How tumblr brought us Trump

My 5 years on tumblr was so bad, I can only compare it to a marriage or neighborhood you just keep waiting to get better. And it doesn't. And genuine panic finally sets in.

But, everybody said this was the good neighborhood! Everybody SAID this guy was an okay fella! WTF is going on??? (((panic)))

I'd quote some stuff, but that would mean going back over there and actually reading, and I can no longer bear to do that.

Suffice to say, the tumblr brats have explained the entire election to me. It is no longer a puzzle.

~*~

The man of the hour, Toronto-professor-in-exile Jordan Peterson, would say the SJWs ("social justice warriors") are totally running the joint, and he is indeed correct about that. But as I shall prove, these SJWs are actually anti-social justice elitists, which is why they failed so spectacularly in 2016, and how we ended up with the opposite party in charge.

This is the direct result of their true class agenda at work.

Peterson's error is in taking these people at face value, just like a Protestant would: they say they believe in social justice, so they do.

NOOOOO, professor Peterson, they don't. What you are seeing is affectation, fashion, mere posturing. They would not know "social justice" if it ran over them in a jeep.

Its exactly like Christianity in the American 1950s: good people are Christian--and I am good--so I must be a Christian. Period. So everybody was a Christian and if you said you were not, you must be a criminal or a communist. Not a lot of self-reflection involved.

This is the thought process.

~*~

WHAT IS TO BE DONE

The tumblr ppl are not concerned with the actual vocation of social justice and Lenin's famous question, What is to be done? They aren't in it for that. When I repeatedly tried to asked them brainstorming questions about what we might do, it was seen as picking a fight.

How does asking for opinions = picking a fight? Took me a long time to figure out.

If you are lazy and ineffectual, every question about actual ACTION (root word of activist) sounds like a reproach instead of a question; an entreaty for you to get off your ass. They have no intention of getting off their asses, so any discussion I attempted about that, got me labeled a troublemaker who picks fights. An instigator. Really.

"Social justice" is about their own wonderfulness and their own egos. Social justice is the new, fun theater to act out the drama of their suburban, highly-educated, carefully-curated "identities" (which change on a dime every few months, humorously enough). They are pointedly not about doing anything to actually help anyone else ... since by now its plainly obvious they are hurting and not helping.

~*~

Tumblr Social Justice = berating old hillbilly grannies from the "trailer park", frequently, loudly and often

(After all, who did you think the real enemy WAS?)

The so-called social justice environment on tumblr is the most hostile online environment I have EVER been in; even worse than arguing with white supremacists and nazis. They are far more insulting than MRAs and religious fundamentalists have ever been to me. (they also can't argue as well as any of these people, disturbingly enough)

This is what 46 years of activism and being a feminist pioneer gets you on tumblr: They are filled with utter contempt for all old people and tell us we "shouldn't be on tumblr" (!) as if they own it. I assume I was regularly called trailer trash since I was foolish enough to talk about my impoverished childhood. Big, big mistake.

I would warn others who were raised in poor environments to NEVER EVER discuss that on tumblr. They are fiercely classist--possibly the most fiercely and proudly classist group online anywhere--and openly despise poor people. They will NEVER let you forget this for a minute. If you ever try to discuss books or ideas after admitting you were poor, its "thats pretty good for the trailer park!" or "I didn't know hillbillies read books!" and other such viciousness.

Oddly, this is behavior the Republicans/right-wing have become too sensitive and aware to freely exhibit. They want white working class votes and sympathies. Meanwhile, crossover reality-TV star/pornographer Zinnia Jones (her online insanity even got her a job on the TLC network!) enthusiastically preaches the new social-justice gospel to her thousands of adoring fans: "Fuck the white working class!" and they all swoon collectively like teenyboppers.

You see, because they are "social justice" they can be as elitist as they wanna be, and those comments somehow don't mean the same thing as if they were political policy. They don't think there is any connection between their contempt for poor old working class trailer-trash white women and taking away their/our Social Security... and if there is, they don't care. They proudly believe that old, poor (etc) people are a blight, just like Forbes magazine, National Review and the Republicans have taught them.

But here is the crucial difference between them and Republicans:

They are doing all of this in the name of social justice, so its okay.

Remember that one? Mass genocide for the cause of social justice is acceptable.

And where have we heard that before?

*Yes I suppose I should enter a caution or "trigger warning" (spits for emphasis) about the satirical use of the n-word in the DK song linked above ... I once interviewed East Bay Ray about that whole business a long time ago, but I digress.

~*~

Similarly, because they are "feminists", they can call me "ugly old hag" and it "isn't sexist".

In case you didn't know, nasty sexism in the name of getting rid of sexism is okay too. (Where is our modern equivalent of Clara Zetkin, pictured at left, to argue this case when we need her?)

Interestingly, they don't see overt ageism as "ableist" at all (meaning they are wholly-unfamiliar with disability rights-theory), even though they obsess over "ableism" fairly constantly and a huge number claim to be autistic and have a variety of mental illnesses, far out of proportion to what the numbers could logically be. They talk about disabilities like status symbols, which means they are mostly invented.

I wish I was making all of this up. But I assure you, it is far worse than you can imagine.

I wish this was not "leftist" kids I am talking about--but every single example I am giving you here is from someone who calls themselves social justice and progressive. Every single example I am giving here are behaviors from people who claim to be on the Left, who tell people like me to go back to the trailer park. "Go back to redneck-land, grandma."... and then they are back politically-policing the language of others in 5 minutes or less. Really.

~*~

In summation -- tl; dr

They don't believe a single word they say.

There is no social justice on tumblr, since there are no social justice activists.

Question: Is this deliberate deception and subterfuge (right wing hijinx), or are they also deceiving themselves?

How can one claim to believe in equality, equity, ending oppression and all the rest of it and then gleefully tell people to go back to the trailer park, in the next breath?

It is astounding to me because I have never encountered such a thing before.

Probably because a real-life leftist collective would run such a person out on a rail immediately and/or call them a cop... while this is standard behavior over on lefty-tumblr.

THIS. IS. STANDARD.

~*~

Professor Peterson--one reason they hate you is that you are from Alberta and talk like Gary Cooper. You are a farmer, dude, go back where you came from. Intellectuals do not come from OUR class of people, only THEIR class of people. Of course they will help the government shout you down--they don't even believe people like you and me should be allowed to speak in the first place.

I know this for certain, since "social justice" kids have been telling me this for 5 years. My 46 years of activism means absolutely nothing to them, and they have told me that too.

I believe them.

Go back to your sacred Orwell, professor, specifically one Mr Emmanuel Goldstein, who knew what was up:

THEY intend to be the elites.

And they are telling us exactly what their regime will be like.


~*~

"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

I was run off tumblr by the new elites, college-educated, pampered children still compulsively playing with toys ("electronic devices") into adulthood. Their knowledge of human nature, history and themselves, could fit into a thimble. Working class/minority teens in my neighborhood are light years more savvy than these kids--which is why I was initially confused by them, since their levels of education are staggering. Very smart kids who know everything but... with absolutely no life experience; a languid lifestyle not permitted to poor and working class kids forced to get jobs when still in middle school. Brilliantly-shaped minds with nowhere to land, reminding me of that old expression, all dressed up with no place to go.

Because they are so highly educated, I can't quite believe they don't know what they are doing.

After all, I told them, Peterson tells them, everybody who is sane tells them, but ... the viciousness just intensifies. It is therefore deliberate.

This dizzying-juxtaposition of traditional right wing class-hatred with all the trendy leftist PC-speak, is very disorienting, which I think is the major reason they do it.

They say they are our enemies, and we should believe them.

~*~

Bread and Circuses

It seems that 'personal problems' like fat and depression are sacrosanct to them, but not actual top-down oppression like economic status. This is an excellent way to keep them occupied (along with the omnipresent devices), and I have to give it to the capitalists--they have certainly neutralized any would-be young insurgents. Its like they all have huge electronic pacifiers in their mouths.

If the tumblr leftist language/assertions are actually fashion statements (like where to vacation or what new restaurant the foodies have discovered), it means they have little to do with reality. Ephemeral, they will pass, as fashion does.

This means these kids will eventually move on to the next vacation-destination and the next restaurant as this social justice fad wanes; they will get married and move to a different all-white suburb than the one they were raised in, and live exactly (with the same biases and prejudices) as their parents. In short, there is no there there.

But first, they have wrecked the discourse and elected Trump, and I am not about to let them off the hook for that. And you shouldn't either.

They have made a dangerous fascist cartoon of the Left that nobody in their right mind would elect or vote for... in fact, I find that *I* am also terrified of their new Gulag-Left and I have been around doing this since 1972... but I want nothing to do with their Stalinist viciousness.

Of course, the rest of the electorate feels exactly the same.

~*~

Jordan Peterson has recently become a shepherd for one faction of disgruntled young folks who are tired of this poisonous PC bullshit. Who will herd the others?

Rather, who HAS herded them already?

I originally believed (when I reluctantly climbed onto the tumblr-train in 2013, after the folding of Occupy) the tumblr bloggers were basically just like working class kids (my own, or those I have worked with). This proved not to be the case in "political" tumblr circles, but is probably true in the fandom-circles. I quickly realized who I was dealing with from their casual references to pricey vacation spots, schools, neighborhoods, clothing and the like. They constantly drop insider-lingo like "post-structuralism" (almost everything is, it seems) and other bourgeois pretentious BS. If you don't know this stuff, they will actually say you are not a leftist and could never have been; you can't be a leftist if you don't know Derrida, Foucault, Judith Butler and similar postmodern thinkers who have nothing to do with Marx and Trotsky and class war.

So, here is what I learned from tumblr: You can't be a leftist now if you are too poor to have had a good education and can't quote Foucault.

Since this IS what a leftist is, I can't possibly be one, so all my questions about these things can be ignored since I am a stalker and troll. Etc.

~*~

Left: Jonathan Haidt, who has successfully convinced me that this is a new religion we are dealing with, which accounts for their entire take-no-prisoners/Crusades psychology. If you disagree with their view of themselves, whatever it is, this is not mere disagreement but "invalidating their existence"! (Never mind your existence, yours doesn't count.)


Jonathan Haidt's videos talk about how these kids likely come from older parents, successful educated professionals who waited for the 'right time' to have children, and then only had 1 or 2. They have been fussed at, prodded and poked their whole lives. Their annoying helicopter-parents have overprotected and spoiled them, which is why they are now afraid to leave the basement or bedroom and spend their entire days in an angry, repressed fury, patrolling the web for latent political incorrectness and landing on the unsuspecting in a manner not unlike Al-Qaeda. This is a very twisted version of a stunted-childhood, sitting in borderline-sociopathic fury, easily-controlled by the governments and elites... all while thinking they are revolutionary as all hell.

By contrast, I remember worrying I was never radical enough, never doing enough, something I still worry about, and the activists around me constantly worry about. This is the proletarian sensibility vs the elite sensibility, that theorists like Frantz Fanon and Antonio Gramsci (not Judith Butler) wrote about.

It is as if they are deliberately trying to make the mistakes of the past. Possibly since they don't even know what happened the last time their sorry attempts at human-perfection failed. (go back to the song right above the Pol Pot photo)

~*~

WHAT IS TO BE UNDONE

This state of affairs, a "Left wing" that is actively and unapologetically doing the work of the Right, is the most tragic thing I have ever witnessed.

I have repeatedly tried to stir the would-be leftist mob on tumblr to do something, anything.

Their deposits of viciousness and cruelty are bottomless, and wouldn't it be nice to point it at the opposition instead of each other?

I have asked approximately 1000 times: When is the last time you said ______ (insert vicious, ageist, sexist, anti-poor trailer park insult of the day) to a right winger or Trump-supporter on tumblr? (And there ARE plenty, many are there precisely to aggravate/bait the legendary tumblr-SJWs.) I ask, do you say these things to MRAs and racists? (Aside: I've noticed lots of antisemites on tumblr, far more than simple racists.) Why not? I have never been answered.

The reason of course is that its no fun to shame racists for racism or right wingers for being right wing--they are proud of it. Where's the fun in that?

This phenomenon proves their behaviors and attacks are NOT about politics, but about their own narcissistic nastiness.

~*~

I am reminded that tumblr is a self-selected group, which of course goes without saying. So is Reddit, and the joke is that tumblr is composed of 12-year-old communists, while Reddit is all 20-year-old nazis. I went to tumblr in hope that I could connect my generation of activists to the younger one... then I finally realized that absolutely none of these people are activists.

Actual activists are respectful of older activists and hope to learn from them, as I always was, and as the young activists I know IRL are.

What is especially alarming is the fact that the social justice warriors are now defending patriarchal, racist, imperialist (etc etc etc) governments. You think I jest. Nope. I couldn't believe it myself... and when I fully digested this fact I started hyperventilating.

Opiate of the Masses

Bill C-16 in Canada is a civil-rights law proclaiming that all "pronouns" must be respected and used on demand--even the goofy ones like Xir and Xee, as well as a plethora of confusing and nonsensical words that can easily sew confusion/be taken as insulting in non-English-speaking neighborhoods (once again illustrating that these SJWs don't actually care about non-whites).

Thus, this is the law in Canada, which Peterson said he would not recognize. And the SJWs came after him for daring to dissent.

Thus, when the kids demonstrated against Peterson, in favor of the law... they were (shivers) demonstrating IN FAVOR OF THE GOVERNMENT.

IN FAVOR OF THE GOVERNMENT. Again I repeat: demonstrating IN FAVOR OF THE GOVERNMENT. Silencing a professor who is criticizing government, and demonstrating IN FAVOR OF THE GOVERNMENT.

You know, those meanie imperialist governments? With armies and stuff? The ones who occupied Native lands and arrest people of color and so on and so forth? The Boogeyman?

Demonstrating IN FAVOR of their government against Peterson.

They think they are radical, but they are demonstrating in favor of the status quo, against one who is criticizing it. (!!)

Once I realized this--I was literally terrified and I realized Trump would win.

Keep in mind: the class of kids on tumblr is from the class that will benefit under Trump--and this is why they will not heed warnings or join with older activists to get rid of him: secretly, mommy and daddy like him and are getting capital gains tax cuts. That benefits them--and perhaps their motives are actually that base and transparent.

When I did health care posts (hundreds, at one point, in a blind panic, feverishly trying to save lives), not a single one of the 965 people who were then following me, reblogged those. Health care is boring unless you can talk about how ableism hurts depressed people, and then its all about Rxs. I never saw any posts about the battle for Obamacare, unless from mainstream orgs like Politico or AlterNet, etc.

This tell us the tumblrites already have their insurance, so fuck the poor.

And I started noticing the agenda. The tumblr agenda is basically pro-Trump.

~*~

If the circular firing squad ever breaks up, they could make a difference. But as long as the Left attacks the Left, as tumblr's entire purpose appears to be, it is a pro-Trump social media platform, which is why I will not return.

It is not enough to keep Trump in office; the tumblrites intend to destroy the Left in the process.

The Left, they have decided, is all shit (as are those of us who have kept it going all this time, needless to say) which is why they attack other leftists and deliberately inhibit all conversation about leftist strategies.

After all, they already have excellent health care and education. What they really need is a capital gains tax cut.

Call-Out Culture Is a Toxic Garbage Dumpster Fire of Trash

Article by Katie Herzog in The Stranger:

There’s a name for this behavior: witch hunts. Someone is accused, judged, and condemned for an alleged or apparent transgression, and the townspeople on Facebook and Twitter grab their pitchforks and rush to the burn pile. There may be little evidence to support the prevailing narrative, but that hardly matters. The trial is conducted via social media, and the judges are anyone with access. Take a recent incident in Seattle, when the (ironically, Jewish) founder of the Punk Rock Flea Market was widely accused of being a Nazi sympathizer after a false and unsubstantiated claim that he kicked a woman of color out of his event was circulated on social media. I often write about social media mobs exactly like this, and what I have found is that they are not frequently misinformed, they are almost always misinformed. You just don't know what happened unless you were (A) there or (B) someone has actually investigated whatever claims have come forth. But that's not how mobs work.

This atmosphere makes it difficult, if not impossible, to dissent. I was recently talking to a friend about the #MeToo movement. In hushed tones, she told me she had a confession to make. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said, “but I don’t think Woody Allen raped his daughter.” Luckily for her, she was in good company—I also doubt the veracity of Woody Allen’s guilt because the evidence just doesn’t support the claims—but she said this as though she were confessing to a terrible crime. And she was: a thought crime, one so potentially harmful to her standing among her own friends that expressing it to anyone besides a known thought criminal was unthinkable. The resistance, it seems, is intersectional in everything but opinions.

In a recent Wired piece, techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci wrote about contemporary censorship, which comes not from governments but from our own social networks. “The most effective forms of censorship today involve meddling with trust and attention, not muzzling speech itself," she wrote. "As a result, they don’t look much like the old forms of censorship at all. They look like viral or coordinated harassment campaigns, which harness the dynamics of viral outrage to impose an unbearable and disproportionate cost on the act of speaking out."

I see this every day. Just this week, a complete stranger tagged me in a tweet:

Yep @kittypurrzog has written a number of very questionable articles. @TheStranger should consider re-evaluating whether they want to continue promoting her incendiary views.
— Guy Oron (@GuyOron) January 23, 2018

This person, Guy, finds my opinions so “incendiary”—so trash—that he wants me to get fired from my job for expressing my thoughts. That blows my mind. I’m a critic at an alt-weekly, not a politician. My views are just that: my own views. The idea that my opinions are so dangerous that I should be fired from my job isn’t just silly, it’s scary. It’s not like I’m over here advocating that everyone go out and club baby seals.

Progressives used to be able to handle dissent. The Democrats were the party of free speech and free thought. No more. Among far too many leftists, if you disagree, you are wrong. And if you are wrong, you are bad, and if you are bad, you are trash.

This is a shame, and not just because I’m sick of getting angry e-mails. It’s a shame because this call-out culture prevents people from actually speaking their minds, because they are too scared of being unfriended, unfollowed, blocked, shunned, or dismissed as simply trash. But we shouldn't be shutting opinions we disagree with down; we should be seeking them out. You don’t learn much if everyone around you believes—or professes to believe—the exact same thing as you do, and if we don't expose ourselves to a diversity of opinions, we are never going to get out our self-imposed echo chambers. These echo chambers didn’t just bring us President Donald Trump, they brought us a liberal establishment so unable to see and believe that other people actually liked the fucker, that we all laughed at his candidacy instead of taking it as the very real threat that it was all along.

The world is falling apart around us, and we—liberals, progressive, leftists, whatever you want to call us—are too busy fighting with each other to actually do anything concrete about it, even though we agree on most of the big, important issues. The reality is, we are more alike than we are different. Like every other progressive worth my “I voted” sticker, I think Trump is the biggest threat to world stability that we’ve seen in the past 50 years. I think women should be able to procure abortions easily, cheaply, and legally. I believe that climate change is an existential threat to humanity, that white supremacy and unfettered capitalism are bad for us all, and that every single person on this planet should have access to housing, health care, clean water, good jobs, fair wages, and food to feed their kids. But that doesn’t matter—all that matters are these tiny, minute disagreements about pussy hats or emotional support animals or disgraced celebrities or whatever outrage of the day has captured the national attention. All that matters is that you are woke and I am trash.

Read it all.

Bravo. Encore.

In the interests of accuracy, during this current postmodern witch hunt, I have decided to call myself a "classical liberal" (ugh--why isn't there another term?) instead of a leftist or lefty... I hate the modern regressive Left too much to align myself with them now. This political crisis is one reason why I haven't blogged here much and have mostly fulminated on tumblr. I have now decided tumblr is part of the problem too, and likely cannot be reformed, which was my wish. I have pretty much given up on my tumblr account, and like another local friend of mine ((waves!)) will henceforth (probably) stick to posting pretty photos of nature, cats and goats. The tumblresque self-imposed self-censorship is stultifying and stifling.

Censorship, McCarthyism, Stalinism, witch hunts, The Crucible--choose your terms, they have arrived and are in full bloom.

And this is the new front we fight on, since without free speech and inquiry, there is absolutely nothing to fight for.

Nothing at all.

Ain't gonna study war no more

All my life, I have been listening to justifications for war. All my life.

Constantly, whether acted upon or not.

I realized, driving down the road today... this is not the experience of non-Americans. And I was suddenly starkly jealous of all of you. It must be nice to live in Brazil or Nepal or Paraguay or Iceland or Canada or someplace where your country's population and artillery-soaked media is not always always always talking about the need for military intervention in some area of the world most people have trouble locating on a map.

My God, I am so tired of it. I am weary. I am also SICK over the fact that innocent civilians have already lost heat, water, food, roads, medicine, the necessities of life, all because I have a cowardly president afraid to stick to his bullshit lying campaign promises. And let me tell you, with ONE exception ((waves to the peanut farmer from Georgia)), I have had that same exact damn president ALL MY LIFE. Yes, totally interchangeable presidents. We always think THIS ONE (dubbed President Hopey Changey by witty blogger Lotus) is gonna be the one to NOT act like the others. We always think THIS ONE will be better. Somehow, in some way better.

HAHAHA, yeah I was taken in, as this blog makes clear. I have considered deleting my entire blog out of sheer embarrassment, but then, that would be unfairly presenting myself as someone smarter than I was, less gullible than I was. Instead, I was someone A HALF-CENTURY OLD, yet I nonetheless believed the okey-doke, even after I had already seen decades of lying American presidents. There can be no excuse, except that yes, I was operating on HOPE. My HOPE VALVE was on automatic pilot, cruise control... I wanted so desperately to believe.

And now, I see. I see clearly.

I have talked about strategic voting many times on this blog. And with that in mind, I can't say I will never vote for Democrats again. Certainly, here in South Carolina, that would be utterly suicidal. The Republicans hate poor people and openly seek to eradicate us. I can't trust them. We are left with inferior choices in this election year, as we so often are. Why won't the good people run for office? Why do decent ordinary working people vote for politicians who openly despise them?

And why do they promise peace when they intend no such thing?

I am heartbroken and distraught. This attack on ISIS is bullshit to make Lockheed Martin and the other endless munitions makers and military contractors staggeringly rich. I don't believe anything the media tells us; I often wonder if Americans are now as cynical as the citizens of the late-stage Soviet Union were, as the stories we are given change every day, even several times a day.

Lotus, linked above, provided an amazing quote from George Orwell... as always, timely as ever:

Every war when it comes or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

Yes.

And to the media-pundit hacks like David Gergen and the others? When are you enlisting? You were not in Vietnam, you were working for RICHARD FUCKING NIXON... so tell me, WHEN ARE YOU ENLISTING FOR THIS WAR YOU SO ENTHUSIASTICALLY EXHORT US TO GET INVOLVED IN? If I hear another made-to-order Harvard/Yale "pundit" or "expert" (translation: a well-trained media toadie/lackey, who promptly reports whatever they are told to report) from the cushy white suburbs say "Right on!" about poor and already-exhausted rednecks, blacks and Latinos doing another tour of duty in the silos pushing buttons on people, I will SCREAM and SPEW... which is one reason I finally turned off the cursed television. I can't stand to hear their lying filth one more minute.

I am meditating, and I am thinking of all the other people not able to meditate, as their homes fall around them.

All I can say is: I am sorry, Syrian sisters and brothers, my fellow humans.

I was not consulted on your fate when they decided to tax my money to make bombs to destroy you. In fact, I was lied to and told that my votes might even prevent that. And I was dumb enough to believe, since I did not know what else to do.

Please forgive me.

In South Carolina news...

In local news, it looks like South Carolina will have uniformly BAD ROADS for another year, at least.




Our roads are secondary to the election. (Aren't yours?) Our awful Governor, Nikki Haley (at left, making excuses), does NOT want to be accused of being "pro-spending" before November. If you wonder why our roads are a wreck, keep this in mind. Safety is NOT as important as Nikki's re-election, of course.

Remember, when she was elected, I pointedly asked: Can the infrastructure of this state stand four more years of total neglect?

I was dead serious, although several local readers believed I was joking. Obviously, we see that I was pretty good at fortune-telling, even without my Tarot cards.

It's even worse than we thought, according to Nikki's ex-boyfriend and one-time mentor, Will Folks at FitsNews:

Three years ago S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley‘s Transportation Department (SCDOT) ran out of money and had to stop paying contractors. The result? All paving and maintenance work in the state ground to a halt (although totally unnecessary boondoggles still got their money).

Haley got her agency out of the jam by (wait for it) requesting and receiving a $52 million bailout from the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Just six weeks after she approved what at the time was the largest spending plan in South Carolina history …

Gotta love those “Tea Party” Republicans, right?

Anyway … what is past is prologue, it would appear.

This week, SCDOT commissioners met to discuss the agency’s fiscal outlook … which isn’t good.

Specifically, they admitted their cash balance would be in the negative beginning later this summer – a shortfall that is expected to last for several months. In fact the cash crunch could be much deeper – and extend into 2015 – if the federal government can’t (or won’t) pay states reimbursements from the recent ice storms. [...] At a recent commission meeting, S.C. Sen. Larry Grooms asked point-blank if the agency was going to have another problem paying contractors like they did in 2011. Agency leaders claim they have a contingency plan, but the ice storms were unforeseen, and the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) is already warning states that they will have to decrease payments, beginning in July.

“The trajectory for the highway account has worsened,” federal transportation undersecretary Peter Rogoff said at a hearing in Washington, D.C. earlier this month.

In fact the cash crunch may start affecting states prior to July …

SCDOT is currently run by Haley’s former college roommate. She assumed the position after the governor’s first pick, Robert St. Onge, resigned his office in disgrace earlier this year.

Ugh. Saints preserve us. This woman CAN'T MANAGE MONEY.

At left: Nikki Haley's independent opponent, attorney Tom Ervin.




Outside the local library, the well-scrubbed Tom Ervin partisans had tables all set up, taking signatures for Ervin, their Independent candidate. I usually sign all petitions for Independents to get on the ballot, since as a Green Party member, I want more parties involved in the process, in addition to the Majors. So, I joked to the well-scrubbed partisans that I was a socialist, red as they come, but if they want, I will sign.

They glared. They obviously needed signatures, because they grimly and wordlessly handed me their pen. So I signed. I told them to get rid of the governor, and they just glared some more.

So, Tom Ervin, teach your people to be NICE. Even if I AM a red, I vote strategically and have consequently voted for Ron Paul twice. My vote counts as much as anyone else's, whether I'm a red or not. Put that in your bong and smoke it.

Which brings me to say something nice (!) about the Governor. About the bong, I mean.

Nikki Haley Signs Medical Marijuana Bill Into Law:

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) signed the Medical Cannabis Therapeutic Treatment Research Act into law Monday, clearing the way for children with severe epilepsy to use cannabidiol oil (CBD), a non-psychoactive derivative of cannabis, to help reduce their seizures if recommended by a licensed physician.

The bill, which passed the Senate unanimously and cleared the House with a 92-5 vote, will also designate a new clinical trial at the Medical University of South Carolina dedicated to evaluating the effectiveness of CBD in controlling epileptic seizures.

Seven other states -- Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin -- have also implemented similar CBD-only medical marijuana proposals in the past four months.

It's a start.

Mr Daisy joked that since several children have died in DSS care, Nikki figured she better do something for the children, quick. The election, remember?

The SC Department of Social Services scandal has resulted in Lillian Koller's resignation, and not a moment too soon. (Once again, I warned you about her too.)

From WLTX:

Columbia, SC (WLTX) - South Carolina Department of Social Services Director Lillian Koller has resigned amid continuing concerns about the agency that she ran.

Koller submitted her letter of resignation to Governor Nikki Haley Monday morning, and Haley accepted. In the letter, she said she felt her continued presence at the agency might be causing problems.

"It has become more and more apparent to me during the past few weeks that my being the State Director is causing a distraction and making it more difficult for DSS to continue the measureable improvements made to the Agency during my tenture that have improved the lives of citizens we serve."

She said it had been a privilege to be the director.

The resignation comes a day before state senators were to discuss a no-confidence vote on Koller.

Koller's agency had come under scrutiny over how it handled cases, including some where children died. One of those was the death of 4-year-old Robert Guinyard, a Richland County boy who died after being given back to his parents. Last week, his parents were convicted of killing the child.

In another case, also out of Richland County, DSS employees were criticized for failing to find a mother who Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott says didn't give her child the proper medical care. The coroner concluded the neglect led to the boy's death. In the wake of the incident, DSS changed an agency policy, saying it would request law enforcement help if it couldn't locate a child withing 72 hours on its own.

During a state senate committee hearing looking into allegations within the agency, concerns were also raised about the workload of DSS caseworkers.

Haley had stood by Koller through the criticism, and in a statement after the resignation, praised her work within the agency.

"Lillian Koller is a dedicated public servant and child advocate, and a wonderful and loving mother - and I am so grateful for her service to South Carolina," said Haley. "Under her leadership, DSS closed a $28 million deficit, moved more than 20,000 South Carolinians from welfare-to-work, and has done wonders to improve our foster care system, placing more South Carolina children in stable, healthy families."

Koller had been director since 2011. Amber Gillum will served as the interim director until a permanent appointment is made.

Closing deficits! Now, that's important.

Children? Safety? Roads? Our money? Not so much.

SC State senate subcommittee meets on Obamacare "nullification"

... and our local Greenville News was nowhere to be found. Does this mean it's a non-issue? We can only hope.

At left: The big meeting last night at the downtown library to discuss H.3101, which would nullify the Affordable Care Act under the Tenth Amendment, which (white) South Carolina has loved since that fateful December day in 1860. (As I have reported here before, our Governor has proclaimed the Tenth Amendment is the essence of the Constitution and "State Rights trumps everything".)

Gorgeous Gregg, our radio consigliere, spoke at the meeting and was characteristically fabulous. And as a bonus, Mrs Consiglieri (she actually prefers the term Mrs Gorgeous) also addressed the committee. That made two radicals. Two. In addition, there were maybe three well-mannered liberals, pleading with the good Christians for health care. The rest?

This being Greenville, I think you know the answer to that one.

~*~

The good news, as I will share on our radio show today, is that socialism in America is A DONE DEAL!

Yes, I know. You're shocked. Ohhhh, me too. I am STUNNED it will be this easy.

Some of us were schooled that a socialist revolution would be at the barrel of a gun... Che Guevara, Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Fidel, Trotsky, Mao... you know, all of those people. They agreed on this fact, if little else. I had long ago given UP on the idea of socialist revolution, since as you all know, I am a bubbleheaded Buddhist peacenik vegetarian who gets agitated even when killing insects... and I try to transfer this unpleasant task onto my cats. (Very recently, I cried over the CNN documentary about SEA WORLD whales, forgodsake.) No violence!--sobs hippie grandma. I like to watch horror movies and suchlike, but that's make-believe, and not real. Authentic violence/brute force is something I do not endorse. I don't endorse it by MY government, and I don't endorse it from the Left. Collateral damage is a horrifying turn of phrase.

Well, all of that is MOOT. Yes, MOOT, do you hear me? Fuhgettaboudit, as the New Yorkers say.

SOCIALISM IS HERE. <----- I heard this sentence about a dozen times, from a dozen angry SC-citizens last night. In fact, the ideological lockstep was striking, the choice of words almost precisely the same in several cases. Did they crib it all from Glenn Beck? Are they unable to think for themselves? It sounded exactly like a script, like programmed androids. Mr and Mrs Gorgeous were notable for the fact that although connected in holy matrimony, they actually sounded markedly different from each other, whereas many of the speakers who supposedly were not acquainted and/or lived at significant distances from each other... sounded virtually identical in their phrasing. Brazen Tea Party lockstep gave me the major creeps. (I toyed with naming this post THE STEPFORD TEA PARTY and realized that title has probably already had its heyday.) In that sense, it was a lot like the Town Hall meeting I attended in the summer of 2009.

So, just to clarify--

You thought President Obama gave in to the health insurance industry; you thought Obama staged one of the biggest tax-giveaways to (decidedly unsocialist) Wall Street in history. No, no, NO. Obama is a socialist. In fact, the passage of Obamacare will SOLIDIFY socialism in our government as NOTHING BEFORE IN HISTORY. It's THE INSTITUTION OF SOCIALISM. It will happen, unavoidably and unequivocally. We listened to Tea Partier after Tea Partier gibbering madly about SOCIALISM.

I am now wholly and completely enthusiastic about Obamacare. I was admittedly rather tepid before, since I greatly-preferred the Green Party program of Medicare for all. But this was obviously before I attended last night's meeting and learned THE TRUTH. INSTANT SOCIALISM! Wow, is that GREAT or what? NO VIOLENCE, a totally peaceful transition! I am wondering what the Socialist Workers Party and the Revolutionary Communist Party and that whole red crowd I used to hang with, is thinking NOW. I guess they will be disbanding? Nothing to complain about now! Wall street, shmall street!

And that ain't all, sports fans.

A strange piece of paper was foisted on me as I entered the aforesaid meeting. It is authoritatively titled SIXTEEN FACTS ABOUT NULLIFICATION and was ostensibly written by the bill's sponsor in the SC State House, Bill Chumley, a proud member of Sons of Confederate Veterans. (Hey Bill, guess what? My Confederate ancestor was smarter than yours! And as we see, we have both inherited our respective CSA-ancestors' intelligence. Excuse me, I digress.)

First, we get all the (cough) 'facts' about nullification, but at the bottom, there are some fascinating editorial comments:

South Carolina will become the first state to nullify Obamacare by making it illegal for the state or any local government or agency to enforce that law. Also, the path will be cleared for further actions to resist the federal bully by indicating that this state will defend her constitutional rights by, if necessary, criminalizing FEDERAL enforcement of unconstitutional laws within our borders.

Mark my words, unless the precedent of defiance is set, the feds will try to force homosexual marriage on us while taking our guns AND our right to public prayer.

DO YOU SEE THAT??? DO YOU???

Obamacare will usher in gay marriage, gun control and abolish public prayer! POOF! Just like that, just by existing. Is that some magic hoodoo shit or what?

More reasons to love Obamacare! No more of this state-by-state bullshit with gay marriage, sports fans! It will just...
HAPPEN BY FIAT. ABRA CADABRA! Obama has reached out to grabya.

I never knew it could be this easy. I was ready for a long battle. And I am assured by Bill Chumley that NO, its just going to HAPPEN, BY SOME MAGICAL POLITICAL OSMOSIS!

I woke up in a great mood today, since I realize now that a bloodless socialist revolution is imminent. Damn, do I feel GOOD! ITS MORNING IN AMERICA, yall!

And oh yeah, this was at the bottom of Chumley's screed:

Contact your senator and ask your friends and family to do the same. Tell him you want the senate to approve H3101. Also, attend the town hall meeting in Greenville, being held by Sen. Tom Davis on Nov 5th, to discuss nullifying Obamacare.

I truly believe the survival of our republic depends on two things: a return to Christ and the Scriptures; and, reestablishing States’ rights and state sovereignty as our political foundation. Feel free to contact me anytime at (864) 303-2726, with any questions or comments. I’d love to hear from you.

Do you think Bill really wants to hear from me? I am skeptical of his sincerity.

Bill's Rebel ancestor would be so proud of him. And mine would be so proud of me. This is the week we traditionally honor our ancestors, and I am proud to honor mine, by abandoning the backward Confederacy, once again. I love you, Thomas Hatcher... thank you for passing onto me the DNA to think for myself in the midst of racist, classist, reactionary insanity.

And I was extremely conscious of this fact, as I listened to the veritable parade of Tea Party speakers, that herd of independent minds using the exact same phrases and paragraphs, recited as a child recites from the Gospel of John in Sunday School. Independent-thinking was a trait in very short supply last night. They are still afraid of their boogeyman, whom they have erroneously confused with Jesus Christ.

Since as we all know, Jesus was a socialist who said, SELL EVERYTHING YOU OWN AND FOLLOW ME.

(((goes off to whistle the Internationale)))

Paul Krugman on the election

In a piece boldly titled SOCIALISM! in the New York Times, Paul Krugman writes:

I have to say, the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments on the right comes as a surprise. We knew that they would be upset; but the extent to which they were really, truly unprepared for the obvious possibility that Obama would be reelected is remarkable.

...

One thing that caught my eye, in particular, has been the wailing that Americans have turned socialist. (Conservatives haven’t failed America — America has failed conservatives!) Thus John Hinderaker of 'Bush is a genius' fame declares--

To me, the most telling incident of the campaign season was a poll that found that among young Americans, socialism enjoys a higher favorability rating than free enterprise. How can this possibly be, given the catastrophic failure of socialism, and the corresponding success of free enterprise, throughout history? The answer is that conservatives have entirely lost control over the culture.

Oddly, he doesn’t even seem to consider the more obvious possibility: after decades in which right-wingers have attacked long-established institutions — Social Security, progressive taxation, unemployment insurance — as “socialism”, a lot of young people now believe them, and think that this “socialism” thing really isn’t so bad.

As for me, I am glad I didn't scrub off those OBAMA 08 bumper stickers from days gone by.

I rather enjoy the dirty looks and grim countenances I see this week in my rear-view mirror.

Part Two: How white flight brought down the economy

PART TWO of my series, How did the American Left lose the working classes?




I drove down to Woodruff Road and decided to check out the Goodwill Store. (As my regular readers know, I love snooping around in the Goodwill.)

Although I had seen a plethora of DeMint and Haley bumper stickers on my drive down, it is notable I saw none in the Goodwill parking lot. I saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, of whom I am very fond. I saw her about five times, even more than usual.

Keeping this series of posts in mind, I counted. Three white people in the whole place. All three whites were at least over 40; one was a quite-ancient, wise-appearing old man perusing the used book-bin, carefully inspecting the tossed-aside Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum thrillers. The other two had grandchildren in tow and seemed to be shopping for them, too.

The signs are now in Spanish and English, and several announcements were made in Spanish. (The music was a neutral oldies radio station, although I imagine that will also change in the future.) I was instantly reminded of the thrift store I went to in suburban Atlanta last year (see my souvenir photo above), in which I was the only white person in the whole store, the signs only in Spanish. And this was in Newt Gingrich's old district, where some of the houses start at half-a-million dollars (or did, before the economy tanked). Where do these folks live? -- I wondered. And then I realized, they live in one of the many apartment complexes dotting Cobb County, just as I live in a similar one here in Greenville County. They work for the people who live in the half-million-dollar homes, just as I also do.

After my visit to the suburban-Atlanta thrift store, we went over to the Barnes and Noble. I was immediately struck by the fact that these businesses were not very far apart in terms of mileage, but are light-years apart in terms of culture and economics. The Barnes and Noble was practically an all-white enclave, only a few miles from the thrift store, an all-Latino enclave.

And today, after leaving the Goodwill, I drove only a mile or so to Whole Foods.

Again, the shock of leaving a heavily-Latino enclave, driving a short distance, and entering an all-white one.

Why are we segregating ourselves?

I know for a fact (see link above) that poor (and some middle-class and bohemian-type) white people love digging through second-hand cast-offs as much as I do. I have been visiting yard sales and thrift stores my whole life, and white people have always been very well-represented.

So, what's going on?

~*~

Today, I saw workers replacing the carpet in another apartment unit in my building. Latino men, speaking Spanish and hammering nails, waved to me as I left. Latino men take care of the grounds, too. (When we moved here, the grounds crew were all black men, and the fellows laying the carpet were also black.)

Me and Mr Daisy often joke we will be the last white people left in the complex. Our apartment faces the woods and golf course, as I have written before, and we like living in this little pocket of quiet that we have been lucky to find in such a busy area. Whenever we seriously consider moving, we are never satisfied with houses that are RIGHT ON THE STREET; we have gotten rather spoiled living back here in our private little spot facing the woods, away from traffic and other suburban hoopla. Even though we are only about two blocks from I-85, we hear the occasional siren or Harley-Davidson, but not much else.

When we moved here, the population of the apartment complex seemed to mirror that of South Carolina at large, which was fine with us. (One of the main reasons we moved here was that the schools were supposed to be the best, in a county where the schools historically have left quite a lot to be desired.) I'd say it was about 25-30% African-American; the state of SC is about 1/3 African-American in total.

But we have stayed, and the other white people haven't. Where'd they go? We looked around one day, and saw that the vast majority of our neighbors were black or immigrants (Asian and Latino). The white people who remain are usually older (like us), or very young and newly employed at nearby Michelin or BMW (the Asian engineers walk to Michelin from here; while the whites all drive). We hardly see any white families with children; I was stunned to see ONLY children of color getting off the school bus in front of the apartment gate recently.

Okay, where are the white people? What's going on?

They bought houses, they got divorced, they moved away, etc. But don't People of Color do all of those things, too?

We are self-segregating.

And here it is: self-segregating costs money.

As I have intently studied the local real estate market, houses-for-sale, condos-for-rent, etc etc etc, the truth hit me with considerable force:

I can tell WHO lives in a neighborhood by the price.

Whiteness runs about $200-300 a month. That is the price of whiteness. The same-size apartment in a heavily-minority apartment complex is about $200-300 LESS than in an all-white or mostly-white complex. In terms of real estate: the same-size house, in more or less the same condition, might run you as much as $50,000 more in a mostly-white neighborhood than in a black neighborhood. Fact.

Me and Mr Daisy joke that the popular real estate expression "Location, Location, Location" is code for "White location."

How much did this whole Wall Street foreclosure-crisis have to do with white flight? Are we allowed to talk about that?

Why WERE people living so far beyond their means, anyway? When we hear the Fox News stories (beware the source), we are given to understand that it's them clueless minorities who couldn't do the math and understand that their mortgage was too high. (((shakes head dismissively in haughty Fox News manner))) Tsk tsk, what do you expect?

But I am officially rewriting that version here:

The mortgage crisis was caused, in large part, by poor white people who were fleeing Mexicans and Blacks in rental properties.

I know this because they moved away from MY apartment complex, bought pricey DeMint-district McMansions, and then went financially belly-up, in short order.

Why should we bail out white people who were running away from The Bad People? I resent doing that, since I didn't run away. Why am I footing the bill for the people who did? (After the Revolution, when I am Minister of Finance, we will be checking up on the REASONS you moved in the first place, before rescuing your mathematically-challenged, now-flat-broke white ass. Ha.)

We have to face the fact that racism is killing the working classes, rendering them/us easily manipulated by real-estate hucksters and Whole Foods and every other damn thing.

And keeping us ALL (of all colors) from joining together to SEE CLEARLY what is going on.

There is a REASON the Tea Party is largely composed of angry white people; they are the ones who did as they were told. They moved away from the Bad People, they moved where they were told to move and bought what they were told to buy... and HEY! They got fucked. How'd THAT happen? No wonder they are damned pissed. But instead of examining the ideology of capitalism (a cornerstone of which is: MUST BUY HOUSE! RENTERS ARE TACKY!), they swallow it whole, and keep on swallowing.

"You know what capitalism is? Getting fucked!"--Tony Montana

~*~

The American Left, as we established in Part One, is now itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of the ruling class. It is that segment of the ruling class that is (at best) interested and involved in justice and/or (at worst) wants to FEEL GOOD (even morally superior) about themselves. And a discussion of racism in everyday life, which is what segregation IS, is not something they are eager to have, since it is also part and parcel of the life they lead.

Because affluent liberals have the money to ignore the actual market-price of whiteness I listed above, they don't readily SEE it. To the liberal ruling class, segregation is invisible. It just IS. They want to live in XYZ neighborhood/village/subdivision/condo development because it's a cool place to live and they don't see that as any sort of racist act, and how dare you suggest such a thing. It is simply what they want, the way they want a new car stereo, a new computer, a new car. And a new house. The fact that someone BUILT that house, that computer, that car, is immaterial to them. It's something they must have; their identity depends on it (more about this phenomenon, first addressed by Herbert Marcuse and Christopher Lasch, in future posts).

Thus, segregation is totally invisible to them. Certainly, they don't believe they actively participate in segregation, even if pressed to admit they live in an all-white area. It just happened that way, that's all. Economically, segregation is not something they are forced to think about, so they don't.

And to these white people (to any privileged whites), segregation means: How many People of Color to ALLOW IN. It's already understood that they are coming from an all-white perspective, an all-white neighborhood, an all-white place. They aren't running from anybody. As privileged whites, they are there already. They already occupy the protected place the non-privileged whites are TRYING TO GET TO, the safe place that is sought after and coveted.

And for this reason, the liberal classes did not see the white flight-factor in the economic collapse. If they did, they excused it. But I am of the opinion that none actually realized the impetus for the stampede of cheap mortgages, at the same time anti-immigrant fervor exponentially increased. Because: For privileged whites, immigration is about who to employ as a nanny or yard worker. For non-privileged whites, immigration is about who is going to live next door to you.

Since the American Left ignores their own racial segregation (due to the profusion of leftists from bourgeois backgrounds), they ignore everyone else's, too. They have therefore ignored one of the primary reasons (and one of the primary motivations) for the cheap mortgages.

TO sum up: A bunch of rich industrialists bring in Latinos to work on the cheap. First they bring them in by the thousands...and then, by the millions... all while abdicating responsibility and pretending that these poverty-stricken folks are just hopping fences and swimming the Rio Grande on their own. Then, they find them apartments to live in, right next to white people, while they also employ them (very cheaply) to do upkeep on the grounds and lay carpets. The buildings fill up with spicy, strange odors and Our Lady of Guadalupe on the door; lots of brown-skinned children and women cursing at the kids in Spanish.

Don't be alarmed!--the rich to the rescue again. You don't like these people and their taco-smells? We have a cheap mortgage for YOU! Like magic, you will be transported OUT of that hell-hole, and you will be among people like yourself again.

And yes, the miracle-mortgages were marketed JUST LIKE THAT, only just a tad more respectable.

For years I have received their cheapie direct-mail advertisements for basement-rate mortgages, addressed to everyone in the apartment complex... usually stunning photo-shopped postcards of glimmering white houses that look like they are in Malibu, rather than in the upstate.

These postcards ask, in large dramatic block lettering: TIRED OF APARTMENT LIVING?

Now, why would you be tired of apartment living? Owning your own home makes you far more TIRED than calling up maintenance, let me assure you.

I think they were actually asking something else. Location, location, location.

~*~

To be continued!

How did the American Left lose the working classes?- Part one

Yes, boys and girls, that's our discussion question for today. I need explanations!

First, let us study this pertinent excerpt of historic text:

In 1922, the Nikowsskis moved to the Polish section of Chicago, and Dick went to work in a slaughterhouse where he worked six days a week, freezing in winter, sweltering in summer, making just enough to exist on, never enough to save anything. Nikowsski's description of this slaughterhouse in 1922 evokes for me an image of men in hell, condemned to shovel coal onto their own doom-fires.

One of the men who worked in the slaughterhouse was a socialist, a thin, burning-eyed man in his thirties. Dick Nikowsski was twenty years old. This socialist worked beside Dick, and became his friend. He talked endlessly, obsessively about "the bosses" and "the working stiffs." Half the time Dick couldn't follow the socialist, didn't know what the hell he was talking about, thought only that he was going to get them all in trouble. But he liked the socialist because behind the rage he sensed something wild and wounded in the man, and besides, whenever there was a dispute between the foreman and a worker, the socialist was the only one who stuck his neck out for the worker.

Then, one day in summer, when it was so blistering hot in the slaughterhouse the sweat was pouring down into the men's eyes, blinding them, the socialist suddenly turned to Dick and said to him: "Do you know where the owners are now? Right now while you and I are here sweating like pigs?" No," Dick replied, "where?" The socialist took a folded page of newspaper from his pocket. "There!" he thundered. "At the coast!" Dick stared blindly at the picture of a group of men and women lying languidly by the sea. The blue eyes of the seventy-year-old Nikowsski stare at me, fifty years disappearing in their wide gaze. "I didn't even know what the coast was," he says in wonder as fresh as that of the twenty-year-old still alive inside him.

"Something happened to me then. I just stared and stared at that picture. Suddenly it was as if everything that socialist had been saying all those months clicked into place somewhere in my head, and I saw me behind that picture, I saw me knee-deep in blood and shit my whole life so that that picture could be taken. I don't know how to describe it to you, I don't think I even knew what it was that was happening, I certainly couldn't have put it into words, but something came rising up in me, so swift and so strong, it nearly took the breath out of my body. I can still feel it, the way I felt it then. As if it was coming right out of the center of me, as if it had been waiting there all that time, all my life, and now it had--just that fast!--run out of time."

Excerpted from The Romance of American Communism by Vivian Gornick.

~*~

I like that story because a similar thing happened to me. Very similar, and although I wasn't stuck in a slaughterhouse, I was doing some nasty work, scrubbing toilets and such. And I was significantly younger than Dick.

I soon learned what else was happening with this corporation around the same time I was working for them. My eyes were opened.

And my question is, why doesn't this happen now? Why has the right-wing Tea Party movement been so successful in cashing in on class resentment?

Where is the Left in these harsh economic times?

I have decided the Left is largely IN ABSENTIA because the American Left now comes from the elite class itself; their political convictions are basically a reflection of the warmed-over liberalism they obediently ingested while attending Good Colleges. They believe what they believe out of a sense of common decency, fairness and goodness. But not because most American Leftists have experienced classism themselves.

In fact, most have NOT.

The Left is therefore doing it FOR the poor bedraggled working classes... not for themselves. (They do not feel personally disenfranchised, they feel they are speaking up FOR the disenfranchised.)

And this is why they keep getting it wrong.

~*~

This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else's oppression.

--Combahee River Collective, 1977

Keeping this statement in mind, we see why feminism, disability and gay activism (and other types of identity-based activism) has been so successful in the past few decades, whereas the American Left, no longer an actual product of the working classes, can no longer claim success.

The identity of Lefty is now that of the more educated person, someone who can afford to buy organic, who listens to NPR, who has the room to start composting. They read the New York Times, not the New York Daily News.

When an ignorant person is just becoming politically aware for the first time... can they look to the socialist working next to them on the job? No, because there aren't any. So, where do they look? They look to the TV, as always... and carefully segregated on certain channels, they see the people who are like them, and the people who aren't.

They look around and see common working people going to church to pray they can make it through another tough, back-breaking working week, as they watch the televised coastal elites make fun of church-going, ascribing religious belief to simple weakness and stupidity.

They attempt to get hired, and find that jobs have evaporated. Where did they go?--asks the worker. (And who has the ready answer for that? The right or the left?) Why are we bailing out rich Wall Street greedheads when I can't pay my mortgage due to unemployment?--asks the worker. (And who has the ready answer for that? The right or the left?) Why am I working harder and getting poorer, while Paris Hilton has time to make porn and waltz around in designer clothes and officially do nothing for a living? (And who has the ready answer for that? The right or the left?)

People join the group that is most like them. And this means that these days, American working people seem to be joining the Tea Party, the group that most LOOKS like them.

The American Left is no longer synonymous with "the workers"... It was once, but has changed dramatically. I now think of the American Left as the primary participants in identity politics, but not as the workers.

~*~

Discussion? Agree? Disagree? Although I'd like this to be a multi-part series, I am unsure of which direction I'd like to take this next... so COMMENTS PARTICULARLY WELCOME. (note guidelines for commenting; trolls will get the trap door!)

The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker by Steven Greenhouse

Rarely has a book left me so thoroughly depressed.

I had planned to start writing this review over the weekend, but it was an unpleasant prospect that I kept putting off, rather like changing the kitty litter.

But I knew I had to. Rah rah the working classes, and all like that. But that's just it, I hate to catalog exactly how bad we're getting it right now, and will likely continue to get it. Whilst reading this book, I remarked offhandedly to Mr Daisy that surely it can't continue like this, and he just laughed at me. Sure it can. It can get much worse; just take a look at those exhausted seamstresses in Taiwan hurriedly sewing sewing sewing for a measly 9 cents a garment. Reading this account of working conditions in the USA right now, one comes away with the (thoroughly depressing) idea that the Labor Movement was a mere blip, a momentary pause in the long march towards turning the masses of us into automatons and work horses, not necessarily in that order.

Interestingly enough, what initially grabbed me about this book was the inclusion of a chapter about the company I used to work for. Wow, there it is! I was somewhat dazzled to read it: see, I told you it was bad. Of course, I already knew that, but how validating to see it here on the printed page; the lousy working conditions duly listed with the other shitty employers like Walmart.

The company in question runs call-centers for corporate clients, and although the client in the book-example is different, the description of the work-atmosphere and job-requirements are the same. (I have mentioned this job a few times on DEAD AIR, notably here and here.) I made pretty good money, admittedly, but I paid for it in blood. During rush-seasons, we got bonuses simply for showing up and on time, so that should tell you just how vicious and nasty the calls could get. It was not unusual for people to dramatically walk out on the job with a "take this job and shove it" flourish... or they might simply scurry away in tears. They finally had to bribe employees to stay.

Now, however, in today's economy, they don't even bother with the bribes. Wages are down; bonuses and perks largely non-existent. The layoffs and pay-decreases enumerated in this book started in 2001, which is the year I left.[1]:

They call it the script. But it's actually an arcane list of things you are supposed to say, and things you'd better not say. At the [company] call center in [Anywhere, USA], the script sometimes seems only slightly less sacred than the Bible.

If any of the 550 [my center had over 800] customer service representatives (CSRs) stray too much from the script on one call, they risk a tongue-lashing. If they are caught straying on three or four calls, they risk their job.

You must always say "Thank you for calling ____." [...] You should never call a customer sir or madam, it's always Mr. or Ms. with the last name. And you had better not mispronounce the last name, even if it's Krzyzewski. If you don't slip in the customer's name at least three times during a call, that will mean some demerits. And you'd better mention [special bargain] at least once each call. You need to sound chipper and energetic, and you shouldn't spend more than four minutes on a call [our official call time was three minutes, ten seconds, give or take]. You also need to slip in at least two "pro-actives" [instructions to customer on how to avoid calling back, things they can do themselves, but say it nicely].

[...] And when a call is about to end, you'd better not forget to ask, "Have I resolved all of your concerns today?"

[...] There are more than 60,000 call centers in the United States and an estimated 4 million call center workers. It's an industry at the heart of the American economy. Call centers are the connective tissue of modern commerce, handling airline reservations and stock sales, selling HBO subscriptions and cell phones, taking orders for LL Bean and Dell computers, troubleshooting problems with your hard drive or your credit card.

Call centers are sometimes viewed as factories that supply an invaluable product: customer service. One academic study found that "call centers introduce principles of mechanization and industrial engineering into a much wider array of service transactions than was hitherto possible"--thanks to specialized software, networked computers, sophisticated equipment that distributes calls, and recording devices that keep tabs on a CSR's every word. While call centers rely on modern technologies to maximize productivity, their techniques often seem borrowed from the "drive" principles of old.

In short, deviate from the script, take too long, mess it up, and it's your ass in a sling.

And you know, some folks in management tried to be as humane as they could be about it, but rules are rules. I once listened to myself cut off an extremely-talkative jerk (on a tape-recorded call; all are recorded, but only a random few are listened to for monthly quality-review), because he was running up my call-time drastically... After every few word-torrents, I interrupted him with, "Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah" [2] which made my supervisors crack up so bad, they could barely write me up, they were laughing so hard. Nonetheless, I was written up. You have to keep the call short, but you can't interrupt the customer either (even if he sorely needs interrupting); obviously a no-win situation for the CSR. [3]

If you've ever wondered why it often takes two or three calls to straighten out a situation, keep in mind, the CSR answering your call might be working on a backlog of the last several calls. If you are put on hold immediately, it's because she has every window on her screen filled up, and has to clear one first to handle your call. Also, much of the new technology "auto-populates" screens with customer information that is often incorrect. So, she has to fix that, too. And a bunch of other shit besides:

[...] While on a call, perhaps answering a customer's questions about a monthly bill, the CSRs not only were supposed to slip in all the elements from the script, but were supposed to verify names and addresses and type them into the computer. And if the customer changed their cell phone plan [this was the Verizon call center in the book, mine was not] during a call, the CSRs had to type a great deal of additional information and do a credit check, all while navigating among various computer screens. [...] If while juggling all these tasks a call center rep concentrated so much on her typing or her computer screen that she didn't listen to the customer for a second or dropped a beat in the conversation, there would be consequences. "If you ever asked a customer to repeat something, the supervisors had a fit," [recalls one employee] "and you couldn't have dead air."

;) And now you know another reason for my blog name.

And now you also know why your information gets all screwed up.

~*~

As I said, I feel validated reading this account from the labor correspondent for the New York Times. Then again, note the "golly gee whiz" tone in what he has written, above. These are investigative "field studies" for him. It sounds remarkably like anthropology involving a pilgrimage to another culture that the author doesn't belong to, rather than workers in his own country. One gets the distinct impression that Steven Greenhouse doesn't actually associate with the people he is writing about. And see, although his heart is undoubtedly in the right place, I think this is part of the problem. Who is his intended audience, the workers in question? Who is he telling all of this to? NPR listeners? PBS viewers-like-you? People who attend Ivy-League schools? I can't quite figure out who is supposed to be reading this book; I didn't need to read it to know about the state of affairs described therein. I know what's in it. Who doesn't know about the current sorry state of affairs for the American worker? The educated people who will never have a job like CSR? (And are they utterly certain about that?)

Part of the problem is the class-schism of New York Times readers (wherein handbags are advertised starting at $4000 on sale) vs the rest of the country.

The problem is that he has to write this book in the first place, because people like him don't know about the call centers unless they read it in a book.

~*~

The best chapter in The Big Squeeze is (perfectly) titled "Leaner and Meaner," in which Greenhouse delineates the collapse of basic decency among management... something I first noticed during the Reagan era, when Big Business was manically fetishized as the savior of the American economy (and we see how well THAT worked, she coughed). Suddenly, bosses were given carte blanche to rip you a new one and scream stop fucking up whenever they took a notion. Before this time, such behavior was seriously uncool (have a look at MAD MEN again) and could lead to dismissal. After the 80s? The temper-tantrum-throwing supervisor was considered a real go-getter and was promoted to a fare-thee-well. Having no "sentimentality" and screaming at people the day their mother dies, well, that's a guy who CARES ABOUT THE COMPANY and will certainly go far, with hella commitment like that! The longer I have worked, the more I have seen this phenomenon in play. I have seen it increase to the point that I just assume most supervisors will be cruel--and I am pleasantly surprised when they aren't. Cruelty has become a managerial requirement; unkindness and brutality signal that you run a tight ship. A lot like the military.

Other chapters are also required reading, particularly "Outsourced and Out of Luck" and the well-documented "The Rise and Fall of the Social Contract"--chapter titles that speak for themselves. Although he offers 'solutions' at the end of the book, one can't help but think that companies and capitalists have already found their solution--and he even mentions it himself: Outsourcing. Maquiladoras. India. Mexico. If American workers complain or buckle under the pressure, do what the rich have always done: move on. Textile workers in the north start unionizing? Move the textile industry to the south. Too expensive THERE TOO? On to Mexico. Too expensive to pay call center workers a living wage in the USA? Hey, they speak English in India, and that's the new frontier for call centers.

They will just keep going until they find more people to use. And there seems to be a never-ending supply.

As I said, the book was depressing. The only thing I can think of to make me feel better is to repeat this old expression I learned years ago: Workers of the World unite, we have nothing to lose but our chains.

:)



...


[1] I left the company virtually right before 9/11... one of my first thoughts on 9/11 was how much of a mess it would be if I was still taking calls (my shift was heavily East Coast/New York), which is a terrible, self-serving thought, but one I couldn't suppress. I was so grateful to be off the phones, so that I would not hear the anguish up close.

[2] I sounded rather like the yeah-yeah's at the end of the B-52s song, "Dance this mess around" if you have ever heard it.

On another call, I got a customer named Fernando and asked him if he liked the Abba song of the same name. I nearly got written up for that too, but it turned out he loved the song and started singing it to me. (That one also made the rounds of management, and some would sing "Fernando" to me when they saw me in the hallways.)

[3] What was jarring about the call was how I didn't remember a thing about it, as if my memory banks had been wiped clean ("Did I fall asleep?")... Even now, years later, only a few calls really stand out--most are a veritable blur of meaningless capitalist verbiage in my memory.