My parents are the most MAGA-pilled, Evangelical, racist, sexist, etc., folks you’ll find. Fully on board with all of the ‘conservative’ messaging, and have been their entire lives. They fully think that Communism is some existential threat…
They’re also poor. My mom never held down a full time job in her life. Her husband was a Janitor. They live in a community of other like-minded poor people that are close-knit and trade goods, labor, and services to help each other out. Its a while network where people come together to met each other’s needs. My mom grows food in her garden and will trade it for chicken eggs. Her husband will use his tractor to help someone grade a road, and get ‘paid’ in meat by someone who raises cattle, etc. Its a wonderful system and they and their network of friends working within this system are literally communists.
No matter how I’ve tried to point that out, there is NO getting through the propaganda they’ve spent their lives bathing in. Its baffling.
Oh, absolutely. People from the church I grew up in sometimes say such baffling things about socialism and communism. I want to tell them, “know how I learned about social economies? From Sunday afternoon pitch-in dinners. Even though there was going to be food there, people who could bring food still brought it! We all ate until we were sick, there was food left over, and it all tasted fantastic. Sure, we had to cut Elaine’s chess pie extra thin so that everyone could get a slice, but there was literally a vat of mashed potatoes and two whole turkeys.”
My parents are the most MAGA-pilled, Evangelical, racist, sexist, etc., folks you’ll find. Fully on board with all of the ‘conservative’ messaging, and have been their entire lives. They fully think that Communism is some existential threat…
They’re also poor. My mom never held down a full time job in her life. Her husband was a Janitor. They live in a community of other like-minded poor people that are close-knit and trade goods, labor, and services to help each other out. Its a while network where people come together to met each other’s needs. My mom grows food in her garden and will trade it for chicken eggs. Her husband will use his tractor to help someone grade a road, and get ‘paid’ in meat by someone who raises cattle, etc. Its a wonderful system and they and their network of friends working within this system are literally communists.
No matter how I’ve tried to point that out, there is NO getting through the propaganda they’ve spent their lives bathing in. Its baffling.
Oh, absolutely. People from the church I grew up in sometimes say such baffling things about socialism and communism. I want to tell them, “know how I learned about social economies? From Sunday afternoon pitch-in dinners. Even though there was going to be food there, people who could bring food still brought it! We all ate until we were sick, there was food left over, and it all tasted fantastic. Sure, we had to cut Elaine’s chess pie extra thin so that everyone could get a slice, but there was literally a vat of mashed potatoes and two whole turkeys.”