ProdigalFrog

joined 2 years ago
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[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

ePubs are generally a bit smaller than PDF's, and more critically, allow the text to reflow to fit the screen of any device, or to your personal preference (such as spacing, font size, ragged edge vs full justification, etc). It's the best open-source format for reading on a device, IMHO.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The best option is to form an effective grassroots resistance, as it's unlikely the system itself will be able to self-correct at this point.

What that actually looks like:

  1. Joining and organizing within your local community to create connections with others is incredibly powerful, and will lay the groundwork for effective resistance.
  2. We can effect things drastically with a general strike. This would massively impact their income streams, and can bring a fascist government to its knees if done on a large enough scale.
  3. Join the IWW and attempt to unionize your workplace, so that the general strike is even more effective (plus you'll get better pay and benefits!)
  4. Continuing to participate in publicly visible resistance demonstrations like 50501 to encourage others to also stand up and prove that there are hundreds of thousands of others who will join them in the fight. A large part of Nazi Germany's success in taking over the country was a lack of massive public demonstrations against the new regime, making people feel helpless and afraid to take a stand.

If we put in the work, we can resist this and we can win. Join up with allies while we still can easily! (As an aside, the Nazi regime had a much higher approval rate of 60 to 80% even towards to the end of the war, compared to only 40% for Trump currently, meaning we have dramatically higher chances of successfully resisting)

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I suppose it's ambiguous as to what exactly to do, since each situation and area could need a solution unique or catered to it, but I share your desire for a more concrete set of steps.

I've been tossing around some ideas in my head, and I suppose if I were to write out an action-plan, it'd be something like:

  1. Find enough like-minded individuals to pool resources into creating a worker owned cooperative (with all the planning and market viability that comes with).
  2. Convince your fellow worker owners to put aside a portion of the profits to be used to kick-start another cooperative that will eventually replaces a particular need that is currently being fulfilled by an outside private business. As an example; if your cooperative contracts with a shipping/trucking company to distribute your goods, use the money set aside to fund the creation of a worker owned shipping company, which can then ship your goods, or goods from any other worker coop at reduced rates in solidarity, while charging market rates to non-cooperative businesses. This would allow you to better compete against private corporations, as they would not have that ability without completely buying out and owning those other services (In a nutshell, do a spin of what Ford did by eventually creating and owning their entire production chain, but instead it's made up of mutually beneficial and cooperating worker owned cooperatives). I believe Mondragon has already successfully implemented this step, it just needs to be replicated worldwide.
  3. As part of a multi-pronged approach, also implore your fellow worker owners to set aside funds to help unionize the workers of competing private businesses (AFAIK, there's no laws against this, though please correct me if I'm wrong). This not only helps benefit the lives of those workers, it would (hopefully) make it easier to compete against those corporations, which may choose to raise prices to maintain their shareholder's profit margin.
  4. Continue steps 2 & 3 until revenue increases to the point where you can then seriously fund other useful activities, such as mutual aid organizations (ex. food not bombs, ferrer schools, etc), as well as fund the creation of co-ops completely unrelated to your industry, but will displace an existing exploitative private corporation.

Of course, the first step of actually getting a successful cooperative off the ground that can then focus on the next steps is likely the hardest part.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 months ago

Oh wow, quite superb.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I really like the premise, though if I might suggest, y'all might want to tweak that trailer so the intense movie trailer music doesn't stop abruptly towards the end.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

All I remember of that show was catching it on a VHS after I left it recording to grab squidbillies one night, and there was a scene of a shark trying to start a car for a really, really long time, which was pretty damn funny.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I'm mostly familiar with him from his series on why all marxist revolutions were dictatorships, where he's quite scathing towards Marxism and all of its offshoots, and instead points out how Anarchist thinkers predicted all those poor outcomes, and how superior their solutions and methods were.

Overall from what I've seen of him, his opinions remind me of Bookchin's more than anything (though I'm basing that on old interviews and the few things I've read of Bookchin's).

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 6 points 3 months ago

below are some resources to Unions from around the world who can help train you to become an organizer and form a grassroots union with your co-workers:

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 months ago

Genuinely one of the funniest things I've seen in a while.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I suppose a more accurate title would be Pine Cone Party Liqueur.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 8 points 3 months ago

below are some resources to Unions from around the world who can help train you to become an organizer and form a grassroots union with your co-workers:

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 15 points 3 months ago

A Mind Forever Voyaging, by Infocom.

It's an old text adventure from the 80's with a particularly cool and oddly relevant concept: You take the role of an AI that's been meticulously raised in a simulation to truly become a general intelligence. The reason this project was undertaken was to eventually send you, the AI, into other simulations based in the near future to test the outcomes of various political policies of the new republican government, record your interactions, and report back to the engineers who created you.

The game's designer said that he created the game in response to the despair he felt from Ronald Reagan being elected.

I haven't gotten super far in it, but it has an incredibly well written short story in the manual that details all the events leading up to the start of the game, and so far the game itself is unlike anything else I've ever played.

 

In their struggle to defeat German and Japanese espionage efforts, the Allied intelligence agencies of the KGB, CIA, MI6 and DGSE are all transformed into modern, global, espionage forces. But even as East and West work together to defat the Axis, they are fighting the first underground battles of a new Cold War against one another.

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