...and in doing so, found proof there is none.
Today was my first day at the new job.
Now, under normal circumstances, after four months of unemployment, this could very well make me proclaim, "Thank God."
But the new job is at a factory.
In the little blue-collar, Midwest town I live in, this is making it. This is the big deal. And that is infinitely depressing. I do not want to seem smug and arrogant or elitist, but I am not one of these people. If I was, I'd relish in my long-gone moments of personal achievement (i.e. high school athletics and prom), still approach social relationships with all the dysfunctional ineptness of (well) high school, feel threatened by my town's suddenly visible Mexican population, relish in the fact that I now have the job "paw and pa-paw" had, and live to go home and drink the introspective realization of my inadequacies away in a case of Bud. Oh, yeah - I'd also have two varieties of "Support Our Troops" ribbons and at least one NASCAR insignia on my pickup. And possibly a mullet. We both have a socially engineered place in society, but I have certain distinguishing characteristics that alienate me from them.
I am fully aware of the necessity of a manufacturing and labor force. They are vital to modern civilization. Some people are quite well suited for this type of work, and should feel some sense of pride in their participation with and contribution to society.
BUT.
The confinement of a mind (and heart) like mine to menial labor is a crime to humanity. I have, by the safest estimations, about 160 or so reasons (and sixteen years of formal education) to not be working here. But my IQ doesn't matter. I do not live in a meritocracy, and I have acknowledged my place in this oligarchic plutocracy. I just don't want to accept and acquiesce to it.
As I write this, I ache in some pretty strange places (all over), can barely breath (nose solidly congested and bleeding, and lungs aching), have myriad small cuts on my hands, my eyes are severely bloodshot and burning, and the skin on my face looks and feels as if I had a chemical peel. Welcome to day number one.
It was still dark, wet, and chilly before sunrise, and as I apprehensively approached the massive slaughterhouse labor mill, I was struck by the frenzy of movement of the worker ants building the colony. Who knew catatonia could be so...active? Then, in near-epiphany, I realized: I had become a lemming. The nightmarish fear that had plagued the fantasying of a child coming of age in small town America, had reached fruition.
For training purposes, here is no simulation environment; you are simply thrown to the lions. Before I could fully grasp the finality of the situation, I was caught up in a blur of mechanized conformity, hurling bits of steel about, connecting other bits to those bits, shooting screws, searching in vain for some sort of ordo ab chao*, all at a pace only suitable for metastasizing to automaton. Once a break in the action came along, and I could manage to wrap my mind around something other than my frantically adopted sense of urgency, I envisaged a glimpse at the bigger picture.
All those bits and pieces – and the screws and bolts I was shooting to hold it all together – were made by someone just like me (or at least in my same immediate position). As were the tools I was using. And the metal they were all fabricated with. All to create some finished product destined to be warehoused, shipped, stored again, and eventually hocked off by a continuing chain of proletariats to a consumer who is, statistically, most likely just another working-class zombie, induced into a commercial feeding-frenzy by a increasingly lethargic and apathetic, superficial, materialistic society which has idealized free market enterprise above human dignity and championed the ridiculous (and alliterated) practice of conspicuous consumption for competition and conformity. All perpetuated by an aristocracy, which includes those sitting at the board of the corporation that directs this cattle drive in which I find myself, through their propagandist partners in advertising.
The almighty dollar is the dues ex machina.
I wonder if when man first invented tools, they could have possibly fathomed that one day their descendants would be using them to build essentially unnecessary items that their fellow humans would almost voluntarily slave their life away to own. In some cases this is done in the name of leisure, efficiency, and the simplification of life. No one seems to notice that they’ll be sacrificing any leisure or quality of life to work hard enough to make the money to acquire these items.
I am a cog in a cog-making machine. I am leaning away from the ant colony and beehive analogies, past the slaughterhouse, and firmly into the den of vampires.
What exactly is the opposite of anthropomorphic? Because this truly is dehumanizing: a methodic, slow, certain, (intentional) disintegration of any perceived nobility from our species. Furthermore, I got the job through the modern-day equivalent of legal pandering: the industrial pimp known as a temp agency (the only way to gain employment with this particular entity). While I am purely a commodity for the factory, I am merely product for the agency, who is almost certainly making half of my wage per hour of my labor so its corporate client can forgo treating its drones humanely without such annoyances as benefits and union obligations. Oh, and did I mention I’m making a whopping $8.50 an hour?
Tomorrow I’ll take a packed lunch and jug of Vaseline, because if I can have one part that doesn’t sorely ache, I would like it to be my rectum. It is too late for my heart.
* both literally and in the Hegelian Dialect, Orwellian sense
Amid reports of roving gangs of armed thugs commandeering supply-laden rescue convoys, thwarting rescue attempts, looting, and even raping fellow citizens, coverage of the inefficiency of federal response to Katrina in general has been, metaphorically so, inundated.
FEMA Director Michael Brown has even gone so far as to partially blame the dire situation on the victims themselves.
I can and will not grant a pass to these dispicable examples of human smegma. But I will take a moment to ask, "Why?" Although nothing can justify the actions of these individuals, a look at possible motives and rationale may offer much needed perspective, as it points to a larger, more substantially paramount yet conspicuously ignored underlying cause.
These people are witness to extreme suffering and trauma. And what relief do they see in sight? In a country whose leader was swept into office on a current of vows of National Security, and privy to the creation of a Department of Homeland Defense, assured of its intrinsic abillty to respond promptly and effectively in situations of crisis, they see the manifestation of hollow promises and triviality of rhetoric.
If it appears as if anarchy is setting in, it's, well, because it's anarchy! Where is effective authority? This is as glaring an example of "political disorder and confusion" one needs to see.
If you need a nexus, imagine surviving a disaster, barely existing for hours and days in a complete state of desolation and destruction, with the concept of abandonment slowly presenting itself all around. Now add in a dash of death , disease, and dehydration. Stir this into the contaminated sludge you're wading through, and - voilà! - civil unrest!
This is why people are looting:
They have no fucking shoes! They have no shelter, no water, no food. The basic essentials for human survival are gone, everything they've ever possessed has been erased, and the usual means of obtaining replacements are no longer available. Although some of this civil disobedience is, well, no longer civil, I believe the bulk of it was prompted out of necessity, and escalated (according to human nature) from there.
Yet, news would rather report these evil swarms of renegades than acknowledge the national disgrace that is the government's response. And a society that cheers on underhandedness as entertainment on Survivor, Big Brother, et al. as a show of REALITY is in shock and awe (pun intended).
Where is our humanity? For god's sake (hope the evil atheists don't expel from their coven for that) the mayor of NOLA called off search and rescue efforts to focus police actions on thievery! Once again we're reminded that material possessions are of more signifigance than human life. Does it not bewilder anybody that people avoided evacuation and actually barracaded themselves inside to prevent theft?
Add in the unavoidable fact that a large chunk of the "perpetrators" (and afflicted) are poor and minority, coupled with usual media bias, and it really shouldn't be all that suprising.
On that note, religious groups have already convicted homosexuals as the impetus of destruction. If we can obtain [read: forge] "intelligence" connecting al Qaeda, I will seriously not be suprised. (Un)fortunately, we already have scapegoats. Especially when they don't match the reflection we see on that TV screen - often unnoticed, but constantly present - floating just on the surface of the disinformation, outright lies, and propaganda.
*NOTE* It was later discovered, after the chaos settled, that the reports of evildoers, child rape and murder in the Superdome, attacks on police and rescue officials, and general violence in the aftermath of Katrina were all hyperbolic panic and false. This, of course, received far less press than the specious reports.
Chi-Town MC Vakill tells us that women are "like tornadoes - they scream when they come and take everything when they leave."
Granted, she's not a tornado, but apparently Hurricane Katrina a bad-ass bitch. She screams and floods in waves when she comes. Unfortunately, she's gonna take the most from those who have the least.
Ned Sublette reported that the poorest one-fifth of New Orleans wasn't evacuated. He draws the valid analogy:
It's as if you had advance notice that Mohammed Atta's crew was coming to the World Trade center and evacuated all but the poor from it.
134,000 people are just too poor to merit rescue. In a city that is 67% black (and I'm sure that number's even higher in the representation of this particular group), more than half of them have even less chance of being rescued.
Amazingly, the oil platform workers had no trouble being evacuated. The Sun rose in the east today too.
I can't help but speculate if a storm of "swarthy" men in turbans were having a flag-burning rally, the Gov't wouldn't have too much difficulty promptly amassing resources comparable to what would be appropriate to keeps these Americans out of harm's way.
I'm gonna have to check in with Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as to what's been done to incur god's wrath. Maybe the poor are just crawling with marriage license seeking homosexuals and drowning in murdered fetuses. They do eat a LOT of shellfish down there. They must be wallowing in some form of sin, because god's about to put the smackdown on the unrighteous again, just like he did with the tsunami. Maybe he's just trying to shift focus away from his loyal messenger, what with the blatant media lies about calls for assassination and all.
