Yes, "activists" are bad news but please stop with the "get a job" stuff

Anyone paying attention here at Post-Woke knows I have minimal respect for what passes as “activism” these days. This is a perspective hard-earned through many years of personal experience. That said, I still roll my eyes when outsiders use the “get a job” canard as a form of insult against anyone they see protesting. Please allow me to introduce some elaboration…

At least ten years ago, I was riding a downtown #4 Train to attend a protest in defense of a lawyer named Lynne Stewart. On the train, I saw a homeless man panhandling so I began looking in my bag for something to give him. 

The passenger next to me felt the need to offer the following advice: “Be careful. If a cop sees you giving him money, you’ll get a summons. I’ve seen it happen a few times.”

Indeed, as the robotic subway announcement voice regularly warns us: “Ladies and gentlemen, soliciting money in the subway is illegal. We ask you not to give. Please help us to maintain an orderly subway.”

I half-jokingly asked my fellow passenger if he was a cop before not-jokingly adding: “We’ve criminalized compassion.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but it’s not the cops’ fault. They’re just doing their job.”

(This is called foreshadowing.)

Before I could reply, the homeless man had reached me. I asked if he’d like an apple (organic, to boot!) and he excitedly took it from me. The train pulled into the City Hall station and both me and the homeless man de-boarded.

Upon reaching Foley Square, I joined with at least a hundred others to march to the Federal Courthouse where the specter of “jobs” once again reared its ugly head.

Firstly, we were surrounded by a variety of law enforcement types — local and federal — “doing their job” and “following orders” by limiting freedom of speech and expression.

Also, three times — three different times in less than 30 minutes — I heard indignant passers-by yell in our direction: “Get a job!”

If only I could sit them (and so many others) down and pose a few questions…

Firstly, the most obvious: How do you know which of them does or doesn't have a job? Many activists balance a wide range of responsibilities to be present at such actions.

This assumption that they're all jobless is based almost solely on corporate media propaganda and the intense social conditioning that “productive” people simply “don't have the time” to engage in nonsense like, say, helping a fellow human who is dying of cancer be released from prison (as was the case with Lynne Stewart).

Another question: What does it say about our culture that having a job is one of the primary barometers of “success”? Of course, by “job” most people mean any paid position that is respected by society's current standards and affords said employee enough money to engage in conspicuous consumption, thus further raising their status within a culture hypnotized by materialism.

The capitalist system that forces us to spend more time at jobs we hate than with people we love only benefits The Parasite Class™. But folks worship their wage slavery to the point of attacking anyone who they even assume might not submit to the holy grind. 

Question #3: Are you aware that part of what inspires some activists is a rejection of the destructive and alienating work-consume-obey model of human culture? In choosing the “get a job” tack, skeptics ironically ignore the economic and social issues that provoke protests while tacitly offering support for maintaining a rigged system based on rampant inequality and misinformation.

Going bigger picture here: Why do you choose to aim your anger and fear at a random, hapless protestor you believe may not have a job rather than at the transnational criminals responsible for threatening all life on the planet?

And finally: Even if every activist was jobless and even if every activist immediately found paid work, do you realize it wouldn't do a thing to reduce the nightmarish system we have tacitly accepted and now openly defend?

Are there loathsome characteristics related to your average “activist”? Yes, there often is.

Does any of it have to do with their employment status? Very, very rarely.

Think bigger and wider, friends.

If your idea of dissent is designed to keep a corrupt, inhumane, and diabolical system thriving, it’s not dissent. It’s compliance. You’re not a rebel; you’re an accomplice.

In other words, there may be more potential allies among those “activists” than you currently realize…

Stay reachable and teachable.

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Coda: When I got off the #4 Train at City Hall for the Lynne Stewart rally that day, I walked past the homeless man as he devoured the organic apple I had given him. He greeted me with a huge smile and said: “Thanks again.”

I replied: “Just doing my job…”

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