Woe to the vanquished !!
the names of our heros, and our defiers, will last forever !!
The only reason we have 5 day work weeks, 8 hour workdays, overtime pay, benefits, workplace health/safety/environmental regulations, unions, health care, paid time off, vacations, etc. is because our grandfathers and great-grandfathers busted heads, and got their own heads busted, fighting corporate goons in the streets - and WINNING!
Those heroic workers would be ashamed at what their grandchildren have let the Sociopathic Oligarchs have done to America. They fought hard to keep those psychopaths under control, and we not only let them up, we helped them take full power.
grandfathers busted heads, and got their own heads busted, fighting corporate goons in the streets - and WINNING!
No one won anything. The massive militant strike actions in the USA in the early 20th century usually were losses. Wins tended to be pyrrhic, with the company cleaning house a couple months later or simply reversing the won benefits.
Things were brought to a head by the depression. The solution was simple, the most militant leaders were arrested, reforms were done to buy off the less militant, and the anger was channeled into marching all of us off to war (with the support of the non-militant collaborationist unions, of course).
Except that in the end, we still have the 8 hour workday/ 40 hour work week, overtime, benefits, etc. None of those things existed before the labor riots, so things didn't get rolled back as much as you claim, and the most important ones stuck permanently.
The Labor Riots were extremely successful, and completely reconfigured the American workplace for the rest of the century, and beyond. MAGA wants to revert to the old days.
Yup. Poor MAGA thinks they'll get 2 hour work weeks if they went back to the good old days.
The truth is that they whites will all be working the fields again without holiday, cheap medical aid, and so on.
A lot of them think they'll be slave owners again. I'm sure there are a few yokels who think the day is coming when they can just go grab the nearest black neighbor and declare him their property, and force him to get to work in the fields. After all, that was the original reason those Africans CHOSE to come to America ILLEGALLY right?
Well, he's got a trailer, so maybe he just makes his new slave pick up the house, make the bed, and wash the truck.
Everyone I know works more than 40 hours a week because its not enough to live on. Overtime is barely doled out and "benefits" account for either expensive PPOs or slightly cheaper HMOs (which suck, fyi). And I live in a state with strong labor protections. In all of the country its entirely possible to work more than 40 hours a week and not receive any overtime pay at all. Or be misclassified, or be subject to illegal wage theft.
All that changed is the worst jobs got sent overseas and a certain section of careers for the college educated exist that provides some semblance of "good benefits and good hours".
Yeah, corrupt corporations are exploiting the system, with the help of the corrupt government. What's new? The fact still remains that the work environment we generally accept as normal, was created by those Labor Riots, and we are still better off for them. Even if MAGA manages to roll back the workplace environment to the 19th century, they will always have to compete with the memory of America's peak, and will look bad in comparison.
You have false nostalgia for a time you weren't even alive as things have always been shit for working people especially in the United States.
You are stuck on your biases, and can't even consider the idea that labor issues were terrible in the 19th C/ early 20th C, and it was labor riots in the second quarter of the century that ended the old way, and began a new workplace environment. It is definitely not perfect, but it's far better than it once was, and it's ridiculous to argue otherwise.
I think it’s worth pointing out that calling these riots isn’t really appropriate. When we think of riots, we think of unfocused, unplanned, unmanaged, etc. Highly organized protests sometimes wind up turning into riots because capitalists use violence, but it’s not the norm.
Super This:
Organized, non-violent protests are not riots. They are people, in mass, using their freedom of speech to complain about something.
A common issue is that some people, either within the protest group, or outside instigators, will then prod the protest into violence in order to discredit it. Two examples:
It's important that if you are involved in a protest that you stay calm despite what is thrown your way. The protest is the message and fighting back during that event is only harming your message. Please do things like capture pictures/videos of people inciting violence, of police using crowd control on peaceful protesters, of generic unfair treatment; but during that event, the goal is to be calm. Afterwards, you can take all your grievances to the medias. If you've been harmed during a protest, find a lawyer -- many will work pro-bono for cases like this and if your first pick doesn't... fuck 'em: Name and shame -- and then fight back after the event, when you have legal standing.
Your grievances are real. Your pain is real. The people in power will use every trick to discredit your issues. Don't give them ammo.
Labor movements in the 19 th and early 20th centuries also literally organized riots, where the express purpose was to destroy property. It used to be a legitimate protest strategy against the owning class.
Why is this yellowed like it's been in a smokers house for the last 15 years?
Sepia tone is the JPG artifacts of the past
Someone spilled water on their phone and now the meme is moldy
Violence isn't the answer!
The answer is.. checks history book
wait not that one.. starts flipping pages
uhh if you hang on a second uhh furious page-flipping
This is literally every country.
"OUR REVOLUTIONARIES WERE HEROES"
But also: "Don't y'all even dare thinking about overthrowing the current system. Violence Baaad!"
The Internet has made people too easy to divide and conquer
I'm suddenly reminded of this quote:
“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”
-- Douglas Adams in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Phhh that’s exactly the kind of behaviour I’d expect with a user from leminal.space!
Bahh! Bloody Trekkies stirring the pot as usual, go back to your Spock Base and phase some Vulconions!
Has this been aged? Lol looks like sepia
Yes, because it's long been true and people didn't fucking listen. Now my country doesn't even really have liberal democracy, and people are still himing and hawing about disruption being bad and lawbreaking being bad
I was just trying to make a pithy joke about the discoloring
The most sociopatic "winners" of the current system will always laud whatever was done to establish the system in which they get so much and decry anything that might overthrow or even meaningfully change that system.
Those who have a more empathic view of things, even when they too are considered "winners", have a different posture if they think the current system isn't working well for most people because they don't think only about personal upside maximization at any cost for the rest.
As it so happens, caring for more than just "me, me, me" is what distinguishes leftwingers from rightwingers.
So this is a great way to spot fake leftwingers in or seeking positions of power and wealth: no matter how "progressive" their words are in general, when it comes to the current system they'll display exactly this kind of hypocrisy of being against any kind of actions that will change the current system whilst lauding the very same kind of actions when they installed the current system, since their one true drive is "What's in it for me", a rightwinger's motivation.
Reasonable men adapt themselves to their environment; unreasonable men try to adapt their environment to themselves. Thus all progress is the result of the efforts of unreasonable men.
Violence is the only answer, and until youre ready for that nothing will change. Extreme violence is the only answer.
Are USians not still working 10 hours day/6 days a week? The USA are usually near the top of the "time worked per week" OECD rankings.
Also, interesting how the poster and first replier have the same avatar. Is that a historical figure?
The desperation and work culture of believing we can just slave away into success are what keeps people from rocking the boat. Faith in being able to win the game is how we got here.
The State only respects power. If a group of people show that they have more power than the State, change can happen. However, what is power?
Power comes in many different forms.
There is economic power which is showcased through strikes and boycotts.
There is democratic power which is showcased through the ballot box.
There is soft power which is showcased through the lobbying, and speeches.
There is non-violet power which is showcased through protests, marches, and sit ins.
There is violent power which is showcased through physical violence such riots.
While, the populace has access to many different forms of power. The State is limited to either soft power or violent power. Depending on the State, soft power might not even be contemplated.
Riots are just one form of power for the populace to exercise.
Remember to thank your local anarchist for the 8 hour work day.
Personally I wish they'd rioted a bit more because frankly I'm usually done by about 1:00 p.m.
Funnily enough there's a very similar situation to the US that's going on in Serbia, where a canopy falling and killing a bunch of people due to government cheapening out led to lots of outrage and exploded into a massive student movement against the president due to corruption, election rigging, suppression of dissent and executive branch abuse.
At first, they did peaceful protests, blocked roads and all that jazz constantly, but after seeing that it had led them literally nowhere (they got nothing except for a fake concession that was some minister resigning) except on getting arrested and beaten up in jails, they decided to give a green light to civil disobedience, violence, trashing ruling party's headquarters all over the country.
What did this escalation result in? A whole load of nothing except cracked skulls, mostly for the students.
If you're looking at reformism 'fixing' things during the course of history, civil disobedience the vast majority if not all of the time was noise. What eventually got implemented or changed wasn't because the ruling class got scared, but because they were either getting major gains in terms of compromise as a result of the reform, or the reform itself was beneficial to their interests and only a small minority didn't want them to pass.
If you’re looking at reformism ‘fixing’ things during the course of history, civil disobedience the vast majority if not all of the time was noise. What eventually got implemented or changed wasn’t because the ruling class got scared, but because they were either getting major gains in terms of compromise as a result of the reform, or the reform itself was beneficial to their interests and only a small minority didn’t want them to pass.
So, in your opinion the woman's suffrage movement, or LGBTQ activism, for example, were just wastes of time? These people didn't need to do or say anything since the bourgeoisie were about to give them everything they wanted anyway?
Community Rules
You must post before you leave
Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).
Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.
Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.
Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
Avoid misinformation.
Avoid incomprehensible posts.
No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
Moderator Guidelines
