Time for Wisconsinites to take a page out of Michigan’s book: same-day registration and no-reason absentee ballots.
It took a ballot measure to get these nice things because Lansing is controlled by Republicans from highly Gerrymandered districts (not for much longer, though - we, the voters, are taking those districts away, too).
I’m sorry if lashed out originally, but the general phrasing of @DonatellaNobody was that intellectual labor was not labor or work. That’s what they said, full stop.
I’m entirely onboard with the idea that it’s a different kind of work, less physical in nature (although, working such work has very different physical consequences as we age, too) and that all kinds of work is needed in our society. I indeed grew up in a working class household, and my father died of a cancer that was in part caused by the kind of work he did (tire wire and carpet factory).
I have never looked down on the kind of work that many people in my family do or even imagined that I was somehow a better person because of degrees. There are most certainly members of my own family who very much look at me like I’m the enemy, some kind of entitled elite who did no amount of work to get my degrees. In addition, I’m currently an adjunct, paid per class, with no benefits, no office, no stability, and as you well know, the right wing attacks on academia has meant the proletarianization of that labor force. It’s entirely true that in my case, it’s not a financial issue, as I’m in a two income household, and my husband made better choices in college than I apparently did. I’m tired and angry with myself for all of this, and being told that 10 years of my life were not “real” work is upsetting and I did feel personally insulted by that. I know that was not the intent, I know, and I bear no ill will towards donnatella.
That’s no excuse for lashing out.
Your family hoped that their sacrifices would mean you could get an education and work at a job that wouldn’t give you cancer or break your back (literally). That was the American Dream. But now, it doesn’t matter what you do (general you), if you’re not part of a few select industries, you will probably not do better than your parents’ generation. Who would have thunk it? So of course you’re tired and angry and frustrated. The more people who are overwhelmed and barely surviving, the less chance of a revolution against the powers that be. Until…the tide turns, and enough people are so angry that they find the strength to fight back. 2020 needs to be the year.
The more we look at white collar “cubicle” jobs, the less healthy they turn out to be. The typical cubicle job is so sedentary and stressful, that you’d be hard-pressed to predict longevity between a typical construction worker and someone doing construction project management behind a desk at the same company, in the same town.
Fuckin’ A: my current work life is a much less funny version of Office Space with fewer annoying characters.
>_<Will not happen until people are out of work and food is short. Smarter than average people in cubicles may complain and get fat but, I don’t see mass unrest yet.
Until then it just lives in the heads of many. Like in Russia for example.
I agree.
I’ve been predicting food riots at grocery stores as the imminent sign to watch out for; once that begins to happen on a major scale, you’ll know we’ve finally passed ‘the point of no return’, and societal collapse is now in full swing.
Fuck, I really don’t want to be right about that…
Yes, but some people don’t consider that kind of labor real work… they are wrong, but they do not.
The problem is wealthy white women who don’t give a damn about poor women.
And yes, even other wealthy white women can call out their peers for having this bias.
Maybe adjuncts do. I know many who tend bar.
Professors, not so much.
For as long as I have had an advanced degree, I haven’t had to take a 45- minute hot shower after work, haven’t come home aching, haven’t come home stinking or covered in gunk or oil, haven’t been demeaned or hassled or hazed at work, and haven’t been injured on the job. I haven’t had to deal with this stuff since I was in my early 20s. What’s more, as long as I’m drawing a paycheck, I never have to worry about covering the rent or keeping the lights on or choosing between food and medicine. At least, not anymore. I consider myself very lucky to have gotten out of that, and I don’t look down on people who do whatever they need to do to survive. I do feel that more privileged people tend to trivialize the experiences of the working poor.
Oh hell, I can’t count how many times I have heard that kind of “you should be glad you don’t have to work for a living” kind of shit. Definition of “work” is pretty damned flexible.
At least I recognize that I don’t have to work for a living
I disagree. Many professors who lucked out and got a tenure track do work very hard. Unless you don’t consider teaching, researching, and writing to be real work… I do actually consider that to be real labor, and I came from a working class background with a father who worked in a factory and a mother who worked retail. I myself worked for years in restaurants.
OH, I get it… it’s not “real” work unless this is true.
So, glad to know I’m nothing but a elite asshole who doesn’t know shit about REAL Americans… /s 
I’m sorry, but this line of thinking is actually insulting. I’m tired of NOT BEING CONSIDERED a good enough person. At what point do I get to be respected for what I do and who I am?
I fucking work. Can we not continually perpetuate this myth that somehow people who do intellectual labor aren’t worthwhile human beings? Please.
As someone who has been both a factory worker and a researcher, I can say that the two are not remotely comparable, in any way. I have often spent 70+ hours per week in a research role, which is about as much time writing grants as it is doing my actual job, and I hate it, it’s mind numbingly dull, it’s mentally exhausting, but it’s fun compared to factory work.
Pretty much. I’m not working class anymore, therefore I don’t work. Even though I have a job, I don’t labor. My job may be mentally exhausting at times, but it doesn’t shorten my life and cause physical ailments. I count myself very fortunate for this. I only made it out because of three things:
Not acknowledging these things would be unfathomable.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. I do respect you and what you do, and definitely think you’re a worthwhile human being. That was never an issue.
Exactly my point. This system is fucked.
And bodily fluids, and chemicals that seep in despite protective gear that is never enough.
Worse though is the back injury I never really recovered from, even though I’ve had surgery for it.
But I’m very lucky that I was able to get out of that, and didn’t have to keep going back into a system that would just use me up and spit me out, because there’s a neverending stream of working poor lining up to take my place for less and less money. People who think that taking abuse is normal, and just the way things are supposed to be.
This needs to change.
Here’s a good laugh:
He’s perpetuating the lie.
Republicans are trying to show they are socialists of a national variety. 
I could swear I’ve seen almost this exact same discussion on the BBS before, wrt the nature of manual vs intellectual labor and people misunderstanding class awareness.
It’s a cheap ad hominem trick to try to disqualify somebody from commenting on something
Nobody applies this barrier to their friends, or to pointy-headed coastal elites who say things they like
OTOH, that does not mean that all white-collar professionals are working class.
My ex’s aunt married a high-flying cardiac surgeon. They live in a gigantic convict-built mansion on the harbour foreshore in Balmain. They have a mosaic-lined indoor swimming pool in the basement. A film crew for a historical drama once paid them $50,000 to use their house as a film set for a month; they spent the entire $50,000 on new curtains.
If he suddenly lost his surgical job, would they have to make some financial rearrangements? Sure. But they have sufficient assets, both financial and social, that destitution would never be a realistic possibility.
Yes, and that is not most college professors (I’d say that most college professors don’t work at the Ivy League, making in the mid-to-high 6 figures), and it’s most especially not most adjuncts, many of whom literally aren’t making ends meet.
