#stockholders are parasites

[penemues-quill]

I believe there is a problem that affects the entire world that we are failing to acknowledge and address; a problem by which mankind has screwed itself. And I realize also that the excision of this problem is going to be very painful and very difficult.

But it is the stock market. The existence of a parasite caste that not only survives but grows fat by feeding on the working class.

And if you don't know about this problem I'll do my best to explain.

It started when people had the idea of selling shares of a potential business idea they had in order to have capital to begin the business.. If the business did well then the people with the shares could trade them back in for that percentage out of the value of the business. Which sounds fine, right?

Where we got into trouble was the practice of trading shares on a marketplace, which meant that startups had to compete with each other directly to get people to invest in them. They had to offer the best return. And it was no longer about people liking the ideas and investing because they wanted to see that thing brought into the world - it became about profit and nothing else.

The other major ingredient in this fuckup salad was that companies would sell as many shares as they could to amass capital. Then spend that to make themselves look more successful and drive up demand.

The issue with that is that the shares in the hands of the shareholders end up being worth more than the typical large company has in available liquid assets. In short, if the shareholders were to start cashing in, the company wouldn't be able to afford to pay them and would go out of business.

And since the shareholders have gotten used to living off of the growth of the company shares, if that growth stops, they will indeed cash out and find another new startup to invest in. So the company promises growth, and has to find ways to increase profit every year. Which is very difficult once they've expanded to fill their market. Once there's no more room for natural growth, they have to start finding other ways to increase profits.

They'll look for cheaper means of production, offer less for the same price, start firing employees, cutting corners on safety regulations... They wind up trimming their own fat to feed the parasites.

And they've dug in so deep, their heads are buried so completely in the thick skin of the world's economy, that I don't know how to extract it.

[msaprildaniels]

The Stockholder Class are parasites.

"Think of the two major possibilities here: Either the studios owe untold millions to their talents and paying it out will decimate their stock prices, or they owe so little because there really is no money in streaming and the bubble of their entire 21st century business model will burst in spectacular fashion. And make no mistake: this is a bubble. This is the inevitable climax of a stockholder-driven hunger for infinite growth, despite the fact that, by design, such a thing cannot and should not exist. The infection of Wall Street has overwhelmed the entertainment industry beyond repair, leading to cultural vandals like David Zaslav to be appointed with the callous duty of strip-mining decades’ of artistic beauty for pennies of tax write-offs. The past and future are frivolous in comparison to the short-term demands that the line keep going up."

[ah-ga-seven]

Till’ The End of Summer - Chapter 8

>> series masterlist <<

Pairing: Choi Yeonjun x Reader

In a Nutshell: College!AU, Rich Kids, Friends to Lovers, Fuckboy athlete Yeonjun, Overprotective Best friend Soobin, contains all of TXT and other Idol cameos, Omnipresent perspective.

Synopsis: You and Yeonjun are caught up in a cat and mouse game because of unspoken feelings and endless pining for each others’ attention. With the summer break approaching and lots of college parties, will you finally get a chance to explore your feelings for each other; even though the world and Yeonjun’s reputation makes things complicated?

Word count: 4.8K

Genre: Angst.

Idol Cameos: BTS Namjoon, MAMAMOO Hwasa (Hye-Jin)

Warnings: Mentions of a broken family, abusive parents, conflict and death.

He studied her with a neutral facial expression. He tried his best not to give away any emotion with his eyes as he averted his attention to his uncle.

“You told her I was here?” Yeonjun asks calmly.

Namjoon looked at his nephew apologetically and sighed. “Jun, I’m sorry but I had no choice. I promised her I’d reach out if you ever contacted me.”

Yeonjun rolled his eyes, scoffing as he grabbed his keys out of his pocket as a sign that he was about to leave.

“It was a pleasure, but I have to go, thank you for your hospitality Hye-Jin noona,” he added as he kissed her cheek as a goodbye, but before he could make it out of the kitchen, his name was called once again.

“Yeonjun wait.” His mom cooed

Yeonjun turned around on his heels in annoyance, his calm and collected composure faltering a little as fire spewed from his pupils.

“What.”

“You don’t return my calls. Or respond to my text messages.” His mothers’ tone changed to a pleading one. She desperately needed him to listen to her, and Yeonjun was pretty sure he had never seen this type of emotion from her before, not towards him at least.

“Then you should’ve taken the hint,” he bites back arrogantly. “Now that I moved out of the house you suddenly want to pretend like you’re a mother? I’ll pass. What fancy dinner do you need me to attend now? Do I need to act like the perfect son again? Complete the image of a picture-perfect family for your stockholders?”

His mother was taken aback by his outburst. Yeonjun was never one to pick a fight, especially with her. She had to admit that she enjoyed the fact that he was sticking up for himself, but if the circumstances were different, she would have probably scolded him for acting up.

Yeonjun was getting more and more agitated as all of his bottled up emotions started to unravel. He knew he was being incredibly disrespectful and out of line, but he didn’t care.  

He’d soon go back to never seeing her again, so what was the point in holding back.

“Yeonjun…” Namjoon’s tone altered to a much sterner one. “Hear her out.”

Yeonjun dramatically pulled out a chair and plopped himself down on it. He crossed his legs, resting his arm on the dinner table. “Let’s hear it then. What so god damn important for you to drive 6 hours in the dead of night to look me in the eye for?”

His mother sighed, fluttering her eyes shut in defeat as she shifted in her seat. “Your father is sick Yeonjun.”

It didn’t quite click to him what she meant by that, so he just deadpanned her in the eye, waiting for her to explain.

“Things aren’t looking good for him,” she explains. There wasn’t even a hint of sadness in her words.  

Yeonjun knew that the only thing him and his mother had in common was the hate they shared for that man. Even though they both couldn’t stand him, she always took his side. She had to. The consequences were too high for her not to comply with her husbands’ wishes, but it’s not like she would tell Yeonjun that.

Deep down Yeonjun knew what this meant already. His dad had a history with heart disease, but somehow, he felt like his dad was something more of an invincible parasite. Somehow the worst types of people tend to live the longest. But if this means what he thinks this means, then that philosophy would quickly be invalidated.  

“His condition is deteriorating fast Jun-ah.” Namjoon chimed in carefully, studying his nephew's body language.

Yeonjun was looking at his balled fists. He didn’t know how to feel towards this new information. His dad was dead to him a long time ago, but this hit differently.  

He felt weird about it. No sadness, no guilt, he oddly felt like laughing at the irony of it all, but he was too dazed to react. He guessed that somewhere deep, deep, VERY deep down inside of him he wished for a better relationship with his father, so getting this type of confirmation that it would probably never happen was depressing to say the least.

He licked his pouty lips before deciding to make eye contact with his mom again.

She wasn’t sad either. She just looked back at him stoically, waiting for him to speak up.

“How long does he have left?”

“He’s been holding on longer than expected, so any day now I guess.”

Yeonjun didn’t expect such a straight forward response, and he certainly didn’t expect this short of a time frame.  

His mother tried to study his emotions but then it clicked once more. She doesn’t know the boy that was sitting in front of her. She could pretend to know what he was feeling but she couldn’t. His frozen yet distressed state was heartbreaking to see as his pupils were darting back and forth. His mother knew that she was part of the problem on why he can’t deal with his emotions, and the realisation made her stomach turn in regret as she kept looking at him.

It’s not like she didn’t love Yeonjun, it’s more so that she didn’t know how to.  

“He wants to see you,” she says breaking the silence.

“Why?”

“He wouldn’t tell me.”  

Yeonjun stayed frozen in his seat. The awkward silence made the atmosphere even tenser than it already was. His mother, however, seemed to be just as unfazed. She gave him time to process and didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave either.  

“Yeonjun…you literally just found out your dad is dying, you must be feeling something right now,” Namjoon says sitting down next to him. He patted his back in comfort, expecting him to either burst into tears, throw a tantrum, scream at them or all of the above. But he stayed calm, collected, icy, just like his mother.

“It’s not like he was up for father of the year,” Yeonjun mumbles, shaking Namjoon’s affectionate arm off of him. He didn’t want to be comforted; he didn’t want to hear any of this. Yeonjun didn’t need yet another thing to go wrong in his life right now.

What he did need was you. If anyone could make him feel something it was you, and only you.

He couldn’t even process last nights’ events and now he had to deal with a literal death in the family? Did the universe hate him or something?  

He sighed throwing his head back as he rubbed his temples in agony.  

“I know that this must come as a shock, and the issues with your girlfriend only fuel that fire, but I want you to know that our door is always open for you, you know that, right?” Hye-Jin says softly, sitting down next to Yeonjun on the opposite side of her husband.  

Girlfriend huh? Damn, that stings.

“You have a girlfriend?” The tone of his mothers’ voice rose in surprise.  

“Had,” Yeonjun says crossing his arms as he furrowed his eyebrows.

She really didn’t know him at all. She wanted to though, but she wasn’t sure how far she could go without scaring him off completely.  

“How about we take a walk together?”

It was 9 AM and you were wide awake. You think you got a full 2 hours of sleep, but you weren’t sure since you were too busy tossing and turning.

Mia insisted on sleeping over, and you knew she would never take no for an answer, so you decided to just let her have her way.

Even though you wanted to be alone, you were also glad that you weren’t.  

The talk you had last night with Mia made you feel much lighter.  

Mia knew everything by now. She knew about how serious you and Yeonjun were about making things work, and how much you’ve come to care about him in such a short time.  

Mia was uncharacteristically quiet throughout your whole conversation last night, but you didn’t think much of it, since this must all come as a shock and she probably needed some time to process.

You grabbed your phone to see a million messages from Soobin asking if you were okay and if Mia was with you.

You felt bad for ignoring him, knowing that he’d probably be worried sick about you two, so you texted him to come over.  

It didn’t take long for him to get to your apartment, less than twenty minutes to be exact.

Mia was still sound asleep as your doorbell rang. You got out of the bed to open the door for Soobin, and were surprised to see Taehyun with him.

“Hey…” you say softly.

Soobin didn’t say anything. He just wrapped you into a tight hug and buried his face in your hair. Somehow you thought he was angry with you, but this wasn’t something an angry Soobin would do.

You melted into his embrace and suddenly you feel just how tired you really were, both mentally and physically. There were a lot of things left unspoken, and none of you knew where to start picking up the pieces.

He let go of you slowly and patted your hair. “It’ll be ok,” he assured.

You simply nod at his comment as Taehyun greets you with a hug as well. Soobin made his way into your room to wake Mia up from her immensely deep sleep while Taehyun and yourself sit down on the couch in your living room.

“Yeonjun hyung didn’t come home last night.” Taehyun says worriedly. “We’ve been trying to call and text him but his phone is off.”

Your head snaps up into Taehyuns direction and you see deep bags under his eyes that matched yours. “We’ve been up looking for him.”  

You sigh, rubbing your forehead. “Where could he have gone?”

��We don’t know. We contacted all of his friends but no one has seen him.”

“I…I hope he’s ok,” you say thinking out loud.  

“Mia, baby…wake up.” Soobin nudged her softly, he laced his fingers with his as he sat on the side of the bed.  

Her lashes fluttered open slowly, she thought she was hallucinating for a second but when she felt his hand caress her cheek she sighed, slowly coming to her senses.

“Hi..”

“Never ignore me like that again.” Soobin says sternly.

He didn’t come to pick a fight, but she needed to know that the way she walked out in the middle of the night to look for you with no form of transport all while refusing to answer his calls was not done.  

Not only did he have to worry about Mia, but about you and Yeonjun as well. “I understand that you felt like y/n needed you, but I needed you too. We could have at least gone together but you didn’t even give me a chance, you just stormed out.”

Mia bit her lip. She knew she was wrong, but it was more a spur of the moment type of decision.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just felt like the guys were ganging up in y/n,” she explained softly, holding on to his arm as he kept caressing her face sweetly.

She felt bad for ignoring him, seeing how worn out he looks right now she figured that they didn’t have any luck in finding Yeonjun.

She sat up, giving him a kiss on his cheek as she leaned into him. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I’m sorry,” she said nuzzling her face in his neck.

He sighed. “It’s ok, let’s just….find a way to fix this mess.”

Uncomfortable was an understatement for the silence between Yeonjun and his mother.  

He decided to accept the offer of taking a walk around the block together. The clicking of his mother’s heels and the chirping of the birds in the trees was the only form of auditory stimuli to them being together, so she decided to change the previous topic.

“Do you want coffee? There’s a small coffee shop across the street.”  

Yeonjun just nodded, awkwardly putting his hands in his pocket. They had to cross the street together but there was no zebra crossing or working traffic lights to regulate the oncoming cars.

Before his mother could step off the sidewalk to cross the road, Yeonjun protectively pulled her back as a reflex, making sure it was safe to cross.

Their relationship was complicated, but it’s not like he wanted her to be run over by a car.

She looked at him in surprise, taken aback by his touch and his manners.  

Yeonjun sighed, sticking out his arm as a sign that she should link arms with him. She hesitated but complied anyway, knowing that he was probably trying to meet her halfway.

She expected Yeonjun to be a lot more hostile, quiet and reserved like he always was. She expected him to be more on edge and afraid to interact with her as he did before, but she figured he had matured a lot in the year that he spent away from her and his father.

He blossomed; it was evident. He was confident and manly. He was a lot more vocal about his feelings and found solace and happiness in being away from home.

It made her happy that he seemed to have found himself at this school, with his friends and even a potential girlfriend? She really thought Yeonjun would be a loner for the rest of his life given his quiet and obsessively hard working nature.

As they made their way to the small coffee shop. Yeonjun opened the door for his mom to walk in first.

She reluctantly let go of his arm, giving him small smile. “What do you want to have?”

“Something incredibly strong.” Yeonjun huffed.

“We should’ve gone to a bar then.” His mom joked light-heartedly, which earned a small smile from Yeonjun’s end.

“How about an iced Americano?”  

“That’s fine.”  

Yeonjun took a seat at the back of the café, it was busy despite the early hour. And somehow he was thankful that they weren’t alone. As he looked at his mother interacting with the barista, he suddenly felt super weird about the whole thing.

He’s having coffee with his mother.

With….his mother.

It was almost as if he was stuck in a dream of some sort. As if he was catapulted to a different reality where they got along and went on coffee dates every Sunday morning to catch up.  

His mind trailed off into a day-dream. He started thinking of you again, of everything that had happened last night. Somehow it felt like it happened days ago, but before he could snap out of it himself, his mother returned with the drinks.

“Here you go, I told them to put in an extra shot of espresso.” She handed him the cold plastic cup as she sat down.

He looked up, returning to reality as he took the first sip of his much-needed caffeine boost.

“Thank you,” he says softly stirring around the straw.

“What were you thinking about?” she asked crossing her legs. She hated how she couldn’t read him, and how much he reminded her of herself.

Yeonjun made eye contact with her again and studied her face. Anyone could tell that they were mother and son. They looked like spitting images of each other and it was almost scary to see how she scrunched her nose as she took a sip of her still too hot coffee the same way he does.

“How weird this is,” he answered honestly.

“I wish it wasn’t,” she admits, putting down her cup, as she looks at him insinuatingly.  

Yeonjun nearly choked on his coffee. He looked at her wide-eyed as he cleared his throat, trying to regain composure.

“What changed?” He questions genuinely confused at his mothers sudden confession.

“Your dad won’t be able to control me anymore,” she said with a bitter smile.

“I never got why you stayed with him.”

“I had no choice. I know you think that I didn’t care about you, but I stayed with him so I could keep an eye on you and for the sake of my family's company...”

“How does that make sense.”  

“If we divorced, do you honestly think he would let me have custody of you? There is so much more on the line than you can imagine Yeonjun. It’s a matter of billions.”

Yeonjun sighed, getting more and more impatient with the constant vagueness to her words.

“The life of your son should be worth more than all the money in the world.” He bites back, his tone more venomous than he intended.

His mother was taken aback by his comment, but she understood his anger. How could she not?

“I admit that I should have tried harder to protect you from your father, but I was just as scared as you are. For what it’s worth…I’m sorry,” she says choking up a little..

Did he just hear that right? Was that an apology?

His eyes grew in size as he saw the brims of her eyes fill with tears.  

“Don’t cry, stop,” Yeonjun says frantically reaching for a napkin, handing it to her.

She sighed, taking the napkin from him to dab away the liquid before it could ruin her make-up.  

“It’s going to take time,” she says. “But I’ll try to change. I want to be in your life more, but only if you want me to.”

He bit his lip, absentmindedly playing with the straw of his drink. “I’ve been doing well without you and dad. I have made friends that are like family, I’m doing well with my studies and I’m even on the basketball team. I’ve never felt more at home in my life. I don’t want that to change and I can’t just forget about something I suffered through for 21 years of my life, I can’t just forgive you because you said you’re sorry. Even if dad is dying.”

His mothers’ shoulders fell in defeat, she was sure that he was going to cut ties with her after this, he had every right to, and she wouldn’t have done anything differently.

“But,” he starts. “I’m willing to come home with you for a while. I want to speak to him while I still can, and it doesn’t feel right for you to be alone when he…you know…”

She couldn’t believe her ears. She was happy that he was willing to do this and she realised it took great maturity from him that she didn’t even know he had. 

She took his hand, surprising Yeonjun in the process at the sudden affection.

He sighed, squeezing her hand in comfort. He wasn’t sure if he was doing this for the right reasons or not. Of course, going home in a situation like this would be the natural thing to do, but he had to admit that this was the perfect reason to run away from all the drama here as well. Maybe if he went back home for the rest of summer, he could forget about you for a while, and focus on rebuilding the relationship with his mother and get some sort of closure with is dad before it was too late.

The four of you talked about last nights’ events for a while now, about why Yeonjun and you decided to hide your relationship, why you panicked and mentioned Wooyoung, and about what was said in the aftermath of the unfortunate kiss. It was almost like a full therapy session.

“I got sick to my stomach when he told me to go sleep with Wooyoung instead. I just…snapped. I don’t understand why he would go that far over something so stupid and out of my control. He was way out of line, and I realise that I never should have slapped him but I…he promised he wouldn’t hurt me and that’s exactly what he did.”

“He was scary. I haven’t seen him like that, ever.” Taehyun affirms.  

Mia gave Soobin a look you couldn’t quite read, but you noticed it.

“What was that?” You say shifting your attention to them, narrowing your eyes in suspicion.

“Mia…” Soobin’s tone was warning her.

“She needs to know.”

“Know what?” you and Taehyun say at the same time.

Soobin sighed. “The night before the party, Yeonjun came home crying.”

“What?” you were shocked to say the least. It was the same night he left your house in a hurry with that dumb excuse, and the same night you snuck into their apartment when nothing seemed to be wrong with him.

He’s too good at hiding what he feels. And suddenly you start to doubt everything you know about him.

“Something happened, but he wouldn’t tell me what. He told me about his parents in more detail and…Ugh I shouldn’t say anything.” Soobin says suddenly stopping mid-sentence. "I promised him.”

“The circumstances are a little dire, don’t you think?” Taehyun says. “If it will help solve the situation then we need to know.”

You nodded in agreement and give Soobin a hopeful look.

He sighed in defeat. “His dad, he was abusive.”  

“What?” Taehyun says in disbelief.  

You couldn’t respond or compute. You just sat there zoning out to when Yeonjun told you that he didn’t have a good relationship with his parents, but this…you could have never imagined this.

“Take it from the one with a psychology major, Yeonjun probably reacted the way he did on purpose. I think he wants to protect you from himself. He pushed you away because he’s afraid he can’t give you stability since he’s never had it himself. Most abuse victims go through self-loathing and self-doubt to deal with their feelings. ” Mia says in all seriousness.

You look at her, angered at the fact that she didn’t tell you when you poured your soul out to her last night. You thought it was your fault that he snapped at you the way he did, and now she suddenly wants to play the psychiatrist?  

“You knew, and didn’t tell me?” you looked at both Soobin and Mia, your voice was shaky but it was evident that you were upset.

Mia sighed, running her hand through her hair. “It didn’t seem like the right moment.”

“When is it ever the right moment? If I knew, I would’ve seen right through him. I could have talked some sense into him instead of literally hitting him in the face! Do you know how awful that makes me feel? I put my hands on him and you’re telling me his dad has been doing that to him his whole life!?”  

You were raising your voice at them at this point, and you didn’t care.  

Taehyun grabbed your hand to calm you down in response.

Mia closed her eyes at your loud voice and flinched. She felt sorry, but she felt like she did the right thing by waiting for Soobin to tell you.

“It wasn’t our secret to tell y/n.” Soobin says calmly.

He’s right. This wasn’t their fault, but you needed to blame someone. You sigh burying your face in your hands, trying to calm down as Taehyun softly patted your back. “It’s okay to be frustrated, but don’t take it out on us…we’re just trying to help. We want the best for both of you.”  

“I’m just so tired of all of this,” you say choking back tears of frustration.

The silence was disturbed by the loud ringing of Soobin’s phone. It startled you and everyone looked his way.

“It’s Beomgyu,” he says staring at the screen.

“Well, pick it up, it could be about Yeonjun.” Mia says nudging him.

Soobin accepted the call immediately and put the phone on speaker.

“Hyung, Yeonjun is leaving,” Beomgyu says in a panic.

All eyes in the room turned to shock and confusion as all of you looked at each other

“What do you mean leaving?” Soobin says as he sits up, alerted, and stressed.

“He got home, he’s packing his bags, and he’s leaving. He said something is going on with his family but he wouldn’t say what and he also didn’t mention how long he’d be gone for.”

Mia and you look at each other in distress. What the fuck was going on? Why does everything seem to go wrong all at once?

Taehyun grabbed his phone and started typing frantically, you averted your attention from Soobin to him and saw that he was Googling Yeonjun’s family name and the company names to see if there was any news.

How did you never think of that? These people are loaded corporate people, the internet must be full of information about them.

“I’m coming home. Make sure he doesn’t leave before I get here,” Soobin says as he hangs up.

“Hyung, wait,” Taehyun says as his eyes widened. “Look.”

He turned the phone so everyone could see.

“Daniel Choi to step down from CEO position due to health concerns,” you read out loud.

“Health concerns?” Soobin says confused as ever.

“What does that even mean?” Mia huffs.

“The article didn’t go into detail, but if he has to step down from his CEO position then…I guess it’s serious,” Taehyun says making sense of it all. “The timing is just…terrific,” he adds.

“I’m worried about him,” you say under your breath as you nervously bite your lip.

Even though you’re still mad at him for the way he acted, the empathy you felt for him overshadowed your anger.  

“Let’s go find him then,” Soobin says as he got up, grabbing his car keys and jacket. “Right now.”

Soobin slammed the car door and rushed upstairs with Taehyun, Mia, and yourself trailing behind him.

He opened their front door and was greeted by a defeated looking Hueningkai and Beomgyu, seated on the couch in silence.

“Where is he?” you say barging through the door.

“He left ten minutes ago; we couldn’t stop him.” Hueningkai sulks as he throws his head back on the couch.

“What did he say?” Soobin asks, sitting down next to Beomgyu, putting his hand on his shoulder to console him.

“He said he had a family emergency and that he didn’t know how long he’d be gone for.” Beomgyu pouts.

“If only we know where he lived.” Hueningkai says as he looks at Soobin.

As the rest of your friends start to come up with theories and discuss everything that has happened, you start to remember something you saw in Yeonjun’s room the night that you were trapped under his bed. It was unpacked box, and you were sure you saw his last name on the label.

Before you knew it, you were already on your way to Yeonjun’s room, which earned you both startled and confused stares from the rest of them.

The boys and Mia follow you to his room, and as you get down on your knees to reach for the box under his bed, the confusion on everyone's faces only multiplied.

“What…are you doing.” Beomgyu asks as he gets closer to you.

You ignore him, taking out the box and looking for the label you spotted. “Here, I think this is his home address,” you say pointing to the label.

Soobins eyes widened, he handed the box to Taehyun, the smart one, to inspect it further.

“The package is from Choi So Ra, I think that’s his mom. It also says Happy Birthday, so it must be from last year.” Taehyun says listing all his findings.

“Why didn’t he open it?” Hueningkai questions in confusion

“That’s not the point, If his mom sent this then we know where he's going!” Mia says excitedly.

“How did you even know it was there?” Beomgyu asks you, scratching the back of his head.

“I saw it when I was hiding from Hueningkai the night before the party,” you explain in slight embarrassment.

Hueningkai’s soul nearly left his body as the realization hit him on why Yeonjun was acting so strange that night. “You were here!?”

You shrug apologetically. Sitting down on Yeonjun’s bed.  

You spot the ugly leopard coat on his clothing rack and your mind starts to fill with bittersweet memories.

How did everything go to shit so quickly when things were looking up for you guys?

“If that’s his address then…what are we going to do with it?” Beomgyu asks, sitting down next to you; looking at Soobin with his big doe eyes.

Soobin cleared his throat, taking the box from Taehyun.

“Everyone go pack your shit, we’re going on a road trip.”

_

Chapter 9 

[strommccallum]

We Must, Without Delay, Challenge the Phony "Democratic Socialist" Controlled Opposition and the Misuse of "Democratic Socialism"

What defines the global working class’s generally dismal state of class consciousness? What, at this point in history, in this “information age”, in this era of possibility for the speedy dissemination of the truth to the most remote and backward corners of the earth, keeps its constituent regional working classes and their various factions from swiftly developing full self-awareness and unifying into a global revolutionary democratic movement capable of vanquishing the various cartels of capital?

Nothing more than the refusal of we, the vanguard of democratic socialism, to organize a meaningful direct challenge to the disinformation campaigns of capital. Nothing more than the unwillingness of we, the vanguard of democratic socialism, to directly cut through the capitalist news media and political theater, “popular culture”, “organized religion”, and academic indoctrination-fueled nescience of common men and women to the the true nature, structure, and charted course of the order they find themselves oppressed, jaded, divided, burgled,  and mortally threatened under and their concomitant nescience to the potentiality of democratic socialist society.

Serious consideration of this simple truism and the fact that, at this point in history, there is time for nothing other than the immediate and direct awakening of the common people immediately followed by the procession of revolutionary democratic action, can only awaken us from listlessness and demoralization and bring us to recognize that task directly before us is, yes, the perfectly simple and for the moment still fully accomplishable task of directly awakening and developing full class consciousness in the common people of the world.  It is the task of winning an information war with nothing but the truth and intellectual honesty, presenting the blueprint to democratic socialism, and building informed and revolutionary consensus in proletarians and other non-labor exploiters- it is the task of enlightening them and awakening them to the fact that they have an opportunity to free themselves from the tyranny they suffer under and democratize life, save their posterity, and redeem humankind with their own hands.

There is no component task of this greater task more significant than the showing of what is perhaps the weakest link in the obfuscation campaign of the capitalists, the equation of “democratic socialism” with social liberal welfare capitalism popular in societies with presently-existing constitutional potential for popular electoral seizure of bourgeois state power, for the product of gatekeeping fraud that it is and the phony leftist controlled opposition that owns this definition of democratic socialism- the various loudly “socialist” “left wings” of the parties of the “Socialist International”, the Bernie Sanderses, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes, the Cynthia Nixons, the Jeremy Corbyns, the Benoît Hamons, and their supporting mercenary writers, editors, and podcast hosts- for the power, fame, and money-hungry opportunists, the fraudsters, the hired tricksters, and the dividers and oppressors of common people, the pushers of abrasive and class consciousness-suppressing social liberalism and race to the bottom cosmopolitanism masked as internationalism, that they are.

To play confused, timid, and dishonest games of “entryism” and “fellow traveling” with these elements would be to do nothing more than play ball with the capitalists and wholly give up the fight. To unmask this sham and these actors, on the other hand, would be to obliterate the capitalists’ political theater in the mentioned societies and present actual democratic socialism to both the socially progressive and traditionalist elements of their the working classes. It would be to get unstoppable revolutionary momentum going in these societies and to begin to inspire disobedience and protest in societies where electoral freedoms that can democratically legitimate seizure of power were not won in the past and can only be won now if leftist opposition strong enough to convince capital to throw its hands up and go gentle into that good night can materialize.

So let us get the ball rolling. Let us move at once to discredit the equation of democratic socialism with social liberal welfare capitalism and the phony “democratic socialist” controlled opposition- in opinion articles and YouTube videos, on talk shows and livestreams, at the town halls of phony “democratic socialist” candidates, everywhere. Let us present a vision of a world with democratic economy, with socialized means of production and management of workplaces by those who labor in them, with the management and guidance of economies at large and its constituent cooperatives and unions by recallable representatives of the people through recallable legislative representatives from both the various localities and industries for the furthering of their own and their posterity’s interest, with the ownership and management of natural resources by the people at large, with direct to consumption agreements between worker cooperatives and unions, and with absolute right to personal home ownership and ownership of the necessities of life. Let us point out the fact that the welfare capitalists argue for none of this- let us draw attention to the simple reality that welfare capitalism calls for the preservation of the ancient capitalist-employee dynamic, non-employee/investor stockholding and business ownership, the “financial industry”, rent and the non-existence of a legal right to home ownership, the continuation of the global race to the bottom, and markets and money in general in their present forms. Let us highlight the fact that the programs of global cosmopolitan “race to the bottom” capitalism and environmentally-conscious working class socialist internationalism are not the same. Let us be kind to socially traditionalist people, let us reason with them and show them that democratic socialism is not social liberal welfare capitalism and that any coalition capable of defeating capitalism will need their involvement- let us show them that genuine democratic socialism is not their enemy and that less socially traditionalist working class people are their natural comrades, and let us show them that while capitalism will destroy all of the tradition they hold dear, democratic socialism can see to the survival of much of it that is truly valuable and non-problematic.

Again, the clock is ticking. We are in a state of affairs much worse than the socialists of yore could have ever imagined possible. It is not inevitable, as they insisted, that capital will be overthrown and exiled to the dustbin of history at some point- the reckless industrialization and technological advancements of recent times have made that much evident. The avaricious creeps and parasites will be able, unless they are removed from power and expropriated soon, to do whatever they wish to do with those they have lorded over. There can be a final defeat of common people. We cannot take things slowly and easily, nor can we reassure ourselves with the idea that some future generation of the working classes of the world and its intellectual vanguard will win the battle if we don’t. In this world of the intensification of the pitting of the world’s common peoples against each other and the acceleration of the new style imperialist pillaging of the poorest peoples of the world, dizzyingly rapid cultural genocide and destruction of whatever tradition is worth a single damn, anthropogenic climate change and environmental ruination and that, if allowed to play out, will make extensive organized human existence impossible for everyone but the wealthiest by the end of the century, narrow artificial intelligence development and automation that if allowed to continue to proceed will within the next couple of decades render almost all people obsolete to the capitalists and facilitate the creation of capitalist-commanded armies and law enforcement forces not kept in check by a need for the living and breathing working man and woman’s labor or the mutinous potential of those less than thoroughly sociopathic human soldiers and law enforcement personnel, there just isn’t time for anything other than rapid development of full class consciousness and organization of revolutionary democratic action.

So let us not waste another minute. So let us take this crucial first step. So let us begin to show the men and women of the global working class the actual grand scheme of things and awaken them to the fact that they can free themselves from the oppression they suffer under, save their posterity, and redeem humankind with their own hands. We have no time to lose.

-Strom McCallum

(Republished from my blog)

[anthonybialy]

Bleat the Rich

Someone who found out how to make more must be out to get you. How else could one gain without taking your wallet: selling a good idea? People liking what you do enough to pay for it would mean life rewards success, and bitter people find it easier to fume.

Rich people are our biggest enemy, as jealousy compensates for a lack of profitability. Don't invest the energy spent loathing stockholders in your own business: you'd just become another villain.

Why invent a device which makes our time on this stupid planet slightly more comfortable when there's money in throwing rocks at those who do? Resentment can be very profitable. Pouting because CEOs make way more than cashiers just because the former shape the entire company is a growth industry amongst those who aren't good at irony, either.

Hating anyone with more is much easier than doing something useful. Enmity toward thriving may not enable financial or personal growth, but you can sucker enough fellow American Reds into donating to your Senate campaign.

Rich mofos are not hurting you. Those who keep you in business by either hiring you or buying your junk are actually helping, which shocks those who treat billionaires as demons just out of field of vision who feast on your bank account. It's totally not treating yourself to drunken Amazon binges that lowers your balance to the point you need an ATM that dispenses coins.

Indifference is actually beneficial, and not just if you're part of Generation X. You don't have to be a fan of Jeff Bezos, or care at all that he exists. His magical pixie delivery service still brings anything you'd like to your door in about 12 seconds. The great thing about free markets is you get helped without the sort of planning demanded by Bernie Sanders.

Those wealthy goons have some nerve engaging in commerce. Using the results of earning assets to shop is not going to help the economy or anything. If you think corporate titans are pirates, reclaim their booty at a job interview.

There is so much harm caused by someone else acquiring stuff that it should make you angry just thinking about an open store. Get indignant in Twitter replies about anyone daring to enjoy life as unfettered commerce is occurring.

In breaking news, all humans think they're underpaid. But it's tough to back charges of unfair compensation unless they're forced to work in violation of the 13th Amendment. Workers are allowed to negotiate, which is frustrating because making a case requires effort.

The refusal to take a low salary irritates potential bosses. Yet the fortitude displayed may be worth the price. A paycheck is a precise indicator of how work is valued. That's the case because both sides think the number is wrong, not despite. Wages reached mutually show how someone else isn't stealing from you because they have more.

You can get ahead without pushing others behind. Those who see life as a zero-sum game are actually explaining their own anger pretty well, if inadvertently. Someone gaining more is hurting you, according to a sophisticated analysis of deep personal issues.

Free markets are so successful that people can bitch about them. Humans who never have to fear any serious maladies are liberated to be cranky about trifling issues. We had to constantly fear plague and being eaten by cranky boars not too long ago in our history. Now, someone who decided to change genders being addressed using a name given by parents is a human rights abuse. Capitalism is a villain to those enabled to loaf through life because of it.

Note just can't conceive of using ingenuity to generate more. Cleverness would have to exist first, and it's hard to put oneself into the mind of someone trying to help others.

Being compensated for making life easier is icky. Who wants a buck from providing a service others need? Don't be exploitative: make rent by complaining those providing services are parasites. Vox must be hiring, as they profit by hating profiting.

Life is about thieving what you can, according to those who think everyone else also mugs. Relying on the benevolence of those with fortunes to finance class warfare maneuvers is amusing to everyone watching the purported battle. Take off your mask so your mom can recognize her dearest when she comes to pick you up from commie LARPing.

Limited thinkers claim there’s only a limited amount of money in the world. The unwillingness to accept wealth can be created is religious doctrine for those who are very informed about how commerce and life each work. Trust their climate science. People who never consider adding value reveal something about the world, namely the limited solipsistic part where they reside. Envy doesn't enrich as it expands.

[alarajrogers]

If "eat the rich" is defined as "tax the rich fairly", then absolutely it applies to Taylor Swift and Beyonce, but if it's being conceived of as some more radical and violent concept, then that's wrong.

Wealthy people who become wealthy because they produced something of great value that everyone wants to buy, without exploitation of employees, are not immoral. For musicians, a lot of their financial worth comes from the hard work of touring, writing and performing music, fighting with music industry giant corporations to get their fair share, etc. If part of it comes from unethical practices like having merch created in low-paid, dangerous sweatshops, that part of it should be regulated out of existence, but there's nothing inherently wrong with having merch created and selling it -- the problem comes about if people are being exploited to create it.

Big companies like Amazon give wealth to their founders and stockholders by extracting it from employees via unpaid overtime, wage theft, artificially suppressed wages and bad working conditions. This is unethical and when we talk about eating the rich, this is the kind of thing we're talking about -- making tons of unearned money off the backs of people being mistreated.

Performers, such as Taylor Swift and Beyonce, are essentially laborers. They personally create a product, and labor to make it, and then it's very popular and everyone wants to buy it, so they make a lot of money. They are not hiring low-paid stunt doubles to do the hard work of touring, they're out there on stage themselves. The travel schedule for a musician on tour is backbreaking; even if you're not doing any physical labor (that is what the roadies are hired to do), constant travel itself is incredibly wearying and being on a stage, singing or playing music, for three hours, under hot lights, is work. Is it hard work in comparison to someone who works for Amazon packing boxes, or in retail at Wal-Mart? No, probably not, and they get a ton of intangible benefits in exchange as well (fame, people loving them, the satisfaction of seeing their artistic work out in the world being enjoyed by people), but that doesn't make it not work.

The entire concept behind "eat the rich" is that the rich are parasites who do not work, but just profit off other people's work. Imagine a world where, all of a sudden, money is worthless and we're on a barter system. Taylor Swift and Beyonce wouldn't be making money off merchandise or music sales, but people would still bring them barter goods to see them perform. Most of the wealthy have nothing but capital; their entire value to the capitalist system is that they have money to spend on buying other people's labor. Sure, Taylor Swift and Beyonce have roadies and makeup artists and backup singers and musicians and many other employees, and if they exploit those people, they should be made to stop doing that, but given that we're talking about two extremely famous women and one of them is black, I think the media would have had a field day if they were accused of underpaying their roadies. And, either way, they are producing value, not just buying and selling it.

Now if you are making the argument "rich people should be taxed fairly and in proportion to the value they are getting out of society", obviously, that should be true for Beyonce and Taylor Swift as well. But if you're making some kind of argument that rich people are inherently immoral simply because they're rich... that's the kind of argument that got educated people massacred in Cambodia during the reign of Pol Pot. That's the kind of thing where people think a doctor making $250,000 a year for being a highly skilled surgeon is the same as Jeff Bezos. You don't want to go in that direction. Eyes on the prize -- money made via personal labor, or royalties from what you personally created, is legitimate. Money made from buying and selling other people's labor, not so much.

(Full disclosure: I think I have managed to avoid ever in my life hearing a song by Taylor Swift, and if I have, I didn't know she was the performer. Beyonce, I've heard once or twice. I am not fans of either of them. I am not following any famous-person-drama about either of them, and I have no idea how they treat their roadies. I am absolutely not making this argument from the perspective of a fan trying to defend the objects of fannish love.)

A better example here would be George Soros. The left loves George Soros because he uses his money to try to push for initiatives we believe in, but the truth is, his money was gained unethically and he knows it, because it's almost impossible to be that rich without exploiting people. "Eat the rich" applies to George Soros as well as any other billionnaire investor or CEO.

"But what about Taylor Swift and Beyonce? How can you constantly say 'eat the rich' and worship them?"

Who ever said we worshipped Taylor Swift and Beyonce? Eat the rich includes them.

Unlike you Trump supporters, we don't treat celebrities who support our beliefs like gods.

[rederiswrites]

I submitted this post for peer review (the spouse), and he mostly agrees, but took exception to the suggestion that they'd be hiring people under you (since he's been trying to get his company to let him fill multiple open positions for over a year, I probably should've known better). He adds that usually it means that they're going to buy another company, and then "merge" the companies, which often means that any overlapping departments (say, HR or IT) get "streamlined" and restructured, and half of those people get laid off. As few people as possible get hired, none of the employees see "growth", and all of it goes to the stockholders.

Stockholders are parasites. They kill companies, but they kill the workers first.

If a company you're interviewing with ever tries to get you excited because they're expecting to grow radically over the next few years, don't buy it. Sure, the rhetoric is that all that growth will lead to opportunities for you to advance. But mostly they'll just be hiring more people under you without you moving up at all. The growth isn't for the workers. It's for the shareholders. It's cancer, to pay the shareholders, and more than likely it will result in a cycle of crap raises and shittier benefits (to help create all that increased profit) and finally a crash and layoffs. Rapid growth is in most cases a warning sign of bad practices, in all cases dangerous.