hexthismess [he/him, comrade/them]

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Joined 11 months ago
Cake day: August 15th, 2023
  • hexthismess [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.nettoCollapse@lemmy.ml•We've moved to https://lemm.ee/c/collapse -- please update your subscriptionEnglish
    131·
    20 days ago

    The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

    There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

  • hexthismess [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.nettoCommunism@lemmygrad.ml•Unwitting conversation with a shop ownerEnglish
    12·
    6 months ago

    I’ve had conversations about socialism with people in my life who are well meaning. The thing I have found to work is to avoid using surface level words like “proletariat, socialism, etc.” This is to avoid the thought terminating reaction they have to hearing red scare words.

    Most people have hardships and struggles caused by capitalism, but they’ve been led to believe it’s their fault or that the right flavor of capitalism isn’t being used. My method is to talk about why those hardships may be happening due to capitalism, without saying the words “capitalism or ruling class”. This allows them to listen and think over the concept that capitalism is destroying their livelihood, without recoiling and entrenching their position further.