Observations From the Spectrum

The working class has the power of numbers in their hands. The wealthy want that power and over time will take it by automation of working class jobs. The fact that we give them our power willingly is on us. Uniting based on income is the solution. Seperation based on others is a fool’s errand.

This is a revisit to some thoughts I had at the beginning of Covid and a shift, or possibly a rerun, in my thinking. Here were my thoughts from a few years ago entitled Life Preservers are Optional.

As Covid traveled the globe and I did not, it became apparent that the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. Ironically, that was the most evident in my country of origin, the USA. Loans were given to those with wealth like American flags on sticks during the Fourth of July parades. 

Now, as we move towards the era of post-covid. Many of the poor and those genetically susceptible to the disease are now dead or dying and it is still evident that we are living in what feels like, in some ways, scenes from the Hunger Games. We are laughed at and mocked for being poor, even those of us who fill jobs of necessity for society like teachers, cleaners, restaurant and retail workers and manual laborers like firefighters and snowplow drivers. 

It is not a good place to be for us or them. Them being the rich. They can no longer find those to fill what they deem as beneath them jobs but jobs that they are unwilling to do. But I am off on a tangent.

Back to Covid. What I saw was the scenes from the Titanic in which the wealthy jumped ship in their life boats leaving the working class behind. Simply, on the Covid ship, there were enough lifeboats, just not enough humanity. The Elite labeled themselves as such and decided they did not want to sit next to the riff raff of which I am a proud member.

Which brings me the title. Celebrity Subscriptions. It seems like most of us forget that without us, celebrities and subscriptions don’t exist. Yet we don’t seem to understand that there are plenty of seats on the lifeboats, just too many selfish people that don’t want to share. We share our wealth. The toils of our labor so that the rich get richer and we are left with nothing. We are giving our wealth away.

Brick and mortar may be gone or it may be on the rise from the ashes of ourselves. Yes, having the full catalog of music of the world at our fingertips is pretty cool but having no music that we own or can hand down to others is not. The same for anything rented or leased. When we don’t own, we work to give not to hold onto and those with wealth give nothing back.

Celebrities survive because we give them our attention from Trump to Biden to Pink to Harry Styles. They are no different because we are not judging them solely by their ability to do their craft.We are allowing them to climb onto the celebrity pedestal and then giving them the limelight for getting there. Silly really.

Subscriptions are the same. We pay monthly bills for nothing in return other than faster packages to our doors or millions of songs or TV shows or films that we don’t choose.

I like reruns. I like watching some of the same films and TV shows over and over and my music tastes are not like fashion, they have stayed pretty much the same. What’s changed is that I don’t listen to music as much. I like the sounds of the road and of nature that were once silenced. 

Maybe it is me. Maybe I have aged to the point at which celebrities and fandom and new for the sake of new are not my thing. It may be that I just don’t have a lot of wealth and would like to hold onto what little wealth I do instead of giving it away for the sake of giving it away. So today I have no subscriptions and no heroes just for the sake of having a hero and I will certainly not buy a product just because so and so uses it in an advertisement.

Shop ethically. Spend wisely. When you can, buy used.