Braining the Chicken

I'm a polemicist, partially out of a mild case of what I believe to be a reasonable paranoia. I don't trust anyone all that well, and as ready as I am to identify that I live in NH, was once a bit of a tough and spent a number of years doing awful things to stay alive, worked for Republicans as a sniffer, and then later crawled up and out high enough to manage several large money making concerns before I regrew a conscience that fit at the back of my head like an orange sized tumor, I'm not all that identifiable.

That suits me fine, though I have no illusions about der guegler, the FBI or the Wisconsin state labor board being able to identify me with a warrantless request to dump my personal data into a policeman's save file, if they wanted to.

Polemic is easy, anyway. It's a good way to avoid earnest recommendations, optimism or other serious effort which gets you noticed. I almost never manage more than 100 page hits per day; I get to interact with people who, though mostly anonymous or pseudonymous, write replies which I respect, enjoy, debate or at least over which I get to have strong emotions and temporary amusement.

I also write polemic because it has a minor function, and I have no illusions about my talents, competencies or ability to do better, or worse. I used to write analysis for politicians, trend analyzers and loss prevention specialists. I was very, very good at it. I don't know what it actually feels like to have a "frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter" in one's mouth, but I imagine that it cannot be too dissimilar from finishing a long day pouring over printouts, doing trend analysis to identify, finally, on which shift an employee was most likely to have stolen a Snickers bar. And then firing the poor sod because, damn it, corporate numbers don't lie. Unless, of course, you spent the previous three months teaching an assistant ass kisser to do those trend analyses, on the advice of corporate, and she managed to turn that knowledge into a medium duration grift and graft which only cost six people their jobs, their health insurance, and for one of them, a weekend in county. Let me reiterate, now, what others elsewhere have already written: a store video camera's footage can be interpreted any number of ways. It's amazing what corporate loss prevention and the cops will see on the tape, once they've decided in advance who is the guilty party.

Polemic never leaves that imagined taste in my mouth.

A needlessly wordy introduction now out of the way, I've apparently written something serious, earnest and perhaps even useful in comments below, and have been asked by people I respect to make a post out it.

I'm vain enough to make a go of complying, so here gives -

Slim Charles asked:

"...So (and I'm sure you expected the question, so here it comes), what, in your opinion, should the unions have spent their money on if not the recall election?

In other words: what is a better use of their time and money if electoral politics is self-defeating?"

I unthinkingly replied:

"At the point of work:

1. Wage hikes.

2. Vacation time extensions.

3. Increased health care coverage.

4. Shorter working days.

5. Shorter working weeks.

6. Anything which forces a company to reduce contributions to its profit statement.

Outside of the work place:

1. Larger strike pay funds.

2. Comprehensive child care facilities.

3. Independent and semi-independent food supplies, so that striking workers and their families can eat without fear of starvation.

4. The construction of low rent or no-rent union residences, so that striking workers do not have to calculate the hit to their paychecks as a first step to eviction.

5. A better outreach to women and minorities, by ending "outreach" efforts and agitating for exactly what they want: equal pay.

6. A coherent message which can be simplified to this: It Should Be Easy For Everyone. This conservatarian/bootstrapper ethic which dominates our culture and society has got to be fucking attacked, and mercilessly. Hard work and poverty don't improve character. They break lives."

Well. There it is. Have at it. Or not.