Friday, March 24, 2006

Valley of the Sycophants (Letter to David Sirota)


VALLEY OF THE SYCOPHANTS


from "The Roses Are Red Diaries" by 2Truthy



somewhere in between the poems
lie the bodies of the gnomes
left to trade their wishful end
for a life they couldn't spend

on the things, the stuff, that wasted
time and money as they chased it
the American dream became a whisper
as the sycophants swarmed the blister

wider than the once grand canyon
faster ran the golden stallion
through the prairies, then the towns
technorati donning evening gowns

steely knives would halt the lances
of their greedy, fatal glances
orchid-colored skies swept past
life's easel - but it couldn't last.

one more day a job was lost
then another wound embossed
upon the Valley without chance...
Valley of the Sycophants.

-2Truthy


Dear David Sirota,

In reference to today's article published in the Philadelphia Daily News, "Workers on the Slag Heap of History",http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/14174641.htm
let's talk about the "dying class" -- the educated, once "upwardly mobile" middle class, urban/suburban population being outsourced to poverty.

The "Slag Heap" is not only rampant in Anytown. It is happening right here -- in Silicon Valley, or "Sycophant Valley"(tm 2Truthy), a place where innovation and "top notch" talent was once the mainstay. Right here, there are scores of people out of work as the "leaders"-- our very own neighbors -- of technology corporations and start-ups recirculate dollars within their mutual admiration societies by outsourcing just about everything to India, thus compromising quality and displacing their own neighbors.

What no one is talking about is the prevailing shadenfreud, envy and mean spirit. Did you happen to catch the Bill Moyers interview with Clyde Prestowitz? As the global economy grows, a distinct form of greed spreads like a disease as the educated, wealthier "haves" trample over the educated "lesser haves", thus throwing them into the "have not" ditch -- since there is no longer a middle class ditch for them to wind up in. Scores of once "upwardly mobile" people with advanced degrees swarm the emergency rooms here without health insurance, forced into bankruptcy with no place to go, and cannot find work in even menial labor pools as increasing numbers of illegal Mexicans and Indians have sewn up the bottom end. You see, we are a "unique" community here in Silicon Valley and have witnessed many flights of sycophancy that should not, nor need not occur. Is this our future? What about our teenagers who are leaving for college and their prospects?

They have a saying in Texas: "It's time to let the horses out of the barn". So the question becomes which 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, if any, can we put our money on to enact labor policies at the local level which reverse this plundering and prevent the exodus of our needed jobs? There, I said it. the "P" word.


As you state in your article printed in the Philadelphia Daily News, "These reverse Robin Hood tactics are everywhere. At both Delphi and United Airlines, executives have used bankruptcy to enact massive cuts in wages and pensions - while cementing millions of dollars worth of new bonuses for themselves." You zero in on the problem at the Top and at the Bottom -- but what about the Middle?


Most Truly Yours,

-2Truthy

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Prosperity depends upon U.S. hiring practices which must change to protect jobs for its citizens first. Foreign investment,too, can greatly contribute to economic growth as long as the "investment" is NOT in the form of cheap imported workers to displace Americans.