Continuing my notes on 'Classes' by Erik Olin Wright

#WorkingClass #Socialism #Socialist #Marx #Marxism #Capitalism #Philosophy #Economics #Politics #AmWriting #AmReading https://proletarianperspective.wordpress.com/2025/06/19/part-2-the-agenda-of-contemporary-marxist-analysis-notes-from-classes/

The workers' freedom must be the work of their own hands, the emancipation and liberation of the working class cannot be granted or imposed by external political parties or authorities, but must be achieved through autonomous, collective action and self-organization.

Today in Writing History June 10, 1928: Maurice Sendak, author of “Where the Wild Things Are,” was born in Brooklyn, New York. A little boy once sent him a card with a drawing on it. Sendak was so moved he sent the boy another letter with his own personal “Wild Thing” drawn on it. The boy’s mother sent Sendak a thank you note saying that her son loved the card so much he ate it. Sendak considered that one of the highest compliments he ever received. Sendak was an atheist Jew who lost numerous family members in the Holocaust. He was also gay.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #mauricesendak #author #writer #books #children #holocaust #antisemitism #lgbtq #newyork @bookstadon

Today in Labor History June 10, 1937: The mayor of Monroe, Michigan organized a vigilante mob of 1,400 men armed with baseball bats and teargas to break the picket line at Newton Steel. As a result, eight strikers were injured and hospitalized. The vigilantes also vandalized sixteen of the workers’ cars dumped eight of them into the river. During this same strike wave in the steel industry, there was a Memorial Day Massacre, in Chicago, in which the police beat and shot scores of people, including men and women, killing at least 25. There was also the Women’s Day Massacre, in Youngstown, Ohio, in which 2 workers were killed. 10% of the union at that time was made up of African American workers. Although few women worked in the industry, they played a pivotal role in the strike, walking picket lines with the men, risking life and limb in confrontations with the police.

Today in Labor History June 10, 1960: Thousands of council workers and revolutionary students surrounded the entourage of U.S. Presidential Press Secretary Hagerty at Haneda airport in Tokyo. Hagerty had to be rescued by a US marine helicopter, while the pro-imperialist government of Japan collapsed in embarrassment. President Eisenhower, fearing for his life, cancelled his July visit. The protests were part of the 1959-1960 Anpo (Security Treaty) protests. By June, 1960, hundreds of thousands of protestors were surrounding Japan's National Diet building in Tokyo on nearly a daily basis. At least one protestor was killed.

Today in Labor History June 10, 1971: Mexican police, and paramilitary death squads known as Los Halcones, killed 120 student protesters, including a 14-year-old boy, in the Corpus Christi Massacre, also known as El Halconazo. In 1968, the government had massacred up to 500 of students and bystanders in the Tlatelolco massacre. The Halconazo started with protests at the University of Nuevo Leon, for joint leadership that included students and teachers. When the university implemented the new government, the state government slashed their budget and abolished their autonomy. This led to a strike that spread to the National Autonomous University of Mexico and National Polytechnic Institute. To suppress the strike, the authorities used tankettes, police, riot police, and the death squad, known as Los Halcones, who had been trained by the CIA. Los Halcones first attacked with sticks, but the student fended them off. Then they resorted to high caliber rifles. Police had been ordered to do nothing. When the injured were taken to the hospital, Los Halcones followed and shot them dead in the hospital. Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes about these events in her 2021 novel “Velvet Was the Night.” It is also depicted in the 2018 film Roma.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #students #protest #massacre #mexico #repression #freespeech #police #tlatelolco #cia #film #books #novel #writer #author @bookstadon

“It didn’t occur to me for about five or six years after leaving school that literature was something I could be involved in. Then I discovered it was possible to write stories myself…”

—an extract from James Kelman on “Elitism & English Literature”, from a book I’m currently typesetting

Today in Labor History June 9, 1843: Bertha von Suttner was born (d. 1914). She was an Austrian journalist, author, peace activist and Nobel Prize laureate. She was also a friend of Alfred Nobel, who famously told her that there would not be world peace until a weapon was invented that was so deadly it could annihilate countries in seconds. Some say that it was her activism and advocacy that inspired him to include a peace prize as part of his endowment. Von Suttner wrote “Lay Down Your Arms,” an anti-war novel that made her a leading figure in the Austrian peace movement. However, it was also considered a feminist novel for its characters resistance to accepting traditional gender roles. Tolstoy compared her favorably with Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Read my satirical bio of Nobel here: https://marshalllawwriter.com/the-merchant-of-death/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #peace #antiwar #WeaponsOfMassDestruction #nobel #nobelprize #BerthaVonsuttner #journalism #author #writer #books #novel @bookstadon

Several days ago, the ICE Gestapo illegally arrested David Huerto, President of SEIU, in a raid in Los Angeles. He is still in prison, for doing nothing wrong.

It's an attack on immigrants.
An attack on the working class, on unions.

No one is Free Unless We ALL are Free.

Protests today at noon to force his release

Today in Labor History June 9, 2004: Brian Williamson died. He was a Jamaican activist and co-founder of J-FLAG (in 1998), the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays. They run the Stop Murder Music campaign, which fights for the censorship of homophobic lyrics in Jamaican music. They also co-run the Black Gay Men’s Advisory Group and OutRage, a direct-action LGBTQ activist group. Williamson was one of the first openly gay public figures in Jamaica. He was murdered in his apartment by an acquaintance, at the age of 58. Police officially ruled it a botched robbery. However, J-FLAG believes it was a homophobic attack. Williamson previously survived a homophobic knife attack and numerous death threats.

Ausgerechnet während ich mit Luna Ali auf Lesereise bin, stellt Marcus Rediker am Freitag in #Berlin sein frisch auf deutsch übersetztes Buch »Das Sklavenschiff« vor: https://www.assoziation-a.de/buchvorstellung-mit-marcus-rediker-in-berlin/

Pflichttermin für alle, die an maritimer #WorkingClass #History und der Entstehungsgeschichte des modernen #Rassismus interessiert sind!

Trump, and the capitalist class, can boast about the record low unemployment rate in April 2025 at 4.2%, but it's all a lie. The true unemployment rate, is closer to 25%.

Meanwhile, 60% of American can't afford a "minimal quality of life."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of-living-income-quality-of-life/

Today in Labor History June 8, 1967: The Israeli military attacked the United States and got away with it. Israeli aircraft and boats attacked the USS Liberty during Israel's "Six Day War," killing 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. The U.S. government “investigated” the attack and issued a whitewashed report calling it an unfortunate mistake. However, witnesses and critics dispute this claim, calling it a deliberate attack by Israel to silence U.S. criticism of Israel’s war tactics. According to George Ball, undersecretary of state at the time, the attack set the stage for future Israeli policy by sending the message to Israel's leaders “that nothing they might do would offend the Americans to the point of reprisal. If America’s leaders did not have the courage to punish Israel for the blatant murder of its own citizens and soldiers, it seemed clear that their American friends would let them get away with almost anything."

Today in Labor History June 8, 1917: The Granite Mountain/Spectacular Mine disaster killed 168 men in Butte, Montana. It was the deadliest underground mine disaster in U.S. history. Within days, men were walking out of the copper mines all over Butte in protest of the dangerous working conditions. Two weeks later, organizers had created a new union, the Metal Mine Workers’ Union. They immediately petitioned Anaconda, the largest of the mine companies, for union recognition, wage increases and better safety conditions. By the end of June, electricians, boilermakers, blacksmiths and other metal tradesmen had walked off the job in solidarity.

Frank Little, a Cherokee miner and member of the IWW, went to Butte during this strike to help organize the miners. Little had previously helped organize oil workers, timber workers and migrant farm workers in California. He had participated in free speech fights in Missoula, Spokane and Fresno, and helped pioneer many of the passive resistance techniques later used by the Civil Rights movement. He was also an anti-war activist, calling U.S. soldiers “Uncle Sam’s scabs in uniforms.” On August 1, 1917, vigilantes broke into the boarding house where he was staying. They dragged him through the streets while tied to the back of a car and then hanged him from a railroad trestle.

Author Dashiell Hammett had been working in Butte at the time as a striker breaker for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. They had tried to get him to murder Little, offering him $5,000, but he refused. He later wrote about the experience in his novel, “Red Harvest.” It supposedly haunted him throughout his life that anyone would think he would do such a thing.

You can read my biography of Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

And my biography of Hammett here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/dashiell-hammett/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #FrankLittle #indigenous #nativeamerican #cherokee #freespeech #mining #antiwar #civilrights #Pinkertons #books #fiction #writer #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History June 8, 1904: A battle between the Colorado state militia and striking miners occurred in Dunnville, Colorado. As a result, six union members died and 15 were taken prisoner. The authorities deported 79 of the strikers to Kansas. Most of this was done under the auspices of Rockefeller, who effectively owned the state government and militia.

This incident occurred during the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903-1904. Big Bill Haywood and the Western Federation of Labor (WFM) led the strikes. However, they were violently suppressed by Pinkerton and Baldwin-Felts detectives, local cops and militias. Scholars have said “There is no episode in American labor history in which violence was as systematically used by employers as in the Colorado labor war of 1903 and 1904.”
James McParland ran the Pinkerton agency in Denver. He had served as an agent provocateur in the Pennsylvania miners’ union in the 1870s. The state convicted and executed 20 innocent Irish coal miners because of his false testimony. (I depict that story in my novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill.”) McParland also tried to sabotage the WFM, in Colorado, by placing spies and agents provocateur within the union. And he unsuccessfully tried to get Big Bill Haywood convicted for murdering former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg. Haywood was innocent.

You can read more on the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

You can pick up my novel here:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/
https://christophersbooks.com/
https://boundtogether.org//
https://www.historiumpress.com/michael-dunn

Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy!

#workingclass #LaborHistory #colorado #laborwars #bigbillhaywood #wfm #union #strike #Pinkertons
#scab #solidarity #jamesmcparland #books #novel #historicalfiction #author #writer #AnywhereButSchuylkill @bookstadon

Today in Labor History June 8, 1852: The earliest recorded strike by Chinese immigrants to the U.S. occurred when Chinese stonemasons, who were brought to San Francisco to build the three-story Parrott granite building, went on strike for higher pay. Thousands of workers who labored in the hills during the gold rush, would come to San Francisco each winter to find work away from the icy blizzards, creating even greater competition for the limited jobs and housing that was available. On top of this, prices in San Francisco for housing, food, and other goods, were often 10-20 times more expensive than the rest of the country due to the inflation caused by the Gold Rush. It was actually cheaper to ship one’s clothes to Hawaii to be laundered than to have it done locally.

Today in Labor History June 7, 1971: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that clothing with the words "Fuck the Draft" was protected by the First amendment. The Court overturned the conviction of Paul Cohen for disturbing the peace, setting the precedent that vulgar writing is protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. This, of course, could quickly change under the current far rightwing court.

In 1968, Kiyoshi Kuromiya designed this poster and sent orders by mail. He was arrested by the FBI and charged with sending indecent material through the Post Office. Later that year, after beating the charges, Kuromiya defied the authorities by handing out 2000 of the posters at the Chicago Democratic Convention. The photo is of Detroiter Bill Greenshields was taken at random during a 1967 March on the Pentagon and used by Kuromiya.

There has been no draft in the U.S. since 1973. Ending conscription was one of President Nixon’s campaign promises (not because he opposed conscription or imperialistic wars, but because he wanted to undermine the antiwar protest movement). However, if NATO continues its reckless escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, and their threat to station hundreds of thousands of troops along Russia’s entire western border, from Finland to the Balkans; or the U.S. attempts to fight Iran with boots on the ground; or the U.S. goes to war with China the mass slaughter could rise to the scale of World War II. And this could force the U.S. and Europe to reimpose the draft, so that they are not forced to replicate Ukraine’s desperate move of sending people over the age of 50 to the front. Indeed, Germany is already considering reimposing conscription because they can’t find enough willing volunteers. https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/06/06/germany-is-thinking-about-bringing-back-conscription

Today in Labor History June 7, 1929: Striking textile workers battled police in Gastonia, North Carolina, during the Loray Mill Strike. Police Chief O.F. Aderholt was accidentally killed by one of his own officers during a protest march by striking workers. Nevertheless, the authorities arrested six strike leaders. They were all convicted of “conspiracy to murder.”

The strike lasted from April 1 to September 14. It started in response to the “stretch-out” system, where bosses doubled the spinners’ and weavers’ work, while simultaneously lowering their wages. When the women went on strike, the bosses evicted them from their company homes. Masked vigilantes destroyed the union’s headquarters. The NTWU set up a tent city for the workers, with armed guards to protect them from the vigilantes.

One of the main organizers was a poor white woman named Ella May Wiggans. She was a single mother, with nine kids. Rather than living in the tent city, she chose to live in the African American hamlet known as Stumptown. She was instrumental in creating solidarity between black and white workers and rallying them with her music. Some of her songs from the strike were “Mill Mother’s Lament,” and “Big Fat Boss and the Workers.” Her music was later covered by Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie, who called her the “pioneer of the protest ballad.” During the strike, vigilantes shot her in the chest. She survived, but later died of whooping cough due to poverty and inadequate medical care.

For really wonderful fictionalized accounts of this strike, read “The Last Ballad,” by Wiley Cash (2017) and “Strike!” by Mary Heaton Vorse (1930).

https://youtu.be/Ud-xt7SVTQw?t=31

#workingclass #LaborHistory #EllaMayWiggans #textile #women #feminism #union #communism #vigilante #policebrutality #police #acab #solidarity #folkmusic #laborsongs #racism #poverty #northcarolina #fiction #HistoricalFiction #author #writer #books #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History June 7, 1913: The radical labor union, IWW, held a fundraising pageant at Madison Square Gardens. The production featured songs and a reenactment of events from the ongoing Paterson strike. It was created and performed by 1,000 mill workers from the silk industry strike. John Reed organized a march of strikers into Manhattan for the pageant.

Today in Labor History June 7, 1896: Anarchists supposedly set off a bomb during a Corpus Christi parade in Barcelona, Spain. As a result, a dozen people died and thirty were wounded. No one knows who actually set off the bomb, but the government blamed anarchists, who had set off numerous bombs over the previous four years. Consequently, the government went on a witch-hunt, arresting and torturing dozens of anarchists in the infamous Montjuich Prison. However, many leading anarchists denied the accusations and said they would never have set off a deadly bomb in a working-class community like this. They reserved their attacks for members of the ruling class. Nevertheless, the government tried and executed five anarchists, all of whom proclaimed their innocence. They sentenced 67 others to life in prison. Worldwide protests erupted in response. Montjuich Prison was graphically depicted in the opening scene Victor Serge’s epic novel, Birth of Our Power, which he wrote while imprisoned in the Soviet Union for his opposition to Stalin.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #spain #barcelona #bombing #prison #torture #VictorSerge #soviet #russia #stalin #writer #author #books #fiction #novel @bookstadon