Wis[s]e Words – Page 638 – Ceci N'est pas Un Blog

Socialist gets fired for his political beliefs

Published on July 5, 2002

(This is old news, as it happened in October of last year but still instructive.)

Michael Italie was a sewing machine operator at Goodwill Industries in Florida, who also ran for mayor of Miami on behalf of the US Socialist Workers Party. A few days after he appeared on a televised debat with the other candidates for mayor, he was sacked:

On Oct. 22, a sewing-machine operator named Michael Italie was fired by Goodwill Industries, the network of nonprofit groups best-known for collecting and selling used clothing and furniture in order to provide job training for the disabled. Among Goodwill’s lesser-known functions is to supply low-cost contract labor to the federal government. Italie’s job was to sew U.S. Navy jackets in Goodwill’s Miami plant. The factory had been humming since Sept. 11; to meet the surging demand for American flags, it had gone on a 24-hour production schedule.

At 5 p.m., half an hour before the conclusion of his 10-and-a-half-hour shift, Italie’s supervisor called him into the personnel office, where he was greeted by the plant’s head of security. “Because of your views of the U.S. government, which are contrary to those of this agency, you are a disruptive force and cannot work here anymore,” he said, according to Italie. “Take your things and go.”

Italie does indeed have a view of the U.S. government that is unconventional, even hostile: As a member of the Socialist Workers Party, he favors creation of a “workers’ and farmers’ government” in the United States along the lines envisioned by Karl Marx, V.I. Lenin, and Leon Trotsky. (The Socialist Workers Party began life in 1928 as a Trotskyist splinter from the Communist Party U.S.A., but over the past 30 years the venerable blood-feud between Leninists and Trotskyites has faded.) “We don’t advocate violence,” Italie told Chatterbox. “Violence is rooted in the capitalist system.” (He really does talk like that.)

According to the above Slate article this politically motivated firing was completely legal. I find that disturbing. In my view employers should never be able to fire their workers for what they do outside work (apart from criminal activities like
theft or rape).

Quickfire round

Published on July 2, 2002Leave a comment

Kip has reprinted an excellent article on Long Story, Short Pier he wrote in 1998 about why you don’t read comics. I don’t normally link to stories on the blogs in my sidebar (hopefully y’all read them already), but I’ll make an exception for this. For people familiar with the US comics industry it won’t contain any real surprises, but it’s good to see it neatly laid out again why the industry sucks so much.

Via Eschaton comes an article about how Microsoft Word bit Blair in the butt. It seems the infamous UK dossier on Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and how Saddam’s intelligence services tried to conceal them from UN inspectors still contained the revision metadata. In other words, it’s possible to see when it was revised and who did it. Oops.

Fantasy author Jo Walton talking about Amazon’s blurb for her new book:

I wouldn’t have said myself “You have never read a novel like Tooth and Claw” because in fact it’s a whole lot like Trollope. Indeed, pretty much the only difference is that all the characters are dragons and eat each other.

Not a lot of difference indeed…

Gallowglass, a blog I really should put on the blogroll already, pays some attention to noted nutcase David Icke:

Icke, for those who aren’t familiar with him, has had a roller-coaster career. He came to public attention as a professional footballer, and then sports presenter for BBC. Icke went on to become national spokesperson for the Green party but had to resign shortly after he announced that he was the Son of God (job conflicts).

The Brendan O’Neill drinking game!

Published on June 18, 2002Leave a comment

Some people you can engage constructively with, others you should just mock. It’s in this spirit Wis[s]e Words proudly presents:

The Brendan O’Neill drinking game!

Requirements: a well stocked fridge or larder with your favourite alcoholic drink and access to O’Neill’s weblog: http://www.boneill.blogspot.com/. Then take:

One sip for each time Spiked online is mentioned

One sip for each time Brendan links to an article written by his boss, Mick Hume

One sip for each time Brendan links to a Spiked online article

Two sips every time he mentions “the left” or “lefties” as one undifferated mass

Two sips every time he compares Ireland favourably to England

Down the glass if he talks about or mentions “a climate of fear” or a similar phrase as
an explenation for, well everything.

Down the glass each time he castigates the left on a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” basis.

Drink the rest of the bottle if he can manage a whole entry without doing any of the above.

Data protection, the Internet and the European Parliament

Published on May 30, 2002Leave a comment

Damn, the European Parliament has just approved an EU proposal which will make it compulsory for ISPs to log and save all internet traffic of all their users. This so it can be used by the police or other security services in case they need to backtrack a suspect’s activity on the internet. Apparantely, this is also needed for national security reasons, to prevent September 11 style attacks on the EU.

It’s hard to fully state the stupidity of this decision. Privacy, including online privacy is a great good that should not be offered on the altar of “national security”, especially since I doubt this proposal will makes us the least bit safer. Think about the amount of data that will be gathered if this new directive will be put into practise. Think how difficult it will be to find anything useful in there and the possibilities for mischief. I don’t think everybody should be treated as a criminal because it just might help capturing a real criminal.

Bruce Sterling

Published on May 29, 2002Leave a comment

I love him, as a writer that is. Always thought he was far better then that poseur, William Gibson. He is what Neal Stephenson wants to be when he grows up. Sterling’s a cool hip technodude, so of course he Has his own blog. Also has his own “megalomanic but it might just work and at least it’s interesting” project for world improvement.

All of which is just a preamble to say that I’ve just read two of his novels, Heavy Weather and Involution Ocean together with one of Tom Holt’s comedies, Wish you Were Here. Made the usual sort of comments at the usual place, do take a look.

After that, you could do worse then download his 1992 non-fiction book about what happened when the Secret Service went on a
Hacker Crackdown.