Monday, January 18, 2021

Remember/Resist/Redraw #26: 1995 Calgary Workers Laundry Strike

November 20, 2020 No Comments

Earlier this month, the Graphic History Collective released RRR #26 to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1995 Calgary Laundry Workers Strike.

The poster by Mary Joyce and Alvin Finkel outlines the importance of rank-and-file militancy, much of it by immigrant women of colour, in the fight against austerity and privatization in places like Alberta. This poster is particularly pertinent because the Provincial Government of Alberta is today, 25 years later, launching new attacks on health care workers in the midst of a global pandemic.

We hope that Remember | Resist | Redraw encourages people to critically examine history in ways that can fuel our radical imaginations and support struggles for social change. Learn more about how you can support the project on our website, and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

1995 Calgary Laundry Workers Strike

Poster by Mary Joyce
Essay by Alvin Finkel

In 1993 and 1994, the Alberta Progressive Conservative government of Ralph Klein eliminated tens of thousands of public sector jobs and cut wages and benefits of remaining workers. Within two years, Klein had chopped Alberta program spending by over 21 per cent, and he began a massive contracting out of public services. The trade union movement seemed paralyzed by the government’s recklessness. In 2019 and 2020, a similar scenario appeared as Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party (UCP) announced plans to cut public services and wages while privatizing public services whenever possible. But the earlier Klein cuts had put the union movement on alert and the workers’ response was far more militant.

In 1995, when the Calgary Health Authority furthered the privatization agenda by announcing a contracting out of hospital laundry workers’ jobs, it expected compliance from the affected workers. Their jobs would go to K-Bro Linens in Edmonton. Most were Caribbean and Asian immigrant women. They had taken a 28 per cent cut in the previous round of bargaining to preserve their jobs: strenuous, dangerous jobs handling blood, body parts, and contagion in the linens they laundered. They were furious when they learned that they would be fired despite their earlier sacrifices.

The first to respond were 60 laundry workers at the Calgary General Hospital, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Their union representatives warned that a wildcat strike would be illegal and could result in them being fined and the union being decertified. But, as Barbadian-born worker Yvette Lynch, an 11-year veteran of the laundry, said: “People were prepared … they just can’t ask us to take cutbacks and then decide to take away our jobs from us just like that.” They called in sick on 14 November 1995. The next day the same scenario occurred at the Foothills Hospital where laundry workers were members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.

Within ten days about 2,500 workers in six hospitals and nine nursing homes were wildcatting and hundreds of other healthcare workers were working to rule. Trade unionists and non-unionists alike inside and outside the health sector demonstrated solidarity with the strikers on their picket line and in public rallies. Growing calls for a general strike scared Premier Klein. He offered the unions a delay in contracting out of 18 months, long enough for most of the workers to find other jobs, plus paid retraining and severance payments. The striking workers were divided on an offer that would not make their jobs permanent. But faced with threats of legal action by the government, which had banned strikes in the health sector, a majority accepted the 18-month offer. “Tough guy” Ralph Klein had blinked, and it was a group of mainly immigrant women workers who had provoked that. The courage displayed by the laundry workers inspired a wave of strikes and job actions by other healthcare workers; licensed practical nurses and general support service workers repeatedly took part in some of the largest walk-outs in Alberta’s history during the closing years of that decade.

While the laundry workers’ victory was a partial one, the events it set in motion marked a victory for all Alberta working people. The Klein government put back a portion of funds they had cut from medical care and other public services, responding to accusations during the wildcat that they had cut too much, and that it was workers whom they had hurt in the process. Privatizations slowed though the government shuttered the Calgary General Hospital in 1998. The Klein years overall were a wasteland for Alberta working people but they would have been much worse if the laundry workers had not inspired a large section of the Alberta working class to demonstrate that they would not accept further cuts and privatizations. Yvette Lynch put it this way: “It made us feel good, it made us feel strong, like we did something that we were supposed to do, that they can’t walk over the little people.”

Long-time executive secretary of the Calgary and District Labour Council Gord Christie said of the laundry workers: “in times of struggles, the real natural leaders came forward … Some of the people within the laundry workers had never been to a union meeting, never held positions within the union. They were the strongest leaders … It was fabulous how those people came forward and said, ‘we’re going to do it and we’re so proud and we’re going to make it happen.’” Similarly, in 2020, rank-and-file militancy across the public sector persuaded union leaders that the fight against the UCP had to be in the streets and immediate rather than a lot of talk while waiting for another election in which the UCP might be defeated.

[Image Description:“The poster depicts a Black woman in front of mountains and a blue sky. She is wearing red and green, holding a white sheet in one hand and a sign in the other that says: “On Strike! Laundry Workers of CGH! To Stop Cuts and Privatizing. For Right of all to Universal Healthcare.” She is behind a orange and white building and a large crowd of people. In front of the crowd are four different women with their arms up in the air.”]

Mary Joyce lives and works in Edmonton, Alberta, producing art for exhibition, sale, and commission. Thirty-five years a studio artist, she makes work that celebrates our ongoing upsurge of political mobilization and citizen engagement with vigour, immediacy, depth, and sensuality. Active in the collection of McMaster University’s German expressionist art collection while a young student, her philosophical and aesthetic foundation is serving her community well. As an award-winning printmaker and painter, she transposes techniques from one medium to another, discovering in the interplay meaningful juxtapositions. Her oeuvre includes paintings, prints, and installations with large fabric or paper elements. She has shown work throughout Canada and Europe. She is university-educated in Art History, Literature, Studio. Her work and publications are in public and private collections. http://www.maryjoyceart.com.

Alvin Finkel is a founding member and current president of the Alberta Labour History Institute. He is professor emeritus of history at Athabasca University. A prolific historian, he has published textbooks on Canadian history and many works on Canadian labour and social policy history. He is the editor of Working People in Alberta: A History and the author of Social Policy and Practice in Canada: A History. His latest book and his magnum opus is Compassion: A Global History of Social Policy. https://twitter.com/alvinfinkel.

https://www.facebook.com/Alberta-Labour-History-Institute-234873849869503/
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The Workers’ Revolt in Edmonton

June 19, 2019 No Comments

Mikhail Bjorge

With rail construction largely completed and mechanization lessening the need for iterate agricultural labour, mass unemployment had become the norm in Edmonton, Alberta by 1914. At this time, Carl Berg, a former member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), relocated to the city. Here he started working with Sarah Knight in the Federal Labourers Union and in the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC). Edmonton SPC member and leader of the Carpenters Union Joseph Knight worked tirelessly to promote a national general strike in the event of war. This was a hopeful but fruitless endeavour; and later Edmonton saw few strikes in the early war years.

By 1918, the labour situation had become explosive. High inflation, war profiteering, a growing cognizance of the realities of war, and intense domestic repression all merged to make Canada a particularly strike-bound place. In Edmonton, this manifested most clearly in the firefighters’ strike of 1918, which successfully demanded an inside hire for chief. Later that year, the Edmonton Trades and Labour Council (ETLC) voted to approve a general strike in support of both the postal workers and the running-trades actions in Calgary. Activists learned that even the threat of a general strike was effective.

It is important to note that the ETLC was hardly a den of radicals. But even they were dismayed by the conservatism of the mainstream labour movement. As such, the ETLC supported the organization of a regional conference in March 1919 to address the unique concerns of western workers and to plan a way forward in the postwar period.

Edmonton’s union members were well represented at the conference and were partially responsible for expanding its original and limited mandate. After calling for a turn towards revolutionary socialism, they voted to withdraw their members from international and craft unions in order to form the One Big Union (OBU). While virtually every western Canadian miner was in favour of the OBU, the rest of the labour movement was almost exactly split. Those who had voted to join the OBU nevertheless carried on, planning to organize a regional general strike for 1 June with the six-hour-day as their core demand.

Some on the ETLC perceived the OBU as an existential threat. At an April meeting, they voted 20 to 19 to expel OBU sympathizers from their ranks. Berg, the Knights, and other militants were ejected but remained in control of their unions. At the same time, red-baiting was on the rise in Edmonton. Both the labour and popular press printed anti-communist screeds, a student sympathetic to the SPC was attacked at the University of Alberta, a talk by Sarah Knight was violently broken up, a meeting of Ukrainian socialists advocating for their interned comrades was deemed treasonous, and the Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP) raided and sacked the SPC headquarters.

The SPC newspaper, The Soviet, 6 March 1919.

OBU plans for a western general strike were superseded by the Winnipeg General Strike. The ETLC immediately pledged their support of the Winnipeg strikers and voted to hold a city-wide labour meeting on 21 May. Worried about credibility with their membership, all expelled unions were extended invitations. Taking the floor at the Labor Hall, Berg moved that all unions hold an open vote to join the general strike. The vote was 1,676 for and 506 against. Some non-unionized workers, including Chinese launderers, joined later.

The Edmonton General Strike began on 26 May at 11:00. The strikers quickly organized sub-committees to handle urgent matters, which included everything from staying in contact with Winnipeg to propaganda and health and safety. The RNWMP mustered, accustomed their horses to the sound of gunfire, and ensured that their machine guns were in working order. Meanwhile, in a 74-4 vote, the police force declared that it was “ready to act at the call of the strike committee.” The defection of the police was a galvanizing factor in the local elite organizing a Citizens’ Committee. While they engaged in minor strikebreaking, their major role was in failing to convince the mayor to break the strike through force. The Edmonton Free Press, which was affiliated with the ETLC, advocated for its readers to return to work. Other newspapers said far worse.

The General Strike Committee controlled power and electricity, the telegraph system, and the trains. Berg, who had been elected to the executive, ensured that the theatres remained open with permission of the strike committee. Though restaurants were closed, milk remained available. City Hall, however, was shuttered. Water pressure was lowered so that only the hospital and the first story of any given building had water. By late May, the teamsters, taxi drivers, carpenters, bricklayers and masons, boilermakers, plumbers, painters, railway carmen, yardmen, freight handlers, machinists, express messengers, steam shovel operators, metal workers, rail maintenance workers, railway clerks, and blacksmiths were all still on strike. To add to the tally, nearly every miner and rail worker in the province of Alberta was out as well.

Even though 36 out of 49 unions were still officially on strike, by the middle of June there was a sense of near normalcy in Edmonton. The strike committee still met, but the influence and potential of the general strike had waned. By 28 June, all sympathetic strike action had come to an end. After Bloody Saturday in Winnipeg, on 21 June, the strike committee met only to hear reports from delegates sent to personally ascertain the situation. After learning of what had transpired in the streets of Winnipeg, the Edmonton strike was called off.

Mikhail Bjorge is an historian who teaches labour studies and history in Toronto.

Remember/Resist/Redraw #27: The 1918-1919 Flu Pandemic in Western Canada

December 17, 2020

Earlier this month, as COVID-19 infections spiked across Western Canada during the second wave of a global pandemic, the Graphic History Collective released RRR #27 by Karen Mills and Esyllt Jones. The poster looks at the 1918-1919 flu pandemic as it was experienced in Western Canada.

The poster’s design is based on a public health poster from 1918 and includes illustrations and photographs from time. Jones’s essay asks us – in the midst of another global crisis – to reflect on the costs of past pandemics and to also see their ability to encourage solidarity and spark struggles for transformational change.

Poster issued by the Provincial Board of Health about the influenza epidemic, Alberta, 1918. Glenbow Museum NA-4548-5

Recollecting Influenza: Pandemic Disease, Health Inequity, and Social Change

Poster by Karen Mills
Essay by Esyllt Jones

Although long referred to by historians as the “forgotten pandemic,” countless families and communities have memories of the 1918–1920 flu: stories of their people, how they persisted, and how their lives were changed by a disease outbreak that killed over 50,000 Canadians and at least 50 million globally. For much of the 20th century, history did not much care about these stories of their lives. Rather, pandemic histories were suppressed and elided.

Without societal remembrance of influenza as a health catastrophe, it was possible to forget the main lesson of the pandemic: how inequality shaped who lived, who died, and the future lives of survivors. Poorer urban neighbourhoods, including those with recent immigrant families, had higher mortality rates. Deaths among Indigenous peoples were of an order of magnitude higher than among the non-Indigenous: 6.2 out of every thousand non-Indigenous Canadians died of influenza, while on-reserve Indigenous death rates ranged from 10.3 per 1,000 in Prince Edward Island, to 61 per 1,000 in Alberta.

Many of these deaths were preventable. The health impact of poor housing, for example, was well known before the pandemic, but public investment was lacking. Health advice for hygiene and self-isolation was impossible to follow in an overcrowded, poorly ventilated house with no hot running water. Without medicare, most Canadians (even those with modest secure incomes) had limited access to medical and nursing care. The poor, racialized, and colonized contended with a health system steeped in the attitudes of Victorian poor law and overt racism and segregation. These conditions before, during, and after influenza eroded public trust in the state and institutions and fueled demands for social change, reflected in a national wave of labour struggles in 1919.

People relied upon community and kin to survive influenza, demonstrating a deep resilience. However, the economic and mental health consequences for children and families could be long lasting. The majority of influenza deaths in Canada were of adults between the ages of 20 and 50. When a male breadwinner died, families experienced downward economic mobility, exacerbated by gender inequality in the labour market, in which women had few employment options and faced unequal pay. In some cases, female single parents whose husbands died from flu could qualify for mothers’ allowances, but not all provinces had these programs. Benefits were miserly and were accompanied by ongoing scrutiny and surveillance of poor women’s behaviour, parenting skills, and housekeeping. Thus, influenza undermined opportunity for a generation of children while government policies failed to lift them out of poverty.

Yet, as Rebecca Solnit has argued about the possibility for solidarity arising from disasters, pandemic histories are potentially hopeful ones. They are narratives about human agency and choice as much as they are about microbes. As the failures of government responses to the pandemic were exposed in 1918–1919, a heightened awareness of bodily inequality, together with mutual reliance, formed the basis of demands for something better: for social justice and for a health system that was not built on inequality. In the 1920s, and intensifying through the economic and ecological disasters of the 1930s, voices for socialized medicine became more and more persuasive. The first socialized health programs in Canada, enacted by the Saskatchewan CCF in 1944–1945, arose from the agency of a generation that experienced two world wars, economic collapse, and a global pandemic. Living through these world historical events they yet imagined themselves not at the end of the world, but living in a more equitable future.

[Image Description:“1918-1919 Flu Pandemic (In Western Canada)

Mystery! Where did the “Spanish Flu”* come from?
The origins of the 1918 flu pandemic are largely unknown, even today. Three possible “ground zeroes” have emerged from research: Haskell County, Kansas, near a U.S. Army base; E?taples, France, a wartime staging ground; and China, where the flu might have existed in a milder form years earlier. The Haskell County cases were first observed in January 1918.
* Spain was the 1st country to report the flu in its full severity, without censorship

SPREADING LIKE PRAIRIE GRASSFIRE
After the flu became prevalent on the battlefields of Europe during the final year of World War I in 1918, soldiers returning from the war brought the virus to many countries. In Canada, the flu was carried by soldiers and workers, as well as upper-class Canadians who tended to travel more. The worst month for infections and deaths was October 1918.
Approximately 55,000 Canadians died during the pandemic, and the Prairies were particularly hard hit. For instance, in Alberta – population appx. 500,000 – around 38,000 people were infected and 4,000 died.
This flu persisted until 1920, with between 50 and 100 million deaths globally.

DO YOU HAVE THE FLU?
SYMPTOMS
1918 flu = Influenza virus subtype H1N1
Typical symptoms:
– fever
– nausea
– aches
– diarrhea
Occasionally:
– severe pneumonia attack
– dark spots on the cheeks
* The group most affected by influenza was adult males between 20 and 40

There is no “democratic” virus
Are we “all in this together”? Then as now, the 1918 flu virus was said to be democratic,affecting everyone equally. In reality, poor people, people of colour, and Indigenous peoples suffered in the greatest numbers.

MUTUAL AID AND SETTING THE STAGE FOR STRIKES
Marginalized communities had to band together to help one another survive the disease, drawing upon existing mutual aid networks and creating new ones.
This was one of the factors that prepared Western Canadian cities for the 1919 Great Labour Revolt: demonstrations of working-class power, the best-known of which was the Winnipeg General Strike.

PUBLIC HEALTH- CARE, FUTURE CAPACITY
Canada’s fragmented response to the 1918 flu outbreak led to the development and strengthening of the Federal Department of Health, established in 1919. Healthcare in Canada remained a mix of private and public delivery from the 1920s to 1966, when national Medicare was brought in based on Saskatchewan’s 1946 hospitalization plan.

“Plagues such as the 1918 influenza pandemic act as mysteries and eventually tests of human subjectivity in its full range of hopelessness and potential. As we anticipate what new pandemics might soon emerge, we can only predict they will be filled with both apocalyptic loss and unthinkable possibilities when we find the courage to look.”

-Jane Elizabeth Fisher, Envisioning Disease, Gender, and War: Women’s Narratives of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic (2012)”]

Karen Jeane Mills is an illustrator and designer. A graduate of NSCAD University in Halifax, NS and NSCC in Middleton, NS, she grew up in Canada’s Maritime provinces and now hangs her hat in Calgary, Alberta. She is a community volunteer inspired by working people in the past and present. More of her work can be seen on Instagram: @prairieflaneur.

Esyllt Jones is an historian of infectious disease and health care, and Professor of History at the University of Manitoba. She is the author of Influenza 1918: Disease, Death and Struggle in Winnipeg, and Radical Medicine: The International Origins of Socialized Health Care in Canada.

© Provided by Leader Post From left, Krystal Kolodziejak, her husband Nathan Brenner walking dog Jeter, and her sister Adynea Russell walk together

Bundled up against the cold, Krystal Kolodziejak took to Wascana Centre on Saturday morning armed with a red sign that read “Nevertheless, she persisted.”

With only her husband and sister walking beside her, this year’s annual Women’s March in Regina was not quite the same previous years, where Kolodziejak had crowds of others marching with her.

Kolodziejak was part of hundreds of thousands of women who marched on Washington, D.C. in 2017, after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States. It was after returning to Regina from that event that she knew the message of empowerment was one she wanted to see carried to the Queen City.

She began reaching out to local organizations and soon found a partner in YWCA Regina.

This year marks the fifth year YWCA Regina has hosted the city’s annual Women’s March, which is aligned with the international movement Women’s March Canada. The movement seeks to empower women and stand up for human rights and social justice.

While the march normally takes place in downtown Regina, this year it moved online to abide by public health guidelines

© BRANDON HARDER From left, Krystal Kolodziejak, her husband Nathan Brenner walking dog Jeter, and her sister Adynea Russell walk together as part of a “virtual” Women’s March at Wascana Park in Regina, Saskatchewan on Jan. 16, 2020. Those wanting to participate in the annual march this year were asked to walk in their own neighbourhoods, as a group gathering was not possible due to COVID-19.

Despite not being able to march together this year because of the pandemic, Kolodziejak — who is a member of the event’s organizing committee — hopes the same message of empowerment comes through, which she said is as relevant as ever.

“The issues that women continue to struggle with are still there and unfortunately, with the pandemic, a lot of them are amplified even more, so recently there’s been a few reports that have been shared talking about the impacts of domestic violence and how it’s gotten even worse,” she said, pointing to other recent social movements like Black Lives Matter to highlight how much of a difference gathering their voices together can make in the fight against inequality.

“It’s even more important right now to continue to raise awareness about what a lot of women in Saskatchewan are experiencing.”

Kolodziejak said Regina residents were asked to walk in their neighbourhood with only the people already in their bubble. She anticipated around 400 people were taking part across the city on Saturday.

Participants in the Women’s March were asked to create posters with their own messages of empowerment written on them and to share photos of their walk on social media with the hashtag #ForwardTogether.

“Collectively, we’re really trying to show that women’s right are human rights and trying to advance that overall,” she said.

We Should Be Very Worried About Joe Biden’s “Domestic Terrorism” Bill

Joe Biden used to brag that he practically wrote the Patriot Act, the Bush-era law that massively increased government surveillance powers. Now he’s hoping to pass a further “domestic terrorism” law once in office. The danger is real that the January 6 Capitol attack will be used as an excuse to severely curtail our civil liberties.

Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden speaks to supporters at a campaign event on March 2, 2020 in Houston, Texas. (Callaghan O'Hare / Getty Images)

BY LUKE SAVAGE 01.12.2021

Nearly two decades since its initial passage in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Patriot Act has continued to linger in our collective memory. Though few Americans probably remember much about its provisions or specifics, the Bush-era legislation long ago entered into general usage as an synonym for heavy-handed domestic surveillance and institutional overreach — the words “Patriot Act” now being practically synonymous with secrecy, eavesdropping, and the rolling back of civil liberties under the intentionally broad guise of “national security.”

Given the law’s contents and implications in practice, this reputation is well deserved. Passing the Senate with only a single dissenting vote, the Patriot Act dramatically expanded the power of federal authorities to spy on ordinary Americans with minimal oversight: enabling the FBI to obtain detailed information about citizens’ banking history and personal communications without having to seek judicial approval and even allowing “sneak and peek” searches of homes and offices. “The Patriot Act,” in the rather blunt words of a brief prepared by the ACLU, “[turned] regular citizens into suspects.”

Predictably, a great deal of law enforcement activity resulted from the ludicrously titled law (USA PATRIOT was a backronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”). According to data released by the Department of Justice, the FBI made hundreds of thousands of incursions into personal phone, computer, and financial records in the years immediately following its passage — the utility of these searches in identifying or preventing actual terrorist activities being debatable, to say the least.

Despite passing with widespread support, the Patriot Act was still considered extreme enough for lawmakers to attach sunset clauses to several of its major provisions, guaranteeing their expiry in lieu of congressional renewal (which, incidentally, eventually came under George W. Bush and again under Barack Obama).

One prominent Delaware lawmaker, however, felt it didn’t go far enough.

Ahead of the nearly unanimous October 25, 2001, Senate vote on the Patriot Act, Joe Biden was regularly claiming the law as his own, boasting in an interview with the New Republic: “I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill.” Biden wasn’t wrong. In fact, key parts of the Bush administration’s signature national security law were drawn from provisions contained in Biden’s own 1995 anti-terrorism bill. Originally called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act, Jacobin’s Branco Marcetic summarized it contents as follows:

The bill made “terrorism” a new federal crime, allowed those charged with terrorism to be automatically detained before trial, outlawed donations to government-designated terrorist groups, allowed electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists, and created a special court to deport noncitizens accused of terrorism (ironically, when Bush had proposed a similar measure years before, Biden had denounced it as “the very antithesis of our legal system”). It also let the government use evidence from secret sources in those trials.

Calling the Patriot Act “measured and prudent” during an approving speech on the Senate floor, Biden would nonetheless lament the removal of sections from his 1995 bill that would have given police even more sweeping powers of surveillance.

This particular episode aside, Biden’s career and voting history suggest a decidedly dodgy record on civil liberties. In 1996, he voted for Bob Dole’s Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act—deemed by legal scholar Lincoln Caplan to be “one of the worst statutes ever passed by Congress” thanks to its undermining of habeas corpus. Though he eventually took to criticizing the administration’s surveillance programs once they became unpopular, Biden’s positions later in the Bush era often earned him only middling ratings from the ACLU.

Given this history, and recent events, Biden’s purported plan to introduce a new domestic terrorism law gives us plenty of reason to worry. As in 2001, the ground currently looks fertile for such legislation to find a big (and potentially bipartisan) constituency even if its contents prove repressive or heavy-handed. The Trump era, with its incessant valorizing of security and intelligence officials and general atmosphere of emergency, has worryingly seemed to lay the groundwork for something resembling a second Patriot Act to find support among liberals — especially if they’re encouraged to believe its sole targets will be figures associated with the likes of QAnon. Against this backdrop, the deep (and understandable) sense of shock in the wake of this month’s Capitol storming will probably act like gasoline poured on an open flame.

However such legislation may be justified with liberal-sounding language, there’s absolutely no reason to believe authorities wouldn’t use new powers to target groups that have nothing to do with Donald Trump or Trumpism. Police almost certainly infiltrated Black Lives Matter protests last summer, and American law enforcement has a long and ignominious history of targeting progressive groups — not to mention socialists, trade unions, and civil rights activists. As this history suggests, the premise behind any new anti-terrorism law will also be wrong on its face: the American state hardly faces excessive restrictions on its capacity to surveil, discipline, and punish. (The FBI, to take an obvious example, already possesses considerable power to investigate groups suspected of extremist activity.)

And, while there is seldom a good time to restrict civil liberties, the aftermath of a bloody riot in the Capitol that raises serious questions about police conduct, and about the presence of far-right forces inside law enforcement, seems like a particularly bad moment to do so.

After the September 11 attacks, Congress hastily approved a sweeping and Orwellian piece of legislation that drew heavily on a bill written by Joe Biden. With Biden about to enter office amid a climate of social instability and deep public anxiety, there’s an all-too-real risk that history will repeat itself.

Luke Savage is a staff writer at Jacobin.

THOUGHTS & PRAYERS
Parler's CEO fled his home and went into hiding after receiving death threats and security breaches, a court filing says

© Fox News Parler CEO John Matze Fox News

Parler CEO John Matze Jr. and his family have fled their homes after receiving death threats, a new court filing says.

Parler was recently removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and Amazon Web Services stopped hosting the platform after it deemed Parler a "risk to public safety."

Trump supporters flocked to the platform after the president was banned from Twitter following the siege at the Capitol on January 6.

Parler CEO John Matze Jr. fled his home receiving death threats, a lawyer for Matze said in a court filing on Friday.

The attorney, David Groesbeck, wrote in the document that Matze had to "go into hiding with his family after receiving death threats and invasive personal security breaches." The filing was part of Parler's antitrust lawsuit against Amazon Web Services to put the platform back online.
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The current filing aimed to seal parts of the suit filed as a safety measure.

Read more: Inside the rapid and mysterious rise of Parler, the 'free speech' Twitter alternative, which created a platform for conservatives by burning the Silicon Valley script

Amazon Web Services stopped hosting Parler after it said the platform had violent content that was tied to the January 6 siege at the US Capitol. In its own court filing last week, Amazon alleged that Parler was both unwilling and unable to remove "content that threatens the public safety, such as by inciting and planning the rape, torture, and assassination of named public officials and private citizens."

Supporters of President Donald Trump breached the building and clashed with law enforcement, halting the joint session of Congress as lawmakers were debating challenges to electoral votes.

Five people died, including a Capitol Police officer and a woman who was shot by law-enforcement officials while participating in the riot.

Trump's Twitter account was subsequently suspended and conservatives urged their followers to join Parler afterward. The app jumped to No. 1 on Apple's App Store before the company pulled it. Google also yanked Parler from its store.

AWS said Parler "poses a very real risk to public safety," when it stopped hosting it.

In the Friday court filing, Groesbeck didn't specify who was threatening Matze, but said his position "as the CEO of the company AWS continues to vilify," put him in danger.

Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Amazon said Parler users were threatening their staff.

"Both sides of this dispute have shown that their employees have suffered real harassment and threats-including, on both sides, death threats-owing to the charged nature of this litigation," Groesbeck said in his filing.
Read the original article on Business Insider

Omar and Ocasio-Cortez Tell Josh Hawley to 'Resign'—And Poll Shows Majority of Missouri Voters Agree

"While you may politically regret what you've revealed about yourself, you still have no place in public office," Ocasio-Cortez said of Hawley.

Kenny Stancil, staff writer

Published on Friday, January 15, 2021

Common Dreams

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) attends a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, January 6, 2021. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Democratic congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday implored Republican Sen. Josh Hawley to resign, and a new poll released Thursday shows that a majority of Hawley's constituents in Missouri agree that the lawmaker should quit following his role in inciting an attack on the U.S. Capitol.

According to a survey (pdf) of Missouri voters conducted by Data for Progress and MoveOn, 51% of likely voters in the state—91% of Democrats, 52% of self-identified independents, and 20% of Republicans—believe that Hawley should resign immediately as a consequence for sowing doubt about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Like several additional GOP lawmakers, Hawley has faced criticism for baselessly challenging the legitimacy of President-elect Joe Biden's decisive electoral win, an effort that critics say implicates them in last week's right-wing assault on the halls of Congress.

Since the January 6 insurrection, Hawley has tried to distance himself from the actions of the pro-Trump mob, yet even in the aftermath of the deadly riot, the lawmaker still—alongside 139 House and seven other Senate Republicans—voted against certifying the Electoral College results.

While Hawley has tried to portray his objections to Biden's victory as a principled stance in defense of "election integrity," Rep. Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) reminded the Missouri Republican of the infamous photograph in which Hawley is depicted raising his fist "in solidarity with white supremacists who attacked our Capitol."

"While you may politically regret what you've revealed about yourself," Ocasio-Cortez said, "you still have no place in public office."

'His Conduct Was Seditious': House Democrats From Texas Demand Ted Cruz Be Expelled From Senate

"In his effort to appease Donald Trump and his supporters, Senator Cruz encouraged these terrorists to wage armed insurrection against America."

Jon Queally, staff writer

Published on Saturday, January 16, 2021

Common Dreams

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) stands in the House Chamber during a reconvening of a joint session of Congress on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Members of Congress returned to the House Chamber after being evacuated when protesters stormed the Capitol and disrupted a joint session to ratify President-elect Joe Biden's 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Three House Democrats from Texas have called on party leaders in the U.S. Senate to back the expulsion of a member of their state's congressional delegation, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, for what they term "seditious" behavior related to the insurrectionist mob that overran the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

Signed by Reps. Veronica Escobar, Joaquin Castro, and Sylvia Garcia—all from Texas—a Friday letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (soon to exchange title) argued that it "is evident that Senator Cruz echoed Trump's false voter fraud claims for political gain, going so far as sending a fundraising plea during the armed stand-off in the Capitol where members of Congress, staff, and journalists were held hostage for hours."

In addition to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Cruz led the Republican effort in the Senate to block certification of President-elect Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory by making baseless claims of voter fraud—the same false claims made by Trump and those in the mob who ransacked the U.S. Capitol in an insurrectionist effort that left five people dead, including one Capitol Police Officer who was murdered.

Cruz's conduct, Escobar said in a tweet that mirrored the letter's message, "was seditious. He must be held accountable and expelled from the Senate."

The letter argues that "Cruz's objection to the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris helped incite the attack and gave credence to a process that had no chance of succeeding and put all of us in danger."

"In his effort to appease Donald Trump and his supporters," it continued, "Cruz encouraged these terrorists to wage armed insurrection against America."

The Texas lawmakers cite Article I, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution—which allows for the punishment, including expulsion, for "disorderly behavior" by a member—to argue that Schumer and McConnell have the authority to initiate such a process for Cruz.

On Saturday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.)—the most right-wing member of the Democratic caucus—said that the 14th Amendment "should be a consideration" for both Cruz and Hawley.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states that no U.S. lawmaker holding office "shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

While Manchin says, he gets "along fine" with Cruz, "what he did was totally outside the realm of our responsibilities or our privileges."

Progressives, meanwhile, have consistently called for both Hawley and Cruz to resign or be removed ever since last week's attack.

"There can be no normalizing or looking away from what played out before our eyes," Sen. Patty Murray, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said last week as she called on both Cruz and Hawley to resign.

"The violent mob that attacked the Capitol was made up of people who don’t accept democracy, and want to take this country by use of force," she stated. "Any Senator who stands up and supports the power of force over the power of democracy has broken their oath of office."

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