Postcards from Podsville #17.

Insolence...

I heard that one recently in this letter about the whole Joey Ratz deal...

Link.

I've always had trouble with the whole concept of
"insolence".
At least in the context that authority figures, and their toadies love to use it.
Well, heck, like slimy apologists like Melanie Philips use it.
And that's how I've always heard it used in my life.
Some thuggy little tinpot didn't get their precious slice of obedience, so you're "insolent!".

I've become pretty sure that's what the word was really made for.
You never hear a construction worker say to another construction worker "insolent whelp!!".
Never happens, never gonna happen.

Insolence, eh?

Why is it supposed to be a bad thing, exactly?
No one ever bothered to sell me on that properly.

Always seemed to me, its diametric opposite, head-bowed, blind, scraping deference to authority was a thing to be avoided at all cost.

School taught me pretty quickly that virtually no one in charge
deserved to be.
In the 30 years since kindergarten, I have yet to see anything that's
convinced me otherwise.

That's the secret I wanna pass on to you kiddies out in cyberland.

Y'know, one of those "deadly truths", Leo Strauss was so a'skeered of.

Virtually no one in charge deserves to be.

*Holds hand to ear listening for an apocalyptic explosion*

Nope, we're still here, anarchy hasn't ensued.

So, I'll continue.

I remember an instance, back at my second tour of duty at Toys R Us, I was out in the supply room, getting some shit, and the store manager, and his loathsome little lick-spittle (is there any other kind?) were having a little bitch-session about us.

"Us", being the night-crew.

Flat out saying "this nightcrew sucks, blah, blah, blah, nightcrew fucking sucks, blaugh, blaugh".

And the lick-spittle was like "yeaah...yeah...fuggin, nightcrew...yeeaaah".

So, I crossed my arms, smirked, and leaned against the cross members of the nearest shelf, and looked at them, and listened in on the whole thing.
Just dropped my work entirely, and enjoyed the show, and made sure they saw me.

They saw me.
They didn't care, they just plowed ahead with the bile.

And I didn't care that they didn't care.
Hey, if we sucked so much, doesn't matter if we try hard, or not, right?
We'll just suck anyway.
So, fuck 'em.
I just stood there, watching, and finally, the douche ran out of bile, and they took it elsewhere.

Well, I always got the sense they didn't want to make it look like I'd made them uncomfortable, so the manager wrapped up his particular ugly little paragraph, tried to make it sound like it was the whole thing, and no doubt continued his bitch session at the other end of the store.
Y'know, to look cool for his toadie.
*Eye rolls at the lameness*

Now, another story.
Back at Wal-Mart.
They had this thing you had to do called "the Wal-Mart cheer", it was fucking insufferable, you had to individually in turn, pose your arms to form the letters of the store, while saying the letter, and jump in at the right time with it, and I can't even remember how the rest of the "cheer", that's the buildup to it goes, but it was psychologically painful, and wasted time, which is kind of important for a store that valued its whip-cracking lunatic fucking quotas.

It made me sick, I had no enthusiasm for it, they could tell, but if you fucked it up, they made you start over, and you couldn't go to work until it was done.

Anyway, it was supposed to be a "team building exercise", and Wal-Mart was all about that insufferable shit.

Lotta fucking office companies are obsessed with that too.
Team building, team players, team this, team that.
Sometimes they try to get you to call your fellow drones "the ____ family".
Y'know, shit out of "office space".

Anyhoo, I've painted the picture for you of the two environments, now let's get out the tweezers.

Let's apply the Wal-Mart mindset to the Toys R Us manager.

Now, wouldn't a "proper", manager, from the Wal-Mart school, not waste valuable work minutes sneering and hissing about how much "night crew sucks", and try to oh, I don't know "motivate", us?

Y'know, show some actual LEADERSHIP?
Y'know, of the TEAM?

Y'know, actually DO HIS JOB, and justify his fucking paycheck?

Can't you just see some Wal-Mart big-whig slapping his face, breaking his sword, and having him ridden out on a rail?

And not before calling him something akin to "miserable failure", to the "whoos", of the employees, I'm sure.

Now, apply the Toys R Us standard to Wal-Mart.
They'd see the Wal-Mart cheer as a worthless time waster, and to get those damned monkeys back on the line unloading them fuckin' trucks.

Now, which management style is the correct one?

Something in the middle, perhaps?

So, maybe both managers were fucking idiots?

Now, I didn't mention my manager at Wal-Mart on alternating days who didn't make us do the Wal-Mart cheer, he wasn't so bad.
Wasn't great either.
But not so bad.

But just know, that retail is looooaded with these wretched fucking idiots.

As are offices.

As is politics.

As are corporate boardrooms.

And every last fuck who sits in a golden throne is one of these repugnant valueless idjits.
Hence, Joey Ratz.

And this is the world of compromise and disappointment that school is preparing you for.

Hence all that "pledge of allegiance", type horseshit.

Now, am I being glaringly harsh on these people?

I don't happen to think so.
To my way of thinking, I'm just being stubbornly consistent.
Just taking the standards we supposedly have, and sticking to them to the bitter end.

For example, if someone you knew, got up on their roof, and rode a shopping cart off their roof, and broke their legs, wouldn't you consider that person stupid?

Now, this is exactly the sort of thing the guys from "Jackass", do, and they make a buck off it, but, they're not financial planners, they're jackasses, it's right in the fucking name.

So, if that shit's stupid, shouldn't we look down on even stupider things with harsher disdain?

And we do, we have a whole industry devoted to sneering at criminals, hence the Nancy Grace stuff I mentioned awhile back.

So, if you're say, grossly incompetent at a job where it's really fucking important that you not be incompetent, say, in a position of authority and responsibility on a high level, and that gross incompetence causes mass economic destruction, can't we call you a fucking idiot?

Why, I think we can.

I mean, the Jackass guys only break their own stupid limbs.
These people in the financial sector destroyed people's futures.

I think we can very easily look down on these people with the repulsion we look down on your average idiot, only magnified geometrically.

And boy, do I, you just try and stop me.

How about the mental scarring of rape?
That sends ripples along someone's life forever.
Surely that ruins a future as surely as economic destruction, yes?

Of course it does.

So, if you're the "boss", of a "company", that institutionally protects and covers up for rapists, surely we can look down on that boss with the contempt of that ineffective and valueless Toys R Us manager magnified geometrically, yes?

Damned right you can, and damned right I do.

Now, if these things are indefensible, surely anyone who tries to defend it, is likewise indefensible, yes?

I think so.

We don't put up with holocaust deniers.
Their whole existence is about sweeping the horrors of the Nazis under the rug.

You defend the indefensible, you're scum.

We seem to have agreed to that.

And yet, we've got this brigade of apologists, Catholic, and faith-iest alike, who try to find this weird "middle ground", on the whole matter.

That being "yeah, they raped a bunch of kids...but atheists are such....pricks about it".

Fuck off.
*Shrug*

It's kid rape, pick a fucking side, and get on it.

Insolent?
Fucking right I am.

Anyway, that's where I'm stubbornly consistent.
If we apply it to the little level, we gotta apply it to the big level, and vice versa.

And when you do, the whole thing breaks down, and that's just too fucking bad.

Virtually no one in charge deserves to be.

Trying to make that go away, and glue it all together with bullshit leads to the rampant hypocrisy we see around us.

And it takes breaking people psychologically with more bullshit to get them to shut up about it.

Hence the bullshit in schools.

Hence why these broken people end up as the walking dead.

And they know they are.
And they know they're getting fucked over.
Fucked deep up the ass by that nasty minority.

Hence the booming alcohol and anti-depressant industries.

And they don't like you to point it out.
They take it out on YOU if you do.

With shit like "insolent!!", "vile!", "disgusting!".

Shaddap.

Carry your donkey, and shut up.

You made your choices.

It's your job to lick these people's boots, it isn't mine.
Don't speak for me.

And speaking of boot-licking, notice how the British government has been bowing, scraping, and boot-licking to Joey Ratz, on the whole joke-memo fiasco?

That tells you the rest you need to know about applying it to the big level.

These walking dead sellouts go all the way to the tippy-top.

All over the world.

So, that does it in for the politicians.

And that does it in for the "noble lie", that anyone in charge deserves to be.

Another one down.

And good riddance.

Hey, ain't my job to carry a donkey, you go right to it, folks.

It's my job to be insolent, and I think I perform it well.
If only middle management would give me a raise.
Too insolent I hear.
Ah well.