[Bret L]

And they said Capitalism would bring Freedom to China

by John Young

From John Young's blog.

"For decades we have heard proponents of globalism and global trade argue that bringing capitalism to China would painlessly increase the level of freedom in that oppressed nation.

So far, no dice. In fact, it is arguable that matters have gotten
materially worse.

The New York Daily News has reported truly brutal conditions for
workers in a Chinese capitalist enterprise that subcontracts work for
the globalist software giant Microsoft.

KYE Systems is a Chinese sweatshop that handles work for such
international corporations as Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Logitech and
Acer among others. Spokesmen for the company say that their labor
practices are fully in compliance with Chinese labor laws; which
should tell us something once we see what conditions are like for
workers at KYE Systems.

According to a report by the National Labour Committee, a human rights
group based in Pittsburgh; KYE prefers to hire only women aged 18 to
25, because it considers them "easier to control." However, pictures
smuggled out of the plant indicate some of the workers may be as young
as 14. This is unsurprising as the NLC's report indicates that KYE
also hires so-called "work-study" students younger than 16.

Workers are paid 65 cents an hour, from which ten cents are deducted
to pay for food. They work 15 hour shifts six or seven days a week;
sleep in bunk-beds with fourteen workers per room; and endure near-
constant sexual harassment by guards who do not allow them to talk,
listen to music or even use the bathroom during their long shifts.

Cleanliness is at a premium as well; as the workers are limited to
sponge baths from a bucket of water. And they likely need showers as
temperatures in the plant are as hot as 86 degrees.

Just for the record, women forced to endure groping by armed guards in
order to eat, are not free.

We have surrendered our own autonomy and quality of life. And for
what? Certainly not for freedom."

News Source: John Young's blog

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=8819

[Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!]

On Apr 22, 10:42*pm, Bret L wrote:
*And they said Capitalism would bring Freedom to China

We have surrendered our own autonomy and quality of life. And for
what? Certainly not for freedom."

They're just a little behind us is all.

Their level of "freedom" is about where ours was in the 19th and first
half of the 20th century.

Do you ever read history, Bratzi? (Rhetorical question.)

[Bret L]

On Apr 22, 11:36*pm, "Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!"
wrote:
On Apr 22, 10:42*pm, Bret L wrote:

*And they said Capitalism would bring Freedom to China
We have surrendered our own autonomy and quality of life. And for
what? Certainly not for freedom."

They're just a little behind us is all.

Their level of "freedom" is about where ours was in the 19th and first
half of the 20th century.

Do you ever read history, Bratzi? (Rhetorical question.)

Boy are you stupid. In fact we were much freer then. It is we who
have deteriorated.

[Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!]

On Apr 22, 11:39*pm, Bret L wrote:
On Apr 22, 11:36*pm, "Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!"

wrote:
On Apr 22, 10:42*pm, Bret L wrote:

*And they said Capitalism would bring Freedom to China
We have surrendered our own autonomy and quality of life. And for
what? Certainly not for freedom."

They're just a little behind us is all.

Their level of "freedom" is about where ours was in the 19th and first
half of the 20th century.

Do you ever read history, Bratzi? (Rhetorical question.)

*Boy are you stupid. In fact we were much freer then. It is we who
have deteriorated.

Stupid is as stupid does, moron. LOL!

Research "company stores", "slavery", "sharecropping" and the
"Triangle shirt factory" for starters.

Here's a nice list of our "freedoms" from that era:

http://www.lutins.org/labor.html

A select sample from the above site:

3 July 1835
Children employed in the silk mills in Paterson, NJ went on strike for
the 11 hour day/6 day week.

July 1851
Two railroad strikers were shot dead and others injured by the state
militia in Portgage, New York.

13 January 1874
The original Tompkins Square Riot. As unemployed workers demonstrated
in New York's Tompkins Square Park, a detachment of mounted police
charged into the crowd, beating men, women and children
indiscriminately with billy clubs and leaving hundreds of casualties
in their wake. Commented Abram Duryee, the Commissioner of Police: "It
was the most glorious sight I ever saw..."

21 June 1877
Ten coal-mining activists ("Molly Maguires") were hanged in
Pennsylvania.

14 July 1877
A general strike halted the movement of U.S. railroads. In the
following days, strike riots spread across the United States. The next
week, federal troops were called out to force an end to the nationwide
strike. At the "Battle of the Viaduct" in Chicago, federal troops
(recently returned from an Indian massacre) killed 30 workers and
wounded over 100.

Late 1885/Early 1886
Hundreds of thousands of American workers, increasingly determined to
resist subjugation to capitalist power, poured into a fledgling labor
organization, the Knights of Labor. Beginning on May 1, 1886, they
took to the streets to demand the universal adoption of the eight hour
day.

Chicago was the center of the movement. Workers there had been
agitating for an eight hour day for months, and on the eve of May 1,
50,000 workers were already on strike. 30,000 more swelled their ranks
the next day, bringing most of Chicago manufacturing to a standstill.
Fears of violent class conflict gripped the city. No violence occurred
on May 1 -- a Saturday -- or May 2. But on Monday, May 3, a fight
involving hundreds broke out at McCormick Reaper between locked-out
unionists and the non-unionist workers McCormick hired to replace
them. The Chicago police, swollen in number and heavily armed, quickly
moved in with clubs and guns to restore order. They left four
unionists dead and many others wounded.

Angered by the deadly force of the police, a group of anarchists, led
by August Spies and Albert Parsons, called on workers to arm
themselves and participate in a massive protest demonstration in
Haymarket Square on Tuesday evening, May 4. The demonstration appeared
to be a complete bust, with only 3,000 assembling. But near the end of
the evening, an individual, whose identity is still in dispute, threw
a bomb that killed seven policemen and injured 67 others. Hysterical
city and state government officials rounded up eight anarchists, tried
them for murder, and sentenced them to death.

On 11 November 1887, four of them, including Parsons and Spies, were
executed. All of the executed advocated armed struggle and violence as
revolutionary methods, but their prosecutors found no evidence that
any had actually thrown the Haymarket bomb. They died for their words,
not their deeds. A quarter of a million people lined Chicago's street
during Parson's funeral procession to express their outrage at this
gross mis-carriage of justice.

For radicals and trade unionists everywhere, Haymarket became a symbol
of the stark inequality and injustice of capitalist society. The May
1886 Chicago events figured prominently in the decision of the
founding congress of the Second International (Paris, 1889) to make
May 1, 1890 a demonstration of the solidarity and power of the
international working class movement. May Day has been a celebration
of international socialism and (after 1917) international communism
ever since.

The Bayview Massacre also took place at this time (for more detailed
information visit http://www.execpc.com/~blake/rollin~1.htm), where
seven people, including one child, were killed by state militia. On 1
May 1886 about 2,000 Polish workers walked off their jobs and gathered
at Saint Stanislaus Church in Milwaukee, angrily denouncing the ten
hour workday. They then marched through the city, calling on other
workers to join them; as a result, all but one factory was closed down
as sixteen thousand protesters gathered at Rolling Mills, prompting
Wisconsin Govorner Jeremiah Rusk to call the state militia. The
militia camped out at the mill while workers slept in nearby fields,
and on the morning of May 5th, as protesters chanted for the eight
hour workday, General Treaumer ordered his men to shoot into the
crowd, some of whom were carrying sticks, bricks, and scythes, leaving
seven dead at the scene. The Milwaukee Journal reported that eight
more would die within twenty four hours, and without hesitation added
that Governor Rusk was to be commended for his quick action in the
matter.

23 November 1887
The Thibodaux Massacre. The Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of
"prominent citizens," shot at least 35 unarmed black sugar workers
striking to gain a dollar-per-day wage, and lynched two strike
leaders.

6 July 1892
The Homestead Strike. Pinkerton Guards, trying to pave the way for the
introduction of scabs, opened fire on striking Carnegie mill steel-
workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania. In the ensuing battle, three
Pinkertons surrendered; then, unarmed, they were set upon and beaten
by a mob of townspeople, most of them women. Seven guards and eleven
strikers and spectators were shot to death.

1894
Federal troops killed 34 American Railway Union members in the Chicago
area attempting to break a strike, led by Eugene Debs, against the
Pullman Company. Debs and several others were imprisoned for violating
injunctions, causing disintegration of the union.

10 September 1897
19 unarmed striking coal miners and mine workers were killed and 36
wounded by a posse organized by the Luzerne County sherif for refusing
to disperse near Lattimer, Pennsylvania. The strikers, most of whom
were shot in the back, were originally brought in as strike-breakers,
but later organized themselves.

12 October 1902
Fourteen miners were killed and 22 wounded by scabherders at Pana,
Illinois.

July 1903
Labor organizer Mary Harris ("Mother") Jones leads child workers in
demanding a 55 hour work week.

8 June 1904
A battle between the Colorado Militia and striking miners at Dunnville
ended with six union members dead and 15 taken prisoner. Seventy-nine
of the strikers were deported to Kansas two days later.

22 November 1909
The "Uprising of the 20,000." Female garment workers went on strike in
New York; many were arrested. A judge told those arrested: "You are on
strike against God."

25 March 1911
The Triangle Shirtwaist Company, occupying the top three floors of a
ten-story building in New York City, was consumed by fire. One hundred
and forty-seven people, mostly women and young girls working in
sweatshop conditions, lost their lives. Approximately 50 died as they
leapt from windows to the street; the others were burned or trampled
to death as they desperately attempted to escape through stairway
exits locked as a precaution against "the interruption of work". On 11
April the company's owners were indicted for manslaughter.

24 February 1912
Women and children were beaten by police during a textile strike in
Lawrence, Massachusetts.

11 June 1913
Police shot three maritime workers (one of whom was killed) who were
striking against the United Fruit Company in New Orleans.

20 April 1914
The "Ludlow Massacre." In an attempt to persuade strikers at
Colorado's Ludlow Mine Field to return to work, company "guards,"
engaged by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and other mine operators and sworn
into the State Militia just for the occasion, attacked a union tent
camp with machine guns, then set it afire. Five men, two women and 12
children died as a result. Additional web resources are catolged at
www.holtlaborlibrary.org/ludlow.html#Web%20Sites.

19 January 1915
World famous labor leader Joe Hill was arrested in Salt Lake City. He
was convicted on trumped up murder charges, and was executed 21 months
later despite worldwide protests and two attempts to intervene by
President Woodrow Wilson. In a letter to Bill Haywood shortly before
his death he penned the famous words, "Don't mourn - organize!"

On this same day, twenty rioting strikers were shot by factory guards
at Roosevelt, New Jersey.

19 August 1916
Strikebreakers hired by the Everett Mills owner Neil Jamison attacked
and beat picketing strikers in Everett, Washington. Local police
watched and refused to intervene, claiming that the waterfront where
the incident took place was Federal land and therefore outside their
jurisdiction. (When the picketers retaliated against the
strikebreakers that evening, the local police intervened, claiming
that they had crossed the line of jursidiction.)

Three days later, twenty-two union men attempted to speak out at a
local crossroads, but each was arrested; arrests and beatings of
strikebreakers became common throughout the following months, and on
30 October vigilantes forced IWW speakers to run the gauntlet,
subjecting them to whipping, tripping kicking, and impalement against
a spiked cattle guard at the end of the gauntlet. In response, the IWW
called for a meeting on 5 November. When the union men arrived, they
were fired on; seven people were killed, 50 were wounded, and an
indeterminate number wound up missing.

12 July 1917
After seizing the local Western Union telegraph office in order to cut
off outside communication, several thousand armed vigilantes forced
1,185 men in Bisbee, Arizona into manure-laden boxcars and "deported"
them to the New Mexico desert. The action was precipitated by a strike
when workers' demands (including improvements to safety and working
conditions at the local copper mines, an end to discrimination against
labor organizations and unequal treatment of foreign and minority
workers, and the institution of a fair wage system) went unmet. The
"deportation" was organized by Sheriff Harry Wheeler. The incident was
investigated months later by a Federal Mediation Commission set up by
President Woodrow Wilson; the Commission found that no federal law
applied, and referred the case to the State of Arizona, which failed
to take any action, citing patriotism and support for the war as
justification for the vigilantes' action.

1 August 1917
IWW organizer Frank Little was lynched in Butte, Monatana.

27 July 1918
United Mine Workers organizer Ginger Goodwin was shot by a hired
private policeman outside Cumberland, British Columbia.

26 August 1919
United Mine Worker organizer Fannie Sellins was gunned down by company
guards in Brackenridge, Pennsylvania.

2 June 1924
A child labor ammendment to the U.S. Constitution was proposed; only
28 of the necessary 36 states ever ratified it.

21 November 1927
Picketing miners were massacred in Columbine, Colorado.

7 March 1932
Police kill striking workers at Ford's Dearborn, Michigan plant.

1934
The Electric Auto-Lite Strike. In Toledo, OH, two strikers were killed
and over two hundred wounded by National Guardsmen. Some 1300 National
Guard troops, including included eight rifle companies and three
machine gun companies, were called in to disperse the protestors.

26 May 1937
The 'Battle of the Overpass'. Walter Reuther and a group of UAW
supporters, fresh from having organized GM and Chyrsler, attempting to
distribute leaflets at Gate 4 of the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge
plant, and were beaten up (together with bystanders) by Ford Service
Department guards.

30 May 1937
Police killed 10 and wounded 30 during the "Memorial Day Massacre" at
the Republic Steel plant in Chicago.

1 April 1946
A strike by 400,000 mine workers in the U.S. began. U.S. troops seized
railroads and coal mines the following month.

4 October 1946
The U.S. Navy seized oil refineries in order to break a 20-state post-
war strike.

27 August 1950
President Truman ordered the U.S. Army to seize all the nation's
railroads to prevent a general strike. The railroads were not returned
to their owners until two years later.

8 April 1952
President Truman ordered the U.S. Army to seize the nation's steel
mills to avert a strike. The act was ruled to be illegal by the
Supreme Court on 2 June.

6 October 1986
1,700 female flight attendants won an 18-year lawsuit (which included
$37 million in damages) against United Arilines, which had fired them
for getting married.

The fun thing about stupid people like you, Bratzi, is that they're so
easily proven wrong.

Whoever wrote the blog you got sucked into is a moron who doesn't
understand our own history any better than you do.