more small steps forward: https://www.ttbook.org/interview/how-socialism-won-seattle

Love this especially "Asserting oneself as a woman or as a person of color or as a member of the LGBT community or as an immigrant is extremely important, especially given the absolutely horrendous attacks by Trump and the right wing and the Republican Party. That is actually playing a role in energizing and activating women and other people of other communities that face specific oppressions.

I think what you will see in the next year is people of all identities running on platforms that unite working people."

#latestagecapitalism But the economic exploitation of prisoners doesn’t end when they’re released. In 49 states, inmates are charged for the costs of their own incarceration.

The way this works varies. In some states, formerly incarcerated people are sent bills, and in others they are charged fines (sometimes called legal financial obligations, or LFOs). Some states collect the cost of incarcerating someone through windfall statutes, grabbing any inheritances, lottery winnings or proceeds from litigation. (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-prison-strike-labor-criminal-justice_us_5b9bf1a1e4b013b0977a7d74)

The best among the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so … Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. - Oscar Wilde

What was the real difference between Europe and America, at a macroeconomic level? Europeans were reinvesting their own surplus in each other — that is all that “socialism” really is. Americans were handing their surplus over to capitalists — and hoping capitalists would reinvest it in them. After all, that is what their economists and intellectuals said would, could, should, must happen. But why would capitalists ever invest in people — instead of skimming off the cream? They are not in it to be nice to people, after all — their motives are not benevolence, social development, justice, or even a sense of decency. Capitalism’s goal is simply maximizing profit — and so those surpluses weren’t reinvested in people, they were handed over to owners and heads of companies, mostly, in the form of spectacular payouts and IPOs and parachutes. For what work, precisely? Figuring out ways to maximize profit, relentlessly, every single month — at any cost to anyone else, not to anyone’s benefit. Hence, capitalists got mega-rich, while the average American’s life began to decline into misery. https://eand.co/how-capitalism-made-americans-poor-and-socialism-made-europeans-rich-6eb7b52353a