on waypoint radio a few years ago @austin was talking about the kellogg’s factory in venezuela that workers seized bc the company abandoned it
and that conversation is generally great but specifically there’s a part where he’s talking about randos on twitter losing their minds, not out of concern for the livelihood of these ppl, but over the thought that they might be selling Corn Flakes without changing the branding.
“what about the rooster? isn’t that a trademark?? isn’t this illegal???”
austin says, i think a couple times:
you can’t even imagine a world.
and i’ve had that phrase, in austin’s voice with that specific inflection he puts on world, stuck in my brain ever since.
a few months after that episode aired i started transitioning and i told this story pretty much every time i came out to someone. it’s given me so much strength.
(also i was looking into this again recently and it sounds like “Socialist Kellogg” is still going strong, at least as of late 2021)
It's wild because even among the supposed left the horizon is so short. Even people that support unions, if you say "we need a fighting union and we need to be ready to strike", people will balk, and god forbid you talk about anything resembling revolutionary politics. I have little use for Mark Fisher because, to paraphrase Dr. Samuel Johnson, "the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good," because it's a matter of education and changing material circumstances, but it's such an uphill struggle when, yeah, people are more concerned with whether the Kellogg's rooster is being Used Without Written Permission than with the power of revolutionary labor.