My 100th birthday starts in half an hour

Today we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Come celebrate on the steps of Congress with the People's Party at Noon Pacific, 3 pm Eastern.

UPDATE: Livestream

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcCnaghYjKc]

For those who don't know the history of the Battle of Blair Mountain:

https://appvoices.org/2021/09/02/battle-of-blair-mountain-centennial/

Catherine Moore of the Mine Wars Museum is concerned about today’s labor environment. “Today in America in 2021, we’re seeing an erosion in workers’ rights that has been really troubling to me,” she says. “We had a golden moment in this country where unions had power and rights guaranteed to them. Those rights have been struck down across the country. In a lot of ways, under very different conditions, the Battle of Blair reminds us what the country looked like the last time unions didn’t have much rights or security."

For Keeney, Blair also showed what happens when marginalized groups work together.

Emphasizing that he doesn’t want to romanticize or exaggerate it, Keeney states that it was remarkable for the time for immigrants, Black people and poor local White people to join together for a common cause.

“The Battle of Blair Mountain demonstrates a glimpse of what is possible when those groups unite,” says Keeney. “In our system and in the culture wars, those groups are often pitted against one another.”

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Lookout's picture

But hasn't started yet.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtdXoMN0UNmtNgFrUMAdW-g

Last week marked the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain. One of the largest labor strikes in American history, right in my home state of West Virginia. Appalachians stood in solidarity with Joe Hill, Mother Jones and the workers at Blair Mountain and I stand in solidarity with millions of us demanding better today.

Some of the folks that will be joining us are:

Max Blumenthal, co-host Moderate Rebels and editor at The Grayzone;

Anya Parampil, host, Red Lines, The Grayzone;

Lee Camp host, Redacted Tonight;

Afeni, Freedom Fighters D.C.

Jackson Hinkle, host of The Dive;

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK;

Nick Brana and Zeynab Day from the People's Party

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout Still no live stream. Complete black out. Nothing on Google, nothing on DuckDuckGo.

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Lookout's picture

@Battle of Blair Mountain

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ggoR_N0nY]

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7 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

zed2's picture

(This is sarcasm, I don't mean or agree with this, I am just playing the devils advocate)

We've promised to them that everything would remain essentially the same, didn't we? In our trade agreements. Like GATS - and TISA. with its "negative listing", UGH. Its a standstill that halts progress, forever. It turns our values on their head. Everything is backwards, whats good is bad and whats bad is good. And protected, carved in stone, forever.

We committed we gave the foreign elites, the investors our sacred promise in 1995 that all FS regulation must remain essentially the same. No more fears of public healthcare. And that many of what we consider to be public services, cannot be. They must be eliminated bit by bit. Because they have commercial competition, they cannot exist. Governments actually helping people? Its now GATS-illegal.

Many other services too, if they receive subsidies and the sector involves international investment.

Because it would devalue them. For this reason the UK's NHS will likely have to go. Because they sell for-profit health insurance too. Just you wait and see next year, it will likely happen. They intended to do this since the Uruguay Round negotiations. To put all the jobs that received tax money in play, as international bargaining chips.

Whats in your wallet?

For example, up until the mid 1990s America had public housing so that the inhabitants of cities could not be systematically forced out because they could not pay market rate. Now that kind and considerate century is over in hundreds of ways, and its all being rolled back. The future is like the one for Chinese workers. Six days of labor until 9 pm every night.

The Digital Eldorado. Its not The savior of humanity. Its all a scam. It wont create jobs it will eliminate them.

Especially financial investments and corporate investments as well. We sue the taxpayers of other countries in #ISDS arbitral cases when they change laws to limit our new corp[orate rights to frack and maim and pollute.

It wouldn't be fair if we limited those rights given to corporations here. Such as the right of establishment.

It wouldn't do if we set up any new public services here that inhibited their rights to do profitable business. It would send entirely the wrong message. The real message "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate"

No matter what people vote for, its likely forbidden if it cuts into profits even a tiny bit.

For example, financial services regulations that were not existing on the standstill date Feb 26, 1998. Even ones that were existing. Here much earlier like the Glass-Steagall Act, had to be reformed. And it was in 1999.

Read "Automating Inequality" Like that . We will enslave the poor people of Earth. They will become cash cows. to be MILKED. War on the middle class. On the idea of a middle class.
Read Late Victorian Holocausts. All their property will be rapidly alienated.

Any laws that inhibit the new corporate rights rights to do business profitably by various means such as post claim underwriting in the insurance business, and land grabbing of all kinds. will not be allowed.

Many people think this is different country than the one it is now. They have been deceived very skillfully. Its not.

Here, of all places, why would it be? How could it be?

This is whats happening. People are being paid less because of labor saving technology. In a race to0 the bottom. We simply need people less than we once did. Someday we wont need workers. Our elites feel entitled to lower and lower wages for that reason. The goal of "services liberalization" is end public services, including education and healthcare, and water and basically roll back the entire 20th Century.

Its happening.

Shhhh! Big secret!

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@zed2

Your words perfectly reflect the difficult truth. The West's devaluation of humanity cannot be stopped, because it has already taken place. Still, People reside in a state of denial at all times in the US. At unique times, down the centuries they rise up, and push back hard. Their victories may result in the creation of a Social Security system, or the legislation of regulations that held back financial predators and gave people a measure of economic security. But these things were merely temporary delays in capitalism's voracious appetite for private wealth, and its disregard for the common wealth of the public and national prosperity.

It is interesting how Americans have come to identify with US corporations over the past century. When US corporations, backed by dollar hegemony and military might, would wedge themselves into the profit stream of foreign commodities and markets — the American people would embrace this victory, naively believing that it was win for all Americans — but they make few gains in prosperity or social mobility. Meanwhile, they turned against any national programs that might deliver human rights to the people, such as national health care or universal basic income. Thus, tax revenues were spent on the Permanent War, most of it parceled out as lucrative government contracts for the corporations.

This is what's happening. People are being paid less because of labor saving technology. In a race to the bottom. ..... Someday we wont need workers [a working class]. ..... The goal of "services liberalization" is to end public services, including education and healthcare, and water ... basically to roll back the entire 20th Century.

Up until the mid 1990s America had public housing so that the inhabitants of cities could not be systematically forced out because they could not pay market rate. Now that kind and considerate century is over in hundreds of ways, and its all being rolled back. The future is like the one for Chinese workers. Six days of labor until 9 pm every night.

.

A head's up here: For some reason, all Americans get China's goals and aspirations 100 percent backwards. The very aggressive goal of the Chinese government is to make every member of the working class moderately prosperous. This makes perfect sense when you recall that China has a People's government.

Only a few days ago, China's President, Xi Jinping, explained how China would bring about income-gains equality for all Chinese, while discouraging monopolies and enforcing antitrust laws. Xi strikes me as a modern extension of FDR. He is doing the right thing by elevating people and giving them sustainable economic security and the means to fulfill their ambitions.

China’s tech giants pour billions into Xi’s vision of ‘common prosperity’

.

SUN, SEP 5 2021

GUANGZHOU, China — Alibaba will invest 100 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) over the next few years into “common prosperity” initiatives, joining a chorus of technology giants pouring money into President Xi Jinping’s goal to spread wealth.

The Chinese e-commerce giant will put the money into 10 initiatives including technology innovation, economic development, high quality job creation and supporting vulnerable groups.

Last month, Xi called for the “reasonable adjustment of excessive incomes” and encouraged high income groups and businesses to “return more to society.”

“Alibaba is a beneficiary of the strong social and economic progress in China over the past 22 years. We firmly believe that if society is doing well and the economy is doing well, then Alibaba will do well,” said Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang.

“We are eager to do our part to support the realization of common prosperity through high-quality development.”

The call for common prosperity — the government’s push toward moderate wealth for all — has been answered by technology giants which are currently under intense regulatory scrutiny from Beijing.

China has introduced a slew of regulation around anti-monopoly and data security and protection.

Alibaba is not the only internet giant pledging support for Xi’s call to “common prosperity.”

Last month, Tencent said it would double the money it is putting toward social initiatives to 100 billion yuan. The money will go toward areas including rural revitalization and helping grow earnings for low-income groups.

China’s high-profile technology CEOs and founders have also pledged individual sums of money. Pinduoduo founder Colin Huang, Meituan’s Wang Xing, and Xiaomi’s Lei Jun, have collectively donated billions of dollars to social causes.

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@Pluto's Republic meanwhile American corporations pay no taxes.

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enhydra lutris's picture

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Plus I read that a nationwide general strike in coming up.

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9 users have voted.

than showed up for Jan. 6th.

Someone should arrest those cops, though because

Congress shall make NO LAW respecting... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

- Constitution of the United States.

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8 users have voted.

Anyone remember january 6th?

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3IDYttwy2g]

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