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Cake day: July 18th, 2023

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  • unfreeradical@lemmy.worldtounions@sh.itjust.worksPortland teachers strike
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    1 year ago

    Public schools have long been a backbone of civil society in the US, and have survived as one of the more functional institutions, even as systems everywhere have fallen into decay.

    Teachers have commanded great respect throughout recent history. They support the common and legitimate interests of everyone.

    As workers, teachers stand in solidarity with all other workers, and all other workers must rise to the occasion, of standing in solidarity with teachers.




  • One issue commonly a subject to confusion is the position of government and politicians within the class struggle.

    Workers may apply pressure to the state to achieve concessions, but we cannot expect the state to protect us.

    The state protects capital, and capital utilizes the state to repress workers.

    Powerful politicians generally have owned capital since before entering office, and the barriers are quite severe against entry into office without owning capital. Controls against manipulation and collusion are impossible to enforce, and anyway, resources and willingness overall for their enforcement are quite minimal

    Politicians and capitalists are both facets of the ruling class.

    Neither is a friend of workers. The only friends of workers are other workers.



  • The youngest age cohort is currently the only with any broad class consciousness.

    Older generations, the ones that endured the depression and fought the two wars on either side, were fiercely class conscious, entirely aware that the wealth of society that they were generating was being stolen by the greedy parasitic class of owners.

    Ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, it was common, after finishing school, for someone enthusiastically to sell the entirety of one’s being, body, mind, and all, to the corporate masters, imagining such enthusiasm as making oneself superior to peers, providing a guarantee to outpace all of them in the promotions and purchases that would mark the milestones of life.

    The lies and mythology by now have become too obvious not to notice by anyone not already traumatized by the severest indoctrination and self delusion.

    The system is unfair and unstable. Some workers trample other workers, only that we all may be trampled by our rulers, gratefully of course.


  • unfreeradical@lemmy.worldtounions@sh.itjust.worksWe are here...
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    1 year ago

    The current situation is exactly as depicted.

    Most of the population submits to ideals, promulgated through elite channels, that erase class, makes society seem as a unified whole unladen by competing interests, or afflicted by competing interests based on race, gender, or citizenship, rather than being shaped by the overarching antagonisms between owners and workers.

    The capitalist class is overwhelmingly portrayed as benevolent and essential, and represented through terms such as “business leaders” and “change makers”, though they are far more accurately described as appropriators or exploiters.