SHUT IT DOWN

Jobs. The rhetorical rallying cry heard throughout the last election cycle, perennial talking point rebuttal of every policy put forth by the other party. While I think the fixation on Jobs is a misdirection of our attention in and of itself, it may be useful to point out the absurd hypocrisy buried beneath the shutdown narrative. At the height of the financial crisis the US economy was losing around 800,000 jobs a month. After five years of ginned up outrage with Republicans labeling every Democratic legislative effort “job-killing,” 800,000 federal workers are furloughed (and a million more are asked to work without pay) through a Republican led shutdown of the government. Obvious irony aside, how can this be seen as anything but a big fuck you to the American people struggling through an ongoing recession? Conservative ideology supports this action as a necessary reduction of government living well beyond its means, a narrative that pits worker against worker, replacing the virtue of promoting the general welfare with the vice of living off the backs of hard working Americans. But this isn’t just about personal responsibility, it’s rooted in the free market myth that the private sector does a better job managing the economy than the government could ever do. Really? Still going with this even after the financial crisis? We all know that 1% isn’t hiring. He would rather line his pockets with gold made off your debt than pay your salary, but even so, the rich benefactor myth continues to permeate our culture. One day when our American Dream comes to fruition, we’ll be able to look back on these dark days, having pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps, and be able to furlough and fire workers of our very own. Oh wait - government workers ARE our very own - after all, our taxes (and theirs) pay their salaries. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” and all that. So then if these folks work for us, why are we letting 1% (cloaked in congressional costume) make the decisions - decisions that adversely affect so many lives? If congress thinks all our workers should work for free - then why is congress still getting paid? When they give thanks to the Capitol Police for keeping them safe during an incident at the Capitol days after the shutdown starts, the irony could not be more clear. Thank you for your bravery and heroism - and thanks for working for free. These officers are not being paid during the shutdown.
  
Something to consider if you’re planning to sign that no work/no pay petition - does 1% really care if he gets his congressional paycheck? There are plenty of other opportunities for financial gain that political office affords. He’s certainly not counting his pennies at the kitchen table when he gets home from a hard day at the mill. Plenty of politicians have bought into office at great expense aware that financial gain is but one reward of secured influence and power. Congressman Rick Nolan recently introduced the “No Government – No Pay Act” saying “It’s time for Congress to start living in the real world – where you either do your job, or you don’t get paid.” Sounds pretty righteous at face value - do your job or we’ll shut you down! But does this reinforce the “government inefficiency” narrative that provides the core reasoning behind the shutdown to begin with? And what about that “real world” Nolan is referencing? The real world I’m living in commonly involves working for less, ocassionally for nothing at all - just to secure a job (and the most basic of health care benefits). This is the work ethic elevated to a whole new level and it is fast becoming the new normal. Rather than focusing on how this kind of callous disregard for the welfare of our citizens is unacceptable, cutting jobs and dismantling the safety net when so many are already underwater, we will be joining the battle to play the repressive bossman role that has been laid out for us. As the engineers of this dynamic, 1% is well aware of this. What better method to keep you in line than placing your livelihood under constant threat in a bad economy? You must prove that you are not a freeloader looking to cash in at the taxpayers’ expense. You should be happy to work for next to nothing so as not to cut into your employer’s profit margin, making just enough money (or perhaps not quite enough - credit!) to consume the very goods and services you produce on the job (1% has us all working for free). On top of this you should dutifully pay your taxes to support government programs (more and more of which are being “serviced” through the private sector often resulting in them not being serviced at all) which can then be put on hold indefinitely (shutdown). Who is shirking their responsibility here? Who is getting that free ride at taxpayer expense? To be clear, I am not ideologically opposed to working “for free,” but there must be some method in place to value that work beyond compensation, to provide for the dignity of the worker. The 1% has no interest in making that a reality.

You decide to make some vegetable soup. The recipe calls for Thyme, but all you have on hand is Oregano. You could always switch the labels on your spice bottles. Of course renaming your spices will not change the flavor of your soup. But then sometimes soup is like that - made out of whatever is on hand. Now, if you switch the label every time you need another spice, you’re just going to end up with a big pot of Oregano Soup. Not a particularly desirable outcome unless you’re in the business of selling Oregano. Politics is like that. Lots of politicians in the business of selling Oregano (or weapons, or oil, or debt, or indentured servitude, or some other damn thing), constantly switching the labels to make it more palatable to the public, but no matter what you call it - Oregano is always Oregano. This political switching of labels isn’t just about not having the right spice, it’s about making sure that no one uses any other spice. That’s what we used to call a monopoly, and we used to have anti-trust laws that guarded against it. Switching labels is also great strategy for keeping constituents off balance and dependent on “knowledgable” leadership. After all, how can you hope to make your own soup when you can’t tell one spice from another? With all this label switching can you tell Republican Soup from Democrat Soup? With so many of the same ingredients can you taste the difference between Neo-Liberal and Neo-Conservative Soup? Switching labels ultimately makes the selection process meaningless. You never know what you are going to get in that bottle. More importantly, it makes dialogue concerning the process equally meaningless by removing any common point of reference. This obfuscation is the real objective 1% is after, a complete disruption of your ability to make any political decision for yourself. He’s not just looking to discourage you from choosing what kind of soup you want (voting), but looking to make it impossible for you to write your own recipes - grow your own spices - make your own soup.

Some years back I worked with a vision therapist to remedy eyestrain I was experiencing at my job. There was one particular exercise that went far beyond alleviating my discomfort. I encourage you to try it for yourself as I have found the results to be quite profound.

Walk down the street focusing on some object in the distance. As you walk, let your field of vision open to encompass the things that pass you on either side. Imagine you can still see them as they fall behind you.

What did I learn? Well, I found that the original object I focused on was no less clear when I relaxed my vision to see more broadly. Selectively focusing, squinting and straining my eyes, was not actually helping me to see more clearly. As I released my focus I was astounded by how much more I could see. The leaves on the trees and their motion, the smiles on peoples’ faces, even the sounds became more vivid. An example, you are on a street corner and cars are rushing by. You focus on the opposite corner, your destination, in order to prepare yourself and relieve any anxiety you might have about crossing the street. Are you more safe focusing selectively on the opposite corner, decisively choosing when it is best to make your mad dash across the street; or are you more safe broadening your field of vision to include the cars, the street light, the traffic cop, etc.? The state of perpetual fear and crisis that has been a staple of our political landscape over the last decade relies on this type of selective focus, deliberately elevating our level of anxiety to keep us from seeing more. This is how talking points and the echo chamber work, systematically shutting down any alternative thread that might lead you to recognize linkages and connections which prefer to remain unseen. Selective focus is also used to give the impression that all the issues we face are separate, that each challenge must be surmounted in some pre-determined sequence; forcing us to prioritize our needs over the needs of others or, more commonly during the current administration, to prioritize the needs of the country over our own in “shared sacrifice.” Each new crisis an opportunity to extract another pound of flesh from our citizens under the guise of “compromise.” Every bad deal another shrug of the shoulders, another “what can you do,” another fading memory. This narcissistic spectacle of constant crisis in DC, complete with a new cast of characters each and every news cycle, is designed to keep us focused on the minutiae of party politics, the grandstanding and name calling on display more schoolyard squabble than actual governance. Washington often speaks of US economic policy as if we were an isolated entity, with no relationship and no responsibility to global economic well being. The multi-national corporations dominating our political system are free to act independent of national identity or party affiliation; as non-persons, they have no capacity for empathy. Indeed, there is a whole world around us full of joy and pain that DC never acknowledges. Our “representatives” may consider themselves separate from that world, above it, beyond it - but we don’t have to follow their lead. In every leaf, in every voice, in every smile - relax your focus and see more.

*No offense Oregano - you’re a wonderful spice!

SNAKE OIL SALESMEN

Monday morning, back to work. The day before the election, a week after the storm. So many still in darkness. Challenging times like these can be opportunities to reflect on the decisions we have made and the path before us. I sincerely hope that we do not miss this opportunity in a rush back to the comfort of our normal routine.

Health Care, Education, Energy, Environment, Jobs... During the 2008 election cycle I produced two campaign videos to draw attention to the essential differences between Kucinich policy positions and the obligatory bullet points found on each of the other democratic primary candidates respective websites. For example, when Dennis Kucinich talked about “universal health care,” he was talking about a not-for-profit single payer system: Medicare for all - House Resolution 676. Barack Obama and media covering the primary used the term “universal health care” interchangeably with the newly minted “affordable health care,” obscuring the definition of the term “universal” and making it next to impossible to have a conversation about the relative differences of the policies. Later in the primary (long after Kucinich had been vanquished from the debate), we learned that this was a special enforceable mandate free kind of affordable. The five points were spelled out phonetically in the videos to poke fun at their over use and mis-use, to mock the arrogance of a political system that time and again presents these same bullet points as a bottled panacea to cure all that ails us. They treat us like children, too ignorant to understand the finer points of our own suffering. As is often the case with real children, we are rarely consulted and included in these adult discussions of our fate. We are relegated to the status of “swing state” campaign stop backdrop, selected as a scripted validation of whatever political point needs to be made.

In 2012 this already deficient five point perennial campaign platform has been narrowed even further, all other issues funneled through one single point - jobs. Health care in the USA continues to exist primarily as a benefit of a “good job,” rather than as a function of the common good. The power of this incentive (coupled with the scarcity of “good jobs”) keeps many tethered to jobs (and treatment on the job) they would otherwise reject. Education “reform” is predicated on the idea of lifting young people out of poverty by enabling them to compete for these “good jobs.” Absent from this argument is any discussion of how education enriches and empowers our youth (and our society) through creative and critical thought, regardless of economic outcomes. It has been suggested that a college education may be as key to attaining the highly specialized jobs of the 21st Century as secondary education was in the 20th century. Between this and the retraining of workers to keep up with technological progress, how much life will we actually spend learning to live? Most outrageous, in light of the recent storm, is how the issues of energy and environment have been consumed whole by this focus on jobs. Democrats and Republicans (and a complacent media) conveniently limit any discussion to the relative economics and job potential of their respective “plans.” Environmental, health and safety concerns have all been labeled “job killing.” In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, some economists are even talking about a potential bump to the economy in particular sectors...

About a week ago I watched a news program that brought together Mike Caputo, Vice President of The United Mine Workers of America and Tyson Slocum, director of the Public Citizen Energy Program. Mr. Caputo spoke in depth about the 70,000 - 100,000 dollar jobs with excellent health care and benefits, as well as the families and the economies of entire communities that depend on these jobs. Mr. Slocum pointed out that, despite wide acceptance of the science of climate change, the politics and economics of energy policy dominates the discussion specifically because the US is the largest fossil fuel producer on the planet. I enjoy watching this show because of the host’s ability to bring people together in constructive dialogue, but here there didn’t seem to be time to go much deeper than presenting two sides of the argument. One thing that really struck me was when Caputo mentioned that the jobs that wind farms create are minuscule compared to coal mining. I haven’t fact checked this claim myself, but I thought about how he might actually be making a sustainability argument for coal jobs, after all coal needs to be mined continuously as it is used. Wind power? Not so much. But isn’t that part of the point? Is the labor intensive nature of mining actually an asset? If in fact we are maintaining an industry that is detrimental not only to the planet (and all life on it), but also to the long term health and safety of those involved in it, can’t we find other (perhaps better?) ways to address the issue of job security for these workers? Can we do this in a way that is mindful of the dignity and self worth that is engendered through work? I faced some of these feelings myself when the economy crashed and I couldn’t find work. It can be challenging and frightening facing the prospect that the work you have spent most of your life doing may simply no longer be necessary. All of this got me thinking about the underlying hopes and fears of all involved, wondering what could be accomplished if our politicians were not consistently framing the argument as a battle between environmentalists and those directly affected in terms of their livelihood. Everyone involved and affected must be included in the discussion, and after Hurricane Sandy there will likely be many more in the United States who will have reason to participate in this discussion. And what of the millions affected by Sandy and multiple storms this season outside the US? They must be involved in this discussion as well. This isn’t about government bureaucrats making decisions that adversely affect the lives of citizens (as it is commonly spun); this is, at its heart, about a 1% that profits from the desperation of those who are made to prioritize their immediate survival over their survival a year, ten years, 50 years from now…

Romney claims he will win the election if he wins Ohio. When I read articles about Romney family holdings in a company that manufactures voting machines, it is hard not to hear his claim as back story to validate another stolen election. Key to stealing an election is the appearance of a close race, and that is just what the pundits are spinning about Ohio. When Romney and Obama got into a pissing match over who loves coal more in the second CPD debate, they were talking to “coal voters” throughout south eastern Ohio and West Virginia. Notably their focus was on the coal industry itself rather than the welfare of these workers and their families. Is this really about jobs, or is it a cynical manipulation of the fears of these men and women? Are they making a case for the prosperity of these workers or are they relying on the fear of a lost job to drive these workers into the voting booth? And if this is the case, how does this relate to policies that keep these families dependent enough to submit to this manipulation? During the match, neither candidate addressed the mining disasters that have made the headlines recently, and how the corporations responsible in those cases get fined, rather than shut down. Not surprisingly neither of them addressed acid rain, mountain top removal, or climate change either. The singular focus on jobs dominates the discussion, wiping away all other concerns. Month after month of “opinion polls” pushing this single word to the top of the pile, conditioning us to accept that only the most pressing, most desperate, of concerns need be addressed. Everything else is extravagance, a burden we can’t afford to even talk about. So says the austerity model.

Matthew Fox writes in his book The Reinvention of Work:

Under the pressure of the world economic crunch that is creating a worldwide depression, the grave danger looms that we will seek only jobs–jobs at any price–and ignore the deeper questions of work such as how, why, and for whom we do our work.

So, if all of these issues are being funneled through this single point, what happens when we remove jobs from the equation? Just for kicks, what happens with climate change if all coal miners the world over were to suddenly find themselves independently wealthy? What if all the tax payer money we spend subsidizing the mythical “clean coal” was spent instead to provide a cushion for miners to decide what they want to do without it being a question of economic survival for their families and their towns? And I’m not talking about a bridge loan here, or a program to retrain these workers, or a mandatory resume writing seminar to get your unemployment check. I’m talking about dignity, and respect, and a well deserved reward for years of hard work. What if health care was independent of your job so you could make career choices based on what you want to do rather than what type of benefit package you can get? What if we dealt with child poverty (which is of course family poverty, community poverty, etc.) before we sent children to school, rather than as the ultimate objective of education, so that our youth could instead focus on how best to contribute their unique genius to our society? When our politicians speak of “winning the future” through education fueled innovation, what kind of message are we sending to our youth? Are we at all concerned about their freedom to build the life, the world, they desire? Or are we just priming them to take their role in saving the existing system from collapse? What is the impact on innovation when an entire generation of young people seek MBAs based on the ratio of return for their education dollar? And finally, what impact would removing this singular focus on jobs from the equation have on our elections? If your boss sends you a memo “encouraging” you to vote for a particular candidate, is it ok for you to send  a reply “encouraging” your boss to mind their own business? Which issues rise to the top of your list when the issue of jobs is removed? How many of them are issues of economics? What would it take for you to prioritize the ones that are not?   

One percent power players love to use the term “redistribution of wealth” to attack those seeking economic justice, but they never use this term to refer to the enormous direct and indirect government subsidies (tax breaks, tax credits, loans, incentives, deals, etc.) their own corporations receive. Occupy Wall Street chants, “Banks got bailed out - we got sold out!” This is a somewhat different response from the Wall Street vs. Main Street narrative I heard over and over after the crash. The idea of taxing Wall Street a small percentage on transactions, in order to generate funds to offset the damage done to Main Street is clearly a downward spiral. Getting a kickback from the guy who is robbing you will not get back the home or the job you lost. And he can always gouge you more (put you into debt) to pay off your cut... It’s important to recognize that the bailout is a redistribution of wealth, from the tax payers to the wealthy. It is the same redistribution of wealth that happens when public resources and services are privatized, directing our tax dollars into the bank accounts of private corporations, rather than back into the hands of our citizens. The OWS chant doesn’t ask for a corporate handout (is that an oxymoron?) or a government bailout for the people. The People’s Bailout, the Rolling Jubillee, comes from the people directly. I remember Bush senior talking about “a thousand points of light” and thinking what an asshole. But that was a time when those thousand points responded (when they actually did respond) more out of sympathy, pity, charity. The thousands of points of light I witness in Occupy are coming from empathy. Many in the movement have experienced or are experiencing the same suffering that they are responding to directly, and progressively more and more folks throughout the country are having similar personal experiences that move them to take action. The “safety net” is no longer keeping them safe and in its place they are seeking to build communities of trust and mutual aid. Within these communities they can be who they want to be and do the work they want to do. The adversity they face is simultaneously an opportunity for greater solidarity, for deeper connection. Occupy Sandy is a wonderful example of this dynamic.

From Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin’s book Your Money or Your Life:

And they call this making a living? Think about it. How many people have you seen who are more alive at the end of the work day than they were at the beginning? Do we come home from our “making a living” activity with more life? Do we bound through the door, refreshed and energized, ready for a great evening with the family? Where’s all the life we supposedly made at work? For many of us, isn’t the truth closer to “making a dying”? Aren’t we killing ourselves–our health, our relationships, our sense of joy and wonder–for our jobs? We are sacrificing our lives for money–but it’s happening so slowly that we barely notice. Graying temples and thickening middles along with dubious signs of progress like a corner office, a private secretary or tenure are the only landmarks of the passage of time. Eventually we may have all the comforts and even luxuries we could ever want, but inertia itself keeps us locked into the nine-to-five pattern. After all, if we didn’t work, what would we do with our time? The dreams we had of finding meaning and fulfillment through our jobs have faded into the reality of professional politics, burnout, boredom and intense competition.

My political advisor astutely suggested that I look into what is being done in other countries to address the dignity of coal workers AND the continued existence of life on this planet. Due to the storm I have not been able to research this point, but I will certainly look into it and post my findings when I have my phone and internet back up and running. This post is dedicated to him on his birthday.
___

Still haven’t gotten around to the research above, but came across a related article today that I really enjoyed - read it here