How many men at this hour are living in a state of bondage to the machines? How many spend their whole lives, from the cradle to the grave, in tending them by night and day? – Samuel Butler (novelist)

Bosses are sort of like teachers we have had over the years; some we remember with great fondness and respect, and others we wish had entered into another line of work altogether, to be kind.

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As one who worked for many years in industrial plants, I can pretty much tell you what one classic definition of a “job creator” is this – it’s the guy who adds to your duties at work, so he doesn’t have to hire somebody else. Still, he created some work for somebody, didn’t he?

Many who have punched time clocks over the years aren’t all that enthusiastic about someone with “business experience” running the country, either, since they have had the bitter experience of working for some of these folks – and being laid off by them, too, or fired, or having their workman’s compensation benefits challenged when they are injured on the job.

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When I read the writings of those who would persuade us (me) that social issues, war, bigotry, class warfare, education, can all be resolved by putting a businessman in the White House, I am dumbfounded. The last actual business man we had in the White House may have been a peanut farmer from Georgia, though you won’t find him idolized on conservative talk radio any time soon.

And it isn’t just Bain Capital which should concern Americans; it is the concept of putting people like the worst bosses they ever had in charge of their destiny. In fact, for me, the whole Bain issue is really just a side issue.

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Romney sure talks a good show, but perhaps people should look to their own lives, and their own bitter experiences on the job, when they or their friends or family members were injured, and the company (run by “job creators”) found ways to screw with the benefits they were owed.

The same business class which has long denied women equal pay in the workplace.

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The job creators who have screwed you over personally on the job.

The “job creators” who would insist that you come to work in a snowstorm, or other dangerous conditions. After you get to work they may count the number of workers who actually were able to make it to work, and than declare it a “Snow Dy,” or what-have-you.

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Yeah, I know that sounds like it comes out of Mad Magazine, but it happens all around us.

The same business class which has fought so hard against sick days for Americans, manipulating workers into buying the canard that their fellow workers would “abuse” the benefit if they had it.

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The same job creators who are responsible for the deaths of eleven working men in the BP disaster, and the deaths of coal miners in the United States – and no one ever sees a day of jail time.

The job creators who are building factories in prisons, not only taking advantage of the prison population, but taking jobs away from those on the outside.

The genial (and, to be brutally honest, many not-so-genial) who have fought you over unemployment when you have left a job under unpleasant working conditions.

The men who have sexually harassed you, your wife, your sister, your mother, your daughter.

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The folks who wouldn’t put surveillance cameras in stores in high crimes areas, resulting in the deaths of employees during robberies. Or even, in the case of one Conoco station I worked at in the early 1980s, when the “video camera” was an empty metal box, fooling almost no one.

The bosses who would tell you at the last minute that you needed to work an additional few hours. Try saying no.

These are the folks that Mitt Romney exemplifies.

I’m much less concerned about the Bain background and his offshore accounts than I am about the folks who support this man, and the collective wool that they have managed to throw over the eyes of so many in this country.

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The new opening line of American racists

Back in the Olden Days, bigots used to earnestly tell folks, “Some of my best friends are black,” as if somehow their prejudiced behavior wasn’t really the result of bigotry, but really, well, you know, concern for America – and why didn’t you have the same sort of concern?

Today, the line has been changed to. “Like so many, I rejoiced when a black man was elected to the office of president . . .”

No, you didn’t. In your rage that a “liberal/Marxist/Muslim” (and possibly even Rosicrucian who wasn’t even born in this country?) Democrat had been elected, you probably didn’t have a whole lot of time for rejoicing.

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The “wisdom” of Archie Bunker

Carroll O’Connor, who played the reactionary bigot on All in the Family back in the 1970s, once explained to Dick Cavett (back when talk shows were still interesting) the reason that so many people didn’t understand the program was satire, and that the program was poking fun of people like Archie Bunker, by quoting George Kaufman, who once said,”Satire is what closes Saturday night,” meaning that it was the last show of the week on vaudeville.

It was what he was created to be. He represented the small-minded man, the ignorant man, the man who had a patriotic cliche for any and all occasion.

What a surprise to see Archie Bunker quotes bandied about in 2012, as if they were gems from the Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly on Facebook. Of course, I suspect that that those who are posting the conservative quotes from Archie Bunker are just getting them from websites, and not actually watching the episodes, which might drive them into an emotional frenzy.

To see Archie Bunker depicted as a sort of newly-discovered conservative sage is akin to stumbling across folks talking about what a great military tactician George Armstrong Custer was.

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Quote of the Day

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. – Victor Borge

rsdrake@cox.net

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