Never Let Them Take Our Dignity

Dignity. I’ve noticed that many things in American society are geared toward taking away people’s dignity to keep them in line. Want help from a social program these days? That will require jumping through many hoops. Want a job? Be sure to remain cheerful and compliant.

Maybe it’s just that I’ve read both Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America and Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich in the past week. Maybe it’s that I’ve been unemployed for longer than society deems acceptable, even though many more people are unemployed for longer and longer. Even when many of these people get jobs, they’re underemployed, working part time when they want to be working full time or working at a job that doesn’t require a degree even though they have one.

Good news, once a person is unemployed for long enough, gets a part time job or a job for which he or she is over-qualified, it’s off the list of unemployed! At least, in the way they calculate it nowadays. Too discouraged to keep looking? That’s making America look better. Good job?

If someone doesn’t have a job in this society, it’s all that person’s fault. Never is one allowed to cite the system as the cause, or even as a factor. I recall once when I was employed in sales, having a meeting about the problem of falling sales numbers. It was after the economy just started to nose dive, and management was perplexed. Surely we, the underling sales people, were the cause. They told us from the outset that we couldn’t blame the economy or the product. Talk about tying my hands. Those were my main ideas. No, we had to solve the problem with ourselves. That, they argued, was the key.

In both of the above mentioned books, motivational speakers point to inner problems with the individual. If there is something missing, it comes from within. One must think positively. One must change one’s outlook. Circumstance is inconsequential in their world. Unfortunately, that is no the case in the real world, which most of us still call home, hard as some of us may try to remain in a positive delusion.

There’s a constant pressure to be better. If things aren’t working out, the conventional thought is that one can only look inward for solutions. Eventually, if something like joblessness goes on for long enough, one can’t help but wonder what is wrong with oneself. We need to change. We need to bend to the will of the corporation. Do as they say. Follow and smile. Dignity is not a luxury one is allowed when doing only what is expected in the world of positive thinking and networking to get ahead. Even outside of work we have to reflect positively on the corporation, the business, the boss. Don’t let something slip on the Internet. That can get a person fired.

Where is the room for dignity? The way to reclaim it is to proclaim loudly, and for all to hear, that it’s not our fault. The system is to blame. Then, perhaps, we can try to change the system. I know, that suggestion is blasphemy in the United States. Everything must be changed from within the system. How well has that worked for us so far? Where’s all that change Obama promised us?

Why can people not see that the one thing we cannot change from within the system is the system itself, which is precisely what the people at the top of this system, the 1% if you will, don’t want us to know. Try voting for change this Presidential election when there is no change on the ballot. No, it’s time for something more, something better. We can do better than this, as long as we’re willing to take our dignity back.

What we need are real motivational speakers, ones that will help get people motivated to change the system that rewards the already rich and punishes those whose circumstances leave them cold and lonely at the bottom. We need to avoid the isolation that comes with being unemployed, that keeps us from being the reserve army of the unemployed Marx spoke of. The more our numbers grow, the more capacity we truly have for change which is the real secret the positive thinkers and fascists who talk only of unity and compromise don’t want us to know about.

Gift Guides, Deciding What You Want Based on Your Genitals

Gift guides: some random person trying to give readers ideas of what to buy someone, usually based on things that shouldn’t be an indicator of what someone likes. They usually have titles like, “Gifts for Mom,” “Gifts for Dad,” “Gifts for Men,” and such.

When did we all decide that having reproduced makes a woman want a set of make-up brushes for Christmas? I haven’t had a kid yet, but I bet you a million dollars that popping out offspring will not change the fact that I would hate getting make-up brushes as a gift. Buying me that would be like saying, “I have no idea who you are nor what you like, so I read an article. It said ladies like make-up.”

Usually, based on my experience, the gift ideas for men are things that anyone would like, and the gift ideas for women are things I would think no one would like. Apparently someone must like getting bath salts, or else there’s a conspiracy between the people who make bath products and the people who write these lists, which I have not ruled out.

For men, one list recommends some wine accessory (I’m not into wine, so I don’t really care what it actually does). Wouldn’t that be a good gift for, say, people who like wine–regardless of genitalia?

Fashion books? I swear, if anyone buys me a fashion book because some list told them to, someone will get punched in the face. These are all real examples.

Essentially, it’s just sexism in the guise of advice, advice we never asked for and don’t want. At least, I don’t want it. It’s just more stuff I have to filter out of my life to remain sane.

These lists are insulting on many levels. They assume people have no idea what to buy those of the opposite sex, or those who are of the same sex but have children, as if that makes one have different taste in gifts all the sudden. It also assumes that people like certain things based on these parameters.

To be fair, I have seen gift guides that are for, say, people who have an actual, specific interest. Perhaps these are more accurate. I don’t know, but I would assume that very little actual research went into what was put on them in either case.

Just say, “here’s a list of crap that I think would make a good gift.” And be creative about it. If I see one more list of things moms like that is full of beauty products, I’m going to go on a rampage. If I hear one more suggestion that I get someone tools because they have a penis, I’m going to go on a rampage.

Let’s face it, I’m going to go on a rampage. It is apparently unavoidable, because this is not going to stop.

Creeping Christmas, Batman!

Every year it gets to me more. The Christmas creep. Retailers thrusting Christmas on us earlier and earlier in a lame attempt to make more money sooner and for a longer period of time.

Do people actually fall for this? Does seasonal music on the radio put them in the mood to spend, spend, spend? Because it just makes me want to run, run, run. I like the holiday well enough, but when I have to put up with it for so long it just gets annoying and ruins it.

It’s kind of like seeing extended members of family for a couple of days. If something about them doesn’t gel with me, and suddenly I’m around them for a month, I might get a little sick of them.

Two days before Halloween, I went into Big Lots. There was a clearance rack (before Halloween, mind you) with a few children’s Halloween costumes. There were no Thanksgiving items to be seen, but there were Christmas decorations everywhere. Not just a few for sale. They had at least a dozen decorated Christmas trees in the center of the store. Red ribbons everywhere. I was appalled.

In Meijer, there were also decorations for sale before Halloween. Then, the day after Halloween saw the main aisle by groceries packed with Christmas candy. Heaven forbid there should be a time when there aren’t themed candies available to buy in large bags. That would be positively unamerican.

Just yesterday I tuned into a local classic rock station in the car. Christmas music. Not just a few songs mixed in, either. Constant xmas. Never ending “joy.”

Crazy people are already posting things about “CHRISTmas.” This early. There’s no escaping it, folks. Everyone is crazy. They would have us believe that they’re merely crazy with the xmas spirit, but it’s not so. It’s much deeper than that. Maybe the pagans should ask the Christians for their holiday back.

I’ve seen enough red and green. Hows about we push the creep back to the day after Thanksgiving. He needs boundaries. I want a restraining order.

The Larger Problem Behind Child Slavery and Halloween Candy

I recently came upon an article on good.is about candies one can buy for Halloween that don’t use child slavery. Apparently, child slaves made my Halloween candy, so I should stop buying it. The articles are well intentioned. No one with a soul wants to support child slavery.

I find myself wondering if fruity Halloween candy is made by child slaves, too. The article doesn’t touch on it. I could assume that if I buy Nerds, they won’t be as evil. But this is America. In my heart I know that everything I can buy is somehow evil. The problem is, as many of us know, much deeper than slave candy.

The second article says the following:

What concerns me even more is that we, as consumers, are not demanding that this be stopped. Some continue to buy chocolate even after learning about these human rights abuses. I’ve heard excuses from people in my own life, and they echo the rationalizations I’ve made myself in the past: “We can’t afford fair-trade.”

This is unfair. Firstly, I am outraged; don’t say I’m not. Secondly, I can demand as much as I want, and the companies not going to do a damn thing. The honest truth is that generally I don’t buy these candies anyway, and the companies don’t notice. I don’t fool myself into thinking that they do.

Even if I were to buy the Kit Kat candy bars that are fair-trade (and hard for me to get, since I don’t live in the U.K.), I am still supporting a company that uses child slavery. My hands are never going to be clean. The idea is just to make me feel better about myself. That’s all things like this do. I can seek out clothes online that weren’t made in sweatshops, and spend money I don’t have, or I can feel guilty and buy something from the store that I know was made on the backs of someone poor. Those are my two options, currently.

It’s a valid concern that we cannot afford fair-trade. That’s what the companies want. They’re the ones paying us low wages, and then they say, “See, fair-trade is expensive. We’re justified in offering you cheaper options.” I don’t think it’s fair to say that someone who cannot afford to spend $38 on Halloween candy is rationalizing. I do, however, think that saying you bought your candy from a good source so you’re not part of the problem is rationalizing.

As people, we don’t have the time or energy to take on child slavery chocolate candy, homelessness, sweatshops, the lack of jobs, corporate greed and power, corrupt politicians, inequality, and all of the other myriad of problems facing our society at once. It cannot be done. This person is asking me to demand that this be stopped–and I really do demand it–but it’s a bottleneck effect after awhile. There are so many horrible things that they just get clogged up in our brains, and nothing gets through. It’s a matter of survival. We can’t think about this stuff all the time or we wouldn’t get out of bed. Many days, I don’t want to get up as it is.

There’s no way to do it if we’re thinking of them as separate problems. The good news is, they’re not. It’s all one big problem: Capitalism, the source of it all. If we don’t stop Capitalism, we’re not going to solve all of these problems. Ever. We’re not going to stop child slavery chocolates. We’re not going to stop corruption, sweatshops, jobs going overseas, homelessness, any of it. Or maybe we will stop child slavery chocolates, and, mission accomplished, stop there.

A person can become a vegetarian and feel like they are not part of the problem of bad meat packing. One can buy free range and not support farmers who keep their chickens in tiny cages. But it doesn’t mean a damn thing as far as the big picture is concerned. Best case scenario, maybe a movement gets the word out about eggs, and everyone buys free range. The companies still have thousands of other practices that are evil. Do we just move on to the next one, ad nauseam?

That’s not for me. For me, it’s all or nothing. Knock down Capitalism. If you want a revolution, we’ll talk. I can’t be bothered with a bunch of petty stuff that solves nothing and serves only to make people feel content with their existence. “It’s OK, I bought the organic, free-trade chocolates.”

I’m sorry, it’s not OK. It’s not going to be OK for a long time at this rate. Wake up. We can’t solve this buy “voting with our money.” Democracy cannot solve this; it’s part of the problem. It keeps us quiet. It keeps us from rocking the boat. “We have monetary votes.” Too bad those votes mean so little.

Add to this the fact that if a person says anything bad about Capitalism or Democracy, he or she is automatically a crazy radical, not to be trusted. That’s what the Capitalists, the 1%, want. Keep us isolated. Keep us from waking up and seeing the problem, the real problem. They want to keep us bogged down in all of the individual problems. There’s enough there to keep us busy for centuries. Unless, of course, we take down the root cause. Look how the media tries to make the Occupy protesters look crazy. Because some of them get it. All of these problems, one source. It’s a good start, we just have to keep going. We can’t stop here.

Advice About Advice

Everyone has advice–what we, the listening public, should or should not do. The problem is, most of it’s crap. Most of these people, labeled experts, are, in fact, morons.

A lot of my time and energy is spent sorting. Good advice from bad. Truth from lies. Fact from speculation. A large portion of my daily caloric intake is probably devoted to the task of mental sorting. It’s tiring. It’s sometimes boring. But everyone should be doing it. That’s my advice. Don’t assume anyone actually knows what they’re saying until it’s verified that they are citing actual facts.

I’ve seen it stated that everyone in my dreams is someone I have seen in real life. How do they know this? They don’t. I’m sorry, but there is just no way to prove this idea. I don’t buy it.

There are tons of different views on how to raise children, many of them contradictory. Yet, all of these people claim to be experts. Well, who says?

I recently read For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, because I have thought a lot about advice and experts in my life. The book is mostly about medical advice to women over the years, but I think it would be interesting to anyone, as it also covers how the medical profession developed (which was one of the most interesting parts of the book, if you ask me). The doctors set out to make themselves the ultimate experts so they could profit off of medicine and advice-giving.

Yes, there’s a lot of money to be made in advice-giving. That’s what many blogs try to do, give advice. I do, on occasion, say how I think people should be living, but this is not an advice blog. I’m not an expert. I’m a person with a brain. A tool, I am finding, that many don’t dust off often enough. A brain is not supposed to be merely an organ that tells our other organs to run.

Advice should be meant to help people, not meant for profit. And, if someone is going to give advice, it should be backed up by actual facts. Not the made up facts that people like Ann Coulter think are real. If that woman has a fact in any of her books, it’s merely by accident that it slipped in there. She’s a crazy person. My advice is to stay the hell away from her ideas.

My advice is to watch your back. If someone is on a major news network, dispensing his or her brand of knowledge, especially if they are on the side endorsed by said network (and they are always on a side, don’t let them tell you otherwise), be wary. This person is, more than likely, full of crap and full of themselves. I don’t know what else to tell you.

It’s the dark ages out there.

New Poems!

A lot of new topics are swimming in my mind. I haven’t written you an essay, but I penned you these poems. They are very much in the spirit of what you would see here, only in poetry form instead of prose. Many are new. Please read.

Until next time, take care and fight the good fight.

Save the Children from Man-Haters! A Facebook Experience.

If you’re at all like me, you sometimes see things on Facebook that clash with your beliefs. It often leaves me with a dilemma: do I post a response, showing my distaste with this post, or do I let it go and not get into something with the person?

One of my Facebook friends recently shared an article posted by someone else and stated her agreement with said article. I knew I should not have clicked on it, but I did. To see the full article, click the image below, which is just the first paragraph.

In the end, I decided that I had to post a response. I could not let this slide. Below is my comment, and you can click it to see the larger version.

What is it about Facebook that makes these situations? It’s pretty simple. We all know a variety of people from various aspects of our lives, the extended family, the coworkers, classmates, and close friends. While we often agree with our close friends, or at least agree to disagree, some of the people we’re not as close to hold drastically different views. We come across things that we agree with, and Facebook encourages us to share it.

What I’m not so sure about is whether Facebook encourages us to respond to it if we disagree. There’s a “like” button, but they continually refuse to put a dislike button on the site. Then, all I see is a bunch of people who “like” something I really disagree with, and I wonder, how do so many people like this?! I’d really like to know how many people disagree. It’s the same with comments. Most of them are positive. People want to be nice, and I understand that. Usually I don’t respond to things I disagree with on Facebook for that reason. It’s a little uncomfortable to say, hey, I really disagree with your views here. Just letting you know I think you’re wrong.

As to the actual content of the article, yes, I agree that sexist messages against men and boys are not productive. I really dislike the “doofy husband” trend. I don’t like sexism in any form. But to argue that men are the most hated and targeted group, well, that’s just blatantly false. I cannot let such lies be spread.

It’s strange the things people will react to and the things they will not. It’s important to them that everyone think men are manly, but many other things escape their focus entirely. Why this cause? I figure that people like the person who wrote this article simply don’t see the other, more intense hatred in the world. They’re sheltered. All they see is a few doofy husband commercials, and it makes them upset. I don’t actually claim to know. I’m baffled by it.

Also, just because someone makes a sexist joke doesn’t mean they actually hate men. Whoever “they” are, they hate half of the human population of Earth. And they’re after the children!

Undoing the Lies of Childhood

I often think about the lies I have been told. There are a lot of lies that come at us all every day, and we each have to sort them all out for ourselves. Some of the hardest lies to get over are lies we were told as children. I think that a good topic for a book would be a collection of lies that children are told. Then, any young person could pick that book up from the young adult or children’s section of their library and learn what they need to relearn.

With the changing times, of course, we would need to make multiple editions to add to the new lies. It would be a great tool for the future to understand our time, what lies we tell our children says a lot about us.

For instance, I was told that if I went to college, no matter what my major was, I could easily get a good job.

We could include simple ones, like the idea that certain areas of a tongue taste different things. The stories about Columbus, Thanksgiving, all of those history lies such as the ones in Lies My Teacher Told Me. There is, at least, that book to tell us about those lies, but we need to go further.

Your dog is in doggy heaven. TV makes you stupid. If you don’t eat your vegetables, you will stunt your growth.

Boys are tough and girls are pretty.

Perhaps even a section or another book to cover the things that adults say kids should do and then don’t do themselves. The way parents talk about sharing, I’d think we’d be a communist society. Become a teenager, though, and we learn it’s really every man for himself. Yes, altruism does exist. Good people don’t want to reward bad people. This does not apply to money for most people. It’s messed up that we teach kids to share then throw them into a Capitalist system that follows no such rules.

When you’re a kid, everyone is telling you not to do drugs. When you’re in college, everyone looks at you funny if you don’t do drugs. Why do most people decide that doing drugs becomes OK in college? I don’t know; I have never understood it. Perhaps it’s because there are so many things that kids are told that turn out to be lies.

Lie to a child about all of the little things you think don’t matter and don’t be surprised if they reject other things you told them, too. That stuff about Columbus turned out to be sugarcoated bull, so teens decide that their parents lied to them about drugs being bad, too.

Liars are not to be trusted. If we want kids to trust their parents, maybe we should lay off all the lies. Until then, if you have the ear of a child, make sure you let them in on some truths others may have conveniently left out or lied about.

Don’t believe people when they tell you sugar makes you hyper, Timmy. If you want to eat right before swimming, don’t let anyone stop you. Reagan was a jerk. Your face won’t stick that way. And, most importantly, not all adults are smarter than kids are.

Salesmen and Owners

Selling yourself for sex: bad. Selling yourself for a job: good.
I’ll just let that sink in for a moment.

Everyone will tell you that getting a job is about who you know and how well you can network. It’s about how well you can sell yourself to a potential employer. Dress appropriately. No one likes you to be too honest.

It’s not my thing to polish the truth, to use buzz words and twist my weaknesses into strengths. I don’t know why I should have to try to come up with a weakness at all. It’s like they’re admitting that all humans are flawed but no one should seem flawed, even when asked point blank.

I never wanted to go into advertising because I don’t want to bullshit people. It’s not something I enjoy. Bullshitting people about myself is not something I think I should be asked to do. Unfortunately, I don’t make the rules. The people who ask all of the same boring interview questions that don’t tell anything about what kind of worker I really am are the ones who get to make the rules.

I move a lot, and I don’t ever know anyone in a given city. It might be nice if some friend of mine could hand me a job, but I don’t have friends in high places. Frankly, I don’t even want them.

Life’s not about getting ahead for me. It’s about staying above water. Sometimes, life feels like that really bad movie, Open Water. I really didn’t like that movie, but sometimes it’s me floating out there with my husband. No one knows where we are. It’s only a matter of time. Sometimes it’s just as boring as that movie, too.

Maybe if I had a rich friend with a yacht I wouldn’t have ended up with a tour of people who didn’t even notice I was missing when they got back to the dock. Rich people have really nice safety nets, and they don’t want to share them with anyone who’s not their friend.

Sometimes those rich people want me to dance for them. Sit uncomfortably in a room in clothes I don’t like to wear and tell them in a veiled way about my weaknesses. I do it, because I am not a rich woman, and I need a paycheck. That doesn’t mean they can ask me not to complain about it, though.

Whenever a company asks me, as an employee–or even tells me–I’m not allowed to complain, I get pissed. I’ve had it happen before. Stay in line; do it and shut up. They said it nicer than that, but they said it.

The problem is that when you sell yourself to someone they start to think they own you.

Darkest, Dirtiest Fantasies of the Human Mind

Everyone has his or her dark demons, right? Everyone is messed up inside. That’s what they tell me, anyway. I’ve been wondering a lot lately if people really are all crazy or dirty inside. Movies and books often portray it that way, I assume because that’s more interesting and makes people feel better about their small flaws.

I personally don’t think I have any dark fantasies or deep secrets. Does that make me odd? I don’t feel like it makes me any less interesting or human. Is everyone else really out there masturbating to something disturbing? I hope not. When I meet people they seem normal and I wonder if that is a facade or reality. I used to just assume people were acting like they actually are. I guess you could say that was naive of me.

Lately I’ve been watching the new season of Louie on FX, which is a great show, by the way. There’s an episode, though, where he meets up with this woman who says she wants to sleep with him and doesn’t mention that includes wanting him to spank her until she cries. Then she eats blueberries, which she insisted he buy for her before the encounter. It was all very awkward, and I thought to myself, are they all around me?

It wasn’t really the spanking or even the blueberries or the sobbing that got to me. As far as weird shit goes, I’ve seen worse in movies, although it’s always tough to watch. It was the way she treated Louie. She used him for her own fantasies then pretended everything was normal afterward. I hope everyone else isn’t just around to get off and doesn’t care what happens to anyone else.

I also just started reading Horns by Joe Hill, in which the main character hears everyone’s dirty, dark thoughts and secrets, what they really think. At least, the bad things they think about. Presumably they have good thoughts in there that they aren’t sharing with him. Is it just because it’s fiction, or does adding in these kinds of demons to people make them seem more real because people are that way?

Freud thought we were all messed up inside, too, but he mostly talked to crazy people, right? I don’t like to think about it. I don’t want to wonder what my neighbor’s sexual deviations might be. That’s not for me. But it gets in my brain, and things that go in my brain come out here.

It’s not so much that classic question of whether humans are basically bad or basically good. I’m not talking about which side dominates. Is there really an id inside everyone that wants to do horrible things? Beat children, rape people? I think not. Maybe some people. Maybe those people want us to think they’re normal. “No, man, everyone has these thoughts,” they say, but perhaps it’s all trickery. Perhaps they’re just trying to convince themselves by convincing us. I hope.