Careers Are Dead. Welcome To Your Low Wage, Temp Work Future

[ghettopalmetto]

MizMotown, this isn't just about a temporary [[although painful) recession. There are insidious, systematic forces at work in our country...and the result is what Bailey described.

What we're seeing now is the fruition--the DREAM--of the Southern plantation elite. A small number of privileged W.A.S.P. families control everything, write the laws, make all the money, and get to dictate the lifestyles of those "beneath" them...all while not having to do a damn thing to contribute to the betterment of our society! This is a culture that has existed for centuries, and we are now realizing the utter destruction that it can wreak on a former superpower nation, to say nothing of individual communities.

The self-appointed elite inherit their wealth--some of them going back to King Charles of England, who gave land in the Carolinas to the "hard-working" "job creators" of his day. For centuries, the elite have relied on cheap [[or free) labor to make their money for them, exploiting people and natural resources, and sending raw materials abroad [[where other, smarter, harder-working people use them to manufacture goods). The result has been a ravaged landscape, and a permanent underclass. And that's just the way they want it. God forbid the peasants get too "uppity" and start demanding "rights" like real people.

The real magic has been convincing the permanent underclass to vote against their individual best interests. Once we've done that, the plan *really* kicks into motion:

-tax cuts for the leisure class [[a God-given right!)
-increased taxes on the poorest [[don't want them getting ahead!)
-cuts to education [[gotta keep 'em all dumb, or they'll wake up!)
-cuts to infrastructure [[we pay for what *we* need, the peasants will get nothing)
-cuts to food stamps and social programs [[who cares if poor people starve? their just workers--they can be replaced)

They wrap all this in a coat of Jesus and Morality, and instill fear in the general populace [[You better start carrying guns everywhere!). The goal is to divide the working classes with petty, heated arguments, as there are far more of us than there are of the elite. They've succeeded well.

Now we get things like "Right to Work", where we're all entitled to "contractor temp" positions that pay far less. We are told to accept the few crumbs that we get, and since our rights have been stripped, we have no choice. Boeing took $450 million of FREE money from South Carolina...the workers in North Charleston are paid $15/hr--HALF of what their unionized counterparts in Washington state earn. BMW in South Carolina pays $16/hr--HALF of what its German factory workers earn. When Ikea opened a plant in Danville, Virginia, its workers were paid $8/hr with 12 vacation days--8 of those were designated holidays. Meanwhile, Ikea workers in Sweden make at least the minimum wage of $19/hr, with five weeks of vacation a year. Poaching jobs with cheap labor is a way of life for the Plantation Elite...they've been doing it for centuries. You think the South is crying about lost textile jobs? From where did they steal those jobs over 100 years ago? And now these same principles have made their way to Detroit, where President Obama pressured GM and the UAW to pay new employees the same rate as their right-to-work Southern counterparts. A billionaire like Mike Ilitch can extract hundreds of millions of tax dollars from the poorest large city in the nation Just Because, but when was the last time a would-be entrepreneur received a five-figure startup loan from the City of Detroit?

If you dare demand rights, you're decried as a "socialist". In the meantime, the plantation elites declare themselves "patriots" and persecute anyone who challenges them. Of course, they make sure to overfund the military industrial complex that protects their unearned wealth...which relies on an endless stream of disposable soldiers who have no other opportunities for income than to become a target.

So yeah, Murrika Number 1. We're nothing but a Third World cheap labor force for Europe and Asia, designed to sustain the comfortable lifestyles of those who have never worked a day in their lives. My forefathers immigrated to the Rust Belt for a dream to have a better life. If they would have known it would become the Antebellum South, they might have stayed in Europe.

Personally, I refuse to be one of the peasant rubes of the lazy Southern plantation elite. If I offend a few people in the process, tough shit. This world might eat me alive, but I'm at least going to give it one nasty-ass case of indigestion. I just don't have any patience for Crackers anymore.