The Palmer Raids were a series of raids conducted in November 1919 and January 1920 by the United States Department of Justice under the administration of President Woodrow Wilson to capture and arrest suspected socialists, especially anarchists and communists, and deport them from the United States. The raids particularly targeted Italian immigrants and Eastern European Jewish immigrants with alleged leftist ties, with particular focus on Italian anarchists and immigrant leftist labor activists. The raids and arrests occurred under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, with 6,000 people arrested across 36 cities. Though 556 foreign citizens were deported, including a number of prominent leftist leaders, Palmer's efforts were largely frustrated by officials at the U.S. Department of Labor, which had authority for deportations and objected to Palmer's methods.
The Palmer Raids occurred in the larger context of the First Red Scare, a period of fear of and reaction against communists in the U.S. in the years immediately following World War I and the Russian Revolution. There were strikes that garnered national attention, and prompted race riots in more than 30 cities, as well as two sets of bombings in April and June 1919, including one bomb mailed to Palmer's home.
Between November 1919 and January 2020, Palmer’s agents deported nearly 250 people, including notable anarchist Emma Goldman, and arrested nearly 10,000 people in seventy cities.
100 Years Ago, the First Red Scare Tried to Destroy the Left
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I have animosity for a lot of different types of people, but there is a special kind of rage in my heart reserved for people whose first thought when they see a wild animal is that it needs to die. I'm hoping this person is not as common as Facebook comment sections would lead me to believe, because it seems that a great many people are still emotionally cavemen.
Raccoon/opossum knocking over your garbage? Kill it. Coyote sighting in your suburban neighborhood? Kill it. Squirrels eating all of the bird seed? Kill them. Ants in your yard like 100 feet from the house? You'd better believe that's a killin'. God forbid these people ever have any real problems.
Its a very fucking abhorrent reaction to anything not in the 'script' they've set out for how the suburb should work. I myself think its a minor outburst of that settler-colonial ideology.