finding out that modern americans work more hours than medieval peasants whose life was controlled by feudalism & the Church–that shit changed something in me
we are not born to die!! what are you talking about!! do you think a book begins just to finish? do you think a song opens with a beautiful chord just for it to end? you don’t read the book to finish it, you read the book to eat up the excitement and the emotions it evokes!! to learn and to digest and to fall in love and be heartbroken!! you listen to the song to dance and dance and sing your throat raw!!! to cry and smile and swell with the harmonies!! yes, we are born with the inevitable fate of death, we are mortal after all, but that is merely the finale of the play!! the final act, the closing of the curtains - we are not born to take a bow and exit stage left!! we are born to love and be joyous and yell and move and learn and cry and feelfeelfeel!!! we are not born to die, silly, we’re born to live!!!
This is so violently hopeful and uplifting everyone needs to see it
Do you support gender non-conforming men when they don’t exist for your entertainment? When it isn’t the shock-and-awe, punk “irony” of smeared lipstick and a beard, or the polished showmanship of drag? Do you support the GNC men whose femininity isn’t a joke? Or do you feel on some level that men are only entitled to femininity if it’s strictly a performance? Do you still expect feminine men to uphold traditional masculinity to be respected? Are you only allowing these men to exist as caricatures?
Do you support gender non-conforming women when they don’t appeal to your aesthetics? When it isn’t meticulously tailored suits and expensive haircuts? Do you support the GNC women who can’t afford or don’t want to be “dapper” or fashionable? Or do you feel on some level that women are only entitled to masculinity so long as they’re still “making an effort”? Do you still expect masculine women to uphold traditional femininity to be respected? Do you still think women exist to be looked at?
Are you genuinely unlearning sexist rhetoric and dismantling gender expectations, or are you just enforcing it in ways you’re unable to recognize because you’ve tricked yourself into thinking your community is too woke and clever to fall victim to it?
I like how itâs described as a union could âcripple American Capitalismâ when more precisely itâs just that a union would be so powerful as to force WalMart (or any other company) to pay their workers like human beings. Thatâs not going to break Walmart. Theyâll barely notice.
Theyâve successfully convinced us that the unions are the greedy monsters. For so many years, the companies have painted unions as âwe want you to pay janitors three million dollars a year and if you donât weâll set your stores on fireâ.Â
But itâs more like âWe want you to take an almost imperceptible fraction of your bountiful profits and use it to make your employeesâ live marginally better, and maybe give them medical benefits, yâknow, so they donât dieâ.
Big companies did not stop hiring ten year olds to work in coal mines because they just woke up one day and said âmy god, weâre monstersâ. They did it because their workers stood together and said âreally, enough of this crapâ.
Companies are not going to give people raises unless itâs economically necessary that they do so. Anything they can do to lower their expenses, and raise their profits, they are going to do. And no one person can stop them.
But thousands of people, millions of people? Better chances.
I am dead serious: If you are a Walmart employee, at any level and in any store â like if you are a high school kid with a part time job stocking shelves â message me any question you have about unions. Like ask me âWhatâs a unionâ if you want. I will explain it to you.
I am a grievance chair for a white collar union whose workplace only unionized within the last five years and whose management fought as every step of the way, but in the end we fucking won. It can be done, and I can tell you how.
Just another reminder that Walmart Germany was a spectacular fail because of ver.di (which is a national service trade union that has itâs control over almost all trade and service companies in Germany) among other things.
Like, ver.di essentially came up to the CEO of Walmart Germany and was like âHi, welcome, we wish you the best and that we can work together well :)â and the dude was like âhahaha noâ and tried to pull the american concept here so ver.di pulled out a list of all the breaches of german law that Walmart was doing (underpaying workers, trying to avoid paying health care by using part-timers, trying to be open for more than 80 hours per week, firing people on short notice without warning or exit payments, etc) and long story short, they got some massive hefty fines for it. They also set up a list of demands for the workers and organized national strikes to push them through, making the employees of 85 hypermarkets neatly stand in front of the store doors with signs, whistles and chants (and certainly not the âWallmart! Wallmart!â chant). In the end, that plus other things caused them to bail after 9 years with a gigantic loss (almost a billion just from sales) from one of the best retail markets in the world.
So all those issues like âno healthcareâ or âwork full-time and need food stampsâ or âwork on sundays and holidaysâ and shit? Unions are there to set their foot down against that for you. They are there to keep you safe from the corps wrath while fighting for your rights.
Cause if you, an individual, complain, they just fire you and laugh about it. A union is a collection of hundreds up to MILLIONS of people, supported by lawyers, going against employers for you.
Actually crippling capitalism is good and cool anyway
Reminder than Walmart wonât even be paying time and a half during thanksgiving and Black Friday to their employees. They only give them a DISCOUNT On two specific days. Shit pay and their only âperkâ is to give the money back to Walmart by shopping there.
I know the whole “humans are weird and scary” thing as a sci fi concept has been rendered kind of cutesy and outre recently but like humans are absolutely the creepiest fuckers on this planet and I WILL die on this hill, doubtless pursued tirelessly by dozens of freakishly vertical ape creatures with unprecedented levels of thermoregulation, possibly accompanied by other animals that they have somehow formed bizarre social bonds with. Oh my god humans are the worst
Other Terrible things about humans!
A Single Dead Human can provide provide replacement organs for 8 other humans, and donate life-improving tissues for 140 more! Achieve Mass Imortality and become an Organ Donor Today!
Human cells are outnumbered by thier gut flora by several degrees of magnitude, and it’s suspected that the bacteria play a significant role in their psychology!
Nearly every human is capable of swimming short distances in an emergency, and many do it for fun or as thier primary means of foraging. This is weird for something that was an Arboreal Primate not that long ago.
Having already conquered all terrestrial ecosystems and several aquatic ones, humans are currently working on aerial envoirns and fucking space. The Ultimate Invasive Species.
the favorite food of many humans is the fermented lactations of other animals. Other humans find this substance totally undigestible.
One of the first foods humans invented on purpose was a mild toxin ingested for recreational purposes! It is an important part of many human religions.
