Stop Me Before I Vote Again

I like J Alva's image of job holder America getting the "waterboarding" treatment by their trans national employers. Couple it with his infamous Scruggs Law -- "if I can be fired by one ghoul simply on his sole say-so, sooner or later I'm fucked 'round here" -- and you have the gentleman and the lady wage slaves' dilemma of the day.

If the tower brute can torture you, then the tower brute will torture you. It's no longer debatable; you may climb the comp pole, but you can't hide. It's here, it's real, it's immediate -- even more than climate change. We live in an era of accelerating job pay blight, and now it's spreading up the compensation pole like Dutch elm disease.

If the 80's was about the jovial de-nutting of the classic New Deal blue collar male, then the 00's are about putting it to Joe and Jane Mortarboard.

But let us rejoice in this prospect of shared immiseration -- today there is no longer any broad willing market for the new-Democratic DLC neoliberal snake oil. Recall its golden era claims: prosperity for the little guy is just a skill enhancement away, and if not one enhancement, then two or at most five. Prosperity for you and more to the point for your young-'uns is within the power of your own strivings to attain. "We all can not only have capital but be capitalists too! Yes, folks, with enough education and training, we all can be our own capitals, a corporation of one selling our services (with a very tidy return on investment) to the highest bidder. Come on! Join the rush to exploit yourselves!"

Well, the returns are in now, and it seems with all this offshoring of professional services, the "human" in "human capital" is starting to sound a lot like the "human" in "human sacrfice."