Cara: I am happy. But a slave, I am not. What do you find so hard to believe? That we are willing to work hard because we are motivated by (gasp) money?Qx: Hi Cara. I'm not a communist but then again rightwingers tend to be cognitively impaired when it comes to making that decision. However, I do think you do not even understand what a slave is. Have you ever heard of survival? That sure seems to be the motivation when people settle for a minimum wage job in Freedomland.
If they were paid a living wage then they just might qualify as being motivated for money but the ones who are really motivated by money are folks like the CEOs of McDonald's. Not managers like Joey Stalin or Bengt. They probably wouldn't mind getting a raise. So they can pay the rent or feed their families. They probably wouldn't mind not getting scapegoated by McDonald's CEOs if workers start unionizing. Which is common practice by CEOs in Corporate America.
You may find that hard to believe but then again you might even think you're a capitalist. You might even have it so mixed up that you think that the USA and capitalism are one and the same. You may just be so confused about these issues that you may not realize that many of us activists come from very strict, rightwing, authoritarian upbringings.
But slavery does strange things doesn't it? After a lifetime of it many slaves don't seem to know or even have the imagination to envisage anything else. So their wages are accepted as proof of freedom and the ones who make it in society are god-like entities. If you believe that then you just might graduate from high school. You'll be fully prepared to enter the workforce full-time (provided that you don't go to college for further indoctrination) where "unions" and "communists" will be one and the same. Just like Ronald Reagan told so many other folks.
You'll still think that Marx was a bad man and a welfare cheat.You might even believe Russians don't love their children (that was common in 1950's America) and that America won the Cold War.This will be greatly applauded and if any "commies" like Gerard and I happen to come your way we'll be finished. Right? Wrong.
I for one held the exact same beliefs as you did when I was a teenager and what did it get me? I got ripped off job after job and all that time I thought unions were something akin to Satan. I believed in the Bible too. If someone mentioned Gramsci I would have thought he was an Italian shopkeeper who sold the best tomatoes on the block. I even thought capitalism came from God.
Then things changed. I read about the Free Speech Movement. Case closed.
None.
