Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

[Yoji]

Hey, the true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit, right? Or maybe fuel fires whose glow you do not expect to bask in? I dunno, I'm rubbish with quotes.

[atog]

Over/under on this firetrap becoming the only affordable housing offered to students attending on scholarship/grants, students of colour, women, etc

If you asked me to design a "terrible tragic fire that consumed the entire dorm in one go, with no survivors", I would be hard-put to beat this one as arson made-to-order.

Would not even be surprised if the plans stipulated it MUST be built out of comically sized blocks of Minecraft TNT with pressure plates on the floor everywhere.

[Mongrel]

Replies are great too

[Friday]

[Silversong]

I'm late to the party but omg just read the last page, and, my university has a Munger dorm. D: C...coincidence?

[Mazian]

No coincidence, and apparently the same bad ideas.

[Thad]

I just saw a viral tweet thread by Kate Klonick, a lawyer discussing how Hertz tried to extort her for an extra $1000 when she tried to rent a car to visit her family for Thanksgiving, and how she's come to believe this is standard procedure and they do it on purpose.

That's pretty bad, but not as bad as this article I read on Techdirt last week: More Than 100 Hertz Customers Are Suing The Company For Falsely Reporting Rented Vehicles As Stolen

When I say "don't do business with Hertz" I'm not sure that even counts as a boycott. Is it a boycott if you don't want to pay a company to have you put in jail?

[Brantly B.]

Hertz Don't.

[Mongrel]

Love that there's an additional Techdirt link to "Hertz Puts Video Cameras Inside Its Rental Cars, Has 'No Current Plans' To Use Them."

[KingRoyal]

U.S. Attorney's Office uncovers largest modern slavery operation in the U.S. in South Georgia

Victims include over one hundred laborers smuggled from Mexico and Central America into “brutal” and “inhumane” working conditions. Under the threat of gun violence, some were allegedly forced to dig for onions with their bare hands, earning only 20 cents for each bucket harvested. At least two people died on the job. Another was allegedly repeatedly raped.

When not out in the fields, workers were detained in work camps surrounded by electric fencing, or held in cramped living quarters, including dirty trailers with raw sewage leaks. There was little to no access to food or safe drinking water.

...

According to the indictment, laborers were charged unlawful fees for transportation, food and housing. And though they were putatively hired for agricultural work, some migrants were illegally used for lawn care, construction, and repair tasks. To prevent escapes, members of the accused crime ring unlawfully confiscated workers’ passports and documents. Conspirators also sold and traded workers amongst themselves, per the indictment.

[Upthorn]

Why couldn't they just use the normal legal slaves from state prisons?

[hngkong]

Because at this point, capitalists are doing the most cruel things they can, because they can.

[Mongrel]

It was a gang op, and this point gang gang just means "Don't have access to the usual legal benefits of being a gang".

[Thad]

Kurt Eichenwald:

Old rules don't work. @KelloggsUS announced it's firing strikers who refused "designed by strike breaking consultants" offer structured to turn workers against each other. Taking applications online. Milennials/GenZ applied en masse -with no intent of taking jobs. Crashed system.

Reddit thread -- you, too, can bombard Kellogg's with fake applications.

(Twitter and Reddit links both point to mirrors)

[mharr]

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we".

[Yoji]

We do collectively know that slavery is bad, right?

Like, any book you might have read or media you might have watched that talked about slavery didn't cast it in a good light, barring anything from a right-wing news dipshit. I'm having trouble thinking of any story where those owning people as slaves are anything but villains and those who free the slaves are anything but heroes. Nor can I think of any account of a slave being happy about their situation. So you can't come at this from a position of ignorance.

[Thad]

We do collectively know that slavery is bad, right?

Like, any book you might have read or media you might have watched that talked about slavery didn't cast it in a good light, barring anything from a right-wing news dipshit.

Linked this a few months back, but: We Found the Textbooks of Senators Who Oppose The 1619 Project and Suddenly Everything Makes Sense

There were real-ass textbooks defending slavery and Jim Crow, not that long ago. There still are, in private schools, and there are people pushing to bring them back to public schools too.

"Slavery wasn't that bad, actually" isn't exactly a mainstream position, but it was a generation or two ago, and it's making a comeback.

[Brantly B.]

Slavery is closer to communism than what you have now.

[Thad]

[Mongrel]

Fuck YEAH.