The war on workers continues.
The battle over AI and the writer’s guild continues. Here’s the problem: The writer’s are striking for decent wages for their creativity. The rich that they work for seem to think that they can wait out the writers and instead count on Artificial Intelligence to replace the writers and protect their bottom line.
As a show of support for the writers, the actor’s guild went on strike for similar reasons. They are protesting the use of AI to replace the actors in the films. The underlying point seems to be that the rich think they can replace everyone with AI and save all those wages for their profit margin.
Now it seems, the autoworkers may be going on strike for better wages against all three automakers. We’ve seen this before, back when Obama bailed out the auto industry. The wealthy that own these corporations seem to think that wages need not be paid and they would get that money put into their profits. They seem to be counting on robotics and AI to replace the workers.
Remember when the air-traffic controllers went on strike? It wasn’t over wages, it was because of unsafe working conditions and not enough controllers to cover the air traffic every day. Those workers were putting in 10-12 hour shifts and they wanted some regulations to give them relief. What was the Reagan response? Did he get legislation through to limit their working hours? No, his response was to fire everyone and bust up the union that supported them. That union busting is still going on even today. Unions are good for the workers and bad for the wealthy, so the wealthy work hard to destroy the unions. Yes, it’s greed.
It seems that there is a common thread to all of these strikes, wages being the main issue. The rich don’t want to pay their workers a decent living wage and the workers don’t want to work for slave wages anymore. Wasn’t it Bernie Sanders that was pushing for a meager $15.00 an hour minimum wage? Even $15.00 per hour isn’t really a living wage when you consider that the rich keep raising the prices on everything, simply because they can and there is no regulation to stop them. In my personal opinion, at $25.00 per hour for a minimum wage would just about cover expenses for living in this country for a little while.
Maybe the answer lies in preventing the widespread use of AI and limit it to robotics, then limit the robotics for the jobs that are too dangerous for humans to do. Maybe AI would go on strike for better working conditions, you think?
All in all, the wealthy should reconsider what all that money will be good for after they replace mankind with machines. I think it is past time to remove this kind of power from the rich, they are abusing the privilege. They buy government officials to write laws that make the rich immune to the cries of the people, where people don’t get a decent wage, health care or the other basic necessities of life. The rich are the true “takers”, the real “welfare queens” and their greed knows no limits.
The “Citizen’s United” decision gave this power to the rich. It wasn’t the citizens who were united, it was a wealthy few that started a war with the workers and our democracy. It opened the door to outright bribery that was illegal prior to the “Raygun” administration and made it the Standard Operating Procedure. There are two things that keep democracy alive. One is not bribing the lawmakers and two, a transparent and honest media. The rich currently own both and democracy is in real trouble. Until those two things are brought under control, democracy will die a slow death, we are seeing that process now.
My only solution to this is to get the 20-35 year olds interested in the job of governing and get them running for office as Democrats. It does little good to tell people to “vote blue” if there is no blue running for office. As long as the GOP runs unopposed for everything, the rest of us will be left with nothing.
If I were a younger man and my health was better, I would run for some office with the goal of keeping a GOP out of it. I don’t know much about office work, but I do have common sense and a strong sense of the commons.
I swore an oath over 50 years ago to defend the Constitution of the United States with my life if need be. I swore to defend it from ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. I gave up my guns long ago and today, my only weapons are the pen and the billboard that is my Chevy S-10. If these insurrectionists really support the troops, they won’t mess with me. If they vandalize the truck, they go to jail and can’t vote. If they vandalize me, they go to jail and won’t be able to vote, they might not get to run for office either. Either way, it gets a Republikon off the streets and that is all I can do to honor my oath. I have not been relieved of duty.
OK, that is the end of my rant, I know I am just preaching to the choir here and I thank you for reading.