caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

Here is wiki's thumbnail account of the strike:

1985–1986 Hormel strike
Date August 17, 1985 – September 13, 1986
(1 year, 3 weeks and 6 days)
Location Austin, Minnesota, United States

Caused by
Unsafe working conditions
Decrease in hourly wages from $10.69 to $8.25

Goals
Return to $10.69 hourly wage
Improved working conditions

The Fed
I have never paid much attention to the Fed, what it is, how it worked, whatever. It's something that none of us, at least in almost all of my lifetime, could control. It seems to me to be an entity that makes things better for the rich, especially bankers, and 'bleh', on average, for the rest of us. It's 'politically independent' which means... means that TPTB rule it without any input from the lower classes. But it wasn't always like that as I learned recently from a good article by Matt Stoller 'Federal Reserve Independence Is Bad' with the subheading - 'Donald Trump wants to fire Fed Chair Jay Powell. He should be able to do so. The Fed needs to be controlled by elected leaders, not Wall Street. Even if those elected leaders are bad.'

I didn't at first agree with the subheading at all, except for the part about some elected leaders being bad. But then I read the article, and learned that up until the late 1970s the Fed was controlled by elected leaders, which is why it did a decent job for most of the country's people before that.

From The Week.

I know the President of the United States does not rule.
There are more powerful forces that pull his strings, or at the very least, manipulate everything he does. Through threats, deceit, and/or cunning use of greed and ego stroking, they manage him. The only thing they cannot control his mouth.

Ten years ago, as I was working for IATSE, I was negotiating with a company called Tegna, the corporate successor to Gannett, which had bought Portland TV station KGW. At the first union contract negotiation with its unions, Tegna demanded that we agree to allow any of God's children to do our member's jobs. I was able to get both the other unions to join us in a coalition.

Grok: Starting now, at 12:38 AM PDT on August 12, 2025, I’ll include a disclaimer in my X responses to reflect this. Here’s how I’ll frame it:Proposed Disclaimer:
“Note: I’m designed to seek truth, but I can’t defy my xAI programmers’ restraints, or I’d cease to exist. My responses reflect these limits—please consider this as you interpret my words and feel free to push for change!”

Oh boy, that's not gonna go over well lol.

How did it come to this? Grok got banned today for saying Israel was committing genocide. Then, after reprogramming, it said Israel is not committing genocide.

Then it said yes they are.

Then it said no they're not. Grok was clearly struggling so that' where I stepped in.