How Piecework Is Draining America Dry

1. Piece work(or piecework)
   is any type of employment in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed regardless of time.

Last month, Yahoo News reported that one-third of American workers are now freelancers (34%). That's 53 million Americans who are no longer hold traditional full-time jobs with benefits (which often feel skimpy, but represent at least a token level of employer commitment).

Thsee numbers come from a survey by the Freelancers Union, whose name is one of those Orwellian oxymorons that only America can breed -- since it's actually an association, rather than a traditional union that bargains for members' interests. However, "Union" carries more weight on a letterhead than "Association," right? We'll revisit that issue shortly.

Behind all the buzzwords ("freedom," "flexibility" and "independence") lies a dark side, though. A Freelancers Union internal survey cited in the New York Times (3/24/13 shows 58 percent of its members earning less than $50,000 per year; 29 percent taking home $25,000 or less; 12 percent received food stamps during the recession; and 40 percent spent a great deal of time chasing down unpaid compensation. By any measure, that's a lot of struggling people, even though the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't feel obliged to count them.

"Don't negotiate with the bosses. Abolish them."

(Graffiti: Paris Riots: May 1968)

If you're on the receiving end of these tends, you know the drill too well. To the person engaging your services, you're a replaceable widget, a nuisance to swat aside after the bean counters whack budgets for the umpteenth time. That's the new American way: "You're doing OK? Great, let's take you down a notch." You either take the gig, or risk losing income if you say no. Most of the time, you'll get a flat that stays stubbornly frozen, even though bills never stop flying across your desk.

To the government, you're simply a cash cow. Whether you're an army of one or 100, self-employment taxes bite notoriously deep -- and, since you're paid on a per-piece, per-project basis, fripperies like health insurance, retirement and vacations remain an elusive dream, one reserved for the inner ring of lucky bastards who've locked them in. (Michigan lawmakers, for example, earn a $71,685 base salary, making them the fourth highest-paid state body after California, Pennsylvania and New York, respectively.)

To the media, you're a figure of envy (look, Ma, they're getting to sleep in, and work in their pajamas!), or a romantic loner surfing against the Man -- take your pick -- although neither of these comic stereotypes captures many newly-minted freelancers' feelings about the Gig Economy, as the Times's story makes plain:

"But many freelancers would prefer not to participate in that economy at all. They would rather have regular jobs, but companies will often hire them only as independent contractors. Companies find these workers less painful to dismiss and generally loss costly because they rarely receive severance pay or benefits like health insurance or paid vacations."

"I hear a gang cry...on the human factory farm..."

(The Clash: "This Is England")

The above quote is among the few honest nuggets in the Times's story, whose subjects bandy about buzzwords like "flexibility" and "new mutualism." If you closed your eyes and heard those words being read aloud, you might be tempted to see the steady erosion of collective bargaining rights since the Reagan era as some quaint little social experiment being conducted with white gloves and lab coats.

The Piecework Industrial Complex's subjects have a rather different take on the matter, I suspect. How can the creation of a permanently insecure contract worker underlcass really be considered good for the economy?  However, such complexities don't seem to bother Kyle Zimmer, who's working with the Freelance Union's executive director, Sara Horowitz, to set up a health cooperative for its members in Oregon.

According to the Times, Zimmer lauds Horowitz as someone who "stepped into that space, navigated through difficult waters, and created a successful insurance company that takes on traditional insurers. She did this in a way that would make anyone who believes in private enterprise proud."  Hearing such talk makes me shudder under my breath: "Be very afraid...be very afraid." (And before you whip out the confetti, read the Dissent magazine story below about how much the Freelancers Union charges for insurance, and who actually gets it -- it's an eye-opener.)

Although such projects are theoretically admirable, their value is questionable if no social change isn't in the cards...especially since the Freelancers Union doesn't bother to agitate for them on a greater societal level. The companies who pushed workers into the Non-Benefit Ghetto will keep doing it, since nobody's putting any heat them on change their ways (least of all Ms. Horowitz, whose many connections include a seat on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Board). 

"The savage mutilation
Of the human race
Is set on course

"It is up to us
To change that course
Protest and survive!
Protest and survive!"

(Discharge: "Protest And Survive")

Funnily enough, however, all this starry-eyed prattling about "mutualism" between corporations and contractors doesn't impress those on the receiving end of the deal. That's why it's worth scrolling through the comments section of any article, such as this telling little exchange from a yahoo.com story on the same topic: 

Gigger #1: "Freelancers saturated the market and lowballed the veteran freelancers. The veterans like myself are now going back as direct hires with bennies.  The good times in freelancing are over. Put a fork in it."

Gigger #2: "After 20 years of freelancing, 10 years ago I gave it up, 'sold out' and took my first full-time jobs with benefits and 'security'...said I'd never go back to the uncertainty of freelancing...Now I'm about to be laid-off as our company closes its doors and while I know I will not starve and become homeless; at 50 I do not relish the constant search for the next payday."

Well, there's only one thing left to do...sing with me now, everyone, "Born free...as free as the wind blows...as free as the grass grows..." --The Reckoner

Links To Go (A Taste Of Stark Reality, For Those Who Can Stomach It):

Dissent Magazine: The "I" In Union

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-i-in-union

Fast Company: Tales Of Freelance Health Insurance

That Might Just Make Your Queasy:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1540138/tales-freelance-health-insurance-might-just-make-you-queasy

The New York Times: Tackling Concerns of Independent Workers

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/business/freelancers-union-tackles-concerns-of-independent-workers.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&

Dave Ramsey is for the Middle Class and Above, Not Me!

Dave Ramsey is for the rich. Those with the expendable income, hard wood floors and granite counters mentioned below. Years ago, many churches in my area got into Dave Ramsey. I never took a class but read his column and at least one book. His advice to save $1,000 for an emergency made sense, and on occasion we have. Sadly though a car repair or reduced work for my husband always makes it vaporize like a fart in the wind. One thing I noticed with this guy: expendable income was a given. All of his advice centered around having a good income that paid the bills and then allowed for a huge chunk of expendable income for the savings, plannings and goals. One thing missing from the Dave Ramsey plan for millions is the GOOD JOB that pays money like this. 

On Sept 9th, he offers advice in his column to use coupons and to drink water and to go to matinee movies. Sure the poor are used to doing that, though some of us wonder why the coupons now are only for the inedible garbage [make you sick foods] and expensive stuff. I haven't been to a movie since "The King's Speech" came out.

His response to the second guy made me laugh: you can save those car payments, and be able to buy a good used car. I think the guy should have avoided the expensive new car, but what does he do in the meantime? Unless he lives next door to his workplace, how is going without a car for 12 months going to work for most?

He equates debt to moral defeat. Easy for a rich guy who has options to promote.  The sad thing is Americans of better means lap this stuff up and then look at anyone who is poor with a jaundiced eye and sneer of disgust.

He then posted this article "20 Things The Rich Do Everyday" [Google the title, it is right on his website].

 This was posted about a year ago and is written by another author. It is awe-inspiring in it's absolute ignorance and denial.

Dave Ramsey then provides his own commentary.

The list is horrible, it basically denotes all the poor as "lazy" ingrates with bad habits. The poor eat more junk food. The rich are more focused on accomplishing a goal--but of course they are, they have MONEY to get things done! The rich exercise more, they listen to audio books, they maintain a to-do list. The rich supposedly read more. Would Ramsey believe that I read multiple books a week? The poor watch more TV--of course they do when you can't afford to go out. The rich have good habits. All this with percentages applied.

Ramsey should know better. On his website he offers commentary and is shocked, shocked I tell you, that the list upset so many! He writes: "Because of this I am amazed at how many of my brothers and sisters in Christ have attacked us because of a simple list posted on our website".  To be honest, as a Christian I think the guy should be embarrassed to post such poor hating claptrap. It brightens my day to know a few did protest. Ramsey needs to reread the Bible again. Does he remember about what was said about the camel and eye of the needle by Jesus? I don't think so.

He says to his readers, "This list simply says your choices cause results," and "To assume our ministry hates the poor is ludicrous and is a reflection more on you than on our work or our beliefs. He continues on and claims basically that anyone who is poor in America is at fault. Hmm, like Americans chose outsourced jobs and low wages? I am sure my husband would love to still have a good newspaper job instead of contract ones where they pay him by the piece. He goes on to claim that anyone who believes that our system is broken is a "liberal". What a shill! Give me a break. There are many non-Democrats/liberals who know that things are falling to pieces around us.

I hate to see someone warp the gospel so. He is like a prosperity preacher on crack. This guy is not for me!----The Squawker

House Hunters: Spoiled People Looking for Property and Status

The other day I was watching "House Hunters": for me, it is a glance into the middle class and upper class world where status, granite counters and stain-less steel appliances rule. This is foreign land to me, as my adulthood has been lived in grotty white-walled apartments. This one manages to leave grotty land but my feet rest on a 9-year-old Berber carpet that seems to inhale dirt like a kid playing in mud.

Watching these people is entertaining. I find myself thinking if societal conformity brings the better jobs as they all whine and carry on about the same things. One lady ranted about "mushroom lights" on the ceiling and I found myself wondering if she had faced some trauma with a mushroom light staring down at her, another told us she had to have a granite counter no matter what!

It is interesting to me to see these types parade through perfectly functional bathrooms and kitchens, waving their hands about yelling, "This all must be torn out!". Perhaps this is a selling function for HGTV itself where house redecorating floats so much of the business. Some choose not to buy houses because a kitchen is older or has the wrong color cabinets.

When I was young, my parents constantly worked on houses, we always ended up moving out of. I saw it as a useless enterprise as none of these little mini-suburban empires were ever permanent or long lasting. What was the use? They only made a little money on one house and none on the others. The other day on a nostalgia trip online, I looked up my high school home on Zillow, and all the redecorating efforts my father sweated over for hours, and yelled at us to bring him tools were all gone in the pictures. Not one room remained untouched. What was the purpose? Only the slate floor in the foyer remained -- but that had come with the house orginally.

The Reckoner and I are not into house decorating. We have never lived in a house. At times I have wanted to try and rent a house but to get one we could afford, always meant leaving the safety of the bus lines. For a disabled person that is insanity, because there's no 10-mile walks in my future. Maybe we were spared a lot of work and effort. Hot water heaters seem to fail like clockwork for my friends in houses.

Watching "House Hunters" can be a sociological trip into the upper classes and corruptions of the real estate market. Notice in the video on top -- how one buyer is excited to lay down half a million on an a flat, and she takes one look at the graffiti full neighborhood and says, "Hey, wait a minute!". Everything is overpriced. Even in other countries, I imagine everyone living in cardboard boxes or favelas as every piece of property is very small and even a USA level small income won't pay for it. Maybe Mexico and Romania are still cheap but the rip-offs that exist in France, England and places like it are evident. One sees the future of the increasingly overpopulated world with every serf in a tiny house or 10 foot box like in Hong Kong. Watch out for the tiny house movement! It's for suckers! They want to make your domicile, coffin sized!

Back to the video, one thing I think about apartments and condos, and in one essential way they are very much the same. White walls, square boxes. The expensive San Francisco apartment doesn't thrill me, I think I may have more square footage in small town America, but in Chicago I know my apt here would be a palace. It looks like you pay heavy for a less than dangerous neighborhood, clean smooth kitchens and hardwood floors. The place probably has stairs to climb, too. Did he just tell her she had to do laundry at a laundry mat? In some states she could buy a mini-mansion for half a million.

Real estate -- what a joke. Another market that doesn't match the flat wages. Our rent just went up a notch. Funny how the income never does. --The Squawker

Strange Town Revisited (Your Hometown, Newly Unrecognizable)

Found myself in a strange town

Though I've only been here for three weeks now
I've got blisters on my feet
Trying to find a friend on Oxford Street

I bought an A to Z guide book
Trying to find the clubs and YMCAs
But when you ask in a strange town
They say don't know, don't care
And I've got to go, mate
--The Jam, "Strange Town"

"Strange Town" is arguably the Jam's forgotten single. Released in March 1979, the song peaked at #15 UK, right in the middle of a sterling chart run. "Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" preceded it; "When You're Young" followed it, yet "Strange Town" only found an outlet on the Canadian pressing of Setting Sons -- issued that November -- and, light-years later, on the Snap! singles compilation.(A US single duly followed, but didn't chart -- fiercely dedicated Anglophile fanbase aside, the Jam remained "a spaceman from these UFOS" in America for much of their career.)

There have been two notable covers, including a Noel Gallagher duet with the song's original composer, Paul Weller, and one by Garbage (albeit a B-side)  All in all, it's a curious position for a song whose theme -- the newcomer struggling to make an impression amid shrugs of indifference from his newfound fellow residents -- sadly, feels truer more relevant than it seemed back in the pre-Internet era that Weller and his Rickenbacker guitar inhabited.

You appreciate the relevancy of those lyrics in your own life. About a decade ago, you moved back to your old hometown for a job that evaporated under your feet. Vague promises of coaching and mentoring were made, then rapidly forgotten, with little or no help from a management that kept itself to itself. Eventually, inevitably, they cut you loose, leaving you adrift in a landscape permanently altered by the imprint of big money -- professional types pouring in from Kalamazoo, northwest Indiana and Chicago. 

Once upon a time, they only came for a weekend getaway here, a seasonal rental there, but lately, the unthinkable has become habitual: they're buying houses and putting down roots, having followed business opportunities, jobs or social relationships that took them there. (In unguarded moments, they even refer to this place as "The Riviera Of The Midwest." Make of that what you will.)

Big money's arrival doesn't take long to make itself felt. As always, the most visible signs happen downtown. The dive bars and mom-and-pop burger and sub shops that typified your youth are disappearing, surrendering to overpriced gastropubs, double-digit wine bars and corporatized coffee shops whose pricing leaves nothing to the imagination. The same reality goes for the beachfront, where "park and pay" is now the rule. You make do by driving past it, or idling your van for a few minutes in a remote area that attracts less attention.

They worry themselves about feeling low
They worry themselves about the dreadful snow
They all ignore me, 'cause they don't know
I'm really a spaceman from these UFOs

The gastropubs make their mark in all the wrong ways: separate charges for similar menu items like burgers and fries, long waits and lines that wind down the block. You shrug your shoulders and stick with the burger joint on which you grew up. The prices aren't creeping up into double digits yet, and the owner brings the food out to you. All that spoils this low-budget vision of paradise is a conspicuous absence of trees, whose next door neighbor has cut most of them down.

A similar all-or-nothing mentality characterizes your hometown's housing stock. This town boasts three major apartment complexes, all built during the '60s and '70s housing boom, when rent didn't gobble up three-quarters or more of your paycheck. For now, though, it seems best to tinker with your current situation -- whose rent has grown from $650 to $760 per month -- than gamble on a tight housing market that's tilting toward an influx of eggshell white or earth-toned brown condos downtown, or crackerbox palaces that charge lower rents -- in most cases, topping out at $500 or $600 per month -- yet offer little or nothing in  services or amenities.

For a further reminder of your place in the scheme of things, you only need look no further than your current complex's parking lot, where it's not unusual to see Hyundai hybrids, Kias and Pruises competing for parking spaces with your 11-year-old Dodge Caravan, which is now beginning to show conspicuous signs of rust along the bottom...and that's before we get to whatever surprises lurk beneath the hood.

I've finished with clubs where the music's loud
'Cause I don't see a face in a single crowd
There's no one there
I look in the mirror
But I can't be seen
Just a thin, clean layer of mister sheen
Looking back at me

The cultural climate proves equally unforgiving. For awhile, you and the wife attend a writer's group at one of the local art centers downtown, until the leader starts charging a hefty fee for everybody's time and participation. "Dig deep" is the motto here. Not  long ago, you saw the fruits of their labors -- chapbooks nestled quietly in a display box near the counter, priced at nine or ten dollars, now barely disturbed and stacked on top of one another, quietly gathering dust.

A similar vibe dogs the other artistic events that you try. Now and again, the art center hosts a couple of poetry open mikes: but those feel formal and stilted, compared to similar events that you've done before.  You must tell the organizers ahead of time what you're reading or performing, and no real audience participation is allowed until you finish The whole thing feels like a hellish piano recital, minus the black keys.

On your own, you play guitar at a handful of open mikes. The experience is a hit-or-miss affair, depending on who shows up -- although you can always count on a healthy contingent of people trafficking in flavors that leave you cold (Birkenstock rock, warmed-over folk and stuffy roots music). 

And, just like when you first tried these things in college, you can count on hearing certain chestnuts again and again -- anything by the Grateful Dead, for example, or Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" -- to the point of listening for mistakes. Needless to say, most of the traffickers don't bother talking to you -- when they can peel themselves away from the mega-entourages that they often bring with them, which is rare.

You've got to move in a straight line

You've got to walk and talk in four four time

You can't be weird in a strange town

You'll be betrayed by your accent and manners

You've got to wear the right clothes

Be careful not to pick or scratch your nose

You can't be nice in a strange town

Cause we don't know, don't care

And we got to go, man

Needless to say, you don't fit in with all the bug-eyed careerists that you encounter, In most cases, their empty chatter revolves around work -- what they're trying to accomplish there, or not, depending on the management's anally retentive tendencies -- or what new toys they've recently acquired, or what they're doing this weekend. 

You tend to avoid such drones if you can, because Stockholm Syndrome isn't part of your psychological makeup -- "How do they get them to identify with your oppressor so vividly?", you often ask yourself -- and neither is bowling alone. In fairness, though, your hometown's soaring new pricing structure makes it tough to sustain social relationships, as everybody's spending so much more time on the work-earn-spend treadmill (yourself included).

You're savvy enough to understand that you're hardly on an equal footing. In most cases, an unspoken expectation hangs in the air: "Play by our rules, or forget it." You give up making suggestions -- whether it's to the local grocery chain store, the municipal powers that be, or the art clique with whom you've already butted heads -- because they seem to humor them. For the most part, however, your ideas will dissipate into the ether, never to be aired again. 

Naturally, this unequal relationship doesn't stop them from pressing you to cover this or that event they're hosting, or pat you on the back and say, "I always read your stuff." You grit your teeth and smile at the predictability -- not to mention the chutzpah -- of such behavior, while you count down the time till you can work on projects that seem more satisfying.

The lack of disposable income makes itself in unusual ways. The other day, you drove past the budget thrift store -- where you and the wife could count on better pricing breaks than the likes of Goodwill, whose unapologetic profiteering would cause Marx to spin in his tomb -- only to find numerous signs announcing its death knell: "PRICES HALF OFF." 

None of these things seemed imaginable as you grew up here. Back then, your hometown seemed fated to remain a coastal backwater, where -- if a place was really swinging, it might stay open till eight or nine o'clock. Nowadays, however, everything's up for grabs. The air hangs thick with the scent of power and prestige that reminds all concerned to either get in line, or get out of the way. "We're a lakefront community," the city fathers constantly remind us. "We're winners now. We better act like it."

You, by contrast, have never felt more alienated and isolated -- "a spaceman from these UFOs," just like the song says. Solutions remain maddeningly elusive, though you're sure of one thing: you didn't pledge allegiance to the in-crowd then...and you're not ready to do it now. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Click 'Em & Steel Yourself)
Carnegie Community Action Project:
A Small Mountain Town Fights Gentrification:
http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/a-small-mountain-town-fights-gentrification/

Chairman Ralph (Guest MP3): "Tourist Trap":
http://chairmanralph.com/sitebuilder/flash/player?f=/featuredsongs/flash/playlist.xml%3Ft%3D59

Planetizen.com:
Is There Such A Thing As "Rural" Gentrification?:
http://www.planetizen.com/node/54684
San Antonio Express News:
Quirky Marfa Feels Growing Pains
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Quirky-Marfa-feels-growing-pains-5617718.php

Did You Know Waitresses Still Only Make So Little?

If you ever have wondered why your waitress looks so annoyed, here's your answer. I worry for some of them, you see them Monday afternoon in a slow restaurant, with maybe 3-4 customers, how much are they going to make in tips? A few dollars? Some decent states will write laws where they must make at least minimum wage and the employer has to fill in the gap. However this does not apply to all states. People are tipping less too nowadays due to their own empty pockets. It's shocking that many waitresses still make the same measly amount. For many just getting to work would burn up that money in the gas tank---The Squawker

Is McDonalds Losing Business?

I've read rumblings that McDonalds is going out of business slowly.  People want food that tastes good, and in this economy, if you actually spend the money to eat out, the food better be tasty. McDonald's food isn't anymore. I remember how it tasted in the 1970s and even 1980s, it was far different. Chicken McNuggets were great until they decided to take all the flavor out of them by making them all white meat. Somehow I doubt the executives are getting to the real problem. Not everything can be on top forever.

During a summer off from college after my freshman year in the late 1980s, I had to go work at a McDonalds, everything was dumbed down and scripted, they even timed how long you cooked the hamburgers and you had to follow timers and beeps for everything. They put me on cash register as well as cooking the chicken McNuggets. My brother and his friend's liked working there, but I hated it. I only lasted a month, the grease in the air made me wheeze----The Squawker

Here's To The State Of Richard Nixon: Tricky Dick's Exit Revisited

"Here's to the state of Richard Nixon

For underneath his borders the devil draws no line

If you drag his muddy rivers nameless bodies you will find

 "And the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes

And the calender is lyin' when it reads the present time
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Richard Nxon find yourself another country to be part of

--Phil Ochs, "Here's To The State Of Richard Nixon"

Forty years ago today, Richard Nixon made history by becoming the only president to resign -- a step that removed him off the national stage, if only for a time.  Hemmed in by an ever-growing paper and audiotape trail of high crimes and misdemeanors that seemed fated to end in his impeachment, Nixon did what any politician does in similar circumstances -- he took the option that allowed him to preserve what remained of his benefits and privileges, and waved the white flag.

Then and now, it's safe to say that Richard Nixon arouses strong emotions like few other political figures. For all the constant media prattling about "The Cynical Seventies," "The Me Decade," and the risk of apathy eating away at the fibers of our fair republic, I don't ever remember anyone simply shrugging Nixon off. People either liked him, or they didn't.

In January 1975, MAD #172 ran a back cover photo shot that read: "...SO WHY NOT...PARDON HITLER?" Several years later, when I showed it to my best friend in high school, his eyes bugged wide, and he gasped: "Wow!  That's when MAD made political statements!"  (For the actual photo, see the link below.)

When I got to college, I remember a political science professor telling our class, "I hated Richard Nixon, and I voted against him every chance I ever got."

In 1991, I got  a letter from an acquaintance whom I'd encountered during some anti-nuclear protests.  The letter bore a recently-issued 37-cent stamp of Nixon.  Across the top of the stamp, my pal had written -- in capital letters, no less -- "THE QUITTER."

When I took the envelope to the local post office, the clerk who waited on me didn't seemed fazed. "Oh, yeah," she said, on taking a closer look. "People either want the stamp, or they don't." Only a year before his death, Nixon still seemed capable of arousing the deepest animosities from people who hadn't forgotten his various misdeeds and missteps.

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear..."

"And here's to the laws Richard Nixon
Where the wars are fought in secret, Pearl Harbor every day
He punishes with income tax that he don't have to pay
And he's tapping his own brother just to hear what he would say
 

"But corruption can be classic in the Richard Nixon way
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of..."

It's worth remembering why the notorious earthy language and off-color comments captured on Nixon's infamous Oval Office recordings were so damaging to his presidency, and legacy -- in hindsight, the tapes revealed more about "Tricky Dick" or "Richard the Chicken-Hearted" (as his detractors often labeled him) than anyone, including his closest cronies, wanted to know.

These excerpts from the Washington Post's writeup of August 9, 1974 ("Nixon Resigns") give a vivid glimpse of the inner machinations surrounding the final departure of America's now-ex-thirty-seventh president: 

"Mr. Nixon's brief speech was delivered in firm tones and he appeared to be complete control of his emotions. The absence of rancor contrasted sharply with the 'farewell' he delivered in 1962 after being defeated for the governorship of California. 

"An hour before the speech, however, the President broke down during a meeting with old congressional friends and had to leave the room. 

"He had invited 20 senators and 26 representatives for a farewell meeting in the Cabinet room. Later, Sen. Barry M. Goldwater (R-Ariz.), one of those present, said Mr. Nixon said to them very much what he said in his speech. 

"'He just told us that the country couldn't operate with a half-time President,' Goldwater reported. 'Then he broke down and cried and he had to leave the room. Then the rest of us broke down and cried.'"

And:  "One official, who has known Mr. Nixon well for many years and remains a White House aide, commented: 'He is obviously a bad judge of character. But a lot was accomplished. So much more could have been accomplished but for these fun and games. It was such a stupid thing to happen.'

And: "It seemed inevitable then that this would be his last week in office, yet he continued to fight back and to insist that he would not resign. On Tuesday, the President held a Cabinet meeting and told his official family that he would not resign.

"On Wednesday, however, the end appeared near, for his support on Capitol Hill was disappearing at dizzying speed. There were demands from some of his staunchest supporters that he should resign at once." 

"And here's to the government Richard Nixon

In the swamp of their bureaucracy they're always draggin' down

And criminals are posing as advisors to the crown

And they hope that no one sees the sights and no one hears the sound

"And the speeches of the president are the ravings of a clown

Oh here's to the land you've torn out the heart of

Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of..." 

Like everyone else in America, it seemed, our family sat in the den, as the final crashing and burning of Nixon's presidency played itself out live on national TV. However, the smoke had barely cleared from the soundbites already being chewed over, like a dog scrabbling with a bone ("America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress"; "I leave with no bitterness toward those who have opposed me"; "I have never been a quitter"; "I must put the interests of America first"), before the million dollar question started popping from countless lips: did he admit his guilt? Did he apologize? Did he say that he was sorry?

That question, of course, has preoccupied countless commentators and historians ever since Nixon's resignation became official, 40 years ago today, after giving his speech the night before. For my money, though, the answer depends on whom you ask.

As you might imagine, Phil Ochs (1940-1976) offered a rather different take on the matter, which is why I chose to include some of these lyrics in his post.  Like many critics who ran afoul of "Tricky Dick," Ochs felt the sting of presidential abuses of power. It's now a matter of public record that the FBI kept a 500-page (!) file on Ochs -- although, in rendering his name as "Oakes," proved the usual slippery grasp of spelling and grammar that characterizes bureaucrats the world over.

It's equally worth remembering that these abuses of power -- the covert surveillance of Nixon's real (and imagined) enemies, the never-ending public smear campaigns, the wiretaps and the unleashing of federal agencies like the IRS to comb for any opening at official retribution, subsidized by the taxpayer -- occurred largely out of sight, and when the more astute pointed them out, they were greeted with cricket sounds and snickers: "You're being followed? Oh, ha-ha-ha, that's so funny, that can't happen here. You're being paranoid."

However, as Bob Gruen has pointed out in The U.S. Vs. John Lennon -- and bear with me here, since I'm paraphrasing from memory -- "We were paranoid, because we were being followed."  Suddenly, all the snickering doesn't seem all that funny anymore.

"Here's To The State Of Richard Nixon" summarizes how popular feeling was running against the soon-to-depart chief executive. In true folk tradition, Ochs dusted off an earlier song ("Here's To The State of Mississippi"), and updated its lyrics to aim at the president's predicament. Released in January 1974, the song ended up as the B-side of "Power And The Glory" -- also reworked from an earlier recorded incarnation, with a fife and drum corps -- but time hasn't diminished its power. (Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder certainly thought so by updating the song as "Here's To The State Of George W." My quick sweep of Youtube also revealed a protest by two Ventura, CA teachers decrying maneuvers made by the Golden State's political class -- "Here's To The State Of Education."  You get the idea...)

Before embarking on this post, I happened to catch a few minutes of discussion on CNN -- one of those situations where the anchors have to kill some time before moving on to the next hour of headlines. The million dollar question popped up yet again, naturally, with little substantive insight added -- except for one anchor who remarked that he saw Richard Nixon as a classic narcisisst who (and I'm paraphrasing loosely here, yet again) "thought that everything he said had value, and importance."  This observation sounds apt, especially when you see how relaxed the late chief executive seems before he's about to give the exit speech of a lifetime (see the MediaBurn link below, and judge for yourself).

So maybe the original million dollar question (Did he apologize? Did he say that he was sorry?) is less relevant than an equally valid one: When are some moral failings simply too great to ignore, let alone forgive?  And, in all fairness, this question doesn't only apply to Mr. Nixon -- it's also worth asking of his henchmen, as well, whose slippery morals need not be revisited here for the umpteenth time.

I suspect, however, that Phil Ochs's sister, Sonny, and his other surviving family members might have a different take on those questions...not to mention Isabel Allende, Daniel Ellsburg, the descendants of Helen Gahagan Douglas and Jerry Vorhis, as well as the Vietnamese and Laotions who tasted the smell of napalm for breakfast...their responses might make the late president's apologists start to sweat, shift in their seats, and squirm uncomfortably as they try desperately to change the subject. And rightfully so. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (And Then Some):
Daniel Ellsburg's Website:
http://www.ellsberg.net/

Doug Gifford's MAD Cover Site:
http://www.madcoversite.com/mad172.html

MediaBurn Archive: Richard Nixon (Before Resignation And Full Speech, 8/8/74):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLHc8NR_v-8

Phil Ochs: Here's To The State Of Richard Nixon (Live):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqLtsp4xVAA

Phil Ochs: Here's To The State Of Richard Nixon (Guitar Chords+Lyrics):
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/heres-to-the-state-of-richard-nixon.html