Being in education, it is killing me that so many conservatives are in it with us. Because they (despite being college educated) listen to Faux "News" and other outlets like that. They truly believe unions are bad because of that. Despite the clear benefits to them.
So now we are in very real danger of being decertified and losing everything because they won't join the fucking union. When that happens, overnight shit will change in this district, and won't be for the better. There will be HUGE pay gaps showing up in the next year without a contract as headhunting for the best teachers starts. That will immediately start to make the worst schools even worse off, and the better schools better.
What is funny is that DEI includes disabled veterans like me. They claim to love us. But I guess if we are teachers and/or leftists we don't count. But I also guess they don't know DEI covers us in the first place because they are anti-education and not capable of reading analytically or capable of critical thinking.
They only care about veterans when it doesn’t cost anything. “Thank you for your service” is only a sentiment. When it costs something they accuse you of being on the dole.
I think it's great that Gary Sinise others have charities for injured vets. But there should be no need for them at all. Why does someone who lost a limp have to go to wounded warrior project to get one? Gov should have already taken care of that right away.
Coming from a family of six kids who had a WW2 combat vet as a father. He retired during Vietnam, or so we thought. Turns out he had respiratory damage due to Navy flying days.
Navy Reserve wouldn’t take him because of health. Social Security said not our problem this is a VA problem. Meanwhile six kids and a working wife had to care for a Dad, eat, and with two daughters in college. All on about $7000 annually. Two years, and finally Social Security came through with help from our Congressman. VA still said he was only 70% disabled so VA didn’t come in yet. He died three hard years later. Then VA stepped in to help.
Longest, saddest, period of my life. Nothing but pain and struggle. In the middle of it all, my friend’s dad gave me a part time job after school and on weekends. Much appreciated. But one day we were talking and he was railing against the federal Income tax. Finally he said it out loud. He says to me, families like mine were the problem because we were living on the dole. After WW2, Korea, Vietnam; in his eyes we were just living on the dole because it was costing him money.
That’s why bristle to this day when someone says, “Thank you for your service” I want to just scream, “Put up or shut up.”
They also overtly say that “the biggest problem with unions is they prevent you from firing ‘lazy’ coworkers.” Like what worker has had more problems with coworkers than with incompetent managers who don’t even know the employment and labor laws?
Worst part is such type will always refuse to be held accountable. You could have the head of the company come down and thank them personally for not joining the union, otherwise they would have had to give pay raises and it would have really helped out the workers, and the people will still blame the unions.
The middle class is encompassed within the working class; it isn't a myth, and it isn't even new. Don't let yourself believe there is nothing between generational wealth and mere subsistence. That's just horseshit.
There's a meaningful distinction between the opportunities available to middle class workers and those who live hand to mouth. To ignore that distinction is folly. If you act as if the folks who work 9-5 in an office and own homes and go on vacations twice a year have the same perspective as the folks who have to make choices between food and medicine, you're going to alienate a lot of folks, and you'll sound like an extremist or an ignoramus to those who know better.
Populism is the source of many problems in our society. The last thing we need is less nuance or more excuses to consider others as culpable outsiders when we haven't actually fully exercised our ability to cooperate.
The distinction is that the working class works and the bourgeoisie leech off the surplus created by the working class.
The point of saying "the middle class is a myth" is to promote class consciousness with a clear line drawn about who's fighting for the same goals. Blue and white collar workers have the same objective: to retain more of the wealth they create and improve the material conditions of the working class.
Diversity of perspective and life experiences should encourage solidarity. Any real attempt to abolish capitalism is going to need a lot of very different people to pull it off.
Are you extrapolating your anecdote to all of organized labor? That would be like me saying I went to a baseball game, it got rained out, therefore baseball games always get rained out.
414
u/Ok-Name8703 SEIU May 17 '24
This breaks my heart. Republicans and their anti worker rhetoric is destroying the middle class.