ProdigalFrog
A frog who wants the objective truth about anything and everything.
Admin of SLRPNK.net
XMPP: prodigalfrog@slrpnk.net
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- 476 Comments
11·6 days agoThe 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, as most unions have a strike fund that can supplement your income during a general strike to make it more financially bearable (you should also save as much money as you can reasonably do, so it can also be used to keep yourself afloat during a strike).
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, and they’ll help you set up a new local branch.
4·9 days agoWhat sort of truck things could an old 4 cylinder hilux do that a slate couldn’t? (besides tow a light load long distances, which EV’s aren’t very good at due to how drastically reduces the range from added drag, but that’s the compromise made for buyers who are concerned about climate change).
Could always take a page from the aussies and call 'em a Ute. Everybody loves a good ute. :)
Ah, well to each their own as to what makes something fit into a classification.
The slate certainly won’t be able to perform the same tasks that a large truck can, but there’s already many options for large trucks, and currently no options for small trucks. A 1980’s Toyota Hilux with only 100hp and 130lb-ft wouldn’t have been able to perform the same tasks as a 1980’s Ford F-350, but many people don’t perform the tasks a larger truck is capable of. For them, the cost savings that come with a smaller lighter, and more simple truck with enough capabilities for their needs may be a far more appealing option.
As for it being a unibody, I don’t think that will be much of a detriment for the types of tasks people have in mind for it, and supposedly it’s designed to be stronger than a traditional unibody, though we’ll have to see if that claim is accurate.
If you’re not familiar with it, the Slate is modular and can be converted from an SUV with rear seats to an open-bed truck. In the truck configuration, it’s similar in size to the older style mini-trucks that were common in the 80’s and 90’s.
16·9 days agoI also thought buying the name for so much money (over a million, and Peri refinanced his house to afford it) just wasn’t worth it.
But with so much invested now, they’re likely to fight it out in court to the end. Apparently the Italian company’s ownership of the name is dubious, but it will still be costly to fight.
The IWW has 8,000 members? How long has it been around?
It was founded in 1905, and at one time had 150,000 members. Its membership was gutted by extreme persecution during the red scare, and the Taft-Hartley act essentially outlawed their (very successful) tactics. Historically, the AFL-CIO raided members during those persecutions to swell their own ranks.
The IWW’s membership has been steadily growing in recent years as their tactics become needed once more, especially now that the NLRB has been captured and is effectively union hostile. Traditional unions are very much reliant on a friendly NLRB to function and thrive, and are not generally well equipped tactically to fight back against the current regime. We’ll need to call upon those old tactics to survive this period, and hopefully to give unions their teeth back, as they are currently quite a moderate group content with marginal gains that often barely keep up with inflation.
There’s a lot of merit in joining the IWW to help build it up back to its former glory, as it’s the only union in the US that is at its core is working toward abolishing capitalism, instead of becoming content making it slightly more bearable.
How do we get those fuckers to strike?
The UAW was planning a general strike for May 1st 2028, but that was before Trump was elected, and when they likely thought we had more time.
6·11 days agoFair enough :p
Ding ding!
It’s the name of the channel, not a description of what Oracle does (hence the pipe between them). I edited the title to add a bit more context and make it more clear that they do not, in fact, do good work.
Agreed!
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, as most unions have a strike fund that can supplement your income during a general strike to make it more financially bearable (you should also save as much money as you can reasonably do, so it can also be used to keep yourself afloat during a strike).
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.
It wouldn’t let me there either. Not sure it’s my VPN or my browser, but I figured most people aren’t going to have as intense of a privacy set-up as we do. I also don’t know of an alternative to that site now that the ICE Block app was removed from stores.
You could warn your area if you see ICE around on this website.
Finding and getting involved in a local mutual aid group would be quite meaningful, as it would allow you to meet people who share your same concerns IRL, and be able to plan and organize for how to react in your area. It’s very make a meaningful difference alone, finding a solid group is very important.
Attempting to unionize your workplace if it isn’t already would be very helpful to further prepare for a General Strike (as they usually have strike funds to make a general strike financially bearable), which is pretty much our last non-violent option to prevent all of this from progressing. You can see how a general strike helped cripple Chile’s government while civil unrest was occurring in this documentary.
I’d recommend contacting the IWW, who will gladly train you to become an organizer with proven techniques to unionize your workplace.
Lastly, I’d also recommend checking out the book Full Spectrum Resistance for a more complete guide on how to prepare and respond.
There’s a 3rd type of socialism that was more rarely spoken of in the 60’s and 70’s, because it didn’t have the drawbacks of centralized soviet style communism and therefor was more difficult to demonize: Anarchism. This ideology was successfully implemented for a few years in parts of Spain during their civil war, and its success in creating a non-hierarchical decentralized and free society even attracted George Orwell to visit it, and join their cause to fight for what they were building.
It was eventually crushed by both fascists and communists, as both sides were terrified of that concept spreading. If we’re able to implement it again someday, possibly in a spot where it would be much harder to crush militarily, then it would be a genie impossible to put back in the bottle, as it would be so self-evident in how superior of a way of life it provides to everyone, without the downsides of a centralized dictator.
Finasteride only really effects hair on the scalp, since beard hairs aren’t effected by the chemical that finasteride protects against.
With closed source apps, we can’t independently verify what is or is not being collected.
But another, longer-term issue, is that because they are proprietary, if they became quite popular, they would very likely be sold to either a competitor to shut it down, or enshittified by adding transaction fees.
As an older example, Paperback Swap was an incredible website where people could give away books in exchange for a credit, which could be exchanged with another user for their book. There were no fees taken by the website, the only cost was shipping the books via media mail (which was extremely affordable, as the books would be wrapped in printer paper).
Paperback Swap was, at the time, a very popular website, with over a million books available. I used the service for many years happily exchanging books.
Then it was purchased by Amazon, which saw Paperback Swap as a threat to their used book market. They immediately enshittified the app, adding transaction fees and requiring you to purchase exchange credits or ongoing subscriptions. Within a couple years the community was effectively killed, and now shambles on as a shell of its former self.
Free, Libre open-source apps are the only long-term refuge from the constant churn of enshittification, as the community can always fork it to prevent bad-actors and venture capital from corrupting it.
For those reasons, you’re likely to experience some pushback on them. We’ve been burned so many times :(
Flohmarket could potentially be an alternative, though I’m not sure if instances can be set up to be purely barter.
If it were replaced with massive investment into public transport and new dedicated high speed rail between US cities, it’d be a huge net positive.
A man can dream, anyway.
To do it again would literally kill air travel in the country for the next 30 years. People would literally stop flying.
From a climate perspective, that would be fantastic.
1·23 days agoThere’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.
The linked documentary offers a strong critique of the reformist attempts from local Chileans who were there on the ground (starting at around one hour in). I can only offer my own criticisms as a non-Chilean looking in from the outside.
Historically liberal reform either kicks the can of capitalism’s problems down the road (FDR in the 1930’s), or fails to even kick the can due to so much corporate capture of the government, that it actually accelerates a turn toward right-wing authoritarianism.
In the case of Chile, the latter case seems to be happening. The proposed progressive constitution to replace Pinochet’s constitution likely failed due to the deep corporate pockets available to right-wing institutions, who are able to effectively trick under-educated citizens into voting against their own interests through massive propaganda campaigns (the same thing happened in the US thanks to Fox news, hence why they are now in a power struggle against literal fascists).
The right-wing then mobilized to create a new right-wing pro corporate constitution, which was only narrowly avoided despite their propaganda efforts.
The new leftist president Gabriel Boric, as most leftist politicians do after reaching political office, began to become more moderate, all the while congress, who are corporate captured, continued to vote down his reformist taxation policies. It’s a classic tactic of letting the left spin their wheels and burnout in congress/parliament for years to stall direct action. All the while regular people continue to suffer under capital, and become more and more enchanted by the easy solutions fascists can offer.
History has generally shown that the olive branch of reform is a tool used by the elites and capital to quell a growing movement to overthrow them. It’s their last option before using more brutal authoritarian control to maintain their grasp on power.