It’s the frustration inherent in class conflict misdirected. It is the anger that comes from being working class - which by rights should be directed toward the ruling class - directed instead toward those whom are “othered” by capitalist society and do not fit into a constructed “working class” aesthetic.

Where the working class, objectively, is defined by economic standpoint, it is made to represent a cultural position instead. The meaning of “working class” is manipulated so that it refers to a specific aesthetic - an aesthetic which can then be defined by the ruling class as is convenient for them. It is made to mean white, rustic, rural, patriotic christian (it fits into white supremacy and patriarchy like a jigsaw puzzle piece). 

Not only does this end up including members of the ruling class who pander to the “working class” aesthetic (por ejemlo: any politician that tries to be “down home” or something) , but it alienates other members of the working class. Frustrations that are inherently working class are directed toward those who represent a threat to the constructed “working class” aesthetic (created, as I said, to maintain false consciousness, white supremacy and patriarchy) - POCs, queers, Muslims, atheists, urban folk, etc - instead of those who actually are a threat to the actual working class.

This constructed aesthetic is particularly easy to maintain with homophobia, racism, and sexism already so prevalent. It builds off of those things, and perpetuates those things for the benefit of the ruling class, all while maintaining sharp divisions within the proletariat and strengthening false consciousness.

Anyone - on the right or the left - who buys into the “culture war” narrative, is perpetuating this false consciousness. I touched on this a lot in another post too.

Take a step back, and take a moment to recognize how these issues intersect and how they are manipulated by the economic/political elite. Unless you’re acknowledging those things, you’re fighting nothing.

Patchwork People

Patchwork people, patchwork lives,
living in a jar.
Sewn-on buttons for our eyes,
with stitches on our scars.

With someone’s ear, and something’s heart,
we limp along the floor.
Stuffing leaking from our arms,
we’re never quite restored.

We’re the rat king, crawling blind,
our tails are woven in.
Where they end, I cannot find,
and nor where I begin.

In 1996, 19 percent of organizations said they used credit checks as part of the screening process, according to The Society for Human Resource Management, a professional association that represents workers in the human resources field. By 2003, that number had jumped to 35 percent, and by 2006, 42 percent. [source]

According to a change.org petition, that number is up to 60%. Instances of prospective employees being fired or denied jobs due to their credit are far from uncommon. Petition starter Latoya Horton was fired from a permanent position at Bain & Co. due to her outstanding student debt. There is also Adair Jackson from Chicago’s South Side,  who “said a manager at a local bus company made it clear he planned to hire him. But then the company ran a credit check, and he never heard from the company again.”

These kinds of checks are most common for jobs in which the employee would be handling money, however there is still very little basis for them.

A study by Dr. Jerry Palmer and Dr. Laura Koppes of Eastern Kentucky University in 2004 found that those with good credit were no more likely to receive positive performance evaluations and were no less likely to be terminated from their jobs. [source]

A TransUnion (the major credit company selling reports to employers) official even admitted to the Oregon State Legislature last year that:

there was no research “to show any any statistical correlation between what’s in somebody’s credit report and their job performance or their likelihood to commit fraud.” [same source as above quote]

So, basically, this highly discriminatory practice continues for no real reason except that it is a sweet deal for TransUnion.

The situation represents a sick catch-22. Unemployed people in debt need jobs, but can be denied a job on the basis that they are in debt. Given the current student loan bubble, and the prevalence of underemployed graduates in debt, the prevalence of this practice is daunting. It adds another layer to the institutionalized marginalization of people in debt. It makes it more impossible for those in debt to get back on their feet, and by extension it makes those in debt more easily exploited by financial institutions or employers looking to take advantage of desperate workers.

This is institutionalized preservation of poverty for the benefit of the owning class. Particularly disturbing (and ironic) is the fact that Penny Pritzker, Chair and part-owner of TransUnion, is a part of President Obama’s Jobs and Competitiveness Council, which “advises the President on putting Americans back to work.” 

Irrespective of how often employees lose their jobs, or how often prospective employees are denied positions, the fact that this practice exists at all is problematic - especially considering the lack of correlation between credit and job performance. It demonstrates an incredibly classist attitude among employers, through the idea that somehow those who are struggling are inherently less trustworthy or less hardworking than others. By this, it is another example of how the market, left to its own devices, perpetuates and exacerbates inequality and poverty. 

The other day, I got into it with someone about welfare. Long story short, it ended up with me telling him that, if he can’t understand why people would get emotional when you talk about ending welfare, it’s not his place to form an opinion on it. His response was that it’s his right.

It occurs to me that his is a very common mentality among privilege-deniers and crass libertarians. It’s the conflation of “I have the right to” and “it’s my place to.” Just because one has the right to voice their opinion, they think, it is their place to, regardless of their distance from the issue at hand. 

Just because you have the right to speak your opinion on an issue, doesn’t mean it’s your place to. You have the right to say whatever you want, but when it is about racism, when you’ve never experienced racism, it’s not your place to say anything - and you shouldn’t feel at all surprised when your opinion is dismissed as irrelevant, or met with hostility from those whose place it is to have an opinion.

There seems to be this misunderstanding that, because we all have the right to free speech, everyone’s opinion on every issue is equally valid. You see it on Tumblr all the time, when various dudebros feel entitled to give their take on certain issues regardless of their place - often rationalized by delusions of persecution. This only serves oppressive structures. When a cop is stomping on a person’s face, both persons’ opinions on face-stomping are not equally valid. When one group is dominated by another, the opinions of those benefiting from this domination are not equally as valid as those who are being dominated.

It’s like that gif of the old lady at the sporting event and it’s all “WHITE OPINIONS.” Pretty much just like that. The belief that the opinions of a person benefiting from domination are entitled to equal consideration in a discussion of that domination, is another manifestation of the domination at hand. There’s a sense of racial/class/etc entitlement at play.

So basically I’m just trying to clarify and organize my thoughts for my own benefit and this is in no way to be regarded as me trying to educate anybody or anything like that.

But basically yeah, that’s how a liberal notion of free speech is used as a tool of oppression.

A friend of mine shared a picture from Judge Napolitano’s Facebook page. Showed two chess pieces - a king and a queen - in a jail cell, with the king saying “the pawns acquiring guns was a real game changer.”

Being Napolitano’s page, naturally all of the comments had to do with libruls and “leftists” controlling “the people.” So I said:

I’m sorry, but some of you are completely full of shit. I guarantee you the majority of actual leftists (and please understand that doesn’t mean democrats, who are basically the other side of one neo-liberal, proto-fascist coin) believe in gun rights - because the people, when armed, are harder to control. The thing is, it’s not just harder for the gubment to control them, it’s harder for the wealthy to control them too. 

I would bet what little I own that, if third world peasants and American working poor (especially people of color and other marginalized people) took up arms against the 1%, half the mouthpieces of the oligarchy whining about the 2nd Amendment would take all of two minutes to start calling for gun control to keep all of us thugs in line.

Don’t say your belief in gun rights has anything to do with “the people” unless you know what that means. “The people” doesn’t just mean white middle class skilled laborers and business owners. It means welfare mothers, fry-cooks, inner-city “thugs,” homeless and everyone else you tell your kids not to make eye-contact with.

Just food for thought.

I later said “I mean, I hope you all realize that ‘controlling the populace’ means protecting the interests of the rich from the anger of the working poor, right?” 

I mean, let’s be frank, how stupid do you have to be? What kind of deluded, black-and-white concept of society is required to yammer about “the people” being “under control” without taking a moment to think just a little further about it (let alone while still vocally supporting capitalism and actively contributing to white supremacy)? To think things are so simple, that the sole social evil in this world is the gubment that wants to control you for sole purpose of just doing so. Never mind that power of that sort is nothing more than a means to an end, and it only takes thinking just a tiny bit longer about it to figure, idk, maybe that end is profit and cultural dominance?

I already know the answer to those questions, really, it’s just frustrating as fuck. 

And, honestly - I’m not kidding - I would bet my life that if these people saw just how many POCs, homeless, and other undesirables “the people” include, they would be the first to bitch at their dinner tables and on right-wing facebook pages about “rule of law,” crime, and “thugs,” without once thinking about the cognitive dissonance and racist hypocrisy they’re espousing. If the people in [insert colonized country here] took up arms against Coca-Cola, Hershey’s, Folgers, etc. these knuckle-dragging crackers and their favorite TV stars would be calling for the Marines to step in - mouths foaming with indignation.

fuck.

EDIT: One of these fools with a Gadsden flag as his avatar had the gall to talk about gun control laws in inner cities.

Who do you think is being protected in this situation really? Who really needs protection from an armed inner-city population? If the urban poor are going to rise up in arms, is it really going to be against the government for not letting them pour industrial waste in the river or hide their assets in offshore accounts, or is it going to be against the companies that don’t pay them enough to make rent, the landlords who evict them, the banks who foreclose on them, and the health insurance companies that put them into debt? 

The school system here, and possibly elsewhere, has a program called STEM - which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. I mentioned it in an earlier post.

This program selects students who demonstrate talent in these subjects, and gives them a specialized, challenging, and expensive curriculum. The program is funded, and conceived by, the defense contractors that have a lot of political pull in this county. Corporations like Northrop Grumman, DynCorp, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Boeing, as such, have control over a program that students and parents see as the fast-track to a lucrative career for a talented child. 

Basically everyone who shows talent in these subjects is roped into this program, the curriculum of which is focused in many ways on the development of defense technologies. The program hooks you up with internship and employment opportunities that is dominated by the defense sector. My brother was enrolled in the program for a year and a half and that’s why he quit.

For one thing, it’s like, God forbid one of these kids grows and uses their talents to cure diseases, or build innovative infrastructure, or develop technology that helps the disabled, or build a colony on Mars. For another thing, this basically demonstrates to a population of students that if their talents are in art or skilled labor, then you have absolutely no interest in nurturing them.

Of course, this says a lot about our society. Unless your talents are potentially profitable, society really doesn’t have much interest in nurturing your growth. At all. Art is useful. Curing diseases, building infrastructure/technology that helps people, and *~daring to dream~* about the potential of space travel, are all very noble pursuits that really benefit humanity - but they just don’t put digits on the spreadsheet like a good old fucking bomb.

Of course, what better reflection is there of the dangerous degree to which the US’ economy is based on war than the fact that students are primed at a very young age for work in the military industrial complex. I mean, how the fuck are we supposed to sustain all of the contractors, sub-contractors, sub-sub-contractors, sub-sub-sub contractors (and that’s not an exaggeration), weapons specialists, systems analysts, bomb-factories, weapons developers, security agencies, and all of the residential/commercial development in various military towns, without being constantly at war?

It’s fucked up. When you add an economic paradigm of infinite growth and profit to the business of killing people, you get a disastrous situation.

The line between attacking specific problematic beliefs and attacking belief itself seems to be the line between “reason” and evangelized atheism, to me. Besides turning a “belief in nothing” into belief-in-belief-in-nothing, it serves to shift the blame for oppression that religion justifies toward believers, and away from the powerful interests that pull the strings. This exacerbates the cultural conflicts that are exploited to keep people preoccupied and complacent.

The fact of the matter is that there are always people in more desperate and hopeless situations than you are, and to actively try to take something from them that gives them hope and makes them feel safe comes from a position of blind privilege. If you honestly can’t imagine how people might need religion to keep going, you’re looking from that perspective of blind privilege. 

The whole crusader mentality of “WELL WE NEED TO WAKE THE SHEEPLE UP!” is stupid. It ignores, as I said, the way religion is used by the powerful to manipulate. 

Take the church’s stance on homosexuality. In the Old Testament, the law against “sodomy” was part of a group of laws intended only to allow the Jews to survive their time in the desert - gay sex, of course, not being very conducive to population growth. Because the new covenant with God made most old Jewish laws obsolete, the Church didn’t have a stance on homosexual behavior or abortion until the middle ages. It was during this time that Christianity (and, of course, its accompanying imperial interests) was trying to get a foothold in northern and western Europe, and the continuation of a large Christian population was key to out-competing the old “pagan” religions that dominated. The same goes for the 19th century, when the homosexual first became identified as a criminally deviant identity instead of a deviant behavior; this was a time of massive industrial expansion and economic growth, which relied heavily on a growing population of desperate workers.

It’s no different from western expansion and colonization. As a purely economic and political endeavor, imperialism is a murderous waste of the public fund that will never benefit ordinary people. Throw in some religious rationalization, though, and suddenly you have an altruistic campaign to save a bunch of heathens (while also taking their gold and enslaving them because, you know, heathens).

This is why I study theology and the Bible. Rather than crusading against belief itself - which there is really nothing wrong with - I think it’s important to highlight the way those beliefs and the institutions that teach them have been affected by various power relations and economic interests. That way belief in religion or God does not have to, at all, conflict with tolerance and social/economic progress. If you understand that belief itself is something relatively benign until it is used as a tool for economic/political interests, you can address and debunk those beliefs that are problematic through reason without having to reject the belief in a higher power altogether.

Attacking belief itself and, by extension, believers, serves to perpetuate a narrative that is central to false consciousness. To the interests of the powerful, religion serves, in addition to justifying power, to distract those who see these oppressive relations for what they are, by shifting the blame toward religious belief itself and away from the economic/political structures themselves - thus keeping would-be dissenters preoccupied with other victims of these structures, and keeping them divided. 

This makes it very easy for people to interpret class tension as a cultural conflict. If the working poor rely on belief to cope with their position, attacking those beliefs will be interpreted as attacking them for holding their economic position. They can then interpret the frustrations inherent in their class position as frustration with the educated elites who constantly shit on their beliefs (and by extension, them as a class) instead of frustration with the bourgeoisie. It turns “working class” into a cultural position, instead of an economic one. They can attribute their religious and social beliefs to an inherently working class aesthetic, and socially and economically progressive views with an elitist one.

Thus, what should be class war becomes a culture war. Working class frustrations target the minorities and educated who are perceived as a threat to working class values, instead of the economic elites who exploit the working class. “Working class” then, is no longer seen as an economic position that includes everyone who sells their labor to survive, but as a cultural position that excludes working class minorities and secularists, and includes economic elites who pander to this constructed “working class” aesthetic. This not only divides the actual working class, but eases the perpetuation of false consciousness for those who receive preferential treatment and falsely identify with their rulers.

This is one of many reasons why “I am socially liberal but economically conservative” makes no fucking sense. Mostly, though, it is why it is important not to crusade against religious belief, but to show how belief can perfectly compatible with social and economic progress, and to identify the real class enemies by highlighting how religious belief has been used to manipulate people, and which common beliefs are a product of that manipulation. 

Given that I am supposed to be some sort of English-teacher-in-training in addition to being a leftist blogger, and given the series’ recent surge in popularity, it would be irresponsible of me to not give my take on The Hunger Games – especially with the multitude of idiotic attempts at interpreting its messages and themes on behalf of various reactionary ideas.  This is my interpretation. I see the story of an authoritarian system with parallels to our own; I see a commentary on how a repressive system affects individuals and communities, and I see a commentary on the nature of dissent and revolution. Warning: I give no summaries of the books, and this will not make sense if you have not read at least the first one. Also: spoilers galore.

Read More

I needed to read it again, because it’s actually been a good few years since I’ve considered myself a devout catholic (and for curious followers, I did used to, and I still consider myself to be a follower of liberation theology of sorts), and I hadn’t read it recently (I did, in like 7th grade, before I could really understand it). As with most things The Church does, what I read of it cements my love/hate relationship.

On one hand, JPII says some relatively progressive things (as he had a tendency to do) that would make many conservatives - and probably many Catholics - scoff in derision. His speaking out against sexual violence and unfair pay are commendable, as is (by admittedly biased standards) his implication that abortion is a woman’s choice (though still a sin). Even his interpretation of the creation of woman in Genesis is meant to imply a mutual equality between genders - that man is just as much created to help woman as woman is to help man (despite this analysis being problematically heteronormative).

He goes on to, as many catholic discussions of women seem to, allude to the Virgin Mary. I’ve always found the idea that the Virgin Mary is the standard to which all women are held to be a subtle way of subjugating them and forcing them into roles of mother and spouse - if not to man, than to God. In general, there is a lot of assumption about what constitutes “womanhood” - relying still on traditional roles and the ability to give birth.

Once again, I am frustrated by an apparent understanding of how progressive economic policies and social issues are directly related, countered by a powerful reluctance to completely rethink social issues rather than trying to retrofit old precedent into a modern context.

I’m no expert on theology and whatnot so my answer might very well be inadequate or wrong (and I only skimmed the letter) - in which case I invite you to correct me or help me understand better.

How does it feel to have asked one of the most loaded questions in all radicaldom?

To start, it’s hard to talk about the role of “the state” because, as far as I’m concerned, in a true revolution the state as we understand it would no longer exist. I don’t believe doing away with the state is feasible, exactly, but I believe that for a real revolution to be effective and lasting our conception of “the state” needs to radically transform.

I think that’s what a lot of leftists fall short on. There’s a fixation on what should be an outdated conception of the state and whether a. it should be done away with altogether, b. it should be used as an aid to revolution or c. it should be overthrown and replaced with a new one. 

I don’t claim to know exactly what our new conception of the state will be, but I know it will (or rather it has to) be the next logical, evolutionary stage of democracy - if there can be such a thing. I hesitate, even, to refer to it as a “state,” because, as I said, by our understanding of the state it will not be one. It will, nonetheless, be as horizontal and inclusively democratic as can be managed pragmatically. It will be a medium through which we manage ourselves, and a tool for the people to use to control that which belongs to them (i.e infrastructure, means of production, public spaces, public services). Like I said, though, I don’t have a blueprint, that’s just what makes sense to me.

I believe the revolution that brings about this society will be fought on multiple fronts and through a diversity of tactics. Essentially, working people must force the government to become this, rebuilding it as is necessary. Either over a short revolutionary period, or over a period of decades, strikes, workplace occupations, violent takeovers of infrastructure and spaces, petitions, elections, and the building of new structures from the bottom up, will chip away the unwanted parts of the state, re-form other parts completely, and create completely new parts.

I believe it to be inevitable. Paraphrasing Marx, considering how our conception of property and government radically changed between the feudal age and the industrial age, it’s pretty unreasonable to think it won’t happen again. The speed and smoothness at which it occurs, though, is a wildcard. The speed depends on both the level of class consciousness among the masses, and the degree to which different “leftist” and pro-democracy groups are organized. Beyond that, the smoothness of the revolution depends on the interests of the various cooperating factions.

This is especially tricky, because a delicate balance is needed. On one hand, different factions with different interests conflicting with one another can completely halt a revolution. On the other hand, these conflicts are absolutely vital, because without them it’s almost as though the revolution is unaware of itself; it erases certain peoples’ struggles in favor of “pragmatism,” and compromises its principles and democratic nature (adopting totalitarianism or militarism) in the name of expediency.

And then there’s considering how the current system will act to protect itself. Will it have deteriorated, by this time, to such a point that it practically blows over? Or will it violently protect itself? If it violently protects itself, will it be the bourgeoisie using the government against working people - possibly becoming fascist (like any current bourgeois democracy would), or will it be the bourgeoisie organizing violent coups against a government that has democratically rejected them (a la Pinochet and Franco)?

That’s what makes the United States, and much of the western world, very unique. As long as the ruling class can maintain its control over the working class through corporate media, crooked politicians, and false consciousness it doesn’t have to openly oppose the masses. It’s when their repression becomes open and obvious that people start to see the elephant in the room. Because of that delicate balance, how the revolution as I’ve described it plays out will be very interesting and very complicated.

I’ve lost my train of thought, so I’ll drop it there and assume that was sufficient.

For the longest time, at a convenience store a couple miles from where I live, there was an undocumented Pakistani immigrant who worked there for 12 hours a day with no weekends and for no pay (or at least far below minimum wage), in exchange for living in the little apartment above the place.

The arrangement was essentially “voluntary” slavery, because he had come here with absolutely nothing but his clothes and had nowhere else to go.

The fucked up thing, was that the store owner was also a Pakistani immigrant, and told people about it as though he had “rescued” the undocumented worker and given him a sweet deal, even though he had severely taken advantage not only of his financial situation, but also of the family ties that made the store owner the only person the worker had in the country.

So people in the community talked about this store owner like he was just a saint, and nobody but my girlfriend and her grandmother - the worker’s coworkers - actually thought about his living conditions, because nobody could get past how lucky he was. I was only barely aware of it until a few years ago.

I don’t know what happened to him, but I think about it every time someone calls an exploitative relationship a “voluntary” agreement, every time someone calls the 1% “job creators,” and every time someone claims we all have equal opportunities.

Some of my experiences this last week have had me thinking about my role in wanting to become a teacher. My motivations are largely in the interest of social justice - I want to empower communities by instilling the critical thinking and literacy that are invaluable to a conscious democratic society. What I’ve known for a while, but only recently come to terms with, is that the English language itself carries with it a lot of racist baggage. It’s prominence all over the world is proof of the influence of imperialism and globalism, and for centuries it has been a symbol of white supremacy. For how many centuries and for how many civilizations, really, has learning English been an integral part of forced assimilation into white culture?

You see this a lot today manifested in how literature is taught. Many black and Latin@ students cannot relate to most English literature. Students can really only bring their own experiences to the table when discussing these things, and when their experiences lead them to understand stories by rich white people about rich white people in a different way than white academia would have them, they’re told they are wrong. It alienates them and treats their experiences as being less legitimate than others.

When writers like Langston Hughes, Chinua Achebe or Lucille Cliffton (whom I had the privilege of meeting briefly before she died, God rest her soul), are only passively patronized, we turn around and wonder why so many students of color are disillusioned with school. It’s because, to them, school still represents a colonial influence.

I remember in the English classes I took in high school, students would be reprimanded for talking or writing “black,” and characters in books who spoke “black” were treated like they were cute. At the same time Robert Burns, who wrote entirely in the vernacular of his people, was regarded as one of the greatest romantic poets of all time. What that says is that language is recognized as being fluid and dependent on context and cultural factors, but certain cultures and contexts are more considered more acceptable than others. 

I’m in a position where, in order to not completely defeat my motivations, I have to work constantly to counter this trend at every turn possible. I have to consciously teach more authors of color, and treat all interpretations as being legitimate - synthesizing them with my own when possible. I say this all, just like any white person talking about race, at the risk of sounding like I have some sort of white savior complex - I realize this. I recognize, though, that I will always be much less effective in countering the racist tendencies of Academic English than a POC would be - I, to at least a small extent, will always represent a colonial influence. I just feel like doing so is absolutely necessary for me to be a good teacher. It’s one of those things that, if you recognize it, you have a responsibility to do something about it.