MikeDunnAuthor

@MikeDunnAuthor@kolektiva.social

Working Class Historical Fiction from the not so gilded age. Labor History. Social justice. An injury to one is an injury to all!

https://michaeldunnauthor.com
https://www.thehistoricalfictioncompany.com/michael-dunn

Pronouns: He/him

#Solidarity #Sabotage #GeneralStrike
#HistoricalFiction #WorkingClass #LaborHistory
#WomensRights #antifascism #AntiImperialism #LGBTQIA+ #EndAbleism #TransRightsAreHumanRights #SelfDetermination #ClimateChange

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MikeDunnAuthor, to random

Kids don't get Covid?
Schools are safe?
Masking unnecessary?

Think again.

Recent study indicates that 70% of all household Covid spread began with an infected child, and that this trend accelerated when schools reopened, and declined during summer vacation.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/more-70-us-household-covid-spread-started-child-study-suggests

MikeDunnAuthor, to random

Opposed to Covid vaccine? Think again.

New study indicates that over 1 in 6 unvaxxed Covid survivors still has symptoms 2 years later.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/more-1-6-unvaccinated-covid-survivors-report-symptoms-2-years

MikeDunnAuthor, to bookstadon

Today in Labor History June 1 is the day that U.S. labor law officially allows children under the age of 16 to work up to 8 hours per day between the hours of 7:00 am and 9:00 pm. Time is ticking away, Bosses. Have you signed up sufficient numbers of low-wage tykes to maintain production rates with your downsized adult staffs?

The reality is that child labor laws have always been violated regularly by employers and these violations have been on the rise recently. Additionally, many lawmakers are seeking to weaken existing, poorly enforced laws to make it even easier to exploit children. Over the past year, the number of children employed in violation of labor laws rose by 37%, while lawmakers in at least 10 states passed, or introduced, new laws to roll back the existing rules. Violations include hiring kids to work overnight shifts in meatpacking factories, cleaning razor-sharp blades and using dangerous chemical cleaners on the kills floors for companies like Tyson and Cargill. Particularly vulnerable are migrant youth who have crossed the southern U.S. border from Central America, unaccompanied by parents. https://www.epi.org/publication/child-labor-laws-under-attack/
.
Of course, what is happening in the U.S. is small potatoes compared with many other countries, where exploitation of child labor is routine, and often legal. Kids are almost always paid far less than adults, increasing the bosses’ profits. They are often more compliant than adults and less likely to form unions and resist. Bosses can get them to do dangerous tasks that adults can’t, or won’t, do, like unclogging the gears and belts of machinery. This was also the norm in the U.S., well into the 20th century. In my soon (I hope) to be released novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,” the protagonist, Mike Doyle, works as a coal cleaner in the breaker (coal crushing facility) of a coal mine at the age or 13. Many kids began work in the collieries before they were 10. They often were missing limbs and died young from lung disease. However, when the breaker bosses abused them, they would sometimes collectively chuck rocks and coal at them, or walk out, en masse, in wildcat strikes. And when their fathers, who worked in the pits, as laborers and miners, went on strike, they would almost always walk out with them, in solidarity.

@bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor,

@hrefna @bookstadon

Probably was Clarence

MikeDunnAuthor, to random

Mandatory paid sick leave for all is a public health necessity, in addition to being a basic worker right.

Turns out, 40% of all restaurant food-borne illness outbreaks stem from sick workers.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/foodborne-disease/40-us-foodborne-restaurant-outbreaks-traced-sick-workers

MikeDunnAuthor, to random

“If it had not been for the accident of my birth, I would have been an anti-Semite.”

-Henry Kissinger

He may be a German Jew who fled the Nazis, but he has allied himself with the same forces who cheered Hitler on, who enabled him, who have encouraged and supported Hitler-imitators throughout the world.

  • >1million dead from U.S. bombs, napalm & pesticides in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos during his tenure as Secretary of State (along with 30,000 mostly working-class U.S. citizens)
    *Torture & murder of tens of thousands of Chileans under Pinochet, after the Kissinger-U.S. supported overthrow of Allende
    *Operation Condor, to hunt down & slaughter revolutionaries throughout Latin America
    *Indonesian invasion of East Timor & genocide (1975), which killed up to 300,000
    *Military slaughter & genocide in Bangladesh (1971) which killed up to 3 million people
    *Support for dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, Greece, S Arabia, Iran.
    *Support for right-wing insurgencies in Africa

#kissinger #fascism #antisemitism #imperialism #genocide #massacre #anticommunism #ColdWar

MikeDunnAuthor, to feminism

Today in Labor History May 29, 1854: Civil rights activist, Lydia Flood Jackson, opened the first school for black children in Sacramento, California. Jackson was a member of the black petty bourgeoisie. Her father taught her how to invest in real estate and that business supported her through her life. However, she also developed a line of beauty products known as “Flood Toilet Cremes.” She fought most of her life for African American civil rights and women’s rights. She was the first legislative chair of the California State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. She was also a member of the Fannie Jackson Coppin Club and the Native Daughter's Club.

MikeDunnAuthor, to books

Today in LGBTQ May 27, 2020: Author and LGBTQ rights activist, Larry Kramer, died. He wrote the screenplay for the film Women in Love, (1969) and a novel called Faggots (1978), which was denounced within the gay community for its portrayal of shallow, promiscuous sex in the 1970s. However, he is probably most remembered for founding the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (1980), which became the world’s largest private organization assisting people with AIDS. And then cofounding the AIDS activist organization ACT UP (1987).

@bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor, to books

Today in Writing History May 27, 1894: Author Dashiell Hammett was born. From the age of 21-23, he worked as a Pinkerton detective and then joined the army. But he developed tuberculosis and was discharged shortly after joining. In 1920, he moved to Spokane, again to work for the Pinkertons. There, he served as a strikebreaker in the Anaconda miners’ strike. However, when the Pinkertons enlisted him to assassinate Native American IWW organizer Frank Little, he refused, and quit the agency. His first stories were published in the early 1920s. And his 1929 novel, “Red Harvest,” was inspired by the Anaconda Road massacre, a 1920 labor dispute in the mining town of Butte, Montana, when company guards fired on striking IWW miners, killing one and injuring 16 others. Vigilantes also lynched Frank Little. André Gide called the book “the last word in atrocity, cynicism, and horror." However, Hammett was most famous for The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1934). Both were later made into films. In 1937, he supported the Anti-Nazi League and the Western Writers Congress. He also donated to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, fighting the fascists in Spain. He was a socialist and served as president of the Communist-sponsored Civil Rights Congress of New York. In 1953, he was subpoenaed by McCarthy’s anti-Communist witch hunt. And again, in 1955, he was celled to testify bout his role in the Civil Rights Congress. He was also convicted in absentia in 1932 of battery and attempted rape. He died in 1961, of lung cancer.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #IWW #nazis #antifascism #CivilRights #socialism #communism #Pinkertons #lynching #FrankLittle #indigenous #massacre #strike #union #author #books #fiction @bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor, to books

Today in Writing History May 27, 1884: Writer Max Brod was born. He is most famous as Franz Kafka’s friend and biographer. Kafka had asked him to burn his unpublished manuscripts. Instead, he famously published them. However, Brod was also an accomplished writer himself, well-known in Germany. He also mentored other writers. His endorsement of Juroslav Hasek’s hilarious anti-war satire, The Good Soldier Svejk, was crucial to its success. He was also a Zionist disciple of Martin Buber. And in 1939, he and his wife fled to Palestine to escape the Nazis, who burned his books in the book burning of 1933.

@bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor, to random

Today in Labor History May 26, 1824: Women and girls led the first recorded factory strike in US history. 102 women and girls walked off the job at Slater Mill, in Pawtucket, and picketed their factory.
Two days prior, the owners had increased working hours by an hour per day with no additional pay. Additionally, they slashed the pay of power-loom weavers by 25%. Those affected were all women and girls aged 15 to 30. According to the bosses, the girls had already been earning “extravagant wages.”

The owners were caught off guard. They were not expecting a protest. Indeed, no U.S. factories had ever experienced a strike. Perhaps even more shocking, other workers and community members joined them in solidarity. They blockaded the mills and hurled rocks at the mansions of the owners. On the final day of the week-long strike, workers set one of the mills on fire. The next day, the owners agreed to negotiate and agreed on a compromise.

MikeDunnAuthor, to bookstadon

Today in Labor History May 26, 1755: The French authorities caught and executed Louis Mandrin, the French Robin Hood. He had led an army of 300 smugglers in a rebellion against the Fermiers, or tax collectors. This made him incredibly popular with the masses because the Fermiers would tax them far more than the king required and pocket the extra. Furthermore, he would buy products in Switzerland and sell them in France without paying any taxes, making them much less expensive. However, when he was caught, the authorities publicly tortured him and left his body on display to teach the masses a lesson. The people left sympathetic notes beside his body and a legend was born.

Mandrin was referenced in Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.” Books and films were made about his life, including the 1924 silent film, “Mandrin” and the book, “Captain Mandrin.”

@bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor, to random

Prosperity for ALL
Unemployment for NONE!

calculsoberic, to random

What's on your bucket list? Parasailing is one of my items

MikeDunnAuthor,

@calculsoberic

Loving in a world without bosses, kings, landlords or priests, in which all people have all their material, social and emotional needs met, where all people, regardless of their identity are treated with love and respect...

MikeDunnAuthor, to bookstadon

Today in LGBTQ History May 25, 1895: The authorities imprisoned socialist author Oscar Wilde for two years for “indecency” for having sex with men. Many potential witnesses refused to testify against him. However, he was still convicted. The judge said “It is the worst case I have ever tried. I shall pass the severest sentence that the law allows. In my judgment it is totally inadequate for such a case as this. The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned and kept to hard labor for two years.” The terrible prison conditions caused Wilde serious health problems and contributed to his early death.

@bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor, to random

Today in Labor History May 25, 1805: The authorities arrested striking shoemakers (cordwainers) in Philadelphia. They were charged with criminal conspiracy for violating an English common law that barred schemes aimed at forcing wage increases. In 1794, the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers organized around protecting wages and blocking scabs from taking their jobs at lower wages. They struck several times over the next decade, sometimes winning wage increases. However, in November, 1805, the master shoemakers took the issue to court. As a result, a grand jury indicted 8 journeymen of “conspiracy to increase wages,” thus ending the strike. Prosecutors argued that the journeymen societies (precursors to modern unions) threatened the entire economy of the city. (Of course, it might, if other workers joined in and it became a General Strike). They further argued that if allowed to organize, such worker combinations could lead to civil war. The judge was a Federalist. He denounced the workers and told the jurors that organizing was illegal. Consequently, they found all eight workers guilty. The judge fined them eight dollars each. This trial upheld the Federalist ideal of the sanctity of private property and industrial growth, unhindered by workers’ organizations.

MikeDunnAuthor, to internet

New study bolsters link between covid pandemic and declining teen mental health. But still no definitive proof for why.

Was it social isolation? Increased use of social media?
Being stuck at home with abusive family members?
Anxiety over family deaths, poverty and homelessness associated with the pandemic? Increased attacks and violent rhetoric by bigots and fascists that coincided with the pandemic? The worsening of the climate crisis?

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/youth-especially-girls-had-more-psychiatric-diagnoses-first-2-years-covid

MikeDunnAuthor, to random

New study bolsters link between covid and diabetes in kids.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/covid-19-infection-associated-type-1-diabetes-kids

MikeDunnAuthor, to bookstadon

Today in Writing History May 22, 1927: Author Peter Matthiessen was born. Matthiessen was an environmental activist and a CIA officer who wrote short stories, novels and nonfiction. He’s the only writer to have won the National Book award in both nonfiction, for The Snow Leopard (1979), and in fiction, for Shadow Country (2008). His story Travelin’ Man was made into the film The Young One (1960) by Luis Bunuel. Perhaps his most famous book was, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983), which tells the story of Leonard Peltier and the FBI’s war on the American Indian Movement. Peltier is still in prison (over 43 years so far) for a crime he most likely did not commit. The former governor of South Dakota, Bill Janklow, and David Price, an FBI agent who was at the Wounded Knee assault, both sued Viking Press for libel because of statements in the book. Both lawsuits threatened to undermine free speech and further stifle indigenous rights activism. Fortunately, both lawsuits were dismissed.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #PeterMatthiessen #indigenous #LeonardPeltier #NativeAmerican #aim #fbi #fiction #nonfiction #writer #author #cia #FreeSpeech #censorship @bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor, to BlackMastodon

Today in Writing History May 22, 1967: Writer and activist Langston Hughes died. Hughes was a leader of the Harlem Renaissance and one of the early pioneers of Jazz Poetry. During the Civil Rights Movement, from 1942-1962, he wrote a weekly column for the black-owned Chicago Defender. His poetry and fiction depicted the lives and struggles of working-class African Americans. Much of his writing dealt with racism and black pride. Like many black artists and intellectuals of his era, he was attracted to communism as an alternative to the racism and segregation of America. He travelled to the Soviet Union and many of his poems were published in the CPUSA newspaper. He also participated in the movement to free the Scottsboro Boys and supported the Republican cause in Spain. He opposed the U.S. entering World War II and he signed a statement in support of Stalin’s purges.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #BlackHistory #racism #lgbtq #CivilRights #Harlem #renaissance #communism #soviet #poetry #writer @BlackMastodon @bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor, to bookstadon

Mike’s Fun Facts: Daniel Defoe, author of “Robinson Crusoe,” once tried to make a living selling perfume made from the secretions of cats’ butts.

@bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor,

@symphonikus @bookstadon

Makes a lot more sense than house cats. They also make the most expensive coffee in the world (Kopi luwak) from coffee beans that have been partially digested and shat out by Asian Palm Civets.

MikeDunnAuthor, to bookstadon

Today in Labor History May 21, 1935: Jane Addams died. Addams was a peace activist, sociologist and author. She was a co-founder of the ACLU and a leader in the history of social work and women’s suffrage. In 1931, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1889, along with her lover, Ellen Gates Starr, she co-founded Hull House, a settlement house in Chicago. Eventually, the house became home to 25 women and was visited weekly by around 2,000 others. It became a center for research, study and debate. Members were bound by their commitment to the labor and suffrage movements. The facilities included a doctor to provide medical treatment for poor families, gym, adult night school and a girls’ club. The adult night school became a model for the continuing education classes that occur today.

@bookstadon

MikeDunnAuthor,

@CorvidCrone @bookstadon lol

MikeDunnAuthor, to bookstadon

Today in Writing History May 21, 1703: The authorities imprisoned writer Daniel Defoe for seditious libel. Defoe was most famous for his novels Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, and Moll Flanders (1722). However, he also wrote political pamphlets, including The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, which satirized how Tories handled religious dissenters by proposing that they all be exterminated. As a result, the authorities arrested and imprisoned him for seditious libel.

@bookstadon

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