I've seen that reinforcement of workers who toe the line first-hand, people are scared and brainwashed into not acting up or demanding better. It's why I have a hard time maintaining a job - not because I'm not good at what I do, but because I'm bad at pretending to buy into the capitalist ideology in the workplace.
Agreed, not all managers are bastards but the system they are working within creates horrible results.
I believe I'm one of those knowledge workers. I do cybersecurity and I'm actively working on trying to unionize the sector. I'm not management, and I don't have hiring or firing power, and I'm reliant on wages to survive.
Actually, I can see the comparison. Many cybersecurity people don't challenge the power relations in their workplace and instead act as enforcers of corporate policy. That always disappoints me, and I can see the pattern of how even our relative privilege is being actively reduced. I just hope more cybersecurity people will recognize the class struggle we have to wage and organize in solidarity with the rest of the working class.
I get where you're going with this, and yeah, the PMC helps hold the current system in place. I was thinking about the cybersecurity/engineers/architects/other better paid workers who are still subject to class exploitation even though they're better off than a line cook.
Also, I like your bit about the professional managerial class being an ideological shield - I see that happening in the workplace all the time where people won't consider rocking the boat because they want to be management one day.
There is no middle class - there is the working class and the exploiter class. People have misidentified a chunk of the relatively better off working class as somehow not part of the working class. Over time the systems of capitalism and the power imbalances at the heart of the non-unionized workplace will eventually reduce better off workers to the lowest common denominator as the exploiter class demands perpetually growing profit that must come at the cost of the working class.
Both Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion are great, and protests should be disruptive, otherwise they're just ignored. Maybe they're not doing enough disruption and damage to force governments to listen. Or, maybe someone should go after energy/oil companies directly via sabotage or other means and cause enough economic damage that the cost of polluting and resource extraction becomes too high for them to profit from.
Well, I think that there's actually something to this. I've been involved in a lot of organizing spaces, and there's this "our backs are all up against a wall so we have to work towards a common goal of achieving a workers state and not dying due to climate change" vibe going around lately.
Yes, exactly. The IDF intentionally attacks civilians in Palestine by shelling houses, for the purpose of demoralizing the population into surrendering to extermination. Sounds like terrorism to me!
There's also a significant percentage of people there for the patriarchy and misogyny, and just think they're "one of the good ones so the leopards won't eat MY face", so they ignore the parts of the MAGA platform that target them. For example, women who vote for Trump usually aren't doing it because they're misogynistic, the racism and transphobia might be bigger draws but they believe the misogyny won't be applied to them. Same with Black and Latino men who are there for the patriarchy, misogyny, transphobia, but think the old white guys will accept them. Same again with the "Gays for Trump" folks, and the TERFS who support him.
For those of y'all who say that we don't have an antisemitism problem on the left - this seems to be another example showing that we do, and we need to deal with it. Similarly to how movements in the past have been sabotaged by excluding groups (like white-only unions excluding nonwhite people), this could similarly fracture us along identity lines.
Yeah, someone who lives in an empty home. And nope, I don't think you're for these spikes, I meant "yes, removing these would be good, and we should also address the underlying causes of homelessness". My apologies, I've just been dealing with city meetings where officials are trying to do anything but address the core causes, and I've been frustrated with that and it spilled over.
Agreed - ideally we'd cut right to the source of the problem and ban investment ownership of housing, or at least put a massive progressive tax on owning any dwellings that you don't personally live in. Then use that tax to fund public/social housing developments (like Vienna?)
Check out Communications Workers of America - they've been pushing into the tech world