Posts Tagged ‘THE PRINCE’
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Self-Help, Social commentary on June 8, 2016 at 12:14 am
The First Amendment of the American Constitution guarantees freedom of speech.
But some airline employees haven’t gotten the word.
Click here: 3 Easy Ways to Tell If a Business Puts Its Customers First – DailyFinance
Yes, what you say can get you thrown off an airplane–or worse. And it doesn’t have to be anything even remotely like a threat.
- In May, 2011, a US Airways flight was due to depart San Francisco International Airport for Charlotte, North Carolina at 1:20 p.m. But due to bad weather, passengers boarded the plane after 2 p.m.
Once on the plane, a flight attendant told customers over the intercom to hurry up and put their carry-ons in bins so they could take off and make their connecting flight in Charlotte.
One of the passengers, Luke Hazlewood, turned to the person next to him and said it was the airline’s fault they were late, “so don’t get mad at us.”
The flight attendant rushed out of the galley demanding to know who had said that. Once she determined it was Hazlewood, she told him he would have to leave for being disruptive and a threat to the plane.
Sandra Kraus, a former flight attendant, came to Hazlewood’s defense–and the flight attendant told her to get off the plane as well.
Both passengers asked to speak with the captain but he refused to speak with them.
Kraus was put on another flight. Hazlewood and his accompanying girlfriend (who had left the plane with him) found that US Airways wouldn’t compensate them for a hotel room.
The airline refused to answer questions about the matter. Its written statement said “The passengers interfered with the flight crew and in the interest of safety they had to be removed.”
It’s a truism in both journalism and police work: When people refuse to answer questions, it’s nearly always because they know they have something to hide.
And the airline’s response came in the classic voice of the all-powerful dictator: “They refused to treat me like God and so they had to be eliminated.”
Business Insider ranked US Airways #6 on a list of Click here: The 19 Most Hated Companies In America – Business Insider
- In December, 2011, three middle-aged women were thrown off an AirTran flight at Palm Beach International Airport after a steward began roughly handling the luggage of one of them.
Marilyn Miller, a lawyer, was buckled in for takeoff when the attendant mishandled her overhead luggage. “I have breakables in that,” she said.
The attendant ignored her and kept shoving other bags into hers.
Another passenger, Carol Gray, a retired travel agent, asked the same attendant for help, saying that her seat was broken.
“I’m not talking to you,” said the attendant, and poked her in the arm. He then threatened to throw Miller and Gray off the plane.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Miller.
“Well, you’re getting off,” said the attendant.
Two sheriff’s deputies and airline staff arrived to remove them.
A third passenger, a therapist named Karyn Schoor, spoke up in their defense: “This is crazy, they didn’t do anything. Why are you doing this to them?”
“Throw her off too,”’ ordered the attendant.
All three women were marched off the plane and back into the terminal.
The women were offered flights on other airlines paid for by AirTran.
And the official explanation given by AirTran?
“Our employees are responsible for the safety and comfort of everyone onboard a flight. Our goal is always to mitigate any uncomfortable situation prior to departure.”
Uncomfortable for whom–the passenger who doesn’t want her luggage roughly treated? Or the attendant whose ego gets bent out of shape at the slightest objection?
- In July, 2010, Southwest Airlines removed a slender, five-foot-four woman from a plane to accomodate an obese passenger.
The woman was flying standby from Las Vegas to Sacramento. She had paid full fare for the last available seat, boarded and stowed her bags–and was told she must deplane immediately.
The reason: A late-arriving, 14-year-old passenger required two seats because of her girth.
When the woman asked Southwest personnel why she was being removed her from the flight, they berated her for daring to question their decision.
The temporarily stranded passenger managed to catch the next flight out to Sacramento.
- You don’t have to assault someone to be thrown off an airplane. Even kissing your partner will do.
Southwest Airlines kicked Leisha Hailey–who not only played a lesbian in Showtime’s The L-Word series but is one–and her girlfriend off a flight to Los Angeles.
Their crime? Kissing.
A flight attendant told them that Southwest was “a family airline.” When they argued they were targets of homophobia, the attendant ejected them from the plane.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Self-Help, Social commentary on June 7, 2016 at 12:02 am
With the summer tourism season now on, tens of thousands of Americans will be flying across the country to visit with loved ones.
And many of them will become the victims of KGB Airways.
In truth, many airline personnel treat passengers the way KGB agents once treated Soviet citizens–with the arrogance that comes from holding near-absolute power over the lives of others.
Consider the following:
- From the website of American Airlines:
ESSENTIAL NEEDS DURING EXTRAORDINARY DELAYS
In the case of extraordinary events that result in very lengthy onboard delays, American will make every reasonable effort to ensure that essential needs of food (snack bar such as Nutri-Grain®), water, restroom facilities, and basic medical assistance are met.
We are not responsible for any special, incidental or consequential damages if we do not meet this commitment.
Translation: On one hand, American promises that it will try to ensure that “essential needs of food, water, restroom facilities and basic medical assistance are met” during “very lengthy onboard delays.” On the other hand, if they “do not meet this commitment,” that’s just the passengers’ tough luck.
ACCEPTANCE OF PASSENGERS
American may refuse to transport you, or may remove you from your flight at any point, for one or several reasons, including but not limited to:
- Compliance with government requisition of space.
- Action necessary or advisable due to weather, or other conditions beyond American’s control.
- Refusal to permit a search of person or property for explosives or for deadly, controlled, or dangerous weapons, articles or substances.
- Refusal to produce positive identification upon request.
- Your physical or mental condition is such that in American’s sole opinion, you are rendered or likely to be rendered incapable of comprehending or complying with safety instructions without the assistance of an attendant.
- Your conduct is disorderly, abusive or violent.
- Appear to be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs.
- Attempt to interfere with any member of the flight crew.
- Have a communicable disease that has been determined by a federal public health authority to be transmissible to other persons in the normal course of flight.
- Refuse to obey instructions from any flight crew member.
- Have an offensive odor not caused by a disability or illness.
- Are clothed in a manner that would cause discomfort or offense to other passengers or are barefoot.
- Engage in any action, voluntary or involuntary, that might jeopardize the safety of the aircraft or any of its occupants.
Translation: “American may refuse to transport you, or may remove you from your flight at any point” for just about any reason it wants to give.
Click here: Conditions of carriage – Contract of transportation – American Airlines
DELAYS, CANCELLATIONS AND DIVERSIONS
American Airlines will provide customers at the airport and onboard an affected aircraft with timely and frequent updates regarding known delays, cancellations and diversions and will strive to provide the best available information concerning the duration of delays and to the extent available, the flight’s anticipated departure time.
We are not responsible for any special, incidental or consequential damages if we do not meet this commitment.
Translation: On one hand, American promises to give customers “timely and frequent updates regarding known delays, cancellations and diversions.” On the other hand, American absolves itself from any damages “if we do not meet this commitment.”
And how does all this translate into action?
- In late March, 2012, a woman was barred from boarding an American Airlines flight because its staff disliked her choice of clothing. She was wearing a T-shirt bearing the words: “IF I WANTED THE GOVERNMENT IN MY WOMB, I’D F— A SENATOR.”
After taking a seat she was told by a flight attendant that she needed to speak with the captain, who found the T-shirt “offensive.” He said she would have to change before she could re-board the plane.
The passenger claims this interaction caused her to miss her connection: Her luggage was checked and “changing shirts without spending money wasn’t an option.”
Business Insider ranked American Airlines 8th on a list of The 19 Most Hated Companies In America.
- In July, 2011, Malinda Knowles, a 27-year-old financial consultant, was kicked off a JetBlue flight at JFK Airport in New York because of her attire–a baggy blue T-shirt and denim shorts.
A male JetBlue employee walking down the aisle noticed Knowles. He told her he didn’t think she was wearing enough clothing. An argument erupted when the employee put his walkie-talkie between her legs to see if she was wearing shorts underneath. When Knowles objected, the JetBlue worker brought her off the plane and to a hangar.
There she modeled for the employees, showing that she was wearing shorts. She returned to the plane, but the same employee once again approached her and said: “The captain is refusing to fly you today. We need to remove you from the flight.”
After waiting four hours for another flight, she arrived in Florida. Apparently the crew of that plane didn’t have any problem with her attire.
Knowles has since filed a lawsuit against JetBlue.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2016 at 12:13 am
Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren seems to know something that most of her fellow Democrats don’t–or choose to ignore.
Nazi Germany wasn’t defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
On the contrary: It was defeated because the Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
For example:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
German soldiers at Stalingrad
- The United States and Great Britain carpet-bombed about 150 German cities by day and night, killing 305,000 to 600,000 civilians.
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear! Barbarians! They use gangster methods….”
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.
This is a lesson that has been totally lost on the liberals of the Democratic Party. Which explains why they lost most of the Presidential elections of the 20th century.
To Republicans, “lawfully elected” applies only to Republican Presidents. A Democrat who runs against a Republican is automatically considered a traitor.
And a Democrat who defeats a Republican is automatically considered a usurper, and thus deserves to be slandered and obstructed, if not impeached.
Unable to defeat Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried in 1998 to impeach him for getting oral sex in the White House.
Similarly, 2012 Presidential candidate Herman Cain, asked in a conference call with bloggers why Republicans couldn’t just impeach President Barack Obama, replied:
“That’s a great question and it is a great–it would be a great thing to do but because the Senate is controlled by Democrats we would never be able to get the Senate first to take up that action.”
Barack Obama
In Renegade: The Making of a President, Richard Wolffe chronicled Obama’s successful 2008 bid for the White House. Among his revelations:
Obama, a believer in rationality and decency, felt more comfortable in responding to attacks on his character than in making them on the character of his enemies.
A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama is easily one of the most academically gifted Presidents in United States history.
But for all this, he failed–from the onset of his Presidency–to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
Niccolo Machiavelli
In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be more loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Just as they have blithely disregarded the lessons of history, liberals have ignored the Realpolitik of Machiavelli–with catastrophic results.
On Facebook and Twitter, liberals are already celebrating the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton in 2017.
They forget–or ignore–that liberals couldn’t believe America would elect, respectively, Richard Nixon (1968 and 1972), Ronald Reagan (1980 and 1984), George H.W. Bush (1988) and George W. Bush (2000 and 2004).
But Elizabeth Warren clearly hasn’t forgotten those Republican victories. Nor does she take for granted that Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump is certain to lose in November.
Elizabeth Warren
Instead, Warren has dared to do what no other Democrat–or Republican–has: Attack Trump head-on, with the kind of blunt, insulting language he has lavished on his opponents.
On March 31, she appeared on The Late Show, with Stephen Colbert. Her take on the egotistical billionaire:
“Donald Trump is looking out for exactly one guy, and that guy’s name is Donald Trump. He smells that there’s change in the air and what he wants to do is make sure that that change works really, really well for Donald Trump.
“The truth is, he inherited a fortune from his father, he kept it going by cheating and defrauding people, and then he takes his creditors through Chapter 11.”
When Colbert said that Trump had never broken the law, Warren replied that he had never broken the law “and been caught.”
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Patton to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
Only Elizabeth Warren has so far grasped this truth. And only she seems determined to act on it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 1, 2016 at 12:04 am
Donald Trump, “for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius.”
So stated New York Times columnist David Brooks on the May 27 edition of the PBS Newshour.
“And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco {Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
Donald Trump
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under. It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And [Hillary] just comes with ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton isn’t the only Presidential candidate who has proven unable to cope with Trump’s gifts for insult. His targets–and insults–have included:
-
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Wears glasses to seem smart.”
-
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Low Energy Jeb.”
-
Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders: “Crazy Bernie.”
-
Ohio Governor John Kasich: “Mathematically dead and totally desperate.”
So far, only one opponent has managed to stand up to Trump: Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, whom Trump has called “goofy.”
Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio tried to out-insult Trump at the Republican Presidential candidates’ debate on March 3.
“I call him Little Marco. Little Marco. Hello, Marco,” said Trump.
And so Rubio retaliated with “Big Donald.” Since Americans generally believe that “bigger is better,” this was a poor choice of insult.
On the May 27 edition of the PBS Newshour, syndicated columnist Mark Shields noted the ability of Elizabeth Warren to rattle Trump:
“Elizabeth Warren gets under Donald Trunp’s skin. And I think she’s been the most effective adversary. I think she’s done more to unite the Democratic party than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
“I mean, she obviously–he can’t stay away from her. He is tweeting about her.”
Elizabeth Warren
JUDY WOODRUFF (moderator): “But whether it’s Elizabeth Warren or not, doesn’t Hillary Clinton need to come up with some approach that works, that is as effective comeback?”
DAVID BROOKS: “Yes. Well, I think she does, not that anybody else has managed to do this….
“And so the tactics…is either you do what Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”
But sharp-edged humor clearly works for Warren.
A May 12 story on CNN–“Elizabeth Warren Gives Trump a Dose of His Own Medicine on Twitter”–notes:
“In the past week the Massachusetts Democrat has refined an aggressive anti-Trump message through a series of so-called tweetstorms.
“Whenever Trump criticizes her, Warren fires right back at him, sometimes twice as hard.”
Warren’s tweets, according to the article, appear to have two goals:
- Challenge Trump on social media, which he has so far dominated; and
- Use attention-catching words like “bully” and “loser.”
Among her tweets:
- “But here’s the thing. You can beat a bully–not by tucking tail and running, but by holding your ground.”
- When Trump boasted “I’m driving her nuts” Warren tweeted: “No, @realDonaldTrump – your racism, sexism & xenophobia doesn’t drive me nuts. It makes me sick. And I’m not alone.”
- “You care so much about struggling American workers, @realDonaldTrump, that you want to abolish the federal minimum wage?”
- “@realDonaldTrump: Your policies are dangerous. Your words are reckless. Your record is embarrassing. And your free ride is over.”
Nor has Warren restricted herself to battling Trump on Twitter.
On May 24, Warren unleashed perhaps her most devastating attack on Trump at an event hosted by the Center for Popular Democracy:
“Just yesterday, it came out that Donald Trump had said back in 2007 that he was ‘excited’ for the real estate market to crash because, quote, ‘I’ve always made more money in bad markets than in good markets.’
“That’s right. The rest of us were horrified by the 2008 financial crisis, by what happened to the millions of families…that were forced out of their homes.
“But Donald Trump was drooling over the idea of a housing meltdown–because it meant he could buy up a bunch more property on the cheap.
“What kind of a man does that? Root for people to get thrown out on the street? Root for people to lose their jobs? Root for people to lose their pensions?
“What kind of a man does that? I’ll tell you exactly what kind—a man who cares about no one but himself. A small, insecure moneygrubber who doesn’t care who gets hurt, so long as he makes some money off it….
“Sometimes Trump claims he is tough on Wall Street–tough on the guys who cheated people….. But now he’s singing a very different song.
“Last week, he said that the new Dodd-Frank financial regulations have…’made it impossible for bankers to function’ and he will put out a new plan soon that ‘will be close to dismantling Dodd-Frank.’
“Donald Trump is worried about helping poor little Wall Street? Let me find the world’s smallest violin to play a sad, sad song.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 31, 2016 at 12:05 am
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks appear every Friday on the PBS Newshour to review the week’s major political events.
On May 27, Shields–a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative–came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
With the business magnate having won the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, both columnists appeared increasingly dismayed.
David Brooks and Mark Shields
MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.
“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….
“I cannot figure out any possible advantage to Donald Trump when he’s got a problem with Latinos and with women to go into New Mexico, where the nation’s only Latina woman Republican governor sits, who has not said anything negative about him, who endorsed one of his opponents, but has not been an attack dog on Donald Trump, and absolutely goes after her and is abusive to her.
“And I’m just saying to myself, what is the advantage to this?
“…I think this man may be addicted to the roar of the grease paint and the sound of the crowd, or however it goes, smell of the crowd.
“And those rallies bring out something in him, and he just feels that he has to–and it’s all personal….I mean, it’s not a philosophical difference. It’s not a political difference. It’s all personal.”
Donald Trump
Ironically, Rand Paul, Republican U.S. Senator from Kentucky, has reached a similar conclusion about Trump:
“I think there is a sophomore quality that is entertaining with Mr. Trump, but I am worried. I’m very concerned of having him in charge of his nuclear weapons because his visceral response to attack people on their appearance–short, tall, fat, ugly–my goodness that happened in junior high.”
DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].
“And that’s a word. And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.
“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’
“These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.”
How did American politics reach this state of affairs?
In 1996, Newt Gingrich, then Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote a memo that encouraged Republicans to “speak like Newt.”
Entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” it urged Republicans to attack Democrats with such words as “corrupt,” “selfish,” “destructive,” “hypocrisy,” “liberal,” “sick,” and “traitors.”
Newt Gingrich
Even worse, Gingrich encouraged the news media to disseminate such accusations. Among his suggestions:
- “Fights make news.”
- Create a “shield issue” to deflect criticism: “A shield issue is, just, you know, your opponent is going to attack you as lacking compassion. You better…show up in the local paper holding a baby in the neonatal center.”
In the memo, Gingrich advised:
“….In the video “We are a Majority,” Language is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules, Attitude and Learning.
As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates we have heard a plaintive plea: ‘I wish I could speak like Newt.’
“That takes years of practice. But, we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases….
“This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media.
“The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used.”
Here is the list of words Gingrich urged his followers to use in describing “the opponent, their record, proposals and their party”:
- abuse of power
- anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs
- betray
- bizarre
- bosses
- bureaucracy
- cheat
- coercion
- “compassion” is not enough
- collapse(ing)
- consequences
- corrupt
- corruption
- criminal rights
- crisis
- cynicism
- decay
- deeper
- destroy
- destructive
- devour
- disgrace
- endanger
- excuses
- failure (fail)
- greed
- hypocrisy
- ideological
- impose
- incompetent
- insecure
- insensitive
|
- intolerant
- liberal
- lie
- limit(s)
- machine
- mandate(s)
- obsolete
- pathetic
- patronage
- permissive attitude
- pessimistic
- punish (poor …)
- radical
- red tape
- self-serving
- selfish
- sensationalists
- shallow
- shame
- sick
- spend(ing)
- stagnation
- status quo
- steal
- taxes
- they/them
- threaten
- traitors
- unionized
- urgent (cy)
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Yes, speaking like Newt–or Adolf Hitler or Joseph McCarthy–“takes years of practice.”
And to the dismay of both Republicans and Democrats, Donald Trump has learned his lessons well.
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 10, 2016 at 12:01 am
Donald Trump is riding high, the almost certain Republican nominee for President when that party holds its convention in Cleveland during the week of July 18.
But Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine statesmen and father of modern politics, has more than a few timely warnings to offer him–and voters inclined to vote for him.
For openers: Trump has drawn heavy criticism for his angry and brutal attacks on a wide range of persons and organizations–including his fellow Republicans, journalists, news organizations, other countries and even celebrities who have nothing to do with politics.
Donald Trump
Now consider Machiavelli’s advice on gratuitously handing out insults and threats:
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“I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one.
-
“For neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy–but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”
And Trump’s reaction to the criticism he’s received?
“I can be Presidential, but if I was Presidential I would only have–about 20% of you would be here because it would be boring as hell, I will say,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Superior, Wisconsin.
Trump admitted that his wife, Melania, and daughter, Ivanka, had urged him to be more Presidential. And he promised that he would.
“But I gotta knock off the final two [Republican candidates–Ohio Governor John Kasich and Texas U.S. Senator Rafael Cruz] first, if you don’t mind.”
For those who expect Trump to shed his propensity for constantly picking fights, Machiavelli has a stern warning:
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“…If it happens that time and circumstances are favorable to one who acts with caution and prudence he will be successful. But if time and circumstances change he will be ruined, because he does not change the mode of his procedure.
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“No man can be found so prudent as to be able to adopt himself to this, either because he cannot deviate from that to which his nature disposes him, or else because, having always prospered by walking in one path, he cannot persuade himself that it is well to leave it…
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“For if one could change one’s nature with time and circumstances, fortune would never change.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
Then there is Trump’s approach to consulting advisers:
Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consults about foreign policy, Trump replied; “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”
This totally contrasts the advice given by Machiavelli:
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“A prudent prince must [choose] for his counsel wise men, and [give] them alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else.
-
“But he must be a great asker about everything and hear their opinions, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way, and in these counsels…comport himself so that every one may see that the more freely he speaks, the more he will be acceptable.”
And Machiavelli offers a related warning on the advising of rulers: Unwise princes cannot be wisely advised.
During the fifth GOP debate in the Presidential sweepstakes, host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump this question:
“Mr. Trump, Dr. [Ben] Carson just referenced the single most important job of the president, the command and the care of our nuclear forces. And he mentioned the triad.
“The B-52s are older than I am. The missiles are old. The submarines are aging out. It’s an executive order. It’s a commander-in-chief decision.
“What’s your priority among our nuclear triad?”
[The triad refers to America’s land-, sea- and air-based systems for delivering nuclear missiles and bombs.]
Nuclear missile in silo
Trump’s reply: “Well, first of all, I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible, who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important.”
He then digressed to his having called the Iraq invasion a mistake in 2003 and 2004. Finally he came back on topic:
“But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear.
“Nuclear changes the whole ballgame. The biggest problem we have today is nuclear–nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon.
“I think to me, nuclear, is just the power, the devastation is very important to me.”
Which brings us back to Machiavelli:
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“…Some think that a prince who gains the reputation of being prudent [owes this to] the good counselors he has about him; they are undoubtedly deceived.
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“It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised, unless by chance he leaves himself entirely in the hands of one man who rules him in everything, and happens to be a very prudent man. In this case, he may doubtless be well governed, but it would not last long, for the governor would in a short time deprive him of the state.”
All of which would lead Niccolo Machiavelli to warn, if he could witness American politics today: “This bodes ill for your Republic.”
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 9, 2016 at 12:37 am
Donald Trump has swept the field of his political rivals. The Republican nomination for President now stands within his reach.
The “Anybody-But-Trump” coalition no longer has a champion. Its last two–Ohio Governor John Kasich and Texas U.S. Senator Rafael Cruz–have bowed out of the race.
On May 3, Trump captured 53.3% of the votes in the Indiana primary, compared to 36.7% for Cruz and 7.5% for Kasich.
That night, Cruz threw in the towel.
“Together we left it all on the field in Indiana,” Cruz told his disappointed supporters in Indianapolis. “We gave it everything we’ve got. But the voters chose another path.”
Rafael “Ted” Cruz
The next day–May 4–so did Kasich, the only candidate who had dared compare Trump to Adolf Hitler.
All that Trump need do, from here on, is wait until the Republican convention assembles in Cleveland during the week of July 18.
Even so, Trump gets poor marks as a man and a candidate from many of his fellow conservatives.
One of these is New York Times political columnist David Brooks.
David Brooks
Appearing on the May 25 edition of The PBS Newshour, Brooks offered some highly disturbing assessments about the man who seeks to control the most powerful nation in the world.
- “The odd thing about [Trump’s] whole career and his whole language, his whole world view is there is no room for love in it. You get a sense of a man who has received no love, can give no love, so his relationship with women, it has no love in it. It’s trophy.”
- “And [Trump’s] relationship toward the world is one of competition and beating, and as if he’s going to win by competition what other people get by love.”
- “And so you really are seeing someone who just has an odd psychology unleavened by kindness and charity, but where it’s all winners and losers, beating and being beat. And that’s part of the authoritarian personality….”
An even more damning assessment comes from Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine statesman whose two great works on politics–The Prince and The Discourses–remain textbooks for successful politicians more than 500 years later.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Consider Trump’s notoriety for hurling insults at virtually everyone, including:
- Latinos
- Asians
- Muslims
- Blacks
- The Disabled
- Women
- Prisoners-of-War
These insults delight his white, under-educated followers. But they have alienated millions of other Americans who might have voted for him.
Among those groups–and the insults Trump has leveled at them:
- Mexicans: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” He’s also promised to “build a great, great wall on our southern border and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
- Prisoners-of-War: Speaking of Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain, a Vietnam POW for seven years: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
- Blacks: At a Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama, he was interrupted by black activist Mercutio Southall, who repeatedly shouted: “Black lives matter!” Trump ordered his removal, and several of his supporters beat and kicked Southall. Later, Trump said: “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”
- Trump retweeted an image of a masked, dark-skinned man with a handgun and a series of alleged crime statistics, including: “Blacks killed by whites – 2%”; “Whites killed by blacks – 81%.” The image cites the “Crime Statistics Bureau – San Francisco”–an agency that doesn’t exist.
- Muslims: Trump has boasted he would require Muslims to register with the Federal Government. And he would close “some mosques” if he felt they were being used by Islamic terrorists.
- Women: “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?”
- “Twenty-six thousand unreported sexual assaults in the military–only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men and women together?”
- Asians: “Negotiating with Japan, negotiating with China, when these people walk into the room, they don’t say, ‘Oh hello, how’s the weather? So beautiful outside, isn’t it lovely? How are the Yankees doing? Oh, they are doing wonderful, great.’ They say, ‘We want deal!’”
Machiavelli, on the other hand, advises leaders to refrain from gratuitous insults:
- “It is not necessary for a prince to have all the above-named qualities [mercy, faith, humanity, integrity and religion] but it is very necessary to seem to have them….”
- “A prince must take care that nothing goes out of his mouth which is not full of the above-named five qualities, and he should seem to be all mercy, faith, integrity, humanity and religion.”
- “And nothing is more necessary than to seem to have this last quality, for men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands, for every one can see, but very few have to feel. Everyone seems what you appear to be, few feel what you are….”
- “…[The Roman Emperor Commodus]…by not maintaining his dignity, by often descending into the theater to fight with gladiators and committing other contemptible actions…became despicable in the eyes of the soldiers. And being hated on the one hand and despised on the other, he was conspired against and killed.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 28, 2016 at 12:01 am
Most Americans believe that Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
Not so.
The United States–and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union–won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the righteousness of their cause. These included:
- Nazi Germany–i.e, its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler–made a series of disastrous decisions. Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States;
- The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States; and
- The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
On this last point:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
German soldiers at Stalingrad
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear–barbarians, they used gangster methods….”
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.
This is a lesson that has been totally lost on the liberals of the Democratic Party.
Which explains why they lost most of the Presidential elections of the 20th century.
It also explains why President Barack Obama has found most of his legislative agenda stymied by Right-wing Republicans.
Consider this example: In 2014, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) warned then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that he would place a hold on one of President Obama’s appellate court nominees.
Rand Paul
David Barron had been nominated to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. And Paul objected to this because Barron authored memos justifying the killing of an American citizen by a drone in Yemen.
The September 30, 2011 drone strike killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric notorious on the Internet for encouraging Muslims to attack the United States.
So President Obama authorized a Predator drone stroke against him, thus removing that danger. Paul demanded that the Justice Department release the memos Barron crafted justifying the drone policy.
Anwar al-Awlaki
Imagine how Republicans would depict Paul–or a Democratic Senator–if he behaved in a similar manner with a Republican President: “Rand Paul: A traitor who supports terrorists. he sides with America’s sworn enemies against its own lawfully elected President.”
On May 22, 2014, the Senate voted 53–45 to confirm Barron to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
To Republicans, “lawfully elected” applies only to Republican Presidents. A Democrat who runs against a Republican is automatically considered a traitor.
And a Democrat who defeats a Republican is automatically considered a usurper, and thus deserves to be slandered and obstructed, if not impeached.
Unable to defeat Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried in 1998 to impeach him for getting oral sex in the White House.
Similarly, 2012 Presidential candidate Herman Cain, asked in a conference call with bloggers why Republicans couldn’t just impeach President Obama, replied:
“That’s a great question and it is a great–it would be a great thing to do but because the Senate is controlled by Democrats we would never be able to get the Senate first to take up that action.”
In Renegade: The Making of a President, Richard Wolffe chronicled Obama’s successful 2008 bid for the White House. Among his revelations:
Obama, a believer in rationality and decency, felt more comfortable in responding to attacks on his character than in making them on the character of his enemies.
A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama is easily one of the most academically gifted Presidents in United States history.
But for all this, he failed–from the onset of his Presidency–to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
On Facebook and Twitter, liberals are already celebrating the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton in 2016.
They forget that, in 1968, 1980, 1988 and 2000, liberals couldn’t believe America would elect, respectively, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Patton to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 25, 2016 at 12:04 am
In September, 2013, President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats refused to knuckle under to yet another Republican extortion threat: Defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or we’ll shut down the government.
Republicans claimed it was Obama and Senate Democrats who refused to see reason and negotiate.
But then a Republican accidentally gave away the real reason for the shutdown.
“We’re not going to be disrespected,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) told the Washington Examiner. “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”
Marlin Stutzman
In short, Republicans–as admitted by Martlin Stutzman–were out to get “respect.” A member of the Crips or Bloods couldn’t have said it better.
The shutdown began on October 1, 2013–and ended 16 days later with even Republicans admitting it had been a failure.
President Obama, a former attorney, denounced House Republicans as guilty of “extortion” and “blackmail.” Had the President acted to prosecute such criminal conduct, the results would have been:
- Facing lengthy prison terms, those indicted Republicans would been forced to lawyer-up. That in itself would have been no small thing, since good criminal lawyers cost big bucks.
- Obsessed with their own personal survival, they would have found little time for engaging in the same thuggish behavior that got them indicted. In fact, doing so would have only made their conviction more likely.
- Those Republicans who hadn’t been indicted would have realized: “I could be next.” This would have produced a chilling effect on their willingness to engage in further acts of subversion and/or extortion.
- The effect on Right-wing Republicans would have been the same as that of President Ronald Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers: “You cross me and threaten the security of this Nation at your own peril.”
True, some prosecuted Republicans might have beaten the rap. But first they would have been forced to spend huge amounts of time and money on their defense.
And with 75% of Americans voicing disgust with Congress, most of those prosecuted might well have been convicted.
It would have been a long time before Republicans again dared to engage in such behavior.
The ancient Greeks believed: “A man’s character is his fate.” It is Obama’s character–and America’s fate–that he is more inclined to conciliation than confrontation.
Richard Wolffe chronicled Obama’s winning of the White House in his book Renegade: The Making of a President. He noted that Obama was always more comfortable when responding to Republican attacks on his character than he was in making attacks of his own.
Obama came into office determined to find common ground with Republicans. But they quickly made it clear to him that they only wanted his political destruction.
At that point, he should have put aside his hopes for a “Kumbaya moment” and applied what Niccolo Machiavelli famously said in The Prince on the matter of love versus fear:
Niccolo Machiavelli
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved.
For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger and covetous of gain.
As long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours: they offer you their blood, their goods, their life and their children, when the necessity is remote. But when it approaches, they revolt….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
By refusing to vigorously prosecute acts of Republican extortion, President Obama has unleashed twin disasters upon himself and the United States:
First, Republicans have been encouraged to intensify their acts of aggression against him.
Their most recent act: Refusing to meet with federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland. Obama’s designated nominee to the Supreme Court after the February 13 death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Kentucky United States Senator Mitch McConnell has flatly stated: There will be no Supreme Court hearings–not during regular business or a post-election lame-duck session.
Had Obama proceeded with indictments against Republican extortion in 2011 or 2013, McConnell–who supported the extortion attempts of those years–would now be desperately meeting with his lawyers.
Second, Republicans have unleashed their tactics of extortion against one another.
Donald Trump, their front-running Presidential candidate, has openly threatened to aim violence at Republican delegates who do not accept him as their nominee.
As Philip Klein, the managing editor of the Washington Examiner, recently wrote:
“Political commentators now routinely talk about the riots that would break out in Cleveland if Trump were denied the nomination, about how his supporters have guns and all hell could break loose, that they would burn everything to the ground. It works to Trump’s advantage to not try too hard to dispel these notions.”
Thus, those who submit to the aggression of criminals only encourage contempt–and increased aggression–from those same criminals.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 24, 2016 at 12:30 am
On July 9, 2011, Republican extortionists threatened the Nation with financial ruin and international disgrace unless their demands were met.
President Barack Obama could have countered that danger with the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Among the crimes it authorizes for prosecution: Extortion.
Extortion is defined as “a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.”
And if President Obama had believed that RICO was not sufficient to deal with extortionate behavior, he could have relied on the USA Patriot Act of 2001, passed in the wake of 9/11.
President George W. Bush signs the USA Patriot Act into law – October 26, 2001
In Section 802, the Act defines domestic terrorism. Among the behavior that is defined as criminal:
“Activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
The remedies for punishing such criminal behavior were legally in place. President Obama needed only to direct the Justice Department to apply them.
Prosecuting members of Congress would not have violated the separation-of-powers principle. Congressmen have in the past been investigated, indicted and convicted for various criminal offenses.
Such prosecutions–and especially convictions–would have served notice on current and future members of Congress that the lives and fortunes of American citizens may not be held hostage as part of a negotiated settlement.
On August 1, Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” wrapped up his program with a search for “options” to avoid another round of Republican extortion tactics.
Chris Matthews
“I want to know what steps the president ‘could’ have taken to avoid this hostage-taking.
“…Is there another way than either buckling to the Republicans or letting the government and the country crash?
“How does he use the power of the presidency, the logic, emotion and basic patriotism of the people, to thwart those willing to threaten, disrupt, even possibly destroy to get their way?”
The answer to his questions–then and now–is: Replace the law of fear with the rule of law.
But there was another way Obama could have stood up to Republican extortionists: By urging his fellow Americans to rally to him in a moment of supreme national danger.
President John F. Kennedy did just that–successfully–during the most dangerous crisis of his administration.
Addressing the Nation on October 22, 1962, Kennedy shocked his fellow citizens by revealing that the Soviet Union had installed offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba.
John F. Kennedy
After outlining a series of steps he had taken to end the crisis, Kennedy sought to reassure and inspire his audience. His words are worth remembering today:
“The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are, but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world.
“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.”
President Obama could have sent that same message to the extortionists of the Republican Party.
Yet this was another option he failed to exploit. And he and the Nation have continued to pay the price for it.
In the fall of 2013, Republicans once again threatened to shut down the Federal Government unless the President agreed to defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as “Obamacare.
They were enraged that millions of uninsured Americans might receive medical care on a par with that given members of the House and Senate.
So on September 20, the House voted on a short-term government funding bill that included a provision to defund Obamacare.
That provision was a no-go for Senate Democrats and President Obama. If the House and Senate couldn’t reach a compromise, many functions of the federal government would be shut down indefinitely on October 1.
The official reason given by Republicans: They wanted to save the country from bankruptcy–although the Congressional Budget Office stated that the ACA would lower future deficits and Medicare spending.
After passing the House and Senate, the ACA had been signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010.
On June 28, 2012, the United States Supreme Court–whose Chief Justice, John Roberts, is a Republican–had upheld the constitutionality of the ACA.
Yet House Republicans continued searching for a way to stop the law from taking effect. By September, 2013, they had voted 42 times to repeal “Obamacare.”
But their efforts had failed; the Democratic-led Senate made it clear it would never go along with such legislation.
Finally, unable to legally overturn the Act or to legislatively repeal it, House Republicans fell back on something much simpler: Threats and fear.
Threats–of voting to shut down salaries paid to most Federal employees. Most, because they themselves would continue to draw hefty salaries while denying them to FBI agents, air traffic controllers and members of the military, among others.
And fear–that would be generated throughout the Federal government, the United States and America’s international allies.
On October 1, 2013, House Republicans made good on their threat. They “shut down the government.”
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KGB AIRWAYS: PART TWO (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Self-Help, Social commentary on June 8, 2016 at 12:14 amThe First Amendment of the American Constitution guarantees freedom of speech.
But some airline employees haven’t gotten the word.
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Yes, what you say can get you thrown off an airplane–or worse. And it doesn’t have to be anything even remotely like a threat.
Once on the plane, a flight attendant told customers over the intercom to hurry up and put their carry-ons in bins so they could take off and make their connecting flight in Charlotte.
One of the passengers, Luke Hazlewood, turned to the person next to him and said it was the airline’s fault they were late, “so don’t get mad at us.”
The flight attendant rushed out of the galley demanding to know who had said that. Once she determined it was Hazlewood, she told him he would have to leave for being disruptive and a threat to the plane.
Sandra Kraus, a former flight attendant, came to Hazlewood’s defense–and the flight attendant told her to get off the plane as well.
Both passengers asked to speak with the captain but he refused to speak with them.
Kraus was put on another flight. Hazlewood and his accompanying girlfriend (who had left the plane with him) found that US Airways wouldn’t compensate them for a hotel room.
The airline refused to answer questions about the matter. Its written statement said “The passengers interfered with the flight crew and in the interest of safety they had to be removed.”
It’s a truism in both journalism and police work: When people refuse to answer questions, it’s nearly always because they know they have something to hide.
And the airline’s response came in the classic voice of the all-powerful dictator: “They refused to treat me like God and so they had to be eliminated.”
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Marilyn Miller, a lawyer, was buckled in for takeoff when the attendant mishandled her overhead luggage. “I have breakables in that,” she said.
The attendant ignored her and kept shoving other bags into hers.
Another passenger, Carol Gray, a retired travel agent, asked the same attendant for help, saying that her seat was broken.
“I’m not talking to you,” said the attendant, and poked her in the arm. He then threatened to throw Miller and Gray off the plane.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Miller.
“Well, you’re getting off,” said the attendant.
Two sheriff’s deputies and airline staff arrived to remove them.
A third passenger, a therapist named Karyn Schoor, spoke up in their defense: “This is crazy, they didn’t do anything. Why are you doing this to them?”
“Throw her off too,”’ ordered the attendant.
All three women were marched off the plane and back into the terminal.
The women were offered flights on other airlines paid for by AirTran.
And the official explanation given by AirTran?
“Our employees are responsible for the safety and comfort of everyone onboard a flight. Our goal is always to mitigate any uncomfortable situation prior to departure.”
Uncomfortable for whom–the passenger who doesn’t want her luggage roughly treated? Or the attendant whose ego gets bent out of shape at the slightest objection?
The woman was flying standby from Las Vegas to Sacramento. She had paid full fare for the last available seat, boarded and stowed her bags–and was told she must deplane immediately.
The reason: A late-arriving, 14-year-old passenger required two seats because of her girth.
When the woman asked Southwest personnel why she was being removed her from the flight, they berated her for daring to question their decision.
The temporarily stranded passenger managed to catch the next flight out to Sacramento.
Southwest Airlines kicked Leisha Hailey–who not only played a lesbian in Showtime’s The L-Word series but is one–and her girlfriend off a flight to Los Angeles.
Their crime? Kissing.
A flight attendant told them that Southwest was “a family airline.” When they argued they were targets of homophobia, the attendant ejected them from the plane.
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