Today in Labor History March 3, 1991: An amateur video caught LAPD beating Rodney King. Four officers were tried for excessive force. Despite the video footage of police brutally beating a defenseless King, the jury acquitted all the cops involved. Within hours of the acquittals, riots erupted in cities across the U.S. The biggest was the Los Angeles riots, which lasted six days and killed 64 people (including 2 Asians, 28 African Americans, 19 Latinos and 15 whites), and injured 2,383. The National Guard, Army and Marines came in and ultimately quashed the riots. The riots in L.A. also included an anti-Asian pogrom. 2,300 Korean businesses were looted or burned and hundreds of Koreans suffered from PTSD. 64 people died in the riots, In San Francisco, African American youth chased cops down the street with bats. And protesters shattered the facade of Bank of America with a concrete bus bench. I also remember having to duck behind a car to avoid being shot by a frightened shop owner. The violent police assault on King was one of the first to go viral in the digital age. It ushered in a new era of citizens documenting police brutality. #workingclass #LaborHistory #policebrutality #rodneyking #riots #lapd #acab #police #losangeles #racism

Bathroom policing is not about protecting women, as the TERFs and transphobes argue. And how can it be considered a feminist cause when they come after women for looking too masculine? If you don't fight for all women, then you stand for no women. Trans Rights Are Human Rights! #lgbtq #feminism #transrightsarehumanrights

Today in Labor History March 1, 1981: Provisional Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands began his hunger strike at HM Prison Maze. He was in prison for his role in the Balmoral Furniture Company bombing in 1976. During the hunger strike, he was elected to parliament. 10 prisoners died from starvation during the strike, including Sands. 100,000 people attended his funeral. #workingclass #LaborHistory #IRA #bobbysands #hungerstrike #maze #prison #starvation #bombing #ireland #irishrepublicanarmy

Shithole country!

Today in Labor History February 25, 1986: As a result of ongoing protests, Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos begged President Ronald Reagan for advice. Reagan told him to “cut and cut cleanly.” That evening, Marcos and his wife Imelda fled the nation aboard a U.S. air force plane, after 20 years of rule. He and his family, and an entourage of 90 people (mostly servants), arrived in Hawaii the next day. They brought 22 crates of cash valued at $717 million, 300 crates of jewelry of unknown value, $4 million worth of unset precious gems, $200,000 in gold bullion, $1 million in Philippine pesos and deposit slips for $124 million in banks in the Cayman Islands. Plus, countless crates of shoes. The Marcos’s hold the Guinness record for the largest ever theft from a government. Their son, Bong Bong Marcos, is the current president of the Philippines. His vice president is Sara Duterte, daughter of the Philippines last president, the violently repressive Rodrigo Duterte, who oversaw the assassinations of well over 1,000 street children and alleged drug dealers. Under Ferdinand Marcos, there were over 3,000 documented extrajudicial murders, 35,000 documented victims of torture and tens of thousands of people imprisoned. #workingclass #LaborHistory #philippines #dictator #torture #massacre #ferdinandmarcos #imeldamarcos #bongbong #duterte #prison #reagan #imperialism #corruption #massmurder #humanrights

People who are claiming the German election was a repudiation of Trump, Musk and MAGA have, I think, really misinterpreted the results. First, no one thought AfD had any chance of winning. But they did come in 2nd and their popularity has been on the rise. Meanwhile the Christian Democrats, who won the largest number of votes (28.5%), had their 2nd worst showing since the end of WWII. While the Social Democrats plummeted to 16%, their all-time worst showing. If anything, what these elections show is that the German people are disgusted with the mainstream parties, as they are in the U.S., and in much of the world. Parties that have provided little more than the status quo: more gifts to the corporations and wealthy, and increasing militarism, on the backs of the poor and working classes. #elections #germany #afd #fascism #MAGA #trump #musk