How? Maybe itās more like making a public statement about private negotiations that damages the reputation of the partner company, but āgoing to work for another companyā doesnāt track. Theyāre threatening to harm the democratic campaign by publicly shaming them, not self-immolating
I reject your analogue. There have been no āpublic statements about private negotiationsā with the GOP. We donāt know the GOP toāve made ANY negotiations.
Donāt like my original analogue? Fine, replace āchoosing toā with āthreatening toā. The part youāre dancing around is the āmore exploitativeā part -the part where the side OāBrien is threatening to support isnāt a not-Dem-but-pro-union party, itās a not-Dem-but-anti-union party. And I suspect heās playing ball with them IN SPITE OF not having any appreciable consolidations made by republicans in favor of his union. Donāt bother suggesting āwe donāt know there werenāt consolidationsā, neither of us know. Though thereās plenty of indirect evidence that the modern GOP just doesnāt care - case in point, every party-line PRO Act vote in the past 5 years.
I already answered this - no, i do not agree, and I especially donāt think itās āpointless pendantryā. AOC is a dem soc, she should know that itās the job of the union to negotiate via collective bargaining and that democrats are not owed an endorsement.
You make it sound like AOC is only frustrated with OāBrien for not endorsing Harris. From my very first comment in this thread: thatās not \all heās done*.
Your next 4 paragraphsā¦Iāll get back to those.
He represents their interests, itās his literal fucking job
Then he should act like it and not help the leopards thatāll eat his face.
There absolutelyĀ isĀ a difference in political ideology, but our disagreement isnāt over whether āthe left is more aligned with workerās rightsā or not. We disagree about whether or not direct action ought to be targeted at the democratsĀ at all, and thatās something I donāt think weāll see eye-to-eye on.
I wasnāt saying that was the disagreement, I was saying thereās some core disagreement we probably have, thatās probably flying under both our radars. And no, you havenāt magically identified what that is. I never said āunions shouldnāt target democrats at all with direct actionā, Iām saying actions that directly aid another party, where that other party is the modern GOP, are fucking stupid.
Back to those 4 paragraphsā¦finally, a little actual substance.
And you know what I have to say about it? I have to say that I actually feel even MORE strongly that OāBrien is a bad leader.
You went on about issues that rust belt union members are having. But the Democrats donāt control the rust beltā¦the GOP does. And they are fucking over their own union constituents. Trumpās last term saw him hire an anti-union Reagan-era lawyer to the NLRB, stacked the courts with anti-union judges, took various other anti-union actions, and neither him nor any Republicans proposed a single page of legislation. They didnāt even support the PRO Act, legislation that helps unions everywhere, rust belt included, and was introduced even before Dems took back the WH (meaning Democrats didnāt stand to look good if it got passed). And the GOP still voted heavily against it, and have done so ever since.
Why arenāt the teamstersā¦openly mad at the GOP? The party of people who, in your own words, would āaccuse [democrats] of being radical socialistsā for proposing action that helps working class people? Denying Trump an endorsement doesnāt go far enough - OāBrien either shouldnātāve gone to the RNC, or shouldāve flipped the bird at everybody there. Donāt just leave an endorsement out of your speech - actually say āI wanna endorse you, but you fuckers are letting us downā. I could see that acknowledging their incompetence to their faces MAYBE moving the needle on the GOP, or at least, itād be a respectable attempt.
I get you feel like unions need bipartisan support to make a permanent, lasting difference. And yāknow what? I think I agree with you on that. But that doesnāt mean I agree that itās worth giving the modern GOP anything, so much as an RNC speech, now. They should work for it. BY ACTUALLY VOTING ON PRO-UNION POLICIES AND ACTIONS. Then, it makes sense to play both sides. Until then, let them know that theyāre not getting an ounce of support.
I reject your analogue. There have been no āpublic statements about private negotiationsā with the GOP. We donāt know the GOP toāve made ANY negotiations.
That was the hypothetical side of the analogue. Them announcing that they wonāt be endorsing is similar to a union announcing negotiations have failed and they going on strike - an action that materially damages their companyās income and is (in some ways) a violent means to escalating the issue. The union is definitionally an appendage of its parent company; them āleaving to work for a different companyā just doesnāt make sense, itād be like an arm cutting itself off at the shoulder.
I never said āunions shouldnāt target democrats at all with direct actionā, Iām saying actions that directly aid another party, where that other party is the modern GOP, are fucking stupid.
āNonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.ā
If any action that hurts a democratic campaign is outside the bounds of acceptable direct action to you, then this is precisely where our disagreement is. Electing not to endorse the democratic ticket is the lightest possible criticism one could possibly make.
You went on about issues that rust belt union members are having. But the Democrats donāt control the rust beltā¦the GOP does. And they are fucking over their own union constituents.
Look, I already told you I had no interest in having this debate with you. We are clearly not seeing eye to eye.
Rust belt unions are less concerned with expanding union protections than they are concerned with their industry going bankrupt. A coal mining union isnāt concerned with having better legal protection for going on strike, theyāre concerned that the entire coal industry is getting replaced elsewhere by renewables and wont have anyone to negotiate with.
I already said that the PRO act is an excellent bill, and that dems should be campaigning on it, but thatās simply not why theyāre losing union support in the rust belt. Millions of americans are afraid that theyāre going to loose their livelihoods to changing economic priorities, and democrats are allergic to taking any action that addresses that fundamental apprehension because theyāre terrified of being called socialist.
Why arenāt the teamstersā¦openly mad at the GOP? The party of people who, in your own words, would āaccuse [democrats] of being radical socialistsā for proposing action that helps working class people?
Because the democrats havenāt proposed anything that actually addresses their concerns, and theyāre frustrated that the things democrats have proposed are targeted in other places of the economy and callously ignores their material interests. Theyāre convinced that democrats will never solve their problems - but the GOP is promising to preserve their industries by passing tarrifs, removing environmental protections, stopping the growth of renewables and tech that threaten to put them out of businessā¦ And those are simple, believable solutions to their problems. You and I understand that those are problematic in a million different ways, but from their perspective everyone else seems to be fucking over everyone else to get their bag, so why not them? Democrats simply donāt have a response to that, especially when theyāre insistent on stopping short of breaking with neoliberal economic policy.
Iām exhausted by having this same conversion over-and-over again. Moderate democrats have this way of middling their way out of grasping the underlying issues voters are experiencing and instead try to bandaid over huge gaping wounds, then cry bloody murder when voters donāt act as grateful as they think they should. Liberals are never going to understand why theyāre losing support if they arenāt able to even conceptualize the concerns of the working class in small-town economies.
I reject your analogue. There have been no āpublic statements about private negotiationsā with the GOP. We donāt know the GOP toāve made ANY negotiations.
Donāt like my original analogue? Fine, replace āchoosing toā with āthreatening toā. The part youāre dancing around is the āmore exploitativeā part -the part where the side OāBrien is threatening to support isnāt a not-Dem-but-pro-union party, itās a not-Dem-but-anti-union party. And I suspect heās playing ball with them IN SPITE OF not having any appreciable consolidations made by republicans in favor of his union. Donāt bother suggesting āwe donāt know there werenāt consolidationsā, neither of us know. Though thereās plenty of indirect evidence that the modern GOP just doesnāt care - case in point, every party-line PRO Act vote in the past 5 years.
You make it sound like AOC is only frustrated with OāBrien for not endorsing Harris. From my very first comment in this thread: thatās not \all heās done*.
Your next 4 paragraphsā¦Iāll get back to those.
Then he should act like it and not help the leopards thatāll eat his face.
I wasnāt saying that was the disagreement, I was saying thereās some core disagreement we probably have, thatās probably flying under both our radars. And no, you havenāt magically identified what that is. I never said āunions shouldnāt target democrats at all with direct actionā, Iām saying actions that directly aid another party, where that other party is the modern GOP, are fucking stupid.
Back to those 4 paragraphsā¦finally, a little actual substance.
And you know what I have to say about it? I have to say that I actually feel even MORE strongly that OāBrien is a bad leader.
You went on about issues that rust belt union members are having. But the Democrats donāt control the rust beltā¦the GOP does. And they are fucking over their own union constituents. Trumpās last term saw him hire an anti-union Reagan-era lawyer to the NLRB, stacked the courts with anti-union judges, took various other anti-union actions, and neither him nor any Republicans proposed a single page of legislation. They didnāt even support the PRO Act, legislation that helps unions everywhere, rust belt included, and was introduced even before Dems took back the WH (meaning Democrats didnāt stand to look good if it got passed). And the GOP still voted heavily against it, and have done so ever since.
Biden might not be perfect in your eyes, but he immediately fired Trumpās NLRB appointee and the similarly minded deputy replacing them them with a pro-union labor lawyer who took on captive audience meetings, non-compete clauses, and consequential damages. And like I already said, it was DEMOCRATS whoāve been pushing for the PRO Act this whole timeā¦and yes, Harris has campaigned on signing the PRO Act, fyi.
Why arenāt the teamstersā¦openly mad at the GOP? The party of people who, in your own words, would āaccuse [democrats] of being radical socialistsā for proposing action that helps working class people? Denying Trump an endorsement doesnāt go far enough - OāBrien either shouldnātāve gone to the RNC, or shouldāve flipped the bird at everybody there. Donāt just leave an endorsement out of your speech - actually say āI wanna endorse you, but you fuckers are letting us downā. I could see that acknowledging their incompetence to their faces MAYBE moving the needle on the GOP, or at least, itād be a respectable attempt.
I get you feel like unions need bipartisan support to make a permanent, lasting difference. And yāknow what? I think I agree with you on that. But that doesnāt mean I agree that itās worth giving the modern GOP anything, so much as an RNC speech, now. They should work for it. BY ACTUALLY VOTING ON PRO-UNION POLICIES AND ACTIONS. Then, it makes sense to play both sides. Until then, let them know that theyāre not getting an ounce of support.
That was the hypothetical side of the analogue. Them announcing that they wonāt be endorsing is similar to a union announcing negotiations have failed and they going on strike - an action that materially damages their companyās income and is (in some ways) a violent means to escalating the issue. The union is definitionally an appendage of its parent company; them āleaving to work for a different companyā just doesnāt make sense, itād be like an arm cutting itself off at the shoulder.
āNonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.ā
If any action that hurts a democratic campaign is outside the bounds of acceptable direct action to you, then this is precisely where our disagreement is. Electing not to endorse the democratic ticket is the lightest possible criticism one could possibly make.
Look, I already told you I had no interest in having this debate with you. We are clearly not seeing eye to eye.
Rust belt unions are less concerned with expanding union protections than they are concerned with their industry going bankrupt. A coal mining union isnāt concerned with having better legal protection for going on strike, theyāre concerned that the entire coal industry is getting replaced elsewhere by renewables and wont have anyone to negotiate with.
I already said that the PRO act is an excellent bill, and that dems should be campaigning on it, but thatās simply not why theyāre losing union support in the rust belt. Millions of americans are afraid that theyāre going to loose their livelihoods to changing economic priorities, and democrats are allergic to taking any action that addresses that fundamental apprehension because theyāre terrified of being called socialist.
Because the democrats havenāt proposed anything that actually addresses their concerns, and theyāre frustrated that the things democrats have proposed are targeted in other places of the economy and callously ignores their material interests. Theyāre convinced that democrats will never solve their problems - but the GOP is promising to preserve their industries by passing tarrifs, removing environmental protections, stopping the growth of renewables and tech that threaten to put them out of businessā¦ And those are simple, believable solutions to their problems. You and I understand that those are problematic in a million different ways, but from their perspective everyone else seems to be fucking over everyone else to get their bag, so why not them? Democrats simply donāt have a response to that, especially when theyāre insistent on stopping short of breaking with neoliberal economic policy.
Iām exhausted by having this same conversion over-and-over again. Moderate democrats have this way of middling their way out of grasping the underlying issues voters are experiencing and instead try to bandaid over huge gaping wounds, then cry bloody murder when voters donāt act as grateful as they think they should. Liberals are never going to understand why theyāre losing support if they arenāt able to even conceptualize the concerns of the working class in small-town economies.