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Socialist Alternative is running another candidate for Minneapolis City Council named Ginger Jentzen. She's been an activist and organizer for $15 now and of course SA. Back in 2013 they ran Ty Moore there and he only lost by about 200 votes so there's a real chance she can win.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:04
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Annual Prophet posted:a bit of simple, direct messaging wouldnt hurt either BlueBlazer posted:Low effort, easily visible... I like it.  Find one of these,  they fairly common in shipping departments/warehouses/stock rooms Make an Account - https://www.ups.com/one-to-one/regi...s%3Floc%3Den_US https://www.ups.com/content/us/en/resources/ship/packaging/docs/labels.html  Get a roll Get to printing, need technical how to on how to print? ask.
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Jan 26, 2017 07:05
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ChickenOfTomorrow posted:If you're in California check out https://healthycaliforniacampaign.org/ - a coalition pushing for single-payer healthcare in CA. curious about this BIG NEWS
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Jan 26, 2017 07:37
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At times, an opposing perspective is needed. I think some of the analysis in this article is pretty loving spot on, even if it is somewhat wrong-headed and other parts of the site are slobbering in their devotion to Christianity as some kind of magic cure-all to all of America's cultural woes.
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Jan 26, 2017 08:42
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I really want to give my full support to the Justice Democrats, but I've got a nagging feeling and maybe y'all can help. Do the JDs split the current momentum into a side project, or does having a focal point for direct political action help us?
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Jan 26, 2017 08:56
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Baby Babbeh posted:The thing is, labor and trade unions are NOT in their infancy in the U.S. Union membership in this country was about 25 percent in 1945, but it's dropped precipitously since then. Further, the percent of Americans who view labor favorably has decreased steadily. Here's some data from Gallup. Is 58 percent such a low approval rating that it dooms any attempt to use trade or labour unions in an attempt to organize and gather support for working-class and middle class issues? And can that approval rating not be vastly increased through concentrated effort, by meeting with or speaking to people directly through people they know and respect locally as opposed to through the giant noise machine called the internet/american media? Because I think a 58% support is a fantastic starting point for building a serious political organization capable at the very least to exert pressure on legislators and politicians to choose sosially responsible policies. Either way, the entire point is the rise of a new collective trade union, and such a thing has been accomplished under much worse conditions than USA TYOOL 2017. Baby Babbeh posted:This isn't even getting into the structural challenges to organizing a 3rd electoral party in the US, which were put in place by the parties specifically to make progressive organization more difficult. I'll point to the Jacobin article mentioned upthread for a good breakdown of that, it's excellent and well worth a read. That's a pretty interesting article, but I think it overemphasizes the previous labour party attempt's failiure in a political climate that was very different from today. Obviously, the article writer is much more familiar with the american electoral system on a local basis than I am, but the conclusion seems pretty sound: A Blueprint for a New Party posted:A Party of a New Type Which is pretty much exactly what I've been saying. You don't need a third party right off the bat, even if that should be an eventual goal. You have previous models and attempts to follow, concrete and known pitfalls to avoid and a political climate where apparently none of the old rules apply. A self-proclaimed democratic socialist can almost win a heavily slanted primary against a political dynasty, and the president is a person who hasn't obeyed any of the old truisms about running for office. Remember, I never said you had to call it a labour party or trade union, even if that's de facto what you're creating. In fact, I advised against it specifically to avoid past associations. Baby Babbeh posted:The US is a nation where the unions and the progressives fought and LOST. Our politics make a lot more sense with that context. I wish it was going to be as easy as just glomming all the labor unions and union voters into a bloc, but it's not. Like I said, I think labor is an important piece of the puzzle, but it's not going to be everything and it might not even be the most important apparatus for change. This, though, is way too gloomy and defeatist. You don't know this because it hasn't been tried in 2017. You don't know that the progressive cause is lost and you don't know that unions are destroyed forever and ever. This is a question about the future of the country and not the past, and I think there's a lot more potential to unification of the working and middle classes than american political history suggests. Baby Babbeh posted:I actually don't think we're that far out of alignment in tactics -- I think it's going to take a combination of in-system wrangling and extra-legal direct action like strikes, protests, and information warfare to create anything like real progressivism in this country. I just question if worker's unions are the right venue for it when very few Americans are in unions and the workers themselves have such a low opinion of them. I agree about the method, but I don't think it can be accomplished without union support and total solidarity among working people, and I do include everyone employed in any kind of ordiniary job. Change the minds of the working class. As demonstrated by Trump, they'll flock to any person promising and pretending an actual ability to deliver on promises. A show of effectiveness in a politically paralyzed america can buy a lot of loyalty.
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Jan 26, 2017 10:06
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Sigh. I've called Feinstein four or five times in the last 2 weeks because she keeps voting to approve T's appointments. I should've expected this but I believed the dems when they said they'd do some real opposing. WHY DO I KEEP DOING THAT? Anyway, if you're in CA call and yell at her office, or go down there if it's local. Anyone ITC who wants to help primary Feinstein?
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Jan 26, 2017 15:08
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ChickenOfTomorrow posted:Sigh. I've called Feinstein four or five times in the last 2 weeks because she keeps voting to approve T's appointments. I should've expected this but I believed the dems when they said they'd do some real opposing. WHY DO I KEEP DOING THAT? lol, how do people think we can reform the Democratic Party if they won't even oppose trump.
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Jan 26, 2017 17:42
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Either they'll do it or we'll primary their asses out. That's the best we can do, so it's what we're doing, at least on the electoral side of things. Edit: actually, yeah, we are going to have to clean out the armchair Dems, so this is probably a good way to figure out who's on our side and who needs to find another job.
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Jan 26, 2017 19:16
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Before buying Rules for Radicals, I decided to read reviews just in case, and holy poo poo people loving HATE Alinsky. Other than the people who are still butthurt about Vietnam, they said the methods are outdated. Is there other books that updates it to 2017?
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Jan 26, 2017 20:06
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LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:Yeah you're right, american conservatives are all actually clones of Rush Limbaugh.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:21
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TwoQuestions posted:Before buying Rules for Radicals, I decided to read reviews just in case, and holy poo poo people loving HATE Alinsky. I don't think its outdated. Alisnky's personal feelings on certain things might be outdated, but the book is broad enough in providing ideas that it still provides lots of useful information. To go into it more I think that the book itself is a tool box, it contains all sorts of helpful information on organizing resistance. Is a hammer ever outdated?
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Jan 26, 2017 21:10
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Annual Prophet posted:unions should dramatically broaden their organizing efforts - plenty of office workers, including professionals, are organized in the federal govt You and others miss why unions have largely died. Yes, combative forces on the right played a role but overall the biggest contributor was simply that the way people worked changed. Unions had the most success (and even still do) when you have lots of workers in one place doing the same work, the work is relatively simple, and where there wasn't much difference between the super productive employees and the average employees. When you have those last points systems like seniority work fairly well because time on the job is a good predictor of worth and skill. This just doesn't happen much anymore. In particular almost no one wants to work someplace where seniority decides promotions and poo poo like that. Like go out and ask young people this question and you will get an almost unanimous answer regardless if they are on the left or the right, we are far far too individualistic these days for something like that to fly. But the other points matter a lot too: because you can now have huge discrepancies in worker talent in intellectual careers and that all of these people are doing different things are the biggest contributors to why union membership is at a low. Unions have simply not evolved to meet the times and this is reflected in people's attitudes toward them. The few places where they are popular still has jobs that follow the rules I laid out. Student teacher unions make a lot of sense and work well for that reason. Automotive manufacturing where it's still a bunch of people on a (increasingly automated) line and workers can be trained quickly for x task. Your argument is contingent on the belief that unions just magically make everything better and it's not the truth. They made things better because they were effective given a certain set of parameters that no longer exist. That brings us to the next point- can unions be saved? And I would argue probably not. Automation isn't some buzzword anymore, it's here. In a couple years (maybe already) a fast food owner will be able to decide whether they build the fully automated McDonalds or the one with workers. And even if it is initially more expensive, people love low-variance outcomes. An automated store has known costs, one with workers has unknown costs of future wage minimum increases, walkouts et cetera. And repeat that thinking for a lot of loving jobs. What relief can unions offer? They only work when workers are actually needed for work! The sort of thing we now need is now so different than what a union provides I'm not sure it would be even reasonable to call it the same thing. I think the problem of focusing on the right as the reason for the demise of unions caused people to miss the elephant in the room. Unions are vanishing for structural reasons, conservatives just helped that process along. I mean you can go ahead and try to make them relevant again but people just aren't buying that poo poo anymore. It's time for something new. Mr. Lobe posted:A lot of people have tried this many times, and failed. There is an excellent book called "The Democrats: A Critical History" which explains this in great detail, going through several illuminating cases and also explaining how essentially the party is so inextricably tied to financial interests the party historically has been and most assuredly remains to this day. Frankly, the enmeshing of capital interests is so central to the actual apparatus of its power that, no matter how difficult it may seem for a third party to rise, it will almost certainly be harder to make the Democratic Party change. There have been many examples of US parties being converted by internal pressures. Meanwhile 3rd parties have never even come close to accomplishing anything. Parties are tied to financial interests because that's how the world works. And many of these interests are potentially amenable to things like minimum income, so maybe a good thing to do would be to try convincing that point rather than fighting for worldwide socialism which is never ever going to happen. I mean it's been tried by way better leftists than we got today and we ended up with countries that were worse than their capitalist counterparts by every conceivable measure.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:21
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BlueBlazer posted:4x6 Thermal paper is a terrible idea for something that's going to be outside all the time though, the sun will turn it solid black within hours. e: Actually I'm assuming this is the same kind of thermal paper as receipt paper and that's probably not right since shipping labels generally survive intact despite being left in the sun plenty so never mind!
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Jan 26, 2017 21:59
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tsa posted:
The Republican Party was originally a third party, and yet look where it is now. Since the First Past the Post system means that only 2 parties can really hold influence in US politics, its ascendance came at the expense of the Whig party. I think a true worker's party could potentially subplant the Democratic party in a similar fashion, and frankly, I think doing so will be less difficult than reforming the Democrats. That is to say, it will be very difficult, but all the same, very necessary. As to the point of parties "reforming", at no point has any major political party in the United States ceased to serve first and foremost the interests of capital. Even in the cases where the Democratic party put forth legislature with progressive consequence, it only did so because it was self-servingly advantageous to do so in the political climate of its time (and indeed its hand was often forced by populist pressures), and yet it never did (and almost certainly never will) implement policies that actually undermine vested interests. Also re: international socialism doomed to fail, do you really believe that capitalism is an eternal system beyond challenge or compromise? Do you really believe it is indefinitely sustainable? I think it's becoming increasingly clear that the contradictions of capitalism are going to lead to its own destruction, potentially along with the rest of the world in the process. I agree with Rosa Luxemburg here: it's either socialism or barbarism. I don't think trying to reform the worst aspects of capitalism is going to be both sufficient or viable in the long term, which is an important consideration in light the very material threats it presents. The broad neoliberalization of the social democracies of Europe is one of the demonstrations of this principle. The only meaningful way that we can fight the global environmental destruction that capitalism faces us with is to attack capitalism directly, though I think part of the campaign of undermining its power is by seeking the sorts of reforms that you describe while the system still exists. That being said, if the pursuit of reforms is not contextualized within an actual revolutionary struggle, all the gains made will inevitably be frittered away. I also think having a grander vision to present politically is important when trying to fight even for short-term gains. And as to the matter of other efforts at socialism failing, should we have considered the project of post-enlightenment democracy an unworthy pursuit when the French Revolution led to the Reign of Terror, and in the New World the American Revolution led to a native-genociding slave-holding colonial empire? Mr. Lobe fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 22:35
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tsa posted:You and others miss why unions have largely died. Yes, combative forces on the right played a role but overall the biggest contributor was simply that the way people worked changed. Unions had the most success (and even still do) when you have lots of workers in one place doing the same work, the work is relatively simple, and where there wasn't much difference between the super productive employees and the average employees. When you have those last points systems like seniority work fairly well because time on the job is a good predictor of worth and skill. This just doesn't happen much anymore. In particular almost no one wants to work someplace where seniority decides promotions and poo poo like that. Like go out and ask young people this question and you will get an almost unanimous answer regardless if they are on the left or the right, we are far far too individualistic these days for something like that to fly. But the other points matter a lot too: because you can now have huge discrepancies in worker talent in intellectual careers and that all of these people are doing different things are the biggest contributors to why union membership is at a low. Unions have simply not evolved to meet the times and this is reflected in people's attitudes toward them. The few places where they are popular still has jobs that follow the rules I laid out. Student teacher unions make a lot of sense and work well for that reason. Automotive manufacturing where it's still a bunch of people on a (increasingly automated) line and workers can be trained quickly for x task. Your argument is contingent on the belief that unions just magically make everything better and it's not the truth. They made things better because they were effective given a certain set of parameters that no longer exist. I concur that one reason unions don't pick up is because there's a historical organizational structure and contractual emphasis that people are inclined to bristle at, particularly in white-collar jobs. I disagree that labor unions are an outdated concept, because the only natural requirement is just labor. Some of the traditional individual worker protections -- seniority, job security, high threshold of for-cause firing -- are not likely to be a mainstay of the 21st century intellectual labor union, but people can be mobilized around ideas of contractual collective benefits.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:17
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Speaking of unions, is it of any concern that AFL-CIO political director Michael Podhorzer went to this donor retreat thing? http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/23/democrats_missed_women_s_march_for_david_brock_donor_retreat.html I just happened to see that.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:24
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To get back on topic of doing things that will actually resist the Trump presidency and bring leftist ideas to American politics... The Montgomery County Democratic Party in Maryland is hosting a happy hour next Thursday in Bethesda at Lebanese Taverna: http://www.mcdcc.org/calendar/ I am personally not sure I can make it, however if you can this is an excellent opportunity to break into the party, get your ideas heard, and drive the party left. Any DSA-sympathetic goons should definitely go!
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Jan 26, 2017 23:38
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Solaris 2.0 posted:To get back on topic of doing things that will actually resist the Trump presidency and bring leftist ideas to American politics... The Montgomery County Democratic Party in Maryland is hosting a happy hour next Thursday in Bethesda at Lebanese Taverna: Is it worthwhile to go as an independent registered voter? Assume I'm not going to just volunteer that info.
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Jan 26, 2017 23:45
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Ruzihm posted:Is it worthwhile to go as an independent registered voter? Assume I'm not going to just volunteer that info. Honestly its a happy hour. Get a bunch of beer, eat lebanese food, and talk about how to turn the party left. According to the calendar, they also got a party meeting next month too. The caption, taken directly from the calendar is as follows: "Please join us at our Democratic happy hour. Members and potential members are welcome so bring your friends."
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Jan 26, 2017 23:48
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Solaris 2.0 posted:Honestly its a happy hour. Get a bunch of beer, eat lebanese food, and talk about how to turn the party left. According to the calendar, they also got a party meeting next month too. oh true, I somehow missed that the first time. Yeah, I think I'll stop by. Thanks a lot for the heads up! Also, our (D) senator Van Hollen voted to confirm trump's appointments, so I'll be sure to mention that. Edit: Also, it's two thursdays from now Ruzihm fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Jan 27, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 23:59
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Just wanted to say Mr. Lobe has some really good posts in this thread and The Democrats: A Critical History is a really good book. I'm all for what DSA is doing and am trying to help some students get a YDSA chapter started up at the local college but I definitely think trying to reform the dems is a wasted effort.
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Jan 27, 2017 00:36
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Reform, hell - burrow in to them and eat them from within like some sort of hosed up jungle parasite.
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Jan 27, 2017 00:39
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apropos to nothing posted:but I definitely think trying to reform the dems is a wasted effort. I don't get this about liberals. How come the Republican party can be reformed and taken over by literal fascists, but when it comes to advancing even mild socialist ideas in the democratic party we go "lol nope can't gotta run 3rd party!" The Tea-Party movement gave us the perfect blueprint on how to achieve this. Its called "Show up at party conferences, town halls, meetings, and most importantly VOTE" there's a reason every "reasonable" Republican has been voted out of existence, they were all primaried. We can do the same thing with Democrats, it just takes effort.
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Jan 27, 2017 00:42
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Solaris 2.0 posted:I don't get this about liberals. How come the Republican party can be reformed and taken over by literal fascists, but when it comes to advancing even mild socialist ideas in the democratic party we go "lol nope can't gotta run 3rd party!" It's because the democratic party is a capitalist party and I don't see that changing. Yes it's possible to run farther left candidates and primary establishment dems and yes those candidates can win and help push the dems further leftward which I am all for. Like I said, I support what DSA is trying to do. That being said, long term the moneyed interests in the party will always push back and the party establishment will follow the money. I hope I'm wrong, I would love it to be otherwise, but the Sanders supporters may find themselves just like the Jackson people in 88. That's why it's important to organize outside the dems as well, because if/when they finally do a heel turn there has to be an apparatus outside that is capable of resisting them as much as the republicans.
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Jan 27, 2017 00:54
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The Republican party has always been full of white supremacists and reactionaries. The material interests that are served by the Republican party have not changed because more overtly nasty people are more visible in it. The same cannot be said of trying to make the Democratic party into a true workers party. Edit: beaten a little, haha. Anyway, to tie back into the topic of the thread, I was notified this morning that there is going to be an Immigrant Rights March in Seattle.. Are there other specific immigrant-oriented actions happening in other parts of the country this weekend, or is this just a local thing? Mr. Lobe fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Jan 27, 2017 |
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Jan 27, 2017 00:57
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Solaris 2.0 posted:I don't get this about liberals. How come the Republican party can be reformed and taken over by literal fascists, but when it comes to advancing even mild socialist ideas in the democratic party we go "lol nope can't gotta run 3rd party!" You forgot one crucial thing: make it fun We can laugh at their colonial cosplay, but getting to pretend they were the founding fathers is what got these people coming back. I don't have concrete ideas but it's something to ponder
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Jan 27, 2017 00:59
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apropos to nothing posted:It's because the democratic party is a capitalist party and I don't see that changing. Yes it's possible to run farther left candidates and primary establishment dems and yes those candidates can win and help push the dems further leftward which I am all for. Like I said, I support what DSA is trying to do. That being said, long term the moneyed interests in the party will always push back and the party establishment will follow the money. I hope I'm wrong, I would love it to be otherwise, but the Sanders supporters may find themselves just like the Jackson people in 88. That's why it's important to organize outside the dems as well, because if/when they finally do a heel turn there has to be an apparatus outside that is capable of resisting them as much as the republicans. The challenge is obviously turning the one time, fun march where you get to take great selfies and humble brag about it all, into a sustained political movement. The tools are there though.
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Jan 27, 2017 02:25
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tsa posted:You and others miss why unions have largely died. Yes, combative forces on the right played a role but overall the biggest contributor was simply that the way people worked changed. Unions had the most success (and even still do) when you have lots of workers in one place doing the same work, the work is relatively simple, and where there wasn't much difference between the super productive employees and the average employees. When you have those last points systems like seniority work fairly well because time on the job is a good predictor of worth and skill. This just doesn't happen much anymore. In particular almost no one wants to work someplace where seniority decides promotions and poo poo like that. Like go out and ask young people this question and you will get an almost unanimous answer regardless if they are on the left or the right, we are far far too individualistic these days for something like that to fly. But the other points matter a lot too: because you can now have huge discrepancies in worker talent in intellectual careers and that all of these people are doing different things are the biggest contributors to why union membership is at a low. Unions have simply not evolved to meet the times and this is reflected in people's attitudes toward them. The few places where they are popular still has jobs that follow the rules I laid out. Student teacher unions make a lot of sense and work well for that reason. Automotive manufacturing where it's still a bunch of people on a (increasingly automated) line and workers can be trained quickly for x task. Your argument is contingent on the belief that unions just magically make everything better and it's not the truth. They made things better because they were effective given a certain set of parameters that no longer exist. thank you for summarizing the heritage foundation's views on this, but it's ok just to link directly to them in future
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Jan 27, 2017 02:55
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Hi I'm a Young Person and am a senior programmer which is very individualistic and has vast skill differences between people. This also means that judging people's output is also fairly subjective (unless it's obviously terrible or they're just not working or something) and leaves a ton of grey area for biases to worm their way into management's decision process. I frankly do not trust people, even people I totally respect, to consistently rank similar work objectively without a whole host of subconscious poo poo and I personally feel that a seniority-based system would absolutely be fair unless the person was clearly not doing their job. Even in my highly ~specialized~ line of work, experience is super valuable to a company. I do agree that unions probably can't be saved due to automation but the answer to that is massive economic structural changes in where capital is concentrated, guaranteed minimum income that allows everyone to live a comfortable life automatically and getting rid of our entrenched societal belief that people must work 40 hour work weeks to have value to society. I also think unions are very worth supporting until that's a reality, though.
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Jan 27, 2017 03:21
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ate all the Oreos posted:Hi I'm a Young Person and am a senior programmer which is very individualistic and has vast skill differences between people. This also means that judging people's output is also fairly subjective (unless it's obviously terrible or they're just not working or something) and leaves a ton of grey area for biases to worm their way into management's decision process. I frankly do not trust people, even people I totally respect, to consistently rank similar work objectively without a whole host of subconscious poo poo and I personally feel that a seniority-based system would absolutely be fair unless the person was clearly not doing their job. Even in my highly ~specialized~ line of work, experience is super valuable to a company. I'm also interested in how to set up labor organization around massively unequal or disjoint skill sets. How should marketing people, PR people, video editors, programmers, receptionists, engineers, and other skill sets organize themselves? These groups will all have very different ideas on how the company works, and will make wildly different contributions to said company. How can we create a labor group that encompasses these people better than the owner tyranny we have now? Does anyone have any good ideas on how this can/should work? That would come a long way in revitalizing labor's power in the modern world.
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Jan 27, 2017 03:55
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TwoQuestions posted:I'm also interested in how to set up labor organization around massively unequal or disjoint skill sets. this doesn't squarely address your question, but will give you some food for thought; there's much more out there (e.g., on bargaining units and cba structures, as well as legal impediments under current federal statutes and regulations): http://dpeaflcio.org/programs-publications/issue-fact-sheets/the-benefits-of-collective-bargaining-for-professional-and-technical-workers/ Red Dad Redemption fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jan 27, 2017 |
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Jan 27, 2017 05:09
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Speaking of maryland, there's a protest in Baltimore this Saturday. Not sure if I'm gonna go or not. https://www.facebook.com/events/1311309085571404/ Baltimore DSA posted about it, so expect that there will be at least a few of us there.
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Jan 27, 2017 05:19
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If you're in Houston, Keith Ellison is coming to speak at TSU this Saturday. I think it would be good to come show your support, but you need to RSVP.
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Jan 27, 2017 06:26
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Annual Prophet posted:thank you for summarizing the heritage foundation's views on this, but it's ok just to link directly to them in future Yeah, wow. It's important to remember that right-wing pushback towards unions will be serious and fierce, just because of the threat they pose. It will also be insidious, because so many americans even on the very left have internalized all the bullshit that's been spewed about unions, how they work and how they surely must work and how unfair and criminal they are etc. Others have already pointed it out, but a new overarching trade union/organization doesn't need to work like unions in the 20s. It doesn't need to mandate rules of seniority, etc. What a union does when it is effective and on point is to function as a giant lobby for the working class, pushing for safer workplaces, higher wages FOR ALL, UNION OR NOT, facilitate strikes and walkouts while cushioning the economic blow of lost wages, educating workers and imposing traning and education minimum standards, working against illegal workers and scabs. TwoQuestions posted:I'm also interested in how to set up labor organization around massively unequal or disjoint skill sets. From real life examples, an overarching organisation deals with lobbying and under that umbrella there are mulitple smaller unions that specialize in different trades. It's not a central goal for any employees union (which is what we're really talking about) to change or mandate how business is conducted or how effective production is acheived. A union is mainly concerned with a fair wage, safe working conditions, reasonable hours, benefits such as mandated vacation time, vacation pay, overtime etc. The US has a couple, for some reason? The AFL-CIO and something called the "Change to Win Federation". Together they have a membership of maybe 3-4 percent of the US population? Seems pretty anemic. It's a thing in other countries too, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_trade_union_center Some of these have 60-80% of every working adult organized under them. If the US had the same, it would be a world leader in international labour and trade union policy. The point is to put enough bargaining power into the hands of the employees that they can tell business owners "agree to our demands or make no money for the next six months". The ability to bankrupt a business is a powerful tool, and a business with no workers will go out of business fast. Obviously, it gets a lot more complicated, but I don't think I need to write comprehensively on this subject when western european union practices are quite easily found and read. The key point is solidarity between the working fields. Engineers are in trouble? Lockdown of engineering, production, design, manufacturing, the works. Things will resolve themselves into better working conditions, or the owners get to lose a lot of money. In the countries I've mentioned previously, there are teacher's unions, doctor's unions, lawyer's unions, government worker's unions, retail worker's unions, renovation worker's unions, just every single field has some union to go to. They collectively negotiate yearly pay rises, lobby for OSHA laws, and strike individually, and if things get really bad, a general strike locks down the country. That hasn't happened for a long time, because there's been no need. So how does all this affect the economy? Surely western europe is a smoking crater from all that anti-capitalist stuff, I mean how can trickle down work if the plebs demand a fair wage? Turns out, Keynesian economics in practice i.e. more money on working and middle class hands leads to a more stable, functioning and robust economy, with great liquidity and ability to adapt to change. Who knew? (Keynes. He knew.) In short, a revitalization and reinvention of the US labour and trade union system is desperately needed, can be done from the grassroots upwards, can be done alongside helping the Democratic party gain ground and efforts to change the party from within, can be done on the enthusiasm Bernie Sanders created with his movement, doesn't need to make old mistakes and can be really, really effective. This is why republicans wake up screaming at night and why they've worked so hard to make even leftists hate the unions. United you stand, divided you fall. It's about as basic as it gets when it comes to war and class warfare, and it will never stop being true.
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Jan 27, 2017 09:35
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that's a nice piece of post and about the best argument I've seen here. let's make some unions guys
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Jan 27, 2017 11:09
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remember if you don't have a trade-specific union open to you and you don't have the resources to organize one, you can join the iww
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Jan 27, 2017 15:40
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Solaris 2.0 posted:To get back on topic of doing things that will actually resist the Trump presidency and bring leftist ideas to American politics... The Montgomery County Democratic Party in Maryland is hosting a happy hour next Thursday in Bethesda at Lebanese Taverna: Can't go to that one, it's choir night and Bethesda is a bit of a pain to get to without a car, but... there's a Happy Hour reception not two blocks from me next Tuesday with Tom Perez, the DNC Chair Candidate, and god help me, I just ponied up $50 to go. I've been afraid of fatiguing myself on the whole politics thing lately (this week is the busiest an most gregarious I've ever been, yknow, for some reason), but the Republicans keep being terrible, and I want to get both the local lay of the land and a feel for this guy... blus, with the Dems going as their going, I may have to yell at somebody. Politely, of course.
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Jan 27, 2017 16:33
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ate all the Oreos posted:I do agree that unions probably can't be saved due to automation but the answer to that is massive economic structural changes in where capital is concentrated, guaranteed minimum income that allows everyone to live a comfortable life automatically and getting rid of our entrenched societal belief that people must work 40 hour work weeks to have value to society. I also think unions are very worth supporting until that's a reality, though. Oh I'm sure people were saying similar things during the Gilded Age Bertrand Russell, for instance Stinky_Pete fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jan 27, 2017 |
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Jan 27, 2017 17:56
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Find it hard to actually motivate yourself to go to these things? Carpool! You'll have to go so as to not strand/inconvenience the other person.
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Jan 27, 2017 17:59
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