The Milwaukee Leader

Understanding agitation “Agitation” is a term regularly used in the context of organizing and socialist politics. But what does it actually mean?  I’ll keep it simple. Agitation means making someone angry. Anger is often...

From @chicagodsa.bsky.social's Midwest Socialist:

“At its core, political agitation is...‘whose side are you on?’ Socialists declare ourselves on the side of the workers and we condemn...the side of the boss, be it Democrat, Republican, or even ‘progressive’.”

midwestsocialist.com/2025/03/29/u...

Why Does the New York Times Keep Ignoring Polls Showing Mamdani Leading with Jewish Voters? Polling shows mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in a commanding lead with Jewish New Yorkers, but you won’t read about it in the paper of record.

A great question. #nyc #nyclife #newyorkcity

Why Does the New York Times Keep Ignoring Polls Showing Mamdani Leading with Jewish Voters? Polling shows mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in a commanding lead with Jewish New Yorkers, but you won’t read about it in the paper of record.

Polling shows Zohran Mamdani leading with Jewish voters in NYC’s mayoral race. But the New York Times keeps framing him as “alienating” the community—while ignoring polls that say otherwise.

📊 Read @ahjohnson.bsky.social’s breakdown.

AP freelancer among 5 journalists killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza hospital, health officials say Among the victims was Mariam Dagga, a freelancer for the Associated Press. Al Jazeera confirmed that its journalist Mohammed Salam was also killed in the strike. Reuters reported that its contractor c...

I mourn my fellow journalists murdered by Israel.

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Janesville UAW 95 Strike Update:
Potluck Tomorrow at 6pm at the Madison Labor Temple ( 1602 S Park St UNIT 106, Madison, WI 53715 )

Milwaukee Leader 11/8/17

FROM THE ARCHIVES: War Changes To Battle On Socialists: Berger Predicts Allies Hostile to Russia —War Would Go On Even if Germans Set Up Socialist Republic.

November 8th, 1917 🧵

On the contrary, the war would go on with redoubled fury, so far as the plutocratic classes of all the allied countries, Including our own, were concerned."

I repeat again that if the kaiser were deposed tomorrow and if the crown prince were to commit suicide and a Social-Democratic republic were established in both Germany and Austria —this would not by any means bring peace.

The allied attitude in opposition to the new Russian government will prove a fair sample of what we must expect in the near future everywhere else.

Under these conditions it would not be surprising if this war to make the world safe for democracy should suddenly change into a war to make capitalism safe against Social-Democracy.

But the capitalist papers denounce the huge majority of the Socialists everywhere as lovers of autocracy, simply because t,hey adhere steadfastly to the principles propagated by the Socialists for the last 70 years —against capitalist wars and for international peace.

Herve and those like him in Italy, who came out straight against Socialism and for capitalism—who find favor with the plutocracy.

...charging the entire Socialist movement of the world, with pro-kaiserism.There are a few insignificant exceptions,such as Hyndman’s following in England, the Belgians, a handful of ceceders in America,

The English government would like to stop it but what can the English do against Russia?At this distance and at this time it is not easy to size up the situation completely. Already there are voices to be heard in all the capitalist papers...

This news comes with a great deal of hostile comment from England. The English have .for a long time looked upon the Russian Socialists with great disfavor, because the Russians were considered- to have set a very bad example to the proletariat of the other nations.

It is also reported from London that the new government will propose an immediate peace in order to build up the Russian Republic" that the new government will hand over the land to the peasant villages, and that the new government will summon a constitutional assembly at once.

Commenting on the fall of Kerensky, Victor L. (Berger) has been seized by the council with the assistance of the Petrograd garrison, without bloodshed or disorder.

Milwaukee Leader 11/8/17

FROM THE ARCHIVES: War Changes To Battle On Socialists: Berger Predicts Allies Hostile to Russia —War Would Go On Even if Germans Set Up Socialist Republic.

November 8th, 1917 🧵

The people of Milwaukee have every reason to be thankful that Dan Hoan is to be mayor of this city for the next two years. He will be uncompromising in defending the public interests against the assaults of the predatory corporations. He will be found taking the initiative for enlightened and progressive policies. As the mayor of the city he will treat every citizen with respect in his official relations. The president of the Merchants and Manufacturers' association will not be insulted if he should find occasion to seek an audience with the mayor. The city hall reporter of The Sentinel or The Free Press will not be barred from the mayor's office. "Nonpartisan" aidermen may confer with him with the same freedom as aidermen of his own party and will find him ready to co-operate with them, if they shall so desire, to serve the best interests of the city. The next mayor of Milwaukee will be a Social-Democrat and a gentleman in the true sense of the word. "The Reds" have come back. Prosit

(2/2)

IN ELECTING DANIEL W. HOAN mayor and in increasing the voting strength of the Social-Democratic minority in the common council, including former Mayor Seidel, alderman-at-large, the voters of Milwaukee have effectually blocked the street railway company's designs to take $2,000,000 a year in added fares from the people and to nullify the referendum vote in favor of municipal lighting. We should like to have seen a common council elected to back Hoan up and enable the Social-Democrats to carry out their plans for social betterment, but we appreciate that a majority of the voters have not yet come to understand the beneficial policies of the Social-Democratic party. Each returning election, however, shows that the prejudice against Socialism is being gradually overcome. Voters who have habitually voted the Democratic or Republican ticket, and who have partly sympathized with the aims of the Social-Democratic party, are being weaned from their old habits. They are coming to realize the futility of expecting that the capitalistic interests, through their own political organizations, will curtail their privileges or profits that the workers may obtain a larger measure of the wealth which they produce or the public the benefit of service with profit eliminated.

The election of Dan Hoan to the office of mayor is a rebuke to the pewee politics of the "nonpartisan" administration and a recognition of the splendid fight that he has made for the people of Milwaukee in the city attorney's office. Never was a campaign waged in Milwaukee where more unscrupulous and disreputable tactics were employed by the managing committee of the capitalistic interests, which control the "nonpartisan" political organization and the "nonpartisan" press, than in the last municipal campaign With one exception, the "nonpartisan" newspapers entered into an agreement to lie in unison and to suppress all news favorable to the Social-Democrats. The Free Press and The Sentinel and The Daily News in minute detail on the eve of election reported that a speaker who was not even present at a "nonpartisan" meeting was hissed when he displayed the American flag and owed escape from being mobbed only by the interference of the police. The report of the engineers' society in favor of municipal lighting was garbled, The Free Press even having suppressed it in an endeavor to indicate its gratitude to the street railway interests

The morning before election virtually every death in the city was attributed to typhoid. The Sentinel actually listed among the victims of typhoid a woman who had died in childbirth and a man who was killed by a beer keg falling on his head and crushing his skull. In spite of the desperate lying, in spite of the effort to hold the Social-Democrats responsible for typhoid, in spite of the attempt to make the American flag a "nonpartisan" political asset, the voters of Milwaukee defeated the mayoralty candidate of the inner ring of the Merchants and Manufacturers' association. The street railway company and the allied Wall street interests might have succeeded in their conspiracy against the truth, in their attempt to suppress the reports of Social-Democratic meetings and of professional and civic societies, if it had not been for the presence in Milwaukee of The Leader. Through the medium of The Leader the public was made aware of the conspiracy, when otherwise it would have been absolutely at the mercy of the street railway interests and the inner ring of the Merchants and Manufacturers' association.

It is true that the campaign of falsehood and suppression had its effect. The truth never reached all of the voters. But if it had not been for The Leader it could have reached none of them in time to be effective in the campaign. The moneyed interests would have been able to win a sweeping victory instead of suffering a smashing defeat in the election of the Social-Democratic candidate for mayor.

re: @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social's win against combined efforts of right wing Democrats and the Republicans:

FROM THE ARCHIVES: "The Reds" Come Back, unsigned April 5th, 1916 editorial (1/2)

www.loc.gov/resource/sn8...

ctor! MILWAUKEE 1908 20,887 1910 27,662 1912 30,200 LOS ANGELES 1908 4,702 1910 5,539 1911 51,590

FROM THE ARCHIVES; Political cartoon from April 5th, 1912, celebrating the recent gains for socialists in mayoral elections in Milwaukee and Los Angeles

Citizens of Milwaukee who really believe in honest municipal government will vote for Mayor Seidel's re-election next Tuesday, or stultify their professions. The opposition, led nominally by the Democratic machine with a "combine" of both machines and a business the Republican machine given Milwaukee bad government whenever it has had the chance to influence government at all? Hasn't the Republican candidate, is nothing but a organization to restore bad government. Hasn't Democratic machine made municipal government in Milwaukee a stench as far us its aroma could carry? And what is the business association which comes into this delectable "combine" but an aggregation of privilege seekers and law-evaders? There is not in the whole thing so much as a pretense of among the pretenders themselves. The sole against Socialism so as to turn the Socialists genuine non-partisans,voters who truly believe in divorcing national partisanship from promoting good government which isn't a joke object of that "combine" is to unify prejudices out of local office -business prejudice political prejudice, church prejudice, and all the rest. But how can genuine good government voters, municipal administration-how can any such voter vote against the Socialists in Milwaukee and in favor of thia Republican-Democratic

Big - Business - and - Bad-Government combine? How can any professed good government man do it and not laugh in his own face? The first attempt at good city government in Milwaukee for years, and the most non-partisan, is that which the Socialists are giving under the administration of Mayor Seidel. That mistakes have been made by the Socialists is probably true, but they were not made dishonestly; Milwaukee has been free from graft under Mayor Seidel. That there has been Socialistic partisanship is also doubtless true; but under the "non-partisan" gangs now seeking restoration as bi-partisans, there was seldom anything but partisanship, apart from graft-and not always apart from graft either. The Socialist party in Milwaukee has clearly sought to give the best service to all the legitimate interests of that city, regardless of party; and what else is it that genuine non-partisans demand? There is certainly nothing else they can demand consistently. Then what assurances of good faith will non-partisans of Milwaukee who are not Socialists have to offer, if, after the Socialists have given them the best municipal government they have ever had, they restore the gangsters to office because, forsooth, the Socialists are a political party and the gangsters have for election day only become "non-partisan"?

FROM THE ARCHIVES: April 2nd, 1912: Good Government In Milwaukee (Louis F. Post, in The Public.)

www.loc.gov/resource/sn8...

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Qasim Rashid, Esq. @qasimrashid.com Bluesky Elder At no point in this entire article of 16 paragraphs does ABC mention that another cop killed this cop by shooting her in the back. Nor does it mention the name of the cop who killed this cop. Nor does it mention that the civilians involved never fired at them. ABC might as well be state media. abc NEWS ABC News @ABC Follow A 36-year-old police officer who was a mother to a young daughter has been shot and killed while on duty in Chicago, authorities said. 12 CA Chicago police officer -- mom to young daughter -- gunned... From abcnews.go.com

Capitalist media has always been effectively state media, but for the capitalist state in general. Make sure to support the @mkeleader.bsky.social to support working class journalism and fight back against capitalist media!

"CLEANING TIME" MILWAUKEE CITY HALL LABOR PE SEIDEL SOCIALIST ADMINISTRATION E DAVE SOCIALISM 9 Boss RULE GRAFT NEW BROOM SWEEPS CLEAN THE ROSE THAT WILL NEVER BLOOM AGAIN P TION. DISSIPA FUNDS 50PU CORRUPTION SAVAGE

FROM THE ARCHIVES: When Milwaukee Really Was A Horrible City… Until The Socialists Cleaned It Up

Read: mkeleader.com/when-milwaukee-really-was-a-horrible-city-until-the-socialists-cleaned-it-up

This is really cool! Socialist history in the US is way deeper and more impactful than we think. Also the social Democratic Herald was racist anti class politics trash lol

DSA Labor

NEW PIECE: MKE DSA Work Plan: Labor Working Group

mkeleader.com/mke-dsa-work...

Protestors in May 2023

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Protesters march in Wauwatosa after federal jury exonerates police

READ: mkeleader.com/protesters-m...

Vampire

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Landlord Lawmakers to Wisconsin Renters: Drop Dead

mkeleader.com/landlord-law...

Mildred Fish-Harnack

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Mildred Fish Harnack’s Antifascist Resistance

Read: mkeleader.com/mildred-fish...