wordbending

The Elaine With Back Pain 🏳️‍⚧️

@wordbending

#1 Alphys Stan

I write fanfiction, and other things!

❤️ @authorx

log inask
wordbending
@wordbending
authorx
@authorx
melinoe
@melinoe
Sorry! This post has been deleted by its original author.
iznaut
@iznaut

something i think about a lot wrt imagination

on waypoint radio a few years ago @austin was talking about the kellogg’s factory in venezuela that workers seized bc the company abandoned it

and that conversation is generally great but specifically there’s a part where he’s talking about randos on twitter losing their minds, not out of concern for the livelihood of these ppl, but over the thought that they might be selling Corn Flakes without changing the branding.

“what about the rooster? isn’t that a trademark?? isn’t this illegal???”

austin says, i think a couple times:

you can’t even imagine a world.

and i’ve had that phrase, in austin’s voice with that specific inflection he puts on world, stuck in my brain ever since.

a few months after that episode aired i started transitioning and i told this story pretty much every time i came out to someone. it’s given me so much strength.

(also i was looking into this again recently and it sounds like “Socialist Kellogg” is still going strong, at least as of late 2021)

You must log in to comment.

in reply to @melinoe's post:

speedyjx
@speedyjx

The whole "it's US centric" "QA need it but maybe not us" lines are just... Missing the forest for the trees.

People are not immune to corporate bullshit because they're outside the US or in a different department. Everything could be better, and everyone should have someone at their back when things go wrong.

login to reply
NoelBWrites
@NoelBWrites

"making unions unnecessary" is such a perfect example of that lack of imagination...

Because they are not saying it in the sense of "let's do away with owners and have worker-owned companies" or something like that. They're saying "let's have the owners be nicer so we don't have to beg for basic dignity, safety, and compensation.

login to reply
ann-arcana
@ann-arcana

God, that "in Europe we don't need" remark gave me fucking flashbacks to living in Finland. So many ignorant motherfuckers who didn't realize the union was the whole reason there was all those protections. And guess what: while they weren't paying attention, the industry killed the goddamn unions, and they still haven't even realized they ain't got those rights anymore.

login to reply

in reply to @iznaut's post:

Dragaroths-hideaway
@Dragaroths-hideaway

I'm viewing this as a field of landmines but I'll say this.
Unions are a tool. Tools often are used for good, but can be bad.
The Old Unions, a lot of people point to, were a bunch of local guys together.
Unions Today, are massive conglomerates, near equal in scope to the things they 'fight'.
Many times, they become indistinguishable. i.e., non-union small time VAs being ousted from role after role because the union will not support someone not paying their dues, or a massive industry attempting a one size fits all approach, from the top down, that hurts a lot of groups that now are struggling to fit a hole not actually made with them in mind.

This is not undermining the positives the tool has, but pointing out, that responses that might see them as negative, might have experienced the negatives of that tool.

That's my only big "gentle hand raise" on this one. Not even trying to argue, just a, "thing to keep in mind, if you want."

login to reply
rime
@rime

this is a really common anti-labor talking point and I'm not sure what the takeaway is supposed to be, besides advocating passive acquiescence to the whims of capital

like, we know that there are corrupt democracies and there are functional democracies, but that doesn't mean the idea of democracy is fundamentally worse than autocracy, or that an autocratic society shouldn't move towards collectivism because of some far-off threat of corruption.

similarly, the existence of corrupt or ineffective unions does not mean that the demands of labor should not be a meaningful force in determining what companies can or can't do

login to reply