Wake Up

Okay. We've been through the clever post-socialist age where we allowed ourselves to believe that "there is no society," and collective effort drags everybody down collectively, and in our meritocratic system anyone can rise to the top if they put their shoulder to the wheel and work hard etc. etc. etc. We've allowed ourselves to believe that wealth "trickles down" and if the captains of industry are liberated to forge ahead without any restrictions, everybody down to the lowliest office gopher or floor sweeper will eventually get a goodly share of the pie. We've been through that, and though I resisted it and decried it at every step of the way, it was probably a worthwhile experiment. Probably. But you know what? Enough is enough. There's too much injustice now. Too many bosses firing too many employees without so much as a twitch of their conscience (unless they're the worst sort of boss, the liberal jerk-off who gets a kick out of the power but pretends--even to himself--that he wields the axe with a heavy heart: as in most situations, at least the right winger is unapologetic.) And too many employees who have swallowed the Thatcherite deconstruction of socialist values (perpetuated by "Labour" Tony Blair and his government), so completely it doesn't even occur to them that they have the right to mount a spirited defence. One day they are cleverly putting you down for your faith in outmoded sociopolitical forms--"nobody believes in unions anymore"--and the next day they're standing in front of the managerial firing squad and going so compliantly they don't even hold up the guns by insisting on a last cigarette.
Wake up! You think it'll never happen to you? You think your position is safe? You think that "as long as I do my job properly I'll be all right?" (great cliche of the age.) You really genuinely think that every employer is a just man or woman? that they are intellectually and morally and spiritually equipped to handle the power they have over other people's lives, including yours? Where were they educated to be so wise?
Trickledown economics and whatever offshoot of it we now labour under is a lie. The interests of the company and the interests of the individual are sometimes the same, but equally often they are violently opposed. You are appreciated because of your compliance. Because you are useful to the company. But in the long run you might as well not exist as an individual human being. The company that you consider so benevolent and so just will roll over you like a monster truck and spray your viscera far and wide tomorrow, and if you're not prepared for that you are going to be in a lot of discomfort, boys and girls, when the deal goes down.
Our forefathers would be appalled to see how eager we have become to help create the conditions for our own exploitation and oppression.