What the teabaggers need to understand: we're all serfs under the new feudalism their beloved leaders have created.
One thing I'd like to ask a teabagger: How are things where you work, these days? My work fucking sucks right now. Compared to 5, 10, 15 years ago, the stress level is off the charts. On the best days there's just a mopey resignation wafting about our cubicles. On bad days it's like we're all suicidal gerbils running for our lives in sharp, rusty wheels, terrified that we'll be the next rat kicked out of the cage.
We're exhausted and the positive reinforcements (raises, bonuses, vacations) that used to mitigate burnout are vague memories. And the kicker is, as much as work sucks it really sucks to be unemployed right now.
One thing I'd like to ask a teabagger: How are things where you work, these days? My work fucking sucks right now. Compared to 5, 10, 15 years ago, the stress level is off the charts. On the best days there's just a mopey resignation wafting about our cubicles. On bad days it's like we're all suicidal gerbils running for our lives in sharp, rusty wheels, terrified that we'll be the next rat kicked out of the cage.
We're exhausted and the positive reinforcements (raises, bonuses, vacations) that used to mitigate burnout are vague memories. And the kicker is, as much as work sucks it really sucks to be unemployed right now.
...
The New Serfdom
Serfs have no "right" to work. Instead we serve at the pleasure of our lords who bestow certain protections upon us (such as living in a house, and seeing a doctor). We enjoy these "protections" only for as long as we please our lords. There is no check on the power that's exercised in the workplace. You either suck it up or get the hell out. Often you suck up as much as possible, and you still get shit-canned. Fail to impress the wrong person at work and you face Depression-era hardships that may include homelessness, and without insurance, dying from readily curable diseases. If there's a better description of the Shock Doctrine I'd like to hear it.
The economic crisis was engineered by the lords of finance who gamed our corrupt system with transactions opaque enough to hide their looting, and the fallout from this has changed the nature of employment. There's no "free market" of labor anymore. We used to have the illusion of a free market during the dot-com bubble when you could quit your job on Tuesday and have a couple of better offers by Thursday. When there's no option other than the grave conditions at your current workplace, then you don't have a choice -- your labor is coerced, and you'll accept longer hours and less pay because there's no alternative. I believe this is fueling much of the rank-and-file teabagger anger. And it's pissing me off too.
Corporate Klepto-Feudalism
Imagine you're a new feudal lord. How valuable do you think our serfdom is? They're balancing their books on our desperation and declining salaries because they know our fealty and productivity are proportional to our level of insecurity. Things aren't going to improve for us without a fight, and right now, the only people riled up are bruising for the wrong side. The elite haven't seen this kind of power since the beginning of the industrial revolution. In a declining economy, our enslavement is jealously guarded with obscene amounts of money thrown at swarms of lawyers and lobbyists...and teabaggers themselves.
So, this is modern feudalism: the tyranny of the quarterly report. The nihilism of free-for-all capitalism has finally trickled down to your cubicle like you always knew it would. Those 29 miners died because their feudal lord was long ago awarded his own Divine Right of Kings by the kleptocracy that protects only those who pay. The judges, lawmakers and regulators whose job it was to keep those miners alive are still more interested in begging for crumbs from Massey's table, and kissing his ring than they are in doing their stated job, which is supposed to be looking after us, their constituents, and the engine of the economy. Massey can do no wrong because lords are not subject to earthly laws, that's what the Divine Right of Kings means. Ironically, this was the fundamental outrage of the original tea party: pushback against King George's divine right to our wealth and labor. ...
Serfs have no "right" to work. Instead we serve at the pleasure of our lords who bestow certain protections upon us (such as living in a house, and seeing a doctor). We enjoy these "protections" only for as long as we please our lords. There is no check on the power that's exercised in the workplace. You either suck it up or get the hell out. Often you suck up as much as possible, and you still get shit-canned. Fail to impress the wrong person at work and you face Depression-era hardships that may include homelessness, and without insurance, dying from readily curable diseases. If there's a better description of the Shock Doctrine I'd like to hear it.
The economic crisis was engineered by the lords of finance who gamed our corrupt system with transactions opaque enough to hide their looting, and the fallout from this has changed the nature of employment. There's no "free market" of labor anymore. We used to have the illusion of a free market during the dot-com bubble when you could quit your job on Tuesday and have a couple of better offers by Thursday. When there's no option other than the grave conditions at your current workplace, then you don't have a choice -- your labor is coerced, and you'll accept longer hours and less pay because there's no alternative. I believe this is fueling much of the rank-and-file teabagger anger. And it's pissing me off too.
Corporate Klepto-Feudalism
Imagine you're a new feudal lord. How valuable do you think our serfdom is? They're balancing their books on our desperation and declining salaries because they know our fealty and productivity are proportional to our level of insecurity. Things aren't going to improve for us without a fight, and right now, the only people riled up are bruising for the wrong side. The elite haven't seen this kind of power since the beginning of the industrial revolution. In a declining economy, our enslavement is jealously guarded with obscene amounts of money thrown at swarms of lawyers and lobbyists...and teabaggers themselves.
So, this is modern feudalism: the tyranny of the quarterly report. The nihilism of free-for-all capitalism has finally trickled down to your cubicle like you always knew it would. Those 29 miners died because their feudal lord was long ago awarded his own Divine Right of Kings by the kleptocracy that protects only those who pay. The judges, lawmakers and regulators whose job it was to keep those miners alive are still more interested in begging for crumbs from Massey's table, and kissing his ring than they are in doing their stated job, which is supposed to be looking after us, their constituents, and the engine of the economy. Massey can do no wrong because lords are not subject to earthly laws, that's what the Divine Right of Kings means. Ironically, this was the fundamental outrage of the original tea party: pushback against King George's divine right to our wealth and labor. ...
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