I took my time to review their claims that H1-B visas create jobs for american workers: http://www.renewoureconomy.org...

Here's an example of research they quote: http://immigrationworksusa.org...

Executive summary: companies that hire H1-B workers also hire US workers. Similarly if companies hire H1-B workers they lay off fewer domestic workers. There exists a strong correlation (or "association" in their terms) between hiring via H1-B visas and hiring locally. Claims that H1-B hiring directly causes jobs to be created for US workers are not substantiated by any research I could find.

Now, I'm only an armchair social scientist whereas authors of these studies are named as "Harvard professors" and such so I have no idea why they avoid absolutely obvious conclusion that successful and growing companies like to hire workers from both pools! I'll speculate that these companies prefer hiring workers who are more pliable, cheaper, easier to fire - ideally identured and that they also prefer keeping wages low. That makes companies more successful and profitable. Everyone knows that if a company is profitable it will aim to expand and to hire more workers - but to claim that company will hire expensive workers when cheap ones are available is moronic.

Selfish question: how do you get a gig like this? I'm absolutely sick of working for corporations and startups!

Here's more relevant information about the reasons for the strike: http://www.businessinsider.com/foxconn-workers-go-on-strike-2012-10 The important bit is that workers are striking not because they are against stricter quality, but because tighter quality checks meant they must work harder to produce iPhone components presumably at the same rate as earlier models. And they were told to do this without additional training.Victory for workers would mean Foxconn hiring more workers and less exhausting working pace for all workers there.

There is a lot more to these protests than just the silent demonstrations. The economy collapsed after the crooked 2010 elections. Prices of basic goods saw huge increases. For example, just few weeks ago drivers were blocking busy streets with their cars in protest against 100% increase in fuel prices. More info here

There are not the usual kinds of riots and protests in China. It's no longer peasants in the villages protesting against stolen land, pollution or corruption - these are formally relatively quiet urban workers going on multi-day riots that the government is struggling to contain and that threaten to spread everywhere the same bad conditions exist. Things like stagnant wage rates with high inflation, abusive authorities and employers, political repression, etc: article from the Guardian

It happened immediately after this was posted: http://video.ap.org/?f=None&pid=oT7qj_wiVHTbYae3scwok4_irYjJ2R8Z (warning: disturbing)

Sorry, the link is broken can some admins fix it: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=184949728200130

Some folks who don't think there is any point to voting wrote an article on that idea: "You mean they actually vote for Lizards?"

As far as I see it communism (lowercase) is a movement and a form of society that abolishes (exchange) value. Actual existing Communism (USSR being best example) most certainly did not abolish valuing human endeavors in proportion to material things - workers were paid wages and exchanged that money for a portion of the products they produced. The Communist state did everything it could to accumulate this exchangeable material wealth (capital) in forms that would allow it to stand up and challenge the better accumulated capitalist rival states. Stuff like infrastructure, industry, etc. You could say the Communist countries had some deformed sort of capitalism with the state as a single buyer/seller. It worked fairly well (in terms of capital accumulation, not in life quality for workers) for USSR's early development, but it couldn't keep up with free market capitalism in the end.