“Mommy, mommy! Jimmy said mean things to me! He‘s gonna hit me!”
“Did he hit you?”
“Um, no.”
Hey Conservatives – a group among which I number myself when it suits me – why do you all have your panties in a twist about Hoffa’s “violent rhetoric?”
Yes, some leftie sites and news outlets toned it down; but some rightie sites, such as Breitbart and Pajamas Media left out the critical words on which Hoffa’s defenders can base claims that he was merely speaking metaphorically: his call to the president’s supporters to vote, in other words to battle for Obama’s reelection
I spent the morning reading all these accounts, and I’m not going to quote the various versions here and insert links. It’s too much work, and it’s not worth the time, as is not the whole discussion,
Now we all know the background of the teamsters. They’ve broken a few heads, and, oh yeah, scabbed the UFOW. Don’t hear much about that anymore. I think I was a teamster once for three or for months as a cannery worker. What canning peaches had to do with driving trucks or mule teams, I have no idea.
Nowadays they seem to be mostly guys who get paid more than I ever have for doing dumb jobs, and living very well indeed if they make it into the leadership.
No it wasn’t fun getting blamed for inciting the shooting of Rep. Giffords. Sarah Palin’s crosshairs were not accompanied by an issue of sniper rifles, I found today that some bloggers had gone to great lengths to demonstrate the the crosshairs
on the graphic were in fact views through a surveyor’s sight.(Some people have even less to do than I ) That may well be true, but I suspect the aide who put it together just grabbed the first clip art he or she liked, as I did with crying baby in this post,
Yes, Obama did say “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” but then he went on to say “Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.” Pretty standard stuff with a little regional humor to bond with fans. And as a metaphor for strategy in politics or war, I can’t fault it. I wonder who first said it?
So, I think it’s a little early to see Hoffa’s speech as a prelude to a campaign summer 2012 with blazing cities terrorized by union thugs and flash mobs, as many posters today predicted.
And if it is…well you guys are conservatives, so surely you have at least your old Louisville Slugger at hand, if not actual firepower and even light ordnance.
Personally, I don’t care at all about civility. The Republic has seen more nasty rhetoric than this. Ask the shades of John Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Grover Cleveland.
Yes the Left lies and vilifies, but remember also that these are often the same people driving around with “Mean People Suck” bumper stickers. So be mean.
While it would feel good to call for another production run of Hoffawurst, better to pierce them with well aimed and cruelly honed metaphors, Nothing can be crueler than a well placed truth, and it is truth that is the best weapon in political discourse.
To return to the maternal dialogue that opened this piece, our mothers told us “sticks and stones….,and, “Don’t hit first.” Dad said, “If you get hit, hit back. Harder.”
So man up! And don’t even think about lawyering up!
Campaign 2012
Bring it on!
Lock and Load!(Metaphorically, of course!)
(BTW: I wanted to superimpose a cross-hairs on the baby, but have no idea how to do this. If anyone knows, I would appreciate some advice.)
From the Detroit Free Press: Here is a transcript of Hoffa’s entire speech on Monday:
“Are there any Teamsters in the house? This is Motown, but today, this is union town. We are union, we are workers. That is the message that we send today, and that is the message that we send to America.
There is a war on workers. You see it everywhere: It is in the unemployment, it is in the Tea Party, it is in the people that fight what we believe in. And we see the war in Wisconsin where they try to take collective bargaining from our public employees. We took two senate seats back, we are taking Wisconsin back.
That’s number one. Number two, in Ohio, we are fighting a battle there with regard to taking away collective bargaining. We will beat SB5. We’ve got a million signatures. We are going to win in Ohio — that is our number two. And in Michigan, they are thinking about right to work. It ain’t going to happen in Michigan. No way.
We have to keep an eye on the battle we face — a war on workers. And you see it everywhere there is the Tea Party. And you know there is only one way to beat and win that war.
The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what, they’ve got a war, they’ve got a war with us and there is only going to be one winner. It is going to be the workers of Michigan and America – we are going to win that war. All the way.
But it starts with your involvement, it starts with next November. We’ve got a bunch of people there that don’t’ want the president to succeed, and they are called the Tea Party – the people who don’t want him to do anything right and he is working hard for us.
President Obama is frustrated by what’s going on. Well, guess what, we’ve got the vote. And the answer to what we say is, we remember in November. We will beat the Tea Party and give this country back to workers and America. We can do it together.”
We’ve also got to talk about jobs. I get so tired about people who …(inaudible) these big corporations that send our jobs to Mexico, they send our jobs to China, and they’ve got the audacity to say ‘where are the jobs?’
Well I’ve got news for you. It’s time to bring those jobs back to America and bring America back to work. That’s what we’ve got to do.
We are going to hear from President Obama in a few minutes, and I am so glad that he has come to Michigan because this is where he sees the real America. He looks out on this army of people and you know what I say? President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. President Obama, we want one thing: Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs…(The crowd joins the chant.)
That’s what we are going to tell America…..When he sees what we are doing here, he will be inspired, but he needs help. And you know what? Everybody here has got a vote. If we go back, we keep the eye on the prize, lets take these sons-of-bitches out and give America back to America where we belong.”
Stonefree2rant 
Yes Jimmy… give America back to the Americans. And Indonesia to the Indians. And Antarctica to the ants. We will fight in the streets. We will fight them in the bars and in our parent’s basements. While watching video games and eating pizzas. And in the courts and, and, and (sputter)… So, for an interesting exercise, look up the CV’s of your state and federal representatives. Subtract the former (union) teachers and lawyers. The very few people you are left are all the real representatives you have (unless you are a teacher or a lawyer). Ah, Labor Day. 18% of the workforce is idle. The stock market is down 2000 points. And they are cheering in Detroit for the guy that ‘saved the economy’. I would venture to say that, generally speaking for the folks in the rust belt, they unioned themselves right out of their jobs.
Well you know, it takes a dedicated and well-paid work force to produce – Chevy volts.
How can you diss teachers? It’s for the children, remember!
Hoffa is absurd, and that’s my point: why waste ink(bandwidth) on such clowns?
It’s pretty clear to me what Obama was doing in Detroit: even given the Rep’s capacity for self destruction, he is in serious trouble. So, consolidate the base, then demonize. Use wedge issues like abortion. Blacks? In the bag, no effort required. Hispanics, pander a bit, and split the difference. 70% of muslims support him. A small block, but big IN NJ, IL and MI. He can do it.
Should he fail, it will hardly be a new dawn, but possible to hold off the night a bit longer, It’s nearly 2am here; I’m drinking vodka.
superimposing cross hairs onto another image would be difficult… you’d have to first remove what lies between the hairs in the original image (even if that be “nothing” / white).
easier method would be to bring background image into a graphics program and drawn a site on top… circle with lines. there are several free graphics programs available for download (gimp), and you probably already have one on your pc (ms paint) or mac.
i primarily use xara for drawing. excellent program, good price.
now, the “why?” is another question, altogether.
G- Thanks for the suggestions – I’ll let it go for now, as I’m a new blogger, I’m putting the writing before imagery for the moment.
Why did I want to put cross hairs on the baby? “Pour epater les bourgeois” as the poet Nerval said when asked why he was walking a lobster on a leash down a Paris boulevard. Then I might be accused of wanting to take out babies which would be equally absurd as accusing Sarah Palin wanting to snipe dems, or the President of mixing it up in street rumbles, gun versus knife.
stonefree,
yes, i understand the logic. i am 100pc for free speech and free expression. is that a liberal or conservative bias? we must apply a label.
do whatever you like, so long as you’re doing relatively no harm (quite a yardstick, these days).
i would just find myself creeped out by the act were i to engage.
G – even though I do use them, I get pretty tired of labels!