We don’t point at anything secret going on, we outline how these exact circumstances lead to these outcomes. We’re not talking about shadowy capitalists or secret plans of world domination, the world is already dominated by capitalists who have names in the Forbes 500.
Okay but... we kinda do though? Try to look at it from a liberal's perspective who watches CNN all day, believes that Biden is the most progressive president since FDR and thinks Bill Gates is a wholesome 100 philanthropist etc.
The left talks a lot about how the CIA is behind all kinds of shit and how x and y are psyops or sth, and we constantly say things like "It's a big club and you're not in it." Do you not get how that would sound conspiratorial to someone? And yeah, sure, a lot of the CIA stuff is declassified and publicly available, but if liberals could read they wouldn't be liberals.
The leftist narrative sounds crazy to liberals because they believe that the wealthy elites are playing fair and earned their way at the top by being hard-working and innovative, and if someone even more hard-working and innovative came along they would have no choice but to make way. They believe in the system. That's why "billionaires are evil parasites who are murdering millions to uphold their own wealth" sounds just as crazy to them as "the shadow cabal wants to establish global communism because they worship satan."
Yeah, I get where you're coming from. It is difficult for middle class liberals to understand the level of horror enacted on the world to prop up billionaires and part of discussing that involves the centuries of imperialism. Liberals often have a cut-off date for when the bad stuff happened. They'll gladly hear us out about the fruit company coups or Guatemala or the possibility that Joseph McCarthy went overboard. Anything post Church Committee sounds like ludicrous speculation to them. Anything after the late 1970s is supposedly when the CIA became a force for good and American military excursions focused on spreading democracy. I've had a hard time convincing liberals that the USA is still enacting horrors to this day, especially in places like Africa and Latin America.
If you can be generous with me, what I think I meant was we don't require all of that to explain ourselves. The billionaires are parasites and so is your local real estate company. The owner of 4 franchised Subway restaurants is a parasite. The landlord you lease from is a parasite, even if he only owns 2 properties. And that's not some clandestine relationship you have with these people, it's everyday circumstances where they're feeding off you. Liberals more often than not will identify with the perspective of the ownership class, either because that's where they aspire or that's where they belong. Like you said, they believe the rich got there by effort and were properly rewarded, because liberals aspire to these same rewards.
Our ideas of everyday relationships between worker and owner, tenant and landlord, etc are that they're inherently exploitative regardless of any secrecy behind the scenes. I do think that's something more unique to the left, that we can explain ourselves in everyday circumstances. No one has to be pulling the strings behind my asshole boss demanding I work 4 hours of overtime without pay. He's an asshole because of that position he wields. Liberals will excuse this with "just work somewhere else" while failing to see capitalism as a worker is simply becoming a servant of one of the various parasites available.
Okay but... we kinda do though? Try to look at it from a liberal's perspective who watches CNN all day, believes that Biden is the most progressive president since FDR and thinks Bill Gates is a wholesome 100 philanthropist etc.
The left talks a lot about how the CIA is behind all kinds of shit and how x and y are psyops or sth, and we constantly say things like "It's a big club and you're not in it." Do you not get how that would sound conspiratorial to someone? And yeah, sure, a lot of the CIA stuff is declassified and publicly available, but if liberals could read they wouldn't be liberals.
The leftist narrative sounds crazy to liberals because they believe that the wealthy elites are playing fair and earned their way at the top by being hard-working and innovative, and if someone even more hard-working and innovative came along they would have no choice but to make way. They believe in the system. That's why "billionaires are evil parasites who are murdering millions to uphold their own wealth" sounds just as crazy to them as "the shadow cabal wants to establish global communism because they worship satan."
Yeah, I get where you're coming from. It is difficult for middle class liberals to understand the level of horror enacted on the world to prop up billionaires and part of discussing that involves the centuries of imperialism. Liberals often have a cut-off date for when the bad stuff happened. They'll gladly hear us out about the fruit company coups or Guatemala or the possibility that Joseph McCarthy went overboard. Anything post Church Committee sounds like ludicrous speculation to them. Anything after the late 1970s is supposedly when the CIA became a force for good and American military excursions focused on spreading democracy. I've had a hard time convincing liberals that the USA is still enacting horrors to this day, especially in places like Africa and Latin America.
If you can be generous with me, what I think I meant was we don't require all of that to explain ourselves. The billionaires are parasites and so is your local real estate company. The owner of 4 franchised Subway restaurants is a parasite. The landlord you lease from is a parasite, even if he only owns 2 properties. And that's not some clandestine relationship you have with these people, it's everyday circumstances where they're feeding off you. Liberals more often than not will identify with the perspective of the ownership class, either because that's where they aspire or that's where they belong. Like you said, they believe the rich got there by effort and were properly rewarded, because liberals aspire to these same rewards.
Our ideas of everyday relationships between worker and owner, tenant and landlord, etc are that they're inherently exploitative regardless of any secrecy behind the scenes. I do think that's something more unique to the left, that we can explain ourselves in everyday circumstances. No one has to be pulling the strings behind my asshole boss demanding I work 4 hours of overtime without pay. He's an asshole because of that position he wields. Liberals will excuse this with "just work somewhere else" while failing to see capitalism as a worker is simply becoming a servant of one of the various parasites available.