as a union diesel engine mechanic i can guarantee most, if not all these comments are complete PR.
I went on strike about ten years ago to protest mandatory overtime and lack of chemical PPE. the minute we authorized the strike, we had news channels from three states covering us and a billboard up the road that demanded an end to the strike by "concerned" truckers was erected in hours. Every day I could count on at least four emails from various sources, everything from "your union is cancelled" to "union declared illegal" and everything in between including offers to work for more pay but no contract. weekends were nearly a dozen phone calls, mostly robo, threatening pay cuts and layoffs and asking to cancel your healthcare and benefits.
we stuck out 19 days and won, and the very same news crews showed up again with no interviews from us, only management praising their great negotiation effort.
Would union supported/enforced comments count as astroturfing as well? I think it’d be interesting to ban pay for picketing & comments, though I’m not sure it’s enforceable.
If the union pays you because you are not working, and you choose to use that time to talk about how much you value unions on the internet, that's not astroturfing. If the union pays you TO post about how good the union is on the internet, that IS astroturfing.
At one point, amazon had a literal program where warehouse workers could opt to sit at a desk and post propaganda comments instead of doing their normal manual labor job.
Strike pay (at least often) requires picketing to qualify. Unions also often pay people to post comments online and otherwise present the union’s perspective to media or the public. Sometimes these people are listed as unit leaders, or have other ‘union management’ positions.
This seems like something a disclosure would reasonably solve. The anti-union PR posts aren't going to disclaim that they were paid by Amazon to post the comment but the pro-union wouldn't give a shit.
Officially, but Reddit enforcement of rules went to shit about the same time as the rest of the internet. Now they allow whatever brings them money and disallow whatever doesn't.
It wakes a ton of people up rhat thought they could righton,righton with different decorations. Its going to be worse, the moment trump is revealed as a failure when it comes to system takedown ..
Either you think the CEO was an undeserving victim, or you think that only billionaires and their enforces deserve a monopoly on lethal force.
So, what's your take on this recent scenario:
Ukraine assassinated a Russian general that authorised plans for chemical attacks that killed civilians. The general never directly murdered anyone in person, never "pulled a trigger", but was ultimately responsible for many deaths.
Was Ukraine morally wrong in this act? Should they just let someone sit comfortably in a Moscow office and sign paperwork to cause suffering and death in Ukraine? Should they bend over and take it?
If not, why not?
If so, why?
Either way, please explain why Americans should or should not "bend over and take it" where "it" is death to the tune of tens of thousands a year -- orders of magnitude more than killed by that Russian general.
Why not? They are the very real choices people are making.
Some would argue that lethal force is always wrong, even when you're being killed for money. Sorry, sorry... allowed to die without care ... for slightly enriching people that are already very, very, very rich.
Others, like the rebels in Syria, or the defenders in Ukraine, would argue otherwise.
> this statement is just pure mindfuck.
If you've never seen things in this way, you should start.
The billionaires see it that way.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
These laws, these norms you cling to... these are not designed to protect you.
> I'm not going to condone lynching or vigilante killings in any civil context.
Things stop "being civil" when death at an industrial scale becomes wildly profitable, legal, protected, and enforced by violent police.
The same police that will stand outside a school for an hour and tackle parents who do try to protect the lives of their own children.
> We're at civil war already,
You are, you just haven't noticed.
In case you do notice, you'll realise you're on the side that's losing because while you wring your hands in fear of things turning violent, the other side has been feeding your side into a meat grinder for profit at an industrial scale.
My Boomer Dad was a Teamster. I remember there was a several-weeks-long (might have even been months-long?) strike when I was a kid, probably around the late-70s. Shit was real. One day I saw him loading baseball bats and clubs into the trunk of his Buick before he left the house. I was just a kid; I had no idea what was going on. I asked him about it later in life and he just said, "That's how it was back then. We had to fight for what we wanted." And he was being literal. He talked about people who were even suspected of crossing the line or talking to management would get a severe beatdown. He even said people would harass management and their families. Dudes would sit outside their homes, just to intimidate them. And, he said they rarely got punished because the cops supported their union and would look the other way. Different times.
our local PD was union at the time. we never got any overt support but there were a few kind gestures. on a cold morning an officer dropped a box of chemical hand warmers by the dumpster and made it very clear he was disposing of them because they were "the wrong size" and he wouldnt be back today to check on them. about three days later his supervisor made a trip to the dumpster and left out a box of donuts and a big take-out coffee jug, warning us we absolutely shouldnt consume them after he left as the donuts were the made the wrong size and the coffee was too hot.
I went on strike about ten years ago to protest mandatory overtime and lack of chemical PPE. the minute we authorized the strike, we had news channels from three states covering us and a billboard up the road that demanded an end to the strike by "concerned" truckers was erected in hours. Every day I could count on at least four emails from various sources, everything from "your union is cancelled" to "union declared illegal" and everything in between including offers to work for more pay but no contract. weekends were nearly a dozen phone calls, mostly robo, threatening pay cuts and layoffs and asking to cancel your healthcare and benefits.
we stuck out 19 days and won, and the very same news crews showed up again with no interviews from us, only management praising their great negotiation effort.