Why We Hate -- Part 14

United Airlines calls to cops to haul a passenger off a plane because the guy adamantly didn’t want to give up his seat so that some United employees who arrived late to the airport and missed their connection could fly to their next destination. UAL’s mistake, their error, became the passengers’ responsibility when the customers were asked to “voluntarily” give up their seats because the airline had “overbooked”. Overbooking is some deep disrespect to the consumer. A few of the passengers, instead of hijacking the plane, left and waited for a later flight while this one dude says, “Hell no.” The poor bastard paid for a service and entered into an, apparently, complicated contract with the airlines and as a result of his alleged behavior he is manhandled, bloodied and dragged off the plane by the goonsquad.

There is so much to this story: Race, Class, Entitlement, Police Misconduct, Incompetency, Corporate Arrogance, and they are part of the overall narrative. Meanwhile, what struck me is that the CEO of United, Oscar Munoz, continues to defend the airline and says that “policy” allowed for the passenger to be removed by force; not ethics, not respect, not even the fact that the dude had paid for his ticket in good faith, but “policy”.

I wasn’t on the plane and the passenger may have been an asshole. I’m not defending him. I know for a fact that there are an almost infinite number of ways to de-escalate a volatile and aggressive situation and I believe that physical violence should not necessarily be the first option.

CEO Munoz, however, makes $6.7 million a year in salary and compensation and there are some things he hasn’t figured out yet.

Six million seven hundred thousand dollars and:

He doesn’t know what it’s like to fly on one of his dicked up, overcrowded, overbooked, insulting, unfriendly, threatening, incompetent, undependable and uncomfortable airplanes.

He is a member of a financial class that has been branded as the enemy of normal, common, working class, overburdened and oppressed men and women. Income inequality is real as hell.

Following dubious policy isn’t necessarily the right thing to do.

He has no credibility.

Oscar’s income may give him an illusion of authority but real people don’t give a shit about what he says because we really don’t care about rich people any more. Those days are ending; the days when money was respected and we assumed that the person with the fat paycheck had earned it and as a result we valued their contribution.

Nope.

Bullshit. We don’t trust Oscar and his buddies (many who are currently serving in government).

It doesn’t matter what actually transpired on the United Airlines flight that was “overbooked” because wealthy people are no longer trustworthy and their word is not reliable.

It’s a new world, everything is on film, professional journalism isn’t keeping up and we are making our judgments based on flimsy cellphone videos. I’m not in favor of all of that stuff because there are too many variables and it’s easy to manipulate the evidence.

But goddamnit, Oscar Munoz, revered CEO of United Airlines, is digging himself and his entire class of self-certified financial overlords into a deeper and deeper pit.

Read some history. Buy regular shoes. Fly coach. 

Missing the point can be fatal.