Still have a lack of details regarding this video clip (which won’t let me embed it, so you have to follow the link). I don’t consider the text explanations one gets from YouTube as the most helpful or authoritative, but so far that’s all I have to go on here:
Gov. Nikki Haley has been vicious to organized labor, saying in her State of the State address that “unions are not needed, wanted or welcome in South Carolina.” After years of being treated like a union thug, Donna Dewitt gets sweet revenge at a retirement reception in her honor.
I just want to go on the record as saying, right here and now, that I do not believe that Nikki Haley should be bludgeoned with a baseball bat. Even symbolically.
Did anyone at this event go, “Umm… wait a minute…” and think it was excessive? Was anyone creeped out? One hopes so. But one doesn’t know…
The key quote: “Wait ’till her face comes around, and WHACK her… Give her another whack! Hit her again!”
Yep. We’ve sunk pretty low, folks.
This was brought to my attention by Bryan Caskey, who got it from CNN’s Peter Hamby:
South Carolina labor official beats a Nikki Haley pinata with a baseball bat —http://bit.ly/KQ70py
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Posted first at Free Times, with background:
http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=1992209084141467&act=post&pid=11862205124358729
I served on the board of the Community Mediation Center with Donna, and she’s a good person. I don’t blame her after all the unjustified vilifying unions and union leaders get, especially from the Governista!
Thanks, Corey.
As is so often the case, Corey is the first with the burst, on the spot while it’s hot…
An excerpt from his report:
‘A video posted online that shows a former union leader in South Carolina smashing a piñata effigy of Gov. Nikki Haley has riled the national office of the AFL-CIO, which wants it taken down.
‘“Do you think we can get this video pulled,” asked a national AFL-CIO official in an email to Palmetto State union sources.
‘The author of the email also worried the video might get “picked up by tea partiers, maybe even Haley herself, to attack labor again.”
‘The video in question features former AFL-CIO of South Carolina president Donna DeWitt smacking a Haley piñata with a baseball bat at DeWitt’s retirement party over the weekend.’
And Kathryn, this is pretty bad. She treats that likeness of Nikki the way DeNiro treated that guy at the dinner table in “The Untouchables.” Roughly speaking. The difference is that she does it with a smile.
What’s most amazing is that the local union group here thought that it would be a good idea to publish this video.
Public relations fail on so many levels.
I think you could re-title this post “War on Women…by Other Women”
Oh, and it’s creepy. I feel creepy just watching it.
Perhaps “Pin the Tail on the Governor” would get a warmer reception.
Yep, that’s pretty stupid.
Kathryn, I don’t doubt you, but I do wish someone had said, “Hey, let’s not smash a Nikki Haley pinata.” Or at least, “Hey, let’s not make a videotape of us smashing this Nikki Haley pinata.” Or even, “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t put this videotape of us smashing a Nikki Haley pinata on the Internet . . .”
It’s a fricking pinata–a papier mache and tissue paper object, not a human being, or even a special effect from a movie.
Maybe she’s a fan of Napolean Dynamite. At least Pedro’s pinata of Summer was only vaguely Summer-like – not an actual photo of her, which makes it creepy.
@Kathryn
You think a video of a doctor bashing a pinata with the image of Obama on it as a symbol of his disgust with Obamacare would get the “no big deal” response from you?
Oh, it’s poor PR, of course! Us olds don’t always think that someone is taping us, or that anything recorded can and will be used against us.
@Kathryn: Ok, you agree that it’s poor PR.
Why?
I take exception to `Kathryn’s statement that the “vilifying unions and union leaders get” is unjustified.
Maybe someone got the idea from the wordplay on her real name? Nimrata piñata. Not that that makes it any more sensible or anything … but the words together do make me grin – just without the whack of the baseball bat.
I don’t think it would be a big deal for someone to bash a pinata with anyone’s picture on it–I might get creeped out if it were of me, but I’m not a public figure, and I’m kind of sensitive.
I think it’s bad PR because the anti-union crowd can use it to show how “crazy” or “unpatriotic” union leaders are. It’s not reality any more, folks. It’s perception.
Anytime unions get involved with a company, they drain the lifeblood from it and don’t stop until it is a lifeless carcass. GM, the airlines, steel companies, etc.
Public employee unions – where there’s no profits and therefore theoretically no limits on pay and benefits, are the worst offenders.
The only place unions don’t bankrupt the underlying corporations are in special situations: Class I railroads (oligopolies), Aerospace & Defense companies (cost pass through, also oligopolies) and public utilities (ratepayers held hostage).
Everywhere else, the unions just haven’t bankrupted the companies yet. Give them time.
PS – In GM’s case I blame poor management who allowed the company to become overly leveraged as well as the unions.
The only thing that will come of this incident is that Nikki has a new solicitation letter. Since Nikki has NO shame, she cannot be defeated by taking the low road.
I love how people like Silence blame all corporate problems on Unions. That is so 1980s. News flash: Unions are not what they used to be. They just don’t have the power they once had. Result: corporate profits are soaring while workers pay and benefits lag behind. The real villian in corporate America today is the lavish salaries heaped onto a tiny number of executives at the top. The result has been a huge shift in wealth from workers to just a very few well-connected elites. It’s time to strengthen unions, not weaken them.
“It’s a fricking pinata–a papier mache and tissue paper object, not a human being, or even a special effect from a movie.”…..Kathryn
Can we use the same logic when the left went after Sarah Palin with a vengence after the congresswoman, Giffords, sorry, congressperson, was shot by a “nutcase” because she had a surveyor’s “bulls eye” symbol on her website? But then again, is it reality or perception?
Why, having such a symbol actually invokes violence by the unhinged and radical members of the right wing, wouldn’t it? But, a union official beating the crap out of pinata with Haley’s face on it is just an example of freedom of expression and means nothing more, not even when the other attendees were encouraging her to keep hitting her photo again and again, especially after it had been knocked down, she kept hitting it.
Naturally, there was no exhorting of physical confrontation or other acts that could be harmful to another person’s health could ever be construed as “violent intent” from the actions of such a sweet lady.
And especially since you know her and she is a “good person”.
Right Kathryn?
For the record, I’m not a Palin supporter but it seems like a double standard is being applied here by some.
I don’t think there’s a lot of fear that someone will actually be able literally whack the Governor, and certainly not lethally. I mean, what, another Tonya Harding moment? Shooting someone is a lot easier to accomplish that any contact violence. It’s easier to pull a trigger and it’s harder to defend against.
Also, it was a private party, not a website.
Finally, there is no evidence that anyone was suggesting this be other than whacking a pinata at a party–no taking it further.
I don’t know her all that well–but I know she volunteered a lot of her time to a worthy cause.
@ bud – I don’t disagree that executive pay has gotten out of hand. However, when you say that “unions aren’t what they used to be” you could say the exact same thing about manufacturing in America.
Blue collar manufacturing jobs helped make this country the economic powerhouse that it is.
I am stating that promises made to unions by management during very prosperous economic times were unsustainable once growth slowed down. Pensions, work rules, etc. conspired to make manufacturing less flexible, less dynamic and eventually killed many of the geese that were laying golden eggs.
Jefe: I have put many beautiful pinatas in the storeroom, each of them filled with little suprises.
El Guapo: Many pinatas?
Jefe: Oh yes, many!
El Guapo: Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?
Jefe: A what?
El Guapo: A *plethora*.
Jefe: Oh yes, you have a plethora.
El Guapo: Jefe, what is a plethora?
Jefe: Why, El Guapo?
El Guapo: Well, you told me I have a plethora. And I just would like to know if you know what a plethora is. I would not like to think that a person would tell someone he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has *no idea* what it means to have a plethora.
Jefe: Forgive me, El Guapo. I know that I, Jefe, do not have your superior intellect and education. But could it be that once again, you are angry at something else, and are looking to take it out on me?
Silence,
And agricultural productivity made the industrial revolution possible, and was in turn strengthened by it. One era begets another. Unions just helped kill off what was already in decline outside of the more sophisticated sectors. Now we have IT as our basic economic framework. The question is really what will be next? Whatever the next age is, it will certainly be biologically based.
What we need to fear is not change, but the status quo. Doug’s libertarianism is right on this: The stultification of the government sector is probably this nation’s greatest long-term threat. Bureaucracy unchecked has the potential to bring the country down. The second most important thing we can do as a society, after advocating for economic progress, is to push back against the waste that accumulates in government. However, this does not mean we simply need to demand lower taxes, it means we all must be involved in providing progressive, accountable stewardship at all levels of government.
The idea that a pension (as one example) once promised is a forever obligation no matter how circumstances change is a laughable concept – were it not so corrosively destructive. Government has no natural predator, short of revolution, so we all must be willing to first confront that reality.
Can we use the same logic when the left went after Sarah Palin with a vengence after the congresswoman …
-Bart
Nobody blamed Sarah Palin for the Giffords shootings. What people did blame, and correctly in my opinion, is the whole gun culture. A culture that sees every problem as one that can be solved by some type of violence. The predictable result is a few nuts take that rhetoric to heart and BAM, BAM, BAM!
@ Mark – The problem is that IT and the “knowledge economy” are very footloose.
In the industrial era, investments in factories, infrastructure, equipment and skilled labor were monumental. It took decades for skilled manfacturing to flee the Midwest and move South. It took decades for less skilled manufacturing to flee the South and go offshore.
Now, information and knowledge can move around the world with a keystroke. Skilled jobs such as programming, engineering, and even management are being offshored to lower cost jurisdictions.
You are correct that government bureaucracy is a threat, but it’s not the only threat, and it’s not the biggest threat.
1) How do industries and sectors remain competitive?
2) How do you protect the capital stock of a nation, financial, material and intellectual?
3) How do organizations go from an era of population growth to one of stability or decline?
4) How does society cope with a decreased need for labor, both skilled and unskilled?
Quite a bit of revisionist history here. Fact is when unions were thriving so to was commerce. America was a prosperious, thriving nation with a large, stable and growing middle class during the 50s and 60s. Those good wages and benifits won by the unions for the workers helped fuel that amazing growth.
But the economic juggernaut made possible by the hard work of well paid workers began to erode as soon as the elite corporate robber barrons were re-incarnated during the 80s with their hero Ronald Reagan in charge. With Reagan’s assault on labor, as illustrated by his attack on the air traffic controllers, the stage was set for a new round of wealth concentration into the hands of the few at the expense of the middle class. The assault on working class Americans was partially interupted by the Clinton administration as his sound fiscal and monetary policies created a new round of wealth creation for all American included the very wealthy.
But then the real disaster came with the assendance of the diabolical George W. Bush and his minions who oversaw a stunning and unprecedented assault on labor that enriched a tiny segment of the population through the mechanisms of vulture capitalism and a tax policy that would make make the robber barrons of the 1900s squemish.
Today we have a well-meaning but weak president who cannot break the stranglehold of this new found plutocracy on the means of wealth creation. And this whole scheme is made possible by the extremely creative marketing mechanisms of the conservative movement along with their lackies in the press.
Until the American worker wakes up to this greedy scheme the wealth concentration will continue. And a big part of the return to fairness and equity would be a strengthening of labor unions. Doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen any time soon but hope springs eternal.
Speaking of revisionist history, bud, I guess the “general malaise” and stagflation of the 1970’s didn’t happen? I guess that the decline of the US auto industry, and the steel industry didn’t go to crap in the 1970’s either.
I suppose that things were clicking along just fine, Jimmy Carter was wearing his sweater and botching hostage rescue missions, giving canals away and whatnot and then just out of the blue, Ronald Reagan got elected, fired the air traffic controllers and personally handed control of the economy to the unholy spawn of JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Yup. That is what happened.
Also, don’t say “Plutocracy” it is anti-semitic. It was fascist code for “The Jews”. Look it up.
Re: plutocracy
Wikipedia does say the Nazis used it, but they also cite many other legitimate uses. The Nazis used the slogan “Arbeit macht frei”–does this mean we should never extol the virtues of work?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
Can’t find anything concrete that Plutocracy is anti-semitic. But if some other word describing the scoundrel is less offensive then I’ll use it.
@bud–scroll down the Wikipedia entry….
I think it’s a legitimate accurate term when used correctly.
“Nobody blamed Sarah Palin for the Giffords shootings.”…bud
I,m still ROFLMAO at that one!!!!