- CounterPunch.org - https://www.counterpunch.org -

The Capitalists are Out to Get Me

The capitalists have decided to make my life a living hell. I can’t seem to do the slightest thing without their making it more difficult. It does no good to submissively implore, “I give up–you win,” they continue the torture relentlessly, with seemingly nothing to gain save for the pleasure of it.

When asked, “What do you do for a living,” most of us can’t respond, “I inherit from robber barons.” Many of the capitalists clearly may not only give such a response, but can add “I absolutely love to torment Jack for no reason.”

Case in point. I put a video into my DVD player and up pops a piracy warning. Then another, in case I missed the first one, telling me about the penalties for piracy, assuming I’m a criminal. Then one in French, knowing almost nobody in the USA parlez vous Francais, but also knowing it’s a great opportunity to harass honest citizens to let them know who’s in charge.

The real pirates don’t have to watch the insulting FBI warnings, because they don’t copy that crap. They just do the movie, so their customers get a much better deal than those who abide by the laws.

After giving up, having realized they are never going to let me get to the movie, running a massive number of ads for Blue Ray players and other products the capitalists have for sale (again, the pirates don’t have to watch this crap), I decide to go out and check the mail.

But I can’t find my mail. It may be buried somewhere in the ads bulging from my mailbox. I have written to the individual corporations asking them to please stop sending me this, but they don’t care, they are capitalists, and they rule. They can bother me if they want to, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I know, the propaganda is that there are places you can call or write that will stop junk mail, and I’ve tried them all, but the capitalists pay no attention and send me enough paper to wipe out the forests of British Columbia, just to show me they have complete control and I should keep my mouth shut.

I look out on the horizon, expecting, like an idiot, that I will see a magnificent sunrise, or trees, or some sign that the capitalists haven’t completely destroyed nature, but alas, all I see are billboards– thousands of them in every direction, urging me to buy things from the capitalist factories in China, where they sent my job.

So I turn on my computer to check my email. If I have email I can’t find it, the capitalists have decided that I need to buy numerous products. They will decide what email I get, and how much, thank you. Somewhere in the spam there may be a note from a friend, but I will unlikely ever find it. The email I want probably goes into the junk email folder, but that’s as deluged as the inbox. I’ve paid companies to have this fixed, but unwittingly gave my money to capitalists whose first priority is profit. They kept the money and the spam increased.

It’s like health care. You give the capitalists money and they tell you after the multimillion dollar salaries of executives and billions in profits, there’s nothing left for actual health care, followed by “Be sure to send in your premium, or you will lose your plan,” like the plan actually does something other than drain your bank account.

So I decide to listen to some soothing music. Only I can’t hear it because the capitalists are ringing my telephone throughout the day, out to convince me I should buy products I can’t afford because of my job hopping to China, following the one that floated to Indonesia, at the fancy of the capitalists. I am on the do not call registry, but the capitalists don’t care. They remind me with each phone call I get from them after reporting them, that they have the power.

So I turn on my TV to see what’s on the news, only to find that every channel has commercials blaring, encouraging me to take more pharmaceuticals to help me cope (how do they know?), and they are not about to let me get to actual news. When I do finally imagine I get through, the news items reflect the commercials– same slant, for the same capitalists. The “journalist” anchor, paid $15 million a year to parrot the capitalist viewpoint, tells me we live in the Land of the Free.

Not free to have health care or a decent job like people in other major industrialized nations, but free to finance a military force which protects capitalists all over the world from any outbreak of the dreaded democracy. So dedicated is the USA to freedom that it takes the world’s largest prison system to maintain this Land of the Free.

The capitalists own my government, financing the political campaigns to get some of the slimiest sycophants imaginable to run the White House, Capitol building and Supreme Court on their behalf, so I can’t call 911– they own it. I’m pretty sure if I dialed 911 they would report me to Homeland Security for complaining and I would soon be water boarded while watching FBI warnings in French about what happens to terrorists like me.

The capitalists have privatized my government, so services we once had are now for profit, so good luck if you want the government to do anything. Profit is their only priority. Call a government office and a robot answers, instructing you to “press one if you speak Swahili. Press two if you speak Ancient Greek….” You know this is going to take awhile, and in fact, nothing ever comes of it as far as I am aware.

The capitalists have their own problems, like what to buy the kid for his birthday– another champion polo pony or a Congressman accoutered with reins and a saddle. Then there are those tortured night sweats, pondering the potential for any outbreak of an iota of democracy around the planet (it could happen, but thankfully they have 800 military bases around the globe heading this nightmare off).

I do take solace in knowing the NSA, on behalf of the capitalists, is copying billions of spam emails daily and billions of commercial phone calls that must make totalitarianism much more difficult to achieve. They must sift through all of this fruit of capitalism before winnowing incriminating data down to finger an activist trying to oppose wars, pollution, bankstering or other capitalist felonies.

The capitalists know they are killing thousands of people annually in unsafe workplaces, where their managers are aware the workplaces are unsafe yet do nothing about it because it would interfere with profits. But if human life were a priority of the capitalists, they would allow a real health care system like other industrialized nations have.

Nothing interferes with profits (see any free trade agreement). The capitalists know they are killing millions each year around the globe from unsafe products they sell, but continue because of the profits. Would someone who was not a psychopath kill six to eight million people by selling them tobacco products, year after year?

It’s difficult to tell how many die from capitalist polluting around the globe, because the health impact is largely undocumented, with most of the chemical combinations untested, but it’s easy to guess at least millions, if not tens of millions.

Wistfully I accept that there is no impending challenge to capitalist rule. I have no doubt the capitalists would murder me save for the enjoyment they get from watching me writhe in agony. I am certain they would kill us all if there was a dime in it for them anywhere, but of course, they need a working class with which to produce profit (no way any of them is ever going to do a lick of work).

I suppose it will have to be enough to know that their servants, to retaliate for the humiliation and abuse, are likely pissing in their martinis.

Jack Balkwill is an activist in Virginia.