A Note

I wrestled for a long time whether to use my own name or a pseudonym. I decided to use my own name for the security that it offers. I was very reluctant because I do not want to contribute to what is described in The Enclosed. I am not a credentialed author, journalist, nor do I hold a degree from any university. I am a member of the working class. I’ve been employed as a laborer and a mechanic in my life, though I settled in another industry. 

I chose the name B.A. Prole as a declaration to the working class. A way for the Proles of the world to unite under the banner of being working class. In George Orwell's prophetic "1984", the word "prole" was used as a degrading slur for those whom society had oppressed, subjugated, and stripped of any meaningful voice. We are reclaiming it. We are modern Proles, and we have a voice that needs to be heard.

I am just a regular person. There is nothing special about me. I've spent my life paying attention to politics while studying Sociology and Conflict Theory.

Writing is not a full-time job for me. It never could be, and that's part of the point. Video editors, producers, graphic designers, developmental editors, line editors, copy editors, and proofreaders cost tens of thousands of dollars that a working-class writer does not have. A.I. is used in the YouTube channel for video production and in the editing and research process of the written work itself. It is not used to write the work. Every argument, every sentence, in the website sections; rantings, soapbox, and in my books, was written by me, a working-class person who holds a full-time job, has a family, and is putting these ideas into the world in the hours left over from both.

A working class writer using A.I. is not a contradiction. I use A.I. because it is the only realistic way a working-class writer can reach a working-class audience at scale and because the dominant class having a monopoly on the infrastructure of communication is precisely the problem the writing describes. Abstaining from the technology does not protect working people from it. Understanding it does.

The Enclosed and any future books will be proudly published in unionized printing facilities. I chose to make this publication accessible to everyone at the lowest cost possible. I also chose to make this book exclusive to independent booksellers. If it is on Amazon, I didn't put it there. I recommend once you read any of my books, to pass them on to someone else who will read them. Books serve no purpose sitting on a shelf collecting dust. By you sharing it, the contents come alive.

If this book does any good, the good belongs to the argument. The argument belongs to the working class. My ambition is not to be known. It is to be useful.

These books are written for the people that are being alienated by the contents of my books. The working class people across this country who build things they will never own or who maintain systems designed against their own interests. The people who hate to open their email or mailbox, afraid of the next medical bill or the next collection letter. Those who feel the weight of something being pressed down upon them. 

You are right in what you feel. The system is neither right nor left, and it is not broken. It is working exactly as it was intended. 
You are not alone, you are not wrong, and this is your community.

Bradley Drew (B.A. Prole)