Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Monday, August 28, 2006
America’s enduring military fetish (at Sears?)
Good Morning and a lot of “thank you’s” to everyone for the good wishes. Baby is doing great and the baby’s 2 year old brother is enthralled with Mickey’s front page photos here. He likes playing peek-a-boo with Mickey while Mickey hides behind the bench at the beach. I am sure that little David will be a frequent visitor at the site.
Today’s topic is an important one that has been ignored by almost everyone. The only time I have ever heard it discussed is by a few of our VFP members. Some of them recommend war crimes trials, instead of parades to honor those who return after killing the innocents afar. It is outrageous to give preferrential treatment to any group while ignoring those who work so hard with NO benefits emptying bed pans, scrubbing floors, picking fruit in contaminated fields, etc. I tried to put together a little local gathering for the migrant farm workers here. Every year a group comes up from the islands to work in the orchards and do the apple picking. The gathering was cancelled because of lack of interest and also because the farm workers could not be given a few hours off to attend. A few hours of enjoyment was not allowed for the people who spent months working here under very questionable condidtions. I still am agitating for a parade in their honor but I don’t think it will ever happen in this upside-down culture. Damn....
Posted by rmj on from on the road 08/28 at 07:11 AMGood morning Mickey & RMJ,
Well I sure am glad that someone took the time to tell you about Sears...I already seldom enter the place, let alone make a purchase there, and now I have another good reason not to.
I’ll bet the men’s shoppe equivalent now has crotch grabbing underwear showing camouflage fatigues in lieu of the airbrushed bulge-free slacks!
Remember the giant catalogues??!! That one along with the one from Consumers were a sure sign xmas was on the way.Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 08/28 at 07:23 AMHi Amelopsis...On today’s topic. It’s bad enough that they are given preferential job security and parades...now they are getting boobs along with the bombs.
Posted by rmj on from not there 08/28 at 08:00 AMIf you’re working at Sears most likely your choices in life are few. I’m assuming most people working there do not belong to the privileged class and therefore have a minimal amount of education and thus choices. From where I’m sitting it’s easy to look down at those who don’t declare themselves ‘conscientious objectors’. But, if you’re working 60+ hours a week year after year just so you and your family have food and a damn hovel to live in is it so bad that Sears is voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus programs, for all called up reservist employees for up to two years. I know many who have joined the armed services precisely so they can get an education so they have choices and won’t be working at Sears all of their lives. And, they have returned from Iraq without killing anyone. The onus lies with the privileged.
Posted by Fiona on from San Diego 08/28 at 11:03 AMI’d suggest that the onus lies with each of us and our individual choices. If someone’s poor choices have led them to a situation where the present choice is a rock and a hard place, I am sympathetic, but only to a point. Strict pragmatism has a way of leading you to places other than the intended destination, and monetary impoverishment does not exhonerate one from one’s conscience. I think your friends who returned from Iraq without killing anyone can consider themselves lucky, however they still played their part in the larger machine.
RMJ brings up the very valid rhetorical question about whether Sears would consider offering similar perks to other civic minded individuals who’s conscience would lead them to action that would have them absent from work; now if they had an equal opportunity situation I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 08/28 at 12:13 PMHello RMJ, Empress, Fiona...and David? Another rainy day in NYC.
Every time I write something like this, I get grief from the Left that I’m ignoring economic realities or alienating potential comrades or blaming the wrong people...but when will put our foot down hard instead of tip-toeing?
Sears is playing its role in supporting a culture that is devastating life as we know it. I agree with what the Empress said above and I will add that a company like Patagonia actually pledges to bail out any employee arrested at an environmental protest. There are alternatives.
We are faced with choices every minute of every day. Sadly, the choices we (myself very much included) typically make usually serve to further entrench our culture of death.
I’ll say it again: #### Sears.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/28 at 12:30 PMMickey you must know from your site meter that I never used the alias David. You are right to say we are faced with choices every minute of every day. I was just saying that if you’re more privileged, you’re more responsible...that’s all.
Posted by Fiona on from San Diego 08/28 at 12:49 PMI didn’t know that about Patagonia, Mickey. I feel better about the overpriced shorts I’ve got now
(I say overpriced, but they’ve lasted for over a decade of heavy working wear without a tear, so they’ve been worth it!)
As for our choices, pragmatism does unfortunately have to play a part to one degree or another for all of us who aren’t extremely wealthy, we have to excercise it judiciously and realistically. Usually the very important choices are the most difficult ones to make, but hardship is likely to follow one way or the other, it’s just a matter of where your conscience takes you.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 08/28 at 12:50 PMFiona I really don’t get this: if you’re more privileged, you’re more responsible...that’s all.
So, if I make more money than my neighbour I am necesarily more responsible? HUH?
Maybe I have a wider array of choices available to me, but that would all depend upon how much more money I make, and I really don’t see how I am more responsible for my choice than my poorer neighbour is for theirs.If you have some explanation to justify what I think I understood you intended to say there, I’d love to hear it, or please clarify your “position”.
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 08/28 at 12:56 PMFiona: I know you’d never use a fake name..you are an Expendable in good standing as far as I’m concerned. I was referring to Rosemarie’s grandson. See her first comment above.
As for the topic at hand, I once again echo the Empress.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/28 at 01:11 PMI have to agree with Fiona here. I don’t think it is fair to hold people who work minimum or low wage jobs for horrible corporations responsible for their parts in this culture of palnet destruction. If you ‘re going to hold someone working at Sears responsible for their complicity in the evil deeds of the empire, then logically you must hold yourself responsible for the part you play simply in doing the things you do everyday because most of those things support and make the empire function, things like buying groceries (supermarkets), paying rent (capitalist landlords)or a mortgage (banks). None of us are blameless. And yes Mickey, you may get shit from some lefties when you write this kind of article but I think it’s legitimate.
I am not saying, by the way, that Sears is some kind of good corporate citizen like the person who emailed you, but I am saying that the employee who works there for low wages is no more guilty than anyone else for their part in a horrible system. Now if you wrote about weapons manufacturers and pesticide companies, I might be a little more sympathetic to your argument.
Chau for now
Edson
Posted by Edson Castilho on from Halifax 08/28 at 02:23 PMI also wanted to respond to Amelopsis by saying that surely she cannot be serious when she says that people who, by no choice of their own (race, being born into poverty), are less privileged and wealthy, that these people should be held equally responsible for the choices they make (usually just to make ends meet) as a Paris Hilton or the children of George Bush. That is not realistic.
Chau for now
Edson
Posted by Edson Castilho on from Halifax 08/28 at 02:32 PMGood to see you, Edson. You said: “None of us are blameless.” I agree and that’s why I will not make excuses for myself or Sears or anyone.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/28 at 02:40 PMAs for absolving someone of guilt simply because they are poor, here’s something I wrote a while back:
When asked for tactical and motivational advice for new activists, hardnosed founding member of Greenpeace, Captain Paul Watson offered his version of a reality check for the next generation: “All people are the same. The poor are simply wannabe rich people. The oppressed are wannabe oppressors.”
As difficult as it might be to accept, there is some truth in Watson’s appraisal. Talk to any non-rich lottery player if you don’t believe me. In my neighborhood, playing the lottery is not just state-sponsored gambling...it’s a lifestyle choice. Coercive advertising is used to convince the poor and middle class to accept a cleverly disguised, voluntary tax by promising them a chance to be rich like all their media-created heroes. It’s an awesome victory of propaganda that so many downtrodden Americans strive to be exactly like the man whose boot is stomping on their necks.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/28 at 02:53 PMHi Edson,
re#12, I wasn’t attempting to draw any comparison between the uber priveledged (a la Paris or Trump, or Bush etc.) and the impoverished but between poor and poorer; I would tend to agree that if I have so much money that I need my accountant to help me figure out what I own, I have a much larger impact with my everyday decisions than does a worker at Sears.
That said, I don’t think that the impact is the same as the responsibility of choice. If I have millions in my daily chequing account, I have a much greater variety of options and choices to make than someone who works paycheque to paycheque. This is largely why I was hoping Fiona might make her point more clearly...I’m not sure if I understood her correctly.
I also don’t think that someone working for Sears was really the issue here, but rather Sears’ corporate decision to support military personal to a greater extent than it does it’s other employees who are not members of the military.
Mickey that fine line about all people being the same is a tricky one, but you rightly point out how slippery the slope can be and before you know it anyone can become what they might despise, same thing applies to being overly pragmatic. (Do we really need to shop at Walmart, or do we just like getting the added deal of saving a few cents? For many I think it’s over-rationalising pragmatism, not real need)
Posted by Amelopsis on from Canada 08/28 at 03:19 PMAgain, I agree, Empress. That’s why I wrote: “there is some truth in Watson’s appraisal.”
So where’s Keir, CatLady, Helga, and the rest of the gang?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/28 at 03:24 PMYou are asking the right questions, Mickey!
And congratulations, Rosemarie - on the new addition to your family.
Lastly, ‘hello’ to all the expendables from Daylesford, Australia, where spring is in the air.
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 08/28 at 05:27 PMI don’t think some cashier or stockboy working at Sears or Walmart for that matter considers themselves part of a Humanity Opressing Machine but I guess they are as we all are. Most people have to work somewhere and not very many Earth & People loving companies are offering much in the way of a career. So what’s a person to do?
Posted by David on from Louisville KY 08/28 at 09:10 PMHi Helga.
David: The point you bring up is a good one...but not the one I was making today. I was putting the focus on a) Sears’ unquestioning support for the military and b) those workers who volunteer to be part of the American war machine.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 08/28 at 09:12 PMif sears is supporting military personal, and disregarding scumbag hippys then i will go back to sears
Posted by jeff t on from mass 09/01 at 06:16 PMI think that’s Sears’ new catchphrase: We disregard scumbag hippys. Don’t forget to sign up for a Sears card, Jeff T.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/01 at 06:20 PMWhat’s wrong with scumbag hippies? At least they don’t invade other countries, kill women and children, occupy the country, destroy the infrastructure, committ war crimes, and in so doing endanger all of their countrymen at home.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 09/01 at 06:32 PMSome of my best friends are scumbag hippies.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/01 at 06:33 PMActually, I always wanted to be a hippie but I was too old. I had to be a beatnik.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 09/01 at 06:36 PMI was too young so I settled for slacker.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/01 at 06:39 PMthats a cool catchphrase. whats wrong with scumbag hippys? yea they dont invade, they dont do anything. i know one right now whos been wasting government money the last 5 years on higher ed. going no where. now shes upset because under ne fed rules, she might have to get a job. hahahahahahahahahahaha
Posted by jeff t on from mass 09/02 at 08:13 AMJeff, Jeff, Jeff...I don’t get your point. Are you angry because she has been getting educated or because YOU have not been?
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 09/02 at 08:20 AMwhat angers me is her entitlement. i married had children. i pay dearly for my wifes higher ed, this pot smoking hippy has been going to school for years, getting free ed. getting free day care. all the while her “boyfriend” and her pay check have afforded them endless weed. i have trade schooling behind me, i paid for this. my wifes getting a degree in the medical field. at some point it comes back but..why should the hippy douche be entitled. shes not a single mother,shes not disabled(ok way overwieght from the munchies) what got me started is you people thinking some hippy at sears deserves the same consideration as a soldier. sears owes no one, they choose to support thier military employees. you choose to post endless crap.
Posted by jeff t on from 09/02 at 09:58 AMJeff: There is not a single original thought in your post. It sounds as if you are regurgitating a few nights’ worth of O’Reilly or Hannity or even Lou Dobbs. I’m not saying I have any answers you like or want, but open your mind. Civilization is collapsing around you and all you’ve got for us is corporate media mantras?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 09/02 at 10:25 AMJeff, your comment in #28 is filled with fallacies and stereotypes. I am amazed that you did not say that she arrives at the “welfare office in a new Cadillac”. The stereotyping of the poor under Capitalism has led to the hatred of fellow human beings that you exhibit here.
Also, you seem to miss the main point of the discussion---that members of the military are not deserving of preferential treatment. I know many veterans who believe that returning members of the military should immediately be put on Trial for war crimes.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 09/02 at 03:39 PM
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