The Double Standard
Hey Folks,
I’d guess that most of us have had diect or indirect experience with the infamous “Double Standard.”
A favorite of mine involves a friend – a regular guy, working at a recycling center – and the former president of the Ohio Senate, Stanley Aronoff - now a big deal lobbyist in Cincinnati. My friend was coming home late – tired and weaving a bit. He passed the breathalyzer and lost his license for a year anyway, and – if you are unaware, it costs $500.00 to get it back when the year is up. Arnoff, who was drunk as a skunk and ran into a pillar trying to get out of the Statehouse parking garage, got “reckless operation” and a $300.00 fine. He also has buildings named after him (and they are NOT porta-potties.
Anyway, I’d like to point out that the “double standard” is much more broadly applied than in cases like this one. The entire system is a double standard. We are – fairly successfully - brainwashed not to notice it, to think that there really IS a “level playing field.,” but actually the system is a one-way street, purposefully designed to keep the people down. I learned this from long experience dealing with the system as a union officer.
Here’s how it works.
We have a nation of laws and contracts and constitutional rights and rules and policies and values. Or, at least that is what the little people are told (and most believe). But, friends, it’s bullshit!! You may have already heard me paraphrase Leona Helmsley, but here it is again: “Law, ethics, morality, and taxes are for the little people.”
In my 31 years’ union experience, when labor has a contract with management it is NOT a level playing field. According to the “official” line, a contract bears equally on both parties, but actually it doesn’t.
If management acts in conflict with the contract, there is a long, time and resource-consuming process that can drag on for a year or more. All that time – from day one – the worker must follow management’s improper directives, or he can be fired for insubordination.
These directives can involve extra effort and/or time on the job, added personal expense, personal stress, any amount of disruption to the process and more. And it affects all workers of similar category – often the entire work force.
Now, during the entire time the grievance drags on the workers (some or all) suffer the loss of rights provided by the contract, suffer real loss and offense – whether it be physical or mental or both. This can last longer than a year.
Now, you would think that if the union position were, in the end, vindicated, that some sort of recompense would be ordered to make up for that loss – or, alternatively, some sort of fine or punishment would be levied for the misbehavior.
In 31 years of active union leadership, I have NEVER seen that happen. All that happens is: the pricks are told to stop doing it and not to do it again. Often they soon attempt the same ends via a different approach, and the frustrating charade starts all over again.
It’s the system’s double standard: one for the people, another for their betters.
This reality, though, is bigger than Labor-Management issues; it runs all the way to the top.
Case in point: G.W. Boosh!
Our child President is presently operating just as I’ve described in regard to the secret prisons, torture, the Geneva Conventions, and our supposedly important “American Values.”
For a number of years the Bush Regime has maintained secret prisons where they inflicted illegal torture on captives. From the start their procedures were clearly outside the international treaty (contract) which we signed and by which we are legally bound.
Well, then how could they do it? Like management in the working world, they simply claimed the clear language didn’t mean what it clearly said and that 50 years of "past practice" – living with the agreement – was “vague. They simply ignored the “contract” and did what THEY wanted.
Finally after years of dishonorable, illegal behavior, they are told by the U.S. Supreme Court – just as in the union-management case – to stop doing it! No punishment. No community service or sensitivity classes required. No thought of making any amends to the victims – some of whom may be totally innocent
You might think that – at least – NOW the ghouls would back off and return to proper behavior. But no!!!!!!!! Bush is presently demanding, haranguing the congress to validate his illegal behavior by passing laws that not only abrogate our treaty obligations, but also repudiate the fundamental principles of justice this country has always held up and bragged about.
Not only law, ethics, morality, and taxes are for the little people. You can add “honor,” “fair play,” and “self-respect” to the list.
Drive Bush out - October 5 !!
- Uke Man
I’d guess that most of us have had diect or indirect experience with the infamous “Double Standard.”
A favorite of mine involves a friend – a regular guy, working at a recycling center – and the former president of the Ohio Senate, Stanley Aronoff - now a big deal lobbyist in Cincinnati. My friend was coming home late – tired and weaving a bit. He passed the breathalyzer and lost his license for a year anyway, and – if you are unaware, it costs $500.00 to get it back when the year is up. Arnoff, who was drunk as a skunk and ran into a pillar trying to get out of the Statehouse parking garage, got “reckless operation” and a $300.00 fine. He also has buildings named after him (and they are NOT porta-potties.
Anyway, I’d like to point out that the “double standard” is much more broadly applied than in cases like this one. The entire system is a double standard. We are – fairly successfully - brainwashed not to notice it, to think that there really IS a “level playing field.,” but actually the system is a one-way street, purposefully designed to keep the people down. I learned this from long experience dealing with the system as a union officer.
Here’s how it works.
We have a nation of laws and contracts and constitutional rights and rules and policies and values. Or, at least that is what the little people are told (and most believe). But, friends, it’s bullshit!! You may have already heard me paraphrase Leona Helmsley, but here it is again: “Law, ethics, morality, and taxes are for the little people.”
In my 31 years’ union experience, when labor has a contract with management it is NOT a level playing field. According to the “official” line, a contract bears equally on both parties, but actually it doesn’t.
If management acts in conflict with the contract, there is a long, time and resource-consuming process that can drag on for a year or more. All that time – from day one – the worker must follow management’s improper directives, or he can be fired for insubordination.
These directives can involve extra effort and/or time on the job, added personal expense, personal stress, any amount of disruption to the process and more. And it affects all workers of similar category – often the entire work force.
Now, during the entire time the grievance drags on the workers (some or all) suffer the loss of rights provided by the contract, suffer real loss and offense – whether it be physical or mental or both. This can last longer than a year.
Now, you would think that if the union position were, in the end, vindicated, that some sort of recompense would be ordered to make up for that loss – or, alternatively, some sort of fine or punishment would be levied for the misbehavior.
In 31 years of active union leadership, I have NEVER seen that happen. All that happens is: the pricks are told to stop doing it and not to do it again. Often they soon attempt the same ends via a different approach, and the frustrating charade starts all over again.
It’s the system’s double standard: one for the people, another for their betters.
This reality, though, is bigger than Labor-Management issues; it runs all the way to the top.
Case in point: G.W. Boosh!
Our child President is presently operating just as I’ve described in regard to the secret prisons, torture, the Geneva Conventions, and our supposedly important “American Values.”
For a number of years the Bush Regime has maintained secret prisons where they inflicted illegal torture on captives. From the start their procedures were clearly outside the international treaty (contract) which we signed and by which we are legally bound.
Well, then how could they do it? Like management in the working world, they simply claimed the clear language didn’t mean what it clearly said and that 50 years of "past practice" – living with the agreement – was “vague. They simply ignored the “contract” and did what THEY wanted.
Finally after years of dishonorable, illegal behavior, they are told by the U.S. Supreme Court – just as in the union-management case – to stop doing it! No punishment. No community service or sensitivity classes required. No thought of making any amends to the victims – some of whom may be totally innocent
You might think that – at least – NOW the ghouls would back off and return to proper behavior. But no!!!!!!!! Bush is presently demanding, haranguing the congress to validate his illegal behavior by passing laws that not only abrogate our treaty obligations, but also repudiate the fundamental principles of justice this country has always held up and bragged about.
Not only law, ethics, morality, and taxes are for the little people. You can add “honor,” “fair play,” and “self-respect” to the list.
Drive Bush out - October 5 !!
- Uke Man
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