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Cake day: July 25th, 2023

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  • OwenEverbinde@lemmy.myserv.onetoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlWhy did you vote for Biden?
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    1 year ago

    But now I live in Nevada. I will be voting for Biden because

    • the CHIPS Act is going to put chip manufacturing at the mercy of union labor
      • and with the solidarity whipped up by places like Antiwork? It’s going to be a bloodbath.
    • his bans on slave labor solar panel imports will do the same thing. Union laborers won’t need to compete with slave owners.
    • he halted ICE worksite immigration raids, which were basically used to terrorize migrant workers and keep them complacent (hence lowering their wages, and by extension, lowering the market price of labor)
    • he “played the long game” and helped win rail workers those sick days they were fighting for.
    • he kept student loan payments paused for the first 33 months of his term and tried to get a decent chunk forgiven
    • he appointed trust-busting advocate Lina Kahn to the FTC, where she is now a chairwoman
    • he appointed pro-labor lawyer Jennifer Abruzzo to the NLRB, where she recently set an anti-union-busting precedent that, according to Harold Meyerson at Prospect.org, “makes union organizing possible again”

    He’s silently, steadily, baby-stepping us in the right direction. And that’s worth a vote of support, not just a vote for a lesser evil.


  • OwenEverbinde@lemmy.myserv.onetoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlWhy did you vote for Biden?
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    1 year ago

    I didn’t. I was in California, so my vote was irrelevant anyways. I’ve been living with my mom, so I decided to use it to make a point.

    I was like, “look Mom! I don’t approve of Biden’s hair sniffing, so I’m voting for Jorgenson! You can do the same! That’s an option!”

    It didn’t work. She voted for Trump. (Don’t worry. She was also in California so her vote was also irrelevant). You’d think with her personal history, she’d have been AGAINST serial sexual predators… but I guess his cult of personality was just too strong. She still genuinely believes he “stood up to the globalists.”








  • Oh yeah, certainly. And one of the first steps in that direction – the corporate death sentence – is just common sense.

    (The corporate death sentence is basically “any company that does more damage than it can reasonably repair gets converted into a co-op controlled by its workers / victims. The investors’ shares get dissolved.”)

    I don’t think anyone would have a reasonable objection to allowing the voters of East Palestine, Ohio and the workers for Norfolk Southern to elect all of the company’s board members from here on out. And I don’t think anyone would weep for Norfolk Southern’s shareholders if their shares got dissolved.


  • There’s a lot of trouble with definitions regarding capitalism. (I’d call them intentional since muddying the waters serves the people who benefit from our current system.)

    Pick any person who is complaining about “capitalism” right now.

    If you proposed a system where everything was structured the same as it is right now, HOWEVER instead of shareholders and owners possessing companies, every, single company was a worker cooperative (owned and controlled by its workers) then I am 95% sure the anti-capitalist you picked would

    1. Not consider that capitalism, and
    2. Vastly prefer that over what we have right now

    With some minor variation. (Tankies don’t think it’s possible to maintain such a system without monopolizing violence. Anarcho-communists wouldn’t be too happy about the scope and financial power of state and federal governments, and would seek to pare them down. Democratic socialists would think it was perfect. Little disagreements like that.)

    But I think most other people (people who aren’t anti-capitalists) would think “that’s just a form of capitalism” if I described the above.

    In fact, if I said,

    A free market system, but ownership and control of the means of production is only allowed collectively and democratically. No shareholders allowed, no transferable individual ownership allowed.

    Most ordinary people would consider that a form of capitalism. (Even though calling it capitalism is, technically, highly inaccurate). So it’s a difficult conversation to have. Because most “anti-capitalists” disagree with most “pro-capitalists” on the basic definition of what they are fighting or defending.

    I’m actually convinced that a lot of “pro-capitalists” are more eager to defend the free market system than they are to defend transferable, stock-marketable, individual ownership of the means of production. I think they would compromise on the latter if they could safeguard the former.





  • Look: a lot of companies would suffer from an office real estate crash.

    • the businesses that own the office real estate
    • car manufacturers
    • tire manufacturers
    • petroleum companies
    • coffee franchises
    • fast food franchises lining freeways on the way to work

    And most importantly, funds invested in all of the above.

    People who own businesses also own stocks in other people’s businesses. Meaning they all fall and rise together. Trying to keep the “work commute” and “office rental” industries alive is just an attempt on the part of those who hold capital to keep their portfolios growing.

    In secret, they are probably also trying to hedge their bets, diversify and make themselves immune to the coming collapse. They’ll try to position themselves and their capital in such a way so that the working class is the only group hurt when it happens.

    But in public? They are not going to devalue their assets by standing by, complacent, as an office apocalypse approaches.




  • Owen had serialized dream many years ago in childhood times. New dream chapters kept releasing for many nights. Dream parts were spooky. Owen was scared there, but felt like pain and fear was deserved.

    However, when Owen was being pulled back to very scary place from earlier season, Owen chose instead to fight. Creature tried to pull Owen down, but Owen planted feet and pulled against creature. Creature fell into last season’s spooky place.

    Panting, Owen spoke, “I’ve been down there.”

    Weird dream stopped returning. “I’ve been down there” turned out being series finale.

    Years passed. Owen decided to make anagram of “I’ve been down there.”

    Owen failed: “Owen Ever Bind Thee” was closest Owen could come to good anagram. Owen got bored of scrambling letters. Chose Owen Everbinde and abandoned attempt at making anagram. Owen’s leftover ‘T’ and ‘H’ and ‘E’ will never have home.