irony, coincidence, or just the way things are?

i bought a used copy of "dragnet nation: a quest for , privacy, security, and freedom in a world of relentless surveillance" by julia angwin ( a pretty good read so far coming as it does from someone who was a staff writer for the yellow rag called the wall street journal )from better world books for about eight bucks...published in 2014, this particular copy was " withdrawn" form the boulder public library ( why? multiple copies? dead wight on the shelf? too hot a topic for a public library? ) after about a year there...it has the official "withdrawn" stamp in it and a heavy duty binding and an institutional dust jacket..a superior product...anyway i was skimming through the book and ran across the patch-like device in the back cover...i took it for some sort of magnetic device used to trip a sensor if someone was trying to swipe the book from the library...it's my book now so i figured i could remove it if i wanted and i was curious to see just what was under there...so i peeled it off and , being the curious great ape i am, i held it up to the light...something of a surprise...not exactly a magnetic device...more of a printed circuit...wonder what could energize it...wonder what it was for...surely not some sort of transponder...high tech overdue book tracking? or just some sort of device to tell the circulation desk what's on the shelf? don't know...but it's taped up to a window in my office at work..it isn't riding around with me anymore.....6-20-2015...okay...it's a radio frequency identification tag used to scan books in and out and prevent book theft...not readable at any great distance...just another organizational tool to see what's where and who has what..buy books at used book stores for cash would be one solution...it's still not going back into my book.

anticipatory

"union leadership" may not be an oxymoron but stuff like this makes me wonder...i received a ponderously worded letter of explanation about this "non-binding" straw poll ( mentioned at the bottom of this more succinct post card covering the same subject ) so possible candidates for the job of business agent that is opening up can "test the waters" and see if it might be worth the effort of actually running...someone has obviously jumped the gun as this sign appeared today planted outside the plant...not bad placement really since we are a union shop and all but the ( now ) "red twelve" would be eligible to vote...but there are a few issues here...first i am told by someone more knowledgeable in these things that the placement of this sign on an interstate highway's right of way is illegal and that the highway department will...eventually, this is a bureaucratic institution...remove it and, possibly, fine the offender...secondly what's gorski's first name? if indeed this is legitimate and not some practical joke ( albeit an involved and reasonably expensive one...but that sort of thing doesn't matter to the scum sucking lame useless and self-absorbed fucks who perpetrate them ) it should turn up at the "straw poll" but why anticipate the eleventh? name recognition? well...attention whores are all about being first...and nothing says "whore" like running for office..one last thing...i'd say i hate to harp on a point be we all know that would be a lie so let's drop any pretense and cut to the chase...when i was in an industrial union we had shop stewards and grievers...in the thirty-five years or so that i have been in the craft union i find myself mired in we have had "business agents" what's that say? the union is run like a business and local leadership had more in common with management than with rank and file...been said before...that there is precious little advocacy for workers has been pointed out as well...so my last question is who does gorski have a "backbone" to stand up to? management or rank and file...i believe i know the answer...success in the craft union world is all in how it's answered.

hope? change? where?

eight points of light to the right in the second photo...a utility pole...another point of light and then a dark spot that used to be a working coke plant...it is shuttered now ( third photo ) and another 300 northwest indiana union jobs are flushed into the lake...more economic worries for working families...more debt ( which the elite who own the debt love...it creates money..debt is the norm here...but when it becomes the only form of exchange can debtors' prison be far behind? ) more belt tightening...well...this country has been living too high off the planetary hog anyway but i had imagined a more leveling sort of belt tightening...and how is our esteemed president reacting to this? well you can tell he's a damned lame duck because he has aligned against his won party to foster fast-track approval of some ponzi scheme called the trans pacific partnership...a partnership of wealth no doubt..meant to impoverish the many at the benefit of the few...standard capitalist stuff...but what did you expect form this bozo? change? if you did you were fooled weren't you? for the umpteenth time..where did this shyster get his advance degree? harvard law ( what he got it in is self explanatory )...what was he...no matter how briefly..before h was elected president? a senator ( from illinois no less )...he is of the hegemonic culture...he wasn't going to change a fucking thing...he was going to aggrandize himself and his handlers...like virtually every president before him and every one that will follow...who's next in line? clinton? old bubba clinton did so well at it they have decided to try to double dip at winning the presidential lottery ( wealth can stop river traffic on the hudson for their daughters wedding...could you? )...there is a large group of sods eager to have the ability to print money after they retire...wealth is the birthright of presidents...and you foot the bill..fuck these people...comparisons to rome are passe and probably grossly inaccurate ( despite the evangelical bullshit the snake handlers howl at the moon on hot summer nights )but you have to wonder how the guys who were detailed to clean up after one of caligula's orgies or the guys that cleaned the scum off the back scrapers at the baths really felt about the empire...what did they do during the collapse?

the intervention of money

“As everywhere, the elections, from being nominations of class representatives, have become the battle-ground of party candidates, an arena ready for the intervention of money, and…of even bigger and bigger money. The greater became the wealth which was capable of concentration in the hands of individuals, the more the fight for political power developed into a question of money.” Oswald Spengler. The Decline of the West.______________________________________________________________________it took ozzie to explain german romanticism to me in a way that fostered an understanding of how both nietzsche and hitler could both be the same brand of romantics...they are...even though they were in profound disagreement about militarism and the place of the jews in europe, they were both german romatics in their sense of the flow of history and the part individuals, cultures, and nations play in it...i have once again been perusing ozzie on a rainy april afternoon and he has seemingly hit the fucking nail on the head again...don't believe me...then you are living under a rock or a complete dimwit...money so permeates the electoral process in this country that it almost goes unnoticed...especially at the local level...we all know the koch brothers buy elections and propagate their political viewpoint because being elected to congress or to the presidency requires cash beyond most people's means so candidates have to suck donors' asses to be put in office and then the real toadying can begin...but the mechanism ( here's one for all you reagan fans out there...i will refrain from editorializing...you all know my views on the miserable dotard ) trickles down to the local level as well...there is an off-year mayoral election this year in my town and the primary is may fifth ( cinco de mayo!!! )...this small burg is literally plastered with political advertizing...on street corners...in people's yards..in my mailbox...in my door...every damn place you look there's a sign for somebody that wants my vote on the fifth and again in november..admittedly it is a hotly contested election in view of the sitting mayor's federal indictments ...but still...every election a cottage industry in signs and flyers crops up and it isn't free...someone has to pony up and it serves two purposes...it vets candidates and eliminates those that might actually consider acting on the needs and desires of the political mass and it insures a crop of indebted politicians...an effective disenfranchisement of the "will of the people" in favor of the "will of money" on whatever level of american politics you care to look at...you can call me cynical if you like...but you cannot prove me wrong.

past too late

the new york times wants me to get cultured...and they want me to do it in a fashionable and elegant way...there should be no stinting on consumption ...we're talking culture here in a way only the times can present it...amidst the glossy pages committed to articles about haute couture and the simply marvelously creative works of interior designers and an artist creating an installation by printing out all the images uploaded to Flickr in a twenty-four hour period and dumping them on the floor for people to rummage through...ostensibly a work about "outsourced" memory but really about human voyeurism...and a longish article on kanye west because he would seem to have far more important things to say than the rest of us ( because he has more money? it why people read about fucking sports stars...more goddamned voyeurism...life is thick with it ) are the things the magazine is really about...fifty four full page color ads and five black and white for a total of $5,847,000 in advertising revenue for that section alone...they have surely confused culture with fine arts...but the message is clear anyway...if you can't make culture you can buy culture and it is the moneyed that have the important things to say...it's too late for the times not to be an elitist newspaper but when it comes to putting things in perspective it is unbeatable.

somewhat fallacious reasoning II

it just may be that the fallacious reasoning was on my part ( although i did make my statements conditional on an "if" and the "if" was if the union was trying to seduce the opt outs back into the fold...rad on ) since today's event made it clear that the list of non-eligible tee shirt applicants was just the opening salvo of a puerile "fuck you we never liked you anyway" from the local...the image of the signs they left for the taking was the second volley and it's intent is fairly unmistakeable...there is a serious lack of critical thinking on both sides of this impasse...no dialog...no exchange of viewpoints..no education to the underlying distortions and manipulations of hegemonic culture...just recriminations...the half-dumb nazi governor gets his ass ripped when he fuck with the gay community...why...because they and their straight supporters understand that their interests are mutually supporting in the face of an oppressive minority..unions and workers could take something of a lesson..he will fuck with them all he likes until they can see the situation for what it is...divisive.

somewhat fallacious reasoning

it's fairly well known that i have never been a particularly impressed by the level of advocacy for workers' interests evinced by the union i am a member of....it is a craft union and i am an industrial worker...the two never mixed particularly well...in the pre wagner act days they represented only skilled workers in industrial settings, leaving the unskilled and semi-skilled to fend for themselves...that mind set has proved durable and they seem to favor their journeymen and masters far more than the "industrial arm"...just prior when "right to work" legislation went into effect in indiana we had signed a contract that pretty much locked the bargaining unit into paying dues for the life of that contract...when i expired at the end of last january members began to "opt out" of paying dues, becoming "free riders" who were still represented by the union and covered by the contract...this upsets the doyens and doges at the hall and they began to publicly name names ( first at trane ) and asked that their peers "persuade" them to become "good" dues paying members in the quarterly journal clearly wanting the prodigals "back in the fold"....a few weeks ago the union powers that be were at the plant passing out union logo baseball caps to the "loyal" members and denying to the fourteen ( now thirteen...one opt out has recanted ) deserters...today they put up a sign up sheet fro a "free tee shirt!" for "union members only" and...in a clearly boneheaded move ala our esteemed half-dumb governor...posted a list of people who are ineligible for the free offer as if 1) they didn't know that already, 2) as if they cared, and 3) as if this was going to seduce them back into paying dues rather than just be a continuation of divisive behavior...the brains trust at the local needs a significant retooling...rather than attempting to educate the people who have opted out about the real motivations behind right to work and reason with them like the rational people they are ( most anyway...i know and have worked with some of these people for years and there are a number of them i genuinely like...they are not stupid and they have their reasons...some dialog might help...this does not qualify ) they pull some puerile bullshit that belongs in middle school...no wonder vast numbers of working people think unions are useless...this one could be a vehicle for the interests and needs of the members...not just economically but socially and politically...instead we get lame bullshit games...i will not be asking for a tee shirt...i am disinclined to ask these bozos for even the time of day much less cogent representation.