every time I see someone complain about unions I think about how unions were the consensus alternative to the previous system of burning the factory owner alive inside his house
Not making any threats here, just thinking out loud as a historian — do they people brazenly pushing for impunity for the wealthy elites not know what traditionally comes next?
They really juat don't teach labor history here at all. Nothing about armed standoff between Union members and armed "security," nothing about the beatings, and certainly nothing that might give anyone ideas on how to deal with rich assholes who think they're above consequences. 🤷♂️
The fact that in the US I didn't learn about the labor dispute that the international labor day commemorates, even though it happened in the US, and the fact that we don't celebrate that labor day really gives away the game imo
Freshman year at Eastern MI I was like "I've always loved history classes, and my whole family's been union people, so lemme check out this labor history stuff here" only to be constantly like "WHY DIDNT THEY TEACH US THIS BEFORE?!. aaaaaaagh"
The upper echelons of American society has been so comparatively stable for so long that our elites have forgotten what a guillotine sounds like and that forgetfulness has made them crass.
Guillotines are bad. But a healthy fear of guillotines?
a common form of protest in colonial America was to get so riled up, you go to the local governor’s house and rip it down. In one case, they literally threw his house in a river so he couldn’t just put it back up
That's definitely their strategy, and it's definitely working, for now. Things can absolutely get worse, and will unless something fundamental changes. The super-rich apparently seem determined to walk straight into future generations' cautionary tales.
Sadly the tyranny of fascistic oppression is usually endured for decades or more before the guillotine comes down! Can we skip that part and go straight to the beheading now pls😂🙏😡
Across the developed world the political consensus is removing each and every pressure valve and assuming the pressure will continue to dissipate as usual.
The Homestead Strike happened just 3 years after the Johnstown Flood, and it targeted the companies of owners involved in the flood. After the flood, none of the wealthy industrialists were held accountable. The two events may not have been explicitly linked, but people remember injustice.
Maybe the conservatives are on to something and we should burn about 30 billionaires on their yachts out in international waters, while shooting down anyone who tries to rescue them.
Since they died in international waters, their probate gets more complex...
My wife works at a hospital and let me tell you... her union rep seems blissfully unaware that the history of his position in those negotiations consists of, "Listen up fuckstick. You negotiate in good faith or you'll be happy you're already in a hospital."
I think an unfortunate development in modern times is that the factory owner is much more likely to live halfway across the world, and have multiple homes with significant internal security presence and militarized police on call.
In conservative areas looooots of people (even older people) absolutely do not know that locking people inside a burning factory was absolutely a real thing and that's what prompted unionization as self-defense measure.
99% of the tv I consume takes place between 1700 and 1950 and yeah, I feel as though I’m watching a working class uprising build, the way a tsunami does.
Sadly, I think the heavily armed (with automatic weapons) rich people who get to act with impunity ( see Trump, Donald) are a tremendous deterrent. I know facing down hired goons with AR-15s is deterrent for me.
