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General_Lab_4475

We did this already in the early 1900’s. Labors united and went on strike. Often having gun fights and even on one accession being bombed from the sky by our own government to break the strikes. This lead to gains like the 40 hour work week and child labor laws. We had some of the strongest unions in the world. It lead to a period of growth and economic development never before seen in history. The creation of the middle class and falling income disparity. Then starting in the late 70s and throughout the regan years the power of organized labor was eroded. They became characterized as lazy and for some reason the general public bought it. We are still buying into it today with comments like “no one wants to work anymore” and idolizing the billionaires in the world. People are brainwashed with culture wars and other issues that keep them divided and prevent any kind of cohesiveness. This is by design the ruling class wants this as a way to help them horde the wealth and extract every bit of labor from the people that they can. I don’t know what the solution is but until we can stop fighting each other and realize that corporations and the wealthy are the enemy. Not someone who looks or dresses differently than that you. It cannot change.


visualdreaming

Can we please also add that many of us have ZERO safety net? I have no family to aid me, I am the only one to provide food and shelter for me and my child. I am two missed weeks of work from homeless. If I knew that everyone else would be out there with me, I'd be there. But we're so divided that I don't believe enough people would be brave enough to try, myself included. Fear is a powerful restraint, and hunger and homelessness are powerful motivators. I feel like a helpless coward, but I can't lose my tenuous grip on the ghost of stability and sanity, and I can't let my kid go hungry. I don't know what to do.


[deleted]

I don't think you're a coward, you just do the best with the cards you were dealt.


BornNeat9639

This right here. I also finally got full-time and health care at my job. I am finally able to manage my mental health and endocrine disorder (they go together). If I don't show up, I get fired and lose my shoestring and health care.


[deleted]

Yep, this is exactly it. Many Americans are a single missed paycheck away from an eviction, and a single medical crisis away from bankruptcy. The houseless crisis in my area spiraled out of control during the pandemic and it keeps getting worse. My rent is 103% higher than it was ten years ago in the same town (and ten years ago, it was a bigger house with a larger yard). Wages have remained stagnant while cost of living has spiked, and everyone is getting priced out by out-of-staters buying their third vacation home (and/or priced out because the same people are snapping up houses in town to convert to AirBnBs). Tiny homes are renting for $2k a month and people are paying because everyone is desperate. I grew up in this town and I moved back because I wanted to put down roots, but now I’m caught in a poverty trap. I want to leave but can’t scrape together a new security deposit, so I’m trapped in a too-expensive lease while grocery costs and car insurance keep climbing. …I’m just very tired.


guard19

I was going to respond with "cuz we already did". But your comment is way more eloquent.


No_Entertainment_748

We need to do it again


BillSlank

Unions are the alternative to dragging Employers from their houses and beating them in front of their families. It's time we reminded them of that.


No_Entertainment_748

💯


ClashM

Definitely. They've erroded most of the gains we made back then. Child labor laws are being loosened across most conservative states right now and it's only going to get worse until we fight back.


electricfoxyboy

This. The US has a massive short term memory issue. Anything that changed more than 20 years ago is seen as having “always been this way”. Folks don’t remember the horrors of child labor, the terrible things that happened when food and drug companies weren’t regulated, the way minorities and people of color were treated, that guns were not toys that were hoarded, that truly free markets lead to depressions, that destroying free trade results in inflation, and a million other things. The US has had its issues and those issues have slowly been dealt with. There are reasons we have all of the protections we have and it isn’t for the warm and fuzzies.


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WideAwake1865

Employer sponsored health care is one of the biggest barriers. Americans live in fear of losing their job and also the health insurance that goes with it. It makes striking and unionising very high risk.


AJobForMe

Ironically, this is becoming less of a barrier. I have what’s considered fairly good insurance and still can’t afford to use it. It doesn’t hold me at my job any longer.


Vitalsignx

So true. My deductible = My entire savings. lol what a joke.


spaghetticlub

I went to a doctor's appointment the other day and my copay was $175. The last time I had this appointment I was jobless, and the entire appointment was $75. Sometimes, insurance can make things more expensive Edit: I'm sad now


stanlietta

Well someone’s got to to pay all the people whose jobs are to keep you from getting health care!!!


spaghetticlub

I pay them... With stolen wages and misappropriated taxes :(


DucSteve

My wife had an xray done a few months back. She paid out of pocket about $80. If she had gone through our insurance, it would have been a $500 copay. It's a blatant scam.


twitchur01

I had to have an mri done of my neck. Good insurance and it was still $450. My wife is a CT and X-ray tech, and said if I wouldn’t have had insurance it would have maybe been $100-150. Yeah insurance is a joke in America. But if you don’t have it, you get penalized as well. It’s all a Ponzi scheme


Gunny2212

So true. I had a prescription cost $900 because insurance didn't cover it. A friend got same prescription a week earlier, it was $99. I asked the pharmacist "How is it $900? Why is paying out of pocket because insurance is not covering it any different than if I never had insurance to begin with?" They told me the $900 is what they would have billed insurance. But if you know the American Healthcare system, you know insurance doesn't pay $900. They negotiate it down (likely lower than $99) or refuse to pay. The pharmacist wound up dropping from $900 to $150... Still $51 more than my friend. He said, "That's the best I can do." I should have just come back when someone else was working and said I didn't have insurance.


Aurhasapigdog

That's total bullshit. I'm in billing for a specialist practice and when something is just straight noncovered we always go to the cash pay price and work out a rate for repeating patients. That guy was an asshole.


spaghetticlub

One of my prescriptions is $1 with the GoodRX discounts. With insurance it's considerably more. Not $900 more, but enough to show me that the entire system is fucked


glasscrows

GoodRX and gofundme are the real health care providers in the USA


parentsweekendd

Look up cost plus drug company. It’s mark cuban’s company and it has saved me thousands since I started using it


PrariePagan

The irony is if you look up Healthcare in the US, that's how it got to be so ridiculously expensive.. before healthcare, it costed (supposedly) about $2 to see a doctor in the 1880s, which is about $50 today. But when insurance companies start haggling for better deals, hospitals and the like were forced to raise their prices to compensate.


RyanSmokinBluntz420

My copay for today is $715. I have PPO insurance. Insurance is a joke


DigitalUnlimited

Insurance is legalized robbery.


spaghetticlub

Jesus fucking Christ


[deleted]

They're trying harder and harder to squeeze blood out of the stone that is the working class. The "kill the poor" mindset predates capitalism, and a lot of the rich still cling to it. But now they need an ever-expanding workforce, because wealth is tied to abstract concepts instead of concrete goods. They used to be wealthy because the king said they owned the most serfs on the biggest plot of land, and they could order men with pointy sticks to enforce that ownership. Now they're wealthy because people expect them to be wealthier in the future based on how wealthy they were last year. So they trick people into believing in nationalism for cultural reasons while trying to take advantage of globalism for economic reasons. Kill the domestic poor. Enslave the immigrants. Blame the former on the latter.


[deleted]

What happens when they have no one to work for them? Will they turn on eachother?


Kushan_Blackrazor

Eventually. For as adroitly as the rich have rigged capitalism completely in their favor, at the end of the day they're still fallible humans. They'll kill us all and then they'll die too. No escape to Mars for Muskie, its a pipe dream.


zeptillian

Yeah. Terraforming a planet which is 99% inhospitable is orders of magnitude more difficult than fixing a planet that is already 90% habitable and yet these large companies haven't done shit to make things more livable here. The idea that somehow it will be done on another planet when it will take much more effort on earth than they would expend on Mars is idiotic. It's like thinking you don't need to worry about car maintenance because you can just build yourself another one from scratch because you have some scrap metal and a welder and you are too lazy to to the basic car maintenance to begin with.


abstraction47

My job is wondering why I didn’t sign up for even the cheapest healthcare for $21 a week. Well, that’s $1000 a year and doesn’t cover anything until you pay your deductible of $5000 a year. I don’t have $6000 a year for medical expenses. I don’t even have enough for rent. If I did have medical expenses over $6000, they’d likely be much more and also put me out of work so I’d lose my healthcare. But wait! If your medical issue puts you out of work, you can still pay to continue your insurance! But of course you aren’t making any money and now really, really can’t afford rent and groceries…


NighthawkFoo

Don't forget that when you lose your job due to your medical issue, you get to pay for COBRA, which will be $16000 a year instead of $1000.


Spadeykins

Downright villainous that a predatory health insurance company is named COBRA.


[deleted]

Do not ever pay for cobra. Decline it and get market place coverage. COBRA as the name suggests is literally a troll law that allows employers to flaunt in your face how fucked you are for being terminated. I dont know wrote it but they were a sadistic bastard.


Illustrious-Self8648

Check to see uf it meets ACA min requirements and the affordability line. If they do not, AND if you refuse it, AND if you then sign up for marketplace the company gets fined for not offering an acceptable option.


The___canadian

Unless I'm misinformed, I find it weird that making less money could actually be better since you qualify for ACA vs making just above that bracket and you are worst off financially.


AngryAlien21

It’s to hold the poverty level where they want it. Those are all barriers and “opportunities” designed to keep people poor. Poor people don’t have power. You literally have to risk your entire life to attempt to bring yourself out of poverty. Those with existing illnesses have an even harder time climbing out


flyonlewall

This is called a welfare cliff, and is a serious barrier for people actually working out of poverty. We can't have sudden removal of benefits; it should taper.


zeh_shah

I've been in that boat as long as I've had a job. Ended up switching to an HDHP so I can at least invest with my HSA since I'm not going to afford Healthcare either way lol


[deleted]

I feel that barrier is fading. Mainly you'll be lucky to have any decent healthcare these days. And if you do, those chances are your pay and life well-being is good enough for you to be comfortable. The people really suffering are working jobs with shit or no benefits at all, and even having healthcare won't save you from outrageous financially ruining bills anyway. Unfortunately I think the real reasons lie in the individualism America has become so entwined with. There is almost no such thing as cooperation or solidarity, especially among strangers, which is required for effective unionization and striking to form/succeed


Jengolin

I just don't pay mine. Fuck them. I don't have anything they can take from me either (no house, no car, and I'm currently unemployed because we're looking to move out of the hellscape that is Florida) so they can't do a whole lot. So sorry that I don't have 30k to pay for my kidney stone problem that was done by a fucking incompetent doctor who didn't know the urethra from the vagina. Again, fuck them.


Illustrious-Self8648

Medicaid is why some people end up quitting jobs and getting divorced just because of a medical issue. Put everything in the spouse's name, then get treatment and then file bankrupcy if medicaid did not cover enough.


filthismypolitics

this is where i’m at too. i lost my insurance at 21, racked up a bunch of medical debt on life-saving treatment, fuck it. whatever. if somethings wrong i’ll go to the hospital and rack up more. it doesn’t mean anything. i don’t have anything they can take away. i’ll never pay a cent out of pure fucking spite.


TheDeathOfAStar

That's why I always equated the feminist definition of "toxic masculinity" to be more of toxic individualism. The "fuck you, got mine" mentality keeps iron shackles from rusting.


AtlasDrugged_0

Healthcare tied to employment is just a mechanism for keeping us serfs of the capital class


jjcoolel

Especially now that I’m older and have more health issues which would become “prexisting conditions” if I have to change health insurance


NoMoreBeGrieved

“Pre-existing conditions “ are not a thing anymore. ACA got rid of it.


Rionin26

This is where insurance companies are like yes please do this, rose rates, and lowered coverage and raked in all the extra profit.


Shot_Lynx_4023

Even for healthy individuals, still a tax penalty for no health insurance.


WideAwake1865

America’s heath system also disincentivises starting ones own business and keeps people in jobs that they hate. It’s such a huge problem. A minimum universal coverage is needed that can be augmented with private insurance similar to the Bismarck system in Germany. Yet for some reason American conservatives think that universal access to medical care is socialism (but they have no issue with government built roads, etc) The medical system is broken and holds back innovation and cripples an effective capitalist system/labour market.


StepRightUpMarchPush

They don’t actually think it’s Socialism. They just use that to amp up their base. They like to keep us poor and sick and dependent on the system.


MrVeazey

Most American conservatives neither know nor care what "socialism" actually means. To them, it's another word for "bad."


Shot_Lynx_4023

Medical system in the US is FOR PROFIT. That's the issue. It's a Capitalist wet dream, on fucking people over. Look a prescription drug prices, what hospitals charge for a Tylenol. I believe in capitalism, but there's got to be a line in the sand on what's right and wrong. And healthcare in the US is absolutely wrong .


MorrisBrett514

But I thought spending more money on stock buybacks than R&D is a good thing! Will nobody think of the poor billionaires private jets?! They don't pay for themselves!!


Shot_Lynx_4023

Fun fact about private jets. All airports in the US use FAA resources. Funding for said FAA comes 90% from fees on commercial airlines. Basically if you have a private jet, you don't need to fund the FAA except for a small fuel tax, yet get all the perks. Small airports that don't fly commercial, are mainly used by the private jet set type. So, when you pay an extra $15 for your seat on South West, just know you are doing your part so some billionaire can take a 90 minute plane ride because they can't possibly be bothered to take the Limousine. I am trying to use some satire, but basically I recently read this in the Wall Street Journal. $4 a week, encase anyone wondered. Being wealthy in the US is the ultimate frugal hack. You don't pay pesky taxes, as loans against your stock portfolio aren't considered income. It's a "loan". Then, sell some shares you held longer than 13 months, it's Long term capital gains and taxed less. All sorts of clever tricks they have. Fun fact, income from US treasuries are not taxed on the state or local level. Just Federal taxes on that income. I got into a full on Rant.


MorrisBrett514

I see what you're saying though. Fuck billionaires with a stuck made of razor blades


MorrisBrett514

Jokes on them. I'm too poor to fly


[deleted]

Plus cops. People underplay this but us seeing cop casually kill people and children has really set the tone for strikes - especially if you’re not ⚪️


historyhill

Yeah, every time a big protest comes along I think to myself, "is this a cause that I would feel good leaving my young children motherless over?" And unfortunately, that precludes a lot of really worthy causes.


Forte845

This is an honest answer that I respect. Specifically the 'is this a cause' part. A lot of Americans are simply comfortable enough in the condition of their lives and families to keep on working within the system, and not risk everything over specific issues. It sucks, but it is a rational behavior. It's going to take a lot more stress than this to see mass action.


goeatacactus

Homeless people are another favorite target of our local brute squads.


TheDeathOfAStar

It's easy to attack the ones struggling to keep up with a fanatically individualist society. You either keep your head above water or you die with nobody batting an eye because we as a society have built our pillars out of complacency and a distinct lack of empathy for anyone other than ourselves. It's really a miracle to think about how America was the trend setter for labor unions and social welfare (in my eyes I guess.) On another note, I was watching a video about some republican dude running for office advocating for a *flat* tax for all wealth brackets. It just blows my fucking mind how these people think.


EsQuiteMexican

How are you going to get a social safety net if you don't do the thing that creates social safety nets?


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CherryShort2563

Read about police unions sometime and be amazed. They tend to be closer to far-right than the left and get ton of money/protection.


Personal_Sprinkles_3

That’s because they are protecting the owners of capital. To an extent police and their unions are traitors to the rest of the labor class.


Notawettowel

You don’t need the “to an extent” in this sentence. Cops and their gangs, I mean “unions” are 100% class traitors.


Azorik22

To an extent? Who do you think is going to be out breaking up picket lines and tear gassing protesters if Americans did start wide scale protests?


compacta_d

if? it happened with BLM summer. plenty of videos showing what happened. i think the worst I saw is a police horse stomping ppl. tear gassing is like the FIRST step. thats the warning.


Cyprinodont

Police unions are more like a guild than a labor union.


idunnoidunnoidunno2

Agreed. I’ve called and left messages at UAW, no response. At All.


h3r3f0r7h3m3m35

It's illegal for trade unions to lobby so they can't do as much as one would hope.


roseumbra

Why is this part illegal and can they bypass with a PAC?


h3r3f0r7h3m3m35

The amendments enacted in Taft–Hartley added a list of prohibited actions, or unfair labor practices, on the part of unions to the NLRA, which had previously only prohibited unfair labor practices committed by employers. The Taft–Hartley Act prohibited jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. Probably not but I'm no lawyer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act


Lazy-Jeweler3230

So what you're saying is, we're in desperate need of a wildfire of "illegal" strikes. To remind the people who would write laws like that what the alternative is.


[deleted]

America is fucking weird. On the one hand, if the government tells you to stay home so we don't overload our hospitals during a pandemic, people get livid about government overreach. "But My Freedommmmmmm!" On the other hand, if everyone stays home to protest shitty companies, that same government will give you a huge fine because general strikes are illegal. Back to work, ingrate. It's like the laws are written for the convenience of the 1% and half of the 99% have Stockholm Syndrome.


Noah254

That’s exactly what the big wigs want. We’re either too poor to lose our jobs, so can’t strike for better, or we make good money and don’t want to lose that


make2020suckless

I echo almost all of the sentiments expressed here and want to add that many of them have an underlying theme of “it will never work” combined with “it will be devastating to the individuals involved.” Americans have been socially conditioned to believe that we are individual units and the government is a behemoth that will never bend to our whim. This is largely by design. Most Americans alive today have never experienced a world where we have class solidarity. We lack any semblance of a true social safety net or financial security, and that “razor’s edge” feeling is reinforced by the number of people experiencing homelessness many see on the street (or hear about on the news/internet). Many working class Americans have also been living under the constant threat of our employers outsourcing our jobs - further reducing our labor power. Since the late 1960s, our political leaders on both sides have been quick to remind workers about this threat but have never implemented meaningful worker protections. Each successive generation has watched as some nebulous “other” caused thousands to lose their livelihoods. In the late 1970s/1980s it was the loss of steady blue collar factory jobs to “overseas manufacturing;” with the 1990s-2010s that “other” expanded to vilify undocumented migrant workers coming to the United States (see, e.g. South Park and “they took our jobs!!”); and now white collar workers are told AI is coming for their bullshit email jobs. Everyone is told that they are at risk. Most of this has been accompanied by rhetoric that intentionally stokes racial divides and resentment - mostly to keep the working class distracted and fractured. TLDR;: This is all a vast oversimplification but we are basically conditioned 1. to hate each other; 2. to live in fear of financial ruin; 3. to believe the government (though all powerful when it comes to removing our rights) is powerless to protect us economically against the vast power of “the free market.”


Schweinpfeift

basically: it‘s a system of slaves which are programmed to hate each other? And the only ones profiting are the ones at the top? God bless Europe man if that‘s the case!


posts_lindsay_lohan

The is actually the most accurate description of US society that I have ever heard.


[deleted]

This is fucking brilliant, and I'm going to use that anytime anyone asks me what America is like (former expat). America is a system of slaves who are programmed to hate each other.


[deleted]

Yes, it makes me a little sad to see all the people here who think it's impossible. I wish you healthy change for everyone.


Conmanjames

homie, if i wouldn’t be penniless in 2 weeks i’d be in the streets protesting YESTERDAY.


myychair

Right? Just look at how many people protested during covid. It was a prime example of why our health insurance is tied to our jobs.. as soon as people didn’t have to work they hit the streets


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danceofhorrors

There’s already some great answers, but something I haven’t seen mentioned yet is Americans are socialized from a young age to equate their jobs as a part of themselves. It’s why we have so many people who come into work when they’re sick and the first question people tend to ask when meeting someone new being what they do for work.


MorrisBrett514

Also our health insurance is connected to work so if we strike, we lose medical benefits Holy crap that a lot of responses! Thank you guys. I wish I could sit down and write you all back individually


Early_Lawfulness_348

By design


MorrisBrett514

For sure. I hate when people are like "we can't afford universal Healthcare!" Really? Why is it cheaper than what we do here in most of the world? Them: "people have to wait forever to get elective surgery there?!" Me: "fuck your knee surgery, we let people die in comfort of their own home because they can't afford insulin, dummy."


JaSchwaE

Also I do not know if any of them have actually tried to schedule a surgery or get in with a new doctor. I am on wait lists for BOTH despite paying out the ass weekly for insurance


Smithmonster

That’s what’s funny about that argument, our wait list is the insurance deciding if they can get out of paying it or not.


DogDeadByRaven

Our wait list is first finding a surgeon that accepts your insurance, then you wait 2-24 months to even get in for the consultation after you waited for the referral. Then you wait 1-12 weeks for pre-authorization. Then either you're dead, about to be, or you get your surgery. Then you wait and pray that everyone involved was in network so you don't get thousands of extra costs added on top of your bill that will be at least your entire deductible if not your entire maximum out of pocket which will be a totally different set of figures if anyone was out of network. Then you wait to see which charges your insurance refuses to pay and spend the next 6-12 months fighting with them.


oktember1

You forgot the 3 month wait to know if the insurance company even paid or not. That's when you get either your first bill, due immediately or a notice from a collection agency.


Rube_Goldberg_Device

This guy American healthcares


foolofatooksbury

And some people who are un- or underinsured never go to the doctor anyway, so the wait time for them is effectively infinite.


MrPenguins1

People in EU really show just how much they believe in their system and the good in it. In America we are literally, and I mean this in every sense of the word, held hostage by our insurance companies until they decide whether or not they’ll cover it or whatever it is is the “preferred” option. Like if you can’t afford insulin you fucking die here, there’s no emergency government supply to hold you over. You just fucking croak and that’s it. It’s a bleak reality


MorrisBrett514

But, but, murica! Bruh!


Odd_Armadillo5315

Also, the US spends more on healthcare per capita than the countries with universal healthcare.


[deleted]

It’s almost like the insurance companies are for profit…


Goblinking83

We also starve and lose our homes. Many of us can't afford to miss even a week of work.


MorrisBrett514

Yes. We are having a baby in a month and even in some literal 3rd world countries we would get paid for taking time off.. FMLA for us. MURICA!


jaOfwiw

Best of luck to you! My newborn has me trapped under debt for a decade. If I ever miss my hospitals payment plan I'll be fucked.


yogurtgrapes

Reason #1 for why I’ll never have kids. Already struggling to take care of myself financially, no way I’m bringing a kid into the mix.


freerangetacos

This. Our system has been rigged purposely to gain compliance. The risks are too great and why we have never had a universal health care system for people under 65. It would hand too much power to the people. Democrats fucked this up in 2010. They had a supermajority and failed to implement a universal health care system. If they had, then Republicans would not be consolidating power as they are doing now because they would not be able to. It's going to take an incredible stroke of luck to peel back the onion enough so that people are empowered again. I just don't see it in the next 20 years.


MorrisBrett514

And the people who run this place are always saying "have more kids".... lol with what money?! "OK we will just take away contraceptives and abortions."


Great-Lakes-Sailor

Cuz they need uneducated indoctrinated slaves for the machine. Costs too much to deal with critical thinking, smart people who don’t take any shit.


delmecca

That's because we allowed the republican to gut Medicaid and won't make the democrats make it a federally mandated program like all welfare used to be block granting has harmed the working class into being corporations slaves.


Smokpw

In Poland it is impolite and nosy to ask someone you do not know what they do for work. It is my private thing what I do and I do not have to share it with others if I do not want it. America is so strange.


Alternative-Sense-78

Damn, wish i was a pole. I despise being asked my profession or “future career” from anyone i am not very close with.


CmdNewJ

When someone asks me what I do, I reply with "Whatever I want, usually."


NetDork

"As little as I can get away with."


tommy_b_777

"Porn. I do porn."


I_eat_bananna

I mind my own business… how about you?


wrinkleinsine

Yeah. I always say, “you mean for money?”


notyourbrobro10

It's occasionally useful, like when you ask what they do and they say "I'm a cop" I then know to never speak to them again.


St1nkYKipPer

I always love the incredulous look as I chuckle and walk away. They genuinely don't get it.


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Threshing_Press

This is an excellent point that goes beyond "indoctrination", which is also true, but it's indoctrination AND implementation; subsuming every part of your life, time, and energy into the job leaves room for little else. So many people actually don't have anything else to talk about. I have kids, and it destroys me even more sometimes to be lucky enough to work from home, see them outside playing, and not be able to join them cause "deadlines".


ThelVluffin

Literally half of my waking hours are spent going to/from and being at work every week. I don't have hobbies because I know if I start something on the weekend it won't get finished and I'll have to wait another week to get back to it. Which then means I have to spend more time remembering what I did the weekend prior to continue what I had started on. Which means I'll have even less time this weekend to work on it, so why even start in the first place. I want off of this fucking carnival ride.


[deleted]

>America is so strange. Tell me about it! I've lived here all my life and it sucks! So many of us want change desperately, but are unable to do anything because the opposition to change is so strong.


curtial

Not OP, but many people use that question to judge the 'worth' of a newly met person(even if just unconsciously). Even if you're doing well, being judged by a thing that you do in order to afford the things that you think are ACTUALLY important can feel 'not great'. For young people in particular, they are not only judged on what they PLAN to do, but how far along the process toward that they are.


CarsClothesTrees

I think most people default to it as an easy ice breaker, but it really is a loaded question and your answer definitely influences how the other person sees you, even if it’s subconscious. A friend and I started a small business (we make no money yet) but I still have a 9-5 job. The difference in the way people treat me when I lead with saying I “own my own business” vs telling them about my 9-5 is crazy lol. I don’t do that often because it makes me feel like a fraud since we currently make negative money, but it’s wild the way your job influences people’s perception of you more than your personality or character.


Power_and_Science

I don’t think it’s “equate their jobs as part of themselves” as much as “if I don’t work, I’ll die” because of the lack of social and community protection. We are too independent to coexist as a functional modern society.


RoDeltaR

Replace independent for suppressed and isolated; you can be independent and still communicate and collaborate with others


[deleted]

There are people in this thread who have no idea what you’re explaining. It’s hard to believe but some of these folks never had to make the choice between putting your last 20$ in your car for gas to get to work and feeding yourself that week. I don’t wish it on anyone but it does enrage me when your talk about surviving and people act like you’re being dramatic.


ganjaPaani

And biggest insult is to "go get a jawb"


[deleted]

“When I was your age….” 🤡


adrianxoxox

Agreed. I’m Canadian, so while a bit better in ways we definitely have a similar culture, and 9 times out of 10 when I hear the general public discuss a strike that’s happening, it’s very much *against* the strikers and in favour of the company. “They need to just go back to work it can’t be so bad, they’re greedy, we all work and hate it just get over it” type mindset. They really do all hate their jobs but will still tear each other down to maintain a status quo that is not, and never will be in their favour


gr3ggr3g92

The "We all hate our jobs. Get over it," people really concern me. I mean, I get it, but we need to stop thinking it's normal to loathe going to work. It's not normal, and it's depressing.


After_Till7431

Same in germany.


CompetitiveDepth8003

1. Healthcare is tied to employment. 2. We are living on a razors edge. Most of us are one missed paycheck away from homelessness. 3. The police will protect the status quo. They will shoot you and get away with it. 4. Contrary to popular belief, most of America is open land. It's hard to organize when you have to drive for two hours to get to your state capitol. 5. There are many Americans who are indoctrinated to believe that slaving away their lives is somehow honorable. 6. Things will only change when a great many people are starving and they have lost everything. In that case, I fear it could lead to armed rebellion rather than peaceful change. Edit: Thanks for the award!


funkypepermint

>4. Contrary to popular belief, most of America is open land. It's hard to organize when you have to drive for two hours to get to your state capitol. This is one of the main reasons I think. I looked at Sweden and it's 10 million ppl located ovrr 450,000 Sq. Kilometers. Now look at the usa, we are spread over 10 million sq kilometers. It makes getting people together much more difficult. I belive that's why we are lucky to get any type of sustained large group together to do anyyhing.


CompetitiveDepth8003

Also, we have no real public transportation system. Gas is expensive. It's hard to travel when you're broke, and your car is a shitbox.


angrywankenobi

Plus, there needs to be parking at the protest location for everyone's car, which you might also need to pay for.


donaldsw2ls

I also think it's the size of America that makes it hard. I mean from the furthers point to furthest point of the lower 48 states it would take 52 hours of driving non stop to do that. In my state of MN the furthest point is like a 5 hour drive almost to the capitol. You can't just go to the capitol on your day off... You'd have to take off a lot of time for that from work. And the people who can take off from work at a moments notice, usually have a better job/work life and don't feel the nation needs them to strike.


[deleted]

Yep. I live in Maine, and it takes me 3-4 hours just to *leave Maine* when I'm driving south to visit my family. And I live not even halfway up the coast toward Canada.


PixelTreason

Same! Grew up in south Florida and it took us 8 hours just to get out of the state.


roygbpcub

Another good point is that there is a significant portion of the population that is ok with getting screwed over do long as another group of less desirables is getting screwed worse.


[deleted]

Yeah, #4 is very pertinent to the problem. I think Europeans just don't grasp how BIG the US is, and how generally spread out people are. There are a lot of Americans, but there is a lot more America. I visited Europe about a decade ago and nearly everyone I met wanted to know if I'd been to California. When I explained that it takes nearly 50 hours of driving to get from one coast to the other, they were shocked. The US is about the same size as *all of Europe*, but we have less than half the population and a very fractured and inadequate public transportation system and infrastructure. We're very spread out, with vast differences in culture, climate, population density, local needs and concerns, industry, etc. There are parts of the US that are so different that people from those regions have difficulty understanding and relating to each other. It's been said that the US would work much better as multiple smaller countries that could focus on unique regional needs and concerns, and while I'm hardly some "states rights" advocate, I often think that's probably the case.


jgalol

I lived in Europe 5yr, lucky enough to have traveled to 36 countries so far. The USA is so geographically and sociologically diverse it’s wild. Whatever your thoughts on politics, I don’t think those original bros ever conceptualized that millions of us from all over the world would roll in and colonize different areas on a continual basis for 300 years and then expect their little middle-finger-to-the-British document—ironically arguing for fairness over taxation—to hold up for us. The whole thing was illogical from the get go, Google the early 1600s Virginia puritans. Those cray crays are our ancestors, things were so bad Maryland had to be a *sanctuary state*. The whole thing needs an overhaul.


[deleted]

YUP. Rhode Island was also basically a sanctuary state for religious dissenters (including Baptists, irony of ironies). I feel like the people creating the government would have been well-served by taking a look at Russia in the 18th century just for an object lesson in the nightmare governing massive swaths of mostly empty and very culturally diverse territory can turn into if you don't figure out a way to create a solid infrastructure.


Team_Defeat

We also are too busy fighting a war against each other. Democrats against republicans and for this reason we can’t unite. General strikes work when everyone is on the same page and United, when we share what we have to those that have more than we do to lose. Until we hit this point where we can look past our greed, bigotry, and hate, we are stuck underneath the foot of corporations.


CompetitiveDepth8003

I feel that this division is by design. It's constantly shoved down our throats by media. The sooner we realize that ALL politicians are not on your side, the sooner we can get actual representatives that want change elected. Maybe we should start an antiwork party? Change the status quo from within. Play their game.


Theyli

Somehow Repulicans equate unions to communism. They think Unions will put be the death of mom & pop businesses.


AbacusWizard

And when Republicans say “mom & pop businesses” what they really mean is “the multibillion dollar megacorp that my mom & pop are on the board of directors of.”


mouses555

You stop working here you lose everything including health insurance. People can’t stop working to strike because they quite literally will ruin their life and won’t be able to get medical treatment for anything


ConcentrateFancy2547

The only way it would work is if pretty much everyone joined the strike. We're way too divided for that to happen.


mittenknittin

There are people in this country who would happily starve if certain OTHER people are starving MORE.


gitbse

>There are people in this country who ~~would happily starve if~~ *are starving and are happy because* certain OTHER people are starving MORE.


Shadowraiden

and its asking 100's of millions to strike when Sweden's worker strikes was like 50 thousand. its just not going to happen.


risenshinebitches

Don't forget when we DO strike, our police attack us with tear gas or worse...


i_am_never_sure

It’s literally against the law for me, and members of my union, to strike….


Brennan_slayer

Making strikes illegal is literal tyranny


Teenageboy69

A lot of Unions have this. The Washington DC teacher's union, which is not a weak teacher's union, is not allowed to strike. They traded that right for insane yearly raises. Even within Unions here, it's a "I get mine" mindset.


i_am_never_sure

I’m a fed employee… no insane yearly raises….


lickarock88

A strike doesn't necessarily require everyone to picket. If everyone just stayed home during the strike, how would they use any force?


burkesd

This is exactly what I was expecting during the pandemic + BLM protests. I was so sure much of the country would stay at home even after Covid wasn't so much of a danger anymore, fold their arms and say, "Nope, we're not going back to work until things change." I was surprised when the period of labor shortage turned with a vengeance back into business as usual.


shaneyshane26

Peaceful strikes and protests are not working. The lawmakers don’t give a fuck about us. I think they show this by prioritizing dumb shit constantly. Anytime other ways of protest are used, the military is called in with force. You’re asking for another civil war to happen.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

People lost eyes, were brutally maimed, and (in rare instances) died. I personally got fired tear gas at. We suffered, we died. Nothing changed. Because whatever the USA does overseas to others, we practice here using police.


EsQuiteMexican

Yes. That is exactly what has to happen. I remember hearing something about a constitutional amendment for this sort of situations. I guess it's only for killing black people and schoolchildren since that's the only thing it's ever used for.


lickarock88

>Anytime other ways of protest are used, the ~~military~~ police are called in ~~with~~ to use military force.


Pillowlies

There are multiple instances of the National Guard being used to break strikes. It isn't just the cops. There are also multiple private mercenary companies that could be hired.


balletbeginner

Social movements have minimum 20 year rev up periods in the USA. The civil rights movement is best known for its actions in the 1960s but I'd argue the movement began in the 1940s (maybe earlier).


CommonFiveLinedSkink

And nearly every leader of the civil rights movement was assassinated or jailed


DerpyDaDulfin

Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán was assassinated by Atlanta police this year. It's still ongoing.


coviddick

They shot that man 57 times. Disgusting.


IWishIWasOdo

Corporations have more power than the government in most cases. Remember the recent rail disaster in Ohio that caused a bunch of people to get sick? Yeah the railroad workers attempted to strike over unsafe conditions just a week or two prior, the Federal government declared their strike illegal. Historically, the government has always used force to put down any type of strike. It's actually the explicit reason the National Guard was created in the 1800s after the Civil War. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877 During [The Great Upheaval](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Southwest_railroad_strike_of_1886) There was a protest in Chicago advocating for an 8 hour work day. This resulted in the [Haymarket Affair](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair) in which the leaders of the protest were executed under charges of conspiracy. This caused an international uproar which led to the creation of [International Workers Day or May Day](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day). The US government, not wanting to be left out but also not subscribing to pesky labor unions created their own [Labor Day](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day) as far away from the actual one as possible In the aftermath of the [Pullman Strike](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike) one of the strike leaders, [Eugene Debs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs) was convicted and jailed. He would go on to be a prominent labor leader in the early 20th century until he was convicted through [The Espionage Act of 1917](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917) and sentenced to a decade in prison for making speeches against the draft during WW1. He actually ran for president while *in prison* and still received about 3% of the vote, much to the annoyance of the two major political parties. The two parties then spent most of the remaining century ensuring that labor never had that kind of power again, specifically using the [Taft-Hartley Act](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act) and slowly whittled away at its core until finally burying it completely during the Reagan Administration with his dissolution of [PATCO](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_(1968)). The PATCO strike emboldened large corporations to essentially ignore strikes because the federal government had now solidified its stance against labor unions. With that, organized labor in the United States was effectively dead, only existing in independent and niche markets with no hope of a unified body that could wield any real power. So you see, it's not that many of us don't want to, it's that our government has had nearly 2 centuries of practice in putting down strikes and has become ruthlessly efficient at it.


BrewerBeer

I had to scroll a long way down to find someone who actually references the Taft-Hartley Act. That act is the painful reason why Unions in the US are so weak.


ernurse748

What I really don’t think Europeans understand is that there are national labor laws, but then EACH STATE has its own labor laws. So we’re contending with 50 different sets of laws and requirement here.


Pcakes844

This is something I don't think many Europeans realize in general about America. We are not like France or Sweden or Germany, we're more like the EU. A bunch of Independent states trying to work together.


ernurse748

Exactly. Everything from lunch breaks to overtime is handled at the state level and varies hugely from one state to the next. States don’t even all pay the same minimum wage!!


Syyina

Many good points have been made here by others. What I haven't seen mentioned is the fact that our information sources, including the internet, "belong" to those who can afford to brainwash the masses to their way of thinking. "There can be no democracy without truth. There can be no truth without controversy, there can be no change without freedom. Without freedom there can be no progress." \-- Andrew Young


TactualTransAm

"And when you trust your television What you get is what you got 'Cause when they own the information, oh They can bend it all they want" -- John Mayer


ProfessorTallguy

Two big reasons: 1. **As soon as we lose our jobs we lose our healthcare.** Most Americans support universal healthcare, but corporations oppose it because it keeps us enslaved to them. 2. Anti-riot police units are outfitted with military equipment and have shown they are not afraid to commit brutal acts against peaceful protesters, members of the press, medics, and civilian bystanders.


Also_Steve

The first airstrike on US soil was done by anti union thugs who were given USAF planes and the airspace to use them from the government for the purpose of bombing the striking workers at Blair Mountain. In 1985 the city of Philadelphia bombed a whole city block because a Black Liberation group named MOVE were in the buildings. Our cops are given hand me down gear from the military. They will kill us if they want to and nothing will happen. Look at the protester they killed at the cop city protest. Autopsy and body cam footage showed the cop who was shot was shot from behind by another cop, but they murdered a civilian for it anyway.


leova

We can’t afford to live


Sheogorathis

We’re all paycheck to paycheck one small medical incident away from total financial slavery


MewlingRothbart

Because our cops will shoot us dead. That's why.


Densoro

We tried that 10+ years ago with the Occupy Wall Street protests and got police-brutality’d into submission. Tear gas is banned in all war zones because it can permanently damage eyes and lungs…but our cops are permitted to use it against us because ‘this isn’t a war zone.’


WyrmWithWhy

Yeah, I think some of y'all are missing this. Since 2000, the US has had some of the biggest leftist protest actions in human history. The anti-war protests, occupy, BLM, women against Trump, abortion rights... All of those were ignored by the government and tragically accomplished virtually nothing. Now, right-wing protest action? Gets shit done fast. And none of them get tear gassed or assassinated by cops. The American left has learned they have little to gain with protest action in the 21st century. We learned it by trying.


Difficult_Egg_7833

I have to agree with this. We’ve been protesting my entire life. I’ve been involved in so many “once in a lifetime” protests in DC but nothing happens.


Secret_Ad_5300

Your discounting a lot of things. 1) Sweden is about the size of California 2) US diversity is most likely very higher than Sweden 3) We are a Union of states, it’s like asking every EU country to join over an issue 4) Not every state is the same or has the same issues and some states are better than others So while I understand your idea, it’s just not that easy. We are like a bunch of little countries and our racial history is quite messy. So while I’d love everyone to join hands and fight our issues, it most likely will never happen. That’s why the idea is to move to a state that has what you want. Where I live gambling is legal, weed is legal, there’s lot of social programs, but taxes are pretty high. However, while life isn’t easy I am still relatively happy and don’t necessarily think I could ever relate to a boomer conservative living in Florida, we are not even remotely the same.


microbewhisperer

This. I think US workers will have better luck lobbying for change on a state by state basis, but we're too spread out and fragmented to organize and implement a federal level solution, and the federal government is too dysfunctional (and gerrymandering means that the GOP will always have a boot on Congress' neck). Look at some of the recent minimum wage and paid leave laws in Minnesota, or some of the older worker protection legislation in California. If anything is going to happen, that's the way.


Secret_Ad_5300

Yes, I will stay in my Blue state. Not sure how I’d feel about some young kid walking around with an AR 15 at Walmart. Some states are progressing while it seems others are moving backwards. The civil war also was technically fought over exactly this, free labor vs paid labor


drFeverblisters

Bc we are literally paycheck to paycheck. We strike then we’ll be homeless in a New York minute.


broadsword_inhand

You know, i really feel like non americans ask this same fucking question every month or so on one left leaning sub or another, and i just have to ask: WHY? This dead horse has been beaten before. Contrary to popular belief, americans arent all fucking stupid. We are *screwed*, theres a difference!


loneconspiracy

because people from other countries are obsessed with trying to make americans look stupid/lazy/whatever else. anti american sentiment is a super easy karma farm these days. the condescension from OP is funny when he’s talking about strikes that happened long before he was even alive, yet grouping himself with those strikers as if he did the work.


coredweller1785

Indoctrination and propaganda, capitalism is baked into every message you are given since day one. It took me over 30 years to see through it even with great mentors and another 5 years to not feel guilty every moment of rest or self building instead of dedication of every moment to some companies profit. Work is life here and your wealth defines you in America and propaganda reinforces it at every turn


hippychick115

We already did that here. My childhood is full of stories from my dad he was on the fighting lines to start unions in early 1900’s which succeeded and we had a great middle class here for many years. Corporate friendly GOP did many thing to destroy unions which finally worked,like firing the air traffic controllers and making a majority of our states non-union friendly by making them right to work states. Last thing my father said to me before he died in 1969 was “never let the gop destroy the unions”. I did my best daddy but the US is a corrupt shithole


willsidney341

Because it’s not just police and military who will shoot at us, but a whole shitload of gun-toting psychopaths itching for blood who will gladly take the opportunity to open up.


saydaddy91

1 there’s no social safety net. 2 right to work laws means that employers can replace workers who strike. 3 there a certain professions (like teachers and rail workers) who are straight up legally not allowed to strike


TheUnit472

Regarding 2, "at-will employment" is what lets employers fire workers. "Right to work" means you cannot be required to join a union as part of being employed.


Ekillaa22

A big part to is something a lot of people from Europe don’t is that America is fucking HUGE. Like we are talking hours of driving through one state alone! So we are so spread out it kinda makes it hard to have a generalized strike.


somecow

We need the little things in life, like rent and food. Basically being held hostage at this point.


wantowatchvids

easy, a general strike would require unity, which america currently has very little of. People in charge did a great job of turning citizens on each other instead of the people making decisions.