re: #19 Destro

Yea, still waiting for you to show how what I wrote about the Battle of Blair has no relevance for the South African mine massacre.

1. Because the platinum mine owners have not engaged in the pattern of violence engaged in by the owners of the West Virginia (WV) coal mines. The violence had been between the two miners unions.

2. Moreover, the demand made by the union in South Africa (SA) was for triple wages immediately, a far higher demand than that made by the WV coal miners. Also, it was a demand made while the miners were supposed to still be under contract. It sometimes happens that a schism occurs within a union, but it has always been a normal understanding that the new union is still bound by the old union’s contract for the duration of said contract. Thus the “wildcat” strike called by the newer miners unions in SA is in my eyes unreasonable.

3. Blair Mountain’s trigger event was a gunfight precipitated by an attempt by detectives employed by the WV coal mine owners to illegally arrest a union leader. The trigger event for the police firing on the miners in SA was those miners advancing on the police armed with lethal weapons. The police were not the instigators of the violence, as the Balwin-Felt detectives had been in WV. In SA, it was the miners who instigated the violence.