this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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Remember that violent protests were used in Europe to establish our rights. It's incredibly weird looking to the US from the outside. You have the right to bear arms, specifically to oppose tyranny, yet nobody seems to do so.
TL;DR: American Conservatives have spent millions of dollars since the 70s studying language and ideas and figuring out how to frame every issue from a conservative, pro-capital, pro-business perspective.
Well, you see, back during the 1960's and 1970's there was a huge push in the US against war, against white supremacy, against fascism, against the draft, against segregation, and many other things. Many of the people who currently hold US political offices today were either in the universities and colleges when these protests were ongoing, or were already working as staffers for conservative politicians. They saw what was going on and became determined to never let these things happen again. In 1971 when then Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell mailed a confidential memo to his friends in the US Chamber of Commerce titled: "Attack on American Free Enterprise System" and outlined Powell's concerns re: the youth of the US and the growing sentiments against the Vietnam War. He was worried that our nation's best and brightest were becoming anti business because of our involvemnt in Vietnam. Powell's agenda included getting wealthy conservatives to set up professorships, setting up institutes on and off campus where intellectuals would write books from a conservative business perspective, and setting up think tanks. He outlined the whole thing in 1970. They set up the Heritage Foundation in 1973, and the Manhattan Institute after that.
And now, as the New York Times Magazine quoted Paul Weyrich, who started the Heritage Foundation, they have 1,500 conservative radio talk show hosts. They have a huge, very good operation, and they understand their own moral system. They understand what unites conservatives, and they understand how to talk about it, and they are constantly updating their research on how best to express their ideas.
Now, you might be wondering why progressives haven't done the same thing. There's a systematic reason for that. You can see it in the way that conservative foundations and progressive foundations work. Conservative foundations give large block grants year after year to their think tanks. They say, 'Here's several million dollars, do what you need to do.' And basically, they build infrastructure, they build TV studios, hire intellectuals, set aside money to buy a lot of books to get them on the best-seller lists, hire research assistants for their intellectuals so they do well on TV, and hire agents to put them on TV. They do all of that. Why? Because the conservative moral system has as its highest value preserving and defending the "strict father" system itself. And that means building infrastructure. As businessmen, they know how to do this very well.
Meanwhile, liberals' conceptual system of the "nurturant parent" has as its highest value helping individuals who need help. The progressive foundations and donors give their money to a variety of grassroots organizations. They say, 'We're giving you $25,000, but don't waste a penny of it. Make sure it all goes to the cause, don't use it for administration, communication, infrastructure, or career development.'
Another reason for the lack of liberal response from think tanks in the last few decades is infighting and cultural purity tests: https://theintercept.com/2022/06/13/progressive-organizing-infighting-callout-culture/
That is a good analysis. I think it ignores the obvious components that the conservatives are well funded precicely because conservative dogma is all about protecting the owner class. Wealthy business people are not going to fund efforts to impose progressive taxation, mandatory sick time etc.
Sure there are rich people in the arts who lean liberal at least in public, but they are outnumbered and out-spent by capital owners.
The left will never be able to spend as much on communication so the approach has go be completely different. Using the products of capitalism like social media has been effective. Peer-to-peer organizing is slow but costs little. Tacking pro-worker policies onto the platforms of the otherwise pro-business Democrats as a differentiator has lead to some success.
Reaching the mass media reach of the far right is so difficult to do without the capital backing though. The left really needs to get into the talk radio game. NPR tries but they are inevitably quite centrist.
I think unifying ideology is also much easier a task for conservative thought, because it's all about "F you, got mine." And "Those that aren't us are trying to ruin everything." And "Eat enough leather and maybe you'll get rich lol."
Leftier-leaning stuff has a "unity problem" because it seeks to understand and accommodate the vast spectrum of human experiences and points of view. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's certainly much tougher and more complex to pitch, and rally, and galvanize.
Conservatives are really good at being chill and most importantly simple for the most part at an introductory level, so they recruit a lot, and then slowly work their adherents into raging, scared, insecure violence-fantasists.
A good example is with men. Leftists groups have a serious deficiency in speaking to and empathizing with masculine issues, and are shocked when normally moderate, but wayward, men are happy to just be accepted...then radicalized, by hyper-nationalist conspiracy theorists with a fetish for sharp geometric symbolism...
It's only tyranny if the colored people or the gays do it.
Oh no, we respect the police we'd NEVER!/s yeah. There's a weird dichotomy in the US.
It's completely boggling. The other longer reply nailed it perfectly. But yeah, conservatism is a really weird ideal in that regard.
It's because it's all "anti big government", but usually they're talking about bringing down social safety nets and building up walls.
They're so obsessed with governmental tyranny (even though they're religiously huge fans of police and armed forces...huh?), but they're completely blind to tyranny on smaller levels, on a domestic scale.
So you usually catch them simping for capitalists instead of opposing them.
"Because one day I'll get to wear the boot! 🤡"
I think they see abuse by bosses, landlords, and the ilk as "paying ones' dues" or something. They'll of course have zero compunction about passing on that abuse if they somehow end up in the high-chair.
So basically: "Don't tread on me!*
*...Unless you're my boss. I'm happy I'm at least free to choose my own tyrant among an infinite number of other tyrants, and I'll ~~die~~ talk a really big game to make sure everyone is exploited by private interests instead of government ones!"
There's for-the-people groups like Socialist Rifle Association but they're smaller in comparison.
Heck, gun-fever and the NRA are basically all private marketing schemes to begin with.
People do on occasion, like there were armed leftists that prevented police from raiding encampments in Texas, and at some protests there have been organized armed groups like John Brown Gun Clubs or Socialist Rifle Associations. Several people that argued for more militant resistance to state violence were murdered in 2020, and many times for decades before that, so a lot of people are scared and not organized sufficiently, but there are groups that have been preparing.