Let's Not Talk Politics -- LinkedIn Isn't Facebook

We all heard it, usually on any post that draws some attention, or on something that's at all controversial, like politics. "LinkedIn isn't Facebook." We're here to network.

I take that admonition to mean something like this, when decoded: "Shut the hell up in the hope that some recruiter will please, oh pretty please, oh with sugar on top, see my profile and save me and my family from destitution." Or maybe it means "I'm a Republican, and I don't want to admit that my boy Trump's response to Corona virus has been a disaster. That with 176,000 dead and over 5 million cases -- numbers that are sure to be low by the time you read this -- Americans can no longer travel the world over as respected members of the international community."

Those days of the ugly American are gone -- because we can't leave the country. Here we are shut-ins -- isolated from the world, a pariah. We live in a shit-hole country where the government steals your mailbox to prevent you from voting. Where Latinos are rounded up under the cloak of darkness and sent to detention camps. Yeah, that's still a thing, but the news cycle has moved on. Protest peacefully? Oh yeah -- we got your tear gas and your "non-lethal" projectiles here. Oh, sorry, did you get some law and order in your eye? Whoopsie.

If you're older, in your seventies, the cops just push you over so you hit your head.

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

"Oh, but John, in this country, you can post this article. You have freedom of speech!"

Yes, that's true -- for now. For today, that's still true. But did you think five years ago you'd see us throwing kids in cages while the right made excuses for it? Did you think even six months ago the Federal Government that runs the post office would be taking away your mailboxes so you couldn't vote?

So if you're scared and you've lost your job in the pandemic, a time of high unemployment, and you don't want to talk politics because you're praying some recruiter will reach out to you today and save your family from another day in the bread line, I totally get it. (Seriously though, if that's where you are, hit me up, I might be able to help out a bit).

As for me. I am fortunate -- nay, privileged, in the parlance of Black Lives Matter. White, male, cis-gender, native English speaker. A quarter century resume in a variety of programming languages. My wife and I both have jobs we like, I probably won't make a move for several years if at all unless I have to, and if I do, I know I can always -- as the song says -- "get a haircut and get a real job" at my convenience. I will make this bow to fear, which also happens to be true: My opinions are my own and have nothing to do with my present employer one way or the other.

Still, if I lose the job I have, I can make a few phone calls and be working on some soul-stealing contract at a Charlotte bank within a few weeks. So my privilege manifests itself in being able to use LinkedIn like Facebook if that's what I feel like doing on a given day.

Outside of just being scared and jobless, you might find yourself affronted by this discussion if you're just a sensitive right-wing soul who still thinks that pulling the lever for a sociopath with a resume as of reality TV and serial bankruptcies was the smartest move you ever made.

If that's the case, let me try as hard as I can to be nice to you. My candidate, Joe Biden, has asked us to bring civility back. So, I'm trying here. I'm not sure I can muster civility just yet because I'm not the man that he is. So let me just say this: I wish you well. As I've learned we say here down south: Bless your heart.

You enjoy your day, there, Precious.

The rest of us will be over here working on fixing this shit and getting our mailboxes back.