Don't Say the "M" Word!
Is New York’s Amazon Overthrow a Turning Point in Capitalism?
Whoever enters here honors me; whoever doesn’t- pleases me.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Live Yet Pre-recorded- Episode Six of:
Don’t Say the “M” Word!
A Silent Radio Hour!
“I understand people believe I'm just a statistic
I say to them I'm different”
10th grader, Antwon Rose
“De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace!” [“Audacity, audacity, always audacity!”]
-Georges Danton
“The power of the powerless!”
-Vaclav Havel
NO MORE!
TheBecka: Welcome back cherished listeners! And believe me when I say! Truly! We have “the” special guest to beat all specials guests that you might imagine!
D: Even more special than when we had Mr. Robert De Niro or MRDN on “our” show? Twice!
J: He wasn’t a guest Drew! He just showed up to chastise us for bothering him with “our” constant invitations which Warren sent inviting him to appear on “our” show!
WAR: I never wanted to do that! He yelled at me as well!
TheBecka: Back on point people! Today’s guest is the renown Economist Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW!
J: And so why’s he such a big deal TheBecka?
TheBecka: Let me read his bio! Richard Wolff’s an American Marxist economist well known for his work on Marxian economics, economic methodology and class analysis.
D: A Marxist? Isn’t that illegal! Mr. Robert De Niro or MRDN might show up this time with the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and Homeland security in tow!
WAR: You forgot ICE Drew! You and Jonathan are Canadian after all! Deportation city guys!
J: No we’re not Warren! Jonathan and Drew, the REAL Property Brothers are Canadian! We just pretend to be them and thus: Canadian!
WAR: Didn’t help last time guys!
D: Froze my cojónes off in Alberta last year when we were deported by ICE!
TheBecka: Can we get back on point fellows? That was rhetorical Jonathan! So then! Richard Wolf’s Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York!
J&D&WAR: New York City?
TheBecka: Thanks for your support guys! Rhetorical Jonathan! Rhetorical! Professor Wolff has also taught economics at Yale University! City University of New York! University of Utah! University of Paris at Sorbonne! And The Brecht Forum in New York City!
J: Most impressive!
WAR: A real Jedi-economist Knight now isn’t he!
TheBecka: In 1988 he co-founded the journal ‘Rethinking Marxism.’ In 2010! Wolff published ‘Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It’ which was also released as a DVD!
J: Use the force Richard! Use the force!
TheBecka: He released three new books in 2012: ‘Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism’ with David Barsamian! ‘Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian’ with Stephen Resnick and ‘Democracy at Work.’
TheSASMO: TheBecka! You missed he’s most recent work: ‘Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens’ a real show stopper! I’m reading it even as we speak!
J: And I’m certain you can buy that at Amazon.com, TheSASMO?
TheSASMO: Never buy anything that’s fulfilled by TheAmazon! I work in one of their House Of Horrors or HOH warehouses and I know how they treat the merchandise! Especially books!
TheBecka: Pardon me TheSASMO! Now let me finish! Professor Wolff hosts the weekly hour-long radio program ‘Economic Update’ on WBAI, 99.5 FM, a New York City Pacifica radio affiliate!
J: But does he do “Silent” radio?
TheBecka! Shut up Jonathan! To conclude! Professor Wolf’s featured regularly in television! Print! And internet media! The New York Times Magazine has named him ‘America’s most prominent Marxist economist’. Wolff lives in Manhattan with his wife and frequent collaborator, Dr. Harriet Fraad a practicing psychotherapist! You “fellows” might want to get in contact with her!
PRDW: If I might interject here! TheSASMO? Strange name by the way!
WAR: The acronym stands for The Stupid Ass Scratching Mark Oglesby! TheSASMO!
PRDW: Okay? Now TheSASMO? Why do you feel that having Amazon.com “fulfill” you purchase is a bad idea? And why do you call Amazon’s warehouses House Of Horrors or HOH?
WAR: You really wanna get him started Professor Richard David Wolf or PRDW?
J: Seriously! We could be here for days! Weeks! Months! I mean to say Professor Richard David Wolf or PRDW! TheSASMO has the ability to literally ‘Talk Your Ear Off’ or TYEO!
PRDW: You people seem to have a fetish for acronyms! Speaking of which! My wife’s a brilliant psychotherapist! May I leave her card?
TheSASMO: Learned the acronyms working at Amazon.com! Anal people those Amazonians or AAs! Personally! Those anal Amazonian freaks need your wife’s professional services! And yes! Probably Drew as well!
D: Thank you TheSASMO! You make me feel? Oh? Yes! So special!
PRDW: I’ll leave a handful here on the table! By the way? How’d I get here? I opened my apartment door to leave for the office but ended up here! Wherever “here” is?
TheBecka: Professor Richard David Wolf or PRDW! You’re presently on “our” ‘A Silent Radio Hour’ live yet pre-recorded inside The Spank the Monkey Café in downtown Seattle, Washington kitty-corner to HQ1 of The Mighty Amazon.com!
J: Land of the Free! And home of the brave!
INSIDE THEAMAZON!
BEZOS! BEZOS! BEZOS! All praise to TheBEZOS!
PRDW: Impossible to argue with that! Now about Amazon.com? TheSASMO as you call yourself? What’s your beef?
TheSASMO: Beef # 1!
PRDW: Sorry TheSASMO! But would it be possible to get something to drink? I’m a little thirsty what with the inter-dimensional travel and all!
W: How about some Good Ole Fashioned Chinese Green Tea or GOFCGT sold by Mother Eu-funh or Playful Phoenix, a Mom and Pop Corner Tea Store in Hong Kong, China or MEPPMPCTSHKC and popcorn?
PRDW: Oh yes please! I could use some Good Ole Fashioned Chinese Green Tea or GOFCGT sold by Mother Eu-funh or Playful Phoenix, a Mom and Pop Corner Tea Store in Hong Kong, China or MEPPMPCTSHKC and popcorn just about now! And yes! I’m a little hungry as well!
W: Such a wonderfully gentleman!
J&D&TheBecka&WAR: Us too! Us too! We’d like some Good Ole Fashioned Chinese Green Tea or GOFCGT sold by Mother Eu-funh or Playful Phoenix, a Mom and Pop Corner Tea Store in Hong Kong, China or MEPPMPCTSHKC and popcorn, please!
W: Not to worry my darlings! There’s plenty here for everyone!
J&D&TheBecka&WAR&PRDW: Thank you!
W: You are all so very welcome! Be right back with your Good Ole Fashioned Chinese Green Tea or GOFCGT sold by Mother Eu-funh or Playful Phoenix, a Mom and Pop Corner Tea Store in Hong Kong, China or MEPPMPCTSHKC and popcorn!
J&D&TheBecka&WAR&PRDW: Thank you!
TheSASMO: Beef # 1! TheAmazon aggressively has kept union organizing out of its workplaces! Anyone who becomes known as a union organizer’s in danger of termination!
D: They haven’t terminated you TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: Not yet Drew! Not yet! We shall see? Okay now! Beef # 2! Amazon warehouse “so-called” safety’s a JOKE! Amazon.com’s consistently amongst what’s termed as: ‘The Dirty Dozen’ or more precisely: The worse culpable safety offenders in America!
MRDW: Is Amazon.com really that horrible?
TheSASMO: Here’s Amazon’s official policy! (1) Safety! (2) Quality! (3) Productivity or what’s called “numbers!”
MRDW: And this means TheSASMO?
TheSASMO: That whatever needs to be done to hit the productivity numbers for the day! The Week! The Month! Or the Year! Any and every short-cut no matter how unsafe will be carried out to get the “programmed” results! High or low! It matters not! Get those numbers or parish!
D: You mean terminated TheSASMO?
TheSASMO: Absolutely! That’s what I mean! And this leads me directly into Beef # 3!
J&WAR: You go TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: Amazon.com has this abysmal, truly appalling, some might suggest horrendous; inexcusable, unspeakable, atrocious, surely off-the-charts horrifying system wherein: disgusting, beyond “any” serious doubt: Outrageous! Faithfully speaking: HR implicated! Drawn in scandalous! Stress sickening if not physically disgusting! Almost hellish, in a literal sense; stomach-turning nauseatingly vile and indeed the ever-present contemptible rating system known as ADAPT FEEDBACK! What the tormented merely call “RATE!”
MRDW: That’s quite the “beef” you have there TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: Hey Richard! I was being nice! Especially to HR!
WAR: TheSASMO calls them The HR Hit Squad or THRHS!
J: Trouble in paradise Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW! Simply trouble in paradise!
TheSASMO: And all sarcasm aside! What this system does! Not only to the workers and cowardly, moronic management! But to overall efficiency is this: Amazon.com’s FC or Fulfillment Center Chain operates in ineptitude, wastefulness, disorganized incompetence! Everything in its operation’s economically reckless, licentiously dissolute, materially squandering, forcefully illiterate, uninformed, unaware ill-mannered impolite inconsiderate if not boorish behavior whereas selfish minded, thoughtless, insensitive wholely unfeeling tactlessly unsympathetic thick-skinned Amazonian Amdroids wrestle anything wholesome, natural and nourishing; decent, moral and honestly ethical to the ground! Wherein honorable, principled people are cast aside for the above mentioned Amazonian Amdroids!
MRDW: And verification if not confirmation that your argument’s correct?
TheSASMO: Amazon Retail loses $2 billion a quarter or $8 billion annually! It all comes down to the overall inefficiency brought about by the before mentioned ADAPT FEEDBACK! What the tormented merely call “RATE!”
MRDW: I get your point TheSASMO!
TheBecka: And back onto point everybody! Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW, please!
Is New York’s Amazon Overthrow a Turning Point in Capitalism?
MRDW: In recent! Highly publicized events! Huge global mega-corporations humiliated the same public officials who had earlier begged and bribed them to locate in their jurisdictions! Amazon did that to New York’s governor and New York City’s mayor.
INSIDE THEAMAZON!
BEZOS! BEZOS! BEZOS! All praise to TheBEZOS!
MRDW: Foxconn did it to President Trump and Wisconsin’s Governor Walker. In both cases, top corporate officials made decisions that exposed public officials to major public criticism! Opposition! And contempt!
J&WAR: Trump! Trump! Trump! Dump Donald “The” Chump!
MRDW: In a New York Minute or NYM!
J: You’ve been converted Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW! Welcome to The Anal Amazonian Acronyms or TAAAs!
MRDW: Listen! And thanks for the compliment! Now! At issue were public officials’ offers of billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies if only the megacorporations would locate some of their operations in the communities “represented” by those public officials. Corporate and public officials! Aided by an ever complacent mainstream media! Focused on the jobs to be “created.”
D: So what’s wrong with that Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW? They say they’re creating jobs!
MRDW: As usual! The job promises were vague on details of these “prospective” jobs! Such as how many job holders would be “new” versus existing employees relocated from other areas!
TheSASMO: Also Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW! To jobs that’ll stay in the area! TheAmazon opened a facility in my city of Moreno Valley, ca. Between 2,500 and 3,000 jobs! That was four years ago! Today? We’ll be lucky to have 1,000 due to Amazon’s shift to apparel only! Did TheAmazon ask my community about its position? NO!
J&D&WAR: What TheSASMO? What TheAmazon?
TheSASMO: What TheAmazon this! TheAmazon hires between 100,000 and 200,000 workers annually! How many stay into a new year? Maybe 10% or less!
MRDW: Exactly TheSASMO! When Foxconn officials later sharply reduced their investment plans from huge promises made earlier? Exposed public officials scrambled! They sought to minimize their public humiliation and consequent condemnation!
J: Walker had to walk!
MRDW: Straight to some multi-national corporation giving him a high paying position for towing-the-line! For cow-towing to the corporations! Look! Having deflected scarce public resources! What we call “taxpayer funds” to enhance profits of already super rich corporations! They were then shown to have also been hustled by them. The mega-corporations had changed plans entirely on their own despite the social effects of doing so! While exposed public officials quickly drew new corporate promises! The public disgust grew! As it should!
D: Will Foxconn get to keep their tax breaks Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
MRDW: If Wisconsin politicians have the nerve to stand-up and fight! Yes Drew! I believe Foxconn can be driven out of the state!
D: How Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
MRDW: Cancel the contracts and start over again! Should Foxconn complaint as TheAmazon always does? Let them go to court and see how far they get! Wisconsin has the home field as well as the home team support! It’s like in New York! Political opposition to the proposed deal with Amazon exploded! It can and will in Wisconsin! Working people are angry and they’re not going to take it anymore! Good luck Foxconn! You’ll need it as people everywhere in this nation are organizing!
D: Like TheSASMO organizes ONT6?
TheSASMO: Yes Drew! In the end! We’ll win!
MRDW: Union organizing?
TheSASMO: You got it! And with the number of hourly workers in the building now! The easier it’ll be to get and stay organized! Not to mention! People are simply pissed-off what with the present “PURGE” to cut employee numbers!
J&WAR: Stop at-will employment now!
MRDW: Don’t stop TheSASMO!
TheSASMO: Don’t plan on it! Here’s another acronym Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW? Try this on for size! PITA!
MRDW: PITA?
TheSASMO: Pain-In-The-Ass!
J: On steroids!
WAR: Look out ONT6 management!
D: I sure wouldn’t want to be around ONT6!
TheBecka: Back on point please! Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW!
MRDW: Back in New York! Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio had worked out the details with Amazon but had not truly engaged with many local communities and interests affected by building its proposed “headquarters campus.”
J: Sounds normal for “our” politicians!
MRDW: Cuomo and de Blasio scrambled to “manage” the political fallout! As opponents called attention to the ways in which they’d begged Amazon…
J&WAR: On hands and knees!
MRDW: Begged to choose New York and “bribed” the company with billions of dollars in public monies! Many New Yorkers clearly wanted that money to go instead to state and city infrastructures and public services generally.
TheSASMO: To worker co-operatives!
MRDW: The wave of the future!
TheSASMO: And companies like Amazon.com better look out! It’s a worldwide phenomenon! Picking up speed and spreading like the anti-corporation plague!
J: Turn your head and cough Mr. Jeff Bezos please!
WAR: One digit or two?
MRDW: Unprepared for the intensity and breadth of popular opposition! Jeff Bezos suddenly changed his plans and cancelled the building of a New York Amazon headquarters! He did so with even less consultation of the affected communities and politicians than had gone into the initial plans!
TheSASMO: Bezos was kinda standing there naked! Exposed for what he is! A con-man running his Amazonian Ponzi Scheme or APS!
Public opposition to Amazon was stunning not only in the speed of its formation and growth, but also in its implications!
MRDW: The New York vs. Amazon story in the context of the Foxconn vs. Wisconsin story may mark a major historic turning point in how US capitalism works! Public opposition to Amazon was stunning not only in the speed of its formation and growth!
J&D: You go New Yorkers!
MRDW: But also in its implications! The promise of “bringing jobs” no longer silenced opposition to the humiliation of begging and the costs of bribing! So similar to promises made so often done in the past!
D: What did the New Yorker’s do Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
MRDW: Drew! A coalition quickly formed from a variety of groups opposed to Amazon’s deal with the governor and mayor. Some were local groups who feared some of the likely effects…
J: Which would be?
MRDW: Rising rents! Housing costs! Traffic congestion! Added pressure on already inadequate public services and infrastructures, and so on!
TheSASMO: Look at what’s happening in my hometown! Warehouses everywhere! Big-rig after big-rig tearing up our streets! Noise! Higher air pollution! Congestion! And it just doesn’t stop!
MRDW: Agreed! There were politicians and their supporters who resented having been excluded from the Amazon deal-making by other politicians! Still others were political activists who had already opposed public tax monies to subsidize private businesses! For so many! The Amazon deal was the biggest and thus most egregious example! The coalition galvanized remarkable public support quickly!
J&D: GO! GO! GO! You GO New Yorkers!
MRDW: Now! Retrospective questions are being asked about the many sports stadiums across the U.S. that were publicly subsidized based on belief in such promises! Likewise! Questions are rising yet again about the rich private universities, already tax-exempt, that keep securing public subsidies for their expansions!
J&D&WAR: And Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
MRDW: And this guys! Corporations not only invite public officials to beg and bribe for their relocation to those officials’ jurisdictions. Corporations also often threaten to leave unless local politicians provide new or enlarged subsidies and tax-breaks to keep them!
TheSASMO: Like in Seattle when the “head tax” was passed!
MRDW: Exactly! In countless cities, counties, states and countries, public “economic development” offices became little more than “beg and bribe” operations aimed at corporatocracy!
D: Corporatocracy Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
MRDW: Rule by corporation Drew! Public money thus flows into private profits! PUBLIC MONEY! As in! TAX PAYER’S MONEY! The rich become richer while public services get pinched!
D: In what way Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
MRDW: Austerity sets in! Rents rise! Homelessness increases! Working people suffer! Children go hungry!
D: Bad form TheAmazon!
TheBecka: Thank TheBezos children!
J&D&WAR&TheSASMO: Thank you Jeff Bezos!
J: Bad Bezos! Bad dog! Bad dog!
MRDW: Bad to the bone! However! Eventually! Such mechanisms of inequality provoke pushback. In 2018 and since, for example! Public school teachers’ strikes finally began to reverse decades of under funded public education and the resulting socially divisive escape into charter schools! Popular rejection of the begging and bribing system is growing stronger!
J&D&WAR: SUCK IT TheBezos!
TheSASMO: Take your God damned ball and run home! You’re not wanted unless you’re willing to accept participation of all the communities where you set up shop!
MRDW: In some places, yes! But corporations have little incentive to end the begging and bribing: quite the opposite. Top politicians from both parties long ago lost qualms about begging and bribing. Refusing to do so risked their political careers.
D: How do we stop it Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
J&WAR: Vote the whore politicians out-of-office!
TheSASMO: Kick TheAmazon’s Ass outta “our” communities! Make TheAmazon get on its hands and knees while begging to stay! If this took place everywhere in America? Everywhere in the world? TheAmazon would change how they do business wherever they are! Wherever they wish to be!
MRDW: Now as to “our” as you say! “Whore politicians”! Critics and opponents would charge them with failure to “bring jobs.” Corporations not satisfied with one politician’s beg-and-bribe program could easily find another with “a more attractive” offer. By supporting electoral victories for the latter! Corporations got the deals they wanted. Ever more dependent on money to fund costly campaigns! “Our” whore politicians cemented their alliances with corporate leaders! Foxconn and Amazon stories illustrate “our” case-in-point!
J: What else Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
MRDW: It goes like this Jonathan! In begging and bribing! The bigger and richer cities, suburbs and states usually outdid their smaller and poorer counterparts! The hollowing out of smaller cities and towns across the U.S. flowed from this corporate-driven competition as much as from technical changes, globalization, and so on.
D: No!
MRDW: Similarly Drew! The locations that begged and bribed best became sites of gentrification.
D: Gentrification Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
MRDW: Relocating jobs based on competitive subsidization encountered serious housing problems. Where jobs arrived, demand for housing drove up home prices and/or rents, forcing millions out of their homes. Where jobs left, housing prices and rents collapsed with all the usually attendant social problems. By now the differences in housing costs across the country, after decades of beg and bribe, are little short of scandalous.
J&WAR: And we all eventually end up on Tobacco Road!
J: Just gotta do this one! We’re singing a sad song! Load and clear! Let TheAmazon know we’re alive and fighting! To the death!
J&D&TheBecka&WAR&TheSASMO&MRDW: ‘I was born in a trunk. Mama died and my daddy got drunk. Left me here to Die or Grow In the middle of Tobacco Road. Growin’ up rusty shack, All I had was hangin’ on my back. Only you know how I loathe This place called Tobacco Road. But it’s home, the only life I ever known. Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road. Gonna leave, get a job With the help and the grace from above. Save some money, get rich and old, Bring it back to Tobacco Road. But it’s home, the only life I ever known. Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road. Bring that dynamite and a crane, Blow it up, start all over again. Build a town, be proud to show. Gives the name Tobacco Road!’
MRDW: The root problem’s this! Which enterprises exist and grow or shrink in a locale shapes everything else about it. Enterprises link to incomes, housing, education, transportation, etc! The quality of lives in any community depends, among other things, upon the enterprises located there! Upon what they produce! What technologies they deploy! How they organize the relationships among job-holders there! And how they use and distribute the revenues their output yields!
TheSASMO: We the workers must! Will! Have a say in which companies come to town! And how these companies will behave! BEWARE TheAmazon! It’s coming to ONT6!
MRDW: Agreed! Now! To permit the profits of enterprise owners and the interests of directors and top management to govern enterprise decisions to be their “bottom line” objective! Here’s the root bad practice that needs changing!
D: How Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
MRDW: That bad practice contradicts! And thereby undermines the democratic decisions made by members of a community! It makes our communities dependent instead on capitalist enterprises’ decisions and organization! This must change!
D: Again! How Mr. Richard David Wolf or MRDW?
TheSASMO: Democracy in the workplace!
MRDW: Most definitely! Look! A small minority within each capitalist enterprise decides when and where it locates or relocates its activities! What technologies it deploys! How it organizes people and functions within it! And how it utilizes its revenues! Together! These owners, directors and top executives of the enterprises function as unaccountable controllers of “our” communities!
TheSASMO: Key here! “OUR” COMMUNITIES! NOT THEIRS! We live here not them! If we stand united? We can make them change! And if they won’t? Push their asses out! Look out TheAmazon! The New Yorkers have shown the way! Others will follow! Just wait and see! Workers Co-operatives are on the rise! Sooner or later! We’ll all come to discover that we don’t need you and “your” shitty corporations anymore!
MRDW: And we certainly don’t need this! The resulting unevenness of our rural and urban landscapes! The pervasiveness of inequality! Our money-driven politics! And the humiliating spectacles of beg-and-bribe are building to a long overdue historic turn! By TheSASMO! Capitalist structures of enterprise now threaten and dissolve community in so many ways and on so many levels that increasing numbers like so many in New York and Wisconsin have decided to step up and stop it!
TheSASMO: And you Jeff Bezos and others like you are to blame!
J&D&WAR&TheBecka&MRDW: You preach it TheSASMO!
The Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12: 13-21):
TheSASMO: Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man [TheBezos] yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself [TheBezos], “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him [TheBezos], ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you [TheBezos]! Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself[ TheBezos]?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God. [TheBezos]”
TheBecka: And to that! We say: God Night Irene!
WAR: And possibly! Good night Jeff Bezos!
J&D: Bye now!
NO MORE!
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To our cherished listeners out there hopefully believing that “our” ‘A Live Silent Radio Hour’ which’s live yet pre-recorded 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? Now listen! I’m Becka formerly known as Reject # 2 now known as TheBecka! I’m here in what’s known as The Spank the Monkey Café 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 TheDonald: 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” return once again 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 formerly known as America! Please stay safe and always watch out for those Frenzied, Extremely Agitated Regrettables or FEAR “Neo-Liberals” 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 TheDonald! And so I’m pretty certain! And Good Night Irene!
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D: Jonathan?
J: Yes Drew?
D: Where do you think that people like Jeff Bezos are headed when they die?
J: That’s a SASMO question Drew!
WAR: He’s a trainer theologian as we all know!
J: Heard him say it a time or two!
D: An answer TheSASMO please?
TheSASMO: Imagine a place where you consume but are never filled! A place of want and desire! A location of harm and suffering! A position where sight can see but where the yearning’s maintained day and night! Hell’s universal Drew! And so is greed! Try this one on for size!
A hungry unfulfilled mob trampled to death a Walmart security agent on a “Black Friday”! They were a crowd of Hungry Ghosts! See here! Greed’s a failure to choose! To choose what? Let us suggest that there are things more important than Stupid Ass Scratching Stuff or SASS offered by the likes of Amazon.com!
It’s all a lie! You will never be content until you reach a place inside yourself where you are satisfied with yourself! Again! TheBezos’ of this realm of hungry ghosts are lairs! They want to be worshiped for what they’ve achieved! But ask a hungry ghost: ‘Are you fulfilled?’ Their reply will haunt you forever! ‘No! I’m hungry for fulfillment all the time!’ It never ends! And thusly? Hellish!
The inhabitants of the Hungry Ghost Realm are depicted as creatures with scrawny necks! Small mouths! Emaciated limbs! Large, bloated, empty bellies! This’ the domain of addiction! You choose your addiction as they’re all the same! Correct Mr. Bezos?
The Hungry Ghost Realm’s a place where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment! It’s that constant aching emptiness which’s perpetual because the substances, those objects or pursuits we hope will soothe us are not what we really need! We don’t know what we need! And so long as we stay in the hungry ghost mode? We’ll never know! Our lives are imaginary because we are never fully present!
INSIDE THEAMAZON!
BEZOS? BEZOS? BEZOS? What the Hungry Ghosts?
NO MORE!
The Post Meeting Social or PMS:
TheBecka: Kinda hard to close here! Any suggestions?
WAR: Just one! Jonathan, please!
J: And taking it to the streets! We’re fighting for “our” very lives here people! With passion and resolve! There’s more to life than ‘My MTV’!
J&D&TheBecka&WAR&Any One Who Cares About “OUR” Democracy! Cares about finding out who were are? Where we come from? Where we’re headed? What we desire to be or not to be which’s quite the question: ‘You don’t know me but I’m your brother I was raised here in this living hell You don’t know my kind in your world Fairly soon the time will tell You, telling me the things you’re gonna do for me I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets Take this message to my brother You will find him everywhere Wherever people live together Tied in poverty’s despair Oh, you, telling me the things you’re gonna do for me I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the Oh, you, telling me the things you’re gonna do for me, yeah I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see Takin’ it to the streets takin’ it to the streets Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets Takin’ it to the streets, takin’ it to the streets!’
NO MORE!