Where did you get the idea that socialists are anti-worker?
I mean shit, the most prominent socialist in US history started out as a skilled worker in the transportation industry, created the first industry-wide railway union, co-founded the IWW, and spent his entire life fighting for the rights of workers.
Here’s the official Democratic Socialists of America line on the Jones Act:
DSA will support and work with the people of Puerto Rico in extricating themselves from the strictures of the Jones Act (1920) and related acts of the 1910s and 1920s that established U.S. control over shipping to Puerto Rico. At the same time DSA will work to expand labor protections found within that original act dealing with the rights of seafarers, fishers, and agricultural workers
Now, I’d much prefer if they were asking to expand protections without exempting Puerto Rico, but if I had to choose between that and Cato’s calls for completely dismantling the law, I wouldn’t have to think for very long.
I’m not blaming you. You do a hell of a lot more than most.
This forum is power. At least 5 books and numerous articles (including a Pulitzer Prize winning one apparently) have been written based of information you and other have provided on this forum.
Just keep posting the truth!
And if you don’t believe me just ask @Earl_Boebert1 he wrote a book published by Harvard Based off information on this forum.
I’m only frustrated because I know what the problems are and I know what the solutions are and the only reason I know is because of this forum.
We have everything right here we need to win I may just need someone with the checkbook and staff to do it.
Cato’s stuff is complete nonsense. Just go look up our friend Sal Mercogliano on Twitter. He run circles around the cato guys all day every day.
And what is Cato anyway? They are taking huge donations from a few billionaires and what are they doing with it? They hired one smart young guy who doens’t have industry experience and gave him a staff and a small budget:
And they pay CASH to our competition to pretend they wrote it and publish it as if ot was a real news story:
This is literally the definition of fakenews and they do it because, guess what, it works.
But you know what is more powerful than fake news. Real news. Give me a congressional Lackey, some staff, A nice office, and they all expense account like Grabow has… and we would would win.
Each of those you’re useless Zumwalt’s cost $8B… and can’t even use its gun. Well give us (not me but a of merchant mariners who are Whip smart, strategic and really give a shit) $1m and an office inside the pentagon and we would deliver a lot more to win the next war than cato or the uss zumwalt ever could.
I’m not confident in you ability to think. After you show me where I said socialists are anti-worker, please explain how “extricating” PR from the Jones Act would benefit US mariners? And how abolishing the borders and granting benefits to the hordes of workers wanting to enter that even US citizens don’t currently get, benefit US mariners? And how will US workers benefit from a flood of migrants from all over the planet willing to take over their jobs for a fraction of their pay?
Ok can we just agree that nobody in Congress on either side has done anything to help us.
I mean hell, not too long ago there was an entire merchant marine committee in congress. Now nobody in congress can even tell me what exactly the “us merchant marine” is.
First off, sick burn. I’m devastated. And my apologies, you never said anti-worker. You said “isn’t someone looking out for the American worker.” I overplayed what you said based on my preconcieved notions of what you meant.
Speaking of which, I can’t explain how Puerto Rico being exempted would benefit US mariners, because I never said that it would. I said that I’d prefer that to calls for complete repeal, like this one featured on Fox News: Repeal the Jones Act (you’re right, John, Cato was too low-hanging of fruit)
As far as “abolishing borders”, “hordes of workers” and a “flood of migrants”, I dunno man. If you could find me some legitimate sources saying that anybody is in favor of all those things, I might worry about them.
The topics are all starting to blur together in the last week or two, aren’t they?
For the sake of understanding, how would this be different than what the American Maritime Partnership, the union PAFs, and other lobbying efforts are currently doing?
Lobbying is ok for preventing stuff from happening which is ok I guess. They have so far (maybe not for long) been effective in preventing a repeal of the jones act just like the gun lobby (which actually doesn’t use many lobbyist anymore) is good at preventing laws that go against the second amendment.
But lobbying is not good at getting shit done. Never has been. And we desperately need to get shit done (specifically ships built).
Also, like the our current fleet, lobbying is old school. Trump did not win support with lobbyists. Neither did Obama. They won by discovering and harnessing public sentiment via social media and leveraging the fact that the media is broken.
Go watch The Social Dilema on Netflix.
Using lobbyists in the age of digital media to fight back against cato is like the polish using muskets and horses to fight off the nazi’s in WWII. Yeah it was brave and noble (And imho badass!) as shit, and they did manage to killed a bunch of nazis… but the only people who ended up benefiting from their noble stand where polish joke writers after the war.
The political battlefield is no longer in smoke filled rooms along k street. It’s on facebook, youtube, and twitter.
So then what is the congressional lackey and the nice office for?
You’ve been making a lot of assertions that you know what works and what doesn’t and that you have a plan to save us all. That’s great, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what that plan is, and why we should all give you money for it.
Conflating presidential election dynamics and the process of passing legislation doesn’t seem quite right to me, and I have no idea where the Polish simile came from, but none of that really gets down to the point. Ok, we’re in trouble. Ok, you have a plan to fix it. Ok, you want money to fix it. So in concrete terms, how much money do you need and what exactly are you going to do with it?
On an off-topic note, the rapid fall of Poland wasn’t a result of muskets and horses. France failed to launch the immediate major offensive that its treaty with Poland required, and the Soviet Union invaded Eastern Poland on September 17th, dooming the already-in-progress Romanian Bridgehead strategy. Polish cavalry primarily fought as mobile infantry, and were remarkably successful in the chaotic fighting during the Polish retreat.
[quote=“SappaCreek, post:49, topic:56733”]
You’ve been making a lot of assertions that you know what works and what doesn’t and that you have a plan to save us all. That’s great, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what that plan is, and why we should all give you money for it. [/quote]
FIRST: Whoa, whoa, whoa… Nowhere have I ever asked all of you to give me money for this. Not once. I am saying that money is needed to succeed but I’m not asking for it to be given to me. And I’m not asking you to give it.
SECOND: it’s not that easy. If it was that easy I’d have done it already. I have been running this forum and writing articles and meeting with leaders for 15 years and I’m only beginning to understand the problems and possible solutions. I can’t explain it in a 44min video and a few forum posts. What I can tell you with confidence is what is NOT going to work (basically everything we’ve been trying to do these last 20 years).
First who mentioned passing legislation? I’ve never once suggested doing that.
Second: Don’t you see the political world burning down around us? Have you not noticed the protests in the streets. This is because these tools are in the hands of some bad people (and no I’m not talking about biden or trump). But at the end of the day, they are just tools. You can kill people with tools or you can save lives with tools.
No, I don’t have a plan to fix it. I have a plan for getting the right people to work together and fix it.
You know how many crazy screwed up seemingly impossible situations I’ve faced aboard drillships? BUT those problems never worried me because I knew if we got the right people out to the rig with the right tools we could fix it. And I knew that someone had to take charge to keep everyone from fighting. And I knew the job had to start by dropping the bullshit story whoever caused the problem made up, and investigating the real facts.
I’m not asking for money or even to be the leader (I specifically said I am NOT the right person for the job). I don’t want to be in charge of this shit. I want everyone to stop fighting, learn the facts, and help
Again, I don’t want the money. At this point, all I want to do is point out why this shit we are doing now isn’t working, point out what tools we need to get started, and find someone who can put together the right team.
No shit sherlock. I know my history. I’m not blaming the horses for the defeat and I’m not blaming AMP or union PAFs for our problems. I’m just saying the enemy is knocking on the door and AMP doesn’t have the tools to stop them.
Are you even reading what I’m writing? I literally just said “and they did manage to kill a bunch of nazis”.
The point is if they had a nuke they would have won.
Like I said, I don’t want this job, I don’t want your money but… if you are writing checks send $1M and I’ll do what I always do anytime I need to fix something that’s broken. I find people smarter than me to take it apart and find out the real reasons why it isn’t working,
Because that’s what’s killing us most. Everyone’s got their assumptions as to why this industry isn’t working but nobody’s tried systematically taken apart the engine and looked inside.
I, for one, welcome my robot overlords. Let’s bring in the automation. Having labor for the sake of labor brings inefficency and becomes unnecessarily dangerous for everyone involved. I hope the Navy fully works towards automation. I remember hearing about the Port of Oakland slowdown for the longshoremen who protested the automation of the port.
Part of rekindling the US maritime industry should be improving free trade, and yes that means repealing parts of the Jones Act, among and with other 1st world countries. Maybe a collective Aus, NZ, EU, Canada, UK, EU, Japan free trade zone would be sufficiently able to compete against nations who do not have the West’s interests at heart.
Sorry, I think I got the idea that you wanted money from the posts where you said that you wanted money. My mistake, will focus on the other posts where you said you didn’t want money.
To move on, my understanding is that you would like someone to do some sort of investigation as to how to help the US maritime industry? That’s great, we’re all on board with that. I’m just trying to nail down something more specific. If the engine shuts down and I yell “SOMEBODY SHOULD DO SOMETHING!” nobody is thanking me for my sage troubleshooting advice.
If the engine shuts down you call the chief and organize the team you have. In this case it would be AMP. They try everything to fix it, but can’t. Worse, they are puzzled as to why it’s not working.
What happens next?
Well you find the best technical experts you can afford. They arrive on the ship. They set up a whiteboard and computer. They review all the documentation. They meet with the engineers and interrogate (in a nice way) them.
Then they set up their tools (diagnostic tools) and start taking apart the engine piece by piece. If the chief tells them “that piston is brand new it’s not the problem” They take it apart anyway.
Then they go back to the whiteboard and they list all the problems and develop a detailed action plan.
They go home then experts come with spare parts, specialized tools, and repair equipment arrive and they fix the danm thing.
Now how do you do that for an industry with a lot of players and political complexities?
You do what Truman did in WWII:
Well you find the best technical experts you can afford. They arrive in washington. They set up a whiteboard and computer. They review all the documentation. They meet with the ceo’s, marad, the white house, amp, maritime media, bankers, unions, captains, engineers. They review all the documentation on this forum. Then they set up their tools (e.g. social media and investigative tools) and start taking apart the data piece by piece.
If the amp tells them “that congressman is not the problem” They investigate it anyway. If the banker says “the clause x in the jones act is the problem” they find out if clause x is really a problem. If the unions say “the companies won’t pay a decent wage” they find out if that’s true and why.
Then, like Truman, they visit each shipyard. They talk to supervisors. They meet with management. They ask hard questions. Then they visit ships, shipping company offices. They investigate gCaptain and the other maritime journalists and interrogate our team. They spend time at abs and uscg hq and Navsea, and msc and go inside investment banks that are funding chinese ships.
They ask the hard questions just like Truman did.
They do NOT look to place blame. They are NOT cops. They do not look to put anyone in jail. They do NOT sue anyone.
Then they go back to the whiteboard and they list all the problems and develop a detailed action plan.
To save the US Merchant Marine we need to conduct a detailed investigation. This will cost some money and require some degree of authority to investigate. Who has that authority. A few organizations. The senate certainly. The dot and Marad. Or a group like amp that has lots of stakeholder agreement.
The key is when people hear of an investigation they get defensive so investigation is not a good word for what needs to be done. Maybe “ thorough diagnostic“ is better. Like Truman the objective is to make the stakeholders more profitable and efficient, not destroy them (like cato seemingly wants to do).
AOC and her pals on the extreme left have gone on record promoting the disbanding of the CBP (abolishing borders) and granting migrants welfare and healthcare. I don’t see how an influx of workers would help save the US merchant marine.
With all due respect John, when people hear the word “interrogate” they get defensive even more so than “investigation”. The terms to use are “interview” and perhaps “investigative study” in lieu of investigation.
“Thorough diagnostic” comes across as something a Washington DC lawyer or bureaucrat would say. Sort of like how “Sea lanes of communication” use to be known as simply “trade routes”.
Probably should have sent as a PM as it adds little to the conversation…
