Class gets its significance from the process of surplus extraction. The relationship between worker and owner is essentially an exploitative one, involving the constant transfer of wealth from those who labor (but do not own) to those who own (but do not labor). This is how some people get richer and richer without working, or with doing only a fraction of the work that enriches them, while others toil hard for an entire lifetime only to end up with little or nothing.
Those who occupy the higher circles of wealth and power are keenly aware of their own interests. While they sometimes seriously differ among themselves on specific issues, they exhibit an impressive cohesion when it comes to protecting the existing class system of corporate power, property, privilege, and profit. At the same time, they are careful to discourage public awareness of the class power they wield. They avoid the C-word, especially when used in reference to themselves as in "owning class;’ "upper class;’ or “moneyed class.” And they like it least when the politically active elements of the owning class are called the “ruling class.” The ruling class in this country has labored long to leave the impression that it does not exist, does not own the lion’s share of just about everything, and does not exercise a vastly disproportionate influence over the affairs of the nation. Such precautions are themselves symptomatic of an acute awareness of class interests.
Yet ruling class members are far from invisible. Their command positions in the corporate world, their control of international finance and industry, their ownership of the major media, and their influence over state power and the political process are all matters of public record- to some limited degree. While it would seem a simple matter to apply the C-word to those who occupy the highest reaches of the C-world, the dominant class ideology dismisses any such application as a lapse into “conspiracy theory.” The C-word is also taboo when applied to the millions who do the work of society for what are usually niggardly wages, the “working class,” a term that is dismissed as Marxist jargon. And it is verboten to refer to the "exploiting and exploited classes;’ for then one is talking about the very essence of the capitalist system, the accumulation of corporate wealth at the expense of labor.
The C-word is an acceptable term when prefaced with the soothing adjective “middle.” Every politician, publicist, and pundit will rhapsodize about the middle class, the object of their heartfelt concern. The much admired and much pitied middle class is supposedly inhabited by virtuously self-sufficient people, free from the presumed profligacy of those who inhabit the lower rungs of society. By including almost everyone, “middle class” serves as a conveniently amorphous concept that masks the exploitation and inequality of social relations. It is a class label that denies the actuality of class power.
The C-word is allowable when applied to one other group, the desperate lot who live on the lowest rung of society, who get the least of everything while being regularly blamed for their own victimization: the “underclass.” References to the presumed deficiencies of underclass people are acceptable because they reinforce the existing social hierarchy and justify the unjust treatment accorded society’s most vulnerable elements.
Seizing upon anything but class, leftists today have developed an array of identity groups centering around ethnic, gender, cultural, and life-style issues. These groups treat their respective grievances as something apart from class struggle, and have almost nothing to say about the increasingly harsh politico-economic class injustices perpetrated against us all. Identity groups tend to emphasize their distinctiveness and their separateness from each other, thus fractionalizing the protest movement. To be sure, they have important contributions to make around issues that are particularly salient to them, issues often overlooked by others. But they also should not downplay their common interests, nor overlook the common class enemy they face. The forces that impose class injustice and economic exploitation are the same ones that propagate racism, sexism, militarism, ecological devastation, homophobia, xenophobia, and the like.
Seems like the discourse has broken down to picking sides.
Hamas is a terrorist organization and does nothing to help the Palestinian people. Israel is indiscriminately leveling a city with absolutely zero regard for innocent lives.
Maybe this situation is full of nuance and grey areas that a single tweet or article or comic can’t fully encapsulate.
Hamas is the the elected ruling group of Palestine. Even referring to the current Israeli government and army as Israel, but then making a distinction between Hamas and Palestine is hypocritical.
They “governed” in the gaza strip, yes, but when was the last election exactly? In 2006 they got in power, then they murdered their political opponents and have kept their power through force ever since
Saying that they’re elected by and represent the people would be a bit of a stretch
Right, but folks say Israel is one, the whole nation, but Hamas is the other, they aren’t Palestine. The differenciation in one and not the other is hypocritical and problematic.
Say Palestine vs Israel, accepting that it’s assumed it their ruling body and army at war, and not the average people.
Apt comparison. If anybody has any ways to get around YouTube ads on a Roku, I’d love to hear them lol. My pi hole can’t handle it since they come from the same domain as the video.
I just got around it by not using roku. Just get a cheap used laptop somewhere and plug it into your TV. It doesn’t even need to have a working screen. For the remote I just use my phone and the Unified Remote app. That app let’s you use your phone as an input device for any computer on the same network that has the client software installed. Play Store App Link
unified remote is great, I’ve been using Linux mint for a while and kde connect serves me well too for similar purposes. I basically have the setup you describe, an old inherited shitty laptop with mint and it’s just the stationary media center that I pirate everything with. Not exactly related but I used to use Pushbullet a lot too, there are some redundant overlaps with these apps.
oh and edit I discovered kde connect because my cheap Bluetooth keyboard shit the bed one day lol, and I use a USB Xbox controller I found in a free pile as the mouse, I even custom assigned one button to put my admin password for the terminal with antimicro. yarr
I’ve been considering just patching a spare laptop to my TV and just streaming it that way. There are remote control devices and controllers you can attach to laptops.
Cobras all over India, so government is like 'bring dead cobra, I gief moni". People are smart and breed cobras in their barn to collect more bounties. Government is like “you cheated, no fair. no more moni for cobra head”. People release all bred cobras into the wild. Result: even more cobras in India.
Oof. Why didn’t the people who had cobras just kill them instead of releasing them? Idk, I just imagine I’d rather not have a bunch of cobras outside where I lived?
Like, I guess they could have driven them somewhere farther away to release them, but at that point wouldn’t it be less work to kill them?
I mean unless it was just to spite the government (or convince them to start paying for cobras again), but that seems unlikely lol
It’s not like Prince Philip tried to ban tea in England. He was probably as inbred as they come and all he did was say a bunch of racist shit and then take a couple steps out of the limelight while gradually becoming half vampire half zombie https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/872f0645-d9da-48c1-8b78-4b37bd55ab7f.jpeg
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