Owners of landscape companies have to be up there.
Fitness/gyms. Theres a thin blue line flag on the wall of 80% of small gyms across the country and the big fitness chains are politically neutral in an aesthetic sense but absolutely overrun & operated by reactionary goobers.
Leftists are weirdly focused/defensive about saving dying religious institutions and churches as prime organizing spaces like this is the 60's where instead we should be focusing on growing the swoletariat in the church of gains because that's where people actually congregate frequently when you're under the age of 60.
True, but the gym/fitness industry transcends brick and mortar gym's and membership numbers. Fitness related content from Instagram, TikTok, to at home Youtube workouts/etc is almost inescapable if you're someone who is trying to learn more/get back into shape. Which happens to be like 70%+ of Americans who state to have fitness related goals in mind at any given time. But when they want to do something about it they either sign up to MAGA adjacent gyms or watch content that is littered with and created by fat phobic anti-vaxxx deepak chopra reactionaries.
Fitness/gyms are a unique cultural institution because working on ones health is as objectively positive as something someone can focus on - so it's not going to go anywhere like religion/etc, matter of fact the fitness "industry" is exploding. It's also probably one of the few places that will somewhat survive the complete atomization of our society as the last public-ish area you can be somewhere on your own volition, doing something positive, being surrounded by people.
We should be building inclusive fitness co-ops that blast rage against the machine across the country. Don’t just build mass, build a mass uprising.
It’s also probably one of the few places that will somewhat survive the complete atomization of our society as the last public-ish area you can be somewhere on your own volition, doing something positive, being surrounded by people.
When I go to the gym, I talk to nobody of the people I don't know already, and I've never seen people starting conversations with someone they don't know. It's a completely atomized place. You might be in the same space, but that's it. In a cinema you're also in the same place, but you don't get to know the person sitting next to you either.
We should be building inclusive fitness co-ops
Regardless of how you personally engage with your fitness experience - the feeling of being in these spaces whether you engage or not is inherently positive and important to a healthy society. My experience is the contrary. All the daily gym rats and power lifters are on first name basis with not only each other - but the personal trainers and/or managers of the gyms, and lo and behold they're all new age conservative psychos.
The point of this statement and the theme of my original comment is that we as leftists should focus on reenvisioning the gym and create inclusive socialist fitness spaces that would act more as a community gathering space. Rather than the alt-right reactionary spaces they are now.
Not much in my experience. I'm lucky that I've kept a lot of friends from school and undergrad.
Yes, YES, YES
holy fuck as a guy who deadlifts 400+ I literally can't have ANY lifting friends because there's a 95% chance anyone who is that strong is either a self identified neoliberal, an actual Nazi, or OVERWHELMINGLY a libertarian or (not even a meme) ancap
Self-improvement was a mistake, it just makes libertarians. (But you're cool, friend. :) ) I don't lift heavy but I'd cheer you on if I saw you at the gym.
It's because lonely males spend more time on the internet, and saw either 1) lifting or 2) white identity as ways to improve/cope (respectively) with their situation
This started becoming popular in the late 2000s, (bodybuilding forums + 4chan) and over time the two merged and you have the current zeitgeist
Climbing gyms are different in my experience, lots of environmentalists and people who don’t buy into the rat race. More and more tech bro types seem to be picking it up as a hobby lately though
Lots of Pete! types as well, But often they're easily movable out of aesthetic politics and into the real stuff. A lot of the climbers I know got very radical last year.
I feel like the Pete stans are the least likely group to see the light.
Really enthusiastic Pete people yes. But maybe my opinions are pretty skewed, I was able to fully radicalize someone from a conversation about how bad things are, so I dont think there's a ton of inertia to most of these people's politics really.
Really? Because where I've always associated gyms with a strong sense of community, friendliness and mutual support. I figured it would be similar in America, but I guess the :brainworms: run deep
I figured it would be similar in America
Nope, ain't no spaces for friendliness and mutual support in North America :( What country are you in btw?
Chuds with real estate licenses for sure. Even the lib ones have insane brain worms about "hard work" and "participation trophies ruined the kids." Just the dumbest hogs on earth.
We can corral them into a little gulag playground where they get to whine about property value and withhold food from each other for not following HOA rules or something. Boomer realtor sympathizers can be the secretaries. Neither realtors nor boomers know how to operate Excel so it's never clear who's winning.
engineering
engineers in general seem super reactionary, they have serious STEM :brainworms:
I think this can go either way. Most engineers I know are lib / left. I know an engineer who is a socialist and one who is a communist. I'm sure that it can depend on many factors.
IMO the more hands-on / spatial the work is, the less reactionary it is. Mech and chemE seemed okay to me.
Compsci tho, :xi-plz:
Really depends. Very broad field. Also, in general not very "small businessy," The super businessy engineers who end up abandoning actual engineering for management to do sales or management are almost guaranteed to be completely irredeemable though.
Nearly all aerospace people suck. I have seen one nonwhite aerospace guy. My friend was looking for a roommate at the aerospace school he is going to- literally went through 20 people trying to find someone that wasn't painfully Republican. He wasn't even looking for based or lib, just non political.
Aerospace people fall into pretty much three categories:
-
People who genuinely thinks planes are cool and just wants to work on them - may have decent politics.
-
People who want to work for NASA or SpaceX and may genuinely love science - Probably has decent politics if they're not totally drinking Elon Musk flavored Kool-Aid.
-
People who understand that they're going to end up working for the MIC and build drones to bomb brown children, or work next door to the office that does that. - Absolutely 0% chance of being a decent human being.
Category 1 and 2 will end up in category 3 after they realize what the career actually looks like.
I actually created an account to chime in on this as a fairly recent aerospace grad.
When I started my degree I'd say I was a mix of type 1&2; progressive on LGBT+ issues as someone figuring out my non-het sexuality, and an "unaware" reactionary centrist probably from being privileged enough to consider politics boring.
The type-3 aero engineers, and exposure to new people from many different walks of life helped push me left. Almost as if I was reacting to the reactionaries. The further left I went, the more I was disgusted by those types of people. The kind who openly talk about military and missile tech as if it is the best thing humans produce. I'm still excited by advances in rocketry, I still love to watch Space X's launches because I've detached the technical side from the capitalist dystopia aspect. Behind those successful launches is the hard work of thousands of engineers like me, exploited by Musk.
Eventually, I became so repulsed by the nonchalance that even the moderate socdems displayed towards the military industrial complex that I decided not to pursue anything aerospace related whatsoever. Even if you work on a civil airliner, any amazing advancement you make will go right onto the next military jet whether you like it or not.
It was incredibly difficult during covid to find a job not in aerospace with my degree, but eventually got a paid research project on AI recycling sorting, before moving onto high speed rail systems.
I remember reading posters for military R&D research jobs in aerospace in uni. Found it sickening and there's your first filter. Anyone who goes for it will need to do a whole lot of reflection to get out, and it will be a psychologically painful process
Category 4 - Wants to build robots because of Japanese animes. Ends up in category 3, feels bad about it and becomes BFF's with Solid Snake.
Hey, if you want some advice navigating trying STEM trying to find some non-shitty careers feel free to DM me. I know some sectors willing to take people with pretty different experience.
Category 1 and 2 will end up in category 3 after they realize what the career actually looks like.
This is disillusioned failson erasure.
I don't understand the assumption that you'll be able to work for like NASA or spacex by a lot of grads. Like isn't that like assuming that you'll be in an ivy league school cause you did well on the act/sat?
-
People with engineering degrees and an MBA will be sent down to the countryside
I just got a gig doing telecom permitting/design and I've had multiple converations with co-workers about the USSR and socialism already. Got a few Russian and former SSR engineers there so they can give some good perspective.
Also, nothing makes you a socialist faster than spending 8 hours/day looking in detail at America's crumbling communications and electrical infrastructure.
My Moldovan co-worker made a joke about how "it's still probably better than Moldova" and then I pulled up the state GIS database in Moldova and some images of transmission lines there and he immediately changed his mind lmao.
Well shit how are we gonna build shit under socialism when all engineers suck
me, following him around and pointing at random structural bits: "make it more rigid"
It's not just landscapers, most contractors are die hard reactionaries. Company near me that builds windmills has lots of left leaning staff, but the ownership and their cronies are all huge chuds. The company I work for does historic stone restoration on WPA projects, yet they hate FDR.
The company I work for does historic stone restoration on WPA projects, yet they hate FDR.
This is just enraging. How do you see these public works up close and still oppose them? Fuck these people.
Same way you rail against socialism while demanding your social security and Medicare
It's very easy once you embrace the triune brain. Most of the white collar roles in construction are nothing but "yes men". Personally this is why I'm a huge advocate for nationalized infrastructure workers. I work in the concrete division and mark my estimates up 4-8% for public hard bids. The stone division has gone through lots of license and permitting bullshit to be able to bid MNDOT work. They generally mark up their work 20-30% due to how stifling the requirements are to participate in the bid.
The whole system is basically designed to make local and state government the heel. Having all utility work handled through the state with an organized workforce of full time engineers would make everything not only simpler, but cheaper and result in higher wages for any engineers involved.
No one ever sees that though, and just thinks that total deregulation would mean that the private company they work for would pay them more and not just fire them and give up on engineering.
I remember the M4A study the Mercatus people did that mistakenly proved it would save money. The most remarkable thing to me was the overhead costs to run the program, I think it was only 2% of all expenses.
Did lots of utilities and concrete inspection work before transing. Almost universally small contractors are reactionary chuds who make all their money off govt contracts.
most contractors are die hard reactionaries.
Especially in Southern California. My brother is in the sheet metal union and even they are mostly maga. Mostly suburban white guys.
. My brother is in the sheet metal union and even they are mostly maga.
I completely cannot understand being in a union and being MAGA at the same time.
Being anti-free trade is generally considered a left-wing position.
actually it's generally considered a nationalist-conservative position because no one thinks about the left in America
Isn't it also a position which people associate with Bernie Sanders?
Perhaps I'm just too much inside of a left-wing bubble.
NAFTA is bad, but it's been because American capitalists did it to hyper-exploit foreigners and bust up unions.
Some people have been misled into blaming the hyper-exploited foreigners for "stealing their jobs" and others think it's a Jewish plot.
In my experience, anything to do with oil and gas, from the Derrick to the gas station and everything in between. Every single person involved in the industry on any level aside from that gas station employees that hand out hot dogs and cigarettes all day is a chud to the bone.
The question specifically asked for small business industries though, and Big Oil is the polar opposite of that. I would argue that even the satellite freelancers (like a food truck stationed outside an oil rig) are still part of the industry. But you are correct, it is completely infested with right-wing reactionaries from top to bottom.
I mean, yeah, but like, some dude that owns a gas station convenience store that's not affiliated with a major brand is a small business. As is someone that owns a small business that drives fuel to gas stations and other businesses from refineries and the like. Everyone on every level attached to the industry like that is a megachud.
Or even a chain of them. Like Buc-ee's in Texas. Owned by a prominent GOP donor chud who gets appointed to state commissions.
Small businesses are a huge part of Big Oil. A lot of their maintenance and expansion work is bid out to local contractors wherever a plant is, and those local contractors are purestrain beautiful boaters.
My dad worked for a landscaping company when he was out of college.
As a side note, he had a friend who was a Vietnam veteran, who told him a few stories about his time there. One of the things he said was that most soldiers he met were just trying to do their best to survive without being evil. But he said, “if you ever meet anyone that was part of the Phoenix program, they’re just murderers. Stay away from them.”
So back to the landscaping company. My dad is talking to his boss, also a Vietnam vet. And apropos of nothing the guy starts bragging, “have you ever heard of the Phoenix program? I was basically running it on the ground.”
So you might be on to something, OP.
the Phoenix program
Every time I click a wikipedia-link on this website, I learn about a new campaign of torture and death by the US governement.
Look on the talk page of most of them and you'll see Ultramarine watering them down.
Throughout the program, Phoenix "neutralized" 81,740 people suspected of VC membership, of whom 26,369 were killed and the rest surrendered or were captured. 87 percent of those killed were attributed to conventional military operations by South Vietnam and the U.S. forces; the remainder were assassinated
:what-the-hell:
70% of small business industries are red MAGA, 30% are blue MAGA
Boat dealerships. Motorcycle dealerships. ATV dealerships. Ski-doo dealerships. Basically any kind of dealership, especially ones that sell wasteful recreational transportation.
pool stores lmao. I doubt there's one in the US that isn't run by a trump guy
Any place that has wacky flailing inflatable tube men, balloons, or those little triangular flags on ropes as part of their advertising
wacky inflatable tube men are all used exclusively by chuds
:sadness:
Make one with a hammer and sickle on each hand and place it in front of real estate offices
It's less about industry and more about class position. If the nature of the position on any way conveys a petite bourgeois status you will find reaconaries.
This is why small restaurants are so rife with chuds. They own property to exploit labor and it gives them the perception of being tiny tyrants of their own little hill.
Used to work for a guy who had a small landscaping business. Went to Vietnam and talked about how the US shouldn't have been there in the first place. Also defended Castro and said the media paints a false picture of him. Probably the only based small business owner I've ever met.
Vietnam vets who went to Vietnam end up based a lot of the time.
Vets during the Vietnam era who didn’t go to Vietnam are chuds.
Yes, whitest Puerto Rican I've ever met. Had long blonde hair that made people think he was a woman from a distance.
