Laid Off and Left Out

“You don't hear much from the American worker anymore. Like battered soldiers at the end of a lost war, ordinary workers seem resigned to their diminished status.
The grim terms imposed on them include wage stagnation, the widespread confiscation of benefits (including pensions they once believed were guaranteed), and a permanent state of employment insecurity.
For an unnecessarily large number of Americans, the workplace has become a hub of anxiety and fear, an essential but capricious environment in which you might be shown the door at any moment.
In his new book, "The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle tells us that since 1984, when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started monitoring "worker displacement," at least 30 million full-time workers have been "permanently separated from their jobs and their paychecks against their wishes."

– – Bob Herbert, New York Times


With retirement musings looming large in my thoughts lately, concerns about being laid off or left out don't really represent a threat to my workplace life and times, but oh how future generations must worry! The revolution that started with Reagan and later continued with Gingrich would not have been possible without the blind, stupid loyalty of the "lunch box Joes" of this world. Yep, Joe bought all that crap dressed up in the super charged rhetoric of patriotism.

Ya, they appealed to all his biases and prejudices, convinced him that the gays were about to transform his loving wife into a wild eyed lesbo who was about to kick his ass out of his marriage in favor of the woman next door; turn his son into a "broke back mountain" wanna be; and, convinced him that all those "wet backs" comin' outta Mexico were steeling his job on the assembly line at GM.

In the mean time, Joe didn't seem to notice that protective labor laws were being dismantled, that jobs by the thousands were being shipped overseas and that he couldn't afford the finest medical care in the world. Nope, Joe decided it was better to die untended by the health care establishment than to translate the medical care programs into pinko, commie, socialize medical systems like those enjoyed by all the Western European economies.

Yep, that's Joe for ya. Those damned Europeans may live longer, and their kids don't die during infancy nearly as often as Joe's kids do, but what the hell, you just can’t have it all. .. and Joe's FREE! Never mind those nasty little details like the rendition program. . .people just seem to disappear, grabbed right off the streets in Any Town, USA and salted away in some far away prison where they can be tortured and beaten into submission or to death.

Details! Joe's a freedom lovin' sob, and you'd better believe it; his anthem is clear: America, Love it or get the hell out!

Ever on the watch for ya,
Davy Crockett