by Rory Hall
Originally published at The Daily Coin
Dave Hodges of The Common Sense Show recently penned, The Psychological Reasons Why American Soldiers Would Fire On American Citizens. Wether you agree or disagree with his analysis is up to you, I am not here to say they will or will not. Daisy Luther, The Organic Prepper, penned Rebuttal: Here’s Why I Do NOT Believe American Soldiers Will Fire on Protesting American Citizens stating she believed they would not. Personally, I believe some would, but the vast majority would uphold their Oath to defend the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.
When the Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it was no accident these words were incorporated into the only document the world as ever known that was specifically designed to protect the people from their government. It was no accident that when the defensive forces for the United States were born the Oath to defend the Constitution, and not the government, was described in detail. When Stewart Rhodes founded Oath Keepers his goal was to drive home this Oath to the people who swore before God and country. “Not on our watch” is their motto.
We live in a time that is as unstable as the world has ever seen. The instability is not confined to a particular region or group of people or even a nation. It is global. This global instability has been brought on by the banksters, the central banking system specifically and to pinpoint the exact demon, the Federal Reserve system in the United States. With the power to control the worlds currency, the sociopaths have token charge of most of the worlds economies. This is not speculation on my part. When Rothschild uttered his famous quote about being in charge of a nations money, he wasn’t kidding and, sadly, he was spot on. When the sociopaths at the Federal Reserve began their reign of terror in the United States the world was just beginning to recover from World War I and the banksters in the United States had just about destroyed the economy of the country. Their gambling on the stock market had put them on the brink of insolvency. Sound familiar? It should, it is exactly where we have been starting in 2007 or earlier.
When the Twin Towers came down in 2001 everything changed. The federal government, in concert with the banksters, began taking over the “security” of our country. Mister cheney did all he could to put into place an absolute police state through fear, terror tactics and legislation. OBomba has actually built on this legacy left by the bush/cheney regime and ramped everything up to the next level. Militarized police, executive orders that are dictatorial in nature along with escalating the unConstitutional wars around the world. Not only has obomba continued the program of unConstitutional wars, but he began seeking direction from the UN in regards to the obombing of Libya.
With this as the back drop I ask you, will they fire on us? Will we awaken to find people in uniforms in our neighborhoods pointing weapons at us? Maybe we should ask the citizens of Ferguson, MO; or the citizens in Waco, TX; or the Weaver family in Ruby Ridge, ID; or the Bundy family in Bunkerville, NV; or ask the families of the Kent State students. Maybe they can answer this question. If history is one of our best teachers, this is a lesson we should all study a little more intently.
Below is a conversation between Daisy Luther and myself. I wanted to share with her a couple of recent personal experiences and follow up on her Rebuttal article. If you have had any experience as described in the conversation please share below.
It was a good post and interview, Daisy. Thank you.
Before I listened to the interview, I focused on on your question, “Will they fire on us?” especially the word, “they.” From my time wasting perusal of the internet, I understand that we have a many “military” personnel within our borders. This includes the domestic military that in years past were there to serve and protect, foreign military, non US citizens in our own military, and contract mercenaries. Until the interview, I did not consider contract mercenaries. I should have known better. I forgot about NOLA and Katrina.
I have written this before, but I will write this again. I had a conversation with a visitor to our church that turned out to be the son-in-law of a member. He and his wife were heading to another area as he was Military police. It was he, not I, that turned the conversation to military firing on civilians; I had not given it a thought. He was adamant that no military would fire on American citizens. I believe the man and take great comfort in knowing that despite the military bashing out there, we have good men and women who serve.
Unfortunately, this is not the case with our domestic military. A police officer, who is not on a beat, but serves in another area, was adamant that, “There is no good reason to allow a police officer in your home.” What a sad commentary.
While historically, military has fired upon citizens such as the Bonus Army-and as a disclaimer, I do not know enough about this incident to take a position-I do not think that our military will.
I continue to read that many people are preparing for TEOTWAWKI. I do not think in those terms, as life as I knew it from post WW2 era ended a long time ago. People can pick on “Leave it to Beaver” all they want. Despite sin since Adam, and the evil that lurks within all societies, life was better back then. Today, right is wrong and wrong is right. This cultural shift, manufactured by the change agents, affects the opinions and attitudes of the average person. While this does not currently appear to have a negative impact upon the military, I pray that it will continue in this manner.
dam smart comment “me”…
Daisy,
Let me explain what the OATH is to most people that recite it. NOTHING!! I took the oath myself the first time in 1977. I was 18 years old, they said repeat after me and I did. I served my country faithfully for over 20 years in the Navy. I repeated after me the oath every time I reenlisted until I retired in 1998. In 2012 I joined Oathkeepers, and was learned what the oath was I had been reciting when I joined and reenlisted. Most people repeat after me the oath, but don’t realize what it means. So I am afraid the young military members just might fire on us. I also believe if it comes from the top it will go to the bottom and they will all fire on us. The blind following the blind. When you read the oath and realize what the content is, it means much more than it does when they say repeat after me.
The Oathkeepers is trying to enlighten those that have taken the oath and educate as to the content and what it means.
no one, could say it better Curt, there are many factions
I am retired with 23 years in active duty, and I am can say with great certainty that what you said about taking the Oath is a not accurate. I my self from the very first time I recited the Oath knew what I was saying, and was very proud to take that Oath. I knew a lot of other soldiers that feel the same as I. You have no right to speak for me and and all of the other Military members in our Armed Forces. I don’t know why you didn’t listen to what you were reciting and why You didn’t live by that Oath when you were in but don’t assume every one is like you. I am happy that you have learned what that Oath means now but you should have learned what it meant then. I my self am a member of the Oathkeepers. I retired in 2012 and I know a lot of the young soldiers that you said would defiantly fire on us. You couldn’t be more wrong. I have for the past 7 years of my career talk to thousands of new soldiers and vets. There were about 97 percent of them would NOT harm an American citizens for any reason. Quite a few told me that if they did, they would be sanctioning the killing of there family, Grandma, brother, mother, sister, ect. Please before you say anything, think about what you are saying. Not like when you took the Oath.
Ross, while I agree with some what you are saying, I disagree with most of what you have said. First, I don’t think you know much about Kent State and what happened there. I was on active duty at the time of the event. No one gave the order to fire on the students and only a small number of guardsmen fired, other wise there would have been more than 4 dead. Second, some of the guardsmen reported what sounded like gun shots before they fired. Third, some of the students reported later that there were some armed students in the demonstrations. And some of the students also reported to have heard shots before the guardsmen opened fire. So the facts are the guardsmen thought that they were being fired up and opened fire. The students reported that some students were armed and heard gun shots. No one ordered the guardsmen to fire, those who fired felt that their lives were in danger.
Most military know what the oath means, and felt that it was their duty to serve in the nations’ armed forces. While there are some serving within the military, that would remain loyal to the regime, most would rebel. Those that would remain loyal are those such as homosexuals, some women and liberals who like what this president has done to the world’s most powerful military. Those people will fire upon the civilians, because they owe this administration for ‘allowing homosexuals to serve openly’, women in combat and other such degrading of the military.
So no, most military will not fire upon the American people, but those others will. And with hope, they will bring their equipment with them when they change sides.
I think the defectors would be the smaller part. Soldiers would be convinced we are the enemy. We would be vilified and made out to be different. Many would just follow orders.
Doesn’t matter if they will or won’t Daisy. Obama has made it possible for all those illegals swarming the borders to enlist in HIS military and THEY won’t have a problem firing on us I expect. Why do you suppose Obombya has been purging the military? This was the plan all along I’d bet.
The answer is yes; sadly. Why? Because when they are getting shot at by us they will immediately fall to their training. A few may hesitate knowing they’re shooting at citizens but most won’t.
My guess is it’ll happen two ways; one – very bloody on both sides for awhile and then we come to our senses (who knows what happens after that) or two, they run us over like wounded animals killing everything that so much as blinks at them.
If it starts it’ll be ugly, ugly gorilla warfare for years and years.
Be safe.
Most citizens of the United States take for granted labor laws which protect them from the evils of unregulated industry. Perhaps the majority of those who argue for “free enterprise” and the removal of restrictions on capitalist corporations are unaware that over the course of this country’s history, workers have fought and often died for protection from capitalist industry. In many instances, government troops were called out to crush strikes, at times firing on protesters. Presented below are a few of the many incidents in the (too often overlooked) tumultuous labor history of this country.
July 1851
Two railroad strikers were shot dead and others injured by the state militia in Portgage, New York.
January 1874
The original Tompkins Square Riot. As unemployed workers demonstrated in New York’s Tompkins Square Park, a detachment of mounted police charged into the crowd, beating men, women and children indiscriminately with billy clubs and leaving hundreds of casualties in their wake. Commented Abram Duryee, the Commissioner of Police: “It was the most glorious sight I ever saw…”
June 1877
Ten coal-mining activists (“Molly Maguires”) were hanged in Pennsylvania.
14 July 1877
A general strike halted the movement of U.S. railroads. In the following days, strike riots spread across the United States. The next week, federal troops were called out to force an end to the nationwide strike. At the “Battle of the Viaduct” in Chicago, federal troops (recently returned from an Indian massacre) killed 30 workers and wounded over 100.
May 1, 1886
Chicago was the center of the movement. Workers there had been agitating for an eight hour day for months, and on the eve of May 1, 50,000 workers were already on strike. 30,000 more swelled their ranks the next day, bringing most of Chicago manufacturing to a standstill. Fears of violent class conflict gripped the city. No violence occurred on May 1 — a Saturday — or May 2. But on Monday, May 3, a fight involving hundreds broke out at McCormick Reaper between locked-out unionists and the non-unionist workers McCormick hired to replace them. The Chicago police, swollen in number and heavily armed, quickly moved in with clubs and guns to restore order. They left four unionists dead and many others wounded.
Angered by the deadly force of the police, a group of anarchists, led by August Spies and Albert Parsons, called on workers to arm themselves and participate in a massive protest demonstration in Haymarket Square on Tuesday evening, May 4. The demonstration appeared to be a complete bust, with only 3,000 assembling. But near the end of the evening, an individual, whose identity is still in dispute, threw a bomb that killed seven policemen and injured 67 others. Hysterical city and state government officials rounded up eight anarchists, tried them for murder, and sentenced them to death.
On 11 November 1887, four of them, including Parsons and Spies, were executed. All of the executed advocated armed struggle and violence as revolutionary methods, but their prosecutors found no evidence that any had actually thrown the Haymarket bomb. They died for their words, not their deeds. A quarter of a million people lined Chicago’s street during Parson’s funeral procession to express their outrage at this gross mis-carriage of justice.
For radicals and trade unionists everywhere, Haymarket became a symbol of the stark inequality and injustice of capitalist society. The May 1886 Chicago events figured prominently in the decision of the founding congress of the Second International (Paris, 1889) to make May 1, 1890 a demonstration of the solidarity and power of the international working class movement. May Day has been a celebration of international socialism and (after 1917) international communism ever since.
The Bayview Massacre also took place at this time, where seven people, including one child, were killed by state militia. On 1 May 1886 about 2,000 Polish workers walked off their jobs and gathered at Saint Stanislaus Church in Milwaukee, angrily denouncing the ten hour workday. They then marched through the city, calling on other workers to join them; as a result, all but one factory was closed down as sixteen thousand protesters gathered at Rolling Mills, prompting Wisconsin Govorner Jeremiah Rusk to call the state militia. The militia camped out at the mill while workers slept in nearby fields, and on the morning of May 5th, as protesters chanted for the eight hour workday, General Treaumer ordered his men to shoot into the crowd, some of whom were carrying sticks, bricks, and scythes, leaving seven dead at the scene. The Milwaukee Journal reported that eight more would die within twenty four hours, and without hesitation added that Governor Rusk was to be commended for his quick action in the matter.
23 November 1887
The Thibodaux Massacre. The Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of “prominent citizens,” shot at least 35 unarmed black sugar workers striking to gain a dollar-per-day wage, and lynched two strike leaders.
6 July 1892
The Homestead Strike. Pinkerton Guards, trying to pave the way for the introduction of scabs, opened fire on striking Carnegie mill steel- workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania. In the ensuing battle, three Pinkertons surrendered; then, unarmed, they were set upon and beaten by a mob of townspeople, most of them women. Seven guards and eleven strikers and spectators were shot to death.
1894
Federal troops killed 34 American Railway Union members in the Chicago area attempting to break a strike, led by Eugene Debs, against the Pullman Company. Debs and several others were imprisoned for violating injunctions, causing disintegration of the union.
10 September 1897
19 unarmed striking coal miners and mine workers were killed and 36 wounded by a posse organized by the Luzerne County sherif for refusing to disperse near Lattimer, Pennsylvania. The strikers, most of whom were shot in the back, were originally brought in as strike-breakers, but later organized themselves.
12 October 1898
Fourteen were killed, 25 wounded in violence resulting when Virden, Illinois mine owners attempted to break a strike by importing 200 nonunion black workers.
29 April 1899
When their demand that only union men be employed was refused, members of the Western Federation of Miners dynamited the $250,000 mill of the Bunker Hill Company at Wardner, Idaho, destroying it completely. President McKinley responded by sending in black soldiers from Brownsville, Texas with orders to round up thousands of miners and confine them in specially built “bullpens.”
1899 and 1901
U.S. Army troops occupied the Coeur d’Alene mining region in Idaho.
12 October 1902
Fourteen miners were killed and 22 wounded by scabherders at Pana, Illinois.
23 November 1903
Troops were dispatched to Cripple Creek, Colorado to control rioting by striking coal miners.
July 1903
Labor organizer Mary Harris (“Mother”) Jones leads child workers in demanding a 55 hour work week.
23 February 1904
William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Chronicle began publishing articles on the menace of Japanese laborers, leading to a resolution of the California Legislature that action be taken against their immigration.
8 June 1904
A battle between the Colorado Militia and striking miners at Dunnville ended with six union members dead and 15 taken prisoner. Seventy-nine of the strikers were deported to Kansas two days later.
17 April 1905
The Supreme Court held that a maximum hours law for New York bakery workers was unconstitutional under the due process clause of the 14th ammendment.
22 November 1909
The “Uprising of the 20,000.” Female garment workers went on strike in New York; many were arrested. A judge told those arrested: “You are on strike against God.”
25 December 1910
A dynamite bomb destroyed a portion of the Llewellyn Ironworks in Los Angeles, where a bitter strike was in progress.
25 March 1911
The Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company, occupying the top three floors of a ten-story building in New York City, was consumed by fire. One hundred and forty-seven people, mostly women and young girls working in sweatshop conditions, lost their lives. Approximately 50 died as they leapt from windows to the street; the others were burned or trampled to death as they desperately attempted to escape through stairway exits locked as a precaution against “the interruption of work”. On 11 April the company’s owners were indicted for manslaughter.
24 February 1912
Women and children were beaten by police during a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
18 April 1912
The National Guard was called out against striking West Virginia coal miners.
11 June 1913
Police shot three maritime workers (one of whom was killed) who were striking against the United Fruit Company in New Orleans.
5 January 1914
The Ford Motor Company raised its basic wage from $2.40 for a nine hour day to $5 for an eight hour day.
20 April 1914
The “Ludlow Massacre.” In an attempt to persuade strikers at Colorado’s Ludlow Mine Field to return to work, company “guards,” engaged by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and other mine operators and sworn into the State Militia just for the occasion, attacked a union tent camp with machine guns, then set it afire. Five men, two women and 12 children died as a result. Additional web resources are cataloged at http://www.holtlaborlibrary.org/ludlow.html#Web%20Sites.
13 November 1914
A Western Federation of Miners strike is crushed by the militia in Butte, Montana.
19 January 1915
World famous labor leader Joe Hill was arrested in Salt Lake City. He was convicted on trumped up murder charges, and was executed 21 months later despite worldwide protests and two attempts to intervene by President Woodrow Wilson. In a letter to Bill Haywood shortly before his death he penned the famous words, “Don’t mourn – organize!”
On this same day, twenty rioting strikers were shot by factory guards at Roosevelt, New Jersey.
January 1915
Individual members of the United Hatters of Danbury, Connecticut were held responsible for restraint of trade (due to engaging in a union boycott), and were assessed damages and costs totaling $252,000 in the first application of the “treble damage provision” of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to a labor union.
25 January 1915
The Supreme Court upholds “yellow dog” contracts, which forbid membership in labor unions.
22 July 1916
A bomb was set off during a “Preparedness Day” parade in San Francisco, killing 10 and injuring 40 more. Thomas J. Mooney, a labor organizer and Warren K. Billings, a shoe worker, were convicted, but were both pardoned in 1939.
19 August 1916
Strikebreakers hired by the Everett Mills owner Neil Jamison attacked and beat picketing strikers in Everett, Washington. Local police watched and refused to intervene, claiming that the waterfront where the incident took place was Federal land and therefore outside their jurisdiction. (When the picketers retaliated against the strikebreakers that evening, the local police intervened, claiming that they had crossed the line of jursidiction.)
Three days later, twenty-two union men attempted to speak out at a local crossroads, but each was arrested; arrests and beatings of strikebreakers became common throughout the following months, and on 30 October vigilantes forced IWW speakers to run the gauntlet, subjecting them to whipping, tripping kicking, and impalement against a spiked cattle guard at the end of the gauntlet. In response, the IWW called for a meeting on 5 November. When the union men arrived, they were fired on; seven people were killed, 50 were wounded, and an indeterminate number wound up missing.
7 September 1916
Federal employees win the right to receive Worker’s Compensation insurance.
15 March 1917
The Supreme Court approved the Eight-Hour Act under the threat of a national railway strike.
1 August 1917
IWW organizer Frank Little was lynched in Butte, Monatana.
5 September 1917
Federal agents raided the IWW headquarters in 48 cities.
3 June 1918
A Federal child labor law, enacted two years earlier, was declared unconstitutional. A new law was enacted 24 February 1919, but this one too was declared unconstitutional on 15 May 1922.
27 July 1918
United Mine Workers organizer Ginger Goodwin was shot by a hired private policeman outside Cumberland, British Columbia.
26 August 1919
United Mine Worker organizer Fannie Sellins was gunned down by company guards in Brackenridge, Pennsylvania.
19 September 1919
Looting, rioting and sporadic violence broke out in downtown Boston and South Boston for days after 1,117 Boston policemen declared a work stoppage due to their thwarted attempts to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor. Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge put down the strike by calling out the entire state militia.
22 September 1919
The “Great Steel Strike” began. Ultimately, 350,000 steel workers walked off their jobs to demand union recognition. The AFL Iron and Steel Organizing Committee called off the strike on 8 January 1920, their goals unmet.
11 November 1919
The Centralia Massacre. Violence erupted when members of the American Legion attempted to force their way into an IWW hall in Centralia, Washington during an Armistice Day anniversary celebration. Four Legionnaires were shot dead by members of the IWW, after which IWW organizer Wesley Everest was lynched by a local mob.
22 December 1919
Amid a strike for union recognition by 395,000 steelworkers (ultimately unsuccessful), approximately 250 “anarchists,” “communists,” and “labor agitators” were deported to Russia, marking the beginning of the so-called “Red Scare.”
2 January 1920
The U.S. Bureau of Investigation began carrying out the nationwide Palmer Raids. Federal agents seized labor leaders and literature in the hopes of discouraging labor activity. A number of citizens were turned over to state officials for prosecution under various anti-anarchy statutes.
19 May 1920
The Battle of Matewan. Despite efforts by police chief (and former miner) Sid Hatfield and Mayor C. Testerman to protect miners from interference in their union drive in Matewan, West Virginia, Baldwin-Felts detectives hired by the local mining company and thirteen of the company’s managers arrived to evict miners and their families from the Stone Mountain Mine camp. A gun battle ensued, resulting in the deaths of 7 detectives, Mayor Testerman, and 2 miners. Baldwin-Felts detectives assasinated Sid Hatfield 15 months later, sparking off an armed rebellion of 10,000 West Virginia coal miners at “The Battle of Blair Mountain,” dubbed “the largest insurrection this country has had since the Civil War” by The Battle of Matewan Home Page.
1920 and 1921
Army troops were used to intervene against striking mineworkers in West Virginia. Details of these events can be found in the extensive and excellent article at http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh50-1.html.
22 June 1922
Violence erupted during a coal-mine strike at Herrin, Illinois. Thirty-six were killed, 21 of them non-union miners.
2 June 1924
A child labor ammendment to the U.S. Constitution was proposed; only 28 of the necessary 36 states ever ratified it.
14 June 1924
A San Pedro, California IWW hall was raided; a number of children were scalded when the hall was demolished.
25 May 1925
Two company houses occupied by nonunion coal miners were blown up and destroyed by labor “racketeers” during a strike against the Glendale Gas and Coal Company in Wheeling, West Virginia.
1926
Textile workers fought with police in Passaic, New Jersey. A year-long strike ensued.
20 May 1926
The Railway Labor Act passed, requiring employers to bargain collectively and not discriminate against their employees for joining a union. The act also provided for the settlement of railway labor disputes through mediation, voluntary arbitration, and factfinding boards.
21 November 1927
Picketing miners were massacred in Columbine, Colorado.
3 February 1930
“Chicagorillas” — labor racketeers — shot and killed contractor William Healy, with whom the Chicago Marble Setters Union had been having difficulties.
14 April 1930
Over 100 farm workers were arrested for their unionizing activities in Imperial Valley, California. Eight were subsequently convicted of `criminal syndicalism.’
4 May 1931
Gun-toting vigilantes attack striking miners in Harlan County, Kentucky.
7 March 1932
Police kill striking workers at Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan plant.
10 October 1933
18,000 cotton workers went on strikein Pixley, California. Four were killed before a pay-hike was finally won.
1934
The Electric Auto-Lite Strike. In Toledo, OH, two strikers were killed and over two hundred wounded by National Guardsmen. Some 1300 National Guard troops, including included eight rifle companies and three machine gun companies, were called in to disperse the protestors.
1934
International Longshoremans and Warehouse union strike of 1934. Two longshoremen, Nick Bordoise and Howard Sperry, were shot to death by the San Francisco Police.
May 1934
Police stormed striking truck drivers in Minneapolis who were attempting to prevent truck movement in the market area.
1 September – 22 September 1934
A strike in Woonsocket, RI, part of a national movement to obtain a minimum wage for textile workers, resulted in the deaths of three workers. Over 420,000 workers ultimately went on strike.
9 November 1935
The Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO – later the Congress of Industrial Organizations) was formed to expand industrial unionism.
1936
In the first large “sitdown” strike, the United Rubber Workers won recognition at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
11 February 1937
General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers union following a sit-down strike.
26 May 1937
The ‘Battle of the Overpass’. Walter Reuther and a group of UAW supporters, fresh from having organized GM and Chyrsler, attempting to distribute leaflets at Gate 4 of the Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge plant, and were beaten up (together with bystanders) by Ford Service Department guards.
30 May 1937
Police killed 10 and wounded many others during the “Memorial Day Massacre” at the Republic Steel Co. plant in Chicago.
25 June 1938
The Wages and Hours (later Fair Labor Standards) Act is passed, banning child labor and setting the 40-hour work week. The Act went into effect in October 1940, and was upheld in the Supreme Court on 3 February 1941.
29 July 1970
United Farm Workers forced California grape growers to sign an agreement after a five-year strike.
3 November 1979
Five labor organizers were killed at the Greensboro Massacre in Greensboro, North Carolina. A rally organized to protest recruitment by the KKK and American Nazi Party at Cone Mills and various other textile mills in the area, where workers were attempting to organize across racial lines, turned violent, resulting in the deaths of the organizers. It was subsequently revealed that U.S. government CIA collaborators marched alongside the KKK and Nazi collaborators, and that the Greensboro Police Department, an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, and a paid FBI informant were all aware of the potential for violence, yet did nothing to prevent it (surprisingly, there was not a single police officer present at the rally).
3 August 1981
Federal air traffic controllers began a nationwide strike after their union rejected the government’s final offer for a new contract. Most of the 13,000 striking controllers defied the back-to-work order, and were dismissed by President Reagan on 5 August.
6 October 1986
1,700 female flight attendants won an 18-year lawsuit (which included $37 million in damages) against United Arilines, which had fired them for getting married.
24 October 1987
The 35-member executive council of the AFL-CIO decided unanimously to readmit the 1.6-million member Teamsters Union to its ranks. The scandal-ridden union had been expelled from the federation in 1957. President Jackie Presser was awaiting trial at the time, and the U.S. Justice Department was considering removal of the union’s leadership because of possible links to organized crime.
17 September 1989
Ninety-eight miners and a minister occupied the the Pittston Coal Company’s Moss 3 preparation plant in Carbo, Virginia, beginning a year-long strike against Pittston Coal. While a month-long Soviet coal strike dominated U.S. news broadcasts, the year-long Pittston strike garnered almost no mainstream press coverage whatsoever.
And after seventy years of struggle between labor and capital, with the promise of better wages, working conditions and benefits securely established under the New Deal, capital struck back with a vengeance, outsourcing the very industries that provided middle class incomes, destroying all the gains organized labor had made over the last half century, so that they, the Wall Street Banksters, and the transnational corporations could have all the economic and political power they wanted with impunity. The deepening crisis of the global capitalist system, as evidenced in reports issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank this week that saw no prospect for increased economic growth, is the driving force of increased tensions among the major capitalist powers and the rise of militarism.
One of the most significant economic manifestations of the capitalist breakdown is the continued lack of investment in the real economy, highlighted in both the IMF and World Bank reports, and the increasing dependence of the world economy on credit bubbles, which is creating the conditions for another financial crisis.
We wouldn’t have to ask the question if there were no troops nor militarized police to fire on us in the first place. There’s a reason the 2A says that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”. The idea was that the govt shouldn’t have forces of its own. Rather the forces to enforce the law & defend the country should be the people themselves.
These next 2 facts may come as a surprise to some. There’s only one place where the constitution mentions how federal law can be enbforced. Article I, section 8, clause 15 “To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union,…”. That’s it, the only constitutional way to enforce federal law is to call forth the militia.
Article I, section 8, clause 11, “To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;” Which means that CONgess is supposed to consider whether there should even be an army at least every 2 years. How is it that the army gets into contracts for more than 2 years?