Forum Replies Created
-
Well if humanity is so short-sighted, how come we know our epitaph in advance? Hmm?
Your little “theory” doesn’t account for that, does it.
Because our epitaph will be written by the species that will replace us as the dominant life-form on Earth. They came back through time to tell me about it – obviously.
Apparently I’m a pretty big deal in Snail people society. Sorta like their hero, I’m told. God-like even.
You on the other hand (or “other eyestalk” as the Snail people say) aren’t thought of very fondly. They refer to you as the “Salt of the Earth”, which has a completely different connotation for snails.
ZN,
Thanks for reposting those links. Will try to remember the chat option.
I know you mentioned there were obvious reasons for the inability to form effective coalitions on the basis of “class.” But I think the topic is still worth hashing out, despite the potential for stating the obvious.
It’s always struck me as baffling that when America and most of the West was far less unequal, economically — during the 1960s — it seemed easier to form those coalitions. Just three people today — Bezos, Gates and Zuckerburg — control more wealth than the bottom half of the nation combined . . . and CEOs routinely make hundreds to thousands of times their rank and file. That would have been unthinkable when MLK and RFK talked about economic justice for Americans, and the young, especially, demanded economic equality.
It’s complicated, complex, etc. etc. . . . but I still think it’s important to discuss. Why then, but not now? Today’s 99% has never been further away from the 1%. Economic hierarchies have never been this steep. The system hasn’t been this plutocrat-friendly since the first Gilded Age, etc.
Strange days, these.
Just improvising here, without much depth to it. But I think in different ways people are blind to both class and race.
The difference is, that racial issues can potentially touch on people’s almost innate dedication to ideas of human rights and equality before the law. It resonates. You have to crack through a wall of blindness, but when you do, it resonates.
Class should too but it doesn’t.
So you see vids like I saw posted where a 12 year old girl argues with her parents about the BLM protests. The parents loudly claim it’s just lazy people who want to live off the system, and she protests that no, there’s real racial injustice.
Ask the same 12 year old girl about the Occupy movement and of course, she has no idea what it’s about.
Race issues then can form alliances across a wide spectrum of people, including elites. Class issues threaten elites and blind most regular folks–unless it takes the form of resenting liberal elites for their privilege, which of course they do have.
That’s me in 3 minutes of uniformed improvisation. On this I want to hear a lot of voices and what others think.
….
The UK recognizes and understands class very well. I don’t think a lot of Americans even think it exists here, or if it does, believe it’s something that can be overcome. “If you simply work hard enough…” Maybe the “rugged individualism” we’re bathed in from birth prevents us from seeing it, or at least greatly lessens its perceived importance.
