assassinations (e.g., Fred Hampton, Bobby Hutton, members of MOVE).
Wolf also complains about how the movement has been infiltrated by local and federal law enforcement and vigilantes, while local police responses have been coordinated by the feds. However, none of this is new either, while the “organized and coordinated by the feds” angle isn’t even necessarily true. COINTELPRO, HUAC, McCarthyism and the Palmer raids were all federally-coordinated police responses to domestic activism and infiltration of movements is so routine that one would have to be very naïve to think their political meetings and protests were free of infiltrators and provocateurs.
In order to get to the bottom of this “unprecedented federal coordination” of attacks on the OWS movement, Wolf asked OWS what their message was. Within 15 minutes she received 100 responses. The number one demand was “get the money out of politics.”
This is hardly radical or revolutionary and cannot be the reason for the suppression of the movement. In fact, the demand to reform the political system indicates that they accept and embrace the existing political order. It presumes that the system is inherently good and did, or would, serve the interests of the 99% if only it weren’t so corrupt. Indeed, the goal of reducing the influence of money in politics is such a mainstream idea that it has been sought by mainstream politicians and 1%-ers like John McCain and Russ Feingold.
Their number two demand, according to Wolf, is that the banking system be reformed, by implementing new rules to prevent fraud, for example, and restoring the Glass-Steagall act. Again, this is hardly radical or revolutionary and indicates that they embrace the existing economic order, including the 1%’s right to be much richer than the rest of us. Banks can still exist and make money by exploiting labor; they just need to follow the law.
While none of this is revolutionary, radical or even a remote threat to the hegemony and wealth of the ruling elite, the rich do not want to give up any of their wealth or power. When the rabble rises up, even with modest demands, it is like an uppity housekeeper or an insubordinate employee. The proper response is to aggressively discipline them or else they might get bigger ideas and their contagion might spread. What if OWS decides that banking and political reforms aren’t enough? What if they decide to elect a bunch of greens or demand higher wages or free healthcare for all? What if they manage to organize a real General Strike?
The Shocking Truth is that biggest threat may not be what the OWS protesters are currently demanding, but the sympathy they have garnered among the rest of Americans. According to Michael Moore, 72% of Americans want to increase taxes on the rich. While Moore is not the most trustworthy source, the point is that average Americans are pissed off about their declining wealth, material security and chances of being able to retire in comfort (or at all), and the OWS movement feels to them like the best expression of this angst. They do want the wealthy to pay more in taxes and they want that extra revenue to rejuvenate their schools, parks, libraries and other services.
However, they seem to also want another New Deal, or something like it, and this would really set the rich back.Under Roosevelt, the marginal tax rate increased to 94%. The corporate tax rate increased from 12% in 1931, to 40% in 1942.New rules regulating banking, including Glass-Steagall, were passed, that nominally restrained their ability to make profits. The Wagner Act (NRLA) was passed, which nominally restrained employers’ ability to interfere in unions and labor organizing.
It also resulted in a massive increase in government spending on public works, which put people back to work and income into their pockets. This, too, the wealthy cannot stand, as it would require a realignment of government priorities away from subsidizing the wealthy and their businesses and toward subsidizing the 99%.
However, it is just plain absurd to say that this is all about Congress trying to keep the public from learning their dirty little secret and helping them to become members of the 1%. Most members of Congress were already members of the ruling elite well before becoming members of Congress. They came from jobs as CEOs, bankers and large-firm attorneys. And the public has always known that they were enriching themselves further while in Congress. This is probably why their approval of Congress has been so low for so long. With the exception of a blip in 2002, the Congressional approval rating has consistently been less than 40% for the past 36 years.
