Subterranean Homesick Union Blues

White middle-class blues. It is a thing.

In an era when people point fingers of "appropriation," can a White middle-class guy sing the blues?

Yes he can. He does.

Ralph Bowman has contributed some free-form rants in past months. They are unlike most of the blog posts here. They aren't descriptions of events and then an analysis of what I think it all means. They are mostly-unedited first-person poem-like prose pieces that express frustration and fury. They don't describe a document. They are a document. His rants remind me of Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues written in 1965 ("Twenty years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift. . .. Don't wear sandals, try to avoid the scandals. Don't want to be a bum, You better chew gum. The pump don't work, 'Cause the vandals took the handles.")

Bob Dylan had the advantage of youth. He was new, the world in front of him. Ralph Bowman is 82, deep into the last quarter of his game, and that is reason enough to rage, rage against the dying of America's light. He lives in an assisted living place in Grants Pass, Oregon, surrounded by Trump voters. He had a classic middle-class background, a B.A. from University of Redlands, an M.A. from USC; he was a teacher for 30 years, a sales manager for another 15. He is White and male.

What on earth does he have to complain about? He looks ahead to the life and future of his kids and grandkids and he doesn't see economic security and upward mobility. Bowman sometimes sounds like a socialist, sometimes like Archie Bunker. He wrote me in response to the rejection of unionization by Amazon employees in Alabama.

Guest Post by Ralph Bowman

Unions where, when, where, why, how?

My grandchildren are getting by--two in the military for life, third a true entrepreneur without a college education sells multimillion dollar homes in Montecito and Santa Barbara, another works for a college, another for a fire department , and the last sells used cars. Four will wind up with a civil servant pension. The other two will have to stash away enough to supplement their Social Security check with property investments that could be wiped out with a 2008 like depression.

The 401k is a joke. No one I know has saved enough to live out their life expectancy. My son spent his a long time ago recuperating from chemo for a tumor in his neck. As a salesman he could not work so could not earn commissions. So the end of the rainbow for most 50-and-over Baby Boomers, millennials--whatever--will be their SS CHECK, not enough to live in a house and eat and buy drugs, so many are learning to become work-ampers. They live in a van, trailer, 5th wheel, camp on BLM land and travel to part-time work sites like Amazon during Christmas, or picking sugar beets at harvest time, or becoming vacation camp hosts. A man or woman over 50 walking 600 miles on a concrete floor at 10 hour shifts in 10 weeks as a picker in an Amazon fulfillment center is burn-out work for any age and in addition being turned into a machine by being monitored in all their moves. These are the new nomads, hobos who are exploited in a never-ending cycle of part-time work for low pay. So where do they go to get re-educated? Many are already college graduates that lost their homes during the 2008 downturn. Just wait when this present workforce reaches retirement age--under the bridge will their final destination.

What’s the solution? A government pension that keeps up with inflation and the actual cost of living in the region where you live and you don’t have to be a damn Vet to receive it, yes, even a house wife who has never worked will receive it. 

Who pays for it? The large corporations who dumped pension plans, who made workers independent contractors, who have off-shored jobs and are reaping their huge margins in box stores. Others who hire illegals under the table, also those who take every loophole in the book to offshore profits, etc. Oh, yes and the feds who loan low-interest money and so kill saving accounts. My meager CDs earn zip.

Yea for education where? My grandson graduated from Central Point High School. I went to his back-to-school night and listened to the “science” teacher who had 5th-grade-quality projects because she had no supplies and was proud she had purchased a microwave at Goodwill to help with experiments. Ask a band teacher about how great it is to patch instruments and have car-washing parties to raise funds. And so what educated workforce are we producing? 

No vision, no taxation, just huge student debt even after attending a community college. Sloppy support, unfunded education, equals an ignorant populace. And then we have homeschoolers and fed money and tax breaks being given to parochial schools.

Only the well-connected with true wealth are fulfilling the American greed Dream.

Unions are organizing what, where, when. There is no there there only jobs with less than a 40-hour work-week to escape benefits. Punching air. Take what you can get and be prepared to live in your car or learn sofa cruising with your favorite relative.

I rest my case.