knitmeapony:

jumpingjacktrash:

roachpatrol:

foulmouthedliberty:

punlich:

Everyone’s like “when you stop being dirt poor you’ll start liking capitalism” and now that I’m actually able to survive and have some financial security I’m like, “nope still have long term memory and still want to Eat The Rich”

AKA: you don’t have to be the one suffering to want to end suffering

honestly now that i know what it’s like to have a few crumbs i’m even MORE mad about all the people that got nothing

now that i’m middle class, i feel like the sole skyhook lifting my friends out of the soup every time capitalism kicks them back in it. i see how capitalism tries to make me resent them for needing help, even though it’s capitalism’s fault they need it. i also see how sophomoric ‘radicalism’ tries to make them resent me for offering it, as if looking out for each other stopped being a good thing when one person in the friend group got a good income. i see how people with something to gain from conflict and division pit the poor against the getting-by to distract attention from the predatory rich.

no, i’m not any more fond of capitalism than i was when i was eating out of dumpsters. i’m just in a better position to see that some of the far left radicalism is nearly as predatory.

look for results, kiddos. don’t let people jerk you around by the emotions. capitalism is just as much of a shitbag as it ever was, but if all someone has to offer as an alternative is a ‘smash the state’ t-shirt, you don’t have to let them tell you what to do either.

organize. unionize. look for the helpers. we’re in this together.

Seriously, when i first got a decent salary – I have money left over EVERY MONTH after rent and bills, holy SHIT – I went through a not-great period of knee-jerk saying no.  No, I can’t float you $10 for lunch. No, I can’t wait for your share of the [X] bill.  Part of it was self-preservation instinct, the ‘your head is just above water finally don’t you dare risk going back under’ – but part of it was a little creeping voice in my head that said ‘they all know you’re doing well now, and they want a piece of you, and isn’t that unfair?’

That shit is insidious.  I didn’t even realize I’d been doing it until one day, for some reason, I literally managed to ask myself why I hadn’t just floated a friend money for lunch the day before.

There wasn’t a single good reason. 

Who knows when he’ll pay me back? I had extra; he was unemployed.  I had extra enough that in the long run, even if I forgot I’d loaned him that money I’d probably never notice.

He’s taken advantage of your kindness before. Yeah, but who the fuck cares?  It’s supposed to be kindness.  And it’s food.  

This isn’t my fault, this isn’t my job, I didn’t plan for this, it’s a pain in the ass. Excuses, motherfucker.  Patently bullshit excuses.

I still have bad instincts with some folks.  I still have bad instincts, full stop.  But I’m getting better.  And I know those instincts don’t come from a place of reason, they come from full-scale cultural indoctrination into Capitalism Is The Greatest and So Is Rugged Individualism.  Shaking that is work, but it matters more that I do it now, when I’m in a position to get some real results.