How It Started
Just after my loco local went on strike to roll back the neoliberal York University, a colleague contacted me with a great idea.
“Why don’t you write about the strike,” suggested colleague. “Use that sarcasm of yours. Make us look good.”
“Let me get this,” I scoffed. “You want me to write more ridiculous propaganda pamphlets. And what? Deliver them door-to-door?”
There was a pause. Nothing but dead air in the fibre-optics. Finally, colleague said, “No, you idiot.”
Actually, colleague probably never called me an idiot. I just remember it that way due to the tone of voice. You know. That particular inflection. Part pity, part exasperation, mostly contempt.
“Think of it as online picketing. E-picketing,” said colleague. “And here’s what’s so great. It’s legitimate alternative duty. You can get full strike pay if you do it 20 hours each week. Except nobody can tell how long you do it. Nobody’s looking over your shoulder. So, if you write fast, a couple hours might suffice. See?”
Sure I saw. And surely I was tempted. It wasn’t like I didn’t need the money. So I thanked colleague and said I’d call back later. That I’d decide after I had a chance to think about it.
I had already decided, though. I knew I would do it before even hanging up the phone. Then, about five minutes later, Cupe Doll came to me. The perfect alias. What more could I ask? All of it was perfect. I was going to get fully strike-paid for having on-line fun.
Except it didn’t work out that way. It didn’t work out at all. Because Cupe Doll took over. Because Cupe Doll had different plans — and totally different ideas.
Yeah. Of course I know how ridiculous that sounds. Nevertheless. It’s true. As I found out on November 14, 2008 — while reading the very first comment Cupe Doll ever wrote. Or should I say, “While reading the first comment I wrote as Cupe Doll?” No matter. Either way. It was just another comment at just another National Post article titled “Update: Talks between York and striking union break down”. But here’s the thing. If it hadn’t been for Cupe Doll? But for Cupe Doll, on my own, I never would have written that comment. Never.
Click to read full comment
Not only could I never get strike paid for writing that comment. Worse. I’d never get strike paid for anything writing comments like that. Worse. If anyone found out it was me wrote that comment — I’d get endlessly harassed by every 3903 ideologue. Worst, my 3903 colleagues could harass me so bad I might not be able to keep my job. I would have taken that comment back if I could. But after Cupe Doll posted it? Too late.
I couldn’t get the National Post to give that comment back. So what was Cupe Doll trying to do? Ruin my life?
You have to understand. Harassment isn’t haphazard inside 3903. To the contrary. Inside 3903, harassment is serious policy. A crucial aspect how 3903 ideologues control and silence dissident voices. Perhaps the most essential tool in the crowd-control toolbox we call radical democracy. And there are certain members who keep asking for it. Members who stand up against our ideologues in the middle of membership meetings. Members painting targets on their own foreheads in scarlet letters. They demand to get harassed. They literally beg to get harassed. They probably get off on it.
You have to understand. I can always tell which way the wind blows. And I have no need whatsoever to have my time and sanity wasted getting harassed. So what was I doing, writing a comment like that under my Cupe Doll alias? What the hell was Cupe Doll trying to do?
No mystery. Cupe Doll was out to warn our strike could never get resolved at the bargaining table. Due to how ideological our strike was. Due to how, in one sense, our entire dispute with YorkU was a fraud. Our real dispute was with the elected Government of Ontario. We needed to capitulate YorkU and hurt York students so bad the government could no longer withstand our consequences. So the government would have to begin conceding our greater ideological demands.
It seemed urgent, at the time, to warn that our strike was ideologically deadlocked from the very start. Now, in hindsight, it’s too cheap and too easy declaring back-to-work legislation a foregone conclusion:
… the place was shut down for 3 months because nobody told Shipley and his pals that the government is not their friend? They really believed that McGuinty was going to shove their pricey wish list down the throat of a public institution that is funded (partially) from provincial tax revenues? … A little bit of simple research would have told them that what they would get from the gov is back-to-work legislation…
Too cheap. Too easy. Local 3903s are not essential workers. Had there been no recognition by government that negotiations were deadlocked? There could have been no justification for back-to-work legislation. The academic year could have been not just spoiled — but entirely lost. And that likelihood — due to ideological deadlock potentially remaining unrecognized — seemed so wrong as to become indistinguishable from evil. Valued educators destroying our own students’ educations. How wrong was that? How was it any less wrong than cops turning to crime — or fire-fighters turning to arson? Oppressing, exploiting our students as hostage pawns. Alienating them from their means of production. From their production of meaning. From the very meaning of their productivity. Oppression and exploitation so extreme, it made us spitting images of a neoliberal youth movement. We had become precisely what we ideologically opposed.
There’s no mystery what Cupe Doll was trying to do. None whatever. The only mystery is why, as Cupe Doll, I would take such risk. Knowing it meant I couldn’t get strike paid. Knowing the harassment and poisonous work environment it can entail when my identity is discovered. Knowing that if I continue ridiculing local 3903 ideology, my identity is bound to get discovered. Eventually. Knowing it will probably mean my job.
Why do it in the first place, then? Is Cupe Doll crazy? An unstable personality — like 3903 ideologues keep claiming? Is there a split personality disorder? Honestly — who cares. Cupe Doll simply doesn’t need the money like I do. Doesn’t care about personal consequences like I care. When I write as Cupe Doll it isn’t my own personal, pragmatic best interests I’m most concerned with. Yeah — I know. It sounds absurd. It is absurd. As if the alias were a costume. Except not a crime-fighting costume. It’s an ideology fighting costume. Because ideology is infinitely more devastating than criminality.
Think about it. When societies grow most ideologically out of control — that’s when virtue and truth get criminalized most. See? False criminality is merely one outcome of ideology. Not even the worst outcome — but plenty bad enough. Since false criminality can mean nothing but injustice.
But out of control ideology doesn’t just mean exploitation, oppression and injustice. It means ultimate devastation. It means genocide of cultural others. It means extinction of every natural kind we keep ideologically believing g0d-given to human consumption. And although I don’t really think anything can be done about it — Cupe Doll seems to think different. Cupe Doll absolutely believes something can be done about human ideology always getting out of control.
When I write as Cupe Doll? Call me crazy if you like. That’s when I do believe there’s hope for humans. I wouldn’t have bothered if I didn’t.
That’s how and why it started. What happened next, however, was more interesting.
Last modified on 2011-09-16 12:27:32 GMT. 71 comments
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