Originally Posted by
Sink r8
Alfa,
I think you can advocate with passion AND respect for you audience. You can be polite without being meek.
But I do agree that there is a double-standard here, and it has to do with something I defend, namely the anonymous nature of APC. I sometimes feel we're not getting the subtitles here, and some of the posters attacking you are union members present or past, on a vendetta. Passions run hotter in domestic disputes. Unfortunately, all participants have an equal right to anonymity, so it's hard to distinguish a crime of passion to an accidental drive-by shooting. Since you've insisted you're a line guy, and everyone else seems to be just a line guy, it's kind of hard to argue that people are just getting a pass on taking pot-shots at the union guys...
Since the rule on anonymity is not expected to change soon, and since most lurkers are eventually able to tell gratuitous personal attacks from legitimate discussions, the only way out is to reach and keep the moral high ground. Make the convincing argument, and you prevail. Get personal, and you lose.
Just to be clear, I didn't say that only union guys don't get a pass, I said there is a certain school of thought that is allowed any and all liberties and then another school of thought is held to a standard of perfection.
I will be the first to admit that I am an aggressive advocate. I play with sharp elbows and I will keep up the fight as long as it takes to win. You are right that some ex/current union members are not happy with me. They were on the other side of the sharp elbows during the merger and they were unhappy. Of course there is a lot of hypocrisy, where they excuse their own aggressive positions and think they have a right to hold a grudge simply because their side's views did not prevail. Again, I was held accountable because I tended to counter emotional arguments with hard data and that is frustrating for some.
In the last decade I have seen the results of unions melting down. The internet has given everyone in the world the same ability to communicate. I have seen how simplistic, populist views can swing the day. It is very seductive, "you deserve it" "they owe you" "just be tough and the other side will give you what you want"; who wouldn't want that all to be true.
The truth is that negotiations are all about hard data and facts, those populist arguments just lead to failure. Dealing with reality is not "managing expectations" it is dealing with reality. A quick look around the industry in the last 7 years is all the proof you need. The number one failure is USAPA, that has suffered from mass delusion over this time. They are now at a point where only a handful of their Captains make more than a Delta DC-9 First Officer. Yet you read the propaganda they put out to their pilots they think they are winning and victory is just a short distance away.
A lie will truly travel halfway around the world before the truth can put its pants on. Especially when the lie is all too seductive to believe and is wrapped up in fancy graphs or pretty graphics. The American pilots just about blew themselves up in this bankruptcy, they managed finally to pull their butts out of the bonfire at the last minute. So I am labeled an arrogant prick when I try to tell them the way the world is rather than the way they want it to be. Maybe there is now some ex post facto consolation from the fact that they did exactly what I said they should do. I don't for a minute think my advice changed their union, but is it arrogant to give an opinion that proves correct, even it is just on a web board?
Starting in the 90's, Newt Gingrich perfected the art of the politics of personal destruction. Read some of the memos he put out to his Congressional allies at that time and you will see the formula for how to conduct public attacks on not just the ideas but the person also. Now notice how 80ktsclamp talks about "being on the FPL gravy train." Why does he do that? Flight Pay Loss means just that, instead of flying a trip, you get paid the exact same value of the trip and you do union work. You end up spending more time working and end up getting less pay because you can't work your schedule like I do now that I am exclusively flying the line.
Yet he calls it a gravy train. Why? Because he wants to intimate that my views are not honestly held views but that I only say things for financial advantage and that I would sell my soul for a few pennies. You will note that he does not criticize TANSTAAFL who is about to go on full time FPL or Nu Guy who will also get FPL because they agree with him. That is the double standard that I see. I have no union job and Nu Guy is a freshly elected rep and he calls me a union insider. Wow.
As for retaining the high ground, sometimes that works and sometimes that doesn't. Look how John Kerry got swift boated in the 2004 election. You have one candidate that had his powerful father get him a guard job, which he did for about a year and then marked time until his stint was up. You have another who volunteered for an extra tour in the war zone in a dangerous job. Guess which one had his war record questioned? Kerry's lack of response and his "maintaining the high ground" allowed this attack to sink in and probably cost him the election. So "maintaining the high ground" can have some value, but there are times when you are in a knife fight and you need to pull out a knife.
I still maintain that the guys in the internet web board world that take the harshest positions and make the harshest attacks are also the biggest [cats] when it comes to taking a shot. They can dish it out but they truly can't take it. Mr. 80kts complains that he should be allowed to attack unrestrained and the union guys should just stand back and let their character be attacked with no response. I don't accept those rules and I will never accept those rules.
I know that you aren't guilty of this but you raised some good points and I addressed them.