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Cake day: February 14th, 2025

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  • The only significantly statically impactful group of “non voters” is the population that was unable to or inconvenienced heavily by voting.

    Meaning the major majority of voters that didn’t vote were either unable to because of other obligations (work, childcare, etc) with a small subset of that being people that were no motivated enough to deal with the inconvenience of visiting a poll line (4hours in line) after a 10 hour shift.

    These are the vast vast majority of people that did not show up. Beyond that an even smaller percentage was the "protest voters’ that even if 100% of which went to Harris she still would have lost.

    I guess I just want to say “in conclusion” that the vast majority of voters that didn’t vote were giving you your Starbucks or your Taco Bell.

    I think we should spend less time blaming voters and more time being critical of the politicians and party that gives zero reason for the working class to “risk” their shift for.

    No one’s gonna “risk a shift” for the policies and messaging that Harris communicated. You don’t get people to “risk their shift” for voting for a lesser evil.


  • The problem here is that the relationship is alienated from the person actually being an asshole. Under wage labor the customer and the employee are both a part of the same class. They both work wage jobs and both have to deal with the frustrations of those jobs.

    The one sense of “freedom” that the wage laborers feel is how they spend their money. They are alienated from the actual material impacts of their work. They are offered only a wage and given no incentive to form a relationship with their place of work beyond the paycheck.

    So their entire expression of their labor is based upon their consumption and how they spend their earned wages. This is why we have a disconnect between two wage owners. They are both frustrated with the “laws” that govern their consumption and their labor.

    The Domino’s employee is frustrated because the customer is making his labor more difficult. He just wants to do the least amount of labor for his pay and ensure his employment is secure.

    The Domino’s customer is frustrated because the employee has no control over the means of production. He cannot verbally tell the “owner” of the business his frustrations.

    They are both alienated from the beneficiary of the labor and the consumption. It frustrates both of them.

    I would say it is one of the most “human” feelings we can have. It is one of the most conflicting parts of capitalism that contridicts human nature.

    We want to share the products of our labor, see the beneficiaries of it, and gain praise for it. Our current economic systems are in direct contradiction of this.

    Which is why you’ll find people in this thread siding with both the employee and the customer. When the real asshole is the dude deciding garlic sauce should be 50 cents because it makes a line go up on a graph. The same asshole that hasn’t set foot in a Domino’s pizza in their entire life.

    Edit: One assumption here is that both these people are wage laborers. The nonwage laborer often has a different reason for being an asshole to employees. I have never heard “wagie” as a negative thing until now. I kinda assumed it was almost a “solidarity” term and less so derogatory. But I assumed wrong.

    But even so. The wage laborer can see themselves in a different position as a “consumer” and ignore their own class position when they spend their wage. It is their only time to “be the boss”.


  • I’m waiting for this “Oligarchy” to be replaced with the actual problem word which is “capitalism” (and really imperialism). I love Bernie and understand why he uses this word. But we need to stop pretending that the US has not always been an oligarchy.

    It confuses people into thinking that we need to “return” to a previous stage of capitalist exploitation. Instead of making them understand that we need to abandon it altogether.

    The audience he is speaking to is entirely different than those that will read this comment. So I understand his language. But I think the current generation should understand that his use of Oligarchy is strategic. He is using language that is not tainted by red scare propaganda that still exists in many of your parents.

    Bernie is fighting against the capitalist class and using the terminology that he sees fit. But that doesn’t mean we need to in our conversations. The problem is capitalism.