a short rant

I don't know much about much, but I know about working for a living. I know that if you visit any blue-collar grind, you'll find hollow-eyed exhausted people who believe work is necessary and important... even noble. They have to believe that. Otherwise they start counting up the years spent breaking themselves on the wage-slave rack, ruining their knees and their backs, trading their best years for a paltry paycheck, a few mean crumbs from their overlord's groaning table. Too much of that kind of reflection and one day the headlines scream of yet another workplace rampage, well-coiffed television personalities gushing breathlessly over the body count in between commercial breaks. Disgruntled employees are always filed under "deranged" or "psychopathic." The clarity that leads one to stalk his boss with a high-powered rifle is deliberately misunderstood. To do otherwise would be to invite carnage to retail outlets, offices, and what few manufacturing facilities remain. So the "deranged psychopath" meme is carefully fed to the toiling masses in easy to digest soundbites. They nod soberly before resuming their scutwork, but if you look carefully into their eyes, you can see a troubled doubt, just a glimmer that's soon gone, but it was there. They know something is dreadfully wrong with their lives, but they blame themselves. If only they'd tried harder in school. If only they'd chosen a different military specialty. If only they'd taken night classes. Their corporate masters keep the screws turned tight so that doubt is never directed at them, its rightful target. The real tragedy is that we don't have more corporate massacres.