an obscenity of pornographic proportions

   introduction

In today’s Mad State post, we focus on an obscenity. Given the LDS culture’s obsession with all things sexual, that, at least, should grab the attention of my predominantly LDS readership. Lest I be accused of false advertising, engaging in a sort of bait and switch scheme, I should advise the reader, however, that this post will have nothing to do with sex—not strait sex, gay sex, transexual sex, oral sex; not gay marriage, abortion, internet pornography, masturbation, etc., etc. Nope, outside of this explanatory prologue, there will be no talk of sex at all. In this post, I am interested in something that is actually and truly obscene and pornographic.
 
This post was inspired by this bit of reporting, anecdotal in nature, from the Washington Post.
 
“Jim Conway started working in restaurants in 1982, making $2.13 an hour, plus tips.
 
“And though the world has changed significantly in the nearly 40 years since then, his hourly wage has not. At the Olive Garden outside of Pittsburgh where he worked when the pandemic hit last year, he was making $2.83 an hour, the minimum wage for tipped workers in Pennsylvania, plus tips” (“‘The final straw’: How the pandemic pushed restaurant workers over the edge,” Eli Rosenberg, Washington Post).
 
Who puts up with a job in which there are no raises in pay or benefits over the course of 40 a year career—a lifetime of labor?
 
I’ll tell you who. Slaves.
 
This is wage slavery.
 
It is a gross and vile obscenity. It is a form of pornography to which our entire American culture has become addicted. Willingly. Willfully. Brazenly. Immorally. Addicted.
 
 

  no excuses

We are hearing a good deal of complaining these days from those on the (wrong) right of the political spectrum about the “excessive” public assistance being given to the jobless. “Bullshit,” I say. “This governmental largesse is allowing some slaves to avoid work,” they say.  “Well,” I say, “hallelujah!”
 
“Let my people go.”
 
The problem is not too much assistance, the problem is too little pay. Slave wages. Again, I ask, how many of the people—maybe even you—who are spewing such shit would have worked for 40 years without a raise as Mr. Conway above?
 
One might reason, unreasonably, that perhaps Mr. Conway, like millions of other food service employees, had moved from job to job, from employer to employer over the years, thus forfeiting raises. Wrong. The data demonstrates that had he remained in the employ of the same plantation master for 40 years, he would still be making only slightly above the minimum wage.
 
But even if he has found in necessary to move, reasonably enough, from one slave master to another in hopes of better treatment, think of it—10, 20, 30, 40 years of experience! Surely employees can expect compensation from experience as they move from job to job. White color workers sure as hell do! Hell, CEOs drive their companies into the ditch and walk away with millions in compensation for a job poorly done. Why can Mr. Conway not be compensated for his valuable experience even as he moves from one company to another?
 
“Perhaps,” some plutocrat bastard will complain, “Mr. Conway should have thought twice before he decided to not go to college.”
 
Would you pay him more, Mr. Callused Plutocrat, to serve you the food you so enjoy in your fancy restaurants if he had gone to college? I think not. Do you not enjoy eating out? Isn’t it a bit of a luxury? A pleasant break from the normal toil of cooking and cleaning associated with meals? Why are you so tight-fisted, you who enjoy such ease? “Burn in hell,” I say.
 
“Oh, but I extend his minimum wage with my 10%, 15%, 20% tip.”
 
How nice of you. But still, in 40 years, Mr. Conway has not received a raise in pay or benefits. You have elected individuals who would guarantee it.
 
Shame. Shame on you.
 
No, there is simply no excuse… none… for this sort of treatment of laborers. It is repugnant. It is immoral. It is ungodly. Yes, it is an obscenity. A pornographic image that is seared into the American consciousness. It is worthy of the most extreme punishment.



  america’s unbiblical and sham Christianity

In its self-hype, democratic America likes to think of itself as some type of city on a hill, a light of the world. It shouldn’t, then, need to be lectured about the most basic forms of human decency, morality, equity, respect for human dignity. It shouldn’t have to be reminded of the inherent, God-given worth of every citizen. It shouldn’t have to be reminded that “all men are created equal.”
 
Some light on a hill, it has turned out to be. More like a raging inferno.
 
How does a nation that fashions itself, “Christian,” so consistently conduct itself in ways that are diametrically opposed to principles found in the Book it boasts as “sacred,” and claims to cherish and follow?
 
Didn’t the final prophet of the Hebrew Bible warn “against those that oppress the hireling in his wages,” lumping such scoundrels together with “sorcerers,” “adulterers,” and “false swearers”?[1]
 
In warning of Judah’s impending collapse and exile, did not the great Jewish prophet, Jeremiah, offer critiques of his society and reasons for that imminent collapse and exile?
 
“Woe unto unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness,
   and his chambers by wrong;
that useth his neighbour’s service without wages,
   and giveth him not for his work…”[2]
 
And, a century earlier, hadn’t Amos, that great prophet of social justice (a concept much maligned today by “false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty[3]), warn of Israel’s imminent demise along with the reasons for that demise?
 
“They sell out the innocent in order to turn a profit.
   They sell out the impoverished in order to acquire a pair of
                  sandals.
They lust after the dirt
   that is found in the hair of the poor,
      and make the life of those already distressed even more
​                  precarious.”[4]
 
 

  conclusion and benediction

But these things were written as “our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.”[5] Yea, “all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”[6]
 
Though we are warned of “the end of the world,” we are not ordained to experience it. We need not be the culprits who ushed it onto the stage. We can repent. We can control our destiny. We are “free to choose.” We can choose good over evil. We can choose to be just rather than unjust. We can choose to “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who… made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant.” Yes, we can, like him, “look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”[7]
One might think that it is but a small, simple, mundane thing, this matter of wages. But it is not small and it is not mundane. It is spiritual in the extreme and has repercussions into eternity. We can, today, accept the gracious invitation to participate in Christ-like attitudes and behaviors, and demonstrate our acceptance of every man and woman’s worth in the eyes of God by seeking for and granting a fair and living wage for each of God’s children. “Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.”[8]
The choice is ours. Justice or injustice. Honor or dishonor. Life or death. Salvation or damnation.
 
Today is as good a day as any to reject “the wages of sin”—individual and societal death—and receive “the gift of God… eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”[9]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 

[1] Malachi 3.5
[2] Jeremiah 22.13
[3] Galatians 2.4
[4] Amos 2.6-7, author’s translation
[5] 1 Corinthians 10.6
[6] 1 Corinthians 10.11
[7] See Philippians 2.4-7
[8] Alma 37.6
[9] Romans 6.23