The Price on Wilson
Labor Day 2012
digital image / slightly rendered
So they say to Terry (Brando) Malloy, "This ain't your night." Why's that?
"We're going for the price on Wilson," they say.
~
So my grandfather signs on as a laborer building the Panama Canal in trade for resident alien status here in the U.S. And by luck he lives through the malaria, murder-for-your-pay-pouch and the daily danger of working in the pit. So why not years later, drink homemade wine with your paisans and pass out in the cherry orchard? He the night watchman for nineteen years until they say, "It ain't your night tonight, John." Just shy of retirement benefits. The factory can watch itself. Tonight.
Decades later Pham's turn comes. Never mind the hard work and the good standing and the extra hours just to learn the new machine with no pay. It ain't his night, either. Then his co-worker steps in and says, "I'll go. This man has a young family. Mine are grown." Huge machines churn plastic and sheet metal profit while young men grow old and dream of fish and new kitchen floors.
Nail-aprons, leather gloves and welder's face shield. Uniforms and name tags. Musicians, engineers, farm laborers, craftsmen and union members. Cops, cooks and ship captains. They build cities and keep them safe. They run trains on time. Keep the lights on. They design solutions keep the books and give to others. They work. They play taps for veterans and don't want fame. They labor and love and ask only for a fair shot. Go check their reflection in the Statue of Liberty and on countless war memorial plaques posted in towns and cities throughout this country. Daughters, sons, fathers, sisters, mothers, brothers. These people pray the sun up each day. This is their day.
So to the extractors, the algorithmic traders, and those who profit unfairly from others' honest sweat...those who design complex financial products and push the limits of legality and logic...who pay untold millions to lawyers and hide their profits (and losses) while CEOs make obscene bonuses and low tide strands everyone else on the mud-flats of 'the-way-it-used-to-be'...I say, "This ain't your day." Take your Cayman Island-flagged yachts and sail out to international waters. Forget the price on Wilson. He's sitting here with us. I just bought him a cold one.
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So my grandfather signs on as a laborer building the Panama Canal in trade for resident alien status here in the U.S. And by luck he lives through the malaria, murder-for-your-pay-pouch and the daily danger of working in the pit. So why not years later, drink homemade wine with your paisans and pass out in the cherry orchard? He the night watchman for nineteen years until they say, "It ain't your night tonight, John." Just shy of retirement benefits. The factory can watch itself. Tonight.
Decades later Pham's turn comes. Never mind the hard work and the good standing and the extra hours just to learn the new machine with no pay. It ain't his night, either. Then his co-worker steps in and says, "I'll go. This man has a young family. Mine are grown." Huge machines churn plastic and sheet metal profit while young men grow old and dream of fish and new kitchen floors.
Nail-aprons, leather gloves and welder's face shield. Uniforms and name tags. Musicians, engineers, farm laborers, craftsmen and union members. Cops, cooks and ship captains. They build cities and keep them safe. They run trains on time. Keep the lights on. They design solutions keep the books and give to others. They work. They play taps for veterans and don't want fame. They labor and love and ask only for a fair shot. Go check their reflection in the Statue of Liberty and on countless war memorial plaques posted in towns and cities throughout this country. Daughters, sons, fathers, sisters, mothers, brothers. These people pray the sun up each day. This is their day.
So to the extractors, the algorithmic traders, and those who profit unfairly from others' honest sweat...those who design complex financial products and push the limits of legality and logic...who pay untold millions to lawyers and hide their profits (and losses) while CEOs make obscene bonuses and low tide strands everyone else on the mud-flats of 'the-way-it-used-to-be'...I say, "This ain't your day." Take your Cayman Island-flagged yachts and sail out to international waters. Forget the price on Wilson. He's sitting here with us. I just bought him a cold one.
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