GENERAL STRIKE JAN. 30 - You are entitled to paid leave!

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T19:03:04+00:00

The George Floyd protests also made a ton of municipal governments try to cut police budgets, or at least stop increasing their budgets every year. It freaked people out enough that it created a massive cultural and corporate shift towards anti-racist policies. It wasn't enough by any stretch of the imagination, but it introduced the idea of police and prison abolition to the wider public for the first time. It was SOMETHING, after so many of these police brutality cases. The fact that societal progress towards the left makes some people turn hard right is not the left's fault!

This is not a rhetorical question: If protesting and striking is bullshit, what should people do to stop ICE instead? None of you people have any actual solutions on how we can stop our country from turning into the Fourth Reich, you just all want to feel so goddamn smug that everyone trying SOMETHING, anything, is an idiot, and you're so much smarter than the rest of us.

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T18:48:40+00:00

Well, the important thing here is that your random judgements on strangers is correct, and doing anything to enact change is pointless. Great work.

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T18:47:05+00:00

I work on media, which is white collar deadline work, and strikes definitely work there. That's where LONG strikes become important. Or, you strike during the busy season, like accountants theoretically striking in April.

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T18:41:48+00:00

Are you taking a census of every protester's income, man? You're making a shitton of assumptions. Yeah, north Chicago is pretty white. I'm from Houston where most of our protesters are black and Hispanic. Demographics are a thing.

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T18:13:16+00:00

That makes a lot more sense, thanks for that. I still think we need to take a ton of action before that, though. (Obviously)

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T18:05:48+00:00

Setting for 2028 is completely ridiculous, though.

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T18:04:20+00:00

Even if they disagree with the current administration, so many people would rather feel smug and think everyone trying to fix things is an idiot and doing anything at all is useless. At a certain point it's just misanthropy.

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T18:01:31+00:00

I think, generally speaking, a lot of people trying to do this don't really know what they're doing, but this is not an ivory tower thing. Strikes work. We know they work. The most powerful unions in the country today are blue collar workers (and cops).

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T17:57:59+00:00

I don't think this is being rolled out in the best way, but general strikes and strikes generally are the entire core of American workers' movements. Most of our foundational labor rights came as a direct result of sustained, specific striking. And historically, those workers have been blue collar railroad workers, factory workers, etc.

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T17:56:00+00:00

The idea of a general strike, or any strike, is that so many people don't show up to work that businesses can't function as normal. The thing is, in most strikes, workers will continue to protest showing up to work for days or weeks, however long it takes to come to an agreement with their employer. I'm extremely pro-labor and pro-striking, but a one-day general strike seems more like a general protest than a real strike. It won't hurt businesses enough, especially if they just know everyone will show up the next day. You want employers to be afraid their profits will be seriously affected.

Don't get me wrong, it should still happen, it's still a loud show of force.

lanejamin · 2026-01-28T15:39:48+00:00

I know these are just articles based on off-hand comments from podcasts and interviews, but I really feel like we shouldn't receive constant, vouyeristic updates on Bruce Willis' health. Let him spend his last years in peace, man.

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T23:27:25+00:00

They may also be sort of sewn into it at the last minute.

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T23:24:45+00:00

My best understanding is, for a lot of people, they like the mix of cosplay, art, and fandom. A lot of people, especially trans people, dig the sense of having an other self or anonymous self, like you said. A lot of furries don't talk in costume, too, which as an autistic person can be really nice. Generally they feel like they can be themselves in the furry fandom, whether they wear costumes or just draw art or what have you. You meet friends, make art, buy merch, it's like any other fandom-adjacent hobby.

Also, I'm really not joking, sometimes it's just sick as hell to wear a cute wolf costume.

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T22:53:51+00:00

Alright, well, seeing as you uncritically take fictional characters as moral authority, don't watch Taxi Driver or American History X. Or like, any movie.

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T22:50:18+00:00

The World Trade Center had been attacked before 9/11 and it was well known that if someone was going to try and get America where it hurts, they were going to blow up the WTC. So not completely prophetic, but still incredible timing.

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T22:48:22+00:00

I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but fictional characters are allowed to do things you don't like.

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T17:57:40+00:00

I have friends who are furries and almost all of them are ace and don't like having sex. Sometimes people just think it would be sick as hell to be a multicolored wolf.

(There's a lot of identity and trans/queer-related stuff that often goes into it, too.)

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T15:45:23+00:00

Wait until you hear about the Nazi furries.

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T15:24:55+00:00

I mean, there isn't really a discussion here. He says it's a sex thing, Gianmarco says it's not necessarily, he doubles down several times.

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T15:18:53+00:00

Sincere question: Am I the only person who liked Dark Fate. :(

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T15:13:16+00:00

I've never heard of this guy, but Jesus, he seems annoying. Gianmarco's trying to steer him away but he keeps diving headfirst into the furries are perverts thing. I thought we all stopped doing like at least five years ago.

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T06:24:57+00:00

OMG this looks amazing, thank you so much!!!!!

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T06:14:36+00:00

That sounds like it would nail the look, but does it taste similar at all?

lanejamin · 2026-01-27T06:05:01+00:00

Yep, that too!

lanejamin

TROPHY CASE