You don’t have to feel *for *him, no, and you really can’t if you’ve had the distasteful experience of seeing him take the same damn approach to loyally promoting his party’s antidemocratic voter ID laws. It’s as if constant repetition will somehow make it all come true for him.
When a political zealot’s position is so jealously guarded that consideration of facts is refused even under clear circumstances, the political zealotry is not benign. It’s toxic.
From the article** Hamlet** linked to :
It looks like for some unknown reason, Electric Cities thought a contract between an Alabama local of the union and some other employer would have some sort of relevance to a different employer and a different local in a different state. And Decatur Utilities though that there would be some sort of non-defined affiliation with a union involved.
And although readers of the original article may not have realized this , the newspaper should have known that this
is just not how things would work. Legitimate information doesn’t flow from one crew to another- rumors and misunderstandings do. If in fact the Decatur workers couldn’t do any work in NJ because they were non-union, that information would have gone from the NJ management (either the utility management or the state regulatory agency) to Decatur management , not from worker to worker.
It would really, really be helpful to know what “affiliation” with a local union means. Maybe it’s agreeing not to do work under conditions (wage/safety) unacceptable under the prevailing contract in the area. There might be a fear (how reasonable I wouldn’t know) that a local utility might preferentially call in outside non-union labor during a blackout to save money. I question whether “affiliation” on a temporary basis would somehow obligate the outside company supplying crews to institute a union on their home turf. We don’t know what sort of paperwork the outside crews were supposed to sign, but that scenario seems far-fetched.
It wasn’t unreasonable for Bricker to post the link and ask for comments. Jumping to construe it as an example of union power run amuck was unjustifiable, and it should be possible by this time for him to recognize that the story’s been overblown.
Now that’s what I call “substantiation”. :dubious:
Very well said.
Thanks Bricker.
There still seems to be some apologists looking for an explanation of how this ‘misunderstanding’ occurred. It is quite obvious how, the story is a complete fabrication. The motivation is not clear, but some group of non-union workers was not wanted, and either felt a reason to rationalize that, or just wanted to take a dig at unions, and made it up. Those that live in the conservative dreamworld accept any story that portrays unions in a negative way and didn’t think twice, or even once about a factual basis for the story.
And the pendulum swings the other way…
As it is meant to do.
And I do.
The latest set of updates make pretty clear that the original story was badly mischaracerized.
I was completely in the wrong.
Apologies for the misinformation, and for my take on it.
Thanks, Bricker.
Good job, mate. Don’t agree with your politics at all, but you manned up.
And foolish. Don’t forget foolish.
Presented for your perusal - http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/03/shock-audio-ny-union-members-shout-scabs-and-scumbags-at-visiting-utility-crews
A tape, allegedly of union utility workers yelling “scab” and “scumbag” at visiting utility workers in NY. It’s linked to a Hannity show, so I’m sure most of you will immediately attack it’s validity, but I’d thought I’d throw it in here for discussion.
Did you see the update at your link?
I will probably never understand why conservatives continue to listen to and believe sources that lie to them.
Like second marriages, the triumph of hope over experience.
But kudos for the Daily Caller for calling out the Great Giant Head.
(There! That should take care of my non-partisan cred for about a year or so…)
Cheers, Bricker.
Now we wait for Sean Hannity’s incoming mea culpa… or at least Sateryn’s.
Seems like only yesterday, you did very much the same thing in a thread about Planned Parenthood and mammograms. Or the whole Cuccinelli and climategate stuff. I, personally, have stopped expecting you to try and limit your partisan hackery, but at least there’s some here who expect more from you.
Pretty sure you TOLD US what was happening and when discrepancies were easily discovered you backtracked for us to prove our claim.
So fucking sad.
Read down the thread, nevermind.