The Big Question

The Big Question

A Jack Power Commentary

Here is a simple question. A question that has been in the white noise of people's thoughts for some time. A question that is just now starting to come into the forefront. It's a question that carries with it palpable feelings of resentment and anger. It's the question no one is asking directly, but everyone should:

Why the blue fuck should anyone have to work to live?

Technology - both mechanical and informational - have increased production to the point that very few people need to work to make things "run" efficiently. These advancements carried with the stated and/or implied promise that work would require less actual effort, and be more efficient. Life would be easier.

That promise has died, killed in its sleep by the spectre of economy and its insatiable hunger for more.

Rather than reduce or even eliminate the need to work, work was instead invented out of thin air to keep people employed. That whole "get as many asses into those seats as possible" mentality again. Terms like "dignity of work" and "earning a living" became ingrained into the national consciousness. Most people can't fathom of an existence without being employed or trading currency for items... except on Star Trek.

This whole "cutting things in half to double them" plan is borne from this mindset. "You don't want to be seen as lazy, do you? You lollygagger sitting at home because the 100 places you filled applications out at aren't hiring right now. So we're going to make everyone work half as long so that twice as many people are working! Economic expansion? Who cares? We're eliminating unemployment here! That's your job! Spend, goddammit, spend!"

But let's cut to the bone here. Let's call this mindset out for what it is. Employment is nothing more than a nationwide - indeed, worldwide - mercenary service. The employee puts out his desire to rent his time, effort, unique skill set, and energy in exchange for compensation so that he may continue to exist. Even under the current "rules", they'd still be compensated far less than what that time, skill, and energy is actually worth, because job creators and profits or something.

Here's the deal: nobody - not one single, solitary person - on this Earth asked to be here. We were all popped out of someone's vagina, or were from the womb untimely ripped, or however we came to be. So now, against our will - or, more accurately, irrelevant to our will - here we are. Human beings on the planet Earth. Now since we, as human beings, require nourishment and water to maintain existence, and since we live on Earth, we require shelter from the long, cold winters, long, hot summers, and the few seconds of spring and fall we get if we're lucky.

And those things, because someone somewhere in our history decided that things should cost money, cost money.

The fact of the matter is, we all are born into debt. A debt we didn't accrue intentionally, but rather as a function of our existence. A debt that more and more of us have had to submit to servitude, selling our minds, our effort, and, ultimately, our actual flesh and blood (thank you plasma donation centers!).

So how do we solve this? Even increasing the minimum wage doesn't address the underlying issues. Sure, under the rules that have been laid out, giving people a living wage will help them live, but it operates under the assumption that those rules are beneficial and shouldn't be challenged. It doesn't question the need to work in the first place to earn that "living wage".

#abolisheconomy

Those who follow my Tumblr feed recognize the tag above. I wholeheartedly question the underlying assumptions and theories that maintain the Idea of Economy. The Idea that everyone and everything has a price, and its only value is what someone else can get for it. Everything is negotiable, up to and including the necessities of life. Up to and including the things that make life better and more livable. Up to and including the people, places, and things that sustain and restore health should the unthinkable happen.

Up to and including the very Ideas of Life and Death.

The chants of "Let them die" at a Republican debate a few years ago still ring, chanted by people who most likely would themselves be one major injury or illness away from bankruptcy, insurance or no. The very idea that things like food, healthcare, medicine, and even water are only available to those who can pony up the funds for it by its nature that those without are excluded from having it. That they are not human enough to have the things that human beings need to survive.

I've long maintained that money is the closest thing to the physical manifestation of the Idea of Power that there is. But you don't need me telling you that, you see it every day. People with money spend that money to get more money. They leverage that money to gain power by funding candidates that are receptive to their Ideas to get more money, and then enact those Ideas into law, so that they can get more money. Thus, more power.

But the thing about money, economy, employment, and all that is that they are based on Ideas, which are given credence by fiat and unquestioned acceptance. It's a figurative house of cards, only the cards are entirely imaginary. If people suddenly stop believing in the cards, it all crumbles down.

But that's untenable. People aren't going to discard things hard-wired into their brain since birth, seeing their parents buy into it, who saw their parents buy into it, and so on. It isn't "human nature", as some have claimed it to be, but a learned behavior. Human habit. But in the immortal words of Chicago, it's a hard habit to break. 

So how do we break it? Once we see the cards for what they are, how do we keep the whole thing from crumbling down all at once?

Well, the Swiss have an idea. A guaranteed income for each adult of $33,600 per year. Imagine not having to work to live. Imagine what we could do if we all did what we wanted to do - where our passion lies - instead of taking work we have to do in order to not die. 

Some will, of course, say that giving people money without them earning it will breed laziness. That if they don't have to work, they won't. I would ascribe this to mere projection, but let's assume that some people do stop working. 

As someone who spent an entire summer between classes without a job because I didn't have to work, I can say that it was horrible. My sleep schedule was messed up, my head was a mess, I holed up in my apartment for days, if not weeks at a time, because I couldn't deal with people. 

I had no structure, and it was a nightmare. Looking back on it now, after the fact, I can safely say that even though I hated the job I left to attend school, I can retrospectively appreciate the structure it gave me. 

Human beings are not by nature hedonists. They do want to do things, and if they no longer have to do things, that doesn't mean they won't do things. They will. Their internal sense of exploration, accomplishment, and desire will take over. Unfettered by selling 40+ hours a week, they'll do what they want, to better themselves and others.

But given the fact that they DID have to sell off 1/4 of their life to someone else just to be able to exist for the other 3/4 of it, having no say and no choice in the matter, even if they did spend the rest of their life doing absolutely nothing? That isn't laziness. That's resentment.

And, really, can you blame them?

Doubling your writing material by cutting your paper in half; or how the British have solved unemployment

Doubling your writing material by cutting your paper in half; or how the British have solved unemployment

A Power Trip Commentary

Put down those want ads, get off Monster.com, and get ready to stop handing out your resume on street corners. A British "think-tank" called the New Economics Foundation claim to have solved unemployment.

And it's so simple, too! You see, all you have to do is mandate that nobody work more than 21 hours a week. No, really.

"Marketplace anchor David Branaccio says that, if the usual workweek was brought down to 21 hours and strictly adhered to, many companies would find that they need to hire many more people. At the same time, prices would start coming down because everyone with a job is earning less; in many cases, people would probably make half of what they currently make."

But wait! There's more!

"[The 21-hour work week] would also address problems of being overworked, such as low employee morale, poor work-life balance, and more ... The much shorter workweek, the NEF argues, would lead to more sustainable lifestyles and economies, because we would no longer be living to work. We’d be working to live. In the U.S., the live-to-work mentality is quite pronounced in our lack of willingness to take vacation time or sick time, and where we don’t even have laws mandating time off for anything. But that means a lower quality of life overall, less time with family, less time spent actually living. So there are benefits to shorter work weeks for everyone that extend beyond bringing down the unemployment rate."

*sigh* Where to start...

1 ÷ 2 = 1

First and foremost, this is the problem with treating "unemployment" as a statistic. Not only does it ignore the actual people who are unable to earn their existence (more on that later), reducing them to a number, but quantifying who is employed and who isn't, and desiring that number to be as low as possible, turning employment into a "get as many asses into those seats as possible" mentality.

Yes, cutting the number of work hours basically in half will cut the work output in half, causing many employers to hire more people to get the rest of the work done, but you've done nothing to solve the underlying issues. You've taken the workforce, put in a box, shook it from side to side, and claim to have created mobility.

That's like if a student says that they don't have enough paper to write their report, the teacher tells them to just tear their paper in half, and bingo! You've doubled your paper! Then when pressed as to how to fit their words on reduced pages, telling them to just write smaller.

"Quick, tear their signs in half and give them to the people without so everyone's holding a sign!"

Next... I can't even type this quote without internally facepalming:

"At the same time, prices would start coming down because everyone with a job is earning less; in many cases, people would probably make half of what they currently make."

If this came from a college freshman Poly Sci or Econ major, I would call it adorably naive. But for a supposed "think-tank", this is downright depressing.

Companies - corporations in particular - have a commitment to their stakeholders to make money. Does anyone legitimately think that any company will lower their prices by one iota - let alone cut them by half - just because people don't have the money to pay for it?

Because I've got news for you: a growing number of people can't afford things NOW, and I don't see prices being lowered as a result of that. Food prices, gas prices, utilities, housing, the necessities for survival, all of them are going nowhere but up. Cutting wages in half won't stop that.

What's more likely to happen is that people, suddenly faced with the prospect of having to live on half their income will either have to work another job (or two, or three) just to stay above water - meaning that the new jobs created would be filled by those already working, and thus defying the purpose of the whole exercise - or will have to get government assistance to make up the difference.

Note: Both of these situations are actually happening now. This Idea would increase the number of people doing so. Hell, most major service companies (sales, service, fast food, etc.) already work people effectively part time. So for the majority of people, not much will have changed. It'll just bring the rest of the population to their level.

We'd be increasing the number of working poor in exchange for lowering the unemployment numbers.

Yay us.

So, in response to this "think-tank" (using the term looser with each invocation of it), I would like to make this suggestion:

If you really want to cut people's work hours, I say, you first.

Cut your own work hours.

As much as possible.

Please.

What Happened

I know I've been vague about my whereabouts and activities for the past couple months, but that's only because I was still in the middle of it and needed some distance and a chance to catch my breath before telling this story.

Disclaimer: I'm not telling this story for attention or pity. I'm telling it because I need to. I need to get it out. I'm doing this for me, for her, and for anyone who reads this that might benefit from it.

Here goes:

My ex-wife and best friend, who has MS, came to stay with me for a while when the MS caused her to start having trouble with her job, at first to watch my apartment when I made my trip to New York in March, but also to visit and crash until her housing situation worked itself out. She told me she was moving in with her sister in Michigan once her tax refund check arrived (which was delayed because of that whole H&R Block fiasco (those of you who experienced it know what I'm talking about)). After a long delay, it finally came and she left, assuring me she was going to be okay living with family.

A few days later, I get a phone call, telling me that she was at U of M Hospital recovering after a failed suicide attempt.

Needless to say, I was devastated, but grateful she was alive.

After recovering in the psych ward for a few weeks, I picked her up and we stayed at a hotel for the weekend. She set up some meetings to get an apartment in Ann Arbor, and meanwhile stayed with me for another week until she secured a little basement apartment. I then helped her with moving (some of) her things from Tennessee up to Michigan. She gave me her futon and king-size bed rather than leave them there to be tossed. So, yeah, I have a futon and a king-size bed if anyone wants to come over.

She's getting lots of help from state and local resources (Apparently, Michigan's good for that) and she qualified for disability through her job because of her MS and depression, and has applied for federal disability, not to mention getting local Medicaid for her medicine and therapy. So she's going to be okay, I think.

So, there you go. That's what's been foremost in my thoughts and actions for the past couple months. Any support you can give her right now would be appreciated (thoughts, prayers, positive energy, whatever you can give). I've tried to convince her to start a Tumblr so that she has an outlet and meet some of the amazing people I've met on there. If/when she does, I'll post a link so you can introduce yourself.

Anyway, thank you for reading this far, and I hope you understand now.

My Red Pill Moment, or Why I don't trust the government or the media

Everyone who has developed a mistrust for the structures of society (media, religion, government, etc.)  usually have one moment when the evidence becomes too obvious to ignore - that tipping point where you can never go back to their old way of thinking. As though you'd taken the Red Pill from the Matrix.

The groundwork for my moment was laid on 9/11/01. I was out of work (the company who my call center took calls for went bankrupt. It sucks walking onto your jobsite and being told that you could go home and never come back.) and I had taken a typing test that day to work at the Postal Service. I had heard whispers of something happening at the test site, but I was in no way prepared for what I saw.

I watched it all day long, giving updates to my then-wife (who was asleep at the time and couldn't process what was happening). I was already slightly awake from my own research online, so I watched the coverage with a more critical (cynical) eye. I won't go into detail nor will I interject my own opinions, because, believe it or not, that's not what sunk my opinion about the government and the media.

That came a bit later, after Colin Powell's speech to the UN to make the case for the War in Iraq. During that speech, Powell made reference to a dossier that was advertised as the latest and greatest intelligence on Iraq's nuclear capability, and that was a huge part of his push to justify invading Iraq.

Not long after, one of the sites I frequented at the time (basically amalgamations of news links interjected with commentary) linked a story from I believe the Times of India. In it, a professor from UC Berkeley revealed that a lot of the so-called "intelligence" from the dossier was actually taken from one of his student's term papers - copied word-for-word, complete with spelling and grammatical errors - that was written before the FIRST Gulf War. As in from the early 1990's.

I just kept refreshing the page, and watched the story spread all throughout Asia, then Eurpoe, slowly but surely. Eventually, it made its way to the BBC, and finally onto USA Today's website. And the instant - literally the exact moment - that the story hit American sites, the Jose Padilla story broke. DHS declared an Orange Alert. John Fucking Ashcroft interrupted his trip to Russia to make a speech light on facts and heavy on fear about the "dirty bomber".

The timing was too coincidental to be coincidental. (Not that I believe in coincidences, anyway) That was it for me. There was no going back.

And no, the change in administration did nothing to change my mind. Frankly, I'm not surprised nobody's taking Obama to task over the drone strikes. Not even his "enemies" on the "Right" will call him out on it (But 6 people get killed in a firefight at an embassy, and heads will roll).

Fuck leaving this country. Can someone please build a dimensional portal so I can go somewhere less insane? Like Wackyland? Ot Nichijou?

You didn't ask for it, but here it is anyway: My voice! (yay?)

Well, all, it took some effort, both in convincing myself to do it, and in getting the file to a small enough size to work (I had some still pics to entertain you originally, but that ballooned the file to a WAY too large size for Blogger to accept, but, at long last, here it is, complete with a dual serenade from me to you! (yay?)

Judge for yourself about my voice:

Somewhere, in a parallel time plane...

Associated Press

Washington, DC - After months of delay, obstruction, and hot-blooded rhetoric on both sides of the issue, the ban on Christians in the military has finally passed the United States Senate and is on its way to the White House for the president's signature.

Many pro-Christian advocates are hailing this vote as a triumph of equal rights. "This vote is proof that the United States Constitution is for all, no matter what who you worship," said Speaker of the House, Annabelle James, herself a Christian and co-author of the Senate version of the repeal of the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" legislation that was enacted by President James in 1993.

Opponents of the measure campaigned hard against passage of the repeal. Congressman Randy Wilcox, a self-avowed atheist, said during the House debate on the issue that "Our military cannot stand with anyone who follows the teaching of a pacifist like Jesus Christ! How can we possibly maintain the strongest military in the world when someone follows a god who says "Thou shalt not kill"?"

In the end, the measure passed on a mostly party-line vote with a few Senators crossing the aisle to show their support.

Senator and former presidential candidate Harry Wilson, acknowledged that there were not enough votes to stop passage of the repeal. He blamed the passage on pro-Christian elite with little military experience on forcing their social agenda on troops during wartime.

"They will do what is asked of them," Wilson said of service members. "But don't think there won't be a great cost."

Many servicemen and women who had been discharged under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" cheered the vote as a victory for future Christians who wish to serve their country.

"When I served, I felt like I couldn't be me, like I couldn't be fully me." Former First Sergeant Timothy Jacobs told a crowd outside Capitol Hill during a rally for support of the repeal. "My faith is part of who I am as a person, and to have to hide that in order to serve the country I love... it was like cutting off a limb."

...

(Back to this time plane)

Before anyone gets on my case about the comparison between sexual orientation and religion, and anything about choosing faith vs. choosing sexuality, get over it. This is satire, designed to illustrate a point, not to pick apart an argument.

That point? What if it were you? What if it were something that you did/believed/were that kept you from doing something you felt was the right thing to do? What if you were forced to make a choice to not be or not be one thing that you are in your heart of hearts in order to be something else that you are in your heart of hearts?

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a big fan of the military, and I'm not a big fan of government in general. And my view of DADT is summed up by the late Bill Hicks: "Anyone dumb enough to want to be in the military should be allowed in; end of fucking story." (his emphasis)

But I am an even lesser fan of hate. I do not begrudge people who want to be in the military, but neither do I think less of them - they are following what they believe to be right, and more power to them. But to be denied that just because you live a lifestyle that people who crafted rules and regulations years ago didn't like and still don't is asinine.

My conclusion is this: You should be who you are. Everything that you are. Nobody should have the right to tell you that you can't be you while doing something else that makes you you.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where disagreement is no longer civil; it is for all intents and purposes criminal. Whether it's ideas, politics, morality, or simply how you choose to live your life, those who disagree see you not as a person who they happen to disagree with, but as the enemy, and treat you as such.

This goes beyond sexual orientation, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, but it seems that in the current environment, gays and bisexuals are "safe" to hate, primarily because of very flimsy biblical backing and just the sheer popularity of it.

And hate is fear. Yes, it is. Insecurity in one's self, fear of punishment by some invisible higher authority, whatever your flavor, it's fear.

And no, going up and punching someone in the jaw doesn't show that you're not afraid. In fact, it shows just the opposite.

Until we live in a world without fear, we have to live with these small victories, claiming something that should have existed from the beginning.

Thank you for your time.

BTW, the "great cost" was cut and pasted from a quote by Senator John McCain.

Welcome to the fishbowl

You can say anything you like,
But you can't touch the merchandise!
She'll give you every penny's worth,
But it will cost you a dollar first! - "She's a Beauty" , The Tubes

Do any of you remember the song "She's a Beauty" by The Tubes? If not, here's the gist: it's basically an advertisement for a girl behind a glass. You can look all you want, but touching costs money.

I bring this up because I have found a place where every inhabitant, male or female, is behind a glass, and you can only touch them if you pay.

That place is called Match.com.

Or, as I have come to call it, The Fishbowl.

Let me relay my experience below. Granted I should probably have known better, but I thought I'd try it out, based on my previous experiences with dating sites.

I had actually met my wife (see my previous blog for details on that) through an online matching site. We were able to contach each other freely, exchange E-mail addresses and communicate without purchasing a subscription.

It seems that dating sites have wizened up in the intervening decade.

It seems despite the rise of free social sites like Facebook, MySpace, and MyYearbook (all of which I am members of, btw. Ask for me by name), Match.com, ostensibly a dating site, does not allow for any actual dating, simply because all you can do without a subscription is show interest.

By winking.

Yes, you actually wink at the user you are interested in. And, if they are also interested, they can wink back.

...and that's it.

You can wink at each other, but if you want to actually make a move, you have to purchase a subscription.

Both of you.

Only subscribers can send messages, and only subscribers can read sent messages.

There's an IM function for chat but, again, that's only available to subscribers.

This seems to me to be one giant cocktease. At best, this structure is a cynical money trap designed to siphon money from lonely hearts who are forced to pay $30 for a month's subscription to get in touch with one person, or pay a few months, at a bulk discount, of course "just in case" it doesn't work out. (Sounds to me despite their "guarantee" that they're banking on failure or, at least, a protracted search)

At worst, of course, it's prostitution. Because it's not inconceivable that these couples will have sex and, in not a small number of cases on either side of the equation, that is a primary goal. But that's cynical, even for me.

It's ironic that the banner ad for this app... excuse me, "widget" ... I'm using to enter this says "Chat for free", and,, yes, I followed it - it was a link to the Match.com widget for my Droid.

"Chat for free", my ass!

So now, I have a person interested in my Match.com profile (winked back), and we have no way of getting in touch. No workaround, no breakthrough- it's either buy a subscription or stay behind the glass.

Welcome to the fishbowl.

Now, I'm not against making money, but social sites nowadays can do the same thing Match.com does for free. Hell, MyYearbook has a much better compatibility system than Match.com, and it's available FOR FREE!!!

It's like an Onion headline I read a while ago: "Classmates.com Employees Don't Have the Heart to Tell CEO About Facebook"

One would hope that Match.com employees would be a bits more heartless toward its management.

Oh, and pearlluver2323, if you're reading this, check out my Facebook or MyYearbook profile and drop me a line. I'm interested, but it's this glass, you see...

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