What Happened to My Life? (The American Worker)

Worker: I am now a production slave to seven machines of the kind I used to design on Unigraphics and Cadkey.

Capitalist: SHUT UP, AT LEAST YOU HAVE A JOB!

Worker: The company is owned by a Wall Street investment firm. And the good news is we beat the Chinese and Mexican divisions in quality, and speed. The bad news is, I give up breaks, and lunches to keep up with production.

Capitalist: SHUT UP, AT LEAST YOU HAVE A JOB!

Worker: I am on call 24 / 7 to come in and keep up the production quota. This is expected by the company (unofficially).

Capitalist: SHUT UP, AT LEAST YOU HAVE A JOB!

Worker: It costs me $3000 a year, NOT to use my medical insurance, but these are the best benefits that that can be found now.

Capitalist: SHUT UP, AT LEAST YOU HAVE A JOB!

Worker: Since my Military service, I have spent 3000 hours in classroom technical training, as requested by the Business community, and the Government because they needed tech workers. Those jobs are now located in India, China, or performed by imported workers for a fraction of what I was earning.

Capitalist: SHUT UP, AT LEAST YOU HAVE A JOB!

Worker: I make $5.00 LESS an hour than I made 25 years ago and my dollar goes nowhere near as far.

Capitalist: SHUT UP, AT LEAST YOU HAVE A JOB!

Worker: When laid off from my last job, as a last resort, I applied at farms and orchards, (you know, the jobs Americans won’t do), and was deemed over-qualified for the position and denied work.

Capitalist: SHUT UP, AT LEAST YOU HAVE...ERR...HAD A JOB! FREE MARKETS MUST BE PROTECTED! GLOBAL ECONOMY! INDIVIDUALISM! BLAH BLAH BLAH.......

Re: What happened to your life?

Well, that is an easy question answer. Unregulated, ruthless and truth-less Capitalism happened to your life. You became too expensive for them even after all the hoops you jumped through while trusting them that everything would still be alright. If they just paid less in taxes, less for your health care, had less government safety regulations, and maybe outsourced a few non-technical positions to “There-went-my-job-istan”, then you would be perfectly safe and weather the ensuing economic storm that snatched up many of your co-workers. You, my friend, are a huge sucker to have ever believed them.

It’s not all your fault, the corporations and the venture capitalists spend millions of dollars to convince everyone that they were really ‘benefactors’ and wonderful people running almost charity-like institutions. “We create jobs!” Really? Where are they creating jobs now? All around us for the last 30 years, we have seen the degeneration of American production and wages, and now, when it finally hits the white-collar sector, do we see even one little bit of outrage.

Do not ever believe that this is some result of ‘market forces’. Look back to the corporate advertising and lobbying of 30 and 40 years ago, and you see today in their vision of the future. This was a deliberate strike at worker’s rights, fair wages, and fair trade built upon the premises of Capitalism and the re-establishment of political and economic power into the hands of the few. They have so much propagandized and muddled the common man’s head with nonsense that even when reality strikes hard and sudden, the American whose wages and lifestyle are diminished will continue, even to the death, to defend the Capitalist who put him into that horrible predicament. They use you, throw you away, and then you fight for their honor! THAT is power.

Karl Marx was right. He viewed human history and he personally bore witness to the horrors wreaked upon workers, families, and children by that never-ending greed machine we refer to as the Industrial Revolution. He knew then that it was sustained only through morally reprehensible labor practices and it remains so today.

They don’t give a shit about anyone.