While the I’m Alright Jacks Slumber Soundly

Modern-day Vikings are hand in glove cashing in on low to no-wage earners

Like hamsters locked in a giant wheel, the minimum wage earners (and those struck by debilitating life events) of the great Uniteds — Kingdom and States of America — will rarely have more than enough. Perhaps even nothing, like my fellow editor, B. A. Cumberlidge. who recently found himself homeless. Meanwhile, the entitled, the elite and the richest of the rich enhance their bank accounts and those of their pals on a daily basis.

The I’m Alright, Jacks, have their own limiting beliefs and treadmills that motivate them to continue climbing to the pinnacles of their careers before being paid to leave or stagnating in some mid-level management playing lip service to the political strategists.

The lazy ne’er do wells, who are physically and mentally capable of working, will continue trudging in circles in dead-end jobs until they drop or lose their homes.

Two million people in the UK are paid at or below the minimum wage. In America, minimum wage earners can’t afford to rent a place to live.

The coronavirus pandemic has been the “great revealer,” laying bare the inequities in our society, and reminding us how our homes affect every aspect of our lives, including our health. ~U.S. SENATOR SHERROD BROWN (D-OH)

A day’s labour for fair recompense. Enough to house, feed, bathe and clothe. Plus a sum to save for big-ticket items and emergencies. Employees' abilities are squandered on automaton tasks soon to be replaced by technology. Then what will the unequal hordes do?

When there are no human supermarket checkouts; when there are no human cleaners needed to operate Roombas and instant sanitation sprays that dissolve and evaporate dust and kill all known germs; when living call handlers are discarded in favour of rewarding customers with desirable gifts for completing automated customer satisfaction surveys, and when the last scientists and Amazon warehouse operatives employed for speed and precision can no longer meet ridiculous — and quite honestly, offensive — productivity requirements and are replaced by machines what then are the great unwashed supposed to do to earn a crust?

“You’ve always got somebody right behind you who’s ready to take your job,” says Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and a prominent Amazon critic. ~Colin Lecher, The Verge

The planet is nearing a successful asset-stripping operation. Soil, artificially fertilized with phosphorus — which is due to be depleted by 2030 — grows Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds which are then used to manufacture processed ‘food’ products which contain little to zero natural nutrition.

There’s an epidemic of super-weeds brought on by overuse of herbicide-resistant crop varieties. Sixty million acres of crops are surrounded by weeds. Farmers douse the weeds with Monsanto’s Roundup. Glyphosate is the main ingredient of toxic herbicides which are harming crucial pollinators through ingestion and also the lack of weeds impacts other local wildlife crucial to ecosystems.

Human beings are depleting the planet’s natural resources and standards of living will begin to decline by 2030 unless immediate action is taken. ~Iberdrola

Consuming the products ordered from online behemoths employing minimum wage earners on zero-hour contracts, and or expecting unreasonable productivity, do the alright Jacks slumber blissfully? They are the majority, the stay-at-homes, they work and sleep safely while being paid to ensure the economy lives on when normalcy resumes.

What is normalcy anyway? Is it business owners with enough in the physical or digital vaults to ensure there is fair, but well-paid work for all? Decent employers who offer dignity and opportunity to individuals so they, too, can go about their lives without the constant worry of whether to pay the energy bill or buy their weekly groceries.

Jeff Bezos offers retraining for all his workers ensuring he has a ready pool of analysts and problem-solvers for the transitioning of Prime from two days to one-day delivery. Regardless of raising the minimum wage to $15 for warehouse staff, workers picketed on Prime Day in July 2019.

In Minnesota in July, Amazon workers held signs that read: ‘We’re human; not robots’ during their strike. Amazon workers in Europe also held strikes.” ~Colin Lecher, The Verge

The $175.3 billionaire might offer financial participation in the forms of profit sharing and stock ownership to his employees. This would demonstrate a decent employee ethos and provide dignity to his workforce.

Returning to the two million minimum wage workers in the UK, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs stands true to this day. Especially at the safety level.

According to fullfact.org 21.4% is the estimated amount of working-age adults in the UK living in poverty. These people earn less than 60% of the national household median.

Only a minuscule number of humans control this selfish, greed fest. They save money (and rake in the profit) by paying the lowest wages they can get away with, sometimes actually offering no hours. On zero-hour contracts that’s perfectly legal, the employee’s basic needs are not met. Discarding humans as though they are non-recyclable plastic throwaways and as easily replaced.

These throwaways won’t be needed in the future. Natives and immigrants alike may have starved or be savvy enough to know which hoops to jump through to qualify to be supported by the state benefits system. Their need for assistance will most likely be mental and or physical health issues due to being unlucky, disadvantaged by money-grubbing employers, or simply a lack of suitable work.

Overarching frustration and anger are quashed by cheap booze, deadening the throwaways to the anguish and hurt their worthlessness causes when lucid. With no dignity provided by a fair but well-paid occupation there is no help for them but to fail in a society that allowed them to be put down by employers and held down under the auspices of the supposed welfare support system with the catchy line, ‘your situation doesn’t fit’.

Humanity seems an afterthought when I constantly keep getting told: “Your situation doesn’t fit the criteria”.~B. A. Cumberlidge, I’m Going To Be Homeless Tomorrow

Of course your situation doesn’t fit, that’s the way the Tory elite wanted it. Their ugly, tight-fisted, and dystopian plan is bearing fruit. For them, crushing the lazy ne’er do wells is sport.~Karen Madej

You billionaires and corporations with your entitled pet politicians, you modern-day Vikings continue raping and reaping and hoarding. Your GMO food monstrosity continues creating a circle of ill-health to humans and then offering the cure which harms pollinators and ecosystems. If we survive, my fellow throwaways and I have no choice but to wait for you to stumble and plummet from your gilded perches.

Pushed too far, though, we may soon revolt and tear down your dream palaces and destroy the fabric made by us and used by you to restrain and oppress us.

You’ve flaunted justice, equality, democracy and our very will to survive on this planet ravaged and pillaged by you. Your products are consumed willingly by the I’m Alright, Jacks. You few are the true scum and ne’er do wells. The I’m Alright, Jacks need to shake themselves awake and realise they are perpetuating the destruction of our world aiding and abetting the pillagers and plunderers.

There is a chance for you to redeem yourselves and do the right thing. Choose to help, choose to be generous and kind, choose to bestow dignity and respect for all life and resources. Stop destroying and start building.

Thank you for reading.

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