[NFBMT] Empathy - and more comments on... um... the 2020 Presidential Primary Candidate Survey on Disability

[Rik James]

Dar said: 
my mother would get mad when I was working with rehab in Denver tieing booty
strings.
She felt that I should do them faster, it was all peace work.
I did the $42 a bag, and felt for doing each string by hand that was a good
deal.
She was interested in the money not how your fingers worked.
I am pleased that parents are starting to see that their child can have a
job after graduating or going to college.
We talked about the encyclopedia, I was doing well to get a Bible after I
left home, and even that is huge in Braille.
Hard cover that is.

Hi this is Rik speaking.
Thank you, Dar. Thank you for sharing what your experience has been.
Everyone has a different story. And putting the pieces together of each of
our own individual story, I think,  is very useful. It is useful in helping
every one of us, including those who make decisions that affect our lives,
to hear of the details of work experience.

I guess that is another type of piece work, isn't it?
Pieces of facts.  Pieces of the story. Our lives in the day to day. In the
home, and in the work place. And our story in the struggle to help to make
others understand how another person experiences their own story.

My story, with no particular conclusion expected to be drawn is this.
My early life in factory work was also done on piece work. I worked two
years in an auto parts factory after my Freshman year of college. I had
borrowed the whole first year by a bank loan. I had never borrowed that much
money before. I was scared of the loan debt, so I worked to pay off that
first year, and then to save for later tuition.
I remember I was paid, on that assembly line, a base wage of $2.56 an hour.
The piece rate was for 375 pieces per hour. They had a bonus system, rated
to increase that hourly wage. It was a motivation. If I could produce 750
pieces per hour, I could earn two hours pay.
Guys with white shirts and clipboards and stop watches, they would come
around regularly to the work stations. And it was them boys who would set
the piece work rate.

Now stop right there, I do. Enough of my own personal nostalgia. The
remembrance of what was later to be known as the carpal tunnel syndrome. The
aching hands, the numbness after working ten to twelve hour shifts, to get
that overtime bonus and make that piece rate bonus.

Do you think we see them time rate boys still, doing that in these shops
where they set up rates, on the disabled worker shops?
How is it done, and how do they account for who can do what at what speed?
Well, some things got set up in terms of fairness, and some things got set
up for the determination of squeezing out production to maximize a good
profit. 
When they initially set up that sub-minimum wage stuff, back in the
Depression era, they had a whole other idea about having disabled workers.
How that ever got carried on and on over all of this time, it is just
shocking, and I hope we are getting close to seeing it be done away with.
But all of it, is a part of a bigger picture. And that part is why so many
are seeing jobs disappear, unions get busted, and on and on.


Anyway. I think further, on something related, but different. On more
generalities, let's say.
The word empathy is what comes to my mind.
Maybe take a minute. And look up that word, empathy.
And think of our society at large, and in small pieces. In the day to day
world, of thought, and in activity, and in the process of designing, gaining
support for and then implementing policies.

There is too little empathy right now in our world. 
That is my view. Is it yours?
How can we help to make sure that empathy, in a general sense, is to be
increased?
Maybe one way could be by use of the personal story.
And then using the personal story, to evoke a desire for changes.

One significant cause for the decrease in empathy, is occurring by the
nature of our public discourse.
There is a disconnect, in the broadcast world, it dates back to changes in
radio and television, dating back to the early 1990s. It has brought about a
very subtle, but ever increasing, change in our consciousness, which then,
results in our politics, and our expectations. 
When did attitude for argument and personal attack get such drive an
momentum?
Hmm?  Ask this and you will perhaps come to it right away. 
Or maybe, maybe you will not. Because you may rather wish to defend those
who are part of that attitude in the broadcast media.

Empathy has something to do with what is known, as The Commons.  The things
that we all share an interest in. Be it the streets and sidewalks, the
appliances we develop, the website that is created. Yes what tax money is
spent on, what the worker should be able to expect for time spent in the
labor force. What access to health care is all about, when it is controlled
by a system for maximum profit. 
And on and on.

Do you remember when Ronald Reagan used that phrase, Hello, I am from the
government, and I am here to help you.
It was a clever line. One that was easy to adopt and to develop a cynical
attitude toward the policies of our government.
Smirk, smirk. Sure, I did, too. But it was way, way too easy.
And now it is way too easy to just adopt a catch phrase for very complex
subjects.
There are some very powerful forces who come up with those very catch
phrases.
Did you know that?

The I am from the government line, it started a revolution, in my view. One
that eroded the very core of empathy.
Pretty soon, we lost some of the broadcast regulations, and laws about media
ownership. Over time, it led us to what we have now. Which is what?
Oh, okay. I won't go on and get into that now.

Okay?
Thanks for your ears.
I'll go back to my own corner, but just for now.
I'll be back. 
Read, listen, and then sing. No singing can happen without having a sense of
empathy. 
Unless maybe, it is to sing a Halloween scary ghost song.
Cheers.

Rik James
President, Treasure State Chapter
NFB of Montana

Dar said: 
my mother would get mad when I was working with rehab in Denver tieing booty
strings.
She felt that I should do them faster, it was all peace work.
I did the $42 a bag, and felt for doing each string by hand that was a good
deal.
She was interested in the money not how your fingers worked.
I am pleased that parents are starting to see that their child can have a
job after graduating or going to college.
We talked about the encyclopedia, I was doing well to get a Bible after I
left home, and even that is huge in Braille.
Hard cover that is.