Workplace Freedom of Speech

I’m using this post to explain how you are losing your right to free speech in America, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t the reason you’re thinking. Also note that when I say “you” lost your free speech, I don’t mean the media lost their ability to spin tall tales. The corporate media can say anything they all agree on. They present “both sides” of whatever they decide the issue de jour is, and throw a pundit or two on your screen. Naturally, they withhold or minimize any information they don’t want you to know about. Let’s step back in time for a brief back-story, then return to the dilemma:

When personal computing was but a glimmer in a nerd’s eye, an early word processor, called WordPerfect, was a miracle. Forty years later, it is still a textbook example of a well-made application: The developers actually debugged the program before they sold it to you! WordPerfect? You probably only know about Microsoft Word. Word was released in 1983, and was crap by comparison. Very few people bought Word because it was so inferior to WordPerfect; however, you already know, that wasn’t the end of the Word story. While Word didn’t sell well and no one liked using it, that’s where the genius of sociopath and rumored pedophile Bill Gates came into play.

Gates unleashed a sales force on your government to sell them Word in bulk, that is, Gates and Steve Ballmer invented “workstation licensing agreements” that offered business owners a special price for bulk (site) purchases. Gates’ sales force sold Word directly to the employer, and when your company bought Word and ordered you to use it  …well, the workers had no choice but to “grin and bear it.” For Gates, one sale to, say, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was equal to many thousands of single Word instances on personal computers. Gates was able to sell packages of Windows and Word to all of the United States government departments …let that sink in for a moment. Best of all, the department employees were forced to debug the program while struggling to use it. Viola! Word is ubiquitous today, and Word Perfect has largely disappeared. What was the lesson learned? Bypass the individual and go straight to the boss. Let them foist your half-baked product on the individual. So much for “personal computing.”

Nowadays, everybody goes straight to your boss and sells them something you will either use, or head over to the unemployment office. Sell the boss on a political platform or ideology, and people will fall in line with that ideology or be forced out of the workplace. Is there any single idea you would forfeit your job and family for? Probably not. So when the vast majority of corporations and small-to-medium sized businesses latched onto the Trumpian authoritarian ideology …convincing one corporation that Trump is profitable for them and can be easily bribed is the same as selling thousands of individuals on his politics. Will you censor your own thoughts and words? Of course you will. And friends, Trump wants you to know he has your employer by the balls, and your employer has you by yours …or your lack of them.

If you say anything political that doesn’t comport with the current Trump Party line, you will probably be fired as soon as an excuse can be found or manufactured. If not, you probably own your own business and are already Trump-adjacent. For the rest of us, you can say anything you want by law, but it doesn’t work that way in practice. Here is an example:

In Russia, a “communist” banana republic dictatorship, everyone gets their paycheck from the state. Everyone that already has a job, has that job because they shut the hell up and went back to work; that or they don’t have a job anywhere in Russia and have to leave the country …except that they can’t leave the country without “papers.” In particular, no one leaves without signing an agreement with the FSB (KGB) to report back with whatever information they are asked to. I’m sure most Russians never do that once they leave …unless they have relatives in the old country.

So that’s where you’re headed here, folks. As Trump nationalizes a government “stake” in your corporate workplace or files a lawsuit suing your business, he will shorten your choke-chain. Control a man’s paycheck, and you control the man. Is your employer a Trump supporter? Of course they are. What Trump is doing mirrors the Putin model exactly. I will say you owe it to your children to wake up and realize you’re on the short end of the “Fuse of Doom” in America, and you will say you don’t believe me. You will continue to live in the “Home of the Chickenshit, and the Land of the Presidential Crypto-Merch.” The fuse has already been lit.

I’ll close with a single remark that may seem unrelated at first glance, but it’s actually straight to the point:

Did George Orwell nail this, or what?