GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #980: CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

 

When I transported my ancient computer from my previous basement to my hotel room and tried hooking it up, I damaged one of the wires, so I had to go out in search of a new one. I got it, and before I opened the box I noticed the warning above.

Are you a State Farm customer who has needed a glass only claim recently? If so, you will have noticed that their IVR states that California residents have options to ensure that their data is not sold by State Farm.

So California residents have it kind of nice in at least this regard. But it's baffling when I hear it, as I do not live in California. The message I get when I hear State Farm (it's actually Lynx, their TPA for glass only claims) is that California residents' data is protected, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. It's a little startling the first time you hear it. And it makes one wonder why no other fucking state is doing this.

I don't wonder, actually. The rest of the state legislatures are doing the bidding of our corporate overlords. Go on. Call your representatives. Tell them about this. Then stand back and watch them do fucking nothing. They're getting paid well by their masters (hint: their masters are not we, the people), so why risk losing a gravy train?

But the warning in the image above is just fucking insane. Insignia, the manufacturer of the wire I got, must be out of their goddammed minds to put this on the box worded in this way. Did they seriously believe the rest of us would just ignore that because it wasn't addressed to us? But it is proof that our corporate overlords don't give a single solitary fuck about us. The way I read this is, if you are a California resident, please be aware that using this product could cause cancer or possibly a miscarriage. But residents of the other 49 are going to be OK.

This is the legal bare minimum. If they were conscientious and they actually *did* care about us, they would have had that warning simply say "cancer and reproductive harm" and would not even mention California residents.

The fact that we allow this bullshit to continue is exactly why Donald J. (stands for Jerkoff) Trump is president. We let these avaricious cocksuckers dictate to us the products we'll use and how we'll use them. Nice free market you have there. I propose NO. We don't let this continue. We need to remind our corporate overlords that when all this started, *we* made the decisions. They can just pull their puds until we tell them what they can get us. And no more subscription services for shit you bought to OWN. Like renting your gas pedal after you've bought a car like a Tesla or a Mercedes. No, I bought that. That belongs to me now. And HP, you and your printers can violently and unequivocally go fuck yourselves. And if I want to repair my broken phone, I'll take it to whoever I want to, not the manufacturer so they can rip me off more.

These tariffs are crashing the economy. Did you see how much the Dow fell today? THIS IS OUR MOMENT TO STRIKE. We must convince them, by using free market tactics like simply not buying from them, that *we* make the economic decisions, not them.

Obviously you can't boycott everyone. You do, indeed, need to eat. But think about all the shit you buy that you *don't* need. Now is the time to stop buying these things. It won't be fun, but our corporate overlords will find themselves puzzling over why the economy didn't snap back after the nightmare is over (presuming it has an ending), and it will be because we made a stand against them.

If a product has the word "smart" in it, don't buy it. Stop buying electronics. Hit the techbros as hard as possible, because they're the golden gooses now. Cripple them financially, and they'll have no choice but to beg the government for a bailout.

A government that is currently busy cutting costs and would thus be unable to help.

Don't just sit back and watch the horror. Turn the horror onto the people who deserve it, the corporate overlords.

Yeah, I know, calling for an economic rebellion on a Friday night is next to useless, but at least think about it.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #948: CORPORATIONS AND SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS

You know how I hate advertising. If I'm stuck with commercials, I will not so much as look at the TV. I will not listen. I will not pay attention until my show comes back on. The truly unfortunate side effect of getting high is that I often forget to look away and constantly watch commercials by accident.

I saw this meme earlier, sent by my hetero lifemate Rob Tannahill, and I actually thought, no. Corporations are actually *not* trying to shut down small businesses. I mean, not usually. It happens from time to time, but it's not the standard SOP.

Bill Hicks used to say that commercials used sex appeal to sell things. Now they use nostalgia, which seems to be oddly working better than the sex. But a lot of commercials on the air right now are about corporations ready and willing to help small business owners get their business off the ground. That seems a little . . . different, right?

Why would corporations, who are notoriously in it for themselves (and whatever tax breaks they can get for tricking their customers into donating for causes by "rounding up" instead of donating, themselves), help small business owners? It is a little baffling if you're unfamiliar with corporate tactics.

Why do you think the farmer feeds his pigs so much slop? Why does he smile as they get fatter and fatter? Why do such pigs go for so much money at the county fair?

What do corporations do when they're in trouble? Money's running low, and they're running out of options. They start to look around for another corporation in a similar situation to merge with, sure, but then they would be equal partners in something, and that is unacceptable. Even Donald J. Trump hisowngoddamself knows that in every transaction there is a winner and a loser, and there isn't a CEO in the US who hasn't read The Art of the Deal. Par for the course for any CEO: raid the assets of small businesses. They don't have the crippling debt the corporations have, so the corporations can seize those assets, borrow even more money against them, and leave the small business a hollowed out carcass suitable for making footballs.

They'll come to you hat in hand, first, offering you the world if you'd only just sell for an obscenely low, insulting figure. Naturally you decline. So now it's a hostile takeover, and your lawyer will never be good enough to fight their army of lawyers. Before you know it, you no longer have a business, big or small. And no crime has been committed. No one is going to prison for this unless you flip out and murder some executive who probably has it coming. Not that such an argument would hold up in court.

All of these corporations are running on the fumes of consuming smaller businesses, never realizing for an instant that they will one day hit critical mass. There will be just one business that owns everything. Odd that they're angling for a Communist world through Capitalism. But all the same, when there are no more businesses to conquer, Alexander the CEO won't just weep. He'll eat himself starting at the feet.

It suddenly occurred to me that I don't really know if footballs are made of pigskins. Turns out, in the early days of football they were made out of, not pigskin, but pig bladder. Which is definitely not a skin, but it's a whole lot better to say "let's throw around the pigskin" than "let's throw around the pigsbladder."

Although it comes down to the same thing in the end. The corporations *are* killing small businesses. That's some free market we have, there. Kinda like putting mobsters in charge of enforcing the law.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #932: WHAT'S THE NAME FOR IT?

 There's this thing that's been happening lately where a prospective hire gets interviewed for a job, knocks it out of the park, and then on the first day of their new job, someone completely different shows up claiming to be the person who was interviewed. Unsurprisingly at a lot of corporations they get away with it because who checks on these things? But bosses are starting to notice. Now that they've noticed, they're starting to investigate and find others who were doing the same thing.

I'm just sad that the bosses are figuring it out and firing these people. One would think that in a capitalist society, the guy who works the hardest, even if it includes cheating (sometimes *especially* if it includes cheating), is the guy who should get the job, right?  Then again, I'm still murky on the rules of capitalism. I believe that drug dealers are the greatest capitalists alive, and all that gets them is prison time.

Regardless, I scanned the news articles I read about this phenomenon, and it strikes me that there isn't a word for this practice. Not even for convenience's sake. Well, this is probably a new thing. No one's gotten around to it yet.

Except I searched a little more and found out this goes back to the Covid era, 2021 to be specific. After four years of this happening, we should have a word for it. I thought about this waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long, trying to think of something clever. Nothing has yet to present itself, so I'm going to recommend that we call this process the "interdupe." It is to be encouraged. The bosses no longer give a fuck about reading our resumes. Why should we make things easy on them? Corporations take so much from us. Fuck 'em. Let's take something back. It galls me to link to Buzzfeed, but they describe some methods you might want to think about using yourself, so here it is.

A word of advice? When you're looking for an interduper, try to find someone who at least resembles you. The bosses aren't *that* stupid.