I'm pissed off and I have no place else to vent. I just read something at a supposedly radical web site. A young woman was apologizing for the fact that she had a job in a corporate office. She wished that she had an anti- capitalist job like her friends who sold craft stuff at fairs, or did piercings, or owned tofu restaurants. She said that her corporate job meant that she was a capitalist but at least she opposed capitalism by not owning too many toys.
How pathetically smug and middle class and just plain right wing is that bullshit?
I guess it's true, the Reagan revolution is complete. College educated neo-hippies are repeating all of the fundamentals of Reagan's shitty ideology and patting themselves on the back for being radicals.
Look, the great majority of the human race works to enrich a tiny minority. Most of that majority sees next to none of the wealth they create. I'd like it real well if most of us were paid for the wealth we create. I don't give a shit what workers do with their wages so long as the wages are just and allow for a decent standard of living.
And then there's that idea that everyone could chose to be a DJ, or a clothing designer, or an artist and only stupid uncreative non revolutionary people actually work for a living. Is that some smug, privileged rich kid bullshit or fuckin' what?
Look I have good friends who are real old time 1966 Haight Street hippies. None of them would ever say anything that stupid. Let me make it clear, I'm not talking about them, but Jesus Christ on a motherfuckin' crutch I hate hippies.
Or as I once told a "punk" who told me I was a square for being a bus driver, "That's alright chief, you call up Daddy and tell him you've thought about it and you're ready to go back to UT for that MFA degree. Ya fuckin' asshole."
6 comments:
As I learned many years ago - the world may just depend on police departments, armies, and every sort of capitalist enterprise employing Anarchists. Turning on and tuning out are generally good ideas, dropping out is optional. There's only room for so many Paul Watsons. There's lots of room for Bugsy Watsons.
I never really had a problem with having a job. I mean we call the system the system because it is a system. There's no way to live along side it but separate from it. The question is what do you do about it? You're in it. Now what? The idea that you can be a green consumer or some such shit strikes me as being naive. Not a bad idea, but no big deal. Then there's the thing about being proud of your consumption habits. Look it is nice to behave responsibly, but that's what you're supposed to do, you know, I never smoke a bunch of speed, get really drunk and fire my guns at random into the darkness, so I'm a superior person. Right? Finally, there's the thing about alternate careers. It's nice to be able to do something different. The grind is educational, it builds character, but sometimes it is just a fucking grind. What we're really talking about though is SOCIAL CLASS. What? Like "I'm a revolutionary because my parents had money and I have a groovy job, but you're a capitalist because you work in a saw mill hacking up the cadavers of our mother the earth's precious trees." ?? Dude, are you buying that shit? Because I'm not.
I sort of realize that I am almost incoherent, but it's the best I can do at the moment. I suppose I could be nicer. In theory at least, they're just kids. Really some of them are at least thirty and it's hard to take them anywhere near as seriously as they take themselves. Don't take me seriously.
I found atitudes like that more in the 1970s, when the so called counter culture was born.
Our local food coop just laid off several workers. The management said they are a customers coop, not a workers.
Really good blog.
Thanks Renegade Eye. I liked "Love Me I'm A Liberal". MIght have to steal that one.
Hey Jon, thank you for commenting on my Republican convention post...I remember the DOA set, and the fight. There was a fight in Detroit AND New York, as I recall. (DOA really brought it out of them, didn't they?)
We likely crossed paths several times.
And great post, too! :)
Hi Daisy, I don't know if you remember what Joey Shithead said to the cops that day: "I see we're having a little tiff down front. I wanna see a fair fight! No weapons! Fight fair or stay out of it!" My friend Mr Beer is an old DOA associate too. Shithead is still a good guy.
Sister, take me seriously about that 'old' stuff. We're getting to the point where we bring a wealth of experience with us. We are part of an unbroken chain. When I was a kid, I met old time Wobs and founding members of the CP. I've met guys who were in the sit down strikes and like I say I have friends who were on Haight Street before the "Summer of Love". What we have, and must pass on is continuity. You gotta get old(er) to have much of that.
Thanks for dropping by.
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