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It occurs to me that this is one of many issues of its kind, where what
we push for is well beyond what capital can put up with and which
resonates with a large section of the population in all its
permutations. Setting up an exacerbation of contradiction which can only
favor workers in its effects. We know this, but it's a reminder that the
world is teeming with such issues, and it's the type of fight where
reformism has an appropriate place, in dismantling rather than buoying
capital.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/nov/08/how-big-tech-is-dragging-us-towards-the-next-financial-crash.
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Louis Proyect wrote
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/09/seattle-amazon-kshama-sawant-socialist-elections
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Interesting that one of the primary issues in this race was Sawant's
full-on leadership in the fight for a head tax, a tax which would have
funded public housing in a city with the third largest homeless
population in the nation (after NYC and LA), a per-employee tax on large
corporations which would have come down on Amazon in particular.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/05/amazon-seattle-councilwoman-kshama-sawant-re-election-bid.
So Jeff Bezos threatens to take his company, which has a virtual
lock-down and concentration of power in the retail online shopping
business, out of Seattle and let Seattle voters stew in their Commie
juices. We'll see a lot of that, I'd think, and the interesting thing
here is that it's so transparent - if the media play it at all.
Homelessness may finally become an issue that can no longer be ignored,
with real estate billionaire Trump entering with club feet and
advocating the equivalent of confinement in 19th century poor houses in
LA, in the context of housing shortage, rising rental prices and real
estate wealth, evictions, especially of homeless single mothers with
"bothersome" children who are the main victims in this. There is a
national reporting agency, according to Matt Desmond in his book
"Evicted", which property managers subscribe to, which reports on
evictions everywhere. So if you've been evicted in one region of the
country you're poison all over.
It may be the right issue at the right time. It feeds into people's
growing sense of insecurity and injustice, a great preponderance of new
jobs being part-time, low-end, temporary, without benefits, and it just
might contribute to a sense of our common identity. Especially to
younger workers, those most closely affected, who have as a cohort been
reluctant and largely cynical about prospects of resistance, for too long.
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