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
Related Stories
Investopedia reports:
A week after United Continental Holdings Inc. (UAL) settled a lawsuit over baggage handler workplace injuries, a United worker was locked in an airplane's cargo hold.
The Washington Post reports that the worker spent over an hour locked in an airplane traveling from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Washington, D.C., on the afternoon of Jan. 1. The flight was operated by Mesa Airlines, an airline operating regional feeder flights for United and American Airlines Group Inc.
[...] The worker was unharmed in the incident and told The Washington Post that he was advised by his lawyer not to discuss the incident.
Less than a week earlier, on Dec. 27, United Airlines announced it settled a lawsuit brought by its baggage handlers. The workers alleged more than 600 musculoskeletal workplace injuries between 2011 and 2015.
On the heels of United's heavy-handed removal of a booked passenger comes another wonderful piece of news from United:
Fearns needed to return early so he paid about $1,000 for a full-fare, first-class ticket to Los Angeles. He boarded the aircraft at Lihue Airport on the island of Kauai, took his seat and enjoyed a complimentary glass of orange juice while awaiting takeoff.
Then, as Fearns tells it, a United employee rushed onto the aircraft and informed him that he had to get off the plane.
"I asked why," he told me. "They said the flight was overfull."
Apparently, due to technical problems, a different plane was used that had slightly fewer seats. So fewer first class seats. So why bump off a first class passenger?
"That's when they told me they needed the seat for somebody more important who came at the last minute," Fearns said.
Seriously, United?
Ever thought that this headline was a "shit happens" event?
2017-04-09 Passenger Violently Removed From Overbooked United Airlines Flight
And sometimes one can be unlucky twice?
2017-04-12 United is Heavy-Handed Again: Boarded, Seated Passenger Threatened With Cuffs to Disembark
No! United Airlines is at third strike right now 2017-04-15:
* A couple says they were kicked off a United flight on the way to their wedding
* A bride and groom were kicked off their United Airlines flight from Houston this weekend as they traveled to Costa Rica for their wedding.
Td;lr: Married couple finds their seats in economy class taken up by a sleeping man. By courtesy they just sit down on seats three rows away which happened to be in economy plus class on a flight which is half empty. They asked to upgrade but were refused and then headed to their assigned seats. However by then the airline had decided that they were rule breakers and must be thrown off regardless.
Details: United Airlines flight number 1737 on 2017-04-15. George Bush Intercontinental Airport (Houston, Texas) on Saturday to Liberia, Costa Rica.
Last time after the second incident, the stock took a fall from 69.8 to 69 US$ (UAL). One can ask how much this will cost in market value decimation and in customers dropping them? What will the economist and MBA, CEO, Oscar Muñoz say?
We had two Soylentils submit stories about a family being ordered off a plane by Delta Airlines.
Forced off a Delta Plane and for Keeping Their Seat
A California family used the seat their 18-year old son didn't use because he left with an earlier flight. They made use of it for their child instead, but were forced off the Delta Air Lines plane and threatened with jail after refusing to give it up on the crowded flight..
View all the raw glory or do it with some commentary.
In other news don't use the bathroom, ask for water, or be autistic.
Last time it was United Air's Abuses: Doing the Heavy-Handed Thing a Third Time.
Delta Airlines: "Give Up the Seat or You're Going to Jail"
AlterNet reports
Brian Schear, of Huntington Beach, said he and his family were flying overnight from Hawaii to Los Angeles last week when [Delta Airlines] employees asked them to give up the seat where their 2-year-old son was sitting, reported KABC-TV.
[...] "You have to give up the seat or you're going to jail, your wife is going to jail and they'll take your kids from you," Schear recalled the flight attendant saying.
Delta employees wanted the family to hold the young child in their laps during the flight, but Schear argued that they had bought the boy a ticket because he needed to sit in his car seat to sleep.
An employee inaccurately told the family the boy needed to sit in a seat with an adult, because the airline's website recommends that children under 2 years old should sit in an approved child seat in a ticketed seat of their own.
The entire family was ordered off the plane, and they stayed overnight in a hotel and bought new tickets the following day, reported KTLA-TV
BTW, can someone tell me what ecver= in a YouTube URL means?
Previous:
Male American Airlines Flight Attendant Hits Mother of Twins with Stroller
United Air's Abuses: Doing the Heavy-Handed Thing a Third Time
Passenger Violently Removed From Overbooked United Airlines Flight
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Wednesday April 12 2017, @03:41PM (30 children)
I swore off air travel when they instituted the TSA. Sure, trains, cars, and boats take longer but you don't have to put up with bureaucracy, either government or corporate.
I'm starting to wonder--are all cops in Chicago heartless thugs? Are thuggish cops the cause of the murder rate?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @03:54PM (2 children)
Isn't Chicago one of the cities that Trump explicitly called out for its rampant crime wave? I'll guess it has turned into a shithole. And of course people that work as police or security guards will adapt..
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:08PM (1 child)
Wow, that is the worst bit of rationalizing I've seen in a while. Cause a doctor sitting peacefully on a plane really sets off their PTSD.
This is a good indicator of the Police State we are now living in. We've kinda lived in a police state for a long time, but generally the corruption and bad police culture were more isolated. Now we have increasing numbers of police officers and various security personnel who want to bust heads and "lay down the law". It is the perfect job for a psychopath, from their point of view. They get to assault people and enjoy a level of unprecedented power, all legally sanctioned so that they can fall back on "Just following orders".
Of course this is also a shining example of a corporation getting government to do their dirty work. Expect this type of scenario to become increasingly more common with the excuse: "they're a private corporation if you don't like what they're doing vote with your wallet!" Lawl. Never truly thought I'd see the US turn into this post 9/11 nightmare, I miss the "freedom" of the 90s.
At this point I'm thinking we bump up the pay for police officers and take away their guns. Maybe it will improve their public relations when officers can't rely on basic intimidation to get cooperation.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:16PM
> Never truly thought I'd see the US turn into this post 9/11 nightmare, I miss the "freedom" of the 90s.
9/11, Dubya, 2008 crisis...
A trifecta that will be dissected by many history books.
The US has known many crises before, but the rest of the world is very different from what it was then.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:17PM (1 child)
Probably [theintercept.com]
Almost certainly. [theguardian.com]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:43PM
Of [nytimes.com] course [revelist.com]
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by goody on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:13PM (24 children)
I've never quite understood the general aversion to the TSA, and I'm a very frequent flyer, like almost weekly. They do some stupid things once in awhile, but once you know the security process and what not to take in your carry on bags it's a fairly smooth and trouble free thing. Occasionally I get the baggage swab explosives test which is a five or ten minute delay. If you pay for TSA Precheck it's a breeze going through security.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:22PM (10 children)
...is that they exist.
It's pure security theater, adding zero actual security. A cost of billions of dollars and millions of passenger hours - for nothing.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Informative) by mhajicek on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:45PM (4 children)
Not to mention the constitutional right to not be searched without a warrant.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:10PM (3 children)
I suggest you re-read your constitution. Its quite evident you haven't read it lately.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by insanumingenium on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:25PM (2 children)
Are you joking? I can't tell.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @10:01PM
I ran a 8 year experiment back in the 80s when one of the TLAs was singing the praises of their constitutional searches. Tacked a couple to the sunny side of a shed, and staked a couple more on the ground. Ten years later my wife took them down and threw them in the recycle when we moved out of that house.
Statute of limitations on false advertising had already expired.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 14 2017, @03:26AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_and_seizure#United_States [wikipedia.org]
It all depends on what is reasonable. We use to just walk in from the curb directly to the departure gate, remember. Seemed perfectly reasonable at the time.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:06PM
In my view their existence makes you less safe. They create choke points full of targets to be attacked because they do dumb things like decrease the number of checkpoints in an airport from 6 spread out to 2 giant ones. Add in that it seems like they like to pilfer items out of checked luggage and ones overall safety is decreased. It doesn't help that they seem to be the most incompetent people that could possibly be employed. If you have old film camera gear they have no idea what it is or that it isn't some weapon and they really don't like it when you rightfully request that they not send your film through their x-ray machine.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by goody on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:35AM (3 children)
I don't think it's accurate to say it's pure theatre, and the mere fact that they check IDs, tickets, and carry on items does add security. There needs to be some sort of filter for bad stuff and bad people getting on planes. Before the TSA was formed it seemed security screening varied greatly. I remember flying out of some NFL cities that had just plain lousy, lazy, and clearly incompetent staff. The quality and consistency of the staff and processes went up immensely after the TSA was formed. I won't argue that they haven't done ineffective things. The 3-1-1 liquid rule has been very questionable. TSA is far from perfect, but I'll take it over what we had before, and certainly over no security screening at all, which would be insane.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:52PM (2 children)
That MIGHT be a valid line of argument if the TSA actually performed that role...I mean I'd still say you're wrong, but you'd have a valid argument at least.
Unfortunately, they don't. [huffingtonpost.com]
The vast majority of attempted attacks on airplanes since the creation of the TSA have been stopped by the passengers...after the terrorist and his weapons already managed to get onto the plane. As far as we know, the TSA hasn't stopped anyone. Ever. [slate.com]
Even the US Federal Government themselves (through the GAO) can't find evidence [washingtonpost.com] of TSA programs being successful:
(Score: 2) by goody on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:28PM (1 child)
I didn't intend on getting sucked into a discussion defending TSA. I'm not a TSA fan, far from it. But I would ask you, what alternative would you propose? For the sake of discussion, if you went to one extreme and fully removed TSA and had no screening, air travel would once again be a huge terrorism attack vector. If you removed the TSA and replaced it with something, it would probably end up looking a lot like the TSA. The old system prior to the TSA was arguably an inconsistent mess from airport to airport. The mere fact that we have some stats showing problems with the TSA screening speaks to a quality assurance process that is looking for vulnerabilities. Of course, the trick now is to fix those problems. It's easy to say "eliminate the TSA", in practice that's a disaster.
For an alternative, I would propose we should have something like the TSA Precheck program across the board, that is required of all travelers. The screening they doing in Precheck is minimal and fast, faster and less thorough than screening in pre-TSA days. You would have to get registered and cleared ahead of time, something which may be difficult with infrequent travelers like little old ladies and families going to Disneyworld once in a lifetime. I'm sure plenty of people would complain about the inconvenience of having to get Precheck certified and armchair constitutionalists will scream bloody murder and threaten insurrection. I get the feeling TSA is heading in this direction anyways. They've been really promoting Precheck and reducing the number of agents, to the point where a few months ago their cuts to agent numbers outpaced Precheck adoption and regular (non-Precheck) screening wait times increased.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday April 13 2017, @06:18PM
First of all, how exactly do you conclude that it is necessary? If damn near any prohibited item gets through their screening right now, what exactly are they doing that's so necessary? Locking the cockpit doors was a great step, passengers knowing the risks and not expecting the hijacker to just take them to some remote airport and let them go also helps a lot. THOSE are what have stopped the terrorist attacks since 9/11, not the TSA. And not only does the TSA not stop the attacks, they also *create new ones* -- there have been terrorist attacks at the now centralized and congested TSA checkpoints too. Not stopping attacks while also creating new targets sure sounds like a step backward to me.
So, what should we do? First, basic passive security like the locked cockpit doors. That alone may be enough, but if you want to go further I wouldn't necessarily disagree as long as it's done with some basic level of intelligence and thought, which the entire TSA currently seems to lack. When I take a train, they sometimes have bomb/drug sniffing dogs roaming the station...and maybe a uniformed cop or two nearby...but that's about it. Those dogs tend to be far more effective than the overpriced scanner machines purchased from those friends of the TSA bosses. But they aren't basing their security techniques on any kind of scientific evidence or proven track records, they're basing it on corruption, bribery, and cosmetic appearance (ie, "Security Theater".) Instead of the cuddly friendly thing that can smell the drugs up your...body cavities...they go with the big high tech nudie scanners that get fooled by wrinkled fabric -- looks scarier, but it's garbage. You could maybe argue about allergies or phobias for dogs, but if it works at a train station it ought to work at an airport. And the TSA doesn't exactly hire skilled, intelligent, law-abiding agents either. We've got TSA agents molesting children, smuggling weapons, engaging in acts of terrorism, sexually assaulting people...and of course that's because the job sucks and the pay sucks and that may legitimately be the best they can hire...and the pay sucks because apparently nobody thinks the job is all that important. And they seem to be right about that. I really don't think there would be much risk in disbanding the entire organization today, but if we DO actually need security, then we need PROVEN and EFFECTIVE security, not just some low wage clown in a uniform trying to look intimidating.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SDRefugee on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:27PM (2 children)
Congrats.. You've become a sheep... Which is the EXACT thing the TSA was created to achieve.. I'd pretty much given up flying, and until last October, the last time I'd flown was back in 2004. What changed is I volunteer with the Redcross and they asked me to deploy to Baton Rouge to assist in the flood recovery. My first real personal look at the cancer that is the TSA was during my TWO FUCKING hour wait to get thru the security theater at McCarran airport on my way to Baton Rouge. The TSA agents were very surly, which from what I've read, is how they're trained to behave. Frankly after that AND negotiating the maze that is Atlanta airport to get to my "puddlejumper" flight from Atlanta to BR, I don't think theres gonna be ANYthing that convinces me that an airplane trip is worth my time anymore. As far as I'm concerned, anybody who travels a LOT and puts up with that shit from TSA has become a well-trained sheep... Just my .0000000001BTC
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:00PM (1 child)
Almost seems like a train ticket is faster?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:15PM
Even driving would be faster.
And Driving their crew, to their needed destination rather than bumping paid passengers would have also been cheaper, even if they had to hire a limo. Because this is going to end up costing them millions when all the dust settles.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Troll) by art guerrilla on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:30PM (4 children)
@ that fucktard goody no shoes -
it is cowardly, authoritarian pukes like you who REALLY piss me off... so because you are an ineffectual pantywaist who would nebber ebber DARE to traduce ANY laws, regs, or even vague orders from rent-a-kops, and has no use for actual, real, effective civil rights (because a wormtongue like you would never get close to the limits of 'acceptable behavior'), ALL the rest of us who refuse to live on our knees should just suck it up and take the anal probing with no lube, too, just like you do ? ? ?
fuck you sideways with a pineapple...
maybe you dont mind the USELESS shit sandwiches you are forced to eat everyday, and even smile while chewing it, but i am letting the shit sandwich hit the floor and glaring at a nazi creep serving it...
urine idjit...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:18PM
In the (meta)thread, there have been several examples of rogue cops on the public payroll.
Clearly, the answer is privatized cops.
All hail Neoliberalism/Libertarianism!
cowardly, authoritarian pukes like you
[...]
fuck you sideways with a pineapple
Keep posting. I enjoy reading your anti-Authoritarian stuff.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @11:56PM (2 children)
Internet Tough Guy on the loose! Watch out everybody! This guy plays by his own rules! Nobody tells him what to do!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday April 13 2017, @01:55AM
He does what he wants!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z0-KZS1dDyw [youtube.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @01:59AM
Howdy, toady! Are you a paid government shill, or just a volunteer?
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:39PM
Well their 95% failure rate of finding weapons or explosives is a good start.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:47PM
Just because you're OK with illegal search and seizure, doesn't mean the rest of us are. What's more, why should any of us have to consent to sexual assault before being allowed to board a plane?
If you don't understand what the fuss is, then you haven't been paying attention. They regularly steal and molest children.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @09:05PM
"aversion"? are you serious? only dumb whores like you fly at all! aversion, give me a fucking break. it's either kill these stupid fucks or don't fly. i chose not to fly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:02AM
> I've never quite understood the general aversion to the TSA, and I'm a very frequent flyer, like almost weekly
So far all the response have been knee-jerk because FREEDOM! type answers.
But that kind of argument is just preaching to the choir and it seems like you are not in the choir so I will try to convince you why you should join the choir.
There are quite a few problems with the TSA, but most directly applicable to you as a flier are two-fold:
(1) low standards for training which results in arbitrary decisions
(2) low levels of accountability which means little recourse for people affected by #1
Your experience with the TSA is the common experience. If they screwed up so often that even just a significant minority of people were adversely affected the outcry would be crazy.
But that is no comfort for the people who do experience a screw-up. And because they can be so arbitrary each trip to the airport is a gamble that something random won't escalate into a hassle for you today. That sense of powerlessness in the face of unaccountable and capricious authority is demoralizing.
BTW, PreCheck is not what it seems. At $85 for five years its obviously an insufficient background check, getting fingerprinted can cost $50 on its own. Its really about reducing risk to the TSA from people with political clout - i.e. people rich enough to fly on a regular basis. PreCheck reduces the chance that they will be hassled so badly that they call their senator. In fact all members of congress are enrolled in PreCheck themselves so they are unlikely to ever personally experience the mistreatment that the plebs risk when they fly.
PreCheck is kind of a gamble on the TSA's part. They have never once apprehended a person who was then convicted on terrorism charges. Literally not once in the entire history of the agency. So letting people board with only a cursory security check does not really increase the chance of an attack but it does significantly decrease the chance of the TSA having to answer to congress (aka the people who control their budget).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:34AM
No problems? Obviously you are not on oxygen.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @03:45PM (21 children)
Free security audit of "www.united.com" :p
Unless this behavior costs the corporation dearly they will not give a shit and repeat it. So yeah boycott them and let them hang to dry.
Curious.. what would be your $$ price to volunteer your seat?
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:11PM (7 children)
Frankly, I'm actually rather surprised that United didn't get any takers at $800 - that's the equivalent of a $4000/wk salary, tax fee, and they were throwing in room and board too, so even if it meant you had to take a sick day or make up some BS about missing the flight for your boss, surely there were a few business travellers or people visiting families, etc. who *could* have taken advantage. Come to think of it, if I were being forced to visit the in-laws, I might even be tempted to offer to pay them... :)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:40PM (5 children)
It was a voucher for travel, not cash.
It was also what you needed to use to buy your ticket home.
(Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:17PM
Ie worthless. No wonder the the "offer" were ignored..
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:18PM (3 children)
Still, inconvenience for no gain, and they actually expect that to work? Wow.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:18PM
Flights originating (and possibly landing) in EU have laws to protect consumers. Fancy that. If the flight is delayed due to something in the airline's control, there are required payments to the flyer. It's one amount for a delayed flight, and more for a cancelled flight. Payments are more for longer hauls than they are for shorter.
Of course, the airlines will still try to weasel out. British Airways is in the process of trying to screw my family out of €2400 due to a delay they say was out of their control, but oddly enough at the gate when our flight was cancelled it was due to not having crew available. There are processes to go through to have this mediated, and I just need to see the process through.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:19PM (1 child)
Maybe it's a US vs. EU carrier thing.
Every country has regulations for this sort of thing. But even in Europe, I'd urge caution. Several years back, I took a reputable European airline up on one of these things. My wife and I had a connecting flight, and at the connection point, they had an overbooking.
At this point, it was about 2pm, they were offering a free hotel and meal vouchers in a nice city, along with something like the equivalent of $1000 (total, for the both of us). So we figured we'd try it and spend an evening there; we were staying with a friend at our destination, so our plans were somewhat flexible. In the end, I'd say the hassle was barely worth it. Suffice it to say that we were abandoned not once but twice by airline agents who failed to give us all the stuff they promised. It took us well over 2 hours before they even processed the change, and then the guy abandoned us before giving us our vouchers. (It was 5pm, and in Europe, I'm sure regulations said he had to leave his job that instant.) We repeatedly had to wander around the airport trying to find someone who'd direct us to someone else who could help us.
And then the was the ordeal of getting our bags back. We were told that it would be no problem to do so when we made the initial change (we didn't have any change of clothes in carry-ons, etc.), but it was after 8:30pm before we finally got our bags. When this whole thing started at 3pm, they gave us a short-term voucher at the airport to "tide us over" while we waited, but it wasn't enough for a meal -- it was barely enough to pay for a coffee for each of us.
Then we found out the shuttle that was supposed to transport us to our hotel didn't exist. Then when we arrived at the hotel, we were told the meal vouchers we had been given weren't enough to actually afford anything on the hotel menu, so they had to create a special extra-cheap menu to serve us -- and it was all done in a way like the hotel staff were annoyed and disgusted at this. (It's not the airline's fault that the hotel treated us badly, except for the fact that they booked us at a place that couldn't provide meals for what the airline gave us.) We paid extra to actually get something reasonable to eat. In the morning, the hotel outright refused to accept vouchers for breakfast, so we paid ourselves... and again for a taxi back to the airport.
And I'm sure there were a few other things I'm forgetting, because by the time we finally got to the airport in the morning we were both incensed by how we had been treated and asked to speak to a manager -- who basically was completely unsympathetic and said we had no right to complain because we had received our compensation. I think we ended up spending over 25% of our "compensation" out of pocket just for basic stuff the airline said it would be covering like transportation and meals, not to mention approximately 8 hours of frustration arguing with people and wandering around trying to get basic stuff (like our bags). [Note that we were in a very "expensive" city, which was part of the reason we made sure they were offering transportation, etc. before we accepted the deal in the first place.]
Anyhow, we tried to argue, but we needed to catch a flight, and finally we just decided it wasn't worth it to try to fight more. It was one of the most stressful and crazy periods of ~18 hours that I've ever had in my life.
I'm sure others have had more pleasant experiences. But I personally will think hard before ever accepting such a "deal" again.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday April 12 2017, @09:26PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:11AM
> I'm actually rather surprised that United didn't get any takers at $800 - that's the equivalent of a $4000/wk salary,
No its not, its the equivalent of $800.
They weren't going to pay for a whole week. You might as well say "that's the equivalent of a $200,000/yr salary" or "that's the equivalent of 9 million dollar in lifetime earnings."
None of those are all that relevant to the situation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:55PM
If it were $800 in REAL MONEY, I would do it. However, having done this kinda crap before... its not. Its $800 in United Dollars. They can be redeemed for ONE (round-trip) flight (after a $75 each way booking fee). They must be redeemed within 12 months. I functionally have no loyalty - intense loyalty to lowest price and convenient flight times. Because of the limitations on the ticket redemption, I have let approximately $1200 in Airline Dollars "expire". Letting them expire was preferable to spending $150 to book a flight that might cost $170 on Southwest. As an example, a flight to DC on Friday from my airport (MCO) is currently $84. It is less when cashing in (piffy) loyalty points earned during work travel.
Functionally, the "$$" they give away is worthless.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:28PM (2 children)
"Curious.. what would be your $$ price to volunteer your seat?"
Depends on the situation. Let's forget that I won't fly anymore because TSA and security theater. I DID fly before 9/11/01.
I'm just taking some time off, headed for the beaches in Bermuda. Missing my flight puts me into Bermuda a few hours late. No big deal - $400 will probably make me happy.
Or, I'm on my way to work - if I don't get to (meeting, training, military obligation, court) then I'm in big trouble. I probably can't be bought off, unless they are talking some pretty big bucks. In some of those situations, I may just bow to the inevitable, miss my whatever, and take as much money as I can squeeze out of them.
Or, I'm on my way home to see my dying dad or grandma for the last time. Any suggestion that I get off the plane will be met with a big "FUCK YOU BUDDY!"
Every case needs to be considered on it's own merits. See my suggestion for the equivalent of Space-A, way back on page three. If I accept a space available discounted ticket, knowing that I have last priority on the flight, THEN the airline has a moral authority to boot me. If I'm flying on a full-price ticket that I've booked weeks in advance, the airline has no moral authority to boot me. Legal, maybe, but certainly no moral authority.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:50PM (1 child)
Indeed. We don't know the particulars of the doctor's job; he could have been scheduled to talk to people with runny noses, or to perform multiple urgent life saving surgeries.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:22PM
In the latter case I smell big lawsuit.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:37PM (2 children)
Traveling alone, I volunteered once for $400 and a four-hour-later flight, meaning landing at midnight in Chicago in January (they ended up not needing to bump me).
Traveling with kids, that would take a really BIG chunk of cash...
United did abandon us one time, flying us halfway around the world with an infant, despite knowing the they had cancelled the connecting flight, and the ones the previous and next day (filling the airport with people looking for a solution). They called "Act of God" because of a typhoon, and didn't even offer a hotel room or anything. JAL saved that day by being human beings...
I do often pay more money to avoid those United bastards, and will never forget.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday April 13 2017, @01:10PM (1 child)
That's all? Shit, I flew from the US to London a few years back on American Airlines...that was a goddamn disaster. They filled the plane for the flight back, taxied out to the runway, started spinning up the engines...and then noticed the hydraulics were leaking. So they made us sit there on the runway for five or six hours while they tried to patch it up with duct tape and bubblegum or something, before finally giving up and cancelling the flight entirely. They did "compensate" us with one free night in an admittedly pretty nice hotel. But they didn't manage to book us on a return flight until a full WEEK later.
IMO, Airlines aren't worth dealing with unless you're crossing oceans. And even then it seems their goal is to be just marginally faster than a goddamn cruise ship.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 13 2017, @06:56PM
It's not unexpectedly being stuck on an island, with incompatible phone systems, with a weird distaste for plastic payments, 4 hours away from the destination, in a terminal full of people eager to take the first seat for the destination, with potentially 48 hours before the next flight, that aggravated us the most.
It's the 8-month infant, with supplies limited by intercontinental travel, and the fact ANY of the people who checked our final destination could have warned us we would get stuck with our baby and zero assistance, rather than send us on a dead-end 12-hour flight.
United was also the only airline to cancel three days of flights, packing the terminal with people, when others only cancelled the day the typhoon struck.
The people at JAL decided to add an extra 747 the next day, bumped us up the waiting list as soon as they saw the baby, and provided wonderful service both on the ground and on the plane... What a concept.
(Score: 2) by SDRefugee on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:34PM (1 child)
Depends totally upon how tight my schedule is upon arrival at my destination. If I was a doctor and had patients counting on me to be at the office the next day AND I found out there would not be another flight to my destination until the next day, I'd deplane IF they paid me enough to go pay a charter flight to get me home, which would probably be at least a mid 4 figures, but then if it was United, they'd just force me off the plane and beat me to a pulp if I resisted... IF I ever fly again (seriously doubtful) it sure the HELL won't be on United....
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:52PM
Have them force you of and then sue them to oblivion while a PR agent does whatever the lawyer missed?
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:14PM (3 children)
It had better be cash in hand and not some voucher for travel on their shitty airline. Beyond that it would be dependent on where I was stuck and since I only fly for work I would have to be coming back as policy says we cannot volunteer to give up our seat for outbound travel to a customer site. If I am flying back and get stuck in Pairs, Vienna, London, Vegas, Amsterdam, Sydney, or Tokyo and get put up in a hotel overnight I would probably take the first cash offer they had, if on the other hand I am stuck in Detroit or some other hell hole it would be well above a grand.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:20PM (2 children)
Detroit is so bad that there's no good hotel or any nice neighborhood anywhere ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @10:21PM
Not unless you go out to Southfield or Dearborn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @01:16AM
Detroit Metro airport is between Detroit and Ann Arbor, not much nearby, but plenty of nice places if you go either way (N of Detroit is normal US suburbs).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday April 12 2017, @03:48PM (15 children)
I had a great idea to make money. Buy a united ticket to wherever and hope for an overbooked flight. Wait until they start offering money and hold out until you double your ticket price or more. Volunteer to get off plane. Get paid and buy another ticket on a hopefully overbooked flight. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. Profit.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EvilSS on Wednesday April 12 2017, @03:59PM
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:02PM
You missed one step. This list should read:
1 - buy overbooked flight
2 - get out when offered more than ticket price
3 - ...
4 - ... Profit!
I guess step 3 involves violence if you use United. But you're already getting out at step 2, so it may involve "magic" instead.
This would really be a literal YMMV situation ;-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:05PM (2 children)
I have a more profitable idea that requires less work. Start the same but refuse to get off the flight, even after you've been "randomly selected". Wait for the police to crack your face open and forcibly remove you. Wait some more for the media to attempt to defame your character [independent.co.uk] before you're even out of hospital. Finally - get a good lawyer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:13PM (1 child)
As if a criminal record would somehow make human rights violations ok?
Such moral relativism is a signature symptom of poor character.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @11:25PM
This has absolutely nothing to do with moral relativism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:16PM
Check your process. If you rinse before washing you're wasting your effort. No profit for you.
The successful process is: lather, rinse, repeat. Only then may profit be achieved.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Dunbal on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:27PM (5 children)
You get paid in vouchers. It's the equivalent of store credit. Don't know how you're going to make money with that.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:19PM
Sell the vouchers?
(Score: 4, Informative) by tynin on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:39PM (3 children)
That's actually incorrect. They'll attempt to offer you vouchers, because they can. But you can refuse and ask for cash. It is DOT law.
https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights [transportation.gov]
Specifically:
Those travelers who don't get to fly are frequently entitled to denied boarding compensation in the form of a check or cash.
and
If the substitute transportation is scheduled to get you to your destination more than two hours later (four hours internationally), or if the airline does not make any substitute travel arrangements for you, the compensation doubles (400% of your one-way fare, $1350 maximum).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:13PM
If it's not worth UA paying a few kilobucks to get passengers willingly off the plane then perhaps it's not worth that much for their staff to be on that plane. They can take another plane maybe even a competitors. Or a bus.
The thing is, the victim was not denied boarding at the counter, he was "denied boarding" after he had already boarded and was peacefully sitting in his seat.
People can twist the rules all they like but it's still as retarded as a hotel violently dragging out a paying guest from his room just so hotel staff can sleep in it. Doesn't matter whatever bullshit rules are cited, it's still barbaric. And barbarians would think the perps of such stuff would "need killing" ;). In many old cultures hospitality to strangers is quite important.
It's completely different from the scenario if the guest was still at the counter and the hotel/airline apologized and told him there wasn't room for him and they will refund him and give him some vouchers.
That the CEO can make the remarks he made shows why UA staff are that crap. I've seen posts from ex-UA staff defending UA's actions too, so I'm sure most have been trained to be that crap. So I wouldn't ever fly UA unless they somehow dragged me onboard and knocked me unconscious...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:22PM (1 child)
Almost nobody knows the actual rules. I was surprised they could offer cash as well, and even more surprised that they had to pay me at all.
I volunteered once since I'm a big guy and they were *paying* me to get off a full flight and booked onto a not so full flight. Got rolled since they somewhat lied and it took an additional 4 hours and two flights. I did not have to fight for seats and overhead bins though, and that's what I really wanted.
Still, I only paid $59 bucks to begin with having paid months in advance and they gave me well over $700 in transferable credits. I did the math and that was a fantastic deal for me. Since they transfer, it could help out a relative or friend, so another bonus.
Technically, I can fly for free for years now if I just stick to the cheap tickets :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @02:32PM
Seems the UA staff themselves don't really know the rules and neither do the officers.
http://www.newsweek.com/why-united-were-legally-wrong-deplane-dr-dao-583535 [newsweek.com]
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/united-cites-wrong-rule-for-illegally-de-boarding-passenger/ [lawnewz.com]
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2017/04/11/united-denied-boarding-illegal/ [boardingarea.com]
Furthermore the amount the UA staff offered was laughable and in vouchers.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/250.9 [cornell.edu]
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:50PM
There are people who actively work that angle -- usually business travelers whose schedules are flexible. It takes some careful planning, but it can net you some money and perks now and then.
(Score: 2) by SDRefugee on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:41PM (1 child)
I had to fly from Houston to Las Vegas back last October, and my boarding pass said the flight *might* be overbooked, and after finding out that it was not *quite* overbooked but rather 100% FULL, I wish to hell it HAD been overbooked as I would have taken a bump with PLEASURE after seeing what the 2 1/2 hours of HELL was like.. A United A321 with coach seats that drove my knees painfully hard into the seat ahead of me. I'm 6' 1" and had never ridden in a coach seat that was this unconfortable.. I see why they call em AIRBUS... Prior to this fiasco, every airline trip I'd ever taken was via a Boeing aircraft.. I see why that "If it aint Boeing I aint going" came from......
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @08:03PM
Aircrush? ;)
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:03PM (10 children)
The flight wasn't actually overbooked. United had four employees that they needed to get to Louisville so they bounced four passengers to accommodate their own people.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:19PM (1 child)
Just when you think it can't get any worse. Probably 2 billion people worldwide have heard of this incident. It's starting to look like a PR case study.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:06PM
Royal Jordanian has already taken the chance [independent.co.uk] to stomp on United Airlines by tweeting that "We are here to keep you united" and “Dragging is strictly prohibited”.
I think the company might get a new name: United Thuglines
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:28PM (3 children)
This must be reinforced: the flight was NOT overbooked. It was fully booked, the customers were boarded and seated. At that point, four United crew came along wanting to board, claiming to need to get to the destination city for a flight the next day. Either they were making it up or it was some really shitty logistics on United's part -- if they really had crew that they needed to shuttle forward, they should have known that well before the passengers were boarded and could have kept four seats clear by bumping passengers.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:38PM (2 children)
Parsing words doesn't change the facts. United sold more tickets than they were able to accomdate. United knew, or should have known, days in advance, that their staff would require 4 seats on that flight, and those 4 seats should NOT HAVE BEEN SOLD!!
This is, indeed, yet another case of overbooking their flights. Ticket sold, seat not available at takeoff, OVERBOOKED!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:53PM
That's not "parsing words", that's calling bullshit on misreporting. United is trying to play the "overbooked" card and a lot of the media is repeating it, but if it were true then they would have turned away passengers before letting them on the plane. The passengers were boarded. They were in their seats. If the flight was overbooked, just enough people showed up for that not to matter. Until the four United staff showed up and demanded seats.
BINGO! Now you're getting it.
The fact that their staff showed up at the last second and demanded accommodation means that either they were full of sh!t about their need to board or United has really sh!t logistics. Either way, they had no good excuse to force paying passengers to remove themselves, never mind the assault.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:52PM
It's an important distinction here. There are rules about what they can and can't do and being denied boarding due to being overbooked is legally very different from what happened. My guess is that UA is going to be hit with a sizable lawsuit due to how they held this. They'll be on the hook for his injuries as well as any losses from his practice incurred due to their violating the terms of the contract they wrote.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:44PM (3 children)
Those four crew could have flown, 45 minutes, or driven 4 hours. The result of coercing a doctor to volunteer to be re-accomodated, resulted in a 2 hour delay. So that is 2 hours and 45 minutes. Maybe the United crew should have just driven.
What happened here is that United is unwilling to pay the true cost of transporting its crew.
Different travelers value their missed flight differently. If I am going to Disney World, then $800 plus free overnight hotel might not be quite enough. One park day pass $130 ish, or $172 for park hopper. One night missed at resort about $200 ish for moderate resorts. Plus one day of vacation.
For some travelers the cost of a missed flight might be a missed family event (wedding, funeral, or combination wedding/funeral). It might mean a missed business contract.
For some travelers, say going on a cruise, if you miss your flight and don't get to the cruise on time, you've missed the entire vacation. The cost of the entire cruise.
I realize this is now an overbooking situation. But United was using the normal procedure for overbooking. Effectively treating this as over booking. If a football stadium or theater owner sold more tickets than they had seats, they would be in jail. But airlines bribed congress to allow them to over book. (Or involuntarily bump passengers with "compensation".) The problem is that the compensation may be out of touch with what it costs the bumped traveler.
Maybe the airline should be required to effectively auction for a volunteer. Anyone want to get off for $1,000? Anyone for $1,200? Anyone for $1,400? If you remain seated hoping for more money, you risk that someone else will volunteer at any point. So it seems like a system that would be fair. If nobody volunteers until they reach some absurdly high price, then that is the true market value those people place on being bumped. If someone jumps for only $800, then great.
I later read that four high school students later got off the plane because they were traumatized from the bloodied doctor who was kindly "reaccomodated" by the police. So now there were more open seats. And the doctor got to fly after being beaten up, er, I mean reaccomodated. And I'm sure those four students didn't get any benefits or perks for getting off the plane.
Let's not forget: United Breaks Guitars.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:47PM
Meant to say: I realize this is NOT an overbooking situation
Ugh!
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:16PM
...and, for the $3200 they were offering, I'm betting that the airline could have found someone with a private plane who would have ferried the 4 employees the 300 miles.
I'm also betting that this wouldn't have happened with Southwest, where the employees are empowered to make customers happy.
Note also that before becoming United's CEO, the current chump had no previous experience running a service-providing outfit.
His prior gigs were with outfits that manufacture sugar-water and he happened to be on the airline's board of directors when the sitting CEO bailed out before he could be kicked out.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by SDRefugee on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:50PM
AND the trouble is, today, when you get bumped, you don't get COLD HARD CASH via airline check or greenbacks, you get a fucking voucher for future travel ON THAT AIRLINE... I suppose that would tolerable for somebody who flies a LOT, but for people like me who have flown ONCE in the last 15 years on my own dime, that "voucher" is worthless to me, UNLESS its able to be sold.. then who knows.... Back in the 80s, a friend and I flew from San Diego to Las Vegas over a weekend. On the way back, the plane was overbooked. They offered getting volunteers on the next flight and a $300 payment. I leaped at the chance, but my friend was worried he'd be stuck overnight.. I took the offer, got a check handed to me at the gate checkin counter for $300 and got put on a flight with another airline which got me back to San Diego about an hour after friends flight...
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:15PM (2 children)
Sure, this is bad public relations. But it will soon be forgotten, after somebody else does something massively stupid and violent (say, launching a pointless and ineffective missile strike halfway around the world). Meanwhile, United will continue to sell tickets, their stock will bounce back, and nobody important will lose their job.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:34PM (1 child)
Not necessarily. Who here doesn't well-remember that United breaks guitars and that United leaves dogs in carriers out on the tarmac to bake in the summer sun?
The problem isn't that people don't remember, it's that too many of them choose to support United's ongoing horrible behavior because a flight is $5 cheaper than a competitor's.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @09:18PM
a high percentage of people are kiss ass slaves who think it's cool to be with the one with power, no matter how evil they are. all the cooler.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:19PM
Posers! [complex.com]
Now, let's place bets on who can do it faster. I can see the monitors in the Kino lounge now...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:22PM (52 children)
Seriously, there are people saying United did the right thing. Oddly enough those people are so far of the conservative bent, but I would have imagined that violent removal of a proper paying customer already sitting in their assigned seat would be a bigger deal. The corporate aristocracy is really showing their true colors.
How many more years before they can sweep something like this completely under the rug? Tweets and shares automatically deleted due to "technical issues" but really because a corporate client paid a lot of money to scrub the story from the web. The mainstream media has already been co-opted, journalists tow the company line or get fired real quick.
The only solution I can think of is making TOR and other anonymized web communications more popular and easier to use. The downside is anyone can publish any junk so the signal to noise ratio is overwhelming. Blargh, happy hump day fellow suckers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:25PM (14 children)
This incident wouldn't have gotten the attention it had if it weren't for the Web and the proliferation of video cameras (smartphones).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:55PM (13 children)
You're right. But his/her point seems to be that before long, corporations like United, will bribe congress and whoever else it takes to have unlimited powers to scrub the internet nice and shiny sparkling clean. With a smile.
It won't matter if people get cell phone videos of police re-accommodating people's bones to new locations or multiple pieces. Or re-accommodating their eyes out of their sockets. The point seems to be that in the future, it won't get to the web, or if it gets there it sure won't stay there long.
The mainstream media may be corporate and government lapdogs today. And the internet isn't. But before too long, the internet service providers will be lapdogs too.
Which administration will introduce the new executive department of The Ministry of Truth?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:50PM (2 children)
Germany is already on it [soylentnews.org] hiring former Stasi staff etc. The cat is still out of the bag however so any attempt to move in a bad direction will just cultivate counter moves by a whole army of skilled people.
You are probably right in that it may not reach the web. It will instead reach a lot harder places to scrub with people that have a less timid response once they find out about the scrubbing attempts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @02:59AM (1 child)
Nice try. The few remaining SS are too old for active service.
Good godwin tho.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 14 2017, @03:25PM
Stasi is DDR (1946-1989) product, not a Nazi thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:57PM (1 child)
Yep, what he said. Facebook already did some scrubbing of Dakota Pipeline protest videos. They were totally available, then within a very short time (same day) the videos began getting scrambled then completely lost. So yeah, we've already come to this corporate controlled new world but we still have the freedom to take our online business elsewhere. In the not too distant future we will either have laws on the books to allow such censorship in a convoluted way: maybe a false DMCA takedown that takes weeks to clear up and then gets hit with another one. "Gee sorry dunno why our automated copyright protection system keeps targeting your content!??!"
Or just repealing net neutrality will mean that corporations can "adjust" the network traffic as they see fit or completely block any traffic they don't like. Unless a serious portion of the population catches on and complains it will be a simple matter to keep thousands of protesters from gaining mainstream momentum. We will all be isolated, yet feel connected through the mainstream info services. That is the future being pushed RIGHT NOW with all this "free market" and "down with regulation" stuff being shoved down our throats.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 14 2017, @03:33PM
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc.. Is-not-your-computer. Thus whoever owns them can mess with you any way they want. So anyone that wants to have control better have their own machine hosting the stuff. Or even better a distributed solution where no single point of failure nor any place to raid.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:00PM
They will use "copyright" and "fake news" laws to do it.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:32PM (3 children)
There's been a fair amount of ink/bytes recently about Mastodon, a decentralized microblogging thing that some are claiming will de-throne Twitter.
With the distributed, not-just-a-single-server thing, it kinda makes me think of USENET.
Throw in mesh networking and maybe there is hope for an information channel with less noise and greater veracity.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday April 13 2017, @02:10PM (2 children)
Hey! Just signed up, and trying it out. Never got onto twitter because of ... 'cause, but will try this out.
Thanks for the mention!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday April 13 2017, @02:12PM (1 child)
Just did my first TOOT!
So proud....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @12:44AM
Let's look at everything Mastodon gets wrong. [mashable.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:42AM (2 children)
Twitter is apparently already scrubbing posts on the incident [thenextweb.com]. It's dangerous that people mistake twitter and facebook for communications instead of seeing them for the control and surveillance.
The surveillance [democracynow.org] is part of the business model [newyorker.com]. The control is more insidious. Some topics just don't turn up in people's feeds despite there being many posts. And so, most people just assume that the topic is unimportant or if a viewpoint is missing, then it no on holds that view. In a natural dialog, that would be the case. But in the controlled environment, certain topics and view points are just hidden. Shadow banning is particularly insidious.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday April 13 2017, @01:27PM (1 child)
Twitter isn't scrubbing posts, people just don't understand how Twitter works. [ibtimes.com]
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:22PM
Love the link to Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Holy Grail.
Indy throws the Nazi out the window of the Derigabl. Everyone looks scared and confused, Indy looks at them, thumbs towards the window and says "No ticket!" and they all start frantically presenting their tickets.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @04:58PM (2 children)
Seriously, there are people saying United did the right thing. Oddly enough those people are so far of the conservative bent, but I would have imagined that violent removal of a proper paying customer already sitting in their assigned seat would be a bigger deal. The corporate aristocracy is really showing their true colors.
And there are people of the progressive bent who say they want white genocide for Christmas. There are fucked up lunatics affiliated with pretty much anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:41PM
GP could have been more clear on that.
I think that GP was referring to Neil Gorsuch and his 4 corporate-friendly cohorts.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @07:23AM
And there are people of the progressive bent who say they want white genocide for Christmas. There are fucked up lunatics affiliated with pretty much anything.
JFC
"White genocide" is a made-up conspiracy theory of the neo-nazis.
It doesn't even refer to actual killing, just the mixing of the races so that there are no "pure" white people left.
The guy who said he wanted white genocide for christmas was doing so ironically to make them look like idiots.
The only people who took him seriously were idiots. Which puts you and the two people who modded you up squarely in that category.
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:05PM (32 children)
Of course there's people agreeing with United. Conservatives are all like that: they thump their chests and scream "law and order!!", so anyone who acts against their authoritarian thugs is deserving of a beating in their worldview.
What's really funny and ironic is how many of them claim the "leftists" to be the authoritarians. Meanwhile, they're the ones who want the War on Drugs so much.
(Score: -1, Troll) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:34PM (11 children)
Ugh... I know plenty of conservative people who think United is wrong and I know what leftists do when in power. #IBelieve #KillAllMen
Could it be that your head is so up your ass all you can see is your own self everywhere?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:53PM
Do you think he meant the non-authoritarian Gulag or Pol pot re-education? ;-)
(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]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:43PM (5 children)
Conservatives are all like that: they thump their chests and scream "law and order!!"
You must know some strange conservatives. Maybe they're all neocons? Do consider that conservatives are classically the people who are for gun rights and self-defense. Personally, in this case, my dream would be for the doc to have successfully defended himself. From what I've read (including a couple of articles by people claiming to be lawyers), both United and the cop were acting way beyond the bounds of their authority. The only question is whether United will pay him millions, or tens of millions. The cop, of course, will get a week of administrative leave.
On which topic: It's time and past time that people stopped accepting illegal actions by government actors. Whenever a cop beats a suspect ("gee, he was resisting arrest"), it *is* swept under the rug. The only reason this incident has turned into a shitstorm is because the abuse was at the behest of a private corporation. If this had been a case of arresting a suspect (but, oops, got the wrong guy, so sorry), it wouldn't have caused a ripple.
We should ask ourselves: why do we allow government actors to use violence against nonviolent citizens _at_ _all_? (93% of SWAT raids are used for non-dangerous, non-violent situations [washingtonpost.com]). And when it happens, why are the citizens not allowed to defend themselves, including with deadly force? [thefreethoughtproject.com]
As a pretty conservative guy, I find the United incident appalling, and I hope that it stays in the news and helps spark more public awareness of violence by government actors.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:09PM (4 children)
You must know some strange conservatives. Maybe they're all neocons?
That's what typical conservatives are these days. If you don't fit that mold, then you're not a typical conservative.
You complain about violence by cops and unnecessary SWAT raids, but the conservatives who now run our government, and our very conservative Attorney General, don't think police brutality is a problem at all, and are big fans of the War on Drugs (which is responsible for those SWAT raids). So what kind of conservative are you? Obviously not a very good one, and certainly not one in tune with the conservatives who have elected the current conservative government.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:51PM (2 children)
You're playing their game and you don't even realize that you are being suckered.
"Conservative" means conserving the status quo.
If you don't want to conserve the status quo, you are NOT "Conservative".
As you move away from the "everything is pretty much OK as it is; let's keep it this way" position, you move to a more RADICAL place.
RADICAL is the -opposite- of "Conservative".
These people labeling themselves "Conservative" is no different than the Nazis or DPRK naming themselves with non-appropriate terms.
The fact that Lamestream Media repeats this swill exacerbates the problem.
The word you seek is Reactionary.
These people want to go -backwards- in time. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:23AM (1 child)
Wrong. No True Scotsman.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @02:24AM
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Consider the normative authoritarian doofus OriginalOwner's missive carefully: "conservative means preserving the status quo", with the status quo being the collapse of the US economy via Robamacare, mandatory schools that harm US children's ability to think for themselves, oppressive taxation, and rampaging "law" enforcement.
What, did you think "Conservative" stood for low taxes, small government, and the Bill of Rights? Time to stop using a now-meaningless buzzword and pick a useful descriptor. (Mine is "anti-slavery".)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @10:09PM
the difference is that the conservatives in office are not the same as the conservatives that routinely vote them in.
There are certainly examples of the type in question -- gun rights and self defense, but that does not a conservative platform make. That is just individual rights in a small scale.
The conservatives in office are primarily for big business and the lifting of regulation that can restrict a person from being able to empower oneself--but to allow that to happen via ones own power and hard work, which most people seem to be disallusioned with because of the forces of big business.
Truly, those that vote for their one or two issues are enabling government officials (republican and democratic) to enable legistlation not in their own personal best interests, because they focused on a narrow few.
I personally would prefer health insurance over my ability to carry a concealed weapon -- heck I'll strap it on and carry it in the open just to show what I got -- but there's laws about that, too. Ultimately, people often get a lot of what they didn't want when voting for what they do. I think the present administration is just like that.
Most of it is bankers and rich people, and our OP is clearly concerned with individual rights. I am with him -- but not with who is in office.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:45PM (13 children)
Not all. I didn't vote Trump, and wouldn't if I was given the chance a second time, but I've been swinging back conservative pretty hard the last year or two and nothing would make me more gleeful than to see United burn for this. Equally appalling is the hit job the media's done on the doctor. But "he's a felon (maybe)!" as if that makes getting dragged out by jackbooted thugs somehow legitimate.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:58PM (12 children)
I've been swinging back conservative pretty hard the last year or two
Can you name a candidate close to your current political position who has anything resembling a plan to expand the number of USAians with full-time jobs at a living wage?
I've only seen 1 candidate with such an outline. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [ontheissues.org]
...and that plan repeats the method which was successful several generations ago when the economy was again totally in the crapper due to Capitalism: Building/rebuilding infrastructure.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday April 12 2017, @09:37PM (11 children)
Hell, man, I'm honestly not sure I can name a candidate close to my current political position. I liked Bernie overall, but the Democrats won't have my interest until they find time to care about something other than identity politics. They don't have to stop caring about identity politics. I just think there's a lot of other important things going on that might be worth taking a look at too.
From my point of view, the modern republicans aren't conservative. I... I don't know what they are, but it kinda scares me, whatever it is. So I'm adrift in a sea of people, half of which (at best) don't care about my best interests or concerns, and the rest are openly out for themselves and/or utterly batshit. And a goodly part of the first group could be utterly batshit too.
Interestingly, the person you named was the only one I voted for with any sort of enthusiasm, with her New Deal being a primary reason behind it. Party lines mean nothing to me.
I was just trying to point out that the GP was spouting bullshit.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @10:39PM (10 children)
You're shitting me. You voted Jill Stein and you call yourself a "conservative?"
You know she's not going to throw the gays in concentration camps, right?
You know she's going to let men into women's restrooms so they can rape your daughters, right?
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:19AM (9 children)
Sigh.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:28AM (8 children)
Why are you sighing? This is what conservatives are like these days, whether you like it or not, and whether you agree with it or not. Look at the way self-described conservatives vote, and what they write on message boards and on social media. They really are up in arms about TG people in the bathrooms, and they really do hate gay people. These aren't some tiny number of extremists, these are regular, everyday conservative voters. You can claim that they're being riled up by alt-right media and are basically following their "leaders", but these people really do believe this stuff, and they vote. If you want to see what "conservatism" stands for these days, go read breitbart.com and other such alt-right sites. This stuff has exploded in popularity in the last few years, so it is entirely valid for me to claim that this type of thinking represents modern conservatism.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:07AM (7 children)
What's actually conservative about any of those people? They're psychos come out of the woodwork, much like the crazies on the left. You know, the ones behind such reasonable and intellectually responsible ideas as "#KillAllMen" and "die cis scum"? The ones who are violently pro-free speech until it's speech that they don't like? The ones who are supposed to be against war and the death penalty and stuff? Yeah, the liberals aren't exactly really showing those traits they pat themselves on the back for nowadays either.
At any rate, they're abusing the label, on both sides. They're not actually representing what they claim. And I assure you that not every single one of them thinks that way.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:56AM (5 children)
What's actually conservative about any of those people?
The fact that the majority of self-identifying conservatives agree with those positions.
Laws to enforces those positions are proposed and often passed by conservative state governments on a regular basis.
North Carolina's HB2 made a LOT of headlines and even the "repeal" is still off the charts on bigotry.
Texas and Arkansas are trying to pass them right now [nbcnews.com] and the votes are practically party line.
Mike Pence, the goddamn republican Vice President, signed a law in 2015 to legally validate businesses that discriminate against teh gays. That one got a lot of press too because he caved after enough businesses boycotted.
These are mainstream conservative views. [rollingstone.com]
Even in 2016 only 29% of conservatives support gay marriage. [pewforum.org]
Their psychos come out of the woodwork, much like the crazies on the left.
Sorry but the scales are far from balanced. The crazies on the left are a tiny minority that get boosted more by mainstream conservatives looking to rationalize their opposition to all things 'liberal' than they do by their own efforts. You don't see any 'liberal' states even considering "anti cis" laws.
I don't know what you think "conservative" means, but in the USA conservative is the big tent that started filling up with the dixiecrats, then the anti-Jimmy-Carter, racist wing of the white evangelicals (which are the majority) and with Donald Grump its pretty much absorbed all the remaining authoritarians. Before 9/11 muslims were about 50/50 republican/democrat, not any more.
Even the so-called Libertarians have lost their way as their accommodation of conservative illiberalism has made modern american libertarianism philosophically arbitrary anti-leftism and withered.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Thursday April 13 2017, @05:35AM (3 children)
Then I suppose I genuinely don't know what the fuck I am anymore.
I'm a godless cynic who generally wants to see the middle/lower-middle class not get stamped out of existence. I'm worried about income equality as I can't envision a way to not see the disparity of wealth as inherently oppressive in a post-Reagan capitalist economy. I generally support the idea of single payer healthcare, but I think the monstrosity that is the ACA was worse that what we had prior. I'd never own a gun, but I don't blame anyone else for wanting one, so I'm generally in support of that.
So that seems pretty liberal, but that being said, I'm also an asshole who doesn't give a damn about any identity politicking. Don't get me wrong, I'm not actively against that crap. I just don't care and don't want to hear about it. The gays want to get married? Sure, whatever. Some obnoxious do-gooders from the local college protest about it and it inconveniences me? I'm going to roll my eyes and be utterly snide. I don't really care about the illegals from Mexico coming here, but I'm not going to pretend they're not doing it illegally either. The Wall is a rock opera, not something I want to see along our southern border. At the same time, I also think that globalism is a race to the bottom for everyone except the megacorps. I don't feel I'm entitled to have an honest opinion about abortion one way or another, as I'm a dude and it's never affected me even indirectly. Generally I like "live and let live".
Well, that's all the big ones, so what political leaning does that make me closest to? My liberal friends call me conservative; their token Republican. I used to laugh and tell them I don't make enough money for that. But given how we've reached such great heights of crazy, I feel like I could say that about any affiliation.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @06:58AM
I also think that globalism is a race to the bottom for everyone except the megacorps.
This chart [netdna-cdn.com] might change your mind.
That doesn't mean there haven't been losers, but on balance there is a lot less misery in the world now.
And going forward from where we are today, automation in our own backyard is the greatest risk to working class.
Remember the jobs at that Carrier plant that Trump 'saved' from moving to Mexico even before he was inaugurated? He did it by giving them ~7 million in tax dollars.
The CEO straight up said he was going to take that money and invest it in automating those people out of their jobs anyway. [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 13 2017, @05:03PM
Then it sounds like you're a Bernie-voting progressive in today's political climate. You've basically echoed my own stances on all these issues. But you've let the right-wingers scare you away from the liberal/progressive side by equating them to all the identity-politics nutcases and inflating the perception of that group's size and power.
I don't know why your liberal friends would call you "conservative"; you haven't espoused a single conservative viewpoint there at all, perhaps a few centrist ones. Are all your "liberal" friends a bunch of nutty far-left college students or something? The gun thing is the only one that's not super-liberal, but even here remember that Bernie was bashed on this issue by the stridently anti-gun Hillary camp, because he represents rural Vermonters and isn't as strongly anti-gun. But even here, I'd call your position "centrist" from a modern American point-of-view.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @08:00PM
First, "middle class" is a bogus term.
The term seeks to divide a class in order to weaken it.
There are only TWO classes: The Bourgeoisie and The Proletariat i.e the Ownership Class and the Working Class; those who make money from wealth and those who make money from labor.
...and if you settle for "Conservative", the best you'll ever get is something that has already existed. 8-(
The AC who replied first pointed to a chart that specifies poverty/extreme poverty.
That's interesting and all but...
What about the gains that the USAian Working Class made which have been clawed back by The Ownership Class? [nakedcapitalism.com]
Productivity vs compensation (whole page) [nakedcapitalism.com]
Economist Prof. Thomas Piketty wrote a 696-page analysis of 250 years of Capitalism.
What he determined is that that economic system, with its separate Ownership Class, a system which concentrates wealth, leads to a governmental system that is also "owned" by that same group; the gov't is essentially unresponsive to the majority--so, even if there is a veneer of egalitarianism (elections), you can't call that system "Democracy"; it's Oligarchy.
One form of this system, which throws in Nationalism, is called "Fascism".
If you look around in the USA today, you will recognize many traits of that extremism in play.
The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism [ratical.org]
The way to avoid this/reclaim Democracy is via broader ownership of the means of production.
That economic system is called Socialism.
It is a method of production where The Workers and The Owners are the same people and there are no non-productive people in the loop.
Socialism, properly defined, is DEMOCRACY EVERYWHERE.
Italy instituted a program in 1985 which seeks to turn laid-off people into business owners.
They will allow a group of 10 or more to get their unemployment insurance payments in a lump sum to start a worker-owned cooperative.
The scheme is called The Marcora Law. [google.com]
It has been monumentally successful in northern Italy.
A third of the economy in the region of Emilia-Romagna is from co-ops.
There are over 8100 of them in that region alone.
If you want things to get better, I don't see a way to that that does not involve replacing Capitalism (absentee owners who produce nothing) with Worker-Owned Cooperatives AKA Democracy in the Workplace AKA Socialism.
Find a Marcora Law page that you like, blockquote from it, and email that quote/link to your Congresscritters.
Next election cycle, repeat that for every candidate on the ballot.
If one picks it up and runs with it, throw your support behind him/her.
Prof. Richard Wolff has a weekly broadcast/webcast that covers a lot of this.
His presentations are not the slightest bit dry.
Pacifica Radio station KPFA in Berkeley has an excellent archive of those. [kpfa.org]
New downloads become available Fridays, after about 11:15AM.
Using a media player with speed control/pitch control, you should be able to get through a 1-hour program in under 40 minutes.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:57PM
Excellent post; this makes my point much better than I could have. You really should get yourself a normal account because AC posts are frequently filtered or auto-downmodded (I do it myself as AC comments tend to be trolls); if this is indicative, your comments are too valuable to be lost among a morass of AC trolls.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:53PM
I completely disagree. Please point to any national or state-level Democrat politician who espouses those views. You won't find a single one. You're pointing at some extremists who don't represent the "liberals" who vote Democrat, basically some nutty college students and that's it.
On the right, however, you will find plenty of Republican politicians who espouse the views I pointed out before. NC after all did pass a law last year about TGs and bathrooms, and is still messing around with that issue. There's plenty of GOP politicians in various states trying to pass various anti-gay laws. The alt-right even got their own people elected into the White House; what do you think Steve Bannon is?
Equating the alt-right with a few fringe loonies is equivocation of the worst kind. The leftist loonies have no power at all, and they sure as hell aren't controlling the White House like the alt-right is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @09:20PM
in the future those tweets won't ever make it to twitter. no after scrubbing required. the AI will see that you are criticising a team member and will make it look like your post is posted only for you. just like google is already rating things differently based on whether it's "terrorism".