Chuck followed Alice through the disaster-area front yard, past General Lee, who seemed very melancholy, and up the steps to the front porch. The dog began howling before Alice knocked. They heard the dead bolt slide, the tinkle of a chain being unlatched, and then the door swung open and a large, mannish woman in a lumberjack shirt and paint-splattered overalls appeared. She was nearly Chuck’s height and at least fifty pounds heavier. The Great Dane was at her side, barking its head off. After taking in the dog’s huge head, Chuck noticed that the animal only had three legs.
“Well, well,” Jan said, her voice a whiskey and cigarette rasp. “Look what the wind blew to my doorstep. What the hell are you doing in South-fucking-Carolina, Alice?”
“Running away from the ruin of my life, sister dear. What happened to Milo?”
Jan slapped the dog on the head to shut it up. “My asswipe neighbor ran him over, on purpose. The SOB thinks I poisoned his precious cat. What he refuses to accept is that his precious cat died of purely natural causes. I had no part in it. If I wanted to kill his cat I would have slit its throat and left it on his doorstep.”
Alice cocked her head at Chuck. “This is Chuck Miller, a fellow runaway. Picked him up in Florida. He’s got a good line, though it sounds like a load of crap to me. Claims he’s running away from the circus, but he’s obviously hiding something. He’s a natural born liar, not unlike my husband. Why are men so terrified of the truth? What have you got to drink, Jan?”
They followed Jan into the house. When the Great Dane bumped into the tattered sofa, and then banged against a floor lamp, Chuck realized the dog was blind as well as crippled. Not that a blind dog could do much damage to a house that looked as if it had been the site of a month-long party for a thousand frat brothers. Chuck was no stranger to sloth, but as he related to me several years later on one of his rare trips through Santa Barbara, Jan’s house was in a league above and beyond anything he’d ever seen.
“Tang, there was dog shit on the rug, empty tuna cans, moldy cottage cheese containers, pizza cartons, newspapers, magazines, cancelled checks, empty beer bottles, cereal boxes – it was like the woman had never seen a friggin’ trash can. The joint smelled like a cesspool. Now you know me, I’m a first-team all-world slob, a pig to the core, but this place stretched my tolerance for filth. No way was I going to sit down. Hell, it was all I could do to keep from stepping in dog shit, particularly when the damn dog comes over and starts sniffing my crotch. He smells like piss and liverwurst, and even worse, he’s got a boner the size of a Dodger dog. If Jan hadn’t been built like Mike Tyson I’d of clocked the dog with a bottle.
“Anyhow, Jan comes out of the kitchen with a bottle of peppermint schnapps, takes a belt and passes it to Alice, who takes an even bigger belt before handing it to me. Alice is already tipsy and it occurs to me that unless I keep my wits we’re going to spend the night in this shithole. I take a wee sip and hand the bottle to Jan. ‘Pussy,’ she says to me, pulling a Sherman from behind her ear and a Zippo from her pocket. She’s eye-balling me as if I’m some kind of alien. Of course I’m thinking that she’s certifiable, a nuthouse refugee. I’m a tolerant guy but I can see why the neighbors want to run Jan out. She’s the classic neighborhood freak, the crazy lady that all the kids avoid. She looks at me through a cloud of smoke and says, ‘You planning on sleeping with my sister?’ I say, I’m just trying to put some distance between myself and a bad situation. ‘Why should you be any different,’ she says. ‘Every last one of us is in a bad situation called life. Death is the only happy ending.’ ‘Oh, Jan,’ Alice says, ‘you’re so dramatic.’”
They polished off the schnapps. Alice passed out on the sofa, her head thrown back, mouth parted. Jan ordered two large pizzas with everything on them and told Chuck to run down to the street when he heard the delivery boy honk. None of the boys would come to her door. Bunch of wimps, she called them, every last one. Piss-ant boys afraid of their own shadows.
It was almost an hour before the pizzas arrived, an hour that passed for Chuck like the last hour of life on Death Row. When she wasn’t ranting about men, her neighbors, her ex-husband, lesbians, white trash, the government, Chinese-Americans, African-Americans, Serbs, Muslims and soccer moms, Jan bitched about Alice and how their father had always favored her.
Milo followed Chuck out the front door and down the walk, much more at home outdoors than in. The pizza man was a young Hindu with dark skin and wary eyes. Chuck handed the kid a $20 in exchange for a ride to the highway. “Ten dollars more for the dog,” the kid said. “I wasn’t planning on bringing him along,” Chuck said, “but what the hell. Let’s go.”
Five minutes after the pizza boy dropped them beside the Interstate, a faith-healer and self-proclaimed mystic driving a Ford station wagon with Kentucky plates picked Chuck and Milo up.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
IN THE COMPANY OF SAVAGE CAPITALISM
Working people are getting ass-whipped in this country, losing ground and falling backwards, and unless you happen to subscribe to the Nation or belong to a labor union, you probably don’t even know why or how this mugging has happened.
Productivity rises continuously, but American workers don’t share in the fruits of their production. No matter how much more efficiently we produce and deliver goods and services, our corporate masters parrot the same old line: in order to compete in the global economy we must slash wages and benefits and close plants, blah, blah, blah. Off the working class trots to the salt mines to diligently produce more for lower wages, with nary a complaint about vanishing benefits or government policies that fatten corporate coffers for exporting labor to low-wage countries. The Federal minimum wage hasn’t been adjusted upwards in eight or nine years; rarely a week passes without a news story about another profitable corporation running away from its pension obligations or dumping thousands of workers on the avenue.
“Trickle down” economics gained traction during Reagan’s presidency, and has loomed large ever since “Dutch” read his lines from cue cards. Make the investor and owner class prosperous, the tale goes, and every American will eventually share in that prosperity. Sure, and bet your money on the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series. Trickle down is a suspect idea with a lousy track record. How much extra dough is trickling down into your household? Thanks to corporate-friendly monetary, labor and trade policies, the investor and owner class hasn’t been this pampered in years. They’re running the world, calling the shots, buying Congress and the White House, profiting from war, trashing the planet, living high and large at our expense.
But what of the paradox of France, a nation -- albeit a much smaller nation than the US -- that made the decision long ago to erect a stable social support system, with short work weeks, boucoup vacation time, health benefits, and employment protections. By America’s savage, dominate-at-all-costs capitalist standards, France is a wreck, a decrepit “socialist” state that simply can’t deal in the world economy. Why then does France boast one of the more successful economies in the world? Somehow, the French take care of their people and hold their own in the international marketplace.
Savage capitalism as practiced on this fruited plain works beautifully for the privileged few. For the broad majority, savage capitalism means struggle, uncertainty, and hardship. I’m not arguing here for a cradle to grave welfare state; what I’m advocating is that we grind the sharp edges off the system and restore the balance of power between owners and workers, Business and government, the pursuit of profit, and the pursuit of justice.
And just in case anyone assumes I’m against individual responsibility let me say that I’m not. Individual responsibility and initiative would still be in play in a kindler, gentler capitalist America. The central problem is that the balance of power has shifted grotesquely in favor of corporate interests and the owner class, to the point where the game is rigged in their favor. All the individual responsibility and initiative in the world is for naught when one is playing the game at a rigged table.
Productivity rises continuously, but American workers don’t share in the fruits of their production. No matter how much more efficiently we produce and deliver goods and services, our corporate masters parrot the same old line: in order to compete in the global economy we must slash wages and benefits and close plants, blah, blah, blah. Off the working class trots to the salt mines to diligently produce more for lower wages, with nary a complaint about vanishing benefits or government policies that fatten corporate coffers for exporting labor to low-wage countries. The Federal minimum wage hasn’t been adjusted upwards in eight or nine years; rarely a week passes without a news story about another profitable corporation running away from its pension obligations or dumping thousands of workers on the avenue.
“Trickle down” economics gained traction during Reagan’s presidency, and has loomed large ever since “Dutch” read his lines from cue cards. Make the investor and owner class prosperous, the tale goes, and every American will eventually share in that prosperity. Sure, and bet your money on the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series. Trickle down is a suspect idea with a lousy track record. How much extra dough is trickling down into your household? Thanks to corporate-friendly monetary, labor and trade policies, the investor and owner class hasn’t been this pampered in years. They’re running the world, calling the shots, buying Congress and the White House, profiting from war, trashing the planet, living high and large at our expense.
But what of the paradox of France, a nation -- albeit a much smaller nation than the US -- that made the decision long ago to erect a stable social support system, with short work weeks, boucoup vacation time, health benefits, and employment protections. By America’s savage, dominate-at-all-costs capitalist standards, France is a wreck, a decrepit “socialist” state that simply can’t deal in the world economy. Why then does France boast one of the more successful economies in the world? Somehow, the French take care of their people and hold their own in the international marketplace.
Savage capitalism as practiced on this fruited plain works beautifully for the privileged few. For the broad majority, savage capitalism means struggle, uncertainty, and hardship. I’m not arguing here for a cradle to grave welfare state; what I’m advocating is that we grind the sharp edges off the system and restore the balance of power between owners and workers, Business and government, the pursuit of profit, and the pursuit of justice.
And just in case anyone assumes I’m against individual responsibility let me say that I’m not. Individual responsibility and initiative would still be in play in a kindler, gentler capitalist America. The central problem is that the balance of power has shifted grotesquely in favor of corporate interests and the owner class, to the point where the game is rigged in their favor. All the individual responsibility and initiative in the world is for naught when one is playing the game at a rigged table.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Dr. Duke for School Board
Dear Reader: this is a work of fiction. Don't overreact to the content or jump to inane and baseless conclusions.
I was feeling blue over the weekend and figured it was time to pay Dr. Duke a visit. I found him in the late afternoon, sitting on the porch of his rambling, termite-ravaged house, a margarita and a bong on the round table next to him. He was plunking sparrows with ball bearings shot from a homemade slingshot. “These friggin’ birds are disturbing my peace,” he said, taking aim at an oak on the edge of his lot. His pupils were dilated and there was no telling how much tequila he’d consumed. He generally woke around noon, roused himself from bed by one, did two lines of coke, drank six cups of black coffee, ate three Texas grapefruits, read the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times front page to last, checked his stock portfolio and called his eighty-nine-year-old mother, who lived in Florida and was still convinced that the Republicans stole the 2000 presidential election. He meditated two hours every night. He’d once owned a pawn shop.
Duke laid the slingshot down and fixed me with his stoner eyes. “Tell me your troubles, grasshopper.”
“Just fighting the same old shit, Doc. The grind, the rut, the choking routine.”
“Not to mention the fascists running this once great republic. Why isn’t Dick Cheney in a prison cell with a bunch of unwashed homeboys, getting his bell rung every hour on the hour? It’s damn hard to keep the faith with Dick and W running the show. That’s one reason I consume as many illicit drugs as my system can handle. Don’t suppose you want a hit? Good shit, man, guaranteed to clear the BS from your head, get you back to a place of clarity. No? OK, more for me. Hey, what’s the deal with those people you work for?”
“What people?” I asked.
“The school board. The governing body of the local schools, the five duly elected representatives of the people. I caught a few minutes of the last board meeting and couldn’t decide if I was watching a kangaroo court, a freak show, or a farce. I learned more about the Brown Act than I ever wanted to know. Was a crime committed or was it simply an act of pure ego on the part of one board member? Christ, what a waste of time.”
“I read about it in the newspaper,” I said.
Duke pointed a butane-powered BBQ lighter at me and pulled the trigger. A two-inch flame shot out. He laughed and applied the flame to his bong.
“A hundred and one pressing issues and they spend hours yakking about the Brown Act, who said what, who disclosed what, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but didn’t it seem like every freak, fanatic and fruitloop in the community came out for two minutes of fame? Sort of proves the case against Democracy, against giving too much say-so to the ignorant masses. No wonder the oligarchs rig elections and pull shenanigans to hold onto power. Public education is all well and good, if the public could only be excluded.”
Duke loaded another bearing and let fly.
“That may have been the impetus behind the exercise,” I said.
“So, one member violates the law to dramatize the importance of adhering to the law. Sounds like Karl Rove’s playbook.”
“Dramatize might be the key word there. Some people have a Jones for the spotlight, for seeing their byline in the newspaper, for acting as a lone crusader, always holding back the tide of a corrupt system.”
“I’d rather modify my brain chemistry with illicit drugs,” Duke said, “although my regimen isn’t for the faint of heart. According to my personal physician, I should have died twelve years ago. Hey, here’s a thought: perhaps I’ll run for school board, give this fine community the benefit of my experience and hard won wisdom. Dr. Duke for School Board. Has a ring to it.”
“You got some platform in mind?”
“Of course not, but something will come to me, something simple and catchy. It doesn’t take that many votes to win a seat and I can mobilize an army of miscreants, former felons, crooked real estate agents, reformed drug dealers, retired pimps. Hell yes, I can see it now. We’ll scare the bejesus out of the establishment. And if push comes to shove, I can quote the Federalist Papers just as well as the next old goat!”
I was feeling blue over the weekend and figured it was time to pay Dr. Duke a visit. I found him in the late afternoon, sitting on the porch of his rambling, termite-ravaged house, a margarita and a bong on the round table next to him. He was plunking sparrows with ball bearings shot from a homemade slingshot. “These friggin’ birds are disturbing my peace,” he said, taking aim at an oak on the edge of his lot. His pupils were dilated and there was no telling how much tequila he’d consumed. He generally woke around noon, roused himself from bed by one, did two lines of coke, drank six cups of black coffee, ate three Texas grapefruits, read the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times front page to last, checked his stock portfolio and called his eighty-nine-year-old mother, who lived in Florida and was still convinced that the Republicans stole the 2000 presidential election. He meditated two hours every night. He’d once owned a pawn shop.
Duke laid the slingshot down and fixed me with his stoner eyes. “Tell me your troubles, grasshopper.”
“Just fighting the same old shit, Doc. The grind, the rut, the choking routine.”
“Not to mention the fascists running this once great republic. Why isn’t Dick Cheney in a prison cell with a bunch of unwashed homeboys, getting his bell rung every hour on the hour? It’s damn hard to keep the faith with Dick and W running the show. That’s one reason I consume as many illicit drugs as my system can handle. Don’t suppose you want a hit? Good shit, man, guaranteed to clear the BS from your head, get you back to a place of clarity. No? OK, more for me. Hey, what’s the deal with those people you work for?”
“What people?” I asked.
“The school board. The governing body of the local schools, the five duly elected representatives of the people. I caught a few minutes of the last board meeting and couldn’t decide if I was watching a kangaroo court, a freak show, or a farce. I learned more about the Brown Act than I ever wanted to know. Was a crime committed or was it simply an act of pure ego on the part of one board member? Christ, what a waste of time.”
“I read about it in the newspaper,” I said.
Duke pointed a butane-powered BBQ lighter at me and pulled the trigger. A two-inch flame shot out. He laughed and applied the flame to his bong.
“A hundred and one pressing issues and they spend hours yakking about the Brown Act, who said what, who disclosed what, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but didn’t it seem like every freak, fanatic and fruitloop in the community came out for two minutes of fame? Sort of proves the case against Democracy, against giving too much say-so to the ignorant masses. No wonder the oligarchs rig elections and pull shenanigans to hold onto power. Public education is all well and good, if the public could only be excluded.”
Duke loaded another bearing and let fly.
“That may have been the impetus behind the exercise,” I said.
“So, one member violates the law to dramatize the importance of adhering to the law. Sounds like Karl Rove’s playbook.”
“Dramatize might be the key word there. Some people have a Jones for the spotlight, for seeing their byline in the newspaper, for acting as a lone crusader, always holding back the tide of a corrupt system.”
“I’d rather modify my brain chemistry with illicit drugs,” Duke said, “although my regimen isn’t for the faint of heart. According to my personal physician, I should have died twelve years ago. Hey, here’s a thought: perhaps I’ll run for school board, give this fine community the benefit of my experience and hard won wisdom. Dr. Duke for School Board. Has a ring to it.”
“You got some platform in mind?”
“Of course not, but something will come to me, something simple and catchy. It doesn’t take that many votes to win a seat and I can mobilize an army of miscreants, former felons, crooked real estate agents, reformed drug dealers, retired pimps. Hell yes, I can see it now. We’ll scare the bejesus out of the establishment. And if push comes to shove, I can quote the Federalist Papers just as well as the next old goat!”
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Where's the Outrage?
“Years ago, there was a theory on the American left that someone – maybe it was me – termed Worsism: the worse things get, the more likely people will be to rise up and demand their rights. But in America, at least, the worse things get, the harder it becomes to even imagine any kind of resistance.”
That’s Barbara Ehrenreich, writing in the May issue of the Progressive. I post it on the Balcony because I have wondered of late why Americans appear so passive these days. Consider what we tolerate. An illegal and costly foreign invasion/occupation, government intrusion into our private communications, tax policies that favor corporations and shareholders over working people, a healthcare system that leaves millions uninsured, stagnant wages, environmental degradation, outright government corruption, and so on and so on with hardly a whimper of protest.
Why are we not in the streets demanding our rights as human beings? Why are we not out there demanding fairness and equity? Why are we not on the avenue demanding that our president be impeached?
The only folks with any fire in their guts are Latinos, immigrants, who flooded the streets and walked off public school campuses to protest a House bill on immigration. Good for them. Perhaps the rest of us can learn something about organizing from our Latino friends and neighbors.
Why are Americans so passive? Is it because we are distracted by consumer culture, the endless accumulation of goods; by the fact that many in the working class need two jobs to stay there; by mass media that rarely report stories that matter to us. I suppose the answer is a combination of all these factors.
In the Labor movement (what remains of it) we are often reminded that power concedes nothing without a demand. Demand implies action, organization, focus. People often ask me why I donate time and energy to my labor union, and I think the simple answer is that I recognize that power in this country has shifted too far in favor of Capital over Labor, of moneyed interests over human interests, of the powerful over the powerless. Working people deserve better, and our country as a whole can do much better.
But until we show the powerful that we are fed up to the point where we refuse to lay down and take it any more, they will continue to drive us down, and out.
That’s Barbara Ehrenreich, writing in the May issue of the Progressive. I post it on the Balcony because I have wondered of late why Americans appear so passive these days. Consider what we tolerate. An illegal and costly foreign invasion/occupation, government intrusion into our private communications, tax policies that favor corporations and shareholders over working people, a healthcare system that leaves millions uninsured, stagnant wages, environmental degradation, outright government corruption, and so on and so on with hardly a whimper of protest.
Why are we not in the streets demanding our rights as human beings? Why are we not out there demanding fairness and equity? Why are we not on the avenue demanding that our president be impeached?
The only folks with any fire in their guts are Latinos, immigrants, who flooded the streets and walked off public school campuses to protest a House bill on immigration. Good for them. Perhaps the rest of us can learn something about organizing from our Latino friends and neighbors.
Why are Americans so passive? Is it because we are distracted by consumer culture, the endless accumulation of goods; by the fact that many in the working class need two jobs to stay there; by mass media that rarely report stories that matter to us. I suppose the answer is a combination of all these factors.
In the Labor movement (what remains of it) we are often reminded that power concedes nothing without a demand. Demand implies action, organization, focus. People often ask me why I donate time and energy to my labor union, and I think the simple answer is that I recognize that power in this country has shifted too far in favor of Capital over Labor, of moneyed interests over human interests, of the powerful over the powerless. Working people deserve better, and our country as a whole can do much better.
But until we show the powerful that we are fed up to the point where we refuse to lay down and take it any more, they will continue to drive us down, and out.
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