Presidential Visit [to Detroit] Monday, Sept. 5

bartock · September-06-11, 11:18 AM

Originally Posted by English

Here's one reason to actually go to a speech or rally [[or even listen to the entire thing on CSPAN or YouTube) instead of having the event filtered through the media:

FOX Doctors Hoffa Speech To Fabricate Call for Violence
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201109050003

Democracy is not supposed to be a spectator sport. Also, it's pretty incredible that you compared this to a KKK rally. This wasn't a Black Power gathering, or a pro-ethnic gathering of any kind. I just said above that it was a very diverse event. It wasn't exclusive, it was inclusive. There weren't just union members and their families present.

Labor Day rallies and parades, like so many things in our culture, used to be completely uncontroversial 50 years ago. Sigh...

It isn't incredible when you look at the context, English. My comparison had nothing to do with the content or subject of the rally itself. When we get to the point where we are celebrating ourselves for assisting the elderly, children, and steering people away from poop, perhaps we need to take a look at where we set the bar.

**Goose** · September-06-11, 11:51 AM

the reason the teachers union is so large and strong as noted in a previous post is that as of yet we don't have the ability to send teaching jobs overseas.... with the continued improvement of computers there will come a day that teachers can be replaced by in home learning on computers, not that teachers will ever completely go away, but the education modules taught online will probably be given by some guy in India........

**Lowell** · September-06-11, 12:11 PM

I received a good quote in my email today which fits the union and Obama-haters on this thread to a tee written by a famous conservative.

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
[[1874-1965)

Back to the subject...

President Barrack Obama in Detroit.

**ndavies** · September-06-11, 12:28 PM

I tend to like this Churchill quote better.

"Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains." - Winston Churchill

**English** · September-06-11, 01:35 PM

Originally Posted by Det_ard

Well, the beloved teacher's union is why I'm spending this week getting my daughter into a new elementary school. I've witnessed her assigned teacher screaming, belittling and sarcastically insulting her 2nd graders, when she wasn't busy giving them a blow-by-blow account of her divorce.

The teacher has been doing this for years and the parents, teachers and everyone knows it, except for the new principal who's met her once and thinks "she seems nice". Apparently it takes an act of Congress to get rid of a shitty teacher. And "getting rid of" usually means foisting the teacher off on the poor unsuspecting students, parents and teachers at another school across the district. Thanks teachers' unions for putting yourselves ahead of the children again.

That sounds like a problem with management [[the principal). I get that you're frustrated. Anyone would be. But you're throwing 4 million teachers under the bus because of one crappy teacher who definitely shouldn't be teaching. The union isn't protecting her job -- my union didn't protect mine, obviously, or I'd still be with DPS -- but it is a mechanism for due process. I have seen horrible teachers protected, but DFT did eventually rid themselves of several teachers I know who were simply awful. But if the union was so omnipotent, the jobs of younger teachers would have been saved despite the contraction of our economy.

All the best getting your daughter into a better school. We are dealing with similar situations with my niece and nephew in an Oakland County district which shall remain nameless. But this thread wasn't about that.

**English** · September-06-11, 01:39 PM

And Churchill was all over the place ideologically. Great man, but slightly touched.

**Jimaz** · September-06-11, 03:12 PM

His speech is up on the White House website: President Obama's Labor Day Message: We've Got to Fully Restore the Middle Class in America

**rid0617** · September-06-11, 03:42 PM

Originally Posted by Goose

the reason the teachers union is so large and strong as noted in a previous post is that as of yet we don't have the ability to send teaching jobs overseas.... with the continued improvement of computers there will come a day that teachers can be replaced by in home learning on computers, not that teachers will ever completely go away, but the education modules taught online will probably be given by some guy in India........

We already did that. There is a software called Switched on School House. Between using this software and our instruction my daughter was totally home schooled. Never walked in a public school. She graduated a year early with honors, taught herself conversational Japanese and Portuguese. Don't know where that desire come from but I didn't discourage it. Speaks a little Spanish. Has mastered every graphics program including animation. Now lets look at the average public school student and ask ourselves which system appears to be better. Not everyone can do it but with me being disabled there was no excuse not to.

**Goose** · September-06-11, 03:58 PM

Originally Posted by rid0617

We already did that. There is a software called Switched on School House. Between using this software and our instruction my daughter was totally home schooled. Never walked in a public school. She graduated a year early with honors, taught herself conversational Japanese and Portuguese. Don't know where that desire come from but I didn't discourage it. Speaks a little Spanish. Has mastered every graphics program including animation. Now lets look at the average public school student and ask ourselves which system appears to be better. Not everyone can do it but with me being disabled there was no excuse not to.

with talk like that you are just trying to be a union buster.....

**stasu1213** · September-06-11, 04:54 PM

Was Mayor Bing in attendence? The President didn't acknowledge Bing during the acknowledgment of the other leaders

**Baselinepunk** · September-06-11, 05:33 PM

"but you would have done it with a poster of Bush with a nazi mustache calling him a murderer... much different....."

Yea, I guess you got me [[not).

So when you guys say it holding signs of the President painted as the "Joker", dressed in Third Reich uniform with captions that have statements like "Stop The Murderous Dictator", while you wear a pistol strapped to your ass that's ok.

Yeah, at least you're not calling him a murderous , uh .... well at least you're not calling him a Naz .... uhh .. hmmmmm.

BTW -- I don't need props to illustrate what a fuck Bush was. No one could actually write the material that dumb ass provided.

**Goose** · September-06-11, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by Baselinepunk

"but you would have done it with a poster of Bush with a nazi mustache calling him a murderer... much different....."

Yea, I guess you got me [[not).

So when you guys say it holding signs of the President painted as the "Joker", dressed in Third Reich uniform with captions that have statements like "Stop The Murderous Dictator", while you wear a pistol strapped to your ass that's ok.

Yeah, at least you're not calling him a murderous , uh .... well at least you're not calling him a Naz .... uhh .. hmmmmm.

BTW -- I don't need props to illustrate what a fuck Bush was. No one could actually write the material that dumb ass provided.

i've seen the joker posters, but i'd wager you can't find one image of someone holding a sign dressed in a third reich uniform or a sign that says stop the murderous dictator.... guarantee...

and show me the pic of the people with a pistol on the hip with these signs.... i do remember a pic from a teaparty rally where a guy had a gun across his back.... show all over the news... turns out this was a black guy... so much for these gun toting racists.....

**Detroitej72** · September-06-11, 07:03 PM

Originally Posted by English

Here's one reason to actually go to a speech or rally [[or even listen to the entire thing on CSPAN or YouTube) instead of having the event filtered through the media:

FOX Doctors Hoffa Speech To Fabricate Call for Violence
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201109050003

These are the same Fox Noise folks who had no problem with Sara Palin putting a riffle scope on Rep. Giffords district. We all know what happened there yet nobody ever calls these spin doctors out.

**oldredfordette** · September-06-11, 07:12 PM

I'd like to know why a major presidential speech on Labor Day was not covered live by the local left wing media. I had to watch MSNBC [[or CNN) to watch the speech live. I'm not an Obama fan, but you can be sure when WBush was at Teamster Hall, it was on the local news. Disgusting.

I've seen the Obama in Nazi uniform poster several times. Mostly by the LaRouchie's, who are a whole other level of goofy.

**canuck** · September-06-11, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by ndavies

I tend to like this Churchill quote better.

"Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains." - Winston Churchill

Wasnt Churchill's speechwriter a certain Johnny Walker?

**coracle** · September-06-11, 08:00 PM

A couple of Churchill's quotations were applied earlier in the thread regarding Obama's presentation yesterday, and it made me recall two quotations from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar after Caesar's demise which I think are also appropriate:

Re. Obama.
O Mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low?
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils
Shrunk to this little measure?...... ............ [[Mark Antony 3.1.148)

Re. Hoffa.
Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war;....[[Mark Antony 3.1.268)

Shakespeare 1564 - 1616

**Det_ard** · September-06-11, 10:27 PM

Originally Posted by English

That sounds like a problem with management [[the principal). I get that you're frustrated. Anyone would be. But you're throwing 4 million teachers under the bus because of one crappy teacher who definitely shouldn't be teaching.

Not throwing all the individual teachers under the bus, but I am indicting some teachers, the union, some school and district level management, and the system in general. It's time for a reengineering so comprehensive and radical that "school" would not be recognizable as a version of the old model.

The union isn't protecting her job -- my union didn't protect mine, obviously, or I'd still be with DPS -- but it is a mechanism for due process. I have seen horrible teachers protected, but DFT did eventually rid themselves of several teachers I know who were simply awful. But if the union was so omnipotent, the jobs of younger teachers would have been saved despite the contraction of our economy.

See, this is where the teacher's union, like most unions, protects the interests of the more senior union members over the more junior ones. Usually memebership will prefer to acheive a 10% cost reduction by cutting 10% of the staff [[low senority) rather than spread a 10% pay cut across the board. With the layoffs the 90% who are not laid off retain the status quo compensation package.

All the best getting your daughter into a better school. We are dealing with similar situations with my niece and nephew in an Oakland County district which shall remain nameless. But this thread wasn't about that.

Thank you. I've actually been relatively satisfied with the school. My son is still there since his teacher is excellent [[my oldest had her previously) and she's the one who told us to stick to our guns and not let our daughter into the bad teacher's class. The problem is that due to the difficulty in getting rid of poor or merely lackluster teachers, there are far more weak teachers than would be allowed in a more rigorous, responsive environment. While the wheels of accountability slowly rotate, another year of students are forced to endure incompetence, hostility or indifference. Where's their due process? And whose interests ought to be paramount, our children or the adults employed to teach them?

**Mikeg** · September-07-11, 09:16 AM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

His speech is up on the White House website: President Obama's Labor Day Message: We've Got to Fully Restore the Middle Class in America

At the risk of being labelled an "Obama hater" and called a "son of a bitch", let me point out that Obama's speech in Detroit reads and sounds like nothing more than a taxpayer-funded campaign event, complete with outlandish claims such as this "whopper" which garnered "Four Pinocchios" from the Washington Post's Fact Checker:

....so within one month of me taking office, we signed into law the biggest middle-class tax cut in history, putting more money into your pockets.

The only things missing from his speech on Monday were the "Obama 2012" signs in the background and the Greek columns on either side of the podium.

bartock · September-07-11, 09:36 AM

You son of a bitch....

**Mikeg** · September-07-11, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by bartock

You son of a bitch....

heh.... just don't try taking me out!

MojoRacer · September-07-11, 10:24 AM

it was good to see him in the D

**FlyingJ** · September-08-11, 04:22 PM

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...rosshairs.html

Originally Posted by Detroitej72

These are the same Fox Noise folks who had no problem with Sara Palin putting a riffle scope on Rep. Giffords district. We all know what happened there yet nobody ever calls these spin doctors out.

What happened there? Gifford's a Friend-Of-Friends, i doubt Milwaukee union voters would approve of her riding Italian 2-wheelers when I'd see her locally. She's also, given anybody in 'zone, an unrepentant Blue Dog-and former Republican. When it comes to the gun used on her, well: “I have a Glock 9 millimeter, and I’m a pretty good shot”.

& lastly the shooter was a registered Independent-and an Eddie Bauer employee who seemed pretty screwloose:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/....html?wprss=44

Lowell, why would you quote Churchill in an Obama thread?;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...o-Britain.html