Don't Say the "M" Word!
What Would Mohandas K. Gandhi Do If He Worked For Amazon.com? Read Entirely As If Your Soul Depended On It!
Whoever enters here honors me; whoever doesn’t- pleases me.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Live Yet Pre-recorded- Episode XCII of:
Don’t Say the “M” Word!
A Silent Radio Hour: Live Yet Pre-Recorded:
“I understand people believe I'm just a statistic
I say to them I'm different”
10th grader, Antwon Rose
POW: Once again we return to the Scene Of The Crime or SOTC here on “our” ‘A Silent Radio Hour’ live yet pre-recorded here at Reject Square in the Heart of Down-Town Seattle, Washington of the United States of Hey Stupid People! Wake-The-F-Up Here in a Land Formerly Known or RSHDTSWUSHSPWTFUHLFK as: America!
J&D: What he said!
POW: And since I said that! I’m gonna say this!
J: And what’s that Warren?
POW: We have ‘ta get right into TheSASMO’s commentary on Mohandas K. Gandhi and what Gandhi called ‘the passive violence that we commit against each other’ which he described as passive violence or the “Seven Blunders”.
D: The seven blunders Warren?
POW: Certainly Drew! Front and center! TheSASMO, please!
Wealth Without Work
Pleasure Without Conscience
Knowledge Without Character
Commerce Without Morality
Science Without Humanity
Worship Without Sacrifice
Politics Without Principles
Rights Without Responsibilities
TheSASMO: As stated by Gandhi’s Grandson Arun, Mohandas K. Gandhi was convinced that so much of the violence in society, any society, and in our personal lives, stems from the passive violence that we commit against one another and also allow against ourselves!
POW: Which’s committed against working people!
TheSASMO: Gandhi described these acts of passive violence as the “Seven Blunders”.
J: I counted eight blunders SASMO! What’s up?
TheSASMO: His Grandson added one! And in being Gandhi’s Grandson, I think he has every right to do just that! Anyway! Let’s look into these eight blunders and determine whether or not our “favorite” Multi-Nation “Evil” Corporation or MNEC existing and growing like a plague, here on planet blue, fits the bill?
POW: Sounds like fun! TheSASMO, please!
Wealth Without Work:
TheSASMO: This includes playing the stock market; gambling; sweat-shop slavery [TheAmazon]! Over-estimating one’s worth such as most heads of corporations drawing exorbitant salaries which are not always proportionate with the work they do.
J: You mean like CEO and founder of Amazon.com Jeff Bezos making nearly $7,000.00 a second while actually doing “nothing” to get out a customer order?
TheSASMO: Un-Righteously so! Now listen! Gandhi’s idea originates from the ancient Indian practice of Tenant Farmers In Zamindari or TFIZ!
D: Tenant Farmers In Zamindari or TFIZ SASMO?
TheSASMO: A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an aristocrat. Zamindar means land owner in Persian. Typically, traditional zamindars held enormous tracts of land and control over their peasants or what we are known these days as “TheWorkers” or TWs!
TheRejects: TheWorkers! TheWorkers! TheWorkers! TheSASMO stands up for TheWorkers!
TheSASMO: Righteously! Now keep listening! The poor were made to schlep on these farms while the rich sat back drinking Mint-Juleps while raking in all the profits! Sound familiar?
TheRejects: TheAmazon! TheAmazon! TheAmazon! The poor workers must schlep for TheAmazon!
TheSASMO: With capitalism and its materialism spreading so rampantly around the globe, a vast grey area between an honest day’s work and sitting back and profiting from other people’s labor’s become the sport of the rich!
TheRejects: TheBezos! TheBezos! TheBezos! The one who sits back while profiting from the peasants, we mean, the workers labor!
TheSASMO: Un-Righteously so! Now to conserve the resources of the world and share them equitably with all so that everyone can aspire to a good standard of living, Gandhi believed people should take only as much as they honestly need!
POW: But TheBezos desperately “needs” $150 billion and counting! The man has his needs, wants and hidden desires!
TheRejects: TheBezos! TheBezos! TheBezos! The man has “his” needs, wants and hidden desires!
TheSASMO: Un-Righteous as they may be! Look! The United States provides a typical example. “Our” country spends an estimated $200 billion a year on manufacturing cigarettes, alcohol and all sorts of products which harm people’s health or what I call Stupid Ass Scratching Stuff or SASS!
TheRejects: SASS! SASS! SASS! Stupid Ass Scratching Stuff’s grinding us into dust!
TheSASMO: Look! What “our” country, for example, spends in terms of providing medical and research facilities to provide and find cures for health hazards caused by over-indulgence in, once again mind-blowing Stupid Ass Scratching Stuff or SASS I must shout! Damn! There’s more than enough for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed! And so Gandhi believed!
TheRejects: TheBezos! TheBezos! TheBezos! TheBezos and his need for greed!
POW: Un-Righteous as it gets! Blunder number two! TheSASMO, please!
Pleasure Without Conscience:
TheSASMO: This’ connected to wealth without work! People find inventive, somewhat creative if not precarious ways of bringing excitement to their otherwise dull lives!
TheRejects: Dull! Dull! Dull! TheBezos Billions brings nothing but Sheol!
TheSASMO: Hell of a thing to suggest! Anyway! In the search for pleasure, the enthusiastic quest to actively believe that one’s truly, in reality, alive! More often then not, it ends up costing society a heavy price!
POW: How so TheSASMO?
TheSASMO: People take drugs; pound those energy drinks, play dangerous games which cause preventable, unnecessary health problems that cost the world hundreds of billions of dollars in direct and indirect health care costs!
TheRejects: What TheSASMO?
TheSASMO: Money that might be used to feed the poor; “our” children of TheAmazon! Hey Amazon.com! Pay higher wages! Make life better for THE whole of society and not just the Jeff Bezos’ of the world!
J: And more to this SASMO?
TheSASMO: Many of these problems are self-induced or ailments caused by careless attitudes. The United States spends more than $250 billion on leisure activities while 25 million children die each year because of hunger, malnutrition, and lack of medical facilities!
TheRejects: What TheSASMO?
TheSASMO: Regular working people at Amazon.com must actually “beg” governmental agencies for food to feed themselves and their “innocent” children!
TheRejects: What TheSASMO?
TheSASMO: Furthermore! Irresponsible and unconscionable acts of self-indulgence also cost the people and the country heavily. Not only do young people lose their childhood but innocent babies are brought into the world and more often then not left to the care of the general society. The emotional, financial, and moral price is heavy on everyone!
POW: What’s to be done SASMO?
TheSASMO: Pay people in the workplace what they’re worth: A living wage! Give them the respect which’s they’re due as human beings! Stop harming them in the workplace! At these places like the Amazon.com’s of this world!
TheRejects: TheSASMO! TheSASMO! TheSASMO! Let TheSASMO be TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: In point of fact! Gandhi believed pleasure must come from within the soul and excitement from serving the needy, from caring for the family, “our” children and relatives. He believed that building sound human relationships can be the most exciting and adventurous activity in a human lifetime! Unfortunately, we often ignore the spiritual pleasures of life and indulge in the physical pleasures which are, in Gandhi’s own words: ‘…pleasure without conscience!’
Knowledge Without Character:
TheSASMO: Our obsession with materialism tends to make us more concerned about acquiring knowledge so that we can get a better job and make more money.
J&D: Money! Money! Money!
J: And I wanna hear from everyone!
J&D&POW&TheSASMO&TheRejects&AmazonWorkers: ‘I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay Ain’t it sad
And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me That’s too bad
In my dreams I have a plan If I got me a wealthy man I wouldn't have to work at all, I'd fool around and have a ball... Money, money, money Must be funny In the rich man’s world Money, money, money Always sunny In the rich mans world Aha-ahaaa All the things I could do If I had a little money It’s a rich man’s world A man like that is hard to find but I can't get him off my mind Ain’t it sad And if he happens to be free I bet he wouldn't fancy me That’s too bad So I must leave, I'll have to go To Las Vegas or Monaco And win a fortune in a game, my life will never be the same... Money, money, money Must be funny In the rich man's world Money, money, money Always sunny In the rich man's world Aha-ahaaa All the things I could do If I had a little money It’s a rich man's world Money, money, money Must be funny In the rich man’s world Money, money, money Always sunny In the rich man's world Aha-ahaaa All the things I could do If I had a little money It’s a rich man's world It’s a rich man's world!’
D: That was fun!
POW: Yes! And that may well be! But be that as it may! Moving on with TheMahatma! TheSASMO, please!
TheSASMO: A lucrative career’s preferred to an outstanding character!
TheRejects! TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: Our educational centers emphasize career-building and not character-development!
TheRejects! TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: Look! Gandhi believed that if a human person was not able to understand a human person’s own self, one’s own life; than how can one understand the beauty, the lovely ascetic known as life?
D: Tell us how SASMO!
TheSASMO: Gandhi once told the story of a young man who was an outstanding student throughout his scholastic career. That he always maintained straight ‘A's’ in every subject and struggled harder and harder to sustain his grades. He became what’s known as a “work-alcoholic!” But listen! When he graduated with distinction and got a lucrative job, possibly for Amazon.com, he could not deal with people nor could he build relationships!
D: Why SASMO? Sounds horrible!
TheSASMO: It is! Hear this! He had no time to learn all those important aspects of life. Consequently, his life ended up being a misery. All those years of study and excellent grades did not bring him happiness! And you know what?
J&D&POW&TheRejects: What SASMO?
TheSASMO: There’s never a certainty that a person who is “successful” in amassing wealth or other Stupid Ass Scratching Stuff or SASS is necessarily happy! An education, a human existence that ignores character-building is incomplete! It’s what the Tibetan Buddhists call “Hungry Ghosts!”
POW: Sounds exactly like Amazonian Management or AM to me!
J: And the choir said?
TheRejects: AMEN!
TheSASMO: Righteously!
POW: Continuing! TheSASMO, please!
Commerce Without Morality:
TheSASMO: As in wealth without work! We indulge in Commerce or C without morality in order to make more money by any means possible! Price gouging! Palming off inferior products! Cheating and making false claims! Just a few of the obvious ways in which we indulge in Commerce or C without morality!
J: Plainly! Being TheAmazon!
POW: Is not this TheAmazon we all know and loathe?
J: And the choir said?
TheRejects: AMEN!
TheSASMO: Righteously! Truly! There are hundreds-of-thousands of other ways in which we do immoral or unethical business!
TheRejects: TheAmazon!
TheSASMO: When profit-making becomes the most important aspect of business; morals and ethics are usually thrown overboard!
TheRejects: TheAmazon!
TheSASMO: We cut benefits and never increase the wages of employees!
TheRejects: TheAmazon!
TheSAMO: If possible we employ “slave” labor, in the sweat shops known as Fulfillment Centers or FCs where workers are brutally exploited!
TheRejects: TheAmazon!
TheSASMO: Productivity numbers supersedes the needs of people!
TheRejects: TheAmazon!
TheSASMO: When business’ unable and/or unwilling to deal with labor it begins to mechanize!
TheRejects: TheAmazon!
TheSASMO: And automation and its computerization, and so it’s claimed, increases efficiency! But in reality it’s “launched” simply to make more money but getting “rid” of labor while causing more and more poverty!
TheRejects: TheAmazon!
TheSASMO: Alternate jobs may be created for a few but others will tumble by the wayside and languish! But who cares?
TheRejects: TheSASMO cares!
TheSASMO: People don’t matter at Amazon.com only production numbers! In more fancy language! What’s really being said here is that those who cannot keep up…
TheRejects: TheRejects!
TheSASMO: While maintaining the technological changes and demands of the “our” Amazonian Times or AT…
TheRejects: AT! AT! AT! Time to club TheAmazonian Bat!
TheSASMO: People! TheWorkers! We do not deserve to live in a conceptual nightmare of data-streaming algorithms which tyrannize us as if living in an Orwellian State of Mind or OSM! We TheWorkers will not be treated as criminals! As beggars! As layabouts who must be whipped by Amazonian Management or AM and their malevolent, malicious, incredibly spiteful ‘ADAPT FEEDBACK’ in order to get us to work! And Jonathan and TheRejects say?
J&TheRejects: Bullshit!
POW: Bullshit indeed! And wading in the muck known as TheAmazon even deeper! TheSASMO, please!
Science Without Humanity:
TheSASMO: Amazon.com uses in-real-time technology to discover increasingly more gruesome weapons of destruction that threaten to eventually wipe out its Warehouse Workers or WWs! Amazonian Management or AM says: ‘Rate don’t kill people, people kill people!’ What they don’t say is that if ‘people didn’t want to be treated in such a manner? Go work somewhere else!’ This is also pleasure without conscience! ‘When we cease to care for all life, even the life of Amazonian Associates or AA, we cease to respect life itself! Sorry to say! No other species on earth has brought more economic destruction than TheAmazon!
TheRejects: TheRejects: TheSASMO! TheSASMO! TheSASMO! Let TheSASMO be TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: Righteously! Productivity Numbers or “Rate” has made Amazonian Life or AL controlling! Made life fearful! The more we TheWorkers give, the more Amazonian Management or AM needs to protect and thus! The more ruthless Amazonian Management or AM becomes!
TheRejects: What TheSASMO?
TheSASMO: Workers are punished for not keeping up! They get hurt and no one cares! They’re written-up time and again! They feel violated over and over again! Many are forced by Low Amazon Pay or LAP…
TheRejects: LAP! LAP! LAP! It keeps coming back!
POW: Keeps coming back up like last night’s horrible gruel!
J: Which’s all the Amazonian Workers or AWs can afford because of Low Amazon Pay or LAP!
TheRejects: LAP! LAP! LAP! It keeps coming back!
TheSASMO: But the buying public will not bother to find out why, in times of plenty, workers have to live in hunger! Workers have to live in their cars! Workers abused, exploited by the manipulative ADAPT FEEDBACK Syndrome or AFS implemented by Amazonian Management or AM who tyrannize them into producing higher scores and greater numbers!
POW: And many of those workers cried!
J: ‘We’re not animals! We’re human beings! We deserve dignity and respect!’
TheRejects: And thus saith TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: We will get it “our” Dignity and Respect! We will not be stopped!
POW: And moving forward! TheSASMO, please!
Worship Without Sacrifice:
TheSASMO: One person’s faith in technology’s another person’s fantasy! When business becomes religion, becomes meaningless rituals practiced mindlessly at TheAmazon! When the Fulfillment Center or FC becomes a Temple! A church! A synagogues or mosque! And when the High Priesthood of Commerce or HPC’s entrusted with the duty of interpreting ‘Business Needs’ while all else screams in fear of hell, damnation, and purgatory for not adhering to Corporate Orthodoxy or CO: In the name of the Corporate Gods or CGs! All will have spawned more hate and violence than any government has ever committed!
TheRejects: Preach the truth SASMO!
TheSASMO: True religion; truth in a life based on spirituality, love, compassion, understanding, and appreciation of each other whatever our beliefs may be is more real than horrible Corporate Orthodoxy or CO!
TheRejects: Preach the truth SASMO!
TheSASMO: Faith! Ultimately all of us worship Truth because Truth is God! We cannot and will not worship a Business Plan or BP! We cannot and will not worship a Business Model or BM! We cannot and will not worship Capital or C because True Worship or TW demands sacrifice not just in terms of productivity numbers and what must be done in order to get them! Never! As was stated by Victor Hugo in his masterpiece: ‘Les Miserables’ ‘To love another person is to see the face of God!’ Commerce or C will never allow this!
TheRejects: Preach the truth SASMO!
TheSASMO: Righteously!
POW: And let us “Righteously” move forward! TheSASMO, please!
Politics without Principles:
TheSASMO: Commerce or C uses the power of politics to keep workers down! Big Business or BB uses government to exploit its workers with low pay! Harsh working conditions! Poor safety! Cruelty! Gandhi maintained that when Commerce or C and its whoring politicians indulge in power games, they act without principles! To remain in power at all cost is unethical! All partisan politics, lobbying, bribing, and other forms of malpractice that are so rampant in business and politics today is also unprincipled and this’ why business and politics has earned the reputation of being dirty.
POW: And dirtiest of them all?
J: Mirror, mirror on the wall? Who’s the dirtiest of them all?
TheRejects: TheAmazon! TheAmazon! TheAmazon!
J&POW: God damn right!
POW: And let’s finish up as we’ve already run outta time! TheSASMO, please!
Rights Without Responsibilities:
TheSASMO: Generally speaking! We are all willing to do anything to safeguard ourselves but not much to shoulder our responsibilities towards one another while creating a peaceful, harmonious, and understanding work environment! Why is this so?
TheRejects: Why SASMO? Why?
TheSASMO: Because so many are afraid! So many are unwilling to speak up! So many simply do not care! They are being what we call apathetic! Unwilling, due to a certain lack of interest, somewhat bored indifference, to stand up and be counted!
TheRejects: Why SASMO? Why?
TheSASMO: Because they just don’t believe that they’re able to make a difference and change their working environment at Amazon.com! But they are wrong!
TheRejects: Why SASMO? Why?
TheSASMO: Because they do not see the acutely intense, celebrated throughout the ages, power in “their” numbers! We can and will “force” Amazon.com to change its behavior toward its workers! Hell! Not “their” workers! We are TheWorkers! We have TheNumbers! We will prevail! We cannot, will not, be stopped!
TheRejects: Preach the truth SASMO!
POW: And thus endth TheSermon of TheSASMO!
J&D: Bye everybody!
* * *
To our cherished listeners out there hopefully believing that “our” ‘A Live Silent Radio Hour’ which’s live yet pre-recorded formerly at The Spank the Monkey Café in the heart of downtown Seattle, Washington of the United States of Here’s Still Hoping for the Fifth Aeon to Finally Come and Save Us All Here or USHSHFAFCSUAH in: America which’s quickly Slipping Into Darkness or SID! Hopefully, we’ll be back next time! Who knows? I’m Producer Only Warren or POW or Prisoner Of Weirdness here in what’s known as “Reject Square” where we’re now broadcasting live yet pre-recorded and so many thanks once again to “our” cherished listeners who are anticipating another Episode or E of ‘A Live Silent Radio Hour’! We’re so sorry that you have to live through these nasty “happenings” taking place daily here in America! I mean to say! Really SORRY! But I wish to thank all of you for tuning in once more while again leaving Any Semblance of Rational Thought or ASRT at the door as for the sake of TheBezos: How in the hell can you listen to silent radio? Never understood that one but hey folks! We’re back! (Inspirational Pause!) And please cherished “LISTENERS”, again return next time to hopefully Find-Out-the-Facts or FOFs concerning the nature and cause of our Collective Delusion or CD as we Tell Our Tale or TOT of Misery or M here in a land known as America! Please stay safe and always watch out for those Frenzied, Extremely Agitated Regrettables or FEAR who see their own reflection in the Mirrored Sunglasses or MSs of those who would Un-Naturally or UN ridicule our Blessed Way of Life here on Silent Radio or SR! And please! Make sure to thank TheBezos! And so I’m pretty certain! And Good Night Irene!
* * *
D: Jonathan?
J: Yes Drew?
D: Do you think TheMahatma would cry over how TheAmazon treats its workers?
J: There’d be a tempest of tears! And also, in the words of Bobby Dylan: ‘I heard the sound of the thunder that roared out a warning!’
D: And everybody better sing for their lives!
J&D&POW&TheSASMO&TheRejects&TheAmazonWorkers :‘Oh, where have you been My blue-eyed son? And where have you been
My darling young one? I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highways I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard And it's a hard, it's a hard It's a hard, it's a hard It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall Oh, what did you see My blue-eyed son? And what did you see My darling young one? I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin' I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin' I saw a white ladder all covered with water I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children And it's a hard, it's a hard It's a hard, and it's a hard It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall And what did you hear My blue-eyed son? And what did you hear My darling young one? I heard the sound of the thunder that roared out a warning I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin' I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin' I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin' I heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter I heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley And it's a hard, it's a hard It's a hard, it's a hard It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall Oh, what did you meet My blue-eyed son? And who did you meet My darling young one? I met a young child beside a dead pony I met a white man who walked a black dog I met a young woman, her body was burning I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow I met one man who was wounded in love I met another man who was wounded in hatred And it's a hard, it's a hard It's a hard, it's a hard It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall And what'll you do now My blue-eyed son? And what'll you do now My darling young one? I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin' I'll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest Where the people are many and their hands are all empty Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters Where their home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison And the executioner's face is always well-hidden Where hunger is ugly, where the souls are forgotten Where black is the color, where none is the number And I'll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it And reflect from the mountains so all souls can see it And I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin' But I'll know my song well before I start singing And it's a hard, it's a hard It's a hard, and it's a hard It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall!’
D: Jonathan?
J: Yes Drew?
D: TheAmazon doesn’t stand a chance!
J: Righteous Brother! Simply Righteous!