You've Got To Be Taught to Hate

                            

Now it’s Obama’s turn. He won the dirtiest election in American history following his own advice: make the election about small things and demonize your opponent. There was no pretense of hope and change…just hate and fear. Whether you agree with the tactics or not, Obama ran a brilliant campaign and destroyed a good and decent man in the process. For those of us involved in politics, we may not like the man or the outcome, but we admire political skill when we see it. Barack Obama is the most skilled of skilled politicians. Romney and my fellow supporters can cry about how dirty the campaign was, but at the end of the day if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. You’re playing with the big boys now.

So like I said…now it’s Obama’s turn. Yes, I know he has had a full term already, but it wasn’t his term…at least not in his eyes. The last four years was one big political campaign. He never stopped. He relied on his extreme left wing base and his race to prop him up, reinforcing it every chance he got. Now he has to govern. The nation is facing serious problems. It’s legacy time when all incumbents worry about what the history books will say. Barack Obama is human. He is worrying too.

Now we will find out his true colors. We will find out whether he has learned anything these past four years. We will find out if experience is the best teacher. We will find out if he is ready to leave his ideology at the White House door and do what needs to be done to repair America and the hate he has sown especially during the election.

Things have been strangely, almost eerily, quiet. Romney has fallen off the face of the earth never to be seen again, I think. And where is Obama? The Mideast is in turmoil. The fiscal cliff is looming. American and Europe are on the brink of another recession. Poverty is increasing at an alarming rate. Health care is looming and all of the problems it will force on America. Obama isn’t stupid. He knows what is coming. The ideological purity of the first four years becomes reality in the second four years and he knows the pain that will be inflicted on the country by Obamacare. Now we will find out if he cares. Don’t bet the rent.

So why is the country so quiet? Maybe we are just tired of an election process that is numbing. Maybe we can’t believe we put this jack ass in office for another four years. Maybe we are beginning to understand the truth as the need to protect him in the press is evaporating as his presidency begins its descent to 2016. He will have some effectiveness the next two years...the last two years will be a waste of time as the country moves to get over its Obama stupor. It’s that way for all second term presidents.

The mood of the country is bad and is getting worse. News reports have tried to pump up Black Friday shopping results. Unfortunately there were lots of people looking, not so many people buying. People are skeptical. Some are depressed. Some are afraid.

I am hoping for the best. I am expecting the worst. As the song said in South Pacific, you have to be taught to hate. You have to be carefully taught. So the President who got elected in 2008 railing against the hate of the right, has won the election in 2012 by teaching the rest of America how to hate.  Now he has to unteach us. We will see how that works out.

RIP Twinkies

The demise of Hostess Brands, Inc. is not only sad for Orange Hostess Cupcake fans like me, it is emblematic of the ills this country has faced over the years. 18,500 folks have lost their jobs which will cost the taxpayer a cool $450 million in unemployment benefits to cover them. That’s no Twinkie.

Hostess has had a troubled past, filing for bankruptcy once before…then doing it again as the cost of basic foodstuffs rose and the demand for product fell as Americans changed their eating habits. Union contract issues were the immediate cause for the closing, but so were management issues…aggravated by unions.

Over the years, Hostess Brands, Inc. did not have internal organic growth. It grew by acquisitions. It started out as a bread manufacturer named Interstate Bakeries Corporation in 1930 located in Kansas City. In 1937 it began an aggressive series of mergers and acquisitions that extended clear through the late 1900’s. ln mid 1995 it purchased the Continental Baking Company, itself having a history of acquisitions and mergers, from Ralston Purina acquiring the Hostess and Wonder Bread brand names…and it kept on buying more bakeries. Each of these merged and/or acquired companies had their own culture…and their own union contracts.

This pastiche of union contracts and diverse corporate cultures forced the publicly traded Interstate Bakeries (IBC) into bankruptcy in 2004. It emerged from bankruptcy in 2009 as a privately held corporation named Hostess Brands with a fresh infusion of cash from its private investment firm owners, such as Ripplewood and GE Capital among others. The unions made concessions in exchange for the cash infusions to keep the company going.

But the root of the problem still existed. There was no single unified contract, with various segments of the company operating almost at diverse purposes. CEO’s came and went every couple of months as they realized it was too unwieldy to control. Work rules were crippling. By January 2012 Hostess Brands debt exceeded $860 million, much of it in ununfunded pension obligations. Meanwhile, company executives were giving themselves liberal raises sometimes in excess of 80%.

Hostess then filed for bankruptcy protection again in January 2012, and in July issued possible layoff notices as required by Federal law while urging the workers to stay on the job while the owners attempt to rebuild the company. Everything collapsed on November when the Bakers Union rejected a new contract by 92% of the vote…and the rest is history.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the demise of this American institution. Due diligence would require those running the company to examine the outcome of purchasing numerous companies with different cultures and union contracts. Spoiler alert: it won’t work!!! Unions also were willing to turn a blind eye to the fundamental problems facing the company, and were unwilling to resolve the contractual issues with the owners to simplify the company’s operation to efficient levels. Sometimes pay may be what the members are interested in…but work rules may be the ultimate deal breaker.

Hostess Brands was an old style American company that has gone the way of other American companies founded in the early twentieth century whose growth was non-organic. No matter what the product from steel to light bulbs to bakery goods to cars…that old management/union model has proven to be problematic in modern America. The digital age is an age of efficiency on steroids. The old way just doesn’t cut it. You can’t have a union requiring the delivery of Wonder Bread and Ding Dongs in two different trucks to the same store.

More likely than not, the major brands owned by Hostess will re-emerge in a non-union setting, in a right to work state, in a modern and efficient bakery with modern work rules and product delivery systems. In the meantime, we will miss our Twinkies.

The American Press

One of my favorite political observations is that I am constantly amazed at the wisdom of the American electorate, and its stupidity. There is an underlying assumption in that observation. Is assumes that the American electorate is informed. That wasn’t the case this year. And it wasn’t the electorate’s fault.

When Obama ran for president in 2008, the potential of the first African American president permeated the media. Already steeped in liberalism, here was the chance to assuage white guilt and right all of the wrongs Americans had inflicted on the world in one fell swoop. The press became orgasmic and hasn’t stopped since. Obama understood American guilt. Hewould be the father confessor to grant absolution. And it was a double bonus. He also would give blessing to the cultural path forged on both coasts of the continent while denigrating those in the center who clinged to their bibles and guns.

America was already on the path to a British style press where the press isn’t objective, but left or right. Talk radio and Fox News developed as a backlash to the Dan Rather types who decided their wisdom rose above the hoypoloi of perceived American ignorance. 90 percent of the main stream press identify themselves as liberal and Democrat. Of course they are objective…if you agree with them. Since Walter Cronkite’s public epiphany criticizing the Vietnam War, the press has moved steadily down the path of shaping the news rather than reporting the news. Since the 2008 election, the press has actually become the news, the most obvious example being Candy Crowley inserting herself into the second debate defending the President rather than moderating the debate. And it turned out she was wrong and quietly back tracked the next day. Really?

The reaction to the collapse of a watch dog professional press was the rise of talk radio and Fox News. Talk radio makes no pretense of being objective. It is raw conservative meat. Fox News is different. Although it has an obvious right wing political bent on its commentary shows, its hard news is highly objective and sometimes can be left of center. Its panel discussions on the hard news shows have equal numbers of liberals and conservatives. It is not unusual to see panelists from the ABC News, the Washington Post, and the New York Times sitting with the likes of Fred Barnes and Charles Krauthammer. Brett Bair, Britt Hume, Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace are consummate news folks of the old school.

But it still a cable news channel although it consistently draws several million viewers a night compared to CNN which barely draws a few hundred thousand. Most folks still get their news from ABC, NBC and CBS who as of late don’t even try to hide their left wing bias. Every now and then they get caught with their pants down…CBS News and that Dan Rather thing with dummied Bush documents. CBS say a few Hail Mary’s but old habits die hard. There isn’t a Republican or conservative in the bunch.

The result of all of this has been a non-reporting of basic news to the American public since Obama took office. The press not only spun the news, it just stopped reporting it. Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the green energy scandals, the huge unemployment problems, Hurricane Sandy, all were mentioned, but barely and shoved under the rug. Where are the homeless? Where are the stories about the highest poverty level in 60 years? Where are the stories about food inflation and gasoline inflation? The most disturbing was the cover up of the Benghazi incident. CBS withholding footage of Barack Obama comments as to the nature of the attack up to the day before the election is unforgivable, and America should take note. You cannot trust these people for the truth.

And since the election, we now find out the press hid stories about an American drone being attacked by Iran over international waters and General Petraeus, head of the CIA, caught with his pants down, literally. 

The press knows that news is now fractured with Americans pre-occupied with all of their electronic gadgets watching 200 cable channels. The press can get away with it now. And what really is scary to me? I would guess that some of you reading this wouldn’t know about some of the issues I mentioned above not because of anything you did, but the press didn’t report them.

The surprise isn’t that Obama won the last election. The surprise is that given how the news has been reported this past year that Romney did as good as he did.

This is scary stuff. When the proverbial you know what hits the fan in this county, and it will, point the finger at the press…if they bother to report anything at all.