It always surprises me how few deaths or major injuries happen in retail environments. There’s relatively few hazards but holy shit I’ve never seen people take their own safety and the safety of their employees so unseriously for the laziest reasons.

Stein spoke well and at least said some cool stuff. She spent time denouncing Russia which was unnecessary but whatever I guess. What bothered me about her speech was that its clear she and the Greens have adopted the rhetoric of socialism but don’t seem to grasp the substance. There were no calls for organization or movement building. More of “just elect me and I’ll take care of it” sort of stuff. Her positions were much more radical than a Democrat’s would be but there was no articulation of how she would “declare a climate emergency” and get past the courts for instance.

From what I remember of her in 2016 the rhetoric was sharply more radical this time around which makes me suspicious too. I know people can grow in that time, I certainly have, but it sets off my opportunist sense.

Also pretty much everyone else there or who spoke was insufferable. Lots of hippie and faux revolutionary nonsense. Stein was the only one of the five speakers (also by far the best) who talked about anything else besides Palestine (which is obviously an important issue but it was nearly an hour of clearly unrehearsed speeches reiterating basically the same points about Palestine). Also the place had a lot of Trotskyists in attendance because WSB has gone all in for Stein and all of that also gives me bad vibes and then the fact that the Greens don’t seem to actually be giving any platform for the Trotskyists also seems to be cutting off any potentially Marxist agitation which makes it worse.

I’ll just be writing in De La Cruz in November.

I went to see Stein speak and it was so bad I actually decided I wasn’t going to vote for her.

I think the clearest indication of how weak the left is in the US is the incredibly superficial understanding of the labor movement in this country and the contradictions within it. Just total ignorance of how the big unions constantly fight each other, fuck each other over, and screw over the broader working class, oftentimes for the pettiest nonsense. They’re all more than happy to sell out the most vulnerable and isolated workers if it means a slightly quicker deal with bosses and the collection of dues money.

This doesn’t even touch on the fact that a lot of these unions are full of white collar workers that we would probably condemn individually as social fascists but then they go on strike and we celebrate it for some reason.

I’m sorry you got screwed by this. I hope you can find decent work somewhere soon.

That’s what it already is except they just execute you in the street and then get a paid vacation.

I’m sorry to be a pessimist but winning NLRB elections and legal challenges isn’t going to win Amazon workers anything. Amazon and other companies are realizing that they simply don’t have to negotiate with the unions and there’s nothing that anyone will do about it. Even many employers that have legacy bargaining units are refusing to bargain new contracts because they don’t have to.

We are rapidly entering an era where worker militancy is the only way to win a contract and unless Amazon workers actually start doing that they will be shit out of luck.

Never admit anything to your boss or the police. If you’re drinking at work you are an alcoholic and you should get help though.

I hope I have some good ones.

On a run once I found a bunch of wooden sculptures of animals covering half a mile of trail. It wasn’t too far out of town but it was kind of a foggy fall day so it was spooky.

On another run I came upon an electric corridor. There was a camper in it with smashed in windows and blood stains around the windows.

I met a hermit once when I was hunting as a kid. We were in an unincorporated area with about sixty residents so it was genuinely the middle of nowhere. I got lost in the woods and so I just went straight in one direction until I hit a road. Ran into the hermit on the road and he told me not to shoot his cats. He had no cats.

The scariest was one night I was going camping on a trail I had been on dozens of times. I found a good spot to go off trail and set up and a little ways in I found a plywood shack just filled with garbage that had writing all over the walls.

I got out of the DSA over the Palestine stuff early this year. I can’t say I don’t miss the party life but it’s nice not being in a Zionist and all around opportunist org.

I also had some revelations about the big unions at the end of last year and yeah we’re all around fucked unless the US left starts figuring some shit out real quick.

Sorry you’re going through this. It isn’t fun. There’s at least a few others with you though.

“We’re against the genocide candidate but if you vote for an anti-genocide candidate then you’re actually supporting the genocide” -smartest American liberal

At this point basically all most unions do is political work, mostly fighting right to work so that they can collect revenue without having to organize anyone.

When I heard that guy on Rev Left radio say that I nearly burst out laughing. The understanding most leftists have of the labor movement is pathetic.

If someone has “official write in status” then they are counted. Otherwise they are tossed.

Everyone seems to forget that a significant economic downturn started in late 2019 and it was only the unprecedented stimulus in response to the pandemic that staved it off. Well now here we are almost five years later with most of that stimulus cut off and in a much worse international position. They’re just trying to pretend it isn’t falling apart through the election but next year we’re in for a bad time.

Idk all the anti-vaxxers where I live are insane wealthy white baptists that would have been in the klan a century ago (if they aren’t right now). The poorer people in town tend to get their shots.

Maybe we should differentiate colonized/imperialized peoples that are skeptical of Western medicine because they’ve been victims of it from those that are Nazis that hate everything modern or any expectations of them.

I work with a Ukrainian guy and he writes English in immaculate cursive. Idk how that translates to Cyrillic but I’d assume it does which probably means he’s well practiced with it.

The enemy are cruel and unrepentant murderers and we must bring them down by any means because this is war but also it’s bad to kill them and if they are killed it signals a dark turn for the character.

In all reality it probably isn’t even true either. When Trump took office membership and activity of left wing organizations exploded. It was so much easier to organize people into a state of rebellion when they couldn’t pretend things were fine under Trump than it has been under Biden.

Funny, my Democratic governor has been the primary roadblock to indigenous sovereignty in my state and continues to fuck them over at every turn she gets. I’m sure they’re glad she’s there thinking of them though.

Actually it’s kind of an apt comparison. They just don’t realize that Lincoln was never really anti-slavery and was only really forced into that position because the Republicans in the Northern states demanded it.