Incentives are all fucked. There's no cost to treating employees like utilities. A federal law requiring companies to continue subsidizing benefits for one year after layoff would go a long way
While national politics dominates headlines, the real work of dismantling the tattered remains of basic worker protections is happening at the state level.
America is a union of states. Pay more attention to what your state is doing.
In Brazil we had legislation that supported employees against these shitty movements from companies. Couple of years ago they started rewriting these laws in favor of flexibility and "ease of hire". The outcome is no job is safe anymore. They can lay you off any time they want to, no consequences.
So a question I keep thinking about
Constantly
With all these billionaires and politicians doing horrible things..... How have we not heard of any of them having potshots taken at them yet
Like you'd think law of averages an everything it would've happened at least once by now
presumably cause they all live here in the country with all the terrifying three letter organizations that exist to serve the interests of capital by wielding a monopoly on violence
...that sort of institution very famously existed back in the 19th and 20th century, and yet at least one rather large War was (equally famously) started by a politician's assassination.
And, no, Capital did not start with Elon Musk.
I mean, duh
I assumed the question was about the ever-escalating shit in Recent Years, to which I responded a little bit flippantly because it comes up more often every day, and now I have sesame street cosplayers in my mentions.
...you have a guy using a pseudonym in your mentions, the standard for online personae that was ubiquitous prior to, like, 2010.
(Gimmicky, sure, but FILM CRIT HULK also got weirdly political.)
And the (valid) point was that things actually aren't "ever escalating" compared to previous eras.
bc the people who value fairness, equality, justice, honesty (aka worrying about “horrible things”) aren’t the type to shoot people dead
it’s a hawk vs dove thing
Historically, lots of people who value those things very deeply have taken up armed resistance against oppressors who leave them no other mechanisms for achieving them.
Let’s see…
Scalise: shooter hated Rs
Giffords: shooter presumably hated Ds
Reagan: shooter was deemed insane
Are those the last three? Not sure whether I missed any.
The horrible things are sort of abstract, systemic; that doesn't attract people who want to do One Big Act to fix One Specific Problem; the Comet Ping Pong gun guy wanted to specifically rescue kids from the secret dungeon, not really confront real human trafficking
Popping one billionaire doesn't really do anything to the system as what they were doing will just be continued by someone else (but popping many billionaires, like as a State, would get some results...)
Especially if you know your history. Throughout time, regardless of country, when the gap between the rich and the poor is extreme, it has always led to a revolution and the destruction of nobility or the rich.
I think in similar fashion on how the Obama WH didn't report till years later about the actual pot shots taken at the WH walls and windows by extremists during his term was a way to not stochastically inspire copy cats to try something. But, times are getting more desperate and so are people...
Probably some self-selection going on there. The people most willing to murder others over social ills also tend to be the people who want to believe those horrible people. Birds of a feather and all.
It is kinda weird, as that sort of thing at least USED to be way more common.
(You have at least one reply that goes on about CAPITALISM, because of course, but yeah Capital as a factor of production existed in the 18th and 19th century and assassinations were very much a thing back then.)
Come to think of it, it's partially for the same reasons that the murder rate has absolutely cratered in general.
(There was a bump during the height of the COVID pandemic, but that's faded away now.)
The type of person who wants billionaires dead is also the type of person who does not own a gun and is completely unwilling to accidentally hurt an innocent person. Plus billionaires have a shitton of security nowadays.
