America: Land of Slaves
*I urge folks to read gjohnsit essay regarding Americans and "freedoms".
America is a nation of slaves.
Not in the past -- right now.
America, right now, has hundreds of millions of slaves.
Americans would turn to the 13th amendment (well, they would say the gist of the amendment at least) and say that slavery is illegal in this country. Except, for, well, the small fact that slavery is still legal* in this country considering the forced labor in prison populations. But, that is a different story and a different theme.
What, then, am I talking about?
When you think of slavery, you imagine a ball-and-chain worker in a field somewhere. You might imagine debt bondage or some other form of slavery even. The thing that makes the current batch of American slaves different is one crucial component: will.
To put it another way is that Americans willingly choose to be slaves.
Americans wake up every morning and shout from their rooftops that they are slaves. Americans willingly place chains around their wrists and ankles to then go on about their day-to-day routine.
Is slave too strong a word? Is it just a writer trying to make a point?
How can America, land of the free, where people can choose their own path in life, be considered slaves?
In that question, the flaw is already found. Americans could choose their own path in life if they tried, but they don't. It is in that context that Americans decided they want to be slaves.
Throughout this so far there has not been a path leading into the belief that Americans today are slaves. The frightening reality is that there are many paths to slavery -- Americans take every single one of them.
Let's start with economics:
42.4% of all workers make less than $15 an hour.
The federal poverty level for a family of five is $28,410, and yet almost 40 percent of all American workers do not even bring in $20,000 a year.
If you worked a full-time job at $10 an hour all year long with two weeks off, you would make approximately $20,000. This should tell you something about the quality of the jobs that our economy is producing at this point.
51% of Americans make $30,000 or less a year.
Source
These are wages that aren't sustainable. These are wages that you cannot survive on.
But yet the slaves do.
More and more jobs continue to be automated. More and more jobs continue to be sent overseas. More and more jobs continue to see wages frozen and benefits cut.
But yet the slaves take them up.
Is it out of desperation and a need to survive? Somewhat. The cold and harsh reality though is that all those people willingly have squandered their power and thus willingly put the chains around themselves. 50% of the entire workforce in America, regardless of how they internally feel, accept this model and trudge along.
50% of the workforce in America is roughly 80 million people. 80 million people accept this. 80 million people. So workers have two choices: Hope politicians will help them or do something about it. Americans will always choose the former over the later. I will dive into politics a bit later here.
What could workers do right now? If 80 million people went on strike in this country, a massive unified strike from coast to coast, the country would be brought to its knees. The workers would have enormous power because without the worker, the profits cannot be made. It is true that more and more things are becoming automated but people won't because they prefer slavery.
The wealth gap is worse than it was during the Great Depression. A brutal system of capitalist exploitation but the people accept it, willingly. They believe the lies their masters tell them. It is a country of temporarily-embarrassed millionaires after all.
You might believe I am being too harsh. That people have been conditioned to serve. That people are fearful. That people don't know what to do. To an extent all of that is true but also it is reductive. It reduces down the agency of 80 million people. Put another way is where is the spark and fire within these individuals. We have at our fingertips access to information throughout history. But we ignore it. We willingly ignore it. No one is stopping people from looking up any information about the current state of the world. We prefer to have things done for us.
Culture/Society:
America is a nation that does not have the capacity to think.
Americans believe things that are told to them and only things that are told to them, particularly if that person wears an expensive suit and sits behind an anchor's desk.
America is the easiest nation in this world to control, because the people want to be manipulated.
How easy is it to manipulate Americans? Amazingly easy. All you have to do is either repeat a lie over and over again or prop up the opposite to get them to believe it.
For instance, I'll start with the latter.
"America is the greatest nation on Earth." Under what metrics is this true? Number 1 in obesity and prison population, along with military spending perhaps but not any other metric. We are mediocre in critical thinking, school scoring, quality of life, health care, happiness, and more.
"Here in America we have freedom." Not even close. Americans willingly give up their rights over and over again. The Bill of Rights has been effectively gutted because Americans do not want rights. No matter how many times Americans will bitch and moan with a megaphone, the reality is Americans do not want rights. Americans want to be controlled. They want to be told what to think, what to feel, what words they can use, who can search them, everything.
"Here in America we are strong." A multi-part phrase but still inaccurate. If one considers the reality that American is the most obese nation on this planet, well, don't think we are that strong. If we are talking militarily, well, that is true. Except, what does that strength mean?
"Our soldiers fight to protect our freedoms." Biggest bullshit you will ever hear. Only two instances where you could begin to make that case are the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. But, let's dive into this a bit.
What freedoms were American soldiers protecting when they invaded Vietnam? Vietnam, a country of rice farmers and of zero threat to the United States. What freedoms were American soldiers protecting when American soldiers dragged innocent people out of their huts and shot them in the head? What freedoms were American soldiers protecting when they dragged women and young girls out to be gang raped?
Your freedoms are taken from you by your government. Yet, your government has you believing that people in third world countries are the ones who will take your freedoms from you. Again, Americans want to be controlled.
Here is the reality on how easy it is to control Americans:
To strip freedoms from people, repeat endlessly that they are the freest people in the world.
To slaughter tens of millions of people around the world for profit, tell the American people that rice farmers and goat herders will somehow take their freedoms from them.
To hide the disgust the world has for America, repeat endlessly that the world loves them.
To hide the fact that America is under almost any metric mediocre, repeat endlessly that America is the great nation on Earth.
Americans have access to virtually all information. Americans can easily search up online the atrocities and devastation that America has done. Americans can easily search up online how their own government works against them. But they don't, because again, they prefer being slaves.
Americans prefer to be told what to do. Americans prefer to be told what to think. Americans prefer to be told what to buy. Americans willingly place the shackles upon themselves. Americans are more knowledgeable about consumerism and mundane entertainment than they are about world affairs that affect them.
The culture of America is one of a bold lie concealing the true nature. The true nature of the culture of America is that its people are meant to be slaves and so they are conditioned and trained for that role. The bold lie is all the propaganda garbage you read about: you're free, you're amazing, everyone loves you, hard work pays off, everyone can succeed. The only culture that really exists in America is one crafted in a boardroom. What shows you like, the clothes you wear, the food you eat. America's culture is advertisement.
Any thought that diverges from this path is criticized. Pointing about the atrocities America has committed is not patriotic and un-American. Let that sink in. Pointing out atrocities, war crimes, mass murder, genocide, rape, torture and more that this country has committed is to be unpatriotic and un-American.
Americans do not want to think. All they have to do is listen to the government officials who lie to them and then corporate media who also lies to them. 5 years after 9/11, 43% of Americans still believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attack. Source
The government lied about the reason for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
About Vietnam
Afghanistan
Iraq
Libya
Syria
Russia
All lies. All easily disproved lies. But Americans do not want to think. They prefer slavery.
Politics:
Perhaps one of the biggest supporting themes is the reality that the American class of slaves refuses to give up their masters. Americans refuse to disavow themselves of Democrats and Republicans.
Democrats and Republicans actively work to destroy the lives of the people of this country. They do not care about you. They never have, they never will. Poor people continue to suffer and die in this country. Democrats and Republicans have raped, tortured, slaughtered, and destroyed the lives of hundreds of millions of people. And yet, we still vote them in.
Democrats and Republicans will tell you straight to your face they will take your jobs from you. And you vote for them anyway.
Democrats and Republicans keep you from having actual health care. And you vote for them anyway.
Democrats and Republicans continue to destroy the planet by not doing anything meaningful about climate change. And you vote for them anyway.
Democrats and Republicans tell you that the rich deserve to prosper and live while everyone else deserves to suffer. And you vote for them anyway.
Democrats and Republicans tell you that greed and corruption are fantastic. And you vote for them anyway.
You want to know how to stop the pain? At the most basic level of what you could do is to simply not vote for the two capitalist, warmongering, imperialist, destructive parties. Something so simple, so basic and yet people would rather suffer in their chains than actually fight back. People could do a nationwide election boycott, but that would actually require effort.
The reality is that this country is essentially on a path towards destruction. The people will continue to fight over manufactured problems to keep them busy and entertained, such as the imagined War on Christmas or football players kneeling. Somehow football players kneeling during the national anthem is more important that your government slaughtering tens of millions of people. The people prefer that instead of the dealing with the grit of reality.
This country is being gutted and drained dry for every single penny there is. Once it is done, the 1% will fly off. All that will remain will be a barren wasteland of slaves scratching their heads wondering what happened. They'll cry out, not because of pain or anger, but because their masters left them.
America, you are not free.
The only thing stopping you from being free at this point is you.
Comments
Prison labor
La. sheriff wants good prison labor...."its a necessary evil"
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFz_sQuZ2O8]
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Thanks SD
For putting this together.
I and others here have speculated that slaves of the antebellum south had more of a proportion of economic output than today's 'workers'.
See my quote below. Trade unionism barely makes a dent in this.
I want a Pony!
How many people in the US make their living
directly in their jobs or indirectly having to use it as a tool for their survivability with the INTERNET ONLINE?
The communication over the internet is the tool for mental, emotional and even physical enslavement. It works perfectly.
As long as you have to use it to even write this essay, you are a slave. Your words are immortal on the internet and you don't own your own words. Your body will die before any of your words you uttered, wrote on the internet will. It was always said that your thoughts are free. They are not. Your thoughts expressed digitally are not your own. There is no certain way to erase your traces on the internet. And as long as your thoughts are not free, you are slave.
Boycott the internet technology.
@mimiAs long as you have to use
Regarding immortality on the internet, I would fear videos and pictures more than words. It is why things such as revenge porn are especially heinous. With words, I can write under various pseudonyms. Now, of course, the diligent and the government could just trace this back to little ol' me and find out who I really am.
While it is almost impossible to delete things on the internet, it is somewhat comparable throughout history though. Plato's words still exist today. Before the internet you would have had to burn every single copy of his work to erase it from history, let alone say the odd person who might have memorized certain passages or entire works.
@Strife Delivery
Now it just takes Google and an army of searchers to mark all examples and references to Platos work for deletion from the internet, or to at least make it inaccessible on the internet, on the grounds that he was an ancient Russian propagandist. No hiding any copies for posterity in that attic-stored server! They'll eventually hunt it down with a search and destroy program.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Wage Slaves United!
There has never been a successful nationwide work stoppage/strike in America for a combination of historical, economic and political reasons. Fight For Fifteen is the most recent effort that achieved a reasonable degree of success, but it was stymied by a lack of union support and political opposition from state legislators that rolled back municipal advances.
Global Neoliberal forces have even minimized the success of national strikes in European countries where national strikes are an historical tradition. I can't say how much of the failure is choice and how much is the lack of a an effective national anti-capitalist organization to coordinate and sustain a revolt by American wage slaves.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
@Meteor ManGlobal Neoliberal forces
Eugene Debs had an interesting quote:
I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands.
nice quote
"You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands."
@Strife Delivery
Like Bernie. I wonder if Debs was reviled for that, too...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Homo Neokeynesianus.
Neokeynesian humanity -- needs only to function as arbitrary collection of individual consumers because the real tasks of social stability are handled through manipulation of the money supply. There need be nothing of what the anthropologists call "society," as long as aggregate debt does not cause a system collapse. This is what Putnam calls "Bowling Alone."
The global capitalist economy has created large populations which can be thrown away as long as other large populations can be found to buy what is manufactured. William I. Robinson estimated that 1/3 of the human race is unemployed, based on an ILO statistic gathered about twenty years ago.
The capitalist world view commodifies the world as a collection of natural resources, to be converted to consumer products and eventually to be tossed as trash. Recycling, which would complete the cycle, is of limited profitability -- which means that ultimately the world is to become a collection of heaps of trash. If anything, the dark dystopian visions one sees in science fiction -- & in this regard Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (the print version of Blade Runner) is the prototype -- are all extrapolations of the commodity cycle. The dark dystopian visions include the human beings caught in the capitalist commodity-cycle -- i.e the working class. Thus the apparent stunting of humanity.
Slavery is a marginally-profitable version of wage labor. There are still more slaves now than there were before 1865, but they constitute a smaller proportion of the sum total of humanity. Wage labor is bad enough.
"the Democratic Party is not 'left'." -- Sabrina Salvati
I resolved a number of years back that my main motivation
wasn't to help people, although I am a liberal type person. It wasn't to seek democracy or even freedom although they do go hand in hand with my primary motivation which is justice.
If we had true justice, everything else would fall in place. Whether that's even possible I don't know, but when I think of the crimes those in control of our government, and other governments, have committed and are committing, that's what really drives me.
To think that they can kill a million people and not only is nothing done about it but they get rich off of it, that's just too much for me to handle. They can kill half a million children in far off countries and they think it's worth it because they get rich from it. I want justice for these crimes.
The greed and the lies are off the charts and only getting worse. We can't keep playing by their rules which is what this political system entails. There are a whole lot of things we can do, a boycott of the duopoly is one of them.
Boycotting the duopoly . . .
does nothing more than increase the power of those who don't join the boycott. Things can get worse. Medicare copays can go up. Social security can be privatized and cut. The age to receive benefits can be raised.
Boycotting is the right strategy, but boycott the real powers in control. Boycott the oligarchs. It does have to be, and shouldn't be, all at once. Get an organized group to boycott the very worst, established by some criteria. You can fill your tank with gas that doesn't come from Exxon Mobile or BP. You can find milk without Monsanto's BST. When possible, you can buy local and organic.
Some of the oligarchs are considerably worse than others. Let's start with them. We don't need a majority of consumers to have an impact. We just need to have a noticeable effect on the bottom line.
I agree a wide range of actions are needed including
what you suggest. I've personally done much of that for years and years now.
I do believe we have to change this political system and a boycott of the duopoly should be part of the actions to try to force that. But it should be geared toward the system itself and not just the duopoly. There are many actions that can be taken to improve or radically reform this system including abolishing the electoral college, abolishing the Senate, implementing a referendum system, greatly expanding Congress, creating citizen tribunals, abolishing the presidency, etc.
If we don't take control of how we are governed we won't be able to democratically change the rest of society. Imo of course.
It's NOT that I disagree with you.
It's that I don't know how to get there from here and if "we" stop voting "they" have a larger role.
Understand and good point.
@FuturePassed
Canada organized a Strategic Vote to get the Cons out. Unfortunately, the Liberals (FSM knows why) were offered as one of two choices, but at least it got Harper's Alberta-oil-stained, Koch-sucking bottom out of the Prime Minister's seat.
I could be wrong, of course, but do suspect that this site's possibly being slow-laned, at least from where I am - other pages elsewhere tend not to be anywhere near as slow, just previously had a download install very quickly while waiting forever to a page to change on here and just now read through the whole rest of the thread while waiting for the comment form here to come through then went back up, clicked it again, resulting in two spinning thingies, started looking though the rest of the thread again and this finally came up - but have no idea if this will double as a result.
But there have been a few times lately where I've first gone elsewhere than here in the mornings and it seems as though I do start having more trouble once I'm on here. Haven't not gone on here often enough to be sure though, just haven't been on as much this past while due to being too tired to think - not that that stops me in the end or I'd never go anywhere, lol.
Just got disconnected again, for the umpteenth time tonight... came back on at 72%, now back down to 55, 53 and dropping...bet it goes back to 45... but I'm going to bed anyway.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
A wise person once said
People learn to love their chains.
The brainwashing runs so deep; how do we undo several decades of it? Disregarding the MSM is a good start. But as others have said here before TPTB have a way of squashing any dissent. Occupiers were dismissed as jobless hipsters with iphones looking for handouts, nothing to see here.
Most people have no clue how taxes even work other than they've been conditioned to believe taxes=bad!!
And now I'm in the jobless boat once again and trying to put myself out there, again, and start a business. I've applied to a few places but only had one interview so far, which was for a minimum-wage seasonal position, weekends with a 35-mile commute. I nearly laughed in her face. I was lucky to have a full-time job for four years and still have some money so I can refuse any bullshit offers, but there are still too many desperate people out there who can't. Experience and talent don't mean shit these days, it's about how little they can get away with paying you. And people are much harder to take advantage of when they know they're getting a raw deal.
And why do we still act like weekday 9-5 jobs are the norm?! *rips hair out*
I think this is the longest comment I've written in a while. Plus I'm on mobile so forgive any typos.
This shit is bananas.
Excellent essay!
So many points that should have us in the streets, yet still one half of the country thinks that Trump is doing a good job and the ones who don't can't wait for the democrats to get back in power again. They think that will fix all our problems and don't seem to remember how nothing changed from 2006-2010 when they held all 3 branches of government. Pelosi still has their respect.
The DNC just threw out the progressives and the kos bots said that it was okay because Bernie isn't a democrat. What that has anything to do with it is your guess.
They appointed someone from Fox News to be in it and appointed lobbyists to be superdelegates. This is okay because they have to get the republicans out of office. It doesn't matter how many members of the DP are blue dawgs either because they are better than republicans, even though they vote with them time after time which means they are voting against US!
Both sides have been told that none of them give a crap about them, but they think it's the ones who say this are the ones who are wrong.
The PTB have played every side for as long as I have been paying attention to politics.
We just saw this being played out. Republicans tried to take health insurance away from millions of people and half the country cheered because they don't like the ACA.
Now they are telling us that they want to take billions out of Medicare and give the money to their rich friends and people are saying that the rich people should get to keep their money because they are the ones that create jobs. I haven't seen one person who commented on this say, "wait, what? They want to defund Medicare? No way! My parents rely on it or any other type of comment about this.
Both parties tried to pass the TPP which would have seen more jobs going overseas, and people were going to vote for the person who spent 4 years working on it.
I agree that we have the power to do something about our government and that we have better start doing it soon before we won't get the chance to do anything because of the new rules against protesting. We saw how far they were willing to go to stop the protests against the DAPL when Obama allowed the private mercenaries from TigerSwan and police violently abuse the protesters.
And what they did to the OWS protesters. Scott Olsen will never be the same person again because of his severe head injury.
The FBI is still treating blacks who dare to protest against their brutal encounters with police with many ending up dead and only one out of the thousands of police who have done these things held accountable for their actions.
The FBI are labeling them violent dissidents and pre crime investigation are being done.
And again, more than half of the country thinks that they deserve to be treated like animals and shouldn't have the right to protest against their treatment.
We have plenty of facts about what is wrong with our government, but few ideas or options on how to fix it or fight back.
Thanks for writing this.
I have no ideas on how we can get people to open their eyes to reality.,
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
It sounds easy, doesn't it?
Everybody who makes $10/hour could just go on strike for one day, and bring the country to its knees.
But if I have that kind of job, then going on strike for a day—and not getting paid for that day—is 20% of my weekly income, which was already pretty crappy.
Doesn't this further punish the people who are already being crushed by this plutocracy?
“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett
@yellopig If it is done on an
If it is done on an individual scale, it is too small and insufficient. In that case it would then be more harmful.
For it to be effective, it has to be of such magnitude that it can't be ignored.
Reality is that continuing on the current course has no potential for improvement. Those being crushed by plutocracy will be eventually be completely flattened and destroyed.
Here, well there is a chance of something else.
Thats the answer as to why many aren't striking
That is why it is important that we not only have a mass general strike, but, we also work together to make sure anyone striking with us would be taken care of. However, that doesn't remove the fact that the powers that be are educated in many ways to stop a general strike.
A better alternative is to educate the populace to the benefits to them and their family of Cooperatives. If enough cooperates are formed and take over the private sector we will have a more educated and involved populace thus allowing us to change the system without fully waking those in power to the change at hand.
coordinated civil disobedience
on a mass scale.
if 1% of the 80 million would answer, we could shut down parts of system for short time.
the targets could be changed at will.
is our situation worse than what Castro faced?
we must find a workable strategy & tactics.
I believe we could end the war, but we will have to come up with something.
think war is the place to start for many reasons.
"end the war" is my minimum from any pol.
As of now the "progressive" dems like Sanders continue to support war machine.
that has to stop.
they should be confronted at every opportunity.
make sanders face up to his complicity.
he can't get a pass from us.
f**k this. I am sick of their excuses.
Sanders should paint his new lake house with blood.
I don't want to go down quietly.
Outstanding and very comprenensive essay!
This is one that bears reading over and over again.
I am no spring chicken, but it has only been recently that I actually realized how little say so I or any other voter has in how our government operates. We have an illusion of "democracy" but in reality, we have no real voice in the decisions that so deeply affect our lives.
When people are economically oppressed like we have become in the United States with a nearly complete hollowing out of our middle class and more and more citizens falling into poverty, our country becomes ripe for revolution, upheaval, or whatever term we want to put to it. And it will not end well for anyone. But the globalists really do not care because there is always another country or people to trash.
I have been planning on writing a series on the deep state and shadow government for a while, but have held off while I wade through the definitions and become educated enough to actually post something that is truly meaningful.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
...51% of Americans make $30
I agree with you on some points here, in that a massive strike (in conjunction with other pacific actions, such as boycotts among those affluent enough to make the point hurt) is required, and urgently - but please do bear in mind that many people (most, perhaps) are one missed paycheque away from homelessness and disaster; that there is an acute shortage of anything remotely resembling affordable housing; that there is nothing remaining of any real social safety net in America and that what little there is is grossly inadequate and difficult to obtain; that many people have children or pets to worry about as well - and that once those jobs, that single paycheque between them and disaster, and whatever shelter they have is all gone, together with whatever of their possessions they cannot carry, that strike will also turn into a hunger strike as they freeze or fry on streets where, in some cases, they are not permitted even to sit.
Certainly, nothing will potentially change without concerted action, but that slavery at least permits them to continue existence, however miserably and it's not easy to gear up to die on the streets over the course of weeks or months of a massive strike in a bid for freedom and a living wage they're unlikely to live to see - and will almost certainly have lost everything they had in the effort.
Without some sort of adequate striker's income arranged - for 80 million people - such a strike brings on the disaster they most fear, and reluctance to go there voluntarily is understandable, in my view.
In the US, it's almost impossible to come back from homelessness much of the time, as even full-time work or multiple part-time work at minimum wage is often not enough to even rent a room in some places, where references may also be required, (and having left due to being unable to pay rent is hardly a recommendation) and even with a $15 hourly wage, replacing lost possessions likely accumulated over years or perhaps in a more affluent time - even where not of sentimental value - may be virtually impossible, if not entirely so.
I'm personally uncomfortable both with blaming the already desperate barely scraping by for not being willing to sacrifice the little they have in the hope of some improvement and with blaming the heavily propagandized for having had their perceptions warped by experts and a battery of propaganda over a length of time which I suspect may exceed any to which any other population has ever been subjected.
And I just wanted to make these points, in case you haven't considered the prospect actually faced by those in this position, as I feel that the essay was probably not intended to come off this way.
But in my estimation, it's not easy for most, in choosing a probable miserable death even over a miserable existence in virtual slavery.
And it's not easy for those viewing the world though the distorting lens of intensive propaganda to see even that which is right before their eyes the way it really is. It's not their fault that their perceptions have been warped - it's the fault of the perpetrators involved in this.
Edit: a one-day strike might not be as catastrophic - but simply taking a day off work to strike would lose a lot of people their jobs and not finding another immediately could lose them their housing, due to late payment, which is still a big risk for the most desperate.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@Ellen North I agree with you on some
Everything you just stated there is why it must happen because the reality is all the things you fear are already happening to various people. It is the reality that so many people are just one missed payment away from losing everything. And that is the fundamental problem there.
As I mentioned above, this can't be done on a small, individual scale. In that setting, it would fail because of all those factors you just said. But on a massive scale, things would change in a way that those potential problems you just listed could be essentially overwhelmed by the actions done.
Who would man the grocery stores? Target? Walmart? The entire system would be jammed, the entire economic structure of America. And this wouldn't just be for the working poor. I mean, the top 10% professional class are going to have a problem as well.
Who will make their expensive coffees for them? Serve them their expensive restaurant meals? Who would man the organic stores or clean their laundry or any other task?
Yes, tens of millions of workers would have power but it would grow because of the, well, sad to say it in such a manner, inconvenience it will become to the upper middle class and the wealthy.
Does it permit them to continue to exist? 45,000 Americans die each year because they can't get health care for instance. The system is slowly killing us now. People are merely hoping that it won't be their turn--except it will one day.
To be honest, I don't know the time frame. I don't believe it would be months. Again, this isn't a single union at one factory gumming up production. It would be the entire economic system of America. Change would happen very fast. If an entire apartment complex stops paying their rent, that apartment complex will fall because they themselves have bills to pay to the banks. Again when the masses of poor can't keep the gears of society functioning, everything crumbles. That apartment complex does not want that to happen. It needs their tenants to pay. It is only there where action can be made to stop us from eventually suffering and dying anyway.
My town for instance has 3 grocery stores, a Target, and a Walmart for large food supplies. My town has about 30,000 something people. The stores can't function without their slave labor. The problem isn't the labor -- it comes when all those tens of thousands of people can't get their necessities. Either those businesses suddenly feel the heat from tens of thousands of people and fold to the demands of labor or they get taken down and something replaces it quite quickly.
That is just one example again with the apartment complex or a large town going after say the food supply. Now imagine the gas stations, the restaurants, and more.
If the entire system becomes locked up, the individual burden might be avoided. If one person stops paying their apartment rent, yeah they are going to be kicked out. If the entire complex? If the entire town's apartment complexes?
I may sound harsh because I exist in that condition myself. I come from a poor family background. I currently am poor and young, struggling to move "upwards". The thing is I live it but I see that everyone around me merely accepts that reality.
That is why I sound harsh. Yes, they are desperate. Yes, people want to survive. But, as I said the system is killing us, slowly but surely. That family that has one payment away from losing the house? Well, now the mother got cancer and their insurance sucks. So, mom will die and the family lost not only the house but massive medical bills too. Just another family through the cracks. Again, the system of America rolls the dice and we hope that it doesn't roll our number.
I guess another thing is at what point do we remove the agencies of individuals? Put another way, yes people have been propagandized and oppressed. That is true; however, at what point do we place emphasis on the individual accepting that reality? The thing with our propaganda is different from say North Korea or China. They censor information, completely and without question. We have the means of accessing virtually any information we want. We have the power and tools at our disposal, but people just accept what they are fed.
I know my essay sounds harsh, and it is partially a rant. All it seems I can do is watch everything burn down around me while everyone else just accepts the reality that things are burning down can't be changed. The thing is it could be changed.
@Strife Delivery
Lol, I'm sorry I wasn't more clear; clarity is not me.
I absolutely agree that this is likely the only way under these circumstances to achieve any chance of a constructive degree of improvement and that disaster's staring them - all of us, at some point, actually - in the face anyway.
What I was clumsily trying to say can perhaps be explained better this way;
If a group of families in a small town a hundred miles from anywhere was isolated in an epic blizzard and cold snap, the power had died, but they were still able to get by on food and wood for wood-stoves for, perhaps, long enough to get through at least the worst, but it wasn't letting up and their options were to likely all starve/freeze to death in place at some point in the future, or all get together and walk that hundred miles through deep snow and freezing temperatures in case they could, probably at some later date, get help, assuming that they survived the walk there and back, could they be faulted for making the decision to wait?
I'm not saying that action isn't essential, I'm saying that I can understand that the poor pretty much have to live in the 'now', because they always have to be aware that they may very suddenly have no future;
that they have to live in a state of helplessness because only financial power is recognized as bringing independence as regards virtually every aspect of their precarious lives, from employers to landlords, to the purchase of even the most basic necessities, to the behaviour of the cop on the street, to the way they're portrayed in the media and socially, especially in America;
I'm saying that risking that precarious 'now' is very, very difficult and terrifying for those in that position, and while I agree that such a general strike would likely bring results, the certain ones for the poorest are negative and the potential ones in a nebulous future they might not see, making such a commitment to strike, even for a day (likely to result in job loss and great difficulty in finding another in time to make rent/bills/anything to eat) in order to make a point large enough that the corrupt government might respond,
despite their paymaster's displeasure and withdrawal of promised future bribes and even despite much of government at the highest levels now consisting of such billionaire/corporate paymasters quite willing to starve workers to death for a general submission
and that I wouldn't personally describe this so much as an urge to be enslaved or as cowardice, but as the instinct of basic and immediate self-preservation in the already-exhausted and hyper-stressed citizens designated as contemptible and disposable prey by a pathological industrial machine.
If they throw their bodies into the cogs and are munched in slowing its movement, yes, they will be heroes - but honestly, there aren't that many of us who are that heroic. And that doesn't make them bad people or willing slaves.
It makes them people whose inner strength is consumed in moment-by-moment survival, in care and concern for any dependents; people who have been drained by the very people they need to fight, and who may have nothing left over to muster for a last-ditch fight.
That apart from the effects of the divide-and-conquer media campaigns...
Not saying not to work toward this goal, just saying that it has to be made plain that this is entering into the last battle, where we pacifically fight together or perish, and that without any provisions for (crowd-funded?) financial aid for those engaging in this and a lot of local hands-on organizing, I think we may be expecting too much coordinated effort in encouraging the most desperate in engaging the corporations in a unified manner, when the corporations can better deal with temporarily reduced profits than those most desperate can manage without the means to survive.
Also should have mentioned that, otherwise, I loved the essay and idea, lol. Thanks for writing it!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.