this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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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."
Conservatives: "George Carlin is a Republican!"
Only in a social context where "liberal" just means "polite".
Why do you stop at billionaires, and not include the politicians and the people that hold power?
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.
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.
Many middlemen are getting played, too.
You forgot the journalists who frame narratives and the intellectuals who secrete the ideology that makes it all possible.
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.
Last time I checked fighting class war resulted in antitheistic antimonarchistic country where supremacism and patriarchy was counter-revolutionary crime(see "Women and pro-literacy propaganda" and "Campaign for non-Russian speakers").
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.
You're so close.
So very close!
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
Class inequality is not the same thing as anti capitalism. I like capitalism. I see it as a vehicle for those who contribute being rewarded.
We have classist structures outside of more things than business. Politics is the big one, but it's nowhere near the only one. I'm for tearing down those who get power without needing to demonstrate the skill needed to wield it. Those that are given it either through nepotism or cronyism.
I truly believe that the system doesn't care about race or gender or whatever. It cares about looking after it's friends. If you're not in the club you're trodden underfoot. So pitting black against white and man against woman is a distraction. We all need to be fighting together against the "landed gentry".
Okay okay okay. You talk about class inequality but say you like capitalism? What classes are you talking about?
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.
Yeah! Consensus reality!