Here is November 7th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Here is November 8th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
I strategically retreated from doing an update on Wednesday (and I always perform tactical update withdrawals on Thursdays and Sundays) so this next one covers a bit from those two days.
Here is November 11th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists, for the “buh Zeleski is a jew?!?!” people.
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn't really need more, but:
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week's discussion post.
For instance, recent simulations suggest that stratocumulus cloud decks might abruptly be lost at CO2 concentrations that could be approached by the end of the century, causing an additional ∼8 °C global warming (23).
:lt-dbyf-dubois:
Link. I stopped reading it because who wants to know the future?
I mean, I can't help but wonder what happens if a climate collapse drops the human population under a billion people inside a generation or two.
I have to assume that drastically reduces the amount of carbon we produce (among other pollutants). But it's also not clear what ecology would be left in the midst of that kind of collapse.
Carbon takes a long time to leave the atmosphere so its going to suck for a long time
Does it? I thought plants were fairly efficient in that regard. The problem, as I understand it, is that big plant growths have an annoying habit of up-and-dying, decomposing, and putting all that captured carbon back out there again.
All the fossil fuels we're burning are a consequence of plant life that had accumulated mostly before the evolution of composting organisms.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/
TIL.
Also
The strong absorption of carbon dioxide across China is erasing all but a thin strip of fossil fuel emissions along the coast, with Central China now functioning as a net absorber of carbon dioxide during the growing season.
:xigma-male:
I'm actually reading the UN report on China's anti-extremism policy in Xinjian, and like many UN documents it's very weird. The UN report is discussing all these extremely high-minded ideas of human rights like "Not being subject to arbitrary and indefinite detention" and "having criminal acts clearly defined in law so people know what's actually illegal" and shit and it's like... What country actually conforms to any of this? Like if you're a white person in America sure, you get a bunch of this stuff, but if you're brown all bets are off. Europe has a bunch of cool human rights laws, unless you're a migrant. A lot of countries don't even pretend.
Idk, it's just weird to be reading all this high minded concern about arbitrary arrest and detention and profiling and punishing people based on things that could just be religious or cultural preferences after like 20 years of the GWOT, which was pretty much a continual period of incredible human rights abuses perpetrated by countries all over the world, both within their own borders and without. Like obviously that's not the UN Human Rights people's fault, but how do you take your job seriously when you are taking a report back to a body where most of the most prominent representatives openly and unapologetically engaged in torture, arbitrary murder, mass murder, arbitrary and indefinite detention, and basically every other violation of human rights imaginable? That's got to suck. Like that must be absolutely demoralizing and miserable.
Lengths of stays in the VETC facilities varied, but generally interviewees spent between two months and 18 months in the facilities.
Lol. People are rotting in Rikers for years at a time without trial, but that's okay because they got to see a judge who rubber-stamped their pre-trial detention without bail for stealing a piece of candy so it's not a grotesque violation of human rights.
Spending two months being taught "Hey the Salafi's are fucking psychos and their version of Islam is a significant innovation if it doesn't actually constitute apostasy" sounds better than having a JDAM dropped on your family.
Everyone has the right to protection against unlawful or arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home or correspondence
Man this document is wild. You mean there's some kind of international standard against heavily armed cops breaking your doors down, holding you at gunpoint, beating the shit out of you, and stealing all your shit?
Like don't get me wrong, a lot of the things this report alleges are concerning and bad, like arresting people because they have beards or wear hijabs, or making people sing patriotic songs for hours a day (what is that supposed to accomplish?)
But none of this really stands out from the normal practices of the US Justice system, and the US doesn't even have the excuse of trying to prevent Salafist extremists from destabilizing Arizona.
Also, there's that big contrast - Their anti-terrorism program is spying on, arresting, and detaining lots of people on questionable charges.
Our anti-terrorist program was murdering tens of thousands of people because they used a cell phone to call someone we thought might be related to a terrorist organization, maybe.
The broad powers given to public officials in XUAR generally, with limited independent oversight and procedural safeguards against abuse
Man wait until the UN Human Rights office finds out about US Sheriffs. And City police. And State Police.
Like none of this is good, and I certainly wouldn't want to live with the Chinese authorities breathing down my neck or sending me to prison to sing God Bless America over and over again, but compared to the allegations being freely made by the US, and compared to the normal, everyday abuses of human rights that the US freely commits against it's own people and abroad, this all seems kind of trivial. Like yeah it's bad, but it's not like the US has a moral leg to stand on here. It's certainly not genocide. idk
I read it when it came out a while ago, and I pretty much agree. Most of the things they're pointing out, I'm like "yeah, seems like a reasonable critique and I hope the CPC takes it to heart and kicks the local governments ass when they've misused their authority", but also, show me a country that doesn't do that exact same thing, only much worse. I mean, fuck, here in Denmark, cops routinely put people in jail, pre-trial, for anywhere from 3x24 hours to 4 weeks to indefinitely. There is literally no upper bound on pre-trial detention, as long as it's less than the sentence for what you're accused of. People have been in jail for years without ever being convicted, sometimes just because of waiting times at the city courts.
So yeah we know we have arbitrary, vague, long-term detention that can include isolation (which is torture), in a Western Democracy (tm), but hey, look over there at the sneaky asiatics!
:big-cool:
There is literally no upper bound on pre-trial detention, as long as it’s less than the sentence for what you’re accused of
And instead of admitting they couldn't make a case, the prosecution will offer time served if you plead guilty. Still claiming that you're innocent? Well, then we'll need another four weeks of pre-trial detention to figure out what to do next. Maybe you'll want to relieve your guilty conscience by then?
The 90+ % convinction rates has nothing to do with this though, they're all about cops and prosecutors being really good at solving crime. And by the way, there's a judge rubber-stamping pre-trial detention so it's impossible to abuse.
China’s one child policy may incorporate forced sterilization
In 2015, the government removed all remaining one-child limits, establishing a two-child limit. In May 2021, this was loosened to a three-child limit, in July 2021 all limits as well as penalties for exceeding them were removed.
wild how China's forcibly sterilizing their Uygur population by telling them there's no limit to how many kids they can have.
Also one child policy was never applied to any minorty races, only han chinese. And it was removed in 2015 in all china except xinjiang which removed it in 2017. Uyghurs, like all other minorities, were never restricted on how many children they can have
Absolute losers couldn't wait even one more year before posting the sloo
This kind of response would be great in the context of a US-China interaction/confrontation, lord knows we need to smother any further escalation before it starts. But in the general context of human rights and the UN, this trivializing of rights abuse isn't a great place to start.
Ok so tldr yes to a heavy-handed police crackdown against Islamic extremism and separatism (which are not very distinct movements) with some inmates anecdotally reporting abuse at the hands of police and administrators (ACAB even in China sure I believe this is likely true) but a huge big fucking no to forced labor camps a huge big fucking no to millions imprisoned (perhaps 40-55k over the entire years long period of the strike hard campaign in reeducation camps) and a giant fucking no to genocide. Shocking it’s not even mentioned actually, surely they looked into it. It seems to deserve a repudiation given the severity of the accusation.
The claims made in this doc aren’t very bad. I mean it sounds like some instances of non-systematic abuse which doesn’t surprise me because pigs will be pigs but overall it sounds like a relatively kinder and more integrative campaign than even the regular everyday treatment of ethnic minorities in many parts of the west with the strike hard campaign mixing swift semi-judicial action against extremism with extensive efforts to reintegrate former religious extremists or those adjacent to it. It doesn’t sound like a summer camp but it does sound a hell of a lot better than a regular western prison for example, without doubt.
Also the document reads like a hit piece with references to places like Bellingcat and an effort to incorporate Zenz’s “muh sterilizations” by misrepresenting the distribution of birth control for free to women as a human rights abuse.
All things considered, this is a nothing burger and I’m sure the BBC will soon apologize for their efforts to instigate ethnic and religious tensions in Xinjiang.
The UN was commissioned to do a report on le ebil genocide but all they found was that all cops are bastards.
Not an American so I have no idea what this means, realistically what could change?
Every two years the entire federal house of representatives is up for election. Every two years some federal senators are up for reelection (they serve 6 year terms so only about 1/3rd are up for election at a time).
Currently Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the presidency, but only by slim margins in the House and Senate. The Senate map this year favored Democrats significantly, more Republican senators are up for reelection than Democrats. Additionally a number of Republican Senate candidates are horrible candidates even by American standards. Democrats should have had the Senate in the bag but because they are unable to discipline capitalists who price gouge inflation has made the Senate a coin flip for who will control it. The house also looks poised to be taken by Republicans. This is assuming that polling is accurate, which remains to be determined.
If Democrats lose either the house or the Senate legislation will not be passed and what is passed will be horrible. If Democrats only lose the House they can still appoint federal judges in the Senate, which is probably better than Republicans getting to. It is unlikely that Democrats will lose the Senate but keep the house.
If they manage to keep all three branches of government I would imagine that abortion would get some level of federal protection and we might get to see another attempt at passing Brandon's agenda.
Local offices are also up for reelection and there is a current wave of hogs running trying to take over local governments to attack LGBTQ people. Voting usually doesn't matter but if you have some psycho running for dog catcher, trying to keep them from enacting LGBTQ pogroms is probably worth the effort.
If the Democrats outperform every poll they will still deliver nothing and shoulder all of the blame. I'm not voting anymore in the short term.
Yeah, probably.
The way I view it Democrats are slow walking us towards fascism while Republicans want to do a speed run. If Democrats give the left more time to get organized we'll fair better when the shoe drops. But like I said, voting doesn't really matter, especially a single vote.
I'm not sure we'd be better under the Democrats even (especially) for cadre building. The right wing will have its run for a while I'm guessing maybe a decade, but have no answers to American problems. It is worrisome knowing these ghouls are set to manage the decline of the American Empire but democratic administrations only will also only fuel right wing populism because the Democrats refuse to be genuine champions for the people. Gotta let that party die it's been dead for a while now. Number one impediment to the Left. Let it die.
If Democrats give the left more time to get organized we’ll fair better when the shoe drops.
Imagine the DSA, under the guns of our enemies, marching themselves strait into the work camps rather than getting pushed through the gates as a disorganized mob. The fascists would be so owned!
Actually they'd have a referendum to determine which members march first and then petition the fascists to respect their referendum.
Really though, if fascism is the foregone conclusion to liberal democracy then what is the alternative to organizing against it?
It sounds like accelerationism but hear me out. Maybe the fascists rise to power would be better if it was quicker.
What if the shock of becoming a fascist state over night is what is needed to make libs into comrades? Isn't fascism's second wave way more likely to be successful if they start the frog in cold water not throw it in a boiling pot?
Most people are reactionary in the most literal sense of the word. The trick is getting them to react to the right thing in the right way. Libs react to insecurity by embracing authoritarianism/fascism but they react to authoritarianism with cries for freedom and democracy. If Fascism was the immediate and clear threat to their security they would rail against it.
The only problems with this plan. 1 it presupposes that fascism is inevitable. 2 it doesn't account for the percentage of people that are Fascists and the number of libs that lean more fascist than anti fascist.
If they manage to keep all three branches of government I would imagine that abortion would get some level of federal protection
lol no. Manchin and Sinema would still refuse to get rid of the filibuster. If they keep the Senate, it will most likely be by a margin where they still make or break votes (either 50-50 again or 51-49). And even if they did have a higher margin, they'd just add a couple more conservative Dem senators to the list of rotating villains. Carper, Tester, Warner, they've got plenty of choices.
Short answer: nothing.
Longer answer: The balance of the house and senate mean that we might just see a republican controlled legislative branch that might be able to do some weird stuff, but generally will just lead to a deadlock since Biden continues to hold veto capabilities over stuff. It won't stop the money for war, imperialism, theft from the working class, everything in the imperialist machine will continue as it has since Biden took office from Trump, but people will be a bit more mean on TV. People will point to the left as the reason for the Democrat's loss. The temperature against queer folk and reproductive rights will increase a bit more, but until 2024 republicans passing a nationwide ban on abortion isn't really going to happen. This government has been in deadlock basically its entire time with barely any moves to help the working class and anything they've tried has been devastated by the courts because the US isn't a democracy anyway.
People will point to the left as the reason for the Democrat’s loss.
And we'll fuckin' do it again if they don't shape up or get outta the way.
We should just claim to be taking the Democrats hostage. It wouldn't be true but they'd get really mad and it would be very funny.
Embracing those accusations would make the left look cooler and more powerful than today.
Maybe actually do it. Leftists voting for republicans. Its like a strike. A strike is a lose, lose. The republicans would win and the dems and left would lose but the left loses either way. If the Left votes for the republicans they make everything worse for the democrats until they actually put together a reasonable alternative. the only problem is they never will.
Hope there's a megathread, getting crossfaded and riffing on the process on here (or on the sub back in the day) is basically the only electoralism I want to participate in nowadays :vote:
Shout out to the person here who encouraged me to go through with getting involved with Food Not Bombs. That was my first time doing mutual aid, and had a great time and met a lot of awesome people there! Gonna start doing this regularly I think!
There was someone who posted about a communist who died fighting for Russia, and people were saying that he was an exemplar par excellence of a communist as opposed to a coffee shop communist, in the other chat. I just want to say that I disagree. He is dead now, and did not accomplish anything with that death, another soul to the meat grinder of war between capitalists. Just because Russia is 'argueably' in the right here doesn't make it any smarter to countinue to fight and die over the same 50 miles of muddy land, now that the people have been moved out.
I know this isn't a popular thing to say here, but despite the fact that it is a good thing that Nazis are kinda getting owned (even though in reality they are being funded by the west more that ever now, so it's more of a win/lose) the global economic objectives of multipolarity could have been accomplished without this war, and the war is a sign of the heightening contradictions within Russia itself. He was clearly a committed comrade, but a comrade dead in WWI is one more comrade that is not there for the October Revolution, and we are not even close to that. As Brace says, we are peasants in Alsace who can barely read. We have no cause to fight our lords wars.
I feel like measuring the "worth" of a communist by how they died rather than how they lived is kinda defeatist and succumbs to a desire to become a holy martyr for the cause. Not every communist will die in The Revolution, taking a bullet to the head as they mount the barricades, and you're not any less of one if you were otherwise a good person living by a socialist mantra who died because they accidentally ate some undercooked food or fell off a ladder.
Dying while killing outright, swastika-tattooed fascists, even if the country you're fighting on behalf of is a capitalist oligarchy with reactionary views, is certainly not the worst way for a communist to go, though it's far from ideal.
He fought in the Donbass for eight years. In even a fraction of that time, he would have helped more people than probably anyone on this website ever will, and you should be ashamed of yourself for posting that his life was wasted.
What is it with people and projecting their perceived revolutionary failures on the website as a whole? I agree, he lived well. He fought well. He died well. But saying that he was more of a comrade than those organizing labor, or even attempting to keep socialist ideas alive in a country that is inherently hostile towards them is sectarian in nature, and a ridiculous notion. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so hostile, he didn't die for a 'muddy stretch of land' but the way the paragraph read in the last thread irked me because it dismisses real work, necessary work of organization, as 'coffee shop' socialism. Fuck martyrdom.
If you're organizing or whatever, you aren't doing coffee shop socialism, and I'm not sure why you would feel targeted by that. The author of the piece isn't in combat either, he does humanitarian aid. The fact remains that fighting Nazis for the better part of a decade is an impressive achievement and the kind of thing we should strive to emulate, not dismiss as a pointless death.
The way I see it is that every single person on this site is contributing to the modern equivalent of a leftist newspaper and I do not consider a single one of them to be doing nothing at all. Social media is a new format of newspaper, broken free from complete editorial control with content decided by combination of audience and algorithm.
Is there more some people could do? Probably, but I dislike people attacking the entire site in broad sweeps, if it became accepted to do here the resulting negativity could spiral into mass logoffs. The site's health relies on positivity about the site and userbase among the userbase. It's uncomradely.
TBH, I feel like Hexbear does less than basically every other leftist site to encourage reading theory, recruiting new people, and taking action. Like, we have a lot of great people here, but most of the site is just an endless dunk tank. Lemmygrad and leftypol aren't much better, but at least they read and have ideologies beyond mocking liberals.
Frankly, a socialist organization (inasmuch as a website can be an organization) doing nothing but chatting with each other is probably worse than useless, wasting the time of everyone involved. Maybe I just don't belong here, I dunno.
Maybe I just don’t belong here, I dunno.
Maybe you just found your purpose here? Point people to relevant theory.
For me that's because I already have places where I seriously read theory irl. This is my place to shit post because that is what these kinds of online spaces are (in my experience) best for. Online radicalization is just as isolating and alienating, it provides no community and little solidarity. There is alot of power in "I may not have read Marx's Capital but I have the marks of capital all over my body." and having a community that responds to that is more important than if they know the LTV.
I sympathize though, if you don't have an outlet for that hexbear is pretty stupid.
Lemmygrad
Trying to encourage more of that on lemmygrad. We're in a bit of a doomer phase right now, but we are getting better. We have lots of Party active comrades there too. Don't dunk too hard comrade.
TBH I don't use Lemmygrad very much, it's a pretty small community. Leftypol too, but you don't notice as much since everyone's anonymous.
I think Hexbear is actually the largest of the independent leftist social media sites by a decent margin, although I might be missing some.
I think shame can be a powerful motivator but it should used sparingly and always be paired with ways to engage.
Because alot of what organizing is is just sitting around talking, endlessly discussing and refining dumb shit ideas and keeping people away from Twitter. Much of it literally is just trying to provide a community that affirms and explains their feelings of depression and alienation without turning towards liberalism. I do not need people getting weird ideas from online spaces that they need to fuck off to fight in Russia or Nicaragua to be useful.
This is stuff I have to deal with with irl leftists, so it hits a chord.
It is an impressive achievement and it would be even better if he was still alive.
perhaps the defining moment of the 21st century.
:doubt: We're not even close to the water wars, or the arable land wars, or the Global War on Migrants. *slaps roof of 21st century* You can fit so many manmade horrors beyond my comprehension in this thing!
I'm looking forward to dying in 2049 in a minor skirmish over the last bottles of hot sauce in Northern Europe. A 12 year old street rat will shank me with a broken iPhone and I'll bleed out on the cobble.
Don't project your own problems onto me. I am certainly not sitting on my hands waiting for pure revolution, but neither am I willing to die for a muddy stretch of land. I think you have some serious unaddressed issues if your life has no meaning outside of death. Sorry for being harsh.
:both-sides: I upbeared you and everyone who responded to you, there isn't one right answer here
I'm sorry I implied bad faith in what you were saying, but saying that I wave 'hot takes from Twitter' is asinine garbage. I will take back the 'muddy stretch of land' bit though, I agree that was a step too far.
What I am saying is that his death was meaningless and not something to be celebrated, even if he did die well. We should have celebrated and acknowledged his life and work while he was still alive, not after he was killed. Russia is a capitalist nation run by oligarchs, no amount of third world flag waving will change that. They provide a counterpoint to American hegemony, which is good, but not so good that it is worth insulting the work of other comrades in other areas who are also organizing and doing work.
Bro Putin is based and socialist the oligarchs and IMF are just holding him back bro
You are missing a key point. He didn't die fighting for Russia. He might have fought on the same side as Russia but he fought for a free Donbas. The LPR and DPR were supposed to be communist states even if now they are just part of Russia. He didn't die for Oligarchs or for capitalists. He died defending people who said no to Nazism. They openly called themselves Neo-Soviet and were called "Stalinist" by people who think its an insult. He died in one of the only Communist revolutions of our day.
That is fair enough. But as that one documentary said, "The kind Vladimir Lenin would have killed everyone here."
The U.S. is a party to a United Nations treaty, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which requires the U.S. to control marijuana in the schedule that the DEA Administrator deems most appropriate. The courts have previously held that marijuana must be scheduled in Schedule I or II to satisfy the obligations under the treaty.
shithole country metastasizes its shitty polices around the world. what a surprise
just learned ke$ha now goes by kesha. Dedollarization in happening!! :bloomer:
God fucking dammit why are our unions so fucking shit? They get our hopes up with rumblings of a general strike, and then the next day they roll over when the government "super pinky promises we swear" to repeal bill 28. I'll believe it when I see it, and I have no doubt things are only going to get worse for unions from here on out
I dont see how youre getting out of conservatives when the no other major party is even trying to promise things. Like turnouts gonna continue dropping and the cons are gonna keep winning by default, no matter how unpopular ford is
Are there any unions that aren't pro-corporate? One of the takeaways I've had from the last year is that unions around the world are libshit and their leaders best buddies with the CEOs that they're meant to be fighting against. I'm not even hoping for outright militancy at this point, just one that doesn't fuck over its workers after a lukewarm complaint about the cost of living and how wages aren't keeping up with inflation.
:hex-moon: :stalin-gun-2: :stalin-gun-1: [idk what the always has been one is lol]
unions in and of themselves have class interests and trade union opposition has historically been one of the most important tasks of the communist parties to develop the class struggle as without overt communist influence unions will always protect the status quo in the last instance.
ive just been reading an excellent book called how labour built neoliberalism, focusing on the australian experience in the 80s where the trade unions (that had been buoyed in effective power through the 60s-70s by rank-and-file militancy) and the australian labor party (lol) came together to develop the "accords" where the unions agreed to take care of their unruly members and stop all this disruptive strike nonsense in return for promises about wages and other social benefits from the labor party, that shocked pikachu were almost immediately broken
the author frames it with reference to gramsci in terms of both corporatism of civil society groups that are formalised and bureaucratised and brought inside the tent to work inside the system as part of the "normal" functioning of state, and then enwrapment of those groups by the state itself to function towards its aims. in this case the ideological framework was the selling of a "national interest" of stimulating the economy and on a lower level of a shared interest between workers and management of having a thriving company that can afford plenty of staff and to globally compete etc, and to sacrifice for the greater good, in a broader effort to re-stimulate capital accumulation that had stagnated after the long post-war boom. the labor party looked like the party that could control militant labour in a way that the conservatives couldnt, and the union bureaucracies got to have themselves a place at the big boys table inside the tent, and be the important ones making the decisions for the unions and negotiating with the bosses and the politicians rather than those unwashed rank-and-file masses who didnt know whats best for them, and who got in the way of the smooth functioning of the unions core business of smoothly perpetuating its bureaucracy. edit to note that it was and still is a very well-worn career trajectory for union officials to then "progress" their career into the higher echelons of labor party politics, and the prime minister who initially put these reforms into place had previously been the "firebrand" head of the peak union coalition body, the australian council of trade unions (actu) - so obviously it is very much in their personal interests to keep the labor party onside in their union activities and be a good "team player". and of course all this gave them a framework and incentive to smash any of those unruly militant unions or branches that didnt get the memo, which they did with gusto
but of course the underlying contradiction was that the unions got that level of power to get themselves a seat at the table precisely because of the militancy, and as the rank-and-file were increasingly shut out their active involvement seemed increasingly irrelevant and membership plummeted to the point where the union bureaucrats no longer have the power base to even be listened to seriously, and most of the australian unions now mostly sell themselves as these sad clubs that can get you cheap movie tickets or discounts on car repayments etc. bargaining is at an enterprise level where broader worker power cant be leveraged effectively, and the industrial relations framework to even be able to call a strike etc is ludicrously restrictive, and the labor party is crowing about its greatest achievement of making the unions into compliant lapdogs.
going through all this personally as well at the moment, and while we have a quite militant rank-and-file at my workplace we can feel the union bureaucracy slowly but surely backpedalling away from us and trying to use their clout to make sure we settle for pathetic scraps and dont keep striking so the boat isnt rocked too much.
i dont know the answer but my feeling is that its to rebuild rank-and-file militancy within the existing union framework (as well as just the idea of unions being a relevant part of society, which has very much been lost), and just drag the bureaucracies along behind until they break, and re-form proper unions when it's clear to the membership the existing unions no longer serve the purpose of members. the success of raffwu forming as a more militant alternative for retail workers in the space occupied by the truly dire sda is i think a salutory indication of how to do things, although im sure the pathways are unique in each different country
All the libs who whine about "America bad" never really understand that the right-wing problem the world is facing owes a lot to the US anti-Coummunist tactics of the last century. It's made populations in the US so rabidly anti-left that you can "look" leftist and be killed for it. In a way they're reaping what they've sowed but at the cost of everyone else.
Liberals shitting on Boebert for going back and getting her GED is infuriating. She is one of the easiest politicians on the plant to find things to bully for. Liberal decide to go with her going back and getting her GED.
Like what the fuck.
