• chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    I’m kind of annoyed that the labor union sponsored strike last Friday which was two weeks in the making got almost no air, but was extremely successful. And now a student strike at the U of M with very little momentum with labor unions is getting national attention.

    I know that one is the cause of the other, but it sure makes it feel like this next strike is going to fall flat on its face and rob the whole tactic of its power. I really want to be wrong, and want nothing but for this to work, but you really need buy-in in order to shutdown businesses and get the actual impact you need.

    10% of labor striking across all industries will be impactful, but 10% of businesses closing due to a strike is outright devastating. And without labor union buy-in, I don’t think the latter is likely.

    • whosepoopisonmybuttocks@sh.itjust.works
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      13 hours ago

      The media are largely owned and controlled by the oligarchs. They no longer exist to serve the common person’s best interests. The examples that really cemented this reality in my mind are:

      -The way they coordinated against our boy Bernie in 2016. I recall a specific instance on live tv where they listed the leading DNC candidates. It said something like: #1, Hillary Clinton, #3 someone else, #4 someone else. And the announcer made some brief comment at the end, along the lines of, “oh and also some guy Bernie Sanders, some communist or something is in 2nd place. Anyway, here’s Eric with the weather!” -The way they coordinated to tell everyone that anybody who bought GameStop stock a few years ago was stupid and should absolutely sell. The wealthy had bought an illegal amount of short sale positions in GameStop and were losing tons of money to common people who had realized this.

      You might think that these two situations are unrelated. Maybe the DNC has its own interests and manipulated the media by its own mechanisms. Maybe the hedge funds and their wealthy investors had enough power and leverage to get help from their media friends. I assert that the rich and powerful people pulling the strings in these two scenarios are the same group of people and they have powerful influence over media, using it to shape popular perception to their benefit.