I ‘m so sick of hearing about father’s day on the radio all day long. Don’t get me wrong. I am a father, I had a father, and my son is a father. But I refuse to fall for this hypocritical media onslaught. The same people that are driving fathers from their employment; are driving them from their houses, and are destroying the system that can educate their children; these same people are bombarding us with ads about showing father we love him by buying something they’re selling on Father’s day.
I refuse to spend one minute considering such a thing. I refuse to spend one dime at their urging on Father’s day. My son was just here (they’ve cut his pay by 50%) and he doesn’t feel the need to wish me happy fathers day; I consider that a sort of freedom. How or when I show my love for my Father or for my Mother will not be determined by Warren Buffet’s holding company, The Wal-Mart family or Madison Avenue.
They are liars and hypocrites. Not long ago it was Mother’s day, before that, Valentines Day. Anyone can see that it is not love and solidarity, caring and thanks that they seek by bombarding us with guilt-ridden ads about Fathers Day. They want us to shop. Just like after 911; Bush told us to shop. Not ask why someone would do what they did. Not question our own government, but shop.
Why is this?
The commodities we will buy were made by human beings like ourselves. They are the products of Labor. They have Labor time contained within them. But there is a little gem, some of the Labor time contained within the commodities we buy has not been paid for; the capitalist got it for free. So when they sell these to us, they realize that value in the form of money, it is money paid for total Labor time, the paid (wages), and money for Labor power for which they paid nothing. The problem is that normal human beings don’t spend our every waking minute thinking about buying things. So they have to create that need, that desire so they can retrieve money for the unpaid part of the commodity—money for nothing as Dire Straits put it.. That’s what the entire system is built around.
We don’t have to be rocket scientists to figure out what a good deal that is for the capitalists and why they bombard us day in day out with ads telling us to buy things. We can also understand then why all the various holidays; Fathers Day, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day. They are all really, “spur demand” days.
Growing up in England I cannot recall all the marketing and hype around these days. The US capitalist class is the most powerful and here they have had a freer reign.
We don’t need Father’s Day and we don’t need to buy things to show our love and gratitude to our parents. Pretty soon there’ll be retired paraplegic uncle day or overweight cousin’s day.
As a gift to fathers and mothers throughout the US I call for a law banning all layoffs and all home evictions and foreclosures and that all able bodied workers be employed at a minimum of $15 an hour.
That would be a real good day for fathers, mothers and the entire family. It’s a true family value.
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