When I was an undergraduate, I read some Dylan Thomas poems in a modern poetry class. Of course we read "Do not go gently into that good night." I enjoyed the poem immensely. I have always been drawn to things demonstrating what might be called a rebel impulse, especially when I was young. For me, "rage, rage against the dying of the light" could effectively have been read as "rage, rage against every injustice" since injustice was the chief vice to be opposed. I was full of rage and fury; Dylan Thomas seemed to be speaking to me. I would rage, rage, rage.
I hadn't thought of Thomas for some time when my father reached the end stage of the colon cancer that had been consuming him for several years. The poem struck me as inapposite. What could my father rage against? Had my father raged, it would have been futile and weird, like Lear on the heath. There is no raging against a disease that you have lived with for nearly a decade, a disease that you have known for some time would take your life. Instead, there is gnawing pain and existential anxiety. There is occasional regret and occasional insight. Mostly, there is simple adaptation. Waking and getting through each day because each day keeps coming and that is what we do when we live. We wake, we get through, we wake, we get through.
Watching my father waste away did not diminish Thomas' words, but it demonstrated for me that the way of life and death is not binary. Life is not a question of desire or its absence. Were it so, my father would be alive today. He had much desire to live. He may even at times have had rage. However, desire, even at the extreme edge, cannot guarantee life. Neither is it even a possibility with the slow waste of metastatic cancer.
I have, however, recently been reminded that there are things worth raging against. Not too long ago, Kraft-Heinz announced that it would be closing the Oscar Mayer facility in Madison, Wisconsin. Executive jobs will be located in Chicago and all production jobs in Madison will be lost. On my way into work around the time of the news, I heard a piece on public radio mentioning that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation ("WEDC") did not attempt to work with Kraft-Heinz to keep the plant open. This despite the fact that at least two other states successfully offered tax credits and other benefits to keep their local Oscar Mayer plants open. I feel like Wisconsin's light is dying and there ought to be more raging.
The Wisconsin legislature and the governor continuously tout themselves and the policies they contrive to be better for Wisconsin businesses and hence better for Wisconsin because they will lead to job growth. This is complete and utter baloney. The Walker administration and the Wisconsin legislature have no interest actually doing anything that will preserve decent union jobs in Wisconsin, especially not in a city that votes heavily Democratic. They do not care and are almost certainly happy to see those jobs go so they can continue to drive decent jobs with decent benefits (and the Democratic voters that often hold them) out to be replaced by lousy jobs with lousy benefits held by resentful workers who seem to think that progressive social policy is the reason for their economic insecurity. Oddly, white persons holding non-union blue collar jobs in rural Wisconsin are reliably Republican despite Republican policy being responsible for much of their economic insecurity.
This is messed up and is worth raging against. Buying the Republican line of political reasoning amounts to implicit racism. When you think the reason that you don't have a good job is because of Obamacare or welfare, you are a racist. You are effectively saying that you would have a good job if income was not being redistributed to pay for handouts to black people (because that is who the anti-welfare crowd assumes all the benefits are going to). You know what, though: you are not only a racist, you are a moron. The reason you don't have a good job has almost nothing to do with social programs and almost everything to do with political policies that maximize the wealth of businesses and the wealthiest individuals at your expense.
I have for too long attempted to be nice about this stuff. I'm done. I don't think Wisconsin has much left to commend it. This saddens and angers me. Losing Oscar Mayer and knowing our state government did nothing to prevent it from happening sickens me. I recommend that everyone write to the WEDC and Governor Walker and tell them how disappointed you are in their lack of caring for Wisconsin workers. Tell them how disappointed you are in the direction Wisconsin is heading.
More importantly, call out all the people who voted these kleptocrats into office. Tell them they are racist if they oppose social welfare benefits because they think they disproportionately benefit black persons and other minorities. Tell them they are fools if they believe welfare benefits have anything to do with their own economic insecurity. Tell them they are fools if they believe unions have caused or contributed to Wisconsin's current economic woes. Tell them they are making Wisconsin into a sluggish backwater that is a national joke.
I feel like I am losing something meaningful as Wisconsin drifts right and becomes more know-nothing. I also feel like nothing I or anyone else can do or say will change things. Nevertheless, I can remain silent no longer. Like the wise men and the good men and the wild men and the grave men, I will not go gently into that good night; I will rage against the dying of the light.
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