In the interest of disclosure, let it be known I am not a social psychologist - but, I do however, play one on the Internet. Although I have noticed the following trend long ago, I'll throw some credit to another media source.
Perennial Madison, Wisconsin radio talk-show host "Sly" John Sylvester of WTDY 1670, has recently mentioned from time to time that the current developing American work culture dangerously mimics the abuser-victim phenomenon. He has also mentioned the Stockholm Syndrome in regards to American voters' choices at the polls.
The above bone I throw Sylvester's way is despite the fact that some of his radio callers, and bloggers at-large like myself have been screaming about the subject going back as far as 2005 - the precipice of this Great Recession many of us were already well ensconced in back then. For years we have been brushed off as candidates for "conspiracy central." But the reality of our perilous economic situation is so egregious it is now unavoidably fair game for Sylvester.
I've noticed a slight waiver in Ol' Sly's praises for the two-party canard lately. It's all adversarial fun and radio games until the abused victim is near economic death. Like the abused spouse pausing before confronting the abuser, perhaps he is hesitating just a second before riding the two-party pony off the economic cliff.
The foibles of talk radio and its tragic theater aside, it is increasingly distressing that the relationship in America between its workers and the collective overlords of misery, mirrors more and more the abuser-victim rubric. The comparison is so obvious; the collective manic depressive schizophrenia of the entire country's population and its politic is obvious to every other nation in the world...except us. Like the alcoholic that is the last one to realize he is....an alcoholic.
There is little dignity in the "new norm" jobs that the working rabble languish at, that is of course if they even have a job. The modus operandi of the new abuser-victim work culture has some reoccurring traits.
Idle promises are a key aspect of the abuser. Recently elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker sings the mantra of a promise of 250,000 new jobs for the Wisconsin beleaguered. He has yet to deliver. It is unlikely he can. A quick assessment of the campaign rhetoric might reveal that a safety valve to the job hyperbole is most likely the sad reality that over a four-year period turn-over and attrition might see thousands of workers playing musical jobs in the normal course of change.
Seemingly taking a page out of Walker's playbook, also like an abuser, McDonald's dangles a gift in front of its latest victims. There would be 50 thousand jobs promised to the downtrodden labor force. But, the short arithmetic reveals of McDonald's 15,000 or so eateries in America, those three or so employees hired by each location would have been hired in the normal course of doing business anyway. Offer the victim a lame gift they already have. They dangle their McJobs in front of the hapless faces of the unemployed; it's like a cruel step-parent dangling a baby bottle in front of an unwanted infant, just far enough away so the child can't suckle.
Sanctuary is removed in the abuser-victim relationship. Part-time, thankless, overnight, benefitless, poorly paid jobs, offer no future or security to their workers. There are 168 hours in a week and these types of jobs ruin every one of those hours. Constant shift changing and weekend hours eventually drag the worker into the abyss of bad health and depression - much like the lifestyle of the domestic abused.
The abuser brings you down to the abuser's level; you surrender your fundamental beliefs and behaviors to enable and apologize for the abuser of your misery. You will find yourself behaving according to expectation at a "new norm job," rarely complaining to management. After all, if you complain, you will be punished. Probably not fired though - the abuser does not want to release a conditioned victim.
If they do manage to push you until you reach the precipice of snapping, they may actually nonchalantly fire you. Another victim is always close at hand. There are plenty of workers that will go right back to another abusive employer.
"At least I am not in jail," you may reluctantly find yourself saying. The next thing you know, the employer brings in some Huber workers with GPS ankle bracelets - the company gets paid by the State for taking in felons on parole. A new worker is slung right under the nose of the old abused worker who has played by the rules for so long, but now cast aside for someone being rewarded for bad behavior.
Wisconsin's newly elected U.S. Senator Ron Johnson has used the aforementioned prison work strategy, allowing for those worker's health care to be paid by the State.
"At least I am not dead," you may distressingly find yourself thinking. But then, one of your co-workers tells you the fate of Big Al. Ol' Al is a 35 year-old co-worker and U.S. Navy veteran who has disappeared for a week. They find Big Al in his small apartment in his ratty easy chair....passed away - bottle of Jack by his cold dead feet.
"Al was weak," your boss says with a smirk.
The worker / citizen is given the classic False Alternative of only two choices - right or left - conservative or liberal - Republican or Democrat. "You pick one of our two options or you are just plain stupid," your abusive politicos insist.
Of course the worker / citizen has been so conditioned to the two-party paradigm they do not realize that in reality, they do not have to belong to any party or any cause at all.
The collective voice coming from the many levels of "media" insist, "Don't look elsewhere for political answers, we have the answer, stay loyal to us. If you look elsewhere beyond Democrats and Republicans you are just ignorant and dumb. You are a stupid worker. You are dirt."
"By the way," the collective voices suggest, "If you are unhappy with your situation or life all this is your own fault. You should have tried harder and worked smarter. We the providers for you haven't created this terrible national debt ensconcing the nation in trillions of dollars of interest due; and as well we have not created any dependency to China; it is you who have failed the Nation as a worker with your disloyalty by not working harder and sacrificing more. If you had worked harder and cheaper, we would not have moved your factory to China. This is clearly your fault."
Recent praise of Communist China by now Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson would seem to indicate he is right on board with the above analogy.
After our admonishment by media, Republicans, and Democrats, we run out to buy Chinese junk from Wal-Mart to help us feel good about ourselves.
The mantra flies out of your media source of choice like a chorus of jackals, "You need to give up your middle-class life style for the good of
us the country. Once you give up your petty pop-culture and hedonist desires for comfort and security, and we put things right again, you can work your way back to a more nimble "new normal" class of good citizens."
If I may humbly interject, we can't fight
three, no four wars in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Korea (don't forget we have never signed a cease fire with North Korea) and expect an entire culture of eight dollar per hour, part-time, non-benefit, middle-classless worker culture to facilitate the expense.
President Barack Obama takes up the continued vigil of war handed down from a former President - like the victim of abuse, he too continues the tragedy.
Like the abusive guardian will do, he has sucked the victim into his nefarious enterprise by making us co-conspirators. And we must continue to try to prop up said enterprise, in this case perennial war, with blood, sweat, money, our lives, and perhaps ever our children's lives. We have been coerced into having a stake in the crime.
Wisconsin has lost 137 of its former or current citizens to the aforementioned war zones since 2001. There is no end in sight - there is no protest. We collectively bury our dead and then go quietly back to our "new norm" lives.
After being beaten to near economic death over and over, decade after decade, we crawl back to our abusers with battered good-life-longing eyes, broken employment bones, and broken sentimental hearts. Broken spirits; broken bodies; broken souls; and, broken lives. After returning from the economic hospital, or from cashing our Stimulus Checks, we rush home to vote for our political abusers.
Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan who has crafted a plan to deconstruct social safety nets and essentially turn the process of old age over to private industry, rarely if ever faces a serious competition at the polls. Many of his constituents are the very recipients of the programs he seeks to dismantle in the spirit of extreme Ayn Rand-ian Libertarian theory.
They really are good leaders, those Democrats and Republicans; they are good people and they mean well. They did not mean to beat us in the economic face. They just had a little too much to drink. And where else am I going to go as a citizen; I can't afford to flee. And besides, I don't want to be thought of as disloyal.
After they beat you into submission and berate you saying, "You are not educated enough," you spend thousands on re-education to please your abuser. But, right on cue, they hire the perky-breasted 20 year old with one year of tech school in lieu of promoting you with your new four-year degree.
"Work harder," Republicans say; "Sue someone," Democrats say; ""You stupid "old" worker.""
Abusers like to create a situation that makes it prohibitive for the victim to move away. Raise their utility rates, raise auto gasoline prices, and send education costs through the roof so the victims stagnate in place - fleeing is not an option.
To add insult to our injuries, the people that run Standard and Poor's are threatening to lower our national credit rating. A collective voice hovers over us again, "You useless, dumb, parasitic American workers, you have gotten yourself so far in debt, you are no good to anyone now. No one else will have you. You make others sick. You're nothing now but Second - no, Third-World prostitutes with nukes."
Like the abuser-victim household, America too is on a head-on collision course with some sort of disaster. It is not a matter of if - it is a matter of when. It could be argued that collapse is already upon us. The iceberg is in sight - the engines rev faster - full speed ahead. The abused workers fight over the deck furniture on the doomed boat - it is all they have left.
Cold and insensitive to the havoc abuse reeks on the victim, like the abuser, Scott Walker has implemented a plan to gut what is left of worker security in Wisconsin. The rabble now squabbles in the streets over the remaining scraps of worker dignity as we speak.
Get in here now you useless workers, it's time for your economic beating; you have to be beaten every day; it is after all....for your own good.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
Army Sergeant Daniel James Thompson, 24, of Madison, Wisconsin, died on Tuesday, February, 24, 2009, in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He was killed in combat by an improvised explosive device which detonated near his vehicle. He was a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, when assigned to the 715th Military Police Company out of Melbourne, Florida. He was one of four soldiers killed in the incident.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quoted an Associated Press report that family members noted that Thompson loved cars, and playing hockey. He also had a motorcycle. Thompson joined the Wisconsin National Guard while still at Portage High School. He graduated from Portage in 2003. Daniel went on to earn a degree in criminal justice and law enforcement from Madison Area Technical College in 2006 where he was on the Dean's list three of four semesters. He then worked for a security company in Madison. He had hoped to pursue a career as a police officer. He also entertained the option to explore his love of photography and art after finishing his military service. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel went on to mention Daniel played on a Portage area hockey team while in high school; he also enjoyed swimming and playing football. He was remembered as a good natured guy. At the time of his death Thompson was engaged to be married to a nursing student he met in college. Before leaving for Afghanistan, Daniel gave his Boston Terrier named Diggie to his fiancée. Thompson was due to come home in August of 2009 and finish his military obligation in December of 2009.
The Website afghanistan.pigstye.net noted the other three soldiers killed in the incident were from Maryland, Oklahoma, and Illinois. The site went on to explain Thompson belonged to the Wisconsin National Guard until 2007, when he was placed on inactive status until he was called back for duty in Afghanistan with the Florida military unit. Sergeant Thompson was the first person with roots in Portage, Wisconsin, to be killed in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
The Website wiscnews.com noted that Daniel was born on August 20, 1984. Some of his training at Madison Area Technical College took place at the Portage Campus. He went on to work for Brinks Armored Truck in Madison. Daniel originally was with the 32nd Military Police Company, Wisconsin Army National Guard, based in Madison, until his honorable discharge in 2007. He then was in the Individual Ready Reserves (inactive reserves) at the time of his duty call-up and subsequently assigned to the Florida unit.
At the time of his death Sergeant Daniel Thompson was survived by his parents Lisa and Bob Thompson; his fiancée Maria Steinke; his aunt Vicky (Keith) Wruck; his uncle Mark (Jean) Erd; his aunt Dee (Paul) Voigt; his uncle Mike (Kara) Thompson; and, grandparents Richard (Cathie) Thompson. He was preceded in death by his grandparents Russell Erd and Marian "Windy" Erd. Sergeant Daniel Thompson was the 12th Wisconsin service person to be killed in Afghanistan since October of 2001.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
0 American and Coalition casualties in Libyan "Operation Odyssey Dawn" since March 2011
100,456 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,903 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,451 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1544 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
872 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
32,066 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
11,032 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
107 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
30 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
148 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
4 journalists (regional agencies and independents) have been killed in Libya since March of 2011.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org.
