workingclasshistory:

On this day, 31 March 1990, the poll tax riots broke out in Trafalgar Square, London, after police attacked 200,000 demonstrators. The riots help spur more widespread opposition to the tax, introduced in England the following week, and was eventually defeated by a mass non-payment campaign.
This is an interesting selection of personal accounts of the riot: https://libcom.org/history/1990-accounts-poll-tax-riot https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1388494784669001/?type=3

workingclasshistory:

On this day, 21 April 1980, the working class mining community in Sabuk, South Korea, took control of their town setting up a “liberated zone” amidst a strike of coalminers demanding a 40% pay increase.
The movement began on 15 April when 25 workers protested against their union. On 21 April, four protesting workers were seriously injured by a police jeep. In response, protests grew, and workers occupied key parts of the town, seizing police weaponry and dynamite from the mines. The following day, 300 armed police arrived, but 5,000 protesters succeeded in driving them from the area.
Local women, housewives and other residents took an active part in the struggle, and the community set up their own security detachments. The movement was even more remarkable given that South Korea was governed by a brutal military dictatorship backed by the US.
By 24 April, employers and authorities agreed to all of the workers’ demands, including a pay increase and an amnesty for the protesters, in return for workers laying down their weapons.
However, after this took place the state ignored its promise and on 7 May abducted and tortured over 70 people. On 4 August, 30 of those were sentenced to between one and five years’ imprisonment. Three of those who were tortured died young as a result.
*
If you value our work researching and promoting people’s history like this, please consider supporting us on patreon: https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1406453012873178/?type=3

merelygifted:

(via Important Information About Face Coverings Not Being Communicated)

…The following is information about face coverings that I HAVE NOT seen discussed but which is hidden in the text of many of the policies. I found these in San Francisco’s Public Health Emergency Order:

•  The first deals with children and I suspect many parents may have already been aware of but which I have not heard mentioned in any of the news stories on face coverings:

This Order includes certain exceptions. For instance, this Order does not require that any child aged twelve years or younger wear a Face Covering and recommends that any child aged two years or younger should not wear one because of the risk of suffocation.

•  The other deals with the types of masks some folks are wearing and thinking that they are complying and protecting others when they aren’t:

Note that any mask that incorporates a one-way valve (typically a raised plastic cylinder about the size of a quarter on the front or side of the mask) that is designed to facilitate easy exhaling is not a Face Covering under this Order and is not to be used to comply with this Order’s requirements. Valves of that type permit droplet release from the mask, putting others nearby at risk.

In the top picture included in this diary, the mask on the left is an example of one of these masks with a one-way valve on it. In this case it is an N100 mask. Some N95 masks have valves and some do not, and I have seen other masks for sale and that folks are wearing that also have these valves on them.

I know folks are thinking that everyone knows that folks aren’t supposed to be buying up any surgical or N95 masks because they are needed by healthcare providers, however, many of us in the west have old masks that we had obtained during the wildfires when our air was unbreathable without risk of lung damage. I personally have several N95 masks from the fires which were opened and could not be donated. Some of them have a valve and some do not.

Without reading the healthcare order I never would have known that the masks with the valves were not protecting others from my excretions. These masks are more comfortable to wear as they filter the air coming in but allow your breath an escape hatch without being forced through the mask itself.

These masks are great for the fires since it filters out the small, dangerous particles in the smoke from entering our lungs and allow easier breathing due to the one way valve allowing your exhalations an easy path away from your face. Unfortunately, they are the exact opposite of what is needed for this coronavirus crisis since they allow our unfiltered breath which possibly contains droplets with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in them out into the air around us and can infect others in our vicinity.

Bottom line is that if you have these masks you are not protecting others. You should keep these masks in your closet for the next set of fires or for your next paint job but not be wearing them in this crisis.  …

kenro199x:

Zombie 3 / Zombi 3 (1988)

Blu-ray 2018 Severin Films 

I did a gallery last year on the 88 Films release. 

Check that one out here.

plentymood:

Queer anarchist moodboard 🖤

Queer anarchism (or anarcha-queer) is an anarchist school of thought that advocates anarchism and social revolution as a means of queer liberation and abolition of homophobia, lesbophobia, transmisogyny, biphobia, transphobia, heteronormativity, heterosexism, patriarchy and the gender binary.

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ms-cellanies:

rjzimmerman:

This story is more relevant today than it was on Saturday. Today, the price of a barrel of oil decreased to negative. What does that mean? That the oil producer has to pay the purchaser to buy the oil, and use it or store it. In other words, for a period today (and maybe going further into the week), a barrel of oil produced today has no value. Think about that, as the oil industry generally is losing ground to the renewable energy industry, regardless of the pandemic.

Excerpt from this story from DeSmog Blog:

The finances of the oil and gas industry are so dismal that the major banks that have funded the money-losing fracking boom are now exploring taking the unusual step of taking over the oil companies that cannot afford to pay back the banks’ loans.

Reuters reported that banks are exploring the option of seizing oil company assets because the more traditional route of bankruptcy will result in huge losses for the banks — while seizing assets and holding them until oil prices increase would likely minimize those losses.

Buddy Clark of law firm Haynes and Boone explained to Reuters that, “Banks can now believably wield the threat that they will foreclose on the company and its properties if they don’t pay their loan back.”

While banks seizing assets from borrowers who can’t repay loans is common for industries like real estate — especially residential real estate — it is an unusual move for the oil and gas industry. Reuters reported that the last time it happened was during the oil price crash of the late 1980s. In the most recent oil price crash, when oil dropped from prices over $100 a barrel to $40 a barrel, there was a rash of bankruptcies, but the banks did not seize assets.

One difference now is that shale oil companies have continued to increase debt — thanks to loans from the banks — to the point where most of these companies are not viable with low oil prices. As one industry observer recently noted in The New York Times, “This is late ’80s bad.”

One new angle that didn’t exist in the 1980s is a dramatic change in sentiment from parts of the investment community about the viability of the oil industry as an investment. Television investment advisor Jim Cramer of CNBC was saying oil stocks were in the “death knell phase” in January, before oil prices crashed to the current lows and the coronavirus had crushed global oil demand.

Well it couldn’t happen to a MORE DESERVING industry.  If only it would lead to an END TO FRACKING PERMANENTLY.  I’m not gonna hold my breath.

merelygifted:

(via Coronavirus V: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - YouTube)