Why I’m a Socialist
By: Joshua Collins
Tags: Work, Bernie Sanders, Socialism, Politics, Trucking

Why I’m a Socialist

When I was a kid, my mom would always tell me to be nice to the waitresses & cashiers. She said they’re just trying to pay their bills. Be nice to them & they’ll do their best to take care of you. Be mean to them & they’ll spit in your food. I didn’t know it then, but this was the beginning of me eventually forming class consciousness. I had my first real job at 15. I spent 11 years learning what it means to work for a living. As a service worker, I was overworked, underpaid, sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, & retaliated against. As a blue collar worker, my safety was always an afterthought. My injuries were my own responsibility. It didn’t matter to my bosses if, as a result of my working conditions, I got back problems, knee problems, & other chronic joint problems, I had to work through it, & that made all those things worse. I basically sold my body to the trucking industry for $20/hour. And I’ll never recover from it all.



The Capitalist class doesn’t care about us. We’re all just human-shaped dollar signs to them. Our worth is determined by how much money they can make off us. Our labor is our currency & our life force. If you’re well-educated, well an hour of your life force is worth a good amount of money, depending on how much profit you can generate. If you’re like me & you’re uneducated, with numerous joint problems, an hour of your life force is less valuable.



And if you’re old or disabled & can’t work, you can’t sell your life force to the Capitalists so you don’t matter to them. If you use your life force to take care of a child or a person with a disability, you don’t matter to them either.



I’m tired of living in a society that measures a person’s worth by how much profit they can generate for the ruling class.



I’m tired of living in a society that values the life of one person over that of another, based on education, physical capabilities, class, gender, race, sexuality, or national origin.



I want to live in moral society. I want a society where no humans are treated like Gods, but all people are treated like humans. One where we all treat one another like brothers & sisters, rather than like competitors in a race for our survival.



I’m a 26 year old autistic truck driver. And I’ve got more in common with a 50 year old black construction worker than I ever will with Jeff Bezos. I’ve got more in common with a 16 year old transgender Starbucks cashier than I ever will with Bill Gates. I have more in common with a farm laborer in Guatemala than I do with Mark Zuckerberg. I wanna live in a world where people recognize that reality. That all working class people have something in common. That thing is struggle. For some, the struggle is made much harder by things like disabilities, race, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin. And those of us who are in this struggle, with a degree of privilege, need to recognize that we cannot end our struggle without combatting the struggles of those with less privilege. If we want an equal society, a moral society, it will take unity. It will take solidarity.



Climate Change has brought before us the biggest threat humanity has ever faced. And if we let them, the rich will ride it out in underground bunkers or in a new society they’re building on Mars. They’ll keep digging the oil out of the ground while our planet burns. They’ve already shown that they’re incapable of stopping. They don’t care about us enough to end the for-profit healthcare system. They don’t care about us enough to guarantee housing as a human right. And so they damn sure don’t care enough to transition our society to green energy & stop climate change.



My name is Joshua Collins. I’m running for Congress in Washington’s 10th District. I’m running to represent the working class people in my district. But I’m also running to represent the working class people outside. Including those beyond our nation’s borders. Healthcare & housing are national issues. Climate change is a global issue, & we can only stop it with a global movement of the working class, & I’d like to see that movement happen. Please go to my website, it’s Joshua2020.com.