09-08-2018, 08:04 PM
(09-08-2018, 07:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(09-08-2018, 04:12 PM)TheNomad Wrote: I was working as a teen at the tail end of unions in America. At that time, I was making hourly what would take the rest of the nation until the mid 00s to catch up with in terms of MINIMUM WAGE.
So, for the older people here, what is the future of unions?
Are they going to return with a vengeance? It seems maybe. Since we know these cycles run on reaction to previous circumstances. And people now are tired of the CEO making millions while they do all the heavy lifting for corn and wheat.
If the Hard Right gets its way, the only permitted unions will be company unions -- the sorts of unions that fleece workers and urge them to work harder and make great sacrifices for ownership and management so that they can deserve more and be able to plead for charitable people by people who have no charity.
The ruling elite of the USA wants the sort of inequality associated with high productivity -- people working to exhaustion for starvation wages, just as in a fascist regime. Basically the Gilded Age plutocracy has met the heritage of the planter class and the pair movers in political lockstep now. This is a nightmare.
I wish that I could expect better, but these people will arrange an economic crash the next time that we have a liberal government so that they can come back even more firmly, kill democracy, and make America the sort of country that people want to leave.
I hope for better, but that is the sort of hope that one makes when buying a lottery ticket. Maybe I am in a blue mood, as I have lost all faith in anything ever going well for me again. I am in a community that I despise and willl probably be stuck in for the rest of my life. I have outgrown in every aspect except finances -- and money is everything and people are nothing in Trump's America.
What you say here on a personal level is shocking and I identify and know others of the same. It's awful, seriously I feel for all of us.
The slaveship of fascisim is something I have been talking about, it seems apparent now there might finally be a realization.
In this moment, I have to call 2018 a mega turning point in general. Fakebook is finally being vilified, google is no longer so welcome in the elite, it seems like "pillars" of the last maybe decade or two are really being tested by backlash. And we're seeing as much frustration with our rulers as we have in a long time.
I read today about youtube stars who struggle. I never could understand how any of them thought they could make a living doing anything like that. The story was about "The Algorithm" the entity that controls who sees what based on code (*wanks*) some youtubers even spoke of youtube as their EMPLOYER!
I was stunned. Complaints they are not being properly subsidized and "The Algorithm" is design to keep people posting material morning to night OR their get followers and traffic dropped. Really? Did someone expect something else?
The tech giants are the PRODUCT - full manifestation - of the WWII/GD backlash and reforms when we aggressively chose capitalism over socialism.
Google is ONLY a natural product of a company that would use every advance in a new technology and process to SELL 411 to anyone, to DEAL that 411 in any situation, to SELL OUT to militarism if their maps helped, WITHOUT BORDERS as it seeks to embed in every platform on Earth, and WITHOUT ALLEGIANCE (this may be the most important). The last 4th Turning brought to us a BORDERLESS WORLD which ultimately leads to deletion of allegiance. We no longer expect corporations to want to help any specific peoples.
But I do not think there will be a return to feudalism just yet. For some reason I have a real belief outside of patriotism that America will manage this and forge something better. Remember, when the reforms of the last Turning happened, they worked well for A LOT of people for a while. They only crumbled later.
I believe our integrity is still intact, and that we have not yet surrendered entirely our American way of life of wanting independence and justice without compromising the larger things. I don't think this is the end.