Does anyone else see a similarity between the Republican party and Boeing?

[goaded]

You start with a hard-earned reputation for something (freeing the slaves and standing up for democracy, or building great aircraft), then the marketing and money people take over and profit off that reputation while producing less and less, worse and worse.

The problem is that neither are dealing with consumer goods, they're both playing with people's lives, and Republicans with American democracy.

(No anonymous opinions: say it, own it!)

Updates

+1 y

"Boeing's outgoing CEO could get "golden parachute" worth as much as $45 million.

The CEO before him got one worth $62 million on his way out the door in 2019."

[Cheapskate]

Not really, TBH. To my mind, the Republicans have, as far back as I can remember (the late '90s), been wrong on pretty much every issue, and maliciously so. I think the proof is the way they have enabled Trump every step of the way.

Take Mitch McConnell, who recently retired as a hero of the Republican establishment, including many professed never-Trumpers.

When Trump attempted a coup, Mitch refused to impeach him. Said some bullshit about it being a matter for the courts. Then when the courts take it up, Republicans say it's a political matter that should be dealt with through impeachment.

The only thing they value is power. The rest is all performative.

[juliaanita]

Yes, this has been my contention also.

[Cheapskate]

@juliaanita I almost admire the fact they keep getting away with it.

[juliaanita]

i think that the sole intention of the current Republican party is garner more power and they have absolutely no shame in that pursuit. I also think that they may be better better at playing the political game than democrats.

[Cheapskate]

@juliaanita 100% agree. I can't f***ing believe the Dems had four years to find a candidate and ended up sticking with Biden, who might well pass away before the election. The irresponsibility/incompetence of that just boggles my mind.

[juliaanita]

I am in agreement. However you have to give credit where credit is due. Biden really does feel too old for a second term-but he has accomplished a lot during his first.

So, we have two choices; an ancient man or a convicted sex abuser. i will vote for the former and hope that the latter will be put behind bars.

[Cheapskate]

@juliaanita Maybe he has domestically. I am very disappointed with his foreign policy. He hasn't taken the fight to Putin, he has allowed Israel to level Gaza, the Afghanistan pullout was a clusterfuck, even if the deal was struck by Trump.

Glad to hear you won't vote Trump. I hope the Dems win but am pessimistic.

[juliaanita]

I'm pessimistic too. I would like to push back just a bit RE the war of aggression in Ukraine. I live at least 1/2 my life in Estonia, and I have deep familial roots there. It is thought by almost everyone in NATO and the EU that Biden is almost completely responsible for NATO consolidation and build-up in defence of the EU/NATO border against Russia. My ancient family farm is only 100km from the Russian border and over the last two years we have noticed that there is an extraordinary build-up of NATO presence there. Many US dignitaries have visited and I have even had the opportunity to hear Sec. Blinkin speak in Tallinn. Our Prime Miinister Kaia Kallas has high praise for Biden's actions.
I agree with you about Gaza, though, and that situation brings tears to my eyes. I understand the geopolitical importance for a good Israel/American relationship, but it is so very sad.

[Cheapskate]

@juliaanita I guess I would agree that the U. S. has been much better than Europe itself in taking the threat from Russia seriously, especially since it is only indirectly threatened by Putin, whereas Europe is directly threatened.

What I am disappointed about is that nobody in power seems to recognize that if an aggressor attacks you, you must hit them with equal force to discourage that. In my opinion, we should have tallied whatever damage Putin initially did to Ukraine, and then do that to him and his Kremlin accomplices. This is naturally controversial, given the fear of nuclear war, but I think our timid approach only increases the risk of nuclear war, because he is allowed to escalate all the time.

[juliaanita]

yes, it's a scary situation

[Cheapskate]

@juliaanita Yeah. I thought from your username you were Latina.

[juliaanita]

no, im not Latina-a lot of people make that mistake...

[Cheapskate]

@juliaanita Really? But you're blonde?

[juliaanita]

yep, i'm a blondie :) But I am NOT Latina :)

[DryGermanGuy]

That's actually not a bad analogy. The unexpected and avoidable destruction of a seeming institution from the inside.

[goaded]

Thank you!

[msc545]

So in every other war that we've lost, we've left a lot of equipment behind because it's too cumbersome and expensive to drag it all back. Instead we just render it inoperative or destroy it and it turns into the problem of the country we left it in. We did the same thing in Afghanistan when we lost that war a few years back. Yet, somehow that became Biden's problem because the Republicans wanted it to be his problem. If he had decided to drag it all back, they would have bitched about the cost. Sometimes you can't win no matter what you do.

[goaded]

They even count the price of training, which is really hard to export back home!

[msc545]

@Agagagagaga I didn't see the Taliban leaving. We spent 20 years fighting there - what did we win?

[gorydetails]

Bahahaha. you love to come up with some stupid shit. It’s the Republicans who keep America running. It’s the DEI nonsense pushed by the left making everything worse and worse. We used to value actual competency, now you just have to just check off the right “oppression” checkboxes to get ahead.

[goaded]

God, it's pathetic that the entire right wing can do no better than pick some moral outrage of the week and blame literally everything on that.

Boeing CEO McNerney, who joined Boeing in 2005, claimed "Those who cared too much about the integrity of the planes and not enough about the stock price were “phenomenally talented assholes,” and he encouraged his deputies to ostracize them into leaving the company. He initially refused to let nearly any of these talented assholes work on the 787 Dreamliner, instead outsourcing the vast majority of the development and engineering design of the brand-new, revolutionary wide-body jet to suppliers, many of which lacked engineering departments. The plan would save money while busting unions, a win-win, he promised investors. Instead, McNerney’s plan burned some $50 billion in excess of its budget and went three and a half years behind schedule."

Guess what happens when you don't care about the integrity of the planes? They fall out of the sky or bits fall off.

[Agagagagaga]

@goaded What’s even more pathetic is a German so obsessed with American politics that he has somehow managed to pick up an activist streak for a political party for whom he can’t even vote.

So you do your part on what? A dating website? 🙄

[goaded]

@Agagagagaga I like democracy. Sue me.

[handsomelad70]

You mean like white men are doing today, gorydetails?

[gorydetails]

@handsomelad70 yes, I do. white men still value competency - well except for the libtards.

[handsomelad70]

'Libtards." As Ronnie Ray-Guns said and Dolly Parton sang,"There You Go Again."
Too many white men use "competency" as a code word for blacks in the back of the bus, Hispanics picking lettuce, women barefoot and pregnant, and LGBTQAIs invisible.

[gorydetails]

@handsomelad70 Wait, if "competency" is code for minorities not being able to participate, isn't that you really revealing that you believe they're not competent? Your soft bigotry of low expectations is showing.

[handsomelad70]

MY bigotry? You folk bellyache ANY AND EVERY TIME a qualified minority gets a position over a white boy, whether the white chap is competent or not. And I DON'T believe unqualified minorities, women, white men or ANYONE deserves a job for which they are unsuited.

[gorydetails]

@handsomelad70 yes, your bigotry. You laid it right out there.

[handsomelad70]

Bigotry about what? Not kissing Trump's racist, rapist, swindling grifter fat, nasty a**? Then I'm OH SO PROUD to be bigoted in is case and that of his fellows.

[gorydetails]

@handsomelad70 I explained it to you already. But I'll type slower so you get it. My statement was that I wanted competency to be the standard for employment, not repression points.

You stated that "competency" is code for keeping black people out of jobs.

Which means that you feel that using competency would keep black people out of opportunities.

Which means that you feel black people are not capable of being competent for jobs.

[handsomelad70]

No, you deliberately misunderstand me. I believe ONLY QUALIFIED folk of ANY background should get important jobs. For example, if I'm an airplane passenger, I don't want an incompetent black, Hispanic, female, queer or white male pilot.

[goaded]

@handsomelad70 Nobody does, and yes, he's deliberately misunderstanding you. It's what he does.

[handsomelad70]

I figured as much.

[gorydetails]

@handsomelad70 Then the phrase "competent people" shouldn't trigger you

[exitseven]

No because Boeing;s problems stem from DEI policies adopted over the last few years. They hire according to race and not merit.
www.boeing.com/.../diversity-and-inclusion

[goaded]

No they don't. They stem from outsourcing and from dismissing decades of institutional knowledge in pursuit of short-term profit.

[exitseven]

Yes, that is true as well Everything used to be made in USA. Now they outsource a lot of systems to China

[msc545]

Yes and the reason for all that outsourcing is that stuff made in China is cheaper. Unfortunately, the quality control is also not very good. That results in people's deaths.

[msc545]

The reason that Boeing cares whether or not it's cheaper is because when they can build airplanes more cheaply they can still sell them for a very large profit which they put directly in their pockets or more or less directly. It is the pursuit of profit that leads to the death of people quite literally.

[exitseven]

@msc545 in 2012 a class I took studied Boeings new policy. The first thing I said was 'what could go wrong"?

[goaded]

It's a shame their CEO didn't ask the same question!

[exitseven]

He probably got a big bonus and retired with a giant buyout

[msc545]

Probably so. His golden parachute was negotiated at the time he was hired when they didn't know if he would do a good job or not and apparently didn't care as long as he kept dumping money into the stockholders and executives at the cost of building unsafe airplanes.

[handsomelad70]

Boeing's problems come from crappy (almost lily-white) management, NOT DEI. Why just you just be honest and write that the incompetent n****rs are taking jobs from qualified white men, because it's what you mean, boyo?

[exitseven]

@handsomelad70 I agree with the swipe at management. Who do you think was behind implementing their DEI policy, ? Thise things don't implement themselves.

[goaded]

They also don't cause these sorts of problems. What they do is expand the pool of qualified potential employees, to everyone's benefit.

[handsomelad70]

AMEN, goaded !!!

[exitseven]

@goaded just llook at Biden[s cabinet. They are all hired because of race or sexual orientation. They are all running America into the ground with their incompetence. The token white guy , Sec of Labor Marty Walsh was hired to represent the mentally challenged community but ironically he was the smartest of the bunch because he deserted the sinking ship. They are a prime example of why you should not ise DEI to hire people. Especially people in high positions whose decisions could cost millions of dollars or maybe get some people killed.

[goaded]

upload.wikimedia.org/.../...2%29_%28cropped%29.jpg

They look like normal people, to me. I'm sure you have examples of decisions they made that "cost millions of dollars or maybe get some people killed".

[exitseven]

Just Nayorkis alone has cost us a trillion dollarsxad has gotten hundreds of Americans killed. Austin is not even a real soldier. He got 14 servicemen killed in Afghanistan. Buttegeig was busy on maternity leave when the rest of us had to deal with supply chain issues. Merrick Garland is going after parents that attend school committee meetings. Biden appointed a Supreme Court Justice who did not know questions a first year law student should be able to answer. These people are the biggest group of incompetent ever assembled.

[goaded]

That was a long list of bullshit.

Have you completed Airborne and Ranger schools? Spent decades in the military and commanded a Battalion in an invasion?

The American soldiers killed during the exit from Afghanistan were killed by a terrorist attack.

So what if he was on paternity leave?

Nobody's ever gone after "parents that attend school committee meetings", unless they illegally threaten people with violence. Do you think it's OK for people (some who don't even have children in the school) to turn up and threaten people?

[exitseven]

The servicemen that died were killed by gross incompetence. The terrorists just happened to be there.

[goaded]

With a really big bomb.

[exitseven]

yes but they should not have been there in the first place. Austin clearly did not have their backs. He should have been fired on the spot but Biden cannot fire a black guy. It would be racist.

[strateguy632]

similar boeing most flights are good and the media fuss if a mistake, same republicans... a fuss to distract people from their grocery bill and biden-omic harm.

[goaded]

That's your defence of Boeing? Most of their planes land safely? Even the ones with pieces missing! Great.

[msc545]

That is not really a defense so much as it is an indictment as far as I can tell.

[handsomelad70]

How 'bout Trumpoholism, which would finish America were fat boy re-elected?

[TommyMountainFigure]

Only as in they both fly higher than their opposition!

[goaded]

Even the ones that fall out of the sky?

[Juxtapose]

It's literally diversity equity and inclusion that is causing these airlines to have planes that are falling apart xD

[goaded]

What a ridiculous assertion, when the CEO forced out all the experienced engineers who cared "too much about the integrity of the planes and not enough about the stock price".

[Juxtapose]

So it's just a wonderful coincidence that when DEI starts popping up that things start falling apart, huh?

Airline companies being greedy and CEOs being greedy is nothing new.

[goaded]

You on the right just pick a word or phrase and blame absolutely everything on that for a few months, don't you? Are you sure it's not because of CRT? Maybe the war on Christmas?

Funnily enough, they all end up with something being the fault of anyone but white cis men, like the CEO who decided that caring about the share price should trump caring about whether their planes are safe.

[Juxtapose]

Like I said, corporations have been greedy since forever, this is not new. What is new is this diversity, equity and inclusion bullshit. It's no coincidence that when this started rolling out, bullshit started happening.

[goaded]

Bullshit. The fish rots from the head.

[Juxtapose]

In this case it's DEI.