Reminds me of a particularly powerful passage from the Grapes of Wrath.
One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the things you fear. This is the zygote. For here “I lost my land” is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate - “We lost our land”. The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first “we” there grows a still more dangerous thing: “I have a little food” plus “I have none”. If from this problem the sum is “We have a little food,” the thing is on its way, the movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the sidemeat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It’s wool. It was my mother’s blanket - take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning - from “I” to “we”.
I have always been very negative of Tiktok, but maybe the format of people talking face to face makes it possible for it to facilitate the transition from “I” to “we” even in an online platform, which is what traditional social media has failed so miserably at.
Maybe, by trying to play the game of surveillance capitalism, the Chinese finally - accidentally - helped the workers of the world unite.
💀
It’s really noticeable, especially in the HCOL areas. People are just at their wit’s end and all out of fucks to give. And it stacks, because as others care less everyone’s life gets harder. Deliveries don’t get delivered, food isn’t made with care, entertainment is less entertaining. And it’s hard to blame anyone in these roles, because I feel the same way.
It’s a powderkeg and no one with the power to do something seems to have noticed, but I wonder how much worse it gets before something has to change.
The is no level of “worse” that will make the people responsible willingly change.
The “Inflation” that is crushing people is almost entirely down to executive greed. They’re bringing in record profits, giving themselves giant bonuses and not letting even a crumb escape their snout. COVID showed them they could take even more from people so now that the supply issues have settled, that’s exactly what they’re doing.
And they’ll never feel bad about it. They’re the people who told the radium girls to make a point on their brush by sucking it. They’re the people who put formaldehyde in milk and shrugged when it killed children. They’re the people who don’t even try to hide the foreign and domestic slaves in their supply lines. They’re the people who told us that cigarettes were good for our lungs as they buried research saying the opposite. They’re the ones who astro-turfed and bribed people into doing nothing about climate change.
They’re not going to start suddenly feeling guilty, because if that was an emotion they were capable of, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
The only way to stop this is to put limits on how much they can line their own pockets. No more tax loopholes for the rich, no more insane wages and bonuses, no more brutal exploitation of foreign workers.
Because if there’s a dollar they think they can get their hands on, they’ll do reprehensible things to make it happen.
Ya everything’s just a little more shit now. Goin to restaurants and you’re orders fucked, long lines, grocery store looks like a bomb has gone off, cant even fucking afford all the streaming nonsense now. It just goes on and on
I live in a terrible apartment that I’m happy about I guess because it’s the only one available that I can even come close to affording. I’m sick of watching my friends move away
I think what makes me the most bummed is that change is not for sure. Do things get bad enough? And if they do, does that mean anything? I’ve lost a lot of hope in the last couple of years. COVID did a number on everything
Drugs still cost the same they did 10+ years ago. Rising production costs and wages hasn’t hit the drug lords’ profits the same?
I got a quote for replacing the siding of my house 10 years ago and then again from the same company and the price difference was like $100. Either they gave me a jacked up estimate all those years ago or the price of wood going up is all bullshit.
Yea wow I am sure the dusty ass Congress is listening. 🙄
These folks are useless.
You need to quit complaining to the public and start complaining to your representatives LOUDER.
Sadly, I feel We do complain to the elected reps … but it falls on deaf ears that were plugged by extreme financial bribes that made them go against our interests, for their own.
