By David Glenn Cox
Google: “The good news is that plenty of retailers will be keeping their doors open on September 2nd.”
Please excuse the vulgarism but, Fuck You Google! But what else is to be expected really? If a culture will make its “savior” into a shopping season. It will make anything into a shopping season. This is the internet baby! What else is there besides sex, drugs, money and rock and roll. The lights of perverted science come to flesh. Welcome to Wonderland.
My grandfather was a foot soldier in the labor wars. He got beat up, arrested, and got stiches across his forehead from a police’s club. My father told the story of how they brought his dad home one day unconscious and bleeding. The lady from next door stitched up his head with thread, and he laid on the couch. “More Value for your Shopping Dollar!”
There was never a thought of taking him to the hospital. Hospitals cost money and that’s the first place the cops would look for them. My grandfather’s first arrest was in Springfield, Ohio. The Ku Klux Klan were marching in the street. One of the Klansmen recognized my Grandfather on the curb and called out to him “Cox! Come join us! The Klansman grabbed my Grandfather’s jacket to pull him along. My Grandfather then decked him, and all hell broke loose.
My father as a boy had to run home and tell his mom, “Dad’s in jail.” But Thomas Ott Cox, my grandfather just wasn’t a fan of the Klan. The Klan didn’t like Catholics any more than they liked Blacks. Thomas wasn’t Black or even a Catholic but his was mother was Catholic. So, his answer was “no” He wasn’t interested in marching along.
Through his uncle. He got a job at a cast-iron foundry. Making stove lids, manhole covers, pots and pans, the old fashion way. By pouring molten metal into molds. There was no safety equipment provided. No hard hats or safety meetings. No safety supervisor. Safety was on you Bubba! If you get hurt on the job, we wish you well and if you recover, will consider you giving you your old job back. “Hurry, Hurry, Hurry! Door buster Savings! Today Only!”
Thomas Ott hadn’t been on the job long when he saw that happen. A man was carried home to live or die. No workman’s comp, no employer obligation for employees injured on the job. That event changed him. He was unwilling to sit back and do nothing. He began working for the Iron workers union. Just that job alone could get you fired, beat up or arrested. He had no legal right to join a union. That was in the early 1920s by the end of the 20’s the unions became the issue of the day.
My father said his old man got misty eyed at FDRs first Inaugural address.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.
“One Day Only! Rock Bottom Pricing! Buy One! Get One Free!
The union was legal and in 1932, they went on strike. My dad was 12 and told the story, “The Union walked out at Thanksgiving and were still out at Christmas. Guess what I got for Christmas that year?” It was the beginning of the resentment. His Dad was always busy with the union. My Uncles were unanimous, it wasn’t fair. He was leaving his wife all alone to work for the good of others.
Door buster Bargains! Stuff! Real Good Stuff to fill your house with or clear up your acne. Don’t Miss Out! Supplies are Limited!
When my Grandfather passed away in 1963, the world had changed. Safety equipment, safety meetings, Workers comp insurance. One faceless man who helped to change the world. He never got rich. He didn’t fight to get his kids into college, he fought so that your kids could go to college. He fought to build the middle class in this country before there was one.
It just strikes me as odd and turns my stomach a bit this trivial 21st Century existence. Where nothing really matters, and everything’s is just beyond our reach. All too busy to get involved; I’m saving the Orwellian mongoose or Brazilian Zuzu bird. You know causes that can’t hit back. Causes that won’t get beat up, fired, or arrested for doing it.
Streets full of homeless people as landlords jack up the rents. Corporations making record profits and raising prices still. Do you know why this happens? Because you let them, do it.
I’m going to share some 19th Century wisdom given to me in the 20th Century. I pass along to you in this Century. Something my grandfather used to say. “If you are not willing to fight for it. Then maybe you don’t deserve it after all.”
We face an electronic soul sapping character eroding nightmare. (The lights of perverted science.)Your every thought and your every desire digitized and cataloged inside the big tit machine. Billionaires have space programs. It’s a joint public/private partnership! Where YOU get to help a billionaire build a new football stadium with your money and nothing, but the best will do! It’s Labor Day! Shop your ass off! Don’t think about what it all means. Don’t think about the victims. Think about what to buy next. Think about your life being chloroformed into unconsciousness with candy.
“I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.” ―Eugene Debs