Archive for October 2014
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I don’t like to file work related complaints. I’d rather work things out. But the story is bigger than most complaints. It’s something else entirely. And this essay doesn’t really pertain to my current position, it is more like a summation of the circumstances of most of my experiences in a work environment from civilian to government and military positions.
I often find myself working in what could truly be called an “Urban Environment.” I am a single, white male and have often felt that I am being treated differently due to the fact that the urban environment is populated to a larger extent by people of another race than white or Caucasian. And I am treated differently. There can be no question. It’s not always that I am treated badly, just differently. Much of it is obvious, often it is very subtle and I don’t even pick up on it until I am somewhere else and it occurs to me.
Frequently in any job I have had my supervisors are of another race and there are no men of any race in my direct management structure who determine the scope of my employment, where I am assigned, that type of thing. I don’t know how that happened, but my guess is it is due to the contentiousness of working in such an environment and all of the racial and sexual politics involved.
Most men, most white men and even most men of other races who would be in a position to manage the situation have already said, “Forget that. This is totally screwed. No wonder they keep cutting our budget. You can’t get anything done here. Too much politics to deal with. You can’t talk. You can’t even look at someone. It’s crazy. I’m outta here.”
Thanks for leaving me standing, by the way.
When I discuss the matter with others, including others of another race, they always tell me that they think I am a victim of “Reverse Discrimination.” They suggest either directly or indirectly that it isn’t fashionable either to bring the matter of discrimination up if you are a white male and that it really only applies to people of other races and women. Really, I usually reply? It isn’t acceptable? Not fashionable? Racism is a fashion statement? OK, then. I won’t file a complaint. I’d hate not to be “acceptable.”
I’ll just do this here.
Now that I’ve thought about the matter for some time, I have concluded they are false in their analysis, that I am a victim of “reverse discrimination.” I am not a victim of “reverse discrimination” in the circumstances I describe or in the various jobs I have mentioned prior, I am a victim of discrimination, plain and simple. I am a victim of both sexual and racial discrimination. “Reverse discrimination” has nothing to do with it. If you read on, you’ll understand why I think “reverse discrimination” isn’t even a real form of “discrimination.”
Why?
I have never had the authority or any job where I could directly discriminate against any other employee. I could insult them, perhaps, but I haven’t and I don’t. White men are in a situation where they always have to let people of other races or women set up all of the social boundaries and it is only people of other races and the opposite sex that are allowed to tamper with those boundaries, to define them. White males aren’t allowed to be involved in any of that because the government has been telling the public that white males have historically discriminated against all other races and women, too. And it’s in the way the laws are written. If a white male crosses the boundary created in a situation, which can often change from month to month and be seemingly arbitrary, the white male is hit with some sort of social infraction.
Here is the problem with that.
Reverse discrimination implies that I, for example, have in fact first discriminated against someone else based on their race or sex or even that others like myself have discriminated against a person of another race or sex when due to the historical context of “today,” none of that is true.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite. But someone keeps telling us, turn the other cheek, turn the other cheek, turn the other cheek. That gets old, especially after decades of it. Oh yes it does.
I haven’t ever had that authority to directly affect another person’s position in any job. Ever. I have always had some position that doesn’t have that leverage, whether it is primarily a creative position or some lower level job that had no authority. In fact, I’ve found that I am almost constantly being discriminated against when I run into a defensive wall that minorities and women put up when I enter the situation. You see it and feel it when they required you to run through their personalized, race or sex specific gauntlet of qualification to determine whether you are racist or sexist. With each new person of another race or sex that you have to deal with, there it is all over again, another set of baited questions and suspicious glances. And if you didn’t answer a question to their liking or if you looked at them the wrong way, off they run. “I knew it. I knew it! That guy is a racist or a sexist!” No, what you WANTED someone to be was a racist or a sexist so you could justify your behavior and the laws that enable it. It really makes working in such a situation treacherous…if you are a white male, that is.
It’s as if somebody has been telling them, look out for white males, they are out to get you. And somebody has been telling them that, the government and even the media, the government through legislation and the media by paying lip service to all of the professional race baiters.
Out of the situation have come all sorts of laws and regulations that when coupled with the “reverse discrimination” I am sensing, it often makes for an incredibly difficult situation to navigate, particularly when it isn’t even necessary.
I do not claim racism does not exist. But it isn’t so prevalent as to require the constant defensive posture, what is really an offensive posture, that many take.
Most laws and regulations governing potential racial discrimination are in my opinion rooted in the false historical context that all white men are the direct descendants of southern plantation owners. You see it in the propaganda films coming out of Hollywood and the words coming out of the mouths of our elected. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is about the only thing I can conclude on the matter. Most Caucasians, most white people, whatever you want to call us, most of their ancestors came to America, primarily to northern industrial cities as immigrants and to the west to get factory jobs, decades or more after the emancipation of slaves and on up until this day. Most white people, probably the statistical majority of them, a number that most likely approaches 95 percent or more, have never had anything to do with slavery or discrimination of any kind. Most white people have never been in any position to discriminate either.
In my opinion, most of the discrimination in this country is manufactured by the government and the media based on the structure and implementation of various laws and regulations which create an unfair advantage for various races and women who use AND manipulate the situation as leverage against people like myself to accelerate their livelihood at my expense and the expense of others like myself. Why? So people can get elected. Promises, promises.
I do not claim that racism does not exist. But it isn’t so widespread as to require the legislative militancy we suffer and the social affront which one must constantly address.
I’ll just leave it at that for today. So we can get on with it that is.
If you are of another race and are asking, “Well, now how does it feel to be discriminated against? How do YOU like it?”
You should really only be asking me that question if I have been doing it to you and you are getting even with me. But I haven’t been doing that to you and neither have most whites.
My response is, like I said, because I have never discriminated against you, what you are doing isn’t “reverse discrimination,” it’s just “discrimination,” plain and simple.
Do unto others you racists and sexists!
And that is why I don’t think there is such a thing as “reverse discrimination.” That is just a euphemism created by someone to mitigate the response to actual discrimination, so certain people of certain races or women can get away with discrimination of their own. “Reverse Discrimination” is simply just “discrimination.” Let’s get rid of the term “reverse discrimination” altogether.
You hear about people of other races and women filing EO complaints all the time. I hear about it almost every week somewhere or that they are “on the verge.”
So there, how is that for an EO complaint on my part!? OFS.
I’m just saying what many others know needs to be said or done but don’t have the guts or aren’t in a position to say it.
You are welcome.
Copyright © William Thien 2014
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I ran this observation twice already on the subject of politicians and their claims about jobs creation during campaigns. It often backfires on them whey they claim they will create X number of jobs if they are elected. Either they don’t create that many jobs or there is a net deficit of new jobs created.
But the real problem isn’t that they claim to be the makers of jobs, the real problem is that they are off task. The true responsibilities of most elected officials at almost all levels of government, making sure the roads are passable (our roads received a D- by our own department of transportation where I reside so somebody obviously isn’t doing their job) or insuring the safety of its citizens, are often neglected when politicians begin such diversions.
During our current gubernatorial campaign the candidates from the two parties on the mainstream media radar are back on the subject of creating jobs and again their numbers leave something to be desired. Go figure!
Here is the previous essay on Politicians and their claims to create jobs:
Nobody can argue that the public debate on how to create more jobs in these difficult times is not important. The problem I have with that debate is that it is being waged by politicians.
Most politicians are not running for a position that will have that much of an effect on private sector job creation to begin with. Most politicians are in the business of seeing that government services are rendered effectively at the municipal, state, and federal level, right on up to The President’s Office.
The job of a mayor or even a governor for that matter is not really to create jobs, it is to see to it that the roads are passable and that the water is clean, to name two of the most important municipal responsibilities. But knowing that there has been a shortage of jobs in The United States for some time, the debate during campaigns has turned to job creation. Knowing that people are desperate for decent jobs and that it will get their attention in a campaign ad, politicians and their shrewd campaign staffs have changed the focus with promises of huge numbers of good jobs and a renewal of what was once a vibrant economy. It sounds great! But there is a problem with that.
Politicians can certainly help create an environment where good jobs can be had by decreasing certain types of taxation and creating a regulatory environment conducive to attracting business, but the politicians themselves don’t actually create the jobs. So all the campaign promises about great jobs are really a sort of gamble, a type of fluff that the politicians know the public will buy into in the campaign ads because the population is so hungry for decent jobs. It’s political sleight of hand.
What is significant about the ads promising great jobs is that it allows the politicians to change the focus away from their own actual job, to see to it that their municipal responsibilities are completed and done well. It makes the citizen focus on so-called job creation by the politicians rather than asking why there are five-inch deep holes in the roads on the way to work or why there is water high in carcinogens coming from the faucet?
I don’t know when exactly that it happened that politicians became, or thought they had become the creator of private sector jobs in The United States. But whenever it was, it was likely the same time politicians began neglecting their “real jobs” on a massive scale. And maybe its time everyone sent their elected officials a letter and reminded them about their real jobs. Perhaps if politicians did their “real jobs,” the “real jobs” would come for the rest of those looking for the “real jobs.”
Copyright © William Thien 2012, 2014
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A friend recently lamented that he hadn’t seen a decent movie in years and he goes to movies all the time. Sure movies were good enough to win awards, but he felt that they were neither entertaining or satisfying in any emotional sense.
We talked about it and I brought up the fact that I had seen a number of movies lately that had clear socialist undertones such as Divergent and Transcendence, both incredibly dull films that were in my opinion directed at impressionable adolescents.
Our conversation meandered a bit until I felt it was time to raise the question of the late Senator McCarthy and his penchant for attempting to track down communists in the government and even in the film industry. He was eventually ousted for any number of reasons but it seems to me he was on to something.
At the time Senator McCarthy was in office, there were only a few social programs at the national level and spending on “social development” was a small fraction of what it is today when now there are close to 100 “nutrition assistance” programs just at the national level and using government funds to pay for social development is commonplace. Socialism seems almost like a misnomer for the condition that governs the redistribution of funds in America and the only real major difference is that in The United States, our central planning committee (you know) doesn’t have the same authority as say The Soviet Union’s did. The major difference in my opinion is that fact and that we still use currency (which is crucial) and have the ability to make choices with it as a result. That has an enormously stimulative economic affect. Otherwise, we are not that removed from a Soviet form of government in many respects, emails are copied and stored, all phones are tapped, elderly ladies and babies are searched at the airport (isn’t that worse than the other in many respects?).
We have a media that largely does almost exactly the same as the Soviet propaganda machine yet while our media hides behind the constitution, frequently on behalf of corporations who benefit directly from the socialist money trough, the Soviet media was an arm of the communist party. The differences are only structural as well as the goals of our media but the net effect is frequently the same.
I have digressed.
I have in fact seen quite a few movies coming out of Hollywood that have political undertones which are clearly socialist. I still watch movies for entertainment purposes and merely to have something to do other than what I must. But the big government (we’re here to help) thread is there in much of what is coming out of Hollywood and I rather wish to have seen Sen. McCarthy carry on with his quest to discover the extent of communism in the government.
I really don’t know how it might be accomplished that we pull the country out of its almost completely socialist condition. I don’t know. No, I don’t.
My only parallel is to compare what might be required to facilitate a transformation to a less socialist condition and that is to compare such a goal as that of the initial stages of a war. I am not advocating any course of action here, merely explaining what would be required at the outset. When The United States invaded Iraq, Baghdad in particular for example, the first thing, that action which took place before all others, was to physically take control of the media outlets and the ministry of information (propaganda centers).
In my opinion, that would be required for Americans to regain control of the country if in fact Americans feel they no longer have control of their country. If Americans are going to regain control of their country, they will first need to take control of a fear mongering, disingenuous media.
Maybe things are not all that bad. No, maybe they aren’t. Maybe they aren’t getting worse. Maybe everything is tip top. Are things worse than at other times in American history? Maybe yes, maybe no.
But America will not regain control of the country if Americans don’t take control of the media. That is one thing for which I am certain. The media is the facilitator of the country’s condition, make no mistake. The media is what makes it possible for the country to be in the state that it is in, regardless of who is giving instructions to the media.
Taking control of the media would be the first order of action.
But things aren’t really that bad, are they? You know they aren’t that bad because someone is constantly telling you everything is fine. Your fear is manufactured, or is it? You don’t really know, do you? It’s hard to tell, isn’t it? What measure of reliability do you have that the information you are getting is valid, completely valid? Are elections thrown for example?
Try changing the channel if you watch a lot of television. Change the channel. Everything is fine. Change the channel, Ebola. Change the channel, everything is fine. Change the channel, fear. Change the channel, ISIS. Change the channel, everything is fine. Change the channel, fear. Change the channel, massive deficit. Change the channel, everything is fine. Change the channel…turn the station…change the channel, how can it be that most are all playing the same fearful tune? (I don’t have a television, by the way)
Now do you see what I am talking about? I guess at this point you just have to ask yourself how far it has progressed?
If you feel the government is worthless, for example, then you should know that it is the media that facilitates that. The media is the propaganda machine which facilitates the current state of the country, make no mistake.
We should talk some more about it some time.
William Thien
P.S. I say “the media is” and not “the media are” because the media seem to move almost in an orchestrated fashion, no matter what they claim. You’ve noticed it, too, haven’t you.
Copyright © William Thien 2014
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William Thien 
The Lone Wolf vs. The Rat Bastards
Posted by: William Thien on: October 26, 2014
With the attack on the Parliament Building in Canada and the several random shootings of note lately the pundits have been at it again. A former president’s security adviser said several years ago that the greatest threat to The US now is the “lone wolf,” a terrorist who acts alone and is difficult to identify.
Lately, with the various acts of terrorism and what else they can classify as terrorism, that same description, the “lone wolf” has arrived in the lexicon of the media once again as if appearing from the edge of some socio-psychic forest like a ghost at nightfall.
In one day recently I heard several pundits use exactly the same line again, that the country’s greatest threat is “the lone wolf.” I heard that same comment on several stations and at several different times during the day.
It was like a code word, a propagandistic device of some sort meant to instill fear into the masses, in particular to instill a fear of the individual.
Then something occurred to me. I don’t believe the leadership of the country is afraid of the “lone wolf” as much as they tell everyone. What the country’s leadership is afraid of, what the country’s greatest fear is, it is not the “lone wolf,” the greatest fear of the country’s leadership is a unified and organized disposition of the government.
So, why constantly refer to a person as a “lone wolf?” Why is that term used so frequently? It’s a fearful term to be sure. It creates a defensive posture in the population and makes a distinction between that person and the flock, you could say. Clearly our leadership think of us as sheep.
The term “lone wolf” is used so frequently so as to identify the individual that speaks out, that demonstrates the potential to lead real, true change, and in some cases that demonstration has been with gunfire or some other form of physical action.
My guess is that there are many lone wolves out there and that they are not wolves at all, quite the opposite. Many are probably people just like you and I and maybe they have not been allowed to associate with one another due to some sort of governmental intrusiveness. Perhaps they are singled out (hence, they are made alone, and then branded a “lone wolf” for purposes we may not know). The media is a willing participant in that charade and is more dangerous to individual rights than any other force in America aside from Congress.
In the past I have observed many things about collectivism in the country that only forty or fifty years ago would have been illegal, collective government programs, you name it, communism basically. What changed in that time?
And there is nothing more fearful to a collective, to the communist than the individual, the loner, the freethinker, not one of “the collective,” and that individual in particular MUST be singled out and branded, marginalized or their existence will be empirical proof that the collective isn’t the only way and is likely not the best. That, ladies and gentlemen is the greatest fear of the collective and the government, a demonstration of individuality!
It raises a basic question about our existence here in The United States today. What is worse, a lone wolf or a collective of rat bastards?
I think we all know the answer to that question and however unsettling it may be, it may be one that we must recognize if we want to save what is left of our country.
Note: The term “collective,” a political term used in this context to describe mass political behavior as directly opposed to individuality, is not used here to denote “collective bargaining,” which is a term that describes members of a labor union bargaining for work related issues as one unit.
Copyright © William Thien 2014
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