Thirty Shekels
My friends and family on the right side of the aisle, people I’ve dated, people I’ve loved, have been accusing the Left of waging class warfare. When I advocate for punching Nazis, when I suggest we Eat the Rich, I’m told my language is inflammatory and offensive. I should be gentle. I should be kind. I’m a Christian. I should love my neighbor, even the neighbors who live in gated communities and drive SUVs and send their children to private schools. After all, don’t I enjoy my soft suburban lifestyle? Don’t I appreciate the top-notch education I got at an affluent public school, in violation of the Ohio Constitution and judicial orders? Am I not glad to be the educated, empowered, effective member of mainstream society that I am? Am I not, in fact, a bit of a princess?
Yes. I am glad for these things. But being glad that I received a fantastic public education, largely against my will, makes me aware of the sorry state of today’s schools. Being grateful for the social protection of my class, color, and gender means I would super love it if we could stop incarcerating Black men, thanks. Because I am a princess, I am aware of the concept of social responsibility, and I wish we would do our job to fulfill the social contract that sheltered and raised me. Yes. I want higher taxes. Yes. I want single-payer health care. Yes. I want a higher minimum wage, and an end to union-busting, and to get the guns off our streets. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Because class warfare is happening, and it is real. When the powerful class--Emma Goldman called them the Owners--is willing to privatize public education, creating disastrously ineffective charter schools that siphon public money away from student services and into shareholder dividends, that is class warfare. The children who attend these schools are the survivors of a war on education, motivated by greed and resulting in ignorance and a complete dearth of skilled workers. They are the casualties in this war. The winners are the stockholders in private educational companies, banking the profits from taxpayer-funded but shareholder-controlled schools.
And when the Owners are willing to privatize prisons, creating an invisible, underpaid, shamefully exploited and mistreated labor force, when they are willing to collect a per diem from the state for housing the incarcerated workers that they then employ to sort and wash garbage for pennies a day, that is class warfare. Sure, they’re not actually killing most of the victims. But in a war, some people die; some people are raped and beaten and robbed, and some people are enslaved. The owners of private prisons are slaveholders. Nothing has changed but the direction the money flows: from the taxpayer to the government to the slaveholders, instead of the other way around.
The Owners have monetized healthcare and education and prisons and the police. They own the companies that make and sell our tanks and the tanks need to be used, so they create police forces in small towns that have military-level technology. There are tanks rolling through the streets of Missouri, a show of force, a demonstration of power, an illustration that the rabble should be afraid. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Activists say, “They can’t kill us all”? They can. They can kill you all. They can tax you and underpay you and use your labor and your body and your vote, and then finally they can kill you because this is a war. It is a war, the rich versus everyone else, and yes, people do die.
I’m writing this because my patron died the other day. She was hit by a stray bullet fired from a gun on the streets of Cleveland. I don’t know who sold or who fired that weapon, but I do know that the laws permitting its use were written by lobbyists, hired by the NRA, salaries paid for with gun manufacturers’ profits. The owners sell a gun, they pocket the money, give a little to the NRA, give a little to the government, give a little to the shareholders. Those shareholders use it to buy their children Christmas presents, to pay for the gas in their SUVs, the HOA fees in their gated communities, the charitable donations to theaters and colleges and libraries. I wonder how much the profit was on that gun? I wonder how much Smith and Wesson’s quarterly dividend payout was? Spread that out among hundreds of owners, and hundreds of deaths by collateral violence, and there you have it. I tend to think that Ellen’s life was worth thirty cents. I should do the math. I should figure it out. Somehow thirty cents sounds right. Thirty pieces of silver is what Judas took to betray his Savior; thirty pieces of silver was also the price of a Roman slave.
I hope the Owners’ children get really nice gifts for Christmas. I hope the thirty cents the Owners made off Ellen’s death goes to a really thoughtful and beautiful and kind gift for a child. I can recommend a book or two.
Yes. I am glad for these things. But being glad that I received a fantastic public education, largely against my will, makes me aware of the sorry state of today’s schools. Being grateful for the social protection of my class, color, and gender means I would super love it if we could stop incarcerating Black men, thanks. Because I am a princess, I am aware of the concept of social responsibility, and I wish we would do our job to fulfill the social contract that sheltered and raised me. Yes. I want higher taxes. Yes. I want single-payer health care. Yes. I want a higher minimum wage, and an end to union-busting, and to get the guns off our streets. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Because class warfare is happening, and it is real. When the powerful class--Emma Goldman called them the Owners--is willing to privatize public education, creating disastrously ineffective charter schools that siphon public money away from student services and into shareholder dividends, that is class warfare. The children who attend these schools are the survivors of a war on education, motivated by greed and resulting in ignorance and a complete dearth of skilled workers. They are the casualties in this war. The winners are the stockholders in private educational companies, banking the profits from taxpayer-funded but shareholder-controlled schools.
And when the Owners are willing to privatize prisons, creating an invisible, underpaid, shamefully exploited and mistreated labor force, when they are willing to collect a per diem from the state for housing the incarcerated workers that they then employ to sort and wash garbage for pennies a day, that is class warfare. Sure, they’re not actually killing most of the victims. But in a war, some people die; some people are raped and beaten and robbed, and some people are enslaved. The owners of private prisons are slaveholders. Nothing has changed but the direction the money flows: from the taxpayer to the government to the slaveholders, instead of the other way around.
The Owners have monetized healthcare and education and prisons and the police. They own the companies that make and sell our tanks and the tanks need to be used, so they create police forces in small towns that have military-level technology. There are tanks rolling through the streets of Missouri, a show of force, a demonstration of power, an illustration that the rabble should be afraid. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Activists say, “They can’t kill us all”? They can. They can kill you all. They can tax you and underpay you and use your labor and your body and your vote, and then finally they can kill you because this is a war. It is a war, the rich versus everyone else, and yes, people do die.
I’m writing this because my patron died the other day. She was hit by a stray bullet fired from a gun on the streets of Cleveland. I don’t know who sold or who fired that weapon, but I do know that the laws permitting its use were written by lobbyists, hired by the NRA, salaries paid for with gun manufacturers’ profits. The owners sell a gun, they pocket the money, give a little to the NRA, give a little to the government, give a little to the shareholders. Those shareholders use it to buy their children Christmas presents, to pay for the gas in their SUVs, the HOA fees in their gated communities, the charitable donations to theaters and colleges and libraries. I wonder how much the profit was on that gun? I wonder how much Smith and Wesson’s quarterly dividend payout was? Spread that out among hundreds of owners, and hundreds of deaths by collateral violence, and there you have it. I tend to think that Ellen’s life was worth thirty cents. I should do the math. I should figure it out. Somehow thirty cents sounds right. Thirty pieces of silver is what Judas took to betray his Savior; thirty pieces of silver was also the price of a Roman slave.
I hope the Owners’ children get really nice gifts for Christmas. I hope the thirty cents the Owners made off Ellen’s death goes to a really thoughtful and beautiful and kind gift for a child. I can recommend a book or two.