The most salient feature of unions that I know about is that they prevent the employer from firing bad employees, or promoting good employees over ones with seniority.
They also allow people to negotiate over working conditions in a manner other than simply changing jobs. I slung cardboard in a FedEx unload bay in college where I was reduced to an hourly total, and their entire staffing model was to pay one tick above minimum wage and then burn through employees at whatever rate occurred. The management style was, whenever understaffed and for however many months, to tell the grunts to work yet harder. It’s very common for FedEx sort facilities to have over 100% turnover in a year on average. And, we didn’t have it Amazon bad.
It wasn’t horrible for someone like me because I knew I was out of there and on to better things in a short time. But if you’re a HBD, heritable-intelligence type, then there are going to be some folks for whom that’s their lot in life. And I’ve met a few of them. If they’re, say, loading four delivery vans at 300-400 boxes a van, and arranging boxes based on the seven-to-eight digit code that organizes the boxes along the delivery route, that’s more than honest work for one shift. I one-hundred percent want people for whom that’s their level in life to have a union say, “No, you can’t put someone on more than a four-truck pull during the holiday-season peak. You can adequately staff your shifts, or you can have management come in and start loading trucks for failing to do their job.”
A significant part of what is driving unionization pushes at places like Starbucks, Amazon, etc. are working conditions.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
Kanye is as much a genuine Nazi as Manson was a genuine satanist.
Not everyone who is anti-semitic is a Nazi. Kanye is getting his talking points from the Nation of Islam and Black Israelites. That strain of black thought is deeply anti-semitic (and also believes some hilariously-improbable conspiracy theories). But he is also a bipolar guy off his meds, who is building conspiracies in his head surrounding his divorce, and is really mad at some Jewish lawyers that represented his wife, among a whole bunch of other things.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
Sex positive feminism and women-should-work feminism was pushed by elite men who wanted easy access to cute young women.
I’m not as familiar with the driving forces behind sex-positive feminism, but for women in the work place, ☝️ this is not only dubious, but appears bad faith and near-infalsifiable since a hand can be waived in the direction of some cohort of elite men and their plan(s) to get more women into the office, which of course they couldn’t and didn’t openly articulate, leaving no historical record.
Post-war, expand high school graduation percentages met with an increased demand for clerical work. Prior to then, women in the work force were more likely to be involved in manufacturing jobs (such as in the garment industry). Women found office jobs, which were far less dirty and dangerous, more appealing. And this, among other factors, led to increased participation in the workforce, and specifically by married women, who were less motivated to drop out of the work force as office work was more palatable.
After a couple decades, women began to expect to spend a significant period of their life in the workforce where prior generations had not. And from here, many women, of their own agency, began to pursue higher education and assert themselves professionally.
If you want to subjectively debate whether this was “good”, feel free to embark on that tangent. But if you want to objectively deny that a subset of women, through their own agency, pushed for greater economic opportunity and independence, then you’ll need to show your work.
As a tangent, the Abe assassination was really interesting in that his assassin actually achieved change in the direction of his goals, with the Japanese government becoming less friendly to the Moonies.
Right. The efficiency engineers at Amazon didn’t have any business incentive to budget in time to allow people to walk the distance required to urinate in a bathroom when picking orders. The plan was, pay $15-18 an hour when that was above most other entry level jobs and the labor market was weaker, and replace anyone who places a higher price on their dignity. The end result is ultimately people on the line pissing in bottles. The union does not exist to make the business efficient. It exists to give current employees bargaining power, where they’d otherwise be on the short end of an imbalance.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
Maybe Netflix is more fun than in-person social activities.
I guess this is subjective, but as someone with an active, meat-space social life, it takes time, money and effort to maintain. You can substitute time and effort for money (pasta, red sauce and a screw-top Barbera can go a long way). I know we Americans tend to informally socially segregate by class, but at least my social life bridges that pretty easily. I host a large BBQ with white and blue collar guests every year. It’s amazing what breaking bread together does to bridge divides.
I haven’t found online socializing to be more than a simulacrum for meat-space socializing. Nearly all my friends are current and former teammates from rec sports leagues, current and former coworkers, people I met in young-professionals arts organizations, the bar I used to be a regular at, a book club, etc.
My GF and I are having folks over for dinner, tonight. That involved a more thorough cleaning of the house than we normally do on Saturday morning, a bigger grocery bill to account for the extra food and wine, and starting work in the kitchen at 9:00 this morning to sear the roast and get the slow cooker going.
And, it’s not that we don’t subscribe to multiple streaming services and couldn’t just pop something on tonight and put our feet up. But as others have said, here, it’s instant gratification versus long-term payoff. And, Netflix can be like weed, where you can put a pause on thinking about why you might not be satisfied with how you’re spending your evening.
But hugs, handshakes, smiles, eye contact, laughs, etc. land much differently, in person. As do frank discussions requiring sympathy or empathy.
We try, as much as our schedule, energy levels, and finances allow, to make plans, get people together, host dinner parties, etc. And, while we have not gotten a 1:1 return, the more often we make an effort to be social, the more others do in our direction, as well. And it’s encouraging, how often when we set something up, how many people say, “This was great. We need to do this more often.” You also over time figure out who will reciprocate, socially, and can prioritize spending time with them.
I think so many of us get into a rut once out of school, and there’s nothing making socializing more of a default you have to opt out of.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
But perhaps such indiscretions are expected of '60s and '70s rock stars and aren't held against them.
These lists change as generations of critics do, and today’s critics would surely ding them for this, but their reputations were made prior to this stuff being a significant concern.
Bowie’s fascist-sympathizing period has not really dinged his rep. He was on heroin, then, don’t you know, and besides, he explored gender fluidity and took MTV to task for not featuring black artists.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
The electoral problem for the pro-AA side is that this doesn’t cut neatly across two-party divisions. White and Asian-Americans are both over represented relative to the general population in college admissions, and don’t want their kids’ chances dinged because of their census categorization. A lot of Asian Americans who were Clinton/Biden voters strongly oppose any quotas that will impact their kids.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
That’s what I’m pointing at. Asians are firmly in the Democrat camp, but many in that camp break orthodoxy on affirmative action. It’s an issue Republicans can use as a wedge.
Marin County is an antivax stronghold, yo. There is more than one kind of Democratic voter.
It’s where RFK, Jr. holds luncheons about autism at wineries.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
A sort-of mistaken costume is a now a in-joke in my family.
One year, while handing out candy, my father was dressed as Frankenstein’s monster. He and my mom had set up on the front porch.
My father asked a seemingly-shy, small child, who had approached, “Happy Halloween — would you like some candy?”
The child enthusiastically replied, “Thanks, Einstein!”
It took my parents a moment to work out the child had meant “Frankenstein”, and was not being condescending.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
One of the really nutty things about the Cotton op-ed tantrum was where some of the internal pushback came from at the Times via Slack, Twitter, etc. The op-ed page weighing the concerns of the company’s tech workers was a big departure from the past.
NPR is often embarrassing, but I am curious if you are willing to co-sign Wesley Lowery’s “moral clarity” replacement for aiming in the direction of objectivity in journalism?
While your politics might or might not differ from Lowery’s, who is on the id-pol segment of the American left, you certainly seem to share his idea that a news outlet interviewing someone with controversial opinions is an endorsement of them — as evidenced by your framing of that NPR interview with an author who does not work for NPR but thinks looting is justified.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
If Musk unbans Trump, but Trumps ignores Twitter, that will reduce Musk's and Twitter's status.
What status? What is the fallout for Elon Musk if he says, “We’ve got Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on here, I’m lifting the ban on the 45th Potus,” and then Trump just stays on Truth social?
LimesTheif
1yr ago
…but it seems to me that everyone was waiting to see if the Ukrainians had a shot at some semblance of victory, or whether all this money and guns were just going down the toilet.
I know there are a non-zero number of American foreign-policy think tankers that view the proxy war as a good on its own, to the extent it weakens a potential rival in an emerging multipolar world. For those folks, the money and arms are not wasted so long as the conflict was prolonged.
Throat clearing: this can be true even if the Ukrainian cause is worthy of support on its own merits.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
They also have to maintain solidarity. The union is an organization and the business is an organization.
When the MİT murders some mouthy Kurds in Turkey, the PKK doesn’t want the heat that a retaliatory killing is going to bring, but if they don’t offer one up every now and again they will lose support from their base.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
I remember all the claims of Jared Lee Loughner‘s motivation being tied to Republican campaign rhetoric that turned out to be nonsense. And that hot, hot take came out first, then the dig for corroborating evidence, however tangential (did he listen to talk radio?!) served up a nothingburger.
At least in the case of Pelosi’s attacker, his Facebook history includes a lot of Mike Lindell election-truther videos. There is some basis for suspecting a political motive that could be articulated.
Now, I’m sure there will be some overreaching op-eds that follow. But that CNN piece is fairly tame.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
Do they? Or is it that working conditions and wages are hammered out only every so-many years during contract negotiations, and that, by intent and structure, isn’t going to be something that can occur just whenever.
“Classics are forever with a flourish or fit change” is incompatible with “fit is king” unless you really learn what you like and flatters you, and are happy being out of sync with what is currently on trend in the mind of normies. If the average Mottizen thrifts a ‘50s Brooks navy blazer he’s going to feel weird about how square and structured the shoulders are if he’s looking to fit in, even though a navy blazer is “classic”, and even if he can’t articulate it.
You mention dark-wash jeans? That’s downstream of a niche Japanese interest in ‘50s and ‘60s Americana that the fashion world brought back over to the U.S. from abroad. I know no Mottizens were buying Momotaro selvedge in the Aughts, but Todd Snyder when he was still at J. Crew was, and then the GAP, etc. picked up on it. And now a five year old MFA guide recommends it, but the tastemakers that will determine what MFA is going to recommend in a couple years from now ditched dark wash a couple years back, and that too will filter down. It’s all going to churn, and churn, and churn, even for normies. A five year old MFA guide is already long in the tooth, and was itself born of trends — it didn’t opt out of them. And they ultimately won’t stick with them, either.
Also, dark wash jeans, in terms of “classic” rules, don’t offer enough of a contrast with a navy blazer, running a foul of not clearly differentiating pants from an odd jacket, even though that was (is?) an MFA favorite. MFA didn’t come up with some classic or objective reason dark wash jeans were preferable.
My point is, if you have the time, please dig through something like Guy’s series on developing personal taste because that has a much longer shelf life than an MFA guide and you’ll honestly be happier with the results.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
Could well be but that’s moot relative to the politics of this, in that there isn’t going to be a noticeable pro-affirmative action push for non-legacy, non-athletic, non-Jewish whites from any quarter.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
☝️ I’d be a little careful with a five year old guide from rMFA. Cuts and silhouettes are moving on from the #menswear era that spawned that subreddit. And watch out for the lack of a collar roll on the types of OCBDs they liked when that guide was written. Matt Walsh, as an example, dresses like a bad imitation of a gay guy from 2008. This stuff does filter downstream from the high-low world of tastemaking, even to guys who say this stuff isn’t what straight men concern themselves with.
rMFA isn’t terrible, but it’s mostly guys who reworked their closet 12 months ago giving advice to new people about to replace them on that forum.
In America, sports teams are vanity projects ultimately run by billionaires who want a boost in name recognition. Their teams are exempted from anti-trust and artificially scarce, so the owners feel relatively secure they can flip their team if they run into financial problems, elsewhere, or pass it on to their children where it will retain some value. And, if those owners are bad at hiring general mangers, it’s not too much of a problem. They just need to be liked, or at least not disliked, by the other owners in their league. (Think Donald Sterling, who all the other NBA owners hated, versus Robert Sarver who just got a one year suspension and a fine, for pretty much the same offense. Not that Sarver is everyone’s favorite.)
The Sacramento Kings, New York Jets and Buffalo Sabres are all sitting on 10+ year playoff droughts in leagues with a salary cap. They and their owners will not be removed if things don’t improve.
Also, bad GMs love churning through multiple head coaches before ownership stops letting them pass the buck.
Sports teams in America are franchises of multibillion-dollar corporations.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
Derek Guy’s ‘Die, Workwear!’ is (IMO) the best menswear blog out there. But it’s not really a guide. His current ‘How to Develop Good Taste’ series, now on Part 4, is a good read.
Guy’s instagram account of same name has some funny inside-baseball memes as well. Like how Daily Wire pundits are now wearing the kind of #menswear-era cuts and styles made popular 15 years ago by Thom Browne and Tom Ford: https://instagram.com/p/CixgYj-LV-c/
As for a guide, it depends on what you want, because the internet has fragmented men’s fashion. There’s a bit of nostalgia for the #menswear era of the late Aughts, because it might be the last time trends for men all moved in the same direction.
Digging into Flusser’s and Boyer’s books and learning to pick cuts that flatter your (you, your specific body) are a great base. Guy touches on these in his aforementioned series.
LimesTheif
1yr ago
Does anyone know any higher ups in the Catholic Church? Maybe, specifically in Louisiana?
Still-current ‘American Conservative’ (the publication) blogger and former trad-cath Rod Dreher, who has spent a career moralizing to others, has divorced his wife and converted to Orthodoxy. I think it’s only fair and right the Catholic Church excommunicate him for his divorce and heresy.
Just wanted to see if anyone can put in a call, get the ball rolling.
The ‘Radio War Nerd’ hosts have talked about this in relation to Charlottesville and street clashes in Portland. If you have a nation where firearms are prevalent and people are fighting with improvised melee weapons, what you are witnessing is political theater.
I’ll start taking Blue-Anon scaremongering over the rise of fascism in America seriously when we start seeing Weimar-era daily death counts from street violence.
In the Charlottesville case, an incel wasn’t bright enough to grok this and inspired a backlash by crossing the line to premeditated lethality.
In the latter, Proud Boy/Patriot Prayer type groups are bussing people in to Portland because that’s where they can get video squaring off with the Black Bloc folks, while the Black Bloc types hilariously claim their street violence deters the former from gathering in public.
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