Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 20:33:13 -0400
From: khalid.ali@utoronto.ca
X-Sender: khalid.ali@log3
To: John Tennyson Lee Franz <lee@faces.ula.ve>
Subject: Re: Between Pluto and
Venus, High-Tech.
Hello Franz,
I hope you have all had a wonderful weekend at the farm and are all well and healthy. Tomorrow, I will be having an interview for a part-time job at Purolator (a company that is similar to Federal Express). A friend of mine has spoken to someone in there and surprisingly they called me. So, right now, I am busy with role playing, to convince them that I am suited/qualified and interested in the (customer service) position. I hope they will "buy" my argument and give me a break to earn some money.
I hate going to interviews. Its like selling your "soul" - you have to convince the interviewer that you are the "best" they have ever met, accompanied with the usual capitalistlike business attitude of corporate responsibility and loyalty to the company's goals and objectives. If I get the position, it means that I am a good liar and faker, if I do not, then I am a "loser."
Most of the new jobs created today are technology based. It's the
so-called Information Highway revolution. Its a concept that
politicians, CEO's and organization specialists like to clamour
about; on how it will change the face of the earth. Often in the news media,
announcements heralding the new information era, it is greeted with
tremendous fanfare and pumped up interest on the latest information highway/technology
gadgets; about how there will be new and greater efficiency and greater
competition.
Everyone will gain, so they are claiming, money will be saved, but also greater leisure time will be created; thus, production will multiply. This is the very latest utopia of high-tech living dreams, created by futuristic capitalists visionaries of the tomorrows.
Thus, the worker should all be excited, after all, according to the
propagandists, they stand to benefit more, because they will get
a greater and easily accessible range of services at little or no costs.
This aggressive media and propaganda blitzkrieg have one aim: That
is, to create public support and excitement for the new technology.
However, with another principle objective, that is to get governments to divert financial resources from welfare programs to subsidize the construction of the information highway. The greatest beneficiaries are the corporations and multinationals who will not only replace the very current workers that are constructing the information highway, but also those in the manufacturing and service sectors. Thus, the oppressive technology is created and paid for by the very workers who are fired at the end.
Its the classic coup d'etat for corporations and multinationals and at the same time, of intellectual property rights. It means the very workers now have to pay to benefit from the very technology they are creating, only to vanish later as a working class.
Finally, nothing that is happening today is done by accident. The
whole purpose is to develop a new worldwide control over the dissemination
of information that will permit the monitoring of the markets and
fund transfers worldwide by multinationals, to enable them to extend their
operations unfettered without State interference to invest and transfer
their money unhindered in pursuit of cheaper labour worldwide.
Therefore, the birth of the new ideological mantra, that "we have
no choice but to compete if we want to survive the new era to preserve
our nation and society." While the displaced and marginalized multiply,
they are being blamed for causing the problem, because they are beneficiaries
of government
assistance, which they claim are increasing the national debt.
The calamity which workers now confront is equivalent to the upheaval
of the industrial revolution two centuries ago.
Good night,
love and best of wishes to you all,
until tomorrow,
Love.
Khalid