Sunday, October 03, 2010

Three Balls and Two Strikes




Before I became an Internationally Known Independently Wealthy Cartoonist, I spent a considerable amount of time as a "worker", working for The Man, every night and day. At one of the day jobs, the international corporate fuckers tried some bullshit, in the name of maximizing profit, that was endangering the lives of us workers, as well as the general public. An attempt to change the situation got some good people fired. The workplace was "At Will", and the message was simple;" Boat Rockers and Whistleblowers will not be tolerated. You are At Will, and we can fire you at any time for no reason."

We got a new manager at work, and we Hoped that things would Change. After a number of months of trying to work with the new manager at solving some of the problems, we were told in no uncertain terms that if we didn't like the way things were, we could quit or we could get fired.

That was the last straw, and a group of us started the arduous task of forming a union. The company violated a number of labor laws in its opposition to our organizing effort, they spent a considerable amount of money on Union Busting Consultants, and more good people got fired. At one point, before we had the vote on whether or not to unionize, we actually went on strike to protest the firings and harassment of workers during the organizing effort. At Will workers went on strike before becoming a union. We brought the local branch of the international corporation to a grinding halt one day, and an expedited vote was scheduled after the intervention of Government Officials. We won the vote, and became unionized.

The act of striking, while still At Will Employees, took an enormous amount of courage. People overcame a great deal of fear in order to improve the workplace. We had Hoped that things would Change after unionizing, and they did. Things didn't become perfect overnight, they'll never be perfect, but things improved. The success of The Change we had Hoped for is directly related to The Strike.

And that brings us to Barack Obama and The Democratic Party. He's the Manager telling us we should be afraid if we don't vote his way. I'm the worker telling him, no, I'm going on strike with my vote if he doesn't Change. Voting is a political act, and so is the threat not to vote.

Baby steps to the front door, Bob, baby steps to the front door.

7 comments:

Comrade PhysioProf said...

I fo on the assumption that Obama may be craven, but he is not fucken stupid. So, what I'd like to know is what fucken votes he thinks the Democratic Party is gaining by constantly punching the fucken hippies that elected his fucken ass.

zencomix said...

I don't know. Maybe he thinks he can pick up all the "moderates" from both sides of the aisle if the Republicans look crazy enough with their Tea Party candidates, figuring people are going to go along with the lesser of two evils. I suspect Corporate support means more to him than Hippie support at this point in the game, but I think that's a strategic mistake if you truly wanted to change things in Washington.

And there's the moldy crust of the biscuit: I don't think he truly wants to change things in Washington. He'll shuffle the deck chairs on the Titantic Empire, and the The Empire doesn't care so long as the The Machine gets oiled. If he truly did try to change things, The Machine would dispose of him.

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Tom Harper said...

I'm still going to vote. Tweedledee is much better than Tweedledum. Well, a little better. I think.

Distributorcap said...

Obama to me is nothing more than GOP very lite - if he truly believes the war in Afghanistan is not going anywhere - then leave - and stop frigging worryig about the right. if he truly believed in change - there would have been no shirley sherrod incident and the overwhelming fear this administration feels from people like beck and limbaugh

he would have realized that once the GOP would not help or even give one iota of support - then tell them to go f themselves and push through an agenda

but he is much more interested in keeping the status quo as SQ lite with a few bones tossed to the professional left

basically he doesnt care about those who voted him in - like all politicians he cares about those who finance his buying of those who voted him in

i wish there was a viable 3rd choice - teabaggers are not a third choice, they are GOP in white sheets

basically - there is not much hope for a country that is this divided and with NO central govt willing to take on the dividers....

zencomix said...

Here's an interesting take on the mechanism of modern American politics.