"Fings Break"
19/10/12 09:55![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpolitics
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
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 03:00 (UTC)Well, see, the difference between an employee making such comments, or a preacher, or an ad, is that these speakers can't make the threats come true.
The boss can.
That's where "threats" and "intimidation" merge.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 04:17 (UTC)http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1576782.html
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 06:38 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 06:38 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 07:21 (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 08:15 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 15:24 (UTC)Like banning FB in the office?
Tell me about that.
I neither feel power over me nor I feel my power over people I've hired... What am I doing wrong?
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 15:27 (UTC)Like laying employees off.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 16:11 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 16:28 (UTC)Can do what exactly?
Close the non-profitable business?
Yes, he can and you would do the same.
Disclaimer: Telepathic Accounting exercises are no accepted.
You are trying to twist a motivational speech (no matter how stupid) into a threat "vote for XXX or be fired!"
That threat assumes the boss knows how employees vote - but he doesn't. Q.E.D.
So the boss is left with few choices for the speech discussed.
1) "Vote for XXX or be fired!" is the most stupid tactics because everyone understands the boss is unable to recover per-employee or per-company voting results. Such a speech is a good sign the boss is an idiot and it's better not to work with this boss anymore.
2) "Vote for XXX because of this and that" or "don't vote for XXX because of..." is a legit tactics that includes reasoning: "I believe that if reelected, Obama raises taxes and increase the number of regulations which is bad for our business and I _may_ have to let all of you go next year". Some items may seem obvious from previous actions of the candidates and my therefore be omitted - this depends on the audience, of course, and such a speech, if overheard and taken out of context, may be easily twisted into a speech type_1.
As for "Whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope you pass those along to your employees…" - this is a simple call to go and talk to people around you.
Unfortunately, you and those who think alike are pretty good in demonizing businesses and their owners plus splitting the world into "rich" and "poor". Business owner describing the real business needs and problems may be a good counter-action to remind workers that the boss is also a human and the decisions employees make are as important as his own, or, in this situation, maybe even more important.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 16:37 (UTC)Workers may stop working but you don't say they have power over the employer. Why?
And, as I mentioned below, "vote for XXX of I fire you" doesn't make sense cause the boss doesn't know your vote.
Any other "power" you have in your sleeve?
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 17:14 (UTC)v: Can do what exactly?
Lay off employees out of pique over how the Presidential election pans out.
v: Close the non-profitable business? Yes, he can and you would do the same.
Riiight. Siegel's business was soooo unprofitable he decided to build himself the biggest house in America.
This is not just a matter of a business going bad and the boss having to close shop. The fact that you're carefully phrasing your answer as though it were indicates you know you don't have a leg to stand on.
This is a case of an employer announcing to his employees, shortly before the election, that the election of Obama as president will so surely mean he'll have to go out of business that he has plans to lay off a good portion of his workforce if Obama wins. In short, he wants his employees to walk into the voting booth thinking, not about what Obama will do for them -- but about what their boss will do TO them if he's upset by an Obama win.
v: Yes, he can and you would do the same.
No, actually, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't send out a mass memo to my workers saying, essentially, "elect Romney or else!"
v: Vote for XXX or be fired!" is the most stupid tactics because everyone understands the boss is unable to recover per-employee or per-company voting results. Such a speech is a good sign the boss is an idiot and it's better not to work with this boss anymore.
Now you're trying for the faux naivete bit. "Oh mercy sakes," (says Shirley Temple, waving her lollipop for emphasis) "no boss would be stoopit enough to fire people for the way they vote! And anyone who gets fired by such a stoopit boss should be glad they aren't working for that boss any more."
Give us a break. Before it was illegal, bosses in the past were notorious for marching their workers down to the polls to vote the way the boss wanted them to. Give them the power to do this, and they'll do it again, and few employees struggling to meet mortgage payments, or medical bills, or just put food on the table are going to risk unemployment in a bad job market for the sake of not working for such a "stoopit" boss.
As things stand now, some employers are already interpreting Citizens United as license for forcing their workers to campaign for given political candidates. The recent case where coal miners were made by their boss to take part in a photo-op with Mitt Romney (without pay, incidentally) is just one example of this.
v: As for "Whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope you pass those along to your employees…" - this is a simple call to go and talk to people around you.
...and tell them that their job depends on the outcome of the election because the boss has decided to do layoffs if Obama is elected.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 17:21 (UTC)Wow. How much reality are you willing to jettison to avoid conceding a point?
An employer determines whether or not an employee continues working and therefore has a regular paycheck, that enables the employee to pay for basics like food, shelter, etc, An employer determines whether or not an employee continues working and therefore has health insurance.
v: Workers may stop working but you don't say they have power over the employer. Why?
Because unless they have a strong union, they are pretty much at the mercy of an employer who can fire them at will. Workers who stop working without a union backing them up are likely to lose their jobs and get replaced.
"Men are cheaper than shingles," as one 19th century employer observed when asked why he didn't ensure the safety of his workers to avoid losing large numbers of them to pneumonia in a badly insulated work shed.
v: And, as I mentioned below, "vote for XXX of I fire you" doesn't make sense cause the boss doesn't know your vote.
But he can know the outcome of the election. The boss is trying to make his employers fear an Obama re-election, not out of what Obama might do, but out of what the boss might do.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 17:23 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 18:13 (UTC)Funny. A man is such a passive thing as you tell this story, determined whether to work or not. Doesn't decide a thing.
It doesn't match my experience from both sides though.
You can't force me work if I don't wan to, and I can't force you to hire me if you don't want to.
It's a game for two.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 18:39 (UTC)v: Funny. A man is such a passive thing as you tell this story, determined whether to work or not. Doesn't decide a thing.
It doesn't match my experience from both sides though.
What planet are you living on?
Because on the one where I'm living, being employed is pretty damned important, and many owho are either currently without employment or are struggling in low-paying jobs with no benefits show why. They include twenty-somethings staggering under a mountain of debt. They include 50-somethings who are discovering just how hard it is to find a job when you're over a certain age. It includes people who are making decisions nobody in an advanced western society should have to make about whether they are going to pay rent, pay utilities, pay for that medicine that keeps them healthy and/or alive, or that medical test that would alert them to the existence of cancer or some other serious condition, or that operation that would prevent them from becoming disabled.
v: You can't force me work if I don't wan to, and I can't force you to hire me if you don't want to.
No, but you sure as hell can force people out of work.
v: It's a game for two.
To people struggling to get by, it's not a "game."
And their struggle is not taking place on a level field.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 18:59 (UTC)Life is hard, yes. Sometimes you have to choose.
It's not the first time I observe your deep and sincere indignation about the fact people ALWAYS have to decide for themselves.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 19:04 (UTC)As for the argument in question...
http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1576782.html?thread=127036750#t127036750
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 19:08 (UTC)The boss can do it anytime, actually.
So what?
>> This is a case of an employer announcing to his employees, shortly before the election, that the election of Obama as president will so surely mean he'll have to go out of business that he has plans to lay off a good portion of his workforce if Obama wins. In short,l he wants his employees to walk into the voting booth thinking, not about what Obama will do for them -- but about if he's upset by an Obama win.
Ok, assume he really wants it.
And there is also a wife who doesn't sleep with her husband and/or threatens him with divorce if Obama wins.
And many other agents of influence around.
And if you really walk into the voting booth thinking about the boss or your wife upset by an Obama win - your boss or your wife means more to you than Obama.
So what?
Let us also assume for a moment it's true, and someone warns employees the profitable business is closed only and only because someone wins the elections.
It's the business owner to decide. Again, this decision my be silly and childish from your point of view, but the business owner sounds pretty consistent - he decided no to support this particular guy with his taxes and close the business. And he warns the employees he's willing to do that.
Why on Earth can't a person do that?
>> And anyone who gets fired by such a stoopit boss should be glad they aren't working for that boss any more.
Well noted!
>> Give them the power to do this, and they'll do it again, and few employees struggling to meet mortgage payments
Look, we're discussing the here and now, not someone's wet dreams.
>>As things stand now, some employers are already interpreting Citizens United as license for forcing their workers to campaign for given political candidates.
Happens on both sides. But it has nothing with punishing _employees_ for their wrong-voting; let's keep to the subject.
>>...and tell them that their job depends on the outcome of the election because the boss has decided to do layoffs if Obama is elected.
No matter how many times you repeat it, these words won't appear in the Romney's quote.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 19:14 (UTC)So you've shifted from pretending that bosses aren't more powerful than their employees to mocking what many people in this country are currently going through. I suppose that's progress of a sort. We can dispense with your entire earlier line of "argument" and deal with those snickers of yours aimed at people going without medicine and food.
"Choosing" between voting for the candidate you want and keeping your job is similar to the "choice" of friend of mine faced when she was confronted by a large scary man with a knife. She could lie still while he had sex with her, or she could lose an eye. Hey, it was her "choice," right?
Used to hear the same from a Soviet apologist back in the '80s. All those silly dissidents had the "choice" of keeping their mouths shut. They had only themselves to blame if they ended up in a gulag.
v: It's not the first time I observe your deep and sincere indignation about the fact people ALWAYS have to decide for themselves.
So it's your contention that the uninsured and the unemployed "decided" to be uninsured and unemployed.
Do the uninsured who die for lack of access to medical care "decide" to die?
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 19:37 (UTC)So you've abandoned this fiction of yours that bosses are no more powerful than their employees. Progress!
Paft: In short, he wants his employees to walk into the voting booth thinking, not about what Obama will do for them -- but about what their boss will do TO them if he's upset by an Obama win.
v: Ok, assume he really wants it. And there is also a wife who doesn't sleep with her husband and/or threatens him with divorce if Obama wins.
Hardly likely to result in the husband ending up without health insurance, or needed medicine, or enough money to pay for food and shelter. The stakes just aren't as high.
v: And if you really walk into the voting booth thinking about the boss or your wife upset by an Obama win - your boss or your wife means more to you than Obama.
As you know, it's not merely about the employee worrying about the boss being upset. It's about the employee worrying about losing his or her ability to support him or herself because the boss is going to act out by laying off employees.
v: Again, this decision my be silly and childish from your point of view, but the business owner sounds pretty consistent - he decided no to support this particular guy with his taxes and close the business. And he warns the employees he's willing to do that. Why on Earth can't a person do that?
Because it is an attempt to intimidate people into changing their vote. Because if this becomes the norm, political freedom will only be enjoyed by the employers. Employees will increasingly vote the way their boss tells them to because the immediate effects of the boss' favored candidate losing would be them no longer having a job. When the stakes become that high, political freedom vanishes.
v: Well noted!
Nice editing, Shirley. Now deal with the rest of what I posted, which is that when bosses have been given the power to overtly tell their employees, "vote for my candidate or you're fired," they've done it.
v: Look, we're discussing the here and now, not someone's wet dreams.
Indeed. Your little rock-candy mountain bit about bosses not doing such an icky thing is faux naivete. They've done it. Not in wet dreams, but in reality.
PFT: As things stand now, some employers are already interpreting Citizens United as license for forcing their workers to campaign for given political candidates.
v: Happens on both sides.
Got some recent examples of Democratic employers demanding that all their workers take an unpaid day off to campaign for Obama?
If you do, yes, it's a threat to political freedom, whoever employees are feeling pressured to vote for by their employers.
v: But it has nothing with punishing _employees_ for their wrong-voting; let's keep to the subject.
Of course it does. The threat is not overt, but it's quite present when your boss says, "if enough of you vote for the wrong candidate that he gets elected, you'll be fired."
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 19:42 (UTC)Where did I say this?
In any event, V's abandoned that particular fiction and moved on to ridiculing the unemployed.
As for your statement: If Seigle is in fact planning to close offices based on an election result he is required by law to say so.
No, actually he's not required by law to say he's going to close offices unless closing those offices is a sure thing -- he is not required by law to tell people "I'm going to close offices IF..."
What do you think is likely to happen to political freedom in a country where employers can intimidate their workers into voting the way the boss wants?
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 19:58 (UTC)Try to hire and keep a worker first - a programmer, an engineer, any good worker. You'll see it's harder than you think.
>> Hardly likely to result in the husband ending up without health insurance, or needed medicine, or enough money to pay for food and shelter. The stakes just aren't as high.
That was just an example. Home, kids, sex etc. do matter for many, but if it's just a matter of high stakes - you may always make up another example equal to job loss for you or for me. I can't believe the job loss is what you fear the most.
>> Because it is an attempt to intimidate people into changing their vote.
Well, Surprise then!
It is the norm for thousands of years ;)
I recommend Roman history to explore the issue.
Yet the political freedom is enjoyed by pretty much everyone because the only and the main thing everybody learned is not to take an election bullshit too serious.
>> Got some recent examples of Democratic employers demanding that all their workers take an unpaid day off to campaign for Obama?
We were strongly "asked" to participate some meetings with some Dem people when I was working at the community college.
I didn't give a shit though, but the rest were scared to loose their jobs - that was fun to watch, like back to USSR ;)
>> Of course it does. The threat is not overt...
...and thus empty. Q.E.D.
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 20:03 (UTC)Have you eve been one?
>> Used to hear the same from a Soviet apologist back in the '80s. All those silly dissidents had the "choice" of keeping their mouths shut. They had only themselves to blame if they ended up in a gulag.
I strongly suggest you to read these dissidents, there are plenty translated. They knew EXACTLY what they face and what may happen.
It will also be a good reading on Big Government and welfare state, plenty of cross-training for you, if I may suggest.
>> So it's your contention that the uninsured and the unemployed "decided" to be uninsured and unemployed.
On this case I said "Shit happens".
(no subject)
Date: 20/10/12 20:15 (UTC)Try to hang onto a job in tough economic times when bosses are cutting back and nobody's hiring. That's even harder.
v: That was just an example. Home, kids, sex etc. do matter for many, but if it's just a matter of high stakes - you may always make up another example equal to job loss for you or for me. I can't believe the job loss is what you fear the most.
It's pretty high up there. Losing home, kids, health, etc. can follow as the direct result of losing a job.
Paft: Because it is an attempt to intimidate people into changing their vote.
v: Well, Surprise then! It is the norm for thousands of years ;) I recommend Roman history to explore the issue.
Yeah, slavery was the norm in ancient Rome too. Think we should emulate that, too?
v: Yet the political freedom is enjoyed by pretty much everyone because the only and the main thing everybody learned is not to take an election bullshit too serious.
Do you think we shouldn't take the right to vote "too serious?"
v: We were strongly "asked" to participate some meetings with some Dem people when I was working at the community college.
What kinds of meetings were these? Did they include photo-ops?
v: I didn't give a shit though, but the rest were scared to loose their jobs - that was fun to watch, like back to USSR ;)
So you think the USSR's approach to political freedom is also something to emulate? Along with ancient Rome's?
PFT: Of course it does. The threat is not overt...
v: ...and thus empty. Q.E.D.
The fact that a threat is covert does not make it empty, as anyone trapped in an old gangster protection racket will tell you.