dontfeartheringo wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:26 am
I think meth is a symptom of the problem, as are opiates.
You have a tremendous decoupling of work from wages that's been accelerating since the early '80s. You hear the phrase all the time "productivity is up" and "Americans have the highest productivity in the world." But what does that word mean, "productivity"?
It's the gap between what your employer pays you and how much he makes off of your labor. So, when you use different words, it paints a less rosy picture:
"Surplus value stolen from working people is up" and "Americans have the highest surplus value stolen from working people in the world."
How has this theft been possible? From loads and loads and LOADS of propaganda. American "prosperity" is balanced on a knifepoint. There is a relationship between minimum quality of life for The Majority and "The point at which people riot in the streets." People are falling through the cracks all over Appalachia and the Rust Belt, in the parts of California outside of SF Metro, and the rural Midwest. The thing is, so many people are just mollified enough that they don't get enraged until they get cancer and their health insurance turns out to be useless. Now you can't riot, you've got cancer.
Failing appeasement through bread and circuses, the propaganda machine gets turned up.
The American economy has gone through at least three massive resets in my lifetime and since 1999, I've watched one overheated stimulation of the economy after another boom and then bust. The "internet boom," the cheap credit boom and bust, the housing market boom and bust. We're running out of things to overheat to keep the standard of living on the right side of the "riots in the streets" point, so by necessity, the propaganda machine has been running at 118db, 24/7.
People like the owner of Breitbart (Robert Mercer, back taxes owed: $7 billion, as of 2017) and Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiele, etc, know that if people figure out that their surplus value that is being stolen are flowing UPWARDS, then billionaire meat will be on the menu. Redirecting their rage at "illegal" "immigrants", black and brown people, and trans people turn folks who are already falling off the table into a convenient pinata.
Americans may be the most propagandized people in the history of the modern world. What's that internet quote that is going around? "Under capitalism, it's normal to let children go hungry, let banks force people out of their homes, let sick people die for lack of access to healthcare. But the idea that billionaires could just I be less rich - not poor, not struggling, just less rich, is considered insane."
Naturally, some True Believers are going to swallow more of the bullshit than others, and if they're on the sharper side of the knife point, they're going to be more aggressive about it, since Fear=Anger.
So, here we are. Blaming meth for right wing agita is like blaming cocaine for disco. Correlation is not causation, but the correlation is strong.
Also, the Proud Boys is a massive cocaine distribution operation, and you can't convince otherwise. I mean, look at those dudes. Fucking blow weasels.