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Today in Labor History July 1, 1766: François-Jean de la Barre, a young French nobleman, was tortured, beheaded and burnt on a pyre for reading Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique and, more importantly, for not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession in Abbeville, France. The articles in Voltaire’s work included critiques of the Catholic Church, as well as Judaism and Islam. The general public loved the book, which sold out quickly after its first, anonymous, printing. The religious authorities hated it and censored it in France and Switzerland. Charles Dickens reference the torture and murder of la Barre in his novel, Tale of Two Cities. Voltaire tried, unsuccessfully, to defend la Barre. His writings immediately after the arrest did help several other young Frenchman get acquitted for the same offenses.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #freespeech #censorship #torture #voltaire #enlightenment #execution #books #author #writer #philosopher #fiction #dickens @bookstadon

From Obedience to Execution: Structural Legitimacy in the Age of Reasoning Models
When models no longer obey but execute, what happens to legitimacy?

Core contributions:
• Execution vs. obedience in LLMs
• Structural legitimacy without subject
• Reasoning as authority loop

🔗 Full article: zenodo.org/records/15635364
🌐 Website: agustinvstartari.com
🪪 ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0002-1483-7154

ZenodoFrom Obedience to Execution: Structural Legitimacy in the Age of Reasoning ModelsThis article formulates a structural transition from Large Language Models (LLMs) to Language Reasoning Models (LRMs), redefining authority in artificial systems. While LLMs operated under syntactic authority without execution, producing fluent but functionally passive outputs, LRMs establish functional authority without agency. These models do not intend, interpret, or know. They instantiate procedural trajectories that resolve internally, without reference, meaning, or epistemic grounding. This marks the onset of a post-representational regime, where outputs are structurally valid not because they correspond to reality, but because they complete operations encoded in the architecture. Neutrality, previously a statistical illusion tied to training data, becomes a structural simulation of rationality, governed by constraint, not intention. The model does not speak. It acts. It does not signify. It computes. Authority no longer obeys form, it executes function. A mirrored version of this article is also available on Figshare for redundancy and citation indexing purposes: DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.29286362 Resumen Este artículo formula una transición estructural desde los Modelos de Lenguaje a Gran Escala (LLMs) hacia los Modelos de Razonamiento Lingüístico (LRMs), redefiniendo la noción de autoridad en sistemas artificiales. Mientras los LLMs operaban bajo una autoridad sintáctica sin ejecución, generando salidas coherentes pero pasivas, los LRMs instauran una autoridad funcional sin agencia. Estos modelos no interpretan, no intencionan, no conocen. Resuelven trayectorias procedurales internas sin referente, sin sentido, sin anclaje epistémico. Se inaugura así un régimen post-representacional, donde la validez no proviene de la correspondencia con el mundo, sino de la finalización estructural de operaciones. La neutralidad, antes ilusión estadística derivada del corpus, se convierte en simulación estructural de racionalidad, regulada por restricciones y no por decisiones. El modelo no habla: actúa. No significa: computa. La autoridad ya no obedece forma, ejecuta estructura.
#AI#LLM#Execution

When 22-year-old Cole went to refill his #asthma medication, he saw a #shocking #price. The #inhaler that once cost <$70 suddenly cost >$500. [He] didn’t have an extra $500 to buy it. 5 days later, he #died after a severe asthma attack. #profit-driven #execution #UnitedHealth tinyurl.com/mr4bvkae

Let's Address This with Qasim Rashid · Did UnitedHealth Exploitation Result in Yet Another Preventable Death?By Qasim Rashid, Esq.

Today in Labor History May 30, 1381: Tax collector John Bampton sparked the Peasants’ Revolt in Brentwood, Essex. The mass uprising, also known as Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, or the Great Rising, began because of attempts to collect a poll tax. However, tensions were already high because of the economic misery and hunger caused by the Black Death pandemic of the 1340s, and the Hundred Years’ War. During the uprising, rebels burned public records and freed prisoners. King Richard II, 14 years old, hid in the Tower of London. Rebels entered the Tower and killed the Lord Chancellor and the Lord High Treasurer, but not the king. It took nearly six months for the authorities to suppress the Peasants’ Revolt. They slaughtered over 1,400 rebels. Roughly 600 years later, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher tried again to impose a poll tax on Britain’s working class. It also sparked a revolt which brought an end both to the tax and Thatcher’s regime. Billy Bragg references Thatcher’s poll tax in his song, All You Fascists.

Today in Labor History May 29, 1830: Anarchist school teacher Louise Michel was born. She was a leader of the Paris Commune. During the Bloody Week, the authorities executed 30,000 men, women and children. They forced Michel to turn herself in by threatening to kill her mother, then deported her to New Caledonia, where she taught both the children of colonists and the indigenous people of New Caledonia. Her struggle against French colonialism and her support for the indigenous people is remembered today in their local museum of anarchism.

In 1880, the French gave amnesty to commune prisoners and allowed her back into the country. Many of those prisoners could not find work and were starving. She helped set up soup kitchens to feed them and devoted herself to writing about strikes and worker protests. On Mach 9, 1883, she led a demonstration through Paris. During the march, starving workers looted bakeries and stole bread. They arrested Michel and sentenced her to six years solitary confinement. Two years after being released, a would-be assassin shot her behind her ear. During the trial, she defended the would-be assassin, arguing that he had been misled by an evil society. She died on January 9, 1905.

Read my entire biography of Michel here: michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/

Today in Labor History May 26, 1755: The French authorities caught and executed Louis Mandrin, the French Robin Hood. He had led an army of 300 smugglers in a rebellion against the Fermiers, or tax collectors. This made him incredibly popular with the masses because the Fermiers would tax them far more than the king required and pocket the extra. Furthermore, he would buy products in Switzerland and sell them in France without paying any taxes, making them much less expensive. However, when he was caught, the authorities publicly tortured him and left his body on display to teach the masses a lesson. The people left sympathetic notes beside his body and a legend was born.

Mandrin was referenced in Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.” Books and films were made about his life, including the 1924 silent film, “Mandrin” and the book, “Captain Mandrin.”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #rebellion #torture #execution #LouisMandrin #robinhood #victorhugo #book #fiction #film #writer #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History May 21, 1894: The French authorities executed anarchist Emile Henry by guillotine. His final words were, “Courage, comrades! Long live Anarchy!” Henry grew up in a family of radicals. His father had been a supporter of the Paris Commune. As a result, his family was exiled to Spain, where Henry was born. However, his father contracted mercury poisoning from his factory job there and died when Henry was ten. After this, the family moved back to France. Henry’s older brother, also an anarchist, helped him make connections with other French revolutionaries. In 1892, Henry set a time bomb at the offices of the Carmaux Mining Company, which killed five cops. In February, 1894, he set off a bomb at the Café Terminus, killing one person and wounding twenty. The authorities arrested him for this crime and sentenced him to death by guillotine.

Today in Labor History May 17, 1917: The government stayed the execution of Tom Mooney while he appealed his case. Mooney ultimately spent 22 years in prison for the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade bombing in 1916, a crime he did not commit. Mooney, along with codefendant Warren Billings, were members of the IWW and were railroaded because of their union and anarchist affiliations. The bomb exploded at the foot of Market Street, killing ten and wounding forty. Billings had heard rumors that agents provocateurs might try to blacken the labor movement by disrupting the pro-war parade. He tried to warn his comrades.

Mooney’s father had been in the Knights of Labor, a forerunner of the IWW. He had been beaten so badly during one strike, that his comrades thought he was dead. He ultimately died of silicosis from mining at the age of 36, when Tom was only ten. In San Francisco, Tom Mooney published The Revolt, a socialist newspaper. He was tried and acquitted three times for transporting explosives during the Pacific Gas & Electric strike in 1913.

Mooney filed a writ of habeas corpus in 1937, providing evidence that his conviction was based on perjured testimony and evidence tampering. Among this evidence was a photograph of him in front of a large, ornate clock, on Market Street, clearly showing the time of the bombing and that he could not have been at the bombing site when it occurred. The Alibi Clock was later moved to downtown Vallejo, twenty-five miles to the northeast of San Francisco. A bookstore in Vallejo is named after this clock. He was finally pardoned in 1939. Upon his release, he marched in a huge parade down market street. Cops and leaders of the mainstream unions were all forbidden from participating. An honor guard of longshoremen accompanied him carrying their hooks. His case helped establish that convictions based on false evidence violate people’s right to due process.

The accompanying photo shows Oliver Law, and the Tom Mooney Machine Gun Company, part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, who fought in the Spanish war against fascism (AKA the Spanish Civil War). Oliver Law was a communist, and the first black man known to have commanded white U.S. troops.

Read my complete article on Mooney and Billings here: michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/05/

Today in Labor History May 4, 1886: A day after police killed four striking workers and injured hundreds, protesters gathered at Haymarket Square in Chicago. As the peaceful event drew to a close, someone threw a bomb into the police line. Police responded by shooting into the crowd, killing one and wounding many. Eight anarchists were later framed even though most were not even present at the Haymarket rally and there was no evidence that linked any of them to the bombing. They tried and convicted eight anarchist leaders in a kangaroo court: August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fisher, George Engel, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Samuel Felden and Oscar Neebe. Parson’s brother testified at the trial that the real bomb thrower was a Pinkerton agent provocateur. This was entirely consistent with the Pinkertons modus operandi. They used the agent provocateur, James McParland, to entrap and convict the Molly Maguires, 20 innocent Irish union activists, just a few years prior. As a result, twenty of them were hanged and the Pennsylvania mining union was crushed. McParland also tried to entrap WFM leader, Big Bill Haywood, for the murder of Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg. Steunenberg had crushed the WFM strike in 1899, the same one in which the WFM had blown up a colliery. However, Haywood had Clarence Darrow representing him. And Darrow proved his innocence.

On November 11, 1887, they executed Spies, Parson, Fisher and Engel. They sang the Marseillaise, the revolutionary anthem, as they marched to the gallows. The authorities arrested family members who attempted to see them one last time. This included Parson’s wife, Lucy, who was also a significant anarchist organizer and orator. In 1905, she helped cofound the IWW. Moments before he died, Spies shouted, "The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today." And Engel and Fischer called out, "Hurrah for anarchism!" Parsons tried to speak, but was cut off by the trap door opening beneath him.

Workers throughout the world protested the trial, conviction and executions. Prominent people spoke out against it, including Clarence Darrow, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and William Morris. The Haymarket Affair inspired thousands to join the anarchist movement, including Emma Goldman. And it is the inspiration for International Workers’ Day, which is celebrated on May 1st in nearly every country in the world except the U.S.

You can read my complete bio of Lucy Parsons here: michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/

You can read my article on the Pinkertons here: michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/

And my article on the Molly Maguires Here:
michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/

Continued thread

When US District #Judge James #Boasberg ruled in April that #Trump admin officials could face #criminal #contempt charges for #deporting migrants in defiance of a #CourtOrder, the blowback was immediate.

Trump’s supporters unleashed a wave of #threats & menacing posts. And they didn’t just target the judge. Some attacked Boasberg’s brother. Others blasted his daughter. Some demanded the #family’s arrest – or #execution.

Today In Labor History May 1, 1886: The first nationwide General Strike for the 8-hour day occurred in Milwaukee and other U.S. cities. In Chicago, police killed four demonstrators and wounded over 200. This led to the mass meeting a Haymarket Square, where an unknown assailant threw a bomb, killing several cops. The authorities responded by rounding up all the city’s leading anarchists, and a kangaroo court which wrongfully convicted 8 of them, including Albert Parsons, husband of Lucy Parsons, who would go on to cofound the IWW, along with Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, and others. Worldwide protests against the convictions and executions followed. To honor the wrongfully executed anarchists, and their struggle for the 8-hour day, May first has ever since been celebrated as International Workers Day in nearly every country in the world, except the U.S.

You can read my complete bio of Lucy Parsons here: michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/

A quotation from Lincoln

In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Speech (1858-08-21), Lincoln-Douglas Debate No. 1, Ottawa, Illinois

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/lincoln-abraham/4895…

Jon Henley notes that an Amnesty International report documented at least 1,518 executions globally in 2024, the highest since 2015. Iraq executed 63 people, Saudi Arabia 345, Iran, 972, and the US 25. The real figure is likely much higher, with housands of suspected cases in countries including China, North Korea and Vietnam.

#CapitalPunishment #DeathPenalty #execution #AmnestyInternational

theguardian.com/world/2025/apr

The Guardian · Executions at 10-year high after huge increases in Iran, Iraq and Saudi ArabiaBy Jon Henley

Amnesty publishes Death Penalty report

Report for 2024 available

April 2025

The report highlights a sharp increase in numbers executed – the highest level since 2015 – but the number of countries holds steady. Amnesty has recorded 1,518 executions in 2024 a 32% increase over the previous year. A problem with producing statistics of this nature is that countries who are major users of the penalty, keep their figures a secret. China for example, believed to be the world’s largest executioner with thousands of its citizens executed each year – does not publish figures regarding them as a state secret. Another secretive nation is Vietnam where, similarly, the numbers are a state secret, and Belarus and Laos who release limited information. The figures are accordingly a minimum estimate of the actual numbers executed. The full report can be accessed here (pdf).

The penalty is not solely used to put to death people who have committed serious crime, but is used as a repressive tool. Saudi Arabia (image), and Iran, for example use the penalty to stifle dissent, targeting human rights defenders, protestors, dissidents and political opponents. There is also a disproportionate use of the penalty against minorities particularly religious minorities. Iran, which executed no less than 972 individuals last year, uses the penalty to execute those who challenge, or who are perceived to challenge, the Islamic Republic. It is also noted that these regimes have poor levels of justice. Defendants are often tortured to secure confessions and are denied access to lawyers. It is highly likely, not to say probable, that many wholly innocent people lose their lives.

Another trend is the use of the penalty as part of drugs programmes against dealers and users.

There is little sign, and very little evidence, that the penalty is some kind of deterrent, an argument frequently put forward for its retention or return. The leader of UK’s Reform party for example recently called for its reintroduction following the dreadful murder of three little girls which took place in Southport*. YouGov surveys show mixed views among Britons about the penalty. Generally, people are opposed but there is more support for its use among Conservative voters. The strongest support comes from the 65+ age group. Attitudes do change however, following a particularly unpleasant murder of a child, a policeman or as a result of terrorist activity. It was last used in 1964, suspended in 1965, abolished in 1969 and completely abolished in 1998 when treason was removed (different dates in Northern Ireland).

The group publishes a report on its use each month and last month’s report is available here.

*Town in northern England

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Today in Labor History March 29, 1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. They were executed at Sing Sing in 1953. The Rosenberg’s sons, Michael and Robert Meeropol were adopted by Abel Meeropol, the composer of “Strange Fruit,” (made famous by Billie Holiday). The sons maintained their parents’ innocence. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, decoded Soviet cables showed that their father had, in fact, collaborated, but that their mother was innocent. They continued to fight for the mother’s pardon, but Obama refused to grant it. The Rosenberg’s sons were among the last students to attend the anarchist Modern School, in Lakewood, New Jersey, before it finally shut its doors in 1958.

The Modern School movement began in 1901, in Barcelona, Spain, when Francisco Ferrer opened his Escuela Moderna. It was one of the very first Spanish schools to be fully secular, co-educational, and open to all students, regardless of class. His ideas were so popular that 40 more Modern Schools opened in Barcelona in just a few years, while 80 other schools adopted his textbooks. In 1909, there were mass protests and a General Strike against Spanish intervention in Morocco. The state responded with a week of terror and repression, during which they slaughtered over 600 workers and falsely executed Ferrer as an instigator of the protests. His execution led to worldwide protests. Modern Schools started to pop up outside of Spain, inspired by his original Escuela Moderna, including 20 in the U.S.

For more on the Modern School movement, read my article: michaeldunnauthor.com/2022/04/

Today in Labor History March 18, 1871: The Paris Commune began on this date. It started with resistance to occupying German troops and the power of the bourgeoisie. They governed from a feminist and anarcho-communist perspective, abolishing rent and child labor, and giving workers the right to take over workplaces abandoned by the owners. The revolutionaries took control of Paris and held on to it for two months, until it was brutally suppressed. During Semaine Sanglante, the nationalist forces slaughtered 15,000-20,000 Communards. Hundreds more were tried and executed or deported. Many of the more radical communards were followers of Aguste Blanqui. Élisée Reclus was another leader in the commune. Many women participated, like Louise Michel and Joséphine Marchais, including in the armed insurrection. Nathalie Lemel, a socialist bookbinder, and Élisabeth Dmitrieff, a young Russian exile, created the Women's Union for the Defence of Paris and Care of the Wounded, demanding gender and wage equality.

Read my complete biograph of Louise Michel here: michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/