White Working Class America Today
Today I saw one of those stickers people put on their cars to show how tough they are. One guy had a “No War for Oil” sticker and had taken off the no so it said “War For Oil”. Another guy had a sticker of a praying skeleton on its knees in the position of a nun. It said “Perfect World”, that must be one of those ironic ones. Sort of like saying nothing is perfect in this life, and maybe suck up and take it. The world seems colder, more cynical now that Bush is gone and we got the idealists president and things are just as bad as before, perhaps worse because now we have had our delusions about how good things would be once we got a President in office who cared about the people. A community activist. Ha. We got more of the same only with a softer edge. There used to be a term for it, Friendly Fascism.
I want to write about politics around the world but I am forced to write about the politics of every day life around me. It is not my forte, I am not comfortable writing about the soap opera of people’s daily lives. It doesn’t interest me but sometimes I have to simply deal with it. Maybe that is why I have been such a lousy family man.
The people at work talk about going to family style restaurants and Disneyland and bars with $4.00 beers like it is something important or special. They never talk about issues of import like the state of the nation or the President’s trip to China or anything about the world and if they do all they do is grumble about taxes like they come out of the sky, from heaven like some deity. We are supposed to be living in a democracy but you wouldn’t know it from the people I work with. They are not stupid, just oblivious. They listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio, the ones with intellectual pretensions do. The others just listen to oldies stations that play the hits from the sixties and seventies like they were still teenagers.
That is normal, people like to relive the time when they were most idealistic and hopeful about life. The music from that period reminds them of how much they were full of optimism and energy, even if at the time they were complaining about how they could not wait to become adults. Most of us as we get older miss the energy of our youths. Material success or failure does not compensate for what is gone, and that is a bright future. At 55 I cannot hope for a better tomorrow. It is now or never and for me it is looking more like never than ever before. But what is it I am looking for? My lucky break. The one I broke in two according to that old Wings song, talk about nostalgia.
No I am a man who believes that some thoughts take more than a lifetime to complete. As one who is pretty damn sure we live as spirit beings outside of the body, but that we suffer amnesia from the birth trauma, or perhaps being in a womb drove us right out of our minds. Imagine being in a space where you can’t move, can’t see, hear things as distant muffled noises, now imagine this going on for weeks and months. I am sure it would drive most anyone out of their minds and if that didn’t the birth trauma, coming out into light, cold, breathing directly into lungs that have been filled with amniotic fluid or whatever baby lungs are full of. It would be about as disorienting as it gets. The Krisnas believe that it is hell to be in the womb, sort of like being born is hell. But they have an interest in getting us all prepared for another world, Krishna Loka if we are lucky where all things are wonderful. Most religions have their own version of this heavenly state. Christians are going to be with Jesus in heaven. Muslims have it even better they are going to be in paradise with 96 beautiful maidens. I just hope these maidens don’t have attitudes like earthly women or that guy will be driven right out of his blissful brains. Think about it.
Christians are gay, they want to be with Jesus, brides of Christ is what they call priests and nuns. What about Krisnas, that is pretty gay, wanting to be one of his dancing girls, or maybe it is simply transgendered. Muslims are the only red blooded heteros of the bunch. What about Buddhists? I think that must be some kind of an onanists dream, or perhaps not, they postulate simple dissolution into the cosmic void. Simply nothingness, either it is all you or not you. What about Jews? Were do they go? They go to Heaven according to Rabbi Simmons in his Ask the Rabbi Column. He has some pretty simple explanations but he says that the soul is breathed into the dust and returns to its source after, that is returns to God. He makes it all seem rather personal, and that each person goes on to eternity essentially as they are. A pizza and beer man goes to an eternity of pizza and beer, a Torah reader gets to enjoy the front row seats in the heavenly orchestra.
I have several problems with that. But what do you expect from a site called “Ask The Rabbi”. You get what you pay for. Like the jokes about the guy who climbs up to the Himalayas to meet the guru and asks him the meaning of life and the guru shrugs and says I was going to ask you the same question. Etc ad infinitum.
I do believe that the validity of your experience, the intensity of it and its meaningfulness is enhanced by the amount of effort you put into it. I studied European art history before I went to Europe the first time. I went with a buddy. I had studied art in college, he had listened to Joni Mitchell records and dreamed of meeting the perfect blond girl. When we got there I could spend hours looking at paintings in galleries from all kinds of angles. He couldn’t stand it and would give a painted about 10 seconds. But when we got to the youth hostel at night he would spend hours talking to the other kids joking and whatever and I was totaly bored out of my mind. I would go read a book or smoke some pot if I could not find someone to talk about something intelligent. Now he is a spiritual leader in a spiritual commune in Colorado and I am an anarchist communist intellectual, more or less. Go figure.
An entire sequence I wrote just disappeared. I hate it when that happens. There is no undo button that I can find on my computer so when I accidentally delete something it is gone. Two paragraphs of fine description lost in the aether. It was mostly personal stuff about my relationships and is probably inappropriate for an x rated blog like this. After all some things should and shall remain private. But not because of my conscious mind. I like to get it all out there. I am a firm believer in the personal anecdote as example. But I believe that perhaps I go too far. After all my life is not a Soap Opera. It is a life. Although I think I agree more with the Rabbi than I care to admit. I feel as if this life is a rehearsal for something else. In my case I am not sure what, cosmic clown…
Atheism is to me a cop out. It denies the possibility of a future consequence for actions taken in this life. As much as that might be false, I like the idea that I might have to answer to some kind of cosmic tribunal. Put it all on the line. Did I do good or bad. I can think of some pretty nasty moments in my life. Scenes where I had knives and guns pulled on me. But I am semi proud of the fact that I never pulled a gun on anyone, well only once, when someone had robbed me of about $1000 I had stuck under my mattress. I got rid of the gun right after that. I am not one to be entrusted with weapons. My temper is too hot for that. I like to dare people to fuck with me sometimes just to see if they will bother.
Like I was writing about work earlier. I was speaking to people at a company lunch, just casual conversation about things I am interested in. I mentioned there was a Black Riders party coming up. Someone said who are the Black Riders, I said they are like the Black Panthers, that got me dirty looks, then to add a little flame to the fire I added that I used to distribute Panther Newspapers in High School. Next thing you know they were saying that maybe I was one of those guys they should report to the government. I was sitting next to to the people who listened to Rush Limbaugh. I couldn’t wait to bring my girlfriend to work. She is black. Well I get off on irritating people sometimes, especially when they hold provincial attitudes and are stuck in a mentality that I had thought was a hold over from the stone ages. Unfortunately I felt I was right back in high school and I was about to get jumped and taught a lesson by the stone age dudes. Back then I was able to turn them on to pot and they became mellow heads. I don’t know what to do with this generation of squares. They seem to be on the increase not the decrease.
They had a point. When I mentioned that when I was in High School there was a division between the heads and the straights and it included teachers and students. I noted how at parties after school on the weekends the kids brought the pot and the teachers brought the booze. It was a mutual support network. The Limbaugh listener asked me if I would want my son to be with the stoner teachers or the straight teachers. I had also noted that back then the Vietnam War divided the country. I told him straight up that I would rather have my son be among responcible stoners if that is what he wanted but it was his choice. Then the conversation degenerated. One other guy noted that there were bad guys on the left. I volunteered Stalin. Someone noted that Castro’s sister worked for the CIA. I offered that the actor Earl Flynn fought with Castro in the mountains before they defeated Batista. At that the Limbaugh listener said that Flynn was a child molester that was where “In Like Flynn” came from. I had to say that I thought that was Woody Allen and then we went into a conversation about famous child molesters like Roman Polanski. I was going to bring up the whole issue of the age of consent being a cultural issue but I have not worked that out totaly myself so I let it go, changing the subject to partying. And I stated that in the old days you could drink and drive. I brought up my experiences as a DJ in Colorado drinking with my girlfriend on the air until 4 am and then driving home fighting with her trying to crash the car. For me those were amusing anecdotes for them they were horrifying tales. I ended up having to say I would never do that now because of all the traffic in LA and offered that I thought the reason they were so tough on drugs here was because of the concern for auto accidents. At that point the Limbaugh guy offered that he had never driven stoned or drunk but maybe to show he was not totally square he said he had ridden with someone who had just drank 12 beers. I told him that was crazy and we went back to work.
Nobody got violent and it seems that in modern America people may be conservative in working class white culture. At my new job white males predominate although there are some Hispanics, mostly females, and a couple of Hispanic guys, the culture is dominated by the Anglos. Unlike my previous job where most of the crew were Hispanic and I was in the distinct minority. It seems that Hispanic culture is more liberal in LA. White males for the most part seem to feel embattled. They are more conservative. They are more likely to hold subtle racist views. I get the feeling from my co workers that they feel like they are holding the line for a value system that is collapsing. I don’t know how these guys who many of them look like old hippies, turned so conservative. I think they took the Reagan Revolution to heart. The bought it when the liberal sixties and seventies ended. When Clinton came in he simply perpetuated it and then Bush with his war on terror scared what liberal values might have been left in white males out.
Women and minorities elected Obama. and wealthy liberals who did not feel threatened by the influx of minorities. The problem is that the good jobs were shipped overseas by the Regan revolution. He busted the unions and then the nativist right blamed the blacks and Hispanics for taking the jobs instead of the capitalists who decided that greed demanded exporting jobs to Mexico and then China. A working man was stuck with fewer options. Debt and go back to school for jobs that disappeared as soon as you were trained in them. American white males are not feeling good about themselves. If they have something they are affraid it is going to be taken away and if they don’t they look for someone to blame. Instead of the ruling class they blame the minorities. They want to return to an all white America or at least one where the minorities kept in their place and a white man could make a decent living.
This is a festering pool of hate that needs to be lanced. With a depressed economy and over 10% unemployment, with everyone in debt and credit expensive no one is feeling generous. There is a liberal president and the working classes are not rallying for him because most of the workers are no longer union men. They are Regan youth now middle aged worried about the future. As an American radical so am I. We need jobs good union scale jobs and the president is expected to deliver. That is socialism my friends. If workers won’t fight and organize but expect the government to do it then they have tacitly accepted socialism. If they don’t and expect private enterprise to bring back the good old days then they are going to shift to the right and the right will not give the working man what he wants. They can only work to maximize profits. That means fascism. National socialism of the right is the next step. That is unfortunately where I see American white workers headed if they don’t get with it and unionize. But unions have been given such a bad rap by the capitalist press I am affraid the modern white male can no longer see economic interest beyond the rhetoric of the right that has enthralled him. The President kowtowing to Wall Street interests doesn’t help either.
The incident with the white cop and the black professor brought out the tension of the modern situation to a head. The President has been painted as an elitist. The Fox channel pundants are the new populist voice of the working man. That is code for white males mostly high school educated. The Democrats have to reach out to labor and the workers if they are to diffuse this. Making it easier to unionize would be the smartest move. If they don’t the right will out flank them and use the jobs issue to destroy the environmental, and health agendas. The wars in Asia don’t help. They started as Bush’s wars and the Democrats just like Labor in England have taken them on as a curse.
If we had a true left party, a strong Green or Labor party based in the working classes then we would be able to crush the Limbaughs and the Fox pundants. But we don’t and Obama is a corporate apologist. This is some tough and dirty business ahead. We need to succeed. We cannot let the reactionary right win again, at least not until we have put some things in place like a green plan and national health care that cannot be undone. Can we do it? It remains to be seen.