The Blackbird

“Michigan Night Watch”

Point Betsie Lighthouse, Frankfort, Michigan.

By Marybeth Kiczenski

(I know there is already a lot of discussion on different economic strategies, my issue is with this post’s blind denial that poverty plays a role in radicalization when it absolutely does. I feel like this would be more obvious on a site where every 2nd user would like to cosplay as an anarchist leader of the Rebellion. Economic hardship (rightly) makes people angry, and it’s a toss of the coin who redirects that anger.)

Okay, right and if I put that into Trulia...

transcript: twitter thread from Dr. Sarah Taber

fuck this guy for pulling this shit when I have a deadline honestly Hi there, I work in ag! I also do canvassing in rural areas, including knocking doors in Bladen county NC- home of the NC-09 election fraud. You have no idea what you're on about.

I see a new-ish home on a private tract of land. Not a moldering old trailer on a rented plot in a park. I see TWO big pickup trucks, one of which seems to have a motorcycle or ATV in the back. I see a satellite dish and the dude's got his own dumpster.

I see a lot of coolers, a grill, yard tools, & racist flags in mint condition. That takes effort- those things fade fast. This is the home of someone who spends a lot of time and $ on leisure! This right here is a country playboy. "Radicalized by economic circumstances" ayfkm

If you stop & actually look at the stuff that's strewn around by the porch, it's not junk. It's in good condition. It's strewn around and the window's broken because THIS HOME JUST GOT RAIDED BY THE FBI NOT BECAUSE IT'S THE AVATAR OF YOUR WHITE-TRASH FANTASIES

Did you know that almost half the population of Bladen County works in the pork industry? Most of them work in the Tar Heel plant, aka the largest slaughterhouse in the world. It's 20 minutes from our house. So let's talk what RURAL POVERTY looks like. 'Cause this ain't it.

It can get real fucking grim. Crowded trailer parks w decaying modular homes, surrounded by puddles that never go away because swamps are where you put the poor people. And weird enough, it's not homogeneous. There's always a few neighborhoods with nice crisp clean new houses (: 

Rural poverty is heavily skewed Latinx, Black, & Indigenous. The narrative about rural = white = poor is rich white folks' invention. It exists to keep all their REAL oppressed workforce, mostly BIPOC, hidden from public view. 

JFC you'd think after watching the nation blow up with COVID hot spots fueled by meat plants people would have figured this out but NOPE, we're right back to the Save The White Trash Narrative. You learned NOTHING from this pandemic.

Bladen County is filled with broke pork BIPOC slaughter workers living in shoddy trailer homes but you don't see THEM running around trying to overthrow the gov't. That was the Republicans!

And they did it in a nice clean way. They didn't run around kidnapping governors bc they didn't need to. They just stole ballots. You know, the respectable kind of coup d'etat.

[screenshot of a tweet: Walker Bragman, with a picture of a mansion, captioned “Ever seriously consider why people who live like this aren't the ones who take up arms against their government? Are they just better people? Or could it be that they've benefitted more from the system and government is responsive to their demands (bc they own DC)?”]

Which brings us to THIS dumpster fire of a tweet Nothing says "I'm woke" like buying into rich people's myth of themselves as obedient, supportive members of civil society. "People like this don't take up arms against their own gov't" ok do you really need a list

-Ammon & Cliven Bundy: rich men who took up arms against their own gov't -Donald Trump: rich man deploying armed forces against his own people in contravention of the rules of his own gov't -Vast majority of militias: it takes leisure & money to collect that many guns my dude

-The whole entire Confederate States of America: snotty rich kids' club -Not to mention the DeVoses, the Kochs, the Mercers, & every other white moneyed dynasty actively pillaging the rest of the US. They don't use guns bc they don't NEED to. Not bc they're nice.

Rich, propertied white folks are the single most militant demographic in the United States. And you know what they love? When journalists & "thought leaders" buy into their bullshit about how "poor whites are violent & the solution is to throw $$$ at rural areas [that we own]."

To be clear: poor white folks living in trailer homes are very real. They're too broke, tired, & sick to overthrow the government. That's what economic oppression does. It keeps you down. IDK how to explain the obvious fact that it takes MONEY & LEISURE to join/run a militia.

But how scared that young black man was that he didn’t dare move an inch until someone outright told him he was free to go. I’m glad the cameraman was there with the knowledge to help him and the camera to keep the cops in line.

He look like he’s gonna break in tears at any moments XD

This was in response to a graphic which basically asserted that the reason companies like Amazon and Uber were successful (over other companies) was because they offered a better product / service.  It also lumped in companies like Netflix, which to be fair, I don’t think is QUITE like Amazon.  But the general ideas was, “Not being consumer-centric is the biggest threat to any business.”  So this was my response to that:

I think there is something to be said for our nation’s complete abdication of proper antitrust enforcement. It’s hard for consumers to make a choice (to go with a better product / service) when the market that exists is largely full of monopolies and oligopolies, many of whom undercut competitors by operating at a loss (see: Uber).

As well, these huge companies are further aided by government subsidies that no mom-and-pop shop could ever hope to receive (see: the recent battle over which city will host the next Amazon HQ; the winner awarding Amazon with over $4.6B in local government subsidies).

You have Monsanto owning 80% of the seed market. Nestle owns 73% of all baby food products. Four major companies control 80% of all domestic flight. Luxottica controls most eyewear business in America from both a retail and manufacturing side (Donna Karan, Brooks Brothers, Ray-Ban, Oakley are all owned by Luxottica, as well as Lenscrafters, Pearle Vision, Sunglass Hut, Target Optical). Crest and Colgate dominate the toothpaste market. Tyson’s and Pilgrim’s Pride dominate the chicken market.

This lack of competition doesn’t just apply to things like retail, but also the media. The Telecommunications Act of ‘96 allowed for the corporatization of media through media cross-ownership (i.e. non-media companies and media companies could merge together).  Whereas before US had dozens of companies that owned all the different media outlets, now it’s down to less than six companies owning 90% of all the news.

So it’s a consolidation of power at all levels, running unchecked and / or aided by our own government, contrary to what is in the best interest of the American people OR even what the American people want.

We have a rigged market under a perverse form of capitalism: crony capitalism.

We can’t just urge people to “buy better” because many times that’s a false choice. Nor can we simply urge struggling businesses to “improve your product / service” when it’s not a fair playing field.

Don’t get me wrong: consumers making informed buying decisions is important, and companies should focus on their customers. I guess what I’m trying to say it that: that won’t address the root cause of the problem, which has far-reaching deleterious effects not only for consumers, but equally for producers and workers.

The good thing is that no administration has to wait for control of Congress to act. Presidents can simply instruct their Attorney General to enforce the antitrust laws that were written over 100 years ago. This is assuming, of course, that antitrust is a goal of an administration.