I just recall this interaction I had with someone on CTH back when the Blizzard/Hong Kong shit went down and their staff walked out. They were assuring me this was a good thing because they knew someone from there and actually any organizing is good and will lead to a union and workers rights. I assured them the opposite.

So I’m wondering if anyone here wants to join me in chuckling at that idea while we wait for all those Blizzard employees who walked out on the job over the enforcement of not allowing politics in gaming (an existing rule) at a tournament being applied to Hong Kong (and some weirdo streamer) to walk out in basic solidarity not over “China man bad” (racist nationalism) and/or “CIA propaganda good” but over their fellow human beings and employees not making enough, about their company prioritizing the shareholder profits over employees being able to make a decent living. Over the conditions of exploitation where the company considers working for them such an honor it merits a massive pay-cut to the point some can barely get by and those who do have to work 80 hours a week.

I won’t be holding my breath.

The reason I post this is not to gloat about someone being wrong but to illustrate that strikes and unions are not inherently socialist or anti-capitalist, that in fact the CIA in the past has used things like the Solidarity Union in Poland to bring down communist rule, to undermine it. That not all worker collective action is good automatically. That workers in the imperial core and elsewhere can be (and are) manipulated by propaganda to serve capital and imperialism and you need to scrutinize things beyond the simplistic analysis of “workers doing thing together against boss man good and sign of progress”.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.