"Fings Break"

[paft.livejournal.com]

From Monty Python:

Dino: You ought to be careful, Colonel.

Colonel: We are careful. Extremely careful.

Dino: Of course, uh, fings break, don’t they?

Colonel: Break?

Luigi: Well, everyfing breaks, don’t it Colonel (knocks a ceramic vase off the desk) Oh, there,

Dino: Oh see, my brother’s clumsy, Colonel. When he gets unhappy he, uh, breaks fings. Like, say he don’t feel the army’s playing fair by him, uh, he may start breaking fings, Colonel….

Colonel: Are you threatening me?

Luigi: No, no, no, no, no, whatever made you think that, Colonel?

Dino: The Colonel doesn’t think we’re nice people Louie,

Luigi: We’re your buddies, Colonel.

Dino: We want to look after you!

It's not just a few right wing crackpot business owners slipping their leashes and letting their enthused support for Romney carry them away to the point where they obliquely threaten the people who work for them. The idea comes from elected officials and candidates.

GOP Rep. Joe Walsh:

"If you run, manage or own a company tell your employees! What was the CEO this week that said, if Obama is reelected, I may have to let all of you go next year? If Obama's reelected, if the Democrats take Congress, I may not be able to cover your health insurance next year.

Mitt Romney, from Presidential Small Business Town Hall:

I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope, I hope you pass those along to your employees…

Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well.

These people are scared. Republican efforts to make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for many low income Americans to vote just aren’t enough. There are still a few members of the middle class, the ones who work in cubicles, who will likely get past the poll workers and actually get to fill out a ballot.

So, the GOP wants business owners to morph into the Vercotti Brothers. They want rank and file workers walking into the voting booth thinking, not of what a given candidate could do for them, but what their boss might do to them if his or her favored candidate doesn’t get elected.

Because the boss is worried! Honest! The boss wants to look out for you!

The boss just wants you to know that fings break.

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I good way for Democrats to battle back on this? Stop being so bad on issues important to businesses.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Cos, like, say the boss don’t feel the Democrats are playing fair by him, uh, he may start breaking fings.….

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

That's kinda the fing, ain't it? I means, most o' the programs Dems like will help business inna long run, but inna short run, it means up-front costs expended. These costs, they could buy the missus summin' pretty.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Haha ;)

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

One solution, as proposed by jeff, is for Democrats to become Republicans. Problem solved.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

The Democratic party is already biased in favor of corporations to much.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

That many Democrats/liberals believe this is actually part of the problem posed in the OP. Believing they've gone too far in favor of businesses when they aren't even close to going far enough.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And what is far enough? Turning the USA into the East India Company variant of the Raj where corporations have all the power and there is no public sector?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Here's the problem: No one has defined "business." It's like the word "technology."

It cannot be universally defined, as if the environment that allows one piece of technology to thrive does so for every other piece. Same with "business." Some thrive in certain circumstances; others in, well, others.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't overlook this key and quite obvious point of definition purely to score rhetorical points.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the GOP needs to grow up and realize that the Dems aren't the Stalinists no matter how badly they want them to be. I suppose asking the GOP to enter the 1990s psychologically is asking a bit much of a party of menchildren, I admit. They still need to realize the Soviet Union doesn't exist and Communism is dead, first.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

I suppose asking the GOP to enter the 1990s psychologically is asking a bit much... - Considering this is the 21st century, you'd be right.

Rapid industrialization is part of Stalinism and frankly, I'm all for that, especially if it means more jobs for Americans.

They still need to realize the Soviet Union doesn't exist and Communism is dead, first. - Who is "they"? Cause the Comminist Party threw its support behind Occupy Wall Street - how many Republicans do you honestly know who support that travesty?

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Can you provide specifics?

I mean - the standard go-to here is that "regulations" and "red tape" raise the "cost of doing business," resulting in "less investment" and "fewer jobs." So I wonder if we can't be more specific. Which regulations need to be repealed or amended, in order to promote what investment and to create which jobs?

Or here's PPACA - there's an employer mandate to provide health insurance. That, assuredly, increases the costs of hiring people and keeping them hired. But is that bad for business? We need a fuller picture than we get by just looking at the cost/hour of hiring someone, don't we? Like what does it do for retention? Days lost for illness or injury? What does it do for the customer base - are people more likely to spend money, being more secure financially and less likely to be overburdened by medical debt? Etc., etc. I don't mean to suggest that I know the answers here, and I don't purport to assert that the answers would be in favor of more government involvement rather than less, but I don't really hear anyone on the Republican side of this debate making any but the most simplistic of arguments.

It seems to me that "being so bad on issues important to businesses" is really "being so bad on issues that affect core concerns of poorly-run businesses," which is just to say "being so bad on issues that matter to poor managers and corporate officers who are primarily concerned about shareholder value, i.e., their job security," which is just to say that the Republican Party is the party for incompetent business owners and managers - which explains so much, really, of the way its candidates praise and exalt the brave and visionary business leaders with their Randian delusions of grandeur. There are exactly two kinds of business owners who like the Republican plans for the economy: those who are idiots and think it will actually help them, and those who are geniuses and know it'll be bad for most people but gangbusters for them. You can look at your circumstances and guess which side you're on.

Coming round - is it an effective electoral strategy to appeal to their interests? To goad them into "frank talk" with their employees about the consequences of buying the Democratic line of economic security and a future built cooperatively, rather than at one another's expense? Well, I suppose, maybe it is. And maybe such "frank talk" is part of what you mean when you refer to the essential GOTV efforts that will make or break this election (it's apparent, at least, that Romney thinks that it is). But to say that maybe the Democrats ought to adopt the same stance is a little like saying maybe the Democrats oughta try being more racist and sexist - someone's got to be above that kind of shit.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

And then the Dems can recommend that employers threaten the jobs of their employees to influence the election.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Ah, so when the GOP engages in voter fraud and intimidation like the bad old days of the 1880s all over again people invariably still refuse to see it when it's right there for them to hear and to see both. None so deaf as those who will not hear and none so blind as those who will not see.

[vitsli.livejournal.com]

>> They want rank and file workers walking into the voting booth thinking, not of what a given candidate could do for them, but what their boss might do to them if his or her favored candidate doesn’t get elected.

Nice indicator by the way.
Either:
- I may not be able to cover your health insurance next year (-because of the higher price-)
or:
- I may not be able to cover your health insurance next year (-because My_Candidate is not elected-)

feel the difference.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I disagree with the choices.

[vitsli.livejournal.com]

Bring yours.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Joe Walsh is running against Tammy Duckworth in my district. I'm pleased to be able to vote for Tammy and send this scumbag back to family court, where he can explain why he doesn't pay his child support bills.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

yet, 'Rocky Mountain Way' remains one of the top opening guitar riffs of all time.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

The funny bit is that he actually endorses Tammy. O_o

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Didn't we already have this conversation?

http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1576782.html

[paft.livejournal.com]

Romney saying it ups the ante considerably.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Same arguments and couter-arguments apply.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think Michael Corleone got a bad rap.