When I was very young (over 25 years ago) I had an experience that had a profound impact on me. One of my first real jobs was as a security guard for a fairly good company. I remember how excited I was to get the job after having gone through a background check, and some other administrative stuff. One nice thing about the job is that some of the accounts included the port authority, other government-type locations, and large businesses.
One night I may be inspecting merchants ships looking for contraband and stowaways, another I may be watching over thousands of brand spanking new cars arriving from Japan.
So anyways, I was doing pretty good (given how young I was), and had gained my boss's trust, and the feeling was mutual. I remember my boss as a smart and fair guy.
So one day when he asked me to meet him at his office because he wanted to talk to me about a very special project, I remember feeling very excited about it. I remember thinking that maybe one day I'll become a private detective--youthful enthusiasm, I guess.
Another "interesting" thing was that because of the nature of the job, I was going to be paid a lot more money that what I was earning (About 3 times more per hour). More on that later...
So I met with him and he told me that the project involved going undercover in order to keep track of the activities of some potentially radical individuals. He didn't go into too many details during that meeting, but to me it sounded like an interesting assignment. He told me that if I was interested in taking on the project, that the next step was for me to meet with the client and that at that point I would be given all the relevant information...
I remember that morning like it was yesterday! I got up really early, put on nice clothe and shiny shoes, and off I went to meet the client. The place was really nice; it was a warehouse-type business, and everything looked new and well-kept. There were company trucks in the parking lot, and they were all new and clean. I went up to the office and met the company's owner. He looked like a very nice guy. He thanked me for coming, and offered me a seat.
And then he proceeds to tell me about the project... Well, actually, he first kind of went into a tangent about the dangers of radicals, of socialists, and about terrorism (yes, these fucks were using that line even back then), etc. Once I was "primed" with that introduction, he proceeded to tell me that there were some employees he thought may be dangerous, radical, and that my job was to infiltrate them and find out what they were up to--and and as an aside, almost in a passing comment, they were also trying to unionize the workforce.
I blame it on youthful enthusiasm and lack of experience, but I swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker. "Oh great! A real undercover job, in a potentially-dangerous environment."
So my instructions were to come in and start working like a regular employee, build trust, and try to get as much information as possible, and to keep an eye especially on this one guy (who happen to be the one pushing to unionize the workforce).
So fair enough, I start on my first day, with working boots and all. The first few days went really smooth; my "co-workers" were nice enough, and as we worked side by side, I started to get to know them.
After a couple of days, the union organizer guy talked to me about what they were trying to do for the first time. There were going to have a vote in a few weeks and they needed the majority of the employees to vote yes on unionization.
This guy was kind of a lead (under a supervisor), and so he was responsible for assigning my tasks as well...
Anyways, right off the bat I started "scratching my head" wondering, "wow, this guy doesn't seem particularly dangerous to me; he's a family guy, with a wife and two toddlers, is responsible at work, seems pretty smart, and is just trying to bring in a union." Things that even at that young age, I knew were legitimate.
"There has to be something more; maybe I'm missing something..." The more I talked to the guy, and the other co-workers, the more I got to like them, and respect them. They were working their asses off, never missed a day of work, were always on time, were professional and proficient in their duties... "Where is the dangerous, terrorist plot?"
After the first week, the "boss" calls me into the office and then gets a little more specific... He drops the whole "dangerous" theme, and makes the request: I'm to discourage other employees from voting yes for unionizing; I'm supposed to let them know that I'm against the union; that we are doing just fine without it. He gave me a couple other talking points...
At that meeting I sat silent and listened, and my conscience started to tell me that there was something terribly wrong with this picture. On one shoulder, a little devil was reminding me about all the money I was making, about the possibility of getting even better-paying assignments, etc. On the other, a little angel was telling me this was wrong, that these employees were just exercising their rights to campaign for unionization.
To tell you the truth, I was kind of shocked and speechless (something very rare for me). So I listened, nodded, exchanged a few pleasantries with the guy, and off I went. I decided I needed to think about the whole think carefully.
Now, the problem for this piece of shit guy is that he probably didn't count on having the one guy assigned to this "covert" operation be the one that can't be bought, at any price.
You see, because of my (very difficult at times) upbringing, I got to experience extremes, both of poverty, and (a little bit) of affluence. I transitioned among those worlds (ghetto, guns, drug-infested-neighborhoods, violence on the one hand, and private schools, nice homes in leafy neighborhoods, and nice shopping centers on the other) with relative ease, and I learned that for the most part people are a product of their environments.
The lesson I learned from that is that integrity and honesty are more important than money. It's not that I don't recognize the importance of meeting one's basic needs; it's that I learned the difference between that, and greed, and a sense of unearned entitlement, and deception, and dishonesty.
I made my decision that night. The next day I didn't report to work; I went straight to the owner's office and told the secretary I needed to talk to him. I waited about ten minutes, and he invited me into the office, closed the door, and in a kind of a stern voice asked me what was going on...
"You know, I thought about this project; about our first conversation, and about what you asked me to do yesterday. I've been working side by side with these guys, including [the union organizer] and what I've seen is that they are just trying to unionize; they are not doing anything illegal or dangerous. In fact, I think that they are well within their right to do what they are doing. And actually, I'm afraid that what we are doing may actually be illegal..."
I'm paraphrasing, but I swear to God, even after all these years, I can tell you that that quote is about 99% accurate to the last word.
It is very difficult to explain, but after I finished my statement with that word, "illegal," the guy's demeanor seemed to instantaneously turned into that of a thug. I could see his face getting red, his neck veins bulging up. I swear I though he was going to take a swing at me.
"Illegal, huh? Do you know who I am? Do you know about all the connections I have? Who the fuck you think you are to come into my goddamned office, my business, a business I built, and tell me that I'm I'm doing is illegal? Do you know who you're messing with? You have no idea what could happen to you?"
Again, I feel about 99% confident that those were his words... Also, the words on the screen (as you read them) can't really do justice to the guy's thuggish demeanor. Very, very nasty, despot, tyrant kind of thing.
Unfortunately for the guy, there were two things working against him: I had never reacted "well" to threats, and that office experience seemed quaint compared to life in the barrio, with bullets flying every other night, where the two times that somebody had pulled a gun on me I had told the guys that I was going to take the gun a stick it up their asses... Obviously, just so you know, statistically, there is no better way to get shot than to said that to somebody who is brandishing a gun during a heated argument, so I don't recommend anybody doing that.
So basically, we ended up exchanging some harsh words, with me telling him that his threats were laughable, and that sort of thing.
I walked out of the office, and left the building. That night I called the union organizer and told him exactly what the deal was, and I told him that if he ever needed me to testify about it anywhere, that I would be glad to. He thanked me, told me he suspected something was off, and that he was going to talk to the union about it. They ended up unionizing the place...
Since then, I've been a skeptic, a little bit of a cynic when it comes down to just trusting what people say, and more akin at carefully observing what they actually do.
I feel that skepticism has served me well during my careers, especially those time I've worked in the corporate environment. I learned that in every environment you have the majority of the people, who even with all their (our) foibles of petty envy, gossip, etc., are pretty much what-you-see-is-what-you-get. And then you have the tiny group of sociopaths; the predators, with their fake smiles, and their fake pronouncements, and their cunning, and their cheating, and their taking credit for somebody else's work, and deflecting blame for their own misdeeds.
I like to take on those guys. I study them carefully, try to understand their strengthens and weaknesses; watch how they con people with their back-slapping, and their smiles and friendliness when they're face to face, but would stab anybody in the back the minute you turn around, and then grab the money while they are at it.
Unfortunately these dishonest sociopaths many times end up taking over the levers of power. "Normal" people can't even begin to fathom the lengths to which these people go to in their pursuit of power, of profit, driven by greed.
That's why as a progressive, much of my focus is on trying to understand exactly how corruption works, who is getting paid to do what and by whom, what are the lies they are telling everybody else, the havoc they are causing.
I want to study it (a lifelong thing), understand it fully, and expose it, because knowledge is power.
I'm just one guy, and I may not have that much of a reach, but hundreds of us, thousands of us, hundreds of thousands, together we can make a difference.
My advice to those interested in clean government, in justice, in respect for the rule of law and the Constitution: Trust but verify. Follow the money. Don't only pay attention to what people say, but most importantly, watch carefully what they do, and make your decisions base on that.
And once you become aware of malfeasance, of corruption, of abuse, expose it for all the world to see.
We can't afford to look the other way; we can't afford to believe there is nothing we can do about the challenges we face. And that is not a slogan; that's not a feel-good statement. It is very real. If we (together, united in solidarity) believe we can help bring about a better world, we will do it. If on the other hand we accept the proposition that there is nothing we can do to confront oppression, and corruption, then it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Keep up the good work, in solidarity!
In a Time of Universal Deceit — Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act
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