You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Monday September 14, 1903
Cripple Creek District, Colorado - Telegram from "The Victims of Military Despotism"
The following telegram was sent from the strike zone to Charles Moyer, President of the Western Federation of Miners:
The victims of the corporations' tyranny greet you in the greatest gold camp in all the world.
The civil power has been supplanted by military despotism. The laws of the state are overridden with impunity and the powers that be are using the glorious American flag to cover crimes against the constitution of the illustrious state of Colorado, and the "Bill of Rights" of the United States of America. The rights of property has supplanted the rights of the individual and a lawless mob [militia] are arresting citizens without authority at their pleasure. Please arouse the citizens of the state and save us from this anarchistic anarchism, militaryism, un-Americanism, blatherskiteism and Bellism.
THE VICTIMS OF MILITARY DESPOTISM
Meanwhile, rumors of the establishment of a military prison, known as the "bullpen," are proving to be true. Sherman Parker is being held there. He is the member of the strike committee who was seized from his home in the middle of the night. Union men retire at night not knowing if they will find themselves in the bullpen by morning, arrested without charge and confined without access to counsel.
SOURCE
The Cripple Creek Strike
-by Emma F Langdon
(Part I, 1st pub 1904)
NY, 1969
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Sunday September 14, 1913
Calumet, Michigan - Big Annie and Her American Flag Knocked to Ground by Guardsmen
"If this flag will not protect me,
then I will die with it."
Just days after her arrest Big Annie is back in the thick of the fight. Yesterday morning she led a march of 1,000 strikers and the women who support them through the streets of Calumet as is her usual routine. At the corner of Eighth and Elm, they were confronted by the militia and armed deputies. A soldier on horseback used his saber to knock her flag from her grasp. A striker came to her aid and was pushed to the ground by another soldier who ripped the silk fabric of the flag as he slashed about with his sword.
Annie was also knocked to the ground. The flag was stomped into the mud by the horses of the guardsmen. Big Annie hung on to the flag as soldiers tried to take it from her, shouting:
Kill me! Run your bayonets and sabers through this flag and kill me, but I won't move. If this flag will not protect me, then I will die with it.
Annie was rescued by other marchers and escaped with only a bayonet blow to the right wrist. The strikers' march was driven back by soldiers on horseback and by the rifle butts of infantrymen. Deputies joined in on the attack swinging their clubs. The strikers and their supporters retreated to the Italian Hall with Big Annie and her flag, now muddied and slashed.
SOURCES
Big Annie of Calumet
-by Jerry Stanley
NY, 1996
Rebels on the Range
-by Arthur W Thurner
MI, 1984
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Saturday September 14, 2013
Mexico City, Mexico - Police drive protesting teachers out of Zocalo Plaza
From The Item:
Riot police swept thousands of striking teachers out of the heart of Mexico City on Friday, driving protesters through the streets with tear gas and water cannons in a swift end to the weeks-long occupation of the Zocalo plaza over reforms to the dysfunctional national education system.
It was a dramatic reassertion of state authority after weeks of near-constant disruption in the center of one of the world's largest cities. The teachers have marched through the capital at least 15 times over the last two months, decrying President Enrique Pena Nieto's plan to break union control of education with a new system of standardized teacher testing that become law on Tuesday.
Authorities did not immediately report any injuries. Federal police chief Manuel Mondragon said more than 20 demonstrators were arrested.
Read full story here:
http://www.theitem.com/...
Photo gallery here:
http://www.theitem.com/...
And here's another link, thanks to northsylvania:
http://www.theguardian.com/...
At work, so won't be able to update this story, please feel free to update in comments, or better yet, write a diary on this story!
Solidarity,
JayRaye
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There Is Power In The Union-Utah Phillips
Come, all ye workers, from every land,
Come, join in the grand industrial band;
Then we our share of this earth shall demand.
Come on! Do your share, like a man.
- Joe Hill