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January 26, 2024
https://twitter.com/FrancisWegner/status/1746694337117712441
the Crapture is nigh
https://twitter.com/adgirlMM/status/1746692851906597024https://twitter.com/FrancisWegner/status/1746694337117712441
January 25, 2024
https://feps-europe.eu/publication/social-europe-from-vision-to-vigour/
Find here our latest addition to the FEPS Primer series. The Primer series is made of multiple books written with an educational purpose, to help new audiences enter specific European thematic fields. Björn Hacker’s ‘Social Europe: From vision to vigour’ offers insight into how social policy is made at the EU level, the main tools used, the most important actors, and instances when this policy field has been successfully implemented in recent decades.
The concept of ‘Social Europe’ is thoroughly explored and stressed that European integration is not simply about creating economic opportunities but also systematically improving social standards, such as employment and social protection, equal opportunities for men and women, education and training, fair working conditions, health care and social inclusion which are only some of the social issues of concern to policymakers.
In this Primer, Hacker explores historical and contemporary definitions and concepts of Social Europe and maps the lines of conflict that a genuine European social policy has to tackle, following an arc from Willy Brandt’s plans for a European Social Union to the various hindrances that got in its way.
The book covers the scope, forms, and main actors of the evolution of Social Europe from 1957 to today’s social policy. It offers support to readers who would like to understand the policy dynamics of the EU in this crucial field and locate the steps of social policy coordination on the landscape of broader EU politics.
Social Europe: From vision to vigour (free E Book)
FEPS Primer series - Björn Hackerhttps://feps-europe.eu/publication/social-europe-from-vision-to-vigour/
Find here our latest addition to the FEPS Primer series. The Primer series is made of multiple books written with an educational purpose, to help new audiences enter specific European thematic fields. Björn Hacker’s ‘Social Europe: From vision to vigour’ offers insight into how social policy is made at the EU level, the main tools used, the most important actors, and instances when this policy field has been successfully implemented in recent decades.
The concept of ‘Social Europe’ is thoroughly explored and stressed that European integration is not simply about creating economic opportunities but also systematically improving social standards, such as employment and social protection, equal opportunities for men and women, education and training, fair working conditions, health care and social inclusion which are only some of the social issues of concern to policymakers.
In this Primer, Hacker explores historical and contemporary definitions and concepts of Social Europe and maps the lines of conflict that a genuine European social policy has to tackle, following an arc from Willy Brandt’s plans for a European Social Union to the various hindrances that got in its way.
The book covers the scope, forms, and main actors of the evolution of Social Europe from 1957 to today’s social policy. It offers support to readers who would like to understand the policy dynamics of the EU in this crucial field and locate the steps of social policy coordination on the landscape of broader EU politics.
Download:
https://feps-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Social-Europe-From-vision-to-vigour1.pdf
https://feps-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Social-Europe-From-vision-to-vigour1.pdf
January 25, 2024
https://prospect.org/power/2024-01-24-big-funeral-exploits-consumers-inflation/
John Wood planned ahead. As the Maryland native neared retirement, in 2002 he took out burial rights for both himself and his wife in nearby Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Brentwood. The agreement he signed with the funeral home listed up-front costs at $500, and marginal charges later at $50 for reserving the spot at the cemetery. Now, 20 years later, Wood is well into retirement and thinking about the future. He heard from friends about some suspicious practices taking place at their funeral homes, such as opening and closing fees being added to their relatives’ final charges for the funeral proceedings. He decided to pay a visit to Fort Lincoln this past summer, just to make sure. Not only did he learn that new costs had been added, but the tab was so big that it would put him in a financial hole deep enough to drain his remaining savings or push him into debt that would be passed off to his children.
It turned out that, unbeknownst to Wood, the previous owner of Fort Lincoln, Stewart Enterprises, had sold the cemetery and conjoined funeral home to a company called Dignity in 2013. Dignity is owned by Service Corporation International, the largest monopolistic actor that’s wrapped its tentacles around death care nationwide. After the purchase, SCI began jacking up the final prices for all its burial right holders, adding sky-high opening and closing fees. When he visited the Fort Lincoln home, the salesman told him the package would be either $12,490 with a memorial stone or $8,545 without. “When you’re a layman, you don’t know how these things work but something didn’t seem right,” Wood said.
The multibillion-dollar funeral industry—a universal service that everyone has to deal with at some point—has costs that have risen 4.7 percent, a rate well above last year’s overall inflation rate of 3.4 percent. Death care is one corner of the economy that, despite promising indicators overall, is still afflicted by high markups driving inflation. In fact, a recent study from Groundwork Collaborative found that 53 percent of consumer price increases from the second and third quarters of 2023 were attributable to markups. One of the reasons funeral homes in particular get away with price-gouging is that the industry doesn’t operate like other goods where consumers can just wait until market fluctuations bring costs down. Hospitals or local coroners give families short deadlines for moving their loved ones’ bodies to a funeral home.
The other reason that those costs have gotten even more steep is because of the ongoing consolidation of funeral homes and cemeteries in recent years by corporate chains and private equity firms. This rollup is taking a toll on consumer expenses, according to the Funeral Consumers Alliance, a national network assisting families in mourning to navigate the funeral home market. Markups, as well as other predatory practices such as charges added onto the final tab, have run rampant despite long-standing regulations intended to constrain those practices. Far from a niche market, funeral services are a major cost that eats into people’s retirement savings and family budgets. There have been numerous periods in recent history where death care has been the third- or fourth-largest single investment families make over the course of their lives, next to a home mortgage and a car. That’s consistently been the case for Americans who didn’t pay for four-year college degrees and avoided having a medical disaster without insurance at some point in their lives.
snip
Big Funeral Exploits Consumers Under Guise of Inflation
https://prospect.org/power/2024-01-24-big-funeral-exploits-consumers-inflation/
John Wood planned ahead. As the Maryland native neared retirement, in 2002 he took out burial rights for both himself and his wife in nearby Fort Lincoln Cemetery in Brentwood. The agreement he signed with the funeral home listed up-front costs at $500, and marginal charges later at $50 for reserving the spot at the cemetery. Now, 20 years later, Wood is well into retirement and thinking about the future. He heard from friends about some suspicious practices taking place at their funeral homes, such as opening and closing fees being added to their relatives’ final charges for the funeral proceedings. He decided to pay a visit to Fort Lincoln this past summer, just to make sure. Not only did he learn that new costs had been added, but the tab was so big that it would put him in a financial hole deep enough to drain his remaining savings or push him into debt that would be passed off to his children.
It turned out that, unbeknownst to Wood, the previous owner of Fort Lincoln, Stewart Enterprises, had sold the cemetery and conjoined funeral home to a company called Dignity in 2013. Dignity is owned by Service Corporation International, the largest monopolistic actor that’s wrapped its tentacles around death care nationwide. After the purchase, SCI began jacking up the final prices for all its burial right holders, adding sky-high opening and closing fees. When he visited the Fort Lincoln home, the salesman told him the package would be either $12,490 with a memorial stone or $8,545 without. “When you’re a layman, you don’t know how these things work but something didn’t seem right,” Wood said.
The multibillion-dollar funeral industry—a universal service that everyone has to deal with at some point—has costs that have risen 4.7 percent, a rate well above last year’s overall inflation rate of 3.4 percent. Death care is one corner of the economy that, despite promising indicators overall, is still afflicted by high markups driving inflation. In fact, a recent study from Groundwork Collaborative found that 53 percent of consumer price increases from the second and third quarters of 2023 were attributable to markups. One of the reasons funeral homes in particular get away with price-gouging is that the industry doesn’t operate like other goods where consumers can just wait until market fluctuations bring costs down. Hospitals or local coroners give families short deadlines for moving their loved ones’ bodies to a funeral home.
The other reason that those costs have gotten even more steep is because of the ongoing consolidation of funeral homes and cemeteries in recent years by corporate chains and private equity firms. This rollup is taking a toll on consumer expenses, according to the Funeral Consumers Alliance, a national network assisting families in mourning to navigate the funeral home market. Markups, as well as other predatory practices such as charges added onto the final tab, have run rampant despite long-standing regulations intended to constrain those practices. Far from a niche market, funeral services are a major cost that eats into people’s retirement savings and family budgets. There have been numerous periods in recent history where death care has been the third- or fourth-largest single investment families make over the course of their lives, next to a home mortgage and a car. That’s consistently been the case for Americans who didn’t pay for four-year college degrees and avoided having a medical disaster without insurance at some point in their lives.
snip
January 25, 2024
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-01-24-stock-market-loves-monopoly-concentration/
The financial press has been filled with reports of how the lion’s share of the stock market run-up in 2023 was concentrated in just seven companies, which have been dubbed the “Magnificent Seven.” These seven companies account for 28 percent of the value of the entire S&P 500, and more than 60 percent of the 2023 increase in the value of the broad market. Without them, the stock market gain in 2023 was a quite unremarkable 9 percent after inflation.
The Wall Street Journal has been making a big deal of this for months, and lately The New York Times has gotten on the bandwagon. Who are the Magnificent Seven? They are Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. Five of these will be familiar as the largest platform monopolies. They had a supernormal run-up in the stock prices because they have supernormal profits. And they have supernormal profits because of their monopoly power.
Ownership of the shares of these companies is also highly concentrated. Just four investors hauled in $491 billion last year from the stock run-up. Ownership in stocks as a whole reflects the wealth inequality of the society, with the richest 1 percent owing 54 percent of all stocks. The stock market gains of 2023 made them about $5 trillion richer. (The other two companies in the Seven are Tesla, a onetime near-monopoly, whose stock has been plummeting in 2024 along with Elon Musk’s mood swings; and Nvidia, a dominant company in the burgeoning field of AI.)
Belatedly, the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department have launched several cases against the platform monopolies. If the government prevails, that will squeeze out some of the excess profits. That would be good for consumers, for competitors, and for the deconcentration of extreme wealth. A soaring stock market is often equated with the strength of the economy—but not when it’s rooted in this kind of monopoly power. Sometimes, a bull market is an indicator of the economy’s ill health.
snip
The Stock Market Loves Monopoly Concentration
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-01-24-stock-market-loves-monopoly-concentration/
The financial press has been filled with reports of how the lion’s share of the stock market run-up in 2023 was concentrated in just seven companies, which have been dubbed the “Magnificent Seven.” These seven companies account for 28 percent of the value of the entire S&P 500, and more than 60 percent of the 2023 increase in the value of the broad market. Without them, the stock market gain in 2023 was a quite unremarkable 9 percent after inflation.
The Wall Street Journal has been making a big deal of this for months, and lately The New York Times has gotten on the bandwagon. Who are the Magnificent Seven? They are Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. Five of these will be familiar as the largest platform monopolies. They had a supernormal run-up in the stock prices because they have supernormal profits. And they have supernormal profits because of their monopoly power.
Ownership of the shares of these companies is also highly concentrated. Just four investors hauled in $491 billion last year from the stock run-up. Ownership in stocks as a whole reflects the wealth inequality of the society, with the richest 1 percent owing 54 percent of all stocks. The stock market gains of 2023 made them about $5 trillion richer. (The other two companies in the Seven are Tesla, a onetime near-monopoly, whose stock has been plummeting in 2024 along with Elon Musk’s mood swings; and Nvidia, a dominant company in the burgeoning field of AI.)
Belatedly, the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department have launched several cases against the platform monopolies. If the government prevails, that will squeeze out some of the excess profits. That would be good for consumers, for competitors, and for the deconcentration of extreme wealth. A soaring stock market is often equated with the strength of the economy—but not when it’s rooted in this kind of monopoly power. Sometimes, a bull market is an indicator of the economy’s ill health.
snip
January 25, 2024
When Timothy Snyder’s slim volume On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century was rocketing up the best-seller charts in 2017, I noticed an interesting fact: The most illuminating analysts of America’s frightening recent political turn were turning out to be scholars specializing in Europe. When Snyder, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, or Richard Steigmann-Gall noticed phenomena in America’s past or present that resembled something in the right-wing movements they studied in Germany, Italy, or elsewhere, they just said so—blithely indifferent to what every graduate student in American history learns, and what New York Times reporters shout from the rooftops, that America is supposed to be “exceptional.”
The most interesting voice thinking about the connections between interwar Europe and the present-day U.S. happens to be a scholar of both. John Ganz’s forthcoming book When the Clock Broke illuminates the exceedingly odd politics of the U.S. in 1992—including some haunting harbingers of America’s Trumpian turn. The most fascinating posts on his Substack Unpopular Front are deeply learned perambulations through the 20th-century European right. Their most important lesson: Fascism is always less simple than we think it is.
“We have this image in our heads—and this is really hard to get out of people’s heads—of the fascist rise to power that comes from fascist propaganda,” Ganz explains. The stereotype is thugs marching into the seat of government with truncheons, then marching out having seized state power. “It is much more political than that. It has much more to do with negotiations between established political factions and elites … None of these movements were destined to succeed. There was a lot of luck, and there were a lot of contingencies.”
Most fascist parties and movements—Ganz knows their names, and repeats them often, as a reminder of that contingency—never seized any power. They were footnotes. That’s an important insight to address to observers who cite the sheer ridiculousness, abundant incompetence, and outright insanity within Donald Trump’s movement, and have a hard time placing it in the same universe with the movement that almost conquered Europe. After all, if Hitler’s little gang of beer hall brawlers had failed to achieve power, they surely would have looked precisely as ridiculous as all that. As Ganz puts it, “Everything kind of looks farcical until it doesn’t.”
snip
American Fascism: Author and scholar John Ganz on how Europe's interwar period informs the present
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-24-american-fascism-john-ganz/When Timothy Snyder’s slim volume On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century was rocketing up the best-seller charts in 2017, I noticed an interesting fact: The most illuminating analysts of America’s frightening recent political turn were turning out to be scholars specializing in Europe. When Snyder, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, or Richard Steigmann-Gall noticed phenomena in America’s past or present that resembled something in the right-wing movements they studied in Germany, Italy, or elsewhere, they just said so—blithely indifferent to what every graduate student in American history learns, and what New York Times reporters shout from the rooftops, that America is supposed to be “exceptional.”
The most interesting voice thinking about the connections between interwar Europe and the present-day U.S. happens to be a scholar of both. John Ganz’s forthcoming book When the Clock Broke illuminates the exceedingly odd politics of the U.S. in 1992—including some haunting harbingers of America’s Trumpian turn. The most fascinating posts on his Substack Unpopular Front are deeply learned perambulations through the 20th-century European right. Their most important lesson: Fascism is always less simple than we think it is.
“We have this image in our heads—and this is really hard to get out of people’s heads—of the fascist rise to power that comes from fascist propaganda,” Ganz explains. The stereotype is thugs marching into the seat of government with truncheons, then marching out having seized state power. “It is much more political than that. It has much more to do with negotiations between established political factions and elites … None of these movements were destined to succeed. There was a lot of luck, and there were a lot of contingencies.”
Most fascist parties and movements—Ganz knows their names, and repeats them often, as a reminder of that contingency—never seized any power. They were footnotes. That’s an important insight to address to observers who cite the sheer ridiculousness, abundant incompetence, and outright insanity within Donald Trump’s movement, and have a hard time placing it in the same universe with the movement that almost conquered Europe. After all, if Hitler’s little gang of beer hall brawlers had failed to achieve power, they surely would have looked precisely as ridiculous as all that. As Ganz puts it, “Everything kind of looks farcical until it doesn’t.”
snip
January 25, 2024
With Biden vulnerable with Hispanic voters, the GOP may have wasted a crucial opportunity.
https://themessenger.com/politics/the-rnc-shuttered-most-of-the-hispanic-community-centers-it-touted-as-critical-to-winning-over-latino-voters
During the 2022 cycle, the Republican Party made a commitment to Latino voters that hadn't been seen before, touting nearly two dozen RNC Hispanic Community Centers in a high stakes gambit to attract Hispanic voters that have drifted away from the Democratic Party. In 2021, upon opening a center in San Antonio, Rep. Tony Gonzales said the centers were critical to unlocking wins in Democratic districts. "Many of these communities have felt forgotten by the Republican Party for a very long time," he said then.
On September 9, 2022, during the sprint to the election, the Republican National Committee opened a center in Phoenix alongside Senate candidate Blake Masters, with RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel declaring: “This center is part of our party’s commitment to building relationships with the Hispanic community." The community centers were pitched as a dream intersection of fun, civic life, candidate recruitment, and GOTV muscle, with the party touting Thanksgiving potlucks, toy drives, religious services, crypto workshops, and even an ugly sweater Christmas party with Folklorico dancing in San Antonio. Community centers continued to pop up in Hispanic communities and positive headlines continued to flow.
But four months after the grand opening of the Phoenix center, it was closed, along with most of the other centers, the RNC confirmed after The Messenger reached out. While the RNC touted opening 20 Hispanic community centers during the 2022 cycle, it said there are only five centers currently open, two of which were opened in 2023. Daniel Garza, the executive director of the LIBRE Initiative, a grassroots conservative group which has worked in the Latino community for over a decade, told The Messenger the project was a cautionary tale about making sure when you experiment that you prototype and gets the bugs out first. You "don't want to go big and fail," Garza said.
"In this case they went big and it sounds like they didn't get the response from the community they intended," he said. "That's OK, they tried, we appreciate that. But you have to have people on the inside who can advise you — these are long-term things that need to be backed by resources." The RNC told The Messenger its budget can only go through the chair's term and when all leases ended at the end of her 2022 term, it made sense to seek new locations for some this cycle. It also said it plans to re-open centers in Las Vegas; Tucson, Ariz.; Milwaukee; and Allentown, Pa. - swing state locations The Messenger found were closed through photos and in-person visits to addresses where the centers were supposed to be.
snip
The RNC Shuttered Most of the Hispanic Community Centers It Touted as Critical to Winning Over Latino Voters
With Biden vulnerable with Hispanic voters, the GOP may have wasted a crucial opportunity.
https://themessenger.com/politics/the-rnc-shuttered-most-of-the-hispanic-community-centers-it-touted-as-critical-to-winning-over-latino-voters
During the 2022 cycle, the Republican Party made a commitment to Latino voters that hadn't been seen before, touting nearly two dozen RNC Hispanic Community Centers in a high stakes gambit to attract Hispanic voters that have drifted away from the Democratic Party. In 2021, upon opening a center in San Antonio, Rep. Tony Gonzales said the centers were critical to unlocking wins in Democratic districts. "Many of these communities have felt forgotten by the Republican Party for a very long time," he said then.
On September 9, 2022, during the sprint to the election, the Republican National Committee opened a center in Phoenix alongside Senate candidate Blake Masters, with RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel declaring: “This center is part of our party’s commitment to building relationships with the Hispanic community." The community centers were pitched as a dream intersection of fun, civic life, candidate recruitment, and GOTV muscle, with the party touting Thanksgiving potlucks, toy drives, religious services, crypto workshops, and even an ugly sweater Christmas party with Folklorico dancing in San Antonio. Community centers continued to pop up in Hispanic communities and positive headlines continued to flow.
But four months after the grand opening of the Phoenix center, it was closed, along with most of the other centers, the RNC confirmed after The Messenger reached out. While the RNC touted opening 20 Hispanic community centers during the 2022 cycle, it said there are only five centers currently open, two of which were opened in 2023. Daniel Garza, the executive director of the LIBRE Initiative, a grassroots conservative group which has worked in the Latino community for over a decade, told The Messenger the project was a cautionary tale about making sure when you experiment that you prototype and gets the bugs out first. You "don't want to go big and fail," Garza said.
"In this case they went big and it sounds like they didn't get the response from the community they intended," he said. "That's OK, they tried, we appreciate that. But you have to have people on the inside who can advise you — these are long-term things that need to be backed by resources." The RNC told The Messenger its budget can only go through the chair's term and when all leases ended at the end of her 2022 term, it made sense to seek new locations for some this cycle. It also said it plans to re-open centers in Las Vegas; Tucson, Ariz.; Milwaukee; and Allentown, Pa. - swing state locations The Messenger found were closed through photos and in-person visits to addresses where the centers were supposed to be.
snip
January 25, 2024
https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/sundance-doc-union-exposes-amazons-union-busting-shenanigans
Labor organizing has never been easy, and in their Sundance team-up Union, directors Brett Story and Stephen Maing explore exactly why that is. The even-handed documentary puts viewers at the heart of the Amazon Labor Union’s fight to drum up support among warehouse workers, drawing back the curtain on not only the company’s union-busting tactics, but also the fragile relationships within the union itself.
Union drops viewers in the middle of the action, largely forgoing the usual touches that help define a documentary’s narrative like one-on-one interviews. Just like there is no one protagonist in a union, the documentary declines to focus on one protagonist, centering itself instead around the Amazon Labor Union as a living, breathing, often conflicted organism.
Its leader, the charming Chris Smalls, does enjoy a fair amount of screen time, but so do discussions about his leadership, as some of his fellow union leaders begin to disagree with his tactics. While Story and Maing clearly respect the merits of Smalls’s fight, they also quietly highlight the ways he tends to alienate his peers. It’s unclear, however, why the directors declined to mention the lawsuit that union reformists filed against Smalls last summer, alleging that he’d blocked officer elections while suppressing dissenting members through attrition and threats. (Smalls called the complaint a “ridiculous claim with zero facts or merit” in a text message to the New York Times.)
At times, Union might leave you wishing for a little more direction or clarity, but overall, its detached, observational approach leads to a more broadly enlightening final product. Perhaps the most fascinating character in the film is Natalie Monarrez—an early ALU organizer who lives out of her car and eventually leaves the group after deciding it’s a “boy’s club” and that warehouse workers need more experienced representation. A couple of scenes within Union also examine the racial dynamics at play in these efforts when white (sometimes very new) union members speak over their comrades of color, including Smalls, even though they have been in the trenches for less time.
snip
Sundance Doc 'Union' Exposes Amazon's Union-Busting Shenanigans
The tech company reportedly spent more than $14 million to prevent current and former workers from organizing, but it still lost.https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/sundance-doc-union-exposes-amazons-union-busting-shenanigans
Labor organizing has never been easy, and in their Sundance team-up Union, directors Brett Story and Stephen Maing explore exactly why that is. The even-handed documentary puts viewers at the heart of the Amazon Labor Union’s fight to drum up support among warehouse workers, drawing back the curtain on not only the company’s union-busting tactics, but also the fragile relationships within the union itself.
Union drops viewers in the middle of the action, largely forgoing the usual touches that help define a documentary’s narrative like one-on-one interviews. Just like there is no one protagonist in a union, the documentary declines to focus on one protagonist, centering itself instead around the Amazon Labor Union as a living, breathing, often conflicted organism.
Its leader, the charming Chris Smalls, does enjoy a fair amount of screen time, but so do discussions about his leadership, as some of his fellow union leaders begin to disagree with his tactics. While Story and Maing clearly respect the merits of Smalls’s fight, they also quietly highlight the ways he tends to alienate his peers. It’s unclear, however, why the directors declined to mention the lawsuit that union reformists filed against Smalls last summer, alleging that he’d blocked officer elections while suppressing dissenting members through attrition and threats. (Smalls called the complaint a “ridiculous claim with zero facts or merit” in a text message to the New York Times.)
At times, Union might leave you wishing for a little more direction or clarity, but overall, its detached, observational approach leads to a more broadly enlightening final product. Perhaps the most fascinating character in the film is Natalie Monarrez—an early ALU organizer who lives out of her car and eventually leaves the group after deciding it’s a “boy’s club” and that warehouse workers need more experienced representation. A couple of scenes within Union also examine the racial dynamics at play in these efforts when white (sometimes very new) union members speak over their comrades of color, including Smalls, even though they have been in the trenches for less time.
snip
January 25, 2024
https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/sundance-doc-union-exposes-amazons-union-busting-shenanigans
Labor organizing has never been easy, and in their Sundance team-up Union, directors Brett Story and Stephen Maing explore exactly why that is. The even-handed documentary puts viewers at the heart of the Amazon Labor Union’s fight to drum up support among warehouse workers, drawing back the curtain on not only the company’s union-busting tactics, but also the fragile relationships within the union itself.
Union drops viewers in the middle of the action, largely forgoing the usual touches that help define a documentary’s narrative like one-on-one interviews. Just like there is no one protagonist in a union, the documentary declines to focus on one protagonist, centering itself instead around the Amazon Labor Union as a living, breathing, often conflicted organism.
Its leader, the charming Chris Smalls, does enjoy a fair amount of screen time, but so do discussions about his leadership, as some of his fellow union leaders begin to disagree with his tactics. While Story and Maing clearly respect the merits of Smalls’s fight, they also quietly highlight the ways he tends to alienate his peers. It’s unclear, however, why the directors declined to mention the lawsuit that union reformists filed against Smalls last summer, alleging that he’d blocked officer elections while suppressing dissenting members through attrition and threats. (Smalls called the complaint a “ridiculous claim with zero facts or merit” in a text message to the New York Times.)
At times, Union might leave you wishing for a little more direction or clarity, but overall, its detached, observational approach leads to a more broadly enlightening final product. Perhaps the most fascinating character in the film is Natalie Monarrez—an early ALU organizer who lives out of her car and eventually leaves the group after deciding it’s a “boy’s club” and that warehouse workers need more experienced representation. A couple of scenes within Union also examine the racial dynamics at play in these efforts when white (sometimes very new) union members speak over their comrades of color, including Smalls, even though they have been in the trenches for less time.
snip
Sundance Doc 'Union' Exposes Amazon's Union-Busting Shenanigans
The tech company reportedly spent more than $14 million to prevent current and former workers from organizing, but it still lost.https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/sundance-doc-union-exposes-amazons-union-busting-shenanigans
Labor organizing has never been easy, and in their Sundance team-up Union, directors Brett Story and Stephen Maing explore exactly why that is. The even-handed documentary puts viewers at the heart of the Amazon Labor Union’s fight to drum up support among warehouse workers, drawing back the curtain on not only the company’s union-busting tactics, but also the fragile relationships within the union itself.
Union drops viewers in the middle of the action, largely forgoing the usual touches that help define a documentary’s narrative like one-on-one interviews. Just like there is no one protagonist in a union, the documentary declines to focus on one protagonist, centering itself instead around the Amazon Labor Union as a living, breathing, often conflicted organism.
Its leader, the charming Chris Smalls, does enjoy a fair amount of screen time, but so do discussions about his leadership, as some of his fellow union leaders begin to disagree with his tactics. While Story and Maing clearly respect the merits of Smalls’s fight, they also quietly highlight the ways he tends to alienate his peers. It’s unclear, however, why the directors declined to mention the lawsuit that union reformists filed against Smalls last summer, alleging that he’d blocked officer elections while suppressing dissenting members through attrition and threats. (Smalls called the complaint a “ridiculous claim with zero facts or merit” in a text message to the New York Times.)
At times, Union might leave you wishing for a little more direction or clarity, but overall, its detached, observational approach leads to a more broadly enlightening final product. Perhaps the most fascinating character in the film is Natalie Monarrez—an early ALU organizer who lives out of her car and eventually leaves the group after deciding it’s a “boy’s club” and that warehouse workers need more experienced representation. A couple of scenes within Union also examine the racial dynamics at play in these efforts when white (sometimes very new) union members speak over their comrades of color, including Smalls, even though they have been in the trenches for less time.
snip
January 25, 2024
A poem for Wednesday
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/01/poem-amy-gerstler-marigold-sonnets/677230/
I.
Today I’ll listen to whatever music Spotify has in mind.
Concerto for Black Holes and Slime Molds by the Panty Sniffers?
That algorithm knows me so well! I’ve pitched myself under
this magnolia tree, heart first, before I get lobbed anyplace
worse. No more of grandpa’s stuffed marlin glaring at me
from the living-room wall, no more robocalls offering
to restructure debt never incurred, no more doomscrolling
(for the moment.) I’ve retreated to the bosom of nature,
where bird chirps whirr like sticks being fed into a wood
chipper and magnolia leaves clatter into my lap like leather
wings. Mari has flown off to Mexico. She believes in UFOs.
She wants to be called Marigold now, to leave her sad past
behind and bask in the mysteries of sex and drugs
and panhandling and side hustles and is that really so bad?
II.
It seems really bad, or at least alarming to me, though
I, too, was a hot mess in my twenties, so long ago,
in a different era and circumstance. I’m still a sunken
ship riddled with eels. I’ll admit that up front.
But, since I’m using Marigold’s travels and travails
as a thinly veiled excuse to blab about myself,
let’s get back to her. Marigold’s nose runs constantly.
She suffers from asthma and eczema. She loves animals,
toddlers, psychedelics, and girl bands. We share three
of these four loves, since I’ve been reduced by advancing
age to pretending I prefer booze to hallucinogens.
In the violent tides of her twenties, Marigold shed
the last of her baby fat, then graduated from stumbling
spiritual seeker to apprentice sensualist. She wants, she wants.
III.
She wants to spit in capitalism’s tea, impress older,
heavily tattooed fellow sensualists (the kinds that leave
teeth marks), kick patriarchy in the nut sack, darken
her hands with red and ochre dirts of other worlds,
learn five languages (but only by osmosis) while chasing
ninety-nine kinds of buzz and trying to pull free
from the tar pit of history. At her age, one is pure urge.
Life is a wildfire. So it’s no big sin that her bedroom
resembles a place where, among all their hoardings,
a pair of hoarders just staged a 24-hour wrestling match.
I just worry about her. Like I have the right, me,
who brims with wrongful convictions all day then tucks
herself into bed each night with ten stuffed animals
and an Ambien sandwich. So what am I trying to say?
IV.
Am I saying, Marigold, that in your attempts to enter
heaven you’re crashing the wrong gates? That I wish
you’d find life-guiding messages someplace other
than in sidewalk scatters of pollen? Oops, I do
that, not you. Clearly projection is one of my sins.
Maybe your determination to get lost is a valid response
to any decade in which people feel they’re about to be
vaporized daily. It’s a crippling time to be young.
I want the magnolia to reach down its branches
and hug me. My twenties were a rapturous tantrum
during which I aspired to be lady, tiger, and pirate
rolled into one. When I try to recall that madness,
it seems like it never really happened, or as if it did,
to someone, but I’m not sure I was ever there myself.
The Marigold Sonnets
A poem for Wednesday
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/01/poem-amy-gerstler-marigold-sonnets/677230/
I.
Today I’ll listen to whatever music Spotify has in mind.
Concerto for Black Holes and Slime Molds by the Panty Sniffers?
That algorithm knows me so well! I’ve pitched myself under
this magnolia tree, heart first, before I get lobbed anyplace
worse. No more of grandpa’s stuffed marlin glaring at me
from the living-room wall, no more robocalls offering
to restructure debt never incurred, no more doomscrolling
(for the moment.) I’ve retreated to the bosom of nature,
where bird chirps whirr like sticks being fed into a wood
chipper and magnolia leaves clatter into my lap like leather
wings. Mari has flown off to Mexico. She believes in UFOs.
She wants to be called Marigold now, to leave her sad past
behind and bask in the mysteries of sex and drugs
and panhandling and side hustles and is that really so bad?
II.
It seems really bad, or at least alarming to me, though
I, too, was a hot mess in my twenties, so long ago,
in a different era and circumstance. I’m still a sunken
ship riddled with eels. I’ll admit that up front.
But, since I’m using Marigold’s travels and travails
as a thinly veiled excuse to blab about myself,
let’s get back to her. Marigold’s nose runs constantly.
She suffers from asthma and eczema. She loves animals,
toddlers, psychedelics, and girl bands. We share three
of these four loves, since I’ve been reduced by advancing
age to pretending I prefer booze to hallucinogens.
In the violent tides of her twenties, Marigold shed
the last of her baby fat, then graduated from stumbling
spiritual seeker to apprentice sensualist. She wants, she wants.
III.
She wants to spit in capitalism’s tea, impress older,
heavily tattooed fellow sensualists (the kinds that leave
teeth marks), kick patriarchy in the nut sack, darken
her hands with red and ochre dirts of other worlds,
learn five languages (but only by osmosis) while chasing
ninety-nine kinds of buzz and trying to pull free
from the tar pit of history. At her age, one is pure urge.
Life is a wildfire. So it’s no big sin that her bedroom
resembles a place where, among all their hoardings,
a pair of hoarders just staged a 24-hour wrestling match.
I just worry about her. Like I have the right, me,
who brims with wrongful convictions all day then tucks
herself into bed each night with ten stuffed animals
and an Ambien sandwich. So what am I trying to say?
IV.
Am I saying, Marigold, that in your attempts to enter
heaven you’re crashing the wrong gates? That I wish
you’d find life-guiding messages someplace other
than in sidewalk scatters of pollen? Oops, I do
that, not you. Clearly projection is one of my sins.
Maybe your determination to get lost is a valid response
to any decade in which people feel they’re about to be
vaporized daily. It’s a crippling time to be young.
I want the magnolia to reach down its branches
and hug me. My twenties were a rapturous tantrum
during which I aspired to be lady, tiger, and pirate
rolled into one. When I try to recall that madness,
it seems like it never really happened, or as if it did,
to someone, but I’m not sure I was ever there myself.
January 25, 2024
As Donald J. Trump pivots to a general election, early results point at the rough road ahead with critical independent voters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/politics/trump-independent-voters.html
https://archive.is/yNkyL
For weeks, Donald J. Trump has romped through Iowa and New Hampshire without breaking a sweat, muscling out rivals for the Republican nomination and soaking up adoration from crowds convinced he will be the next president of the United States. But as Mr. Trump marches steadily toward his party’s nomination, a harsher reality awaits him.
Outside the soft bubble of Republican primaries, Mr. Trump’s campaign is confronting enduring vulnerabilities that make his nomination a considerable risk for his party. Those weaknesses were laid bare in New Hampshire on Tuesday, where independents, college-educated voters and Republicans unwilling to dismiss his legal jeopardy voted in large numbers for his rival, Nikki Haley.
Mr. Trump still won easily. The voters opposed to his bid didn’t outnumber the many Republicans clamoring to see him return to power. But the results, delivered by more than 310,000 voters in a politically divided state, pointed to the trouble ahead for Mr. Trump as the presidential race leaves MAGA world and enters a broader electorate, one that rejected him less than four years ago.
“When I have people come up to me who voted for Reagan in ’76 and have been conservative their whole life say that they don’t want to vote for Trump again, that’s a problem,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said Tuesday in an interview with Blaze TV, a conservative media company, just a couple of days after he ended his own campaign and endorsed Mr. Trump. “So he’s got to figure out a way to solve that.”
snip
New Hampshire and Iowa Reveal Broader Weaknesses for Trump
As Donald J. Trump pivots to a general election, early results point at the rough road ahead with critical independent voters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/us/politics/trump-independent-voters.html
https://archive.is/yNkyL
For weeks, Donald J. Trump has romped through Iowa and New Hampshire without breaking a sweat, muscling out rivals for the Republican nomination and soaking up adoration from crowds convinced he will be the next president of the United States. But as Mr. Trump marches steadily toward his party’s nomination, a harsher reality awaits him.
Outside the soft bubble of Republican primaries, Mr. Trump’s campaign is confronting enduring vulnerabilities that make his nomination a considerable risk for his party. Those weaknesses were laid bare in New Hampshire on Tuesday, where independents, college-educated voters and Republicans unwilling to dismiss his legal jeopardy voted in large numbers for his rival, Nikki Haley.
Mr. Trump still won easily. The voters opposed to his bid didn’t outnumber the many Republicans clamoring to see him return to power. But the results, delivered by more than 310,000 voters in a politically divided state, pointed to the trouble ahead for Mr. Trump as the presidential race leaves MAGA world and enters a broader electorate, one that rejected him less than four years ago.
“When I have people come up to me who voted for Reagan in ’76 and have been conservative their whole life say that they don’t want to vote for Trump again, that’s a problem,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said Tuesday in an interview with Blaze TV, a conservative media company, just a couple of days after he ended his own campaign and endorsed Mr. Trump. “So he’s got to figure out a way to solve that.”
snip
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