Today in Labor History February 23, 1829: The British authorities exposed the Cato Street Conspiracy and arrested all the conspirators. Those involved had planned to murder all the British cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister and overthrow the government. The authorities executed 5 conspirators and exiled 5 others to Australia. No one knows how many people were truly involved in the conspiracy. However, numerous trade unions, Irish Republicans and shoemakers were supposedly ready to support it. They were angry about the Peterloo Massacre and government repression, like the Six Acts that were enacted to suppress any further radical organizing. They were also angry about the ongoing privation caused by the depression. The Peterloo Massacre occurred 10 years prior, when the cavalry massacred at least 19 workers and veterans of the Battle of Waterloo while they were demonstrating for the vote. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote about the massacre in his poem, “The Masque of Anarchy.” The authorities censored it until 1832, ten years after his death. Mike Leigh’s 2018 film Peterloo is an excellent portrayal of the massacre, and the events leading up to it. Many writers have written novels about Peterloo, including the relatively recent “Song of Peterloo,” by Carolyn O’Brien, and “All the People,” Jeff Kaye. However, perhaps the most important is Isabella Banks‘s 1876 novel, “The Manchester Man,” since she was there when it happened and included testimonies from people who were involved. #workingclass #LaborHistory #CatoStreetConspiracy #peterloo #prison #union #deportation #massacre #novel #poem #poetry #anarchism #books #novel #fiction #poetry #author #writer #shelley @npub1wceq...lzu8

Today in Labor History February 23, 1882: B. Traven was born on this date in Poznan, Poland. Traven’s real name was probably Ret Marut. He was active in the Bavarian uprising and the Bavarian Soviet Republic of 1919. When the German state quashed the Republic and started arresting and executing activists, he fled to Mexico, where he began writing novels. Traven was a brilliant satirist and wrote novels sympathetic to workers and peasants, including the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “The Death Ship,” “The White Rose,” as well as his Jungle Series of novel depicting the plight of Indigenous campesinos in Mexico. #workingclass #LaborHistory #novel #author #writer #books #fiction #BTraven #uprising #soviet #rebellion #peasants #communism #prison #campesinos #mexico #poland #germany @npub1wceq...lzu8

Today in Labor History February 23, 1898: France imprisoned author Emile Zola for writing J’Accuse, his letter accusing the French government of antisemitism and wrongfully imprisoning Captain Alfred Dreyfus. #workingclass #LaborHistory #antisemitism #FreeSpeech #prison #dreyfus #zola #author #novel #books #writer @npub1wceq...lzu8

RFK Jr. is now openly targeting the childhood vaccine schedule, contrary to his pledges during his senate confirmation hearings, stating that he would convene representatives "all view points," and that "nothing was going to be off limits." This would include the MMR vaccine, which provides lifetime immunity to measles for 95% of those who receive the vaccine. Meanwhile, the measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico has reached 99 cases, mostly in unvaccinated kids, including 16 hospitalizations. The new top medical officer in the country has, so far, said nothing about this outbreak. But his ally, Sayer Ji, published the following on Wednesday: "mainstream medicine rarely acknowledges...that measles...has long-documented health benefits...may help protect against chronic diseases, certain cancers and autoimmune disorders." All this is consistent with Kennedy's pledge to "give infectious disease a rest for 8 years" and focus on chronic diseases, which he blames, in part, on vaccines. And while measles continues to surge, so does H5N1, with alarming new developments. A strain found on 8 Canadian farms has a rare mutation that gives it resistance to the antiviral drug oseltamivir (tamiflu). It is believed that this mutation was derived from a low pathogenic strain of influenza, something that could have resulted from genetic reassortment during a coinfection with a human strain of influenza.

'Exceptionally rare' mutation on H5N1 virus in Canada tied to antiviral drug resistance

The mutation doesn't appear to reduce viral fitness, as evidenced by its rapid spread, the authors say.

Also, a new study (a not yet peer-reviewed, pre-print) suggests that highly pathogenic strains, like H5N1, shed in the feces of infected birds, could be spread through the wind. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.12.637829v1 #H5N1 #birdflu #influenza #measles #publichealth #rfkjr #vaccines #conspiracy #children

The Original Luigi Today in Labor History February 22, 1918: At the height of the first Red Scare, U.S. authorities raided the office of “Cronaca Sovversiva.” Sacco and Vanzetti had written for this anarchist paper and donated money to it. It was their first documented link to the anarchist movement. Luigi Galleani published the paper from 1903 to 1920. He came to the U.S. in 1901 after escaping from an Italian prison. He participated in the Paterson silk strike where he was wounded and charged with rioting. #workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #strike #redscare #CronacaSovversiva #SaccoAndVanzetti #prison #Riot #luigigalleani #luigi

Today in Labor History February 22, 2004: Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation’s largest teachers union, National Education Association (NEA), a terrorist organization. No teachers were killed or imprisoned for belonging to the union under the Bush administration, but the government did use the epithet to justify imprisoning citizens and non-citizens indefinitely without trial for being “terrorists.” And the 20-year “war on terror” that Bush initiated led to at least 900,000 deaths, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project (

Brown University

Costs of the 20-year war on terror: $8 trillion and 900,000 deaths

A report from the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and...

). However, Professor Catherine Lutz, co-author of report, called this a vast undercount. She said that “one has to multiply that direct death number… by an estimated two to four times to get to the total number of people – in the millions – who are dead today who would not have been dead had the wars not been fought.” This would put Bush up there with the top ten most murderous world leaders of the past 100 years. Currently, the Trump administration is using the “terrorist” epithet to justify the mass deportation of immigrant “criminals.” In reality, they are going after anyone who doesn’t look “white,” including many who have never been accused of a crime. There have already been numerous reports of citizens and legal residents, including Indigenous people, being deported or imprisoned. Trump is also using the epithet to justify flying CIA spy drones over Mexico to surveil drug cartels, in violation of international law. And, in the future, he could start using armed drones to kill people accused of gang affiliation, whether they are in Mexico, El Salvador, or the working-class communities of major U.S. cities, like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Indeed, Todd Zimmerman, the DEA’s special agent in Mexico City, said that U.S. military action in Mexico was on the table (

Los Angeles Times

U.S. official says drone flights over Mexico may signal future strikes

The Trump administration wants to use the military to fight Mexican drug cartels.

). If the U.S. government did start targeting its own citizens as “terrorists,” it would nothing new. They are already calling pro-Palestinian activists terrorists, attempting to label all of them as Hamas symps, and threatening deport any who don’t have U.S. citizenship. They prosecuted and imprisoned numerous environmental and animal rights activists as terrorists in the 90’s and early 2000’s. In the 1960s and early ‘70s, they murdered numerous activists from organizations they labeled as “terrorists,” like the Black Panthers and American Indian Movement. And going back at least as far as the 1860s, they were falsely accusing Irish union organizers of being Molly Maguire terrorists, wrongfully executing 10 of them on June 21, 1877, the second largest single-day mass execution in U.S. history, after the 1862 mass execution of 38 Dakota Indians. Considering Trump’s goal of abolishing, or at least gutting, the Department of Education; his hatred of unions; and the anti-union objectives of Protest 2025; it is not hard to see the “terrorist” epithet again being hurled at teacher unions, and at all unions (except, perhaps, those that affiliate with a future pro-MAGA American Labor Front, like Hitler’s German Labor Front). Or, we could just start arming teachers, as many on the right have demanded, and see where that takes us… You can read more about the so-called Molly Maguires here:

Michael Dunn

The Myth of the Molly Maguires - Michael Dunn

The Myth of the Molly Maguires was created by the mine owners to destroy the union

#workingclass #LaborHistory #terrorism #waronterror #trump #bush #civilians #massmurder #MollyMaguires #union #NEA #teachers #fascism #nazi #cia #MAGA #irish