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NPR reports
Passengers on a United Express flight from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., were horrified when a man was forcibly removed--violently wrenched from his seat and physically dragged down the aisle. [...] Videos of the scene have prompted calls to boycott United Airlines.
[...] The Chicago Department of Aviation [...] says the actions of the security officers were "not condoned by the Department" and that one individual has been placed on leave pending a review.
[...] Passengers had already boarded on Sunday evening [April 10] at O'Hare International Airport when United asked for volunteers to take another flight the next day to make room for four United staff members who needed seats.
The airline offered $400 and a free hotel, passenger Audra D. Bridges told the Louisville Courier-Journal. When no one volunteered, the offer was doubled to $800. When there were still no bites, the airline selected four passengers to leave the flight--including the man in the video and his wife.
"They told him he had been selected randomly to be taken off the flight", Bridges said.
[...] The man said he was a doctor and that he "needed to work at the hospital the next day", passenger Jayse D. Anspach said.
[...] Both Bridges and Anspach posted videos of three security officers, who appear to be wearing the uniforms of Chicago aviation police, wrenching the man out of his seat, prompting wails. His face appeared to strike an armrest. Then they dragged his limp body down the aisle.
Footage shows the man was bleeding from the mouth as they dragged him away. His glasses were askew and his shirt was riding up over his belly.
"It looked like he was knocked out, because he went limp and quiet and they dragged him out of the plane like a rag doll", Anspach wrote.
Previous: Days After United Settlement, Baggage Handler Locked in Cargo Hold on NC-to-DC Flight
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:16PM (9 children)
Eh, comparing the extremists on each political side of the spectrum would be more accurate. So you shared the extreme leftists, and I'll respond with the extreme right: bomb clinics, kill minorities, harass innocent people, and violate basic human rights.
As always humanity is a spectrum, not everyone is crowded into the extreme ends of the spectrum. However there are still statistically common traits, often referred to as stereotypes. Conservatives are often more strictly law abiding folk, nothing wrong about this except in cases such as this. Anyone who comes to the defense of United in this case is a boot-licking authoritarian who can't think for themselves.
The fact that conservative types are the ones doing so is ironically hypocritical as they are usually the types that cry about violations of their freedoms. But hey, its a corporate entity and they are brainwashed into believing they have the same rights as an individual in their own home.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:27PM (8 children)
Which was exactly my point. Elections are over. Time to bury the habit looking at every single thing through the glass of binary. Some poor dude got dragged off of a flight and got a bloody nose for no fault of his own except that he demanded the "system" to stay true to its word. There is a lesson here and it is not about left and right. Who doesn't see any problem here except someone who is full of hate? And to just come up here and start blaming conservatives as if there is some book of conservatives and it condones throwing people off of flights. Something bad happens, suddenly 'personal is political' clique jumps in and starts blaming whoever is their enemy of the month. A disaster is truly an opportunity apparently. Fuck nuance.
Was united doing something illegal? No. Well, most probably no, since it is debatable whether the flight was technically 'overbooked' or not. I have read some blogs where people claim technically united did break its own policies.
Will and did united get away with this? Most probably yes and yes. Police obviously agreed to them so the deed already happened under state's purview. And we all know what courts do to erring policemen - Nothing or a slap on the wrist. In this case? Nothing.
Should united get away with this? But it already did! All the social media cry cannot change the fact that the CEO Oscar Munoz already came out in support of whoever made this bad decision. One month later and nothing will happen. You will still buy the cheapest flight. And all flights will treat you like crap. In this scenario, the focus of concerned citizen should be what to do. What do we do, though? Playing our own pretty political games. There is a nice movie by Satyajit Ray called The Chess Players [wikipedia.org]. Right now it feels like I am in a company of chess players. Apparently getting something done is passe and a ground of ridicule. Even reddit sounds like a better place to talk than here - same old unhinged. I can already see the trajectory of SN - going the way of Kuro5hin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:25AM (7 children)
Its not blaming conservatives to observe that to a man everyone defending United is a conservative. #NotAllConservatives
Over 20 senators wrote a letter to United demanding an accounting. [kfvs12.com]
Guess which party did not sign the letter?
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday April 13 2017, @03:19AM (4 children)
What do you expect in a two party system? As I said, the elections are over. If you put the party above the problem, in USA, everything will become binary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:25AM (3 children)
What do you expect in a two party system? As I said, the elections are over. If you put the party above the problem, in USA, everything will become binary.
Really? So if the democrats are against murdering babies, the republicans will be for murdering babies?
Your reductive logic is the failure here.
Nothing prevented any senator from singing that letter regardless of political party. It would have been such an easy PR move too.
Hell, they could have written their own letter if they couldn't bear to sign their names to the same piece of paper with the democrats.
But they chose not to. That's on them alone and it certainly is not on anyone who observes that fact and comments on it.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday April 13 2017, @05:49AM (2 children)
I am not defending republicans here. I am defending conservatism. The politicians, rightfully or wrongfully, have decided that this issue is not too big. I am sure murdering babies will be considered big, but then who knows? I think 9/11 was one such issue where they all got together.
Now I myself consider myself to be left to the center. And I am fully aware that conservatism is less about finding solutions and all about if we all together turn a our collective eyes to the other side, nobody will know about the problem. But in this issue, I am here to defend conservatism because it is larger than a 2-party system. And so is this issue - the flimsy reasons flights take to fsck their customers and just enjoy such a position of power without any repercussions - is not limited to USA. I do welcome the democrats who are signing that letter but again, republicans may be don't see this issue big enough. Plus they have for quite some time been very bad at reading what their voter base. Trump was "the brick through the window" and is, as it seems, not delivering on leadership. I don't know! But you can't blame all of the voter base for it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @07:25AM (1 child)
> Now I myself consider myself to be left to the center.
Clue: You are not. And I'm not referring to your defense of 'conservatism.'
I'm referring to all the other times you've come down on the side of anti-egalitarianism.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Friday April 14 2017, @08:53AM
I am very much on the center of the left. I am always and will always come down against the corrupt criminals who use allegations of anti-egalitarianism to censor their opposition. The shit has hit the fan and blood of dilution of a real concern is purely on the hands leftist and liberals who have failed to do anything new with the power they got. If the world burns tomorrow it is because of the left's failure. You can't wash your lack of introspection on my opposition.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Saturday April 15 2017, @09:47PM (1 child)
Here is the rotten meat of your argument:
Buffett owned 28,951,353 shares of United as of Feb. 14, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With 9.2% of the shares outstanding, Buffett was by far the carrier’s largest shareholder, according to FactSet.
and
Buffett is a notable philanthropist, having pledged to give away 99 percent[10] of his fortune to philanthropic causes, primarily via the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He is also active in contributing to political causes, having endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election;[11] he has publicly opposed the policies, actions, and statements of the current U.S. president, Donald Trump. [wikipedia.org]
So you drank the cool aid. Thanks for playing.
By the way, being a philanthropist by giving money to Bill and Melinda Foundation is like being a doctor by prescribing cancer.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Saturday April 15 2017, @09:50PM
Ah, missed the link in hurry: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/united-airlines-bad-week-cost-buffett-and-other-investors-millions-2017-04-13 [marketwatch.com]
And here is the reality: United Airlines hasn't seen ticket sales suffer from passenger-dragging incident yet, analyst says [marketwatch.com]