• dublet@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      I’m suddenly reminded of this quote:

      “Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”

      – Douglas Adams in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

    • xkbx@startrek.website
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      9 days ago

      Phhh that’s exactly the kind of behaviour I’d expect with a user from leminal.space!

      • Obinice@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Bahh! Bloody Trekkies stirring the pot as usual, go back to your Spock Base and phase some Vulconions!

    • falseWhite@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Yep. Creating division amongst the common class, so they fight each other, instead of those in power who are the real criminals.

  • Clairvoidance@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 days ago

    Violence isn’t the answer!

    The answer is… checks history book

    wait not that one… starts flipping pages

    uhh if you hang on a second uhh furious page-flipping

  • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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    9 days ago

    Are USians not still working 10 hours day/6 days a week? The USA are usually near the top of the “time worked per week” OECD rankings.

    Also, interesting how the poster and first replier have the same avatar. Is that a historical figure?

    • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPM
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      9 days ago

      The desperation and work culture of believing we can just slave away into success are what keeps people from rocking the boat. Faith in being able to win the game is how we got here.

    • stray@pawb.social
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      9 days ago

      It looks to me like the top post is a screenshot of Twitter, and the two below are on Tumblr. I think they were just sharing their own post. But I don’t use either site, so I can’t be sure.

    • Godric@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      How are you referencing the OECD and claiming 60 hour weeks in the same paragraph? If you actually checked the OECD that you reference, you know hours worked is wayyyyyy lower.

      • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de
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        9 days ago

        I would guess he is saying that the hours listed in the OECD, which I think were 1730 per year, is skewed. I wonder if separating rich/middle/poor would yield vastly different results.

      • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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        9 days ago

        I generally assume that the OECD statistics are underreporting overtime and moonlighting/illicit work wouldn’t be included in these statistics anyway, though the latter is probably a bigger issue in poorer countries. Also, it doesn’t make a difference between part time work and fulltime work, which greatly diminishes how useful it is for gauging how much a fulltime employee works.

        • Godric@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          So you’re just adding on an extra 25 hours a week to the actual average number based off vibes?

          C’mon man :(

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      9 days ago

      Yes, Americans are not still working 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. (But phrasing things backwards that way is confusing!)

      40 hours a week is typical for normal, salaried jobs. But, because union membership is extremely low, some people are pressured into working a lot more than that. Also, some people have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. But, I don’t think 6 days a week is at all normal, nor is 10 hours a day.

      It’s actually the USA that is to thank for the normal work day being only 8 hours. In post-civil-war USA 6 days a week, 10 hours a day was the norm. But, workers in Chicago went on strike on May 1st, demanding an 8 hour day. Their argument was “Eight Hours for work. Eight hours for rest. Eight hours for what we will.” They didn’t get what they were demanding. Instead the strikers were met by police and Pinkerton violence. Some anarchists in the crowd responded to that police violence by throwing bombs (at least, allegedly). The police responded to the bombs by shooting the crowd. They then rounded up the suspected leaders of the anarchist movement and after incredibly brief show-trials, they hanged them.

      It was actually the backlash against the hangings that energized the unions and communists around the world, and although it took years to actually achieve the 8 hour day they demanded. The rest of the world also celebrates a worker day on May 1st as a result of this event. But, of course, in the US, “May Day” is seen as being too close to “communism” so Labor Day is in September instead.

      It took decades more to reduce the work week from 6 days to 5. Again this was the result of union pressure.

      American workers have lots immense amounts of power since the 1880s. Even if those striking workers were beaten by Pinkertons, they were at least able to organize a general strike.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    8 days ago

    The only reason we have 5 day work weeks, 8 hour workdays, overtime pay, benefits, workplace health/safety/environmental regulations, unions, health care, paid time off, vacations, etc. is because our grandfathers and great-grandfathers busted heads, and got their own heads busted, fighting corporate goons in the streets - and WINNING!

    Those heroic workers would be ashamed at what their grandchildren have let the Sociopathic Oligarchs have done to America. They fought hard to keep those psychopaths under control, and we not only let them up, we helped them take full power.

    • NotACIAPlant@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      grandfathers busted heads, and got their own heads busted, fighting corporate goons in the streets - and WINNING!

      No one won anything. The massive militant strike actions in the USA in the early 20th century usually were losses. Wins tended to be pyrrhic, with the company cleaning house a couple months later or simply reversing the won benefits.

      Things were brought to a head by the depression. The solution was simple, the most militant leaders were arrested, reforms were done to buy off the less militant, and the anger was channeled into marching all of us off to war (with the support of the non-militant collaborationist unions, of course).

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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        8 days ago

        Except that in the end, we still have the 8 hour workday/ 40 hour work week, overtime, benefits, etc. None of those things existed before the labor riots, so things didn’t get rolled back as much as you claim, and the most important ones stuck permanently.

        The Labor Riots were extremely successful, and completely reconfigured the American workplace for the rest of the century, and beyond. MAGA wants to revert to the old days.

        • birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          7 days ago

          Yup. Poor MAGA thinks they’ll get 2 hour work weeks if they went back to the good old days.

          The truth is that they whites will all be working the fields again without holiday, cheap medical aid, and so on.

          • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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            7 days ago

            A lot of them think they’ll be slave owners again. I’m sure there are a few yokels who think the day is coming when they can just go grab the nearest black neighbor and declare him their property, and force him to get to work in the fields. After all, that was the original reason those Africans CHOSE to come to America ILLEGALLY right?

            Well, he’s got a trailer, so maybe he just makes his new slave pick up the house, make the bed, and wash the truck.

        • NotACIAPlant@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          Everyone I know works more than 40 hours a week because its not enough to live on. Overtime is barely doled out and “benefits” account for either expensive PPOs or slightly cheaper HMOs (which suck, fyi). And I live in a state with strong labor protections. In all of the country its entirely possible to work more than 40 hours a week and not receive any overtime pay at all. Or be misclassified, or be subject to illegal wage theft.

          All that changed is the worst jobs got sent overseas and a certain section of careers for the college educated exist that provides some semblance of “good benefits and good hours”.

          • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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            8 days ago

            Yeah, corrupt corporations are exploiting the system, with the help of the corrupt government. What’s new? The fact still remains that the work environment we generally accept as normal, was created by those Labor Riots, and we are still better off for them. Even if MAGA manages to roll back the workplace environment to the 19th century, they will always have to compete with the memory of America’s peak, and will look bad in comparison.

            • NotACIAPlant@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              You have false nostalgia for a time you weren’t even alive as things have always been shit for working people especially in the United States.

              • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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                8 days ago

                You are stuck on your biases, and can’t even consider the idea that labor issues were terrible in the 19th C/ early 20th C, and it was labor riots in the second quarter of the century that ended the old way, and began a new workplace environment. It is definitely not perfect, but it’s far better than it once was, and it’s ridiculous to argue otherwise.

  • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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    9 days ago

    The State only respects power. If a group of people show that they have more power than the State, change can happen. However, what is power?

    Power comes in many different forms.

    There is economic power which is showcased through strikes and boycotts.
    There is democratic power which is showcased through the ballot box.
    There is soft power which is showcased through the lobbying, and speeches.
    There is non-violet power which is showcased through protests, marches, and sit ins.
    There is violent power which is showcased through physical violence such riots.

    While, the populace has access to many different forms of power. The State is limited to either soft power or violent power. Depending on the State, soft power might not even be contemplated.

    Riots are just one form of power for the populace to exercise.

    • korazail@lemmy.myserv.one
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      8 days ago

      This feels really insightful, and I wonder if there is a source other than ShaggySnacks.

      Can anyone expand on or contradict this comment? I honestly want to hang it in my house so my children can see it and understand they power they have.

      • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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        8 days ago

        This feels really insightful, and I wonder if there is a source other than ShaggySnacks.

        Sadly, no source. It’s something I’ve observed. I can’t recall any time a State changed it’s position on an issue simply because it was the moral thing to do.

        There are other forms of power such as legal (using the Courts), culture, morality, etc.

        The examples above aren’t exhaustive, for example having allies in the State does help with change, which is means running for office in an a democratic system.

  • buttnugget@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    I think it’s worth pointing out that calling these riots isn’t really appropriate. When we think of riots, we think of unfocused, unplanned, unmanaged, etc. Highly organized protests sometimes wind up turning into riots because capitalists use violence, but it’s not the norm.

    • FlyingCircus@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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      8 days ago

      Labor movements in the 19 th and early 20th centuries also literally organized riots, where the express purpose was to destroy property. It used to be a legitimate protest strategy against the owning class.

    • korazail@lemmy.myserv.one
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      8 days ago

      Super This:

      Organized, non-violent protests are not riots. They are people, in mass, using their freedom of speech to complain about something.

      A common issue is that some people, either within the protest group, or outside instigators, will then prod the protest into violence in order to discredit it. Two examples:

      • Police using rubber bullets/tear-gas/pepper-spray to disperse a lawful gathering. This escalates and adds tension. Not everyone is prepared to weather abuse to stay non-violent. Gassing a peaceful protest is going to make at least some of them really mad and is a pretty trivial way to turn a peaceful protest into something else and remove it’s message, making it just a “riot.”
      • Agitators claiming to be within the group, but who are actually against, it performing actions such as property damage or violence in order to discredit the whole event. If a non-violent march is walking down a street and some dick throws a rock through a store window and steals something, the whole march is called a riot by the media.

      It’s important that if you are involved in a protest that you stay calm despite what is thrown your way. The protest is the message and fighting back during that event is only harming your message. Please do things like capture pictures/videos of people inciting violence, of police using crowd control on peaceful protesters, of generic unfair treatment; but during that event, the goal is to be calm. Afterwards, you can take all your grievances to the medias. If you’ve been harmed during a protest, find a lawyer – many will work pro-bono for cases like this and if your first pick doesn’t… fuck 'em: Name and shame – and then fight back after the event, when you have legal standing.

      Your grievances are real. Your pain is real. The people in power will use every trick to discredit your issues. Don’t give them ammo.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      9 days ago

      Personally I wish they’d rioted a bit more because frankly I’m usually done by about 1:00 p.m.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      I’d say it was more the union organizers than the anarchists. There was a lot of overlap. But not all labour organizers were anarchists. It could even be argued that the anarchists hurt the movement more than they helped it. Some of the anarchists like August Spies were attempting to disrupt the status quo, but were trying to do it relatively non-violently. He even refused to show up to speak at the rally if workers were told to arm themselves. On the other hand, August Spies was part of the labour/anarchist movement that wore military uniforms and marched around with muskets, so it wasn’t like he was completely non-violent. Around the time of the Haymarket affair though, he was less radical than some of the anarchists, who were expressly violent and wanted to start a revolution using bombs and guns.

      The fact someone threw a bomb gave the police the excuse to crack down on the anarchists. The crackdown prevented the aims of the protesters from being achieved. But, the fact that the justice system hanged the anarchist leaders led to them being seen as martyrs. That made them famous, which made May Day famous, which eventually did help lead to the 8 hour work day. Would the 8 hour work day have been achieved faster without the bomb being thrown? It’s hard to know. The immediate result was a major setback for the cause, but the long-term result of the overreaction to that bombing was a contributing factor to the 8-hour workday eventually being achieved.

  • Commiunism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 days ago

    Funnily enough there’s a very similar situation to the US that’s going on in Serbia, where a canopy falling and killing a bunch of people due to government cheapening out led to lots of outrage and exploded into a massive student movement against the president due to corruption, election rigging, suppression of dissent and executive branch abuse.

    At first, they did peaceful protests, blocked roads and all that jazz constantly, but after seeing that it had led them literally nowhere (they got nothing except for a fake concession that was some minister resigning) except on getting arrested and beaten up in jails, they decided to give a green light to civil disobedience, violence, trashing ruling party’s headquarters all over the country.

    What did this escalation result in? A whole load of nothing except cracked skulls, mostly for the students.

    If you’re looking at reformism ‘fixing’ things during the course of history, civil disobedience the vast majority if not all of the time was noise. What eventually got implemented or changed wasn’t because the ruling class got scared, but because they were either getting major gains in terms of compromise as a result of the reform, or the reform itself was beneficial to their interests and only a small minority didn’t want them to pass.

    • drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 days ago

      If you’re looking at reformism ‘fixing’ things during the course of history, civil disobedience the vast majority if not all of the time was noise. What eventually got implemented or changed wasn’t because the ruling class got scared, but because they were either getting major gains in terms of compromise as a result of the reform, or the reform itself was beneficial to their interests and only a small minority didn’t want them to pass.

      So, in your opinion the woman’s suffrage movement, or LGBTQ activism, for example, were just wastes of time? These people didn’t need to do or say anything since the bourgeoisie were about to give them everything they wanted anyway?

      • Commiunism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 days ago

        If they held no benefit to the ruling class, then no. LGBT opens up more industry focused on identity (via pride merch, medical needs) which means more profitable industry for bourgeois, while women’s suffrage legitimizes capital’s rule further by allowing more people to vote + liberates capitalist women which is what bourgeois feminism is primarily about.

        Whether these reforms would have happened without the noise though, can’t really say - there’s no mirror that looks into alternate realities. Still, these kinds of reformist mass movements are usually a result of bourgeois infighting, not some spontaneous working class action - just look at who organizes and funds them.

        Thats not to say liberal working class are idiots for joining them and acting as footsoldiers, no - there are definitely benefits to be had for one’s identity no matter the class, like in the case of LGBT, but the things won aren’t full-on liberation, just specific compromises that are capital-friendly(women getting voting rights but still being discriminated against to encourage births/staying at home and raising more workers, LGBT getting essentially bare minimum recognition and care to be sold merch but not enough to significantly attack the traditional family for child-raising). Therefore, true liberation can only happen via the abolishment of the class society, else it’s gonna be endless compromises that miss the mark.

        • drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          9 days ago

          I think workers should own their workplaces but tbh I don’t see that by itself automatically fixing all forms of prejudice and discrimination. Certainly not on a personal level, but probably not even at a systemic level either. Though I agree that the present conditions definitely forment reactionary thought.

          • Commiunism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            9 days ago

            Yeah it won’t, because commodity production, markets, accumulative money and therefore capital won’t be abolished, meaning that the incentives to oppress certain groups of people for growth will remain.

            Only after we overcome the production for profit model and replace it with production to satisfy people’s needs will capital fully be replaced and dead, removing any incentives to discriminate (aka systemic discrimination). Will it change prejudices that people have immediately? No, but it will certainly disappear over time given how the central source of these prejudices is now abolished + a revolution and development like that is only possible in a class conscious society which produces solidarity with other workers no matter their features (USSR is a good example of this when looking at Oct Revolution - women were viewed as fellow comrades, led the charge on most influential mass protests, and once revolution happened they got a ton of systemic freedom in terms of abortion rights and legal autonomy, while the rest of the western world was still on legal guardianship).

    • Commiunism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 days ago

      To give a bit of hope to the liberals in the US though, what’s happening there isn’t new and the state of things from before (as in liberal democracy functioning normally) is going to sooner and later return, it’s a cycle that happens every now and again due to falling rate of profit, crisis and rise of reaction that happens as a result.

      Eventually, liberal capitalists will start fighting the conservative capitalists to get their place in the sun again, maybe it’s going to happen electorally or maybe there’s going to be a slaughter of millions of workers in the name of liberal democracy or anti-fascism, after which wholesome democracy will reign supreme once again and the countdown towards another crisis and rise of reaction will start once again. Isn’t that lovely?

  • zululove@lemmy.ml
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    8 days ago

    Woe to the vanquished !!

    the names of our heros, and our defiers, will last forever !!

  • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 days ago

    The most sociopatic “winners” of the current system will always laud whatever was done to establish the system in which they get so much and decry anything that might overthrow or even meaningfully change that system.

    Those who have a more empathic view of things, even when they too are considered “winners”, have a different posture if they think the current system isn’t working well for most people because they don’t think only about personal upside maximization at any cost for the rest.

    As it so happens, caring for more than just “me, me, me” is what distinguishes leftwingers from rightwingers.

    So this is a great way to spot fake leftwingers in or seeking positions of power and wealth: no matter how “progressive” their words are in general, when it comes to the current system they’ll display exactly this kind of hypocrisy of being against any kind of actions that will change the current system whilst lauding the very same kind of actions when they installed the current system, since their one true drive is “What’s in it for me”, a rightwinger’s motivation.

  • BC_viper@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Violence is the only answer, and until youre ready for that nothing will change. Extreme violence is the only answer.

    • Aljernon@lemmy.today
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      8 days ago

      Not entirely. As they say, there’s a different between being peaceful and being harmless. Sometimes the threat or implication of violence is just as or more effective.