I did try to improve my situation at WMAZ. I stayed as long as I did with a glimmer of hope that I would be brought into the fold so to speak. They, and by they I mean the corporate masters as well as the local management, seemed to be well taken care of with fat cars and nice lives outside of work. After all, the parent company of WMAZ at the time was a billion dollar company that made billion dollar profits pretty much ever year. Of course it was never enough, and they had to squeeze the the bottom rung of employees of the organization for all the gravy they were worth.

There were a few people at WMAZ that were well taken care of, the department managers, and the franchise lifelong reporters that were the face of the whole operation. Im certain some of the life ong news people did better than others. I am, however, sure that the never ending rotation of producers and reporters that did the bulk of the heavy lifting were treated as disposable. The station was a learning station where fresh college graduates with a shiny new degree in journalism were routinely hired and then put through the ringer. Separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Most ended up chaff naturally. Their pay was always pretty bad, much like mine. This I inferred from some friends observed circumstances without actually comparing pay stubs. Perhaps I was the only one exploited like some kind of naive fool. I seriously doubt that though.

Heh, this post started out talking about time and devolved into crying in my beer. I don’t really want to delve too deeply into the inner workings of the machine that ate ten years of my life. I doubt anyone would care.

We all know we live in a world where what’s on the surface is vastly different from what is actually happening underneath. We all know that exploitation is the cornerstone of capitalism. We know the benefits seen by the average worker is a side effect not a feature. I suppose that at least there does seem to be some small measure of improvement for the working class over time, at least based on the history of the US that I can see and have been taught. I don’t have much real information about the many other countries in the world that are under the thumb of the master exploiters that run the capital of the US and other world powers. At this time in history, the US is the biggest, richest, most powerful exploiter in the world, if you believe information fed to US masses. The world is probably, based on my limited observation, given to the same general understanding of US hegemony by the global elites who control what the world sees and thinks. Some countries are likely isolated from the global propaganda machine built by capitalism. Capitalism is trying to absorb them too by hook or by crook.

It occurred to me writing the last paragraph that the capital of ownership, ie the means of production, is intrinsically tied to the capital of a state , ie the seat of power. What a loaded word! I can’t believe this never occurred to me. I don’t recall ever reading it or being taught it. I wonder if this is something that is just commonly understood by thinking people? Probably. I expect most people wouldn’t make the connection. I expect most people don’t know what the means of production is even.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr day here in the US. A federal holiday. MLK was born on January 15th 1929. His day is observed on the third Monday of the month to coincide with his birthday. I have tremendous respect for the man. His vision was clear and he was able to impart his vision to so many and change things for the better. The world is still broken, but MLK gave it a little more hope.

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