Reddit discusses the Portland State University protests successfully getting PSU to pause their relationship with Boeing

For context, the PSU student council and elected body has had a resolution calling for PSU to divest from Boeing and cut all relationships since 2021, which the administration has ignored. It is the ‘democratic’ will of the student to cut ties with Boeing but you wouldn’t know that by all the kvetching and moaning in these threads and on the PSU subreddit

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god the comments are pretty accurate though. you either have to choose between cutting ties with imperialist companies and working a poverty job because of it or selling out and living a life without much material hardship

these PSU students have their hearts in the right place
- There are many steps in between “poverty job” and making bombs and fighter jets. Those who flock to weapons companies are either lazy and/or fascists. Simple as.
  
  In America? Most high paying jobs are extremely close to the literal military, extremely violent financial/economic violence interally, or imperialism
  
  Then perhaps they should design highways for the city. I’m looking at random locations in states that aren’t known for their tech industry, and I’m finding a bunch of non military shit. There are jobs where you travel from location to location and handle IT matters. There are customer service jobs, development jobs for telecoms. I say this as a CS major without a career yet: tough shit. STEM fuckers are some of the laziest, most entitled bastards
  
  customer service does not pay a livable wage. and you need like a couple handful of people to design a highway
  
  I say this as a CS major without a career yet: tough shit
  
  yea, probably cause you didn't choose to sell out right?
  
  You're just supporting my argument that almost the entire portion of American jobs that pay a good wage is in the business of the worst types of exploitation. Is that really that surprising by far the largest empire on this planet has a crap load of evil jobs?
  
  I'm also curious how it was decided these jobs were non-military. Like how many steps removed is good enough? If they do business with / are a vendor for Honeywell but don't directly sell to the DoD is that OK or is that complicity? What if it is a small portion of the business but you don't work on it?
  
  There's entire fields/industries that probably can't get removed from this, and while it is fine to say people shouldn't support them it really comes across more as blinders on how extensive this is.
  
  Define high paying because my initial reaction to this is that it’s a huge exaggeration
  
  Can afford to rent a 1 bedroom apartment <= 30 minute commute from work at <30% after taxes
  
  If a car is necessary, then add all the costs associated with that to the rent
  
  I think this is reasonable, spending 25% on rent is still an absurd amount of money
  
  Spending 25% on rent is a ridiculous impossible fantasy for most people (if they can even afford rent)
  
  I know that's the point of the argument I'm making that the very few jobs that allow for that are very close to systems of extreme exploitation
  
  It seems like you’re making two separate arguments. One is that economic safety is rare and gatekept behind exploitative work. The other is that exploitative work makes up the majority of comfortable American jobs. I don’t disagree with your larger point. I just think there’s a middle ground where you can live in what most of the world would consider luxury and not be directly contributing to violence at home or abroad. All existence in the imperial core benefits from imperialism, but there’s still a difference between, for example, being a teacher in the imperial core and working in the factory that manufactures airplanes for the military. And depending on where you live, many teachers are indeed living in what much of the world would consider luxury thanks to imperialism.
  
  I could do it right now if I started working for the ammo and bomb factory
  
  It’s really not an exaggeration. I can go into detail but you’re not going to like it.
  
  I think it’s an ambiguous point as I’ve explained above. But sure yeah go for it. I’ll be happy to admit if you shock or surprise me.
  
  No I read your other comment.
  
  I just think there’s a middle ground where you can live in what most of the world would consider luxury and not be directly contributing to violence at home or abroad.
  
  I already know this is where we’re going to differ because imho this is a useless point that doesn’t really help anyone because…
  
  And depending on where you live, many teachers are indeed living in what much of the world would consider luxury thanks to imperialism.
  
  Like okay let’s just stretch the word luxury until the seams rip. You can always find some random position somewhere where someone is making fine money, but that obfuscates the reality where, no, teachers as a whole are not doing fine. There are not plentiful jobs that are paying well for the masses of people and those that have them are usually assisting in direct exploitation of the third world. This isn’t controversial unless you have no idea what living in the US is actually like.
  
  I could more than double my pay tomorrow if I went to go work for the bullet and bomb factory down the road. If you don't have a college degree, everything that pays well is adjacent to military industrial or is the military. The biggest building in many rural towns is the army recruitment building.
  
  This is the reality of living in the US. You either break you back from bullshit job to bullshit job, you go to college to get a good paying job doing nothing at best or exploitation at worst, you work for a military adjacent company, or you join the military. There is always an exception to the rule, but it always reinforces the point.
  
  I have no idea why this comment has so many upvotes. This is not a dig on you personally at all, but straight up, no there isn’t any steps between poverty jobs and jobs that are directly tied to the MIC/ the energy sector. Most jobs outside of that is food service, retail, warehouse work, package delivery etc. even the trades are not safe from this since I worked as an HVAC tech and A LOT of shit is straight up made by DUPONT, Raytheon, 3M and their subsidiaries and I can’t imagine this isn’t the same with other trades. If you’re not doing these kind of jobs then what exactly are you doing that your able to not working for fascist and also making a good wage?
  
  I’m not trying to rant or anything but I could literally sit here and reply for days on this very subject.
- Mfw labor aristocrats become self-aware and embrace fascism
  
  I'm surrounded by them and trust me, they've always been incredibly self aware. They just don't show it except amongst other labor aristocrats because they feel comfortable and safe
  
  It's like how white people generally only show their racism around other white people and men their misogyny around other men

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