Soft Money by Ken Wishnia

Author:Ken Wishnia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 2013-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

People in the movement used to say, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” The Environmental Action Foundation is neither. Sometimes, when I’m feeling charitable, I wonder if maybe inaction is better than being a total swine, but—I don’t know. What would Jesus the rule-breaker have said? I know what my old revolutionary comrades-in-arms would have said: they would have purged me the old-fashioned way just for questioning them.

I’m waiting for the subway to take me down to the EPA building, thinking about that turd Zirkelback and what I’d like to do to him. Actually, I wish no worse on him than what he did to me, which in my case is quite a curse: for him to be pimped off and humiliated by his immediate superior someday while he’s making a salary he can barely live on and the rest of his life is in total turmoil.

I curse him for his “by the book” attitude, which is really a cover for what a putz he is. I once asked him if it would be possible for me to take a box full of programs home and transfer them to a cheap computer so I could work at home once in a while and be with my kid. His answer? “If you did, you’d be liable for prosecution and could spend ten years in jail for software copyright violation.” Yes, the word is putz.

He’s lived too short and privileged a life to understand that The Rule Book doesn’t cover it all. The Rule Book doesn’t cover what to do when you take a one-week temp job after being promised $250, and Friday afternoon the manager vanishes, leaving three guys with baseball bats telling you to get out of there. The Rule Book doesn’t cover working for a cocaine addict who keeps endangering your life by cutting corners and who takes in $20,000 a week but passes out rubber paychecks.

The train pulls in and I get on, thinking about all the lies they fed me about the social mobility this society offers, about how anyone can make it if you work hard and study, if you try. In reality, the system fears innovation and only rewards those who play along by whitewashing their alternative cultural values. And what if your “alternative” values include teaching peasants how to read a utility bill and figure out if the merchants are cheating them? Unprofitable. Pastoral work in the rice paddies? A living wage for all? Feeding the hungry? Meaningless. Smile and pretend you love doing everything the boss tells you. Lie at the interview. It works.

Chambers Street already? I get out and head for the back exit.

I think Gina did it on purpose. In the hour since I spoke to her, she has called up about a thousand miles’ worth of computer printout from the records library and requisitioned eight bank boxes full of files for me to look through.

“This is everything we know about Morse, Inc., and its subsidiary Unisystems,” says Gina.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.