theluddite

theluddite , 5 days ago

Sounds very doable! My friend has an old claw foot tub that he lights a fire under. If you want something a little less country, you can buy on demand electric or propane water heaters and hook your hose up, though I'd expect the electric one wouldn't be able to keep up at 120v. Hardest part of this project is probably moving the tub. I say go for it!

theluddite , 7 months ago

4 years seems reasonable to me. It takes most organizations six months to do literally anything outside the status quo. A general strike is an attempt to organize a coalition of federations of organizations.

Why the fuck would you give four years of warning for managers to document “a slow accumulation of poor performance” and other bullshit to shit can pro-union employees.

This is the reality of striking. The threat and build up to the strike are just as important as the actual strike, because it’s about more than just not going to work; it involves complex and wide-ranging logistical question, from how to support the strikers (otherwise corps can just wait you out) to how to decide on a single list of demands.

The very real threats you describe are what make outspoken union advocates awesome and brave people that we should all look up to, and it’s why we all have a responsibility to express solidarity and never cross a picket line. Together we bargain; alone we beg!

theluddite , 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

I’d say less than a week. Capitalism is something that we have to wake up and make happen every single day. How many days worth of food does the average person have? Definitely not 45 days. People would have to start self-organizing within 2-3 days, and in doing so, they would actively make something that isn’t capitalism, which directly challenges those in power.

This is why every time there are emergencies or protests, the media is obsessed with “looting.” If there’s no food because of a hurricane or whatever, it is every single person’s duty to redistribute what there is equitably. The news and capitalists (but I repeat myself) call that “looting,” even when it’s a well-organized group of neighbors going into a closed store to distribute spoiling food to hungry people.

Rebecca Solnit writes about this in detail in A Paradise Built in Hell. It’s really good. She’s an awesome writer.

theluddite , 7 months ago

I love her. You know all of those outlets that try to respond how all the news is bad by doing good news, but it’s always just the orphan crushing machine all over again?

Solnit is like an actually rigorous and deeply insightful version of what that thinks it is doing. I think she herself would push back on anyone who says she tries to figure out “human nature,” but insomuch as that’s a meaningful thing to do, that’s what she does. The book’s central aim is to investigate what human beings are actually like when existing social expectations and power structures are removed, and it’s both well-researched and surprisingly optimistic.

theluddite , 8 months ago

Hell yes! Join us, friends!