It’s times like these that I’m forced to wonder about the extent of grounded rationality going on in the US administration. I try not to look at it in those terms because it seems like too much of an individualist mindset, but like… what would be the plan here? Kill as many people as possible and rule over the remainder with an iron lung? In the short term, I guess I could see an attempt to break up any union power and replace it, but you can’t just do that and then get the same thing without unions. Even if you get back mostly the same level of skill, somehow, the lack of union protections would mean less oversight in an agency where oversight is critical.
Some of this shit seems less like a consolidation of power from someone interested in being ultimate ruler and more like a move toward a balkanized US made up of company towns.
rule over the remainder with an iron lung?
This made me laugh.
I don’t Think trump is trying to become a dictator. I think trump truly believes in the invisible hand of the market. He’s fallen for the propaganda that “the problem with Capitalism is that it’s never been tried. Governments are always getting in the way. If we just let go and allow the market to be free to self regulate all the problems will go away.”
He is the quintessential failson confusing propaganda for the truth because they are able to exist in a ideological bubble detached from reality.
For those who dont know NIOSH while under HHS and not the department of labor does most of the research work for safety in the US and anything that needs to be certified either goes through ANSI or NIOSH, so this has effectivly killed safety protections in the United States. - Source, About to graduate with a masters in Safety Engineering in Yankeeland… because timing is great
It’s impressive how irrational US capitalism is becoming. This is just an insane race to squeeze all profit possible from workers and remove any cost associated with environmental regulations. This ignores even the science behind it, since quality controls and work safety have already shown that they can improve business outcomes. These people only care about profit margins, and for them, everything else is just a cost entry in a spreadsheet.
I think this shows how docile they think (and probably are correct) that the working class is, we got safety regulation because there was going to be a revolt over all the worker deaths, now as they get rid if them no one cares, even some workers are chearing about it
I think my generation, that grew after the demise of the Soviet Union, were spoon fed the liberal ideology to an extent that we barely recognize ourselves as workers, and fewer among those recognizing ourselves as the revolutionary class. After the demise of the left that surrendered themselves to neoliberalism, we are suffering from decades of no ideological work to dispute our conscience and the result of this is the big return of far right ideology, since today capitalism is in crisis.
So unfortunately even the most obvious welfare measures that were the results of previous generation of workers’ struggles are being dismantled under the applause of many workers.
I don’t see any way out of this but doing a lot of agitprop and organizing work. I think in a few years we’ll have another opportunity for turning the tables, since I think far right wing politics will turn the landscape in a nightmare, and people will turn from it after the coming downturns. The problem is how much damage these people will do to workers’ movements until they fall.
Also most safety resources are NIOSH resources in the US or otherwise funded by NIOSH
