• mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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    6 months ago

    i never said biden hates unions

    Okay, sure. You said ā€œlabor demonstrations have been crushed just a few short years ago.ā€ Thatā€™s a huge stretch, since multiple labor demonstrations have been materially assisted by Bidenā€™s revamped NLRB, and the one that was ā€œcrushedā€ was more complex than what youā€™re implying.

    Hereā€™s a story about some of the details of how the attendance policy specifically was the most proximate cause of the strike. Probably Wikipediaā€™s article is the clearest overview ā€“ in brief, negotiations broke down with workers getting wage increase but only 1 day of paid leave a year, as opposed to the 15 that they wanted. The law that broke the strike limited them to 1 day per year, which was kind of a ā€œfuck youā€ to the unions.

    Then, after that, the NLRB kept negotiations going with the railroads. E.g. as of March, they had 3-7 days per year. IDK, thatā€™s not as good as I thought it was, so maybe thereā€™s still an argument to be made that the workers got screwed.

    Also, there are a ton of issues e.g. related to safety and wages. Itā€™s not just sick days. But, the sick days were the immediate proximate disagreement that led to the strike.

    I choose to not meticulously source and check stuff because it both makes people iā€™m responding to get hostile and feel like theyre being attacked or accused of being ignorant

    I am the exact opposite. I think itā€™s important to have reasons for what youā€™re saying and demonstrate that thereā€™s a reason and link to more information about it. Iā€™m sometimes kinda condescending about it I guess but I think itā€™s important to refer to what the reality is, instead of just taking turns talking at each other about our different opinions.

    that last part is one of the reasons i donā€™t like to quote

    iā€™ve been trying to keep things civil and not resort to insulting you either directly or indirectly through implication. please do the same.

    So this is just something about me: If someone starts saying things like ā€œFor more on this topic the 1988 book Manufacturing Consent is a great start and not too out there to scare off liberalsā€ I get real offended, because I take that as that exact kind of accusing of being ignorant that you were talking about before. I think itā€™s more about me, so maybe I shouldnā€™t have reacted badly ā€“ but yeah, if we were talking face to face and you said something like that to me I would get irritated by it. Thatā€™s more why I got hostile with you. Like bro donā€™t tell me what to read or imply that I might be scared off by it. Iā€™ve read it, yes. If weā€™re talking we can talk, and maybe I might be abrasive about some things and if so I apologize, but also donā€™t try to take this you-maybe-havenā€™t-heard-of-Noam-Chomsky tone with me. And in particular, donā€™t try to change the subject from ā€œhey hereā€™s my coherent argument for why banning TikTok is motivated by something other than censorshipā€ by starting to imply that maybe Iā€™m just clueless about the idea of US government interfering with media in general, and you need to help me by recommending some sources on it that I might not have heard of.

    I never said there were more media sources that the administration wants to ban.

    So itā€™s just Tiktok? Is it relevant to you that there are other much more anti-administration sources that they arenā€™t banning?

    who was the politician who admitted that the tiktok ban was at least partially motivated by how much anti genocide sentiment was on it?

    When did this happen?

    • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      itā€™s not a stretch to say that labor demonstrations were crushed. multiple unions together composed the rail strike and their demonstrations were crushed by the administrations direct action.

      if i were gonna encapsulate the demands of all the rail unions iā€™d basically say precision scheduled railroading was the cause of em, and itā€™s bad. there was definitely more than sick days to it.

      itā€™s okay to meticulously source stuff and have a big wall of links ready to refute fake bullshit. thatā€™s a certified tankie banger and i mean that with love and respect while soviet anthem - bass boosted trap remix (10 hours) plays.

      just, you know, i gotta be on best behavior here at .world. and in this particular instance itā€™s not like the goal is to get people to read fucking history and critique of a black legend but instead to get liberals to realize that itā€™s okay not to vote for biden. because i genuinely believe that no one under 50 can look back at their adult life and say ā€œyeah, this is good, actually, iā€™m happy with this, it should be biden, not literally any other candidate. the democrats are really my ally and i should lend them my supportā€. i mean, thereā€™s the butigeegs (I canā€™t spell his name) of the world, but you know, like real people. anyway iā€™m not trying to convert people to anarchism or communism but just to meet people where theyā€™re at with the message that ā€œthings are bad and theyā€™re not gonna get better from one or the other ruling class party. reject their tickets and choose something else. organize in your communities and try to build resilliencyā€

      I didnā€™t mean to take the tone that you hadnā€™t heard of chomsky, or to call you a lib, but instead to recommend something as a source and example that is generally respected and inoffensive. youā€™d be surprised how many people donā€™t know manufacturing consent or got taught it in the most tepid way possible, sometimes even with chomskyā€™s own walkbacks from the decades after 9/11.

      i donā€™t know what sources you know and donā€™t know. i donā€™t know if you have a critique of manufacturing consent or what your perception of the governmentsā€™ relationship with mass media is. from manufacturing consent and the experience of the post 9/11 world its hard to imagine you having an understanding that doesnā€™t include broad implicit and explicit media consent for the power that underlies the two party state.

      what are the anti administration media that isnā€™t getting banned? is any of it as outside the US political system (and iā€™m saying this with full awareness of how bytedance offered to route all US users through a datacenter in texas running oracle systems and what that implies in order to fend off trumps threat of a ban and how they then just started doing it in the hopes that it would be enough for the state department) and widespread as tiktok? I wouldnā€™t call fox or something like that in the same category as tiktok.

      goddamnit you got me to look something up. just this once and for you, it was blinken and romney speaking for the mccain institute.

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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        6 months ago

        I said: ā€œAlso, there are a ton of issues e.g. related to safety and wages. Itā€™s not just sick days.ā€ and then linked to some sources for why the sick days were the main flashpoint where things broke down.

        Then you said: ā€œthere was definitely more than sick days to it.ā€ basically re-reexplained back to me what I had just got done saying, just changing the sourced statements into unsourced disagreements with those statements, based on your off the dome beliefs on it maybe.

        I said: ā€œjust forgot about Mastodon, Twitter, Lemmy, and all the other sources where people can get anti-US news freely? (Or Fox News or Newsmax, which actually present an affirmative threat to his presidency and in an indirect way to his actual personal safety, and show some fairly legitimate reasons why someone could argue for shutting them down?)ā€ (note: I edited it shortly after posting to add Fox News and Newsmax when I realized they should be included)

        Then you said: ā€œwhat are the anti administration media that isnā€™t getting banned?ā€

        It feels like youā€™re not really listening, and just kind of have a set of points you want to make, and if I ask questions or make citations to disagree with it, you just rewind to the start and push play on the set of points you want to make.

        Also:

        to get liberals to realize that itā€™s okay not to vote for biden

        Not really, dude. I mean in a technical sense, you can do whatever you want to do, but if your house is burning down and someoneā€™s saying hey itā€™s okay if we donā€™t put out the fire, because I heard some bad things about the firefighters and anyway the back stairs werenā€™t up to code, that person is objectively wrong. Put out the fucking fire. Trump is the fire.

        because i genuinely believe that no one under 50 can look back at their adult life and say ā€œyeah, this is good, actually, iā€™m happy with this, it should be biden, not literally any other candidate. the democrats are really my ally and i should lend them my supportā€. i mean, thereā€™s the butigeegs (I canā€™t spell his name) of the world, but you know, like real people. anyway iā€™m not trying to convert people to anarchism or communism but just to meet people where theyā€™re at with the message that ā€œthings are bad and theyā€™re not gonna get better from one or the other ruling class party. reject their tickets and choose something else. organize in your communities and try to build resilliencyā€

        I would support you in doing all of those things. If it ever sounded like I was against the idea of improving the Democrats or replacing them with something better, or against organizing in your community, or anything like that, Iā€™m not. But in this election, itā€™s Trump vs Biden, and all of those things will get 10 times harder to do if Trump wins and shuts down community organizing and unions and protest movements and starts throwing anyone to the left of Ronald Reagan in political prison or if theyā€™re in congress killing them.

        Iā€™m not saying any disagreement with any of what you said up there; a good bit of my support for voting for Biden is based on the alternative being the end of the fuckin world. But sure, improving the system outside voting for Biden is also 100% necessary, yes. On that we definitely agree.

        • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          Uhmā€¦let me be clear: I said what I said about the sick days not being everything because the point I was making was that Biden broke the strike and itā€™s important to examine it due to the circumstances illustrating how the administration deals with labor power in opposition to its goals, not labor power in opposition to some other party the administration can align itself away from or trade some favor for.

          I canā€™t help but view centering the demand the administration granted workers after denying them a strike as carrying water for it. Considering the myriad issues surrounding the strike action and stemming from precision scheduled railroading that are unresolved itā€™s hard to see the administrations actions as being in good faith or representing solidarity with workers in their demands to reform the railroad industry.

          When workers stood up and there was only recognition or opposition, Biden pounded them down. That action is so much more important than all the little fiddly things the administration does on its own because of what I just said: it shows explicitly what will happen when you take effective strike action in Bidens America.

          So naturally I restated what you said in my own words.

          Like I said, Iā€™m not digging up a wall of links. When I say something that agrees with what you say, we agree.

          Now the thing about anti administration media kinda gets to something Iā€™ll talk about at the end, but I didnā€™t ask something you already answered. I asked if there was any other example of something as far reaching and outside the American media power structure as TikTok in response to your question about all the examples of unbanned media sources.

          A question you did not answer. I donā€™t believe there is such a media source, but Iā€™m open to being wrong.

          The examples you gave of media in opposition to the administration that are unbanned are either small, shrinking, controllable or represent the opposition platform under the two party system. Why would they be banned? When the New York Times prints Zionist propaganda unquestioned, why would it merit a ban?

          I do employ the tactic of cutting the fat and staying on topic. We both have lots of comments and Iā€™ve seen and read many of yours. Often you will ask a bunch of questions or bring up a bunch of points and the only way to keep someone who has a style like that on topic is to go back to five paragraphs and restate the topic. Iā€™m not criticizing or making fun of the way you write, just explaining why I tend to bring it back to the points Iā€™m trying to make.

          So you brought up trump and made a metaphor to explain how voting for Biden is necessary (one that minimized a genocide!) so letā€™s talk about trump. Do you truly believe that heā€™s an existential threat to America? What do you think will happen if trump is declared the loser? Is there a red line Biden could cross that would make you abandon voting for him against trump and instead vote for the third party you actually believe in?

          I said I would talk about your response to my question about media sources at the end and here we are. The part you quoted is a great example of a technique you deploy in this conversation with me and in many conversations with other people: cut out the nuance when you quote something and respond to that.

          Iā€™m not accusing you of speaking in bad faith and Iā€™m saying this having already fielded your criticism of my own style of response. With that said I think it doesnā€™t really add to discussion and techniques like that are another reason I keep rewinding and pushing play, because often times people donā€™t actually answer the question that was asked, but instead answer a slightly different question.

          • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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            6 months ago

            I do employ the tactic of cutting the fat and staying on topic. We both have lots of comments and Iā€™ve seen and read many of yours. Often you will ask a bunch of questions or bring up a bunch of points and the only way to keep someone who has a style like that on topic is to go back to five paragraphs and restate the topic. Iā€™m not criticizing or making fun of the way you write, just explaining why I tend to bring it back to the points Iā€™m trying to make.

            Honestly, I donā€™t even know why Iā€™m in this conversation anymore. Iā€™m not trying to be discouraging to you by saying this, but it seems like I keep saying things or asking questions and what comes back is not productive. Sorry.

            I understand your viewpoint, I think. You donā€™t have to go back and ā€œbring it backā€ to the points youā€™re trying to make. I am asking specific questions because to me thatā€™s a relevant way to engage in the debate ā€“ you can sort of poke holes in the other personā€™s viewpoint, or else learn more about it and so there are parts that will make sense or parts that donā€™t make sense.

            Iā€™ll make it simple, and just ask some questions. You can assume that I already understand your main viewpoint, and you donā€™t need to restate it or ā€œstay on topic,ā€ and just answer the questions. Iā€™m not trying to be overwhelming or anything or pin you down or ā€œdebatebroā€ or whatever, but to me this is part of the dialogue. If you want to engage, cool, Iā€™m curious to know what you think about these things. If not, then cheers. To me itā€™s super dispiriting for someone to say e.g. Biden is censoring all the non establishment media but also refuse to identify what other media Biden is censoring, just sort of vaguely say all of it thatā€™s anti establishment. Maybe that is reasonable in your debate-world but in my world it is a weird and evasive way for you to behave.

            important to examine it due to the circumstances illustrating how the administration deals with labor power

            Do you think itā€™s important to examine how the administration dealt with the UAW election or regulations on strikes / bargaining and union election guidelines in general? Or the writerā€™s strike or the Starbucks or Amazon unionization drives?

            it shows explicitly what will happen when you take effective strike action in Bidens America.

            Same question

            The examples you gave of media in opposition to the administration that are unbanned are either small, shrinking, controllable or represent the opposition platform under the two party system.

            What are establishment unfriendly media that are being banned? Besides Tiktok? I keep asking this question. You said, more or less, all of them. Thatā€™s not an answer. Which ones? Whatā€™s all of them?

            What do you think Romney meant by that?

            (Answering this one, as itā€™s surely a fair question to ask me)

            I think he meant that the coverage on TikTok is slanted, as a way of amplifying Blinkenā€™s point that the entire format makes it basically impossible for TikTok to function as an informative type of news, and he brought up coverage of the Palestinians as an example.

            I do agree with what Blinken said (basically, that is also my view on TikTok, in addition to the problem that itā€™s controlled by the Chinese government). I donā€™t agree with Romneyā€™s viewpoint ā€“ I think itā€™s fine if any social media wants to weight its coverage however the people who operate it and the people who have accounts there want to do it, and in particular I definitely donā€™t think thereā€™s anything wrong with emphasizing the suffering of the Gazans in a way thatā€™s probably offensive to the people who are sending the IDF the weapons theyā€™re using to inflict that suffering.

            • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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              6 months ago

              I canā€™t assume you understand my viewpoint because you selectively quote my words to change their meaning, put words in my mouth and dodge questions i ask (just like youre accusing me of here!).

              I never said that all the establishment unfriendly media was getting banned. I said that thereā€™s an active campaign to control media that includes a tiktok ban. I asked you what establishment unfriendly media isnā€™t getting banned in order to look at those examples, their reach, their position and alignment relative to the american political system and their level of consent or hand in glove cooperation with the american political system.

              the point of that is to illustrate how there is cooperation between the american political system and media, how there is control exerted by the political system on that media and when those two are not present, that media is not allowed when it cannot be minimized or silenced.

              compared to how the regime responded to the rail strike, itā€™s unimportant how it responded to other labor actions that didnā€™t threaten it.

              the rail strike was an action that opposed and threatened the biden administration. the other labor actions you bring up were not an imminent danger to the regime. at best that could be interpreted in the words of the reverend doctor as a desire for the absence of conflict over the presence of justice.

              a more realistic outlook might be that the biden administration cynically viewed a powerful labor action as something to be crushed when itā€™s in opposition to that administration as opposed to representative of a core value or even a necessary constituency.

              what is the greater measure of a mans values, how he responds to something when given time and resources and under no imminent pressure or how he responds when threatened? what is the greater measure of an organization made up of many men?

              how can you possibly get mad at me for implying you havenā€™t read a book as milquetoast as manufacturing consent when you take blinken at face value and agree with him that tiktok is too emotional to be treated like other ā€œinformativeā€ sources when those ā€œinformativeā€ sources express IDF actions in the passive voice?

              iā€™ll end by combining our two great tastes, restating myself, selectively quoting myself, and asking some questions:

              you brought up trump and made a metaphor to explain how voting for Biden is necessary (one that minimized a genocide!) so letā€™s talk about trump. Do you truly believe that heā€™s an existential threat to America? What do you think will happen if trump is declared the loser? Is there a red line Biden could cross that would make you abandon voting for him against trump and instead vote for the third party you actually believe in?

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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        6 months ago

        Oh, and since I missed it: So Biden didnā€™t say anything about how many anti genocide sentiment was on Tiktok, actually it was Blinken, oh wait, he didnā€™t say that at all, he said ā€œYou have a social media ecosystem environment in which context, history, facts get lost, and the emotionā€”the impact of imagesā€”dominates.ā€ I would 100% agree with that. Thatā€™s of the problems in my experience with talking with people who get their picture of the world from TikTok. There are other anti-establishment news sources which lend themselves a lot better to depth of understanding in addition to, yes, seeing the imagery and emotion which for something like Gaza is an important part to include.

        Then, Romney said, ā€œSome wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sitesā€”itā€™s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts.ā€ Which is at least vaguely adjacent to what you said, but also is (1) just someone whoā€™s not in the executive branch whoā€™s just kind of guessing (2) not at all the same as ā€œhow much anti genocide sentiment was on itā€.