I drink your milkshake! a metaphor for capitalism

[UnionStrong]

I brought you brothers here today to start our own fraternity
Broke Phi Broke, we ain't got it
Broke Phi Broke (we ain't got it)
No, we have no money
We are sharin' jeans
If I go outside, I got the only clothing on
How many cars do we own? (None!)
How many cars do we own? (None, sir!)
Should we let our woman go and be with the cat with the car?
(Yes, we will!)
Why? Because we can't afford gas. Say it with me!
(We can't afford no gas!)
Say it!
(We can't afford no gas!)
So we ain't drivin'!

Kanye West – Skit #1

The first of four “Broke Phi Broke” skits that are interspersed throughout Late Registration.

genius.com

@UnionStrong

 

[rickyb]

tie this to consumerism and to the fact that most of us are passive consumers of info:

“A sentimentalist is simply one who wants to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. We think we can have our emotions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing emotions have to be paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine. The intellectual and emotional life of ordinary people is a very contemptible affair. Just as they borrow their ideas from a sort of circulating library of thought—-the Zeitgeist of an age that has no soul—-and send them back soiled at the end of each week, so they always try to get their emotions on credit, and refuse to pay the bill when it comes in. You should pass out of that conception of life. As soon as you have to pay for an emotion you will know its quality, and be the better for such knowledge. And remember that the sentimentalist is always a cynic at heart. Indeed, sentimentality is merely the bank holiday of cynicism.”

― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

 

[UnionStrong]

tie this to consumerism and to the fact that most of us are passive consumers of info:

“A sentimentalist is simply one who wants to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. We think we can have our emotions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing emotions have to be paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine. The intellectual and emotional life of ordinary people is a very contemptible affair. Just as they borrow their ideas from a sort of circulating library of thought—-the Zeitgeist of an age that has no soul—-and send them back soiled at the end of each week, so they always try to get their emotions on credit, and refuse to pay the bill when it comes in. You should pass out of that conception of life. As soon as you have to pay for an emotion you will know its quality, and be the better for such knowledge. And remember that the sentimentalist is always a cynic at heart. Indeed, sentimentality is merely the bank holiday of cynicism.”

― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

Didn’t read it. Give me the condensed version.

 

[rickyb]

Didn’t read it. Give me the condensed version.

its not for ppl w/ condensed brains

 

[UnionStrong]

its not for ppl w/ condensed brains

It’s for idiots with no brains.

 

[rickyb]

"you mean youre not a revolutionary freedom fighter seeking to overthrow capitalism and all other undemocratic systems of power?

DIVORCE"

 

[rickyb]

 

[rickyb]

the federal reserve has graphs showing shrinking % of wealth of middle class. it still shrunk under trump but at slower rate than obama and w bush

 

[rickyb]

“Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering...”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

[UnionStrong]

“Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering...”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

Read Crime and Punishment

 

[rickyb]

Read Crime and Punishment

i was going to look up cornel west analysis on it, he loves him

 

[UnionStrong]

i was going to look up cornel west analysis on it, he loves him

Try reading it for yourself instead lapping up someone else’s vomit.

 

[rickyb]

Try reading it for yourself instead lapping up someone else’s vomit.

i prefer listening to other people's analysis. and i even like hearing hte same thing over and over. thats how i stopped being a passive consumer of info.

 

[UnionStrong]

i prefer listening to other people's analysis. and i even like hearing hte same thing over and over. thats how i stopped being a passive consumer of info.

That’s why you don’t have an original thought

 

[rickyb]

That’s why you don’t have an original thought

i do and i dont know how to explain everyone saying i dont, or everyone thinking their thoughts are original.

 

[UnionStrong]

i do and i dont know how to explain everyone saying i dont, or everyone thinking their thoughts are original.

You read, you formulate your own opinions

 

[rickyb]

You read, you formulate your own opinions

i was thinking more in the sense we do what people have already done.

we think were unique but were pretty much copies of copies. some of us copy more than other but its all been done before. we have our groups that we listen to and our ideas are in line with that group pretty much. i acknowledge different members in the group of guys i listen to have different perspectives.

i listen more than i read and i listen alot every day usually. thats where i get my ideas.

 

[rickyb]

Cornel West: We Must Fight the Commodification of Everybody and Everything

Philosopher and activist Cornel West discusses the presidential election and why a democratic socialist vision is necessary to overcome capitalism and build a better society.

jacobinmag.com

I come from a black people whose anthem is “lift every voice.” Lift every voice. And when you get the voices of those Sly Stone called Everyday People in all of the decision-making processes and institutions that guide and regulate their lives, they’re not going to choose poverty. They’re not going to choose decrepit schools. They’re not going to choose lack of health care. They’re not going to choose rat-infested housing.

Democracy from below takes seriously those voices as they’re wrestling with social misery and suffering, and allows them to shape their destinies in such a way that lo and behold, their children might be able to go to quality schools like the ruling class. That their mothers and fathers might have health care like the power elites. So democracy from below is a threat to any hierarchical power, be it in the political realm or the economic realm.

That’s where the rubber hits the road, where Eugene O Neill’s great indictment of American capitalist civilization comes in, the greatest play ever written in the United States, The Iceman Cometh. He was an anarchist like my dear brother Chomsky. But he argued that, like Dostoevsky, that most human beings would choose greed over liberty, that they would choose even the possibility of joining the greedy at the top, rather than risking solidarity with the impoverished, because it looked like it’s too hard. It’s easier to think that somehow you’re going to be the next Gates or Rockefeller.

So you dangle that carrot — this has been very much an American project in terms of our distinctive form of individualism. But he and Dostoevsky, of course, have a critique of the species. They believe, in fact, that we human beings would rather choose authority over liberty. We’d rather choose to follow the pied piper rather than organize ourselves and run our workplaces. And part of the radical democratic project is to show that they’re wrong. But it’s a serious battle. There’s no doubt about it.

 

[UnionStrong]

Cornel West: We Must Fight the Commodification of Everybody and Everything

Philosopher and activist Cornel West discusses the presidential election and why a democratic socialist vision is necessary to overcome capitalism and build a better society.

jacobinmag.com

I come from a black people whose anthem is “lift every voice.” Lift every voice. And when you get the voices of those Sly Stone called Everyday People in all of the decision-making processes and institutions that guide and regulate their lives, they’re not going to choose poverty. They’re not going to choose decrepit schools. They’re not going to choose lack of health care. They’re not going to choose rat-infested housing.

Democracy from below takes seriously those voices as they’re wrestling with social misery and suffering, and allows them to shape their destinies in such a way that lo and behold, their children might be able to go to quality schools like the ruling class. That their mothers and fathers might have health care like the power elites. So democracy from below is a threat to any hierarchical power, be it in the political realm or the economic realm.

That’s where the rubber hits the road, where Eugene O Neill’s great indictment of American capitalist civilization comes in, the greatest play ever written in the United States, The Iceman Cometh. He was an anarchist like my dear brother Chomsky. But he argued that, like Dostoevsky, that most human beings would choose greed over liberty, that they would choose even the possibility of joining the greedy at the top, rather than risking solidarity with the impoverished, because it looked like it’s too hard. It’s easier to think that somehow you’re going to be the next Gates or Rockefeller.

So you dangle that carrot — this has been very much an American project in terms of our distinctive form of individualism. But he and Dostoevsky, of course, have a critique of the species. They believe, in fact, that we human beings would rather choose authority over liberty. We’d rather choose to follow the pied piper rather than organize ourselves and run our workplaces. And part of the radical democratic project is to show that they’re wrong. But it’s a serious battle. There’s no doubt about it.

Stop voting for Democrats.

 

[rickyb]

Stop voting for Democrats.

coke vs pepsi?