Today In Labor History May 1, 1886: The first nationwide General Strike for the 8-hour day occurred in Milwaukee and other U.S. cities. In Chicago, police killed four demonstrators and wounded over 200. This led to the mass meeting a Haymarket Square, where an unknown assailant threw a bomb, killing several cops. The authorities responded by rounding up all the city’s leading anarchists, and a kangaroo court which wrongfully convicted 8 of them, including Albert Parsons, husband of Lucy Parsons, who would go on to cofound the IWW, along with Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, and others. Worldwide protests against the convictions and executions followed. To honor the wrongfully executed anarchists, and their struggle for the 8-hour day, May first has ever since been celebrated as International Workers Day in nearly every country in the world, except the U.S.

You can read my complete bio of Lucy Parsons here: michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/…

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #haymarket #bombing #policebrutality #police #prison #execution #deathpenalty #GeneralStrike #IWW #lucyparsons #motherjones #EightHourDay #mayday

#VeryHotTake: All #Conscription is inherently bad and irredeemable!

Instead:

• allow people not only to defende themselves by owning the means of defending as civilians.
• Pay people to want to do the risky jobs that need to be done [i.e. Firefighter] so good that there will always be more fitting applicants than vacancies.
• Build your nation to be worth fighting for!

Otherwise Conscription is just legalized #ForcedLabour with legalized #DeathPenalty combined.

Because you don't want conscripts because if the only thing that keeps armed people fighting for you or fighting on your side is their fear of getting shot, then it's an absurd idea to arm them at all...

Someone please provide me an actual rational reason why we allow forcibly conscripted people to carry machineguns but not the law-abiding average citizen they're forcibly recruited from.

• If you don't trust your Average Joe to own, carry and properly [not] use a firearm, then why would you trust a cop or soldier to be any better?
• After all it is proven record that you'll find above average amounts of people embracing violence in the military and police, since they usually are chosen there because of those mild sociopathic tendencies.

#HotTake

compulsory enlistment into national or military service

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