That’s a tough question, because there is a long and complicated history between the socialist movement and the labor movement in America: at various times, the socialist movement has pursued a strategy of entryism (joining major labor unions in order to try to shift them left), dual unionism (forming explicitly socialist unions to compete with non-socialist labor unions). Likewise, at various times (the 1910s and 1930s especially) the labor movement has recruited socialist activists to help them organize workers and worked closely with left-wing organizations to promote pro-labor causes, and at other times (the 1920s and the late 40s-50s especially) ruthlessly purged socialists or communists from labor unions and barred them from membership. 

Indeed, the complexity of this history can be seen in the fact that John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers pursued both, purging left-wingers in the late 20s when he viewed them as a threat to his control of the UMW and then recruiting them in the 1930s to help him build the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Another thing that complicates this is the decentralized and indeed fragmented nature of the American labor movement, which means that various unions (and indeed, various locals within unions) have more of a history with the socialist movement than others. Historically, for example, building trades unions and the other “skilled trades” clustered in the AFL have tended to be more politically conservative and less welcoming to the left, whereas manufacturing/”industrial” unions which grew from the CIO tended to be more left-leaning, in part because CIO unions recruited radicals to help them organize, in part because their workforces were more likely to be from immigrant and ethnic communities which had their own socialist traditions, and in part because the CIO came up during the 1930s. 

However, these causal stories can get really confusing, because you have competing unions in the same industries with different political histories: the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) on the West Coast has a long left-wing history due to their founder Harry Bridges being an open Communist, whereas the International Longeshoreman’s Association (ILA) on the East Coast was much more conservative. 

To answer your last question, I don’t have a lot of first-hand experience of European labor unions, but my impression is that U.S labor unions tend to have a lot more ideological diversity – there’s unions who are proud of being kicked out of the AFL-CIO for being too Communist back in 1947, there’s unions that were more associated with Catholic social thought, there’s unions with a long history of liberal anti-communism, etc. – whereas it’s more common for European unions to have firm institutional links to a socialist or labor party. In part because of that ideological diversity and the more complicated historical relationship between the American labor movement and American political parties, American unions have a more contingent, transactional, and pragmatic political program (especially at the local level), in contrast to European unions who either founded or were founded by a political party in their country and thus have very close relationships with that party and that party alone. 

we-are-rogue:

racefortheironthrone:

It depends on the time and place, but often the position of executioner was a patronage position, and not a particularly desirable one, so you got people who weren’t very good at their job and weren’t hugely interested in being good at their job. For example, the infamous Jack Ketch:

Jack Ketch was Charles II’s executioner and was so astonishingly bad at his job that he became a figure of both hatred and mirth to the London public, such that to this day his name is a synonym for death, executioners, and Satan himself, and he became a bad guy in the Punch & Judy shows. (Yes, some of the research here started with Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch) For example, this is how Ketch carried out his job when it came to Lord William Russell:

“On that occasion, Ketch wielded the instrument of death either with such sadistically nuanced skill or with such lack of simple dexterity – nobody could tell which – that the victim suffered horrifically under blow after blow, each excruciating but not in itself lethal. Even among the bloodthirsty throngs that habitually attended English beheadings, the gory and agonizing display had created such outrage that Ketch felt moved to write and publish a pamphlet titled Apologie, in which he excused his performance with the claim that Lord Russell had failed to “dispose himself as was most suitable” and that he was therefore distracted while taking aim on his neck.”

To be more specific, he took three swings with the axe and couldn’t pull it off, and then finished the job with a saw. It takes a special kind of bastard to write, print, and distribute a pamphlet to avoid blame for botching an execution, and to hit on “the dead guy sucked at being executed” as the excuse. And this was not a one-time thing: Ketch botched the execution of the Duke of Monmouth, taking no less than five whacks of the axe to finish the job (apparently because Ketch hadn’t bothered to sharpen the axe ahead of time) and had to be hustled out of town for a while because the London mob wanted to lynch him. 

Meister Frantz Schmidt
(1555 – 1634),

an executioner in Nuremberg, left a diary where he mentions his training. It was practically a hereditary position, and his dad trained him from a young age in their yard: he first learnt to chop vegetables, then sacks of straw and dead animals, then live animals. He also progressed from a smaller sword to the huge one he was to use officially. Then he trained with live people, as an apprentice to his father.
He was proficient in using the sword, the noose, the wheel, fire, and drowning.

Schmidt

was very dutiful, displayed a professional pride for his work, and at the same time was very unhappy that he was saddled with such a shameful, undignified post. It was considered dishonourable, and he and his whole family were more or less untouchables in the community (if relatively well-off). It wasn’t a job people volunteered for, if they had a choice. Apparently, Schmidt’s father was once ordered
by a passing lord

to execute a man, which sealed the fate of the family thereafter. And he seemed REALLY upset about this injustice, that his honour was besmirched through no fault of his own.

At NO point does he seem upset about the horrific tortures he inflicted on people (both the interrogation and execution methods
were positively hair-raising — decapitation was the merciful version),
the “confessions” he forced,

the pain he caused, or the 381 lives he took. Only about his honour…

200+ years later, when the modern Greek state was founded, they brought a guillotine from France —  a spectacularly unpopular decision. The first executioner was a Frenchman, who quickly resigned for fear of his life. They couldn’t convince anyone to succeed him, no matter how well they paid. In the end, a bandit on death row agreed to take the gig, in exchange for a pardon. Inexperienced as he was, he botched his first execution, tormenting three convicted bandits for quite a long time before killing them. He narrowly avoided a lynching, and could not mingle with the population after that, so they put him all by himself on a little island
near the coast

— a tiny fortress on a rock, basically. He got provisions by boat, and only left the island when there was an execution. His own mother denounced him. He was dead to the world.

Bourtzi: ex-fortress, ex-executioner’s quarters, now a fancy hotel.

Executioners were despised in general, of course, but the guillotine handlers were by far the most extreme case.

For botched executions, there’s the book “The Executioner Always Chops Twice: Ghastly Blunders on the Scaffold” by Geoffrey Abbott. It’s not serious research by a historian or anything, but hey, it’s a book.

Reblogging for some excellent additions. 

Probably yes to the first, but most likely no to the second. 

I think I left off where the kids decided to go off on their own and rescue their comrade who got kidnapped. 

RFTIT Kickstarter Fulfillment News

Hey folks, just wanted to post a quick update about the progress of Kickstarter fulfillment. My editor Marc has been sending out physical copies of the books in batches, and I’ve seen the emails showing that people have started to get them in the mail, which is great. On my end, all but one of the signed sets of books have been mailed out and that last one should be going out this week.

With…

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Because R’hllor brought her back from the dead. 

Bit like this, but without the fire.

Well, Bloodraven certainly does use magic to aid his espionage, as we see in Mystery Knight. 

However, I’m personally of the belief that Bloodraven didn’t know how to use the greensight until he went north of the Wall in 252 AC and made contact with the Children of the Forest. 

Chiefly, a major change in U.S labor law. 

About 48% of workers in the U.S say they want a union, whereas only 10.7% of workers in the U.S are in unions. If everyone who wanted to be in a union could join a union, the union movement would be in great health. 

The problem is that it’s incredibly difficult to win a union election if employers decide to fight unionization, because current labor law allows employers to conduct coordinated campaigns of intimidation with minimal penalties (indeed, penalties are so low that employers just budget in the fines as the cost of doing business). 

In terms of fixing this, the proposed Workplace Democracy Act would help. It’s not a silver bullet – there are other issues, such as the need to update penalties for labor law violations, the understaffing of labor law enforcement, etc. – but it covers a lot of the big ticket issues. 

Then again, there are those who think the U.S labor movement needs to think bigger than just fixing elections systems.