Linguine Zine Iss. 03 Vol. 01 Feb. '24

VOL. 01 Language ISS. 03 carries more Feb. ‘24 than words.

e n i u g Lin e n Zi

THE WORDS

we use.

Linguistics is important because language represents culture, and our way of speaking; it is a part of who we are. It helps us understand the human mind.

And maybe, just maybe, if we can better understand how language is created and evolves, if we can understand that the way we speak has a direct correlation to the systems we live in. And if we can take language away as fodder for bigots, then maybe, just maybe, we can lessen the impact of bigotry.

Or at least make them work harder for it.

NO SUCH as a “self-made” THING billionaire.

When the myth of “self-made” is perpetuated, it normalizes the hoarding of an unfathomable amount of wealth at the expense of the majority of us, the working class. It implies that their fortune is something they earned, rather than the reality-- it is a combination of: inherited wealth, tax loopholes, exploitation of human labor and natural resources, policy failures, and government subsidies for the wealthy. None survive or flourish without the help of others. The “bootstrap” ideals are a fantasy based on a luck of the draw: an socially constructed lottery ticket assigned from birth.

It’s easy to believe that you hit a home run, when you were born on third base.

Gates: His mother was on the board of IBM and influenced the company to acquire the thenfailing Microsoft in 1980.

Bezos: His parents gave him $245,573 to stop Amazon from failing in 1995.

Buffet: Son of a congressman with an investment company.

Musk: Father owned an emerald mine in apartheid South Africa.

This is the backstory of almost every billionaire. The “bootstraps” are luck of birth and inherited privilege.

THE

bootstrap billionaire

MYTH

Under capitalism, here is deeply-ingrained propaganda that hard work must equal billionaire-levels of success. We have been told that the wealthy must either be extremely smart or extremely hard-working to deserve those billions-- and that the rest of us without that kind of wealth are just lazy or stupid.

HOWEVER, YOU CANNOT EARN A BILLION DOLLARS.

It is only possible to steal it. You can only "earn" such wealth by exploiting the real labor of the working class. The myth of “rugged individualism” is keeping us atomized and oppressed.

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY Crucially, the wealthy perpetuate this myth in order to convey:

“anyone can do it” “what is your excuse?” “just try harder” And what does this idea do to our society and culture? We participate in our own oppression by seeing ourselves as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” rather than together in a class of workers who billionaires stepped on to gain their wealth. We have more in common with our neighbors than those who fly to space for fun.

Defending billionaires is defending our own oppression.

WE DIDN’T BUILD IT ON OUR OWN While teachers, nurses, plumbers, and restaurant workers dutifully pay a portion of their salaries into federal and state taxes, the tax code allows for millionaires and billionaires to pay very little or nothing at all. The people who are integral to community, the working class, are the ones who create and innovate. We are made by care, not by capital.

The myth of rugged individualism, or “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps,” is outdated, was never completely accurate, and is

harming us.

RESOURCES Download this zine, find resources to organize with your fellow working class neighbors and more with the QR code.

Drop a line at linguinezine@gmail.com