George Floyd

[Leo]

there's no one answer to that question, depends on the company. some true believer employees will never be satisfied, others feel they've accomplished something by pushing management to some sort of action. there have certainly been clashes and walkouts at some companies, mostly at big tech places with lots of young woke folk like google.

 

[vimothy]

I mean that maybe the more zealous young ppl are pushing capital (however insincerely) to become more woke, and it is pushing everyone else

 

[sus]

blue collar types are all voting red, so it's a wash anyway!

 

[constant escape]

I mean that maybe the more zealous young ppl are pushing capital (however insincerely) to become more woke, and it is pushing everyone else

Then the question is, will woke capitalism actually make these lives matter?

One could make a case either way, as far as I can tell.

 

[Leo]

I mean that maybe the more zealous young ppl are pushing capital (however insincerely) to become more woke, and it is pushing everyone else

there's no way to tell, really. I guess it's conceivable but in reality, Apple wants to sell iPhones and they don't care if their customers are woke folk or racists. Apple's marketing may appeal to woke folk but capitalism chases the almighty dollar wherever it may come from. Some companies say they care about social issues, but at the end of the day they don't really care who buys their product, or have very little control of who buys, and neither do their employees.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Woke capitalism, I'm increasingly sure, is actually the main enemy. Under normal circumstances, when people are sick of getting fucked over by their employers and landlords, they move towards the left, but we're in a situation now where the populist right (and the far right) has found its perfect foil in the form of superficially right-on corporations that the struggling masses resent not only for screwing them economically, but affecting a pose of pious moral superiority while they're doing it. And it's then easy for the right to identify "the left" with corporations.

Life would be so much easier for progressives if capitalists were still cigar-chomping, top-hatted, old, fat, white fucks who kick orphans in the face for fun, instead of skinny, vegan, micro-dosing fucks who practice yoga and mindfulness and send out the odd tweet in support of BLM.

 

[vimothy]

"the revolt of the elites"

 

[Leo]

has a consumer boycott of a company's products ever had any impact, beyond a possible dip in stock price for a few days? there are probably a few examples but I'm guessing most of the negative impact is minuscule, and temporary.

 

[Leo]

it's not like woke Brooklyn is gonna cancel all their MyPillow orders.

 

[sus]

yes, Luka above said something like, "you're either on the side of labor or you're not." may be the case in UK, but in US, it's more like an elites+underclass coalition against labour. and labour, which is financially self-sufficient and takes pride in this self-sufficiency, has its suspicions that the elites are essentially buying votes via underclass welfare. it's an odd situation.

 

[sus]

e.g. the opiate crisis in middle america now has claimed more lives than the AIDS crisis at peak. and yet, despite HIV being basically cured (vaccines, preventative medications, etc), coastal folks have constructed a hagiography over those years of suffering, while completely ignoring the opioid crisis. loads of nonprofits who raise millions a year for HIV and don't give two shits about middle america; that's why they left to the cities in the first place

which, whatever, but the coastal elites aren't close to on the same side as working class; they're on the side of the underclass, there's a difference. probably partly proximity (cityfolks see city suffering) but still

 

[Leo]

nonprofits have their specific causes, though. can't expect an HIV-focused nonprofit to go outside that purview, and plenty of conservative nonprofits based away from the coasts could devote themselves to opiod addiction. it's not strictly a coastal elites problem.

agree with your last sentence, though.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Fair is foul and foul is fair.

 

[Mr. Tea]

has a consumer boycott of a company's products ever had any impact, beyond a possible dip in stock price for a few days?

"New Coke" in the 1980s. Although a lot of people think that that was a deliberately unpopular product intended to revive appreciation for the original formula (which it did).

Wake Up Sheeple!!!!!!

 

[Mr. Tea]

yes, Luka above said something like, "you're either on the side of labor or you're not."

The thing you have to understand about luka is that while he affects this "I'm not interested in politics, me" pose, he's the most intensely political regular member here, while also being the least politically engaged (never votes but considers Jeremy Corbyn a saint, etc.). He views working-class voters in the north of England (many of whom voted Tory in our general election last year, leading to Labour's worst result since 1935) as Corbyn's natural constituents, which they are not, by any means whatsoever, since Corbyn's core support base has always been almost entirely middle-class and very much concentrated in London and the southern university towns.

In fact, we've seen a bizarre inversion here in recent years, whereby Labour is primarily a party for students and middle-class professionals (and, interestingly, that's true whether you look at the more radical, pro-Corbyn end of the party, or the more centrist part of it), while working-class voters were not only more likely to vote Conservative than Labour, but were more likely to vote Conservative than middle-class voters were.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Sorry, this all very off-topic and should probably be in another thread.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

what's the experience of woke politics like in america?

same as England, it's not uniform but depends on your context. changes in my day-to-day have been minimal.

I work at a relatively small business with an almost uniformly progressive cultural milieu, including the owners

not to say it is perfect, but we've been on-board with this stuff for years, so no need for a kneejerk reaction

and personally I've been more or less entirely on-board my entire adult life, even if we didn't have all the terms for everything when I was younger

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I think depends how you view it as well - to me this is totally unsurprising, an inevitable reckoning

you simply cannot reconcile "all men are created equal" with the reality of American race relations at any point in American history

which isn't to say it's taken an ideal course. it's like the flashpoint over Confederate etc statues writ large.

if the forces of reaction had been willing to compromise earlier they probably could have saved much that will instead be overthrown

of course there is no singular "forces of reaction", but speaking generally about mood

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the major news today is that NBA (and WNBA) players struck to protest the Jacob Blake shooting

NBA players came within a hair of ending the playoffs altogether, which is wild

obviously not important compared to shootings and a pandemic, but still basically unimaginable pre-George Floyd

the kind of thing that people had been talking about for years but never actually envisioned

for exactly the reasons the players ultimately decided to come back after 2 days instead of ending the playoffs

i.e. financial implications for the players and league itself

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

in US, it's more like an elites+underclass coalition against labour

the Democratic Party and mainstream left in general abandoning working-class people and issues is a drum I'm always banging

really accelerated beginning in the 90s with neoliberalism as discussed upthread but it's not a new thing either

i.e. "limousine liberals", the fight over forced busing in the 70s, the "silent majority" of the 60s, etc