#organized capital

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"After work at the [Lingan] mine resumed in February, fifteen men were dismissed “on account of their connection with the [union] lodge.” Members of Coping Stone met with Donald Lynk [mine manager] and requested that they be allowed to share work with their unemployed brothers. Lynk rebuffed them. A document among Henry Mitchell’s papers, addressed to Lynk and dated 1 March, presents the miners’ demands. The first was for work to be shared with unemployed lodge members. The second demand was that those who departed from the lodge “must be put from their work as they have been the Instigators of much trouble.” The document concludes: “Without Complying with the above wishes, there will be a suspension of work on the 8th of March 1882.” The strike would begin then.

The designation “McLynk” for Donald Lynk in a letter from Lingan published in the Trades Journal seemed to hint at a perception of the manager’s network of allies as Highland relations. Michael McIntyre was expelled from Coping Stone Lodge for “misconduct” but, as a correspondent from Lingan reported, “found a refuge in Donald[’]s arms.” Though Lynk had apparently forbidden the raising of pigs in the mining village, McIntyre was allowed to use a company house as a pig pen, while houses were in demand among union miners. Lynk was also regularly called “Donald Pasha” in the pages of the Trades Journal – another ethnic other, decidedly beyond the pale of British civilization. By the end of March, Lynk had reportedly sent letters “into the country offering heavy inducements to come and work.” The Trades Journal continued:

Two men came along, but seeing how matters stood they went over to Little Glace Bay. Thereafter, other three came who had worked in Lingan last summer. On going to see D.L., he told them to go to work and he would protect them. He asked one of them to go back home and endeavor to induce more men to come, and promising to give him $4.00 if he secured a pair of men, or $20.00 if he secured two pairs.

Lynk’s strategy achieved limited success. The previous summer, R. H. Brown spearheaded the formation of the Cape Breton Colliery Association (CBCA) to unify the coal operators against the Provincial Workmen’s Association [PWA]. But Lingan miners nonetheless found employment at Little Glace Bay, in defiance of CBCA efforts. The secretary of the CBCA wrote to the Glace Bay Mining Company to protest its employment of “Lingan men.” James R. Lithgow, a company director, considered the CBCA’s request “a piece of gross impertinence.” Lynk and the General Mining Association (GMA) were also looking elsewhere to recruit labour. At Lingan, Presbyterian service was delivered by the Reverend John Murray, of Sydney’s Falmouth Street Church, in “one end” of a GMA house. At neighbouring Low Point, Lynk provided use of “a whole Company house” to Murray and local Presbyterians. Lynk’s life membership in the British American Book and Tract Society is suggestive of his religiosity and connections to Presbyterianism. He certainly had an ally in Rev. Murray, who would travel to Scotland to accompany miners recruited there by the GMA to work at Lingan. Given the Catholic majority in the Lingan area, Murray’s initiative likely acquired sectarian meaning. But the GMA’s London board were the ones truly initiating these moves. GMA director Richard Brown wrote to his son and mine manager at Sydney Mines, R. H. Brown, in early April. He explained that C. G. Swann, the GMA’s secretary, “is sending out 40 Colliers for you. I hope they will turn out well. You must keep them out of the Union.”

Robert Drummond [main PWA organizer] was also in Scotland at the time. He happened to be aboard the Canadian with Murray and the recruited miners as it travelled across the Atlantic to Halifax. Drummond engaged in conversations with the miners for several days before Murray realized what was going on. Upon arrival in Halifax on 4 May, Drummond telegraphed news that the Scottish miners had left for Sydney and Lingan on the Alpha.

Numbering more than 30 miners and over 60 people in all, as several miners travelled with families, they were mostly from the mining county of Lanarkshire, plus a few from Fife. When they arrived at Lingan on 6 May, they were met by the members of several PMA lodges as well as by Lynk, R. H. Brown, and fourteen constables called in to protect them. Protection was unnecessary. The imported miners joined the union. Upon hearing the news, Richard Brown lamented the behaviour of “those scoundrels of Colliers from Scotland,” claiming never before to have witnessed “more dishonest or more disgraceful conduct on the part of workmen.” R. H. Brown had sent an urgent telegraph to James A. Moren, president of the Glace Bay Mining Company, in Halifax:

Thirty seven Scotch miners who our company have imported at much expense have joined Union and refuse to work for us. I request that you order your manager Glace Bay refuse employ them.

The company again defied Brown and the GMA. “Mr. Brown will get no comfort from us,” declared Archbold, who offered instruction to Mitchell on 9 May: “If you want men take them.” The Trades Journal reported just over a week later that the miners had left for “Little Glace Bay where they all received employment.” Mitchell complained that the move had made him a “black sheep” among the coal operators. The Glace Bay Mining Company’s defiance of the GMA and CBCA was powerful. In fact, the company had directly aligned itself with the PWA, and its directors had intervened to ensure that the Nova Scotia Legislative Council assented to the PWA’s incorporation. In January, the company had rejected the CBCA’s offer to enter into an arrangement with the CBCA collieries, whereby 50 cents per ton was to be pooled on coal sales and redistributed among the members on the basis of 1881 sales. The arrangement was clearly designed to subsidize the GMA’s fight against the PWA. Lithgow explained to Mitchell in early May, “we have made our choice + have chosen the P.W.A. rather than the C.B.C.A.” Lithgow not only considered the PWA “a first rate institution” that “was necessary to get justice for workingmen”; he also noted that without the PWA’s aid, the company would have been unable to ship tens of thousands of tons of coal to the Montréal market, “for we would have been afraid of not getting men to give steamers dispatch.” When the company hired steamships on time charters to deliver large quantities of coal to Montréal buyers, rigorous and steady operation of the mines was necessary to fulfill contracts and to avoid having a costly chartered steamship lay idle. This was precisely the case in March 1882, as the company contracted to deliver 30,000 tons of coal to Montréal – an aspect of the new economic leverage available to the miners under National Policy industrialism. Mitchell was not pleased about the arrangement the directors had worked out with Drummond and the PWA, and he expressed concern that he was being superseded as manager. But the PWA was better able than the CBCA to secure reliable coal production. Drummond co-operated with the directors and was treated as an adviser to the company. Responding to company concerns about maintaining a steady supply of labour, for instance, the Trades Journal criticized the tendency among the miners to take a day or two off following payday. In 1882, the Glace Bay Mining Company employed twice the number of coal cutters than the previous year and shipped more than 70,000 tons – well over double 1881’s shipments."

- Don Nerbas, “‘Lawless Coal Miners’ and the Lingan Strike of 1882–1883: Remaking Political Order on Cape Breton’s Sydney Coalfield,” Labour/Le Travail 92 (Fall 2023), 103-106.

[intersectionalpraxis]

"If a pig catches both a human influenza A virus and an avian influenza A virus at the same time, it can spark a process known as viral reassortment — a genetic exchange in which flu viruses swap gene segments." "Those swaps can introduce dramatic changes, producing a new virus with certain properties of a non-human strain coupled with the capacity to infect and spread between people." "The death rate in humans may be upwards of 50 per cent, World Health Organization data suggests, though it's possible that milder infections are getting missed, skewing the case fatality ratio. Still, in a population that's never been exposed, the global impacts could be dire." "More human cases could also be happening under the radar among farm workers who've moved to the U.S. from abroad, don't speak English as their first language, and may be hesitant to seek medical help, he added." "So I think there's probably underreporting on both sides," Armstrong said." "If [H5N1] gets into a population where there's constantly animals going in and out … it might not ever leave."

I've been watching this develop for the past several days, and apart from being terrified most people will not take this seriously (I've seen a handful of people already shout conspiracy on social media and it's alarming to see, as always). What I wanted to point out is that pandemics are going to continue to be our 'normal.' I watched a great video on YouTube a while ago (I believe it was by Vice?) that touched base on how this is going to become our new reality because of multiple factors (such as our proximity to animals, and environments/etc). It was when Covid hit and they did a piece debunking some of the misinformation floating on the internet. If I can find it I will post it here because it was informative and relevant to pretty much any world crisis we will see around any virus that spreads among a human population.

This post isn't trying to fear monger anyone, I just hope more people are aware of what is happening because this is important to talk about. There are already cases (of cows getting this bird flu) in the US, and I won't be surprised if there will be instances in more countries around the world. As usual, keep washing your hands/keeping good hygiene practices, masking up (and if you aren't I hope you consider it), and taking precautions if you do happen to visit/work or go near a pig or poultry farm too:

I'll keep track of this here of course, but please stay informed folks. And also FU to any governments who will try to minimize this or try to diminish the severity until it's too late and community spread happens like Covid because their actions are influenced by capitalistic interests.

Update (April 7th, 2024, 9:32pm EST): to anyone wondering where some of the source information originates from -here is a link to the CDC. They are tracking documented avian virus outbreaks in the US and the public can access it here:

[anarchywoofwoof]

vice news

ironically i am working right now so i can’t do a full post on this like i would really prefer to do… but these are the most cartoonishly evil people that you could possibly imagine, even in a society as flawed as the one we’ve built for ourselves. these are bedrock groups devoted to protecting the american worker and consumer. massive huge giant waving red flags 🚩

[starblaster]

"but if you're pro-union, why are you anti-cop-union?" because cops are not laborers. what cops do is not labor. they are enforcers of the laws that oppress laborers and exist solely to protect capital. don't bother me with stupid questions.

🛑 STOP asking me to make the post rebloggable. i refuse to let a bunch of anticommunists, libertarian anarchists, neoliberal spooks, and other pro-cop fascists pass around their bad-faith additions on a post if i can help it (which i can, by disabling reblogs) while others of you are saying some really misguided, off-topic shit, and it’s pissing me off.

please get your facts straight before embarrassing yourselves on the internet. for fucking ONCE in your lives.

i am not “redefining labor” i SAID that cops are not LABORERS (EXPLOITED WORKERS) unionizing to receive better working conditions for the betterment of their fellow workers. they participate in collective bargaining with the express goal of subjugating and abusing the working class by protecting their fellow cops who harass, brutalize, stalk, rape, and kill the poor, homeless, working class, and other marginalized people. OTHER, ACTUAL LABOR UNIONS also use collective bargaining power to protect their members. if you argue otherwise, i’m sorry but you need to get serious and examine not only the truth about what a labor union is and does but why our purposes and missions and goals as unions are what they are. clarification aside, here, that wasn’t the fucking point of this post! the derailing and misunderstandings of what a LABOR UNION IS that occurred in the short time this post was rebloggable was too insane not to shut off reblogs!

COP unions, LIKE I SAID IN THE ORIGINAL/ABOVE POST, ARE UNIFIED IN DIAMETRIC OPPOSITION TO THE LIBERATION OF WORKERS, AS IN PEOPLE WHO DO LABOR (WHICH DOES NOT INCLUDE THE LITERAL ARMED PROTECTORS OF CAPITAL)

NO OTHER UNION BASHES, KILLS, OR ARRESTS STRIKING WORKERS LIKE COP (OR PRISON GUARD) UNIONS DO.

if you agree with the post so much that you NEED it on your blog or whatever, post a screenshot of the original post with this part cropped out and leave me the fuck alone! THANK YOUUU!!!!!!!

and to the wiseasses saying screenwriters and actors "aren't laborers, either," are you just fucking stupid actually? you think artistic labor isn’t labor? shut the fuck up.

[devsgames]

Me: "hey game developers, especially AAA ones, are getting laid off en-mass and it's awful for our industry" Gamer: "well I only play INDIE games and the problem with AAA games is they are creatively bankrupt"

Me, slamming my fists on the table like a baby: "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS IS ABOUT A BUSINESS PROBLEM PERPETUATED BY CAPITALISM NOT A STATEMENT ON CREATIVE DECISION MAKING"

[bfpnola]

just wanted to remind everyone again not only of the 3,000+ resources offered through our Liberation Library but also of the study guides for beginners offered under each of our social justice topics!

resources can be organized by type (article, novel, podcast, video, etc.) as well as filtered and searched through. we’ve tried to make our system much more accessible than our former platform on google docs so this is such an exciting development to share with everyone.

please share to promote equitable access education!and if you’d like to volunteer with us, check out our open resources committee roles!

REBLOG THIS VERSION! image description by @bonesandblood-sunandmoon below the cut. thank you for writing one!

[Image Description: Six screenshots of beginner study guides on mobile view. The main text visible under each title reads:

Confused on where to start? Better Future Program has organized a study guide just for you! Use the ‘Search’ and ‘Sort’ tools to view only certain types of resources, like articles for visual learners or podcasts for auditory learners. Back to the master document of Social Justice Resources.

Five of the study guides have the start of a list of resources available with color coded resource types visible - Posts have a purple box, for example. Each study guide has an image. Prison/Policing Abolition has an image of chains, Organizing has two humanoid figures hugging, Classism and Anti-Capitalism has a stack of dollar bills, Anarchism has the red ‘A’ in a circle, Mad Studies has a yellow and orange capsule/pill, and Free Palestine has the flag of Palestine.

/End description.]

[frodo-a-gogo]

Let us be brutally honest with ourselves and with eachother for a moment. If he weren't obese you motherfuckers would be capable of percieving evrart claires sexy sexy moral ambiguity and complex charms

[berniesrevolution]

You’re Lucky You Have a House, Peasant!

A history of company towns

by Joyce Rice and Kevin Moore

(Continue Reading)

TheNib.com

@thenib​

[iww-gnv]

Did you know you can join the Industrial Workers of the World even if you aren't traditionally employed? Check out IWW.org/join for more information on finding a local branch today!

[Image description copied from alt text: A square graphic with an illustration of a person sitting at a table with a laptop, looking at the screen with confusion. Text on the graphic reads, "Freelancer? Self-employed? Between jobs? You can still unionize! Find out how at IWW.org/join." The IWW logo is included in the bottom right corner. End description.]

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"For the General Mining Association (GMA), then, the strike was unambiguously about control. Union miners had received eviction notices in the spring of 1882. Those remaining sustained themselves during the summer with the help of a plentiful herring fishery and cod. By September, a contingent of only 31 individuals was left. “Supplies are not sent as regularly as they should,” reported the Trades Journal, “yet the brothers are stout hearted. The strike is still on.” Sydney physician and William McDonald’s brother, Dr. Michael A. McDonald, also made calls at Lingan to attend to the remaining people there free of charge. However, it was clear no resolution was in sight, and the GMA was not interested in suggestions from the union miners to submit the case to the government for arbitration. Meanwhile, by November rumblings about [mine manager] Lynk’s intentions to move men from Low Point to Lingan were heard. In January, Lynk indeed made efforts. Nine men were sent from Low Point to work at Lingan, but they were “captured by the union” and returned to Low Point. Later, on 25 January, six more men working at Lingan were captured by a union delegation. R. H. Brown was scandalized. The group of “50 or so Unionists” had entered the enclosure around the pit at Lingan, ignoring “a notice at the gate prohibiting any person going there without permission of the GMA or their Agent.” Brown subsequently interviewed Drummond Lodge delegates who had participated in the Lingan excursion on direction of the PWA subcouncil. “I told them to warn all the men whom they represented that I would prosecute any man who entered upon any of the GMAssn property at Lingan,” he fumed. By month’s end, it was reported that seven pairs of men were working the pit along with two or three loaders.

...

Lynk and the GMA persisted in their efforts to find workmen to send to Lingan. John McKinnon, a tailor in Sydney, reportedly tried to recruit a man, returning to Little Glace Bay from the country, to work at Lingan for $2 per day. The man, Michael McMullen, was a member of Keystone Lodge, and he wrote to the Trades Journal advising miners not to frequent McKinnon’s shop and warning that Lynk had other agents in Sydney trying to recruit.

.... A party of about 70 miners descended on Lingan on 19 March from Glace Bay, Reserve Mines, Bridgeport, and Sydney Mines. This was not spontaneous. The order had come from the Cape Breton subcouncil of the Provincial Workmen’s Association (PWA) for each lodge to send fifteen men to Lingan in order to persuade the labourers there to quit – some of whom, the Trades Journal claimed, hoped the arrival of a union delegation would give them a needed pretext to leave their work. By six o’clock that evening, the party of union miners occupied the “big bridge,” over which those working at the colliery had to pass to arrive back at their houses. Lynk, Brown, and Constable Musgrave accompanied the men attempting to cross this railway bridge. John McDonald – the Lynk loyalist “Smoker” – also accompanied the GMA group and ordered the union men to move off the bridge. One of the strikebreakers reportedly drew a gun. A fight broke out. Lynk’s men were outnumbered, and Lynk was struck. Some were knocked down and kicked, others scattered. The siege continued into the next day, by which time the union men had taken “full charge of the colliery.”

...

Though there was a tradition of vigilantism and direct action among the miners, collective action of this scope had not been seen before on the Sydney coalfield. The GMA requested regular troops be brought in, and 100 men of the Prince of Wales’s Own Yorkshire Regiment boarded the steamer Newfoundland in Halifax on 27 March with “arms and ammunition ready prepared for a fight.” The Newfoundland government, however, would not permit the steamer’s planned journey to St. John’s to be prolonged by a stop at Louisbourg to deposit the military force, and Prime Minister Macdonald insisted on the deployment of Canadian militia instead. The British troops were required to unload their gear from the ship and return to barracks. The following day 25 members of the Sydney Volunteers arrived in Lingan under the command of Colonel Crowe Reed.

The GMA was not able to restore order on its terms. That night, at two o’clock, Chief Const. Musgrave arrived in Little Glace Bay from Lingan with seven volunteers and six constables to arrest men in connection with the Lingan riot. “They arrested Joe Currie and brought him down to jail,” fifteen-year-old Allan Joseph McDonald reported to his father, William, who was away in Ottawa at the time for Parliament. Next, Musgrave proceeded to the home of Simon Lott, a miner over 60 years of age and a member of Keystone Lodge. He broke down the door, and, as Allan Joseph described it, “dragged old Simon out.” But, as Allan Joseph continued, “some of the Union Men heard the noise and they went all around the other houses telling [people] what was wrong[.] Ten all the men followed Musgrave and the soldiers up to McPherson[’]s and Musgrave hid there.” An angry crowd of about 300 people gathered outside McPherson’s house where Musgrave was sheltered. The crowd, reported Allan Joseph, “would have killed him,” given the opportunity. A warrant for Musgrave’s arrest was obtained, and he was collected and placed in jail. The volunteers and constables departed Little Glace Bay before noon and without Musgrave, who was bailed out of jail the following day by Henry Mitchell. The episode was an outright defiance of constituted authority, and it revealed the interlacing of the miners’ perspectives with a broader community solidarity that could be mobilized to enforce collective moral judgements. The outside report of the Montréal Gazette – which claimed that the constable had “escaped to the lock-up … to save himself from the mob” – evaded acknowledgement of the full extent, and deliberate nature, of the popular agency exercised at Little Glace Bay.

The coal operators perhaps wished not to openly expose the limitations of their power to the outside public. After refusing to negotiate for over a year, on 17 April, the GMA asked to meet with the committee of Coping Stone Lodge. An agreement was reached on 24 April, which was ratified by the Cape Breton Coal Association.

- Don Nerbas, “‘Lawless Coal Miners’ and the Lingan Strike of 1882–1883: Remaking Political Order on Cape Breton’s Sydney Coalfield,” Labour/Le Travail 92 (Fall 2023), 110-114

[nando161mando]

Footage of interior of Gaza's largest hospital Al Shifa released by the World Health Organization.

WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said that the hospital had been reduced to ashes, leaving it an "empty shell with human graves".

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Capitalism can not be reformed, it can only be heavily regulated.

[decolonize-the-everything]

Actually I think we should spend some time confronting the fact that CEOs know exactly how many cents to change individual prices and wages by, when to do it, what year is most profitable, how many hours employees need to work to meet quarterly goals, how many need to be fired, etc.

They run businesses down to the second and last penny you know?

They know what they're doing, how much it cost, how much they'll profit, and exactly how much time they need.

Doesnt it seem malicious in that context that our "free" time is just enough to do chores and sleep? For wages to be Just Enough to survive on?

They convinced us to live and breathe for them at a cost so low that we can barely afford to survive when we're not at work.

And they know that its a steal of a deal.

So why don't we?

Why don't we do something about it?

Start talking about a general strike.

“We have to pay for our sins of the past. Back in 1980 when Reagan at the time fired patco workers, everybody in this country should have stood up and walked the hell out,” Fain said. “We missed the opportunity then, but we’re not going to miss it in 2028. That’s the plan. We want a general strike. We want everybody walking out just like they do in other countries.” He reaffirmed ambitious plans to organize a general strike for 1 May 2028, coinciding with International Solidarity Day or May Day.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by General Strike US 🍉 (@thegeneralstrikeus)

[dailyanarchistposts]

The way most people talk about climate change we are led to believe we all have an equal part in creating the capitalist nightmare we live in, but that’s a lie. The unsustainable and extractive nature of capitalism grew directly from the ideological and material foundations of European colonization. We cannot hold the entire human species responsible for that. It’s victim blaming.

The vast majority of waste is produced by the same people and institutions who hold power. Fighting for our planet, the health of our land, our food, our homes, our communities, is where the fight against capitalism and white supremacy collide. Any fight for environmental justice must also be a fight for racial justice because BI&POC are the ones who disproportionately bear the weight of climate change.

White Settler Colonialism Is Destroying the Planet, Not Poor BI&POC

Don’t believe the Malthusian and eco-fascist myth that there are too many people on the planet to care for. This is a lie peddled by capitalists, eugenicists, and people who advocate for genocide. We know that every landbase has its limit for how much life it can support (indigenous peoples have been saying this for hundreds of years), but “overpopulation” rhetoric is overwhelmingly used as a means to enforce colonial hierarchies where wealthy white people can maintain lives of access and privilege while poor BI&POC barely survive.

Instead of telling poor BI&POC to have less children or to stop wanting better lives, we should build a movement to fight climate change which centers racial justice, abolishes capitalism, and forces wealthy, predominately white populations to stop hoarding resources.

Here are some Earth Day facts for tomorrow so you don’t fall for the lies:

Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. (Source: the Guardian)

Black communities are exposed to 56% more pollution than is caused by their consumption. For Latinx communities, it is 63%. (Source: American Journal of Public Health)

97% of waste produced in the United States is corporate waste. 80% of businesses are owned & operated by white people. (Source: “The Story of Stuff” & US News)

Indigenous peoples make up less than 5% of the planet’s human population, yet they are protecting 80% of its biodiversity. (Source: National Geographic)

The world’s richest 10% produce half of carbon emissions while the poorest half contribute only 10%. (Source: Oxfam)

The world’s wealthiest 16% use 80% of the planet’s natural resources. (Source: CNN)

We are not all equally “responsible.” White settler colonialism and capitalism are destroying the planet, not poor BI&POC.

[reachartwork]

first twine short story. about 7000 words across four somewhat minor branches.

reader beware: THIS IS A HORROR STORY. if you complain to me about the gross contents of a horror story i'm hitting you with a brick.

content warnings are in the tags of this post. if you want to go in unspoiled, just click the link. if you encounter any bugs, please let me know. if you enjoy the story and want to see more, please let me know. this is my first time putting anything this visceral out into the world so it would be nice to know if the people want more.

if you enjoyed the story enough to feel it's worth money, there's a "support this story" button on itch you can use, or you can donate to my medical bills and rent and such at https://paypal.me/bstdev. and if you enjoy it enough to share it with your friends, well, that'd just about make my day.

cheers. enjoy the blood.

[simplyender]

spiderpeople that could defeat spot first try:

1. spider-ham (cartoon logic dictates that he can just pick up the holes)

2. sun-spider (disabled solidarity. would probably get spot to come to the realization that hes 100% disabled and be empathetic about it)

3. spider-punk (would explain that a majority of spots problems originate from the shitty system hes in and that capitalism is the problem, not miles)