In fine techie-geek form, let me start with - HELLO WORLD! After many years of surfing dKos, and dropping the very rare comment every now and then, I'm finally de-lurking. And for good reason; with what is going on in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and with what I fear will soon spread to other red-state legislative bodies, I can't stay on the sidelines any longer. With that in mind, I marched my happy back-side today down to AFL-CIO affiliated AFGE Local 738, and did something that I thought I would never do in a 1000 years - I JOINED A UNION!
It's not that I've ever been anti-union (my own grandpa was a life-long union man), but its just something that I never thought I ever would do. Hell, some of my best friends have been union members. But me, join a union? Never crossed my mind. I mean, 10 years ago I was a Promising Young Junior Executive making six figures a year on Wall St. (I mean that literally - The Bank I worked for was about a block down the street from the New York Stock Exchange). I even had a subscription to the Wall Street Journal and read the OpEd page every day. Armed with my MBA, I was well on my way to life long membership in the plutocracy. Afterall, I was Management Material by God! So...what the hell happened? Follow my below the fold and I'll tell you about the long strange trip its been.
But before we get there, let me start with...it's all Ronald Reagan's fault! I mean it. Really. What we are seeing today is the rotten fruit sprung from the zombie seeds mindlessly sown 30 years ago by the Gipper. It wasn't so much his actions, though they were bad enough, but rather the ideas that the Great Communicator so effectively and insidously transmuted the body politic with. With one simple phrase, "government is the problem," one man was able to prove yet again that there is nothing so powerful as an idea, no matter how wrong wrong wrong, let loose into the wilds of society. Unfortunately, this particular idea has led us to the sad state where we are today - on the brink (of what, well, that's a subject for another diary). Okay, enough about Ronnie (for now) - just suffice to say that what he set in motion is prologue to my own story.
Back to me, me, me. One fine late summer day 10 years ago, I was on my normal commuter bus winding my way through lower Manhattan heading to yet another day of helping The Bank acquire more wealth. Rolling north along Church St., I gazed, without much conscious thought, at the World Trade Center on my left. 15 minutes later a bunch of lunatic religous fanatics would fly an airplane into the North Tower. Nothing has been the same ever since.
That day I ceased to be Promising Young Junior Executive and assumed the other role that would define me for the next 10 years - Soldier in the Global War on Terrah. A little background - I put myself through college on a ROTC full scholarship (which indirectly allowed me to go to grad school), which I have since repaid by serving the past 23 years as an officer in the Army National Guard. Until that day, it was something I did as a hobby to get me out of the city one weekend a month, two weeks a year. On that day, however, it became real.
Within minutes of the South Tower getting hit, I left The Bank and reported to my armory in Mid-town, the closest National Guard unit to what we later called Ground Zero. I say with immense pride that I was not the only one to report without being told to - within hours we had most of our unit assembled and we were sending troops downtown. We were there when George Bush told us he could hear us and that soon the world would hear us. Say what you will about the man (and I will in further diaries), at the time that's exactly what those of us working on the pile needed to believe.
Soon, my National Guard unit was performing homeland security missions by putting heavily armed men on the streets and subways of NYC, then securing the gates of West Point with more heavily armed men, then running convoys in the cities and deserts of Iraq (though without me), trying not to get blown up, and more recently, training illiterate drug addicts to be policemen and soldiers in the mountains of Afghanistan (this time, with me), again trying not to get blown up. Yet another list of things that I never thought I'd ever be doing.
During that time, that's when I learned the hard way that Promising Young Junior Executive and Soldier in the Global War on Terrah where indeed mutually exclusive. In 2002 The Bank was largely supportive. 2003, not so much. 2004, openly hostile with my performance reviews tanking and my assigned reponsibilites diminishing. By October that year I was fired for coming in to work late. Wooooaaaaah - nobody at my level has ever been fired for coming in to work late. Unfortunately, I also found the hard way that the legal "protections" that we Guardsmen and Reservists had really didn't amount to much (this has since been fixed, thank God). Short of a letter from The Bank stating that they were letting me go for being called out everytime W. needed another polling boost, er, ah, I mean when Terrah Levels where, GASP - OMG ELEVATED, I didn't have much to fall back on. Later, one of my former co-workers would contact me and confirm that The Bank did indeed fire me as "retaliation" for all the times I was away; unfortunately, he/she couldn't afford to put his/her job at risk by saying so publicly.
Hmmmm. Now if there was only some type of organization out there that would actually stand up for me and my co-worker when The Bank would do such unscionable things. You know, some sort of advocacy group of like-employed people....
Ah, never mind. Within a couple of weeks I was on orders full time as a Soldier in the Global War on Terrah. Months later I would find myself in central, red-state Texas. And to my surprise, I loved it! People there are truly gracious and courtly. However, there was one trait that left me highly puzzled, the widespread notion that everything that is bad and frightening in the world is the fault of those traitorous lib'ruls ruining the US of A with their oppressive Big Guv'mint. Don't Tread On Me! Now these were people who I damn well knew whose Mommas and Poppas voted for LBJ and Grandmas and Grandpaps had a picture of FDR displayed proudly somewhere in their homes. With REA provided electricity, federally funded interstates, USDA price supported farms and ranches, and universities supported with federal grants all around them, how could these otherwise gracious, nice people believe such nonsense?
Enough of such troubling questions! I was, afterall, a Soldier in the Global War on Terrah. So when the great crash of '08 came, I was in central Afghanistan where I would read in "Stars and Stripes" (yes, it really does still exist) about how we HAD to bail out the banks or LIFE AS WE KNOW IT WOULD END. Or as Hank Paulson would calmly and reassuringly put it - "DON"T QUESTION IT - SHOVEL MORE MONEY AT AIG, STAT! AAAAAIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!'' Or, words to that effect so I believe.
(Fun fact about Afghanistan - to get on Afghan Time from GMT, you need to set your watch ahead 4 and 1/2 hours and your calendar back 622 years)
Okay, so Soldier in the Global War on Terrah returns from the Heart of Darkness Christmas Day 2008 with a nasty case of PTSD packed alongside a killer collection of exquisite Persian rugs and moghul style watercolors, to a hero's welcome from a gratefull nation. (that I do mean that with real sincerity - every week someone would come up to me while I was in uniform and thank me. Wow! As for the VA - we won't hear a bad word about them here). While getting readjusted to life back in the land of the big PX and still drawing a nice paycheck from Uncle Sam, I notice some really, well, weird things.
Things, like, how is it that a bunch of Congressman and Senators who for the previous 8 years had turned the money spigots to full blast (the KBR steak and lobster I had every Friday in Bagram did improve my morale considerably - thank you taxpayers!) were now all of a sudden green eye shaded deficit hawks? And, how come we had money to make Wall Street, The Bank included (though foreign onwned - WTF?!?!?) whole at 100 cents on the dollar, but we couldn't extend relatively modest unemployment insurance payments to those left holding the cr@p end of the economic stick? And now? Why in the Hell are we giving billions of dollars of tax breaks to those that don't need it at the same time telling public employees that they need to "man up" and take one (or a dozen or so) for Team America?
Fortunately for me, I am once again on the recieving end of the Thanks of a Gratefull Nation. Due to veteran's preference I was able to land a decent federal job the past couple of months. Am I making what I did 10 years ago? Hell no! But I am happier as I am in far better company now. However, just as I'm starting a new chapter in life as Dutifull Public Servant, I'm watching in absolute horror the freak show that is unfolding in Wisconsin and spreading to Ohio and Indiana, and any other red state you can think of. The rotted fruit of the zombie seeds are sprouting up across the land. After ten years as a Soldier in the Great War on Terrah, I know this to be a fact: the Taliban and Al Qeada will NEVER defeat us. But the thought that our own government, the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, is somehow an inherently malignant force that needs drowning, will. With that thought in mind, I am now the newest member of AFGE local 738, and there is much work to do.
Now are the times we all need to take a stand. Me? Today, I joined a union.
Streetgang 06 Out
Updated by mbdunn at Sun Mar 6, 2011, 01:27:23 AM
Community Spotlight and Rec List?!?!?! Thanks everyone!. Now get out there and fight the good fight!