May 1st 2024 I will not be attending work. I chose this day as a call to class consciousness. I chose this word as it's a signal of a life threatening emergency. I am sending out an emergency to North and South Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Australias that capitalism destroying the planet our lives and our relationships with eachother.
I'm not going to use this post to convince you that capitalism is destroying the planet. There's plenty of proof of this and if you do not agree then I emplore you to find peer reviewed studies on the subject. I suggest Richard D. Wolff.
Personally I have worked since I was sixteen. I've had periods where I didn't work but the stress of not having enough money for the end of the month has been with me half my life. I think about interests, hobbies, places that I missed due to having to work tomorrow. I've lost my youth. Capitalists took it from me, and I traded it for having a roof over my head and food in my stomach. I traded my happiness for security. The same people that don't want you to retire until sixty five are the same people that have never done any work in their lives. They took your youth and free time and you're going to work for one of them until you either can't pay your rent/mortgage or you die. If you think this won't happen to you, you are lying to yourself.
The other thing they stole from us is our communities. Our families, friends, and significant others and the time we could have spent with them. Their are no third places because no one well spend money there. How many of you actually spent a whole week with your partner that wasn't a vacation? How many of you hangout with your neighbors? How many of you physically see loved ones that don't live with you? Capitalists knew if we were too busy working we wouldn't have time to organize.
Because of the points I've outlined I well not be attending work May 1st 2024. I ask the internet as a whole to do the same and in solidarity don't buy anything.
#Mayday
(transcribed from a series of tweets) - @iamragesparkle
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, "no. get out."
And the dude next to me says, "hey i'm not doing anything, i'm a paying customer." and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, "out. now." and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, "you didn't see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them."
And i was like, ohok and he continues.
"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it's always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don't want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it's too late because they're entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.
And i was like, 'oh damn.' and he said "yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people."
And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven't forgotten that at all.