Tsk, tsk
It was brought to my attention in a comment to another post that a Zinga for Congress sign along 53rd street in Moline had a new message added by an enterprising person or persons unknown.
I'd seen the same sign in the past couple days and hadn't noticed any vandalism, though that may be due to the fact that it's hard to notice as you drive by.
The sign is on wooded property behind some very pricey homes just north of John Deere Expressway and is situated in a shallow ditch, which makes it a bit difficult to see clearly, though it's a very large sign and imposssible to miss.
But someone, most likely a youngish female judging from the feminine penmanship and the tell-tale circle used to dot the "i", managed to get to the sign somehow and scrawl "Racist" on both sides.
This is unfortunate, of course, as vandalism of signs isn't a great idea from either side. But the critic in me can't help but note that if you're going to deface a sign with a message, try to pick a more visible color than black, and pick a spray can or marker that writes a line wider than a half inch.
The only redeeming thing about this is that most people probably don't even notice the writing and if they do, can't make out what it says.
Of course, this isn't to say whether the spray painted message is valid or not.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 9/17/2006
29 comments
29 Comments:
TID, this is what passes for political hardball in western Illinois? It seems rather genteel compared to having John Stroger's cousin show up with a crew and putting unsolicited lawnsigns up. And when the police show up Stroger's cousin threatens the cops. Details on Proviso Probe.
I am, suprised that the Hare people would stoop to such a low trick. It is a sad day for the Hare camp. If Hare had nothing to do with it he should denounce these people and distance himself from the incident.
How sad that the local face of the Democrat party is a vandal. Sad but true. Democrats don't have policy statements, they only have have hate.
But here's some info for you----Hare's support locally is thin.
Zinga has 22% of her support from PACs, Hare has 85%. Zinga has 66% support from individuals, while Hare has only 14%. Looks like Hare is astroturfing. Like his boss, he is depending on out of state PACs to win.
Why should we support Hare?
Let's get real here, Hare doesn't represent us, he represents abortionists, trial lawyers, unions and other liberal special interest groups.
Who supports Hare locally? Vandals?
I doubt it was the Hare camp. I don't think you have to look to hard to find someone that doesn't like Zinga. My guess is you can start by looking at every "middle-easterner" that she pissed off last week. I wouldn't blmae Phil for this. He doesn't need it, he's already set to win.
paladin,
Your frustration is showing. You're really flailing around there, and getting a bit too clever for your own good.
There's certainly no reason to be so sure that whomever noted that Zinga was a racist did so to benefit Hare, as even you certainly must realize.
It's just as likely, if not more so, that it's someone who was deeply offended by her stupid comments and truly felt that we don't need that sort of regressive and unenlightened kind of thinking in this country or this area.
Your assertion that Hare doesn't represent "us" is a real eye-brow raiser. Just who the hell do you consider "us", is it arch-conservatives like yourself?
Then ok, I'll give that to you. He probably doesn't represent radical conservatives who want to impose their social and religious dictates on everyone, support a reckless and disasterous foreign policy blunder called the invasion of Iraq, and all the rest.
And believe it or not, Paladin, there's a whole lot of rational, reasonable people out here that haven't swallowed the propaganda that trial lawyers are some sort of nefarious villians for keeping corporations honest, and don't have a problem with preserving a woman's right to choose whether to get an abortion, or whether not to.
And there's a lot of people who very much support the efforts of "liberal special interest groups" that the right has labored long and hard to falsely villify and make people think are the enemy.
And gee, saying Hare supports labor ... wow... now that will sure loose him a lot of votes around here. What a dumb way to try to knock a candidate.
So the flip side of your foolishness is that we should vote for Zinga who will further diminish unions which fight for working men and women, protect the wealthy and corporations from being held responsible for their faulty products and services by eliminating access to the courts for average people or placing artificially low caps on damage awards, no matter how horrible the results of corporate or business negligence, make criminals out of women who choose to not bring a child into the world at a particular time, and fight against organizations like teachers groups, firefighters and police "special interest groups" and other horrible nasty groups like those that represent librarians, nurses, service employees, environmental watchdogs, government corruption watchdogs, and many many other "liberal special interest groups".
Yeah, we all want someone like that. We want someone to represent "us" by coddling and letting pharmaceutical giants, mining and lumber companies, gas and oil corporations, and all the rest literally write the law in order to protect them and inflate their profits.
Good argument Paladin.
First of all let's wait til the October filing. Remember that at the time the July filing came, Phil had been running for 3 weeks. He needed the initial push from labor to help him out in this late start. I may be wrong but let's see what October says.
Second, why would Phil do this? He has a strong lead, expecially in RI county. There is no reason to assume that Phil's staff was involved, and I am sure they will denounce it tomorrow.
Third, Phil does represent this district well. He is pro-labor (not for NAFTA or GAT which killed Galesburg.) He is for a plan of universal health care helping many people in the district that are uninsured. Lane and Phil were the driving force in keeping the arsenal open from BRAC. Phil is right on the issues and right for us.
The truth is, Zinga made many people mad at her, and she deserves all the scrutiny that she gets.
The following comment and the response to it are moved from a thread below as this is the appropriate spot for them. -Admin.
Anonymous said...
I am suprised that the Hare people would deface Zinga's signs. It shows a low charicter.
17/9/06 17:39
~~~~~~~~
The Inside Dope said...
Anon 17:39, while it's perhaps easy to jump to the conclusion that it was "Hare's people" who defaced the Zinga sign, and tempting to do so to try to score political points, the fact remains that you can't make that assumption honestly.
It very well may be the case, and in my opinion, it's likely, that whomever did this isn't associated with Hare's campaign at all.
They may simply be people who took great offense at Zinga's comments regarding racial and religious profiling and felt like expressing their opinions. And that could be anyone, even a "compassionate conservative".
I'm sure that Zinga's ill-considered comments offended many more than just "Hare's people".
17/9/06 20:17
Demgorilla,
I'm happy to inform you that it's both a story, and that there was not even one teeny weeny bit of ink was used in reporting it. (though several electrons lost their lives) :-)
Plus it would be risking the entire election on their "minion" not being caught in the act, which I don't think anyone would do.
Dope, thanks for misrepresenting my views---you do it so well, and so consistently.
You also do a great job of misrepresenting and spinning the facts. 14% Hare vs. 66% Zinga get support from individuals, yet in DopeWorld, it's Hare who represents the people.
OK, whatever.
If I'm an "arch-conservative" then so is everyone else to the right of Noam Chomsky.
Hare supports labor? Sounds like a winner. Does he support the Buggy-Whip International Workers too? Probably.
The idea that Democrats are for "the little people" is bogus. For proof, just look at how Democrats are going after Wal-Mart to appease the unions. Who do the Democrats think shop at Wal-Mart? Mrs. John Kerry and Mrs. Ted Kennedy? No, poor people. It's the Let 'Em Eat Cake Party.
And let's get real about the unions. They no longer represent the rank and file, the leaders of the unions are every bit as fat, happy and overpaid as corporation CEOs. In fact, they work together to screw the workers, both white and blue collar.
Live in the 21st Century, not in your fevered imagination and fantasy world of 1972.
I again turn to the fact that Phil had 3 weeks to get money prior to that July report. Unlike, Andrea Phil has been employed these past two years, and was not able to ask for checks from people to run for congress. We will see what the October filing says, I bet Phil has quite a bit of individual donor support.
Pal,
Spewing all your hoary right-wing clap-trap only cements your reputation as a conservative operating on nothing but erroneous and misguided right wing talking points. You really should do yourself a favor and listen to something besides Limbaugh or Faux News or whomever is filling you with all this incredibly uncharitable, anti-people bullshit.
None of your assertions are even remotely backed up by fact, and are simply wishful thinking, and extremely negative and uncharitable I might add.
And if you're not a die-hard right winger, then I'm freaking Ann Coulter. Get real. No one is EVER going to mistake you for a moderate with the stuff you spew here and elsewhere, despite the fact that you are unable to support or defend some of Bush's most obvious and eggregious actions. That doesn't make you any less dogmatically right wing, I'm afraid.
Anyone who could write your two previous posts is a far gone conservative full of just the sort of bitter resentment and anger against groups of people who aren't white and aren't upper-middle class that seems to be a requirement to hold those views.
Of course, many lower income people feel the way you do too, out of a miguided idea that if they express the same views as their "betters" that maybe they'll be accepted too.
So you think the 7 day 40 hour week was a bad idea? Pushing for equality in wages and more opportunity for women in the workplace is stupid? Expecting vast corporations to share some of their profit with those who make it possible is a crazy notion?
Do you think for a moment that we wouldn't slide back to the days of the Robber Barons and hellish working conditions and unconscionable mistreatement of workers for nearly no pay if the Union didn't exist? (it's already sliding that way anyway. Unions need to be strengthened, not weaked)
And what was your buggy-whip crack supposed to prove? Not much of a point.
And you're confusion is apparent by your characterization of the Wal-Mart thing. How blind can you be? Just because everyone shops at Wal-mart, are you suggesting that requireing Wal-Mart, an obscenely profitable company, to actually pay a living wage and provide even basic benefits to it's workers (and to stop encouraging them to apply for state aid instead) is going to HARM the middle and lower class?
Your perspective is twisted.
You ignore the fact that Wal-mart is responsible single-handedly for wiping out the small business community of entire small towns, and have driven literally thousands upon thousands of businesses, businesses which provided both income to their middle class owners and jobs for the community, completely into the ground!
To argue that expecting Wal-Mart to be socially responsible to its workers is somehow a blow against the lower or middle class is nothing short of buffoonery and drivel.
You really must try harder Paladin.
At least use arguments which aren't so easily proven wrong.
And when CEOs have gone from making 42 times the salary of the average worker in 1980 to earning 476 times the average worker today, your gas about Union officials being just as bad is embarassingly disingenuous.
C'mon Paladin, you must be having an off day. Your cherished surly opinions are pure hogwash.
And paladin, I hate to burst your bubble, but the ratio of PAC to individual donor of a candidate has little bearing on what their philosophy is or their idea of what purpose government should serve.
If Hare gets a ton of money from PACs who support issues near and dear to middle class families, schools, health care, and better government watchdog groups, and Zinga gets thousands of maxed out donations from former and current top level Deere execs (a given) and other corporate figures, who's more "of the people"?
Your premise is foolish.
Your entire goofy tirade suggesting that HARE is somehow the candidate of big corporate interests and fat cats, while little Andrea Zinga is somehow a populist is laughable even to fellow Republicans and has a strong whiff of desperation.
Despite the relentless propaganda campaign of the right for the past decade or more, people are by and large, not idiots. They don't swallow stuff that plainly makes no sense.
You can say up is down, and black is white if you wish, and lord knows that Bush and other right wingers have been busily doing just that for years, but it doesn't make it so, and people can sense that there's something badly illogical about it.
The cognitive dissonance in it all is deafening.
And as has been rightly pointed out, you're basing all this clap-trap on finance reports covering only the period of time before the campaigns even began in earnest.
Let's see what the future shows, though no amount of tortuous spinning with make it remotely true that Zinga is a bigger populist than Hare and will support measures and issues that benefit workers and the middle class over the interests of corporations and the wealthy who are impatient to have the rules changed to allow them to become even wealthier, while the financial burden is shifted onto the shoulders of the middle and lower class.
Gee, I guess you've been right all along, Dope---about everything.
What a fool I've been---how could I have possibly doubted that everything you say is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Pal,
I was wrong once. I had thought I'd made a mistake, but it turned out I hadn't.
And I always have held out hope for you. Glad to see your epiphany has finally occured.
We'll all be here to help you get used to seeing the world with both eyes open and as you begin to consider the needs of everyone, not just your own or those of the already powerful.
Now, now Rope. I'm sure what the commenter above meant was that is was fun, as in a juvenile, stupid, kind of risky but relatively harmless sort of "fun".
Like TPing or egging is considered "fun" for kids of a certain age, ya know?
And while there may be areas where signs don't get vandalized, I'm not really sure where that would be.
It seems to be a given during any campaign, and while some of it may be done by adults who should certainly know better (and for which there's no excuse), I'd wager than most is done by kids for cheap thrills.
But messing with signs isn't the only thing that goes on.
There's been stories of late of houses and yards being vandalized simply because of the campaign sign they have in their yards.
And as Carl Nyberg points out, around Chicago it gets a lot more intense and interesting than scrawling on a sign, it gets down to violence and roving gangs essentially.
I think it was last year that a defeated candidate in Berwyn or something met up with the victor at a bar after election day and beat the living hell out of him, though the details are a bit sketchy.
But suffice to say that we're not quite to that level ... yet.
We're almost quaint by comparison, thank goodness.
We need to outlaw these huge yard sign anyway. I am not glad that someone did this, but they need to do something about it. These signs are an eyesore and they are a danger when placed in the wrong area. Most of the time they are in places that are high visability and cut down on traffic visability. Go and buy a bilboard if you want a huge sign. If you only can afford the huge yard sign then you might want to look for a different line of work. Get people behind your campaign and have them pitch in. You can't have garage sale signs up in RI but you can have these obscene yard signs.
It has to end. I have noticed that the people in the primary that used these signs lost there elections.
Mr Dope:
Zinga's signs started being stolen as soon as they were put up. Signs were being placed over Labor Day weekend. 4 of those signs have been stolen. Stakes and all. This is not an isolated incident. I would assume those with the most to lose would be those most likely motavated to do these acts.
The claim that Zinga is "for the people" because Hare has a higher rate of PAC contributions is bogus.
I'm sure if the contribution ratios were reversed paladin would still support Zinga over Hare.
Wanting Wal-Mart to unionize and pay a living wage doesn't mean people want Wal-Mart to cease to exist.
It means they want Wal-Mart to unionize or pay a living wage.
Who pays for Wal-Mart employees who get sick? Taxpayers. Why? Because Wal-Mart doesn't provide health benefits.
Do you want people freeloading off the government? Why should Wal-Mart be any different?
anon 11:02
Again, sign stealing, etc. happens every election, not that it's right.
And I'd urge people to resist the urge to speculate about who is to blame, as short of catching someone red-handed, it's literally impossible to know.
It's quite possible that if signs are missing, it may have been kids yanking them up just for the hell of it. They're likely so young they don't have a clue who Zinga or Hare is and probably don't care.
But of course if any adults are doing such things and thinking they're somehow aiding their candidate, whomever it may be, then it's pretty petty and very stupid.
nyberg, put down that New York Times and get your facts straight. WalMart does have health insurance and other benefits.
Of course, they aren't as generous as the wonderful bennies that the UAW have, but thanks to union greed and corporate fecklessness, Ford and other car makers are closing factories, laying people off, etc. The UAW benefit package isn't sustainable in the global economy. We have priced ourselves out of the global market. This summer, the head of the UAW said the the days of unions asking for more money and bennies for less work is over. This over reach should have been curbed a decade ago. Now both manufacturing companies and unions are suffering----white collar and blue collar alike.
Also, the last I heard, this is not the Soviet Union and everyone has a choice of where they work. No one is forced to work at WalMart. Do you really believe that there will be no negative consequencs if WalMart is forced to adopt the admitted failed programs of the UAW and other unions?
You people need to move on to the 21st Century. 1972 is so over.
To all my fans here at TID. I am not a Republican, conservative (arch, radical or otherwise) or a Zinga supporter. Zinga is the weakest candidate running on the Republican side.
Hare is the weakest candidate running on the Democrat side. Since Hare is the poster boy for RICO Democrat corruption, dirty politics and cronyism, I won't be voting for him either. From his statements, he hasn't had a new thought since l972 either.
And please Dope, the next time you attempt to engage me in debate, please stop making things up, misrepresenting my views and building strawmen----that's a deal killer.
In about 40 years of dealing with signage, I've come to at least two serious conclusions:
1) The "other" side rarely destroys or defaces signs. They steal 'em (if they are inclined to dirty tricks) and make them difficult to find and remount;
2) For every week longer than two you have signs up, the difficulty of caring for your flock of signs doubles--Prematurely putting out general signage is the most common mistake of inexperience. (It's frequently unavoidable because workers will push to put 'em out early).
I think the signs being vandalized are beyond Hare. Zinga makes herself look bad enough. My guess is that the vadals were probaly just offended with something by something she said.
DemGorilla, thanks for your edict from on high. ha!
And UMR... excellent points.
Paladin says “Democrats don't have policy statements, they only have hate.” and follows that up with “Hare doesn't represent us, he represents abortionists, trial lawyers, unions and other liberal special interest groups.” He follows that statement by saying “I am not a Republican, conservative (arch, radical or otherwise)..” Really? Well if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a dog. Paladin spews pathetic platitudes in place of real ideas.
Considering the fact that Zinga's campaign is down the crapper and flushing faster since her nasty stupid & quite public comments, how do we know this is not a pathetic method her camp is trying for some free publicity?
Seems kind of Karl Rovish to me.....but who am I to judge.
I just know that the Hare campaign is too busy running their campaign on the important issues to you and me -- and working way too hard in the community to care a hoot about Zinga's her yard signs.
It appears that the thuggish theft and defacement of Zinga's signs are an "orchestrated effort." It's obvious Democrats are doing this, otherwise other signs would be vandalized. I don't expect Dems to either take responsibility for or denounce this thuggish behavior----it just ain't in 'em. Zinga blogged about this on her website. I never could understand why RICO Dems resort to dirty tricks when they win so easily and overwhelmingly. I guess they need the thuggishness to keep it interesting for them. Just a theory!
As for the "Democrats only have hate" comment exposing me as a Republican, I guess you're right Illinidem, because I read in that well-known right-wing conservative Republican publication The Nation that it's time for Democrats to move on from the mindless Bush-hating. Plus, you're still pissed because I mocked Lane Evans for being too "sick" to go to work, but not too sick to attend many partisan parties, fundraisers and other Democrat functions. Lane's actions have proven me correct. Just sayin'
And finally concerning WalMart. This is hilarious. WalMart is rolling out it's own voter registration drive. The largest private employer in the country is fighting back against unions and the Democrats. Thanks to Dem pandering to union special interest groups, the Democrats will now be known as the anti-jobs party. Hilarious! And check out the comment by the Dem/union operative who can't understand why WalMart, after decades of being non-political, has now become political. You can't make this stuff up! Hey lady, it's the law of unintended consequences, plus corporations no longer roll over and play dead for unions like Ford, GM, Farmall, Case, Cat, etc. did. WalMart was watching and took note of what corporate stupidity combined with union greed did to those companies. Democrats, throw away that l972 Playbook, and devise some policies for the 21st Century. Here's the report on Dem/union stupidity.
Hey Dope, I noticed on another thread, that some anonymouse called you out as a "Republican". How do you like being slapped with a label and shoved in a box? Ain't it wunnerful?
Do unto others,etc.
It isn't in the crapper. This race just became a targeted race. Zinga is picking up steam.
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