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American Factory – Breaking the American Donkey. Film Trailer:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36QeKOJ2Fc When I first heard of this film and the fact that it was produced by Barack Obama, I was fairly certain that Barack, being the neo-liberal that he is, would use this documentary in a sense to highlight a real-life version of the Michael Keaton film ‘Gung-Ho’, where a dying small town America would be invested in by an Asian megacorp and it would a story of the rowdy americans and the exacting Asians overcoming cultural barriers to eventually find middle ground and work harmoniously in good humor and humanity. Instead, much like Barack Obama’s Presidency, what we got was an extraordinarily depressing look into people in abject misery and economic deprivation’s lives go from one form of capitalist exploitation to another, worse and more efficient form of exploitation. Same thing only worse. ‘American Factory’ is the story of a town in Dayton Ohio who’s local General Motors Car manufacturing plant was shut down despite Barack Obama handing them hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout taxpayer money. Leaving the local town is in the process of dying and people living in outright misery for years until a Chinese car-glass manufacturing company by the name of Fuyan decides to invest in the Plant and re-open it, leading the townspeople hoping that now things can get better for the people in Dayton. Fuyan is lead by it’s CEO, who in the film is referred to as ‘the Chairman’ but I will refer to as Pig Face  Video of him:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls_6A4ivmx0 If you were an animation art director, and asked a character designer to design the most repugnant looking, un-charismatic Chinese Small business Tyrant, The Chinese CEO featured in this film would look exactly like that. I completely forgot his name and I don’t care enough to look it up, so we’ll name him Pig-Face. This guy has all the hallmarks of a lovely little tyrant, he has Mao-style paintings of himself, he has Bronze Plaques of himself, he is a micromanaging little turd. He wants fire alarms placed arbitrarily, he suggests changes on the spot, etc. that sort of guy. The Chinese managers hold their American workers in contempt as well, usually muttering about how American workers are lazy, they value participation, they only take one 8-hour shift, etc. Usually the tone and conversations happening between Chinese managers and their workers is also very different than the tone between the American workers and the managers. In a scene with other Chinese, the managers were telling their workers to “treat the americans like donkeys, brush their hair in the direction it naturally goes or they will kick you”. The American upper managers are also dogshits, their overriding concerns and worries are fighting unionization and making sure no worker revolt happens, one of these toadies by the name of ‘dave’ got so visibly upset at Sherrod Brown that he muttered “Fuckhead” on camera when Sherrod encouraged the local Union at a live speech at the opening of the Plant. The middle managers are just your average middle managers. They hold frank conversations about the conditions and stuff but they keep to themselves, they also are way too easily impressed but sometimes shocked at what they see when they visit Chinese factories and both what the Chinese workers put up with but also at the speed and efficiency of the work. The workers of this movie go between different stories of people in extremely harsh deprivation, their lives utterly in ruins, and many of them are so beaten down they are simply thankful to have some sort of job an income, we witness them going through really depressing episodes in their lives, how finally one of them can move into a 400 dollar a month apartment, a couple try to make good friendships with some Chinese workers, etc. Chinese Capitalism, same as america, but worse. Let me just say, one of the big highlights of the film is how Chinese companies are better at capitalisms excesses than Americans, American Capitalism is a rapist who will extort you and beat the poo poo out of you and gaslight you openly, while Chinese capitalism want to be your neighborhood, your family, your father, your country, etc. as well as being your rapist and extorter. The Chinese Capitalists have taken all the surface level horse-poo poo of capitalist sloganeering “Innovation! Harmony! Etc” and mixed it into nationalist sentiments. This of course makes sense when you realize that the Chinese Communist Party bosses are integrally joined with the companies to the point where the local party boss (and union leader) is Pig-Face’s Brother in law. The true horrifying extent of Chinese capitalism is that not only has it successfully atomized their workers, deprived them of the basic building blocks of a functioning society by forcing them to work away from their homes and families, they get 12 hour shifts and they only get to go back and see them once or twice a year, you know, as a treat, they have to live in little lofts with several people, etc. You know what conditions are like in Chinese factories. But the thing that is truly horrific and sickening is two-fold, the first of which is how the workers don’t actually seem to mind those conditions very much (well at least that can be drawn up to them being forced into it because of what would happen to them if they admitted otherwise), but that a lot of times their degradation is self-justified in terms of nationalistic jibberish (Us chinese are stronger work ethic than americns and have to be better) and how the Chinese communist party-sponsored unions act as enablers through horseshit slogans like ( business and labor have to have a harmonious relationship). But also, how the Chinese turn their capitalism into some strange mixture of nationalism and supplants the roles typically done by peoples social relations outside the workforce. The Company has a loving national anthem that the Chinese workers sing, the company holds social events, festivities, workers outings, essentially because the average Chinese worker has been successfully cut out of his familial and social events, the company fills in the gap, and because the Chinese Communist Party and the Companies work hand in hand, Chinese workers are made to accept their lovely conditions for vague notions of national development pride. THE UNION BOOGEYMAN But the one overriding threat permeating the film the one thing that keep eating at Pig-Face and both the Chinese and American upper managers and actively frightens them is the United Auto Workers Union and their efforts to unionize the workers. They feel it is such a threat to the point that Pig-face says if he sees any union activity he’d shut down the factory. They hire consultants who literally have the title ‘Union Avoidance Advisers’ to give regular talks to the employees with powerpoint presentations about how unions are ‘bad’ for them. However, conditions in the factory worsens, more and severe injuries are taking place due to poor workplace safety and workers aren’t being compensated fairly, on top of that they are making their workers lives worse by removing creature comforts like the lunch room and shortening breaks (shout out to that one dude who snapped and said ‘why didn’t you fix the loving microwaves and for fucks sakes stop blasting propaganda videos in the lunch room 24/7’) so the Union makes a serious attempt. The scene of the union rep with a room of enthused workers from the factory was really inspiring, the union made clear that the reason why their parents had good lives and how they would benefit and how they can have a fair pay and good working conditions, you know the common sense solutions to these people’s real problems. Pig-Face and the rest of the management needed not worry, the union motion was thwarted by it’s age-old nemesis common idiocy of the American worker. Pig-Face’s profits are safe and sound. So the motion was defeated. The truly depressing thing is how the workers have become so beat down, so defeated, so propagandized they start repeating the same lies told to them over and over “Unionization means the bad workers stay” “What will unions do for me? Nothing” everything that previous generations died for and the only reason why previous generations had any sort of standard of living is shunned by the simpleton idiot mind of the midwestern American idiot. The final few scenes of the film attempts to humanize pig-face one more time, we see him make some fake gestures and bows to buddha, and for a short few fleeting seconds we see him talking about how he came up poor, and sometimes he misses the quiet of the village and wonders if he’s helped destroy that quiet nature through the factories he’s built (as he stares at a bronze plaque of himself), but he only thinks of these thoughts when he’s sad and in the end he hopes he can help bring together americans and Chinese and help the people in Ohio the way he helped people in Fujian Province. And fittingly, the very next scene, as a reward for their employees rejecting unionization, the very next shot of the CEO Pig-face is him discussing plans to automate his company and fire scores of his workers. So good job you idiots. Gooood job. The film closes with how Fuyan is now turning a profit for the first time in 2018, and that automation is going to replace thousands of jobs. And that the starting salary for these workers in $14 an hour. Fourteen dollars. Final thoughts So film leaves us with a shrug of “Guess Automation is coming to screw over workers you guys, what is to be done?” which is the type of non-committal answer you’d expect out of a cowardly film-maker who has no real beliefs, but the real horror of this film is when you realize the person responsible for it’s production was none-other than Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th president of the united states. Here was a man who for two years had it within his means to fundamentally change American society to alleviate the suffering of those mid-western rust belt people, here was a man who was IN OFFICE when GM closed their plant in Dayton Ohio leaving the entire society there to be cast into the winds of deprivation (and right into Trumps Arms), here was a man who could’ve had it so none of these workers needed to worry about their health insurance, didn’t need to worry about workplace safety, representation in the unions, etc. Here was a man who handed over TRILLIONS of dollars to the very same Car Manufacturers and Companies who DESTROYED the lives of those people and didn’t force them to switch to anything resembling a change into green energy industries and opened the door for even more exploitative and repressive companies to come in, who, in turn, would alienate American workers through their harsh policies to go right into the arms of someone like trump who would promise them American jobs by American companies (like the imagined food old days). The level of Cynicism, of contempt, of just sheer personal detachment and soullessness to produce a film that passively highlights conditions YOU DID NOTHING TO FIX AND HAD THE POWER TO DO SO, is breathtaking. Barack Obama is loving evil, a loving evil husk who now wants to pretend like he ever gave a poo poo about anyone by making documentaries about people’s misery he did nothing to help and was actively worsening for his corporate backers. Who in their right minds could argue why the rust belt idiots went for trump after this? Why they would screech against TPP after this? Who would clamor for a fake sense of a return of the good old days after what Obama did to them?! So yeah, Thanks Obama, thanks for handing Trump his first and very likely his second term in office. Thanks. So in the end, much like his presidency, Obama’s newfound film production career has a rather simple message:- An empty smile, a shrug of this shoulders and the phrase “Guess your life sucks, huh?" Final Rating:- gently caress You, Obama. Fuuuck you, You evil, empty husk of a nothing lich king. 5/10 didnt deserve an academy award. Al-Saqr has issued a correction as of 18:41 on Mar 29, 2020 |
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Mar 29, 2020 17:41
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didnt the director of this movie quote marx at the oscars or was that something else? thats all i know about it
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Mar 29, 2020 17:45
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KRe08n0d3o
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Mar 29, 2020 21:33
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is this the podcast where they say the n-word all the time. Not surprised bernie broe's like it, after all they call black voters "low information" when they dont vote for senile hunchbag bernie 
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Mar 29, 2020 21:43
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cargo cult posted:is this the podcast where they say the n-word all the time. Not surprised bernie broe's like it, after all they call black voters "low information" when they dont vote for senile hunchbag bernie No it’s a podcast that’s about being gay with your dad Lol I missed this clip they’re spot on.
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Mar 29, 2020 21:46
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imagine an american company of that size allowing in independent filmmakers to observe and film for three years. will that happen? probably not. so we should give credit to fuyao glass chairman cao dewang. he bought that plant because it was an iconic american plant and he wanted to bring life back to the community. he had good intentions and i think some of the things that happened have to do with cultures not understanding each other. that caused lots of hard feelings and a sense of lack of respect on the part of workers. the unwillingness to be open-minded and flexible to change, and sometimes the arrogance to think one’s own culture is superior to another, can only lead to prejudice with negative effects on relationships.
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Mar 29, 2020 22:09
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this is just the first part, right?
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Mar 29, 2020 22:11
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Victory Position posted:this is just the first part, right? What do you mean? It’s a single movie.
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Mar 29, 2020 22:13
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Al-Saqr posted:What do you mean? It’s a single movie. I... might be thinking of something else then. last I remember he was going to make a few of these or some sort of series for Netflix, but I might be misremembering
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Mar 29, 2020 22:16
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Sheng-Ji Yang posted:didnt the director of this movie quote marx at the oscars or was that something else? thats all i know about it Are you thinking of the game dev who made Disco Elysium?
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Mar 29, 2020 22:17
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MonsieurChoc posted:Are you thinking of the game dev who made Disco Elysium? why would he be at the oscars?
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Mar 29, 2020 22:20
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The name is Obama's production company is Higher Ground.
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Mar 29, 2020 22:33
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*meanwhile*
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Mar 29, 2020 22:52
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now to be fair, the further humiliation and exploitation of american workers is not just the provenance of the chinese overlords. lord bezos is trying to keep up
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Mar 29, 2020 22:53
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Mar 29, 2020 22:55
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The film is a documentary but not in the way Obama intended like showing how the US upper management is involved in suppressing organized labor. aa
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Mar 29, 2020 22:58
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Jose posted:why would he be at the oscars? No, they thanked Marx at the game awards. I was thinking it mgiht be a mix-up.
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Mar 29, 2020 23:01
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FYI, someone being credited as a producer doesn't necessarily mean they had anything to do with the creative endeavor in question, just that they were responsible and/or provided material support for the project it is extremely likely that Obama's role was much more of providing clout and finance than supervising anything in terms of actual moviemaking
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Mar 29, 2020 23:11
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Looks like we need a struggle session for Mr. Pig-Face, OP.
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Mar 30, 2020 00:41
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how you gonna criticize Americans for being "lazy" when you just straight up plagiarize the attitude of American management? Thought y'all were Maoist, invent your own system of slave labor instead of copying us.
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Mar 30, 2020 01:00
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Pretty sure China abandoned Maoism long ago
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Mar 30, 2020 01:04
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MonsieurChoc posted:Are you thinking of the game dev who made Disco Elysium? Julia Reichert, director of the Oscar-winning documentary film American Factory, gave an acceptance speech after the production received the award for best documentary feature on Sunday night. "Our film is from Ohio and China ... But it really could be from anywhere that people put on a uniform, punch a clock, trying to make their families have a better life," Reichert prefaced her comments. "Working people have it harder and harder these days. And we believe that things will get better when workers of the world unite."
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Mar 30, 2020 01:16
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for the longest time i couldnt figure out why obama made this movie because everything i heard about it just made it sound like an indictment of his terrible loving presidency then i read the op and watched the cum town video and finally realized that oooooohhh the lesson the movie was supposed to teach us was that the chinese are evil same reason one child nation got such ridiculous press for a documentary its deeply funny to me that none of the proper reviews could actually say this since it would make obama look sinophobic i suspect this was the reason why one child nation didnt clean up on the awards circuit the propagandistic undertones were just too hard baked into the premise
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Mar 30, 2020 01:20
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Sheng-Ji Yang posted:Julia Reichert, director of the Oscar-winning documentary film American Factory, gave an acceptance speech after the production received the award for best documentary feature on Sunday night. it's like the infernal spirit of a che shirt from hot topic possessing a meatsuit and talking thru them.
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Mar 30, 2020 01:38
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The interview between the Obamas and the filmmakers that was released in conjuntion with the documentary was revealing as hell. The filmmakers said they didn't want the film to present any particular ideology, which is a big red flag that it's neoliberal propaganda. Obama said he started the production company because maybe better stories will make the world a better place, lol. The documentary is totally devoid of any political dimension. The 2008 crisis, closure of the plant, and scores of foreclosures in Dayton are all presented as though they were tornadoes or floods - tragic forces of nature that we're powerless to stop. Of course all of these things were exacerbated by Obama's presidency. McCain was to his left on wanting another Home Owner's Loan Corporation in the wake of the crisis so people could keep their homes. Obama was only too happy to let banks foreclose on millions of homeowners through fraudulent means like robosigning. None of this is mentioned in the documentary, of course. And you can't even blame it on obstructionist Republicans because Obama came into his presidency with billions in TARP funds already approved by Congress that he could have used to stop foreclosures with few strings attached. Anyone getting especially mad at the Fuyan CEO has fallen prey to the film's propaganda imo. As Marx would tell you, the behavior of individual capitalists doesn't matter. Their actions are dictated by the system. Our capitalists exploit just as ruthlessly, and the few labor norms and protections we have that still distinguish us from China are disappearing all the time. Plus we still have all kinds of unique forms of exploitation that they don't. The one ray of optimism you get in the documentary is cross-cultural worker solidarity between an American worker and a Chinese worker who eat together, shoot guns together, ride horses together, and become friends. All in all it's effective neoliberal propaganda and Obama can pat himself on the back in his Martha's Vineyard estate for successfully laundering his dogshit presidency through the obfuscation of market forces.
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Mar 30, 2020 02:02
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Some Guy TT posted:for the longest time i couldnt figure out why obama made this movie because everything i heard about it just made it sound like an indictment of his terrible loving presidency Lol my take away isn’t that the Chinese are evil I’m terribly sad at what’s happening to the workers over there my take away is that Obama loving sucks and that replacing exploitation with another does nothing to fundamentally improve people’s lives, my ire is strictly towards the upper management of both countries who loving suck so much and how Chinese state capitalism isn’t much of a better alternative to american capitalism.
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Mar 30, 2020 05:55
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Must be hosed up to have your employer try to dominate your personal life and prevent you from having a life outside of work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdjjq8mB5BY   the US has eradicated a lot of the more secure jobs that did stuff like "corporate picnics" so only the more elite positions do actually have these "playland" work campuses tbh. the worse paying jobs don't even pay you enough to survive a lot of the time, so they're not going to provide any extra poo poo. It makes less sense to compare Chinese working conditions to the US, than it is to compare it to other developing nations. In 1949 China was a semi-colonial country that had just united and driven out colonial overlords, at the same time the US was the wealthiest country on the planet and the only major country essentially untouched by the last world war. also, powerful energy arguing that the US and China are just as bad as the coronavirus pandemic happens. China actually seemed to eventually respond in a way that did save lives while sacrificing their economy, while just today the US president, who doesn't want to pay too much for ventilators, said the country would be lucky to have 100,000 deaths.
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Mar 30, 2020 06:51
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Al-Saqr posted:Lol my take away isn’t that the Chinese are evil I’m terribly sad at what’s happening to the workers over there my take away is that Obama loving sucks and that replacing exploitation with another does nothing to fundamentally improve people’s lives, my ire is strictly towards the upper management of both countries who loving suck so much and how Chinese state capitalism isn’t much of a better alternative to american capitalism. yeah, when it comes down to it every middle-upper manager is educated in the same MBA curriculum that exists across the globe, from Shanghai to Paris to Boston to Buenos Aires. I've always said if you want to talk about actual indoctrination in modern western universities like some liberal-right-wingers do, look at how many people graduate with a business degree.
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Mar 30, 2020 07:01
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Al-Saqr posted:Lol my take away isn’t that the Chinese are evil I’m terribly sad at what’s happening to the workers over there my take away is that Obama loving sucks and that replacing exploitation with another does nothing to fundamentally improve people’s lives, my ire is strictly towards the upper management of both countries who loving suck so much and how Chinese state capitalism isn’t much of a better alternative to american capitalism. Isn’t that the point “there is no alternative” when in reality there actually are significant differences as the current crisis shows. It is a propaganda piece. “This nasty Chinese CEO shows they are just as bad as us!” - As literally American society collapses on itself Ardennes has issued a correction as of 09:59 on Mar 30, 2020 |
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Mar 30, 2020 09:54
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Ardennes posted:Isn’t that the point “there is no alternative” when in reality there actually are significant differences as the current crisis shows. It is a propaganda piece. The alternative that isnt a capitalist nightmare is for leftists to get their act together and actually take power. Two different forms of capitalist exploitation arent better than another, I mean, just because the CCP can respond to emergencies faster and better doesnt mean that workers every day lives isnt a nightmare on the regular. Yeah, when a pandemic breaks out they'll take care of you, but you're still gonna work 12 hour shifts and not see your family and have zero protections. in the US it's the same poo poo of a different flavor. Like, yeah the CCP can quickly set up hospitals but they can just as quickly shut down any workers movement for work safety or better work hours and god forbid if you're uighur you'll just disappear. America is a poo poo system as well, they're both evil, the point is that replacing one form of exploitation with another did nothing to fundamentally improve the people in Dayton's lives other than give them a measely pay that will be replaced shortly by automation. Al-Saqr has issued a correction as of 10:14 on Mar 30, 2020 |
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Mar 30, 2020 10:09
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Al-Saqr posted:The alternative that isnt a capitalist nightmare is for leftists to get their act together and actually take power. Also, that Chinese CEO probably set up shop in Dayton because he could ironically get around Chinese regulations. He is a lovely guy, but it isn't an actual comparison of two systems. If anything it is just focusing his nationality. If the alternative is the US or China, China is quite clearly the better alternative. Also, worker rights are also complex because in some ways like public holidays, health care and sick leave, China is actually better. Also, there are plenty of strikes in China, far more than the US. State capitalism isn't the solution, but there isn't any reason to defend the US or its hegemony. If anything, it is preferable to have at least some type of counter-balance versus the US to keep it and its insanity in check. Ardennes has issued a correction as of 10:53 on Mar 30, 2020 |
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Mar 30, 2020 10:42
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they made a sad version of gung ho. 1/5
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Mar 30, 2020 10:44
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Doctor Jeep posted:*meanwhile* 
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Mar 30, 2020 10:52
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cargo cult posted:is this the podcast where they say the n-word all the time. Not surprised bernie broe's like it, after all they call black voters "low information" when they dont vote for senile hunchbag bernie 4th post down cargo cult does a drive-by trolling attempt nice
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Mar 30, 2020 11:34
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some real chutzpah to make a sinophobic film when american capitalists got bailed out, left that town to rot, and paved the way for the chinese overlords
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Mar 30, 2020 11:35
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Al-Saqr posted:Like, yeah the CCP can quickly set up hospitals but they can just as quickly shut down any workers movement for work safety or better work hours and god forbid if you're uighur you'll just disappear.
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Mar 30, 2020 11:37
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in case you need to be reminded, over 1 in 100 american adults are literally in a prison or jail cell and this is heavily targeted at minorities in the US then there's the ICE concentration camps on top of that where we do gestapo raids to regularly disappear heavily exploited workers, especially those that try to organize for better conditions
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Mar 30, 2020 11:41
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comedyblissoption posted:this all basically happens in the US except for the building hospitals in response to a pandemic part lol where did I say it didnt? that's the point!
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Mar 30, 2020 11:51
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oh i misinterpreted that you were contrasting extra more efficiently bad things the chinese did b/c that sinophobia happens a lot in cspam
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Mar 30, 2020 11:53
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im not watching that stupidass film or obama's interview, but that seemingly pro-union poo poo in the OP and in the trailer is really obnoxious when obama was so hostile to unions he wouldnt even get the milquetoast card check law through a filibuster proof senate and house supermajority lol obama also cowered away when states were taking away collective bargaining rights under his presidency and hammered the TPP which unions loathed
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Mar 30, 2020 12:01
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