"We Should Have Picked Our Own Cotton"...The Sunday Collage
Every time we exploit someone, there always seems to be consequences. I mean was it really necessary for half a million people to die over cotton?
The greatest trick that any capitalist ever pulled- was finding and exploiting some sort of slave labor pool and then loudly proclaiming that you are creating jobs and helping people. Announcing to the world that you are some sort of humanitarian while splashing a few charitable donations around and making sure people know about them.
Like strip clubs, whorehouses, and lottery boards donating money to schools. That's how the world gets greased. In the end- immense profits come by way of exploiting workers while convincing every one that you are the one doing them a favor and not the other way around.
Like this. Wasting your money is good for the rest of us. In fact, it's downright patriotic. We said so. ---The Oregon Lottery
Immigrants have always been easily exploitable. There were African slaves picking cotton, the Chinese building our railroads, South Pacific islanders hacking sugar cane and pineapples, the Irish and the Cornish dying in the mines in Butte. Lithuanians and Slavs and other immigrants working in Chicago slaughterhouses.
Many died on the job making chump change. No health and safety rules. No benefits.
After those drawn out ordeals through the annals of time, American workers went through an enchanted period. That was the day of collective bargaining and unions. And for a while that worked. The elite made their vast profits and workers finally got a decent wage. But oh how the elite hated those slimmer margins. They couldn't exploit people enough to satisfy their own greed. Sooner or later they'd find a way around the constraints of paying people livable wages.
With no slave labor to exploit locally, American business found illegal immigrants in the 90's. Mostly home builders and landscapers so that banks could make loans and re-sell them. Millions of them. All government did was turn a blind eye, grease banks and suppliers, and pass the infrastructure burden of millions of illegal aliens onto taxpayers. The problem with importing a slave labor pool of homebuilders and landscapers is that once they are on U.S. soil, U.S. employers had to comply with U.S. labor laws. Those "do gooder" capitalists saw their margins shrink- once again.
Thankfully, we had the real estate bust- which ended that tidal wave.
Soon the capitalists would identify the next great slave labor pool on foreign soil. In Mexico, the Pac Rim, India, and China. The big corporate leviathans found new markets with exploitable workers- having shit in their own nest in the U.S. That is what capitalists do. It's all about making the most money possible while handing out starvation wages. That's Apple and Foxconn in China. The poor bastards working at Foxconn live at the work site...afraid to leave and be replaced. With a labor pool of 1.6 billion, the capitalists have the upper hand.
So it is- that Steve Jobs was just another capitalist finding a way to exploit cheap workers and expand margins. Hardly a novelty. Plenty is never enough- for guys like that.
I was thinking about all of that tonight as I watched people fiddling around with their fucking phones. What in the hell did we do with ourselves, prior to cell phones? It's a national obsession. A whole population of adults with electronic pacifiers. It's pathetic, mostly. Greed seems to fuel it all. I couldn't help but think that we should have just picked our own cotton. Or built our own cellphones here. These things, it seems, always have a way of biting us in the ass.
The greatest trick that any capitalist ever pulled- was finding and exploiting some sort of slave labor pool and then loudly proclaiming that you are creating jobs and helping people. Announcing to the world that you are some sort of humanitarian while splashing a few charitable donations around and making sure people know about them.
Like strip clubs, whorehouses, and lottery boards donating money to schools. That's how the world gets greased. In the end- immense profits come by way of exploiting workers while convincing every one that you are the one doing them a favor and not the other way around.
Like this. Wasting your money is good for the rest of us. In fact, it's downright patriotic. We said so. ---The Oregon Lottery
Immigrants have always been easily exploitable. There were African slaves picking cotton, the Chinese building our railroads, South Pacific islanders hacking sugar cane and pineapples, the Irish and the Cornish dying in the mines in Butte. Lithuanians and Slavs and other immigrants working in Chicago slaughterhouses.
Many died on the job making chump change. No health and safety rules. No benefits.
After those drawn out ordeals through the annals of time, American workers went through an enchanted period. That was the day of collective bargaining and unions. And for a while that worked. The elite made their vast profits and workers finally got a decent wage. But oh how the elite hated those slimmer margins. They couldn't exploit people enough to satisfy their own greed. Sooner or later they'd find a way around the constraints of paying people livable wages.
With no slave labor to exploit locally, American business found illegal immigrants in the 90's. Mostly home builders and landscapers so that banks could make loans and re-sell them. Millions of them. All government did was turn a blind eye, grease banks and suppliers, and pass the infrastructure burden of millions of illegal aliens onto taxpayers. The problem with importing a slave labor pool of homebuilders and landscapers is that once they are on U.S. soil, U.S. employers had to comply with U.S. labor laws. Those "do gooder" capitalists saw their margins shrink- once again.
Thankfully, we had the real estate bust- which ended that tidal wave.
Soon the capitalists would identify the next great slave labor pool on foreign soil. In Mexico, the Pac Rim, India, and China. The big corporate leviathans found new markets with exploitable workers- having shit in their own nest in the U.S. That is what capitalists do. It's all about making the most money possible while handing out starvation wages. That's Apple and Foxconn in China. The poor bastards working at Foxconn live at the work site...afraid to leave and be replaced. With a labor pool of 1.6 billion, the capitalists have the upper hand.
So it is- that Steve Jobs was just another capitalist finding a way to exploit cheap workers and expand margins. Hardly a novelty. Plenty is never enough- for guys like that.
I was thinking about all of that tonight as I watched people fiddling around with their fucking phones. What in the hell did we do with ourselves, prior to cell phones? It's a national obsession. A whole population of adults with electronic pacifiers. It's pathetic, mostly. Greed seems to fuel it all. I couldn't help but think that we should have just picked our own cotton. Or built our own cellphones here. These things, it seems, always have a way of biting us in the ass.
Comments
A most excellent tirade. Nicely said, sir.
As a descendent of European ancestry, my family never had to pick cotton or have someone do it for them. I simply cannot relate to the 'former slave mentality of reparations and victimhood' the Democrats push down our throats in the guise of 'civil rights'.
I'm simply glad to be here, as an American, pushing forward to make my own way as I see fit, even though our government seems to be determined to stop me. And you.