rb and put in the tags your username without using the middle row of the keyboard
see I like bullshit like this more than those "the first letter of your name" things because this one literally can't harvest data because everyone's username is definitionally already public
what did you create today bud? maybe you created a thought about a balloon? maybe a breakfast this morning? maybe a look at a dog trotting by. maybe a heartbeat? it is incredible how much art you are making all the dang time. you are SO prolific
Hilarious that when the Come And Take It flag is vertical, it looks like a Hitachi vibrator lmao
~~ who needs a “real job” when you could have this?
she is the moment
psst...the working class and the employing class have nothing in common. pass it on!
this rhetoric is what gets small businesses to close and allows only the wealthy and evil to thrive. being an employer is not in itself a bad thing. someone who hires an assistant to manage their etsy orders, or who contracts a few guys to do renovation work, is not a class traitor just because they sign a paycheck.
you can be anti-capitalism and anti-corporation without resorting to oversimplified, reductive false dichotomies like this.
hello, thank you for engaging with this post. i intended it as a sort of "if you know, you know" wink to the preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World, the union to which i belong, but i am glad you chose to interact with it because it gives me an opportunity to better explain what this oft-misunderstood phrase means.
i hope you don't think i am @ing you. i like it when people engage with these concepts in good faith, which i believe you are doing, so i felt compelled to reply.
"the working class and the employing class have nothing in common" points to the inherent, built-in divide between the motivations and goals of the bosses versus the workers. this is true whether the workers are 1 assistant manager, or 10k warehouse staff. the employer's goal, at the end of the day, must be profit. if it is not, then that business will swiftly come to an end, as profits (and growth) are the only determining factors in the health and success of a business under capitalism.
workers, by the very nature of their relationship to the business, do not see cent one of profit. they get paid wages (or rarely, a salary), which are calculated as part of operating expenses/overhead. what is advantageous to the worker: high wages, good scheduling, benefits etc., is disadvantageous to the employer, as it all decreases their profits, and/or in the case of a publicly-traded offering, the dividends to their shareholders.
the motivations of the employing class and the working class are thus diametrically opposed.
let's talk about small business. USians especially love to champion the ideal of a small "mom and pop shop" that fights against the global megacorporation like David against Goliath, or Meg Ryan against Tom Hanks. it is largely a fantasy. the kindly intentions of a grandmother who owns a yarn shop and hires local at-risk teens doesn't dissolve the inherent conflict of employer and worker.
the total sum of humanity is varied and beautiful. of course i have known "small business owners" who are not monstrous fat-cat tyrants, crushing the working class beneath their patent leather heel. their intentions were pure. they paid higher-than-average wages, did their best to accommodate their staff's schedules, stood up for their workers against shitty customers, had BLM signs and trans flags in the windows etc. and they were nice people with good hearts who worked very hard and suffered immense stress operating their businesses.
surprisingly, the one thing they wouldn't do, that would have addressed the inequity between them and their workers, and potentially reduced their overall stress, was turn their small business into a cooperative owned and operated by the workers. why not? i'm a wobbly, of course i pestered them. why not take that next step, if you respect your workers and want to see them succeed as you proclaim? make them worker-owners who share democratically in the responsibilities and profits of the business, and give them a real stake in the continued success of the enterprise.
their reasons were varied: "running this business is hard! i don't want to burden them with taxes and insurance and purchasing and scheduling!", "i'm doing them a favor by doing all the hard stuff.", "they have it easy, they just clock in, get paid and clock out. i'm the one who sits up at nights running payroll and doing the books to make sure they still have jobs!", "because it's mine."
it would be unfair for me to not point out that many bar-backs, barristas, cashiers, line cooks etc. don't want to help with payroll, file for licenses, meet with inspectors, etc. many workers are content to go to a job that sucks less than other jobs they've had, work their shift, get paid and leave. but i would also argue that providing the option of ownership is better than not doing so.
all of this is sort of moot, however. if you read a bit further in the preamble, you get to the crux of the IWW's mission statement: to abolish the wage system and live in harmony with the Earth. small business reifies the wage system, which enslaves the majority of the human race in an unjust and violently enforced class division.
only through the realisation of industrial democracy, the abolition of the boss/worker relationship and the advancement of a cooperative commonwealth, run by the workers for the benefit of humanity and the Earth that feeds and holds us all, can we hope to survive as an emancipated species, free to achieve our fullest potential in our finite, fragile lives.
apologies for such a long reply. i probably rambled away from the point, but i have lots of adhd and i care deeply about industrial democracy. thank you again for engaging with the material. if you think the wobblies are wrong and that the boss/employer relationship is a justifiable and defensible hierarchy, i would be interested to hear your thoughts.
solidarity forever, an injury to one is an injury to all.
If you live in any place where the summers get hotter than 88 F (31 C), YOU are stronger than Therem Harth rem ir Estraven.
Nature forging a baby.” Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose. Bruges, c.1490-c.1500
How did i not know Stjepan Sejic had a short story featured in Harley quinn's 30 year anniversary issue.. released last year...!?
So just wanted to share for those who might also have missed it
Last year, Honduras elected their first leftist leader in 11 years: Xiomara Castro. She is the wife of the last left-wing president, Manuel Zelaya, who was overthrown in a 2009 coup.
This weekend, Guatemala elected their first center-left leader in 60 years: Bernardo Arévalo. He is the son of former left-wing president Juan José Arévalo, the penultimate leader of the country before a military dictatorship took control in a 1954 coup. His father survived more than two dozen coup attempts before the 1954 coup succeeded in unseating the following left-wing leader.
Both coups featured US involvement: the 1954 coup in Guatemala was planned by the CIA, while the US government helped to legitimize the 2009 coup in Honduras after it occurred.
reblog and put in the tags the earliest songs you remember actively liking as a child (asking adults to play them for you, learning the lyrics, being excited when they came on the radio etc.)
keep morally justifying your disgust i’m sure it’ll be a good thing this time
you have to roleplay your url every time you open tumblr how screwed are you
I’ve been trying to find this gifset because this is relevant now more than ever.
holy crap Adventure Time
Spotted a coyote and a crow bro on the way home from work.
Last weekend was the 50 year anniversary of the US-UK overthrow of Iran's democratically-elected government.
Here's what I wrote about the coup back in 2019:
In 1951, a large majority of the Iranian parliament nominated Mohammad Mosaddegh as the nation’s new Prime Minister. His nomination was accepted by Iran’s king (referred to as a Shah), Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. As Prime Minister, Mosaddegh sought a progressive secular agenda within Iran’s democratic political system: he introduced workers’ protections, created new public services, advocated for further democratic reforms, and fought for the rights of women. Most controversially, he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), the company through which the British controlled the nation’s oil resources, in order to prevent foreign domination and ensure that Iran had full control over its own wealth. The UK was not a fan of this move. British intelligence convinced the CIA that the removal of Mosaddegh was an imperative both to secure Iranian oil for the West and to prevent Iran from turning to the Soviets- largely a false concern. In 1953, the CIA and British M16 launched Operation Ajax, which recently declassified documents from the CIA describe as a “military coup that overthrew [Mosaddegh] and his… cabinet… carried out under CIA direction as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government.” Iranian democracy collapsed, the Shah and his new appointees took full power, and the AIOC changed its name to what it’s known as today: British Petroleum, or BP. Though Iran’s new government instituted a handful of progressive modernizing reforms, it was essentially a dictatorship seeking to suppress public frustration. It worked, until it didn’t. In 1979, a popular movement under the reactionary theocratic leadership of Ruhollah Khomeini successfully overthrew the government, along with holding Americans at the US embassy hostage in a tense standoff for over a year. Though the various elements constituting the movement, from leftist student groups to conservative Islamists, disagreed about what they wanted Iran to be and which parts of Western modernization were objectionable, all of them opposed the Shah, who was seen as a corrupt autocrat serving as a puppet to Western powers. Following a brief power struggle, Khomeini took control of Iran as Supreme Leader, launching the current Iranian government.
SHE THINKS HER LAUGH IS A SONG SO SHE SINGS BACK
Just an absolute fucking orb of a creature
