"CORPORATE AMERICA" GOING MEDIEVAL

I've heard friends, who for work for corporations, explaining lately the problems created in their lives by being overworked at jobs that are undermanned. Yet no one in the media that I've noticed talks about this.

The new employment figures that came out this morning showing a lower number of jobs added to the economy than expected is giving rise to all kinds of speculation about politics and economics, most of it pessimistic, even though there were still jobs ADDED not lost, which is more than you can say for the Bush/Cheney recession when their policies created income, job, and even corporate profits losses.

But the reality in this country right now is that "Corporate America"—as even many on the right refer to the dominant economic players that rule our economy—is in most cases seeing higher profits than ever before in history, and the corporate elite—CEOs et. al.—are making more money than ever before in history...

BUT...this same "Corporate America" is NOT raising salaries or hiring people, for the most part, in order to suck as much productivity out of its workers as also never seen before in history. Which is contributing to the biggest disparity in incomes since The Gilded Age and the most overworked workforce since the union movement of the 1930s. Yes, this time it's mostly "white collar" workers rather than "blue collar"—but that only makes it more invisible to the media that still thinks of "workers" and "unions" and "worker productivity" as a blue collar issue.

But most of my friends who work for corporations bring the work home and complain of not enough time for family and other non-work activities. Yet many of them cannot see the connection to the war on unions led by the right (with the right winning ever since Reagan escalated that war when he broke the air traffic controllers union and continued to break many more) and their own lack of power.

Nor do many see the refusal of "Corporate America" to invest in hiring new workers and bettering working conditions, despite record profits, as contributing to the slow recovery (how can those out of work or being pushed to do more with less, and FOR less, spend any money on things other than food and housing if they don't have jobs!).

Some of this is because many of these same friends who work for corporations in white collar jobs don't see themselves as "workers" in the traditional union sense, so they don't think of organizing and fighting to get better working conditions and pay and more help (new hires) to ease the burden of being overworked.

Others of my friends are Republicans (yes, I have many) and think they are someday going to be one of those CEOs making millions upon millions a year while milking their workers of every last ounce of productivity for as little as possible, and so don't want to rock the boat.

Many economists, like Paul Krugman, have pointed out through graphs and charts and all kinds of statistics, that we all were better off when the wealthiest and the corporations paid more taxes and unions protected "a living wage" and benefits. But the right and its influence on the media, and of course through its own media—FAUX NEWS et. al.—has convinced enough people that the only solution is more tax breaks and subsidies for corporations, less regulations for corporations (have you seen the statistic that coal companies have now destroyed over five hundred mountains in Appalachia by blowing them up for strip mining, and over 2500 miles of waterways, destroying forever the natural beauty and environment of an area larger than the state of Delaware! (got that from Robert Kennedy Jr. on The Colbert Report two nights ago)), and more spending cuts meaning even fewer jobs available for those of us who still do our own laundry and clean our own homes and rarely eat out or go on vacations that cost any extra money.

It's almost like all the gains of the last century and a half for those of us not wealthy have been or are being wiped out by "Corporate America" and their rightwing shills. I keep thinking of that phrase from PULP FICTION, something like "I'm gonna go medieval on your ass!"  That's what "Corporate America" is doing to this country and most of us in it, going medieval on our ass.