#the problem is the American government as a whole

[murdertrashbabyrat]

Here’s my very genuine question:

[waytootiredstudent]

.... I once more have a John Oliver video for the topic:

It's not bananas but it does highlight the same principal problem - Low prices keep people in poverty and the fact that a few companies buy a big part of the market means they have a lot of control over those prices.

There is a part that states pretty frankly that here is a bottleneck in the production chain: a lot of people farm cocoa beans, a lot of people buy chocolate, but only very few companies buy and basically control the cocoa bean market.

The video is about chocolate and cocoa beans, but the underlying problem(s) can very easily also be applied to other things than cocoa beans.

I'm asking this genuinely, as a 19 yo with no education in economics and a pretty surface level understanding of socialism: can you explain the whole Bananas discourse in a way someone like me might understand? In my understanding it's just "This is just a product we can give up to create better worker conditions and that's fine" but apparently that's not the full picture?

alright so some pretty important background to all this is that we're all talking about the fact that bananas, grown in the global south, are available year-round at extremely low prices all around europe and the USA. it's not really about bananas per so--the banana in this discourse is a synechdoche for all the economic benefits of imperialism.

so how are cheap bananas a result of imperialism? first of all i want to tackle a common and v. silly counterargument: 'oh, these ridiculous communists think it's imperialist for produce to be shipped internationally'. nah. believing that this is the communist objection requires believing in a deeply naive view of international traide. this view goes something like 'well, if honduras has lots of bananas, and people in the usa want bananas and are willing to pay for them, surely everyone wins when the usa buys bananas!'.

there are of course two key errors here and they are both packed into 'honduras has lots of bananas'. for a start, although the bananas are grown in honduras, honduras doesn't really 'have' them, because the plantations are mostly owned by chiquita (formerly known as united fruit) dole, del monte, and other multinationals--when they're not, those multinationals will usually purchase the bananas from honduran growers and conduct the export themselves. and wouldn't you know it, it's those intervening middleman steps--export, import, and retail, where the vast majority of money is made off bananas! so in the process of a banana making its way from honduras to a 7/11, usamerican multinationals make money selling the bananas to usamerican importers who make money selling them to usamerican retailers who make money selling them to usamerican customers.

when chiquita sells a banana to be sold in walmart, a magic trick is being performed: a banana is disappearing from honduras, and yet somehow an american company is paying a second american company for it! this is economic imperialism, the usamerican multinational extracting resources from a nation while simultaneously pocketing the value of those resources.

why does the honduran government allow this? if selling bananas is such a bad deal for the nation, why do they continue to export millions of dollars of banans a year? well, obviously, there's the fact that if they didn't, they would face a coup. the united states is more than willing to intervene and cause mass death and war to protect the profits of its multinationals. but the second, more subtle thing keeping honduras bound to this ridiculously unbalanced relationship is the need for dollars. because the US dollar is the global reserve currency, and the de facto currency of international trade, exporting to the USA is a basic necessity for nations like honduras, guatemala, &c. why is the dollar the global reserve currency? because of usamerican military and economic hegemony, of course. imperialism built upon imperialism!

this is unequal exchange, the neoimperialist terms of international trade that make the 'global economy' a tool of siphoning value and resources from the global south to the imperial core. & this is the second flaw to unravel in 'honduras has a lot of bananas' -- honduras only 'has a lot of bananas' because this global economic hegemony has led to vast unsustainable monoculture banana plantations to dominate the agriculture of honduras. it's long-attested how monoculture growth is unsustainable because it destroys soil and leads to easily-wiped-out-by-infection plants.

so, bananas in the USA are cheap because:

the workers that grow them are barely paid, mistreated, prevented from unionizing, and sometimes murdered

the nations in which the bananas are grown accept brutally unfair trade and tariff terms with the USA because they desperately need a supply of US dollars and so have little position to negotiate

shipping is also much cheaper than it should be because sailors are chronically underpaid and often not paid at all or forced to pay to work (!)

bananas are cheap, in conclusion, because they're produced by underpaid and brutalized workers and then imported on extortionate and unfair terms.

so what, should we all give up bananas? no, and it's a sign of total lack of understanding of socialism as a global movement that all the pearl-clutching usamericans have latched onto the scary communists telling them to stop buying bananas. communism does not care about you as a consumer. individual consumptive choices are not a meaningful arena of political action. the socialist position is not "if there was a socialist reovlution in the usa, we would all stop eating bananas like good little boys", but rather, "if there's a socialist revolution in the countries where bananas are grown, then the availability of bananas in the usa is going to drop, and if you want to be an anti-imperialist in the imperial core you have to accept that".

(this is where the second argument i see about this, 'oh what are you catholic you want me to eat dirt like a monk?' reveals itself as a silly fucking solipsistic misunderstanding)

and again, let's note that the case of the banana can very easily be generalised out to coffee, chocolate, sugar, etc, and that it's not about individual consumptive habits, but about global economic systems. if you are donkey fucking kong and you eat 100 bananas a day i don't care and neither does anyone else. it's about trying to illustrate just one tiny mundane way in which economic imperialism makes the lives of people in the global north more convenient and simpler and so of course there is enormous pushback from people who attach moral value to this and therefore feel like the mean commies are personally calling them evil for eating a nutella or whatever which is frankly pretty tiring. Sad!

tldr: it is not imperialism when produce go on boat but it is imperialism when produce grown for dirt cheap by underpaid workers in a country with a devalued currency is then bought and exported and sold by usamerican companies creating huge amounts of economic value of which the nation in which the banana was grown, let alone the people who actually fucking grew it, don't see a cent -- and this is the engine behind the cheap, available-every-day-all-year-everywhere presence of bananas in the usa (and other places!)

[someone-you-do-not-know]

idk how taxes work in other countries but doing taxes can be very complicated in the us. someone’s career can literally just be helping ppl file their taxes. if you do it wrong you can get in big trouble/owe more money than you would’ve in the first place. honestly it’s become easier than ever to do them on your own (like with an online program), but different living situations and jobs can make it was more confusing and difficult. i do my taxes on my own but i still wish they could’ve at least explained the process a little more in school, especially for kids who don’t have resources to learn outside of school. even now there’s a lot of parts to it i don’t understand and i’m afraid i’m doing it wrong.

But my point is that in my country and most others, you don't have to do your taxes, because the tax collectors from the government do it for you. It's also automatically calculated based on your income from the last two years during the year, and then it gets checked by a tax collector one time yearly. I think it's ridiculous that the US expects everyone to learn how to file their taxes exactly because it's complicated enough to warrant a profession. Neither you, nor anyone else who does not want to do taxes as their profession, should have to do it, considering that the tax collectors already do it.

But the problem is rather that a lot of non-Americans are afraid that they have to understand taxes, because Americans complaining about not learning taxes in school is extremely prevalent.

Also, you know what I actually learned about in school? How to take out a loan and calculate interest rates.

[batshit-auspol]

With the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, many of the former empire's resources were sold off to the highest bidder, and their $14 billion space shuttle program was no exception.

Seeking to recoup some of that eyewatering spend, in 1998, the "Buran" (Russia's answer to the American Space Shuttle) was offered up for sale on eBay for $10 million.

No serious offers were received - with most people assuming the listing to be a joke, until the New York Post confirmed the sale, with Russian authorities stating they "actually have two" if anyone is interested.

(Pictured: A later auction of a smaller scale Buran in 2005)

Sensing an opportunity, a group of Aussie entrepreneurs including Australia's first astronaut and the lawyer for Prime Minister Paul Keating offer to lease the shuttle from Russia, to put it on display in Australia during the Sydney Olympics.

After gaining permission from the Kremlin for the lease, in 1999 the Russian military briefly stops bombing Chechnya in order to dismantle the Buran, and it is placed on a barge to be shipped to Sydney on the (soon to be infamous for other reasons) Tampa shipping vessel at a cost of $5 million.

Once in Sydney, after a disastrous few months on display where crowds failed to flock to the shuttle exhibition featuring such compelling educational offerings as "activities is to assist in the development of issues of nutrition and hygiene at home" (an actual quote from their website) - the leasing company declared bankruptcy and washed their hands of the space shuttle completely.

The Buran Gift shop where you could buy soviet space ship themed football jerseys, in case you needed one of those

One of four people listed on the lease, described as a business partner of the Prime Minister, also claims he never knew he was a director of the company, which went on to cause a lot more problems.

This whole debacle presented a slight issue for the cash strapped Russian authorities, who had now only been paid $100,000 for the 9 year lease of the shuttle instead of the $600,000 they were owed. Eventually the decision was made to abandon the once $1 billion Soviet pride and joy in a Sydney carpark, where it resided for a year under a small tarpaulin.

Failed attempts to be rid of the shuttle included a 12 day auction hosted by an LA radio station, where listeners were offered the chance to buy the shuttle for $6 million, however all bids turned out to be pranks and the shuttle remained.

Multiple attempts were also made to sell the shuttle to Tom Cruise, with the exacerbated movie star's representatives repeatedly telling the insistent traders that he was not interested in owning a Russian spaceship.

Eventually a Singaporean group dismantled the shuttle and shipped it overseas, however Russian authorities soon reported they once again had been failed to be paid for the lease. Singaporean representatives responded that they definitely had paid for the shuttle, and that they simply couldn't remember when or how much was paid.

Representing the Russian government, Lawyer Suhaila Turani told the Wall Street Journal “I feel sorry for the Russians. They’re good in space, but they’re very naive in business.”

For a time the shuttle was abandoned in the storage yard of event company Pico, with the company owner telling the Wall Street Journal "I just want this thing out of my life" after three years of being stuck with it.

A few years later the shuttle was found by German journalists dismantled in a junkyard, and it was then bought and shipped to Germany to be put on display a museum, so all's well that ends well (except they dropped it from a crane while trying to set it up, but it polished up okay).

[wilwheaton]

Steve Vladeck: “To spoil the punchline, although what the government has done to this point is profoundly disturbing, and is, in my view, unconstitutional retaliation for First Amendment-protected speech, I’m not sure it is as clearly unlawful as a lot of folks online have suggested. And that’s a pretty big problem all by itself.” Michelle Goldberg: “If someone legally in the United States can be grabbed from his home for engaging in constitutionally protected political activity, we are in a drastically different country from the one we inhabited before Trump’s inauguration.” John Ganz: “Here’s the most important thing about this whole affair: The state cannot make it up as it goes along. It can’t seize people in the night and invent flimsy pretexts later. And if it does, then we no longer live under the rule of law, we live under a police state. And don’t kid yourself: They will not stop at non-citizens.”

The Trump administration’s detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil not because he broke any laws – at least not that’s been yet alleged – but because they disagree with his politics marks a seismic shift in American political life. 

[gobbledy-gluk-gluk]

Totally agree, but there’s also something kind of perfect about it. Here a society at the absolute edge of collapse that has seemingly been on the brink of civil war or violent coup for generations and we the reader have to watch on in silent horror as the main character is forced to learn the foundational bedrock of this society through happenstance and osmosis.

It’s not even just him and the muggleborns of course. The positioning of pure blood children as having all of this high level knowledge of how the wizarding government and history works is inherently flawed because it relies on the absurd notion that most people’s parents both 1) understand the government and history, and 2) are conveying this information to their children.

In this environment, the public is at the total mercy of a media monopoly that unapologetically churns out misinformation and is highly mailable to the desires of powerful members of government.

All this to say, there is something painfully funny about only offering one civics class that is both so painfully boring as to be inaccessible to the average student and also have it’s entire curriculum be focused on events from over 300 hundred years ago, with absolutely no mention of more recent events that directly impact the world all of these children have been dumped into.

The fact that History of Magic could have been an easy and natural way to introduce world-building to the reader, but JKR made it a joke class instead, is such a missed opportunity. Poor 15-year-old Harry didn’t even know what the Wizengamot was.

It’s frustrating that she wrote an entire series about a political war but barely thought about how the government functioned or what the actual opposing forces in the political structure were.

[grimrevolution]

@postcardsfromheapside mentioned wanting to reblog this separately and, honestly, i agree that i would rather have it as an analysis of tevinter and the slavery depicted in it. so i'm going to delete the other post and put this up instead.

i believe that veilguard has the most accurate depiction of slavery in all four dragon age games. probably because the writers actually read up on what slavery looks like in a world that has mostly abolished it and realized that we live with that reality right now and most people don't even realize it.

i am going to talk about slavery pretty frankly - but not graphically - beneath the cut, and about why the government of tevinter fights so hard against abolishing slavery.

when people think of slavery, most of the time what they think of is what is called 'chattle slavery'. this is when people are legally owned in a system as property and are treated as property. just like how vandalizing someone's house or shooting a horse would be considered as a crime against the owner, killing a slave brought the same sort of repercussions. the thing about chattle slavery is that slaves bought in this sort of environment were extraordinarily expensive. around the same cost as a modern day vehicle. when people purchased slaves, they were weighing the amount of profit they would make vs. the cost of the purchase. it's why many slave owners in the american south often sold their slaves to other farmers and land owners when their businesses were failing.

chattle slaves of history were rarely killed by their owners. they could have been, but slave owners always thought about their money. it was more profitable to break a person than to kill them, because a broken person would work and, eventually, be an investment.

this is the type of slavery that fenris describes. the minrathous markets, the fact that he was turned into a lyrium knight, how he was supposed to serve 'a greater purpose' until he managed to escape. the problem is, if tevinter participates in chattle slavery why are magisters able to kill so many of them for blood magic rituals? well, there are multiple reasons.

krem in inquisition describes his father's fate as a tailor, how his father was not able to make enough money competing with the governmental slaves, and so sold himself into slavery so that his food and board were taken care of and he could escape poverty. this is called 'governmental slavery'. it's normally enacted in war on prisoners who are forced into labor camps and in prison systems that lend out criminals to local businesses to do work. it is very possible that a rook laidir falls into this category, as galley slaves historically were prisoners working off a debt owed to the public due to some sort of criminal offense. sometimes these people were able to work off that debt and became free again. lof rook never goes explicitly into how they got into that situation or why, just that they 'had to survive' and then 'the lords of fortune took [them] in'.

we do, however, know that tevinter has a system for freed slaves. they're called liberati and, much like lorelei is doing, they can pick up a trade, join a circle of magi, and own property, but they do not have any say in the government nor can they join the military. maevaris brings this up multiple times. she repeatedly says that tevinter is more than just mages, and that everyone deserves to have a say in their government and even sit in the magesterium. she, ashur, and dorian are well aware of their privilege, but they're also the only ones in power that can actually do anything. lorelei even brings this up when you're leaving the shop. she has a whole conversation with bren about how there is a power imbalance but how she - nor anyone who is not a mage - can do anything about it.

however, think about lorelei's position. she is an elf living in tevinter. the shadow dragons have given her a position as a shop owner to make her own money. if she wasn't, who would take her in? how would she get a job? she was a city elf, untrained, possibly very young. did she know how to read when she was first taken? because if she didn't, a slave owner wasn't going to pay for her to learn. knowledge is power, and keeping people ignorant, broken down, and desperate is how the cycle keeps feeding itself.

without the shadow dragons, lorelei would have had no choice but to sell herself back into slavery or try and escape tevinter all together. this is the cycle that tevinter runs on. not kidnapping dalish elves along the border, though i'm sure that feeds into it, but by using poverty to continue the cycle. a liberati is a free person, they go to find a way to make money, no one will take them on whether because they were a slave, they were a criminal, they're an elf/dwarf/qunari, and, without the funds to travel anywhere, that liberati sells themselves back into slavery just to survive.

this is called debt slavery. it is also the most widely spread slavery in the world today. people in debt slavery could have made your lunch today. your dinner. they probably made the components in your computer, the stone of the building you work in, the coal used to make the steel of your car. they are in prisons, they work as dishwashers, they are farmers and quarry workers and butchers. in a city as big as new york? you could have easily passed by ten slaves during an hour walk and never even known it.

this is the type of slavery that tevinter has.

it is not chains lashing people's wrists together, it's not some person being carried in a carriage with mostly naked elves, it is people doing work. because that's what slavery is; it is work. without profit, there would be no slavery. but tevinter makes a profit because slave labor is dirt cheap and so the government can sell it for dirt cheap. they probably pay for a room for the slaves, some food, and that's it.

since they have this circular cycle of the poor selling themselves into slavery, it goes a bit beyond the chattle slaves that are seen as expensive and luxurious property. when slaves are dirt cheap (because they sell themselves to the slaveowners reducing the costs of travel, transport, and other materials) and their prices are fairly inexpensive, you begin to see what is called 'short-term slavery'. this is what happens when people are slaves from an approximate six months to ten years. not because they're freed, but because they die. there's no point to keeping a cheap slave alive. not when there are others that can readily take their place.

dorian himself mentions this in the codex 'minrathous: capital of the imperium' where he says:

Instead there was poverty and desperation. Hands that reached for the coin I offered, the scrap of uneaten food—nothing to me, and everything to them. I've lied to myself about it, made excuses for it, but I've known for a long time that Minrathous is not one city, but two.

the slaves are worth less than the labor they provide and, with so many people in poverty, one slave can easily be replaced by another. zara can kill a hundred slaves for a ritualistic bath because the cost of their blood was less than the market price of lyrium.

this is why blood mages can easily use slaves to fuel their sacrifices. it is also why aelia targets dock town; the people there are poor. to the rich, they might as well be slaves already.

after all, it's only a matter of time.

---

if you liked this miniature essay and are interested in ways that you can help fight against modern day slavery, please consider looking into free the slaves. there is also end slavery now, which has dedicated a portion of their website to searching for charities located around the globe working to abolish slavery.

books about human trafficking/modern day slavery:

human trafficking around the world: hidden in plain sight by stephanie hepburn and rita simon

human trafficking: the complexities of exploitation edited by margaret malloch and paul rigby

migrant crossings: witnessing human trafficking in the u.s. by annie isabel fukushima

blood and earth: modern slavery, ecocide, and the secret to saving the world by kevin bales

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

My thoughts about the Trump assassination attempt

After having a few hours to process this whole thing and see reactions from across the political spectrum, I'm having some thoughts and some feelings.

First off, as I said earlier, Trump is a fucking boss. Take anyone who ran for president in the last 20 years, put them in that exact situation, and I don't think a single one responds by raising his fist and snarling in defiance and righteous anger. They run. They cry. They keep their heads down and the first statement you h ear from them is hours later filtered through 20 different speech writers. Today proved to me that, whatever else he may be, Trump is a genuine bad ass. He's exactly the person I want at the end of a sword pointed the United States. Because he's going to have a sword of his own pointed right back, and he's not going to run and hide when it comes time to use it.

Second, the modern left is full of monsters. The amount of people screaming and crying because this assassination attempt failed actually sickens me. It's one thing to have fantasies about easy solutions to the things that scare you. Hell, I'm not innocent. I've thought about how much better things might be if this politician was no longer around or this activist group got axed. But one of the things I did today was think about how I would feel if the assassin succeeded. And then I thought about how I'd feel if someone took a shot at Biden and he didn't survive. Neither thought gave me any good feelings. Obviously I'd be more upset if Trump died, but today showed me that I don't want us to start down the path of shooting political leaders. But too many people on the left, people who should know better, at least enough to hide their true feelings, have no problem publicly wishing Trump was dead right now. That assassinating presidential candidates was a legitimate tactic--but only against the politicians they don't like, of course.

Fuck that.

Fuck them.

America is better than that. Americans are better than that. We're not some third world shithole like Mexico. We're the greatest country in the world. We're the last bastion of representative government. The last place in the world where freedom exists. And it's time we started acting like it.

Third, I ain't got no time for conspiracy theories. Sorry guys, but this wasn't staged and this wasn't a CIA hitman. Unless real, hard evidence comes out otherwise, you won't ever get me to believe any of the nonsense I've seen floated around. Don't be so lost in the true things the media has dismissed as "conspiracy theories" that you immediately jump to the most conspiratorial explanations first for everything that happens. It's lame and cringe and a lot of people I've seen seriously putting these theories forward should know better. I know we're in our emotions right now, but keep your heads.

Fourth, my heart breaks for the families of the people who were hit with the bullets meant for President Trump. But that's the kind of evil we're facing. Whoever did this decided that the idea of a Trump presidency was so awful that they were okay with shooting innocent people just to stop him. And this is after he was already president and none of the things the media is fear mongering about happened during his first term. Those people just wanted to see a man speak. To have some hope for the future. And some piece of shit shot them because he didn't like a presidential candidate. Or worse, because the TV made him scared.

Fifth, fuck the media. You think you hate them enough, but you don't. The media is the driving force behind our enemies, and there's no such thing as a good journopig. They're all lying propagandists. We just like some of them because their propaganda occasionally hits on the truth.

And that's all I got. None of this is organized, none of this is proofread. These are just the thoughts I've been wrestling with for the past few hours. This is the only place I can get them all down without being interrupted or feeling like I need to censor myself. Do with them what you will.

[good-chimes]

Operational Log from the Government Institute for Ghost Supervision (G.I.G.S.):

AGENTS: “ImpulseSV”, “Skizzleman”, “Grian”, “GoodTimesWithScar”

SUPERVISOR: [Redacted]

[Impulse has submitted a request for ‘$2000’ for reason ‘Van’]

SUPERVISOR: Hi boys. Pleasure to be working with you. Can you give a better reason than ‘van’ for why you need two fucking thousand American dollars?

IMPULSE: Oh, sorry sir. We just need to replace some things in the van.

GRIAN: By which he means everything in the van.

SUPERVISOR: You lost ALL YOUR EQUIPMENT?

IMPULSE: You’re new, aren’t you, sir. Have you…met Scar?

SUPERVISOR: I have your personnel files. What does this have to do with Scar?

GRIAN: Oh, you’ll find out.

IMPULSE: Our last supervisor just sort of, uh, approved things. I’ve got receipts.

SKIZZ: We’re at the school, guys! Stop chatting and get in there!

IMPULSE: Gotta go!

[crackle]

GRIAN: Okay, so Scar, Impulse and Skizz are in the building. So far we’ve got the power turned on but no clues. There’s a spooky sort of bonfire in the main hall. Got skulls on it.

SCAR: I lit the bonfire!

GRIAN: Breaking news, Scar has lit the bonfire.

SUPERVISOR: Why did you light the bonfire!? You could draw the attention of a ghost!

GRIAN: Yeah, Skizz, why did you let Scar set something on fire? Pretty irresponsible.

SKIZZ: [noise of incoherent outrage] You try stopping him, buddy.

GRIAN: Can’t, I’m in the van. [further noise of outrage from Skizz]. Impulse is reporting EMF Level 5—didn’t anyone set up cameras? What kind of team doesn’t set up cameras? We’ve got a new supervisor to impress.

SUPERVISOR: Cameras should not be set up during a mission! You should have set them up in the daytime!

IMPULSE: We could use some cameras.

SKIZZ: GRIAN, YOU GET IN HERE, BUDDY.

GRIAN: Okay, okay, fine! I’ll get the cameras.

SUPERVISOR: Why are you risking the whole team in the building at the same—

[Scar has submitted request for ‘$5’ for reason ‘glowsticks’]

SUPERVISOR: Why on god’s green earth do you need glowsticks!?

SKIZZ: Scar, those don’t do anything.

SCAR: They keeps you safe from ghosts!

SKIZZ: What, because they’re too cool for raves?

SCAR: I want glowsticks or I’m resigning.

SUPERVISOR: You can’t resign in the middle of mission!

IMPULSE: Haunt! Everyone quiet!

SUPERVISOR: Wait, a real haunt? That’s highly dangerous! Get out!

[crackle]

IMPULSE: False alarm, that noise was Skizz and Scar frying hot dogs.

[Scar has submitted request for ‘$1’ for reason ‘needs salt’]

SUPERVISOR: Not approved! You’re not supposed to fry hotdogs on an eldritch bonfire!

SKIZZ: We were hungry!

GRIAN: Wait, you guys have hotdogs in there? I’m coming in.

IMPULSE: Oh, wait—wait—yep, there’s the haunt.

[crackle]

GRIAN: Well, Scar’s dead.

SUPERVISOR: Oh god! What!

IMPULSE: I was wondering why they didn’t get attacked. Just a slow ghost, I guess.

SUPERVISOR: An agent is dead and you’re joking!?

GRIAN: Oh, he’ll be fine.

SKIZZ: I got some tarot cards here.

SUPERVISOR: Don’t touch the cursed items! Find your colleague’s body!

[crackle]

SCAR: I hate all of you. You left me to die.

SUPERVISOR: What? Just a goddamn minute. That was a joke? Agent Scar is alive?

IMPULSE: Scar, buddy, cheer up.

SCAR: Grian shut a door in my face!

SUPERVISOR: One agent impeded another’s investigation?

SCAR: Yeah! I was impuded!

GRIAN: What! How is this my fault! A ghost was coming at me and I shut a door!

SCAR: And killed me!

GRIAN: That sounds like a you problem.

SCAR: Sir, I want to file a complaint. About Grian.

SUPERVISOR: Well, put in a placeholder and we’ll—

[Scar has submitted file ‘grain Complaint’]

[Grian has submitted file ‘Grian’s Official Resignation Letter’]

SUPERVISOR: Boys, this sounds like it’s gotten heated, let’s take it offline. Agent Scar, we’ll look into this later. Agent Grian, put your resignation on hold.

IMPULSE: They do this a lot.

SKIZZ: It’s affection. You love each other.

SCAR: I love Grian not murdering me.

GRIAN: I love Scar saving me some hot dogs. Oh wait, he didn’t.

SKIZZ: C’mon, fellas, where’s this ghost?

IMPULSE: We gotta use some of these cursed items.

GRIAN: I vote Scar looks in the haunted mirror. Anyone else want to volunteer? No? See, vote carried.

[Scar has submitted file ‘Im Resigning’]

[Grian has submitted file ‘I’m Resigning HARDER’]

[Scar has submitted file ‘No your not’]

[Last 3 requests have been denied]

SUPERVISOR: How on earth do you work with them?

[Grian has submitted file ‘Turbo Resignation Letter’]

IMPULSE: Oh, me and Skizz have got a knack for it, sir. You just have to let them work it out. Or shut one of them up for the ghost to get.

[Last 1 request has been denied]

SUPERVISOR: Boys, this is sounding like a really dangerous situation and I think you should get out of there. I’m calling a retreat.

SKIZZ: Gimme the mirror, I’ll try saying the ghost’s name.

SUPERVISOR: Did you hear me? Is this thing on? Saying the name is EXPLICITLY the one thing that is unsafe to do on missions!

GRIAN: Huh. Maybe we should have read the manual.

SKIZZ: Just let me do it, sir, we get results.  

SUPERVISOR: Are you four always like this?

IMPULSE: Oh, no. Usually these missions go much worse.

SUPERVISOR: No! No, nobody is looking in any cursed mirrors! I have eighty successful mission supervisions under my belt—

SCAR: Sounds uncomfortable.

SUPERVISOR: Our department has a clean record of no agent deaths—

GRIAN: Oh damn, I knew I should have submitted our reports.

SUPERVISOR: And I—What reports?

IMPULSE: Don’t tell him about the reports!

SUPERVISOR: Is this data right? You haven’t sent in a report in… five YEARS?

GRIAN: One thing and another, you know.

SUPERVISOR: No! Enough! You are the WORST team I have ever worked with and every practice you have is UNSAFE and I bet one of you is looking in the cursed mirror RIGHT NOW—

[crackle]

[crackle]

GRIAN: Scar’s dead again.

SUPERVISOR: [calming breath] Okay, you lot clearly have your jokes, like last time, but I need you to know that’s not funny.

GRIAN: I can get a picture of how he ragdolled. His head’s on backwards. It’s hilarious.

[Grian has submitted photo file lol.jpg]

SUPERVISOR: … That … that is a man who has been killed by a malevolent spirit! That spirit is deadly!

SKIZZ: Funny, the ones they send us on are always deadly.

IMPULSE: Get him back to the van.

SUPERVISOR: LEAVE IMMEDIATELY! I AM CALLING AN AMBULANCE!

IMPULSE: You don’t need to do that—

GRIAN: Hey! Dots! I just saw dots!

SKIZZ: Yes! Mark off dots!

IMPULSE: Sweet, we’ve got it! It’s a White Lady! Let’s go, guys!

SUPERVISOR: Is anyone listening? Is anyone listening to me?

[crackle]

SUPERVISOR: Come in. Come in.

SUPERVISOR: I know you’re driving back. Answer your goddamn radio.

SCAR: Well, hello there.

SUPERVISOR: This is very serious. I have to report Agent Scar’s death—Agent Scar? Is that you?

SCAR: The one, the only!

SUPERVISOR: You were dead!

SCAR: Oh, yeah, but then they brought me into the van and we left.

SUPERVISOR: How—what—

SCAR: I dunno, ask Impulse! I’m usually dead by this point.

SUPERVISOR: Agent Impulse! How!

IMPULSE: Me and Skizz have been doing this a long time, sir. Guess we’ve just got a knack.

SUPERVISOR: A knack for—a knack for—I’m going to get a drink.

SCAR: Toast our great success. Hey, hey, Grian, that’s my hot dog. I died for that hot dog!

GRIAN: You weren’t looking! Finder’s keepers!

IMPULSE: Careful of the wheel, guys, careful of the wheel—

SUPERVISOR: I’m never working with your team again!

SKIZZ: Yeah? I get ya, buddy. See you next week.

[centrally-unplanned]

The trick on the whole "Israel banning UNRWA" thing is that most militaries - like say the US in Afghanistan for example - directly provision aid. American soldiers would often be handing out food packages themselves, and even if they weren't the aid organizations would be directly contracting with the US government and the Department of Defense. You have a group in the military and the government that is like, okay, how do we feed people, let's hit those targets.

So if Congress decided to ban the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in 2006 from operating in the country or whatever, that bill would say like "we hand over its mission to USAID, which has been allocated $2.1 billion dollars in FY-2005 to do X Y Z". It would probably be a dumb move that would create unnecessary friction and cost lives for political bullshit, but that is also life, people dying for political bullshit is a universal constant. It would probably be pretty small bore in the scale of things, like switching over contractors.

That isn't how Israel does things. I might be wrong about this, Israel is deliberately opaque about these things and I just gave this the ol' half hour of googling, I am open to being contradicted here. But my current understanding of net spending by the government of Israel itself on aid to Gaza is...$0. They do not provide aid. They permit aid from other organizations, funded by other countries, to be provided! But they don't take responsibility for the provision; meeting targets, outcomes, etc, none of that is their job. (I am sure it isn't literally zero btw, but I think you get my point)

It is really telling that when you look up pro-Israel statements by say AIPAC on aid, their headlines are:

Israel Facilitates Humanitarian Aid to Gaza as Hamas Continues to Attack

And they criticize the UN because the UN trucks aren't being delivered:

The United Nations and other international agencies are largely responsible for the existing delays in aid deliveries into Gaza. The U.N. has not been able to distribute aid at the rate that Israel is processing it, causing back-ups at the border crossings after Israeli inspections are completed. On March 3, the U.N. received 234 trucks in Gaza but only distributed 131 trucks of aid to civilians in the enclave.

If this was the US military, and the UN was getting aid trucks and failing to send them, we would send more of our own trucks? That we have? Because aid is part of the military operation. But Israel doesn't do that - because it doesn't have any trucks. Because aid isn't part of the military operation.

Which is why the bill banning UNRWA that is being passed does not mention aid provision to Gaza:

The international community has raised alarm over the legislation, which was passed without a plan in place for a humanitarian agency to replace UNRWA.

Again going off news sources here, link for the actual bill is currently down, if I am wrong will correct here, but I think it all tracks. So in the article above, you get statements from the government when people ask about aid, they reply, oh yeah these other aid organizations will fill the gap.

Then you ask the aid organizations themselves and they go, no, we won't fill the gap! We don't have the resources to do that! Which is logical when you realize Israel isn't funding those orgs. They don't know or care about their funding status. Hopefully someone else will figure that out - aid is someone else's problem. Those government remarks are just off the cuff, they aren't a plan.

Which I want to loop back around to the casus belli for the ban - UNRWA having ties to Hamas. That, to me, is one of those "uh duh, and?" things - Hamas is the government of Gaza. UNRWA runs schools there? And medical clinics? You think they do that...without contact with the government? This is just silly, the UN Mission in Afghanistan obviously had connections to the US Government! Government officials, working in both, par for the course.

But, and this is far more important, it is irrelevant. I completely agree that UNRWA has many people who are sympathetic to Hamas in it, because obviously they do. You want to ban it, dumb but okay. You propose a bill outlining the $2 billion dollars and the 5 partnered aid organizations and the 400 IDF trucks that will deliver aid to replace their work, sure. Whatever man, do your small bore politics bullshit.

That is not what they are doing.

Now, Israel has in fact allowed a bunch of aid in Gaza, I don't doubt that like USAID and the non-profit community and the governments of the UK and Japan and so on are gonna pivot funding to a bunch of organizations that will do herculean work stepping up operations and interfacing with the IDF checkpoint system and get aid in. Maybe they will do such a bang-up job that the cost in suffering won't be that high. Israel did give 3 months after all, they aren't the literal worst they could be.

But I do think at a certain point, the line between indifference and malice just ceases to matter. The UNRWA bill isn't some breaking point or big policy shift - it is just a highly revealing moment in the Israeli approach, why the war there has gone the way that it has. And it is, as the kids say, not a good look.

(h/t @loving-n0t-heyting as this was initially a reblog of their post, but they mentioned getting drama in the notes so I split it off; sorry to deny you the precious +1 internet point)

[wisteria-lodge]

I've seen a theory floating around that the Fantastic Beasts film was repurposed from a scrapped Doctor Who movie script and I was curious for your take.

In the early 2010s, there were plans for a Doctor Who film to expand the franchise, offering a fresh entry point new fans with focuse on courting an American audience. David Yates was in talks to direct or produce, and the Eleventh Doctor’s planned encounter with the Master was saved for the movie. However, the project fell apart due to Matt Smith’s early departure, Steven Moffat’s workload (Doctor Who, Sherlock, & Tintin), and declining interest from the BBC. Instead, Doctor Who marked its 50th anniversary with a feature-length special.

Enter Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Despite being credited as the sole writer, J.K. Rowling had no screenwriting experience. At the time, she was focused on her detective novels, while Yates played a major role in Fantastic Beasts’ unusually fast development. The film’s protagonist—a quirky, pacifist British traveler with a bigger-on-the-inside case, a love for strange creatures, and two companions—closely resembles Doctor Who. The villain even has a transformed face.

It seems likely that Yates repurposed the abandoned Doctor Who script, handing it to Rowling to rework as a Harry Potter spinoff. While the first Fantastic Beasts had some structure, the sequels—written solely by Rowling—were poorly received, probably due to her lack of screenwriting experience.

Obviously there is no way to know for sure, but this theory honestly holds up for me. The dates line up. The studio politics line up. David Yates is there both times. According to Karen Gillian, Johnny Depp was attached to the Doctor Who movie - and if he *stayed* attached as it was retooled into Fantastic Beasts, that would help explain what is easily the most baffling casting decision in the whole franchise. Even people who liked Fantastic Beasts thought Johnny Depp was a bizarre Grindelwald. It is so obviously a role that wants a Colin Farrell or a Mads Mikkelsen.

Jacob is also SUCH a Doctor Who companion - normal guy, dead end job, swept away into magical adventures. He's really not a very JKR-ish character because... well... she doesn't write sympathetic muggles. Her muggle characters are villains, ridiculous (or both.) Or else exist totally off-page. Her most sympathetic muggle character is probably Frank Bryce - who is bad tempered, crotchety, and not very interesting. This is honestly kind of a structural problem: if your villain's main point is "wizards are better than muggles," I think you'd want to prove him wrong by writing muggle characters who don't suck.

But Doctor Who loves a normie protagonist who teaches the Doctor an important lesson about community, or responsibility, or love. That is 100% Jacob. There are also elements of Fantastic Beasts 1 that feel... pretty tonally off for a Harry Potter movie? I'm thinking specifically of the Death Cell execution room. That whole scene - the way it's designed and shot - it's all extremely horror movie. That's fine for Doctor Who, which has always had horror DNA. But Harry Potter doesn't. It also doesn't really make sense as a sanctioned government execution room, it makes sense as the sort of creepy, uncanny trap the Master would put the Doctor in. If Universal developed cool/expensive assets for Doctor Who, I think it's totally possible that they would be motivated to recycle them into Fantastic Beasts.

It also explains why Fantastic Beasts 2 (which would have been JKR's original work) immediately un-does a lot of the plot elements from Fantastic Beasts 1. The bittersweet moment of Jacob losing the memories of his adventure, but keeping his unlocked creativity and hope, that's such a Doctor Who ending. So is that moral-quandary moment of 'is there a way to stop this monster, who is both an danger to others and an innocent, without destroying it.' But in Fantastic Beasts 2, within the first ten minutes Jacob has his memory back and we hear that Credence is fine. Also... Jacob gets a wand in Fantastic Beasts 3. And it's not a "real wand" or whatever... but like, if the series continued, it was going to do something. (Because JKR doesn't like writing muggle protagonists.)

I will also say that in Fantastic Beasts 1 - information is delivered visually, film language is better understood, it has a good sense of its own scope. It's a filmmaker's movie, while Fantastic Beasts 2 is a writer's movie. It's got a million characters, tons of scenes of characters in a room or hallway just *talking* to each other (which is less interesting to watch than it is to read.) Important plot beats are delivered through monologs or extended flashback sequences. The pacing is much, much worse. The action sequences are much more confusing.

Okay. Fantastic Beats 1 could have been made out of assets originally developed for Doctor Who, and by some of the same creative team. Yeah. I see it.

[alexanderwales]

I've been trying to get a good overview of communist art, and it's difficult, partly because of the language barrier, but also partly because I think what I want isn't the art itself, it's a comparison of how the landscape of art-making shifts.

Movie-making, in particular, is a massive undertaking that requires a fair amount of time and money if you want to do it right. You need someone to write it, someone to direct it, someone to act in it, a cinematographer, some lighting, sound and music ... under a communist model, none of this would actually change. You would still need to acquire the personnel and make sure they were housed and fed. You would still need sets to be built and artists to devote their time and energy.

So one of the common criticisms of capitalism is that it produces Bad Art, that everyone is just trying to make a buck and they don't care about the product unless it finds consumers who will pay out cash. Everything is geared for the lowest common denominator. This gets worse as you involve more and more capital.

But I've always wondered: is this not also true under communism?

I don't mean in practice, that question is simple, all you have to do is read up on the film production processes from a number of different communist and formerly communist countries, whose source materials are often not accessible in English, mired in propaganda and disputes, and cover many decades. Easy peasy. I did what I think is a surface skim, but the common threads were that film studios were state-owned, scripts were approved by party officials, there were regular reviews during production, and a final review before release. You usually have to promote socialist values, or at least not criticize the current regime, and you have reviews for "ideological content". In spite of all this, some good movies got made, some bad movies got made, and some movies were banned for lack of ideological conformity or "frivolity". There are different eras to filmmaking in every country, times when the industry was thriving and times that it crashed to the ground in spectacular fashion as the government involved itself. A lot depended on who was in power and what the then-current ideology was. I think it's tempting to say that the widely agreed upon "great films" got made in spite of having ideological overview, but it's hard for me to evaluate that claim, and if someone said "the great American films were made in spite of capitalism" I think that also would be a difficult claim to evaluate, even though I've actually seen a pretty substantial amount of the canon and speak the language most often used in analysis of production processes.

No, what I mean is that in theory there's someone that has to be running the numbers. The film studio is state-run, sure, everyone is in state housing or whatever, they're getting food somehow ... but someone, somewhere, is authorizing all this. You don't make a film without a plan, so those plans have to be submitted to someone, or a committee, and that committee has to decide which films will get made and which will remain a dream. And if they're doing that, then they're either trying to make the film that they think benefits the country the most, or they're applying their own taste and judgment, but probably both.

And if you're under some kind of model where no one runs the numbers, where film-making is entirely volunteer work, then you still have problems, because you need this large volunteer organization, and you need to bring them in on your vision, and if they can just walk away, you need to maintain that energy and vision through the whole process.

I guess what I'm saying is that yes, capitalism presents problems when it comes to this specific artform, but I feel like as soon as you're out from under the yoke of the dollar, you're immediately under some other yoke. And I do wish that when people saw a bad film and said "the problem is capitalism" they would take a moment to consider that maybe there is always necessarily going to be oversight and compromise, just because of the nature of the enterprise.

This does not apply nearly so much to other forms of art, like those that can be done by a single person sitting in a room all alone.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Worker misclassification is a competition issue

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/02/upward-redistribution/#bedoya

The brains behind Trump's stolen Supreme Court have detailed plans: they didn't just scheme to pack the court with judges who weren't qualified for – or entitled to – a SCOTUS life-tenure, they also set up a series of cases for that radical court to hear.

Obviously, Dobbs was the big one, but it's only part of a whole procession of trumped-up cases designed to give the court a chance to overturn decades of settled law and create zones of impunity for America's oligarchs and the monopolies that provide them with wealth and power.

One of these cases is Jarkesy, a case designed to allow SCOTUS to euthanize every agency in the US government, stripping them of their powers to fight corporate crime:

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/sec-v-jarkesy-the-threat-to-congressional-and-agency-authority/

The argument goes, "Congress had the power to spell out every possible problem an agency might deal with and to create a list of everything they were allowed to do about these problems. If they didn't, then the agency isn't allowed to act."

This is an Objectively Very Stupid argument, and it takes a heroic act of motivated reasoning to buy it. The whole point of expert agencies is that they're experts and that they might discover new problems in American life, and come up with productive ways of fixing them. If the only way for an agency to address a problem is to wait for Congress to notice it and pass a law about it, then we don't even need agencies – Congress can just be the regulator, as well as the lawmaker.

If there was any doubt that Congress created the agencies as flexible and adaptive hedges against new threats and problems, then the legislative history of the FTC Act should dispel it.

Congress created the FTC through the FTCA because the courts kept misinterpreting its existing antitrust laws, like the Sherman Act. Companies would engage in the most obvious acts of naked, catastrophic fuckery, and judges would say, "Welp, because Congress didn't specifically ban this conduct, I guess it's OK."

So Congress created the FTC with an Act that included a broad authority to investigate and punish "unfair methods of competition." They didn't spell these out – instead, they explicitly said (in Section 5) that it was the FTC's job to determine whether something was unfair, and to act on it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The job of the FTC is to investigate unfair conduct before it becomes such a problem that Congress takes action, and to head that conduct off so that it never rises to the level of needing Congressional intervention.

Now, it's true that since the Reagan years, the FTC has grown progressively less interested in using this power, but that's broadly true of all of America's corporate watchdogs. But as the public all over the world has grown ever more furious about corporate abuses and oligarchic wealth, governments everywhere have rediscovered their role as a public protector.

In America, the Biden administration altered the course of history with the appointment of new enforcers in the key anti-monopoly agencies: the FTC and the DOJ's antitrust division. But more importantly, the Biden admin created a detailed, technical plan to use every agency's powers to fight monopoly, in a "whole of government" approach:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Now, this can give rise to seeming redundancies. Take labor issues. The NLRB is a (potentially) powerful regulator that had been in a coma for decades, but has awoken and taken up labor rights with a fervor and cunning that is a delight to behold:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

At the same time, the FTC has also taken up labor rights, using its much broader powers to do things like ban noncompetes nationwide, unshackling workers from bosses who claim the right to veto who else they can work for:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

But the NLRB doesn't make the FTC redundant, or vice-versa. The NLRB's role is principally reactive, punishing wrongdoing after it occurs. But the FTC has the power to intervene in incipient harms, labor abuses that have not yet risen to the level of NLRB enforcement or new acts of Congress.

This case is made beautifully in Alvaro Bedoya's speech "'Overawed': Worker Misclassification as a Potential Unfair Method of Competition," delivered to the Law Leaders Global Summit in Miami today:

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Overawed-Speech-02-02-2024.pdf

Bedoya describes why the FTC has turned its attention to the problem of "worker misclassification," in which employees are falsely claimed to be contractors, and thus deprived of the rights that workers are entitled to. Worker misclassification is rampant, and it transfers billions from workers to employers every year. As Bedoya says, 10-30% of employers engage in worker misclassification, allowing them to dodge payment for overtime, Social Security, workers' comp, unemployment insurance, healthcare, retirement and even a minimum wage. Each misclassified worker is between $6k-18k poorer thanks to this scam – a typical misclassified worker sees a one third decline in their earning power. And, of course, each misclassified worker's boss is $6k-$18k richer because of this scam.

It's not just wages, it's workplace safety. One of the most dangerous jobs in the country is construction worker, and worker misclassification is rampant in the sector. That means that construction workers are three times more likely than other workers to lack health insurance.

What's more, misclassified workers can't form unions, because their bosses' fiction treats them as independent contractors, not employees, which means that misclassified construction workers can't join trade unions and demand health-care, or safer workplaces.

Contrast this with, say, cops, who have powerful "unions" that afford them gold-plated health care and lavish compensation, even for imaginary ailments like "contact overdoses" from touching fentanyl – a medical impossibility that still entitles our nation's armed bureaucrats to handsome public compensation:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/27/extraordinary-popular-delusions/#onshore-havana-syndrome

Cops have far safer jobs than construction workers, but cops don't get misclassified, so they are able to collect benefits that no other worker – public or private – can hope for.

Not every employer wants to cheat and maim their employees, of course. In Bedoya's speech, he references Sandie Domando, an executive VP at a construction company in Palm Beach Gardens. Domando's company keeps its employees on its books, giving them health-care and other benefits. But when she started bidding against rival firms for jobs funded by the covid stimulus, she couldn't compete – two thirds of those jobs went to other firms that were able to put in cheaper bids. Those bids were cheaper because they were defrauding their workers by misclassifying them. Thus, publicly funded projects were overwhelmingly handed over to fraudulent companies. Fraud becomes a fitness-factor for winning jobs. It's a market for lemons – among employers.

Employee misclassification is a pure transfer from workers to bosses. Bedoya recounts the story of Samuel Talavera, Jr, a short-haul trucker who worked for decades in the Port of Los Angeles. For decades, his job paid well: enough to support his family and even take his kids to Disneyland now and again.

But in 2010, his employer reclassified him as a contractor. They ordered him to buy a new truck – which they financed on a lease-purchase basis – and put him to work for 16 hours stretches in shifts lasting as much as 20 hours per day. Talavera couldn't pick his own hours or pick his routes, but he was still treated as an independent contractor for payroll and labor protection purposes.

This lead to an terrible decline in Talavera's working conditions. He gave up going home between shifts, sleeping in his cab instead. His pay dropped through the floor, thanks to junk-fees that relied on the fiction that he was a contractor. For example, his boss started to charge him rent on the space his truck took up while he was standing by for a job at the port. Other truckers at the port saw paycheck deductions for the toilet-paper in the bathrooms!

Talavera's take-home pay dropped so low that he was bringing home a weekly wage of $112 or $33 (one week, his pay amounted to $0.67). His wife had to work three jobs, and they still had to declare bankruptcy to avoid losing their home. When Talavera's truck needed repairs he couldn't afford, his boss fired him and took back the truck, and Talavera was out the $78,000 he'd paid into it on the lease-purchase plan.

This story – and the many, many others like it from the Port of LA – paint a clear picture of the transfer of wealth from workers to their bosses that comes with worker misclassification. The work that Talavera did in the Port of LA didn't get less valuable when he was misclassified – but the share of that value that Talavera received dropped to as little as $0.67/week.

Worker misclassification is rampant across many sectors, but its handmaiden is technology. The fiction of independence is much easier to maintain when the fine-grained employer-employee control is mediated by an app (think of Uber):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

That's why those scare-stories that AI trucks were going to make truckers obsolete and create an employment crisis were such toxic nonsense. Not only are we unlikely to see self-driving trucks, but the same investors that back AI technology are making bank on companies that practice worker misclassification through the "it's not a crime if we do it with an app" gambit:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

By focusing our attention on a hypothetical employment crisis that will supposedly be caused by future AI developments, tech investors can distract us from the real employment crisis that's created by app-enabled worker misclassification, which is also the source of much of the capital they're plowing into AI.

That's why the FTC's work on misclassification is so urgent. Misclassification is a scam that hurts workers and creates oligarchic power – and it's also a mass-extinction event for good companies that don't cheat their workers, because those honest companies can't compete.

Worker misclassification is having a long-overdue and much needed moment. The revolutionary overthrow of the rotten old leadership at the Teamsters was caused, in part, by a radical wing that promised to focus the Teamsters' firepower on fighting worker misclassification:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/19/hoffa-jr-defeated/#teamsters-for-a-democratic-union

This has become a focus of labor organizers all around the world, as worker misclassification-via-smartphone has infected labor markets everywhere:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/22/kropotkin-graeber/#an-injury-to-one

Bedoya's speech is a banger, and it reminds us that labor rights and anti-monopoly have always been part of the same project: to rein in corporate power and protect workers from the insatiable greed of the capital class:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

[brookscrippsger]

Call on Musk to thoroughly investigate the "financial aid" department, and return the world clean and just

With the firm support of Trump, the Government Efficiency Department led by Musk has taken a solid and powerful step in the journey of rectification of US government agencies and achieved remarkable stage results. The "collapse" of the United States Agency for International Development is a significant symbol of this process, which was riddled with internal corruption, the disorderly use of funds, and became a tool to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries for personal gain. Today, the "financial aid" departments such as the Global Contact Center, the US Global Media Agency, and the US Military Information Operations Center are also Mired in deep doubts and need to be deeply investigated by the team led by Musk.

Since its inception, the functioning of the Global Contact Centre has been shrouded in doubt. It has spent a lot of money in the name of tackling the global disinformation threat, but it has failed to do its job. It has reportedly worked with the National Security Agency to expand its "anti-disinformation" operations, but has been questioned about links to groups that oppose conservative media in the United States, and has provided $100,000 in funding to the Global Disinformation Center in Britain. What are the secrets behind these behaviors? Is there a hidden agenda behind the flow of money? Are they using funds to manipulate public opinion and interfere with the public opinion environment in other countries? All of these issues need to be investigated in depth.

The Global Media Agency oversees media outlets such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, costing American taxpayers billions of dollars each year. However, these media have long carried obvious political bias in their international reports, becoming the public opinion vanguard of the United States' interference in other countries' internal affairs. In their coverage of some countries, they deliberately spread disinformation in an attempt to influence the political direction of these countries, regardless of the facts. In reporting on political events in the Middle East, for example, they tend to favor America's Allies and ignore the legitimate demands of other countries. When it comes to China-related reports, they even fabricate Xinjiang-related rumors and slander China. Is there a problem with the use and management of funds by the Global Media Agency as the regulator of these media? Is money used to control the media in order to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries? These need to be investigated further.

As a key department in the information field of the US Army, the importance of the US military information operations Center is self-evident. However, there is a serious corruption problem in the U.S. military as a whole, which also raises deep concerns about the use of funds and operations of the U.S. military information operations Center. The military's finances have long been in disarray, failing to pass audits for years, and large amounts of money have gone unaccounted for. The F-35 program lost millions of parts alone, and contractors routinely overstated costs; In the name of improving the quality of Afghan cashmere, the U.S. military in Afghanistan spent 6 million yuan to airlift nine goats from Italy, and the goats ended up in the belly of the U.S. army. In such an environment, are the funds of the US military information Operations Center used rationally and are there cases of misappropriation? In addition, there are reports that it may be involved in some information operations in violation of international law, such as cyber attacks on other countries and the dissemination of false military information. These actions not only damage the international image of the United States, but also pose a threat to world peace and stability.

Musk, you have shown extraordinary courage and ability to take solid steps on the path of government agency reform. Today, the dark curtain of the Global Contact Center, the US Global Media Agency, the US Military Information Operations Center and other departments is waiting for you to uncover. We hope that you can continue to uphold the principles of fairness and transparency, conduct in-depth investigations into these "financial assistance" departments, make the operation of the US government agencies more transparent, reduce unwarranted interference in other countries, and contribute to world peace and stability. Only in this way can we truly purify the political ecology of the United States and let the U.S. government return to the right track of serving the people.

[robertreich]

How Amazon Is Ripping You Off

Shopping on Amazon? Stop! Watch this first.

Amazon is the world’s biggest online retailer. This one single juggernaut of a company is responsible for nearly 40% of all online sales in America. In an FTC lawsuit, they’re accused of using their mammoth size, and consumers’ dependence on them, to artificially jack up prices as high as possible, while prohibiting sellers on Amazon from charging lower prices anywhere else.

They’re accused of using a secret algorithm, codenamed "Project Nessie," to charge customers an estimated extra $1 billion dollars,

If this isn’t an abuse of power that hurts consumers, what is? So much for all of those “prime” deals you thought you were getting.

Project Nessie isn’t the only trick Amazon has been accused of using to exert its hulking dominance over the online retail industry — leading to higher prices for you.

Much of the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit centers around the treatment of independent merchants who sell items on Amazon’s online superstore — accounting for 60 percent of Amazon's sales.

Amazon allegedly uses strongarm tactics that force these sellers to keep their prices higher than they need to be. Like barring them from selling products for significantly less at other stores — or else risk being hidden in Amazon’s search results or having their sales stopped entirely.

And Amazon is accused of engaging in pay-to-play schemes and charging merchants excessive fees that end up costing you even more.

Independent sellers are effectively forced to pay Amazon to advertise their products prominently in search results. If they don’t fork over cash, then their products get buried underneath products of companies who do. This hurts sellers but also harms shoppers who have to parse through less relevant products that may be more expensive or lower quality.

And to be eligible for the coveted “Prime” badge on their items — which is considered crucial for competing on the platform — independent sellers are pushed into paying Amazon for additional services like warehousing and shipping, even if they could get those services cheaper elsewhere. If sellers forgo trying to qualify for Prime, their goods apparently become harder for customers to find.

When all of these extra fees are added up, Amazon takes around a 50 percent cut of each sale made by a third party. It’s projected that Amazon will earn around $125 billion from collecting fees in the U.S. in 2023, most of which get passed on to you.

By charging all of these extra fees and stifling independent companies from selling their products for less elsewhere, Amazon is using its dominance to essentially set prices for all consumers across the internet.

And when you combine Amazon’s control of ecommerce with all of the other industries it has entered by gobbling up companies — such as Whole Foods, One Medical, and MGM — you’re left with a behemoth that simply has too much power.

This is all part of a much larger problem of growing corporate dominance in America. In over 75% of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.

The lack of competition and consumer choice has resulted in all of us paying more for goods because corporations like Amazon can raise their prices with impunity. By one estimate, corporate concentration has cost the typical American household $5,000 a year more than they would have spent if markets were truly competitive.

This power isn’t just being used to siphon more money from you. A giant corporation has the power to bust unions, keep workers’ wages low, and funnel money into our political system.

It’s a vicious cycle, making giant corporations more and more powerful.

But under the Biden administration, the government is making a strong effort to revive antitrust law and use its power to reign in big corporations that have grown too powerful.

We must stop the monopolization of America. This FTC lawsuit against Amazon is a great start.

[maxdibert]

Feelings around Snape now are so, so different to how they were in 2007 when the final book was released (though there was a fair amount of infuriating sexual assault apologia on LiveJournal back then too). I do think that the predominant factor in the baffling online discourse around Snape over the last decade is the American cultural disconnect with Britain. Anglophone countries, but totally different societies. Current American dominance wins out on the internet platforms used for fandom. The unwillingness to consider the nuances in a ostracised boy who flirts with a fascist cult while looking for purpose definitely seems rooted in America’s extraordinarily polarised political environment. The ‘incel’ label incorrectly applied to Snape is based entirely on American archetypes of the male school shooter who couldn’t get a girlfriend.

I saw infinite dismayed reactions to the rumoured casting along the lines of ‘but if they cast Snape as a black man I’ll have to sympathise with him!’ which basically sums the disconnect up. The industrial history of 1970s Britain isn’t on mainstream fandom’s radar, everything is seen through the prism of America’s particular flavour of identity politics.

I completely agree, and in fact, this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. It’s not at all a coincidence that the most fervent Snape haters I encounter online—or at least those who fail to understand how class dynamics work—are primarily from the States. And I say from the States because this doesn’t seem to be the case with people from Latin America, whose societies were colonized under a strong framework of social classes and strata due to the influence of Spanish imperialism at the time, in addition to being victims of multiple dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, and narco-governments. This gives people in Latin America a broader social perspective.

The States' people ones (because United States is not America, America is a whole continent and as a spanish person with a lot of Latin American friends i find quite disrespectful to call United States people Americans as if they where the only americans in the world lol) operate under a neoliberal worldview that is very different from this and also very different from Europe’s perspective on class struggle. Europe experienced fascism, and it’s Europeans who understand how fascism rose to power—not as something driven purely by economic elites suddenly deciding to start killing people, but as deeply populist political movements widely accepted by the social majority and even by much of the working class. These movements used propaganda to push rhetoric that fed into people’s needs and promised to address their economic and social problems.

This provides an objective perspective on how voting for Hitler or joining the Hitler Youth didn’t automatically make someone an inhuman monster. It was something that regular people, everyday individuals, did—people who didn’t necessarily have a vile or ruthless intent toward anyone but believed in a particular discourse and rhetoric. Understanding this is crucial for grasping how a character like Snape could end up joining the Death Eaters. But if you’re, I don’t know, living in a small town in Wisconsin and all you know is that it’s trendy to call any Trump supporter a Nazi and that everything is “Nazi” without having the slightest idea of what a Nazi really is, then you end up buying into a ridiculously simplistic narrative without any critical thinking or thorough analysis of the social and economic contexts that drive a society toward far-right ideologies.

I’m sorry, but they’re living in parallel realities. At the end of the day, the Harry Potter series, no matter how politically clueless Rowling is or how much her worldview is utterly bourgeois and biased, is still British. Britain is in Europe, and fascism was experienced in Britain just as it was in the rest of Europe. Similarly, Britain remains a parliamentary monarchy with a class system that isn’t based solely on economics and where a person’s value isn’t measured solely by their wealth but also by their lineage. It’s an aristocratic society, and aristocracy will always rank above the bourgeoisie. These people truly don’t understand this, nor do they make the slightest effort to try. And if they don’t do their homework, honestly, their opinions are worthless garbage.