Friday, January 16, 2009

Book Review - Going Postal/Ames

Book Review: http://www.amazon.com/Going-Postal-Rebellion-Workplaces-Columbine/dp/1932360824/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231953797&sr=1-1

A must read for any workplace stressed out person in this Century of Despair. The last two decades changed the American minds, capturing and corporatizing it, giving management perspective to any problems confronted. A very usatisfying life for the sensitive, thinking person results if on the plantation, in the workplace or high school grind.

Mark Ames makes a compelling case that shooting rampages in the workplace or schoolyard are analogous to slave rebellions in early American history. Slaves didn't normally revolt, and when they did, they did not get the sympathy of their fellow slaves. Everyone was about maintaining the status quo, screaming about the injustice of it all only makes one mentally ill and harshly dealt with. Now on the moral high round, this society holds John Brown or Nat Turner as heroes, but in their day they were hearing voices in their heads, seeing visions, and planning attacks on "innocent" citizens to call for righting a human wrong. What seems abhorrant to shocked Middle America, the popular status of school shooters like Harris or Klebold or Anorexic Andy or a giddy laugh about postal workers' rage attacks defies the accepted myths of the current culture that we live in the"land of the free." Some people do get it - it's not the sick people doing the awful deeds, it's the sick conditions of the workplace and the schol systems that drive them to act in such an awful manner.

This book begins in the Reagan Revolution - a revolution of the mind that place durring the 80's. Destroying unions to help working people. Attempting to eliminate the Dept of Education to help students. Social services are unneeded as only the undeserrving get it. Turn your head to the homeless, don't care, just don't look into their eyes. War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength, etc. 1984 did arrive right on time and the descriptive background of Orwell is present in the world today. Before going forward with this plan, first it was essential to remove deeply held human components, like compassion and peace, and replace them with competition and stress. This was heralded as the correct way to think and any other expressions were to be degraded, dismissed and devalued, as kindness usually doesn't lead to money. Money being the only reason to exist according to this new world order. Having concern for those of disadvataged means, advocating for human rights, crying for the innocent and injured of the warfare state makes one perceived as mentally ill, not as someone living in a sick society. The state will punish such actions that arise from human compassion ruthlessly, no matter how innocent or inconvenient. This is the Reagan Doctrine.

Parents on the hampster wheel of providing a good home and a good school for their children bring their overworked stress to their already overstressed children, put into a pressure cooker of test grades and college admissions. Striving to get ahead while resources are disappearing in this country, combined with the philisophical fog of "personal responsibility" concerning all choices in ones' life, has created a perculating internalized rage within its' population. Seeking to help people is considered a foolish career move. Cheating in school tests are all too common, as is the parents' careers in finance, real estate and most occupations. The stress is passed, the cycle continues, and the disspirited citizen carries the weight until he or she cracks, feeding the pharmacutical industry and dying slowly inside.

I melted down. I couldn't take it anymore. This book went a long way to explain why the external world seems so harsh and unlivable in this country today. I don't want to cooperate in promoting these crushing concepts put forth as "normal". The structures are corrupt because the personal relationships are corrupt. We see each other as marks, as someone to gain an advantage from. It's deeply ingrained now and the newest generation has no other framework to compare. "Me First" makes perfect sense right from the womb and where exactly can they see another example? I've dropped out because I feel so unwelcome wherever I go, especially the workplace. I want to work in a cooperative manner, live in a cooperative home situation, and surrounded by kind people in my social life. I believe if I wait long enough in my lotus position, all these wishes will come to pass.  Reagan be damned.


No comments:

Post a Comment