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A comment on Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize. Parent comment

Re:Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contrac... by ajross on Saturday September 21, 2019 @12:51PM (#21036402)
That's a Steinbeck quote[1]. It's surely being used, just as it was originally, as a fun way to describe the somewhat banal point that people in demographics relevant to organized labor often hold opinions about public policy that are contrary to their personal interest. It's not a literal statement about what's in a republican voter's head.

That said: how many posters here consider themselves just One Great Idea away from being the next Zuckerberg, and thus tend to view discussions on, I dunno, work/life balance or engineers' unions from an employer's perspective instead of their own? Seems like more than a few to me.

[1] OK, I checked wikipedia, turns out that the original phrase was "temporarily embarrassed capitalists", but this is the variant that stuck.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contrac... by cgag on Saturday September 21, 2019 @06:05PM (#21038178)
I know, that it's a well known quote is essentially my point. They frame their personal politics as some well-earned enlightenment, far from the ignorant anti-union baseline, while quoting a Nobel prize winning author whose works most people are forced to read as teenagers.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contrac... by bsanr2 on Saturday September 21, 2019 @10:13PM (#21039211)
So your main objection is that the quote betrays its speaker as uppity?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contrac... by cgag on Sunday September 22, 2019 @12:52PM (#21042362)
No, it betrays that they're, at best, equally guilty of sitting on a pro-union baseline themselves.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contrac... by bsanr2 on Monday September 23, 2019 @10:52PM (#21056048)
They're not equal if the baselines built on greater or lesser degrees of correctness or ignorance.
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Re:Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contrac... by dx87 on Saturday September 21, 2019 @01:51PM (#21036802)
That quote isn't being used how it was originally intended. It's referring to capitalists that fell on hard times, so they started supporting communism because they believed that they'd have everything they need. They're called "temporarily embarassed capitalists" because they only support communism if it benefits them and they don't have to work hard for it, not because they actually believe in it.
[ Parent | on HN ]