Monthly Archives: November 2019

Typical

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Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO, has struck again.  Now he’s banning “all political advertising on Twitter globally.”  He’s justifying this move with this bit of fantastical rationalization:

We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought.

I suppose, then, he believes television, radio, print media—along with his competitors, Facebook, Alphabet, et al.—also should ban political advertising on their platforms.  After all, political message reach should be earned, not bought.

A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people.

This contempt for ordinary Americans is just Liberal Know Better-ism. No one is forced to read the material whose promotion is paid for; we all can make our own decisions to read or to scroll past. It’s even already clearly identified by Dorsey’s minions as promoted material.  Beyond that, it may be the case, especially with the rapidity with which the Twitter feed runs, that the first many folks learn of a political message is when a promoted one appears at the top of their feed.

We don’t need the Big Brothers of the Left to lead us around by the nose, instructing us on what we’re to read or not to read.

Maybe Dorsey should just get out of the censorship business.

That Was No Gaffe

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Donald Trump, Jr, says The Washington Post is destroying its credibility with its gaffes.  Young Trump is correct on the first part (except, perhaps, for the tense), but he’s being generous with the last part.

This newspaper headlined its article purporting to be an obituary about Daesh’s head, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, styling the…person…an austere religious scholar.  Earlier, the newspaper smeared a high school student, saying he’d mistreated in some way a Native American who had, in fact, accosted the boy, banging a drum in the boy’s face.

Trump said,

They don’t even pretend to be objective[.]

This is plain to see; however, the words of WaPo aren’t gaffes. The folks who lead and who write for the WaPo are professional, highly talented, thoroughly trained pressmen at the top of their game.  Words are their stock in trade.  They knew, and know, what they’re writing; they knew, and know, what they’re going to write as they form the thoughts.

They write what they write with careful deliberation.

A Strike “Template”

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That’s what the UAW hopes to use its bludgeon of GM as when the union turns to Ford and Fiat Chrysler.

The United Auto Workers will use the agreement at GM as a template that is expected to reach similar terms on wages and benefits in separate contract talks with Ford Motor Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles….

However, there’s no reason for Ford or Fiat Chrysler to succumb to this.  These are three separate companies, with separate goals, revenue streams, and cost structures; there should be three separate contracts with the UAW.

There’s also no reason for Ford or Fiat Chrysler to succumb to UAW’s move just because the union wants a common contract. What’s good for GM is not what’s good for Ford or Fiat Chrysler, especially since GM gave away so much of their farm, not just to end a strike, but to agree to higher costs solely to try to inflict those increased costs on their rivals. GM is well aware of the UAW’s auto industry “negotiating” pattern.

There’s also no reason for Ford or Fiat Chrysler to succumb to UAW’s move because the union’s anti-GM strike has drastically drawn down its strike fund and reduced its ability to pay its striking union members. UAW can’t hack, or can’t so easily hack, a prolonged strike against either company, much less both of them. The UAW also needs to consider the effects of its strike(s) on surrounding businesses: suppliers, suppliers of the suppliers, other businesses that serve the workers of those suppliers with recreation, restaurants, theaters, and the like.

Update: Since I wrote this, Ford has acceded to UAW demands, and they did so quickly.

Policing the World

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Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D, HI) had an interesting campaign advertisement op-ed in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal.  One campaign promise she made in it jumped out at me.

A Gabbard presidency would mean the end of trying to police the world….

Who does Gabbard think would police the world if we don’t? Can she really believe that a police-less world would be benign, or that our enemies won’t divide up the policing among themselves explicitly for their benefit and just as explicitly for our detriment?  Or that their squabbling among themselves over the spoils won’t spill over into serious regional or even global conflict?