this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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chapotraphouse
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I think it's worth correcting this. The people of the WTC were not just random innocent people. The tenants list of the towers was:
WTC1(North)
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - Randos
Marsh & McLennan Companies - Huge finance capitalist firm
Bank of America
Cantor Fitzgerald - Huge finance capitalist firm
Dai-Ichi Kangyo Group - A japanese Keiretsu (monopoly group) (more bastards)
Sidley Austin Brown & Wood - Law firm, primarily serving finance capitalists
Restaurant "Windows on the World" - Randos
WTC2(South)
Verizon - Randos
New York Stock Exchange - Finance capitalists
Morgan Stanley - Finance capitalists
Xerox Corporation - Randos
Keefe, Bruyette & Woods - Finance capitalists
Aon Corporation - Finance capitalist advisory firm
Fiduciary Trust Company International - Finance capitalists
WTC7
Salomon Smith Barney - Finance capitalists
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission - Finance capitalist regulator
Standard Chartered Bank - Finance capitalists
U.S. Secret Service - Ghouls
My point here is that these were not random innocents that were attacked. This was a direct and targeted attack on the bourgeoisie. This was targeted directly at the ruling class of america and the response that occurred posing it as an "attack on america" was because the bourgeoisie consider themselves to be america and that any attack on them is an attack on the nation. Had this been a bombing against randos it would have been largely ignored, as you see with most bombings of random shopping centres etc. It was because it was an attack on the ruling class that it created such an extensive response from them.
95-97% of the people in a typical high finance office are working class or PMC people. The reason why finance is so lucrative is because it concentrated wealth so effectively. I know this because I was an IT guy in a very very high finance firm a long time ago - the vast majority of people are paper pushing schmucks and excel/PowerPoint contortionists and, like, 3-4 guys are partners or whatever and take the dough. And most of the times they're going to be at home or on a trip sipping martinis, possibly with clients. Another 4-12 people are going to be sharing a bit of the profits in exchange for overworking the rabble. It's a bit different nowadays since the quantitative finance people took over a lot of it and they only employ people that could work in tech but yeah traditional finance is mostly a PMC trap. The bourgeoisie is too smart to spend their life in a cubicle. At most there would maybe be the replaceable CEO.
This argument is like trying to claim cops are working class.
I was gonna say “IT professional for an admittedly evil corporation” is probably a bit too close to home for some PMC folks here to not identify with that position. But at the same time, every job I’ve ever quit has been because I learned about my employer taking on a client that rubbed me the wrong way. No bankers. No defense contractors. No government entities. No finance. Etc.
I know after a certain point it’s arbitrary but it helps me sleep and if I couldn’t code from home I’d just be going for disability, which has ludicrous restrictions in the US.
I never said working class. I said PMC. Ie, not bourgeois. Being a glorified excel formula or a janitor for a parasitic industry does not make you guilty and it's not equivalent to being a cop or a soldier. The class interests of those respectively are PMC and working class.
Fine. Change the line to "This argument is like trying to claim cops are PMC." then. Still has the same fucking point.
You keep harping on about janitors while completely ignoring the people actively managing and seeking better ways to hyper-exploit people around the world with their capital investments. Like get a fucking grip. Would you also behave this way if it was Wall Street that got hit? I suspect you would do exactly the same "Well accchhhtually they're mostly PMC and only the owners of firms were bourgeoisie" lark with them as well. It's fucking ridiculous.
The reason you keep bringing this back to the cleaners, the reason you keep stipulating them and not the others, is because deep down you fucking know they're not innocents, so you make sure to pick the people that are unambiguously the most innocent in the building.
I mean, an attack on any institution of capital will inevitably result in the deaths of working class people. These buildings require all sorts of support staff that I don't think deserve to be written off as collateral in the hypothetical revolution or in when discussing actual terrorism.
so everyone deserved 911
No. America Deserved 9/11
A direct and targeted attack? It terrified millions of working class NYCers what are you talking about? The majority of the people who actually made up the workforce of those firms wouldn't be bourgeois - someone who's job it was to copy data or answer the phone for the head honcho.
The ash cloud and debris field was damaging to a hell of a lot more than just a handful of rich people who you think deserved it (even if you support lining them up against a wall, I feel like that's different because it would come as part of a broader revolution and not be the outcome of an isolated terrorist attack).
Most attacks on malls don't kill upwards of 3000 people at once. Heck, some malls can't even hold that many inside them.
I'm not saying it was anticapitalist. I'm saying that failing to realise the target was chosen for what was in the buildings and not just because they're tall buildings is pure liberalism, and a view that liberals would love you to have because they absolutely don't want anyone questioning why finance capital would be the target when attacking america with the intent to provoke the reaction they achieved. Because any questioning of what finance capital actually does would lead people to realising the vast majority of these people weren't innocents and that would harm the entire propaganda party that ensued immediately afterwards about all those "poor innocent people who didn't deserve it" as part of the immediate consent manufacturing for the war on terror and axis of evil efforts.
You know that that's what every tall building is right? There's literally a whole thing about how skyscrapers basically exist for capitalism. They chose the WTC because that tall building in particular would be particularly terrifying to watch blow up and collapse for the rest ofnthe city (which you know, is mostly working class people, like everywhere else).
Even if every single person of the 3k who died in the WTC was a CEO or high-level management in finance capital, they still wouldn't deserve to die how they did. Even if I personally support lining them up against a wall, I don't cease caring about 9/11 because I want them dead anyways.
Now, in the real world, for every finance capitalist, there is a team of employees, paid hourly, who are not capitalists but are selling their ability to work for a wage like most of us. They were the majority of the people who died in 9/11.
No they fucking didn't. The "rest of the city" has absolutely no impact on decision-making, they are proles with zero power and zero impact on what direction the ruling class takes in foreign or domestic policy. This is nonsense idealism derived from having a sincere belief in liberal democracy.
I physically watched Grenfell burn, in front of my eyes, the whole city of London did. What came of that? Absolutely fuck all. Because it was a building full of proles. Literally nothing has happened over it, not even regulation changes. Zero. Because the ruling class doesn't want it. The notion you have that the average people of the city matter in decision making is fucking absurd.
I agree. They would deserve considerably worse.
Big time "soldiers are just selling their labour" and shouldn't be judged or wished death upon energy.