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archomrade [he/him] @ archomrade @midwest.social
Posts
15
Comments
1,616
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Democrats haven't done anything on the federal level to protect LGBTQ rights in red states, nor is Harris running on any LGBTQ protections. Go ahead and look through her campaign website. There's not a single mention of LGBTQ or gender. There are only 2 mentions of 'minority', and only one of black americans, and only in the context of business ownership.

    Don't tell me Harris is going to protect minorities in red states when she's not given a ounce of time or effort doing anything to defend them.

    edit: on her website she doesn't even discuss queer, gender, or immigrant issues when discussing project 2025. It looks as if she is going out of her way to avoid the topic altogether.

  • but threatening to endorse the GOP would be like choosing to go work for an even more exploitative company in retaliation.

    How? Maybe it's more like making a public statement about private negotiations that damages the reputation of the partner company, but 'going to work for another company' doesn't track. They're threatening to harm the democratic campaign by publicly shaming them, not self-immolating.

    But the immediate question I asked was “can we agree it was a poorly worded and/or insufficiently brief critique” aka the kind of statement that it’s easy to get lost in pointless pendantry over?

    I already answered this - no, i do not agree, and I especially don't think it's 'pointless pendantry'. AOC is a dem soc, she should know that it's the job of the union to negotiate via collective bargaining and that democrats are not owed an endorsement.

    What committments?? This is exactly what I was asking you 2 replies ago, and even before that. And you’ve so far dodged the question. I still don’t understand the actual substantive things you want the Democratic party to do.

    Because i'm not privy to what the teamsters are asking for, but I'm personally frustrated that democrats keep burying their labor offerings in capital funding and investments. Democrats assume that they can make up for any loss of industry growth in one segment of the economy by promoting growth in another, but that's not comforting to unions or unaffiliated industry workers in the rust belt, where there's usually only one or two major job producers in their towns. Even if those jobs were being created in exactly the same place, loosing a job and having to change industry is incredibly destabilizing. Most Americans don't have more than a couple thousand in savings, let alone a few months of expenses. Bragging about jobs created with the CHIPS act or other legislation isn't comforting to people who live in towns that aren't a recipient of that investment.

    I think democrats need to expand social programs and remove pointless means-testing that excludes a lot of working families from benefits (and pits them against working class families in urban centers). The more socialized benefits available to small town workers, the less pressure there will be to remain employed in a dying industry. That includes childcare, healthcare, housing, food; basically everything they're afraid to campaign on because republicans will accuse them of being radical socialists. And they really need to stop responding to fears about job losses in small town industries by bragging about job creation in other industries.

    The alternative's are all less appealing to a socialist - a lot of unions are pushing tarrifs on foreign goods, cutting environmental regulation, ect. You can't win those voters by creating jobs elsewhere - you really need to convince those voters that they aren't going to be left behind if/when their town's industry goes belly-up, and saying 'tough luck, move and change industries' is only going to radicalize them further. Especially when unemployment benefits are covered in all kinds red tape and are exceedingly difficult to apply for and stay on.

    As far as legislation specific to labor protections: they need to campaign on the legislation they've already put forward. The PRO act is an excellent bill, but i've not heard Harris or any top democratic leadership actually campaign on it or push it in public.

    You make it sound like she’s punching at all Teamsters, when she’s not. She’s just criticizing their leader.

    He represents their interests, it's his literal fucking job. Be grateful he didn't follow the popular opinion of his members and endorse trump. I would also mention that their support of trump is pretty heavily represented in PA, WI, and MI - all states that democrats really need to win. They shouldn't be burning bridges with Teamsters.

    You’re saying they bend to the right on a lot of things but you also want them to bend to the right…on…what exactly? On workers’ rights??

    Labor protections are a definitionally-left issue. I want democrats to bend left

    Idk man, I feel like there’s some aspect of your personal political ideology that’s so different from mine (and I’ll assert, from most people) that there’s some core assumption you and I might be obliviously disagreeing on, like “the left is more politically aligned with supporting workers’ rights” or something.

    There absolutely is a difference in political ideology, but our disagreement isn't over whether 'the left is more aligned with worker's rights' or not. We disagree about whether or not direct action ought to be targeted at the democrats at all, and that's something I don't think we'll see eye-to-eye on.

  • You're complaining about her saying she doesn't want to endorse Harris by accusing her of insufficient queer advocacy

    it’s perfectly fine to criticize anybody who says they’ll do everything in their power to support LGBTQ+, and then refuse to endorse Harris

    I'm angry with those who choose to spend their time casting accusations against LTBTQ allies simply because they refuse to endorse their political candidate.

  • No, I didn't.

    start of thread:

    • 'voting for harris over trump is fine but that doesn't mean there aren't issues with harris'
    • you: 'she says she supports LGBTQ+ issues but that's clearly not true because she refuses to endorse my candidate'
    • Suavevillain: 'I understand being uncomfortable endorsing harris since she seems to be signaling right, and it's not her job to tell her supporters how they should vote'
    • you: 'she isn't using her platform for her cause because she hasn't endorsed my candidate'

    You're accusing her of not using her platform for LGBTQ+ causes simply because she isn't endorsing your candidate, and the op and others in the thread are pointing out that Harris is a mixed-bag of policies and not by any stretch the champion of LGBTQ+ support anyway, and that choosing not to endorse her because of those apprehensions is perfectly understandable.

    You're bullying her and others into hyping up Harris by accusing them of not really supporting queer issues if they don't.

  • They aren't talking about their decision at the booth, they are talking about not being forced to endorse someone.

    People really need to stop cornering other people over who they're voting for, and especially public figures. They're not obligated to campaign for your choice of politician.

  • If this is the entire point you’ve been driving at this whole time, then I still disagree with you, but I can respect your opinion. You might be right that we won’t see eye-to-eye, but not because of me probably not having a deeper understanding of “material relations being fundamental to political movements”, or you probably not having a deeper appreciation of “actual meat-and-bones policy being fundamental to the satisfaction of union members, both short-term and long-term”.

    Yes, that was my point. I think a lot of liberals get caught up in the electoralism of general elections, and get (maybe even understandably) offended when a group they thought should clearly be on 'their side' decides to make a statement against them, or even simply withhold an endorsement.

    Sure, meat-and-bones policy is important for advancing working class interests (i'm not sure why you chose 'worker satisfaction', maybe this is further evidence of our ideological differences or maybe this is just me being pedantic, but 'satisfaction' sounds more like corporate HR jargon than the revolutionary language of class consciousness), but endorsements aren't like straw-polls. Unions come from a bloody and cutthroat history of class struggle that have to negotiate with multi-billion dollar industries - an endorsement or even a signal of approval toward competition is just another way to gain leverage. As much as we would all really like to be able to just pick a party/ticket like picking a flavor of ice cream, that's just not what class struggle is, least of all to a labor union.

    All that said, I wanna circle back one more time on the actual debate that started this thing, because it wasn’t “what is the direct course of action unions are justified in taking to optimize worker satisfaction”. It was literally something as nebulous as “Did AOC ‘punch left’ by criticizing O’Brien”

    Yes, I still think it is punching left, and I think @the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works was mistaken in walking it back. It would be one thing if she was making a point to advocate for democratic policy choices, but the comment from AOC in question was:

    "When the Teamsters are in trouble, who do they call when we need to make sure that Teamsters pensions are bailed out? ... It was Sean O'Brien calling Democrats for help"

    I think that's a petty and entitled thing to say to a union advocating for its members. This was in response to them simply declining to endorse either candidate because they "couldn't get commitments on our issues". Teamsters is perfectly within their right to withhold their endorsement in service of pushing for labor commitments from democrats even if you think they're wrong, and the worst way to respond to that feedback is to throw a tantrum and complain that they're being ungrateful.

    Democrats really need support from union households in the swing states where Teamsters is reporting a trump advantage in their membership. They can't afford to be throwing punches at them (even if you think it's not punching left). What drives me crazy is that democrats have been willing to bend to a bunch of conservative issues in order to gain moderate republican support - this one issue that is objectively a leftist issue and involves a crucial block of voters in swing states is, what....? too radical?

    I honestly don't know anymore. dDmocratic politics have just lost all coherence as a left-wing political party. Maybe this is just a temporary change in messaging, but it really feels like they're abandoning all pretense as a progressive party.

  • I came really close to getting sucked in to a D vs R labor relations debate, but this bit woke me up and stopped me:

    Edit: y’know how I said I don’t know much about Sean O’Brien? Well thanks to another lemmyer, now I do!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/31/teamsters-racial-discrimination-lawsuit

    So yeah, if there’s an ounce of truth to this, it speaks to the nagging feeling I have that he’s the kind of guy who’s a probably secretly a conservative for…other reasons.

    I think this is where liberal understandings of union and labor relations as R or D policy agendas really gets in the way of a broader historical understanding of labor movements, and it's the reason I'm not particularly interested in having this debate with you. There have been many labor groups and unions in the US's history that have been on the wrong side of racial and civil rights issues. W.E.B. Du Bois described the relationship between American racism, slavery, and labor relations during and after slavery almost 100 years ago now. Hell, even as recently as the civil rights movement unions were split on the support of racial segregation in the south. Here's one article from Herbert Hill written in '59 that discusses this issue pretty clearly.

    Teamsters is a union of truck drivers. In American political terms, truckers are one of the most vocally conservative labor demographics in the US; it shouldn't be surprising that there would be discrimination within it. But that's exactly the problem with american political discourse. We cleave our working class apart with racial and social animosity at the expense of solidarity.

    Without a broader understanding of material relations as fundamental to political movements, I don't think we'll see eye-to-eye on this. It isn't as simple as 'democrats are more labor friendly' - both parties are dominated by capitalist interests, even if one makes greater attempts to balance it with labor concessions. If labor is to gain any ground in the US, it needs to be party agnostic and be aggressive about negotiating with both parties.

  • I think there's an argument to be made that Trump and Netanyahu are uniquely situated over other fascists, but I think their dominance is more a function of taking up all the oxygen rather than them being uniquely evil/competent/popular (at least when it comes to trump)

    I agree that Netanyahu has proven to be extremely effective as a politician, and is leaps-and-bounds more educated/intelligent than Trump (pretty sure he has 3 or 4 degrees, from MIT and Harvard and was rumored to be a prolific student).

    I think if/when he ever gets voted out/thrown in jail/assassinated, he will leave Israel as a moldy peach to whoever takes his place. They've effectively burned their good-will, even between 5-Eyes states, and managed to elevate/coalesce the surrounding regional powers and their reputations (Iran and Lebanon are currently getting a ton of credit for not taking the bait and escalating with Israel, and that's done quite a lot to rehabilitate their reputations in the ME and with Global superpowers like China and Russia). Even if there was a successor as prolific as Netanyahu, they would be left without the standing or connections that he had, and western appetite for more escalation from them will have effectively run out.

    All that said; the problem of Israeli imperialism won't go away with him, even if it will be a lot less effective in his absence. We need to start thinking of Israel as the Ethnostate that it is, and reevaluate their role in our foreign policy. I think if there's anything their war in Gaza has proven is that they are far more ideologically fascistic than anyone in the west really was willing to recognize. That they didn't end their war and return to their apartheid domination, and instead chose to continue escalating into genocide and now expanding their border with Lebanon, shows that their imperialism is of a different type and scale than the US's has ever really been. They are far less content with soft power diplomacy than we are.

    I really wish this generation was less enamored by the 'great-men' historical interpretation - it blinds us to the broader influences and motivations involved with international conflicts.

  • It's so heartening that Democrats and Republicans have been able to set aside their differences and stopped their cycle of oversight investigations this one time where a crime has apparently actually happened

    Getting real Collin Powell and GWB vibes from Blinken and Biden, these days.