A crop of toks. Short tiktoks about unions, inflation, and accidentally setting people on fire in my dive bar.
A crop of toks. Short tiktoks about unions, inflation, and accidentally setting people on fire in my dive bar.
Enjoy!
Hey Y’all!
Have a grab bag for you this week. Stay tuned for more labor organizing in the Ohio Valley and fracking accountability in the weeks to come. Also, let me know if you like me including the bar stories in here. They’re endless and new ones happen every Thursday and Friday.
Much love and solidarity,
JR
Short Toks with full transcripts.
Busting union myths #1
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Bad John: Unions just take your money…
Good John: welllll you don't pay dues until the union wins you a raise and union wages are 11% higher on average, so if you win an 11% raise, and pay 1% in dues, then you're 10% ahead. Plus they're democratic. Nothing happens without your vote so...
WaPo Opinon: Unions will make inflation worse
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This article says we can either lower inflation or pay workers what they're worth. But it is bullshit. Giant corporations are raising prices simply because they can. And here's the proof.
The light blue is 40 years back to 1979. And dark blue is the last half of 2020 and all of 2021. Corporate profits are by far the biggest driver of what we're experiencing right now. This (article) says that union contracts will make inflation much worse, but it makes no sense because we have record-high inflation right now with record low union density.
But you'll keep paying high prices because there is no competition with corporate monopolies. We've let these companies and the politicians that they buy run this country, and this is what it looks like. Unionizing against these huge companies is the way to put profits back into the hands of the workers who make them possible.
Another “…but they vote against their own interests”
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Hello, commenter! I love you. I'm sure you're a good person. We probably agree on a lot of stuff, but I am going to drag your comment.
“They made their bed by voting against their own interest.” A lot of people have thought it. It's kind of true, but it really gets under my skin. If you've said it, or you thought it, how did you vote in the 2020 Democratic primary?
There were 26 candidates. One or two of them ran on a class struggle-style platform. I worked for one of them. And I saw a lot of the liberal people who constantly say the working class votes against their interests all the time, pick Joe Biden in a field of 26 other candidates.
That was a vote to continue all of the things that make my part of the country, Appalachia, look like it does. It was a vote to continue the system that is squeezing the working class, exploding billionaire wealth, and driving the capture by billionaires of our political system, but with a kinder, gentler tone.
If you're aware of the scale of our problems, and you're aware of the inability of our political system to meet them, *and* you are voting for anything other than all our class struggle, you *are* better, but how much better than the people that you're dumping on for voting against their own interests?
I've thought it. I've felt it. They do. It's bad. But if we are not actively offering a solution that could really solve their problems, which is a class struggle movement and a broad multiracial working-class coalition… *shrugs* We're not offering that, so like…
I've been deeply involved in the Democratic Party. I want them to win. But the candidates that are winning right now are going to get us to the same bad outcomes, just slower. And if we want that to change, we have got to own up to that and look at what we're doing to contribute to that problem.
I think the way out is a true grassroots mass working-class movement that unites everybody on a class basis, but for that to happen, everybody that this kind of comment is dumping on has to be in that movement. That's a hard reality.
Small Town Dive Bar Stories!
All sides of the story in 24 hours
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This is how small my town is. I’m tending bar on a Thursday and my favorite regular Jimbo, you guys remember Jimbo, comes in launches into a wild story like always.
He's like, “Man, I was in my backyard last night and it's pitch black and I squinted and this guy just skitters across my yard man! And then there were cops over there that started running after the guy! I don't know what happened but he comes back and starts a campfire in my yard man! … I didn't even tell him I had a sandwich.”
Normal story for Jimbo.
So I'm in the bar the next day at about five o'clock making wings and a cop comes in. I'm talking to him about his shift. He's like, “nothing out of the ordinary. You know, I had to run a guy down and talk to him about starting campfires in somebody's yard. You know Jimbo, right?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“It was his yard.”
“Of course it was.”
Same night about 11 pm, the bar is packed and people are partying. And who walks in the door? It's the guy from my very first bar story who loves to do all sorts of illegal shit in the bathroom and then take his pants off. His pants? Barely on right now. He's got on a ratty blazer, torn up. No shirt on. Looking like he fell off a roof - probably did. And right before I'm about to kindly ask him to keep his pants on that night, he leans in and he's like “These people trying to get me, man. These cops are giving me shit. I stayed out all last night. I didn't go home, but I did start a campfire in somebody's yard man.”
“Yeah. I heard. I know.”
I uhh… accidentally set a Marine on fire.
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I uhhhh… set a man on fire at my bar. Accidentally! Accidentally, OK? Set a whole man on fire.
He was a Marine… IS a marine. He's alive… just a little crispy. It was a flaming Dr. Pepper. For those of you who don't know, that is a light beer in a glass, then a shot glass with Amerato topped with 151. You light the 151 and *drop the shot glass in the beer*, chug it… magically tastes like Dr. Pepper and *does not set your beard on fire*… if you follow those steps.
So this marine with a perfect beard is watching me do this, cool as a cucumber, and I'm thinking “he's got this.” But what I forgot was that these guys and gals eat crayons and piss McMasters. So he was a *little* more smashed than I thought he was.
I realized this after he watched fire engulf the shot glass for like 10 seconds. Then dude picks up the flaming shot glass and is about to *throw it on his face.* The beard was the first thing to singe, and then his hairy-ass hand caught on fire.
And at this point, I'm on triage screaming at him to drop it in the shot glass with like 10 of his friends all yelling at him. The whole bar’s watching. A fog of burnt hair is settling in over the whole bar. And he’s still cool as ever man! The guy’s having a great time… on fire. There's visible smoke from burnt hair.
He plunks it in the glass, deletes it, and orders a Malibu and tequila… WHAT?! And he still tipped! And didn't… you know… sue me?
Semper Fire my guy. Next one is on me.