They really are not very good...Queen Michael said:
I believe people praise them more as a joke then as a serious indication of their ediblity.
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and i agree with raiyan that people blaming the union here are being stupid...
The Bell Tolls For the Twinkie - UPDATED
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
I believe people praise them more as a joke then as a serious indication of their ediblity.
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and i agree with raiyan that people blaming the union here are being stupid...
That is an enlightening article. There is a lot of good information in there when you sift through the rhetoric. I still stand by what I said in the CEO salary raise as being a red herring. The truth is, I still find the source a bit hard to swallow, but that is just my preference. Anything attached to the Huffington Post, blech. As a news source they are overtly left (which was very apparent) and I can't stand any of the bi-partisan slap fighting that occurs in this country. the Huffington Post is the left version of Fox News and I avoid them like the plague as well. I mean, if you look at the quick links on the right, it talks about Chris Christy GOP status in question because of response to Hurricane Sandy, and that is simply not true. As a native New Jersey resident I know he took guff for being civilized and thanking to President Obama when he came to the state, but he just told all the right wing douches that this is more important than the election or petty party politics (at least to new jersey). But this actually made him more popular when everything was said and done. And I'm on a tangent.Raiyan 1.0 said:
The facts in there seem good, the only thing I haven't been able to successfully corroborate is the pay cuts from the 2004-2009 bankruptcy. I found lots of references to them laying off 10,000 workers, closing 9 baking factories out of 300, and closing outlet stores (who the hell needs a Hostess store? That is the most ridiculous shit I have ever seen).
Thanks for the heads up man, always good to see the other side of the story.
No problem. I must say I'm quite impressed at how and Olas managed to keep up a conversation for several pages without descending to name-calling. Rare trait on the internet these days.Baresark said:
There is a lot of good information in there when you sift through the rhetoric. I still stand by what I said in the CEO salary raise as being a red herring.
I agree that their salaries are a drop in the water compared to the company's revenues and losses, but I still think this part of the corporate culture should be highlighted, because they're shifting their blame on others and have created a culture where they have to face no consequences. Like how those bastards at Goldman Sachs can run several countries into the ground and still get away with millions. Or how certain large businesses are trying to set up a plutocracy.
The truth is, I still find the source a bit hard to swallow, but that is just my preference. Anything attached to the Huffington Post, blech. As a news source they are overtly left (which was very apparent) and I can't stand any of the bi-partisan slap fighting that occurs in this country. the Huffington Post is the left version of Fox News and I avoid them like the plague as well. I mean, if you look at the quick links on the right, it talks about Chris Christy GOP status in question because of response to Hurricane Sandy, and that is simply not true. As a native New Jersey resident I know he took guff for being civilized and thanking to President Obama when he came to the state, but he just told all the right wing douches that this is more important than the election or petty party politics (at least to new jersey). But this actually made him more popular when everything was said and done. And I'm on a tangent.
Huh, I had no idea that Salon was affiliated with Huffington Post. And while Salon can be quite annoyingly leftist (like posting about every single Sarah Pallin faux pas way after she became irrelevant), I would say they're somewhat balanced in their writing. Especially the Glenn Greenwald articles, who extensively attacked Obama's policies that infringed on civil rights.
At any rate, I seem to have missed the Chris Christy article you mention. As far as I've seen, Salon is pretty positive when portraying him as a leader, even if they disagree with some of his policies. Just some articles with his tag:
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/30/chris_christie_i_dont_give_a_damn_about_election_day/
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/30/chris_christie_praises_obamas_storm_response/
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/31/why_mitt_romney_is_no_chris_christie/
http://www.salon.com/2012/11/06/obama_and_christie_its_alright_to_cry/
http://www.salon.com/2012/11/02/a_republicans_rare_chance_to_be_a_real_leader/
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/31/chris_christie_democratic_hero/
o.0CardinalPiggles said:
fuck a duck dood ....find a long enough link for that image
*original thought derailed by link length*
OT: SAVE THE TWINKIE!! or at the very least, the Cupcake, fucken love my some chocolate
Well, at the extreme I'd say Unions actually need to devolve. The core of the power of a union is the threat of violence, not just refusing to show up for work (which when it comes to low end labour means the people can just be replaced, especially nowadays). To be honest the venture capitalists aren't any worse than the industrialists, cattle and mine barons, and other dweebs who unions were originally created to fight. History is full of cases with unions basically attacking the holdings of the company that employed them, and the businesses calling in groups like Pinkertons to provide muscle to try and force them back to work.allinwonder said:
Goverment mediation in these matters (which has been downplayed from what it used to be) is present because in the final equasion if several thousand armed people show up (as opposed to a few rowdies) it has a vested interest in putting an end to it, and not say calling in The National Guard for someone's exploitive business interests to pretty much fight what amounts to a makeshift army, and probably level a portion of the countryside, while also leaving behind a lot of bad feelings since that's pretty much what the goverment isn't supposed to do.
The problem with current unions, and things like the occupy wall street movement, is there is no real fear of them. These financial groups, CEOS, venture capitalists, and others have no real fear of a worker uprising. It's not like someone is going to break into their HQs and kill them (ie if we don't work here fairly, the business, and you, won't be around anymore) or attack their homes and families. With occupy Wall Street in paticular it's hilarious because the guys they are targeting can literally just fly over them in personal helicopters.
Hence comments about "The American Sheeple" and the death of the American spirit, the right to keep and bear arms pretty much exists for the empowerment of the majority, and as a check and balance against a lot of things (ie a small group of criminals can be dealt with fairly easily, popular uprisings... well that becomes a differant matter).
I honestly tend to blame the liberals and the whole 1960s mentality that never really grasped what earlier generations did for them and how all of that turmoil they protest was nessicary. It's lead to this attitude where people think they can bring change by just sitting on their arses (pretty much literally), like they can change a company's mind by sitting around at home and not going to work, or influance financial exploitation by
sitting around like a turd on a sidewalk. Rome might not have been built in a day, but it wasn't built by a bunch of hippies sitting on their butts smoking weed all day either.
A lot of people don't like what I have to say because violence is at the core of so much of it (on a lot of subjects) but understand that I'm a realist when you get down to it. Someone who has a vested interest in ignoring you (whether they listen or not) is going to ignore you. The problem is there is nothing present to make modern exploiters change their mind, all of the power and desician making is put in their hands by the law and inaction of the people in regards to acting against the system when it goes wrong. It's not an unprecedented situation, people have forgotten why a "non-violent protest" works, and that for it to work people have to believe that your show of force could actually be used as opposed to basically just sitting there yelling "Stop, or I'll say Stop again".
Oh yeah, I conceded that point a bit ago. The primary cause of the woes from moment one was poor management. But until I read Raiyan's post, I didn't have all the facts as people in general have glossed over the previous financial woes of the company. They never really recovered from that.Devoneaux said:
Yeah man, I thoroughly enjoy a friendly debate. And I despise when they turn into bitter name calling. At that point it's not a debate, it's a slap fight. Also, I find you have to pick and choose the information in a lot of articles, even from center of the isle news sources. Fox has some good stuff, but it's usually hidden behind walls of ultra right crap. Same thing for the Huffington Post but you need to sift through the ultra left crud. And by sift I don't mean pick and choose so much as avoid all the mention of left or right wing, watch out for rhetorical or emotional based statements, and generally only worry about what is absolute fact.Raiyan 1.0 said:
Heh, Americana killed by a facet of near-Americana industrialism.Treblaine said:
By that, I mean "Unions".
No great loss to me. I think I've had maybe 4 Twinkies in my entire life.
Please shut up before you give Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck more talking points for how anything other than neo-conservative establishment of america is so evil anything must be done to stop it.Therumancer said:
Not that they pay particular attention to you, but in general they rant about totalitarian conspiracies and call for "violent revolution" when it's a fantasy threat. But even idle talk of mob violence is enough to "prove" they were right all along.
Maybe not invent them, but they were certainly needed when they were invented.Treblaine said:
It changed our perspective on the nature, and value of labor.
Today, yeah. They're basically an excuse to half-ass the job, at best, and organized crime rings at worst.
Twinkies were wonderful when I last had one. It's been years, so I'm willing to bet that last one I had was before they started using lower quality ingredients to save money.Some_weirdGuy said:
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In the latest news, Hostess couldn't work things out with the union in question in the final talks, so the Twinkie will have to be saved by someone that buys the name an recipe. I heard that a company in Canada wants to do it, though I'll have to look in deeper on that bit.
Hostess may have some blame, but I still say that most of the blame falls on the union(Yes, I've seen all the "evidence" that has been brought by people to take blame away from the union. It is not enough for me).
If there is a time when a union should step back and stop making demands, it is when the company, of the workers they represent, is close to going under. That is when union should work with the company to find ways cut down union demands and relinquish a good deal of bargains that were agreed upon in the past.
The workers actually being able to keep their jobs comes first above all else, as the main reason for having a union. The union in question lost sight of that point. I'm willing to bet that from the other 13,000 workers(that had a smart union that settled), are now wanting some alone time, with nobody watching, with either the people that are members of the heel dragging union, or at least the people that are the heads of that union. Because, in this economy, you don't make waves and make people lose their jobs for no reason.
But anyway, I agree with the people that are saying that unions need to be dissolved. It is a dying kind of organization that isn't needed these days. And as people have said similar to, they really are mostly run by power hungry people that care more about winning against a company so that their workers get more to pay more to the union. At least that has been my experience from what I've seen of unions in my area, and that even if you have lost your job and are part of a union, you still have to keep pouring your own money into the union.
This is the type of place one doesn't need to be going to make points about such matters. The liberal bias is so thick that I wouldn't be able to find a thing to cut into it to find an unbiased remark. Heck, they even have a "follow Obama" link.Raiyan 1.0 said:
I read through a vast majority of that site. It is giving me a headache and making me nauseous with how bad that place is. Definitely chalked full of nutty rhetoric, especially the parts that make it out that employers could easily keep all their employees even with the extra money that they have to shell out when the Obamacare payments will become mandatory.
Treblaine said:
Well understand that I happen to be far more right wing than left when you get down to it.
That said, I'm not going to "shut up" as this is exactly what needs to be said in this arena right now. In this case overly greedy business owners, bankers, etc... should be concerned, the fact that they can safely ignore the opposition as long as it works within a system they more or less control is exactly the point.
To be frank, I think your merely ignorant. You might want to read back to the history of unions, how they got started, what happened when they did, and how they wound up deriving their power. Notice the differance between the techniques then, and what you see now.
I'll agree, things CAN go too far, not handled correctly what I'm talking about can turn into a full fledged, communist-type workers rebellion, which is generally a bad idea. I do however believe that it can be pushed to a certain level and then stopped, leading to a sort of balance we used to have in this country, again, you really should read up on the subject, I have done so rather extensively.
Of course also understand, that not many people have been screwed by an employer as totally as I have (though it has happened, and some people have gotten it worse). I know from trying to use the system that it simply does not work in the current state, and with no fear of the workers there is no reason for the system being made to work, which is why it doesn't happen. People are given just enough hope that things might change without serious action to keep them flapping their gums, while things continue to get worse. I'm smart enough to realize however that one guy employing violence is just a psycho who won't even gets his reasons as just as they might be adequetly covered in the media. Thousands or tens of thousands of people acting in concert, well that's something else entirely.
I also understand that the issue isn't entirely domestic, in the final equasion it all comes down to international business and trade, the cost at which various nations can produce goods and services in relation to others, IP and Copyright laws, and similar things. While the worker mistreatment in the US goes too far on it's own, you cannot totally disregard the point that nations violating IPs, Patents, and Copyrights, and producing with sweatshop labour cause a lot of the problems because the more workers get paid the higher the cost to produce goods, and the more expensive they are. To compete with that on an even keel you need to pretty much turn your own production into sweatshop labour and produce as cheaply, hence the massive reductions in worker benefits here in the US in order to compete. At the end of the day the nations doing this kind of thing, do it for their own benefit and the money it makes them, they are not going to stop just because you ask them and pretty much see what they have collapse, as a result it becomes an "us or them" equasion and the need to make them stop which basically means war and the destruction of the problem production. As the old maxim goes "Free Trade Means He With The Biggest Guns Trades Freely" a portion of the USA's plight is that we've become too idealistic and forgotten the basics.
You might not LIKE what I'm saying, but it happens to be true. I understand the entire "do nothing and hope it goes away" and "peace at any price" points of view, but sadly that's not practical. Neither foreign nations, or corrupt businessmen are going to change for our benefit or out of the goodness of their heards. The system cannot effectively regulate those who have taken control of it either. The result is to force change, as we've seen through history.
I'll defend capitolism, big business, and the rights of the rich to enjoy the fruits of their labour to the ends of the earth, and have done so in the past, but I also believe these things need to be balanced to a degree. I believe things like unions, and a strong military prescence enforcing our business interests, are a bit part of that. For either to work people have to respect them, and that includes displays of power, and a degree of fear. When businesses don't fear the unions because they have become entirely bureaucratic on the issues that matter (and the big businesses control the system) that's an issue. You want big business to WANT the system to work for fair mediation and to negotiate to find solutions both sides can work with, for that there needs to be some parity, and when one side holds the money the other needs, that parity has to come from threat of force. It's not nice, but if some employer is concerned that he's going to see his family lynched if he pushes too far (and screws the families of many, many other people) he's going to be a bit wary of deciding he wants to cut benefits, engage in mass layoffs, and how hard he's going to squeeze the workers for his profits. The world sucks, people suck, this is simply the sucktastic way things work. If we didn't suck so much it wouldn't be nessicary. People have many good aspects and a lot of potential, but face it, without a lot of balances in place we tend to screw each other over.
Therumancer said:
Okay, maybe "shut up" was the wrong way to phrase it, how about: please for the love of all that is good, don't preach that practice, I beg of you.
Authoritarian establishment orders THRIVE on the threat of violence - even if only perceived and not actual - to justify their controls.
I emplore you, take the path of non-violence, and never be the one to strike the first blow, always seek a peaceful path rather than the quickest one to violence. Choosing violence as your first principal is the best propaganda you can give your opponents and easiest way to divide your cause and lose allies. And it is unity and unanimous alliance that is the DEFINING strength of unions.
Violence has always been the establishment's vice, they legally hold a de-facto monopoly on the use of force.
Te very presence and activity of Pinkerton agents dealing out beatings should have galvanised all public will against unions but instead the public turned against them as the Unions were the ones who started the violence and Pinkertons were seen as the rescuers from mobs of thugs.
Are you aware of Unions outside the united states? What about other popular organisations against minority holders of power, whether it be power in industry or government.
You cannot restrain a mob, once you've authorised violence you've crossed the rubicon, the path of escalation is inexorable as there will be a response to that violence that will lead to spiralling escalation. You need to absolutely commit from the start to non-violence that violence is not your method for achieving anything but that violence is an aspect of the establishment that YOU will exploit in them.
The problem with violence is it doesn't adequately reflect the will of the masses in the same way that refusing to work does.
One person can kill a man. It in itself says nothing of the workers as a whole.
But when all the workers in solidarity refuse to hold up their end of the deal (working) because the bosses didn't hold up their end (paying them their due in salary/healthcare/etc)
There is something evocatively fair in that, that the workers aren't doing their job because the boss isn't doing his/her job. And all the workers doing all of that together sends such a strong and unambiguous message that the industrialists don't hold all the cards, the boss cannot fire everyone at once.
But lynching, that proves nothing but that a handful of people can tie a rope. If the workers were completely satisfied with their employment arrangement but some psycho kills the boss anyway, what does that prove?
Violence proves nothing. It's not a negotiation tactic. Resorting to premeditated violence is an unconscionable act of desperation.
Woah, you need to take a step back before this gets serious. You can insult our hygiene. You can insult our intellect. But I'll be damned before you can get away with insulting our Twinkies.Daystar Clarion said:Maybe you can get around to making something actually made out of food now, huh America?
