#working under protest because we have no union

[saruvanthewhite]

Tough day following tough week. Abject rage is all I have left. I need time off.

[metamatar]

When electronics manufacturing took off in China in the 1980s, rural women who had just begun moving to the cities made up the majority of the factory workforce. They didn’t have many other options. Managers at companies like Foxconn preferred to hire women because they believed them to be more obedient [...]

Hiring a young, female workforce in India comes with its own requirements — which include reassuring doting parents about the safety of their daughters. The company offers workers free food, lodging, and buses to ensure a safe commute at all hours of the day. On days off, women who live in Foxconn hostels have a 6 p.m. curfew; permission is required to spend the night elsewhere. “[If] they go out and not return by a specific time, their parents would be informed,” a former Foxconn HR manager told Rest of World. “[That’s how] they offer trust to their parents.”

[...] the Tamil Nadu government sent a strong signal welcoming Foxconn and other manufacturers: Authorities approved new regulations that would increase workdays from eight to 12 hours. This meant that Foxconn and other electronics factories would be able to reduce the number of shifts needed to keep their production line running from three to two, just like in China. [...] Political parties aligned with the government called the bill “anti-labor” and, during the vote, walked out of the legislative assembly. After the bill passed, trade unions in the state announced a series of actions including a demonstration on motorbikes, civil disobedience campaigns, and protests in front of the ruling party’s local headquarters. The government shelved its new rule within four days.

Indian Foxconn workers told Rest of World that eight hours under intense pressure is already hard to bear. “I’ll die if it’s 12 hours of work,” said Padmini, the assembly line worker.

For the expatriate workers, the slower pace of the factory floors in India is its own shock to the system. A Taiwanese manager at a different iPhone supplier in the Chennai area told Rest of World that India’s 8-hour shifts and industry-standard tea breaks were a drag on production. “You have barely settled in on your seat, and the next break comes,” the manager lamented.

In China, Foxconn relies on lax enforcement of the country’s labor law — which limits workdays to eight hours and caps overtime — as well as lucrative bonuses to get employees to work 11 hours a day during production peaks [...] five Chinese and Taiwanese workers said they were surprised to discover that their Indian colleagues refused to work overtime. Some attributed it to a weak sense of responsibility; others to what they perceived as Indian people’s low material desire. “They are easily content,” an engineer deployed from Zhengzhou said. “They can’t handle even a bit more pressure. But if we don’t give them pressure, then we won’t be able to get everything right and move production here in a short time.” [...] At the same time, the expat staff enjoy the Indian work culture of tea breaks, chatting with colleagues, and going home on time. They recognize they are helping the company spread a Chinese work culture that they know can be unhealthy. [...]

On the assembly line, Foxconn’s targets were tough to reach, workers said. Jaishree, 21, joined the iPhone shop floor in 2022 as a recent graduate with a degree in mathematics. (With India’s high level of unemployment, Foxconn’s assembly line has plenty of women with advanced degrees, including MBAs.) [...] “At the start, during my eight-hour shift, I did about 300 [screws]. Now, I do 750,” she said. “We have to finish within time, otherwise they will scold us.” [...]

Mealtimes are an issue, too. In December 2021, thousands of Indian Foxconn employees protested after some 250 colleagues contracted food poisoning. In response, the company changed food contractors, and increased its monthly base salary from 14,000 rupees to 18,000 rupees ($168 to $216) — double the minimum wage prescribed by the Tamil Nadu labor department for unskilled workers. [...]

Working conditions take a physical toll. Padmini has experienced hair loss because she has to wear a skull cap and work in air-conditioned spaces, she said. “Neck pain is the worst, since we are constantly bending down and working.” She has irregular periods, which she attributes to the air conditioning and the late shifts. “[Among] girls with me on the production line, some six girls have this problem,” Padmini said. Workers said they regularly see colleagues become unwell. “The day before yesterday, a girl fainted and they took her to the hospital,” [...] Padmini, at 26, believes she is close to the age where the company might consider her too old. “They used to hire women up to age 30, now they hire only up to 28,” she said.

[kp777]

By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

Sept. 5, 2023

"We are prepared to do whatever it takes, even get arrested in an act of civil disobedience, to stand up for our patients," said one Kaiser Permanente worker.

Dozens of healthcare workers were arrested in Los Angeles on Monday after sitting in the street outside of a Kaiser Permanente facility to demand that providers address dangerously low staffing levels at hospitals in California and across the country.

The civil disobedience came as the workers prepared for what could be the largest healthcare strike in U.S. history. Late last month, 85,000 Kaiser Permanente employees represented by the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions began voting on whether to authorize a strike over the nonprofit hospital system's alleged unfair labor practices during ongoing contract negotiations.

The current contract expires on September 30.

"We are burnt out, stretched thin, and fed up after years of the pandemic and chronic short staffing," Datosha Williams, a service representative at Kaiser Permanente South Bay, said Monday. "Healthcare providers are failing workers and patients, and we are at crisis levels in our hospitals and medical centers."

"Our employers take in billions of dollars in profits, yet they refuse to safely staff their facilities or pay many of their workers a living wage," Williams added. "We are prepared to do whatever it takes, even get arrested in an act of civil disobedience, to stand up for our patients."

Kaiser Permanente reported nearly $3.3 billion in net income during the first half of 2023. In 2021, Kaiser CEO Greg Adams brought in more than $16 million in total compensation.

According to the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, the hospital system "has investments of $113 billion in the U.S. and abroad, including in fossil fuels, casinos, for-profit prisons, alcohol companies, military weapons, and more."

Healthcare workers, meanwhile, say they're being overworked and underpaid, and many are struggling to make ends meet amid high costs of living.

"We have healthcare employees leaving left and right, and we have corporate greed that is trying to pretend that this staffing shortage is not real," Jessica Cruz, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, toldLAist.

"We are risking arrest, and the reason why we're doing it is that we need everyone to know that this crisis is real," said Cruz, who was among the 25 workers arrested during the Labor Day protest.

A recent survey of tens of thousands of healthcare workers across California found that 83% reported understaffing in their departments, and 65% said they have witnessed or heard of care being delayed or denied due to staff shortages.

Additionally, more than 40% of the workers surveyed said they feel pressured to neglect safety protocols and skip breaks or meals due to short staffing.

"It's heartbreaking to see our patients suffer from long wait times for the care they need, all because Kaiser won't put patient and worker safety first," Paula Coleman, a clinical laboratory assistant at Kaiser Permanente in Englewood, Colorado, said in a statement late last month. "We will have no choice but to vote to strike if Kaiser won't bargain in good faith and let us give patients the quality care they deserve."

A local NBC affiliate reported Monday that 99% of Colorado Kaiser employees represented by SEIU Local 105 have voted to authorize a strike.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

[tallerthantale]

Effective Boycotting is a Matter of Leverage

I'm not writing this to be critical of or police anyone's personal position on continuing involvement in Good Omens fandom or whatever their state is with Amazon. Some people may never want to engage in the fandom again, and that's ok. Some people want to keep working on their art, that's ok.

For people who are actively interested in strategizing around their relationship to the fandom and the work, I want to give you my thoughts on how that can be done.

Amazon appears to be considering reducing Neil Gaiman's roles from Season 3. As far as I have seen we don't know what any of the details are that are currently being considered. That means right now is the most impactful moment to consider the role of fandom.

When we look at this strategically, the first step is, what's the objective? For me, the long term goal is to have an incentive structure for Amazon and other such organizations to drop people from projects. I'll explain a bit what I mean by that.

Imagine a labor union that's contracted with a store owned by an evil corporation. It's too much of a monopoly to realistically take down the corporation, a lot of people are stuck buying from the store because they don't have decent transportation.

There is a labor dispute, the evil corporation is doing something extra evil and the union calls for a boycott until they stop. So the people who reasonably can stop shopping at the store honor the boycott, and buy from somewhere else. If it's a well run boycott they also help other people out with rides to shop elsewhere through community organizing.

Eventually the store gives in on the labor dispute and does what the union wants. At that point, the union drops the call for a boycott, as the parties have come to an agreement. The evil corporation is still evil. Here is the really important part: When the union drops the call for a boycott, you go back to shopping at the store. Yes, even if the store is still largely evil.

You do that, because that is what preserves the union's power. If no one who participated in the boycott went back to the store after the agreement, the store learns to not bother to reach agreements with the union to end their calls to boycott. Corporations are not acting off of moral principles, they are acting off of bottom line. If reaching an agreement with the union does not improve their bottom line, why bother to negotiate?

So my point is, for fandom to become a base of organized power that can have and maintain effective boycott leverage, there has to be a thing that we are taking away, and a thing we want Amazon to do, at which point those strategically inclined will put back the thing we took away.

The most obvious option is to go back to supporting the show if Neil Gaiman is removed from it to a reasonable degree. Doing that contributes to an incentive structure for Amazon and other corporations to remove people under similar circumstances in the future.

If Amazon can avoid the financial hit of the protest by giving the protestors what they want, they will do so. That helps break down the cultures of looking the other way in the entertainment industry. If shows that remove people get full on protested even after the person was removed, they have no incentive to remove people because it's all sunk cost.

Given how often shows are cancelled these days, I think it is a stronger message to have a show fire its showrunner and carry on successfully than to have a show nebulously not return. I like that outcome better even if it leaves Gaiman with some residuals, because for me the priority goal is incentivizing platforms to publicly dump people in these situations. Gaiman's bank balance is further down the list.

Other people will have other things they want their end goal to be and that's ok. Just remember you aren't appealing to Amazon's better nature, you are appealing to their spreadsheet. What is their incentive to care what you think?

Plan like you are in a negotiation with Amazon. What do you want them to do? What are you willing to stop doing that you will start doing again if they do what you want? And if you find what your position is on that, tell them. People who can drop prime and then offer to reinstate it probably have the most power, but pausing fan content is a meaningful thing to mention too.

[neil-gaiman]

As I understand it, Good Omens Season 2 has wrapped production and won’t be affected by the WGA strike in the States. But I was wondering— and this is by far my most reasonable avenue to ask someone with knowledge and authority on the subject— would an American union strike affect a British production significantly? How many American writers and crew members are usually working on-set? Would you have considered stalling GOS2 production in solidarity with an overseas strike? I don’t mean to push you towards being overly speculative— I suppose I’m just interested in how far the WGA picket line extends internationally.

Good Omens 2 wrapped production in March of 2022. While we were shooting we had an American producer, and in the cast we had American Jon Hamm, but most of the other people in the cast and crew were British.

Under British law it would have been illegal to have struck in solidarity with an overseas strike.

From the WGGB site:

Trade union legislation is very different in the UK.

Secondary strike action (action in support of another union or group of workers) is not permitted under UK law, nor is the practice of restricting employment to those who are members of a particular trade union.

UK writers can take other action in support of the WGA, for example, taking part in protests or demonstrations that do not fall under the definition of ‘picketing’.

On the other hand, I'm WGA so I would have gone on strike, if the strike had occurred while we were shooting or editing, which would have meant that no writing or rewriting could have occurred (and every week I would get what we were shooting that week, and every week would do any rewriting that needed doing, sometimes every day, and sometimes while we were shooting I'd be rewriting or fixing something) and I wouldn't have been in the edit or in ADR sessions, because they can involve writing.

My understanding of US shows filming in the UK, like Rings of Power or House of the Dragon, is that they are able to shoot scripts already written, but that no rewriting can occur.

(GO2 was finished and handed in in March of this year. It's all done and Amazon will be releasing it in the Summer, so it's all a bit hypothetical trying to what if the strike was happening now. I think it would have been made, it just wouldn't have been as good.)

[marzipanandminutiae]

Something something protests have to be disruptive to work or whatever, but I fail to see how waking up people who have no power to do what you want by SHOUTING in a non-mansions residential area at 7 AM is going to get whatever the union currently protesting outside my house wants accomplished

I think people don’t realize, because there are non-house buildings across the street from the area where I live, but this is in fact a place where people might be trying to sleep so we can get up and go to our own chronically underpaid jobs with some degree of rest under our belts

My guess is that it’s some kind of a school workers’ union, because one of the buildings near me is a school. And they just… Didn’t notice what else is in the area or something

[lanitalay]

At sea pt 3.

a/n: this took longer than I thought because I'm working on another fic and it kinda took over. But enjoy!!! this was fun

word count: 1.3k

warnings: none

Masterlist

Part 1, Part 2

His heartbeat is drumming in your ears. He’s impossibly close. You should not have said that. But he’s intoxicating and he’s making a mistake. 

Your hands reach his chest and his muscles tense where you touch. His head lowers even more. But you turn your head to the side and push him away.  

“I’m sorry” you apologize, hands still on his chest. 

“You’re making me crazy” his hands land on your waist but he doesn’t close the distance. 

“Rhys… what I meant to say is that you shouldn’t marry someone you don’t even know.” 

“You said I should marry you.” Now he steps forward again, keeping your back pressed against the door. 

“I… are you really this blind?” 

“I want you to speak clearly” you turn to face him again.

“I’ve been in love with you for so long… but that’s irrelevant when there’s a war coming” 

“I didn’t know… if I had… I would have found another way…” his hands rise to your face, cupping your cheeks, keeping your eyes on him. 

“Is there something to be done?”

“Not without making a mess of it all.” 

This would end badly. There is no world where this plan works. Your mind races as you place a flower in your hair and check your reflection in the mirror before opening the door to reveal a polished looking Cassian. He flies you to the House of Wind from where you winnow to the Court of Nightmares with the rest of your friends to attend the royal wedding. 

Upon arrival you regret the floral dress you put on, it makes you stick out like a sore thumb against the preferred black of the Night Court. You are seated in between Mor and Cassian, trying your best to school your features into cool indifference. There’s a lot riding on the next few minutes. Nausea creeps up on you and you resort to breathing techniques to calm yourself down. This is stupid, so very stupid. 

Rhysand is waiting at the altar, hands in his pockets. He looks beautiful, graced with unnatural poise. The guests have all been seated. Everyone is waiting for the princess to walk down the aisle. 

A soft melody erupts from the symphony stationed on the right side of the altar. Everyone stands and looks towards the doors. An auburn haired angel dressed in white lace walks in, chin tucked, eyes downcast. The bouquet in her hands is almost as large as her torso. It occasionally slips from her grasp as she floats towards Rhysand. She 's so young. She shivers and you know it’s not from the cold. When she gets close enough, Rhys extends his hand towards her and you watch as he helps her up the steps. 

You gulp. 

The ceremony proceeds beautifully. The priestess made a few remarks on how honorable it was for them to unify the two courts in love, especially during the turbulent times that Prythian was facing. It makes you want to hide under the pew. 

Then she says the words you were dreading, expecting and hoping to hear. 

“If anyone has an objection, speak now or forever hold your peace.” 

Your hands turn into white knuckled fists. 

“Me! I object!” a collective gasp is drawn from the room. Everyone looking for who would dare protest against the royal wedding. You look at your friends and they look right back at you with matching wide eyes and slacked jaws. 

The priestess wastes no time in composing herself. 

“Why do you object to this union?” 

The princess’ eyes are filled with tears as she looks at the challenger, her lips threatening to twist upward. 

“The High Lord of the Night Court could never love this female more than I do. I’ve loved her since we were children and I’ll love her until I am dust.” The young male pushes his way through the crowd until he stands in the center of the aisle. “Ember, my heart, everything I am is yours. You can toss me away if you wish, but I’m asking you” he gets down on his knees “I’m begging you to not do this”. 

Rhysand does not let any emotion alter his stoic expression. The priestess interjects again “if the couple wishes they could take a few moments to… absorb what this male is saying”. Ember nods and follows Rhysand to a backroom. 

The murmurs pale in comparison to the shouts sputtering out of Beron’s lips. “I will have your head for this, you insolent worm!” The young male stands firm in the aisle but you know it will be moments before Beron incinerates him. So you stand from your seat, walk towards him, grab his hand and lead him to the very room Ember and Rhysand must be in, your friends hot on your heels.  

“Fantastic timing, y/n” Rhys smiles your way. Ember rushes from where she stands to the young male at your side and wraps her arms around neck in a bone crushing hug. 

“What is going on?” Cassian asks, hand on the hilt of his sword in case Beron barrels through the door. 

“My betrothed loves another, the wedding cannot go on.” 

Azriel is  next to interrogate “we need the soldiers Rhysand.” 

“And we will have them.” 

“Someone explain, now” Mor demands. 

“This whole wedding was my fathers’ plan, I never wanted to marry Rhysand. Mika-” she smiles at the name “is my mate and being married off to the highest bidder was the worst heartache of my life… anyways” she turns her gaze to Rhysand “thank you for understanding.” In a blink of an eye the young couple vanishes. 

“She’s leaving Prythian to start a new life somewhere else, Beron will still have to provide the backup since he could not hold up his end of the bargain” Rhysand smirks at his inner circle. Mor rushes towards him and slaps his chest “did you know all along that this would happen?” Her nostrils flared “no, this was a surprise for me as well.” 

With a few words from the priestess the crowd disperses in a huff of dissatisfaction. Beron and his sons leave with a flurry of threats and ill wishes but Rhys reminds him of the bargain mark that stains them both. 

“I can’t believe it worked” you laugh as you and Rhys walk through the door of your apartment. 

“What's it worth being daemati if I can’t use it for my benefit every once in a while?” He smiles and you still can’t believe it. 

“What if we’re not the only ones who don’t want this wedding to happen?” you had asked him last night. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, what if there's someone the princess would rather be with, and what if they object to the wedding and run away together?”  The fact that her actual mate was there was pure luck. 

He’s still smiling as he walks towards you, caging you in against the wall. 

“I have been waiting to taste you for so long” you grab the collar of his jacket and pull him down to meet your lips. It's a mess of teeth, lips and tongues as he makes sure to thoroughly explore your mouth with his own. 

His hands go to your thighs and he picks you up, wrapping your legs around his ways. You moan at the feel of him pressed completely against you. Before it can go any further you pull away “this doesn’t mean I’ll marry you tomorrow.” 

“Alright.”

“I love my work and expect to be assigned on another expedition soon” he’s kissing your neck now but stops briefly to say “y/n, we can do this however fast or slow you want. But right now I want to relish in the fact that I can finally touch you” he punctuates the sentence with peck on your lips “so if you don’t mind” he nibbles on your earlobe, then licks his way down to the base of your neck, leaving love bites along the way “we can just focus on this for right now.” 

[some-triangles]

Politics under the cut

The Vietnam war was famously the first war to be televised. Some people thought this meant it would be the last war, but people often think that and they haven't been right yet. The carnage on the evening news probably spurred the anti-war protests on - although the draft was certainly the main cause, as nothing motivates a person like the prospect of an early death. Either way, the protests did nothing, and the war ended because we lost. Americans contrived a way to blame the soldiers themselves for the horrors they'd seen and the imperial project trundled on.

I'm thinking about this because we're currently in the middle of the first war to be livestreamed. This time around the carnage is not only available in real time, it's interactive - we know the perpetrators and the victims by face and name, and we get direct appeals for aid through our social media feeds, optimized like youtube thumbnails in the hopes that we'll find one displaced person more deserving than another for the disposition of our limited funds. (Where this money ultimately goes is still a black box - the inevitable scammers aside, who are the fixers and coyotes who end up with the cash?) Despite this, protests have been comparatively muted. It may be because we have seen that they don't work. It may be because the powers that be have successfully convinced many of us that being opposed to genocide is antisemitic. It may be because our need to Do Something is being met by dropping fives and tens into various GoFundMes. It may be because it isn't as immediately obvious to people that we Americans are responsible for this war, that we fund it and that Israel continues to prosecute it - indeed, continues to exist - because we allow it to. But I think it's ultimately because none of us are in danger of being sent over there to die.

That urge to Do Something is interesting in and of itself. In stories, the residents of the imperial capital are generally pretty callous about violence at the periphery, or are simply unaware that it exists. Ignorance is no longer an option for us, but where's the callousness? Why do we need to vocally express our opposition to the system that supports and nurtures us, and keeps us relatively safe from violence and hunger? Secure in the knowledge that nothing that we say or do will threaten the empire that protects us, we rail against it. The naked bloodlust of the Israelis is not ideal from a PR perspective but at least it's honest. If they fished a new diary of Anne Frank - a Fatima Ahmed, let's say - out of the rubble, they'd say she deserved it because she probably threw a rock at a tank once. It's a refreshing lack of cognitive dissonance. "It was bad when it happened to us because it was us it happened to" is at least cogent.

Americans, on the other hand, have been hypocrites from day one, and it gets exhausting. How many times do we have to appeal to ideals which were not believed in by the men who wrote them down? How many atrocities must we commit on the way to the formation of a more perfect union before we understand that we're building on a rotten foundation? Our best hope is for a radically nurturing empire that protects trans kids at home while it blows up kids of all genders abroad. Vote accordingly.

[charles-le-sorcerer]

The thing is, youth liberation cannot be achieved without the end of capitalism and the liberation of workers. We cannot expect to gain our human and civil rights by working with the bourgeois system, because the bourgeoisie relies on the dehumanization and subjugation of youth to have the workers feel like they still have some kind of property. Your rights under capitalism are directly tied to your ability to produce capital. Since children cannot produce capital, and teenagers are not guaranteed the fruits of their labor, they are subjugated by the adult bourgeoisie. Hell, even CPS exists to pacify the youth (feeling like there's a way out of abusive situations) and adults because CPS protects their "rights" to abuse kids. Calling for expansion of CPS is capitulation and will inevitably be weaponized against parents who treat their kids with respect. The best solution is securing the right for youth to leave of their own free will and have a place to go, which can't happen as long as housing is commodified under capitalism.

If we are to fight for youth liberation, mere protests and petitions and (anarchistic) individual action will not do anything because the current system hinges on the oppression of children and workers. The solution is to ally the revolutionary struggle for the working class and the struggle for children's rights. It is no coincidence that socialist countries like the Soviet Union advocated for the protection of children from violence and recognition as people, or that their education systems were largely more democratic. Youth alone are not a big enough sector of the masses to make a real change, and real change cannot exist within the current system, so the best course of action in terms of youth liberation is to align with the revolutionary movement.

In Marx's time, women's liberation was unheard of, and yet the early socialists championed it as a goal of socialism. Now that youth rights are the new frontier, there is little doubt in my mind it will be the (revolutionary) socialists who lead the way.

[sagaschan]

What happened on Sep 16th: a compilation

If I could clarify some things. Lots happened on twitter within a short timeframe, and I've seen a fair number of people misled, so here goes. The Project Moon User Association(PMUA) had received the reply to their demand letter(can only be received by the recipient, and can't be refused) a week ago, but waited to make their statement because they still believed there was a chance PM could apologize, and because the Youth Union(YU) requested it. PMUA uploaded PM's reply and their statement today.

PM's reply, written by a lawyer, said essentially: You are lying and it affected our sales so I will sue you. The termination was legal because Vellmori said first that she wanted to resign(we have a recording). We wrote the agreement with Vellmori and her lawyer later. In order to protect her and the other employees we did nothing(if that sounds illogical to you, it is). Disappear immediately or we will sue you for defamation.

There are many things wrong with the reply, as covered by the PMUA's statement, but I'll get to that later. Alright let's go for it, says the PMUA.

Then PM tweets two threads. The first thread says: We were only laying low to protect our employees, y'all are lying, if you attack our employees we will sue you. The second one says: The YU tried to use us for political gains, since we were going to announce legal action against employee harrassment anyway but they tried to take the credit for it. Look at this image of a document where YU says they were wrong, and apologizes. This PMUA might be under the YU's control, isn't it suspicious? And political?

PM, though technically it's KJH, keeps insinuating that those such as PMUA and the YU are attacking the employees, when it's only KJH himself who's been criticized since 7.25, when he tweeted that they had 'terminated the contract' with Vellmori for violating company rules. The fans knew that was illegal. The paper that interviewed Vellmori the day after, the various news media that reached out to PM, the unions that spoke out on the matter knew it was illegal. We weren't going to let him get away with it if we could help it.

The YU rep Lee Jongchan(@JCLEE0333 on twitter) provided a more accurate picture. The YU, having just learned of the agreement between Vellmori and PM from PM's reply, had asked the PMUA to delay their statement, contacted PM behind the scenes. The PMUA and the unions they were working with had been trying to solve the situation amicably if possible, if PM would just come to the table and learn how to fix the situation. A legal fight would be the absolute last resort, since they wanted the company to do better.

This is where the supposed statement from the YU that PM included in their second thread comes in. A crude screencap of a word doc with typos and 'draft' in the title. It says: We recognize there was no illegal firing and that you've taken precautions to protect employees. We're sorry and we retract our protest. We welcome that you've stated ideology hunts and cyberbullying against your employees will be dealt with stern legal action. Basically, the YU didn't want Vellmori to be bothered anymore so they'd take a bit of a L.

The thing is, during the negotiations KJH refused to include that PM would take legal action to protect employees from ideology hunts and cyberbullying in the future in PM's statement. Apparently that wasn't something he could agree with. Negotiations fell out(around 8 pm, according to KJH), and the next day PMUA went ahead with their statement.

That's the bare facts of it. But I'd like to elaborate a little on where PM is contradicting itself, though the PMUA has already covered some of it.

1. It's laughable that KJH is using the excuse of 'protecting employees' to explain PM's past actions and future motivations, when he can't even put it on paper.

2. He most definitely did not protect his employees. The initial lack of action against DCinside incels' camping out of their office, how he treated contractors like Mimi(author of Wonderlab) and Monggeu(artist for Leviathan comics), the overwork and harrassment Eng translator Watson experienced, the HHPP manager he used as a scapegoat, the LoR Chinese localization team that still hasn't been paid... the list keeps growing.

3. KJH's words are all over the place. In the very first notice he says Vellmori's contract has been terminated because she violated company rules. You know, just as DC had asked for. In the second one, on 8.3, he says they did not fire her, and that it had nothing to do with ideologies. And that he would sue anyone calling it an illegal dismissal. (Also when news media reached out to ask if that meant she was still employed, said he wouldn't answer.) And in the most recent letter, he claims that during the phone call on 7.25 Vellmori said first she would resign.

Nobody believes that, not in the least because the Hankyoreh interviewed Vellmori the very next day about the unjustness of it. Any 'recording' of the call that he posits as evidence will likely reflect that, and work against him in court, so I'd love to see that actually. KJH apparently doesn't remember that.

4. Can you believe he's fudging his words to make it seem like the PMUA and those associated were the ones attacking employees? Not a single mention of DC anywhere. Now in court, if he's required to provide evidence as to just why Vellmori wanted to resign, well... DC did that. That's undeniable. All this started with wetsuit Ishmael, if anyone's forgotten. And if he admits DC was the reason a perfectly innocent illustrator was left jobless overnight, well, he can do away with his insistence that he was protecting her in any way.

5. And even if he twists legalese to claim Vellmori left of her own volition, it's nothing that hasn't been said by employers in the country a million times over. Advisory resignation this, political controversy that. It's still an unfair dismissal, and an especially rampant problem in the game industry that has been a long time coming to be dealt with.

6. Remember when KJH threatened Mimi and Monggeu with the mention of NDA, when they came out with stories of how they were horrifically mistreated by PM? Hypocritical, just revealing private correspondence with the YU without their permission. As well as the ridiculousness of treating the remnants of a negotiation that fell through like fact. He thinks people can't read, I suppose. It's more ammunition for the unions.

7. The inherent idiocy of evilmongering about 'politics' all thread long. What does KJH think unions Do? He's been fueling the fire regarding a labor rights case for near two months now, but doesn't seem to have learned much other than to dig deeper holes. What he means to do by repeatedly insinuating the PMUA and YU are secretly in cahoots when the PMUA has been open about working with the YU from the start I will never know.

8. Refusing to translate The Notice for 53 days was the first and biggest hint, I think. The radio silence, purposefully leaving international fans in the dark, threatening the contractors, the staunch refusal to name the incels for a single offense. During that time we learned Monggeu had been fired just as quickly as Vellmori, after being made to follow an unrealistic schedule to the point she had suicidal ideation. The workplace reviews in the wake of the incident saying KJH was prone to emotional outbursts. All the translators worked to the bone and abandoned, HHPP's manager announcing an apology with his name for decisions he couldn't have made. Those aren't the actions of someone who has his employees in mind.

The PMUA was created in response to PM's announcement to sue fans back in August. They'd held out hope that KJH would be someone who could see reason. But you'd have to be beyond naive to believe that now. So with all evidence piled up during these two months pointing to KJH being a nasty little guy who has only ever had himself and DC's best interests at heart, I sincerely hope KJH fucks himself over, and for all fans who are eternally confused about what PM has done wrong to be someday in need of a union.

[dailyanarchistposts]

If we stop, the world stops

Millions of women around the world participated in events for International Women’s Day (IWD) on March the 8th. The most militant action was in the growth of the ‘Women’s Strike’, with 5.3 million people on strike in Spain. In Britain, the interest in the tactics of the strike on IWD is relatively new, yet still 7,000 women pledged to strike. In addition, links were made to grass roots unions such as the Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union (CAIUW) with support for their pickets for a Living Wage. Sex workers also co-ordinated their own actions for decriminalisation and trans women held an action over the problems of access to NHS services.

The organisers in Britain made it clear that the strike should focus on demands for working class women, including those who often face the most exploitation and discrimination, like migrants, sex workers, trans women. It is not just a strike about traditional work but also about ‘invisible labour’, such as care, domestic and emotional labour, and against male violence. The historical origins of the day make it clear that the purpose is not to have more women politicians or company directors (see box). Instead it is focused on the majority of women who are at the bottom of the pile, both in the workplace and in the home. According to one organiser of the Women’s Strike in Britain: “We are instead taking action – action against our exploitation under capitalism, where the domestic and emotional work we do for little or no pay is made invisible, while austerity measures force us into a more and more vulnerable position. This is feminism for the 99%”.

It was in Spain, however, that the strike was the most successful. This was partially because of the support it got from the mainstream unions. However, it is clear that they were forced into support as a result of the massive upsurge from the grass roots organisations. According to one source (thefreeonline.wordpress.com): “An important feature of this strike is that it has been promoted and organised from the bottom up, and not the other way around. That is to say, the initiative of the strike has been born first in the streets, in the neighbourhoods and districts and has developed in open assemblies. It has not been a proposal of the unions, but of the feminist movement.” The mainstream unions only called for a 2 hour strike whereas unions such as the CGT and the anarchist CNT called for 24 hour stoppages.

Despite calls for the strike to be based on working class women, it is uncertain to what extent many women could actually participate, given that they are the ones in the most precarious position. In Spain, headlines were given to women in media and other professional jobs. In Britain, the strike was most successful in the universities, with 61 universities taking part. However, the link to CAIWU and sex workers showed that there certainly was support outside the universities.

If women are to truly win all the demands put forward on the day then we must go beyond demands for equality in the system and call for both the end of capitalism and patriarchy. So how is this going to happen? The strike in Spain may have been very successful in terms of numbers on the streets but what will it achieve in terms of winning demands? Politicians and even bosses may pay lip service to the aims of IWD but they are unlikely to do anything about it. In the end, using the success of March the 8th, women and men must continue to organise at the grass roots level and build up a movement that lasts much longer than a day. The linking up of a number of groups on the 8th provides a good basis on which to move forward.

Origins of International Women’s Day

March 8 is International Women’s Day. This date commemorates March 8, 1909, when 129 employees of a cotton textile factory in New York were killed when their own owner set fire to the factory while all of them were inside making a protest demanding labour rights. In addition, the colour of feminism is violet because, it is said, the smoke that came from that fire was violet, like the fabrics that were there that day. At an International Congress of Socialist Women in 1910, Clara Zetkin proposed this date as the International Women’s Day in honour of the cotton workers.

[jack-kellys]

so i am gonna talk abt the delanceys. and i don’t want that to make you scroll away at the speed of light. i want to talk about them in a broader sense, view them in a broader sense, in the way that we talk about jack and his existential need to leave where he is for the west- and, further, going into analysis, like how “the west” in america in the 1890s is a capitalist venture that is sold to jack as this idea of a new home, a better way to live, something that he needs, when the real home is new york with his chosen family and where no one needs to call him “son”.

i think what matters most in the world of the delanceys, and what puts them into a nuanced political stance as well as a personal one, is their father, the striking trolley worker.

i think it’s fair to assume that as a striking worker demanding better wages, as a union member, he deserves those wages. it’s good that he’s striking, that he’s demanding what he’s owed and doing so with his fellow workers. strikers are the right people to support especially based on the historical context of the trolley strike.

but this guy is… an asshole. he dumped these two children into the refuge and left them there to rot, presumably. there’s a possibility he didn’t know about how abusive snyder is, sure, but he knew it was a detention center and that’s not… where u put ur kids when u care abt them lmao.

so this man is a striking trolley worker who doesn’t give a shit about his own children. he’s an underpaid union member who deserves his dues but also lets his two sons suffer for years alone in a children’s jail. he fights the system to his benefit while submitting his two kids into a different one. the dichotomy is important here- it’s essential to the foil the delanceys are for the newsies.

the delanceys are strike breakers. strike breakers are, obviously, paid under the table to disperse union-led strikes and protests to uphold a system that benefits the rich- who of course will always benefit from underpaid work. the delanceys take money from this upheld system when they get the opportunity and beat strikers bloody who don't get to benefit from this system like they do. because they do benefit from that elitist system, since they are choosing to make money off of it outside of their usual job. right.

but within those strikers is their father. the father who left them to rot, who let wiesel scrape them out of that jail and enlist them at a dead-end newspaper gig. so the brothers hate this father, this striker, this piece of family. and this father is making all this noise with these other people- these people who support their father as his coworkers and fellow union members, and the delancey brothers' leave that strike with their fists red with more blood than solely their father's, since they're angry and good at it and the money is hefty.

and their childhood is semi-revenged, but at what ethical cost? they've served broken bones to plenty of workers just trying to fight for their fair pay- something that the delanceys can relate to, by the way, since it isn't like their wages are too stellar for how many hours they're forced to put in. but they put down these people--innocent sans their father--because they have the opportunity. opportunity for them is bringing others down, and when they have the choice, they take it. gladly. "it's honest work" is shrugged off and believed. "i take care of the guy who takes care of me" is snide. uk costuming has them wearing nicer work coats over their newsie-like attire, concealing their similarities and choosing to align themselves more with the elite, since that's...the only protection they can turn to besides each other. the elite gets them extra pay, and keeps them one rung above the newsies to sneer down at them from. they fight via using the system, since systems are all they've ever been apart of, and when they see one that might benefit them for once, they latch onto it.

and, of course, they're strike breaking again, with adult men and their uncle at their side, against their personal foils- the newsies.

the newsies either don't have family like the delanceys, or frequently have to be apart from theirs. lots of them don't have a sibling they can return to daily, or any at all. most don't have parents or family members. or homes to go back to after work. the system they are stuck in is one that does not work for them unless they make it work, making their own numbers and cash by gambling how many papers they can sell in a day to earn every cent back and then some. creating a system within a system--whereas the delanceys mold themselves into one that exists, again, to the elite's benefit--to survive.

and then, the newsies and their chosen family of brothers choose to revolt against their system in an attempt to dismantle it, or at the very least negotiate it.

and the delanceys' reaction to this, to another strike, to a group of kids going against their system (of which would benefit oscar and morris to join, tbh, unless they don't classify as "working kids" of the city, perhaps putting them at around 18 years old...)?

disdain and more snide comments! "not that i'm complaining, my skull busting arm could use a day of rest" "you working, or trespassing?/what's your pleasure?" and putting pressure on scabs to keep with the system- specifically more with uksies, oscar and morris are sort of dusting tommy boy off and whispering to him. trying to split apart the family the newsies have made with each other. and then ofc they beat the actual shit out of the newsies and in uk they have bats they are full on swinging, whole shoulder into it. you did not uphold this system, and it will destroy you for it.

and it nearly does, because then jack scabs, right? and oscar and morris are in pulitzer's office as the man talks jack through the deal, through the cash. as he must've to oscar and morris earlier that week about strike breaking the newsies. and all three of them all have these nearly matching bruises and cuts on their faces.

and then all three of them go to the cellar, the lowest floor of the elite. together the three of them are in this location with this context. two strikebreakers and a scab. taking the elite's money for their benefit, be it in a moment of fear, resignation, or greed. all the oldest kids in the play, the three who've seen the scars and rips and tears in this world more than any of the others. and for like twenty seconds of stage time jack oscar and morris are the same brand. until of course oscar and morris punch into jack's gut--since they're only "given discretion to handle him as they see fit" if he misbehaves, which jack hasn't, so they punch where people won't see/check--and remind him that he's still below them (literally shoving him to the floor ofc), that they're still closer to the elite.

and yeah, they are, because later, jack again refuses the system, and tosses the money back on the table after rebelling against his terms. in true foil fashion, once jack recognizes that his actions align that which he needs to destroy, he renounces them, while the delanceys remain on the other side of the coin they share with jack.

the delanceys, as a storytelling device, right, are meant to represent what the newsies could fall to, seen with the three initial scabs and then jack in act ii. they are this constant threat of sort of equal size to the newsies through the whole show, always kinda lurking. always being a possibility to become if the newsies ever forget what they fight for and against.

also, jack is....kind of.... like their dad, in their perspective. he's parental with the newsies, he leads them, guides them, and protects them, as well as constantly getting the better of the delanceys. why should someone like a father get to fight the system again? not on their fucking watch.

i think it's pretty clear that oscar and morris are meant to represent corruption on the small scale, thematically, while pulitzer is corruption at the top- since it all trickles down. and i think it's really important that this motif is consistently upheld within the brothers, since it sort of alters the message of the show to at least drastically change that abt them. they are the nearest branch of corruption to the newsies guys. that is so fucking cool

[mariacallous]

Every president of the United States has within their grasp the power of a vast surveillance state that has grown significantly over the past few decades and has beaten back any real effort to rein it in. Through America’s numerous enigmatic intelligence agencies, presidents possess the ability to dive deeply into the communications, movements, and relationships of everyday Americans. Presidents of both parties have abused the surveillance state, but under a second Trump administration, this power could be abused in ways it has never been before.

Donald Trump, a now convicted felon and the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has said he plans to prosecute his political opponents should he return to the White House. He’s said he would allow states to monitor pregnant women and prosecute those who seek abortions. Trump wants to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. He plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell civil unrest, which means sending the military into the streets. The much publicized Project 2025 outlines how he would quickly replace thousands of career civil servants in the federal government with loyalists.

If a president was interested in prosecuting their political opponents, crushing protests, targeting undocumented immigrants, and had the right people in place to help them carry out those plans, surveillance could become a valuable tool for accomplishing those goals. Like former US president Richard Nixon in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Trump could use the surveillance powers available to him to monitor his political opponents, disrupt protest movements, and more.

Nixon and former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover famously surveilled the president’s political opponents and activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., through a program called COINTELPRO. One of the main goals of the program was to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” civil rights groups.

If he so desired, Trump could create his own version of this program, but he’d be working with much more advanced technology—and it’d be in a time when there are countless data points available on every American. Hoover could have only dreamed of a world where everyone was walking around with tracking devices.

“So much of what we depend on, in terms of the rule of law, depends on norms. When those norms are ignored, that’s when things start to fall apart,” says Jeffrey L. Vagle, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University. “Some of the norms, like prosecutorial discretion, might be eroded or disappear entirely. That could mean a number of things in terms of surveillance.”

Vagle says that if a second Trump administration wanted to defend its abuse of surveillance powers, it could stretch the use of national security as a justification for doing so. He says presidents have done this in the past in other ways.

“Administrations from both parties have invoked the term ‘national security’ and have used national security loopholes to justify surveillance and profiling,” says Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “They have too often used national security as a pretext for law enforcement to target Muslims, communities of color, and immigrants.”

Toomey says Trump has sent “mixed signals” when it comes to how he feels about surveillance, but he’s made it clear he plans to target his political opponents in various ways if he’s elected again.

“A second Trump administration could be disastrous for many of our most fundamental freedoms,” Toomey says.

The administration may not even need to come up with a justification for surveilling Americans without a warrant, because it could simply purchase scores of people's personal data. The federal government has been known to purchase data from private brokers in the past, and doing so doesn’t require a warrant.

“We are just awash in data, and data brokers can just collect and sell these data,” Vagle says. “Law enforcement or quasi-law enforcement can collect that information.”

Surveillance can be done in secret so that the people being surveilled don’t realize they’re being surveilled, or it can be done openly as a way to stifle free expression, Vagle says. The government might tell you they’re keeping an eye on people, and then you might be less likely to speak out.

“If you think you’re being watched, you act differently,” Vagle says. “You could see a Trump version of COINTELPRO—only maybe not so covert. They might be more open about it with the idea that it might chill speech.”

As for the abortion issue, some of what may occur will depend on the future legal status of abortion, which could involve a US Supreme Court decision or congressional action. A major change in its legal status would likely affect how the federal government approaches the issue. If it remains a state issue, the federal government wouldn’t typically get involved in how a state is implementing a law it’s passed, but that’s not to say it couldn’t. If a state wanted help tracking people who are crossing state lines for abortions, for example, the federal government could conceivably assist with that.

“The federal government is not in the business of enforcing state laws, but there are a lot of what-ifs. How crazy might a Trump administration be willing to be?” Vagle says.

Whether it’s monitoring political opponents, activists, immigrants, or pregnant people, there are many ways in which a second Trump administration could utilize surveillance powers to exert more control over the populace. If the FBI and the Department of Justice are staffed with people who won’t push back when Trump orders them to do things that might be legally or morally questionable, they may carry out his wishes, and Americans may discover how much their privacy rights have eroded over the years.

“One of the things about Project 2025 is that it’s clear that the Trump camp, and more broadly the Republican Party that’s behind Trump, want to make it a more organized presidency than his first presidency was,” Vagle says. “It would be very unsurprising if the Department of Justice and the FBI dismissed anyone if they even had a whiff of disloyalty.”

[brothermoth]

1890s America and Red Dead Redemption

Part One: Violent Delights and Violent Ends

-----

The latter half of the 1800s was a time characterized by struggle. Off the back of the Civil War, a country divided in not two but four by the rising industry to the east and the stubborn pastoralism of the west. The southern portion of the country beaten down, burned and disgraced, and the northern portion rolling in gold and prosperity. Whether they knew it or not, the common American had their life ultimately shaped by these divisions.

As the opening lines of Red Dead Redemption 2 state: "The age of outlaws and gunslingers was at its end" (Rockstar, 2018). Yet contrary to the following text, America was far from becoming a "land of laws". Laws for the poor, perhaps, but the wealthy still thrived and skirted just beyond the boundaries of human decency.

From the 1870s to the 1920s, miners and railroad workers unionized and carried out often violent protests in the hopes of gaining better working conditions. The poor had little but their fists, and they had no qualms about using them. It is in this turmoil we find Dutch Van Der Linde with his Robin Hood-esque visions of a crumbling elite and prospering poor. The struggle between workers and their iron-fisted overseers was bloody, and Dutch would not have it any other way. Those he took under his wing were the beaten down lowest tiers of society. How could they not see him as a shining idol of American idealism? What he wants, what he fights for, it is for them. Outcasts with nowhere else to turn, given a cause and a home and something that perhaps felt real to them for the first time in a long time.

Race is a topic not wholly explored, but touched on certainly within the game. Tensions rose as racial divisions were made even clearer, black Americans fighting for their own foothold in a world that has just opened up to them and their children. Lenny Summers is the first in generations to be born free of slavery. Javier comes from a country that has been terrorized by colonialism and corruption, yet he still dreams of returning. 1890s Mexico (and what we see in RDR1) is a topic of its own, though the spirit of people downtrodden by colonialism is echoed throughout both games. Sean, who was chased from the country his father fought for. Whose father was killed in his own bed, likely in the same room as his son. Violence in this world is inescapable, a swirling vortex that consumes everything in its path.

Dutch embraced this, as many leaders of the past and future have. If you cannot fight with peace, then sticks and stones make for much better conversation. I can't say I disagree with him, in all honesty, and that is what makes him so fascinating. He's right. He has a point, a cause. What went so wrong? Do heroes not get a happy ending?

In 1892, railroad employees of Carnegie Steel in Pennsylvania's Homestead plant went on strike when chairman Henry Frick cut their pay dramatically. 300 agents of the Pinkerton detective agency arrived, escalating tensions. Violence erupted, the Pennsylvania national guard was called. Sixteen men were killed.

Leviticus Cornwall is Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie is Leviticus Cornwall. The Pinkertons are rightful villains in our narrative, the gang is a thorn in their side which must be cut free. Law and order, right? Dutch was right, his killing of Cornwall was arguably deserved. Yet what makes it so wrong?

Dutch's actions are selfish, in the end. Not because he doesn't care for the people around him, as I believe he truly does. He sees things getting worse and worse and only digs in his heels. Dutch is the American Dream. The bloody messiah to the poor and disadvantaged. He guts them the same as any railroad magnate. Power corrupts, this is what we learn. Power and vitriol and paranoia. The people left struggling in his wake are the common folk who get caught in the crossfire, used and abused only to prove a point. They know nothing but violence, and who is to tell them otherwise? Even Arthur in his end of life maturation cannot pry himself free. He kills and kills and in the end he dies for it. Even John, who tried to leave it behind. Even Sadie, who was ruined by it, embraced it in the end.

The American dream is indecipherable from the American nightmare. They are lovers and companions. There is nothing to do but fight, and even then you have no hope of winning. It's a beautiful tragedy, is it not? All these people who never had a chance, yet who tried anyway. Workers who gained little and lost everything still took their signs and marched for what was right. Black Americans who were beaten down again and again still got up each and every day and did whatever it was they had to do. Native Americans, who were nearly erased. Who still cling to their heritage and claw back what has been stolen. Red Dead Redemption is about the small people. The forgotten in the annals of American history.

[crazy-pages]

People like you showing Biden and other democrats that even genocide won’t stop you from voting for them, no matter what, have destroyed this country.

Fucking genocide apologist.

Okay I'm gonna rag on you for a moment because you're dropping anon-hate and anon-hate always deserves that, but then can we talk seriously?

First of all, lol, this is hopelessly optimistic of you to think that Biden's loss would change the mentality of the Democratic party when Hillary Clinton's loss didn't. It makes me look fondly back on my childhood when I was fresh-faced and naive enough to believe that a presidential loss could change the trajectory of a political party whose election officials, party apparatus members, and most of their elected officials will remain unchanged regardless of the outcome of a presidential election. I know you think you're a cynic kid, but trust me you have levels deeper to dig. Get on my level.

But to move past ragging on you and to speak seriously-

Sometimes, there is no winning move in an election.

Let's talk about an issue a bit more abstract than genocide first. I would really like the United States' business system to function more in line with socialist principles, where holding any sort of position of authority over others in a company requires the voluntary and democratic buy-in of those they oversee. I think unions don't go far enough, I want business executives to be elected and constrained in their actions by internally enforced constitutions.

And there is no elected official I could vote for to make that happen. They do not exist. But I can make decisions about which elected official will be easier to organize under, to get closer to making that happen. Who's going to be easier to fight? I'm not talking about voting for someone I think can be pressured into giving me what I want, I'm talking about someone who will simply be less hostile to organizing efforts. Sometimes that's as simple as "which state officials will let me have a graduate student union at all in this state?" and sometimes it's a question of what Supreme Court precedent I expect to be set by a president's judges, and which will be easier to fight later through other non-voting actions.

So here's the horrible, awful, sad truth I have for you.

There is no voting option for USA citizens, including non-participation, which will save the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. We can hope for protests to continue to erode support and keep the issue in focus, we can use our financial positions to donate aid (as much as is allowed through), hell those of us with access can perform sabotage. But there is no voting option which will affect whether the genocide is permitted to continue by our officials, because this is a two-party oligarchy, not a genuine full democracy.

There is no voting option which will influence the long-term trajectory of the Democrats or the Republicans and whether they continue to be the kind of parties which will support genocide either. Neither is there a no voting or third party voting option which will replace either of them.

If you want that to happen, you're going to need to do organizing and disruptive actions outside the voting system. Maybe if we form enough connections at pro-Palestine protests, do enough organizing work, we can mimic the March on Washington and show up at Washington DC with a hundred thousand people and the implicit threat of "we are capable of putting this many people in the capitol, do not make us come back here". (It worked to get the Voting Rights Act passed).

But that organizing will not occur independent of our voting political system. Obviously not, Biden has been happy to give his seal of approval to police violence against pro-Palestine protests. But Trump's response to the Portland protests was worse. Much worse. He sent in federal troops who were even more violent than the college crackdowns and who black-bagged random people off the street to intimidate protestors, without even the fig-leaf of legal justification the college crackdowns have used (which is scary because it opens the door for even further escalation).

If you want to continue organizing outside the voting system, who is voted in is going to matter for that organizing. Biden is making it difficult, but it can be worse.

Also, Trump is going to make things much worse for a lot of different demographics, who will have much less available bandwidth to help with pro-Palestine organizing. One of my close friends is a trans woman living in California and right now she can and does help with the pro-Palestine movement. But if Trump is elected and passes federal anti-trans laws, that's not going to be possible for her anymore. She'll have to hunker down and go into defensive survival mode, just for the right to exist.

I know this probably sounds like me being derisive and saying, "Ohh, you're a single issue voter about genocide, tch, how naive!". But it's not. It's the practical reality of organizing. People who can commit hard, on the level necessary to affect change outside the voting system for people on the other side of the planet, are not people who are desperate and barely surviving. People who can help are people who are in a position to help others. And if Trump gets elected, a lot of people are suddenly not going to be in a position to help anyone but themselves, if even that.

As an extreme example, when Hitler came to power in Germany, well before the Holocaust got underway, he successfully killed socialist organizing in Germany. But not just because he was directly targeting them with police and the army. The previous regime had been doing that too and they hadn't successfully killed German socialism (hell they'd slaughtered socialists with cops after the socialists saved the freaking government from a coup, they were certainly no allies of socialism). But Hitler, by targeting Jews and disabled people and Romani and queer folk directly, hit populations who otherwise represented possible socialist allies. He made them hunker down and focus on purely self-defense, which allowed him to fully clean up socialist opposition before turning on minority demographics with the full force of the Holocaust.

Direct police violence against political opposition (what Biden has to offer) is less effective than that and a prejudicial campaign of dehumanization and oppression against demographic groups aligned with political opposition (what Trump has to offer).

If there's no voting option which will free Palestine (and there isn't), ask yourself the next question then. Is there a voting option which will free up people to help fight for Palestine's freedom?

If there is, and you're honestly more concerned about Palestinians than your own feeling of moral gratification, take it. Vote, get it over with, and then go back to doing the actual damn work.

[tittyinfinity]

Yes, it is going to be hard whenever capitalism comes to an end.

But the reality is that it's already collapsing in on itself and will only get worse from here on out.

Whenever people say they're done with the US government, it's not because they don't care about how people will be negatively affected – it's because it will be so much harder to fight later on down the line.

Capitalists have already been working together to make sure everyone is broke and exhausted. A good portion of our life is controlled by the corporate world & land-owners. Our bosses, landlords, and cops can control just about anything we do. Our phones spy on us and can send our info to the cops.

Capitalism is enforced through violence. There is public information about politicians taking money from corporations like health insurance & oil companies. There's public information about the US committing coups in communist and socialist countries to install fascist leaders. It has come out several times that our military is used to secure oil and other resources through terrorism. It's well-known that prisons are used to draft as many people for slave labor as they can. These companies that both pay off and install politicians to enforce policies that make them richer rely on this violence for their profit.

No capitalist candidate will never have your best interest at heart. Anyone willing to sacrifice lives for the sake of money will sacrifice your life the moment it's most convenient – all while saying that they're Helping The Country Get Better, Actually. And if our main goal is "less people dying," thinking short-term is not gonna save us. Especially when so many are already dying right now. Today.

If you're scared about the bad things that will happen when capitalism falls.....how do you think the people suffering & dying under the current system feel?

The people who have lost their homes and families? The people forced into slavery? Indigenous people who continue to lose more and more land?

All for the gas in your car, the lithium in your batteries, the land you live on, the job you work, and hell, most of the products we use.

You're worried about what might happen.... it's already happening, just not to you. And relying on the government to save you from the government isn't realistic.

Either you want imperialism, colonization, and genocide to end, or you don't. Stand up and fight while you have the chance.

Get your friends and neighbors together for direct action groups. Print out posters and put them all over the town. Don't just join protests, START them. Strike. Join the IWW. Get your coworkers together to start a union. Tell your boss to pay you more or you're all walking out. Stealing shit isn't even stealing shit – corporations & capitalists are already stealing tax money & the money produced by the labor of their workers. They take and take while they give us crumbs. We don't have to put up with this shit