March 11, 2005

"We Support Some Troops"

FILE UNDER: "DEMOCRATS' SPITE KNOWS NO LIMITS" It felt strange to me to actually vote Republican last November after over 30 years as a Democrat, but when I read the endless litany of incidents and speeches and actions of this once great party, I sometimes feel as if I've escaped from Mordor. Today's proof of the continuing psychosis that grips the party is:

Marines at nearby Marine Corps Reserve Center say on Tuesday morning, the director of security at the UAW told them that while they support the troops, Marines driving foreign vehicles or sporting a President George Bush bumper sticker were no longer welcome to park there.

U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Joe Rutledge told Action News, "We received a phone call from the UAW, who support us by letting us park down at their facility. They called and said they weren't going to allow or they would turn away some vehicles."

A spokesman for the UAW released a statement to Action News which reads:

"While reservists certainly have the right to drive non-union made vehicles and display bumper stickers touting the most anti-worker, anti-union president since the 1920s, that doesn't mean they have the right to park in a lot owned by members of the UAW."

As U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Lee Cooper explained, "We're very appreciative, but on the other hand, it's kind of discriminating between, let's say a lance corporal going through college can only afford a 15-year-old vehicle and it happens to be a Nissan."
-- WXYZ: Local News -- Detroit

I live just north of the Camp Pendleton Marine base in Oceanside, California. Unlike most other towns on the coast of Southern California, Oceanside is a working and military class town. You don't see the multi-million dollar resorts, the endless McMansion developments at $3 million per house, or the curb-to-curb Mercedes. You see Harley franchises, pawnshops, USOs, thrift stores, check-cashing scam stores, and the other items common to a town where people and families are just getting by. And yes, you see a lot of 15 to 20 year old cars in various states of decay. You don't see them because the drivers wouldn't like a brand new Lincoln Navigator, but because they can barely make the payments.

You'd think that a member of the United Auto Workers pulling down a large union salary and padded with large union benefits would understand that soldiers and reservists and students don't have a lot of extra cash. In fact, it is more than likely that a student or young person in the Reserves is there because it promises a little extra cash to scrape by. Considering all that you'd think that an American union would be doing what it could to make the daily lives of American troops easier. But you would, of course, be wrong.

Instead, this ancient and corrupt organization for the "sort-of" working man, has decided that any troops who can't afford an SUV, or have a bumper-sticker supporting George Bush, just can't park. I'm filing this away for the next time somebody tells me that we need to keep the concept of unions alive in America. Like the Democratic Party, they were great once, did fine things once, but are now just dinosaurs who forgot to go extinct on schedule. Today the United Auto Workers remind of the note on the body of the slain aristocrat in Dickens' Tale of Two Cities that reads: "Drive him fast to his tomb."

[HT: LILEKS (James) The Bleat.]

Posted by Vanderleun at March 11, 2005 7:00 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

I'd like to see the definition of "foreign vehicles" they're using when deciding which cars to exclude, too.

Which is "foreign": a Toyota or BMW assembled by UAW members in the USA, or a Ford assembled in Mexico by workers who aren't represented by the UAW?

Posted by: Kevin at March 11, 2005 12:45 PM

Gerard, you live in Oceanside? My Marine son is flying out of Pendleton tonight (3-11-05) after having been stationed there since October. He's going to a new posting at Camp Lejeune. How 'bout that? Six degrees, and all that stuff....

Posted by: Donald Sensing at March 11, 2005 12:47 PM

One thing history has demonstrated time and time again: institutions will invariably decay over time, becoming hollow shells of what they once were, and who purpose morphs into simply staying alive.

Posted by: Final Historian at March 11, 2005 1:04 PM

The "no foreign cars" proviso is merely petty (as well as stupid, per Kevin's comments). But the "no Bush supporters" rule is really pretty astonishing. Have we really reached the point at which respectable people consider voting for the candidate they didn't vote for to justify this kind of behavior?

Sigh. I guess we have.

Posted by: jaed at March 11, 2005 2:59 PM

If I know anything about Marines, the rest of them who would be "authorized" to park there will thumb their noses at the UAW and go park someplace else, and damn the longer walk...it's just a good stretch of the legs.

Screw that traitor union...

Posted by: doug in Colorado at March 11, 2005 3:51 PM

They moved Oceanside? When did this happen? I was so used to having Oceanside in San Diego County, it feels strange to have it in Orange. And what's taken it's place? Did they switch Oceanside with San Clemente, and who got the Nixon Compound?

Oceanside north of Camp Pendleton, and here I thought the world had some verities left.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg at March 12, 2005 11:19 AM