At the risk of sounding like a class reductionist (I’m not), even things like racism and LGBTphobia are exacerbated by this, because the only reason we don’t just eat those ten guys is we’re always hating each other. The reason there’s so much racism in the US, for example, has a lot to do with slavery – and guess who benefitted from slavery? Guess who benefitted from the genocide against Native Americans? Who benefits most from calling refugees and undocumented workers “illegal immigrants”?
It’s not me. If you’re reading this, it’s probably not you. It hurts us. It hurts our communities, while these ten people keep brainwashing us into actually defending them and their system while hating each other.
(Ok now I’m going to have my coffee, and I wish to the gods that I could disable inbox notifications after posting this.)
Why do you fear that lol?
Divide and conquer is a thing older than a sum of this thread’s ages. If there’s no constant infights and smaller issues, we’d figure things out and switch to them. When a poor white guy covers himself in blankets and burn crosses, they laught and applaud, because hating other poor guys is what would occupy him for life. They fund hatred for it lets them stay in power, it brings them easy wins against ‘the mysterious other’ people fear or don’t understand. It props them up alright.
Take insanely long copyright holders and LLMs from the thread I’ve read previously. We start to take sides and defend overwhelmingy rich companies from which none of them would probably suffer, and both of these suck ass. That’d hold us from regulating each at the same time, if anywhen.
Even coke and pepsi sold and sell us their rivalry as a way to up loyalty to their brand. Generating unrest is a good tool in their box. And I don’t think it’s a controversial opinion. Especially in economics and politics.
It may not be as bad here, but there are a shit ton of people who defend inherently destructive systems like capitalism, or who excuse systemic racism or transphobia. I’ve encountered them a lot, even here in the fediverse.
And now I understand you. I’ve seen persons fanboying for my fucking state, and I’m still open to switch places with them. They aren’t so enthusiastic about it after I propose that.
Either way, I wasn’t disagreeing with you at all.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” – Lyndon Johnson
I live in the Bible belt and people 100% think a trans kid socially transitioning with a new haircut and different pronoun is a more direct threat to their livelihood than their boss giving them a 1% raise in a 5% inflation environment.
That hate propaganda is, in my opinion, more continually perpetuated by them, and in some cases created by them, because it offers, as you say, and I agree, a distraction from the pure evil they are for this planet and all life on it. The super villains have convinced us they’re not the villains. Where’s superman when you need him.
Exactly it’s not our fault for fighting against bigoted poor people, it’s bigots fault for being swayed to fight poor people and not join us against the rich
Seriously, why does Lenny not have the ability to disable notifications on posts?
Try to mention that the majority of landlords who go around fixing shit all day are struggling just as much you will get you hung around here.
Mention that the uberrich are the ones behind those firms buying up houses and they want you blaming that 70 year old still fixing shit instead of them.
People are blind to so much shit sometimes and the pendulum swing in other directions like ACAB suddenly being pushed by a bunch of people who couldn’t speak English is the cherry on top to realizing so many people on the left are just as easily swayed as the people being grifted the right.
E: I’d like to see what people think are acceptable amounts of property ownership. Each person gets to own a single property? So I can own two properties and rent one if me and my partner each own, right? I wonder how far housing Co-ops can work.
Anyone in a committed relationship should be able to rent a single property. Nothing guarantees that we won’t break up, so they will need to keep something just in case. It’s also emergency funds for if we lose everything in the stock and people realize the Stock Market doesn’t work without the very thing people thing are arguing against. Unsustainable capitalism. What else do people do then? Go full Ron Swanson and put it all into shiny metal and bury it lol?
Until people start unionizing to the point where people don’t require their work to put into their retirement and get paid enough to actually save so they can’t generate money from hoarding, then you’ll need stock. You’ll need diverse portfolios which include property ownership.
Landlords are not a special case. If you don’t like your job you can quit. Sell the property if it is such a burden.
That’s the point, they often can’t because unlike you and the other people putting money into the magic money making machine which requires unsustainable growth based GDP to work, aka the stock market, they put theirs into equity.
Selling 1-2 houses for $150,000 isn’t going to let them retire lol. They also bought houses for generational income so they can gift them to their children or grandchildren.
And just like the reactionary fun both of you are going with, you pretend like it’s still not a class issue lol.
the majority of landlords who go around fixing shit all day are struggling just as much you
Nah, this ain’t it, chief. They’re not struggling like me, and they’re exploiting a resource that should be a basic human right for profit. For every landlord who’s tRyInG tO pAy MoM’s NuRsInG hOmE fEeS, there are multiple tenants who can’t because they’re being sucked dry by these vampires.
People can fix shit without exploiting housing.
Edit: YIKES I just saw your username. Blocked, blocked, BLOCKED! Holy fucking shit!
As I’ve said, the death of nuance lol.
You’re welcome to google the name and find out blankets with smallpox was never a thing though!
E: You’re also welcome to read any number of my well sourced comments or discussions about landlords and class warfare elsewhere.
For fixing shit, there are plumbers and electricians and carpenters. They are workers.
Landlord earns money not from fixing, but from renting out a house first and foremost. And this is a passive income, or, to put otherwise, exploiting a resource and dragging money from something that doesn’t produce anything for society.
This is very class reductionist. Rich people are still hurt by bigotry, especially celebrities. Not every rich person is a cis, hetero, white, man.
These issues predate capitalism. Not making full use of minorities and oppressed people actually hurts the capitalist economy especially in terms of innovation. It would be much more efficient for the rich if everyone were giving their best.
These divisions are far from the only reason people don’t turn on the rich. People just don’t support socialism and I can see why. Things like the USSR and China are what happened when marxism was tried. We need to come up with better economic and political systems that actually work if we want to get anywhere. We then need to remove the stains these previous systems caused. I don’t think that’s gonna happen with the current crop of leftists as they are idealists still using 100s of years old ideologies.
You don’t understand what I am saying do you? These issues predate the rich people we have now, and even hurt some of them. Billionaires are still bad people, but they aren’t the only problematic people in societies.
You don’t seem to know what you’re talking about since if anything there’s been a wealth of leftist literature within the past couple of decades, and if anything ideologies such as anarcho-communism and anarcho-primitivism are experiencing a renaissance.
I also find it highly suspect that your first go-to example of leftism is a failed authoritarian state like the Soviet Union rather than groups like the Zapatistas, the anti-fascist movement in the US, Food Not Bombs, many horizontally structured local coalitions, or other much better examples of leftism manifesting in helpful and vibrant ways.
Class reductionism is harmful, though – I’ll agree with you there.
You don’t seem to know what you’re talking about since if anything there’s been a wealth of leftist literature within the past couple of decades, and if anything ideologies such as anarcho-communism and anarcho-primitivism are experiencing a renaissance.
Anarcho-communism comes from Krapotkin, right? He wrote the book on it. He died over 100 years ago. Sure there might have been newer literature but it’s still based on 100+ year old ideology.
Anarchism is better in many ways than Marxism. The issue I have is that they get steam rolled by more organized regimes in places like Kronstadt in the USSR, or what happened to anarchist communes in Spain and Ukraine. I don’t think they can stand up against a well organized army. I would love to be proven wrong obviously. As long as regimes like fascism, marxism, capitalism are still around it will be difficult to make communes stick without some external force to defend them.
I choose the USSR as Marxism is far more popular in the UK (and I think the US too) than Anarchism. It’s the most obvious example of a failed Marxist regime.
Not every rich person is a cis, hetero, white, man.
Don’t give a fuck about rich people regardless of race, sex, or anything else. Just because a group of rich people can also inadvertently harm themselves doesn’t mean they are not effectively 100% to blame.
Things like the USSR and China are what happened when marxism was tried.
The USSR was what happened when dictators pretended to be socialist and victimized their subjects. This has little to do with Marx’ economic theories.
I don’t think that’s gonna happen with the current crop of leftists as they are idealists still using 100s of years old ideologies.
I agree with you here. I’ve started to see the left/right spectrum as not very useful, and the authoritarian/anarchist spectrum more appropriate. If peace, stability, and sustainability are ever achieved, it won’t be at the point of a gun or the order of an authoritarian.
Don’t give a fuck about rich people regardless of race, sex, or anything else. Just because a group of rich people can also inadvertently harm themselves doesn’t mean they are not effectively 100% to blame.
I want evidence rich people caused this mess. It’s said all the time that they are at fault for rascism, sexism, homophobia, etc but never proven. These ideologies go back to slave times, long before the world of capitalism and billionaires. It’s possible some are exploiting existing divisions to suit their own ends, but that’s different from being the sole cause of a problem.
The USSR was what happened when dictators pretended to be socialist and victimized their subjects. This has little to do with Marx’ economic theories.
Then why did it happen in almost every country with a socialist revolution lead by marxists? The USSR is only one example, you could look at China or North Korea for example.
I agree with you here. I’ve started to see the left/right spectrum as not very useful, and the authoritarian/anarchist spectrum more appropriate. If peace, stability, and sustainability are ever achieved, it won’t be at the point of a gun or the order of an authoritarian.
Anarchism is great until a well organized army comes around and invades them. If someone can find a way to build a commune without it getting invaded by tankies or fascists or the USA then I am all ears.
Sort of true. The rich also expand their dynasties. For example, Walmart now supports 10 billionaires instead of 1 as they are the children of the founder. I am sure we have all noticed the lowering of quality in our purchased goods.
Walmart now supports 10 billionaires instead of 1
The Waltons own 20x as much as they did a generation ago and split it among 10 people.
I am sure we have all noticed the lowering of quality in our purchased goods.
Their products were always shit. That was the Walmart gambit. Sell someone a $1 plastic piece of crap for $8 rather than a durable piece of $8 metal for $10. Pocket the difference and claim you saved people money.
But the broader consequence of Walmart and its “Buy up / shut down the competition” model is that everyone who sells to Walmart is obligated to produce crap. Because if you can’t sell to them at $.50, they’re not buying. And if they’re not buying, you lose access to millions of customers.
I think it was either Catepiller or John Deere that had a knock-down drag out fight with Walmart, where they wouldn’t budge on their wholesale price and Walmart began kicking them out of all their stores as a result, that effectively broke the back of the union-lead opposition to price cuts.
Dude, they have fucked up batteries so bad. I have batteries that are 2 years old, new in packaging that are leaking. Almost every time batteries die in a remote, it’s because they exploded.
There are definitely two classes of batteries now.
The batteries sold to oems to go in a product last forever just like they did 20 years ago when they came with “no leak warranties”. Because Roku doesn’t want leaking batteries in their box that sat unsold on a store shelf for a year before the consumer bought it.
SUPPORT. SMALL. BUSINESSES.
you might not get very price competitive products, but these companies often still have the consumer in mind.
small online shops, phone companies like fairphone (or even nokia), video streaming platforms like floatplane (dankpods is hilarious).
voting with our wallets is pretty much all we can do.
Before you the only time I had heard people “say vote with your wallet”, were from right leaning family members who are now upset about “cancel culture”
Even entertaining that cancel culture is a thing and not just a reductionist view of accountability in general, then what they’d be describing is voting with your dollar on a larger more organized scale.
Pardon my tangent and I completely agree with you.
In addition to this, try to support co-operatives, unionized workplaces, and FOSS development! Even go out of your way to try to reject corporations as much as you can, reduce consumerism, and focus on local organization.
All of these help Workers have more power and build up your community.
especially donate to FOSS devs whose software you’re using. even if it’s just a little bit. these people do it out of passion, and your donation will let them continue working on it.
and definetely sign up for a worker’s union.
Yeah, although I’m not sure why they’re calling Nokia a small business. They’re a publicly traded corporation and my searching tells me their revenue last year was $25 billion.
I was a bit surprised by that statement as well. When someone says “small business,” the first thing I think of is a mom and pop shop.
They don’t.
I thought so too so I bought one.
They are made by HMD Global which is a bad company that uses generic Foxconn smartphones designs with bad battery life, the worst cameras on the low-mid market, and terrible USB ports, puts shitty unsupported software on it, then licenses the Nokia name to sell to people who can’t afford a mid-tier and don’t know any better because they trust the name.
I had to manually replace the USB-C port on my Nokia 7.1 5 times in 2 years because they refused to offer any support at all when it broke 6 months after I bought it because they quite literally use the cheapest components possible.
Screw HMD Global. Do NOT support them. They are as bad or worse than any big phone company. Buy a Fairphone.
I love how the capitalists apologist brain rot gets downvoted like crazy in this comment section
but laws
oh they bought those
oh
