Don’t you just love plots? Schemes. Tomfoolery. Isn’t living in
James Brescoll’s world both a hoot and a hootenanny?
Don’t you just love plots? Schemes. Tomfoolery. Isn’t living in James Brescoll’s world both a hoot and a hootenanny?
The last time we visited our rascally John Bircher he was ranting about unions buying City Council seats because the South Bay AFL-CIO was endorsing a slate of Council candidates. This guy is so far to the right he makes Mike Savage look like Ted Kennedy’s drinking buddy. He’s also a little unclear on the concept of organized support for candidates.
You know, like the American Rifle Association supporting Dubya. Did the NRA put Bush in the White House? Of course not; the Supreme Court did, but the point is that in our system of politics, like-minded organizations support like-minded candidates.
Brescoll and other right-wingers only get their dander up when organizations such as labor support sympathetic candidates. Where was his outrage at the NRA or the Organization to Kill Abortion Doctors, or whatever the extremist groups who support Bush call themselves these days?
In Brescoll’s Sept. 5 manifesto, he launches his pity-party by attacking the journalist who reported the story about the union backing of the generally left-leaning slate of City Council candidates. Brescoll wanted the reporter to editorialize, and of course he wanted the reporter to editorialize right along with Brescoll’s pinched world view. If he didn’t pinch real hard and slant his story to Brescoll’s liking, then he “missed the point.”
Brescoll criticizes the reporter for saying Guadalupe Arrellano is taking on Al Pinheiro and not mentioning the other slate of candidates. In my southern family we’d just call that being pissy. Yes, we all know Cruz Bustamante is also taking on Tom McClintock, Peter Ueberroth, Arianna Huffington, Peter Camejo and somebody named “Undecided” who is mopping up everyone except the two front-runners.
Oh, did I mention the porn star? But people understand the battle is being fought between Bustamante and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Besides, factually, it is correct to say Arrellano is taking on Pinheiro.
Brescoll is also grinding his teeth over the fact that the South Bay AFL-CIO is comprised of nearly 100 individual unions, and collectively they support the candidates they perceive as being most concerned about affordable housing and other issues that organized labor is also concerned about.
In my family that would not only be pissy, but sour grapes as well. Instead of whining about it, why doesn’t these red-necks go out and organize all the John Birch societies in the South Bay to endorse their slate of candidates? The Birchers will say they don’t have the numbers the unions have. Hmm, wonder why?
Brescoll goes on to ask: “Geee, (sic) … is the South Bay AFL-CIO saying no other mayoral/council candidate supports affordable housing issues; none has the ability to make their community a better quality place to work and live; and none is interested in helping working families?”
Since Brescoll has serious problem with organizing a logical thought process, let’s spell it out for him. No, the AFL-CIO isn’t saying that, didn’t say that, isn’t going to say that. They are saying Peter Arellano, Mark Dover and Paul Correa are more concerned about working-class families and their struggles to find affordable housing than the other candidates.
I believe that’s true; if Brescoll doesn’t, let him vote for another slate.
Brescoll fears there will be “newspaper/television/radio ads” helping out the three candidates, and that the union wants to be involved because they want to “intimidate /bully/coerce” Wal-Mart into allowing its workers to organize. Brescoll just doesn’t understand/comprehend/grasp that the AFL-CIO is concerned about the way Wal-Mart runs roughshod over its workers. It doesn’t like Wal-Mart, for that reason, and nor do I. It’s called ideology.
Organized labor endorses/promotes/helps candidates that share in that conviction. Imagine that. Brescoll doesn’t share the same ideology with the unions. That doesn’t make labor’s efforts any less needed, except of course in Brescoll’s mind.
He also calls labor “outside interests” in Gilroy. I don’t know about Brescoll, but each morning when I drive to work, I see an awful lot of hard-working men and women in pickups proudly displaying the red, white and blue bumper sticker of organized labor. Maybe he just needs to get out more.
