A reader CC’d me on their email to the Seattle Times:
Michael Sheehan, Director of Circulation Operations
Please cancel my subscription to the Seattle Times as I now find it far too biased toward the National Chamber of Commerce agenda and that of the far right ideology. Balance has been missing for a long time and there is no longer the Seattle P-I as the local default newspaper. Plus, why is there a Business Section and no Labor Section in this publication. As a lifelong independent voter who has split my vote between the two major political parties (local and national) I can no longer justify spending my hard earned money on your source and content of news.
Copy or forward me your email canceling your subscription to the Seattle Times, and I’ll be happy to post it on HA, with or without attribution.
I can’t cancel my subscription because I never had one. When the fishwrapper’s telemarketers tried to harass me into buy one, I sicc’ed the attorney general’s consumer protection office on them. I’ve been reading the Times for free for years — in libraries and online — although I always skip over the editorial page because it costs money to barf up your lunch.
That has to be the stupidest email cc I have ever read. A Labor Section? Really? Listen dip wit, without “Business” there would be no “Labor”. Business comes first, then labor, not the other way around. Until some “business” person puts his/her money up, you don’t have a job. What a fucking dim wit.
@2
it may amaze you but newspapers used to have labor reporters, and some even had a labor section.
Duke,
I am the author of the above mentioned letter to the Seattle Times. Let me begin by stating that I do not suffer bullies well. You seem to have a very narrow and uneducated world view of labor and business.
As an owner/operator of my own business I work side by side with my employees doing the same tasks. This is perhaps something you can not relate to.
My suggestion to you is to educate yourself. I educated my self but it is not my job to educate someone like you. Get involved, read a book and spend less time trolling. I suggest that you read some of Thom Hartmann’s books of the subject.
For instance, a branch lying on the ground is merely a branch lying on the ground. If I pick up that branch and whittle it into a club I have provided MY labor to make a marketable item. If I sell it to Roger Rabbit and he hits you over the head with it I have successfully made a business transaction and created a useful tool at the same time.
If you passed that same branch on the ground you would probably trip over it.
-Johnboy
Yes, and let’s remember that if labor unions were any other business, they would have been “RICOd” out of existence years ago. I would suspect that newspapers quit following labor unions, because they were tired of their reporters ending up dead. National labor is corrupt and should be closed down. You want personal freedoms? Then let me work without being forced to join a union.
Johnboy,
The Branch analogy? Is that all you have? You really are a dip wit.
As for Hartmann, his book “Walking the Blues Away” was very good. But he should stick with books about ADD and depression, his book “The Legacy of Secrecy” was a crock. Jeez, I guess that means I have taken too much time away from trolling to read some books; must get back to trolling. Which is how you found my comment you complete dip wad.
Um..there would be no business without labor.
Somehow I just don’t see those Billion Dollar CEOs getting their expensive manicures ruined.
Hey Duke, do you work an eight-hour day? A forty-hour week? And by those things I mean that if you work any longer it is voluntary and not because someone is forcing you to do so with the threat of termination. Do you get any vacation benefits? Sick leave? Family and Medical leave benefits? Maternity/paternity leave? Ever stayed home or went somewhere on a paid holiday?
Have you ever collected unemployment? Have you ever been injured on the job and received workmen’s compensation benefits? Have you ever had employer-paid health insurance? Have you ever been aware of any workplace safety regulations that an employer of yours has followed that you could see benefited you?
If you have children, do they work? You know, ten, twelve, fourteen hour days, seven days a week?
Have you or a wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/friend ever had recourse against discrimination based on the Civil Right Acts and Title VII which outlaw job discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin?
A bunch of people who never knew you fought, fought hard, and often were injured and often died, so that you could enjoy these benefits. You should maybe feel a little more gratitude. The world you live in did not come about by itelf, and the owning class does NOT have the welfare of its workers in mind.
Duke,
I am impressed that you have indeed read some of Thomm Hartmann’s books. You might not be a lost cause after all. Then again, it may prove the adage that “you can lead a troll to knowledge but you can not make him think”!
-Johnboy
Daddy Love @ 8: Read the Office of the Inspector General’s latest report on organized crime in labor unions, http://www.oig.dol.gov/public/semiannuals/62.pdf start on page 45 (the juicy stuff), then get back to me. I believe this is what Al Gore refers to as an inconvenient truth.
Piling on The
IdiotDuke, I might point out that there was human labor going on for thousands of years before there was anything resembling the sort of “business” that’s reported on in newspapers.The first publicly traded company was the Dutch East India Company (1602), though there may have been something like a stock exchange as early as the 11th century CE. No matter how you slice it, “business” is a johnny-come-lately in human endeavor compared with “labor”.
Tell us Duke: was it the handful of petty criminals in unions that brought down the economy? Or was it the pervasive gang of organized criminals in the banks, people that will never see prosecution in a US court, and in fact are getting rewarded with bonuses and bailouts?
@12
But no matter how criminal they get I’m sure it is all “isolated incidents”. No way the financial industry will be “RICO’d out of existence”.
10 D
No fucking gratitude at all. Ingrate. Their dead may not curse your name, because they did it for you too. But I do.
Don’t take your fucking holidays, then, because you don’t deserve it.
Duke,
Regardign your “report,” it is for the period ending Septermber 30 2009 and was written by the Bush administration. Maybe we should wait until a an administration without an eight-year track record of politically-motivated prevarication and coverups and a demonstrated anti-union bias gets to report.
But to the extent we can take its claim seriously, consider “Traditionally, organized crime groups have been involved in benefit plan fraud, violence against union members, embezzlement, and extortion.” It appears as though organized crime specifically targets and victimizes union members, not the public. That doesn’t make unions “corrupt” in any sense it should concern you, certainly not any more than anti-union activities by employers that make workplaces unsafe, exploit minors and the vulnerable, and similarly drive up the social costs of goods (like widespread and UNprosecuted OSHA violations under Bush, or Tom DeLay’s favorite Marianas Islands sweatshops).
Someone else mentioned banks. Lehman Brothers criminally conspired to keep billions of dollars of worhtless investments off of their balance sheets, right up to the day that they collapsed and just about took the entire US financial system down with them. So if you are looking for “corriuption” that affects you, I don’t think unions are going to be a very productive place for you to look.
And NONE OF THIS has a fucking thing to do with the brave souls who fought and died for your ungrateful and undeserved comfort, Mr. Change the Subject.
BTW, I DID have the distinct pleasure of canceling a Seattle Times subscription. I was a Post-Intelligencer subscriber, having developed a fondness for the paper when I moved in with my rabidly Republican father back in the 70s, and he reviled the Times and constantly referred to it as the “Seattle Timid.”
But when the P-I folded, the Times switched us over to them without asking us (basically because they could). I read their rag for two weeks and then called up and demanded that they cease burdening me with their insipid and unreadable facsimile of reportage.
They did.
Free market baby! The Times circulation keeps diving because they don’t provide a “product” that people want. Their national stories are just AP/UPI reprints I can get anywhere, I don’t care about the classifieds (Craigslist, FreeCycle), sports (again can get anywhere). The “local” news is the only actual “content” they produce, and that gets less and less all the time. I would pay JUST for Seattle “local” page/paper/blog (to go along with the fantastic West Seattle blog), but the ENTIRE paper? Waste.
@17 They should eliminate the editorial page to save trees. Rabbits like natural vegetation. Trees shelter us from rain, bright sun, and hunters.
2. The Duke spews:
Very succinct!
The State Employee Unions are responsible for the dimwits in office who pander to them with unsustainable wages & benefits and # of employees.
Right to Work Initiative is the only answer at this point.
@2 “Listen dip wit, without “Business” there would be no “Labor”.”
Listen, fuckstick, without labor there would be no business.
Johnboy spews–
And what is your business?
Hand-stuffing envelopes???
@2 “Business comes first, then labor, not the other way around.”
Why? That’s just your self-serving assumption — that business must come first, and labor must suck up to business. Did God ordain this? I don’t think so! There’s no logical reason why workers shouldn’t come first, and business should exist solely for the reason of providing jobs.
“Until some “business” person puts his/her money up, you don’t have a job.”
Yeah, well, “business” has been doing a great job of providing jobs lately, hasn’t it? Frankly, I think all your special tax exemptions and other special privileges should be suspended until you put those 15 million unemployed Americans back to work. After all, that’s what “business” gets its special tax breaks and privileges for, and if “business” isn’t delivering the jobs, it shouldn’t get the special treatment. Why should “business” get paid for doing nothing?
In any case, jobs are becoming irrelevant. They’re disappearing from the economy, and in the future, everyone will have to be an entrepreneur. I’ve been saying this for some time now — there aren’t going to be waitress jobs anymore, there will only be “hospitality consultants” selling their services to restaurants on a B2B basis for $50 an hour. Shoulda happened a long time ago, because that’s the way things should be. Business that charge business rates should expect to pay business rates.
@20 Hey Rabbit, most small businesses are owner operated. Labor and Business operating hand in hand. No unions. Perfect harmony. I repeat no unions.
Read the report asshole. http://www.oig.dol.gov/public/semiannuals/62.pdf And by the by, yes it was written in 2009 (latest edition) but this organization was started under a Democratic Administration. Still doing the same thing every six months, listing the on-going criminal enterprises the make up National Labor Unions.
@23 Unions usually concentrate on organizng personable family businesses like Boeing, Ford, and Burlington Northern.
Criminal organizations? Yes, I suppose so, if you’re the type of individual who thinks abolishing child labor, instituting the 40-hour work week and overtime pay, decent pay, workplace safety laws, health and retirement benefits, etc., are “criminal” acts.
@23 People like you are so full of shit I take great personal pleasure in showing you up for what you are.
When I called to reinstate my subscription, the nice lady at the Times was very pleased.
I asked is there were a lot of recent cancellations and she said nothing out of the ordinary.
You see KLOWNS..in order to CANCEL a subscription, you need to actually SUBSCRIBE!!
Dumpster-diving in your neighbors trash can and recylcling doesn’t count!
TOO DAMN FUNNY!
@26 If you want to give your stock market gains to Frank Blethen, more power to you — it’s still a free country (contrary to what you wingnuts claim). I prefer to reinvest mine.
The Duke,
Interesting report. Very telling and very factual. Notice THE DUMB BUNNY tried to take the conversation to another track? If there wasn’t a business where would someone be able to offer their labor for hire?
Newspapers need to realize that the people subscribing to and reading newspapers are not the same ‘consumer’ as the average Fox viewer.
Put in terms that any capitalist can understand: Porsche dealerships don’t advertise on Rush Limbaugh.
re 28:
If big business through their government cronies didn’t dominate all of the basic necessities (e.g., land, water, energy, etc…)who would need to ‘offer their labor’ to them?
re 28: If someone with resources offered the homeless a place to be useful, they could build an army — for whatever purpose — good or ill — that you can conceive.
Righties never have an answer to questions about the 40 hour work week, child labor, etc.
Notice how none of the righties in this thread even recognized that the question was asked repeatedly. In order for them to maintain their current insanity and delusion, their thinking has become wholly ahistorical. If it is inconvenient, it never happened, and making shit up out of the blue is totally acceptable.
Karl Marx:
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
Sounds like Oba-Mao and his Oba-Mao ZOMBIES!
RE 33:
SOUNDS LIKE A LIVING HELL!
“Greed is good!!” Gordon Gecko
Karl Marx – real
Gordon Gekko – fake
Par for the course with libtardos. They use their movie “heroes” for useless points.
headless lucy@29&30
Pffffft…… Whatatard
@32
It is really simple, in the name of being globally competitive American workers need to give up such quaint notions as “pay”, “benefits”, or “time off” they should be thankful that their betters occasionally allow them a bowl of thin gruel and a cardboard box to keep the rain off. They should also be thankful that they aren’t flogged more often for their insolence.
For the Blethen family, it’s not about journalism, it’s about personal wealth and a family owned business.
The Seattle Times is UNIONIZED. So by subscribing, all of these wingnuts are patronizing a union business. Love it!
So does that mean that by ending your subscription you are actually anti-union? Hum. . .