The Incremental Hunger Games

The same-old exploitation - but a new, cleverly designed effort to subjugate and enslave

My late Mother, Joy Lynn Wiley-Fleming-Johnson, at Her home - the “Pink Palace” - Her “Happy Place” for the last twenty or so years of Her life. That I miss Her - beyond my current understanding - is an understatement

My original title and subhead - I decided, last-minute, to change it:

From White Collar to Blue Collar (Survival) and the Real “Job” of the PMC
Age discrimination is real – so is algorithmic (AI) discrimination by the DEI (Agenda 2030) mafia

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I am currently doing manufacturing facility / factory work in the Asheville, NC area as a means of survival. At 58 y.o. and of a “conservative” (anarchist) bend these last several years, I have seemingly been purposefully “aged-out.” Also, I am seemingly “ideologically misaligned” with the current, woke, PMC-controlled corporate world. This new perspective is at once enlightening as well as horrifying. I have lamented my employment circumstances on my Substack and other platforms many times over the last several years, but what I’ve failed to adequately describe is my current honor in the witnessing of many simple, proud, good people struggling to get-by in a system that is designed to cleverly suppress (oppress) them.

In my current job, there is a wide, cross-section of workers: White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, young, old, “rednecks,” “good ol’ boys” (and girls), proud “Hillbillies,” entry-level workers, senior / experienced workers, lazy, hard-working, outright fuck-ups, punks, ambivalent, dedicated, assholes, simpletons, smart, average, “petty tyrants” (H/T Carlos Casteneda), etc. It reminds me of the military – with its wide-ranging “appeal” and diversified ranks – with the exception of the senior and elderly folks. A motley crew of characters from a wide cross section of the area – and the current (local and otherwise) “economy.”

It seems as if – at least in this somewhat small-ish town / rural-ish pocket – that poverty wages + decent benefits are enough to attract and retain workers – especially when there aren’t many opportunities otherwise. Many (necessary) double income families whereby one spouse makes “decent money” while the other supplements the household income with whatever work they can get / whatever is available. And if decent benefits are on offer, well then, what is a painful, demoralizing proposition (poverty-level wages) is a little less so. And this seems to be the situation I’m in with a fairly new, large manufacturing facility that’s part of the larger MIC (military industrial complex) that was attracted (subsidized) to this area.

Is this part of a larger plan? To have the PMC literally force many people (like me) out of high-paying, corporate, white collar work and into blue collar, subsistence (minimum) wage work? Into the proverbial “belly of the beast” in Big Pharma / Biotech / “Healthcare,” Big Ag / Big Food, the MIC, Big Gov’t (e.g. security / surveillance “foot soldiers” like the TSA / Homeland Security), fast food, service work, etc.? And is this a tacitly supported strategy from on-high in the Agenda 21 / 2030 / 2050 echelons of (NWO) power? Is the old, “move the facility / company to a ‘cheaper’ demographic” at work here as well? Are the corporate bean-counters strategizing how and where to relocate facilities to save on labor costs? Of course! And have the costs of living in the U.S. skyrocketed to such a degree that these corporate relocation strategies (and wage suppression strategies) are incredibly obsolete and cruel - no matter where you live in the U.S. or where in the U.S. they move their companies to? You betcha! It feels – based upon my own experiences and observations – that there is a certain persona that is now openly preferred in the “lower economic strata” – and supported by any number of DEI, CEI, ESG, CRT, CGT, UN SDG, Agenda 21 / 2030, JEDI, CLL, etc. policies – and enforced by the dutiful PMC. Desperate, compliant, and demoralized. Many good, decent people forced-into these poverty-level jobs because the better opportunities have long been offshored or taken off the table for any manner of reasons. The PMC is “circling the wagons” and protecting their own – all under the watchful eye of their groomed and anointed, C-Suite executives and their Globalist / NWO overlords.

So those Asian and “Global South” sweatshops? They are coming here (the U.S. and the collective West) via Globalist / NWO incrementalism – regardless of the “worker protections” and benefits afforded by – the now utterly destroyed - private sector unions and legislation. Weaponized public sector unions are a topic for another essay…

In my place of employment, there are many elderly workers, ostensibly there to supplement all-too-meager “retirement” incomes – and take advantage of the “low bar” for acceptance (your ‘advanced’ age isn’t considered a detriment) in a mass hiring scenario (“New manufacturing facility staffing-up! No experience required!”) allows them an opportunity – when in other situations, ageism / age discrimination is rampant. I call it the “warm body scenario.” There are many young Fathers (and Mothers), seemingly there to obtain good (cheap) health insurance benefits – the cheapest (lowest premium contributions) I’ve ever seen.

For these workers (and myself), you get a job whereby you can’t have a cup of coffee or a snack / breakfast bar on the factory / shop floor. You’re not allowed your phone. You get a 15-minute break every 4 hours – which is mostly burned-up walking from a work station to a break room – a significant distance in a massive facility. And that line at the single coffee machine during that first break in the morning? Just because it’s free doesn’t mean much when you have scant time to enjoy it. You get 30 minutes for lunch (not paid). You get to “clock-in” no more than 8 minutes before your shift – and no more than 8 minutes after your shift – without the system “flagging” you for possibly unapproved overtime. And the line of workers to clock-in or out? I am reminded again of the military with incessant lines and the cliché truism of “hurry-up and wait.” In other words, your day is completely regimented and surveilled. You are treated like cattle. Ironically, the “professional workers” (white collar-ish) and administration of this facility are placed in offices above the factory floor – on a mezzanine-level – with large glass windows to look-down upon the activities on the production floor. To look down upon those “less fortunate.” A separate (lower) class…

Yes, you can get to the point where almost unlimited overtime is available – but then your grueling work week becomes even more so. And the older workers – like myself – will pay the price in our health and well-being. And what is overtime? Time and ½ when it comes to $20 an hour is just as meager (and insulting) as straight-pay. And you’re working on products that cost thousands-upon-thousands of dollars. Hundreds to thousands of parts in a day. And we all know the profits of the MIC…

Living wages are possible. What we have are oligarchs that simply refuse to pay them – preferring to hoard extreme wealth (and power) in service to what can only be described as maniacal, evil ends. Profit above life. Profit at any and all costs.

If I could leave the reader (the few that I have) with one thought or take-away, it would be to pursue your passion(s) – the earlier the better – and if those passions will not support you and your family – then “buy yourself a job” (if you can, if you have resources) and start a small business. Avoid corporate work like the plague – as it has become one.

Sic Semper Tyrannis.

Temet Nosce. Amor Fati. Memento Mori.

Praise Be to Hanuman
The Breath, Great Servant, and Hammer of R-A-M-A and S-I-T-A

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EPILOGUE:

I’ve come to realize that many of my current lessons (in the Spiritual / evolutionary sense) are “stacked.” That is to say that I have many lessons – all at once – to sort through and attempt to learn-from. What is at once intimately personal can also be a much larger, universal theme. Hence my Great Prayer:

My Great Lord, please hear my petition: I Pray to You for Great Strength. Great Strength of body, mind, heart, thought, emotions, energies, Soul, and Spirit. Great Strength to Serve Your Will. Great Strength to Serve my Beloveds. Great Strength to bear the magnificent burdens of my life. And Great Strength, for when it is time, to gracefully, graciously, and gratefully put my burdens down.

I was resentful of you (all of my siblings) for leaving me alone to deal with the dying and death of our Mother. And I came to understand that I couldn't forgive you (all of you) - which was really (essentially) that I couldn't forgive myself for my seeming inadequacies in the face of such things. That I couldn't “save” Her – or appropriately (?) attend to Her as She was dying. So, I’ve been “othering” this great pain – and using all manner of my circumstances to further justify this “othering” (grief, blame, projection, victim consciousness, resentment, etc.). I am STILL trying to work through this – in the midst of all my current struggles / circumstances. And it is taking me a great deal of Strength (Energy) and a protracted amount of time (and Prayer). So, in this (my) journey of forgiveness and self-forgiveness, I simply ask for time and distance.

“What is the moral?
who rides may read
The night is thick and the tracks are blind
A friend at a pinch is a friend indeed
But a fool to wait for the laggard behind
Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
White hands cling to the tightened reign
Slipping the spur from the booted heel
Tenderest voices cry "turn again"
Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel
High hopes faint on a warm hearthstone-
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
One may fall but he falls by himself-
Fall fall by himself with himself to blame
One may attain and to him is the pelf
Loot of the city in Gold or Fame
Plunder of earth shall be all his own
Who travels the fastest and travels alone.
Wherefore the more ye be holpen and stayed-
Stayed by a friend in the hour of toil
Sing the heretical song I have made-
His be the labor and yours be the spoil
Win by his aid and the aid disown-
He travels the fastest who travels alone.”

“The Winners” (“The Story of the Gadsbys”)
By Rudyard Kipling

https://allpoetry.com/poem/14326963-The-Winners-by-Rudyard-Kipling

Also by Rudyard Kipling:

“Pit where the buffalo cooled his hide,
By the hot sun emptied, and blistered and dried;
Log in the plume-grass, hidden and lone;
Bund where the earth-rat's mounds are strown;
Cave in the bank where the sly stream steals;
Aloe that stabs at the belly and heels,
Jump if you dare on a steed untried,
Safer it is to go wide-go wide!
Hark, from in front where the best men ride;,
"Pull to the off, boys! Wide! Go wide!"

“Cupid's Arrows”

https://allpoetry.com/Cupid's-Arrows