On this day in 1886, the Great Southwest Railroad Strike began, involving more than 200,000 workers throughout the Southwestern United States.

The strike began when an agreement between the Knights of Labor and Union Pacific to give notice and investigate all firings was violated where a Knight named Charles A. Hall in Marshall, Texas was fired for attending a union meeting on company time. In response, te District Assembly #101 of the Knights called a strike.

Within a week, more than 200,000 workers were on strike throughout Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Texas, paralyzing railway lines with both inaction and sabotage.

At least nine people were killed in conflicts between police and crowds of striking workers. On April 9th in East St. Louis, eight deputies guarding a freight train shot into a crowd of strikers, killing six bystanders. The crowd responsed by setting the rail yards on fire.

After two months of protest, the strike was called off on May 4th without the workers winning their demands. The failure of the strike led directly to the collapse of the Knights of Labor and the rise of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

Hola Camaradas :fidel-salute-big: , Our Comrades In Texas are currently passing Through some Hard times :amerikkka: so if you had some Leftover Change or are a bourgeoisie Class Traitor here are some Mutual Aid programs that you could donate to :left-unity-3:

The State and Revolution :flag-su:

:lenin-shining: :unity: :kropotkin-shining:

The Conquest of Bread :ancom:

Remember, sort by new you :LIB:

Yesterday’s megathread :sad-boi:

Follow the ChapoChat twitter account :comrade-birdie:

THEORY; it’s good for what ails you (all kinds of tendencies inside!) :RIchard-D-Wolff:

COMMUNITY CALENDAR - AN EXPERIMENT IN PROMOTING USER ORGANIZING EFFORTS :af:

Join the fresh and beautiful batch of new comms:

!genzedong@hexbear.net :deng-salute:

!agitprop@hexbear.net :allende-rhetoric:

!paganism@hexbear.net :anarchist-occult:

!neurodiverse@hexbear.net :Care-Comrade:

:hammer-sickle: March Megathreads Teaser :hammer-sickle: :

  • Rosa Luxemburg :rosa:

  • International Women's Day :rose-fist:

  • Revolution in Grenada :hammer-sickle:

  • The Paris Commune the First Revolution :red-fist:

  • César Chávez :chavez-salute:

we need a comm for Labor related stuff

New Megathread https://hexbear.net/post/88869

    • Nakoichi [they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Lots of liberals are disillusioned potential comrades they're just afraid of talking shit about democrats from a left perspective for fear of being seen as a chud concern troll or told they're doing an enlightened centrism. I've been doing this at work a lot lately to decent effect since everyone knows I'm a self described communist (even if some of them probably think I'm doing a bit mocking right winger's framing of liberals).

      • lib_0000429384 [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Lots of liberals are disillusioned potential comrades they’re just afraid of talking shit about democrats from a left perspective

        Absolutely this.

        It helps to call out chuds and libs in the same post/convo for everyone to see by framing it in a way that keeps everyone's attention.

        Ironically this can lead to being mistaken for similar enlightened centrism if they don't understand leftist ideology or are arguing in bad faith, but you can anticipate/mitigate up front for that, too.

        The main goal should always be to pull both chud and lib normies out of the conditioned "chud vs lib" framing, because neither of them really understand what leftism is (yet) and so can't even begin to factor it into their worldview without a guiding hand. I was once a chud and lib.

        Don't frighten or bore them, make them curious.