What a great post. I never knew Utah Phillips but I had several friends who did.
It’s been too long since I’ve heard his name. Just before they made him, they broke the mould.
Here’s one of his best: Phillips is at a bar with a friend, and says: “I’m supposed to plow up the back garden so we can plant, but it’s a lot of work.”
Then he gets up, calls his house and says to his wife: “Honey, did you remember to bury those rifles out back?”
Sitting back down his friend asks if he needs help with the plowing, and Phillips says, “No, I got the FBI to do it for me.”
Everyday I self destruct on the inside a little, breaking away at the thought of how we are upon the beginning stages of the 6th mass extinction and we just… go on business as casual. I’m losing my mind and I’m struggling to come up for air when I try to convey my feelings of the urgency and people just want to talk about new season of that, new products, pretty people in Hollywood, who they want to fuck, and so forth… Please, we desperately, as you say, need to “turn things around before it comes to that.”
Probably yeah. I’ve become involved in organizing past two ish years and it helps. I’ve became friends/comrades with people who care which is meaningful to me but the nuanced thing here is that most of them doesn’t sign or bother to learn therefore our communication is limited and I resort to my deaf friends (in an already limited pool by proximity) who are like that. I intentionally try to stay in touch with some deaf friends who aren’t like that but they live far away and it’s not always easy to reach them. I also want to try and help some of my deaf friends reach to the conclusion I have, educate them and encourage them to be more caring about this world and the people rather than abandon my hopes with them. It’s difficult indeed but I want to try. Ahh all we can do is to try and try our best isn’t it? I hope we all reach towards more caring feelings for each other and the planet and act accordingly in response to what’s going on. I wish you the best
Yes, let's. I find that the wealthier people are, the meaner they seem to be.
I actually like polite people, but there's nothing impolite about setting boundaries and making a lot of noise to protest things like genocide and policies based on greed.
The idea that the wealthier people are/get, the more selfish has been proven in scientific experiments. There is a question of which way causality runs, though. Maybe selfish people get wealthy because that's what matters to them.
My stepfather said parents should not sacrifice so that there is more to leave to offspring. His opinion was that they should start from scratch, earn their own keep and not have it handed to them, which made them in his opinion, to selfishly keep expecting the parents to bail them out of debts they built up because the parents had always failed them out. Fair enough, I think. If you have to work for your daily bread you sure appreciate it more, if it's handed to you, time after time, you learn to expect it and get angry when/if it is stopped. Best to start as you mean to go on.
Due respect, I think you’re treading close to libertarian bootstrapping here. A bit too broad of a brush, imo. I’d prefer we start from a position of providing quality food, shelter, health care, education, etc., for everyone as a baseline, and deal with ‘dependency’ issues on the back end.
Whether it’s living wage, UBI, or federal jobs guarantees, have everyone removed from an environment of constant economic anxiety, and then have the ability to pursuit passions instead treadmill rat race employment.
Not to say manual labor, or work in a cubicle, can’t be fulfilling. But the cog in the machine aspect of being a debt slave needs to go.
I didn't mean he wouldn't make his children into responsible adults by making sure they had a good education, food, shelter and clothing, he did expect them to do jobs at home for pocket money, which is fair because it teaches respect for money and how to economise. As soon as we got jobs we were expected to pay rent and for food, the rest of our pay was ours, though back then just starting out it was not much.
However unbeknown to us he put tgat money into accounts that would be shared according to the order of when one began in the workplace, on his death. I had moved to Australia by then and, for some reason, got nothing.
Different strokes. I have a problem with the phrase ‘it teaches respect for money and how to economize’. We value respect for money more than people. We place more value on private property and profit than we do on people.
My feeling is that whatever we are able to leave to our children and grandchildren will help them survive a country that is rigged in favor of the rich. Rather than stealing their energy and drive, we will help them keep whatever they are able to earn and save in our greedy, top-down economy.
The thing about politeness is that so many absolutely horrible people are super polite when they gaslight you and tell you to embrace the suck and then go and do horrible things.
I don't know about politeness, but think about the reaction if you say we can't afford billionaires anymore and need to take away the excess from everyone who has more than a few million dollars. Everybody gets nervous and worries about whether we can DO that, whether it would be robbery. Or if you say the US military budget should not expand, or be cut by ten percent, but should be cut in half the first year, then again the second year, then the third, and all foreign bases closed and turned over to the host countries. Everyone knows they're not needed for defense, that they're for a combination of intimidation to maintain an empire and to feed the MIC--ut somehow to forthrightly say NO seems--not rude, just impossible.
>>"...and need to take away the excess from everyone who has more than a few million dollars"
Wealth redistribution wouldn't matter or solve things unless the system that created such 'uneven' wealth distribution in the first place is eliminated or severely controlled (though preferably replaced). That's the problem with 'simply getting rid' of rich people (multimillionaires, billionaires, etc.). These millionaires/billionaires would simply game the system again (as they always have) to produce the same outcomes that we have currently.
True enough! But I don't see actions like taking away billionaires' wealth or cutting the US military down to size as occurring by themselves--they'd be part of other transformative actions. But I think they're the most controversial, the ones people are frightened to say aloud.
Saying no doesn't seem rude to me. Not even impossible. I think that when people get to the realization of how fucked up everything is and how close we are to wiping ourselves out they get scared which may prevent them from seriously opposing the oppressors. Other than that, many people seem to think that if they ignore it, it will go away.
I agree; it's fear expressed as politeness. And where does that fear really originate from? I'm going to guess it's arrested development. Part of maturation is learning to confront scary challenges, even when it feels horrible at the time. The good news there is that it's never entirely too late to grow that kind of balls.
It would be better not to bother about growing balls. Balls have caused us way too many problems. Sometimes being afraid is useful and can direct us to behave in a more effective manner. I don't think people should be criticized or shot down for being afraid. They need to learn how to use that fear effectively.
As the saying goes, if we eat just one billionaire, the rest will fall into line. Also: let's start the revolution and enact a system change that is based on cooperation and kindness and replaces capitalist competition. Ho! Let it be so!
We can't make that kind of radical change just by saying so--I think that's what Jesus tried to do. Look how that worked out. The billionaire sociopaths control the means of production AND the means of communication, which is how they get us to see the changes we obviously--and increasingly desperately--need to make as impossible. The change you advocate--which IS what we need, ripping the thousands-of-years-old culture of domination out and replacing it with a culture of cooperation--likely requires a situation where everything has fallen apart, most people are no longer getting their worldview piped into their heads from employees of the billionaire sociopaths, everyone is scrambling for survival including the sociopaths--unless they have, in John Michael Greer's words, embarked on a new career as lamppost decorations. Such a situation creates an opening in which new arrangements can be instituted. The <good> news is that such a situation is likely imminent, as the people ruling us are not only vicious and predatory--they're also stupid and incompetent, and each obsessed with becoming king of the universe rather than coopering with each other. And dealing with the flashing red lights and screaming sirens of ecological limits being surpassed with denial and fairytales. Unfortunately, in that scenario the new arrangements and cultures will likely arise at the local level, and there will be gangs of ruthless, mostly young males eager to set up predatory warlordships--the forming cooperative communities will have to cope with these. The fact that roughly 100% of the mothers will want to raise their kids in the peaceful cooperative communities may not matter if the peaceable groups are not willing to do what it takes to rescue the women and kids from these groups--what it takes I'm afraid is violence, which they abhor and the gangs excel at--and precisely THIS is how the culture based on domination got started ten thousand years ago.
Very good analysis, Mary, I totally agree. It is foolish to think that we will somehow arrive at a permanent cooperative peaceful state, given the competitive nature of this universe we are born into, right down to the quantum level or particle attraction and repulsion. Maybe we need to think of ourselves more as a kind of microbiome that synergizes with certain patterns in the universe. We create the conditions for our like and our kin to thrive. It doesn't mean we don't go to war to protect what is ours. It does not mean blood is not spilt. All of that said, I like that Peter spoke of starting a revolution. Bottom line, a forum like the one Caitlin has created here has NO MEANING if no action gets spawned as the result of reading and writing and learning.
Actually you don't so much agree with me. I don't think the universe or human nature are dominated by " competition" or the domination model. We've arrived where we are because we don't manage, in large societies that afford anonymity, to keep the sociopaths from grabbing control--and because humanity has not figured out how to keep the sociopathic CULTURES from a conquest spree that has steadily taken over the Earth. I believe that competition and cooperation, empathy and cruelty, a penchant for domination and acquisition and a desire to give, to help those in need, all of these are parts of human nature. It's culture that determines which get free rein and which are suppressed. We COULD have a culture in which sociopaths are identified and kept under control, in which people are educated about how to deal with negative emotions, in which everyone's needs are taken care of--likely we could even have such a culture in mass society. Except we can't just wave a wand or make a declaration to change culture...and the breakdown that will open up possibilities for massive change will likely reduce us to working at a million local levels.
I expand on this later in the comments but anyone who thinks that collective action, even the threat of violence, can't succeed should read Howard Zinn's, A People's History of the United States. Pre-revolution rebellion by Americans against the rich in the colonies was a real driving force.
Since, as of today, we are no longer protecting and valuing Europe (NATO), there should be quite a bit of savings by cutting our military expenditures.
I was told that I hate billionaires when someone was praising Bill Gates (a nauseating thing to do in my opinion). I don't necessarily hate billionaires as people, although I have never been in those circles (nor wanted to be there) but I do hate how they use other people to get their money, pay low wages, don't bother to build any affordable housing, try to make it seem that they are really great people when they just want to stay rich, when they (and too many others) fail to acknowledge that it is their consumption, their decisions to build pipelines, frack, test drugs on poor populations without their consent, that is causing the destruction of our earth and the humans and other creatures who live on this earth.
Now that is the way to go. It has done sod all for the everyday people but make them work harder for minimum reward, yet they tell themselves that have work invade their normal lives is okay because they get the big bucks. But do they? Compared to the hours put in, and not at out-of-hours rates, they get paid rather poorly, and certainly not enough to buy a yacht or mansions all over the planet as their bosses can, who think it's just fine to bring people into work on their day off, even when it is their birthday plans that have been ruined.
If everyone had to give of their labour in exchange for their money there would be no billionaires. Only those who extract the fruits of someone else's labour or covertly siphons off money without anyone knowing or funds both sides of wars etc gets to be a billionaire. Sadly so many people aspire to be one of these obscene class of people.
Aside from yet another well articulated insight , THANK YOU for quoting Utah Phillips so some people who might not know who he is will look him up .
I spent time in his company in the early 1980’s and he was such a wise & funny man .
The story of his that stuck with me was from his train riding hobo days - of a companion .. who described his wealth as his little black book of names & addresses across the country . With those connections he had a warm meal and a place to sleep in any town he might find himself in .
It was told more poetically than my summary , but it struck me as a basic truth that friendships and connections are the true wealth , not extra zeroes in a Swiss Bank Account as so many seem to believe .
It doesn't matter whether the human species needs AI or not (and I agreee, it does NOT need AI imho). That's the problem - TPTB don't care about the NEEDS of the people, it's about what they (TPTB) WANT - which is more ways to exploit and repress people in the hopes of generating more PROFITS (and if AI helps them do it, then that is how AI will likely be used by them).
Oh, yes, the British were trained to make queues, that politeness didn't quite make it to Oz. So many times, when I was much younger, I'd get pushed out of the way by some, often, teenager or schoolkid, when boarding public transport, some because they didn't have a pass, or ticket but definitely not paying then diving off when a ticket inspector got on - though they now tend to come in twos and can catch the dodgers but I doubt they get the real details, then again maybe they have a smarter way of checking. I saw one woman, loaded down with bags from top price stores, get caught by the inspectors try so many excuses that didn't work because these inspectors have heard them all and they were not impressed by her fancy bags or her lies. She had never ever had a ticket, I saw her often on her way to or from a shopping spree and not once did she have a ticket. That's the rude part out of the way 😉
Since I have become a very old lady of eighty-five, people seem very anxious to help me on or off trams, but since my move to my latest domicile I can get trams at stops where I can roll on my walker then roll off again but, so many jump up to give me their seats, which is lovely but the Arthritis makes it hard to get up from those seats so it's easier if I stand, or sit on my walker's seat if going to the hospital. When I do have to do the hospital trip, it's so nice that some, youngish men mostly, stand with me and we chat until their stop. Weird, really, that I get to meet so many special people since attaining my eighties 🤩
Hadn't thought of that CK, but you're right because it's usually those with the least that have up-to-date passes and those with wealth try to dodge paying.
"The cold reality is the UK now more resembles a 2nd or 3rd world Arab regime, like Jordan or Egypt. A poor country with little economic prospects, ruled by an unpopular political class with a large security state to quell dissent, caring more about pleasing foreign interests than domestic discontent, with the mores of its leadership increasingly divorced from and hostile to those of its own population. If the UK enters another IMF bailout, then likewise the state will similarly be supported by foreign aid, of course conditional on even more obedience to foreign whims."
Caitlin. I love your work, and I haven't read this piece in its entirety yet, but just based on the title, I'd wager you haven't spent substantial amounts of time in the US recently. (Though I do realize the title probably doesn't refer to US Americans only).
Many US Americans are one shopping mall misunderstanding or one parking lot confrontation away from a shouting match or fist fight, AT BEST (we all know that we are capable of much worse). We are far from polite, and most of us are not great at receiving insights about ourselves that contradict our own mind's hallucinatory first-person story. I would have agreed with this assessment about the US five years ago, but something has shifted since the COVID era. We're being led into self-destruction, and, in part, we are allowing it to happen. We are deeply, deeply entrenched in our own first-person hallucination, too often at the expense of cooperation. This claustrophobic adherence to what we take ourselves to be effectively leaves the back door of the mind wide open to manipulation.
High emotional reactivity and guns galore do not make for a great societal recipe, unless you're the one profiting off the complete downfall and consequent mayhem of said society.
Pure power motivates the richest in the world. They can buy what they want and make things happen the way they want them to happen. They can mete out life or death orders. Power is most intoxicating from what I've observed. The "ordinaries" are supposed to bow their heads and mumble "yes". It's usually the safest thing to do.
However, there are always a few that refuse to be bent. It takes one person. The key is when a second person joins them, making it feel safe for more in the crowd to stand up too. So while a true leader revolting is not polite and shouts out a challenge in defiance, the second person holds the most pivotal role. That's when everything can change.
Nice - But, you see, when yo say "put a stop to it" - that's easier said than done - BECAUSE, the Socialist Revolution has been flushed down the toilet - and for good reason - the Elites know, even if the mass does not - that Socialist Revolution is the ONLY solution to the Capitalist Class Dictatorship. So we are left to , to "follow the money", complain loudly ...
Provocative and painfully accurate . If we don’t wake up to the fact that we are, quite literally, on track to become the first species to destroy its world, then we deserve what’s coming. The clock isn’t ticking it’s already chiming.
Even if we did deserve what's coming, what about the rest of the web of life, which has no agency at all? What about future generations, who have no voice?
Fair point, Mary - I’ve catastrophised. It’s hard not to when the stakes feel existential, but you’re right the rest of the living world and future generations don’t deserve the fallout of our confusion. That’s exactly why the alarm matters
The "civil discourse" of liberalism is nothing more than narrative control. Revealing the truth is cursed as uncivil! So civil discourse can get fucked. The awful truth is never polite. What we really need is some catastrophic truth-telling, framed in the ordinary vernacular so everyone gets the point.
What a great post. I never knew Utah Phillips but I had several friends who did.
It’s been too long since I’ve heard his name. Just before they made him, they broke the mould.
Here’s one of his best: Phillips is at a bar with a friend, and says: “I’m supposed to plow up the back garden so we can plant, but it’s a lot of work.”
Then he gets up, calls his house and says to his wife: “Honey, did you remember to bury those rifles out back?”
Sitting back down his friend asks if he needs help with the plowing, and Phillips says, “No, I got the FBI to do it for me.”
Haha!
Dear Caitlin, There's a time to laugh and a time to weep.
I've heard versions of that joke. Had no idea who came up with it.
That's an old one, also used in a story about a man in prison. True or not it is good.
🤣🤣🤣
Everyday I self destruct on the inside a little, breaking away at the thought of how we are upon the beginning stages of the 6th mass extinction and we just… go on business as casual. I’m losing my mind and I’m struggling to come up for air when I try to convey my feelings of the urgency and people just want to talk about new season of that, new products, pretty people in Hollywood, who they want to fuck, and so forth… Please, we desperately, as you say, need to “turn things around before it comes to that.”
Probably yeah. I’ve become involved in organizing past two ish years and it helps. I’ve became friends/comrades with people who care which is meaningful to me but the nuanced thing here is that most of them doesn’t sign or bother to learn therefore our communication is limited and I resort to my deaf friends (in an already limited pool by proximity) who are like that. I intentionally try to stay in touch with some deaf friends who aren’t like that but they live far away and it’s not always easy to reach them. I also want to try and help some of my deaf friends reach to the conclusion I have, educate them and encourage them to be more caring about this world and the people rather than abandon my hopes with them. It’s difficult indeed but I want to try. Ahh all we can do is to try and try our best isn’t it? I hope we all reach towards more caring feelings for each other and the planet and act accordingly in response to what’s going on. I wish you the best
Sounds like you need a change of venue, a new set of friends.
I hear you. Every day I'm like that also. I'm so tired of this shit.
Yes, let's. I find that the wealthier people are, the meaner they seem to be.
I actually like polite people, but there's nothing impolite about setting boundaries and making a lot of noise to protest things like genocide and policies based on greed.
The idea that the wealthier people are/get, the more selfish has been proven in scientific experiments. There is a question of which way causality runs, though. Maybe selfish people get wealthy because that's what matters to them.
My stepfather said parents should not sacrifice so that there is more to leave to offspring. His opinion was that they should start from scratch, earn their own keep and not have it handed to them, which made them in his opinion, to selfishly keep expecting the parents to bail them out of debts they built up because the parents had always failed them out. Fair enough, I think. If you have to work for your daily bread you sure appreciate it more, if it's handed to you, time after time, you learn to expect it and get angry when/if it is stopped. Best to start as you mean to go on.
Due respect, I think you’re treading close to libertarian bootstrapping here. A bit too broad of a brush, imo. I’d prefer we start from a position of providing quality food, shelter, health care, education, etc., for everyone as a baseline, and deal with ‘dependency’ issues on the back end.
Whether it’s living wage, UBI, or federal jobs guarantees, have everyone removed from an environment of constant economic anxiety, and then have the ability to pursuit passions instead treadmill rat race employment.
Not to say manual labor, or work in a cubicle, can’t be fulfilling. But the cog in the machine aspect of being a debt slave needs to go.
I didn't mean he wouldn't make his children into responsible adults by making sure they had a good education, food, shelter and clothing, he did expect them to do jobs at home for pocket money, which is fair because it teaches respect for money and how to economise. As soon as we got jobs we were expected to pay rent and for food, the rest of our pay was ours, though back then just starting out it was not much.
However unbeknown to us he put tgat money into accounts that would be shared according to the order of when one began in the workplace, on his death. I had moved to Australia by then and, for some reason, got nothing.
Different strokes. I have a problem with the phrase ‘it teaches respect for money and how to economize’. We value respect for money more than people. We place more value on private property and profit than we do on people.
You're just being picky now.
I have a problem with people who don't know tge value of anything because it was always handed to them so easily.
My feeling is that whatever we are able to leave to our children and grandchildren will help them survive a country that is rigged in favor of the rich. Rather than stealing their energy and drive, we will help them keep whatever they are able to earn and save in our greedy, top-down economy.
It works for cats.
The thing about politeness is that so many absolutely horrible people are super polite when they gaslight you and tell you to embrace the suck and then go and do horrible things.
I don't know about politeness, but think about the reaction if you say we can't afford billionaires anymore and need to take away the excess from everyone who has more than a few million dollars. Everybody gets nervous and worries about whether we can DO that, whether it would be robbery. Or if you say the US military budget should not expand, or be cut by ten percent, but should be cut in half the first year, then again the second year, then the third, and all foreign bases closed and turned over to the host countries. Everyone knows they're not needed for defense, that they're for a combination of intimidation to maintain an empire and to feed the MIC--ut somehow to forthrightly say NO seems--not rude, just impossible.
>>"...and need to take away the excess from everyone who has more than a few million dollars"
Wealth redistribution wouldn't matter or solve things unless the system that created such 'uneven' wealth distribution in the first place is eliminated or severely controlled (though preferably replaced). That's the problem with 'simply getting rid' of rich people (multimillionaires, billionaires, etc.). These millionaires/billionaires would simply game the system again (as they always have) to produce the same outcomes that we have currently.
True enough! But I don't see actions like taking away billionaires' wealth or cutting the US military down to size as occurring by themselves--they'd be part of other transformative actions. But I think they're the most controversial, the ones people are frightened to say aloud.
Saying no doesn't seem rude to me. Not even impossible. I think that when people get to the realization of how fucked up everything is and how close we are to wiping ourselves out they get scared which may prevent them from seriously opposing the oppressors. Other than that, many people seem to think that if they ignore it, it will go away.
I agree; it's fear expressed as politeness. And where does that fear really originate from? I'm going to guess it's arrested development. Part of maturation is learning to confront scary challenges, even when it feels horrible at the time. The good news there is that it's never entirely too late to grow that kind of balls.
It would be better not to bother about growing balls. Balls have caused us way too many problems. Sometimes being afraid is useful and can direct us to behave in a more effective manner. I don't think people should be criticized or shot down for being afraid. They need to learn how to use that fear effectively.
As the saying goes, if we eat just one billionaire, the rest will fall into line. Also: let's start the revolution and enact a system change that is based on cooperation and kindness and replaces capitalist competition. Ho! Let it be so!
We can't make that kind of radical change just by saying so--I think that's what Jesus tried to do. Look how that worked out. The billionaire sociopaths control the means of production AND the means of communication, which is how they get us to see the changes we obviously--and increasingly desperately--need to make as impossible. The change you advocate--which IS what we need, ripping the thousands-of-years-old culture of domination out and replacing it with a culture of cooperation--likely requires a situation where everything has fallen apart, most people are no longer getting their worldview piped into their heads from employees of the billionaire sociopaths, everyone is scrambling for survival including the sociopaths--unless they have, in John Michael Greer's words, embarked on a new career as lamppost decorations. Such a situation creates an opening in which new arrangements can be instituted. The <good> news is that such a situation is likely imminent, as the people ruling us are not only vicious and predatory--they're also stupid and incompetent, and each obsessed with becoming king of the universe rather than coopering with each other. And dealing with the flashing red lights and screaming sirens of ecological limits being surpassed with denial and fairytales. Unfortunately, in that scenario the new arrangements and cultures will likely arise at the local level, and there will be gangs of ruthless, mostly young males eager to set up predatory warlordships--the forming cooperative communities will have to cope with these. The fact that roughly 100% of the mothers will want to raise their kids in the peaceful cooperative communities may not matter if the peaceable groups are not willing to do what it takes to rescue the women and kids from these groups--what it takes I'm afraid is violence, which they abhor and the gangs excel at--and precisely THIS is how the culture based on domination got started ten thousand years ago.
Very good analysis, Mary, I totally agree. It is foolish to think that we will somehow arrive at a permanent cooperative peaceful state, given the competitive nature of this universe we are born into, right down to the quantum level or particle attraction and repulsion. Maybe we need to think of ourselves more as a kind of microbiome that synergizes with certain patterns in the universe. We create the conditions for our like and our kin to thrive. It doesn't mean we don't go to war to protect what is ours. It does not mean blood is not spilt. All of that said, I like that Peter spoke of starting a revolution. Bottom line, a forum like the one Caitlin has created here has NO MEANING if no action gets spawned as the result of reading and writing and learning.
Actually you don't so much agree with me. I don't think the universe or human nature are dominated by " competition" or the domination model. We've arrived where we are because we don't manage, in large societies that afford anonymity, to keep the sociopaths from grabbing control--and because humanity has not figured out how to keep the sociopathic CULTURES from a conquest spree that has steadily taken over the Earth. I believe that competition and cooperation, empathy and cruelty, a penchant for domination and acquisition and a desire to give, to help those in need, all of these are parts of human nature. It's culture that determines which get free rein and which are suppressed. We COULD have a culture in which sociopaths are identified and kept under control, in which people are educated about how to deal with negative emotions, in which everyone's needs are taken care of--likely we could even have such a culture in mass society. Except we can't just wave a wand or make a declaration to change culture...and the breakdown that will open up possibilities for massive change will likely reduce us to working at a million local levels.
I expand on this later in the comments but anyone who thinks that collective action, even the threat of violence, can't succeed should read Howard Zinn's, A People's History of the United States. Pre-revolution rebellion by Americans against the rich in the colonies was a real driving force.
Since, as of today, we are no longer protecting and valuing Europe (NATO), there should be quite a bit of savings by cutting our military expenditures.
everytime i say let's just kill all the rich people, i get looked at like a monster. im just suggesting a solution but nooooo im the problem instead 😒
I was told that I hate billionaires when someone was praising Bill Gates (a nauseating thing to do in my opinion). I don't necessarily hate billionaires as people, although I have never been in those circles (nor wanted to be there) but I do hate how they use other people to get their money, pay low wages, don't bother to build any affordable housing, try to make it seem that they are really great people when they just want to stay rich, when they (and too many others) fail to acknowledge that it is their consumption, their decisions to build pipelines, frack, test drugs on poor populations without their consent, that is causing the destruction of our earth and the humans and other creatures who live on this earth.
Susan T, You can, not only hate billionaires but can do away with them altogether if we have a revolution to get rid of Capitalism.
Now that is the way to go. It has done sod all for the everyday people but make them work harder for minimum reward, yet they tell themselves that have work invade their normal lives is okay because they get the big bucks. But do they? Compared to the hours put in, and not at out-of-hours rates, they get paid rather poorly, and certainly not enough to buy a yacht or mansions all over the planet as their bosses can, who think it's just fine to bring people into work on their day off, even when it is their birthday plans that have been ruined.
If everyone had to give of their labour in exchange for their money there would be no billionaires. Only those who extract the fruits of someone else's labour or covertly siphons off money without anyone knowing or funds both sides of wars etc gets to be a billionaire. Sadly so many people aspire to be one of these obscene class of people.
It is sad that so many people buy into this story. Some people inherit their money from others who have used people to get rich.
a like for the fresh thinking.
Sorta think we have some things in common, Cheese! Wanna chat?
Aside from yet another well articulated insight , THANK YOU for quoting Utah Phillips so some people who might not know who he is will look him up .
I spent time in his company in the early 1980’s and he was such a wise & funny man .
The story of his that stuck with me was from his train riding hobo days - of a companion .. who described his wealth as his little black book of names & addresses across the country . With those connections he had a warm meal and a place to sleep in any town he might find himself in .
It was told more poetically than my summary , but it struck me as a basic truth that friendships and connections are the true wealth , not extra zeroes in a Swiss Bank Account as so many seem to believe .
Note that the empire managers are only polite, when it serves their interests at the moment.
The road to hell is paved, not with good intentions, we now know, it's paved with convenience.
>>"...it's paved with convenience"
Well said Joy! It certainly seems so, more and more.
The HUMAN Race does NOT NEED so-called 'AI'!!
SO WHAT, if China (or anyone else) is 'beating us' with 'AI'!
SO WHAT!!!!
We can all sit back and watch China (or 'whoever') SELF-DESTRUCT!
People!!......LEARN the difference between NEED vs. WANT!
*I*, as a HUMAN, do NOT **NEED** 'AI' for anything!
It's ANTI-HUMAN/ANTI-LIFE.
>>"The HUMAN Race does NOT NEED so-called 'AI'!!"
It doesn't matter whether the human species needs AI or not (and I agreee, it does NOT need AI imho). That's the problem - TPTB don't care about the NEEDS of the people, it's about what they (TPTB) WANT - which is more ways to exploit and repress people in the hopes of generating more PROFITS (and if AI helps them do it, then that is how AI will likely be used by them).
I agree, and comprehend all of what you've said.
My point is, people need to STOP PARTICIPATING in their own DEMISE! (aka DEATH; IMPRISONMENT).
It's all so...British. Stiff upper lip and all that. Mustn't make a fuss.
We can't expect any complaints from this country. I think our best hope lies with the Houthis - now they are ballsy.
Oh, yes, the British were trained to make queues, that politeness didn't quite make it to Oz. So many times, when I was much younger, I'd get pushed out of the way by some, often, teenager or schoolkid, when boarding public transport, some because they didn't have a pass, or ticket but definitely not paying then diving off when a ticket inspector got on - though they now tend to come in twos and can catch the dodgers but I doubt they get the real details, then again maybe they have a smarter way of checking. I saw one woman, loaded down with bags from top price stores, get caught by the inspectors try so many excuses that didn't work because these inspectors have heard them all and they were not impressed by her fancy bags or her lies. She had never ever had a ticket, I saw her often on her way to or from a shopping spree and not once did she have a ticket. That's the rude part out of the way 😉
Since I have become a very old lady of eighty-five, people seem very anxious to help me on or off trams, but since my move to my latest domicile I can get trams at stops where I can roll on my walker then roll off again but, so many jump up to give me their seats, which is lovely but the Arthritis makes it hard to get up from those seats so it's easier if I stand, or sit on my walker's seat if going to the hospital. When I do have to do the hospital trip, it's so nice that some, youngish men mostly, stand with me and we chat until their stop. Weird, really, that I get to meet so many special people since attaining my eighties 🤩
You make a good argument for free public transportation for all who need it. The billionaires can afford to pay for that via a minuscule tax.
Hadn't thought of that CK, but you're right because it's usually those with the least that have up-to-date passes and those with wealth try to dodge paying.
Found on internet:
"The cold reality is the UK now more resembles a 2nd or 3rd world Arab regime, like Jordan or Egypt. A poor country with little economic prospects, ruled by an unpopular political class with a large security state to quell dissent, caring more about pleasing foreign interests than domestic discontent, with the mores of its leadership increasingly divorced from and hostile to those of its own population. If the UK enters another IMF bailout, then likewise the state will similarly be supported by foreign aid, of course conditional on even more obedience to foreign whims."
Caitlin. I love your work, and I haven't read this piece in its entirety yet, but just based on the title, I'd wager you haven't spent substantial amounts of time in the US recently. (Though I do realize the title probably doesn't refer to US Americans only).
Many US Americans are one shopping mall misunderstanding or one parking lot confrontation away from a shouting match or fist fight, AT BEST (we all know that we are capable of much worse). We are far from polite, and most of us are not great at receiving insights about ourselves that contradict our own mind's hallucinatory first-person story. I would have agreed with this assessment about the US five years ago, but something has shifted since the COVID era. We're being led into self-destruction, and, in part, we are allowing it to happen. We are deeply, deeply entrenched in our own first-person hallucination, too often at the expense of cooperation. This claustrophobic adherence to what we take ourselves to be effectively leaves the back door of the mind wide open to manipulation.
High emotional reactivity and guns galore do not make for a great societal recipe, unless you're the one profiting off the complete downfall and consequent mayhem of said society.
Pure power motivates the richest in the world. They can buy what they want and make things happen the way they want them to happen. They can mete out life or death orders. Power is most intoxicating from what I've observed. The "ordinaries" are supposed to bow their heads and mumble "yes". It's usually the safest thing to do.
However, there are always a few that refuse to be bent. It takes one person. The key is when a second person joins them, making it feel safe for more in the crowd to stand up too. So while a true leader revolting is not polite and shouts out a challenge in defiance, the second person holds the most pivotal role. That's when everything can change.
Nice - But, you see, when yo say "put a stop to it" - that's easier said than done - BECAUSE, the Socialist Revolution has been flushed down the toilet - and for good reason - the Elites know, even if the mass does not - that Socialist Revolution is the ONLY solution to the Capitalist Class Dictatorship. So we are left to , to "follow the money", complain loudly ...
Dis-Obey. Turn it around.
Provocative and painfully accurate . If we don’t wake up to the fact that we are, quite literally, on track to become the first species to destroy its world, then we deserve what’s coming. The clock isn’t ticking it’s already chiming.
Even if we did deserve what's coming, what about the rest of the web of life, which has no agency at all? What about future generations, who have no voice?
Fair point, Mary - I’ve catastrophised. It’s hard not to when the stakes feel existential, but you’re right the rest of the living world and future generations don’t deserve the fallout of our confusion. That’s exactly why the alarm matters
The "civil discourse" of liberalism is nothing more than narrative control. Revealing the truth is cursed as uncivil! So civil discourse can get fucked. The awful truth is never polite. What we really need is some catastrophic truth-telling, framed in the ordinary vernacular so everyone gets the point.