"...and the amber fields all laid to waste, and the revolution failed....at your coming forth..." (from "Salinas," copyrighted 2008 by this blogger)

It's easy to rant about politics or unions or religion. Even though the things I say (unskillfully) are without question my own, it is less costly to be honest (even with myself) about things and issues external than things true to me. See, there are variables I cannot control, and facts of which I can comfortably claim ignorance, that influence U.S. foreign policy and even Omaha leash laws. Not so in my own mind and body, where I am solely responsible for content and editing. No press releases for me to miss, no fair and balancing act; just a question of how much accuracy will be allowed.

So I am a father of 28-month-old twin boys, and I am not in a romantic or physical relationship with their mother. I am, however, as involved as possible in my son's lives, by which I mean that I am with them a large portion of their waking hours. I am imperfect, to be sure, but I am not a sperm donor or a child support check. I make breakfast and lunch, we practice our letters and numbers, we go for long walks and learn the names of different bugs and flowers. Last week we learned the word gravity, and the accompanying physical law (water goes from the top of the fountain to the bottom because of gravity. So saith my beloved sons). I give them tons of hugs and kisses, and I sing to them (poorly) before their midday nap. In short, I do the things a dad is supposed to do. I don't say this to garner any credit, but simply to provide an accurate description of my daily life and priorities. My sons come first, period.

First place is decided and is not negotiable. When I am not with my sons, however, I am by all rights single and reasonably attractive, certainly not without some rough-hewn charm. So given the fact that making love (or whatever you call it) is a healthy and necessary function of human behavior, why am I so reluctant to take part? Some of it is time, I suppose. I definitely don't have the time to invest in a relationship with a woman. I guess another part is the emotional fatigue inherent in raising a couple of energetic kids. At the end of a long day of fatherly attentiveness, my emotional beer mug is just mostly empty. Anyone doing it right, though, will argue correctly that sex for its own sake is rejuvanating to body and spirit. I also don't think the act necessitates marriage or even a commitment, as long as all parties involved are open-eyed about the situation.

I think, right or wrong, it feels as though I would be alienating attention I owe to my sons. That sounds weird, I know, but I know for a fact that I have never felt a visceral sense of duty to anyone or anything before my boys were born. Sure I respect my parents and feel some attachment to my family and a couple of friends, but this is different. I have no problem not getting married for my own selfish reasons. I don't want to deal with the passive-aggressive behavior that is the hallmark of every relationship I have ever seen. I won't resign myself to either a total loss of sovereignty or to the alternative stupid and underhanded struggle over who gts to be in charge. I don't want to have to cater to another grown-up's irrational neuroses for the next 50 years. With my sons, though, it's different. They don't have a choice and neither do I. They are mine and I am theirs, writ in letters plain as day. I therefore have to be as broad and as deep, as sharp and as soft, as they need 100 percent of the time. I find it difficult, therefore, to move from that uncompromising fealty to simple enjoyment in my life apart from theirs. It's a problem.

Much Peace,

thomasj

"Sweat Combustion Engine"

Whether it's called reducing overhead, streamlining, or "operational excellence," it is managment's goal across all industries to get the fewest number of people to do the greatest amount of work for the lowest possible wages. That's not a secret; it's almost invariably a stated business goal. In the bad old days BEFORE unions, this deliberately adversarial (and often murderous) approach by management was simply accepted by a workforce with no recourse. The adversity was all one way. If you lost an arm working for the railroad or the mills, then by God you just gave an arm to the cause of the great American Elites. Fuck you and your starving family, you were just a tiny cog in the blood-drinking machine that built the Rockefellers and Mellons and DuPonts. The American Oligarchy (or Plutocracy, whatever you want to call the moneyed folks who ran and still run the show) was not answerable to anyone for their abuse of men women and children in the workforce. If someone thought two cents per bushel of tomatoes or artichokes was a little low, the machinery of law enforcement would simply be brought to bear against those "agitators" who posited that five cents and a water break might be more humane. That machinery, of course, was quite simple: guns and clubs.

Then slowly, like ripples presaging a tsunami, workers started calling bullshit on their overseers, and doing so in numbers. The barons running the show still had cops and national guard beat the fuck out of and murder folks crying for something approaching a living wage, but enough workers were abused and desperate enough that production began to be affected. Let a field of artichokes begin to rot, and management would finally put down their lobster forks and take notice. Organization. Fraternity. Solidarity. The highest of human virtues. Abused and beaten people coming together for the good of the whole. Anyone who thinks the murderous fucks of United Fruit would have responded to anything but a kick in their wallets is hopelessly (and possibly deliberately) naive. Anyone who thinks that management today would treat workers like anything but cattle without the continual threat of a work stoppage is hopelessly (and possibly deliberately) naive. The Oligarchy has no conscience or goal beyond making money and sharing that money with as few people as possible. I make a living wage in humane working conditions ONLY because workers before me stood up and folded their arms. What the organization of workers did was create an opposition to the adversity visited upon them by their owners and operators. It is unfortunate that said relationship has to exist, but to pretend, as Maury does, that it doesn't exist, and that workers should just take what's offered and shut up, is, again, hopelessly naive. Let the unions dissolve and the threat of work stoppages disappear, and you'll see how fast wages drop and workers' protections go away. To posit that our ruling merchant class would act in a fashion other than predatory is to ignore the whole of American business history.

The logic that says workers should not organize and fight for wages or pensions or health insurance ultimately ends in slavery. Of course it is vastly more efficient to just own slaves, stop paying wages and give them just enough bread and water to keep them alive and working. Very low overhead, no regulation, and you can just beat or shoot problems. Maury and folks like him should just follow their logic to its conclusion and advocate the legalization of slavery. At least they would be intellectually honest for a change.

Much Peace.

"I find it very, very easy to be true/I find myself alone when each day's through." (Johnny Cash)

Horrible, wracking, crashing waves of child-abandoning guilt. Preparing to begin the pilgrimage North towards our annual fishing trip. Ely, MN this year, and the Boys are too young to go. They will be in daycare all day this coming week, and I am a terrible, rotten, faithless father because of it. This biological imperative results in temporary amputations; but I desperately need some time in the North and on the water.

More on why my attachment to my kids keeps me from getting laid, and on the absolute necessity for workers to fold their arms and organize, when I return.

Much Peace