StrayCatFrump
joined 1 year ago
Looking at China its also the end of communism…
Workers absolutely do not own and self-manage their workplaces in China. There is nothing communist about it, except propaganda used to falsely promote its rulers. Economic systems are defined by the actual, material relations involved in them, not in the lies told by their PR.
EDIT: Note that others may or may not want to address the connection you make between China and fascism. I chose not to, because it is irrelevant to the question of whether anything about China implies something about communism.
REVOLUTIONARY!!!
I mean, even without revenue decreasing, profits are going to "decrease" because money that will go to increased pay and benefits to workers would otherwise go to greater profits. So even leaving out the fearmongering about lost revenue, the title and significant parts of the article (about profits and margins) is taking the liberal path of calling it a bad thing due to sympathy with capitalists instead of workers.
So yeah: how about a fuck you UPS, and a fuck you CNN. Nothing new, but always bears repeating.
Hmm. Yeah, that's a possibility. I do other stuff that's similar, like working on community gardens and helping comrades who are interested in learning technical skills I'm practiced in. But collective remote work situations...that's an interesting think to ponder!
Are you actually denying/apologizing for fascists in Ukraine? Fuckin' yikes.
Sure, there are fascists in Russia too. The difference is that the country I have some influence over as a resident and citizen isn't supporting those fascists. Nor is it supporting fascists in North Korea. But ones in Urkaine? Yep. Ones in Saudi Arabia? Yep. Ones in Israel? Yep. What fascists are your country and its rulers supporting? You should really focus on that, bud.
It's not. Gates' "charity" does an incredible amount of damage, and also destroys a lot of positive change that would otherwise be happening. For example, he was instrumental in ensuring an open-source COVID-19 vaccine didn't get released, in a way that potentially denied access to COVID vaccines to millions—perhaps billions—throughout the Global South, in the interests of protecting the profits of big pharma. His diversion of education improvements into private and charter schools is pretty infamous for destroying attempts to improve public education...all so that education can be repurposed into creating good, obedient, unthinking workers for capitalist industry. And a lot of his "food programs" and "vaccination programs" throughout Africa have done a great deal of damage to the general public trust in such programs, while arguably doing as much harm as good materially as well.
You might want to do your homework. Here's a start:
- Maybe Bill Gates’ Billions Don’t Make Him an Expert on Hunger in Africa
- Gates Ag One: The Recolonisation Of Agriculture
- Bill Gates's vaccine monopolism is a global health disaster
- Prisons and Slavery: How Bill Gates, the Gates Foundation and Microsoft Profit From Racism and Human Suffering Part 1: The Prison Connection
- Prisons and Slavery: How Bill Gates, the Gates Foundation and Microsoft Profit From Racism and Human Suffering Part 2: The Prison – School Connection
- Behind the Bastards: The Ballad of Bill Gates, Part 1
- Behind the Bastards: The Ballad of Bill Gates, Part 2
> Serious question, would Jan 6 be allowed to happen anywhere else?
Yes, except on a level which actually has some non-laughable chance of succeeding—and which often even does succeed. Often facilitated by the U.S. itself. 2014 in Ukraine, for example, and all over Latin America, and...well, pay attention to West Africa right now, because most if not all of the coups taking place are being carried out by military forces that were trained by the U.S. If you think the clown show of Jan 6 was actually some kind of "threat to democracy" then you REALLY need to start paying attention to what the U.S. has been doing at home in smaller communities, and big-time abroad, for a very, very, very long time.
Biden has enacted FAR more fascist policy in his political career than Trump. Fascism embodies reactionary state violence used to consolidate the power of state and capital. From mass incarceration (which Biden is one of the chief architects of)—including literal concentration camps—to torture programs, mass surveillance, militarized policing, the violent repression of liberation movements, militarized borders, and support of fascists all over the place globally (including Saudi Arabia, India, Ukraine, Israel, and many others), to the ongoing American genocide, you've honestly been struck fucking blind by liberal propaganda if you don't see the fascism Biden embodies. Heck, he's been best buddies with outright segregationists for his entire political career, and was more or less of a closeted one himself (not wanting his "children [to] grow up in a [racial] jungle").
I never claimed both sides are the same. It's just that between the two brands of status quo U.S. politics, there's literally only one side. You're in a socialist community, for crying out loud. Time to start figuring that out. The other side is the left; the other side is labor; the other side exists only within social movements in the U.S., because hundreds of years of that fascism (of the kind Hitler explicitly recognized, admired, and modeled his pogroms on) have stripped that side from the electoral landscape.
Yep. Let's keep pushing for it.
Yes. My company decided to shut down the local office to save money (kept by the bosses rather than being distributed to us, of course). So some of us became remote indefinitely.
Generally, I love it. I can "commute" in my PJs, and avoid spewing a lot of carbon into the climate just to ship around my sack of flesh. I can take breaks throughout the day to tend my garden, and play music to help myself think. I don't have to worry about packing a lunch, or wasting time and money and social energy eating out in the middle of the day. Hell, I can go take a nap when I don't have any meetings scheduled and feel the need.
However, it does take its toll. Not having a direct, face-to-face, human connection with folks throughout the day harms the associations that build solidarity. And finding ways to do one-on-ones and continue organizing the workplace is proving next to impossible. So I'm honestly not sure it is worth it at this stage of labor struggle. In a more ideal world—once we've won a few crucial victories over capital (and perhaps state)—I see no reason why many of us couldn't work from home, and even move those jobs that require more direct, physical labor closer to those homes.
It's good...so long as we follow the advice of that last section: "Prosecute Them All". If it's used instead to distract from the ongoing crimes of other parties and other politicians—such as the fascist currently at the helm—then I couldn't care less, and I think we shouldn't allow ourselves to be distracted by it while there are much more important things to focus on.
The worst of Trump's crimes—the ones that did serious, material harm to working-class people—aren't being touched by this, just as they weren't touched by the farcical impeachments the Democrats facilitated. And that's because they, themselves, are happily engaged in the same crimes, as they have been all along.
Sure, bring out your popcorn or whatever when you're relaxing at home and have nothing better to worry about. But during the day, put all the energy you can into what we MUST do to turn things around: put an end to state warfare, ongoing climate destruction, and the state violence and repression that keeps us from making progress on everything else.
Also:
> And that brings us to the real double standard here. Trying to overturn an American election is the kind of crime the Justice Department takes seriously. Extrajudicially slaughtering scary Muslims in a foreign country, even ones with US citizenship, is not.
Attacks carried out on marginalized communities—carried out just like the Jan 6 Washington DC attack was, but in cities and towns everywhere else on a monthly basis at least—also are not taken seriously. Jan 6 was one of MANY, but only when the halls of power see a tiny inkling of a (pretty pathetic) threat does it matter to politicians and their liberal fans. Not okay.
EDIT: sigh. Blockquotes broken by some Lemmy update.