I spent the weekend thinking about various and sundry warehouse fires. And Luigi Mangione. And universal healthcare. And "all you had to do was pay us enough to live."
The Epstein class does not understand how reasonable our terms are.
The vast majority of people agitating for change aren't asking for a fundamental shift in the US's social, economic, policy, or monetary systems. They're not calling to abolish private property or guillotine the billionaires. They are, largely, not calling for an end to the hegemony of the US petrodollar. In fact, most agitators' demands boil down to two incredibly tame, milquetoast, reasonable things:
1. Pay us enough to live.
2. When we buy something, give us what we pay for. Stop scamming us.
That's it. Those are the two demands that have gone unheeded for nearly sixty years now. So of course we're getting more desperate to have them heard. But even when people are out here setting their employers' warehouse on fire or shooting healthcare CEOs, these are the demands.
1. All you had to do was pay us enough to live.
2. When we buy health insurance, give us the healthcare we paid for.
THAT'S IT.
Yet the response to these demands - however framed - is never to acknowledge their reasonableness. In fact, it's the opposite. In response to questions about affordable healthcare, Nancy Pelosi famously shrugged and said it wouldn't happen because capitalism. As warehouses get set on fire, the people desperate enough to do it get painted as unhinged radicals with demands so crazy they're not worth considering by rational human beings.
Most people don't WANT to overturn the entire system. Most people just want a day's labor to be enough to sustain them in a decent life - one where they can afford shelter, healthcare, food, transportation, and retirement all at the same time. Maybe a little vacation or two every now and then.
THAT'S. IT.
Most people WANT to work for their living. What they don't want is to work but get no living for it.
Instead they're told, over and over, that they can't have that. That they're insane, dangerous radicals who hate their country, just for asking. No, you can't earn your own survival with your labor, that's crazy. No, you can't not get scammed, what are you, un-American?
This is how you make radicals. Lump in the tame, reasonable demands with the much broader-ranging ones. Paint "I think I should get what I pay for" and "overthrow the hegemony of the US petrodollar" as equally bad to say, with equally dangerous consequences for social well-being and equally difficult roads to achievement. Eventually, all those people who weren't radical and never wanted to be radical start using radical tactics - because, well, you TOLD them they were radicals. You TOLD them that their plans would require heavy-duty radical action to complete.
How many warehouses and CEOs does the Epstein class have? They're going to need a lot of them if they keep this up.
The terms they're being offered are reasonable. They'd be wise to take them while they can.
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