i've been on the inside. Where the company is the state and the state is the company. i've been victimized by a sociopathic supervisor and his sociopathic boss, the dean of our particular part of the university. i've watched as one of the only females of colour on the staff were harassed and gossipped about, including by the bosses. i've listened to the stories of a woman who worked there for 15 years and was harassed by her supervisor and a co-worker. i've attempted to communicate with the so-called "Office of Social Equity." i've been ill-advised and outright lied to by superiors. i've had Human Resources people lie to my face and intimidate me for the interests of my sociopathic boss. i've seen them become more adversarial as i demanded proof for their claims and none was to be found. i've jumped through the hoops, as advised by Union representatives who have never once been the same individual, never once had the correct details and never once cared to do their jobs (being, to represent my rights as an employee in the state of PA to have a non-hostile work environment). i've seen the union do the same for others, though "doing" is too active a word for such a passive union of mouths without legs. i've watched my parent, with aid of a lawyer and frustrating lack of cooperation with the EEOC and doctors unwilling to get involved in hospital politics, fight a battle they had no chance at winning, after my mother was harassed and intimidated out of her job. i've had other hospital workers acknowledge that hospitals are one of the last places employees can expect to have their rights protected. i've paid for products that did not work as advertized. i've paid for services severed under false claims. i've been laid off, fired and blacklisted. i've even been abducted by the county by a hospital with emergency room staff that had zero interest in paying attention to the people brought into it.
i've seen and been through all this, and more. i've reported it to authorities only to find the authorities do not care, have no motivation to do anything or are part of the problem (and disinterest automatically makes any authority figure part of the problem). i've blogged it, posted it, reported on it ad nausium. The most common response is "Chill out, why do you care? Go somewhere better."
Here's the hard truth about your rights: You have none.
There is one exception/conditional/variable that can affect this:
Someone with the motive and power to defend you. If you have that, you might have rights.
Without that, and, by union acknowledgement (and my friends' and parents' personal experiences), without the money to buy that person's motivation to defend you, you functionally have no rights. Forget laws. Forget the EEOC. Forget the BBB. Forget state, federal or local law. Forget diversity. Forget human rights advocacy organizations. Forget the Constitution. Forget it all.
In this nation, and maybe in many other places throughout the world (influenced by USAmerican economics or not), you only have as much protection as you have power and influence... or connection to it.
You will hear otherwise. You will hear about democracy, constitutional rights, diversity, representatives, laws and freedom... you will hear about god. You will hear much propaganda and be handed many insubstantial plattitudes. You will be told where to go, how to feel, what to think and what should matter. In the end, if you demand proof of your rights, if you demand your rights be protected and acted on, you will be called a complainer, whiner, abuser of the system, someone looking for a free ride, too sensitive, not-a-team-player, inflexible, unAmerican, a socialist, a social paracite, wasting everyone's tax dollars, and/or other insults-intended.
When you go to vote (and you do vote, right?), you will be wasting your time and your effort because your vote does not count. (but you should still vote because it's a civic duty... like overthrowing an unjust governing body used to be a civic duty... and it's a right, just like your right to bear arms with which to... hang in a room and admire, and ocassionally fire at select animals at select times of the year, or show off at a firing range with your buddies, to give yourself a feeling of power when you are, in fact, quite impotent to affect the world around you).
No doubt my opinion is not shared by all... but the interesting thing is, my opinion is becoming more and more prolific throughout the world, especially when expressed about the USA. No doubt i will be harassed for expressing these thoughts... by people who's opinions differ. Not because i'm particularly wrong, but because they feel it is their duty (civic or holy) to correct me without proof, to correct me with memes that they don't really understand intellectually but which seem to sound good, and probably with as insubstantial and insulting language as possible. Don't forget the threats from Republicans (who either believe all the nonsense because they have power, or believe it because they want power), the gun owners and the racists... as well as the even slightly more uncomfortable threats of being loved by strangers even though i am wrong.
By posting this, i am demonstrating that my "Right to free speech" means nothing without the power to make people defend that right, defend my speech, protect it from deletion by special interest groups or corporations.
This posting, in essence, means nothing and will accomplish nothing. So why bother?
It's the only right i have the power to exercise.
Even at that, it still isn't much; i'm using a commercial entity to exercise this so-called right. Like everything else, all it takes is a quick click by the uncaring and disagreeable, and it will be gone.
i have no rights because no one cares to defend them.
How secure do you believe YOU are?
.
Labels: abuse, abuse of power, anti-social, arrogance, autism, bully, creative writing, exposure, flickr, god complex, harassment, intimidation, jefferson, KU, kutztown university, neuroracism, power mad,
