Boy, the future ain't what it useta be, is it?
The ads are surreal. They sound like an invitation to summer camp, and not just the ones for Amazon jobs. “Feel like a kid again!” and “Hey workamper, it’s time for fun!” are a couple slogans used by recruiters for Adventureland, a theme park in Altoona, Iowa where migrant workers run the rides, games and concessions for $7.25 to $7.50 an hour. Recruitment materials for the beet harvest, with 12-hour overnight shifts in subzero temperatures, refer to the work as “an unBEETable experience!”
This stuff is propaganda, pure and simple. It panders to the illusion that older Americans are free to retire, working only for fun, rather than acknowledging the reality that many folks need to keep bringing in money to survive.
Much of the work is hard and physically taxing. Several people I met dropped out of the Amazon program after a few weeks because their bodies just couldn’t take it. Others suffered from “trigger finger,” a tendon condition that can be caused by repetitive movements like UPC scanner use. Many RVs I visited looked like mobile apothecaries, stocked with Icy Hot pain-relief gel, foot-soaking tubs with Epsom salts, and bottles of Aleve and Advil.
This is what the Rubinization of the economy, really going back to the reckless financial deregulation of the Saint Reagan years, gets you. People born since 1980 probably don't realize this, but America was, for a brief moment from roughly 1945-1975, a nation of haves and have-nots, in a more egalitarian sense than that might imply. In other words, most working people were able to live comfortably if not extravagantly, take the family on a cheap vacation once a year, camping or Walley World or what-have-ya, and retire at a decent age with at least enough of a stipend that they could send the grandkids $5 on their birthdays, and not have to live on cat food.
Then we became a nation of haves and have-mores, and oh-hardy-har did Dubya's little snicker with his donors drive that point home. The gist was that now we had extravagantly wealthy people, most of them pelf-grubbing financial bookies, corporate swindlers, or Mitt Romney "creative destruction" types, people who literally became hectomillionaires by gutting American companies and sending American jobs halfway around the world. False promises were made about retraining "displaced" American workers, and because American politicians barely bother pretending anymore that they give half a fuck about anyone not in the donor class, no effort at all was made to keep those promises.
So now we're the worst combination of both of those things -- a nation of have-nots and have-mores. You're in one margin or another; you're either a paycheck or two from the street and up to your eyeballs in debt (which, never forget, is always and by definition someone else's equity), or you're a minted member of the owner class. If you're in the former category, your only course of "action" is to vote for Candidate Coke or Candidate Pepsi, and try to convince yourself it made any difference to your bottom line. If you're in the latter category, you've ensured that voting will not make a difference to anyone's life but your own.
There's your future -- traveling around the country in a 15-foot Airstream and hoping to hell you don't get sick, until you've finally had enough and check out. Awesome.
The ads are surreal. They sound like an invitation to summer camp, and not just the ones for Amazon jobs. “Feel like a kid again!” and “Hey workamper, it’s time for fun!” are a couple slogans used by recruiters for Adventureland, a theme park in Altoona, Iowa where migrant workers run the rides, games and concessions for $7.25 to $7.50 an hour. Recruitment materials for the beet harvest, with 12-hour overnight shifts in subzero temperatures, refer to the work as “an unBEETable experience!”
This stuff is propaganda, pure and simple. It panders to the illusion that older Americans are free to retire, working only for fun, rather than acknowledging the reality that many folks need to keep bringing in money to survive.
Much of the work is hard and physically taxing. Several people I met dropped out of the Amazon program after a few weeks because their bodies just couldn’t take it. Others suffered from “trigger finger,” a tendon condition that can be caused by repetitive movements like UPC scanner use. Many RVs I visited looked like mobile apothecaries, stocked with Icy Hot pain-relief gel, foot-soaking tubs with Epsom salts, and bottles of Aleve and Advil.
This is what the Rubinization of the economy, really going back to the reckless financial deregulation of the Saint Reagan years, gets you. People born since 1980 probably don't realize this, but America was, for a brief moment from roughly 1945-1975, a nation of haves and have-nots, in a more egalitarian sense than that might imply. In other words, most working people were able to live comfortably if not extravagantly, take the family on a cheap vacation once a year, camping or Walley World or what-have-ya, and retire at a decent age with at least enough of a stipend that they could send the grandkids $5 on their birthdays, and not have to live on cat food.
Then we became a nation of haves and have-mores, and oh-hardy-har did Dubya's little snicker with his donors drive that point home. The gist was that now we had extravagantly wealthy people, most of them pelf-grubbing financial bookies, corporate swindlers, or Mitt Romney "creative destruction" types, people who literally became hectomillionaires by gutting American companies and sending American jobs halfway around the world. False promises were made about retraining "displaced" American workers, and because American politicians barely bother pretending anymore that they give half a fuck about anyone not in the donor class, no effort at all was made to keep those promises.
So now we're the worst combination of both of those things -- a nation of have-nots and have-mores. You're in one margin or another; you're either a paycheck or two from the street and up to your eyeballs in debt (which, never forget, is always and by definition someone else's equity), or you're a minted member of the owner class. If you're in the former category, your only course of "action" is to vote for Candidate Coke or Candidate Pepsi, and try to convince yourself it made any difference to your bottom line. If you're in the latter category, you've ensured that voting will not make a difference to anyone's life but your own.
There's your future -- traveling around the country in a 15-foot Airstream and hoping to hell you don't get sick, until you've finally had enough and check out. Awesome.
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