BITS & BITES: "HOW CAN YOU CARE TOO MUCH?"

"I have a dream!.... No, wait. That's not the line."

Out of the Mouth of Mickey

Any of you who are activists or agitators for social change on any level have probably heard a million times things like: "What are you so worried about?" "You have to see the glass as half full and enjoy life" etc. etc. These folks, who probably mean well, don't see that you can have a social conscience and work to make the world a better place and still enjoy your life. In fact, you appreciate your blessings even more. The fact that they miss the point so badly makes me a little sad. That's why "spreading the word" is so important. It all makes me think of Mickey Rourke, as the nutty rogue cop in "Year of the Dragon," when he says: "How can you care too much?" That's how I've always felt and as long as there's one person suffering or one child hungry, I'll be quite content to feel rather intense about trying to make a difference.


Hurricane Irene

I've been tracking this angry lady quite closely because my son lives back East. He just turned nine and we spoke on the phone a few minutes ago. "We hardly got anything!" he told me, a little disappointed not to have a bit more excitement in his Sunday. Of course, Irene is no joke for a lot of people who have to pick up the pieces in her wake. I'm very leery of the political mileage that Obama and others get out of stuff like this. The speeches, the grim predictions, the somber summaries -- all from their ivory towers and safe havens. Is there an election simmering on the stove top by any chance? (NOTE: Did you realize that Obama raised a BILLION dollars for his first presidential campaign? Think about how sick that is and what it says about our bogus "democracy." I know some people on the East Coast who could use a taste of that kind of money right now.)


Guest Writers for "House on Fire"

You may have noticed that Code Pink founder and super-gutsy lady Medea Benjamin gave me use of her most recent piece (on the new MLK monument in D.C.) for "House on Fire." I'm very grateful to her; she's a really great person. Well, I've lined up some other big names for "guest appearances." Some of these blog posts will be in the format of "5 Questions for..." So keep checking back. In addition, a couple of my closest friends, who have expertise and special insights into certain activism areas, will also be appearing as guest writers. Tryin' to mix it up a bit here, people!

Click here to read "No Way to Honor Dr. King" by Medea Benjamin


Remember Unions?

When I first started out in the workforce, a long time ago, I worked in blue collar, union jobs. And that seemed about right to me. As I've said before: Unions aren't perfect but they're a hell of a lot better than the alternative! Well, in some good news reported on DemocracyNow.org on Friday, the National Labor Relations Board has come out with new regulations that will require most employers in the private sector to actually put posters on their bulletin boards informing employees about their rights, under federal law, to unionize. Spread the word on this one!

DemocracyNow.org


The Verizon Strike

45,000 Verizon workers are now back at work and kudos to them for gutting it out against a major, and majorly greedy, corporation that was trying to slash their benefits. The final deal is still being thrashed out but put this down as a win for struggling workers and proof that being in a union, and having courage and solidarity, mean something.

You can read more at the Communications Workers of America website


A Win in Wisconsin as Well

You have to tip your hat to the working people of Wisconsin -- and their many supporters -- who refused to let ratbag Governor Scott Walker kill collective bargaining. 10,000 of them (some say many more than this) took over the Capitol at one point and People Power forced recall elections that added pro-worker Democrats to the WI senate and showed that the not-so-good governor isn't nearly as popular as he thought he was.

Click here to visit the We Are Wisconsin website


People Power Across the Middle East

The pro-democracy uprisings that have swept the Middle East in recent months are a fascinating situation that has ramifications for global democracy, and they're making despots from Saudi Arabia to Washington D.C. pretty nervous. No way to predict how it will all play out but when you look at the long list of countries involved you can at least say that something significant has happened and that the power really does lie with the people. And when they decide to take to the streets, they can create history and make our phony leaders look like the weaklings they really are.


Norman Solomon -- An Honest Man Headed for DC

Don't forget to throw your support behind Norman in his run for Congress. I'm as cynical as anyone when it comes to politicians. But Norman is an activist and a wonderful human being, not a career politician. He's a good chance of winning his district and, once he gets to Capitol Hill, the cat will be among the pigeons. Onward!

Click here to see Norman Solomon's campaign site

Take care,
Adrian

IF YOU FOUND THIS BLOG POST INTERESTING you might also like to take a look at BITS & BITES -- July 24, 2011

WE ARE ALL WISCONSIN

 FDR signing the
National Labor Relations Act, 1935

We work too hard.

Those of us who enjoy the right to work at all, that is. This notion was addressed in Juliet B. Schor's landmark 1993 book on the subject "The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline Of Leisure."


MORE SIMPLE TRUTHS

Those who read my last blog post, "THE SIMPLE TRUTH," will know what I mean when I say you don't even need to read a book on the subject to know it's been going on for a long time. It seems in so many jobs we're asked to work longer and longer hours, while "benefits" (such as they are in this country) are constantly eroding, salaries are shrinking, the minimum wage is a human rights abuse, and it's an employer's market. So if you dare "do an Oliver" and ask for a little more, it's straight off to the unemployment line for you.

Which is why we should be equally concerned about labor representation -- or the lack thereof -- in America. And recent events in Wisconsin show us that the worker doesn't have the whip hand, thanks to the incestuous relationship between capital/corporations and the body politic. Now, I've had my fair share of experiences with unions and I know they aren't perfect. But they at least give the working person a leg to stand on.

Of course, unionization is anathema to our faux capitalism and the money grubbers who make all the profits. To such an extent that corporations like Wal-Mart (a notorious example) will videotape and badger and fire their beloved "associates" if they even look like they're talking about forming a union. (Check out the DVD "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" for more on this and other delightful W-M practices.)


WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?

Until we remove our faux capitalism and install a fairer, more meaningful, system of production and distribution, we should all care about labor representation. I'll give you just a few basic reasons from my personal experience and observations:

1/ Overwork affects your physical, mental and emotional health.
2/ There are social costs: less time with family and friends, for example. Less time to engage in chosen endeavors. Less time to do worthwhile work in your community.
3/ And less time to agitate politically! This is no accident. The people who own the system want to keep you busy so that you don't have time to cause them problems and take away any of their power. They also want to keep you scared. And who isn't scared of losing their job?
4/ We're losing basic rights, like the 40-hour week and safer working conditions, that came as a result of a great deal of struggle by a lot of brave people. (Which proved it can be done!)
5/ You're working your life away.


SUCKED IN

The many ladder-climbers I've seen who are absorbed by their careers, seem to have bought into the whole game and lost their way. They want to be promoted, they want to buy sexy things like BMWs and big houses, they want to have "prestige."

But to what end? Are these things even real? Really important? And what "progress," what greater good, is their energy poured into: Making more useless stuff for us to waste money on? Or, in the case of a company I worked for, Harrah's Entertainment (now Caesars Entertainment), to get as many people as possible to gamble away as much money as possible. And all the good little MBA-owning execs would slit your throat (metaphorically) to top the sales charts and get promoted.

My "greater good" argument does not generally apply to nurses and doctors and others who provide essential services, and aren't just involved in selling crap, fantasies, or Wall Street's "funny money." Although they have their problems too. Furthermore, any privatization of essential services like health, education, the judicial or prison systems, or public safety is just plain wrong (as is privatization in general).These things are meant to serve society, not be profited from. It's a plain conflict of interest.

Pro-labor protesters rallying at the Wisconsin Capitol.

CONCLUSION

This is not an easy road. It can be a risky, painful one. I know this from experience. But corporations -- and other types of bully employers -- are just like any other bullies: If you let them shove you once, they'll shove you again and again. The light at the end of the tunnel is, as with anything, over time, things can change. Maybe for us, or maybe for our kids.

Think about where you stand and what you can do. (Go here to lend your support to the workers of Wisconsin on April 4.)

Take care,
Adrian

IF YOU FOUND THIS BLOG POST INTERESTING you might like to take a look at THE HYPOCRITES ON THE HILL -- LET THEM KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

LIVING IN A STOPWATCH WORLD

I hope by now I'm succeeding in using my "Little World" experiences to amplify my thoughts on the "Big World" problems we are all facing together. That's the plan, anyway.

As fate and the gods of workday drudgery would have it, this is an opportune time to slip back to the micro level after a couple of more theoretical blog entries.

I work in the creative department of Harrah's Corporate in Las Vegas. It's called Studio One. We produce countless posters, billboard designs, slot toppers, ads, radio bites and on and on for our various casinos all in the name of converting more people to gambling and making sure the ones already sucked in stay for a long ride. This is not the noblest vocation to which I've applied my writing skills. But I think I've made that clear before.

Putting aside, for one moment, the ends to which our work is applied, Studio One (or, simply, The Studio) produces some fine stuff. We're also asked to do a lot of cheesy, crass and exploitive stuff.

For most of us, it's just a job and we dream of using our creative skills in more rewarding pursuits. However, Harrah's, like most big corporations, seems hell bent (yes, that would definitely be the phrase!), on turning The Studio into some kind of production line/sweatshop.

Why do I say this? Because, just as in the cult comedy "Office Space," Harrah's has "brought in the Bobs" (see movie still above). "The Bobs," for those of you who haven't seen the movie, (I insist that you do! :-), is slang for consultants.

Now, every place I have worked where consultants have been brought in, two things have happened as a result: 1/ There were staff cuts; 2/ People mysteriously ended up working harder. (Oh, and there's usually some musical chairs between positions accompanied by a bunch of meaningless title changes.) Why has Harrah's brought in consultants (some nasty outfit called Kaizen)? Well, in the name of "efficiency" of course.

"Efficiency" is corporatespeak for cutting costs to the bone and working people like mules. For squeezing the blood out of everyone. For placing unreasonable demands on folks. For jackhammering the profit margin just a little bit wider.

So these wizards came in and lassoed our sorry group of supervisors (mostly yes men/women) and brainwashed them with wonderful tales of "hard data" and enticed them to play serious executive development games with blocks (no kidding) and all that good stuff. The usual quasi-psychobabble these quarterwits come up with. (Incidentally I know what went on because, surprise surprise, there are very few secrets in Office Land. People always spill their guts sooner or later.)

Next, The Studio's fearless leader (we'll call him Tom -- not his real name. His real name is Chris) reported back from one his serious sessions with The Bobs, dragging behind him the largest, most incomprehensible (that's never an accident!), pair of workflow charts I have ever seen. Santa Loveman's elves had been busy indeed. I'll spare you the details of the nonsense explanations that went on when these Picasso-vomit nightmares were presented to the whole Studio.

More at the nut of all this is the "hard data" thing. You see, consultants deal in numbers: dollars, seconds, widgets churned out, "excess" personnel. They're like mathematician wannabes with a perverse fascist streak. Most of them are dorks -- but their vocation is actually very dangerous for the average worker and they should not be dismissed out of hand. They are dorks who can make a mess of people's lives.

The Kaizen dorks' pursuit of numbers, of "hard data," led to them having some of our people follow their colleagues around with stopwatches and clipboards, noting down everything they did. I won't say "Hey, you can't make this stuff up" because you could: if you were twisted and boring enough. But this, to many of us, was an inappropriate, insulting, and rather dehumanizing state of affairs. Nobody has come near me with a stopwatch yet and if they do it may be their last act on this mortal coil.

So the question presents itself: Where is the acknowledgment of the "soft" data? The human factor? The stress? The mental wear and tear? For the message I'm inferring from "The Bobs" is loud and clear: We will work out the formula by which you work hardest, produce the most (what about quality? Oops, not quantifiable), and get the big boys the max dollars. It's already started: People are disappearing and our hours are lengthening -- and the hardcore Bob Plan isn't even in place yet.

Clearly this will all lead to low morale and burnout. (That's happening already too.) But in an employers' market (technically, it's virtually always an employers' market) it's easy to push us hard, burn us out, let us go, and replace us with some college grads who will work for peanuts.

As thinking and creative beings, we, like so many others in so many places, are being shoveled into the furnace of devolution. And the fundamental notion of respect for one's fellow humans gets tossed right in there with it.

Unions are almost extinct and the 40-hour week has gone with them. Workers in the Information Age are becoming regarded less as people, arguably, than any time since the Industrial Revolution. (Okay, that would take some explaining but I think there's a very good case to be made.)

It reminds me of that well-known line from the film "Network," when Peter Finch, playing the mad newscaster who comes clean, screams out: "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."

Of course that was only a movie. But something in my skull tells me that the day when the "average person" is fed up, en masse, is fast approaching. And they will not love Big Brother.

Gone over my limit. Apologies, apologies.

Adrian Zupp
PS: A quote I once saw: "A consultant is someone you pay for their opinion." 'Nuff said.