US Politics: A Game of Chicken (with Constituents lives)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, 1066 Larry said:

Seriously though, anyone who can't pay a living wage shouldn't be in business.  That goes for small business and giant corporations alike.  

Who is it easier to boycott or impact via an internet pile on a small business or a mega-conglomerate?  Who will have more impact upon the lives of the people around them?  The small business or the mega-conglomerate?

[Larry of the Lawn]

5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Who is it easier to boycott or impact via an internet pile on a small business or a mega-conglomerate?  Who will have more impact upon the lives of the people around them?  The small business or the mega-conglomerate?

Scot, where is this happening?  Who are these activists whose failure to meet Benthamiam standards irks you so?

[DireWolfSpirit]

One thing that is killing the labor exploiters is that today's youth can Google what various compensation is for endless jobs and are so much more keen to realizing they do not have to accept inadequate offers.

That information wasn't at the fingertips of previous generations to nearly any equivalent degree.

We have workers now who are clearly showing they are not going to accept less for their participation.

I think it's about time and support their stand unequivocally.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

20 minutes ago, 1066 Larry said:

Scot, where is this happening?  Who are these activists whose failure to meet Benthamiam standards irks you so?

An acquaintance who runs a really good burger place in my old home town (I at there when it was just he and his wife running the place) is suffering a pile on for asking for help on Facebook.  

It’s people going after the people least able to absorb costs.

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

An acquaintance who runs a really good burger place in my old home town (I at there when it was just he and his wife running the place) is suffering a pile on for asking for help on Facebook.  

It’s people going after the people least able to absorb costs.

The people least able to absorb costs are not the small businesses. It is the workers. 

[Martell Spy]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

An acquaintance who runs a really good burger place in my old home town (I at there when it was just he and his wife running the place) is suffering a pile on for asking for help on Facebook.  

It’s people going after the people least able to absorb costs.

That's not labor activists. That's a random Internet pile on. It's fairly common and the content doesn't even matter. 

[Kalbear]

Just now, Martell Spy said:

That's not labor activists. That's a random Internet pile on. It's fairly common and the content doesn't even matter. 

This is also true - the main problem there isn't the small business action or the people responding - its Facebook showing people this to drive engagement, because they view engagement as lots of posts on something. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

I grew up in a very small town. A township to a village actually so less than 5000 souls.

Everyone who ever stayed around for long (mostly commuters to the city, your classic bedroom community) saw so many small restaraunts, bars, pizza joints and even party stores just come and go. They'd open up have a 5 year run (if that) and then go under. I concluded very young in life that it was a high risk venture and vowed never to take such a gamble.

And make no mistake about it, any restaraunt is always an incredible roll of the dice, life's dream or no, it's high risk.

I've personally known at least a dozen people who've failed at launching either bars or restaraunts. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

16 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Scot - I don’t see it as the left dumping on small businesses; I see it rather as the left pointing out that the rapaciousness of the corporate class has forced any would-be small business owners to play the same game as the corporate world does, which means when the playing field starts to shift, the small business owners are the first ones out in the cold.

I’d also point out that that the term “small business” does LOT of heavy lifting this day and age. The company I quit before the pandemic started had 80+ employees and did about $50 million in revenue every year and it counts as a “small business” but no credible argument can be made that rising wages will be the primary contributing factor if that business were to fail.

This is one restaurant where the owner and his wife work every day.  They employed in their orginal location, maybe, 2 people.  Now they employ maybe 4 or 5 other people and had just moved from a tiny store front with 4 tables to a full sized resteraunt right before COVID hit.  They survived because they make really good burgers.

[Ormond]

57 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

An acquaintance who runs a really good burger place in my old home town (I at there when it was just he and his wife running the place) is suffering a pile on for asking for help on Facebook.  

It’s people going after the people least able to absorb costs.

Can you explain this a bit better? What sort of help is being asked for? What do you mean by a "pile on"? Whatever you mean by that, is it really hurting his business in any way? Its just unclear to me how what you've written above is related to the wages he pays at all until you add some more information here, or whether whatever's happening here is being caused by "activists". 

[sologdin]

What do you mean by a "pile on"?

maybe a boycott?  internet boycotts are not the type of market participation that capitalists prefer, as they involve cross-communication between participants rather than centralizing the flow of information from the capitalist through advertising propaganda. i assume that some cappies want to abolish internet boycotts as concerted refusals to deal under the sherman act.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Can you explain this a bit better? What sort of help is being asked for? What do you mean by a "pile on"? Whatever you mean by that, is it really hurting his business in any way? Its just unclear to me how what you've written above is related to the wages he pays at all until you add some more information here, or whether whatever's happening here is being caused by "activists". 

The owner of the Restaurant posted on the store’s Facebook page that he was looking for six people.  He said he wasn’t willing to talk money in the comments for the post.  Sortly afterwards he had people from all over calling him a miser and claiming he had to be an abusive employer people from as far away as Seattle which is a tad weird for a business with one location in Columbia SC.

I hope that clarifies.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, sologdin said:

What do you mean by a "pile on"?

maybe a boycott?  internet boycotts are not the type of market participation that capitalists prefer, as they involve cross-communication between participants rather than centralizing the flow of information from the capitalist through advertising propaganda. i assume that some cappies want to abolish internet boycotts as concerted refusals to deal under the sherman act.

To the best of my knowledge it isn’t a boycott.  Just a pile on.

[aceluby]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The owner of the Restaurant posted on the store’s Facebook page that he was looking for six people.  He said he wasn’t willing to talk money in the comments for the post.  Sortly afterwards he had people from all over calling him a miser and claiming he had to be an abusive employer people from as far away as Seattle which is a tad weird for a business with one location in Columbia SC.

I hope that clarifies.

Facebook sucks.  More news at 11.

Still not sure what this example is supposed to convey in relation to labor costs on small business.

[Ormond]

59 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The owner of the Restaurant posted on the store’s Facebook page that he was looking for six people.  He said he wasn’t willing to talk money in the comments for the post.  Sortly afterwards he had people from all over calling him a miser and claiming he had to be an abusive employer people from as far away as Seattle which is a tad weird for a business with one location in Columbia SC.thiI hope that clarifies.

I am sure that bothered him personally and I don't approve of it, but it hardly seems to be evidence that "activists" in general are doing anything to harm small businesses more than large businesses because of the wage issue. How do you know the person in Seattle is an "activist" anyway? Did you look at his or her own Facebook home page to see what sorts of things they generally post? Perhaps that person was just a general nasty troll? And, again, is do you have any evidence that this actually harmed his business instead of just giving him a bad emotional reaction?

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

Teachers are already at a HUGE shortage

Here in our city's schools they are throwing in admin staff to teach pre-K, special needs, math -- people who never even went through 'new math' as kids themselves and have NO IDEA -- and others, people who, as they explain in bewilderment, haven't gone through an education program, don't have a teaching certificate for ANYTHING, never expected to teach, and certainly zilch training in teaching anything to any variety of special needs students.  We CANNOT DO THIS, these people are saying -- and some of them too are quitting, especially when the parents start in on them for not treating their kid exactly right.

Yah, again de Blasio strikes. "O we have more than enough personnel to handle everything at all levels of teaching, and if we need to we'll draw on personnel from outside."  That's working out really well.

O well. He's too busy running for governor now, after failing to run for POTUS.  What a jerkwaddie.  I mean, really, not a single person has suggested he should run for governor, much less BE governor.  It's all a video game in his head, nobody else's.

As for the problem of Scott's friend in Columbia -- once again FB strikes and proves it is not only worthless but detrimental to business as much as it is to politics, health care nd mental well being. Why is anyone staying on it baffles me.

[DireWolfSpirit]

People do need to be boycotting Facebook. It's a force for more destruction than good imo.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

I am sure that bothered him personally and I don't approve of it, but it hardly seems to be evidence that "activists" in general are doing anything to harm small businesses more than large businesses because of the wage issue. How do you know the person in Seattle is an "activist" anyway? Did you look at his or her own Facebook home page to see what sorts of things they generally post? Perhaps that person was just a general nasty troll? And, again, is do you have any evidence that this actually harmed his business instead of just giving him a bad emotional reaction?

I did check out the guy from Seattle’s profile.  It did seem rather “activist” and it also seemed odd that someone from Seattle was taking an interest in a burger place in Columbia SC.

It is absolutely possible he was just a Troll. It simply bothered me to seek these people piling on someone I know was trying to keep their small business in operation.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Here in our city's schools they are throwing in admin staff to teach pre-K, special needs, math -- people who never even went through 'new math' as kids themselves and have NO IDEA -- and others, people who, as they explain in bewilderment, haven't gone through an education program, don't have a teaching certificate for ANYTHING, never expected to teach, and certainly zilch training in teaching anything to any variety of special needs students.  We CANNOT DO THIS, these people are saying -- and some of them too are quitting, especially when the parents start in on them for not treating their kid exactly right.

Yah, again de Blasio strikes. "O we have more than enough personnel to handle everything at all levels of teaching, and if we need to we'll draw on personnel from outside."  That's working out really well.

O well. He's too busy running for governor now, after failing to run for POTUS.  What a jerkwaddie.  I mean, really, not a single person has suggested he should run for governor, much less BE governor.  It's all a video game in his head, nobody else's.

As for the problem of Scott's friend in Columbia -- once again FB strikes and proves it is not only worthless but detrimental to business as much as it is to politics, health care nd mental well being. Why is anyone staying on it baffles me.

And he will probably misappropriate more city money while he does it.  Fortunately, I don't think he can lock down the governor's race by threading a narrow special interest needle in the same way he did for mayor.  Heck, would rather keep Kathy.  (Actually, for me, probably more meaningful to say I would prefer Tish James to DeBlasio, which I absolutely do).

 

[Martell Spy]

‘We’re going to make her life unpleasant’: Activists aren’t finished with Kyrsten Sinema
“We’re committed to birddogging Kyrsten Sinema with her constituents until the very end,” Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese said in an interview.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/13/kyrsten-sinema-activists-life-unpleasant-515936

Quote

 

Grassroots activists and union groups are preparing to launch a flurry of protests later on Wednesday against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz) — who they worry could single-handedly sink President Biden’s agenda.

“We’re committed to birddogging Kyrsten Sinema with her constituents until the very end,” Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese said in an interview. “What we want to show is that her constituents are very serious about wanting policies and activism and we're going to make her life unpleasant or uncomfortable until that happens.”

Our Revolution, the Bernie Sanders-inspired grassroots group, is joining Arizona union leaders, educators and other grassroots activists for a series of demonstrations outside of her Phoenix and Tucson offices over the next several days, according to a strategy outline first shared with POLITICO.

The planned demonstrations mark the next phase of an aggressive approach activists have taken to turn up the heat on Sinema, who has been a hold-out on the massive domestic spending plan that’s at the heart of Biden’s economic agenda.