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It Tastes Like Chicken
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It Tastes Like Chicken
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by Sean Gonsalves
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You can't expect a chicken to produce a duck egg. That's a Malcolm X insight. Evidently, the delegates who went to the Business Party conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles either believe a chicken system is the best we can do or that a chicken can lay duck eggs.
A handful of the more diligent delegates, I'm sure, think they can work to improve the chicken system from within. Maybe they can. (Can you say Sisyphus?) What Gore and Bush supporters apparently don't realize is that only ducks can lay duck eggs.
Yes, most pundits pretend Gore  and Bush offer voters a real choice, and protesters are written off as incoherent hooligans out of touch with reality. Dara Silverman of United for a Fair Economy knows better.
"At the marches in the street, at trainings and in the Shadow Conventions, the themes of economic inequality and the concentration of corporate power were the basis of almost every message... . Already, 66 corporations, including AT&T and Raytheon, have given over $50,000 to both Al Gore and George W. Bush's campaigns," she reports.
Wheaton College economics professor John Miller reminds us that at the "liberal" Democratic National Convention, Clinton "took credit for overseeing the most prosperous economy in U.S. history." Gore promises more of the same.
"But continuing the Clinton-Gore economic policies will do nothing to build a different, fairer economy," Miller said. "In the 1960s boom, wages rose three times as quickly as in the 1990s boom, and the earlier boom added nearly four times as much to the income of the median family." If it looks like a chicken and smells like one, then... .
I'll give you a less abstract example. A marketing egghead at a major shoe retailer, whose college education was probably some mix of market economics and psychology, came up with the brilliant idea of getting store employees to answer the store phone with an inauthentic stock greeting: "Hello, thank you for choosing (name of store). Have you heard about our new catalog?" Or, "Hello, thank you for choosing (us). Have you heard about our big sale?"
Why aren't you laughing? We're talking one of the biggest shoe retailers in the country. Everyone knows that no matter what sale they are having, it costs an arm and a leg for the shoes you really want. The few shoes in the entire store that are reasonably priced are the ones your grandmother might consider purchasing for her daily walk; not exactly cool. Or, it's some shoe owned by at least 10 other financially struggling acquaintances of yours.
Either way, unless you're Jay Z and "money ain't a thang," you're stuck between paying for a pair of shoes you know you can't afford or buying a pair of shoes that robs you of the real reason you were buying the shoes in the first place: to impress others with your unique style.
Of course, the employee is supposed to sound genuine. Maybe if store employees actually had ownership in the company, they would. But that's out of the question to status-quo keepers.
What's that? You make an excellent point. It's true that a number of the retailer's employees are youngsters. But my friend "Rick" (not his real name), a 24-year-old store manager, is not some college kid looking to make a few bucks in the summer to buy a used car. He's a stand-up guy. Doesn't steal shoes. Comes in on time. Works over 40 hours a week and whenever his district manager asks him to cover for yet another suddenly resigned or fired store manager, Rick is there.
Recently, he got a phone call at work from a packing company, calling to confirm a shipment of 300 packing containers. Rick's store is in a mall that doesn't do much business. Someone in the corporate office had ordered the containers but didn't inform Rick.
When he called his district manager to find out if the store was being closed, his boss told him: "I don't know." Rick suspected otherwise. Then a few days later when he asked again in desperation, his district manager confirmed that the store was, indeed, being closed - in one week. One week! I guess a two-week notice is a one-way road.
Will Rick be transferred to another store?
"We're working on it," they told him. No word yet. Meanwhile, his rent, car payment and other bills are due.
Dragging stones up the corporate pyramid for Pharaoh's profit and pleasure? You're damn Skippy people are protesting the conventions. They're looking for duck eggs.
Meanwhile, "Republicrats" are full of chickens.
Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff writer and syndicated columinist.
Copyright © 2000 Cape Cod Times
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