a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2443 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Bl00sreviews #12: "White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America" by Nancy Isenberg

Thank you. You were right, I did enjoy the review.

    And this book, more than any I have read, point out what a neoVictorian shithole we've created for our poor, how fucking little we ever do about it, and how our entire social structure makes the poor and uneducated the only group in America that we can all make fun of, that we can all slag on, that we can all blame for our plight without ever once going

I'm not too sure how to segue from that quote to this one, but I've had it rattling around my head for the past few days. From Eugene V. Deb's Canton Ohio speech:

    You cannot do your duty by proxy. You have got to do it yourself and do it squarely and then as you look yourself in the face you will have no occasion to blush. You will know what it is to be a real man or woman. You will lose nothing; you will gain everything. Not only will you lose nothing but you will find something of infinite value, and that something will be yourself. And that is your supreme need—to find yourself—to really know yourself and your purpose in life.

    You need at this time especially to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder. You need to know that you were not created to work and produce and impoverish yourself to enrich an idle exploiter. You need to know that you have a mind to improve, a soul to develop, and a manhood to sustain.

    You need to know that it is your duty to rise above the animal plane of existence. You need to know that it is for you to know something about literature and science and art. You need to know that you are verging on the edge of a great new world. You need to get in touch with your comrades and fellow workers and to become conscious of your interests, your powers and your possibilities as a class. You need to know that you belong to the great majority of mankind. You need to know that as long as you are ignorant, as long as you are indifferent, as long as you are apathetic, unorganized and content, you will remain exactly where you are. You will be exploited; you will be degraded, and you will have to beg for a job. You will get just enough for your slavish toil to keep you in working order, and you will be looked down upon with scorn and contempt by the very parasites that live and luxuriate out of your sweat and unpaid labor.

Here we are, a hundred years later.

I feel I should have something more to say since you were kind enough to review this.

But fuck I'm tired tonight.





kleinbl00  ·  2443 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's a great quote.

Thanks for asking me to review it. I found I had something to say after, and as I sat down to write it it wasn't what I expected.