It it's exactly common for Aussies to know about American labour laws (most of us don't know how great our own are until forced by adversity into exercising them) but I... well, I am something of a rabid lefty, and worker protection is a subject close to my heart. With the rudderless ship that is the Bush administration ploughing blindly through almost every remaining good thing in the United States and making one hell of a mess of the rest of the world, I've been reading up.

When I wake up in a nuclear blasted wasteland sometime in the next year or so, I want to be able to tell my fellow survivors what happened.

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

Yeah, I guess the fact that certain news gets to you before it gets to us is still better than it not getting out at all at this point. And since it's apparent that America either controls the world or is hell-bent on it, I'm not surprised that people worldwide would want to hear about the goings-on of this country.

Labor laws are of great interest to me as well. Have you ever read Fast Food Nation? It turns out McDonald's is extremely clever when it comes to skirting labor laws and quietly violating them. It also turns out that our beloved Walt Disney was rabidly anti-union and anti-labor.

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

The US controls much of the world. Rather, interests who are in a position to control US policy control much of the world. They are able to rig all kinds of "loans" and "free trade" in their favor. If the world is getting wise to this, Uncle Sam always has its unrivaled and unprecedented military supremacy to fall back on. But I'm afraid that this kind of "control" is not control at all, but chaos. I've suspected this all along, and it's played out rather predictably in Iraq, just to cite the most notable current example. That country has spun right out of any semblance of order, just as we left-wing nut cases said it would.

If the situation on the ground is unmanageable, I think the powers that be console themselves with profits and market share. My prediction is that it won't last. Gosh, I must be a fringey communist loon.

Labor is dead in the US. The NRLB can hand down multiple rulings to a company for union-busting, and the company just goes right on doing it. "Efficiency" is bought at the price of reduced wages and benefits. Where else would the profits come from? It can't last. Deprive the demand side of purchasing power, and the economy collapses. Eventually.

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What others say about boorite!

That's just what I'm worried about. The world, the U.S. especially, seems to be running in the red. Meaning that in my experience, so many companies go to such EXTREME ends just to stay level that it makes me wonder if it's even worth it. I mean, so much of the "profits" of the companies go to lawyers, CEO and executive salaries, and bonuses, etc., that it seems like if they just all took some pay cuts that they wouldn't have to skimp in so many areas. I think it can't last, either, boorite, but it's been this way for over 50 years at least. I think it may just last for a lot longer because the nature of capitalism is really to stay one head away from the executioner's blade.

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

[quote]
Plus, two attractive girls making out with each other, etc., and then asking you to help them out? Come on, D/X, like that's an opportunity you'd pass up. Poser.[/quote]

If two attractive girls are making out and asking you to join them, then I think it's safe to say that neither of them are lesbians.

Yes, I've noticed that. What disillusioned Marxist hasn't? We keep predicting the end is nigh, and yet the system keeps going.

Lots of our other nutty scenarios, however, come to pass exactly as predicted. What is hard to predict is power's adaptation to new and disastrous events. I think forecasts of doom sometimes assume that the planners will keep doing exactly what they're doing, and that's not a safe bet.

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What others say about boorite!

Capitalism hasn't survived as long as it has without SOME adaptability. I predict the system being in place for a very long time. What it seems is that capitalism is just a precursor to a tyranny or a totalitarian government.

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

Maybe their tongues are just tired.

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Legend, oh legend, the third wheel legend...always in the way.