Honda Forces Office Employees into the Grindhouse

Normally it's something we would love to see. Fucking coronavirus.

The greatest Ohioan alive, LarBon Jim, the Kang, returns to action tonight when his Los Angeles Lakers face their minor league affiliate, the Los Angeles Clippers, at 9:00 ET on TNT.

I’m not accepting any shame for watching sports in a pandemic, either. LBJ winning a championship with his third franchise and putting a nail in the coffin of the GOAT debate will be the first good thing to happen in 2020 since Baby Yoda memes, which now feel like they occurred in 1997.

His return couldn’t come a moment too soon. My life grew so dire last night that I watched two innings of the Los Angeles Dodgers against Houston Astros. One of my life’s greatest shames is that I used to find the game entertaining. I would have been a better investment of my time to watch two feral cats have sex in the alley behind my landlord’s house. Wake me up in the Top of the 7th inning during a decisive game in the World Series.

THIS IS WHY YOU NEED A UNION

The car wars in America used to be USA vs. The World. Now it’s more… choose which international conglomerate of billionaires you want to support as cars are assembled across the world.

Growing up in Marion, I became partial to Honda on account on how many Marionaries the company employed, including my aunt who only worked a company in their supply chain. Not to mention Honda engineering department saved me from paralyzation last month.

Honda supplies “good jobs” — the kind in the manufacturing industry that aren’t as bountiful as they were in the 1970s when any high school graduate could walk down the street to one of the 130 factories in town and retain a job capable of supporting a family at four.

One thing Honda doesn’t tolerate, however, is their employees exercising their right to unionize and collectively bargain.

“That’s because, you know, they take care of their employees and stuff,” was a refrain I remember hearing from more than one person.

Well, we see how much that famous corporate goodwill is worth after four months of a pandemic.

From Paige Pflegler of wosu.org:

Assembly line workers at the Honda manufacturing plant in Marysville have some new colleagues: office workers. COVID-related staffing shortages at the plant have caused the company to require some of its white-collar employees to work on the line. 

In an email obtained by WOSU, a general manager at the Honda plant in Marysville asks employees in accounting, purchasing, and research and development to work on the factory floor.

One employee, who spoke with WOSU anonymously out of fear of losing his job, says he's never seen anything like it in the more than five years he’s spent with Honda.

"Regardless of whether or not you wanted to, you could be subject to it," he says. "They took volunteers first, but my understanding was they didn’t receive many volunteers for this activity, so then they made it mandatory."

Look, normally I would revel in white collar workers being marshaled into factory labor since most office workers look down their nose at the laborers in the company warehouse.

This, unfortunately, is some Hunger Games type shit. And it wouldn’t be possible if Honda employees had a union that fostered solidarity between office and factory workers. In the end, their company executives see them as expandable cogs in their never-ending quest for more profit.

IT’S RAINING FEDS IN CLEVELAND (AND DAYTON, TOO)

I don’t remember when I grew tired of writing about President Business Deals. Probably around the time I called him a corrupt dementia patient for the 3,000 time. What more can be said than this asshole needs to go?

However, it’s been terrifying to watch the federal “surge” of agents in cities like Portland and Seattle in response to “rioting,” as if that’s not the only logical response to jackbooted thugs in unmarked police cars abducting your neighbors.

All against the backdrop of the Trump Administration sabotaging the United States Postal Service ahead of what will be the most mail-heavy election in country history.

Fascist takeovers don’t happen overnight. But they do look a lot like this.

From Kristine Phillips of usatoday.com:

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department plans to send nearly 100 federal agents and officers to Detroit, Cleveland, Ohio, and Milwaukee in an expansion of Operation Legend, a federal crime initiative that began earlier this month.

The department will send 42 agents to Detroit and more than 25 each to Cleveland and Milwaukee – cities that officials said have seen rising violent crime rates. The federal officers, drawn from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies, will help local and state officials in criminal investigations, the Justice Department has said.

The announcement comes as state and local officials, drawing from the unrest in Portland, Oregon, are increasingly skeptical and apprehensive of a surge of federal law enforcement resources to their cities. Several big-city mayors have decried the aggressive use of federal forces in Portland and have expressed reservations about the deployments of agents to their cities. 

I can only imagine the smugness on the mustachioed face of the federal agent that coined the operation to suppress political dissent in his own country as “Operation Legend.” I’m sure in his mind he thinks he’s a fucking legend.

I mean, what the Hell business does the Drug Enforcement Administration have in monitoring political protests? As if El Mencho is just going to stroll into a public square and start throwing kilograms of cocaine into the air to fuel Antifa supersoldiers??? (Just throwing out some ideas here, Mencho. Please don’t kill my family.)

What’s more disturbing is Democratic leadership in cities like Dayton welcoming this surveillance and not informing the public.

From Cornelius Frolik of daytondailyews.com:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has confirmed that its aircraft monitored a demonstration in Dayton in late spring that was sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.

Data obtained by the Dayton Daily News show that an Airbus helicopter with the agency’s Air and Marine Operations spent 1.3 hours in flight above Dayton during what it described as a civil disturbance.

The Dayton-area collective of the Ohio National Lawyers Guild, a local group, says it is outraged and disturbed that the public only learned about the CBP’s activities in Dayton through national news reports.

“Dayton’s request for assistance from CBP — an agency notorious for its unlawful use of force and poor internal oversight mechanisms — in policing Black Lives Matter protests is antithetical to the city’s alleged commitment to addressing police misconduct and reform,” the organization said in a prepared statement.

I hope this era opens Americans eyes to why their politics shouldn’t end at the border. Anything the American government can deploy with impunity in foreign countries, it can bring to your neighborhood much easier than something like universal healthcare.

THOSE WMDs. Indian schoolgirls discover astroid headed for Earth… The lost art of squatting is a revelation for bodies ruined by sitting… The best way to wash your face is actually a 200-year-old method… How a traffic flow turns into a traffic jam… Where are the thousands of Nazi-looted instruments?