Breitbart: Hollywood Celebrities Not Citizens, But Serfs

Andrew Breitbart rightly takes Hollywood celebrities to task for their on-again-off-again take on patriotism and citizenship, after several of them put out a celebrity-filled "Presidential Pledge" video. I Pledge to Ridicule Celebrities Who Refuse to Recognize We Are At War With People Who Want to Kill Them, Too:

This video illustrates that the current celebrity class are not citizens but serfs. They need a leader to put their minds in the right place to do the right thing. They are not heroic individualists seeking to extend America’s promise but conformists who chose to sit out and complain during the tough years in order to ensure their guy got in the next go-around.

Read the whole article. Breitbart's final sentiment is not the right approach, but his criticism are bang-on.

Another Political Union

Some time before Sunday, all of Canada's postal workers sat down and, after careful debate, hammered out a mutually agreeable and acceptable statement regarding the crisis in Israel and Gaza. Wait. No they didn't. Maybe they took a vote? I doubt it.

On behalf of the 56,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, I am writing to demand that the Canadian government condemn the military assault on the people of Gaza that the state of Israel commenced on December 26th, 2008.

That's right. Denis Lemelin, National President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), took it upon himself to speak on behalf of 56,000 union members. Guess what? They all agree that

• Israel's largely pinpoint destruction of Hamas weapons and strongholds is a "military assault on the people of Gaza"
• Israel was the party that started the fight "on December 26, 2008"
• Israel's operations are a "siege on Gaza"
• "the root cause of the violence" is "Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories"
• Israel's current actions are totally out of proportion with any notion of self-defense."

(Incidentally, the CUPW president fails to write the name 'Hamas' even once in his letter. Even if he had, I'm sure his spell-checker would have corrected it to 'oppressed freedom-fighters'. You can read the full letter here.)

This is the consensus of 56,000 out of 56,000 Canadian postal workers. Or that is what Mr. Lemelin would have us believe. Perhaps it's a healthy 42,000 out of 56,000. Three out of four is a solid majority. Perhaps it's 40,000. Perhaps it's 28,001 - a slight 50-percent-plus-one majority, but a majority nonetheless. Perhaps it's 14,000 of 56,000. (One can only hope.)

But what does it matter?

Last month I wrote about how today's unions have long lost sight of their original cause and purpose. One aspect of this overreach was political action:

Today's unions are political. It can be argued that it is for the good of the workers to support a political party that is likely to be sympathetic to union demands. But do political contributions represent the diversity of political support among the union members? And what can be said, for instance, of the CAW boss Buzz Hargrove's official letter to Prime Minister Harper taking a political stand during the Israel-Lebanon crisis of 2006? Did his recommendations represent the majority view of union members? Even if it did, what business is it of CAW's to make political pronouncements?

Regardless of what numerator you throw on top of 56,000, by what authority does the CUPW or its executive "demand [emphasis mine -ed.] that the Canadian government condemn the military assault on the people of Gaza"? What business does it have to "strongly urge the Canadian government to condemn the serious violations of humanitarian and international law by the state of Israel"?

It's bad enough that the CUPW pretends to speak on behalf of all its members on controversial political issues. But it says something about the audacity of today's unions when they are happy to abuse their power and influence in domains in which they have no business.

Emerson: New York Times a Foreign Agent for Hamas

Steve Emerson pulls no punches in this indictment of the New York Times, which is no longer even pretending to be fair and balanced. The Hamas propaganda machine is world-class, but who even needs it when the world's biggest newsrooms are cheerleading for you? Emerson: Why Does The New York Times Love Hamas?

In the past week, the Fourth Estate’s Hamas cheerleaders have stripped away any pretense of being honest or neutral, with The New York Times continuing to take the side of the terrorist group in one of the most shameful journalistic episodes I have ever seen. In following The Times' coverage for the past six months and checking external sources of information, one can see a clear pattern of propagandistic reporting favoring Hamas that selectively suppressed or willfully misrepresented information.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have realized that if the truth is going to get out, it's not going to be the mainstream media's fault. So it is using the power of the internet to counter the anti-Israel spin. The IDF's website features official statistics and releases, and many YouTube videos showing Hamas firing rockets from hospitals, mosques, and schools.

Glick: The Real War Crimes

Here's an entirely different take on the Hamas-Israeli war from Caroline Glick. As a matter of fact, it's a breath of fresh air when compared with the anti-Israel mainstream media. A Mideast Glick Check:

What is interesting about this latest round of fighting is that the world paid little attention to what was going on when it was only Hamas attacking Israel. People only started paying attention when Israel’s government said enough is enough and started defending its territory and citizens.

Elsewhere, Ezra Levant tackles our national and local media -The Canadian Left vs. Israel:

But I do not want the Conservatives to have a monopoly on pro-Israel sentiments. I think every Canadian party ought to be pro-Israel, because Israel mirrors our own democratic, liberal values in a very undemocratic, illiberal part of the world. Their fight against Islamic terrorism predates ours; they're merely the front line. We could be in the same violent mess as them in 20 years -- and Europe could be in 10 years.

CBC Neutral on Obama

Yeah right. Down at CBC Radio 2, they're positively giddy about his president-electness.

“One of the best way to know Canada is through the depth and breadth of our artistic expression,” says Denise Donlon, Executive Director, CBC Radio. “We're excited about the new President and we want him to be excited about us, so we're asking our audience to help compile the list of our most definitive Canadian songs!”

They devoted a lot of the day to this "Obama-rama" (their word). But I'm sure they'll do a Bush Farewell Extravaganza too, right?

Rumours of Racism's Death are Greatly Exaggerated

Shortly after the U.S. federal election in November, I wrote:

But it's the old race card in a new suit, another "heads I win, tails you lose" tactic. If Obama wins, race is not an issue - it's about the merits of his person and position, and the lack thereof in the case of his opponent. If he loses, it's because of race - not about merits.

Over at Uncommon Knowledge - where Peter Robinson conducts very interesting interviews - I stumbled across an interview with Shelby Steele, where he explains the reason for Obama's popular appeal:

But there is an inherent contradiction in all of this when whites, especially today's younger generation, proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation.

Everywhere I went on my book tour with regard to this book, young people would come up, "We're beyond your generation. We're going to vote for Obama," and so forth. "Don't you think that we, we grew up differently than you did." No, you didn't. You did not. You are now obsessed with race. Race is the only thing that's driving your interest in Barack Obama. You couldn't even tell me what his policies are. You're never critical to him in any way. If you were free of race, you would not judge him culturally. You would judge him politically. You'd look at his position on social security, on all these mundane, boilerplate issues that presidents actually have to deal with, his economic policies. You never want to see that. You are consumed by race.

The whole thing is worth watching, but this exchange begins at 15:35.

Unions, Productivity, and the Automakers Crisis

Workers' unions came about because of terrible working conditions and employers who mistreated their employees. Employers were abusing their power and their workers. Unions have been responsible, at least in part, for improving working standards and conditions.

But the pendulum has long since swung to the other side. It is now the unions that are abusing their power and the workers they claim to represent. There are many things that can be said about the actions and effects of today's unions, but let the following non-exhaustive list suffice:

• Today's unions do not balance the needs of workers with the needs of employers and managers. Workers are best served when they are fairly treated and compensated, but also when such treatment and compensation does not threaten the profitability and stability of their jobs and livelihood - the company for which they work. Many recent union "wins" are thus actually losses. Unions are too opposed to management and ownership to seek the common good.
• Today's unions make financial sense for those at the top, but not necessarily for those at the bottom. Union bosses are very well compensated, but does the average worker recover the losses incurred after strike pay runs out during a lengthy strike?
• Today's unions are political. It can be argued that it is for the good of the workers to support a political party that is likely to be sympathetic to union demands. But do political contributions represent the diversity of political support among the union members? And what can be said, for instance, of the CAW boss Buzz Hargrove's official letter to Prime Minister Harper taking a political stand during the Israel-Lebanon crisis of 2006? Did his recommendations represent the majority view of union members? Even if it did, what business is it of CAW's to make political pronouncements?
• Today's unions actually discourage creativity, efficiency, productivity.

This last one likely has a lot more to do with today's Big Three auto crisis than any one is letting on. It's a systemic problem, and any real solution to the automaker crisis must deal with it. More in this great read at Pajamas Media - Rand Simberg: Detroit’s Downturn: It’s the Productivity, Stupid. Here's an excerpt, but read the whole thing - there are some mind-boggling and telling examples of the union mentality.

But almost all of the discussion, when it comes to UAW culpability, has been on wages. The even larger issue, though, is the elephant in the room that seemingly no one discusses, even when given a political opportunity... And it’s not like people are unaware of it, at least people familiar with the industry. The issue isn’t wages — though those are a problem — so much as work rules. UAW work rules, which have evolved over the many decades since the passage of the Wagner Act, are the biggest reason that General Motors is uncompetitive with its non-union American counterparts.

What are work rules? They are agreements negotiated in the contract between management and the union covering how the employees are to be classified, how many breaks they get, how much time off they get, who can do which jobs, how discipline is to be enforced, etc. The goal of the rules is not to enhance productivity or production quality. It is to provide opportunities for featherbedding, increase numbers of (overpaid) jobs for union workers, and minimize how much they have to actually work. This is important because it’s at least in theory possible that the industry could be making money even at current wages, if they could be provided with the flexibility to increase worker productivity.