Hazleton Pravda

A Fish Rots… (In Hazleton)
[Revision 1.1; grammaticle and HTML corrections]
An unsolicited rebuttal by Doyna Yar to the [alleged] visit and comments of the Mayor of Hazleton, the Rt Hon Lou Barletta

It’s few and far between when my muse is prodded into action, especially here at Pravda. Better than 95% of HP is none of my doing, but a miraculous thing happened this week. I’d like to start by thanking Mr. Barletta for taking the time to visit our little corner of the internet. To be honest, there is no way to verify that it was actually him as anyone could feign any identity [the Pope, Napoleon, Marilyn Monroe, Ron Jeremy, Bone, etc.] in a guestbook post. For the purposes of argument I will assume it really was the Mayor. We welcome his comments and opinions. Though he wrote little his words speak volumes. Despite our disagreement with them in no way have we censored or edited them. Lou’s comments speak for themselves and can be read in our Guestbook. To paraphrase; ‘though we do not agree with his opinions, we would fight for his right to voice them’ [though I am skeptical he would do the same for us]. Free Speech is one of our most precious Rights in all it’s forms weather opinions, comments, tabloid, complaints, or protests [like the looney anarchists over at G8!*] and we respect that.

I’m not sure what is more disconcerting- the Mayor’s delusional perspective that Hazleton is improving or his obvious intolerance for dissents. Let’s start with the ‘improving conditions’ of the Greater Hazleton Cluster. Are opportunities growing? Sure, for carpet bagging factory owners, for out of state management. For the small group of elite families that own and operate Hazleton’s infrastructure. For the slumlords who control the housing. For foreign-tongued socialist marketeers preying on working class folk’s dreams of starting a small business. And let’s not forget the tremendous opportunities for those who distribute the drugs to sedate the masses, fostering the crime, which justifies an overbearing police presence. Yeah, there’s alotta money to be made in Hazleton, if you are an established part of the system [read ‘made’].

But what of the hard working class of the area? Where are their opportunities? Another factory that ‘may’ come in that desperately half the employed work force foolishly submits to a dehumanizing, multi-tiered application process for 1 outta 80 positions? Another backroom deal between management and union fucking laborers out of their seniority earned benefits? The opportunity our youth have in a district that cares far more for conformity and discipline than education and freedom of expression? The opportunity to start a small business in a market that exerts totalitarian control over your hours, product, façade, and utilities? These are only opportunities to be taken advantage of for the benefit of the area’s power brokers and their status quo. You say look at the growth? I say look at your pay stub. Are you really any better off here in Hazleton than you were 10, 20, 30 years ago? Does the factory system keep giving you the same run around of giving and taking away benefits and wage year in, year out? A company change in name, ownership, or labor contract where you committed your livelihood put you back to square one? Another year older and deeper in debt?!! Take a day off to watch your 4-month-old daughter because your spouse is ill and go to the top of the list to get canned [there’s ‘Team Effort’ for ya]? What about all the new housing construction in the area? That’s not for the working class of Hazleton! That’s for your management overlords from New York, ‘Jersey, or Georgia. No, row homes, apartments, and half-doubles are all too well for the local plebeians. Home ownership leads to equity and that’s no way for working schleps to keep their place in the world. Is Hazleton better? All you have to do is take a good look at the demographic devides.

You see there is no economic mobility for the working class of northeast PA. That capitalist promise is a false god here, sacrificed to build another CAN DO Pyramid! The ‘powers that be’ screwed yet another generation in a long line from true prosperity and opportunity some years back when they deep-sixed any chance of getting the Saturn plant. Real world work and wages is far too much of a threat to status quo and their support mechanisms that are powered by our backs and sweat and dignity. Contrary to belief, if a plant shut down for a day or quota wasn’t met the world would not end! Bigger is not better, I’m sorry Lou, but shoveling more of the same shit on our plates does not make Hazleton better! If you really cared for the majority of us and the true prosperity of Hazleton’s citizens, you and those behind the curtain would weed out the plants and profiteers that come in and are revolving doors of low quality employment that take advantage of our pigeon holed work force. If you want to truly improve the city than fight for Us, not for Them! We want BETTER OPPORTUNITIES than womb to tomb wage-slavery! Stop pandering and stroking the same old dead end job providers.

If the Mayor really saw any of this as a problem he’d be far too busy to comment on a ‘complaining’ website that gets less than 10 hits a day! But Mr. Barletta does not seem to feel for the worker’s plight. Be glad you have a job, and a roof. Open your mouth and you can get out! Yes, that brings me to my second problem with Lou’s perceptions. [Quote] ”…If you hate it so much, why not leave??”- There’s a thought! Have you ever noticed that the first thing anyone who scrapes together a proper college education from a working class family (by working two jobs and mortgaging their future with debt) does is LEAVE?? That’s called talent drain! I guess Lou doesn’t support the ‘Don’t leave Hazleton’ campaign. Has it ever occurred to you that so many of the discontented working class of the Hazleton area live hand to mouth and paycheck to stinking paycheck and do not have the resources to relocate [especially if they put any kind of roots into the state certified ‘wonderful’ Hazleton soil]?? Of course you do, that’s how the low-end jobs are kept filled to the benefit of Hazleton’s Pharoses! If there were free tickets at the bus station there’d be tumbleweeds on Broad Street and slate colored dust devils in front of City Hall that very afternoon! The only people who would remain are the ignorant, geriatric, and ‘shepherds without a flock’ management types [who couldn’t run the line or machinery if their lives depended on it]. With a few PA winters nature’s permafrost would take back the industrial parks, the factories [without their government subsidized wages they wouldn’t exist], and encroach upon what was once the wasteland that was Hazleton, like the Kolyma gulag. 100 years later it would be but a story to scare small children to study hard in school or they’ll end up in Hazleton!

I’m sorry Mr. Mayor if our little blog’s ‘complaints’ have upset your perception of the world. In the end I guess you just won’t get it, after all we all have our keepers and you serve your masters’ interests well – too bad they are not your citizenry. Are we complaining? Yes, to a point. When you have no power there is little else one can do about perceived injustices. Our humble venue at Hazleton Pravda is where we can rant, and jab, and *shrug* complain. But don’t foolishly dismiss complaining as ‘un-constructive’. After all change has to start some where, and that is usually one person saying “no more!” If the ‘complaint’ has merit and others listen and agree then eyes are opened and the avalanche has begun. As I said earlier, we believe in Free Speech, and that includes the Right to Complain. That does not in any way infringe on your Right to Ignore it! Remember YOU CAME TO OUR BLOG, we didn’t force it on you. You [I assume] took the time to read some of our opinions. And you felt compelled to enter your comments in the Guestbook. We must be making some kind impact for the Mayor to be referred to this site. If we can change one mind doesn’t that make us constructive? For a small blog with less than ten views a day [HP inception 10/29/03 and 5581 hits, you do the math] and only ‘complaints’ to offer we really must have hit a nerve for the illustrious Mayor Lou to pay us any mind. If we don’t make any sense, if there were no truth to any of it, why would such a busy and responsible man even care or bother. Does a fish rot from the head down? You, the reader, be the judge.

Doyna Yar-

* just a small notation that this was written prior to the London bombings and in no way does my comment about anarchists at the G8 imply any support or respect for those sickening terrorist attacks
Doyna Yar-