Dimmer06 [he/him,comrade/them]

It doesn’t lol. The American left just runs with whatever narrative it feels comfortable with. Kamala losing because of her Zionism was just blatantly made up too. Very little if anything the American left thinks is rooted in the actual politics of the US proletariat and it leads to inconsistency and spontaneity.

Here’s a song about the rebellion

Maybe a hot take but if leftists are going to do an adventurism they have an obligation to at least try to get away with it.

TLOU was only ever successful because it was the first prestige video game. The politics of both the show and the games are really bad. Their plots are unoriginal. The writing in both is dull. The gameplay is not great.

The only good things about the show and the games are the visuals and the acting.

My supervisor asked if I could switch a shift with him and I jumped at the chance. I got time and a half today and I probably spent most of the time just reading my book.

I don’t even necessarily mean breaking the law with respect to minority tactics. All of these large (inter)national corporations have choke points that can be shut down by minority walkouts or even concerted slowdowns. If they are the whole production chain withers.

For instance, the Flint sit down strike was impactful not because of how they shut down the operation, but because the factory they occupied was highly specialized and essential to the production of the cars. Even without getting every worker in the industry to join the union, UAW beat the auto industry.

When looking at a corporation like Amazon, we aren’t going to convince the hundreds or even thousands of workers in any given warehouse to be militant and engaged in their union. Even if we could there’s thousands of warehouses that they can just reroute stuff through. That’s tens of thousands of workers that need to be organized.

There are people in each warehouse that are essential though, probably in the unloading and loading of trucks and maybe other roles as well. If these people walk of the job suddenly everything grinds to a halt. If these people walked off the job at every Amazon warehouse at the same time Amazon’s retail operation is fucked for at least a few weeks. Now you’re only looking at organizing hundreds of workers across the US instead of tens of thousands. This is critical because what the labor movement really needs to convince the great mass of workers is big wins they can point to, not one-on-ones or organic leaders or any of that.

The current orthodoxy though is for whole shops to act in concert which is undoubtedly effective when it happens but rarely actually happens.

I’ve been interested in three things in particular, Firstly Eric Blanc has been writing about “worker to worker organizing” which I think is a silly term and Eric Blanc still doesn’t seem to really grasp what he’s talking about but he’s got the beginnings of a good idea which is that we need a huge mass of workers with a basic training in labor issues.

Secondly we need to move away from security agreements in union contracts. It turns out, telling regular people they have to pay union dues as a condition of employment is incredibly fucking unpopular. It’s why the public sector unions have disintegrated in the wake of Janus and now Trump, because all they did was collect dues and have staff negotiate CBAs. The industrial unions also tie membership to their contract which means you can’t actually join a big union unless you can get your employer to agree to a contract. I’m not sure if SBWU actually does this so they might be a poor example but if they work the way most unions work then not a single Starbucks worker is a voting member of SBWU right now. None of them pay dues to the union. Imagine that, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of Starbucks workers that want to join the Starbucks workers union and pay dues and the union says they have to wait until their boss says it’s okay.

My third idea is that militant minorities are actually what drive unions. They are what have always driven unions and the labor movement has tied its hands behind its back by swearing to pacifism, following the law, and NLRB elections. If they want to fight Amazon or OPs employer or Starbucks or any of these large national publicly traded semi-financilized brands then you need to interrupt production and you can do that with militant minorities. You cannot organize enough workers to win strong majorities shop by shop and convince the employer to bargain a contract in good faith though.

It’s not really in my big three but I also think UFCW has to die or be totally overhauled. It’s a particularly bad union and it’s stranglehold over entry level service jobs means that lots of young people join when getting a job at Kroger or a hospital or wherever and then are turned anti-union by how bad UFCW is.

Also in general we shouldn’t let the AFL-CIO dominate the labor movement.

I truly cannot express how much I hate saying what I’m about to say but I’m going to do it anyway because I was once a bright eyed service worker hoping to make the world a better place for people like me and I was crushed by the experience of it. Hopefully you can take some of what I’m saying to heart and use it to guide your efforts and not end up as burnt as I did.

First and foremost, if you do work where I think you work (since you mentioned it a couple posts ago) then you need to understand how your employer fights union efforts. Specifically the fact that they might be indifferent to shutting down a union shop. If that happens you might be able to reach a settlement in court but someone has to bankroll the lawyers for that. The legal system is not designed to help you in this regard and will not support you until you have won. The current NLRB is arguably not even on the side of workers. Even if this doesn’t happen your employer will not bargain with you unless you can force them too. The government effectively cannot or will not coerce them too. The big unions will probably not be helpful. Only a large amount of their employees being willing to fight can.

This brings us to our second issue — the unions. It varies a little bit regionally but there’s a reason why your industry, and large national or international service economy employers don’t typically have union presence in them. It’s partly because of the companies but it’s also partly because of the unions. Unions rarely show solidarity across workplaces or industries. Usually they look at new organizing as an investment. The common argument unions use against “right to work” laws is that they provide a service and should be compensated for it. Whether or not this is an effective framing is a digression but suffice to say, if you ask a union to invest resources into you the return on investment will factor into their decision at least somewhat. The unions will look at where you work, a small isolated shop with few employees and little to no chance of winning a contract on your own, and will probably not invest heavily. I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. You would probably be working with the Teamsters since you’re employer is sort of their turf now (due to the opportunism of one of their locals) but UNITE-HERE also represents people in your industry. Maybe an SEIU local would take you. Workers United might opportunisticly work with you but I’d advise you steer clear of them and UFCW. A lot of unions are pretty incompetent too so beware of that.

If you have things built out already the unions will be more likely to invest. The most valuable resource you could have is a network with other locations, especially a geographically focused one. A pre-built organizing committee at your location is also valuable. If you do have either of these, do not freely hand it over to a big union. The actual valuable thing in this struggle is the allegiance of workers and their labor-power. The company is trying to win it. The big unions are trying (trying might be too generous) to win it. Neither of them is necessarily putting the interests of you and your coworkers first.

Finally, you’re going to learn the apathy and nihilism of the American service worker. It’s going to hurt. When I was organizing it wasn’t the company trying to quash our efforts or the union that fucked us over that broke my heart, it was the apathy and downright hostility workers had to improving their own lives. I don’t know how to overcome it. I have ideas that are not the orthodox “sign cards, win election, bargain contract” strategy the unions have been losing with for the last eighty years, but they’re untested. The unions will tell you it’s all about one on one conversations and leaders which is partly true but from a different era of organizing and nowhere near as effective as they frame it.

I hope for the sake of you and your coworkers that I’m wrong about all of this. My message here is not to discourage your organizing, but I hope can innoculate you to some of the disappointments you might face. I’m happy to elaborate on any of this or anything else labor organizing if you want. Sorry for the long post.

Imo when we’re out protesting or parading there’s got to be at least a small segment of the leftists there looking like a military. I’m not nessecarily talking about camo and guns, but a more or less common uniform and ordered marching at least. The Panthers were at least 20% cooler looking because they did that and more importantly it probably inspires great camaraderie among the ranks.

65% of Americans are homeowners. It’s really not that luxurious, especially with a mortgage.

And what is he to downsize to? Renting? He should just subjugate himself to the whims of landlords while on a fixed income if he wants to retire? In a lot of places $28k a year is barely enough for a one bedroom and a car. I lived in a cockroach infested studio with no car when I made that much. It wasn’t even in a major metro area and I’m young and can walk everywhere.

You’re getting mad at a guy that almost managed to play the game right and scrape by instead of the game that fucks most of us over.

It’s incredibly normal to get mad at a 67 year old wanting to retire but not being financially secure enough. What are you talking about?

Oh yeah he should just cash out the 401k, owe a third of it to the government in income tax just for the hell of it, then start renting and live at the whims of landlords all because some internet socialists are mad an old guy did what most Americans do to retire. If he happens to make it to 80 when he’ll run out of money he can just start working again np.

Just canned the remainder of my fiddlehead harvest for the year with ground sumac from last summer and fresh picked mustard garlic. I hope they end up okay.

I was on a Vonnegut kick for a bit and read Mother Night and Jailbird. Both are a little nihilistic but quite funny. It makes me wonder why Slaughterhouse Five was the only Vonnegut I was exposed to in school because it was assigned multiple times and imo it’s just not that good.

“AI” has been a consumer product for less than two years. I think it’s actually quite easy to remember a time without it assuming one’s brain isn’t smoother than mirror.

Imagine being in a place with ten thousand years of culinary traditions through dozens of cultures and still going to the McDonald’s.

Can’t wait for the economic crash caused by too many people defaulting on the loans they used to finance their Stuffed Crust MeatZZas

Iirc in many countries young men are becoming more right wing while other young people are going further left.

It can vary. The effective federal income tax rate is around fifteen to twenty percent for most earners. There’s another 7.5 percent or so for federal benefits (Medicare and Social Security). State income taxes vary from zero in a few states to thirteen percent on the highest income bracket in California, but probably average out to five or six percent. Most (or all?) states require employees to cover some burden of their unemployment insurance as well. Some municipalities also have income taxes.

Americans also usually pay taxes on their homes, cars, and sales tax.

Tbf probably between a third and half of America is rationing or rapidly running out of water because all of it got sold to big agriculture.

Personally I carry an electric portable bidet with me though.