after my first week in Econ 101 I wanted to make t-shirts (in the student union silk screen studio) reading something like “I’m not a rational consumer’ and folks I still want to
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malena / bikes not bombsreplied to malena / bikes not bombs last edited by
it’s a cool trick to invent a science based on lies (aka religion?) and then use it to justify a social order favoring ruthless wealth extractionism and extractionists!
capitalism isn’t only an abstract concept, it’s an actual network of people using the same system of lies to oppress other people
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malena / bikes not bombsreplied to malena / bikes not bombs last edited by
I remain constantly obsessed with the question of how we can all pivot away from modern capitalism and still be able to eat
I think the answers lie in looking at the structures and patterns of our economic lives, and tweaking those patterns to eliminate the extractionism and extractionists. I think this is totally doable — if people want to
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malena / bikes not bombsreplied to malena / bikes not bombs last edited by
but to make these (relatively simple) shifts, we have to dismantle generations of worldviews generated by extractionists causing us to (mis)take pervasive corporate mind control for our one true reality.
our obstacle is us: armies of people who do not know they are trapped by either ideology or poverty in a failing system
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malena / bikes not bombsreplied to malena / bikes not bombs last edited by
I take heart in the idea that only a fraction of a population is needed to shift that entire population, but feel frustrated by decades of being part of that small fraction but not seeing any larger shifts
as we see with Mastodon today, when we take our ball and go home, and take our energy and relationships out of corporate control, we tend to disappear rather than bring everyone with us
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Steve Herrickreplied to malena / bikes not bombs last edited by
@seachanger Throughout history, seemingly sudden changes have generally been preceded by years of people being ready to make them, and just waiting for some event to serve as the catalyst that sets off a chain reaction. We're in the waiting stage.
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malena / bikes not bombsreplied to Steve Herrick last edited by
@Steve true! also how evolution itself often works right, periods of dormancy, bursts of speciation etc
but capitalism seems to have developed a very effective shock doctrine (as Klein terms it) to swallow any cataclysm and use it to pad the existing system with even more power… so far anyway
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Steve Herrickreplied to malena / bikes not bombs last edited by
@seachanger Yes, also true. Capitalism is ready to expand into any available space. We need to have more deliberate and specific ways to push back against this. We need to consciously resist capitalism each day.
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malena / bikes not bombsreplied to Steve Herrick last edited by
@Steve covid was a system shock, but lack of political power meant we weren’t able (in the US anyway) to achieve reforms toward a care economy! If anything capital has only closed ranks on our imaginations since then
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Steve Herrickreplied to malena / bikes not bombs last edited by
@seachanger I think the problem with making change is that people's ideas for how to improve things are too minor to bring about structural change, or too vague to implemented at all. There are cool things happening -- worker co-ops, FLOSS, the Fediverse, and more, but by and large, they haven't really linked up or seen themselves as fellow travelers.
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malena / bikes not bombsreplied to Steve Herrick last edited by
@Steve excuse me while i start a podcast called FELLOW TRAVELERS
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Jenniferplusplusreplied to malena / bikes not bombs last edited by
@seachanger I'm sure this is a joke, but just in case it isn't, I would love to subscribe to that podcast. Or maybe even be on it