A frog who wants the objective truth about anything and everything.

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XMPP: prodigalfrog@slrpnk.net

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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • There’s no requirement that they be unionized. Anyway, that’s unrealistic in the US.

    It helps, because unions will have strike funds to supplement worker’s income during the strike. Most American’s have no savings and are living hand to mouth, which may discourage them from participating in a general strike.

    For your second paragraph, I don’t disagree. Even with the potential for that, I consider it a mostly non-violent action, at least in comparison to a civil war.



  • For a General Strike to work, there does need to be a somewhat unified vision of what the strike is against. That means getting workers educated about the situation as much as possible.

    A boycott can sometimes work against individual corporations, but a boycott to make the government listen would require sustained participation from a massive section of the population, which seems unlikely to say the least. In contrast, a general strike only needs workers in critical unionized industries to join in to cause a virtual halt of economic activity (dock workers, train workers, truckers, etc). This lowers the numbers needed to be effective by an order of magnitude, and is thus much more feasible. History has shown it to be the most effective non-violent tool we have for over 100 years, and so far nothing else has come close.

    Prefiguration could be considered a 3rd method. Building the alternative systems we want to see and use in the world to lower our dependence on the current system facilitates the ability to enact general strikes, boycotts, and reduces the leverage they have over us to not enact resistance.

    A fourth method would be perhaps more extreme, like collectively destroying all of the world’s databases that contain financial debt records, Fightclub/Mr.Robot style. But that would require extreme coordination between established capable groups, and currently is not a feasible option.


  • That probably the realest thing that can be done without bloodshed.

    The most effective non-violent action we can take is to organize a General Strike.

    The country would be brought to its knees if suddenly deprived of profit and labor. That tactic was extremely effective in Chile in 2019, and had they not fallen for the trick of liberal reform, they would’ve had a successful revolution on their hands with virtually no bloodshed.

    If you aren’t in a union (or even if you are, it’s worth dual-carding), please consider joining the IWW to unionize your workplace (bonus: you’ll get higher wages, better benefits, and more time off if you succeed!) to strengthen a general strike if we manage to enact one.

    And for our international friends, you should join one as well, as fascism is gaining momentum globally. If your country isn’t listed below, just contact the IWW directly in the link above.

    • 🇦🇷 Argentina: FORA
    • 🇦🇺 Australia: ASF-IWA
    • 🇧🇷 Brazil: FOB
    • 🇧🇬 Bulgaria: ARS, CITUB
    • 🇩🇪 Germany: FAU
    • 🇬🇷 Greece: ESE
    • 🇮🇹 Italy: USI
    • 🇳🇱 🇧🇪 Netherlands & Belgium: Vriji Bond
    • 🇪🇸 Spain: CNT
    • 🇸🇪 Sweden: SAC
    • 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: UVW

  • As I said in my previous response, I’m not fan of the Kamala, nor the democratic party for the very reasons you mention. But to frame it as the Teamsters withholding their endorsement for the same reasons that leftists refused to vote for Kamala is disingenuous.

    If the Democrats wanted to get the teamsters endorsement, why didn’t they do more to show that they would be a pro-labor, anti-capitol party

    Democrats are neoliberals, they’ll never be anti-capital (hence their failure), but they certainly weren’t as anti-labor as the Republican party.

    You keep trying to paint my views as a simplistic sports team analog, but it doesn’t hold up. I’m pointing out real gripes with Teamster leadership and the depressing state of the membership, which I wish weren’t the case. I am not randomly smack talking them because I’m on some other team (do you think I’m in the UAW? I’m not).

    you want to blame “someone else”

    I’m not blaming anyone. I doubt an official Teamster endorsement would’ve made a difference in the election. I’m pointing to it as a prime example that the base of the Teamsters is conservative enough that taking an overt leftist stance is likely political suicide for Teamster leadership.


  • You didn’t address any of my other points.

    I’m basing my opinions on repeated examples of Teamster leadership failing to fight back against the establishment, not ‘sports-team’ reactions.

    When asked about Chavez-DeRemer’s stance on the right-to-work section of the PRO Act, O’Brien said that he is working with senators such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to come up with a version of the PRO Act that “may not include that.”

    “That’s the beauty of having conversations with people from the other side, where you can collaborate and actually find out what works for that state, what doesn’t work for it—but more importantly, what’s going to work for the American worker,” O’Brien said.

    In the same Fox News interview, O’Brien also said the Teamsters do not want to see anyone losing their job, but that “[Trump] thinks he’s within his right,” when asked about the personnel-slashing Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump administration’s widely decried deferred resignation program for nearly all federal employees. Multiple federal employees unions are currently battling the Trump administration in court over its actions targeting federal workers and federal agencies.

    With those statements, O’Brian is publicly stating that he still thinks he can reason and plead with an out-and-out proven anti-labor party that just destroyed federal unions. That makes him either naive or an idiot, and for his sake I hope it’s the former.

    We need all unions to come together as one movement to effectively fight this dictatorship from taking power, but based on previous evidence, a significant portion of the Teamster membership are unlikely to want to join that fight (obviously, some will, but they will be in the minority).

    You’re ignoring that a majority (60%) of its membership are conservative, and not endorsing Trump doesn’t make it much better, since that lack of endorsement of Kamala (whom I don’t even like, but clearly was the harm reduction option) only speaks to the fact that they have so many right-wing members, the leadership had to fence-sit in fear of not getting elected again by their pro-Trump members.

    If you’re a left-wing Teamster trying to steer your brothers and sisters away from MAGA, then more power to you. But don’t delude yourself that the Teamster leadership or right-wing members are going to be the ones leading the charge against this regime.

    I would love to be proven wrong, but at best I could see them hopping on the bandwagon if the winds change and the regime begins to implode on itself.


  • I have this perception from:

    1. Sean O’Brian trying to cozy up to the republican party by speaking at the RNC
    2. The leadership choosing not to endorse Kamala during the election (since it would piss off their conservative members)
    3. the locals repeatedly endorsing local republican politicians this year, despite seeing the destruction of federal unions and anti-worker rhetoric from the republican party
    4. First hand account from many left-leaning teamsters that so many of their fellow members are self-procliamed MAGA or right wing Trump voters (according to a source from wikipedia, 60% of the membership voted for Trump) who are only in the union because it directly benefits them financially.

    I’d love to see those right-wing members come to their senses and vote to join a general strike, but I just don’t see it happening. They even voted not to strike while negotiating their UPS contract, which resulted in (IMO) only modest improvements, and couldn’t even secure AC units to be retrofitted to their trucks to prevent people dying of heatstroke.