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Donny

@dgschell.bsky.social

29K followers 2.4K following 8.7K posts

M*rketing Analyst 📊 Cat dad 🐈 Married to @taystrom.bsky.social 👬 Gay 🌈 Travel ✈️ PNW 🏞️ Geek 🧙‍♂️🚀 Civic engagement nerd 🗳️ Prone to tpyos 🙆‍♂️ https://linktr.ee/dgschell

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · Jan 26

Guten Tag

Unclothed pic on deck with mountain in background

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 5h

After work naps >>>>>>>>>

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 11h

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey

Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 11h

Might add Marcus Aurelius's 'Meditations' to my reading list because it's come to my attention that I sorta embrace stoicism already 💁‍♀️

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

Yay mine is listed under "better choices for daily consumption" 🥹

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

This is what I'm doing wrong 🥲🥲

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

And well articulated, achievable demands 🙃

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

Yeah, only 6 million 🫠🫠

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

True. We do operate under different conditions here.

Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

I think it comes down to our tendency towards individualism. We don't conceptualize the benefits to collective action enough.

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

Also, I'm sympathetic that a general strike would be asking a lot of people to feel some pain, like lack of pay or other consequences. The trick would be to persuade them that the benefits would out weigh the costs, and follow through to ensure it does.

Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

That's a fair point, but this stat can provide some optimism.

The '3.5% rule': How a small minority can change the world

Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.

www.bbc.com

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

Probably shouldve said "general strike" but you get my drift.

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

Precisely!

And there's a reason unions have been undermined for decades, including SCOTUS rulings that impacted their memberships. They were pretty effective 🙃

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

Then*

Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

True. But where it might fray is what are the specific demands? If the demands could be well articulated and agreed upon, the a strike could be quite powerful, especially as the economy comes to a halt.

Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

I am unfortunately less familiar with the folks like Piker. But if their support were secured, I'm sure they could have some sway.

Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

Pulling all the levers at once would be ideal: political leaders AND business leaders.

But to really pull it off, I think the unions would be needed. I think unions would be seen as more trustworthy than those who many might consider "political elites"

Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

But then progressives would complain it's selling out to centrists. Moderates would argue progressives need to be more pragmatic.

I think there'd be a lot of friction with political leaders alone.

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 12h

Yeah... That's the tricky part. And under the political leader scenario, I considered a unified call from each wing of the left party. AOC/Bernie lead progressives. Newsom, Pritzker, Harris, or even Obama leading moderates.

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 13h

Also, not 100% sure of the reliability of the Economic Policy Institute, but Ad Fontes rates it skews left and reliable. So probably decent. Anyway, here's a graph.

As union membership has fallen, the top 10 percent have been getting a larger share of income

As union membership has fallen over the last few decades, the share of income going to the top 10 percent has steadily increased. Union membership fell to 11.1 percent in 2014, where it remained in 20...

www.epi.org

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 13h

Despite this, I'd think the best bet for a successful national strike would be a joint call to action from political and union leaders (however, some influential unions allied with Trump last election...)

But regardless, we should work to strengthen unions.

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 13h

However, unions have been undermined for decades and their memberships have been in decline. This is even despite that when membership was stronger the US saw less income inequality.

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 13h

And then he suggested business community leaders like Mark Cuban. I suspected business leaders would have even less sway.

ALTHOUGH, if political and union leaders began to organize a strike, I saw more potential there.

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Donny @dgschell.bsky.social · 13h

Had interesting DMs with bloomf about how to convince enough people to participate in a national strike.

We first considered whether a call from political leaders would be effective, but considering the left tends to splinter and not coalesce around leaders, I figured we'd see limited success.

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