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Consider the case of 84-year-old, British war veteran, Walter Bargate, who attempted suicide by swallowing a hundred sleeping pills and pain killers, after spending three winter days and nights in the freezing cold after a power company broke into his house and disconnected his supply.^[1]

It turned out the power company had been grossly overcharging him for years, but when Walter tried to contact their customer service he was kept on hold for three hours, until he eventually gave up.

Much was written and spoken in 2007 (the bi-centenary of slavery abolition), celebrating its abolition and bemoaning the part played by various nations in its evil perpetration. Yes, the subject is slavery, and all of us are happy it is is a thing of the past, at least in western civilizations.

But, is it?

Certainly, the simple process of buying or acquiring a human being as property, to be used and misused at whim, is no longer acceptable, at least on the surface of any modern, sophisticated, society. As Agnes Repplier so aptly put it, to be civilized is: “to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.” Yet, two hundred and one years after the abolition of slavery in the US and UK, a new, pernicious, form of slavery is spreading relentlessly throughout the modern world.

Walter Bargate survived. His is a sad story, but what, you may ask, has it to do with modern day slavery?

Let’s first examine the definition of a “slave”.

According to Webster’s it’s:

“a person held in servitude as the chattel of another” or “one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence”

Just to be absolutely clear, let’s define “servitude”:

“a condition in which one lacks liberty especially to determine one’s course of action or way of life”

With those definitions in mind, let us consider the case of Walter Bargate.

The power company at the center of this story was E.ON. Originally a German company, E.ON is now multinational with offices throughout Europe and the United States.^[2] There’s nothing special about E.ON, it’s just another vast multinational corporation. Yet, it’s exactly because of that description that E.ON has become the villain, the slavemaster, in the story of Walter Bargate.

Once upon a time we lived in a world of competition. Numerous small businesses vied for our custom. Customer service was the highest topic on the agenda of every board meeting. That old adage, “The customer’s always right”, rang true throughout the business world.

Then, in stepped the evil witch, “Big Business”, crushing all the little businesses. Suddenly, the customer had nowhere to go. “Big Business” controlled the retail outlets, energy suppliers, healthcare (in the case of America) and every other consumer-orientated business on the planet.

It didn’t stop there, however. “Big Business” is a parasite that preys on itself. Gradually, “Big Business” metamorphosed into “the Corporates”, as monsters slew each other, gobbled up the competition, until just one gi-normous entity survived in any field of business.

Suddenly, consumers had no choice. They only had one supplier to choose from. If they weren’t satisfied, they couldn’t take their custom elsewhere, because there was nowhere else to go.

Slowly it dawned on “the Corporates” that customer service was no longer vital to their business. If the punter had no choice, he also had no control. The customer was at the mercy of the supplier, both for services and goods. This opened up immense opportunities for corporate profit. No longer was the consumer in charge of quality, variety, or pricing. The customer had to take what was on offer, regardless of those three criteria.

Suddenly, the people had lost control. No longer could a consumer say, “I’m not satisfied with your service, I’m taking my custom elsewhere.” “Elsewhere” no longer existed. The people had become the slaves of “the Corporates”.

Corporate bosses soon realized this didn’t only apply to the customer, but to corporate employees. If a power company employee felt unfairly treated, he couldn’t move to another power company, for there wasn’t one. His union effectively lost its bargaining rights.

The corporate bosses held total control.

The advent of computer technology allowed “the Corporates” to dispense with large numbers of their workforce. ‘Customer service’ became an automated voice offering options that steered the customer away from human contact. The obstinate consumer, demanding a live voice, soon found the hours of brain-deadening, piped music, interspersed with recorded automatons informing, “Your custom is important to us. Please hold. Our representative will be with you shortly. You are only number 1,252 in the queue”, just too much to bear and hung up in frustration and disgust.

The consumer today finds himself totally subservient to the dominating influence of “the Corporates”. He lacks the liberty to determine his course of action or way of life.

He is a slave, in the true meaning of the word.

When Walter Bargate discovered his power bills were way too high, he tried to contact the corporate multinational, “E.ON”, and solve the problem. E.ON’s sophisticated computer-controlled, automated service effectively prevented him from doing that. It didn’t matter that E.ON had overcharged him by $13,000. The Corporate is always right, and if it isn’t, your right of redress is severely limited by an inability to contact anyone who can rectify the mistake.

The local business on the High Street, which relied on satisfying its customers, has become the multi-national in Texas, or Dusseldorf, or Nor’ Nor’ West Bohemia, that doesn’t give a shit about you, or any of its customers, because you have nowhere else to go. You have no control. You are subservient to a dominating influence. You lack the liberty to determine your course of action or your way of life.

And if you still believe you do, then hold fire, because it won’t be long before you change your mind.

Just like the slavemasters of old, “the Corporates” are out to ensure that what they decide is right for them, is exactly what you’ll get.

^{[1] “War veteran, 84, in suicide bid……”} Daily Mail, July 4th, 2008

[2] ‘E.ON’ Website

Filed under: Controlling the masses

So Jesse Helms is dead. The media is pouring forth its usual pious platitudes and intimating I should weep for this man and respect his views, even though they’re in total contradiction to my own, just because he’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, gone to that great home for bigots in the sky.

Helms was entitled to his personal views, but his standing as a public servant did not license him to use his political platform, not just to air them, but to abuse his position by promoting narrow-minded, bigoted, pseudo-religious ideals designed to hold this country, and the world, back from advancing its humanitarian ideals.

Helms’s contribution to US politics was to scupper international treaties. He was responsible for blocking the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Kyoto Protocal on global warming, and he opposed the use of US troops in Bosnia. He was against the Salt II arms reduction pact and the Panama Canal Treaty.

He was the worst kind of bigot; a man who persuaded others to his own self-opinionated viewpoint by virtue of his political position.

Jesse Helms may have tried to buy his way into Heaven by campaigning for the passage of a debt relief bill through Congress, but it was not enough to make up for the untold harm his political career has done to America and the world.

Jesse Helms doesn’t deserve to rot in Hell, though if I were of Helm’s mentality, I’d probably believe he should.

Filed under: Dead end

Whatever happened to bars of soap? You know, those solid blocks that sat happily on one’s washbasin and could be lathered up with hot water and a swift rub between the hands?

All we seem to get today are plastic containers with a silly nozzle on top that squirt liquid gunge all over the worktop when you don’t want it, and when you do they just emit a noise reminiscent of a wet fart, and eject a few bubbles.

That’s the only way you know when they’re empty. At least with a decent bar of soap you have advance knowledge of when it needs replacing.

I’ve seen bars of soap on sale in Wal-Mart but nobody buys them. Why? Because there’s nowhere to put them anymore. Once, washbasins were constructed with nice soap-bar sized indentations next to the taps. It was quite an art-form, after washing the hands, to gently eject the soap so it slipped between the fingers, hit the top of the basin and slithered casually into its alloted place. Try that today and it would shoot straight off the washbasin and down the side of the toilet. By the time you got it back it would resemble a Scotsman’s sporran and no amount of immersion in hot water could shift the twenty-thousand short and curlies stubbornly adhering to its surface.

It’s just as bad in Britain. On the recent vacation we stayed at a couple of hotels. They have bars of soap, but they’re minute. No sooner is it out the wrapper than you’ve lost it. Usually in the shower. You grasp the bar in your hand, begin the body-lathering process, and next moment it’s gone – down into the bowels of the tub. And you can never find it because British hotel soap is generally a pale beige color, and for some strange reason hotel tubs are always exactly the same hue.

You peer down through the steam, feel blindly around with the toes, but the darned thing seems to have escaped down the plughole. Only it hasn’t. It’s lurking, waiting to pounce just at the moment you step forward to reach for the towel. Suddenly it’s right there, under your heel, and you’re doing the Skater’s Waltz down the tub until your foot hits the steep, slopey bit at the end and there’s nothing in the universe that can stop you going arse over tit into the bottom.

Back from vacation, we found another bathroom problem.

What is it with American toilets? The US must be the only country in the world that flushes with a flapper. Every other civilized nation uses a sophisticated siphon system to empty the cistern and propel the water into the toilet.

Well, apart from the French, who just use a hole in the ground.

American plumbing wisdom devised a rubber flapper to block up the orifice that lets the water out. Flushing is achieved with a bit of rusty chain that yanks the flapper out of the hole.

This, from the world’s greatest Superpower!

On arriving home I flushed the toilet to discover most of the water pouring out the bottom of the cistern and onto the floor. Apparently, there’s a rubber seal between it and the toilet.

(All this rubber in American toilets must surely indicate some sort of national fetish.)

Removing the cistern was a joy. The bolts were all rusted and liberal applications of penetrating gunk failed to budge them. In desperation, the ‘Mechanic Mike Super Shifter thousand pound torque wrench’ was called for. Wedged, head bent between the toilet and shower, I needed to maneuver just an inch nearer, whereupon my right knee squeezed onto the aerosol of penetrating gunk, firing a high pressure jet of oily gunge right between the eyes.

Blinded, I staggered back, concussed my head on the toilet, groped for the washbasin and found the hot water tap. Reaching forwards, my hands felt for the soap dispenser.

I pressed the plunger, and was rewarded with a wet fart and a few bubbles.

Filed under: Bathroom woes