The time for class consciousness is now
In light of r/wallstreetbets going ham on GME, and the Robinhood App manipulating the market by hiding certain stocks, only 1 thing is certain:
Please see recent update at bottom. Apparently we can't ever have nice things.
Recently, a bunch of apolitical nerds playing with stocks realized the wealthy class are not their friends. All it took to make that clear was citizens doing what hedge fund managers do, and making money from it.
In times where the games of the wealthy are unmasked, they mobilize to protect their wealth by any means. Media, narratives, lobbying, shutting down access to trading—you name it, they're doing it.
This is a blatant act of squashing the very free market the right often espouses. My hope is that this will wake the right up to being played by the wealthy.
If their miasma can be dispelled by events like this, we can truly mobilize.
Many on the left may not want "unity" with the right, which is fair, especially considering recent events. However, what the left should keep in mind is that class warfare has "war" in the phrase.
War is long-term, complicated, and multifaceted.
In order to wrestle power into the hands of the people, we need widespread class consciousness.
Bipartisanship—and ignorance—must be dissolved for that to happen.
Woah, woah, woah, back up. What is class consciousness?
And why is it important?
Class Consciousness is realizing that social classes exist, and there's disenfranchisement based on various factors, in order to seat some people in power over others.
Take a momentary glance at America's actual history.
Think about what economic and social mechanisms lead to America's founding, and where our earliest wealth came from. Our forefathers took this land by force. Then, they used slave labor to enrich themselves.
That's a basic history lesson.
To admit whiteness (and maleness) is interlocked with the wealthy class isn't to say all white guys are racist shitlords.
That's something you absolutely need to decouple from: it's not about you.
It's about what's above you. It may look like you, but it isn't.
It's a parasite on your fucking neck, gesturing at Othered People, to deflect from the fact it's sucking up all your fucking blood.
It's in the wealthy class's interests to keep racism alive, because that keeps power protected. If we fight each other, they win the war. It's really just that simple.
The wealthy class is parasitic:
The many benefit the wealthy few. Those wealthy few will use any means necessary to suck up more resources than they could possibly digest.
They'll spread hate, to create fear, to secure victory. They'll spin ignorance and spread lies until it's impossible to parse conspiracy from reality.
They'll propagandize an apolitical group's actions, hoping ignorance does the rest of the work for them.
This is class consciousness: it's recognizing there are elites who weaponize us against each other (using racism, sexism, ignorance, fear, media, hatred, anything), and then there's everybody else.
The GameStop Fiasco tore the veneer off the machine
If you care at all about yourself, you'll open your fucking eyes
r/wallstreetbets fucked with hedge funds managers. They inflated GamesStop's stocks to make bank, playing the game of hedge funds, amplified by thousands of weaponized nerds.
The results were unsurprising to me as a marketer who distrusts media, because I know exactly what it is: clickbait warfare.
Media immediately exploded, conflating r/wallstreetbets users with white supremacists, to the point of WSB Mods having to clear up the propaganda.
Not only that, but Discord shut down r/wallstreetbets' chatroom due to nebulous claims, which I'm unsure of the efficacy, but I know a play by power to protect power when I see one. Thankfully, it's back up.
But the message of war is clear as crystal.
Furthermore, the most lauded app used by r/wallstreetbets users—Robinhood—nixed the searching and buying of $NOK, $GME, $AMC stocks, and more. Stocks that r/wallstreetbets users were giddy about.
Thankfully this is back up in a limited capacity, but the play was obvious.
Robinhood is in bed with Citron, so again, not surprising.
All of this is the rich freaking out that a bunch of apolitical nerds played their game and got money. So the rules changed, and media did its thing.
Peasants staying fearful, impoverished, ignorant, hateful of each other, financially illiterate, and powerless, keeps the wealthy class protected.
Sadly, many Americans are still asleep to this. When we have Others to fight, we never target the wealthy class, ever.
That's a mechanism of war.
The time for bipartisan bullshit is over
The time for self-awareness, and the dismantling of unjust systems, is now
Achieving class consciousness will not be easy.
It's going to require the right to deeply examine themselves, their ideas, and where they get their information from. It will no doubt lead to an ego death, but the right has to be willing to do this, in order to fight the real enemy.
It's also going to require the left to understand that while accountability must happen, accountability without understanding why one is being held accountable, does not lead to long-term positive results.
I am not asking the left to engage in complicity and drop accountability. Do not misunderstand me.
What I am asking is for people to wake up.
If we do not all wake up, we will be stuck fighting each other (by design), until only the wealthy class survives to rule a nation of dust.
The time for class consciousness is exactly right now.
I am not asking for the disenfranchised to coddle to those who've hurt you. All I ask is you let me try to snap them out of their miasma.If they truly cannot be reached, know me enough to know I'll always make the right choice. I want to try.
Important Update 2/5/2021:
Because I wrote this article last week and only just posted it now...I apparently missed some news. Sadly, because of this news, this article (and the spirit of it) are now moot.
Unless Reddit leadership does something about it.
What news, you might ask?
Well, r/wallstreetbets has been co-opted by old admin, who smelled the money and came back to dethrone the current mod-team to monetize the subreddit. The users are crying out for help.
Let this be a lesson that bad actors will literally do anything to get into the ruling wealthy class, even eat their own. Yet again, greed ruins literally everything.
It's crapitalism in action, in real time, doing what it does.
I hope the humans-with-souls of r/wallstreetbets can make it out of this shituation, but I'm not holding my breath.
I hate it here.
K. Leigh is an ex-freelancer, full-time author, and weirdo artist. Read their lgbt+ sci-fi books, connect on Twitter, visit their site, or send them an email if you’d like to work together. 🌈 🏳️⚧️
