#bessemer police

[nando161mando]

"“I Can’t Take This Shit No More”: Alabama Prisoner Takes a Stand

Derrol Shaw's August 13 escape attempt at Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, AL speaks to a wider human rights crisis in Alabama's corrupt, neglectful and deadly prison system."

"“I Can’t Take This Shit No More”: Alabama Prisoner Takes a Stand

Derrol Shaw's August 13 escape attempt at Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, AL speaks to a wider human rights crisis in Alabama's corrupt, neglectful and deadly prison system."

https://mastodon.social/@UnicornRiot/110957903311235919

#alabama #usa #amerika #americans #america #donaldsoncorrectionalfacility #bessemer #united states #unitedstateofamerica #unitedsnakes #prison #jail #all cops are bastards #defund the cops #fuck cops #cops #cop #police #allcopsarebastards #joe biden #hunter biden #biden administration #biden crime family #biden will destroy america #class war #classwar #working class #incarceration #incarcerated people #humanrights

[petnews2day]

GBHS working with Bessemer Police to get justice for poisoned puppy

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/aJehf

GBHS working with Bessemer Police to get justice for poisoned puppy

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – After receiving hundreds of calls and emails from people after some claimed to have witnessed the poisoning of a seven-week-old puppy, the Greater Birmingham Humane Society is working with Bessemer Police and Bessemer Animal Control to ensure justice for the young animal. “On Tuesday evening, GBHS got some complaints and calls […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/aJehf #DogNews #AnimalCruelty, #Antifreeze, #BessemerPoliceDepartment, #EmergencyAnimalCare, #GreaterBirminghamHumaneSociety, #News, #Puppy, #WBRC

#animal cruelty #antifreeze #Bessemer Police Department #Emergency animal care #Greater Birmingham Humane Society #news #puppy #WBRC #Dog News

[lboogie1906]

Cora Mae Brown (April 19, 1914 - December 17, 1972) was part of a generation of African American women who translated their community work into political struggle during the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Bessemer, Alabama, her family migrated to Detroit when she was eight years old. There she was nurtured by a lively community of female activists who encouraged her to attend Fisk University after she graduated from Cass Technical High School. She studied with the renowned Sociologist, E. Franklin Frazier, and graduated with a BA in Sociology.

She obtained one of the few white-collar jobs available to black women in Detroit’s public sector, as a Social Worker in the Women’s Division of the Police Department. She aided and encouraged young African American women during a tumultuous time. She began attending Wayne State University Law School. Upon her graduation, she began to explore the possibility of running for public office. The 1940s had seen an increasingly powerful political coalition between organized labor and civil rights advocates in Detroit. She hoped to take advantage of this alliance.

Her first two runs for office, in the Michigan Senate were unsuccessful. In 1952, she became the first African American woman to serve in the Michigan State Senate where she supported legislation for fair housing and equal employment. She served two terms in the Senate as a pioneer in civil rights. She attempted to reach the halls of Congress by running for the House of Representatives in 1956. She was appointed as the special associate general counsel of the US Post Office in 1957, where she served the remainder of her working life. africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[dertaglichedan]

REVEALED: The ten most dangerous cities in the US ranked - and the worst will surprise you

Towns in Alabama, Louisiana and Michigan rank in the top three for crime

Rankings are based on stats from 18,000 agencies from FBI to local police Analysis by Security Gauge has revealed America's most crime-addled cities

The ten most dangerous cities in the US for 2023 have been revealed - and the worst might come as a surprise.

Monroe in Louisiana sustained the top spot for most crime-addled town over the last two years - but it's been knocked to second place by a new arrival this year.

According to research by Security Gauge, a small southwestern suburb in Birmingham, Alabama, with a population of just 27,000 tops the table for the most crime per capita this year.

Bessemer, in Jefferson County, is now officially the most dangerous place to live in America based on proportional crime rates.

Security Gauge ranked the top 100 most crime-ridden places to live out of every town in the United States with at least 25,000 residents or more. 

[thebirminghammusicplug]

A 9-year-old girl is fighting for her life in Children’s Hospital after she and her 31-year-old father were shot Friday night in Birmingham, authorities said. Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service crews responded to the two victims at the Sun Inn the 1500 block of Bessemer Road around 6:25 p.m. Friday. A 9-year-old girl is fighting for her life in Children’s Hospital after she and her 31-year-old father were shot Friday night in Birmingham, authorities said. Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service crews responded to the two victims at the Sun Inn the 1500 block of Bessemer Road around 6:25 p.m. Friday. Birmingham police Sgt. Monica Law said the girl and her father were staying at the Sun Inn and were shot during what authorities believe may have been a robbery attempt. Police were unsure how long the father and daughter were staying at the motel. Police believe at least two suspects were involved in the shooting. The suspects fled the scene in a vehicle. None have been apprehended as of 7:45 p.m. Friday. #pluggednnye🔌 https://www.instagram.com/p/CnseqEIPTR3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#pluggednnye🔌

[georgebucket]

It was the morning of May 5, 1979 when the scanner in the newsroom at The Birmingham News began squawking reports from motorists that they had seen a hand sticking from the trunk of a car.

Mark Winne, an intern reporter, and veteran photographer Jerry Ayres set out to see if they could solve the mystery.

After a while, and just as the two had already given up hope of finding it, Winne spotted the beat-up beige Dodge travelling northbound on Interstate 20/59 in Ensley.

Winne was in the front passenger seat and Ayres was driving. They followed the Dodge through traffic moving northeast bound on the interstate. At one point Winne takes the wheel so Ayres can snap some photos of the Dodge and the hand sticking out through a crevice in the trunk.

The Dodge exited at the Airport Boulevard off-ramp as the driver of the Dodge, a woman, apparently realized they were being followed. The driver then began weaving through a neighborhood.

All the while Winne used their radio to tell their ever-changing location to on-duty editor Garland Reeves, who relayed the information to a Birmingham police dispatcher.

Police stopped the car and arrest three people - Joseph Fendley, 27, of Morris, his uncle Wilburn Fendley, 49, of Bessemer, and the driver, Robin Green, 24, of Birmingham. They also freed Collier from the trunk.

Collier said that he had met the three at a bar in Bessemer the night before. He said he was robbed of $350 from a disability check, was beaten, and stabbed with a screwdriver, and forced into the trunk.

As the three were driving around and he tried to fight to stay awake from the carbon monoxide, Collier said he was able to slip his hand through a gap in the rubber seal at the lip of the trunk and wave to motorists. During the 14 hours he was in the trunk Collier said he could hear people inside the car talking about where to dump his body.

"I'd done made my peace," Collier told Winne at the time, "or was trying to."

After his rescue from the trunk Collier thanked Winne and Ayres.

Charges against Wilburn Fendley were dismissed by a judge who found that he had joined the other two after the robbery had occurred and after Collier had been put in the trunk. Court records, however, do not show what happened to the charges against Joseph Findley and Robin Green.

[the-final-straw-blog]

Alabama Prisoners Speak + JJ Ayers of Winnemucca Indian Colony

This week on the show, we featured 2 segments: a chat with Michael Kimble & Gerald Griffin about conditions in Donaldson CF prison in Alabama; and Jim J. Ayers, a 42 year resident in 6 generations of lineage at Winnemucca Indian Colony facing eviction by the Tribal Council.

Conditions at Donaldson Prison in Alabama

First up, anarchist prisoner Michael Kimble and his friend Gerald Griffin talk about the current situation at William E Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, Alabama. Following the pause of prisoner work stoppages in October of this year, Gerald and Michael talk about violence at the institution, overcrowding and under staffing, lack of medical care, mistreatment of gay and other marginalized prisoners and other, hard topics. There is mention of extortion, violence, drug use, homophobia and other topics, so listener discretion is advised. You can information on how to get in touch with Michael and Gerald in the show notes, as well as Michael’s blog AnarchyLive , and we’ll be mailing out the latest Fire Ant Journal and our past interviews with Michael Kimble (5/19/2019 & 12/28/2015).

Michael Kimble #138017 William E. Donaldson Correctional 100 Warrior Ln Bessemer, AL 35023

Gerald Griffin #247505

William E. Donaldson Correctional 100 Warrior Ln Bessemer, AL 35023

If you’d like to donate to Michael’s legal and other costs outside of putting money on his commissary with his ADOC #, you can give a donation to our accounts and specify MK in the comment so we know where to pass it. Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross is also selling $20 Fire Ant Journal t-shirts designed by Michael Kimble as a benefit for him, linked in our shownotes. We hope to send out copies of the latest Fire Ant Journal with our patreon mailers at the beginning of January, for new supporters at $5 or anyone supporting at $10 or more per month, which goes to support our transcription costs. More on that and the places you can send funds directly to Michael at https://tfsr.wtf/support

Jim J. Ayers Resists Eviction at Winnemucca Indian Colony

Then, we return to the Winnemucca Indian Colony following last week’s conversation with Kyle Missouri who is resisting eviction from the colony in Humboldt County, Nevada. You’ll hear Jim Ayers, tribal council chairman until 2012 talk about how the current Tribal Council came to power at Winnemucca, the council’s wielding of private police and BIA officers to siege remaining holdouts to the eviction orders, Jimmy’s 6 generations of ancestors stretching back on the Winnemucca Indian lands and the ongoing legal proceedings heading through the ITCAN court as residents attempt to stop the council’s evictions, home wrecking and banishment actions. Check our shownotes for some links to keep up on things as the situation progresses, as well as other interviews and ways to donate to housing of elders and families made homeless this snowy, holiday season who are now living in motels off-site.

Sandra Freeman of Water Protector Legal Collective is currently representing Jim in legal proceedings and are a great source for updates on the situation and ways for, especially legal workers, to plug in

Donations for the WIC residents can be sent to via cashapp to $DefendWIC

a fundraiser to support South Side Street Medics, an Indigenous-led crew to support providing first aid and training to residents of the Indian Colony

Jim Ayers interviewed in December 2021 by Honor Life youtube channel

Video discussing Judy Rojo (chairperson of disputed Winnemucca Tribal Council) by Man Red

Next Week…

We should be bringing you a chat with Sophie Lewis on her new book, Abolish The Family: A Manifesto of Care and Liberation, out from Verso Books in October of 2022.

Announcements

Asheville NYE Noise Demo and Bailout Action

If you’re in the Asheville area, you’re invited to join Asheville Community Bail project, Pansy Collective, Blue Ridge ABC and other local grouplets in a noise demo at the Buncombe County Jail, the deadliest jail for inmates in North Carolina, at 7pm on Saturday 12/31 at Pack Square. It’s suggested you dress warm and bring noise makers. Simultaneous, there will be a bailout action to get folks out of the jail. You can donate to this effort via the paypal for avlcommunitybail(at )riseup( dot)net or the venmo for blueridgeabc(at )riseup( dot)net, and any returned bail money will roll back into the community bail fund for future release activities. Check our shownotes for a zine explaining the action and learn more at avlcommunitybail.carrd.co

Phone Zap to Press Indiana to Get Treatment for Khalfani

IDOC watch is calling on folks to call and email the Indiana Department of Corrections to pressure them to move long-term political prisoner Khalfani Malik Khaldun (state name Leonard McQuay #874304) moved into a medical facility to remove the two cysts growing on his left temple since October of this year. Check our shownotes for a link to the blog post on idocwatch.org

Bad News #63

This month's BAD News is now available! You can hear:

1431am on the eviction of Mundo Nuevo squat in Thessaloniki and the murder by policeof Kalo Fragoulis, a 16 year old Roma and the death of a 12 year old child because of inadequate housing conditions;

Črna luknja shares a longer interview on the eviction of Mundo Nuevo squat in Thessaloniki;

A-Radio Berlin with a contribution from an anarchist perspective on anti-militarism and nationalism during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990’s. A segment of a longer interview;

Frequenz A concludes the show wih an interview with the accused in the so called "Luwi71-Trial" in Leipzig so-called Germany. The Luwi71 is a house (in the east of Leipzig) occupied for about 2 weeks back in august 2020.

. … . ..

Featured Tracks:

Ebb Tide by the Mar-Keys from Last Night

Ghost Town by The Specials on The Two Tone Story (RIP Terry Hall!)

Check out this episode!

#anarchist #podcast #interview #feminist #antifa #anticapitalist

[gkdhaka]

‘I was lucky’: 81-year-old man thanks God after escaping carjacking attempt in Gastonia

‘I was lucky’: 81-year-old man thanks God after escaping carjacking attempt in Gastonia

An 81-year-old man in Gastonia said he is thanking God that he was able to win a struggle with a carjacking suspect. Clearance Jones told Channel 9′s Ken Lemon that he is still hurting from that tug of war after a man tried to yank him out of his car. Police said the incident began after 30-year-old Jared Clinton stole a vehicle from Bessemer City Road. Clinton knew officers were close, so he…

View On WordPress

[anarchopuppy]

An anarchist free store in Birmingham, Alabama showing what it’s like to live your principles. After being broken into and having some equipment and stock stolen, they’re refusing to involve the police or “justice” system in any way, refusing to add any kind of surveillance to their space, and continuing to affirm their support and understanding for people experiencing poverty who may be in desperate situations with no other choices

For the people who hit police abolitionists with the “what are you gonna do when you get robbed?” gotcha: here’s your answer. You sweep up the glass, lean on your community for support, and continue offering support back into your community. The Birmingham Free Store will still be open this weekend offering mutual aid, radical education, and a vision of a better world

If you’d like to support the repairs, they have venmo, cashapp, and patreon, all under the username “bhamfreestore”. You can also donate cleaning, hygiene, or sexual health products, as well as nonperishable food, radical reading material, seed packets for their seed library (which is very necessary as spring is coming on fast!), or anything else they would be able to give away, either to their physical location at 2030 Bessemer Road or through the mail to P.O. Box 110429 Birmingham, AL 35211-0429. Let’s demonstrate what a world of community support looks like

#anarchism #mutual aid #abolish the police #defund the police #acab #activism

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Unions provide equality for all marginalized people and all their members. Unions provide dignity, job security, benefits, insurance, collective bargaining power, and of course higher wages to their members. Unions have always been the backbone of the Democratic Party. More than anything else, unions built this country and are directly responsible for the creation of the middle class and upward mobility for all it’s members and their families. Without unions we would be living in the dark times of the Gilded Age and the Industrial Revolution which preceded it.

Republikkkans hate unions because they raise the cost of doing business and take power, control, and cronyism away from management and the billionaire class. The only unions that side with Republikkkans are some police unions. Republikkkans need police to protect them from the masses that are being screwed by the fascist corporate state the billionaires and the Republikkkan stooges impose on us. In exchange the police get higher pay than other government professions and immunity from their crimes against the populace. Loudmouths like Reagan, the Bush dynasty, and Dump stole voters from the Dems in the south with the loud bravado of dictators. These so called Reagan Democrats paid a heavy price as they lost their full-time union jobs and the South was plunged into third world poverty.

We never had to work two or three part-time jobs for minimum wage without set schedules, pensions, dignity, sick leave, vacation time, health insurance, or the opportunity for advancement until Republikkkan President Ronald Reagan. He started busting unions on behalf of the millionaires/billionaires and corporate elite that owned him. Boomers didn’t take away your upward mobility and opportunity to achieve the American dream, Reagan and the Republikkkans did that.

Gen X was the first generation in American history to get left behind and not do better than their parents. The 1980’s saw the gradual erosion of the middle class. By the 90’s it was on life support. Today it is a shadow of what it once was. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can have the comfortable, dignified, and secure life your parents or grandparents had. Support unions and vote Democrat. It’s as simple as that. Don’t listen to bitter Republikkkan cranks with their disinformation. Or the few who want to disparage all unions because of a handful of Reagan Dems.

We are only a few years removed from the American dream. A few more Democratic Presidents and Congresses and we can have it back within a decade.

[mariemoret]

Her name is Christine Summers. Odds are this is the first time you’ve encountered her name or how she died. Were white privilege real and the systemic racism truly holding up all of American life, you’d know every detail about her life and how she died (and who murdered her).

During the Summer of George Floyd rage, we’ve seen multiple anti-white attacks by blacks all across the USA. There has been virtually zero national media coverage of this events. Enter another story of anti-white violence from a black individual into the mix. Her name is Christine Summers. The 53-year-old was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and worked in the vocation of truck driving to provide for her family, as her husband had become disabled. She was murdered by a black male, who also attacked white cops and displayed vicious anti-white animus according to the police. Her murderer said he “killed a white lady,” and tried to blame it on the president, in my not so humble opinion it’s Obama’s fault, Eric Holder’s fault, Joe Biden’s fault and the fault of racist liar Nikole Hannah Jones, and the NY Times for their 1619 fraud One can only imagine how the constant promotion of the 1619 Project (all of American history is nothing more than the perpetuation of racism against blacks) and a corporate media dedicated to constantly promoting the idea every failure a black individual faces in America is due to the collective power of white racism/structural inequalities/systemic racism/implicit bias/white privilege is motivating these types of attacks from people with obvious mental issues. A law suit on behalf of the families of white victims of the racist hate inculcated and pushed by the Obamas, Biden’s, Holder, Jones and their media hacks for the hate crimes they have created with lies, abuses of power and condoned, the hate crimes of the unconstitutional “protected classes” created by hate crime laws that condone discrimination, and rationalize ignoring the civil rights of white people. Summers was driving a truck for RTR Transportation in Tennessee. She was a wife, mother, grandmother and had been driving a truck for about 30 years. Summers was found dead about 3:20 a.m. that Wednesday on the side of Interstate 59/20 near the Valley Road exit. Her dentures had been knocked out of her mouth, and she suffered a fatal head injury. Gipson was taken into custody just over an hour later after callers reported seeing a naked man on Allison Bonnett Memorial Drive. A preliminary hearing in the case against Gipson was held today before Bessemer Cutoff Circuit Judge David Carpenter. Gipson, however, was not in the courtroom. Carpenter informed the court that the defendant, who also is charged with attacking two police officers and flooding his jail cell, had just recently assaulted a jailer and was too “unstable” and “dangerous” – both to himself and others – to have present in court. The case is being prosecuted by assistant district attorneys Brent Butler and Jerry Carter. Attorney Victor Revill is representing Gipson. Summer’s disabled husband was watching the proceedings via Zoom from his Tennessee home. State Bureau of Investigation Agent Vincent Cunningham testified to the chain of events that happened that day. He said he arrived at the I-59/20 scene about 6:15 a.m. to find Summers on her back and covered up near her tractor-trailer with multiple other law enforcement agencies on site, including the Jefferson Count Sheriff’s Office, Alabama State Troopers and Hueytown police. Scrawled in the dirt on the back of the tractor-trailer, Cunningham said, was “Trump 2020.” The investigation showed that Summers had called 911, telling a dispatcher she had seen a Black male walking on the interstate and thought she may have hit him. In reality, it’s been ascertained that Gipson threw a rock at Summer’s truck which led her to believe she had hit the man. While still on the phone with the dispatcher, Summers got out of the truck to investigate. The dispatcher then heard her began to scream, “Get away from me.” “She never came back to the phone,” Cunningham testified. Gipson was taken into custody about 4:30 a.m. by Hueytown police after they had received calls of an unclothed Black male in the roadway. Cunningham testified that arresting officers reported that Gipson was sweating profusely and made “spontaneous” statements about “killing

#black privilege #BLMAreNewKKK #1619 #Trump #MAGA #Biden #democrats #corruption

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 5, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

In coronavirus news today, there were a record 2.4 million vaccines administered.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R) is denying any involvement in a vaccine drive in a private, gated community after which a resident of the community, former Illinois governor Bruce Rauner (R), made a donation of $250,000 to the Friends of Ron DeSantis Political Action Committee. This appears to be part of a pattern in Florida, where vaccine administration seems to track with wealthy communities whose members donate to the governor’s campaign funds.

News about the January 6 insurrection continues to mount, with a mid-level Trump appointee from the State Department, Federico Klein, arrested yesterday on several felony charges, including assaulting police officers, stemming from the riot. Tonight the New York Times revealed that a member of the far-right Proud Boys organization was in contact with someone at the White House in the days before the insurrection.

Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has catalogued almost 2000 pages of public social media posts from those representatives who voted to overturn the election. The material reveals that a few representatives were active indeed in pushing the idea that the election was stolen and Trump supporters must fight. Especially active were Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Billy Long (R-MO) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) is slow-walking the confirmation of Merrick Garland as attorney general, an odd stance at a time when one would think we would want all hands on deck to investigate the insurrection and ongoing domestic terrorism.

The Senate continues to hash out the American Rescue Plan. After last night’s 10 hour and 44 minute reading of the bill by Senate clerks, demanded by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), there was a surprise when Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) requested that the debate on the bill resume at 9:00 this morning and be limited to three hours, rather than the 20 hours that had been planned. Since no Republicans were there to object, the presiding officer agreed, and voting on amendments started at noon.  

The big deal today was that Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) balked at what observers thought was a done deal, withdrawing his support from the measure’s $400 weekly unemployment. Shortly before 8:00 p.m., Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reached a deal to extend $300 payments through September 6, making the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits nontaxable for those households whose income is less than $150,000.

Manchin’s position has raised fury on the part of Democrats who are already mad at the loss of the $15 minimum wage in the bill, and there are grumblings that Manchin should not have the power to water the measure down.

But Manchin is as powerful as he is only because the Senate is split 50-50, and the Republicans-- who represent 41.5 million fewer Americans than Democrats do-- are refusing to vote for the measure at all, despite the fact that 77% of Americans want it. We have a structural problem both with the Senate and with the Republican Party.

The Democrats continue to believe they will pass the American Rescue Plan.

The popularity of that bill spells trouble for Republicans. President Biden is making a pitch for Americans who feel that the government has not responded to the needs of a falling middle class. The bill expands the earned income tax credit for all Americans, and almost doubles the child tax credit. These provisions will disproportionately help poor families, especially families of color. The measure is expected to cut child poverty in half, while also helping parents to work by helping them pay for childcare.

Meanwhile, there is another big event on the horizon in Alabama that suggests a seismic shift in the contours of our political parties.

Workers at an Amazon plant in Bessemer, Alabama, are voting on whether to unionize. Amazon opposes the move, which, since Amazon employs more than 400,000 warehouse and delivery workers, is shaping up to be the biggest fight over unionization in American history. The company warns that unionization might increase costs and slow growth, and it has flooded its workers with mandatory anti-union meetings and anti-union literature—even posting signs in bathroom stalls. While workers have complained about working conditions and mandatory overtime, the company points out that it offers Bessemer workers benefits and a starting pay of $15.30 an hour, while the federal minimum wage remains pegged at $7.25.

The reason this unionization effort jumps off the page for politics is that President Biden recorded a video on February 28 taking a strong pro-union stance. He reminded viewers that “America wasn’t built by Wall Street, it was built by the middle class, and unions built the middle class. Unions put power in the hands of workers. They level the playing field. They give you a stronger voice for your health, your safety, higher wages, protections from racial discrimination and sexual harassment. Unions lift up workers, both union and non-union, and especially Black and Brown workers.“

Biden made it clear that the choice to unionize should be made by workers, without pressure from employers. “The choice to join a union is up to the workers—full stop.” Biden has also nominated Boston mayor Marty Walsh, the former president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, as secretary of labor. If confirmed, Walsh will be the first union member to serve as secretary of labor in nearly 50 years. Biden’s vocal defense of working Americans has the potential to rally struggling workers to the Democrats more firmly than they have rallied for decades.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#quotes #political #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #COVID-19 #Coronavirus Relief #minimum wage #corrupt GOP #criminal GOP

[96thdayofrage]

Regardless of the union’s approach, the primary reasons for anemic unionization rates in the United States are the pervasive anti-union practices of American business and labor laws that make it unlikely, even in the best of circumstances, for unions to prevail in elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Labor attorney Thomas Geoghegan described the NLRB process as akin to a “bloodless bureaucratic death squad.”

We have to overhaul our legal system which currently allows, even encourages, corporations to intimidate and threaten workers with impunity.

In Bessemer, according to RWDSU lead organizer Joshua Brewer, so-called “captive meetings” became Amazon’s most effective tactic for turning their employees against the union. “Amazon wanted to third-party the union,” Brewer said on the eve of the election vote, by telling the employees that the union was not the workers themselves but an “outside entity” that would be harmful to their interests.

It is difficult for the professionals and intellectuals — a group including America’s pundits — to imagine the pressure put on workers in a regimented environment where they are subjected to weekly mandatory meetings and battered by managers with incessant anti-union propaganda.

Workers are assured that voting for the union will restrict wage and benefit increases, that the union will use dues money to buy luxury automobiles for their staff and that Amazon could respond to a positive union vote by leaving town.

According to Darryl Richardson, an Amazon warehouse employee, when he tried to challenge managers at the anti-union lectures, he was shut down and isolated. “When I tried to ask them why, if the union was so bad, they were fighting so hard to keep it out, they said, ‘Mr. Richardson, we will talk to you after the meeting.’”

Imagine a political election where one side has everyday access to voters and control over their livelihood while the other side’s ability to communicate with voters is severely restricted, and you get a picture of how lopsided our labor laws have become.

In the case of Amazon, even the employee bathrooms were not free from anti-union propaganda. Amazon was so fearful of a union victory that they spent millions of dollars to stop the effort.

Steve Rosenthal, former political director of the AFL-CIO, pointed out after the election results were announced that the odds of a union victory were daunting. “It was particularly difficult in this case,” Rosenthal said, “against one of the most powerful corporations in the world that pulled out every stop to harass and intimidate workers.”

Labor law in the United States, which has always been a function of both politics and working-class strength or weakness, can be revised to expand rather than diminish workers’ voices on the job.

In Canada, for instance, four provinces — Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador — simplify the process so that merely signing enough cards demanding union representation is sufficient to gain collective bargaining rights.

Drawn-out union elections where highly paid union-busting consultants can influence the vote are thereby avoided. In Quebec, the percentage of private sector workers represented by unions is almost four times what it is in the United States.

“Frankly,” Chris Roberts, the director of social and economic policy for the Canadian Labour Congress, pointed out, “much of what Amazon did to oppose the union in this election would be illegal in Canada.”

Another key advantage that Amazon had was political and cultural power.

Outside of actor Danny Glover, who visited the Bessemer workers in support of the union, few Hollywood liberals — who are quick to express their views about human rights violations around the world — spoke out on behalf of the mostly African American workforce.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, is, of course, a major Hollywood producer as well as owner of The Washington Post.

And at the entrance to the massive Amazon complex—the warehouse itself is 13 football fields long — a local Bessemer City police car guarded the gate, a message to workers that even the city opposed the union effort. Amazon had contracted with the city to provide “protection” by off-duty cops while using publicly owned police cars.

A week before the election, an off-duty policeman left the Amazon property and pulled over this reporter on a public street to inform me that it was illegal to “trespass” on Amazon property. It was a bizarre occurrence in which an off-duty Bessemer police officer was impersonating an on-duty Bessemer police officer.

Meanwhile, labor activists and their political supporters will debate the lessons learned from this defeat.

In March, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, legislation that would, among other reforms, make captive meetings illegal during union organizing elections. But the likelihood of the PRO Act becoming law is minimal as there are not enough votes to override a Republican filibuster in an evenly divided Senate.

And unlike minimum wage laws where states can set standards above the federal level, federal law does not allow for pro-labor states like California to set up their own more organizing-friendly NLRB election process.

The union loss in Alabama was less a missed opportunity than what political science professor Tracy Roof has described as a “missing opportunity,” a situation where the union’s chances for success were severely limited. In the public sector, where federal, state and local governments can’t or don’t use the tactics that the private sector can, unions win a much higher percentage of elections. Close to 35% of public sector employees are represented by a union.

As organized labor once again regroups, there should be a thorough assessment of what went right and wrong in Bessemer.

So long as American corporate practices are used to turn human beings into robots through surveillance and unrelenting “productivity” speedups, unions will remain a necessity. Economists have documented that there is a clear relationship between the decline of unions and increasing inequality.

Organized labor needs better-trained organizers and more thoughtful strategies.

[antoine-roquentin]

At the same time, this is the local and contemporary condition of depoliticization. The terms of politics are set by the state. The failure of the Democrats to prevent the crisis of their party with Trump’s election has scrambled political expectations. They have responded by personalizing the enemy in the body of Trump, allowing them to absorb the stance of opposition and thus circumscribe any other oppositional stance. To be a member of “the Resistance” has for some time been a meaningless proposition; now even the feint of resistance has given way to an opportunism which is as craven as it is useless. It remains to be seen whether the dissent represented by Sanders will be able to continue withstanding the crushing institutional weight of this opportunism. What is evident, especially in light of the recent electoral fate of the Labour Party in the UK, is that if mass political organizing exhausts itself in a single campaign, socialism will be engaged in a grim struggle for survival during Trump’s second term.

Some interpret this scenario as calling for a greater radicalism, and thus take a position beyond the socialist one, even using the word “communist.” But even the posture of greater radicalism does not necessarily mean maintaining the communist hypothesis. Such declared views may still exist alongside a total affective investment in the necessity of the existing world. I will identify four forms of affective investment, though there may be others:

Alignment with factions defined and governed at the highest bureaucratic level, which circumscribes political positions and actions.

The formation of a political ideology on the basis of ad hoc opinions – determined affectively, or on the basis of who might hold these opinions or their opposites, rather than rationally – which subsumes any substantive political or strategic discussion.

The use of social media for the performance of political opinions, delivering internal matters of left organizations to the media apparatus of the enemy and undermining freedom of thought and discussion within these organizations. (I will add, though at the moment it is not possible to develop this point, that this performance of opinion operates at a speed which cannot be aligned with the processes required for political organization.)

Preoccupation with political and social identities, which are effectively no different from one another. One may be either celebrated or condemned for a particular identity, which is obviously discernible when it is related to socially ascribed categories like race or gender, but is also at play in the contestation of political labels which do not refer to any concrete political process – terms like “socialist” or “communist” themselves become little more than identities whose content is policed.

So what are we left with when the communist hypothesis is not sustained?

Let’s call the remaining available position “adjustment.” It can mean modification, adjusting things within the parameters of the existing situation. But it also means adjusting oneself to the world that exists.

In organizations, proceduralism is the primary form of adjustment. Since democracy is the dominant opinion, proceduralism means a formalistic commitment to democracy which does not recognize self-organization as a meaningful principle. Contemporary organizations are independent of any party-state, and state power is not at stake. What remains at stake is the consistency of the organization’s internal bureaucracy, which controls the flow of communication, the disbursement of funds, and to varying degrees dictates decisions determined by representatives who represent factional interests over political positions. In a small-scale iteration of the form of parliamentarism, putatively democratic decision-making is the domain of interest-group brokerage.

Why are we left with only adjustment, with the communist hypothesis seemingly excluded from the outset?

I will give three reasons.

We do not have transmission of the hypothesis. In his history of the Communist Party in 1930s Alabama – which was at this point a nearly all-black clandestine armed cell – Robin D.G. Kelley tells us of an “‘older’ comrade” who was heard telling a young recruit: “There ain’t one of us here was born a Communist; we learned it and it ain’t easy to learn.” Despite great variance in formal education, Communists established forms of transmission: “The Party formed study groups that read works in pamphlet form, ranging from James Allen’s Negro Liberation and Lenin’s What Is to Be Done to Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto. By mid-1934, the Bessemer section of the Party designated one half-hour of each meeting for study – fifteen minutes of reading aloud and fifteen minutes devoted to discussion.” If “socialist” and “communist” do not go beyond identitarian labels, it is due in no small part to the absence of transmission – in a form in which political education is submitted to the specifics of a political practice.

We do not produce egalitarian forms. Egalitarian forms are rare, and they arise from experiments. The bureaucratic conception of organization resists experiments. As Rosa Luxemburg said in her analysis of the mass strike: “The rigid, mechanical-bureaucratic conception cannot conceive of the struggle save as the product of organisation at a certain stage of its strength. On the contrary, the living, dialectical explanation makes the organisation arise as a product of the struggle.” When the organizational form is mechanically imposed, according to the existence of models determined by bureaucratic nostalgia, it forecloses the possibility of the collective form of action which represents everyone’s equal capacity for thought.

We do not conceive of other worlds. To use the formulation of Sun Ra: “There are other worlds they have not told you of.” These are the worlds in which a subjective orientation is possible: in which it is possible to make a decision on an event which brings about something new. This is precisely what is impossible in the world of capitalism and parliamentarism that currently limits our existence.

The contemporary left is mired in circular and disempowering disputes whose material implications are ambiguous, which only seems to amplify the vitriol which accompanies them. What is obscured by the affective intensity of these disputes is that in the absence of a guiding political orientation, they represent little more than forms of adjustment within the existing world, and therefore an investment in what is. It is impossible to genuinely act within this condition of depoliticization. So let’s affirm the absolute necessity of reviving and transmitting the hypothesis that this world is not necessary. Under the guidance of this hypothesis we may begin to determine what new modes of politics are possible.

[googletrends-blog]

He took his family to lunch, left the table and rammed them with his car, killing two, police say

He took his family to lunch, left the table and rammed them with his car, killing two, police say

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Authorities work the scene of a restaurant where police say a man intentionally rammed a vehicle into the steak and seafood eatery shortly after midday Sunday, May 20, in Bessemer City, N.C. (Kevin Ellis/The Gaston Gazette via AP)

The Sunday lunch rush was underway at the Surf and Turf Lodge in Bessemer City, N.C., a restaurant about 30 miles west of Charlotte. Inside the eatery’s…

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[humanrelationships]

Pedestrian killed in early morning accident on I-59

Pedestrian killed in early morning accident on I-59

BESSEMER, Ala. (WIAT) — Bessemer Police are investigating after a pedestrian is struck by a vehicle on Interstate 59 Northbound. The accident happened around 1:15 Saturday morning.

Officers were called to the scene on I-59 NB between exits 112 and 113. Officers and paramedics found the victim in the roadway.

A man was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators say the 29-year-old was walking in…

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#human relationships #human--relationships.com #blog posts #community #news #activity #Pedestrian Killed #Alabama #Birmingham Metro News #Local News #bessemer #Accident #Fatal Accident #Pedestrian Struck #Traffic Fatality #I-59 #Bessemer Police #Interstate 59