political musings

Nothing makes me more uncomfortable than being confused. It angers me. I have the insatiable desire to know, be known, to be known to know. Yet, however agonizing my confusion may become, I often admonish it by ignoring it, distracting myself, or pretending like I know. People tell me I know more than I give myself credit for.

I don't know shit.

My beloved comrade 1997 once told me that the more you learn, the less you know. The more the world floods beyond my eyelids, into my brain, and out my mouth, I realize that I need to grow much larger to keep it all inside. I need to grow even larger still if I want to have the muscle to reorganize the world inside my own mind and spit it out again.

We are all so small. We need each other to become big.

I see capitalism for what it is: an insatiable blood thirsty monster sucking the spirit from humanity.

The capitalist's pockets are full but his heart is empty, a cold-hard, calculating shell; an extension of his power hungry, greedy, manipulative brain. The capitalist sees people according to their monetary value.

How much can I exploit you? How much of your labor power can I keep in my pocket?

Can I bottle your tears and sell them?

Capitalism removes the laborer from the labor because the laborer has no personal investment in the work. The 16 year old at Walmart did not make any of the products with her hands, they were made in a factory in China. She does not care about the products, she needs the wage. No matter how hard she works, she makes the same low wage, and her labor power is exploited to make the same people rich. SHE IN NO WAY BENEFITS FROM THIS EXCHANGE. She is exploited for her age, her class, her race, her gender. She is put in a social position where she must sell herself or perish.

Lots and lots and lots of people hate their jobs. Do you think so many people would hate their jobs if they had a real blood, sweat and tears relationship with their labor? Instead of selling bullshit for walmart, what if our 16 year old was selling jewelry she made with her friends to help support her family and community? Her heart and body would become part of the labor, meaningful labor, labor with human connection.

In removing the humanity from labor, in fostering this emptiness, the capitalist dives deeper into dark depths of emptiness. One cannot climb the capitalist ladder without stepping on countless rungs made of exploited workers. As the capitalist climbs, he becomes heavier with greed and power, putting tremendous strain and agony upon the ladder below.

There is no justice in capitalism. It is the cruelest form of Social Darwinsim. It is legalized terrorism. It is a breeding ground for racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. It commodifies relationships. It exploits feeling.

It is killing us, really.

We, the workers, are the ladder. We can be used to propel the profit of the capitalist OR we can elevate the people. Let us build strong backs to hold each other up. Let the silenced stand on our shoulders and shout to the sky for freedom. Let's stack ladders on top of ladders and see how long it takes for us to reach the sky, until we can taste clouds and remember that anything is possible. Let's dive from the top of the ladder into the sea, let the salt flush the disempowered, defeated, depressed, toxins from our brains.

We are bigger than them.