ProdigalFrog @ ProdigalFrog @slrpnk.net

A frog who wants the objective truth about anything and everything.

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As I said in my previous response, I'm not fan of the Kamala, nor the democratic party for the very reasons you mention. But to frame it as the Teamsters withholding their endorsement for the same reasons that leftists refused to vote for Kamala is disingenuous.

If the Democrats wanted to get the teamsters endorsement, why didn’t they do more to show that they would be a pro-labor, anti-capitol party

Democrats are neoliberals, they'll never be anti-capital (hence their failure), but they certainly weren't as anti-labor as the Republican party.

You keep trying to paint my views as a simplistic sports team analog, but it doesn't hold up. I'm pointing out real gripes with Teamster leadership and the depressing state of the membership, which I wish weren't the case. I am not randomly smack talking them because I'm on some other team (do you think I'm in the UAW? I'm not).

you want to blame “someone else”

I'm not blaming anyone. I doubt an official Teamster endorsement would've made a difference in the election. I'm pointing to it as a prime example that the base of the Teamsters is conservative enough that taking an overt leftist stance is likely political suicide for Teamster leadership.

It suffers a bit from comparison to “The Right Stuff” movie which is also about the early troubled days of a space program

Ah, I've yet to see that film. My only point of comparison is Apollo 13, which isn't terribly similar, so RSP still felt pretty fresh.

The chase scene in the middle seems a little out of place.

Yeah that probably could've been integrated better, though I think there was some foreshadowing in a conversation with the leader of the neighboring country and his aid. Though the chase isn't addressed afterward, I think it does help build up to the final conflict, which may have been a bit jarring without that chase scene to gradually escalate the other country into opting for more extreme actions to prevent the rocket launch.

The Riquinni character is unfortunately underdeveloped.

Fully agree there. Considering how much emphasis is placed on this film emulating Nausicaa's sales figures, and how it was pitched to exec's as a 'Nausicaa-like project', it wouldn't surprise me if they actually did model some of her personality on it.

The wikipedia page has a good overview of how it might be explained thematically

I hadn't read that section until now. I never would've been able to grasp that that was what they were trying to convey with that scene without that additional context, which only further speaks to how wildly poor the decision to depict it in that way was. 100% agree that it really speaks to the general mindset of that era.

You didn't address any of my other points.

I'm basing my opinions on repeated examples of Teamster leadership failing to fight back against the establishment, not 'sports-team' reactions.

When asked about Chavez-DeRemer’s stance on the right-to-work section of the PRO Act, O’Brien said that he is working with senators such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to come up with a version of the PRO Act that “may not include that.”

“That’s the beauty of having conversations with people from the other side, where you can collaborate and actually find out what works for that state, what doesn’t work for it—but more importantly, what’s going to work for the American worker,” O’Brien said.

In the same Fox News interview, O’Brien also said the Teamsters do not want to see anyone losing their job, but that “[Trump] thinks he’s within his right,” when asked about the personnel-slashing Department of Government Efficiency and the Trump administration’s widely decried deferred resignation program for nearly all federal employees. Multiple federal employees unions are currently battling the Trump administration in court over its actions targeting federal workers and federal agencies.

With those statements, O'Brian is publicly stating that he still thinks he can reason and plead with an out-and-out proven anti-labor party that just destroyed federal unions. That makes him either naive or an idiot, and for his sake I hope it's the former.

We need all unions to come together as one movement to effectively fight this dictatorship from taking power, but based on previous evidence, a significant portion of the Teamster membership are unlikely to want to join that fight (obviously, some will, but they will be in the minority).

You're ignoring that a majority (60%) of its membership are conservative, and not endorsing Trump doesn't make it much better, since that lack of endorsement of Kamala (whom I don't even like, but clearly was the harm reduction option) only speaks to the fact that they have so many right-wing members, the leadership had to fence-sit in fear of not getting elected again by their pro-Trump members.

If you're a left-wing Teamster trying to steer your brothers and sisters away from MAGA, then more power to you. But don't delude yourself that the Teamster leadership or right-wing members are going to be the ones leading the charge against this regime.

I would love to be proven wrong, but at best I could see them hopping on the bandwagon if the winds change and the regime begins to implode on itself.

I have this perception from:

1. Sean O'Brian trying to cozy up to the republican party by speaking at the RNC
2. The leadership choosing not to endorse Kamala during the election (since it would piss off their conservative members)
3. the locals repeatedly endorsing local republican politicians this year, despite seeing the destruction of federal unions and anti-worker rhetoric from the republican party
4. First hand account from many left-leaning teamsters that so many of their fellow members are self-procliamed MAGA or right wing Trump voters (according to a source from wikipedia, 60% of the membership voted for Trump) who are only in the union because it directly benefits them financially.

I'd love to see those right-wing members come to their senses and vote to join a general strike, but I just don't see it happening. They even voted not to strike while negotiating their UPS contract, which resulted in (IMO) only modest improvements, and couldn't even secure AC units to be retrofitted to their trucks to prevent people dying of heatstroke.

It was planned before the election, and they likely didn't anticipate Trump would win again.

From what I've seen the UAW leader is fairly left leaning.

The UAW I could see getting onboard, but the Teamsters are so full of MAGA members and Trump loving leadership, I'd be astonished if they did.

It's preferable to break that anti-labour red scare law if it means avoiding the country getting to the point where civil war happens instead.

The UAW was planning a general strike for May 1st 2028. I don't know how willing they'd be to start a wildcat general strike, but they may join one.

https://may1.uaw.org/

No, that's the Teamsters you're thinking of, more specifically, Sean O'Brian, who did attempt to cozy up to Trump and the republican party. The membership of the Teamsters itself has a significant amount of MAGA members as well, and they often endorse republican politicians.

the UAW's leadership is far more class conscious in comparison, and endorsed Kamala in the election (the Teamsters chose not to endorse anyone to not piss off their MAGA members).

Saying that, virtually all US Unions are pretty wimpy, and seem to loathe the idea of actually striking or making big moves to save themselves compared to European unions. The IWW is the sole exception, but unfortunately they don't have the numbers compared to the big unions.

The most serious proposal for a general strike date is backed by the UAW for May 1st 2028, but that was planned before Trump won the election.

https://may1.uaw.org/

I agree, and the creator of the video actually goes into that toward the end, suggesting that positive masculine and feminine traits are actually just universally good traits to have, and any attribution towards one being more attuned to one gender or another is an artificial social creation.

However, our shared stance on gender is still quite uncommon, I think, so the video creator is attempting to at least direct those who still hold firmly to gender roles as a concept toward a more positive outcome, instead of adopting negative traits and thinking it's good because it "makes them a man/woman".

Jeep and Ford have had postal truck contracts in the past. I assume the defense contractors are simply bidding lower than commercial makers are willing to go?

The link itself is to an in-depth explanation of what the podcast is by the creator himself.

Regardless, I don't think my previous response warranted going to my profile and mass downvoting my comments and posts. Nor Aldhissla's responses to you, who kindly responded to your questions (and whom you thanked?)

Are you okay, mate? (Genuinely asking, we all have bad days sometimes).

Neither of the engines these came equipped with are diesel, they're gas engines. They also have some very specific features that make them well suited to mail delivery.

Saying that, they do have their problems, like no AC, poor heaters, and bad MPG. The new EV replacements are pretty well liked by USPS drivers, from what I've read.

Mike has a great style of metering out information with just the right amount if additional context in a way that's not dry.

As for why not a book instead; podcasts allow someone to listen while they're doing other activities, like driving, running/walking, or cooking.

This is a podcast community, after all 😅

Glad you're enjoying it!

That looks like a bombass community, subscribed! :D

Thanks for the first hand account! Out of curiosity, when did the smog begin to let up?

Hmm... Replicant still seems to be stuck on Android 6, and efforts to get out a new version based on Android 11 (Google has already released Android 16) are... Not moving terribly fast. The last issue closed was in May of 2024, their forum is barely alive, and they seem to only support very old Samsung Galaxy phones, with some discussion of potentially supporting the Fairphone for version 11.

I hope they can get the NLnet funding, but unless they get an injection of new developers, it doesn't look terribly hopeful for em, if I'm being honest. The 'Work Time' section of the website shows that it's pretty much just one guy, Denis 'GNUtoo' Karkil, putting in all the work sporadically over the years.

In comparison, pure Linux mobile efforts like PostmarketOS and Mobian are moving much faster, and seem to support a much wider selection of phones (Mobian less so, but still better than Replicant).

I think they made the right call too, especially with ICE having access to Graphite now. But it does show that we definitely need to build up Linux phones as a viable alternative, since Google is virtually guaranteed to fuck us even worse down the road.

It'll take a while to plug up all the security holes to get Linux up to par with GrapheneOS, but its the only way to get back collective control over the future of our mobile devices.