• poor leftists talk about poverty, labor aristocrats get uncomfortable and insist that sociological classes aren’t materialist. “all that matters is that we’re working class - we’re all in this together”

  • black leftists talk about racism, whites get uncomfortable and insist that they’re not personally part of the problem. “we mustn’t allow the bourgeois to divide the proletariat along racial lines - we’re all in this together”

  • female leftists talk about patriarchy, men get uncomfortable and insist that it hurts them too. “this men vs women stuff is reductive anyway - we’re all in this together”

  • third world leftists talk about imperialism, americoids get uncomfortable and insist that red white and blue lives matter too. “what happened to the international working class - we’re all in this together”

you don’t have to invite yourself to every form and experience of oppression. anyone with a baby’s consciousness of intersectionality ought to be capable of admitting when they have privilege

          • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            To summarize, it was at the ideological front of the idea of the public mental hospital system being a bad thing (and yes in many ways it was) but that lead to the Reagan-era abolishment of pretty much the entire thing which drove so many people out of that system that many of them became permanently homeless and untreated of numerous mental illnesses… lingering on the streets for decades, some to the present day if they haven’t died already.

            • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              I had always taken the lyrics to be about a loss of innocence that comes with working in the California entertainment industry. It’s all glamorous from the outside but within the residents have become deranged and exploitative.

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                “You can check out any time you like but you can never leave… until you can, then you can never check back in. Tough shit. Have fun being homeless.” freedom-and-democracy

            • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Wtf I didn’t interpret it that way at all lmao, I thought it was a funny joke about California having nice weather or something which made you not want to leave

              I’m too innocent

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                I still love the song but the lyrics were directly about being “tricked” into a public mental health institution, the kind that ceased to exist for the most part after Reagan’s “reforms.”

                • ped_xing [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  That seems like a stretch. I highly doubt public mental health facilities have ever been synonymous with intoxicating opulence.

                  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    I highly doubt public mental health facilities have ever been synonymous with intoxicating opulence.

                    They weren’t, but they still existed for those in dire need of a place to stay and access to medication.

                    They don’t have to be “opulent” to be that and closing pretty much all of them left every single person kicked out of them on the street, many of them permanently. That’s a little worse than “not opulent.”