Falling Into The Nietzschean Abyss

I'm falling...

Falling...

Into the Nietzschean Abyss...

Quick...

Anybody have a trampoline...

A really, really long ladder...

A fire department...


A parachute...

Even a set of mountain gear...

Some shoes and gloves with spikes...

To grab onto the walls...

Perhaps a ledge...not that I've seen a ledge...

I can't see anything..

It just keeps getting darker, and darker, and darker...

I can barely see the light above me...


Does this abyss...

End in water?

Or hard rock ground...that is going to break all my bones...

And kill me...


Anybody got a super big, thick mattress...

That they can throw beneath me...

Perhaps this abyss...

Goes right through the earth...

To China...or Australia...or New Zealand...

Or more likely it ends in fire and rock...

Perhaps I will meet the Devil himself...

Did I do something wrong...

Go down a bad path...

Or make a wrong choice...

Make a whole bunch of bad choices...

To get me here....

Is this my 'Un-Divine Punishment'...

Or might I learn something down here...

Can I learn something about myself...

And turn myself into a better person...

My own personal Phoenix re-born...

Whatever doesn't kill you,

Makes you stronger....

How much deeper must I plunge?

And who or what am I going to meet down here?

Or is this going to end on a deathbed of cold rock...

Or burning lava...

Deep water maybe I can survive...

Although with my momentum,

I'll probably run out of air long before I resurface...

Assuming I resurface at all...

Is this a dream?

A myth?

A nightmare?

Please, be a nightmare!

And let me wake up!!

Now!! Before I have a heart attack!!

If I must be down here,

Let me at least walk around...

Not keep falling...

Man, did I ever miss The Nietzschean Bridge...

Even the Nietzschean Rope...

Anybody...give me a Nietschean Rope...

That I can once again feel some Nietzschean Hope...

Climbing is far better than falling...

Give me some mountain gear...

And I'll take on Mt. Everest...

Or let me land safely below...

And I will take on...

Narcissus...Dionysus...Even Satan himself...

The 'Unholy Trinity'...

No deals with The Devil...

Well, maybe some detoxified compromises...

(My bargaining power isn't very good right now...)

But I'm not going to sell my Soul...

Maybe I did already sell my Soul...

Maybe that is why I am down here...

I sold out on My Self...

I sold myself to The Devil...

Where did I go wrong?

What bad choice did I make?

Or was it a whole slew of them?

How did I sell myself to The Devil?

By failing my parents when they need me most?

By looking powerless and weak in front of my kids...

And in front of my long-time girlfriend?

Maybe I have become powerless and weak?

How did that happen?

By turning my back on corporate owners...

Who had already sold themselves to The Devil?

Who every day were choosing Profit over People?

But in walking a way...

I was making things worse for myself...

Throwing myself into this economic abyss?

Is a 'Personal Economic Abyss'

The same as a 'Nietzschean Abyss'?

Or are the two abysses just connected together?

Different holes down to the same landing pit?

Not enough money and you can't pay your bills properly...

Take your kids and/or your girlfriend out for dinner...

Help your parents out of their own Economic Abyss...

You/I feel weak inside...

You can't chase your own dream...

Because you are too busy just trying to get out of...

Your Own Economic Abyss...

'Recession' is too weak a word to describe...

The Personal Economic Hell that you feel going on inside you...

And all around you...

As you battle your personal demons...

And meet some of the people you need to meet...

To work your way out of your Economic Abyss...

And not the ones who want to keep you down there...

The psychology, economics, and politics

Of Insufficieny...and Deficiency...

Keep you deficient...

And they can keep the 'puppet controls' on your destiny...

A bloated, unemployed work force...

Willing to work for less and less..

Makes unethical Corporate Owners....smile in smug self-satisfaction...

'Keep the immigration coming...'

Chirp the corporate owners to the politicians....

'More tax dollars and votes for you....

And a cheaper and cheaper labour force for us...

Pretty soon, we won't have to build our plants...

And offices...

Overseas...

Cause we'll have what we need here!

The minimum wage is $10 an hour...

We can get around that...

Here in Toronto, just get Ford to dump the 'fair wage policy'...

I like much of Ford's mandate....but not that one...
You can't justify a two or three tiered workforce...

Where contracted, privatized workers become essentially discriminated against...

And treated like 'Third World Workers'...

Turn a blind eye while they get paid half -- or a third of -- the wages of the workers still left over in City Hall...

This is what I call 'Downloaded' and 'Downsized' Worker Contracts'...

Where hundred thousand dollar earning civil politicians...

Allow private contractors to treat their workers like 'Third World Slaves'...

The Importation of 'Third World Wages' into Canada to become competitive with..

China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, The Philipines, Mexico, South America...

While politicians keep the borders open, the immigration tap on full blast...

Like the bathtub tap running full at full throttle while water spills over the top of the bath...

More immigration, cheaper labour, unethical corporate owners, and/or even corporate owners simply trying to remain competitive with outside countries' cheaper labour forces...

What we need in as international monetary system...and an international minimum wage system that puts all countries, and all corporations on the same equal footing...

Otherwise, the countries with the cheapest work forces win the battle of Globalization...

Canada, and particularly Ontario...seems to be trying hard to get there...

What used to be Canada's wealthiest province....

Is being trashed by Free Trade, Globalization, Uncapped Immigration, Paying more attention and giving more favoritism to new immigrants than to the senior citizens and the workers who have lived in Canada all their lives...

I am all for cultural diversity, cultural integration, AND EGALITARIANISM

BUT EGALITARIAN TAKES A VICIOUS NOSE DIVE WHEN CANADA IS TRYING TO RE-CREATE ITS OWN 'INTERNAL GHETTO WORK FORCE' TO COMPETE WITH FOREIGN COUNTRIES...

I ADVOCATE FAIR WAGES TO EVERYONE WHO LIVES AND WORKS IN CANADA, NOT JUST TO THOSE WHO WORK FOR THE GOVERNMENT, AND/OR THE HIGHEST ECHELONS OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS...

For anyone who has done well in Canada, I tip my hat to you...as long as you have maintained your ethics and integrity getting to where you are...

But beneath you, and amongst the 'front line blue collar and white collar workers' there is a movement going on...and it is not a good one...

I call it creating a 'ghetto work force' -- even to the point of ignoring and/or finding ways around provincial 'minimum wage' laws....

One very efficient way around Ontario's minimum wage laws...

Is simply to create a 'worker's contract'...

No benefits, no minimum wage...

Maybe they are paid 'ghetto commissions'....

Or maybe they are given an hourly wage...and then told...

It includes your gas expenses....

That is a very popular trend these days...

Dowload rising gas prices onto the 'worker with a contract'...

Turn most of Ontario taxi drivers, or limo drivers, or courier drivers...

The ones who can't figure it out, or have nothing better to turn to...

Into a provincial 'Ghetto Work Force on Wheels'...

Let's see if we can get them down to $5 an hour....or less...

While our politicians turn a blind eye to what is happening...
'Oh Canada, We Stand On Guard For Thee!'

Keep those borders open, all you Republican and Democratic politicians...

And keep all those New Mexico farmers and corporations happy...

How can you know how much a worker is making?

If you don't even know that he or she is in the country?

If you want cheap 'home-grown' products and services, North America...

Then, you have to accept The New and Already Here, 'Third World Working Wages'...

Otherwise, stay at home, stay unemployed...

And we will simply produce our products, create our services...

Elsewhere, in other parts of the world...

It's called 'Free Trade'....

And 'Globalization'....
Don't you just love it?

It is bringing more and more workers...thousands...millions...

To a much clearer understanding of what at least one part of...

The Nietzschean Abyss is...

Fewer and fewer Big Unions...or for that matter, any type of unions...large or small...

As the whipped cream and the cherry on top...of the Banks and Mortgages 'Almost Financially Collapsing'....But somehow, with The Presidents' and The Senate's help....managing to escape with millions and millions of dollar of 'separation contracts'...and then 'Stimulus Packages' to coax them back....We need you...kind sirs...to steal more and more of our hard earned money...

We can't live with you, but we can't live without you either...

So we will give you millions of more money...'Stimulus Money'...to not go out the back door and leave an empty bank or mortgage company behind you...They must have learned from the Fitness Clubs...they used to do that...Go bankrupt under one name after stealing 'years of contract membership money'...and then open another Fitness Club...under a different name...
Only in America...

Well....correction...it seems to be a 'Global Financial Game' these day...

Here's to Globalization...

China is doing well...

I better not write too loudly...

China is in the process of owning North America...

If it hasn't essentially gotten there already...

Anyway, hats off to China and India in one respect at least....

They know how to balance budgets...and pay by cash, not credit...

I have no problems with these countries, or any other country, wanting to do better...

I just ask how North Americans are making their own lives better?

Canada used to be scared of being 'swallowed up' by America...

Now both Canada and America deserve to feel rightfully afraid...

Of being swallowed up by China...

America...home of the brave and free....

America...fighting on foreign shores to preserve its freedom and integrity...

While Foreign Corporate Forces Are Taking that same freedom and integrity away...

Coming in through a different door...

'Free trade' is not the same as 'fair trade'...

The generations of politicians and capitalists before us knew that...

That is why they had 'tariffs'....for purposes of 'national protectionism' and/or a 'more equal international trading foundation'....

If foreign corporations are paying a pittance of the labour costs that North American corporations are paying....

How is that 'fair' in a very competitive global market?

It is like one gigantic 'teeter totter game'...

China, India, Pakistan, The Phillipines, Taiwan, Mexico, South America...

Are all going up...

As America and Canada go down...

The Economic Abyss....bringing with it economic despair...

Soon funnels into the Niezschean Abyss....

Until our whole existence is essentially poisoned by economics...

We still have freedom...some freedom...less freedom...

I take my hat off to those who are doing well...when many are not...as long as you have kept your ethics and integrity reasonably intact...

Meanwhile, I still write about the politically...

And economically...

Incorrect...

My problems pales compared with those who are fighting...

In foreign wars...

Or are fighting devastating health problems...

Or are living on the street or in temporary shelters...

At least when I step away from this computer in a few minutes...

I still have a solid home base from which to leave and come back to, and enough time, money, and energy to fight another economic day...

In between my forays into writing about philosophy, psychology, economics, politics, mythology, religion...

Lose your body, lose your mind...and you lose everything you have to fight your economic, creative, professional, and/or personal battles with...

At least in between bad jobs, I can still write in Hegel's Hotel...

Write about Nietzsche and The 'Anti-Christ'...

Write about Jung and Mythology...

Write about Freud and Transference...

And still find a way to help my parents...

And take my kids and girlfriend out to dinner...

Together or separately,

As long as we are living, breathing, and still have hope, energy, and willpower...

We can still climb our way out of Nietzsche's Abyss...

No Faustian deals with The Devil...

Are needed...

Just faith in ourselves, and what we can do...

Both individually...

And collectively...

In dialectic...

And pluralistic...

Union...



-- dgb, Nov. 12th, 2010,

-- David Gordon Bain
Posted by david gordon bain at 6:27 AM Links to this post