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Seattle’s newest councilmember urges Boeing workers to seize factories
Hotair ^ | 11/21/2013 | Ed Morrissey

Posted on 11/21/2013 8:02:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Here’s the inevitable follow-up on the election of a Socialist to the Seattle City Council — although perhaps sooner than anyone would have thought. Boeing has tried working for years with its unions in the state of Washington, but still cannot reach agreements on labor contracts for its manufacturing facilities. The aerospace giant has looked for other regions in the US to build its planes, which has angered the unions and the Obama administration. It’s also provided an opportunity for Seattle’s newest councilmember to launch her anti-capitalist agenda, and she’s wasted no time in doing so … even before officially taking office:

Seattle City Councilmember-elect Kshama Sawant told Boeing machinists her idea of a radical option, should their jobs be moved out of state

“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night. …

On Monday night, she spoke to supporters of Boeing Machinists, six days after they rejected a contract guaranteeing jobs in Everett building the new 777X airliner for eight years, in exchange for new workers giving up their guaranteed company pensions.

Now Boeing is threatening to take those jobs to other states. “That will be nothing short of economic terrorism because it’s going to devastate the state’s economy,” she said.

So what wouldn’t be “economic terrorism”? Seizing the company’s property, of course:

Sawant is calling for machinists to literally take-possession of the Everett airplane-building factory, if Boeing moves out. She calls that “democratic ownership.”

“The only response we can have if Boeing executives do not agree to keep the plant here is for the machinists to say the machines are here, the workers are here, we will do the job, we don’t need the executives. The executives don’t do the work, the machinists do,” she said.

Well, Seattle voters elected her, so they get what they deserve, but perhaps we should point out a couple of inconvenient realities for Sawant. The machinists don’t own the plants, but that’s only just the beginning. Unless the machinists own the designs, they can’t build the planes unless licensed by those who do. And where will they get the raw materials with which to build the planes? Who pays for the energy necessary to operate the machines?

That’s not to say that the machinists can’t build their own planes, of course. They could open up their own business, design their own planes, and build planes themselves, but they’ll need to find an awful lot of capital with which to do it. That means they’d still have to deal with executive management imposed by the VC sources and labor cost controls, which would certainly include getting rid of any notion of defined-benefit pension systems. Then they’d need to compete on price in order to sell the planes, and find people willing to buy them at all when Boeing is still producing proven models in South Carolina.

That is “democratic ownership.” What Sawant demands is outright theft, and we’ve seen the results of it from China to Russia to Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

Besides, Sawant doesn’t want machinists to build planes anyway:

“We can re-tool the machines to produce mass transit like buses, instead of destructive, you know, war machines,” she told KIRO 7.

War machines? Boeing wants to build another series of commercial airliners. When KIRO informed Sawant of that, she replied that she was was “referring to drones when speaking of war machines.”

Hey, Seattle … you elected her. Have fun. The rest of certainly will … at your expense.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Washington
KEYWORDS: boeing; council; seatlle
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1 posted on 11/21/2013 8:02:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

There are a bunch of empty factories in Detroit, MI; Flint, MI and Rockford, IL that they can have fer free!


2 posted on 11/21/2013 8:03:46 AM PST by Dr. Sivana (There's no salvation in politics.)
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To: SeekAndFind
“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night.

Then who'd buy their effing communist airplanes? Oh wait, they'd instantly become sole source for anything fedgov bought.

3 posted on 11/21/2013 8:04:50 AM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: SeekAndFind

A foreign born fricking immigrant who learned early on how to game the system. She is now in a position to foment real trouble like Barack Hussein Obama. Citizen since 2010 is in no way a true American. Socialist trash.


4 posted on 11/21/2013 8:04:53 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: SeekAndFind

Who is John Galt?


5 posted on 11/21/2013 8:04:59 AM PST by Hoodat (Democrats - Opposing Equal Protection since 1828)
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To: SeekAndFind

And so it begins...............


6 posted on 11/21/2013 8:05:15 AM PST by SVTCobra03 (You can never have enough friends, horsepower or ammunition.)
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s always fun when Communists are elected to government positions, except, of course, to those who have to suffer under their insane governance.


7 posted on 11/21/2013 8:05:33 AM PST by centurion316
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To: Dr. Sivana

When I was a young man, they built big buildings, filled them with machines, and called them factories.

When I was middle age, they built big buildings, filled them with goods made in China, and called them warehouses.

Now that I’m old, they don’t build any buildings.


8 posted on 11/21/2013 8:06:01 AM PST by nascarnation (Wish everyone you see a "Gay Kwanzaa")
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To: SeekAndFind

The Electricity bill would bankrupt them in 1 month


9 posted on 11/21/2013 8:06:28 AM PST by molson209 (Hillary Clinton)
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To: SeekAndFind

Boeing, you better get going! Right out of that place and never look back.

If it wasn’t before, the writing’s certainly on the wall now.


10 posted on 11/21/2013 8:08:13 AM PST by MichaelCorleone (Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

It’s just horrifying to hear blatant Marxist rhetoric like this, they aren’t even bothering to disguise it now.

I can see now why the Left has put so much effort into controlling public education, we now have a generation of voters who don’t think twice about this.


11 posted on 11/21/2013 8:08:51 AM PST by Junk Silver
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To: SeekAndFind

I’m sure no one in the media will describe her as “extreme”, “radical”, or other words reserved just for the Tea Parties.


12 posted on 11/21/2013 8:10:31 AM PST by winner3000
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To: SeekAndFind

13 posted on 11/21/2013 8:10:40 AM PST by jaydubya2
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To: SeekAndFind
How incredibly useful of an idiot she presents to be.

Truthfully, I am very glad to see this. It is a further parting of the kimono on the part of the collectivists, and one day closer to the next generational reckoning.


14 posted on 11/21/2013 8:10:45 AM PST by Robert Teesdale
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To: SeekAndFind

Ain’t Marxism wonderful.

Pray America is Waking


15 posted on 11/21/2013 8:10:53 AM PST by bray (Delay Obamacare)
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To: molson209

It is time for Boeing to move out of Washington State. With this type of elected official they are officially putting out the word..to get out.
This communist, imported from India, is a good example of why the economy of India was in the tank for 50 years after independence. Socialist and communists ruled and business was treated as the enemy. The victims were all the citizens who grew from 250 million to 1 billion living in enforced poverty.
Deport this little bitch back to India..


16 posted on 11/21/2013 8:11:12 AM PST by Oldexpat
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To: SeekAndFind

To a certain degree I find her honesty refreshing. How many Democrats do the same exact thing as she advocates, but hide it behind laters of BS justifications and excuses?

This doesn’t mean, of course, that she has any other productive use in this world beyond compost, but again, the honesty is refreshing.


17 posted on 11/21/2013 8:11:17 AM PST by drbuzzard (All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Scary, stupid, myopic, bankrupt. Socialists certainly have a unique perspective.


18 posted on 11/21/2013 8:11:27 AM PST by lurk
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To: MichaelCorleone

my sentiments exactly....and if i were boeing’s ceo, i’d specifically mention her name as the reason for leaving.


19 posted on 11/21/2013 8:15:26 AM PST by ealgeone (obama, border)
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To: SeekAndFind

Typical liberal, democrat socialists. Dumb as hell. Loves to get in front of people and tell them to do things that will bring them starvation while the “speaker” get a government check every month.


20 posted on 11/21/2013 8:16:06 AM PST by VerySadAmerican (".....Barrack, and the horse Mohammed rode in on.")
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