(1/)Juneteenth? That’s a great excuse to help me out! I paid my phone bill before my loan payment come out. I MEANT to take the money out again and use it for my phone. It’s a lot, about $160 so anything is welcome. anything more is needed for food 🙏🏾🥹
The problems of skewed political coverage in the media becomes so clear at election time:
On the one hand, wall-to-wall coverage of Reform UK, a limited company (masquerading as a political party) run by privately educated men from financial services, whose electoral success is limited;
On the other hand record levels of food bank use, rampant poverty & a health crisis all treated as something that is only news-worthy from time-to-time.... and merely unfortunate
Morning🫡 I'm trying to raise about $80 to buy enough groceries to last me until the next disability check day Any donations are appreciated. Boosting is needed as well. Thank you so much💞
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).
Today in Labor History June 7, 1788: Residents of Grenoble, France, tossed roof tiles and junk down upon royal troops during the Day of the Tiles. This was one of the first events of the French Revolution. Tensions had been rising because of poor harvests, poverty and hunger. To make matters worse, the aristocracy and the church continued to collect royalties from the peasants and refused to do anything to help alleviate their misery. On the morning of June 7, men and women began marching through the streets of Grenoble, with sticks and rocks, axes and metal bars. They took over the cathedral and rang the bells, which drew in peasants from the countryside. When the navy attacked a 75-year-old man, the people began ripping up the streets. They climbed to the rooftops and began throwing tiles and other projectiles at the soldiers below. They forced the politicians to flee.
Racialized efforts by housing reformers missed the big picture in early 20th century Washington DC, says Carolyn Swope in the new Social Science History. Poverty & marginalization not housing damaged the health of low income Black residents.
Open access! https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2023.19
Today in Labor History June 5, 1832: The poor of Paris revolted against the new monarchy, in the wake of crop failures, food shortages and a cholera epidemic, which killed over 100,000 people in France. The poor were especially hard hit by the outbreak. Many believed that the wealthy had poisoned their wells. The Society of the Rights of Man organized an army and raised the red flag, declaring "Liberty or Death." Nearly 100 Republicans died in their attempt to overthrow the government. Over 70 monarchists died defending it. The uprising was the inspiration for Victor Hugo's “Les Miserables,” which depicts the period leading up to the rebellion. Hugo was living in Paris at the time, working on a play. When he heard the gunfire, he ran outside to see what was happening, and quickly got pinned down by gunfire, taking shelter between Republican barricades.
A 3 year waitlist would be short at this point. Often it's 5+ years, or they close the waitlist for a year or two, only opening it up for a brief window, and then they'll tell you that that advertised 5 years is closer to 7. It varies from area to area, and a lot of people don't seem to understand that. It's not as easy as they seem to think, and if you have to move due to poverty and needing to find something cheaper, you might move out of the area you applied in, so you get to apply and get to the back of the next waitlist.
Housing is a human right, and we need to start treating it as such, not as a fucking commodity/investment.
Today in Labor History May 31, 1838: Kentish peasants clashed with British troops in the Battle of Bosendon Wood. Sir William Courtenay led the uprising. Courtenay had previously run for public office and spent time in a lunatic asylum. He built up a large local following in the previous four years with his millenarian preaching and demonstrations against the New Poor Law of 1834. On May 29, 1838, he led a march through town, with a loaf of bread on a pole (a local symbol of protest). They continued protesting for the next two days, alarming the town’s wealthy elites. When the authorities tried to arrest Courtenay, he shot and killed a constable. The authorities quickly mustered a small army. Courtenay had a gun and a sword, but his followers had only sticks. Courtenay managed to kill a Lieutenant in the ensuing battle, but was promptly killed by other soldiers, who also killed eight of his followers.
Today in Labor History May 30, 1899: Pearl Hart committed one of the last stage coach robberies in America, and one of the only committed by a woman. At a young age, she married a man who turned out to be abusive. After watching Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, she decided that the cowboy lifestyle was the life for her. So, she abandoned her husband and caught a train to Trinidad, Colorado (near the site of the future Ludlow Massacre). "I was only twenty-two years old. I was good-looking, desperate, discouraged, and ready for anything that might come." During this time, she may have worked as a prostitute and developed a morphine habit. However, she wasn’t earning much money and decided to rob a stagecoach, along with a companion, Joe Boot. She cut her hair short and dressed as a man. They robbed the stagecoach without incident. But the authorities caught up them and arrested them less than a week later. Hart escaped, but was recaptured after two weeks. During her trial, she pleaded that she needed the money for her sick mother. The jury acquitted her, which really pissed off the judge.
Today in Labor History May 30, 1431: Teenage peasant soldier and crossdresser, Joan of Ark, was burned at the stake by an English tribunal, in part for the “blasphemy” of wearing men’s clothes. After her arrest, her male attire was taken from her and she was forced to sign a document (which she may not have understood) declaring she would no longer cross dress. But when her captors returned her men’s attire, to test her will, she promptly put the clothes back on. During her trial, she vowed, 'For nothing in the world will I swear not to arm myself and put on a man's dress.'" Twenty-fiver years later, Pope Callixtus III declared her a martyr. In 1909, they beatified her and they granted her sainthood in 1920. Transgender activist, writer and communist, Leslie Feinberg, argues in Transgender Liberation that "Joan of Arc was burned at the stake by the Inquisition because she refused to stop dressing as a man… an expression of her identity she was willing to die for rather than renounce."
She rose to prominence during the Hundred Years’ War, which was essentially a feud between competing monarchies (French and English) that left the peasants poor, hungry and at risk of being slaughtered. England had been winning the war and had almost gained control over France when Joan of Ark decided to intervene. She had been having religious visions and was convinced that only she could turn things around for France. She travelled to Chinon to meet King Charles, disguised as a male soldier, which later led to charges of cross-dressing. Convincing the King to turn the conflict into a religious war, she led his troops in the Battle of Orleans. By many contemporary accounts, it was her military advice that won the battle. However, by her own words, she never killed a man, preferring to carry the banner “forty times better” than a sword. In the centuries after her death, she became legendary.
Today in Labor History May 28, 1797: French authorities executed proto-anarchist revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf. Babeuf formed a secret society during the time of the French Revolution, known as the Conspiracy of the Equals, that plotted to overthrow the revolutionary government, and replace it with one that was truer to Jacobin ideals. The group included Sylvain Maréchal, Jacques Roux, Jean Varlet and others. Specifically, they called for a society with absolute equality, through the collectivization of all lands and the means of production, and putting an end to all poverty, at least for citizens of France. They also called for the abolition of private property and equal access to food, demands that resonated heavily among the impoverished French population, who were suffering from hunger during the economic crisis that followed the Revolution. By early April, 1796, half a million Parisians were in need of relief. And people began singing Babeuf’s song, Mourant de faim, mourant de froid ("Dying of Hunger, Dying of Cold"), in the cafés.
Throughout his life, Babeuf advocated for the poor and for the abolition of private property. He said "Society must be made to operate in such a way that it eradicates once and for all the desire of a man to become richer, or wiser, or more powerful than others."
You know the worst things about social safety net programs like Medicaid is that they punish the most vulnerable for trying to escape poverty. I'm sitting here thinking about my financial aid and whether a refund check from student loans will ruin my healthcare, bcuz I'm disabled and need my medical care to be free. There's also the fact I'm actively discouraged from saving bcuz if I save too much I'll get kicked off too.
Today in Labor History May 20, 1938: 500 unemployed workers began a sit-down strike in the Hotel Georgia, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Unemployed men had been drifting to British Columbia during the Depression because of the milder climate and relatively better pay in the forestry camps. In early ’38, the government had cut grants to the provinces. As a result, many of the relief camps shut down and jobs dried up. In response, protesters occupied the Hotel George, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the main post office beginning on May 20. They were led by communist organizers. The owner of the hotel refused to call the cops, fearing major property damage in the melee that would ensue. So, he bribed the men to leave. However, those in the post office and art gallery remained for weeks.
The conflict culminated on Bloody Sunday (June 19), when undercover Mounties brutally beat strikers in their attempt to evict them. 42 people were hospitalized, five of whom were cops. One striker lost an eye. Those who evaded arrest, along with onlookers and supporters on the outside, then marched to the East End, smashing windows. They caused $35,000 damage.
Ah, #capitalism. Neoclasical (mainstream) economic theory tells us it ensures resources will be put to the best, most efficient use. However, ignores the obvious: wealth equals power, so that what is "best" for society is what the richest value.
Like chasing everlasting youth by getting weekly blood transfusions from your teenage son and $40,000 gym membership add-ons.
.. launched by students to save groceries from the landfill. They’re helping to cut food bills & climate emissions.
"a lot of produce doesn’t make it to grocery store shelves when fruits and vegetables are considered to be misshapen, not the right size or slightly damaged.
.... the problem of oversupply, when too much of one food item is grown or distributed and doesn’t match market demand"- it is dumped!!
Today in Labor History May 17, 1974: Cops raided the headquarters of the Symbionese Liberation Army in Los Angeles, killing six members. It was one of the largest police shootouts in U.S. history. The cops fired 5,000 rounds and the SLA fired 4,000. Prior to the shootout, the SLA had committed several bank robberies and murders. However, they were most famous for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. One of the conditions they demanded for her release was for the Hearst family to distribute four hundred million dollars’-worth of food to the Bay Area poor. In actuality, over 100,000 bags of groceries were distributed. The SLA was a Maoist organization that saw itself as an American version of urban guerillas, like the Tupamaros, in Uruguay. By most accounts, the SLA was a group of confused wingnuts. Leader and founding member, Cinque, has been accused of being a police informant.
70 yrs after #SCOTUS delivered its landmark decision outlawing school segregation, #BrownVBoardOfEducation ranks as perhaps the court’s most venerated decision….
Most everything else related to the decision…is complex.
Nearly 7/10 Americans say more should be done to integrate schools…a figure that has steadily climbed from 30% in 1973….But a deeper look into the views of both Black & White people shows skepticism about the success of #Brown….
Because of #Brown, #school ofcls may no longer deliberately separate students by #race —but under more recent #SCOTUS orders, they aren’t allowed to deliberately mix them by race either. #Integration advocates today have stopped looking to the #federal courts for help & are pursuing #state lawsuits instead.…some #Black leaders have concluded that the answer is not integration…but more #money & #opportunity for high #poverty#schools….
A drone view shows informal shacks of the high-density suburb of Masiphumelele extending into a wetland adjacent to Lake Michelle private estate in Cape Town, South Africa. REUTERS/Nic Bothma