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The Future of Unions
#4
(09-08-2018, 08:04 PM)TheNomad Wrote:
(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.

I recognize that I am not alone. My health is good for my age, and I have even shed about forty pounds over two years. Thank you for your expression of sympathy, but I need some mercy from the economic system that has shafted me badly. Nothing could ever prepare me for an economic order in which nothing matters except that the 'Right people' get whatever they want irrespective of the suffering that such entails except to have had everything go right for me by chance. 

This Crisis may resolve itself with some 21st-centiry equivalent of the guillotine. It's easy to make a 'little list'.


Quote:The slave-ship of fascism is something I have been talking about, it seems apparent now there might finally be a realization. 


It won't quite be slavery; it will most likely be debt-bondage. But going heavily into debt just to get a job could be a norm. I can imagine the creditors getting their hooks in people and taking away such freedom as people used to have in the enforcement of contractual terms. It will allegedly be voluntary -- do this or starve.

People who run off? The technology will be far more effective than the bloodhounds that chased Eliza in Uncle Tom'[s Cabin. Think of the laborer's position in Nazi Germany, infamous for far worse than the position of workers with respect to employers; workers could not change employers without the consent of the employer, and any worker who fell short of the employer's demands could be shipped off to some corrective labor camp. Ne thankful, one is told, that worse things that you see happening to others aren't happening to you. I see our economic elites -- owners and the executive elites --- no better than their counterparts in Germany around 1930 who found Hitler the means of achieving their economic desires for cheap, cowed labor and monopolized pricing. Trump may not be Hitler; he lacks the political savvy of that horrible man. Who knows? We might 'only' get a Pinochet. 


Quote: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.

Oh, do I hope that such is so with political reality again going sane and humane. As it is. my best hope is to marry some rich widow.


Quote: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 had no idea of how people make money off YouTube. I consider it a volunteer activity, although people might solicit funds through Patreon (which allows people to get donations to support them). There are concert previews that encourage people to sign up for a subscription service.


Quote: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.

I do not know how to download a video onto YouTube, but I don't have any material to download/ Maybe I could use a camcorder to follow my trip on some rural expressway -- as if anyone wants to pay real money to see the scenery on the Ohio Turnpike.

Quote: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. 

It might not even be a choice. If the 'slave-ship of fascism' sets sail, then the slavers might find ways to look to Google to find out who is the potential resistance. We might 'only' get a Pinochet, but he murdered any potential opposition, too.

Quote: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.

This 4T, in contrast to the last one, is mild economically but a disaster in politics -- so far. I'd rather have the 1930s economy and political reforms than what we have. We may be losing our political freedoms in return for vague promises of prosperity that we can never achieve. We are at or near peak manufacturing in the First World because we need little new stuff. It's down to replacement (mostly of obsolete stuff). How many televisions, sofas, refrigerators, and cars do any of us really need?

Quote: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.

The widespread contempt that Donald Trump gets offers some hope. The problem is that ruthless people know the seams in our systemand have every desire to exploit them again oce the opportunity returns.Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were portents of the trend toward tyranny.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin with a different concern than 'temporary safety'...

Those who would surrender their essential liberties for a promise of economic growth will lose their liberty and get no economic growth. As I see it the worst slum in Calcutta in a democratic India is preferable to a torture chamber in San Francisco (a city that I love
but expect to never return, instead getting to live in a community that is nothing more than preparation for a nursing home .
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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Messages In This Thread
The Future of Unions - by TheNomad - 09-08-2018, 04:12 PM
RE: The Future of Unions - by pbrower2a - 09-08-2018, 07:41 PM
RE: The Future of Unions - by TheNomad - 09-08-2018, 08:04 PM
RE: The Future of Unions - by pbrower2a - 09-08-2018, 09:49 PM
RE: The Future of Unions - by TheNomad - 09-09-2018, 12:02 AM
RE: The Future of Unions - by pbrower2a - 09-09-2018, 10:31 AM
RE: The Future of Unions - by David Horn - 09-09-2018, 10:34 AM
RE: The Future of Unions - by TheNomad - 09-14-2018, 08:09 PM
RE: The Future of Unions - by pbrower2a - 09-15-2018, 07:00 AM
RE: The Future of Unions - by David Horn - 09-15-2018, 10:21 AM
RE: The Future of Unions - by TheNomad - 09-16-2018, 05:02 AM
RE: The Future of Unions - by Anthony '58 - 08-11-2019, 08:24 AM
RE: The Future of Unions - by pbrower2a - 08-11-2019, 10:36 AM
RE: The Future of Unions - by David Horn - 08-11-2019, 06:30 PM
RE: The Future of Unions - by pbrower2a - 08-11-2019, 08:37 PM
RE: The Future of Unions - by Anthony '58 - 01-18-2020, 10:42 AM

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