From friends and acquaintances here in the Golden State, I have accumulated anecdotal evidence that public employee unions, particularly the California Teachers Association send multiple e-mails* to their members, often to their government computers, while contacting them regularly telling them how to vote in various elections. In contested partisan races, they almost always “encourage” their members to vote for the Democrat.
Now, Mike Ames and Mike Elk of The Nation magazine are in a lather because, gasp!, Koch Industries has done something similar:
On the eve of the November midterm elections, Koch Industries sent an urgent letter to most of its 50,000 employees advising them on whom to vote for and warning them about the dire consequences to their families, their jobs and their country should they choose to vote otherwise.
The Nation obtained the Koch Industries election packet for Washington State—which included a cover letter from its president and COO, David Robertson; a list of Koch-endorsed state and federal candidates; and an issue of the company newsletter,Discovery, full of alarmist right-wing propaganda.
This, the left-wing magazine’s editors dub, “Thought Control.” Ben Smith believes the expression, “thought control . . . seems rather strong“:
The mailings don’t ask for feedback from employees or suggest their jobs are dependent on whom they vote for, much less what they think; it seems to give the workers very little credit to imagine that they’ll have their thoughts controlled by this document, as opposed to by the campaign literature they get from candidates or, for some, from their unions.
It would be interesting to compare the language Koch Industries used in its letter to the languages union officials use in theirs. And to compare their vote-getting tactics as well. I’m sure Ames and Elk are already on top of this, working feverishly on just such an article.
(H/t Mark Tapscott at the Washington Examiner.)
*If you have a copy of — or a link to — such e-mails, could you please forward them to me.
Umm…so on one post *f* is ok and on another I get censored? Weird. Ok what the hell ever; he’s still never deigned to speak to lowly ME so screw it.
Message from “The Garden State” – LIFE SUCKS! For ALL of us.
So, did Koch Industries pass out cigarettes to bribe the homeless to vote? No, that was Democrats.
Did Koch Industries vandalize and slash the tires of vans rented by the opposition to transport voters to the polls? No, that was Democrats. One of whom was the son of a Democrat Congresswoman, who said she was “proud” of him.
Did the left raise a ruckus when gambling interests pressured their employees to vote for Harry Reid? No, they did not.
If you work for a company that advises you how to vote and it irritates you, quit and go elsewhere. Right?
If you work for a union that advises you how to vote and takes your dues to spend on its candidates, drop out of the union. Or insist the company get rid of the union. Right?
Are we conjuring up a separation of workplace and politics?
It’s weird, even for a leftie, that he thinks having a megaphone and using it – not threatening anybody in the process – is “thought control”. I would have said the opposite.
Then again, lefties were the villains in George Orwell’s _1984_. The Party’s philosophy, Ingsoc, meant English Socialism. Orwell mentioned mid-level government officials including *teachers* (to bring it back to Dan’s counter-example of the public employee unions and their advocacy practices), as among the early advocates of Ingsoc and the most eager practitioners of doublethink.
Silly conseratibes, you draw a false equivalence as usual. The unions are not in a position of power over the union members. Koch is the employer, that makes it intimidation. Just as with sexual harassment, there need not be an explicit threat for it to be improper.
Peej….unions require you to join them in order to take some jobs. They take your earned money and can use that money for political causes. They tell you when to strike and negotiate wages and benefits for you. How can you say that the unions are not in a position of power over their members?
Peej, from the following link, I guess you might possibly know a thing or two about harassing people with your threats. See if you can get the FBI to look into Koch? /snort
http://metroweekly.com/news/?ak=6167
Guess you guys won’t be bringing up this obvious attack on the first amendment by the GOP.
Most private businesses do something similar to this.
Of course most private businesses aren’t trying to take away the secret ballot. Unions are (card check)
Doom, I’ll bite: What is the obvious attack on the First Amendment?
Guess you won’t be proving your claim that it’s an “obvious attack on the First Amendment by the GOP.
Never in my lifetime has there been a greater opportunity to contrast who conservatives are with our opponents.. In fact, we don’t really have to say anything in order to make our case. Just point to what liberals want to do.
People’s lives, and I mean millions of people’s lives, are being seriously hurt, in some cases destroyed, by the current administration’s policies…
Did you catch today’s higher than expected unemployment numbers? Second week in a row they’re climbing – all those people filing for unemployment for the 1st time, but our president can only think of hopping on a plane to Cali, Brazil or God knows where next….. Obama’s head is so high in the clouds right now, that if you listened to him yesterday, every explanation he gave to the Facebook crowd was just another one of his convoluted narratives encompassing all manners of digressions.
With a record like that, let the societal reprobates over at ‘The Nation’ screech. Why should any conservative be afraid to criticize Obama’s policies? After all, honesty and standing for what we as conservatives believe in proved to be a winner last Novemeber…. And it will carry the day once more come November 6, 2012.
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Is that like how the Koch brothers sent letters to all their employees telling them how to vote?
And could you get a decent commenting system already that I don’t have to hand code the simplest of things? Disqus? ECHO Js-Kit? Or do we hate comments as much as we hate government?
More like the IBEW leaving notes on bulletin boards and break rooms telling folks how to vote.
Wow,
So counterfail posts something that he thinks is an original thought.
He fails to notice it’s the same thing Dan posted.
Union story. When Big Bear warehouse voted to disband the AFL-CIO union, the (soon to be former) Shop Steward came barreling in after the vote demanding to know who voted to disband the union.
My dad got right back into his face. “I did. You have six months to get off your ass and do something before the final vote to change my mind.”
Like most bullies, the shop steward backed down. Like most union officials, he didn’t do anything.
Let me understand this: Suppose I work for Chick-fil-a and I want to work on Sundays, but I can’t because the knucklehead CEO is a Jesus freak and he won’t open on Sundays. Don’t I have a strong case for getting his stupid God mentality off my right to separation of church and paycheck?
So, now, suppose this same CEO tells me which candidate to vote for based on his fossilized view of who Jesus would vote for. How in the world am I going to go into a private voting booth and vote my mind? I mean, the guy has got the Avenging Angel Michael sitting right outside ready to break my kneecaps.
So, these Koch Brothers have every employee wired with a secret Al Gore and Steve Jobs Apple devise to know the minute any employee steps outside of their mind control and tries to evade their evil plans.
What next? Are these guys going to tell me I can’t have a Manson style swastika tattooed on my forehead and still be the PR man? I mean they are already forcing me to vote according to their dictates. I don’t even get to do drugs at work and now they are naming my children.
Counterfail, like a typical leftist unionist, whines because he has to do a little extra work in the comments and demands that someone else make it easier for him. How ironic is that?