Thread by @hecubian_devil

blown away by the number of people in the QTs saying that the exploitation of banana farmers, and their political oppression by fruit conglomerates, is a non-negotiable NECESSITY because the world NEEDS shitty bananas to go rotten at every 7-11, every day, year round, forever

https://twitter.com/bigmeaninternet/status/1681031815291609088

People framing this as a “decline” in the standard of living, as if there is an inherent human need for year-round banana access at every latitude that must be satisfied. As if we couldn’t be equally happy with a more seasonal and local agriculture

There’s just a fundamental misunderstanding that having More Treats On Demand is an inherently higher standard of living that produces greater happiness. There is actually no evidence that this is true! We acclimate really fast to available consumption choices

No one, absolutely no one—not even the most dishonest globe emoji neoliberal freak—buys a banana at Trader Joe’s in Calgary in December and marvels in ecstasy at the decadent opulence of modern capitalism. They dully cross it off their list and move on, barely conscious of it

The idea that there is some irreplaceable, transcendent, and specific pleasure in the universal availability of a given treat is absurd. We are not happier for having bananas that our ancestors a mere 150 years ago lacked. We will not be poorer for replacing them with other foods

The consumption preferences we have today are incredibly recent, prompted by supply and advertising, and there’s no evidence they make us measurably happier in any way. The *general* availability of fresh, good food in sufficient quantity is obviously important, sure.

But the idea that not one single thing from the present order—which is rapidly rendering the world uninhabitable and has rendered much of its population brutalized and subjugated for the last four centuries—can be relinquished is a sign of how diseased consumerism makes us

It’s also a sign that socialism will never be a mass popular movement in the US as presently constituted. Either it will require a decidedly undemocratic imposition and maintenance at first, probably from outside, or it will happen only after our consumer economy breaks down

A lot of Americans—probably a majority—will do unlimited genocide on the global south for the mere *availability* of tropical fruits on demand, which they don’t even take regular advantage of. They will do genocide for waste, for rot, for excess.

And that’s for fucking bananas. Now think about the cobalt in the screens we actually use every day.

The point is, this country is so thoroughly imperialist down to its bones that we’re never getting a grassroots mass socialist movement. Even our “socialists” demand treats

The stuff we can do here is really picking at the margins but it all recenters for me that what really matters in US socialist activism is anti-imperialism. Americans will never democratically relinquish universal treat access but they might make a series of choices that+

+individually seem unrelated to Treat Access. Choices to stop bombing, subjugating, and exploiting America’s neocolonial subjects and client states. We might convince people issue by issue to stop making the political choices that back up imperialism.

Because those individual choices are not necessarily connected to treat consumption in an obvious and direct way. Americans will do unlimited genocide for the ability to throw a pound of food into the trash, per person, every day, but only if they’re told it’s connected.

Anyway, all of this to say that anti-imperialism really still is the highest priority for American socialists who want to see socialism happen here. It just can’t take root as long as our neighbors are so attached to cheap, easy exploitation of third world labor and resources

We need to break that supply chain first and enable America’s victims to resist our theft of their labor and land, independently, before anything like a critical mass of Americans can be weaned off consumerist fascism to the extent of willingly building socialism

Also, i think it would actually be a richer and more fun existence for all of us if bananas were a rare treat to enjoy after days spent traveling by electrified rail and sea lanes, maybe a few times in your life, instead of part of an undifferentiated, universal consumer sludge

Seasonality and locality would actually help us appreciate and enjoy things, by making them novel again, that we currently take for granted and have little to no conscious appreciation for

The total availability of all things on demand is really joy-killing for the consumer. It reduces our ability to consciously appreciate the things we use, eat, see, taste. If we expect it on tap, always, it fades into the background. It becomes an opportunity for disappointment

When people come into Starbucks and order their matcha tea lattes they don’t leave in a state of thoughtful, conscious pleasure. But when we’re out—subverting expectations of availability—they’re consciously sad and upset.

Universal treat availability robs us of the ability to enjoy things thoughtfully by making their consumability an expectation that can only be negatively subverted. If more things were rare and infrequent, their availability becomes a lovely deviation, an excitement

Which is to say, Americans are largely genocidal fascists because they’re locked into a consumer order where they can only perceive decline if the state of availability is disrupted. But we’d actually be happier in a new equilibrium of punctuated access to goods & services

@j0conner Me assuming you’re lying is actually the generous position here