this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 109 points 8 months ago (6 children)

It's not about the gays vs straights or blacks vs whites or the Romulans vs The Federation. It's about the billionaires vs everybody else. It's a class war. It aways has been. And life is never going to improve for most of us until we figure out where the REAL source of our pain comes from. Like George Carlin once said:

"That's the way the ruling class works in any society. They keep the lower and middle classes fighting with each other so that they . . . the rich . . . can run off with all the f*cking money."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Why do you stop at billionaires, and not include the politicians and the people that hold power?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Politicians are part of the state, which is shaped by the economic system which, in most of the world, is currently capitalism.

The root of the problem is class society and the capitalist system where the ruling class are the capitalists. So it doesn't really matter who the politicians are until the economic system, and thus the ruling class, are changed, which can only happen by organizing outside the capitalist political system whose only purpose is to protect capital.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

The state is part of the superstructure that is shaped by the economic base, which is in turned maintained by said superstructure. However, changes in the superstructure are never transformative unless they also come with radical change to the mode of production. Billionaires, and the capitalist class as a whole, completely block the path for the workers to seize the means and reshape society towards progress. It doesn't matter what faffing idiot you put in power in the state, when the economic base keeps operating with the same logic of capitalist extraction.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

If you think capitalism didn't create and still heavily relies on racism, sexism, ableism, cisheteronormativity and so on (and no, comparing real life oppressed groups to fictional characters doesn't help) to literally exist, you've not been paying any attention.

Fighting only a class war still leaves an imperialist white supremacist cisheteronormative ableist theistic patriarchy.

Intersectionality is the only way everyone gets justice and equity.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I think, on average, we're too dumb as a species to keep it in mind. I would hate to say we deserve the system we've got, but here we are.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You all need to read gramsci.

If you think racism is an issue of "whites vs blacks" you either have never seen racism (good for you) or never really heard the people affected.

Hegemonial culture is a thing, and it plays a major role in keeping modern systems afloat.

Can't fight capitalism without addressing inequalities and fighting for a just society for everyone.

This is the literal concept of solidarity: also fighting for causes you are not personally affected by.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You're so close.

Can't fight capitalism without addressing inequalities and fighting for a just society for everyone.

So very close!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Because you think we end capitalism an poof, all other problems are gone?

Sure, can't overcome e.g. racism without overcoming capitalism, but also can't really have a better society without addressing the discrimination in the system.

If some other working class member tells you about the discrimination he receives, and you make the face in the meme, you're helping capitalists by splitting the working class.

The fights are interwoven guys, can't do "this first" or "that first"

You need to address the problems (yes that means also cultural ones) and stand together in solidarity to have a chance of building a better system.

Splitting the working class by making this face when people talk about how they are discriminated just because your not affected is only helping capitalists

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 8 months ago (3 children)

"They got you fighting a culture war to stop you fighting a class war"

[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 months ago

When you're a trans teen from OK getting beaten to death by classmates, the culture war feels a lot more urgent to focus on in the moment. Survival isn't something you can be passive about.

Some people partake in the culture war as part of manipulation by the rich... Some people are forced into it by defending themselves from the first group. And some people are compelled into it to protect the second group.

While you're not wrong about how we got here, it feels like it would be too easy for one side of the culture war to spin this as "Ignore my bigotry, Wall St is the real enemy!"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Political parties are part of the culture war too. The rich don't fit into a party. They like right wing economics because it keeps them rich, sure, but they push left wing culture because it gets people off their backs. As a whole, they play the two parties against each other, and we probably won't be able to stop that unless we can get more parties into the running.

Political hatred - probably the most prominent form of hatred in the US - is driven by the dichotomy, the "you're either with me or against me" that's made so convenient by the fact that everyone has to fit into one of two buckets anyways. Throw more parties into the mix, and it's harder to make that distinction because any given party works with you sometimes and against you at other times, and if you label them all as enemies, you're going up against the majority of the country.

It's easier said than done, though. Duverger's law states that the maximum number of viable political parties is the number of seats in a given election + 1. So we can't just will another political party into viability without booting out one that we already have. We have to change the voting structure. Proportional representation in congressional elections sounds good, and with fewer voting districts, it's also harder to gerrymander. But that's gonna be hard to push for.

Once we can accomplish that, the hatred will slowly subside (but not entirely,) and people will be able to see more clearly to deal with the class struggle. Plus, with more parties, we might even be able to vote in candidates who support the actual economic changes we want instead of just paying lip service to the lower classes.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 8 months ago (5 children)

My dad once told me my mom didnt feel safe walking alone at night in the neighborhood and asked if I felt the same. I said I didnt feel any concerns, but added the caveat that Im not a small woman, and Im a large man.

He paused for a minute, nodded and said "that makes sense." Then after another few seconds goes "That's not white privilege."

[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 months ago

Trying to comprehend the thought process:

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I mean, that's true. It's not "white privilege," but it's still privilege.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago

He saw himself having an epiphany about privilege in general, so he had to swerve and add race into the mix so he could say a true (albeit unrelated) thing and miss the point.

It's like when anti BLM people say "All lives matter" ... Sure, all lives DO matter, but they're intentionally missing the point, so they don't have to acknowledge that police brutality disproportionately affects black lives.

Saying unrelated "true" things to undermine the original statement is a bit telling about intentions.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

... Now compare the difference between being a built black man and built white man walking down that same street...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

And that would be white privilege. I'm not sure what you're trying to convey here.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Reminds me of my white dad talking to a friend of my brother's who's black about how he feels when a cop is around. "Not that different, maybe a little safer." And the friend said he has to be very careful about everything he does in that situation. My dad's not a conservative type, thank god, so hopefully it gave him some insight.

A few years ago, some cops were in my neighborhood looking for someone while I was sitting in my car. One ducked his head down to look at me and quickly left. I was VERY aware that my skin color might have just saved my life.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Living in multinational country I can say noone feels safe around police.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

I was talking to my handyman the other day, he's a nice guy and likes to learn. I'm telling him about how much it sucks to grow up in car-centric suburbs, and he told me about childhood.

I told him how the freedom he had now gets people arrested for child neglect, and all of a sudden he goes "yeah it's so dangerous now with the crisis at the border"

It's like they've been through an "education" camp. You carefully lead them through understanding how the world could be very easily improved, and they're getting it... Then some phrase reminds them of their conditioning, and they snap back to step one.

It takes months of gently leading them to see that what they're saying makes no sense... It's possible, but it's depressing how many people are falling into the fox newshole

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nobody is free until everyone is free

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago (7 children)

When they're talking about big pharma and other companies controlling peoples lives and how the people that control them conspire to keep the rest of us in line...... Then start talking about Jews...

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I disagree. We all enjoyed WandaVision.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A clever trick to quell the poor's thirst for equal rights

[–] [email protected] 45 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't quell it. It redirects it. All of the negativity and animosity still exist in the world, but now it's aimed at the wrong target.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (2 children)

People can talk about more than one issue at the same time y'all

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The city where I grew up in England is over one quarter South Asian. There was friction between the “sides”, but what few noticed was that actually no-one was doing very well. The city had been abandoned by the government long ago.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Real easy to dismiss "culture war" issues when you're not on the receiving end of them. Race, gender, religious prejudices predate capitalism and will likely be with us long after it's gone.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Race, gender, religious prejudices

All secondary contradictions as consequences of class society, which is currently capitalism; it being feudalism in most of the world before that instead of capitalism doesn't change that it was, and still is, class society. Tackling the symptoms alone won't solve the core issue.

Racial, gender, queer emancipation are all part of proletariat emancipation. It's not an either/or.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Occupy scared the shit out of bankers. It's no mistake that pop culture became obsessed with divisive issues immediately afterwards.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Europeans think racism is stupid, but then bring out the hitler energy for Romani.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

All y'all's gold mines, they wanna deplete you.

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