Some of this discussion is somewhat reminiscent of focusing on the Dow Jones, because of all the ordinary people's 401(k)s. We need to be sure that Prince gets all his royalties because my favorite local band might then make lots of money on CDs. To insure that, we grant corporations control over public discourse for several generations? There are more issues than hypocritical lefty jerks arguing that you ought to do free work for them.
________________________________ From: shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Sat, July 10, 2010 2:38:06 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] why Prince is right
At 01:36 PM 7/10/2010, Jordan Hayes wrote:
> Doug writes:
>
>> If I copy it and give it to you, my copy isn't lessened
>> in any way.
>
> Kind of like how when I take you to a museum to see a painting, the painting
>isn't lessened in any way?
>
> Don't forget that "copying" is just an artifact; really what we're talking
>about here is *listening* to music, or *reading* some writing. If I photocopy
>your book and put it on my shelf and never read it, I'm "just" a dumbass for
>wasting my time, toner, and paper ... but it's when I actually read it that
>you're upset, right?
No, I think he's upset, as am I, when someone like Wojtek goes all apeshit for free software, not because he gives a rat's ass about socialism, but because what he really cares about, right here and now, is saving money! The mentality is the same mentality of the petty bourgeois clients I had who wanted to earn their $100/hr so they could maximize every penny of their earnings by paying me $10/hr - if that! It's the mentality of a certain lefty who wanted me to change his blog design to make it better for advertising revenue and wanting it done for real cheap - who would have preferred it for free! - so he could maximize every cent he might earn eventually. Somehow, that blog should earn him money but the process of earning that money - the labor needed to create the platform to do so -- was worthless to him. *His* labor, the labor of writing the blog, to him *that* was precious and deserved the advertising revenue? Mine? Was worth shit.
This has nothing to do with his ethical being. It has to do with the structural imperatives of capitalism - the world we live in. He is that way, not because he is morally weak, in other words.
This is the same petty bourg attitude of my clients, held by a lefty. And it's the same mentality held by managers in my company. By the people with whom I work, also software developers, who goo and gah over free shit all the time, who never once stop to wonder, who's paying the people making that free software they love. Dwayne thinks these people are a minority: horse shit. It is at the heart of capitalism: how can i sit around and make money by getting OTHER people to do as much work as possible for as little as possible. the capitalist tries to maximize profits, the petty bourg by trying to conserve his costs by paying other petty bourgs as little as possible. Now, you'd think a small business owner, who relies on other people to pay their bills to him, who suffers when they don't bc/ he can't pay his bills, etc. would learn a lesson from this. Dayum, if I want people to pay me well and on time, then I should do the same for others. But she can't think like this, which is what Marx wrote about: this is the driving drumbeat of capitalism. It makes us ALL think like that, it forces us to "march, march, march" to that beat.
I'm not saying that people should be better people and stop doing that. I'm saying that the idea that you are overcoming the "march, march, march" beat to which capitalism is always playing with all this nonsense about how free is paving the path to our socialist future, you are out of your motherfuckin' mind!
>> Fuck you, pay me - I like that.
>
> I think the lines before that, uh, summary are a little more illuminating ...
it's from the coup, not that movie. the point is: we live in a dirty fucking world, in the here and godamned now.here's the article I read when I first learned of the new album from The Coup, and it's tentative title at the time.
""My political view is not that things are fucked up because you're not doing the right thing," he explains. "Things are fucked up because there is this evil ruling class doing this stuff to us -- so let's go get 'em." "
IOW, the answer isn't to say that your lifestyle choices (freeganism or whatever shit) is going to change the world, but to go after the real fucking enemy.
Which may be why the album title was changed to "Pick a Bigger Weapon."
This business about how "free" software and free music and stuff is going to change society is a lot of crap because you're picking a dinkyass weapon. Pick a bigger one.
furthermore, and this is not riley's meaning, but mine: i'm not going to be the chump any more for lefties. As an example, recently this guy wanted me to create stuff for a lefty cause. I had no problem with that. That's why I got in touch with them. I had no problem paying for the domain and hosting, myself. it was the point of being involved in the group. But! Then, he proceeded to treat me far worse than any godamned project manager or manager has ever treated me when I'm working for cash money. He treated everyone donating their labor to this cause that way. He (and others, this wasn't isolated individual case) had deadlines in their head and tried to simply impose them on people who were freaking giving up their time. I finally said to him, "Dude, my own boss knows that he has to find out from me and my fellow laborers how much time we think it'll take. We get a say in how long the project should take. You didn't even ask us! You just said, "It's due in 2 weeks. WTF is wrong with you?"
I forget what Riley said to Bill Maher, when he was on politically incorrect years ago, but Mahar tried to tell Riley that he couldn't be a communist because he sold records and made money. Basically, Riley blew him off. If he could have, he probably would have said, "Fuck you, pay me."
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