Socialism

Transcript

On January 31, Starbucks Workers United announced union drives at two locations: the one Fahland works at in St. Cloud on 2nd Street S and 6th Avenue, and in Roseville, Minn., on Highway 36 and Fairview Avenue. According to a statement from Starbucks Workers United, the two shops, if they win their elections, will be joining 11,000 unionized baristas at over 530 Starbucks stores across the country.

Fahland previously worked at a Starbucks in a Target store for a few years before working at the Starbucks in St. Cloud. They listened to their coworkers’ concerns and noticed excitement for the recent strikes that took place over Christmas Eve at Starbucks stores across the country and locally. “I didn’t mean to do it so quickly,” they say of the union drive. “I was probably gonna do it in, like, six months from now, but I wanted to strike while the iron was hot.”

The 2024 Christmas Eve strike was the largest strike in Starbucks history, with over 300 stores shut down across the country to demand improved wages, benefits, and staffing levels, and to protest hundreds of unresolved unfair labor practice (ULP) charges. (Union workers are in bargaining with the company but have not yet won a contract.) According to a press release sent by Starbucks Workers United on January 31, the ULP charges keep coming: The union has filed over 90 unfair labor practice charges against the company in recent weeks “after the company backtracked on the path forward it agreed to over the future of organizing and collective bargaining.”

Fahland says that, initially, the conversations with coworkers were ironic, or “kind of joking, kind of not joking.” They remember workers asking each other, “What if we unionized and we went on strike? Wouldn’t that be funny?” That’s when Fahland emailed Starbucks Workers United while on their break to learn more about the process of forming a union.

With recent events around the world, the middle east, Kanye calling himself a Nazi, Trump, Musk and his was it was it not a Nazi salute, antisemitism, genocide, etc, etc, I have been thinking about the state of the world and what's been happening in the USA in particular (I'm not from the USA). I was wondering how to describe what is happening there, and I was a little rusty on the terminology to be honest. So I was thinking, is it fascism? What was that exactly again? I needed a refresher so I figured I'd ask a quick summary from ChatGPT and holy moly:

Can you summarize in a bullet list when something van be concidered fascism

answer by chatGPT

• Authoritarianism – A strong, centralized government led by a dictator or ruling elite.
• Nationalism – Extreme devotion to the nation, often placing it above all else.
• Militarism – Glorification of war and military power as a means of achieving national goals.
• Suppression of Dissent – Censorship, persecution of political opponents, and control over the press.
• Anti-Democratic – Rejection of democratic institutions in favor of a one-party state or leader rule.
• Corporatism – The economy is controlled through a partnership between the state and select businesses.
• Scapegoating – Blaming certain groups (ethnic, religious, or political) for national problems.
• Anti-Liberalism & Anti-Communism – Opposition to individual freedoms, socialism, and leftist ideologies.
• Cult of Personality – Leaders are portrayed as infallible, heroic, and central to the nation’s success.
• Control of Culture & Education – Indoctrination through propaganda, schools, and media to align with state ideology.

Not all fascist movements look exactly the same, but these traits are common across historical and modern examples.

Are we witnessing the birth of a fascist superpower?

[Edit] Apologies if this is the wrong place for this.

[Edit 2] As was rightly pointed out, AI shouldn't be used and especially not taken as an authoritative source for something so important. I simply wanted to share because I was surprised (aghast) with the striking resemblance of current events. It's certainly given me a lot of food for thought (and remedial study to do)

This week, the 4,700 Amazon workers who work at the sprawling RDU1 Fulfillment Center in Garner, North Carolina, will decide whether to unionize. For weeks, CAUSE members have had a tent set up outside of the warehouse to talk to workers, hand out food, and prepare for their election.

Though several other warehouses and 20 contracted Amazon driver companies (Delivery Service Partners, or DSPs) are technically unionized via a 2023 NLRB ruling called Cemex, only one warehouse has won a union through election so far — JFK8, the Fulfillment Center on Staten Island, in 2022. RDU1 would be the second.

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