(Edited 18/2/2014 to clean up the debris of writing in haste to avoid the pangs of painful memories.)
I
APOLOGIZE FOR the tardiness of this post. The activities
of “retirement” that included two days of volunteer editorial work plus
responding to a wealth of relevant material on other websites seemed to
have left me no time for the weekly contemplation, research and writing
that usually keynotes this space. Instead I planned to note in passing
how my compulsion to outside agitate on other sites had generated a
total of eight posts in four days, which is probably a personal record
for Internet contributions. I would then write a few sentences on the
common concerns – deliberate disinformation, co-optation and political
betrayal (mostly the latter) – that bind these eight posts into a
topical anthology and headline it accordingly.
But – such is the undeniable (white, gray and sometimes black) magick of writing – what I intended wasn't at all what happened.
After
I boasted of my eight-post output, I sat smiling at the fact I was
fairly sure it's a high-water mark I haven't approached since the good
old days when I was often summoned to stand in as a rewrite-man on The Jersey Journal
(1969-1970), where I was a reportorial top gun, a presumably
up-and-coming young journalist who was not only appreciated and
respected by my employers but also well-liked by most of my colleagues.
Next much to my surprise it came to me I had set my all-time story-production record not during good times at The JJ, but during the bad old days I was a reporter and sometimes photographer for The Federal Way News, from the fall of 1976 through the first half of 1981.
Such
is the blessing – and the curse – of writing. To write is to remember,
and sometimes, even amidst pleasant memories, it is to suddenly and
unexpectedly recall painful, hitherto-suppressed details: in this case
all the reasons why I have no fond memories of the The Federal Way News,
none whatsoever. It was there I was paid the lowest wages of my career
and evaluated not for the quality of my work but for whether I met a
weekly word-quota and whether my personality meshed with the
personalities of the other (disgruntled) occupants of the editorial
hive, which mostly it didn't, not the least because I cannot respect
people who flee from their own intellectual potential or cringe in
terror and/or rat you out to management if you so much as whisper the
word “union.” At first – remembering all this wretchedness here and now
33 years after the fact – I was merely taken aback. But then the rest of
the details rose to haunt me like vengeful ghosts, and I was
overwhelmed by hurt and anger.
Unlike The JJ,
where we were proud of what we did and for whom we did it and proud too
we were represented by the Hudson County Newspaper Guild AFL/CIO, The FWN
was a journalistic sweatshop and was infamous as such throughout
Washington state and maybe the entire Pacific Northwest. You never knew
whether you were meeting the word-quota because it was deliberately kept
secret – a sadistic albeit diabolically effective means of ensuring the
subjugation of the staff. But that wasn't its only deficiency. As I was
warned over drinks one night by a friendly editor at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, FWN
had such a bad reputation for suppressing stories to placate
advertisers, even if you won a Pulitzer there, you probably wouldn't get
any credit for it because of where you'd been working. “You wanna get
back in the game,” he said, “you gotta get out of Federal Way and onto a
real newspaper first.”
I wrote some significant and award-winning stories at FWN
– exposés that changed local policies, won me a place on Gov. Dixy Lee
Ray's enemies list and in one instance beat a sneaky Christian effort to
close gay and singles bars – but all that really mattered to the bosses
was whether the text was long enough to fill spaces between the
advertisements. Not only did my writing suffer a ruinous lack of
discipline resulting from FWN's operational shibboleth of
longer is (always) better; my mental health was wounded too. Vicious,
relentless bullying by the psychological thug who was FWN's
glaringly talentless editor for most of my five years there was the most
painfully wrenching workplace experience of my entire life.
Though
I would not let myself admit it until now, his constant derision and
belittlement had weakened me to the point I was unable to muster the
emotional strength necessary to find a better job, much less return to
the East Coast where I belonged. His undeserved but relentless
antagonism was also, because of my own history, an especially wounding
form of betrayal. Bullied and abused as a child, I had turned to
journalism as a sanctuary, a realm wherein I could be myself and
demonstrate my true strengths without fear of ridicule or assault, and
so it had been on every publication for which I had worked in New York
City, New Jersey, Michigan and even during most of the years I worked in
the South. But my experience at FWN soon became a nightmare, and a source of nightmares, and so it remained until the editor was fired.
Eventually,
maybe a year later at the beginning of the downsizing that preceded the
paper's bankruptcy, I got the boot too. At least I was laid off rather
than fired, which meant I could collect unemployment compensation.
As
for my alleged colleagues, they were obviously glad to see me leave.
None attended my going-away party, a small gathering hosted by a few
non-newspaper people, mostly cops who had come to know me as the one
local reporter they could trust to get the facts right and never burn a
clandestine source. Despite the nagging uncertainties of joblessness
amidst the recession Reagan and his cronies imposed to begin the
reduction of everybody's wages, I cashed my last FWN paycheck
with feelings of joy I imagine are akin to those of a man newly freed
from a hard-time prison. But by then it was too late for any rapid
recovery; so damaged was I, it took a season as engineer/deckhand on the
Caroline, a 96-foot salmon-seiner out of Bellingham's
Squalicum Harbor, to even begin to rebuild my self-confidence, for which
my eternal gratitude to Skipper Andy Zanchi.
Indeed this is the first time I have been able to write of my circumstances at The Federal Way News. In
fact it is the first time I have even spoken of these circumstances
save in denials voiced to my long-ago lover who (though she was two
decades my junior), was nevertheless perceptive enough to recognize in
me the symptoms of a victimization I could not bear to admit to myself.
Perhaps my inability to confront the associated issues was one of the
underlying reasons we broke apart. In any case she was a notably kind
young woman who unintentionally took my heart with her when she left.
But perhaps some good came out of those dismal FWN years too;
perhaps that's why I'm yet so sensitive to the betrayals now routinely
inflicted on us by politicians, bureaucrats and alleged advocates.
*
(Note: The Federal Way News
for which I worked from 1976 through 1981 no longer exists. Originally a
weekly shopper, its management had intended to make it a daily
newspaper – the promise that [foolishly] diverted me from a
ticket-in-my-pocket return to New York City. Though the paper
subsequently achieved thrice-weekly publication and at one point seemed
sure to go daily – the pie-in-the-sky by which I rationalized enduring
the editor's psychological brutality – FWN nevertheless went bankrupt during the 1980s. It was then bought by The Seattle Times and shut down. The present Federal Way News, a weekly, has no organizational connection to the former publication by the same name.)
***
“Our Movement Must Desegregate, or We'll Lose” Carl Gibson of Reader Supported News
fumbles for euphemisms to enable his otherwise accurate reporting of
how Ayn-Rand-minded Emily's List “feminists” betrayed
Rush-Limbaugh-target Sandra Fluke and how her betrayal is a teachable
moment. I sharply criticize the opacity of Gibson's language: “his chosen
words are clearly intended to avoid the implicitly Marxist terms 'ideological solidarity' and 'ideological discipline' – both of which
are necessities the USian Left self-destructively rejects.” Then I
commend his insight – and refute a comment-poster's absurd claim the
Democratic Party might foster such solidarity and discipline. “The
Democrats,” I explain, “who maliciously conceal their fascist zealotry
beneath progressive slogans – are the primary deceiver in USian
politics. By contrast, the Republicans have been a vessel of USian
fascism since the 1920s and, now as then, make no secret of it. Thus the
de facto one-party rule that defines USian governance...(Thus
too) Emily's List's endorsement of 'fiscal conservatism' – another
euphemism for economic savagery – is typical of the Ayn Rand feminism
spawned by capitalist co-optation of the USian feminist movement. As the
loss of jobs and income that subjugates the USian 99 Percent, women are
denied reproductive freedom by the loss of health insurance, a fact
deliberately ignored by Emily's List and the Democrats in general. Nor –
despite Big Lies to the contrary – does Obamacare provide a
satisfactory alternative. Meanwhile, Rand herself has become an USian
feminist heroine, which explains not just the Emily's List stance, but
bourgeois white USian feminism's tacit approval of capitalist
malevolence.”
***
“The Empowerment Elite Claims Feminism” Jessica Valenti, the founder of the compellingly radical website Feministing,
exposes a new effort to neutralize feminism. I reply that TEDWomen, the
target of Valenti's reporting, is undoubtedly (yet another) effort by
the One Percent – the diabolical cunning of which we underestimate at
our own peril – to co-opt the one radical movement that, despite all the
odds against it, has nevertheless forced (some) amelioration on the
ever-more-openly savage Ayn Rand capitalism that governs the United
States. In this context, the lily-white, bourgeois nature of TED and
TEDWomen should surprise no one: it is merely a reflection of the
ethnicity of the USian Ruling Class and the bigotry therein...“As to
TED's taboo on discussing reproductive freedom, this is a strong
indication the organization is a clandestine collaborator with the
forces of Christian theocracy -- the most obscenely well-funded,
relentlessly fanatical subversives in USian history. (Apropos which,
note the secret collaboration between Hillary Clinton and Sam Brownback,
exposed by Jeff Sharlet in The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, [Harper: 2008], pgs. 272-277.)”
***
“Is Hillary Clinton a Neocon-Lite?” Robert Parry of Consortium News
lays bear some ugly truths that suggest the presumptive Democratic
presidential nominee is no more a “change we can believe in” than
President Obama was. I point out she's “infinitely worse than
'neocon-light' or even neocon-heavy,” again citing Sharlet's report
she's a clandestine theocrat, secretly collaborating with Brownback and
others of his ilk to impose biblical law on the United States. Her
specialty, says Sharlet, is deceptive legislation “dedicated less to
overturning the wall between church and state than to tunnelling beneath
it.” The same strategy of stealthy oppression is enabling the Roman
Catholic Church to ban birth control, abortion and end-of-life choices by buying up U.S. health care facilities, already a crisis in Washington state.
***
“Quit Talking About Equal Pay and Do Something” Elizabeth Schulte of Socialist Worker
explores how President Obama talks progressive change but then does
nothing to make it happen and often actually sabotages the effort. She
speculates the same presidential tactic will betray the struggle to
close the wage gap that allows women only 77 cents for every dollar
earned by men. In the associated comment thread I note this sort of
treachery is in fact the president's defining characteristic. Forever
Janus-faced, he presents himself as Obama the Orator, pledging “change
we can believe in.” But then he invariably shifts to Barack the Betrayer
– “his true imperial self” – and he allows no changes save those that
define, advance and perpetuate capitalist governance. A subsequent
comment by another poster prompts me to list seven ways Obama has done
more harm than any other president in my lifetime, which began in 1940.
***
“Reagan's 'Liberal' Son Takes on Ted Cruz” Elias Isquith of Salon
discuses another debate over Republican obstructionism. I say the
purpose of all such debates is to normalize austerity – “a genteel
euphemism for genocidal cutbacks by which the One Percent intend to kill
off all of us they consider 'surplus workers' – that is, any of us
(elderly, disabled, chronically unemployed) who are no longer
exploitable for profit...The Republicans, I add, “are capitalism's
trail-breakers, as in their proposed $40 billion cut in food stamps. The
Democrats are capitalism's facilitators, as in the 'compromise'
food-stamp cutback of $8.7 billion. It's rule by One Party of Two Names –
the Capitalist Party – and we the people are the victims.
***
“House Democrats Call for Discharge Petitions!” Thom
Hartmann reports the House Democrats are planning a new ploy to move
legislation obstructed by the Republicans. I respond: “What is obvious
here --what makes me grin with glee -- is how mere mention of
'revolutionary socialism' (as by Councilwoman Kshama Sawant in Seattle)
has terrified the Democratic Party into a pretense of returning to New
Deal values. That – and the fact it proves beyond argument socialism is
anything but 'dead' or 'irrelevant' – is the real story behind these
discharge petitions, though you'll never read it in so-called
'mainstream' (i.e., Ruling Class) media.”
***
“Distorting Russia: How the American media misrepresent Putin, Sochi and Ukraine” Stephen F. Cohen reports via The Nation on the disinformation and outright lies USian “mainstream” (Ruling Class) media is disseminating about Russia. I suggest the
real reason U.S. media is spewing anti-Russian propaganda is the fact
the second largest political organization in today's Russia is the
Communist Party. My comment then triggers a long series of exchanges on
the comment thread, for which it's necessary to scroll way, way down.
***
LB/16 February 2014
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