Something Seems Wrong

At 1:05 is the important quote

Season Two of The Wire, while under-appreciated by most, has very deep running ramifications for people smart enough to catch on to the juxtaposition of the drug culture vs the docks.

If you watch close, or even not that close, you would see the odd dichotomy between people who "obey" the law, the Dock people, and how their slice of the world, their pay is being slowly eroded by the government, tarrifs, etc etc, while the drug culture continued to prosper.

For those that haven't seen The Wire, its a seminal show that weaves politics, labor, education, the drug culture together in a tight weave, showing how each facet of our life is mirrored off each other and how everything works together.  How clean money becomes dirty, dirty becomes clean, the good people in a bad world are better then the bad people in a good world.  It shines a light on our world that most of us are scared to look at.

Putting all emotion and TV drama aside, the best line of the whole season is at 1:05 of this clip above.   Frank Sobotka is the head of the dock workers union, the people who unload the ships coming into port.  He is fighting tooth and nail for a new project to inject life into his union (and that is a whole other argument) and how his whole argument, all his work, all his shady deals, all the bad/good he has done to try and provide for his family and his unions and how he struggles with it as he watches everything slip away eventually comes down to something as simple as, "we used to make shit in this country, build shit, and now we just put our hand in the next guys pocket"

Its simple and 100% accurate.

Taking all political arguments out of this, building shit in this country is hard when compared to building shit elsewhere.

Duh right?

There is an article on Yahoo and a specific paragraph caught our attention at CRB HQ.  The article, "10 American Industries Still Hanging On" sounds quaint and all, right?  A nice little thing about American business's and their determination to continue to produce their products within our country.  The plucky people who embrace the work and the pride that comes with a job well done.

"oh how cute, they actually sweat during the day...tee hee..im going to get starbucks and masturbate" - said the local town dunce / the majority of people now days.

America was a country founded on doing shit for ourselves, taking pride in doing shit for ourselves.  Rolling up your sleeves and making shit happen.  On a macro level, the steel industry, the car industry, eveything we would make on our own.  On a more micro level,  Roof leaks?  Slap a ladder up and fix it.  Car isn't working right?  Get under that bitch and fix it.  Popped a seam in your shirt?  Fire up the sewing machine and fix it.

Somewhere in the last, say...20 years or so, we have become a culture of paying someone else to do shit for us.  As if we are above washing our own car or fixing our own clothes or taking care of our own shit.  There is pride in doing things for youself, right?  Washing your own car, sure, it may not be as good as they do at the car wash place, but, you did it yourself.  Fixing the driveway, where the cement buckled because of the extra cold winter?  Get your ass outside with some concrete patch and get it done.

Take pride in doing things yourself.  Somehow there now seems to be a shade of shame people feel when they embark on a task themself.  As if they are somehow stooping to a level to perform a menial task.  As if it is below them to clean their own fucking house.  Nonsense, that attitude what made us great.  Getting shit done ourselves.

Its embarrassing for someone to say, "I don't know how to cook, haha".  Thats bullshit, you are an idiot, learn how to cook and take pride in that skill.  Cooking, sewing, normal car repair, standard ass household and life chores are to be embraced, not farmed out to some illegal because you are to fucking lazy or fake proud to do that shit yourself.

WHICH!  brings us to the point.

Here is the paragraph from the article, and its specifically talking about the lone remaining sneaker company that makes shoes in America, New Balance. (Awesome shoes btw)

But all the elbow grease in Norridgewock, Maine, won't keep New Balance competitive if an expected agreement with Vietnam eliminates the tariff on imported shoes, typically around 20%. The region's legislators are trying to carve out an exemption to keep New Balance's factories open. The firm's competitors like Nike and Reebok, though, seeing an opportunity for higher profits on imports and, displaying little sympathy for the scrappy northeastern holdouts, have banded together to fight the duty – or "shoe tax," as they call it. "For products that are no longer produced here and haven't been produced here for decades, there's no sense for consumers to be paying it." said Nate Herman, of the industry's lobbying group.

Not only are we outsourcing production overseas for the vast majority of the products in this country, it appears we are actively TRYING to fuck over companies who produce products in our own god damn country!!

Read that last quote from Nate Herman.  Read and re-read it and revel in the absurdity of it.  Read it close and think about it.

Really really think about it.

I will give you a minute.  Think good and hard at how loaded that statement is.

If you don't think to yourself, "fuck that guy", then you need to re-asses your priorities.

We will help out, "For products that are no longer produced here and haven't been produced here for decades, there's no sense for consumers to be paying it."  Thats the exact god damn mindset that puts us into a recesion, causes people to lose their jobs.  Oh, its cheaper over seas, so, lets do that and make more profit.

And, damnit, you can't blame Nike or Reebok, thats their job as a corporation, to make money.  They have no moral obligation to do anything other then rake in bucks.  No, its YOURS as a consumer to force them into doing the right thing and then paying for it!  Paying for it means, yes, your shoes are more expensive but you will buy them anyways.  Its a pay it forward process, you spend the extra money on something made over here vs elsewhere and that reinforces to the company to keep production over here so they hire your neighbor who now has the money to mow their lawn which via gentrification aspects raises the value of your house, so, $5 = $20,000.  See?  Science.

you won't believe it, but, they are actually building wind chimes

We should be a country full of people that want to fucking WORK for everything that we can get, nothing should be our birthright with the exception of the guarantee that we can get out and with our education, work ethic and some smarts make some money.

Foreign companies do not have to conform to the same rules that companies in our own country have to adhere to, minimum wage, oscha rules, unions, etc, and yet, we bend over the couch like a bitch because Nike and whatever want to fight a 20% tariff.

This is horrible, we wish we could really place the exact point that people started viewing our own country as a flea market catering to lazy mother fuckers who get up in arms over Justin Beibers haircut and don't have an opinion when it comes to the erosion of the backbone of our country, the de-emphasis of the values that this country was build on and made us great...all of this which seems to be eroding before us.

It isn't a hippy idealism, its being an American.  Buy stuff at your local farmers market, buy stuff made in your own country, support local business's and learn how to do stuff on your own.

Note: serious, go to a farmers market and buy stuff.  You have never tasted food more delicious then fresh from a market.  Corn on the cob, chedder cheese, milk, eggs, bison meat, veggies, fruit, everything.  Your taste buds will thank you.  Fresh food, farm fresh food, is astonishingly better then food from a grocery store or restaurant.  Trust us on this.  You have never had a smoothie or a burger or a piece of cheese that makes you say "holy shit" like you do at a market.

To bring this full circle, if you are a guy and you are looking to really make an impression on a girl, make her dinner...a real dinner...marinate chicken overnight, chop up the right salad, roast veggies the right way, match the wine the right way, if that girl is worth half a shit being able to do that is worth more then some d-bag dropping a couple hundred at a fancy restaurant.  If your a girl and cook dinner for a guy, again, a real meal that is made with equal parts love and smarts, you are the sexiest god damn thing on earth.  Honestly, even if what you try to make is terrible, but, you try, that is worth twice its weight in douche-bucks.  Its a matter of being self-reliant, working for something without an exact end-point, but, doing the right thing.

This is the concept that we all need to embrace on a daily / life level, its something that will spoke out as we all get older, the mind-set of self-reliance, something to take to heart and impress upon your local representivives, your place of employment, everyone.  Rely upon yourself, rely upon what makes us great at a nation, this mindset will become pervasive and over time become something to treasure, not something to ridicule.

Its Macro/Micro argument, be self-reliant and be proud in doing thing for yourself, and buy stuff made in American and demand that anything brought into our country be subject to the same rules that we enforce over here.

At the risk of sounding like Toby Keith or some other some "AMERICA FUCK YEAH" idiot,  its more that we need to remember the sense of community, the fucking pride in what we are, what makes us great on an individual and countrywide level.  Yes, there should be tariffs on foreign stuff, yes you should be able to make delicious food at home.