Saturday Morning Coffee (December 21, 2024)

From Charles Dickens to drones, come and sit a spell.

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

MARLEY was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

I often think how talented Charles Dickens must have been. It would take me forever to produce anything this well written, this unique a voice, if I ever could, and yet he was a serial writer, meaning he wrote under the pressure of publishing a piece of a larger work each week in a magazine or a newspaper, perhaps never quit knowing where he was going next.

But a lot of old writers were like that. I once considered taking the English GRE, and I discovered that most of the classic authors, even if you did not know their writings front to back, from their voice and style alone, you could generally pick them out.

I dare you to do that today with any author, even the well-regarded ones.

One more way humanity has lost its magic.

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DEI as the ultimate anti-union weapon

Lee Fang had an interesting article this week that was totally unsurprising really when one comes right down to it. Corporations have for ages learned that if they signal virtue to the public, they don’t actually have to have virtue regarding their business practices.

But that extends to internal matters.

The last few paragraphs pretty much sum up the whole movement in one example.

In 2011, Pratt Logistics opened a new plant in Pennsylvania. The company brought in a man who only identified himself as an efficiency expert named “Jay.”

Jay went around conducting one-on-one interviews with workers, asking them about what problems they faced, their values, and concerns.

Later, when truckers and warehouse workers at Pratt began steps to form a union at the new plant, the company instantly fired union sympathizers. It wasn’t until later that they found out Jay’s real identity: Jason Greer, the union suppression consultant, who had been hired explicitly to identify potential union supporters.

When the Teamsters union later brought the case to court, arguing illegal retaliation and unfair labor practices, labor attorneys noted that Greer on his website explicitly advertised himself as a “union buster” who “wakes up every day with one goal in mind, and that’s to keep unions from taking over and ruining businesses that my friends and my clients have worked their entire lives to build.”

Those words are gone from Greer’s website. Now he lists himself as a diversity consultant.

In short, companies use offers of beefed-up efforts toward “equity and inclusion” and “listening to workers” to dissuade movements toward unionization.

In the most generous and benign of circumstances, this means creating a working environment that solves worker complaints without the need for a union and keeps workers so happy they feel no need for collective bargaining.

Honestly, I don’t see a problem with that, not in a perfect world.

But we don’t live in a perfect world.

But in this paragraph, the way this can be exploited becomes readily apparent.

“I’m a proponent of listening, heart-led leaders, people who make decisions on how they would want somebody else to treat them,” said Nunn, in an interview. Nunn echoed Merrell’s argument, that employees care as much about dignity as wages and benefits.

A healthy working environment, one that is flexible and offers a sense of respect and belonging and purpose, can compensate for lower wages or fewer benefits. I think everyone can agree on that. But in society at large we see how this ideal is exploited. Just think of being a good little citizen when it comes to climate: an EV is more expensive to buy, more expensive to maintain (a new set of batteries can cost as much as the car itself), and just as much or more to “charge up.” They are also far less convenient. But we’re all supposed to want one because CliMAte cHaNGe and saving the earth or some drivel. Meanwhile, the yearly climate conference has more private jets than the meeting of the G20. It’s a grift meant to make regular people sacrifice while the powerful live it up at their expense.

Now take this one example that nearly had me spitting my ice tea at Fuddruckers as I read along . . .

McEnany noted that when he worked on a campaign to organize workers at Mapbox, a technology firm that provides custom online maps, management responded with accusations of bigotry, claiming efforts to prevent the offshoring of jobs reeked of “xenophobia.”

Yup, you’re xenophobic if you don’t want your job sent overseas.

And if this doesn’t work, then there’s always divide and conquer.

One of the most insidious tactics have been the use of supposed employee resource groups, also known as affinity groups or ERGs, to undermine labor activism. Many companies offer specific ERGs for Asian, Black, Latino, or LGBTQ+ individuals, among other identity-based suborganizations as part of a larger diversity and inclusion program.

The management-sanctioned groups are attempts to create safe spaces for historically marginalized identities to voice shared concerns and create a sense of community within the workplace. According to a study published in 2021 by McKinsey & Co. that surveyed 423 organizations employing 12 million people, close to 35 percent of firms have added or expanded ERGs since 2020.

Supporters of these initiatives say these groups provide a useful channel to improve communications and spotlight company practices that might be shaped by racial biases or lack of sensitivity to minority cultures.

But they have an added “benefit” . . . for anti-unionization efforts.

“ERGs kind of passively work against the idea of a union in that they’re a way for you to kind of spend your energy without it turning into anything,” one tech worker told the media outlet.

Of course, they also set groups against each other, which should be a very familiar tactic if you pay attention to Democrat Party’s use of identity politics.

And that’s one of the real messages. The tactics are old, just rebranded. (There really is nothing new under the sun.)

In the late 19th and early 20th century, in the early days of the U.S. labor movement, corporations facing labor activism would often create fake union organizations controlled by management.

These so-called company unions would provide a false sense of worker empowerment, with some fringe benefits like a pool hall or recreation center, while keeping wage and benefit decisions controlled by corporate leaders. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, which enshrined federal labor union rights, expressly outlawed the formation of company unions.

And for good reason. But they’re back, in the form of ERGs.

And that may be the one way to defeat them.

Corporations cannot form worker organizations that claim to negotiate on behalf of employees. “Company unions were a major concern of Sen. [Robert F.] Wagner because it’s very easy for a working person to mistake these groups as third parties,” said Duff, the University of Wyoming law professor.

The movement to create ERGs at a time when workers demand better conditions could be a violation of labor law, Duff argued.

However you feel about unions in general (I’ve found them to be a mixed bag both as an employee and as an onlooker), these tactics are as dirty as they come, but really quite predictable.

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Trump suing media outlets

So this week, ABC agreed to pay out $15 million for George Stephanopoulos calling Trump a rapist on air. If you read Friday’s compilation, you know this, or if you’ve been paying any attention at all to the gloating in right-wing circles (for the record, the gloating is fine given George’s rank hypocrisy on the matter).

But this seems to be the start of something, not the end.

Why it matters: The new lawsuit is a part of Trump's broader effort to target media companies with legal action for coverage he believes is unfair.

• While there are political levers that Trump can pull to target media companies, harassment campaigns and lawsuits that drain companies of time, money, resources, and trust are often easier and just as punitive.

• “It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press,” he said at a Monday press conference at Mar-a-Lago. He vowed to continue suing new outlets and influencers.

It’s not that the coverage was “unfair.” It’s that a lot of the coverage was downright dishonest.

But this all becomes a sticky wicket. Do I think these stations deserve some accountability? Yes. They never correct themselves. They will lie right to your face and not own it. No one is fired for the coverage. But is suing, especially over a poll, really the way to get accountability?

Let’s carry this to its logical conclusion. If Trump wins, how can that win be misused against legitimate independent journalism? ABC and CNN and even the Des Moines register have sizable liability policies. They can “afford” to settle out of court. But a person like Matt Taibbi or Lee Fang? It would bankrupt them and stop legitimate stories from getting out there.

And I think many outlets are already seeing accountability through the loss of viewership and trust, and the fact that their “coverage” is fodder for endless jokes. They no longer have anywhere near the power they used to because they have so squandered their credibility.

So this seems like a move with a whole lot more downsides than upsides. I understand the reasoning, but I’m still not sure I like where it would lead.

What do you think?

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Pull out your tinfoil bowlers. We have a drone update.

So I did not know this was a thing . . .

So the question is, is there hologram technology this good?

*shrug* There’s this video, but I tend to be very skeptical.

However, there are videos that seem more plausible. This showed up in the Daily Mail.

And this seems just poorly filmed enough to be legit . . .

The problem is holograms don’t come across as well in full sun. You notice the last two videos are inside, which is why I question the one in Dubai and why I don’t think that the government is going to use drones to create a fake messiah or a fake alien invasion.

However . . . there is one false flag operation, of a Reichstag fire nature, they could pull off.

I know, “random guy on the Internet” should not be taken that seriously, but then something “interesting” happened.

In what comes as an alarming development, a radioactive shipment in the US state of New Jersey shipped from the Nazha Cancer Center in Newfield has gone missing. Medical equipment used for cancer scans was in the consignment that arrived at its destination, ‘damaged and empty’. The development comes at a time when the mystery involving swarms of drones flying in the night sky has gripped the entire nation. The timing and nature of the missing radioactive material has led to theories suggesting the drones might be involved in searching for or monitoring the lost shipment.

As per a notification by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC), the device contained a small amount of Germanium-68 (Ge-68), used to calibrate the scanner's accuracy. It has been termed a "Less Than Category 3" level of radioactive material by the agency.

I don’t like coincidences.

And then we had this . . .

The Federal Aviation Administration issued temporary flight restrictions prohibiting drone flights over parts of New Jersey following an influx of sightings in recent weeks.

The notice, which expires Jan. 17, 2025, said drone operations in support of national defense, homeland security, law enforcement, firefighting, search and rescue or disaster response missions are not included in the restrictions.

Commercial drone operations are allowed with a valid statement of work, but there must be an approved special governmental interest airspace waiver and all applicable FAA regulations must be followed.

Now isn’t that interesting. Only government drones are left. We’ll see if the sightings slow down.

So let’s just cut to the chase. Some “conspiracy theories,” like using hologram-producing drones to stage an Independence Day style invasion, would they if they could? Yup, but I doubt they can.

But other “conspiracy theories,” like say a random dirty bomb sneaking its way across a totally open border and going off over say the holidays, a time of expected peace and therefore vulnerability for Americans?

Yes, they would, and they can.

Here is where it gets really dark. Are these drones really looking or are they pretending to look, so that when the bomb goes off, our government can say, “Hey, we tried? You remember all those drones. We were trying, without alarming you, to find it, but we just couldn’t.”

9/11 changed our country for the worst. We ended up for twenty years in the Middle East. But that was actually the least of it and I would suggest the icing on the cake for the Machine. The really big “gift” to come out of 9/11 was the so-called Patriot Act, which was sold as a way to make the American public safe from terrorists, but has over the years become a way to make the government and the Machine safe from Americans. Let’s be honest.

So if you wonder why all these conspiracy theories about whether or not 9/11 was at best something that the upper echelons of government knew was going to happen and let happen or if the government actually carried it out . . . that’s why. We’re still fighting to free ourselves from the consequences of the Machine’s power grab on that day.

So now, I ask you to imagine if for example a dirty bomb goes off in Time Square on New Year’s Eve? Suddenly the government claims it was the Iranians or it was the Russians, and given the pattern of 9/11 twenty some years before, what kind of power grab do they make?

It’s painfully predictable. They get a war, but again that is just icing on the cake. It’s what they get domestically that will make it all worthwhile. They will get their censorship system. They will get their surveillance system. Every attempt to rein in government and bureaucracy will take a backseat to “making the world safe again.” All questions about corruption . . . vanish.

You say to me, “But they wouldn’t kill a million people for that, would they?”

My answer is, “Yes, they definitely would.” The citizenry are either obstacles or resources, but we definitely are not individuals to them. What do they really care if we live or die? They’ve demonstrated that repeatedly.

And even if the bomb were placed by Iranian terrorist or a rogue Russian (though Russia doesn’t fight that way), do not get distracted. Understand that whatever anger you have, it will be used to put chains on you.

So what I’m saying, if this is what is coming down the pike, if/when the storm arrives, remember what you knew before it hit because the whole point will be to make you forget that the worst enemy we have is the Machine. No one else can come anywhere close. And you can trust nothing they say.

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Escapism: Oh, we need a lot of it after that. I probably should have led with the “ka-boom” story. Ah, well, here we are.

I don’t read a lot of “seasonal” material, but . . .

Okay, it’s kind of predictable, and the attempt at “well rounded” characters leaves them a bit unrealistic. But it’s a “Christmas goodie” sort of book, with no real nutritional value but satisfying all the same.

I watched a few movies. We’ll start with the weird British one . . .

I’m not quite sure what to make of it. It was based on a true story. From IMDB . . .

The film is based on real events. The Case of the Talking Moongose or of the Dalby Spook really took place in the Isle of Man in the 1930. A local family, the Irvings, claimed to have a spirit in the form of a talking mongoose called Gef. The case attracted the attention of skeptics and psychics alike, but most contemporary critics agreed it was most likely a hoax.

And the main character, Nandor Fodor, did also actually exist and he did study Gef. He started out a parapsychologist, but then drifted toward trying to explain paranormal events through psychology.

And that is pretty much how the movie plays out.

But some of the themes are thought-provoking, such as is there harm in just allowing people to believe what comforts them, or what is the point of being alive if there’s nothing after death.

The other movie I saw was a blend of Goonies and the Sandlot.

I won’t say it’s the greatest movie ever, but it was a decent attempt. I’ve noticed lately how many movies are being set in the eighties and nineties, before cellphones and social media, in a world built more around community.

And finally, I rarely watch “mushy” movies, but I turned this one on because I kind of related to the main character and it is Christmas after all.

It’s a “have a box of tissue handy” kind of movie, and my ever skeptical other half questioned the “physics” of it all (kind of a spoiler, sorry), but still worth the time.

Oh, and it has Emma Thompson in it as the mother. Can’t go wrong there.

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The year is done. We made it. I wasn’t sure there for a bit.

Things have changed a little around our house. The redhead—Penny—I think is here to stay, so now we’re four. She’s always here for my niece to take, and she’ll always be the Bear’s dog, but I took her back home for a visit, and she was already growling at one of the little ones. She’s not a mean dog. I think she’s a big dog that for some reason does not do well with a lot of little dogs, especially little ones that nip in her face. (I honestly can’t blame her there, but it is still not good.)

I won’t completely disappear over the break. I’ll be around on all our favorite substacks and Notes, and I’ll be in the comments section here today.

But if I don’t see you, have a magnificent Christmas and a very Happy New Year.