timemachineyeah
drives me up a wall living in a very very red district, like “no democrat is ever going to win any local election, let alone a real leftist” district, like “our school board members ran on who was the most anti-mask” red, like “I pass white supremacist signs on the way to buy weed” red
and being in the local leftist community and the guy who runs the anarchist book club and the lady who helps keep the warming shelters open and the people who marched on city hall when a local business was getting death threats for having a drag show are all members of a discord and we get on this discord and have frank discussions about how best to vote
the people who do the protests and the mutual aid and all the real work
going “okay, they’re both fascists, but this one lacks ambition and seems happy to just glide in the position” or “they both suck, but this one can be reasoned with if you frame it patriotically enough” like we don’t even have a democrat to vote for. we know what a vote is. we know what we hope accomplish with it. we know what it can do, and we know what it can’t.
and going from those discussions to here where people think that your vote is some kind of fucking??? enabling maneuver??? as if someone isn’t going to end up in that seat regardless of what you do???
we didn’t build this system, we just live in it. we’re just trying to survive. a vote isn’t a statement of your values, it’s not an endorsement, it’s not a marriage contract, it’s a strategic play you make to keep alive.
the biggest mistake I see leftists making is overestimating their own popularity. “well but everyone would be leftist if they just-” no, stop, 1) you can’t possibly know that 2) everyone will not just
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Spot on.
While I’m not a Marxist, he had a brilliant term for these people: “Petty Bourgeoisie” They think they’re in line with the upper-crust, but are just Proles that are kidding themselves.
Huh, when I initially read “petty bourgeois” I thought you’d got the term wrong, but when I looked it up to check its a common anglicisation of “petite bourgeois”.
I find the latter more intuitive, as it’s “little bourgeois”, but both are right.
Lil Bougie about to drop his new album “HOA Fees”
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires
You’re actually looking for the term “false consciousness”. Economic classes, however, are defined (as per Marx) by your objective relations to the means of production, not your mindset or sympathies. If you make a living from rents/capital rather than from selling your labor/time, you are bourgeois. If not, you’re not.
Ah, that makes more sense. Thank you for the clarification - I’ll adjust my future rants accordingly. :)
Petite Bourgoisie are Capitalists that aren’t large enough to survive soley on the labor of others, so they certainly aren’t proletarians, but not bourgousie outright. Think mom and pop shop owners with a handful of other employees, not actual proles.
Exactly this. No, people aren’t voting for racists because they’re upset with taxes or unemployment. They’re voting for racists because they’re racist.
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And people aren’t voting for Democrats who refuse to address unaffordable housing, healthcare and education head on. Someone who realizes the traditional means aren’t options and goes for riskier strategies because they know the population can’t abide with loss after loss after loss.
The rail strike was a perfect opportunity for Democrats to show who they’re fighting for and that’s exactly what they did. Turns out, they’re fighting for corporations.
Are you calling for slaughter?
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Funny, you sound like the exact people I assume you want to cull with that statement. Dont get me wrong, I’m not both sidesing here the Republican party is fucking scary and fucking crazy at this point, but if you wonder how they got there, its because they were fearful that the other side was insane and evil (At least the poor supporters, not the wealthy who grifted that fear to gain more power)
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1: Not American
2: Violence has a tendency to create more violence down the line
Figuring out how to deal with an extremely significant percentage of the entire country being dangerously brainwashed without violence is a fucking hard ass task, but the easy solution is likely to be a very temporary one at best. The way you feel about them is the exact same way they feel about you
It’s mostly upper middle class people who believe they are entitled to be better off than others and don’t want progress.
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This reminds me a bit of Singapore, where everyone with any money has a maid to clean around the house. It’s because the minimum wage for maids is really low. It’s about $400 to $600 per month for a live in maid, based on their country of origin. You pay less for maids from certain places (yes it’s pretty racist).
If they increased the minimum wage, the average Singaporean would not be able to afford a 24 hr maid. The funny thing is, people in developed countries mostly do not have maids and are not really worse off. The idea that Singapore would have a “lower standard of living” without maids is kind of silly to everyone else.
Unfortunately, your “reeducation” idea is really undemocratic and not altruistic. People in developed countries have a right to believe stupid things because conservative governments (monarchies) used to outlaw it. We already tried that and it didn’t work.
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Once you create a tool, it will be used. And not necessarily for good.
“Reeducation” is bad in general, except for helping criminals or the mentally ill. Advocating it is an extremely authoritarian view that goes against all modern concepts of personal liberties (real ones, not “the freedom to cough everywhere”).
It indicates to me that you believe that you are 100% correct and will always be in power, so it will not be used against you. That’s not an altruistic view. That’s what a king believes.
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