WORKING CLASS HEROES AND LEFTIST ELITES

DIANE GEE

~ On how to bridge the abyss~

As soon as you’re born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be…
—John Lennon 1970

I am now a member of what truly is subculture of a subculture of a marginalized culture, of a hijacked culture, of an ambiguous leaning. 

In reverse:
Class: Working
Order: Democrat (former)
Family: Liberal
Genus:  Leftist
Species:  Commie-pinko, socialist, tree hugger.

This pretty much describes my ascent into a higher consciousness from that which I was born unto, into an awakening that left me in the fine company of…. Very Few.

I remember my first entries into the world of the left when blogging was a pale infant of the mega industry it became for a while, and they were met with both visceral agreement and scathing derision.  Spelling Nazis ripped on my occasional misuse of “its” vs “it’s” or screamed in agony should I end a sentence in a preposition.  How can one be taken seriously, if one makes the most basic of errors?
..
As a working class woman, I often whipped off these posts in the 20 minutes prior to work in the morning.  Coffee and blog post.  Often, my errors were more typos or for impact than actual lack of education.  Meh, I have danced with the brightest and best of my generation, amazingly scores of revered intellectuals granted me air time for interviews, corresponded with me at length and found my intellect not wanting in any way.

I learned to play my audience better.  I always said that waitressing was like acting, so too, I found was writing.  All the pretty PHD’s need the comfort of their big words, and dead guy quotes to feel secure in their place… even as Marxist class warriors, their words made them feel of a higher class.  They impose classism while opposing it in words that alienate the people they are fighting for.  All the working class Joes seemed to prefer fiery rants, sprinkled with inventive invective, and I can drop an F-bomb with the precision that drone operators would envy. They want numbers, simple math that shows how they are being short changed.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool
Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules

A working class hero is something to be.

The fallout of the Trump victory has everyone remotely in the Order of the left-ish and beyond scrambling for the answer to the questions, “How did we lose to this man, how can we reach the people again, how can they vote against their own interests?”

A recent debate between myself and some very brilliant people made press the issue that language matters. I will be even more blunt here:

The Leftists are losing because the charge of intellectual snobbery is true.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t is not entirely our fault, we on the left run in such small circles, it becomes almost incestuous, with us grinding details to dust, writing long, dry missives on policy and using the vernacular of our expertise.  A working class person’s eyes will roll back in their head.  While we argue the nuances of terminologies of Marxism, socialism, classism, and “PC” ourselves to fucking death… we are missing the proverbial forest for the trees.  THAT is not the language that matters, it will never change one mind outside of your intimate circle.

The language that matters is making it relevant to the populace.

The language that matters isn’t about celebrating “dumbing it down” as much as realizing we are dealing with a populace that was intentionally given the handicap of bad education.  Point in case, in Michigan, Governor Snyder just argued that “no fundamental right to literacy exists for Detroit schoolchildren who are suing the state over the quality of their education.”  (link http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2016/11/20/state-says-literacy-right-detroit/94193032/)  I can substantiate that this has long been the plan, from the Trilateral Commission, to charter schools, to earmarked donations making even Colleges of Social Work having to teach that the problem with the poor is they “don’t invest enough, and wisely enough” because half of their donations are earmarked for specific programs designed by the donors.  (I guarantee my PHD’s will ask for links, my workers will already get it at a gut level) 

The language that matters, sometimes is to listen to the concepts and ignore the language it is being delivered in entirely.  I have met street people with as much wisdom as any guru, factory workers with as much innate ingenuity as any designer, and people from every walk of life who feel entirely marginalized and unheard.   These are the least of our brethren, so to speak, that need us not to just be their protectors, but recognize their humanity and treat them with honor, as equals despite their societally imposed handicaps.

A colleague wrote recently of the despair in trying to reach a valued friend. “One of my doctors, an intelligent woman, admits knowing nothing about the big issues I address and doesn’t bother to read what I write. I’d offer to teach her but she’s unwilling to learn.”

To me, the answer was obvious.  I replied in the correspondence:

“As the great unwashed, uneducated one in the room, I am going to try and speak to you as a regular working class stiff that I am.

So, how would I approach the Doctor who glazes her eyes when you try and bring her into our circle?

“How many people do you have on your billing staff?”

I guarantee her answer (having used this tactic many times before) will out number her medical assistants.

“How many times do you usually have to rebill before you are paid?”

Now, she will grumble and groan about the insurance companies. Often the number is over 10.

“Just think of all the time and money you would save if we had single payer.   Medicare always pays promptly, right?”

Now, you have started a soft conversation, with empathy for her personal life, about socialism. About watching people only come in for critical things, and often not being able to get treatment they need because – and phrasing it this way is important – “Accountants are making decisions that you trained to make, often over-turning your medical judgement.  Accountants!”

I brought a GYN into much further left with this argument years ago.  She had 14 accounts receivable on staff, and only 3 nurses.  One missed dotted “I” one uncrossed “t” and it would be months until she was paid, no matter how complicated the delivery.  One difficult birth was so expensive, and time intensive, she had to give other deliveries to other hospital staff, was awake almost 24 hours, and the insurance company never paid their portion.  She couldn’t go after the destitute patient, and it ended up costing her hundreds of thousands in losses.  She still had to pay the staff, the hospital use costs, myriad stuff I don’t exactly recall.

That is changing the mind of someone who makes a good living, is educated, but not a practicing politico. So, how to get to the working poor?

When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you’re so clever and class less and free
But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see

A working class hero is something to be…

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ere is another part of my reply to the questions, in that correspondence. 

“Anecdotally? I live in a very conservative area.  We just had a local millage to repair our crumbling roads, the 3rd time it came up.  People RAGED, screaming how it is the STATE’S job, not local cities to repair roads.  (many of ours are state owned, some country, very few private)

I usually say, “Why don’t you take that up with Governor Snyder? You didn’t vote for fiscal responsibility, you voted for someone who is a miser when it comes to giving OUR tax dollars back in terms of services, yet he has not lowered our taxes a cent.  Oh, that’s right, he had to give tax breaks to GM, who moved their jobs to Indonesia.”

It stops them.  Especially when I say their taxes haven’t gone down, yet their roads have degraded in the last 8 years to looking like Iraqi airstrips, post Bush.

You have to start with planting the seed of doubt, that what the rich tell them is good for them, isn’t at all.

Truckers, for example, are often right wing… so much talk radio, so much boredom, and a good shock jock is entertaining.  Limbaugh and the like creep into their brains like cancer.

So, I pick that topic. “Why did diesel become more expensive than gasoline, when it is refined so much less?”

Its predictable, they scratch their heads, start to say “taxing democrats” and I just shake my head.

I explain that beginning in 2004, under Bush, almost every military machine was switched to diesel. In order to provide cheaper fuel for the military apparatus, he added the taxes to domestic use.  Owner/operators that started before that, almost went under a couple years ago.

“Yep,” I say, “You can’t make a living because they make you pay for a war to get more oil for the rich, but the prices haven’t gone down, what do you make of that?  How did getting that oil work out for you or me?  And how many people died for your prices to go up, and Exxon to have record profits every quarter since 2004??? ”

Often they will come back and ask me more.

I try not to over kill.  I try to relate, and listen.  I try and give personal examples of how socialism works, next round.  “Do you know in Venezuela, they have made it so the people – all the people – essentially own oil production?  Truckers are subsidized, people have free heating fuel, rather than 2 or 3 rich fuckers getting new Lear Jets every year.”

There’s room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

The fault is not theirs, you see.  If you have woken up, written for years, and yet no one is flocking to our cause, the fault is OURS!

Yes, we still need in-depth analysis on current events.  Yes, we still need to keep one another apprised of the filthy dealings of the Capitalist, Warmongering, and Hegemonic Empire. 

But was also need to talk to the People. 

Pick a thing, and explain in clear terms, how it fucks them personally.  Let the “tiresome, boring, lacking in any originality” as I was accused of for using the “1%” terminology become part of the actual fabric of the American psyche.  We have to fight the fact that it is other poor people’s fault we are poor.  We have to listen to their concerns and redirect the anger.  We are LOSING that battle. 

The MSM are transcribers, parroting whatever will keep us divided, distracted and unable to focus on the real enemy here.

If we want to compete with the ADD, one minute movie, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook universe and win?

We need to start listening.  We need to find local stories and put a personal spin on them.  We need to take National News and equate it to what it would do to ONE FAMILY.  We need to take it to the workers in terminology they will understand.

Leftists are the soul of humanity, but what good a soul without a heart?

It’s time to bridge the gap, listen to the whispers in the fields, that drove America’s first workers’ movement.  Because it cannot be for the People, by excluding the people.  It cannot be by the People, without the will of the People.

And we cannot reach the People without speaking their language.