Bain capital is also the one that purposefully ruined Toys R Us to enrich their executives. They just hate kids I guess! https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/09/debt-strike-employee-owned-businesses-and-other-surprisingly-simple-tech-fixes

Contrary to the popular narrative, the company did not go under because of online retail or more savvy competitors. It went under because Bain Capital, the private equity firm started by Mitt Romney, ran it into the ground, using its credit to pay Bain executives huge bonuses while not investing in competing with other retailers. (It’s a slightly more sophisticated version of the way organized crime “busts out” businesses.) Bain did the same thing with KB Toys;

I’m not so sure it would shake out that way. The government has consistently signaled that it will abandon local regions to their fate when times get rough. On the other hand, the Fed has said pretty much explicitly that they will be printing unlimited money for banks, hedge funds, major institutions and large corporations for the foreseeable future, inflation be damned. Instead of “collapsing in on itself” I see regions competing for attention and resources. So political fights turn into fights for survival. Not everywhere in the United States will feel the pain equally.

What’s really odd to me though, is that people seem intent on moving into and staying in areas that anybody with a brain can see are going to be experiencing huge challenges in the future (Phoenix , AZ and about 90% of Florida being the obvious examples). Arizona has been locked into battle with Colorado and most of the rest of the southwest for several decades over the water issue. There’s no shortage of blame to go around, so the natural tendency of Americans to find an enemy has been well-exercised.

“We have a stunted pop culture malaise that hasn’t changed much for decades of recycled nostalgia that keeps coming back again and again”

This is called Lost Future, where capitalism keeps selling us things we remember from the past, because all of the creative energy has burned out and been taken over by venture capital. Mark Fisher had a great essay on the topic (although he was more concerned about the UK music scene, his analysis applies to pop culture in general).

Here’s a great video about Hauntology and Lost Futures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSvUqhZcbVg

In this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9BW5u621xc (the day that r/chapotraphouse and r/cumtown got banned) they had Adam Friedland on the show to discuss Entourage and make fun of everybody on both subreddits.

This is the only place on the internet (and in real life for that matter) that I feel comfortable and confident addressing others as “comrade”.

It’s called Consuming Capital, also known as stripping the wires for copper, or eating your seed corn. Once the capitalist runs out of “conventional” means to make a profit, they crank up the exploitation dial until they are exploiting themselves. The last two people on earth will be a pair of capitalists trading a lump of coal between themselves.

“Torching the forest to use the ash as currency is a funny thing to base your entire economic system on…”

I found listening to Matt on Twitch and YouTube really helped. He had a bit of a “Satori Moment” that helped him piece together a bunch of things, and he’s sharing it now on his livestreams. He’s basically invented a kind of Transcendental Marxism, really cool stuff that puts the current moment into perspective. It has helped with the closing-in feeling that you are watching things break down even while the people in charge (who we elected to fix these problems!) are merely twiddling their thumbs because this is the best Western democracy has come up with.

The thing about alcohol that scares me is that it works. I feel better, I smile more, I sleep more soundly, I get along with others better, and there are so many delicious and interesting drinks to sample. The local liquor store was considered an essential business, and a bylaw was passed to exclude it from the (otherwise aggressive and restrictive) lockdown measures implemented here. I have not had alcohol in the house since Christmas, and while I am clear-headed and calm now, I have had many panicky and dark moments in the last few months where a soothing scotch would have made me feel much better.

The feeling of losing your mind, of powerlessness, is a side effect of the aggressive, exploitative remorseless machine called capitalism. In a society of communities, we related to other people, shared our fears and concerns with them, and could work together to build a better world. But alone in our apartments, as sentient input-output devices (or sensory response units) we are becoming absorbed into this computer-like monster.

I venture outside every four days to get food, but otherwise I am inside. I am lucky enough to be able to work from home, but also basically chained to my computer. It is my only source of human relation, entertainment, education, income and wish fulfillment. That is no way to live. The worst part is knowing that there is a better way. Humans do not have to be in competition with one another. Humans do not have to exploit one another to get the resources needed to live a meaningful life. We are cursed with the knowledge of that world, and of the knowledge that things are likely to get much worse before they get better. Even typing at a computer in a city that has not yet succumbed to climate change is a privilege.

The biggest thing I’ve learned is that we probably need to widen our perspective more than we are comfortable. We will be attacked. We will be left behind. But as long as we are sentient, and can send out sparks in the darkness, future generations will have a chance. “Society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they will never sit.” That in itself is depressing, but it is depressing because we won’t get to enjoy it. Hanging on to “enjoyment” as our goal will have us exhausted on the hedonic treadmill. The solution is having a grander vision, and being content with the existence of a few other people who still believe great things are possible.

Convert me. I got into anarchism because I wanted a critique of power structures that was more broad than something that only focused on work and government. Principles I learned from reading anarchist literature taught me to be suspect of all power structures, authorities and hierarchies, even those that may be beneficial like you might find in communism. But with that said, left unity, etc. I’d still be proud to call you a comrade.

And not even post a link to the clip? Everyone needs to hear the man himself: https://soundcloud.com/distantdreamz/were-in-fuckin-1320-motherfucker

“hand yourself in”? So their protest slogan is a pun? A PUN? A pun about submitting to authority, dick-in-hand, instead of challenging it meaningfully. Great.