Revolution and Cats @the-anarchist-knitter - Tumblr Blog

politijohn

Yes, this is really a thing...

solitarelee

Yep, because baby formula is one of the most shoplifted things in America. Which should ALSO radicalize you.

girtheemoninja

Or... We stop shoplifting? 🤔 Are we demonizing acts to stop crimes now?

demonius-darkblade

ill tear your head off your shoulders you dumb fuck

gahdamnpunk

The hypocrite jumped out

tonysopranobignaturals-deactiva

"don't speak ill of the dead" don't be a piece of shit before you die.

la-laborista-republiko

stand-up-gifs

A lot of people in the replies to this seemingly have no idea what “class” is.

It’s not a set of values or something you automatically earn after college or like some mysterious inherent quality your parents pass down to you.

(Like, maybe your parents have enough money/assets where they can sustain you through economic insecurity, but let’s be honest…that’s not most people’s situation.)

If you are struggling with bills, if you don’t have savings, if you constantly question even small purchases, if spending a few thousand dollars on a vacation seems like a distant dream…you are not middle class.

And most importantly, saying you are not middle class is not an attack on your character.

Instead it’s a reminder to fight for your own economic interests, and not to let companies, your boss, or politicians trick you into working against yourself by believing you’re part of the “mythical middle.”

king-emare

Damn

wetwareproblem

What’s more, if your first response to “you’re not middle class!” is to treat it like an attack on your character? Then you really need to stop and examine what you think about lower-class people.

corvid-420

Americans like to quote Kurt Vonnegut, that ‘socialism never took root in America because Americans see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.’

What that politely obscures is why Americans see themselves as future rich people: they despise the poor, even if they themselves are poor, and so would rather see themselves as “middle class” rather than ever see themselves as “poor.”

accelerationist-king-piccolo

I would also like to add on this that if you are paying a mortgage on a home, but it’s a 30 year mortgage…you’re NOT middle class. Sorry!

reembodied

“But by these definitions, almost NOBODY I know in the USA qualifies as middle class?!?!” Yep. Correct. Turns out the result of several decades of a “disappearing middle class” is almost everybody is poor.

queeranarchism

This is very true, and the ‘disappearing middle class’ is a huge thing in Europe too. People think middle class means ‘went to college’ or ‘not that poor’, but it’s about how much power you have within capitalism. If the power of your boss or contractor, your landlord or mortgage could fuck up your whole life? That’s working class. Even if you have a car and a bit of savings, still working class. That is your relationship to capitalism. Someone else holds the power.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut… that’s not the whole story.

Ya see, while the old middle class disappeared, the myth of it has been kept alive. This myth has been used to divide of the working class into two groups: those who are seen as inherently working class and those who are seen as ‘culturally’ middle class who just happen to be making $12 per hour on a temporary contract at the university.

It’s a social construct. But it is not without consequences.

If you are perceived as ‘culturally’ middle class - even if your relationship to capitalism is absolutely that of a worker - you are treated differently by the system. You are given more opportunities and second chances. You have a better chance in court. You are less likely to lose custody over your children during hard times. You have a chance at better housing. You are, yes, privileged, in ways that people who are viewed as ‘the poors’ are not.

This is not a privilege in kind, but in degree. Like light skinned privilege, or being seen as the ‘good/safe’ among the mentally ill, or being seen as the good gendernormative gay person. You may have a low income but you are not like those people: the uneducated poors, the multi-generation poors, the rude poors, the trashy poors. You’re not a chav/redneck/prole/tokkie. No, you’re better. You have ‘class’. And if you just collaborate with the system as if you’re middle class, you might escape the worst of the violence of capitalism.

(And no, you can’t opt out of that privilege by roleplaying poverty. It’s actually pretty offensive when you make a point of pride out of torn-up jeans, while those without that privilege have to put effort into not being vilified for their poverty. It’s a pretty good sign of privilege to think it’s cool to look poor. Stop it.)

It’s important to acknowledge this privilege and to be aware of how it impacts our place in the workers struggle. Did everyone in your anti-capitalist group go to college? Are the ones who went to college always doing the public speaking and running the show? That’s a big big problem, my friend. It means you’re excluding, erasing and speaking over the most marginalized within the working class. Change that.

d-and-i-curation

[image description: tweets by Twitter user ~DanaVivianWhite from September 2019. The first tweet reads, “Good morning. This is a reminder that you’re probably not middle class.” The second tweet reads, “Folks be like, “what about the middle class?” Sis, you don’t own a home, don’t own your car, have no savings, and you’re barely making the minimum payment on your student loans. That’s not you.“ /end id]

alittledropofheaven

bluedelliquanti

summer party small talk

pr1nceshawn

If the Government Treated Men Like It Treats Women

prole-log

hotvampireadjacent

i love this image so much

afeelgoodblog

Solidarity

birlinterrupted

officialweatherwax

"We can't fight this year's round of global warming-induced wildfires because the prison slave laborers we would normally sacrifice to fight the fires have instead succumbed to the plague". Is 2020 even real?