We Need A Union — For Everyone

Let’s take a bathroom break on the warehouse floor

I worry too much, and 2024 is shaping up to be a tough year for this proclivity. I don’t think I’m alone, even though I feel like it. Medium isn’t helping either, it’s become an echo chamber of anxiety it seems. Everyone dumping their fears onto the page, stoking the black fire in each other, driving each other into puddles of helplessness. Curled up in our beds in the middle of the day, we spin and speculate on what’s to come.

But you’re not alone. I’m not alone. There are a lot of us; the people who want to hear the music of our friends and family, our ancestors.

The forces of power would have us alone. Scared shitless and scrolling Amazon to soothe ourselves. Scroll away! Facebook. Tik-Tok. Youtube. Algorithms divide us and isolate us and scare us shitless. Scared, alone and angry humans are humans that spend money recklessly, that “treat themselves” to things they don’t need or can’t afford. We drive ourselves into debt and become enslaved to the banks.

So do something. Right now. Shit or get off the pot. You’ve been thinking about stopping, you want to cut the noise out of your life. I know you do and I do too. But that sweet sweet dopamine is so hard to let go of. A few days of pain as the withdrawals set in, then you’re through the worst of it. I learned one thing through all my addiction recovery work — connection is the opposite of addiction. Admit you’re addicted. Then find connection!

Call your neighbor, or if you don’t have their number walk across the street and knock on their door. Find connection outside of the algorithm. Be vulnerable and reach out. Tell your friend you’re scared of what’s to come and host a weekly “family” dinner. Then do it again and again. Drop the social media dopamine hits. Take their power away. Just stop scrolling. Stop looking. Stop being scared and start connecting. Can you imagine what would happen if the world said no to the attention economy for two weeks at the same time? Even if half of us did it, if half of us unplugged from the algorithm, stopped giving our eyeballs as a blood offering to Mammon, the demon of greed? The stock prices would plummet. Jeffy, Musky and Zucky would panic.

We are the product and we don’t have to be. We can simply walk out of the door and be done with it all. We don’t have to feel divided and alone.

So let’s start a movement. A revolution. Will you do it with me? One that says fuck you to the forces of greed and power, that says I’m going to play a different game, an older game. Let’s show those anachronistic forces what fundamentalism truly means; the old ways with the old gods. The gods of the earth, of the land, of each other.

Our connection is broken. That’s why you’re scared. Why I’m scared. We believe we’re alone and there’s nothing we can do. This is a lie. We talk about the Big Lie these days, but we miss the biggest of them: “you’re powerless and alone.”

You’re. Not. Alone. I am with you. Millions and millions of us. All over the world. Strong people. Powerful people.

You’re not alone.

You’re not alone.

Say it out loud, “I’m not alone.” Feel that courage?

We need a union for everyone. So let’s get a little dangerous, a little naughty. We’re going to take a giant, steamy shit Jeffy — on the clock — in your warehouse, right in the middle of the floor. Your AI tracking software can go fuck itself. We need a bathroom break. Right now. You can come clean it up asshole. Wipe it up with your wad of cash, we don’t fucking need it.

We have each other!

So stop believing the lies. You like to call yourself woke? Or, are you a “red-piller” who isn’t one of the sheeples? Delusions, both of them. How can you claim either if you remain a zombie glued to the screen and isolated, the drip drip drip of the matrix tubes plunged into your neck and shoved down your throat? The confirmation bias feeding you like heroin. It feels good to feel smug, doesn’t it? What flavor do you like? Red or blue? It doesn’t matter to them, so long as you’re plugged in and alone and scared. Or angry. Anything to get you to click the ad. It’s so fucking banal, but it’s ruining our world. Do you see it?

Rip it all out and do it today. Because we’re running out of time.

Find each other again!

Let’s start a union. The biggest one the world has ever known. Liberal and conservative, you’re all invited. Because the enemy isn’t each other. We must see this. The forces of greed and power have found their way into our homes, into our consciousness, into our bedrooms. Our beds have become the factory floor; you and I are Jurgis Rudkis turned sideways with blue light punching the light out of our eyes. We’re the meat packers of the 21st century. Our sanity is being exploited and the conditions are killing us. The tendrils of greed have reached down into every crack and crevice.

It’s time we walked out, together. Let’s find each other again.

Will you do it with me?

It just takes a fool, somebody who will drop the ego and be vulnerable. A first mover. Can you imagine what we could do if we stopped the insanity and pulled together?

I need a bathroom break. Do you?

It’s backed up in there.

Let’s make a mess of it.

Then make them clean it up for a change.