Stuck on Telegraph Road

Midweek. Wednesday's child is filled with woe, and Thursday's child has far to go. Sums up the mood of the country for far too many.
I want to smile every day, and at some points when my goofy dog does something.... well, goofy, I can let out a chuckle and crack a grin. Too bad for me his goofiness is not perpetual. When I read the news, or hear the news talk on the radio, or watch a talking head describe any current event, all that dog comedy recedes like a tsunami wave heading to the epicenter. Blues with a 24/7 feeling permeates the atmosphere.

Good jobs are so scarce you might think they never existed in the first place. We had a small episode in Kern County on a Sunday morning to start this week with more employment despair. Rio Tinto, an Australian-British mining and mineral processing giant, locked out over 500 hundred union miners over a contract dispute and started busing scab workers onto their U.S. Borax facility in Boron , CA.  What troubled me the most, apart from the general apathy and resignation of the workers fate, was the use of the Kern County Sheriffs Department to provide security for the Rio Tinto management at the U.S. Borax site. Yep, public tax dollars going to suppress union actions over the lockout.

The response county wide has been very quiet over the loss of approximately 560 union wage jobs, which are now being filled by workers earning much less. In Kern County it now appears to be a way of life to champion those who fall to the bottom and join the vast pile of the displaced and broke working class. The motto for America seems to be if I cannot have it neither should you. We have replaced the concepts of raising the general population to higher standards with mantras of no taxes and no entitlements.
And what have you got at the end of the day?
What have you got to take away?
a bottle of whiskey and a new set of lies
blinds on the window and a pain behind the eyes

No entitlements means no retirement for most Americans. No entitlements mean substandard health care if any health care can be had. No entitlements mean diminishing to substandard our public education system. The concept of no entitlements mean you have no right to go to work. You have no right to housing. You have no rights.

I used to like to go to work but they shut it down
I've got a right to go to work but there's no work here to be found
yes and they say we're gonna have to pay what's owed
we're gonna have to reap from some seed that's been sowed

During economic downturns of the not too distant past, powerful voices in the arts spoke to broad audiences and helped tweak public opinion on big social issues. Powerful writers of popular music were the conscience of the world, and spoke to wide audiences on concerns of social injustices. Where did those voices go, and why do we not hear them today? Many of these voices are still among us,  but have been drowned out by American Idols selling cosmetics and jewelry for WalMart and Target.

One of the most powerful songwiters, and one of my all-time favorite people in music is Mark Knopfler. Had he been a young man during this decade we would never have heard from him. He might have tried to play music, but the chances of guy looking like Mark Knopfler with Mark Knopfler's voice would never get airplay today. Can you see him doing an American Idol contest?

and he takes you out in Vaudeville Valley
with his hand up smothering your screams
and he screws you down in Tin Pan Alley
in the city of a billion dreams 

Does anyone sell music today that is not sponsored by a multinational conglomerate today? And the conglomerates are doing the best possible job of ensuring the death of the world's music culture. Here is the latest chart from a CNN story on the decline of the music business over this decade. Now that is a big fall from market grace.

It takes love over gold
and mind over matter
to do what you do that you must
when the things that you hold
can fall and be shattered
or run through your fingers like dust

1982 saw Dire Straits release Love Over Gold. The bold quotes are from this epic release that resonates more today than it did when America was tuned to Hill Street Blues and our country was involved with Afghanistan the first time. As too many corporations rape and plunder workers and the land while undermining the governments who subsidize and protect them I feel that I'm traveling down Telegraph Road all over again.

Thank goodness for a goofy dog, and a decent record collection.