AUTHOR.CALHO: If I didn't write it, I would be hitch hiking cross country to Maine and then Alaska in that order. While taking frequent breaks to spread leaflets. And sit in diners. And write on things because I wasn't at a computer. I may still do that in a few years. Writing this also helps me forget about and better understand the limitations of being human, and keeps me busy enough to allow me no free time to burn the world down.

THEMATIC.ABOUT : Collapse often. The things that hold people together and hold them apart and scatter brains. The things that make thoughts go boom. The things that ooh and aah and [expletive deleted]. Sometimes poking around the margins where responsibility ends and the only one to look to is the Original Equipment Manufacturer and say "but, I already pressed 9 for more options and the menus are exactly the same. Can you just replace it?" The answer will be: "please hold." Sometimes hanging out in dark corners. Sometimes following the train tracks. Looking for ways out and ways in and all the while sharing the things seen and heard and done and drawn and written and scorched and healed and teased and caged and dreamed along the way.

10/23/11

Wall Street

> We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.

> Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.

> Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We’re used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we’ll eat that.

> For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We’re going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I’ll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.

> So now that we’re going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we’re going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren’t going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We’re going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.

> The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it’s really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.

> We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet our food supply…will he? and will they?”

End email. I don't normally respond to threads like this, but I was struck by the flippancy and offered a rebuff:

dear content of email

hilarious. if the reduction of the "food supply" ever gets down to hyper competitive opportunists versus ingenuity and survivability,
wall street will find itself in an afghanistan of its own creation. good luck.

rejoicing in what income i have and living on it too. i get home at 5 a.m. if im lucky. but better than lucky is working a sixteen hour day. i work every hour im given and i take hours from coworkers whenever i can. ive been trying to get expelled from the ufcw since the union forced me to join as a condition of employment. good luck coming down here and eating the food off my plate lol. wash your car and cut your own hair and your lawn and everything else you have that needs washing and doing and guarding and tending to.

you might get some of my "food", but im used to being hungry. eventually my knife and fork are taking your hand. and it will be delicious. and ill leave you to moan and divorce and spring idle bastard children in failing school districts because you wont be able to live in the good ones no matter how hard you work at minimum wage jobs that cut and limit your hours and send you home or on leave when you hit the red line they define and the only release you can have is fucking strangers on wellfare with six kids to net massive child support and other benefits that work the system until she files a bogus PFA when you don't pay on time and the fuzz come and lock you up and you lose that job for "no call/no show" and can't get another one for two years thanks to your criminal record.

and then, hopefully, youll buy a shotgun from a pawnshop and end the dance, wherein your children will pick up where you leave off. hilarious. very much enjoyed. mostly because it's reflective, i guess, of an extremely homogenized community versus an extremely diverse community pressed into a stereo typical mold for easy digestion/dissection. also i am super hungry now with all the talking
about food.

not wall street does not equal an inability to compete and dominate. all it means is "not wall street." life can be just as vicious, demanding, painful, unforgiving, unblinking and violent as downtown manhattan any day of the fucking week for many people who have had a different set of opportunities presented to them. capitalize all you want. break your hands trying to beat down doors. the fact of the matter is it's not a level field, will never be a level field, and for civilization to continue to advance or plateau or whatever there will have to be some kind of hierarchy and class system and learn to fucking live with it and pursue yourself. i think. whatever.
hilarious.

i guess its just funny when people beat their chests and say "you couldnt do what i do" without for a second realizing they couldnt do what i do either.

i dont want to be rich or fat and happy or a gym member who would otherwise be fat and happy. all i ask of you, wall street, is that you dont let your "rejoicing" become an obstacle to my happiness.

End Rebuttal.

I don't hate wall street. But if a person with hired landscapers can frown upon those landscapers billing hour of work incorrectly or frown upon a maid secreting away the homeowners possessions, why can't those of us who keep them employed by participating in the economy frown upon its mismanagement and abuse? When you order your cheeseburger at the diner you expect a cheeseburger, not a thing that has been gutted and cheated to make it more cost effective and time conserving for the line cook to make. Sure, I can't solve differential equations easily, if at all, but the fact of the matter is the people who can more than likely couldn't do my job for a week either before they quit to pursue something easier. So I guess we're even. On an uneven playing field.

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