Alienation aka "renting your time and skills"

[pan]

Marx was right. Not in his utopian eschatology that ensured a workers' paradise, but in his analysis of capitalism.

Just looked in my job search folder and realized that I have submitted 15 applications in the past month. The groovy hippie college down the road that prides itself upon valuing individuals, etc, has completely blown us off after the phone interview that was full of standard issue, cookie cutter questions and interviewers who seemed to be more annoyed that they had to take the time to do this than engage in any exchange with the professionals on the other end of the line.

Ms. Medusa and myself both applied to a J.C. in CA wine country. She got the call indicating that she was one of 13 culled to pay their own full expenses for an interview trip. I decided to come along an make a weekend out of it. Last night (in)human resources called to say that they had made a mistake and then disinvited her because it was me that they wanted to come.

Was shocked when the mail brought a courtesy letter acknowledging receipt of application materials from a U. "Common" courtesy in the hunt to find a renter of your time and skills is exceedingly rare these days.

It will only get worse as more layoffs and less job creation accelerates. Who is going to be the new Woody Guthrie?

[BO]

Proves there'll always be enough assholes around to kill any meaningful movement. As Waldo sez, TPTB will always be a able to hire one half of the population to kill the other half. Seems greed will always trump idealism.

[pan]

Actually, strictly speaking, I'm not really a Boomer. I belong to the Blank Generation.

[BO]

Here's one for all the Boomers who have Alzheimer's...

[Rady Ananda]

hey good luck on the job search, Pan. I just got dumped last month after refusing to accept a promotion without a pay increase. Or, they didn't like my political writings :-)

[pan]

I have started to accept my shared fate with Waldo of never being other than part-time adjunct faculty precisely because what we have to teach is so needed by our students. Empowerment of the students is rarely appreciated by the wardens....

Ms. Medusa just signed her contract - no raises for merit or cost of living ever while the expenses to work there (parking, etc.) have jumped by over 150%.

Sigh......

Again I must remind myself that it is a little absurd for me to expect the state to pay me to teach citizens to challenge the status quo.

[BO]

You have to pay for parking in Podunk Idaho? It's not like the place is crammed full of people. Ridiculass.

[waldopaper]

Don't follow leaders.  Watch the parking meters. 

[pan]

Shut Up and Teach! The Perversion of Free Speech on Campus

The above linked story reaffirms how "academic freedom" is a lie.

Meanwhile, at the Uni in Idaho....the President has imposed a new workload policy prorating credits based upon enrollment - any class with less than 15 students will be worth .9 credits for the instructor.  Essentially all of my Dept's classes - except the idiot, online General Ed classes - are small by design so we are getting what is essentially a paycut.

The faculty voted, by a 2 to 1 margin, to accept the new constitution put forward by the provisional senate which was mandated when the President abolished the Faculty Senate after they responded as required to petitions and held a vote where the faculty overwhelming voted "No Confidence" in the President - the President has not responded but the Interim Provost (the former Provost resigned after a vote of no confidence) has complained that "only" giving the faculty two weeks to review a 5 page document wasn't enough.....oh, and the President really wants the constitution to give him final authority on all matters including the selection of membership for committees that "represent" the faculty.

I've put out about 20 job applications - there have been only about 30 positions advertised nationwide this season.  Ms. Medusa, even though she is a year away from tenure, is about to start cranking out applications as well.

[waldopaper]

pan- i think we have to take a stand where we are... even though an essential of Slipcraft is the art of not being there.  I just had a pass at a podunk skool about 70 miles from here... a "full-time" gig- essentially the same- but with "benefits."  wouldn't pay for gas... even with the Prius. 

A General Strike may be next... but I think the international pigs plan to go directly to civil war.  However, whatever "they" "plan" to do is of no importance.  The "Administrators" tell me that funding from the state is being cut... so they have no choice but to raise funds elsewhere and cut costs.  Really?  As of yet, they see no other alternative.  So we will have to think of one for them. 

this graphic is starting to appear... like the Dilbert cartoons I used to look for as a "consultant."  It says everything.  Top-down is starting to unravel.  However, no one person can rise from the bottom lest they get "Wellstoned."  Many of us recognized in 1968 that this works both ways... maybe even better... but we aren't there YET. 

Maybe when I turn in "grades" I should just give everybody an "A." 

[waldopaper]

btw- the activists at the Uni are encouraging everybody to write LTEs.  big deal... but I do that anyway.  Here is the text for the latest ones.  To the morning fishwrap, generally regarded as "democrat:" 

 

Do you want to know what the “occupy movement is all about? 

 

Well here it is:  “lawlessness,” violence and “unsanitary conditions.”  Is this #occupy downtown and all over the world?  No… these are US big-box stores on Black Friday.  But that’s okay because people are shopping and being productive members of society and not dirty hippies trying to restore a Republic.  Maybe the Walmartians will return to their home planet after they finish trashing this one.  They must be from some other planet because they think the problem is high taxes, federal spending and “big government.” 

 

Here on Earth the problem is clean food, water, energy and information.  Maybe those freeloaders in the park are struggling to keep free instead of being “privatized.”  Maybe they had founding fathers that “broke the law.”  Maybe those hippies come from a Christmas past where visiting spirits told them of possible futures.  Maybe those protestors think breathing clean air is more important than consuming corn oil and crappola.  Ask a Walmartian, and you will get answers from a different world. 

 

They don’t seem to know federal taxes have not been this low since the Truman era.  They do not know the paper financial system collapsed.  They seem unaware that there have not been any hippies since 1969.  The Walmartians were not told there is no “government,” and that is the point.  As Chris Hedges recently wrote, “…heads of state and elected officials have become largely irrelevant.  Corporate lobbyists write the bills. Lobbyists get them passed.”  Hedges says the choice is neo-feudalism or revolution. 

 

So far, the “revolution” has been a lot more peaceful than Black Friday, where the objective is not justice but more consumer crud-leeching landfills and draining jobs.  This is how Walmartians celebrate god on their planet; where feudalism never went away, where being “drones and serfs in a global corporate dystopia” is all they have ever known, where climate catastrophe does not exist and evolution is a hoax.  Here on Earth our oceans are dying and the icecaps are melting.  Some of us saw this coming over forty years ago. 

 

Walmartians call Commons occupiers “Communists and Marxists and socialists” (oh my!) and yes, “Islamists too.”  The residents of Earth forgive them.  They know not what they do. Neither the occupiers nor the Walmartians have a clue why legal aliens continue to trouble half their countrymen and the rest of the world.  Walmartians swipe trillions for wars on abstract nouns and pinch public penny-ante rants.  All we are saying is give peace a chance.  They did not listen yesterday, and they will not listen tonight. 

 

The dirty #hippies… were right! 

 To the evening fishwrap, generally regarded as "republican:" 

 

Here are a few words that may explain the local #occupy movement and how it differs from the Astroturf “tea party” movement:  it’s what motivates the different people involved.  People in the occupation are inspired by physics rather than ideology.  Occupation people know the financial system has collapsed.  The role of government is a moot question.  It has nothing to do with left-right or liberal-conservative.  It has everything to do with human survival as a species.  Compare this science-based perspective to the self-styled “patriots.” 

 

Let’s call them Candy Folk.  They like to call themselves “true conservatives,” but they do not seem to be interested in conserving anything but their own delusions.  Candy Folk search for “ideological purity,” but their “ideology” is a sweet little game for sweet little folks.  They are the ones who really thought Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.”  They are the only people left in the world who deny global warming or evolution.  Candy Folk sweetly shift the entire world’s problems to “the left” (whatever that is). 

 

Dialogue with Candy Folk is like a conversation with very small children or pets.  Exposed to unpleasant paradox, they revert to tantrums or repetitive barking.  We no longer have time to “respect” their “ideas.”  Decades of paid propaganda have convinced them that the current depression is because of high taxes, federal spending and “big government.”  Argumentation seldom gets beyond Pee-Wee: “I know you are, but what am I?”  Candy Folk seem to forget that their precious founding fathers also “broke the law.” 

 

The rest of us must now do what it takes to maintain clean water, food, energy and information.  “Government, (whatever that is) has proven worse than useless, and if you examine the latest version of the “National Defense Authorization Act,” you will see the result of the Candy Folks’ Reichstag-fire bogyman fantasy.  The mythical size of their made-up bogyman-of-the-month no longer matters.  They are a few grams of baby-fat on a planet facing global war and famine; spoiled children of an indulgent incubus; their corporate controllers. 

 

The Candy Folk are History’s cruel joke. 

 

[pan]

The publisher of the little local rag is a MAJOR donor to the Uni, on the board of regents at other Unis and a very vocal critic of the local Uni's administration so there has been a fair amount of exposure of what has been going on.

[pan]

i think we have to take a stand where we are... even though an essential of Slipcraft is the art of not being there. 

Ms. Medusa is well practiced at the art of not being there - or at least reading the signs and moving on when it is unavoidable that the shit isn't just gonna hit the fan, it is gonna fill the whole damn room - the hard thing for her is to stick it out where we are in spite of the overwhelming stench.  I'm much more of a home boy by nature but have become much more akin to her nomadic ways through osmosis.  We have stayed in the US though - perhaps our recent efforts at international artist residencies are an attempt to widen our options.....

Of course, one of the problems with Slipping is that it is hard to put down roots and see those trees that you have planted bare fruit.  Being the new kidz on the block has a few advantages but it also means we have to constantly start over from the bottom and prove ourselves again.