I am not opposed to people getting wealthy, being wealthy, or staying wealthy. It just needs to be done responsibly, respectfully, and consciously. But unfettered capitalistic greed that could care less who or what it exploits and harms needs to be curtailed. I know many rich people who care deeply about others. Some say they would be happy to pay more taxes, if it were required of them, and they know it should be.
How and why did the freedom to pursue happiness come to include a right to damage the environment and exploit other human beings, turning them into wage slaves? We have more legislation in place protecting corporations, than people. We have a Supreme Court that has ruled corporations are people. We have a congress that worships the wealthy while blaming and punishing the poor.
STOP: Stop Terrorizing Our People! AND TAKE THIS NATION FROM FASCISM TO FREEDOM
Monday, October 11, 2021
Sunday, October 10, 2021
The Big Tech Hearings
As I watch the congressional hearings about the activites of Google and Facebook, I am appalled. These people pretending to be the leaders of the country didn't prevent industry from polluting the planet. They haven't protect Taxpayers from inflation, poverty wages, medical malpractice, nor insurance scams that rip off harworking Americans and essentially kill them. It didn't stop net neutrality. And now it wants to interrogate tech executives as if it understand that they are doing.
They haven't protected anyone against pharmaceutical drug companies. They let the FDA take away perfectly good and effective home remedies that would help people manage and get rid of conditions the AMA refuses to cure because it would rather perform surgery and doctor people to death. It has forbidden people from having access to plants that expand consciousness in a political war on drugs to suppress the vote by incarceration. It has destroyed families and increased suffering by prohibiting the best pain medicine nature has ever evolved, the opiates.
It has done nothing to prevent big business from breaking unions, while allowing the police unions to protect racist cops who routinely humiliate, torture, unfairly target and kill (mainly) people of color. It has created homelessness, enabled a billionaire class to emerge, and instead of requiring them to pay their fair share of taxes, they are now beginning to pollute space for financial gain.
The elected officials aren't smart enough to govern. All they know how to do is argue with each other, restrict freedom, interfere with progress, protect the rich, grow the government, legislate for monopolies and self-righteous religious zealots who wish to control others, allowing religion to commit atrocities in the name of God or Satan. Government allows circumcision, declares war on behalf of oil companies that want the natural resources of other countries, then abandons the people in those countries who have helped the US, leaving women and children behind to be enslaved, once it has impoverished the nations it temporarily conquers.
This country is a hopeless mess. The experiment failed. We might as well play TAPS, stop deluding ourselves, and kiss freedom goodbye. It is long gone. All hope of true Democracy died with MLK and JFK. We are walking a Green Mile. Our sadistic prison guards quickly eliminate any would-be-good public servants, who dare try and protect the people as if they could, as quickly as they get elected. Lasting long in the poison environment of the congress that has been created requires corruption. And this, was Sophie's Choice.
They haven't protected anyone against pharmaceutical drug companies. They let the FDA take away perfectly good and effective home remedies that would help people manage and get rid of conditions the AMA refuses to cure because it would rather perform surgery and doctor people to death. It has forbidden people from having access to plants that expand consciousness in a political war on drugs to suppress the vote by incarceration. It has destroyed families and increased suffering by prohibiting the best pain medicine nature has ever evolved, the opiates.
It has done nothing to prevent big business from breaking unions, while allowing the police unions to protect racist cops who routinely humiliate, torture, unfairly target and kill (mainly) people of color. It has created homelessness, enabled a billionaire class to emerge, and instead of requiring them to pay their fair share of taxes, they are now beginning to pollute space for financial gain.
The elected officials aren't smart enough to govern. All they know how to do is argue with each other, restrict freedom, interfere with progress, protect the rich, grow the government, legislate for monopolies and self-righteous religious zealots who wish to control others, allowing religion to commit atrocities in the name of God or Satan. Government allows circumcision, declares war on behalf of oil companies that want the natural resources of other countries, then abandons the people in those countries who have helped the US, leaving women and children behind to be enslaved, once it has impoverished the nations it temporarily conquers.
This country is a hopeless mess. The experiment failed. We might as well play TAPS, stop deluding ourselves, and kiss freedom goodbye. It is long gone. All hope of true Democracy died with MLK and JFK. We are walking a Green Mile. Our sadistic prison guards quickly eliminate any would-be-good public servants, who dare try and protect the people as if they could, as quickly as they get elected. Lasting long in the poison environment of the congress that has been created requires corruption. And this, was Sophie's Choice.
Friday, September 28, 2018
Kavenaugh Vs. Ford
If I were in Brett Kavenaugh's shoes and I was innocent I would insist on taking a lie detector test to prove it. This is not a court of law. This is a job interview. It is permitted. I would also welcome an FBI investigation. In fact, I would insist on it because I would want the full confidence of the public and people who appointed me. The fact that he isn't insisting on taking a lie detector test and he might be using denial to get the appointment alarms me. It says that getting the job by any means is more important to him than truth and Justice. How ironic, given the nature of the job he is going for.
I would be a whole lot more comfortable with someone who said, "I was young, we were drinking and I don't remember doing that! I would like take a lie detector test. I will do it under sodium pentothal if it will help to ease the mind of the public. Because I know how important it is for the public to have confidence in my appointment, and I want the truth to be known. And if I did this and I just don't remember it because I had too much to drink, I am sorry. But I don't drink (to excess?) anymore. And I would never do anything like that again."
If a person can own it, I believe in forgiving. But I am not comfortable with putting the fate of my country in the hands of someone who isn't willing to take full personal responsibility for his actions, and he isn't willing to at least try to prove himself. This is not a court of law. He has the chance to prove himself. He needs to prove that he is interested in true justice. But he won't. He won't even welcome an FBI investigation. Denial like his is dangerous.
If he would just take a lie detector test and/or welcome an FBI investigation I would be a lot more at ease with him getting appointed. But if the only way that Pro-lifers can get Roe V Wade overturned is to appoint someone like this, who doesn't even care to prove himself, and they support his appointment, this country is in big trouble.
Because he is going to be a pawn that can be used to take this country further and further down the road to fascism. They will be using him to erode the constitution even further. They will begin to weigh this country down with rulings designed to strengthen the power of the corporate state.
The hypocrisy of appointing someone who would rather sit there and lie than own his stuff is beyond disturbing. It is alarming. He is a threat to the freedom that our forefathers fought so hard to win. Appointing someone who won't even take a lie detector test or welcome an FBI investigation sends a message to men that they can do whatever they want to women. It also sends a message to the public that there is no such thing as real justice.
If this man is appointed the rich and elite are making a clear statement that they are going to do whatever they want to us in a court of law, without regard for truth and justice, and we might as well all just get used to it.
If Kavenaugh would take a lie detector test, I would definitely want it to be conducted at a neutral site by a neutral investigator because my interest is in making sure the person who gets appointed to the SC cares more about truth and justice than saving face or pretending he is innocent to get an appointment. Because if he does that it means he is becoming the puppet of the cadre that wants him appointed.
Ford's testimony immediately becomes insignificant if Kavenaugh is willing to take a lie detector test too. If the Pro-Life people don't trust her lie detector test, and they want her to take another one at a neutral site, I am all for that too. Any person who tries to set someone up with a false testimony should be convicted of the alleged crime instead of the person who was falsely accused. If that is what Ford has done, she should be put in jail for sexual assault.
But even if the lie detector test indicates Kavenaugh sexually assaulted Ford, if he is willing to own it I wouldn't want him going to jail at this late date, unless he is at risk of continuing to do that kind of thing. His refusal to take a lie detector test or welcome an FBI investigation, and the fact that he would sit there and cry and yell at the people asking questions, is a good reason to believe that he is a very dangerous person. Indeed, accepting the appointment without insisting on proving his innocence is an assault on truth and justice.
If he gets appointed, it should be a red alert to the people of this country.
I would be a whole lot more comfortable with someone who said, "I was young, we were drinking and I don't remember doing that! I would like take a lie detector test. I will do it under sodium pentothal if it will help to ease the mind of the public. Because I know how important it is for the public to have confidence in my appointment, and I want the truth to be known. And if I did this and I just don't remember it because I had too much to drink, I am sorry. But I don't drink (to excess?) anymore. And I would never do anything like that again."
If a person can own it, I believe in forgiving. But I am not comfortable with putting the fate of my country in the hands of someone who isn't willing to take full personal responsibility for his actions, and he isn't willing to at least try to prove himself. This is not a court of law. He has the chance to prove himself. He needs to prove that he is interested in true justice. But he won't. He won't even welcome an FBI investigation. Denial like his is dangerous.
If he would just take a lie detector test and/or welcome an FBI investigation I would be a lot more at ease with him getting appointed. But if the only way that Pro-lifers can get Roe V Wade overturned is to appoint someone like this, who doesn't even care to prove himself, and they support his appointment, this country is in big trouble.
Because he is going to be a pawn that can be used to take this country further and further down the road to fascism. They will be using him to erode the constitution even further. They will begin to weigh this country down with rulings designed to strengthen the power of the corporate state.
The hypocrisy of appointing someone who would rather sit there and lie than own his stuff is beyond disturbing. It is alarming. He is a threat to the freedom that our forefathers fought so hard to win. Appointing someone who won't even take a lie detector test or welcome an FBI investigation sends a message to men that they can do whatever they want to women. It also sends a message to the public that there is no such thing as real justice.
If this man is appointed the rich and elite are making a clear statement that they are going to do whatever they want to us in a court of law, without regard for truth and justice, and we might as well all just get used to it.
If Kavenaugh would take a lie detector test, I would definitely want it to be conducted at a neutral site by a neutral investigator because my interest is in making sure the person who gets appointed to the SC cares more about truth and justice than saving face or pretending he is innocent to get an appointment. Because if he does that it means he is becoming the puppet of the cadre that wants him appointed.
Ford's testimony immediately becomes insignificant if Kavenaugh is willing to take a lie detector test too. If the Pro-Life people don't trust her lie detector test, and they want her to take another one at a neutral site, I am all for that too. Any person who tries to set someone up with a false testimony should be convicted of the alleged crime instead of the person who was falsely accused. If that is what Ford has done, she should be put in jail for sexual assault.
But even if the lie detector test indicates Kavenaugh sexually assaulted Ford, if he is willing to own it I wouldn't want him going to jail at this late date, unless he is at risk of continuing to do that kind of thing. His refusal to take a lie detector test or welcome an FBI investigation, and the fact that he would sit there and cry and yell at the people asking questions, is a good reason to believe that he is a very dangerous person. Indeed, accepting the appointment without insisting on proving his innocence is an assault on truth and justice.
If he gets appointed, it should be a red alert to the people of this country.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
CORPORATE JOBS AND SESTA/FOSTA
I dislike it when well meaning supportive friends tell me that I need to do “something else” with my life, as if I haven’t tried, or I am not willing to work at a mainstream job for a living. Indeed, I was once told that I was the hardest working person ever seen when I was trying to get ahead as a wage slave for corporate America. Working hard has never gotten me anything but more work and less money. It makes my employers think they are paying too much.
As soon as they see how hard I am willing to work they offer to put me in a salaried position with more responsibility, more hours, and less commission, so they can get a bigger bang for their buck. Meanwhile I am barely hanging on by my fingernails and running up credit card debt to buy gasoline so I can help make other people rich. No thank you to "promotions" that result in me having less time and energy to moonlight as a masseuse so I can afford to keep a lousy low paying disrespectful life consuming soul draining job that barely pays enough money to cover the rent, if it pays that much.
There is nothing I want more than to believe and discover I live in a kind loving world that is ready, willing and able to support and sustain me, so I can refuse to serve other people sexually unless I am turned on and inspired to do so. But empirical evidence has proven otherwise.
I’ve had 30 jobs in 40 years. Not one of them has ever paid me a comfortable living wage. I have a degree from the University of Texas. And corporate America expects me to work for $12 per hour. 40 hours at $12 per is barely enough to pay the rent in Austin, Texas. My student loan payment is more than I can make in a month working a $12 per hour job. How are people suppose to buy food and gasoline and get to and from work when that is all they are getting paid?
Grown up adults are sharing bedrooms, splitting rent, and living dormitory style all over this nation. People are piling up in houses like litters of animals, giving each other bed bugs, sharing a bathroom with several other people, and getting foot fungus from it. And entire culture of self-employed homeless young people is emerging. They rent shared office spaces with showers in the building and sleep in their cars because they can’t afford a place to live. Doesn't matter. They wouldn’t have any time to spend at home anyway because they work so many hours.
No wonder there is so much pressure on women to accept date rape instead of reporting it these days. People don’t have enough to purchase the privacy to masturbate alone in a room of their own.
I’ve had men offer me better jobs if I would have sex with them. I’ve had men offer to give me regular raises and promotions if I would be their girlfriend. Why would any woman prostitute herself to get an job or a promotion, and keep it, if she could make a whole lot more money by just working as a prostitute full time, instead of being a corporate wage slave. Shame and the need for a cover, so you won't get arrested for being a prostitute, I suppose.
There is nothing I want more than to believe it’s possible for me to survive and thrive in this world without having to be of service to someone sexually. But I have seen no evidence of it thus far.
A preacher once told me that God has promised to deliver those who are faithful. He encouraged me to test God. So I did. God failed. I used to own a condo downtown and a house in South Austin. I was so determined to quit being a prostitute that I sold them both and lived on my equity for two and a half years, faithfully waiting for the universe to show me some other way to survive that didn't require me to have sex in order to make ends meet. When the equity was gone I ran out of money. I was about to become homeless. So I started moonlighting as a masseuse again to keep from getting evicted.
It ought to be illegal for corporations to pay less than a comfortable living wage without providing housing, food and uniforms, so employees won’t have to prostitute themselves in order to keep a roof over their heads and feed the children. Only those who are lucky enough to have friends and family that will subsidize corporate America’s piss poor poverty level wages, by giving it's low paid depressed spiritually drained exhausted wage slave human resources free food and housing, can afford to take the abusively demeaning jobs that are created by trickle down capitalistic economics.
The rest have to prostitute themselves.
The term "work ethic" is oxymoronic. There is nothing ethical about wage slavery. It is disrespectful, degrading, humiliating, self-abusive and completely unethical. Life is meant to be enjoyed. Draining the joy out of people for profit mutates humanity into a culture with a parasitic cancer like nature that will eventually begin to consume and kill the planet unless it is exterminated. The elite solution? Cull useless eaters.
Those who with a will to live and work must prostitute themselves in miserable unsatisfying relationships in order to make ends meet. They go home after a long hard day of working for corporate America to cook, clean and serve domestic partners that have a sense of entitlement to sex simply because they happen to be in a relationship and they need someone to help pay the bills. Wage slave by day; cook, house maid, and sex slave at night. The cost of shirking your sexual duty is loss of your relationship. Then who’s going to pay the other half of the rent? "What’s the point of being in a relationship, if we aren't going to have sex?" Men will ask. There is a battle going on in the bedroom. Prostitution has always been the pressure valve. And it's cheaper than supporting a wife who doesn't want to work.
That's why the quality of sex is so horrible these days. There is precious little space for inspiration and appreciation to arise because sex is a woman’s duty, since she can. As long as women have to do it, or suffer extreme poverty and possibly die from that, men will be scratching their heads, wondering what’s missing, addictively craving something more like hungry ghosts. Couples will never know the blissful joy of intimacy inspired desire and willing wanting passion, the kind of sex that is worth waiting for. Such ecstasy is not in the game plan of those who are engaged with bull dozing, hounding, coercing, pouting, complaining, whining partners demanding to have sex whenever they want, with whomever they want it. Or else no deal.
The ironically pitiful thing about prostituting yourself for a relationship to have somebody around who is willing split the bills is that you can’t afford to get your teeth cleaned even with two salaries, until you have reached middle age. Doesn’t really matter, because there is no time to go to the dentist anyway. Life is much easier when you moonlight as a masseuse to make ends meet. But who has any energy left over for giving massages to people who are inevitably going to be hitting you up for sex, after working for corporate America all day long and coming home exhausted? By quitting your corporate job, and devoting all of your time to massage, you can make a whole lot more money. At least that was how things used to be...
But that would have been immoral, now wouldn't it? As if insensitive stock holders draining the life blood out of employees, and getting rich by starving working families is not. Who instituted the moral laws anyway? The religious authorities are working for them, not God. God is a person standing on the street corner holding up a card board sign that says, "God Bless!"
Become a masseuse and you will be hounded for sex, no matter how little you charge. And you will get bad reviews if you don’t include it for those who want it. Sooner or later your customers will wear you down. If you aren't willing to include value-added sexual favors for free, they will review you and put you out of business. Become willing, and you will start getting $100 tips. Then you will be making $160 per massage instead of a mere $60.
At least that is how things used to work before Sesta Fosta started closing down the websites that made it possible to find enough massage customers to make a comfortable living. A whole new game is emerging now. Perhaps we do need a wall to keep out people who are coming her to compete for low paying dead end wage slave jobs, since the sex slaves have been liberated.
The unconscious ignorance of calling out government to disappear venues that once made it possible for consenting adults to safely get their needs met, is a very subtle form of genocide. The unintended result is killing those who were conditioned by abuse to become sex workers. The process of elimination is survival of the fittest.
Congratulations America. It’s time for hookers to look for an NA meeting, trade a few blow jobs for some China White, and commit suicide.
As soon as they see how hard I am willing to work they offer to put me in a salaried position with more responsibility, more hours, and less commission, so they can get a bigger bang for their buck. Meanwhile I am barely hanging on by my fingernails and running up credit card debt to buy gasoline so I can help make other people rich. No thank you to "promotions" that result in me having less time and energy to moonlight as a masseuse so I can afford to keep a lousy low paying disrespectful life consuming soul draining job that barely pays enough money to cover the rent, if it pays that much.
There is nothing I want more than to believe and discover I live in a kind loving world that is ready, willing and able to support and sustain me, so I can refuse to serve other people sexually unless I am turned on and inspired to do so. But empirical evidence has proven otherwise.
I’ve had 30 jobs in 40 years. Not one of them has ever paid me a comfortable living wage. I have a degree from the University of Texas. And corporate America expects me to work for $12 per hour. 40 hours at $12 per is barely enough to pay the rent in Austin, Texas. My student loan payment is more than I can make in a month working a $12 per hour job. How are people suppose to buy food and gasoline and get to and from work when that is all they are getting paid?
Grown up adults are sharing bedrooms, splitting rent, and living dormitory style all over this nation. People are piling up in houses like litters of animals, giving each other bed bugs, sharing a bathroom with several other people, and getting foot fungus from it. And entire culture of self-employed homeless young people is emerging. They rent shared office spaces with showers in the building and sleep in their cars because they can’t afford a place to live. Doesn't matter. They wouldn’t have any time to spend at home anyway because they work so many hours.
No wonder there is so much pressure on women to accept date rape instead of reporting it these days. People don’t have enough to purchase the privacy to masturbate alone in a room of their own.
I’ve had men offer me better jobs if I would have sex with them. I’ve had men offer to give me regular raises and promotions if I would be their girlfriend. Why would any woman prostitute herself to get an job or a promotion, and keep it, if she could make a whole lot more money by just working as a prostitute full time, instead of being a corporate wage slave. Shame and the need for a cover, so you won't get arrested for being a prostitute, I suppose.
There is nothing I want more than to believe it’s possible for me to survive and thrive in this world without having to be of service to someone sexually. But I have seen no evidence of it thus far.
A preacher once told me that God has promised to deliver those who are faithful. He encouraged me to test God. So I did. God failed. I used to own a condo downtown and a house in South Austin. I was so determined to quit being a prostitute that I sold them both and lived on my equity for two and a half years, faithfully waiting for the universe to show me some other way to survive that didn't require me to have sex in order to make ends meet. When the equity was gone I ran out of money. I was about to become homeless. So I started moonlighting as a masseuse again to keep from getting evicted.
It ought to be illegal for corporations to pay less than a comfortable living wage without providing housing, food and uniforms, so employees won’t have to prostitute themselves in order to keep a roof over their heads and feed the children. Only those who are lucky enough to have friends and family that will subsidize corporate America’s piss poor poverty level wages, by giving it's low paid depressed spiritually drained exhausted wage slave human resources free food and housing, can afford to take the abusively demeaning jobs that are created by trickle down capitalistic economics.
The rest have to prostitute themselves.
The term "work ethic" is oxymoronic. There is nothing ethical about wage slavery. It is disrespectful, degrading, humiliating, self-abusive and completely unethical. Life is meant to be enjoyed. Draining the joy out of people for profit mutates humanity into a culture with a parasitic cancer like nature that will eventually begin to consume and kill the planet unless it is exterminated. The elite solution? Cull useless eaters.
Those who with a will to live and work must prostitute themselves in miserable unsatisfying relationships in order to make ends meet. They go home after a long hard day of working for corporate America to cook, clean and serve domestic partners that have a sense of entitlement to sex simply because they happen to be in a relationship and they need someone to help pay the bills. Wage slave by day; cook, house maid, and sex slave at night. The cost of shirking your sexual duty is loss of your relationship. Then who’s going to pay the other half of the rent? "What’s the point of being in a relationship, if we aren't going to have sex?" Men will ask. There is a battle going on in the bedroom. Prostitution has always been the pressure valve. And it's cheaper than supporting a wife who doesn't want to work.
That's why the quality of sex is so horrible these days. There is precious little space for inspiration and appreciation to arise because sex is a woman’s duty, since she can. As long as women have to do it, or suffer extreme poverty and possibly die from that, men will be scratching their heads, wondering what’s missing, addictively craving something more like hungry ghosts. Couples will never know the blissful joy of intimacy inspired desire and willing wanting passion, the kind of sex that is worth waiting for. Such ecstasy is not in the game plan of those who are engaged with bull dozing, hounding, coercing, pouting, complaining, whining partners demanding to have sex whenever they want, with whomever they want it. Or else no deal.
The ironically pitiful thing about prostituting yourself for a relationship to have somebody around who is willing split the bills is that you can’t afford to get your teeth cleaned even with two salaries, until you have reached middle age. Doesn’t really matter, because there is no time to go to the dentist anyway. Life is much easier when you moonlight as a masseuse to make ends meet. But who has any energy left over for giving massages to people who are inevitably going to be hitting you up for sex, after working for corporate America all day long and coming home exhausted? By quitting your corporate job, and devoting all of your time to massage, you can make a whole lot more money. At least that was how things used to be...
But that would have been immoral, now wouldn't it? As if insensitive stock holders draining the life blood out of employees, and getting rich by starving working families is not. Who instituted the moral laws anyway? The religious authorities are working for them, not God. God is a person standing on the street corner holding up a card board sign that says, "God Bless!"
Become a masseuse and you will be hounded for sex, no matter how little you charge. And you will get bad reviews if you don’t include it for those who want it. Sooner or later your customers will wear you down. If you aren't willing to include value-added sexual favors for free, they will review you and put you out of business. Become willing, and you will start getting $100 tips. Then you will be making $160 per massage instead of a mere $60.
At least that is how things used to work before Sesta Fosta started closing down the websites that made it possible to find enough massage customers to make a comfortable living. A whole new game is emerging now. Perhaps we do need a wall to keep out people who are coming her to compete for low paying dead end wage slave jobs, since the sex slaves have been liberated.
The unconscious ignorance of calling out government to disappear venues that once made it possible for consenting adults to safely get their needs met, is a very subtle form of genocide. The unintended result is killing those who were conditioned by abuse to become sex workers. The process of elimination is survival of the fittest.
Congratulations America. It’s time for hookers to look for an NA meeting, trade a few blow jobs for some China White, and commit suicide.
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Two Lies People Must Stop Believing in Order to be Truly Free
There are two lies we must stop believing in order to be truly free:
1) It is possible for people to own chunks of the earth, and
2) We are free.
Nature created the earth. It belongs to God. The earth can shake the people off like fleas if they don't learn how to respect her and develop a synergistic relationship with her instead of a parasitic one.
Having accepted lie number one is the reason we are all slaves, and we shall remain slaves for as long as we believe that it is possible for people to own land.
The reason people have to pay money to live on the planet where they are born is because they are slaves to the concept of land ownership. Remembering the truth and returning to the management of natural resources wisely, because they do NOT belong to us, will set us free. We must reorganize society based on the truth, and we shall truly be free.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Unethical Corporate Greed and Lies
When I was at UT I took a marketing class from a very popular professor who used Discount Tire as a model for how to do good business. For years I respected them and went to them to buy new tires as needed. I have sent many of my friends there and told them what I learned at UT about how they do business. I told people how they always greet you the moment you walk in the door and make you feel important. No matter how many people are ahead of you, you don’t mind waiting because you can tell they value each person’s time and presence. I told people how quick and efficient their service is. I told people how they give sound recommendations that meet your needs adequately and appropriately. I told people how they will change a flat tire for free in order to generate good will and customer loyalty. I have bought many a tire at Discount Tire. But not any more.
Friday morning a light on my dash board told me that the air in one of my tires was low. I pulled over and sure enough there was a dry wall nail in the center of my tire causing a slow leak. Within ten miles of noticing that I had a problem a very nice gentleman offered to help me change the flat. The tire wasn’t even completely out of air yet. I then drove to Discount Tire on my funky little spare to let them fix the flat. Much to my surprise they said it couldn't be repaired and proceeded to bombard me with a high pressure sales pitch and tell me how bad all of my tires were. They recommended that I buy an entire set of new tires. They even offered to finance them and let me make payments.
First of all, I did not believe my flat tire could not be repaired and I am not going to buy a bag of beans from a liar. Second of all, my set of tires doesn't even have 28K miles on them yet. And they are Michelins. The remaining tires on my car should be good for quite a while longer, even if Discount Tire was right about the flat not being repairable. To me it made a whole lot more sense to buy a used tire with the same amount of tread as the other three. Eventually I got fed up with the high pressure sales tactics and had a stomping yelling hissy fit to make the guy back off. He kept coming after me over and over with the intention of wearing me down until I finally yelled at him. “What is it about NO that you can’t understand? I am NOT going to buy a set of new tires from you! I don't even believe the flat I brought in can't be fixed! Now give me back my tire so I can leave!” I said this in the showroom in front of the other customers and they all took note. When he finally realized that he wasn't going to get anywhere with me, he stopped hounding me and gave me my flat tire back. The intense high pressure sales tactic reminded me of the way some men bulldoze women for sex. It was disgusting.
I put my flat tire and rim back in the trunk and drove to a used tire store. I told them I had a flat and Discount Tire told me it couldn't be fixed and I'd like to have a second opinion. The used tire technician took a look at the tire and told me he could definitely fix it. I asked him if he thought it might be dangerous, and whether I could possibly have a blow out. He didn't think there was any reason for me to be concerned about that. He ran his fingers inside the tire and we both had a good look at it. Since he didn't think there was anything to worry about, I decided to drive slow and take my chances instead of buying a new used tire. I got my flat fixed for $15 and tipped him $5. On my way home I drove very slowly at first and had no problems. After driving for a few more miles I finally had the courage to go 65 MPH. Still no blow out. If I ever do have a blow out on this tire you will all be the first to know, and I will apologize to Discount Tire. But as it stands, I am inclined to think corporate greed has infiltrated their ethics and they are scamming to sell tires to people who don’t really need them.
Even if my flat tire had really been ruined and unfixable, Discount Tire could have let me make my own fully-informed legitimate decision instead of trying to cram their opinion of what I should do down my throat. They could have said there are three ways to handle a situation like that. 1) I could go buy a used tired with about the same amount of tread on it as the other three, 2) I could just buy one new tire, with a whole lot more tread on it than the other three, which could result in the need for frequent balancing and rotation, or 3) I could invest in a whole new set of tires and save myself the time and trouble of having to come back and replace the other three when they are finally worn out. But to claim that a tire cannot be fixed, and that I also need to get three more, and put high pressure on me to go into debt to buy them seems a little unethical to me.
Gone are the days when you could count on companies like Discount Tire to let you know what all your options are and make your own decision about whether saving money or time is the most important to you. Gone are the days when you can just get a flat tire fixed at a place that sells new tires. Gone are the days when customers had a choice and the right to know the truth. These days people have to fight for fairness, fight for justice, and fight to make sure the people charging money are not just scamming you. Corporate America doesn't even remember how to deal with someone who isn't a willing member of the walking talking tell me what to do zombie tribe. If you think for yourself they are shocked and offended. Even the lower echelons will resent you because their bosses will whip them for failing to respect the wishes of supply side economics.
It has now been nearly six months since Discount Tire told me the flat could not be fixed and I took it to the used tire store to get it fixed. And it is still working just fine. I have been driving daily ever since.
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