#DefendTheGuard legislation would prohibit a state’s #NationalGuard units from being deployed into active combat without a formal #DeclarationOfWar by Congress, as provided by the U.S. Constitution. #uspol
https://pca.st/laejj10b

I'm just gonna park this here..you know, for future reference

A #VanityFair article by #BessLevin dated September 17, 2020

Testifying before lawmakers, D.C. #NationalGuard Major #AdamDDeMarco said that in the hours before protesters were forcibly cleared from #LafayetteSquare, federal officials started to stockpile #ammunition and “seek devices that could emit deafening sounds and make anyone within range feel like their skin is on fire"

#LongRangeAcousticDevice #LRAD

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/trump-administration-protestors-skin-on-fire?srsltid=AfmBOoqGzTIpG5c4HppdhM6Pzv2L6dtz0mFUJNsC_9IEBsSe8fbIJDwt

New York Prison Uprisings
As reported in mainstream media, all outside visits have been cancelled to New York state prisons.

Around midnight on Thursday, there was a militant uprising at Riverview Correctional Facility in Ogdensburg, forcing correctional officers to retreat, vacate their posts, and call in police and emergency response teams to ga
https://neversleep.noblogs.org/post/2025/02/20/new-york-prison-uprisings/
#KathyHochul #NationalGuard #prisoners #riots #uprisings #upstate

"Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drummin'
Four dead in Ohio

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?"
- #NeilYoung, Ohio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdVMGKOFIwY
#KentState #Resistance #History #NationalGuard #KentStateShootings #May4th #May41970

Today in Labor History February 8, 1919: A General Strike occurred in Butte, Montana against a wage cut. Inspired by the Seattle General Strike, members of the IWW and the Metal and Mine Workers Union, Local 800, organized Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Workers Councils to lead the strike. Streetcar workers joined in, shutting down transportation for 5 days. Soldiers, returning from World War I, joined the pickets. Montana’s governor called in the National Guard. They bayoneted 9 workers. The workers ultimately called off the strike out of fear that there would be fatalities.

Fare Evaders Give Middle Finger To MTA Placing Spikes At Subway Turnstiles
January 17, 2025

New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has installed spikes at subway stations to stop turnstile jumpers—and they don’t seem to be working.

An unidentified subway rider wasn’t fazed by the visible
https://neversleep.noblogs.org/post/2025/01/27/fare-evaders-give-middle-finger-to-mta-placing-spikes-at-subway-turnstiles/
#FareEvasion #MTA #NationalGuard #NYPD #PublicTransit

Today in Labor History December 13, 1636: The U.S. National Guard was created. The military force was originally created as a militia, by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to protect its economic interests by killing local indigenous people, especially members of the Pequot tribe. In 1877, they were used to protect the interests of capital during the Great Train Strike, the wave of wildcat strikes that had broken out across the country. During that wave, National Guards and Police killed at least 100 workers. They also protected the interests of capital by providing the majority of soldiers for 19th century imperialistic wars, like the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War. Governors used them to suppress the Watts Riot (1965), the Rochester Race Riot (1964) and antiwar protests at Kent State. In each of these deployments, they shot and killed unarmed civilians.

Read my article on the Great Train Strike here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/31/the-great-upheaval/

Today in Labor History September 22, 1934: The United Textile Workers (UTW) strike committee ordered strikers back to work, ending the largest U.S. textile strike to date. Over 400,000 workers participated, mostly women. At least 18 of them died at the hands of militias, vigilantes and police. The strike began in the south and spread up the Eastern Seaboard. The governors of North and South Carolina deputized citizens (i.e., created vigilante squads) during the first week of the strike, issuing shoot-to-kill orders against any picketers who tried to enter a mill. As a result, 14 strikers were murdered in that first week. In the second week of the strike, the governor of Rhode Island mustered the National Guard, who used machine guns against strikers armed with flower pots and headstones they had taken from a nearby cemetery. The National Guard was also deployed in Maine, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. In Georgia, strikers were arrested and held without charge, in World War I concentration camps. 34 strike leaders were held incommunicado.

Today in Labor History July 3, 1936: Striking workers battled scabs and undercover cops outside the Remington Rand plant in Norwood, Ohio. The riot last four days, as the company repeatedly tried to bring in scabs on buses, without uniformed police protection, in hopes of provoking violence they could exploit to discredit the union. On July 7, strikers boarded the buses and drove off the scabs. On August 12, police shot 2 Remington Rand workers in Syracuse, NY, provoking the governor to threaten calling in the National Guard. Much of the violence in this strike was instigated by undercover cops, posing as scabs. The strike had begun in May and lasted through April of 1937. During the strike, company president James Rand, Jr. devised the "Mohawk Valley formula" a corporate plan for strikebreaking that was utilized by many corporations since. The plan included strategies for discrediting union leaders, frightening the public with threats of violence, use of local cops and vigilantes to intimidate and bully the strikers, puppet organizations composed of of "loyal employees" to influence public debate, fortified workplaces, the hiring of strikebreakers, and threats to close the plant and ruin the local economy if work was not promptly resumed. One example from this formula was when Rand lied to the media that the strike was over. This led to an uproar amongst the rand and file, who accused union leadership of selling them out. In another dirty trick, the company told the picketers that many of their fellow workers had decided to come back to work. They had 85 security guards dress up as workers and armed them with bricks and clubs. When they “came back to work,” picketers attacked them. The media photographed and printed images of these “labor goons’” unprovoked attack on “honest working men.”

https://youtu.be/IDdYlHV64rs

Today in Labor History May 23, 1934: The "Battle of Toledo" erupted when sheriffs' arrested picket leaders at the Auto-Lite plant in Toledo, Ohio, and beat an old man. 10,000 strikers blockaded the plant for seven hours, preventing strikebreakers from leaving. Ultimately, the crowd was broken up with tear gas and water cannons. The National Guard was called in the following day. The strikers held their ground against the troops, who shot and killed two of their members and wounded 15 others. The strike lasted from April 12 to June 3. The American Workers Party, led by Marxist A.J. Muste, supported the strikers. On June 2, the union and management came to an agreement, that included union recognition and a 5% raise, but only after the threat of a General Strike.

Today in Labor History May 4, 1970: Ohio National Guards murdered four students at Kent State University. They also injured nine others, including one who was permanently paralyzed. During the massacre, they fired 67 rounds in 13 seconds at the unarmed crowd. The students were protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. With the current wave of student protests against the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the government’s response is looking sickeningly similar to its response to student protests in the early 70s: Violent repression, use of chemical agents, snipers on rooftops. If the vitriolic rhetoric of politicians and pundits continues, another student massacre seems imminent.

Today in Labor History April 23, 1968: Students took over the administration buildings at Columbia University, in New York, and shut down the university. They were protesting the Vietnam war. Today, as in right now, students have been occupying parts of campus, in protest of the Israeli war on Gaza, and in support of a free Palestine. One of their demands is university divestment from Israeli businesses. Over a hundred students have already been arrested already. Yesterday they ordered all classes to be taught online. Arrested and suspended protesters included the daughter of Congressional representative Ilhan Omar, who claims she is now homeless, as a result. In response to the arrests, dozens more encampments and occupations sprung up on college campuses across the U.S. Yale locked its gates to the public. Police arrested faculty at NYU. Meanwhile, the ADL and rightwing Trump supporters Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton have been calling for the National Guard to be deployed to college campuses. And rightwing Zionist union leader, Randi Weingarten (of the American Federation of Teachers), who shook hands with admirers of the Ukrainian fascist and antisemite Stepan Bandera in Ukraine in 2022, denounced the Columbia protesters as “antisemites.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1782508844637114456

Today in Labor History April 12, 1934: The Toledo (Ohio) Auto-Lite General Strike began on this day. Initially, 6,000 workers struck for union recognition and higher pay. In late May, there was a five-day battle between the strikers and 1,300 members of the Ohio National Guard. The militia fired on workers. They shot tear gas, which the workers threw back at them. They attacked with bayonets and the workers retaliated with bricks, injuring several soldiers. The “Battle of Toledo,” left two strikers dead and more than 200 injured. The strike lasted for two months and resulted in a win for the union. It was one of the most important labor struggles of the 20th century. During that same spring, there were also General Strikes in San Francisco and Minneapolis.

Today in Labor History April 3, 1891: Deputized members of the National Guard fired on immigrant strikers in the Morewood massacre, in Pennsylvania. They killed at least ten workers and injured dozens more. The workers were organized with the new United Mine Workers, and were fighting Henry Clay Frick, the same industrialist responsible for the massacre at Homestead the following year, and the man who anarchist Alexander Berkman attempted to assassinate, also in 1892.

NBC News: #GovKathyHochul sending #NationalGuard members to #NewYorkCitysubways to combat ongoing #crime
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gov-kathy-hochul-sending-national-guard-members-new-york-city-subways-rcna142063

Today in Labor History February 8, 1919: A General Strike occurred in Butte, Montana against a wage cut. Inspired by the Seattle General Strike, members of the IWW and the Metal and Mine Workers Union, Local 800, organized Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Workers Councils to lead the strike. Streetcar workers joined in, shutting down transportation for 5 days. Soldiers, returning from World War I, joined the pickets. Montana’s governor called in the National Guard. They bayoneted 9 workers. The workers ultimately called off the strike out of fear that there would be fatalities.

Today in Labor History October 3, 1932: All 164 students at Kincaid High School in Illinois walked out to protest their school’s use of scab labor to provide heating coal, in solidarity with their fathers who were striking against Peabody Coal. Also known as the Father-Son strike, the actions came on the heals of the creation of the new Progressive Miners of America (PMA). Thousands of Illinois miners joined the new union in protest of wage concessions by John Lewis of the UMWA. The strikers went to all scab mines and forced the workers to join their new union or leave the mine. They also picketed UMWA mines to protest their wage concessions. The government called in the National Guard to stop the armed conflicts between the two unions.

Today in Labor History September 22, 1934: The United Textile Workers (UTW) strike committee ordered strikers back to work, ending the largest U.S. textile strike to date. Over 400,000 workers participated, mostly women. At least 18 of them died at the hands of militias, vigilantes and police. The strike began in the south and spread up the Eastern Seaboard. The governors of North and South Carolina deputized citizens (i.e., created vigilante squads) during the first week of the strike, issuing shoot-to-kill orders against any picketers who tried to enter a mill. As a result, 14 strikers were murdered in that first week. In the second week of the strike, the governor of Rhode Island mustered the National Guard, who used machine guns against strikers armed with flower pots and headstones they had taken from a nearby cemetery. The National Guard was also deployed in Maine, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. In Georgia, strikers were arrested and held without charge, in World War I concentration camps. 34 strike leaders were held incommunicado.