Today in Labor History April 27, 1521: On this day, Philippine Natives fought the battle of Mactan against Ferdinand Magellan. Lapulapu’s warriors ambushed him and overpowered the Spanish forces. They killed Magellan with a poison arrow. Their victory delayed Spanish colonization of the Philippines by forty-four years. For centuries, native Muslim Filipinos fought wars against their Spanish rulers. The Spanish saw these as a continuation of the Reconquista of Spain from the Moors. They brought in conscripts from Mexico and Latin America, including many Native Americans. Mortality was high on both sides. Many conscripts fled into the countryside, or joined with the Filipino forces. Yet, despite all the slaughter and repression of Native Filipinos, the colony was never profitable to Spain. During the 1800s, Filipino immigrants fought alongside Latin Americans in their wars for independence from Spain. In 1896, Filipinos fought their own war for independence from Spain.

When the U.S. initially landed in the Philippines, in 1898, they supported Filipinos in their uprising against Spain. However, by August, 1898, the U.S. had ended their collaboration with Native Filipinos and soon annexed the country. American rule was brutal. In 1899, American went to war against their colonial subjects. The war was far deadlier and more costly than their war against Spain. 4,200 American soldiers, up to 20,000 Philippine soldiers, and at least 200,000 civilians died.

The Japanese occupation during World War II was also brutal. In the most infamous example, 10,000 Filipino and 1,200 U.S. soldiers died in the Bataan Death March. However, during the occupation, Filipino guerillas fought an insurgency against the Japanese. Consequently, the Philippines became the costliest theatre of war for the Japanese. Nearly 500,000 Japanese died fighting in the Philippines. But it was much worse for Filipinos, with over 1 million dying during World War II. The Battle of Leyte Gulf, toward the end of World War II, was the largest naval battle in history.

Mark Twain, who was vice-president of the American Anti-Imperialist League from 1901 until his death in 1910 said “I have read carefully the treaty of Paris and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem… And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #philippines #colonialism #resistance #independence #Guerilla #japan #spain #uprising #WorldWarTwo #bataan #filipino #indigenous #lapulapu #islam #marktwain #author #writer #solidarity #fiction #books @bookstadon

Today in Labor History April, 21, 1913: Andre Soudy and Raymond Callemin, members of the anarchist Bonnot Gang, were executed. Callemin had started the individualist paper "L'anarchie" with author and revolutionary Victor Serge. The Bonnot Gang was a band of French anarchists who tried to fund their movement through robberies in 1911-1912. The Bonnot Gang was unique, not only for their politics, but for their innovative use of technology, too. They were among the first to use cars and automatic rifles to help them steal, technology that even the French police were not using. While many of the gang members were sentenced to death, Serge got five years and eventually went on to participate in (and survive) the Barcelona and Soviet uprisings. Later, while living in exile, Serge wrote The Birth of Our Power, Men in Prison, Conquered City, and Memoirs of a Revolutionary.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #illegalism #BonnotGang #Revolutionary #VictorSerge #Revolution #uprising #barcelona #soviet #writer #author #books #fiction #novel @bookstadon

On April 12, 2015, lifelong Baltimore resident #Freddie #Gray was arrested, hogtied and thrown into the back of a police van by six officers.

When Gray was pulled from the van less than an hour later, he was in a coma.

A week later, he passed away from severe injuries to his cervical spinal cord.

The incident, and the revelations thereafter, set Baltimore and the entire country ablaze.

Details of the case alleged officers had taken Gray for a “rough ride,”
a police brutality practice
where individuals are intentionally left unrestrained in police vehicles during dangerous driving maneuvers.

After a coroner ruled Gray’s death a homicide,
the six officers involved in his arrest were charged with crimes ranging from false imprisonment to manslaughter.

But the damage was done, not only to Gray, but to his community,
which had endured decades of deprivations and abuse by Baltimore police.

The resulting #Baltimore #Uprising shook the city and the nation to its core,
fueling a fresh wave of Black Lives Matter protests building on the murders of #Trayvon #Martin, #Mike #Brown, and #Eric #Garner.

https://therealnews.com/freddie-gray-a-decade-of-struggle

Today in Labor History April 19, 1943: The 50,000 Jews remaining in Warsaw began a desperate and heroic attempt to resist Nazi deportation to extermination camps. Their armed insurgency became known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. There had been over 3 million Jews living in Poland prior to the Nazi occupation. The Nazis rounded them up and forced them into crowded ghettos. The Warsaw ghetto had 250,000-300,000 Jews living in abominable conditions. Roughly this same number of Jews were slaughtered at the Treblinka concentration camp within the two months the Nazis started deporting them. The Jews managed to stockpile Molotov cocktails, hand grenades, military uniforms, and even a few pistols and some explosives. However, the resistance was crushed by the Nazis on May 16.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #holocaust #antisemitism #WarsawGhettoUprising #jews #poland #warsaw #WorldWarII #nazis #genocide #resistance #uprising #insurrection #fascism #antifa #antifascism

Woha, miracle on Pennsylvania Avenue material:

David Brooks, the conservative columnist, calls for a national civic uprising to defeat Trumpism.

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/conservative-nyt-columnist-david-brooks-calls-for-national-civic-uprising-to-defeat-trumpism-complete-with-mass-rallies-strikes/

#uspol #uprising #trump