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[Graknorke]

Bernie Sanders is a socialist outlier, and Americans get skittish at the mention of the word socialist. It's a hotbutton word the right uses to terrify its base and the moderates have unpleasant feelings when it is used. It's the easiest way to condemn social programs and such.

Something something filthy commies, right?

[smeeprocket]

Bernie Sanders is a socialist outlier, and Americans get skittish at the mention of the word socialist. It's a hotbutton word the right uses to terrify its base and the moderates have unpleasant feelings when it is used. It's the easiest way to condemn social programs and such.

Something something filthy commies, right?

Better dead, than Red!

[Owlbread]

Bernie Sanders is a socialist outlier, and Americans get skittish at the mention of the word socialist. It's a hotbutton word the right uses to terrify its base and the moderates have unpleasant feelings when it is used. It's the easiest way to condemn social programs and such.

The answer is to slip left-wing and even Socialist policies under the radar through the cunning disguise of "American Liberalism". You seem like you're on the right track there, even if progress is understandably difficult in the current climate.

You see, something like Common Weal doesn't actually contain a mention of the word "Socialist" as far as I know, despite the whole "All Of Us First" slogan.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Liberalism has been a dirty word ever since Reagan's presidency.

And that's not the only problem.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[smeeprocket]

I blame Reagan for most of our problems. Partly on priciple, partly because he gutted the tax code and armed and trained a whole bunch of violent terrorists to fight commies, who we find ourselves now fighting for whatever prize we are after these days.

[Glowcat]

Any actual progress towards eliminating some of Capitalism's excesses in the U.S.A. (within the next decade or so) would probably need to be wrapped in the language of those who cannot think outside of the boundaries it places. Instead of Welfare, it's a Free Market Solution where the government pays all human essentials and allows workers to sell their labor without fear of death-by-poverty, thus allowing proper competition and non-coerced selling of labor, using supporting arguments from "father of Capitalism" Adam Smith.

Or we might have another capitalism fuckup of epic proportions and achieve sufficient collective consciousness to overcome our apathy and revolutionize the system completely. Or we might continue to avoid dealing with the problem until capitalists achieve enough "means of repression" to completely stomp humanity into their service and we live in a less magical world of Shadowrun.

Communism's end ideal of a shared collective consciousness that sees the complete abolition of private property and utterly unfettered labor choice is probably not the way to go due to practical reasons, though I'm somewhat more hopeful of democratic socialism. Reform may be a safer method than overthrowing the old by force (and it will need to be by force), though like how England keeps a monarchical figure around we may be stuck with cultural leftovers.

[smeeprocket]

revolutions tends to leave people that are better at killing than leading in charge.

The American Revolution is an odd exception, but tbf, Washington was a terrible general, and lost almost all of his engagements.

I find that you are better off with middle class revolutions, because the middle class has the free time to be educated and have direction beyond just trying not to die to starvation or be worked into death. You can't think long term if your entire existence revolves around managing short term goals like getting food and shelter. I realize other Marxists would look at me with contempt for saying that.

Egypt was working well, but then dishonest groups got a hold of the poor, gave them rice and clothes and told them more would come if they voted the right way. They never provided the more, so what could have been an upside for the impoverished did nothing at all for their state. But you can't say no to something like that if you are starving. The chance that someone might actually help you if you vote them in, what's to think about?

The problem America faces currently involves, to some degree, crippling the education system to make the populace less educated, instilling fear in the voter base to make them think more viscerally and have scapegoats to target, and keeping the poor convinced that minimum wage being raised, taxes on the rich being raised, etc will also effect them detrimentally. Bill Maher, the asshole that he is, sort of hit it home when he said "The problem with America's poor is they don't realize they are poor, they see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." While I certainly don't like a rich dude telling others how the poor are, I feel this actually is a problem with the conservative poor. It gets drilled into their head that they just have to work harder and money will magically flow in.

The right has created this perfect propaganda machine, and even moderate conservatives that I've spoken to consider it a legit source.

I don't go around thinking MSNBC is objective. I do not understand this at all.

[Strife26]

. . .

Yeah, I'd go study history a bit better.

[lorb]

[...]
Bill Maher, the asshole that he is, sort of hit it home when he said "The problem with America's poor is they don't realize they are poor, they see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." While I certainly don't like a rich dude telling others how the poor are, I feel this actually is a problem with the conservative poor. It gets drilled into their head that they just have to work harder and money will magically flow in.
[...]

This actually is a problem in the US that has been studied by social scientists. And it's not just propaganda by the right, the "American Dream" is politically universal. Sad thing that class mobbility in the US is actually very low but people don't mind because they perceive it as high. Here's a quote from Wikipedia, the sources for this one are actually pretty good:

Belief in strong social and economic mobility—that Americans can and do rise from humble origins to riches—has been called a "civil religion", "the bedrock upon which the American story has been anchored", and part of the American identity (the American Dream), celebrated in the lives of famous Americans such as Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford, and in popular culture (from the books of Horatio Alger and Norman Vincent Peale to the song "Movin' on Up"). Opinion polls show that this belief has been both stronger in the US than in years past, and stronger than in other developed countries. However, in recent years several large studies have found that vertical inter-generational mobility is lower, not higher, in the US than in those countries.

Article Link

[Truean]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/22/eric-schneiderman-jimmy-johns-noncompete_n_6369146.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

Just short of an indentured servitude contract, it allows you to quit, but not to find another job.... In the case of somebody who is literally a burger flipper/sandwich maker, this is not hyperbole'. Large scale companies want to own you.

All that talk and bluster for free markets is a sham. Labor is a market and they don't want it to be free, but rather they want a lock on it where the fix is in ... for them. So much for competition. So much for markets. Force. That is to be used, it seems.

All that talk about being able to quit your job if you don't like it, or worse, if you HAVE to because there's something unethical/illegal going on.... Makes you want to scream.

Your knowledge is not yours. It is the company's. I have heard this from lawyers before, and it is insane and tragically gaining traction. Forget all that money you may have spent on college for knowledge ... not yours. How this possibly applies to somebody who delivers food on a bike or puts meat on a bun is beyond me....

This .... THIS? This is a trade secret? It's a sandwich you hack. What could they possibly know.

I will never eat at this place again knowing they employ such practices as these innane measures.

[Reelya]

Non-compete agreements for frontline fast-food workers?

I guess the trade secret is whether the pickle goes on first or after.

[scriver]

We've had similar stuff for café/coffee shop over here in Sweden. Eight years under a liberal government in a time of rampant neo-liberalism has not done wonders for our worker's rights situation.

[Strife26]

You'll note that there's all of no one complaining about actually getting nailed by a non-competition agreement like that. Someone in corporate got a visit from the idea fairy and it got passed down the line. Heck, that's the same reason why I'm supposed to list weapons I own even though if anyone noticed that particular policy it'd be an amazing shitstorm.

[smeeprocket]

. . .

Yeah, I'd go study history a bit better.

if you are going to criticize, then correct, or don't bother.