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| An abandoned factory, its employees victimized by Throwaway Worker Syndrome, the merciless downsizing and outsourcing that accompanies the capitalist quest for profit. I made this picture in 2008, when I still had Leicas; click on image to see it full size. Leica M2, 135 Tele-Elmarit, Kodak BW400CN, photograph by Loren Bliss copyright 2011. |
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A Man on a Bus, His Maliciously Uncovered Cough Spewing Clouds of Infectious Virus, Is an Apt Metaphor for America's Anti-Union Workers I am sick as the proverbial dog with an unseasonably early flu, and the associated mental fog makes writing a seemingly impossible task.
Were it not for Labor Day I would make no effort to fill this space until my alleged mind was far less beclouded.
Yes I know the capitalist intent behind Labor Day is to destroy the socialist solidarity of International Workers Day – May Day or May First – which indeed the capitalists have done, this with an oppressive global triumph that has no counterpart in human history.
But capitalism's victory makes what I am about to say here especially relevant.
For now under capitalism how many U.S. workers retain our former choice to stay home from work when we are sick?
How many of us are forced – under threat of job-loss – to go to work no matter how sick we might be?
Surely this was true of the man who vectored his nasty malady onto a Tacoma city bus ten days ago.
Huddled in his seat he was a portrait of impoverished misery, late 20s or early 30s, pale complexion, long stringy hair, embitterment clad in dirty jeans and a once-plaid shirt faded mostly dull green – his entire being a telling archetype of the Third World nation capitalism has made of the United States.
His cough, which I could feel on the back of my head, was deep and raspy with phlegm and sounded like it belonged in a ward for terminal lung disease. Finally after he'd coughed on me three or four times I turned in my own seat and growled “hey cover your mouth damnit”
“Fuck you, old man,” he snapped back.
His eyes boiled with pre-fight fury of an intensity I had not seen since the schoolyard brawls of adolescence. But my protest had emboldened other bus riders who now muttered in anger at his defiance of common courtesy, and he yielded to our solidarity. A couple of stops later he got off the bus. I supposed he was a back-room employee in one of the nearby low-wage non-union retail establishments.
And I don't doubt his defiantly uncovered cough was the source of the bug that afflicts me today.
But even now I cannot remain angry with him. I know what capitalism has made of this country we live in. I understand how capitalism's new paradigm of U.S. governance – absolute power and unlimited profit for the Ruling Class, total subjugation and murderous poverty for all the rest of us – has turned the loss of a job into a potential death sentence.
Last night though it occurred to me the man's behavior – his refusal to cover his cough – was probably not just thoughtlessness but deliberate aggression, as if he were saying to himself “I gotta go to work sick so fuck em I'll make everybody around me sick too.”
Which, if true, would make him just like the Teabaggers who say to themselves “well I don't have a union to protect me so I'll make damn sure nobody else gets to have one.” Or “I don't get no goddamn Living Wage so ain't nobody else gonna get that kind of money either.” Same with medical care, education, adequate transit, Social Security – every public service we can name.
Mutually enforced victimhood while the fat-cat aristocrats cackle all the way to their offshore bank accounts – exactly the Moron Nation mentality makes people join the war against unions – a war against themselves, genocide by suicide.
But at least on this Labor Day we can take heart in the fact some of us are finally waking up and organizing and fighting back.
LB/5 September 2011
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