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Doesn't it make it clear that Robinson told people they were fired, or should resign, when he didn't have the authority to do so?
He asked for a few people to resign, yes, and he didn't have the authority to fire them, yes.
What's the difference between this and firing someone? They knew he couldn't fire them (which makes their "I was fired here's where you can donate" tweets extremely bad in my eyes), so they could and did refuse to resign, and they kept getting paid even as the magazine went on hiatus and they did no work.
Asking people to resign when you don't have the authority to do so isn't really redeeming, to me
- Person A is a little more senior in an organization than Person B, and Person A delegates some work to Person B.
- Over time, there is some dispute over how well Person B is doing their job.
- Person A asks Person B to resign.
- Person B stays, and keeps getting paid, because they know Person A can't fire them.
- Person B tweets out "I've been fired, donate here."
Is "Person A fired Person B" at all a fair characterization of that situation? I don't see any way someone who claims they were fired and asks for money while still drawing a paycheck is in the right -- they're just straight-up lying.
There's room to criticize Robinson for not handling a difficult situation particularly well (and for not setting up a better group structure in the first place), but this is wildly different than "he fired employees for unionizing." There's was certainly no effort to unionize, in any case.
This is all based off a single, extremely badly written diatribe, right? I truly don't understand why one screed suddenly has more weight than any other screed, particularly when it's quite clear it's just NJR's friend defending their friend. The best I'm willing to grant is that it sure sounds like every single person involved in the dispute is insufferable and shouldn't be published or paid attention to.
extremely badly written diatribe
Come on. It posts receipts, names names, and is a conventionally-formatted narrative.
As for who's credible here: I'm sure not going with the people who (at minimum) lied about being fired so they could grift money over twitter. They also declined to be interviewed for the article and never piped up to dispute the key "not actually fired" part despite continuing to tweet about the situation years after the fact.
it sure sounds like every single person involved in the dispute is insufferable and shouldn't be published or paid attention to
One reason "only me and my five online friends are True Leftists" is so popular is that being dismissive is easy. Mao and Stalin worked closely with plenty of leftists who didn't have perfect takes on everything, and even allied for a time with reactionaries like the KMT and U.S. That's the reality of a mass movement, not writing off people who are closer to you than probably 95% of the U.S. population.
I guess it's conventionally formatted, in that it's in paragraph format, but it sure spends a huge amount of time listing all the mean things people have said about the author's friend that aren't really relevant, and if it gets to actual receipt-posting it's so far down the narrative that anybody who isn't already fully on board with NJR is not likely to make it that far. Regardless, nobody here is Mao or Stalin, none of us are leading parties with influence or power in our western hellholes. Beyond that, is NJR read by anybody not on the left? Is he bringing people into the left? Does anybody take him seriously, even before the "unionization" flap? Does a left movement need run-of-the-mill western chauvinists speaking for it?
This is a site for shitposting, and even if it were a site for organizing then NJR's influence and utility would be in doubt.
They also declined to be interviewed for the article and never piped up to dispute the key "not actually fired" part despite continuing to tweet about the situation years after the fact.
No kidding, the people who are mad at NJR didn't want to be interviewed by NJR's personal friend writing a defense of NJR? Damn, that's wild huh
if it gets to actual receipt-posting
So you didn't even read it. No investigation, no right to speak.
Like I said, it's a poorly written, way too long screed. Hope the NJR fan club readings of the thing go well though!
It's OK to not read something, it's ridiculous to not read something then write several paragraph or longer comments adamantly insisting you're right about it. Do some self-crit.
It's OK to not read something, it's ridiculous to not read something then write several paragraph or longer comments adamantly insisting you're right about it. Do some self-crit.