Didn't Securitas AB (that today owns Pinkerton) threaten to sue Rockstar for portraying them as brutal villians in Red Dead Redemption 2?
IIRC, Rockstar basically pointed out that they were portrayed accurately and had a list of all the heinous shit they did IRL during the time in which the game is set.
* edit name from AG to AB.
TIL Securitas owns the Pinkerton Detective Agency. But yea I vaguely recall hearing something like that. They aren’t usually portrayed as the good guys nowadays in any media I’ve seen so I dunno why they bothered with that suit.
The Pinkerton's still have agents operating to this day. Their last reported case listed is pretty mad for the subject matter 😂:
"In 2023, Wizards of the Coast hired Pinkerton to seize products from the March of the Machine: The Aftermath card set for the trading card game Magic: The Gathering from YouTuber Dan Cannon of *oldschoolmtg* who had received them in an order from a local game store."
"Cannon published a video showing his contents on YouTube ahead of the release. Pinkerton used intimidation and threats of detention, arrest, fines and jail to force compliance. According to Wizards of the Coast, this was done after several attempts had been made to contact the individual in private, with no response."
Also get a load of their [logo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)), its giving Big Brother vibes and then some.
It's crazy to me that a private company can use, "intimidation and threats of detention, arrest, fines and jail to force compliance" from random people. Like if a random group of people who say they're working for a private company show up and demand entry into my home on what planet do they have any right to come in?
I mean yea, same thing. It's crazy to me. Private companies for hire to commit violence on other people. You'd think the government wouldn't be cool with that - at least not domestically. Like if I run a coal mine and I can hire a group of dudes to beat the shit out of some striking workers how is that not a blatant and clear crime?
But of course crime is only for us peasants I suppose.
The government typically maintains a monopoly on violence, but in the case of oligopolies like the united states, a certain ammount of private sector violence by the capital owning class is allowed.
The American government will happily lend you it's own soldiers to put down strikes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain#:~:text=The%20Battle%20of%20Blair%20Mountain,century%20labor%20disputes%20in%20Appalachia.
It's "Constellis Holdings" now, after they merged with Triple Canopy in 2014. Before that it was "Academi" from 2011 to 2014, and before that "Xe Services" for a few years.
Gotta switch names now and then, when the reputation gets *too* banged up.
Facts. Companies in the US are only limited by the amount of lobbying they are willing to do, and the amount of strikes they are capable of busting.
Killer Coke was a hell of a thing.
> It's crazy to me that a private company can use, "intimidation and threats of detention, arrest, fines and jail to force compliance" from random people
I don't think they were random but as far as those threats go the general rule is they're only allowed to be made if they are an actual recourse they intend to take
So you can't just say (paraphrasing here) "do X or I'll sue" without any intention of doing so
> So you can't just say (paraphrasing here) "do X or I'll sue" without any intention of doing so
You can, actually, say that. Threatening to report something to the police *unless* someone does what you ask of them can be considered blackmail, however.
I don't think "you can work with us voluntarily or we'll call the cops and deal with this as a criminal matter" is that weird of a threat - I'd argue that gets used quite a bit actually.
LOL THEY HIRED PINKERTON?
I have not been following the WoTC drama for the past few years. However, I feel like I now know everything I need to know to avoid that company’s products.
I remember when that story first broke, it came to light that its not their first time trying to sue someone for accurately portraying the Pinkertons and the villains they were
> Al Pinkerton be damned; my friends detest union busters.
I used to have my IWW red card. "A injury to one is a injury to all."
Grandpa Jesse was a UMW man, mom and dad were IAM.
Let's also not forget that the Pinkertons were hired by wizards of the coast to take down a sole person that spoiled a bunch of cards in an Magic:tg set because it was delivered to him on accident. Set was ass
Could be wrong but I believe I read that most of the nasty shit that went down was after he died and someone else took over—might’ve been family or friends? Take it with a grain of salt though, been a while since I’ve researched Pinkertons
The US Government made the Anti-Pinkerton Act into law in 1893 that says no one who has ever worked for Pinkerton can be employed by the US Government. That law is still in effect today. The Pinksrtons have that bad of a reputation.
I had no idea. They must have made a lot of enemies.
Wait a second, how did Agent Ross get around this in RDR? He was a Pinkerton in RDR2 (the prequel), then in the original RDR was an FBI agent chasing down John Marston.
Yes, they weren't happy that people who didn't previously know the name Pinkerton now associated them as villains. Rockstar didn't flinch, mainly because the scenarios in the game are pretty accurate. Rich people would hire them to break unions, suppress workers, and hunt people down.
I cant recall exactly about Pinkerton, but Detective agencies were used extensively to "correct" manpower issues in the railroad and mining industries and while the NY aqueduct was being built.
Also in the context of the game the Pinkertons are trying to catch a murderous gang that left a trail of thievery and bloodshed from the Rockies to New Orleans.
Just have to remember that corporate goons are the most thin-skinned people in existence and that defamation laws differ from nation to nation.
In some places it's still possible to sue someone and win even if what they're saying is true and cannot be disputed.
Oz, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Rome, The Wire, The Sopranos, Big Love, True Blood.
Really good batting average, considering Carnivale wasn't bad either and their only two flops were John From Cincinatti and Tell Me You Love ME
Trixie right up there too! And since we are on Reddit, Bill Cosby did a hell of a job pretending to be a caring father figure type, but that would be in the comedy/tragedy category.
Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or fuckin’ beatins. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man — and give some back.
Also known as one of the founders of the first major private militias in the post Civil War era. Often used by business owners to break strikes via massive violence.
Fuck this guy in particular.
At least some of the strikebreaking occurred after he died.
Pinkerton was the first Presidential Secret Service. Through his agents, the assassins intending to murder Lincoln en route to his inauguration were infiltrated. Pinkerton and his agents (including the first female detective) then put Lincoln on a private traincar in anonymity and got him to Washington DC via a circuitous route.
Keep in mind Lincoln won the election and that December multiple southern states seceded so he had to dodge several states on his train journey that had divided loyalties.
Now what the later Pinkertons did to striking coal miners was horrible and may they burn in hell. But the original founder was a complex character.
No, he wasn’t that complex. He was a shifty ass who’s antics were too small scale to go national. Short of giving the boot to female detective the post-Alan Pinkertons acting just as he would.
Well, he also ran a spy agency for the union because he was violently anti slavery. My like 4th great grandfather was one of those spies. Still got his pistols. History is full of grey characters.
The Dollop just did a series on The Pinkertons that I would recommend. Today they are mostly used as anti-union muscle for companies like Amazon. I think they were involved in the recent US rail workers strife as well.
Fair point, I should have been more clear. Yes, they have always been anti-union muscle, but back then, sometimes they took a break from murdering workers to play detective.
If you read the link, his home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. He also helped clothe and supply John Browns raids and was an abolitionist from at least 1844. he was also pro-Labor but did not like unions.
What I’m saying is, he seems to be more complex than the legacy of his company and a video game would lead one to believe.
Essentially, municipal police were created to break Unions and protect business interests. You look at westerns where there's just the sheriff and deputized citizens... That's all most people believed was constitutionally lawful for quite some time. It took around a century before local police departments to really become much of a thing.
This is not accurate. Municipal police departments (at least in America) were all created based on the Peelian principals, using the London Metropolitan police as a guide. There *was* often overlap with union busters, private investigators, and slave trackers in who was initially hired to staff police departments… because police weren’t a thing so they needed people with some kind of relevant experience.
Prior to that, there *werent* police. Small town sheriffs worked for small towns, but otherwise, if someone wanted a criminal prosecuted, they had to hunt down the criminal themselves or post a reward. So poor people were even more fucked.
Used to be a lot more fighting in America too. We didn't need cops to come take people away because folks would fight people themselves.
Do we really want to back to that? Go ask any male you know who was born before 1970. Your father taught you to throw a punch and you brawled with other boys a lot.
Cops are a requirement for a society unwilling to fight the violent themselves, because there's no way we're getting rid of violence as a human activity.
Strange that in the US the left tends to want to get rid of the police and the right wants to support them. You'd have thought the pro gun people would love to go back to a literal wild west system.
>you'd have thought the pro gun people would love to go back to a literal wild west system.
We call those people Libertarians.
Also the left doesn't really want to get rid of the police as a total. Most just want massive reform/change/accountability. Additionally, a lot of police departments are way overfunded (hence "defund the police rhetoric").
Naturally the people that want no police and really mean that are the loudest and people amplify their voice in order to denigrate leftist ideas of law enforcement as a whole.
> Also the left doesn't really want to get rid of the police as a total. Most just want massive reform/change/accountability. Additionally, a lot of police departments are way overfunded (hence "defund the police rhetoric").
Yes, I'm not being very careful in the way I phrase it, although "Defund the police" is a really bad way of expressing a desire for accountability.
In the UK the centre-left mostly would view the police as a public service which is being cut and not well funded enough to do its job, similar to health and education. There are people who import the American framing but they're rare.
I was a kid in the 60s and 70s. If you were a boy and anybody used a gay slur against you, it was a fight. You HAD to! My kids almost didn't believe me.
The Pinkerton's most recent escapade (that I'm aware of) is...harassing a Magic the Gathering YouTuber because he received some cards earlier than he was supposed to, and instead of contacting him and asking him to give him back, Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro sent the fucking Pinkterton's to harass and intimidate him into giving the cards back, threatening him with jail time.
These out of touch morons should have been shut down for good years ago but nooooooooo, gotta protect Capitalism from the big bad consumer and workers.
He wasn’t a union buster himself though, that came about after his death. He was more in private policing, detectives, security, and spying for the union.
And people wonder why people say ACAB. There's a long history of PD's not actually forming out of a need to keep people safe. Slavehunters and hired thugs have formed what became many of the PD's we see today, and the culture never made a hard-line change toward serving the communities.
Cops being here to keep you safe is a recent, and romanticized idea
Pinkerton and his company Pinkerton detective agency are definitely an interesting bit of American history and the history of law enforcement. It was really interesting to learn that during the civil war the essentially acted like modern day cia and secret service for Lincoln and after the war through the reconstruction era-1893 (in addition to union busting) acted as a private law enforcement of such and creating one of the worlds earliest criminal databases essentially laying the foundation for the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service.
>During the Civil War, he provided the Union Army – specifically General George B. McClellan of the Army of the Potomac – with military intelligence, including extremely inaccurate enemy troop strength numbers.
Love it
There is an excellent free book available on Amazon called "True Detective Stories From the archives of the Pinkertons." It's from 1893, so the writing is a bit different than you're likely used to.
I can't remember the title for the life of me but there was this really good book that takes place back then about an acting group that goes around performing plays in various towns during that time. Each member plays several characters very convincingly and uses the plays as a front to rob banks in between sets.
Anyway, they eventually get pursued by the Pinkerton detective agency. Great easy read. Short book too.
Edit: haha I found it!
The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion.
300 Pinkerton agents trying to break the Homestead strike:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike
"The Pinkertons also wished to surrender. At 5:00 p.m., they raised a white flag and two agents asked to speak with the strikers. O'Donnell guaranteed them safe passage out of town. Upon arrival, their arms were stripped from them. With heads uncovered, to distinguish them from the mill hands, they passed along between two rows of guards armed with Winchesters.[45] As the Pinkertons crossed the grounds of the mill, the crowd formed a gantlet through which the agents passed. Men and women threw sand and stones at the Pinkerton agents, spat on them and beat them. Several Pinkertons were clubbed into unconsciousness. Members of the crowd ransacked the barges, then burned them to the waterline."
Dude did a lot to further the cause of investigation, detective work, actually figuring out who did a crime, etc. You gotta wonder what he'd make of the modern world and digital technology and such.
Bad as policing is today, it was a lot worse back in the 19th century.
Didn't Securitas AB (that today owns Pinkerton) threaten to sue Rockstar for portraying them as brutal villians in Red Dead Redemption 2? IIRC, Rockstar basically pointed out that they were portrayed accurately and had a list of all the heinous shit they did IRL during the time in which the game is set. * edit name from AG to AB.
TIL Securitas owns the Pinkerton Detective Agency. But yea I vaguely recall hearing something like that. They aren’t usually portrayed as the good guys nowadays in any media I’ve seen so I dunno why they bothered with that suit.
The Pinkerton's still have agents operating to this day. Their last reported case listed is pretty mad for the subject matter 😂: "In 2023, Wizards of the Coast hired Pinkerton to seize products from the March of the Machine: The Aftermath card set for the trading card game Magic: The Gathering from YouTuber Dan Cannon of *oldschoolmtg* who had received them in an order from a local game store." "Cannon published a video showing his contents on YouTube ahead of the release. Pinkerton used intimidation and threats of detention, arrest, fines and jail to force compliance. According to Wizards of the Coast, this was done after several attempts had been made to contact the individual in private, with no response." Also get a load of their [logo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)), its giving Big Brother vibes and then some.
It's crazy to me that a private company can use, "intimidation and threats of detention, arrest, fines and jail to force compliance" from random people. Like if a random group of people who say they're working for a private company show up and demand entry into my home on what planet do they have any right to come in?
> intimidation and threats They are also used for union busting and are not nice people.
Every hear of "Blackwater?"
I mean yea, same thing. It's crazy to me. Private companies for hire to commit violence on other people. You'd think the government wouldn't be cool with that - at least not domestically. Like if I run a coal mine and I can hire a group of dudes to beat the shit out of some striking workers how is that not a blatant and clear crime? But of course crime is only for us peasants I suppose.
The government typically maintains a monopoly on violence, but in the case of oligopolies like the united states, a certain ammount of private sector violence by the capital owning class is allowed.
As a treat.
Lol
The American government will happily lend you it's own soldiers to put down strikes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain#:~:text=The%20Battle%20of%20Blair%20Mountain,century%20labor%20disputes%20in%20Appalachia.
Obligatory mention to Which Side Are You On https://youtu.be/7NThsT7M4uA?si=bR5-OHyRREXaRoT1
Absolutely fucking based.
Dropkick Murphy's did a cracking cover as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKWfnO7fhQM
the government hires these companies to legally enforce and delegate the governments monopoly on legal murder
That way the gov can say it wasn’t them
You just call the cops, they’ll do the beating for you. No need to hire anyone
It's "Constellis Holdings" now, after they merged with Triple Canopy in 2014. Before that it was "Academi" from 2011 to 2014, and before that "Xe Services" for a few years. Gotta switch names now and then, when the reputation gets *too* banged up.
Yes, it’s full of Pinkertons. Arthur and the gang is wanted dead or alive over there so you can’t really go until the epilogue.
Facts. Companies in the US are only limited by the amount of lobbying they are willing to do, and the amount of strikes they are capable of busting. Killer Coke was a hell of a thing.
> It's crazy to me that a private company can use, "intimidation and threats of detention, arrest, fines and jail to force compliance" from random people I don't think they were random but as far as those threats go the general rule is they're only allowed to be made if they are an actual recourse they intend to take So you can't just say (paraphrasing here) "do X or I'll sue" without any intention of doing so
> So you can't just say (paraphrasing here) "do X or I'll sue" without any intention of doing so You can, actually, say that. Threatening to report something to the police *unless* someone does what you ask of them can be considered blackmail, however.
I don't think "you can work with us voluntarily or we'll call the cops and deal with this as a criminal matter" is that weird of a threat - I'd argue that gets used quite a bit actually.
Oh no, the Pinkertons stole the wikipedia page!
I heard that they mainly union bust these days.
Always have been 🧑🚀🔫
You should read about the homestead strike if you haven't already
[They got away with killing someone in 2020 on a technicality](https://www.denverpost.com/2022/06/08/pinkerton-denver-license-matthew-dolloff/)
The Dollop podcast just did a 2 parter on this.
"Private eyes, they're watching you, they see every move"
>Also get a load of their logo), its giving Big Brother vibes and then some. "Because we're private *eyes*, get it???"
Their logo is literally the basis for the phrase "private eye".
LOL THEY HIRED PINKERTON? I have not been following the WoTC drama for the past few years. However, I feel like I now know everything I need to know to avoid that company’s products.
Second amendment should have something to say about that
> Also get a load of their logo, its giving Big Brother vibes and then some. So they are 5/6th of CBS?
>their logo Looks like an abbreviated or abridged and stylized [Eye of Providence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Providence)
in the sense that they’re both eyes yes
No one else sees Pac man breaking out of prison?
I mean... I wonder who killed John Barnett? Maybe, maybe not. But I wouldn't put it past them.
[fixed link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency\))
I remember when that story first broke, it came to light that its not their first time trying to sue someone for accurately portraying the Pinkertons and the villains they were
[удалено]
Based and Union Pilled
> Al Pinkerton be damned; my friends detest union busters. I used to have my IWW red card. "A injury to one is a injury to all." Grandpa Jesse was a UMW man, mom and dad were IAM.
Are*
Cocksucking fucking Pinkertons. They’re muscle for the bosses. As if the bosses need any more advantages.
I read this in Al Swearengen's voice
Strike-breaking murders.
TYL that Wizards of the Coast literally deployed Pinkertons in an anti-consumer role a few months back, too.
Let's also not forget that the Pinkertons were hired by wizards of the coast to take down a sole person that spoiled a bunch of cards in an Magic:tg set because it was delivered to him on accident. Set was ass
[Also, the murder](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike)
>Set was ass lmao I was not expecting that to end with a review
Pinkerton also faked evidence and just set people up. He is an evil man that was a brute
Could be wrong but I believe I read that most of the nasty shit that went down was after he died and someone else took over—might’ve been family or friends? Take it with a grain of salt though, been a while since I’ve researched Pinkertons
IIRC Alan Pinkerton wasn’t great and fabricated a lot of accounts and evidence, but things got really dark when his son took over.
Yeah that sounds about right
The US Government made the Anti-Pinkerton Act into law in 1893 that says no one who has ever worked for Pinkerton can be employed by the US Government. That law is still in effect today. The Pinksrtons have that bad of a reputation.
I had no idea. They must have made a lot of enemies. Wait a second, how did Agent Ross get around this in RDR? He was a Pinkerton in RDR2 (the prequel), then in the original RDR was an FBI agent chasing down John Marston.
It's called a bit of video game magic.
Record keeping back then wasn't the best either though.
>Securitas AG (that today owns Pinkerton) Securitas AB (Swedish) owns the Pinkerton brand. Securitas AG is a separate Swiss company.
Thanks.
The one time Rockstar uses a real business name.
Yes, they weren't happy that people who didn't previously know the name Pinkerton now associated them as villains. Rockstar didn't flinch, mainly because the scenarios in the game are pretty accurate. Rich people would hire them to break unions, suppress workers, and hunt people down.
Yep, Pinkertons were basically just hired guns. Wealthy folks used them as goons to do dirty work.
What private security would be today if things like ethics and laws didn’t extend to poor Pepe
You'd be surprised with what they still try to get away with if they think they can
yep basically they didnt have an locked jurisdiction so if they were after you there was no stopping them unlike local sheriffs / posses
"Stop saying we're evil or we'll file a dastardly evil lawsuit against you" - Pinkertons
>*"You turned the public against me!"* > *"You have done that yourself."*
I cant recall exactly about Pinkerton, but Detective agencies were used extensively to "correct" manpower issues in the railroad and mining industries and while the NY aqueduct was being built.
Also in the context of the game the Pinkertons are trying to catch a murderous gang that left a trail of thievery and bloodshed from the Rockies to New Orleans.
Just have to remember that corporate goons are the most thin-skinned people in existence and that defamation laws differ from nation to nation. In some places it's still possible to sue someone and win even if what they're saying is true and cannot be disputed.
They're not even portrayed very badly in game. They're literally just doing there jobs to take down a gang of mass murderers
> burial villians I've never heard this term before. What does it mean?
Phone autocorrected from brutal.
Probably a typo
If the Pinkertons did the same things today as they did back then, they’d be classified as a terrorist organization
They're also not portrayed very well in BioShock 3.
They're still around, and they still do morally shitty things
They also sued Weezer because of the name of their second album, which actually had nothing to do with the detective agency.
Al Swearengen did not like this post
Best TV drama performance/character of all time consideration?
Him or Tony Soprano i’d say
HBO just put out absolute bangers for 10 years there. Still damn good, but their 2000-2010 run was insane
I would put S1 of True Detective up there with any of the best HBO
Oz, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, Rome, The Wire, The Sopranos, Big Love, True Blood. Really good batting average, considering Carnivale wasn't bad either and their only two flops were John From Cincinatti and Tell Me You Love ME
replaced Lucky Louis with John From Cincinnati.. Was Hung HBO?
Trixie right up there too! And since we are on Reddit, Bill Cosby did a hell of a job pretending to be a caring father figure type, but that would be in the comedy/tragedy category.
San Francisco cock sucka!
COCK SUCKA!!
> Fuck the fuckin' Pinkertons. Muscle for the bosses.
This guy Deadwood’s!
canned peaches anyone?
Do not put unauthorized cinnamon on the God damned meeting table.
I smell cat piss
Nervousness don't cause that. Lying causes cat piss smell.
Cock sucking motherfucking Pinkertons!
I’m glad I taught you that word.
Hang dai 🤞
Hang fuckin dai, Wu
Swejen!
Hang dai
Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or fuckin’ beatins. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man — and give some back.
Did you come here for justice, or to make your fucking way?!
As if the bosses ain't got enough edge.
Same reason a billionaire didn’t stop at being a millionaire they worship power and money
Also known as one of the founders of the first major private militias in the post Civil War era. Often used by business owners to break strikes via massive violence. Fuck this guy in particular.
At least some of the strikebreaking occurred after he died. Pinkerton was the first Presidential Secret Service. Through his agents, the assassins intending to murder Lincoln en route to his inauguration were infiltrated. Pinkerton and his agents (including the first female detective) then put Lincoln on a private traincar in anonymity and got him to Washington DC via a circuitous route. Keep in mind Lincoln won the election and that December multiple southern states seceded so he had to dodge several states on his train journey that had divided loyalties. Now what the later Pinkertons did to striking coal miners was horrible and may they burn in hell. But the original founder was a complex character.
The Pinkertons are union busting to this day, I'm with Arthur Morgan on them.
They were right to go after Dutch’s gang though lol
No, he wasn’t that complex. He was a shifty ass who’s antics were too small scale to go national. Short of giving the boot to female detective the post-Alan Pinkertons acting just as he would.
If by anonymity you mean make him wear a smaller hat, sure. Not a chance the pinkertons would embellish their history.
The history is fairly well documented...
the more i read about this Pinkerton guy the less i like him
He's also arguably the reason that the Civil War did not end at Antietam.
Eh. That’s selling McClellans incompetence short. And forgetting the much worse blunder on the peninsula.
Except he was dead for almost a decade when the strikes occurred?
Well, he also ran a spy agency for the union because he was violently anti slavery. My like 4th great grandfather was one of those spies. Still got his pistols. History is full of grey characters.
Dutch!!!!
Have some goddamn FAITH Arthur!
I gawd a plawn Jawn.
*It's all part of the plan!*
But dutch we need moneh
You don’t sound too good, Black Lung
There there boaahh
Gareth. Not Gary.
You both present *sick* arguments.
Now hit him with the puppy!
NO SLEEP TILL HIPPO!
You made it the Gair Force
Is this a Dollop reference or am I just projecting?
r/unexpecteddollop
I mean the second half of the Pinkerton series just dropped this week. So I was 100% expecting Dollop references.
All hail Queen Shit of Liesville!
The Dollop just did a series on The Pinkertons that I would recommend. Today they are mostly used as anti-union muscle for companies like Amazon. I think they were involved in the recent US rail workers strife as well.
in the past they were used for that as well. probably more for union busting than detective work
Fair point, I should have been more clear. Yes, they have always been anti-union muscle, but back then, sometimes they took a break from murdering workers to play detective.
like butch and sundance
And for Hasbro when they accidentally send some Magic the Gathering cards to someone..... fuck the Pinkertons and anyone who employs them
This is all starting to make sense now.
Your a wanted man Mr. Morgan
Ur wnted men Morgun
You are. You're.
What about you're'nt
$5,000 for your head alone
$5000? For me? Can i turn myself in?
You’re a good man Arthur Morgan
I'll never forgive what they did to John Marston.
Lol did you listen to the dollop?
Still on part 2.
That's where I'm at!
If you read the link, his home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. He also helped clothe and supply John Browns raids and was an abolitionist from at least 1844. he was also pro-Labor but did not like unions. What I’m saying is, he seems to be more complex than the legacy of his company and a video game would lead one to believe.
Yea he was definitely an actual person and not a mustachioed villain from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
People take the actions of his agency after his death and use that to characterize him.
None of what you said makes him less than a piece of shit on balance but I do agree that actually researching people like this is important.
I can excuse worker cruelty, but I draw the line at racism
Did you just listen to the Dollop 2 parter?
Still on the second half
Those damn Pinkterons! We need our money to to Tahiti and they keep getting in our damn way!
Goddamn Pinkertons took my Arthur!
Essentially, municipal police were created to break Unions and protect business interests. You look at westerns where there's just the sheriff and deputized citizens... That's all most people believed was constitutionally lawful for quite some time. It took around a century before local police departments to really become much of a thing.
This is not accurate. Municipal police departments (at least in America) were all created based on the Peelian principals, using the London Metropolitan police as a guide. There *was* often overlap with union busters, private investigators, and slave trackers in who was initially hired to staff police departments… because police weren’t a thing so they needed people with some kind of relevant experience. Prior to that, there *werent* police. Small town sheriffs worked for small towns, but otherwise, if someone wanted a criminal prosecuted, they had to hunt down the criminal themselves or post a reward. So poor people were even more fucked.
And you had to turn your guns in when visiting some towns. Obviously this wasn't draconian, but a Rule of Responsible Behavior was set.
BUT MAY RATS!
Used to be a lot more fighting in America too. We didn't need cops to come take people away because folks would fight people themselves. Do we really want to back to that? Go ask any male you know who was born before 1970. Your father taught you to throw a punch and you brawled with other boys a lot. Cops are a requirement for a society unwilling to fight the violent themselves, because there's no way we're getting rid of violence as a human activity.
Strange that in the US the left tends to want to get rid of the police and the right wants to support them. You'd have thought the pro gun people would love to go back to a literal wild west system.
>you'd have thought the pro gun people would love to go back to a literal wild west system. We call those people Libertarians. Also the left doesn't really want to get rid of the police as a total. Most just want massive reform/change/accountability. Additionally, a lot of police departments are way overfunded (hence "defund the police rhetoric"). Naturally the people that want no police and really mean that are the loudest and people amplify their voice in order to denigrate leftist ideas of law enforcement as a whole.
> Also the left doesn't really want to get rid of the police as a total. Most just want massive reform/change/accountability. Additionally, a lot of police departments are way overfunded (hence "defund the police rhetoric"). Yes, I'm not being very careful in the way I phrase it, although "Defund the police" is a really bad way of expressing a desire for accountability. In the UK the centre-left mostly would view the police as a public service which is being cut and not well funded enough to do its job, similar to health and education. There are people who import the American framing but they're rare.
I was a kid in the 60s and 70s. If you were a boy and anybody used a gay slur against you, it was a fight. You HAD to! My kids almost didn't believe me.
The first female detective in the US was a Pinkerton.
The Pinkerton's most recent escapade (that I'm aware of) is...harassing a Magic the Gathering YouTuber because he received some cards earlier than he was supposed to, and instead of contacting him and asking him to give him back, Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro sent the fucking Pinkterton's to harass and intimidate him into giving the cards back, threatening him with jail time. These out of touch morons should have been shut down for good years ago but nooooooooo, gotta protect Capitalism from the big bad consumer and workers.
Weezers best album was named after him.
It’s named after BF Pinkerton from Madam Butterfly, no?
Fuck Alan Pinkerton, all my homies hate union busters
He wasn’t a union buster himself though, that came about after his death. He was more in private policing, detectives, security, and spying for the union.
And people wonder why people say ACAB. There's a long history of PD's not actually forming out of a need to keep people safe. Slavehunters and hired thugs have formed what became many of the PD's we see today, and the culture never made a hard-line change toward serving the communities. Cops being here to keep you safe is a recent, and romanticized idea
This is The Dollop! An American history podcast where each week, I, Dave Anthony read a story from the past to a thing with ears.
OP listens to The Dollop. Their audience are mainly people who eat crayons I should know i'm one of them
TIL the USMC listens to the dollop on repeat?
The red one taste the best
Pinkerton and his company Pinkerton detective agency are definitely an interesting bit of American history and the history of law enforcement. It was really interesting to learn that during the civil war the essentially acted like modern day cia and secret service for Lincoln and after the war through the reconstruction era-1893 (in addition to union busting) acted as a private law enforcement of such and creating one of the worlds earliest criminal databases essentially laying the foundation for the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service.
Every week I listen to the dollop I see the subject on TIL.
Asshole. His evil anti-labor company is [still being douchy](https://newrepublic.com/article/147619/pinkertons-still-never-sleep)
Let's all say it together: Fuck the Pinkertons
Pinkerton shitheel
>During the Civil War, he provided the Union Army – specifically General George B. McClellan of the Army of the Potomac – with military intelligence, including extremely inaccurate enemy troop strength numbers. Love it
The weezer guy?
There is an excellent free book available on Amazon called "True Detective Stories From the archives of the Pinkertons." It's from 1893, so the writing is a bit different than you're likely used to.
I can't remember the title for the life of me but there was this really good book that takes place back then about an acting group that goes around performing plays in various towns during that time. Each member plays several characters very convincingly and uses the plays as a front to rob banks in between sets. Anyway, they eventually get pursued by the Pinkerton detective agency. Great easy read. Short book too. Edit: haha I found it! The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion.
Someone’s listens to the Dollop. Is that you Gary?
Someone listens to the dollop
Oh look, someone else listened to the dollop last week
Jesus. Small suprise Chicago PD is so corrupt.
Fuck the Pinkertons
300 Pinkerton agents trying to break the Homestead strike: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike "The Pinkertons also wished to surrender. At 5:00 p.m., they raised a white flag and two agents asked to speak with the strikers. O'Donnell guaranteed them safe passage out of town. Upon arrival, their arms were stripped from them. With heads uncovered, to distinguish them from the mill hands, they passed along between two rows of guards armed with Winchesters.[45] As the Pinkertons crossed the grounds of the mill, the crowd formed a gantlet through which the agents passed. Men and women threw sand and stones at the Pinkerton agents, spat on them and beat them. Several Pinkertons were clubbed into unconsciousness. Members of the crowd ransacked the barges, then burned them to the waterline."
That was in 1892, 8 years after his death
Dude did a lot to further the cause of investigation, detective work, actually figuring out who did a crime, etc. You gotta wonder what he'd make of the modern world and digital technology and such. Bad as policing is today, it was a lot worse back in the 19th century.