Photo of me in Lowell, Arizona, outside a hat shop, with antique cars on the side of the road, and an old Indian Motorcycles shop.

Now aghost town, Lowell was incorporated into Bisbee, AZ, in 2908. It was settled by Copper miners from Serbia, Finland Montenegro.

July 12, 1917, 1,300 striking IWW copper miners and their supporters were kidnapped from Bisbee, by vigilantes to crush the union. They were forced into cattle cars and illegally deported 200 miles into New Mexico, through desert, without any food or water.

Due to being all chilled and zen I've decided to watch Miners Strike: Frontline Story on iPlayer. I'm gonna be in a grumpy rage very quickly I think.

I see trade unions as the cutting edge of the labour movement because workers hold the real power in the economic sphere; we create all the wealth that society depends on.

Through our organised strength in unions, we can directly challenge the capitalist system and the state, both of which exploit and oppress us. I believe in workers’ self-management and solidarity, and that by building strong, federated unions based on direct action like strikes and workplace control, we prepare ourselves not only to improve our immediate conditions but to ultimately abolish wage slavery, capitalism, and the state itself.

In other words, our unions are the foundation for a new society where workers truly run the economy and make decisions democratically, without bosses or politicians standing above us.