George Carlin’s opinion. Contains explicit language.
Category Archives: Action
Real Political Reality
The attached article talks of the reality people live because of our politicians inaction, or inattention to the people in the real world.
Life in the Real World
Hot Colorado Politics
The Governors race in Colorado is heating up with Tom Tancredo throwing in as a candidate.
Denver Post Article
Wading In
The good Union steward at UPS is quite the different creature. Of course, to be a steward takes a number of different talents. Some stewards excel in some areas, while others are strong in different areas.
The quality, effective, steward maintains most of the following attributes.
First, and the most obvious is a solid basic knowledge of the Teamsters/UPS contract. On the surface that talent would seem to be as simple as “reading the book”. Most drivers think anything important is spelled out in the contract book. Of course many of them have never cracked it’s pages other than to use it for toilet paper on a rural route, or as storage for their lottery tickets. The real truth is that the contract is a basic guideline. Many of the important rules the drivers live by have actually been established by the grievance procedure, or past practice. Knowing the contract on the stewards part means being involved with the Local Business Agent, and staying apprised of grievance decisions both at the Local level, and the National Level. Without that knowledge, the steward can be giving bad advice to the drivers as to their rights in a given situation.
Next is the stewards ability to negotiate. Often in a termination situation, or a major case on a driver, the steward must use their reporte with upper management to negotiate a settlement on behalf of the offending driver. Many times, that negotiation is the best deal a driver is going to get. The closer the decision is to the driver, the more personal it is to the parties involved, and the more caring people are. When it goes upstairs, personalities, and feelings about the individual go out the window, and the case is usually decided strictly on the merits of the case. All of the extraneous information gets tossed to the wind. The steward handbook teaches that the lower level a decision is made in the grievance procedure, the better that decision will be for the driver.
The last, least known, ability to being a quality steward, is the ability, and desire, to wade into the fight. When a steward notices a driver being ripped in the managers office, with the door closed by himself, does the steward wade into the fight? Does the steward stick his head into the fray, and demand to know what’s going on? Does the steward stop the driver from spilling his guts without a steward present? Does the steward yell back at the manager, telling him he’s not leaving when the manager tries to throw him out of the office?
All of these talents are what really makes a quality steward. The contract allows the steward to introduce himself into the situation without fear of reprisal. Many stewards shy away from the “Wading In” talents needed. Confrontation is a hard thing for some people. Once management knows the steward is going to get involved, whether they want him involved or not, the conversations between management and the drivers change. Management will learn that the steward is going to tear up the situation if the steward is not involved in the process from the beginning. Of course the steward will be known as a radical, and a rough guy to deal with, and every other name the company can throw at him.
Believe me, that is the kind of steward you want as a driver, and if you are a steward, that is the kind of steward you need to be.
More on Chinese Labor
Corporate Supported Hypocrisy
Let’s start this thought with a look at the past. Most of us started out with the company looking for decent work. Maybe we were in college trying to get by, or maybe we had been laid off from some other menial job. We saw an ad about working for Brown that offered decent wages, and benefits, and paid vacation, and even retirement. Wow, we thought, “too good to be true!”
We jumped at the opportunity and soon we were wearing the Brown zoot suit, pushing the big brown truck, and living the good life. No where in all of this did anyone ever explain that all of this was also courtesy of the Teamsters Union. We thought the company just gave us these benefits out of the goodness of their hearts, and because we are such fabulously valuable, self important, heros of the working world.
We wondered why the Union would ask for “dues” when they had done nothing to earn them. We asked why the Unions supported “Labor friendly candidates” when these candidates did not necessarily support the issues we had with the world. We could not understand why the Unions would not support social issues outside of what was important to them. We began to listen to the “right-wing”, “anti-union”, talking heads that told us our money was being sent to crooked hoodlums bent on destroying the earth.
We believed their flapping gums, (no one lies on the radio) and started to protest having to pay those dues to an organization that has done nothing for us. We understand that the company will continue to give us the highest pay in the small package industry, and the best benefit package available, out of the goodness of their hearts. We know we are worth more than the ‘bottom line” of the company.
We actually are fools. We continue to vote against ourselves, yet believe that what we have, will be there forever. Of course we tend to be very self-focused, and worry only about ourselves when it comes to the world around us. We can stand there and spew the hate filled rhetoric of the union haters, yet continue to pocket our solid paycheck, and use our healthcare, that was negotiated for us by the Teamsters. Of course we are special somehow, and did not need the Teamsters to fight for us.
OK, actually I shouldn’t call us fools. Many of us are just hypocrites. Corporate hypocrites. We support corporate hypocrites. We vote for the “Society of the Bottom Line”. We are being sold out in the name of the corporation, and loving it. All because some lunatic says we should. All because we can’t see past our own nose.
Keep it up and we will lose it all! Wake up! You are a peon when it comes to the bottom line!
You will be the first to go!
The New Chinese Labor Threat
Check out this article. It’s about how the Chinese are dealing with abuse on the job.
Denver Post Article
Sneaky Company Supporting Websites
Many drivers turn to the web for help and relief from the pressures this company can put them. Unfortunately there are sites out there that come off as if they are for all employees, when in fact they are just another avenue to keep the rank and file driver in a harassed state of mind. These sites open the doors, offering drivers a place to vent, then suddenly the drivers are attacked by obvious supervisors, calling the drivers names, and ridiculing them for expressing their concerns within the company.
The main method of management is to maintain the “abusive daddy” mentality amongst the employees. A driver hoping to find some relief will often turn to these type of discussion sites, only to find they are being harassed, and ridiculed again. Of course the idea being drivers will think that is just the normal way.
These sites hold themselves up to be something they are not. They are not for the average employee. They are not for the rank and file. They are for pushing company abuse and their moderators do nothing about it. Don’t waste your time with another outlet for the “abusive daddy”. Find your information independently. Find the sites you can trust.
Nothing Wrong With Protest
There’s nothing wrong with protest and expression of ones views. Let’s please be honest about our motivations. The Young Turks video talks about the Tea Party and it’s real motivations. The attack should be on our government that won’t represent the interests of the people. The problem is about corporatism. Listen, and shake your head, as I did.
What’s Wrong with the Tea Party??
‘Tea party’ activists: Do they hate liberals more than they love liberty?
Rockville, Md.
Many “tea party” activists staunchly oppose big government, except when it is warring, wiretapping, or waterboarding. A movement that started out denouncing government power apparently has no beef with some of the worst abuses of modern times.
Unfortunately, there is scant evidence that most tea partyers have studied the copies of the Constitution they generously hand out to bystanders.
At a Tax Day tea party in Rockville, Md., the speaking venue was draped with a huge banner: “Tired of Big Government?” Members of the “Tyranny Response Team” stood near the front of the rally with their official blue T-shirts. Giant American flags and ones with “Don’t Tread on Me” (with a coiled rattlesnake) were carried around by men with tri-corn hats. Political campaigns busily sold “9/11 Remembrance” bracelets.
And yet, the crowd of 300 seemed most outraged that the US government is not being sufficiently aggressive in using its power.
Ken Timmerman, the author of “Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America” and other hawkish books, declaimed that the US government must take every step to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Mr. Timmerman denounced the Obama administration for being soft on Tehran and urged support for legislation to impose harsh sanctions on Iran. Timmerman previously advocated a US naval blockade of Iran, which he claimed was planning a nuclear attack on the United States.
Running through a litany of President Obama’s greatest failings, Timmerman denounced him for forcing US agents to “stop using enhanced interrogation methods. Has that made us safer?”
“No!” the crowd hollered indignantly.
Jeffrey Kuhner, a local talk-show host, sneered that Obama “has found his inner Muslim” and raged against his bowing to foreign leaders and kings. He complained that Obama has “taken over college loans,” and warned that illegal immigrants could be “the shock troops of Obama’s socialist revolution.” The crowd ate it up.
One of the MCs gushed about how he and everyone else in the crowd loved the police. There was not a word spoken about the video released earlier that week showing a nearby horrendous police beating of an innocent University of Maryland college student.
The rally featured a string of Republican candidates praising fiscal responsibility and denouncing the national debt. One would have thought that it had been 50 years, rather than 15 months, since the Republicans controlled the White House.
There was almost no dissent from any of the 300 attendees. One 50-something man in a faded green T-shirt walked around with a handmade sign declaring, “Stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – Bring Our Troops Home Now!” He told me that almost no one he’d talked agreed with his message.
Much more in tune with the crowd was the 20-something woman carrying a sign: “PROUD to be the Military Super Power.”
The fact that the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq thus far roughly equals the projected cost of the first decade of Obama’s health-care program is irrelevant. Military spending is viewed as holy water by many activists who otherwise despise Washington. While tea party activists rage over Obama’s alleged lies, they ignore the Bush administration’s deceptive justification to attack Iraq.
None of the speakers criticized the warrantless wiretaps that the National Security Agency began during the Bush administration. The feds’ vacuuming up thousands of Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a warrant seems to be a nonissue for these folks. Perhaps some tea party leaders hope that Republicans will soon be in position to use such powers to surveil the left.
There are many decent Americans who understandably feel that the government has become too powerful and oppressive. Yet, seeking enlightenment from most tea party speakers is like searching in a dark room for a black cat that isn’t there.
Many of the attendees seemed to hate liberals far more than they loved liberty. A CBS/New York Times poll conducted in April showed that two-thirds of tea party members have a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin, and 57 percent have a favorable opinion of George W. Bush. Denouncing big government while approving of President Bush is like denouncing immodesty while sunning oneself on a nude beach. After all, it was Bush who championed the prescription drug benefit for seniors that adds $7 trillion to Washington’s unfunded liabilities.
Some of the Republican incumbents endorsed by tea party organizations have been champions of “enhanced interrogation.” As long as the feds don’t announce specific plans to begin torturing card-carrying conservative activists, why worry?
If tea party activists cannot vigorously oppose torture and other high crimes, then counting on them to stalwartly resist any government policy that doesn’t mulct their paycheck is folly.
America needs real champions of freedom – not poorly informed Republican accomplices. Either tea partyers should become more principled or they should ditch their Gadsden flags and wear T-shirts of the lobbying group that organizes the rally they attend.
James Bovard
If you are an avid Tea Partier and the above article doesn’t give you pause for thought, then try this one on the founder of the tea party and his other job, corporate lobbiest.