Shawn Fain’s disdain for the “billionaire class” informs his showdown with Detroit’s automakers. Now he must prove that his hard-core tactics pay off.
  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    108·
    1 year ago

    I’m reminded of one of the things that radicalized me. It was Angela Davis explaining how violence in service of black liberation wasn’t becoming violent but rather returning fire after decades and centuries of a one sided race war.

    The rich decry class war when the working class step out of line, but every poor family struggling to meet their needs is a victim of a class war. Every hungry person, every homeless person, every person relegated to the criminal class is a victim of class war. Every worker struggling with any or all bills needed to keep their life together is a victim of a class war. We’re taught to sympathize with the rich, expected to see their success as necessary, taught to not demand too much of them, taught to forgive any evil of theirs. They have been waging a class war on us for a very long time. We can continue to suffer or we can strike back.

    They can join us on an equal footing or they can find the final equalizer.

    • fiat_lux@kbin.social
      29·
      1 year ago

      There was a video clip of a woman speaking about supermarket looting that made me start questioning my total pacifism. This is a different video transcript from her but, on the same topic. I really appreciated how she laid it out.

      … So if I played 400 rounds of monopoly with you and I had to play and give you every dime that I made, and then for 50 years, every time that I played, if you didn’t like what I did, you got to burn it like they did in Tulsa and like they did in Rosewood, how can you win?
      - Kimberley Latrice Jones on the topic of the social contract.

        • fiat_lux@kbin.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          Skin colour was just a visual indicator of class that told white people that black people were lower in the social hierarchy than them. There’s a lot of overlap, it’s not like white people were terrified of the colour brown generally.

          I think it would be a mistake to say that the Tulsa massacre, also known as The Black Wall Street wasn’t a heady mixture of both classism and racism.

    • Pavidus@lemmy.world
      4·
      1 year ago

      Your first paragraph reminded me of a song that has stuck with me since I heard about it. Give the song “Long Violent History” by Tyler Childers a listen. Obviously I don’t know your musical tastes, but it’s a powerful message in a genre that typically doesn’t embrace the same ideologies.

    • BertramDitore@lemmy.worldEnglish
      29·
      1 year ago

      Funny how “Eat the Rich” is not a quote from the article. Doesn’t appear anywhere in there. It’s quite the phrase to pull out of nowhere for the sake of a punchy headline. New York Times headlines consistently piss me off. I skimmed, and it doesn’t seem too bad, but I’m a terrible judge of the quality of profiles like this. They’re incredibly hard to get right.

      From what I can tell, this guy (Fain) is a badass fighting the good fight and not holding his tongue. I have serious respect for him. Hopefully management starts to realize that they’ve been getting away with some wild shit. No more.

      • micochango@lemm.ee
        1·
        1 year ago

        I didn’t mean the title, the NYY is much more subtle. You can notice how they use quotes that frame him as an “extremist”. The article itself is a bit of a hit piece I think, they want to make him seem like an ideologue, someone who is pushing a political agenda instead of leading the union. I truly believe these pieces are carefully produced to erode support from key actors by questioning their credibility. In this case, this guy simply has a grudge against billionaires. In other words the article is saying: he’s not about fair pay, he’s about making them pay, which in my mind is completely different. But that’s just my opinion and I can be wrong.

  • Blapoo@lemmy.ml
    22·
    1 year ago

    I don’t see the term “Eat the rich” anywhere in the article other than the headline. Easy there NYT

    • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.mlEnglish
      17·
      1 year ago

      They cater to a rich audience. They want to feel attacked and NYT is obliging them with hyperbole.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
        5·
        1 year ago

        Well, there’s absolutely no way the shrinking American middle class will side with fascists to preserve their status as they begin to feel threatened, because we love liberty and democracy here.