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Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

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Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is nothing but alarmist rhetoric. I mean, each sentence is specifically engineered to be as negative-sounding as you can make it. People don't usually do that, even with actual dictators. > being powered by Donald Trump needs a supernatural explanation, presumably because you think he's incompetent. At the least, you're saying he can't do what he's doing by himself. > conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon The…

His comment is rhetorically partisan, but you haven't come close to establishing with evidence that it's "alarmist". I'd direct your attention to Eliot Cohen's essay in The Atlantic from this morning: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/a-clari... Cohen is no liberal; he cofounded PNAC and served as a deputy under Rice in the Bush administration. And his take on Trump's last week is even more urgent…

The intended goal of my comment was not partisan – I believe that Steve Bannon's reckless disregard for objective fact represents a threat to the United States, independent of any party allegiance.

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#122
post #93
post #7

Donald Trump is being powered by conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon, the "Breitbart News" head and board member of Cambridge Analytica, an analytics firm that used psychological profiling to cynically exploit the American electorate. Despite his inexperience and stated desire to "blow things up", he was appointed to an influential national security position, over the Joint Chiefs of Staff [1]. This is an existential th…

This is a bizarre and inflammatory conspiracy theory in itself. A politician using an analytics firm that uses psychological profiling...welcome to the 20th century.

I agree, but I believe it is well-sourced.

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His comment is rhetorically partisan, but you haven't come close to establishing with evidence that it's "alarmist". I'd direct your attention to Eliot Cohen's essay in The Atlantic from this morning: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/a-clari... Cohen is no liberal; he cofounded PNAC and served as a deputy under Rice in the Bush administration. And his take on Trump's last week is even more urgent…

The intended goal of my comment was not partisan – I believe that Steve Bannon's reckless disregard for objective fact represents a threat to the United States, independent of any party allegiance.

That's a partisan point, and it's unrelated to the article, so you can expect pushback. The better rhetorical strategy is to confine your criticisms as closely as you can to the subject at hand, and to take extra care in linking other concerns to it.

"Partisan" doesn't mean "wrong".

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question asked wasn't whether the Civil Rights protesters shouldn't have inconvenienced people. It's whether a company should force its workers to join a protest.

How many companies donate to super-PACs, the DNC, RNC, etc.? In this case, the mechanism of political action is constricting the labor supply instead of giving cash to politicians. It seems crazy for a company to force workers to join a protest, until you think about how they force workers to turn a profit and then donate to politicians that would happily oppress those same workers.

So two wrongs do make a right? What other abuses of worker's rights should we demand they do, for "good reasons"?

Companies also collectively fire people to bolster their profits, maybe we should demand they do some mass firings for a good cause. Trump supporters, maybe?

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

neo-nazi Leninist The former term is how his detractors, including me, would describe him. The latter is a term he famously used for himself. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/22/steve-banno...

That's not what Leninism means tho (it's not "smash the state" as Bannon says, it's about having a vanguard party and control of political power by the working class).

I completely understand that. But it's a term he used for himself, and I think it's funny to semi-accurately (not in terms of actual definition but in terms of someone's self-description) label a member of a Republican administration as a Leninist.

Though Bannon may be more accurate than he realizes about being a "Leninist" since he wants his faction to be the vanguard party with power derived from the white working class and voters who identify with such.

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point isn't whether this particular protest is "good" or "bad". Even knowing relatively little about this protest, I think that I would likely agree with the protesters. My issue is that I don't see any reason why Uber should be obligated to stop service just because there is a protest going on. A lot of people in this thread seem to feel that having a protest entitles you to ruin other peoples' day and anyone who…

The history of direct action and protest which disrupts daily life is argument enough: It works. History also shows us that when people ignore injustice and just get on with their day, that allows the injustice to grow and fester. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated while the majority of people who could have stopped it did nothing. The word entitlement is so charged and vague, what do you mean by it…

If you want to claim that the justification is empirical, you are going to need some real empirical evidence.

With respect to the word entitlement: I mean ethically. When someone is angry (like the people in this thread promising to delete Uber) that something didn't happen, then it seems like they felt entitled to have it happen.

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#128
post #2

Uber undermining the taxi strike [1] yesterday was pretty visible -- at least in my social circle here in Seattle -- and when Lyft made this announcement we all deleted our Uber accounts. Will that have a material impact on anyone's bottom line? Who knows, but I'd love to see the graphs for new account signups/account deletions. [1] Taxis were not servicing JFK in support of those who were being detained there.

I wonder if UBER could do anything evil with its location dara from customers and drivers... like identify who is joining protests and where etc.

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#129
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily see this as marketing. I'm certainly more inclined to use their services now.

What about the other half of the country?

Lyft's biggest markets are places where Trump got less than 20 percent of the vote

Re: Lyft donates $1M to the ACLU, condemns Trump’s immigration actions

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A one hour strike at one of the busiest airports on the East Coast with NO taxis available? Probably a lot. The point is you hold a strike to STOP work, not work for less money. That's called scabbing and is the opposite of solidarity.

Should the company decide on behalf of the workers whether they must join a strike? Shouldn't Uber drivers be the ones to make that decision?

Drivers are only allowed to turn down a limited number of rides before they are no longer allowed to be uber drivers for the day.
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