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anarchist_nomad Sep. 30th, 2012 01:51 am)
anarchist_nomad Sep. 30th, 2012 01:51 am)Greetings, gentle readers! Your friendly neighbourhood Nomad is writing to you from Haneda Airport, in Tokyo. Direct flights from Haneda to London started only a couple of years ago; they are convenient in several ways... but have the definite drawback of an early departure time. A take-off at half past six means check in at half four... which, in turn, means a long overnight at the airport. Taking the latest train possible from Tokai still gets me here slightly before midnight; it feels wasteful to book into a hotel for four hours[*], so the alternative is to pull an all-nighter at the airport.
To be sure, there are certain silver linings, like landing in London at ten in the morning, so one doesn't lose a day from travelling. Also, there are opportunities for lovely sunrise photographs, like these two that I took during one of my other overnights, about a year and a half ago. Plus, Wi-Fi is available for a nominal fee and there are power outlets, so I can use my laptop and smartphone as I would in a hotel or anywhere else. Just had a pair of lovely chats, one with my beloved![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cheshcat and another with miss_amaranth. Ah, no chair near the outlet, though, so this all needs to be done whilst standing. Oh, well. There are restaurants open all night, as well as an outdoor observation desk -- and it is a lovely evening, with a temperature of 75o. So whilst a night at the airport is hardly fun -- it would be much better if that accursed escalator would stop repeating the same few words -- it could definitely be worse.
At this point, dear friends, you may be wondering what about all this is making your favourite Nomad's head explode. Er, nothing. That was just me rambling. As I am wont to do.
The head-explosion comes from having just read the New York Times article here. Apparently, the city of Camden, New Jersey, is opening a new front in the war on public unions. They are firing an entire sector of the public workforce, to disband it and replace it with non-union staff.
Now normally, as you might expect, I would be up in arms, fuming at this latest attack on workers. I certainly was when the damnable Scott Walker effectively destroyed the Wisconsin public unions last year. This time, however, there is a twist: The unionized workforce being disbanded... is the police force!
Hurm. This would be a good time to cue the exploding head[**].
On the one hand, I am a fierce proponent of unions. I am a member of two -- the venerable One Big Union (the Industrial Workers of the World), as well as the UK's University & College Union. Only by organization can workers ever hope to prevent exploitation and abuse by the bosses. I have gone on strike, walked picket lines, and done my share of union organizing in years gone by.
On the other hand, it is the cops. I hate cops. Passionately. I mean, duh, I'm an Anarchist! Whilst many of my comrades would commonly refer to police as "pigs", I made a promise to myself never to insult members of the genus Sus with such a comparison.
Right. So the cops are being union-busted. Who to side with? What to think? It's union-busting -- boo! But it's bad stuff happening to cops -- hooray! Yeah, definitely an exploding head moment.
Actually, if I think back many years, to when I started out as an activist, I knew that cops were misinformed and taking the wrong side. They are paid to protect the elite, but they really don't belong to that strata of society. Basically, they are hired thugs. Once upon a time, when I was young and idealistically naïve, I thought that we could show the cops where their true allegiance should lie. I remember chants of "join us" when we were corralled at demonstrations. Somewhere along the line, though, my outlook changed. Not sure when it happened, but getting arrest and beaten enough times -- plus watching comrades suffer the same, or worse -- will do that. I came to see the police as the class traitors that they are... not to mention sadistic brutes who are three times more likely than the norm to be perpetrators of domestic violence. I remember having discussions with Resourceress, who was trained as a street medic, on whether our medics should treat cops who get injured during conflicts at protests... and I remember offering arguments against such a practice. I'm a pacifist, and I won't attack the [extremely well-armed] cops... but I sure won't go out of my way to help them!
So what to wish for as a best-possible outcome from the current situation? Side with the union? Against the cops? I know! The best possible outcome would be for the police, suddenly disillusioned by this dismissal from their masters' service, to acquire class consciousness, join with their fellow workers, and rise up to smash the state!
Likely to happen? No... but one can hope.
Right. Five more hours until take off. Maybe time to shut down the computer and go sit outside on the observation desk for a bit. If you have read this far, feel free to post something that will make me smile when I come inside. Tis good to stock up on smiles just before a twelve hour flight!
[*] It would be reimbursed as a travel expense... but just because it is coming out of somebody else's pocket doesn't make it less wasteful.
[**] Red Dwarf fans, think of it as a lobster with ketchup moment.
To be sure, there are certain silver linings, like landing in London at ten in the morning, so one doesn't lose a day from travelling. Also, there are opportunities for lovely sunrise photographs, like these two that I took during one of my other overnights, about a year and a half ago. Plus, Wi-Fi is available for a nominal fee and there are power outlets, so I can use my laptop and smartphone as I would in a hotel or anywhere else. Just had a pair of lovely chats, one with my beloved
cheshcat and another with miss_amaranth. Ah, no chair near the outlet, though, so this all needs to be done whilst standing. Oh, well. There are restaurants open all night, as well as an outdoor observation desk -- and it is a lovely evening, with a temperature of 75o. So whilst a night at the airport is hardly fun -- it would be much better if that accursed escalator would stop repeating the same few words -- it could definitely be worse. At this point, dear friends, you may be wondering what about all this is making your favourite Nomad's head explode. Er, nothing. That was just me rambling. As I am wont to do.
The head-explosion comes from having just read the New York Times article here. Apparently, the city of Camden, New Jersey, is opening a new front in the war on public unions. They are firing an entire sector of the public workforce, to disband it and replace it with non-union staff.
Now normally, as you might expect, I would be up in arms, fuming at this latest attack on workers. I certainly was when the damnable Scott Walker effectively destroyed the Wisconsin public unions last year. This time, however, there is a twist: The unionized workforce being disbanded... is the police force!
Hurm. This would be a good time to cue the exploding head[**].
On the one hand, I am a fierce proponent of unions. I am a member of two -- the venerable One Big Union (the Industrial Workers of the World), as well as the UK's University & College Union. Only by organization can workers ever hope to prevent exploitation and abuse by the bosses. I have gone on strike, walked picket lines, and done my share of union organizing in years gone by.
On the other hand, it is the cops. I hate cops. Passionately. I mean, duh, I'm an Anarchist! Whilst many of my comrades would commonly refer to police as "pigs", I made a promise to myself never to insult members of the genus Sus with such a comparison.
Right. So the cops are being union-busted. Who to side with? What to think? It's union-busting -- boo! But it's bad stuff happening to cops -- hooray! Yeah, definitely an exploding head moment.
Actually, if I think back many years, to when I started out as an activist, I knew that cops were misinformed and taking the wrong side. They are paid to protect the elite, but they really don't belong to that strata of society. Basically, they are hired thugs. Once upon a time, when I was young and idealistically naïve, I thought that we could show the cops where their true allegiance should lie. I remember chants of "join us" when we were corralled at demonstrations. Somewhere along the line, though, my outlook changed. Not sure when it happened, but getting arrest and beaten enough times -- plus watching comrades suffer the same, or worse -- will do that. I came to see the police as the class traitors that they are... not to mention sadistic brutes who are three times more likely than the norm to be perpetrators of domestic violence. I remember having discussions with Resourceress, who was trained as a street medic, on whether our medics should treat cops who get injured during conflicts at protests... and I remember offering arguments against such a practice. I'm a pacifist, and I won't attack the [extremely well-armed] cops... but I sure won't go out of my way to help them!
So what to wish for as a best-possible outcome from the current situation? Side with the union? Against the cops? I know! The best possible outcome would be for the police, suddenly disillusioned by this dismissal from their masters' service, to acquire class consciousness, join with their fellow workers, and rise up to smash the state!
Likely to happen? No... but one can hope.
Right. Five more hours until take off. Maybe time to shut down the computer and go sit outside on the observation desk for a bit. If you have read this far, feel free to post something that will make me smile when I come inside. Tis good to stock up on smiles just before a twelve hour flight!
[*] It would be reimbursed as a travel expense... but just because it is coming out of somebody else's pocket doesn't make it less wasteful.
[**] Red Dwarf fans, think of it as a lobster with ketchup moment.
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