Everyone wants a piece of the pie, right?
So it is with almost comically absurd hyperbole that the accelerating dispute between the National Football League team owners and players is being continually referred to in the press as a “labor” dispute. Fewer things could be further from the truth. A more appropriate term for describing the situation would probably be “lab experiment”, for what we are witnessing here are the long term effects of unnatural environments and toxic stimuli on certain sub-species of the human animal. To be exact, tunnel visioned, over indulged, culturally spoiled jocks living in hermetically sealed bubbles of adulation, hero worship, self importance, and denial.
A labor dispute, though technically a phrase that in it’s simplest definition can be used to describe virtually any disagreement between an employer and his employee, is most commonly understood to apply to more acute situations where workers are organized and energized and validated in pursuit of basic worker rights: i.e. life sustaining fair wages and safe, dignified working conditions. The dispute arises when each or any of these is contended by the labor organizers as being denied to them by their employer.
In this current NFL owner/player situation, however, what we have are over indulged and cruelly misinformed adolescents, who actually believe that they are deserving of the attention, praise, fanfare and special treatments that have constantly, recklessly, and cynically, been heaped upon them. Because they hear it every day, (most often and most forcefully from those very ones who seek to exploit them), they actually come to believe the sycophantic nonsense diet that they are fed. They believe that they are special gifted beings, knighted vessels bearing and protecting some national treasure, a task for which they, and only they, are qualified. This imagined knighthood, bestowed upon them by the manufacturers of beer, shaving cream, pickup trucks, and financial services, has completely gone to their heads. And why wouldn’t it? Who inside their bubble ever tells them otherwise?
And so now, imbued with a sense of self-importance that is rapidly crossing the line into self-destructiveness, they see themselves with an inherent right, not just to the nearly obscene compensation levels that for most Americans, stagger the imagination, but now, in the twisted culture of Reagan American entitlement thinking, to actually review and judge the ledgers of the organizations that employ them. Thus implying that up until this point, even with their multi-million dollar salary contracts, their endorsement deals, their get out of jail cards, that they have never the less, been victimized.
So let’s be clear: What we are not talking about, are laborers disputing conditions that prevent them from making a reasonable and safe living.
What we are talking about are circus clowns, suing to run the circus.
It is difficult for the ground level observer, (laughingly known as “fans”) to just shrug and accept all this, because that requires accepting the notion that there are actually creatures out there that could be so self-centered or shallow or greedy or spoiled or delusional, or simply out of touch with state of economics in the real world. It is difficult to accept because any rational reasonably grounded person living in the real world would never think like that.
But we’re not talking about reasonable grounded people. We’re talking about man/child entertainers living in suspended adolescent animation. We’re talking about guys who get fireworks and cheerleaders just for walking on to a field. We’re talking about guys who live in spandex.
And so, it does happen. It does. It’s happening now. And it’s really obnoxious.
So do us a favor, Mr. Sportswriter. Stop insulting those of us who actually labor for a living wage. Open up your dictionary, open up your thesaurus, open up your joke book, and find another phrase to hang on this silly, selfish argument.
A labor dispute is a worthy endeavor.
A pie fight is for clowns.
© 2011 J. Mark Rast
So it is with almost comically absurd hyperbole that the accelerating dispute between the National Football League team owners and players is being continually referred to in the press as a “labor” dispute. Fewer things could be further from the truth. A more appropriate term for describing the situation would probably be “lab experiment”, for what we are witnessing here are the long term effects of unnatural environments and toxic stimuli on certain sub-species of the human animal. To be exact, tunnel visioned, over indulged, culturally spoiled jocks living in hermetically sealed bubbles of adulation, hero worship, self importance, and denial.
A labor dispute, though technically a phrase that in it’s simplest definition can be used to describe virtually any disagreement between an employer and his employee, is most commonly understood to apply to more acute situations where workers are organized and energized and validated in pursuit of basic worker rights: i.e. life sustaining fair wages and safe, dignified working conditions. The dispute arises when each or any of these is contended by the labor organizers as being denied to them by their employer.
In this current NFL owner/player situation, however, what we have are over indulged and cruelly misinformed adolescents, who actually believe that they are deserving of the attention, praise, fanfare and special treatments that have constantly, recklessly, and cynically, been heaped upon them. Because they hear it every day, (most often and most forcefully from those very ones who seek to exploit them), they actually come to believe the sycophantic nonsense diet that they are fed. They believe that they are special gifted beings, knighted vessels bearing and protecting some national treasure, a task for which they, and only they, are qualified. This imagined knighthood, bestowed upon them by the manufacturers of beer, shaving cream, pickup trucks, and financial services, has completely gone to their heads. And why wouldn’t it? Who inside their bubble ever tells them otherwise?
And so now, imbued with a sense of self-importance that is rapidly crossing the line into self-destructiveness, they see themselves with an inherent right, not just to the nearly obscene compensation levels that for most Americans, stagger the imagination, but now, in the twisted culture of Reagan American entitlement thinking, to actually review and judge the ledgers of the organizations that employ them. Thus implying that up until this point, even with their multi-million dollar salary contracts, their endorsement deals, their get out of jail cards, that they have never the less, been victimized.
So let’s be clear: What we are not talking about, are laborers disputing conditions that prevent them from making a reasonable and safe living.
What we are talking about are circus clowns, suing to run the circus.
It is difficult for the ground level observer, (laughingly known as “fans”) to just shrug and accept all this, because that requires accepting the notion that there are actually creatures out there that could be so self-centered or shallow or greedy or spoiled or delusional, or simply out of touch with state of economics in the real world. It is difficult to accept because any rational reasonably grounded person living in the real world would never think like that.
But we’re not talking about reasonable grounded people. We’re talking about man/child entertainers living in suspended adolescent animation. We’re talking about guys who get fireworks and cheerleaders just for walking on to a field. We’re talking about guys who live in spandex.
And so, it does happen. It does. It’s happening now. And it’s really obnoxious.
So do us a favor, Mr. Sportswriter. Stop insulting those of us who actually labor for a living wage. Open up your dictionary, open up your thesaurus, open up your joke book, and find another phrase to hang on this silly, selfish argument.
A labor dispute is a worthy endeavor.
A pie fight is for clowns.
© 2011 J. Mark Rast
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