.
I am no expert on global migration, but I have plenty of experience in telling when the Very Serious Pundits are lining up their narratives. From the Washington Post, “Frustrated migrants blame U.S. for their predicament“:
BICSKE, Hungary — If he ever got the chance, he’d settle in the United States, Rzgar Abdul said. But for now, he lives in this spare, barracks-style refugee camp, placing much of the blame for his squalid existence on the United States. After all, the Islamic State proliferated when U.S. forces pulled out of an unstable country. And that proliferation forced him to leave his home, said Abdul, 28, who is from the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
“Iraq’s problem is America’s problem,” said Abdul, who said he was a translator for the United States during the Iraq war, making him a target. “This crisis is America’s problem. In Iraq, Syria, all over, the U.S. did not do enough.”
From the squalid migrant campgrounds in Hungary to the offices of Europe’s elected officials, many others also saw the swell of migrants crossing borders as evidence of a failed U.S. foreign policy. Even as President Obama declared that the country would extend asylum to 10,000 Syrians, many blamed the United States for the migration crisis that has walloped Europe.
In Germany, it is rare that the distant reaches of the political left and right agree on anything. But they do now: The United States is at fault…
Meanwhile Peggy “Channeling America’s Meanest Since the Reign of St. Reagan” Noonan climbs atop her Wall Street Journal soapbox, to explain how “A humanitarian crisis threatens the future of Western institutions” [my emphases]:
What a crisis Europe is in, with waves of migrants reaching its shores as the Arab world implodes…
According to the U.N. refugee agency, 53% of the migrants are from Syria, 14% from Afghanistan, 7% from Eritrea, and 3% each from Pakistan, Nigeria, Iraq and Somalia. Seventy-two percent are men, only 13% women and 15% children. Not all are fleeing war. Some are fleeing poverty. Not all but the majority are Muslim...
Reading the popular press of Europe you see the questions. Do we not have a right to control our borders? Isn’t the refugee wave a security threat? ISIS is nothing if not committed to its intentions. Why would they not be funneling jihadists onto those boats?…
Damning “the elites” is often a mindless, phony and manipulative game… But in this crisis talk of “the elites” is pertinent. The gap between those who run governments and those who are governed has now grown huge and portends nothing good.
Rules on immigration and refugees are made by safe people. These are the people who help run countries, who have nice homes in nice neighborhoods and are protected by their status. Those who live with the effects of immigration and asylum law are those who are less safe, who see a less beautiful face in it because they are daily confronted with a less beautiful reality—normal human roughness, human tensions. Decision-makers fear things like harsh words from the writers of editorials; normal human beings fear things like street crime. Decision-makers have the luxury of seeing life in the abstract. Normal people feel the implications of their decisions in the particular.
The decision-makers feel disdain for the anxieties of normal people, and ascribe them to small-minded bigotries, often religious and racial, and ignorant antagonisms. But normal people prize order because they can’t buy their way out of disorder.People in gated communities of the mind, who glide by in Ubers, have bought their way out and are safe. Not to mention those in government-maintained mansions who glide by in SUVs followed by security details. Rulers can afford to see national-security threats as an abstraction—yes, yes, we must better integrate our new populations. But the unprotected, the vulnerable, have a right and a reason to worry…
The biggest thing leaders don’t do now is listen. They no longer hear the voices of common people. Or they imitate what they think it is and it sounds backward and embarrassing. In this age we will see political leaders, and institutions, rock, shatter and fall due to that deafness.
Those elitists — That Man in our White House — they’re the ones at fault here, Peggy says, soothingly. They don’t care if dark-skinned Muslims take over your neighborhood, because they won’t have to live amid the terrorists and ayatollahs and non-American-speakers. They don’t listen to nice normal folk like you, the common people, because they’re too busy talking to each other about their highfaluting one-world-government elitist fantasies. But there’s a way to fix that…
sparrow
Well, it is our fault, mainly. Not Obama’s specifically, but “us” the arrogant west that thought we could treat the middle east (and many other parts of the world) as our own personal sandbox to do whatever we wanted in with no thought to reactions or consequences.
Mike J
I was going to suggest that Crawford, Texas take in a few hundred thousand, but the owner of the prop ranch moved when he didn’t need to appear rustic any more.
Kropadope
@sparrow: That may be true, but…
…the media already has it’s narrative. Obama is a traitorous appeaser and has been since before he took office.
redshirt
If the Bushies goal was to destroy the Middle East, well, they might get a Mission Accomplished after all.
Some guy
We didn’t create ISIS, our allies did. We didn’t create all the jihadis fighting the Assad government, we simply funded them, and let our allies arm them. 3 years ts of cheerleading by Anne Barnard in the Times and Liz Sly in the Post gave al Qaeda all the moral, political, and financial support they could ask for. The chickens, they now come home to roost.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
I have elections on the brain today (sorry) so I feel I have to point out that rhetoric like this is exactly why Republicans have seen a huge drop in their support by Asian-Americans, who remember this exact same rhetoric being aimed against themselves and their ancestors. Can’t let those Buddhists/Hindus/Muslims in, who knows what their weird religions will lead them to do?
Also, we are assholes for not offering refuge to the people who helped us in Iraq by working as translators. There is no excuse at all for that.
Brachiator
@sparrow:
This is less true than you suggest, and even if it were true, it is irrelevant to the problems that migrants are enduring.
The “West” is not responsible for Syria. Nor is it particularly responsible for Eritrea or Nigeria. Obviously, we can blame the US and the West for Iraq and Afghanistan, even Somalia to a large extent, but then, what next? Libya collapsed despite attempts to encourage liberalization. The roots of problems in Yemen have far more to do with internal politics than anything else (and here the Saudis are keeping the chaos churning).
And Noonan’s inane ramblings are especially vile and pointless. More and more she comes across like someone mixing too many pills and too much morning boozing.
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope: Oops, second column states only 3% of refugees are from Iraq.
Iraqi ex employee of the Americans saying US Army should return to Iraq, guess what, not a representative sample.
LWA (Liberal With Attitude)
Its odd as I was reading this, I saw the line “rules on immigration and refugees are made by safe people” and nodded, thinking it was Anne Laurie, then was puzzled when it went on to use that logic- that the elites are out of touch with the suffering of the refugees- to argue the exact opposite, that we should scorn and ignore the plight of the refugees so as to keep our slightly-less-than elites comfortable and undisturbed.
We are seeing that perfect distillation of that old saw about how when there is a crisis, it is always the fault of the immigrants, the minorities, the strange people next door, anyone and everyone except the lord in his castle. Pit one half of the working class against another.
Another Holocene Human
@Brachiator:
And lazy (always lazy). And mendacious.
She’s trying that “git them elites what [fill in the blank]” gambit which I’m sure she had practiced and honed for Reagan. Total lie, both she and Reagan were in that gated community with the minimum wage guard in a poorly ventilated shack.
Total lie, as ordinary Europeans from all walks of life have rushed to train stations to provide direct aid to refugees.
Lazy lie.
Woodrowfan
the idiot thinks “Ubers” are a kind of car…
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Yup. Sounds like something a medieval king would do. The sort of people Anglophile WASPs like the Bushes worship.
Well, no surprise there, then.
JWR
What I find interesting, if not predictable, is that Iraq seems to have all but disappeared from the U.S. media narrative. It’s as if the invasion of Iraq never happened!
SWMBO
@Mike J: I still say that Laura hid the booze in the brush so he would have to search for it.
Another Holocene Human
@Woodrowfan: Yes, that was another stupid one. Only wealthy people ride Ubers. Nope.
Plenty of young people with no car rely on Uber when they can’t use public transit. It’s sad, yeah, the cab companies could have done this for themselves (computer and GPS aided dispatching) but were too arrogant to do so. Cabbies have always faced wage exploitation, but Uber drivers have it far worse. The millennials riding don’t care; they need a fucking ride, they paid for it, and those other issues aren’t their problem.
Another Holocene Human
@JWR:
“Do they still sing songs about the Great Tribble Hunt?”
Calouste
We can safely assume that “Europe” here means “Britain”, because Noonan is not going to read anything that’s not in English (and she won’t be aware that some European newspapers have summaries in English). So popular here means either the Murdoch-owned The Sun or the Daily Mail aka the Hate Mail. I can predict what is in those papers about immigrants without having to read them, and it’s stuff that would make Donald Trump blush.
SWMBO
@JWR: And we didn’t invade Iraq under false pretenses. And we didn’t sign an agreement to leave Iraq so that whoever came after W got the blame for the devolution of the region. Nope. Nothing to see here. Move along.
KG
@JWR: in the 24 hour news cycle 2005 might as well be 1805
Some guy
@Another Holocene Human
Have you ever used Uber in Gainesville yourself?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@LWA (Liberal With Attitude):
I think it’s supposed to mean, When the Mooslims come to kill you, the people who let them in won’t be at risk. It’s the Yellow Peril all over again.
debbie
Among the worst things Bush/Cheney did was to tell countries that the U.S. would take care of it for them. This is why the Saudis do nothing, this is why Turkey does nothing, this is why Syrians expected the U.S. to intercede for them, and, most of all, this is why Israel does nothing (constructive). If anything, Bibi’s pissed because he can’t be sure the U.S. will step in and take care of it all for Israel.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
I’m assuming most people here are familiar with the historical concept of the Yellow Peril, but just in case:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_peril
History repeats.
Another Holocene Human
@Some guy: No. But I hear people talking about it all the time and the cabbies at the airport say they’re getting killed. Oh, and the student paper recommended them as a backup to riding the bus here, which is very good to students and is also tracked with GPS.
There was never any cab regulation here so, wevs. (Er, there are medallions, but that’s just a rent extracted by City Hall. There is no regulation. Whatsoever. I don’t know if the state requires passenger endorsement or something like that, but the City has nothing to do with that.)
There’s actually some new cab services that have started up and seem to be doing well. Dropping gas prices and improving economy, plus the other companies have a shitty reputation.
And the mayor was embracing Uber.
UF has those Flexcars too. If you want to rent wheels. Part of the deal is they let people under 25 rent. The conventional car rental places seem to be doing really well right now as well though.
debbie
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Endlessly.
feebog
That is almost pitch perfect projection from someone who has been an “elite” for the last 40 years.
Another Holocene Human
Speaking of shitty reputations, it’s been a decade since I took a cab in Gainesville. And I’ve taken some long walks. Maybe things are changing but back then the cab market was at a state of market failure and cabbies would work in Jacksonville and do a sideline in Gainesville during peak times. It was common to see GNV and JAX medallion stickers side by side.
I have a car of my own now. :/
benw
With regard to the image: everyone knows the Statue of Liberty was made by the cheese-eating surrender monkey French and is therefore cowardly and suspect. Freedom fries!
Belafon
@JWR:
redshirt
The Statue of Bigotry.
Some guy
@Another Holocene HumanI ask because I am a gainesville Uber driver.
Ordinance 28 was just revised after a long process. I spoke before the City Commision multiple timbres during that procrastination. Rare is the bill that gets unanimous support from both Left and Right here.
Gainesville loves Uber. We are better than the cabs, and the exploding ridership proves it.
Belafon
@Some guy: Do you have a link to the changes that were made?
Edit: So far, I’ve only found this: https://www.municode.com/library/fl/gainesville/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=PTIICOOR_CH28VEHI, and I don’t see any relevant changes.
Full metal Wingnut
@Another Holocene Human: I like car sharing though-really saves me money not having a car and is convenient, and unlike Uber I don’t think there is any labor exploitation involved.
PurpleGirl
@Another Holocene Human: In NYC there is regulation of street cabs. I can call a limo service for a car and pay them by cash. If I wanted to use Uber, I’d have to have a smart phone and start an account for them to take the fare directly from my credit or debit card. There are two limo services who have expanded their use of smart phone apps to order cars. Personally, I don’t like the idea of giving Uber my credit information. I also didn’t like seeing on the Uber web site that a car ride between my house and the hospital clinic I go to had a variable fare. I know what the fare is when I call the limo service I use — it’s in the same zone and costs X. Always the same X. I like having an idea of what the fare will be.
ETA: Maybe this isn’t how it is in other places, but it is how things are in NYC.
Some guy
@Belafon:
The changes to Ordinance 28 ? Yes. Leery me see if they have been officially posted.
Nope.sooner they don’t take effect until October 1 thru ate not posted at municode yet. I have hard copy here,as I was the point person for the Uber drivers during the year long process of revision.
boatboy_srq
Wow. So the struggling-to-do-even-as-well-as-our-parents-did crowd who are falling back on the “sharing economy” are now somehow elitist. Pretty soon anyone with a roof over his/her head will be considered wealthy and insulated from reality. Does Noonan even hear herself? Don’t even get me started on “gated communities of the mind”: that way lies FundiEvangelical Xtian Reichwing madness.
Shorter: the US didn’t kill enough jihadis. WaPo finds an Iraqi bold enough to tell the US that the GWoT didn’t result in sufficient carnage.
Zinsky
@redshirt: “The Statue of Bigotry”
Is that a reference to this song from the late great Lou Reed?
http://youtu.be/7z3TPwOT31g
Full metal Wingnut
@Some guy: I’ve used Uber in the outer boroughs when I couldn’t for the life of me get a cab. In Manhattan below W 96th though it’s pointless.
The thing with Uber is, I hate the way they treat their empl-oh excuse me, “independent contractors.” But I can see why they’ve gotten popular. If you’re in Manhattan uber might seem like a silly idea. Especially since the TLC regulates the shit out of cabbies. The fares are transparent and the TLC takes customer complaints very very seriously.
I was in Orlando with my wife. We took a cab from the airport to our universal hotel. A fifteen minute ride and it was almost fifty dollars! I know cabbies gotta eat but goddamn. I got a “fare estimate” for a ride from the hotel back to the airport (didn’t use Uber though) and it was $15. That’s why I can understand (without necessarily condoning) people using Uber in certain cities.
In New York, a shitload of people take cabs. You can’t get away with ripping people off. In a car centric place like Orlando or my old city Miami, where most people drive and people rarely take cabs unless they’re going to the airport, the cab companies can get away with murder
Mike in NC
When George W. Bush declared, “Freedom is on the march!”, he probably didn’t have this latest crisis in mind, and any journalist asking his brother about it will be considered shrill by the VSPs.
Brachiator
@Another Holocene Human:
Very true. And Noonan would have to condemn Pope Francis as one of those “pesky elites” exhorting nations to accept more immigrants.
Zinsky
I always find Peggy Noonan’s writing to be so obtuse and self-referential, that it doesn’t even make sense. I guess another way to say it is that she is a piss poor writer. This column is no exception. Also, the way she used to fawn over Ronald Reagan was downright creepy and made me convinced she had some sort of perverse Daddy complex thing for the geriatric old fool.
Full metal Wingnut
Although I should add I’m not against ride sharing, I’m just not a fan of Uber. In my small college town, the local cab charged extortionate rates to get to the airport. So Christmas break-I’d ask a buddy with a car to drive me to the airport. Failing that, ask around the dorm. Sophomore year me and three other people each paid our RA like ten bucks to drive us to the airport at the end of a semester. Sure I’m taking money out of the cab companies pockets, but I don’t see that as inherently immoral. Unlike with Uber, I’m not exploiting my RA, just giving him a couple bucks for a one off transaction.
Suzanne
That phrase “gated communities of the mind” is very clearly implying “college”. More class-warfare-stoking bullshit, trying to soothe the fears of the un-higher-educated that the Real Terrorists are those with a degree who hate you and think you’re stupid.
God DAMN, it’s so transparent.
Belafon
Cabs::Uber as Restaurants::Fast Food.
I wouldn’t be against Uber except the “employees” are being treated like McDonald’s employees. Make McDonald’s and Uber pay a real wage and have regulations that prevent exploitation, and I won’t care.
Citizen_X
Well, Peggy, we could do like your hero Ronnie did and send all them filthy illegals back home to keep ‘Murica pure.
Oh, did I say “send them back?” I meant “give them all amnesty.”
srv
Courtesy Bombing does not incur responsibilities or obligations, especially if you are a democrat.
I wonder why ISIS doesn’t use Uber.
And just yesterday, the Germans were calling the Hungarians Nazis.
Some guy
@Belafon:
Took a little searching,but here is the new ordinance 28, as a pdf.
https://gainesville.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=4013596&GUID=FA850855-8F4D-47B3-B17A-838E26EE6082
Doug R
@SWMBO: Why else would he be cutting brush in Texas in August? Unless he was trying to get away from the presidential daily briefing.
celticdragonchick
@Some guy:
I was an uber driver here in Greensboro.
Good experience driving for the most part, but uber doesn’t give a shit about the drivers and will throw you to the fucking wolves if you have problem.
It is physically impossible to talk to a living person over an issue. All you have is email that may go unanswered for days at a time, and most of which goes to poorly paid workers in the Philippines who answer from a cut and paste script.
The driving was generally pretty good. The company is a Randian asshole dystopian nightmare that can lick the glistening dew off the anus of a dead hyena.
Suzanne
@celticdragonchick:
That’s some high-quality invective right there. WTG. Me likey.
benw
@Mike in NC:
Speaking of W., here’s someone who hasn’t learned a damn thing since he was president.
Doug R
@Another Holocene Human: Most places the cab company or some middleman owns the licenses and the drivers have to pay a couple of hundred dollars a day for the cab. Uber just exploits drivers in a different way is all.
Some guy
Feeling the love for Uber. I make more as an Uber driver than I do as a teacher. Your mileage may vary.
I want aware that Mc Donalds workers could set their own schedule. You learn something new every day.
Lee Rudolph
The cleaning bills must be murder, though.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Belafon: I’m not at all sure McDonald’s doesn’t treat its workers better.
Some guy
@Lee Rudolph:
Not at all. I have collected two $200 cleaning fees in the last month.
srv
Uber drivers are the truest economic expression of libertarianism-in-action today. Discuss.
JGabriel
Peggy Noonan:
And yet that didn’t stop Noonan from basing her entire political & punditry career on it.
Some guy
This thread mind of reminds me of our 4th of July family dinner, when all 6 of my sisters got up on their soap boxes to denounce and wax prophetic about Uber.
Not that they had ever used Uber, ever, or had shown one iota of concern or compassion for Taxi drivers previously, but they were 100 percent certain Uber was evil.
Takes all types, I guess
celticdragonchick
@Some guy: Greensboro is too small a market, and uber has a bad habit of fucking with the uberx drivers (uberx is the economy version) during high traffic periods and directing calls to drivers with high end cars. I saw a lot about that coming out of Texas where uber drivers pre positioned for concerts etc and watched uberlimo and ubersuv taking every single call while they sat and had nothing come up on the phone.
It happened to me on July 4th. I sat for three hours in the middle of downtown Greensboro on one of the busiest nights of the year. Elm street was so clogged with cabs that it would have been impossible for me to even get the riders…but when the guaranteed hourly minimum went to 20 bucks an hour with three rides per hour…I got nothing. Not one fucking call from midnight to 2:30 in the morning, and I was surrounded by drunks.
Any other night, I would get a steady restaurant and bar clientele from about 8 to 1 AM, with a lot of repeat customers. All of sudden, I didn’t seem to exist in the system.
My last weekend driving was at the Wyndham golf tourney, which was actually pretty good during the day until too many drivers showed up from out of town and over fished the pond. I can’t blame them, but they ended up wasting a lot of their own time driving from Winston Salem to sit for an hour or more in the parking lot before their turn came up to get one ride in for the whole day. The uber advance team which flew in from DC was a lot of just out of college types…fresh faced and energetic and had no idea what dicks they were actually working for. I drove the entire team back to their hotel from the restaurant where they had dinner, and I liked them a lot. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that their company was actually fucking up something that another company with some decency could do so much better.
raven
@Some guy: “To compassion”? I hope the fuck you don’t teach english
raven
@celticdragonchick: My friend who just died has a daughter who lives there. She works at UNCG in the Properties and Scenic art dept.
celticdragonchick
@raven: Damn. Sorry to hear about your friend. :(
raven
@celticdragonchick: Yea, I guess the best thing is that the brain cancer took her quickly.
Chet
If only we’d kept those dirty fucking bog-trotting potato famine refugees out back in the day, we wouldn’t have Noonan’s violent, thuggish brethren to deal with.
Or, you know, Noonan.
celticdragonchick
@raven: Fuck cancer. Seen it too often.
celticdragonchick
@Chet: But we also wouldn’t have Bill Maher to mock her.
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick:
Fucken bullshit.
My town needed a cab stand but set it up almost deliberately to fail. I hate the limo services; they’re all assholes (and their clients are assholes).
I’m old school, I like to see a cab waiting right there for me. Or pedicab. Or whatever. (All respect to the pedicab pushers.)
Like I said, the kids feel like they need Uber to get around. They have no idea what’s under the hood and most of them are not the sort to talk to a driver much.
Another Holocene Human
@Some guy: Are you in the cab industry? Are you aware of how they get paid?
I am aware, that’s why I fucking despise Uber in the regulated markets but in Gainesville? Who gives a shit. Fuck the new boss, same as the old boss.
Another Holocene Human
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): McDonald’s tried to turn their employees into a profit center, or at least the franchisers did. Working at McD’s is not what it used to be. Ask a McD’s employee about “labor”.
However, my point is that in most states what they tried to do was illegal and they got stopped. Uber has mostly succeeded in evading regulations. That’s the critical difference.
Another Holocene Human
@Doug R: Uber is like SuperShuttle, in that they force the driver to take on business risk, perfecting the middleman role.
You’re completely correct that the medallion/licensing system has devolved into an elaborate rent system for legacy players while the cabbies themselves get screwed.
That’s why cabbies in major cities have driver associations or, in some areas, are unionized.
In Portland, OR, the cab drivers bought out the owners and were able to pay themselves a living wage and run the company sustainably. But that was a decade ago. Who knows with unlicensed freeloaders running around.
Anybody who thinks Uber is no big deal is not paying attention to labor news.
The shit done to the lowliest workers in America has a way of trickling up. Beware.
Doug R
Speaking as a bicycle courier of about nine years I know we used to get 60 to 50 percent of each trip depending on the company and whether we were considered contractors or employees. When audited the taxman usually agreed we were employees. I realize uber has slightly different demands but I agree they should pay for commercial insurance and your bond. Even a whorehouse only takes 50 percent.
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
This.
You are treated like an employee, in that you are constantly being rated on your job performance, but you assume all the expense and insurance risk (which should not be understated! Private auto insurance IS NOT MEANT TO COVER BUSINESS USE OF YOUR CAR WHERE YOU HAVE PAYING PASSENGERS…AND THAT IS FUCKING OUTLANDISHLY EXPENSIVE!)
That terrified me. Sure, uber insurance covers a bare minimum mandated by local laws while you have a passenger onboard, but you will lose your private coverage immediately in the event of an accident with a passenger, and you can be forced to absorb whatever the uber bare bones insurance won’t cover. I had two cases where the passengers had kids and no car seat with them. I was within my rights to refuse them, but I am also not an asshole to leave a family sitting at the health clinic and the cancellation would still count against me. So, I took the fare and drove like a paranoid tin foil hat wearer watching for every possible problem until I got the families home.
That is how uber gets away with under-pricing other models. The driver is responsible for everything while the company can deny everything. Need to contact them? Nope. They even did away with the customer help line.
You are emailing a .77 per hour kid in Manila who has a script to read.
rikyrah
@celticdragonchick:
Will not use Uber. They still don’t do “urban” areas.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
I like too. Absolutely on point.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Did you see Colbert’s interview with the CEO of Uber last week? It didn’t seem like he asked any/enough tough questions.
redshirt
Does Uber exist in super rural areas? Asking for a friend.
raven
Here’s a story about driving a cab in the drunken fucking rathole Athens is at night.
raven
If ya’ll haven’t seen “Night on Earth” give it a whirl. Jarmusch kills it with nighttime cab stories from around the world.
Villago Delenda Est
The financing for all these refugees should come directly out of the bank accounts of the Bush Crime Family and their vile associates, the Cheneys and the neocons. They created this mess, they introduced the bull into the Pottery barn, they should pay for it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Holocene Human:
That would be the “Business News” people at every newspaper in the country.
Cervantes
@redshirt:
Do cabs?
redshirt
@Cervantes: Theoretically, expensively.
xenos
Uber has been asking for serious trouble in France. Around here a regulated industry is a regulated industry, and systematically evading commercial regulation is considered to be organized crime. The is a lot of precedent for such companies to be pursued in criminal proceedings with a threat of piercing the corporate veil, including time in prison for large shareholders.
Some guy
@Another Holocene Human:
I guess you didn’t read what I wrote.
I drive for Uber in the same town you live in. Was the 3rd driver hired here, 13 months ago.
Cervantes
@redshirt:
Well, there are times in even big cities when cabs exist only theoretically.
Here’s where Uber exists. (You were asking for a friend.)
sparrow
@raven: “Oh Pecorina!” lol
Some guy
@celticdragonchick:
I guess our Uber experiences differ.
Except all the out of Towners who flood this Market on game days. Damn them all to hell, Jax and Orlando drivers.
The one variable you have no control over is the number of cats out driving when you are on the road. It is what it is.
raven
@sparrow: Ba Boom Ba Boom Ba Boom!
PurpleGirl
Uber likes to claim they are a “technology” company and not a transportation company. And they try to get out of regulation on that basis. Further to what I wrote above, I looked at the their web site to check out how to get a Uber car in NYC. I didn’t like that in NYC you have to contact them by smart phone, not even reserve a car on the web site. I don’t have a smart phone.
I do have a limo service — Mexicana — which I use on a regular basis. When I call them they usually can get me a car in 7 minutes. I can work with that kind of timing. When I lived in Astoria, there was a different car service I called. When you use a service regularly, they treat you very well.
WaterGirl
@PurpleGirl: Boy, that doesn’t even pass the sniff test. What company nowadays does not use technology in the delivery of their services?
dmbeaster
@redshirt: Re the Statute of Bigotry, maybe we can replace it with one of Donald Trump mooning the arrivals.
PurpleGirl
@WaterGirl: Two of the larger limo companies in NYC do have apps for calling for a car. (One is Carmel and I forget the name of the other company. They highlight this in their TV ads.) But I don’t have a smart phone and don’t want to have one — I do quite well with the landline or my simple cell phone. Mexicana’s cars have GPS and use apps to contact their dispatchers. But do I have to have a smart phone to do things. I prefer to pay with cash — that’s how I stay within my budget.
ETA: My main point is that in NYC, there are several options.
dmbeaster
@celticdragonchick: Time to apply the NLRB ruling re McDonalds and its responsibility for franchisee employees to Uber.
This is such an old legal issue, in which business creates fictitious relationships to exploit existing rules, as if Uber drivers are independent contractors.
Matt
Nooners hasn’t gotten the memo – the “normal people” (and by that one means the common clay of the New West – y’know, morons) have decided that voicing their small-minded bigotries is the one tr00 way to fight political correctness.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Some guy:
Really? This was predictable as early as 2002. Probably earlier, but by me in 2002.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
“Glide by in their Ubers”? W. T. F.?
A guy
Had we stayed with the presence in the Middle East dick Cheney had the foresight to create the world in that region would be a much better place. I miss him!
Mike G
So a former White House speechwriter for a notably cruel and oblivious POTUS, is railing about “elites” being indifferent to the suffering they cause. Now I’ve heard everything.
Tyro
Enough places have shitty cab service that Uber fills a need. I live in Lower Manhattan. My need for Uber is minimal. If you lived in San Francisco, you’d understand why it caught on so quickly.
That said, there was a difference between when Uber started off as providing a means to call black car services and now when it is all about joe random dude and his car offering people rides.
Tyro
@PurpleGirl: If I wanted to use Uber, I’d have to have a smart phone and start an account for them to take the fare directly from my credit or debit card.
Well, in an earlier era you’d be complaining that you needed a phone line to do a transaction. By 2020 there will be 6 billion smartphones in circulation, and use of credit cards for even the smallest transactions is very common. Plus, you live in NYC with a very functional cab and car service infrastructure.
What I’m saying is that you are a very, very outlying exception when it comes to the market for paying for car service.
Some guy
Uber drivers are in fact the very definition of an independent contractor. Uber is a software company, period. They own no cars.
Projecting your own fantasy onto what Uber is, or is not, spats to have become the latest 3 blind men and an elephant hag. You see in Uber what you want to see.
Nobody is pouring a gun to your head and forcing you to use Uber. You don’t like it, fine, don’t use it. The end.
J R in WV
@celticdragonchick:
Wow. Why don’t you tell us what you really thought about them? ;-)
Well done! good job. I plan to steal that the next time I need to describe my emotional regard for Republicans!!
Walker
@Some guy:
And McDonalds owns (almost) no restaurants.
J R in WV
Kind of off-topic from the original post, but this is where it drifted, so here goes…
We were in San Francisco on a long out-west vacation, our first extended traveling vacation in fact. We took a cab one night after dinner, which was our first time in a high-end Thai place – Wonderful!
Flagged down an empty cab, we had walked miles to the restaurant, and really had no idea where the hotel was from where we were. The driver had good jazz playing on his radio, and we asked how he would feel about leaving the meter on and driving us around town, telling us about the city. So he did, for about an hour. We really enjoyed it. And he charged a very reasonable fee, and I tipped him $20 or more – this was in 1986 or so.
Next morning we packed up, checked out, the doorman at the hotel waved the next cab up, and the two of them loaded our luggage up. We got into the cab, he asked where to, and we told him the train station – which maddened him, because it was only a couple of blocks away. He cursed a blue streak until we got there.
It was $1.80 on the meter. I happened to have gotten a $2 bill in change the day before, and intended to keep it as unusual. I proffered the driver a $10, and as he reached out for it, he told me “I don’t have any change” which was transparently false.
I Said “OH, well then!” – whipped that $10 away, and gave him the $2 bill, and said “Keep the change, buddy!” And I felt good about that for hours.
The alpha and omega of cabbies in less than 18 hours.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@celticdragonchick:
Well, that’s Some Guy in a nutshell.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@raven:
Jarmusch nails it every time.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Some guy:
No shit?
redshirt
I’m the fool that walks 15 miles to avoid paying for a cab.
celticdragonchick
@J R in WV: Please do, by all means. I don’t mind sharing.
mclaren
Yet another “shit and run” expedition from America the Irresponsible Teenager of Global Politics.
Barge into some other country, smash things up, set fire to the drapes, crash a car through their living room window, piss and shit all over their carpet. Then America dashes off, shouting, “My Uncle Sam is rich, he’ll take care of it.” But Uncle Sam never does.
When a kid does this in America, he gets hauled off to jail. When America does this in the world, we get called “the indispensible nation” and praised with eloquent hosannahs by foreign policy gurus.
mclaren
@Brachiator:
Actually, yes it is.
Source: Wikipedia entry for “History of Syria.”
Like so many other cobbled-together artificial nations created by arbitrarily drawing lines on a map after WW I, Syria combines disparate ethnic groups (a guarantee of civil strife) and was created in its present form shortly after WW I by France and Britain and America mainly in order to secure oil supplies for Anglo-French oil interests.
While people in America have no memory of WW I (“What’s that?”) or the role the Treaty of Versailles played in generating destructive civil wars into which America later found itself dragged (Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, yadda yadda), people in the Middle East regard 1919 as yesterday. They remain keenly aware of the role the West (Britain, France, America) played in creating their artificial phony countries by jamming together ethnic groups that hated each others’ guts, and then slamming a lid on the simmering civil strife by installing brutal dictators. Because oil.
Actually, yes it is.
Source: Wikipedia entry for Eritrea.
Hint: “Italian Eritrea” means that Eritrea was cobbled together by Italy.
Source: Wikipedia entry for Italian Eritrea.
Another big hint: Il Duce (Mussolini) played a huge role in assembling Italian Eritrea. When Il Duce got beaten to death by a mob of his Italian victims, Italian Eritrea went up for grabs at the U.N. and turned into a very different political entity.
Italian Eritrea was an assemblage of 9 different nationalities and ethnic groups, most of them former sultanates of the Ottoman Empire, yet another guaranteed stewpot for revolution and civil war. Once again, forcibly assembled by Mussolini and his blackshirts, then disassembled nad re-worked by Western diplomats at the U.N. in 1947.
It cannot have escaped your notice that “Western diplomats at the U.N.” and “Mussolini and his blackshirts” means The West, or a significant part thereof.
Really, you people need to study history a little more. America is not some innocent blameless little altar boy skipping around in the daisies of world history and horribly victimized by accusatory brown-skinned people who inexplicably blame America for all their troubles.
America, along with Britain and France and lesser players like Italy under Mussolini, forcibly assembled many of the so-called “nations” we currently send military forces into. America and Britain and France and Italy along with Germany and Belgium (mainly in Africa) assembled in Frankenstein-monster fashion these countries from wildly inhomogeneous smaller principalities, or entire parts of completely different countries, shortly before and after WW I or after WW II, with the kind of casual disregard that your average gang-rapists exhibits toward their victims. The citizens of countries like Eritrea or Syria (artificial countries cobbled together after WW I by the Western powers) would be very much surprised to hear that the West bears no responsibility for their current sociopolitical turmoil, and that the West in particular played no role in creating or sustaining those turmoils.
celticdragonchick
@mclaren: You keep leaving out the bit that the local people are moral actors with agency also, and bear responsibility for their own actions. They can choose to live together, or not, and they are responsible for the outcomes of those choices.
mr_gravity
@A guy: How can you miss him when he won’t go away.
Villago Delenda Est
@mclaren: You’re ignoring the role of climate change, which is not surprising when you have an ideological axe to grind.