Run Jimmy Run:

Tuesday – September 6, 2011

Run, Jimmy run:

The Hoffa family has had a lingering hard felt impact on American labor life. The elder Hoffa, Jimmy, was a Union organizer, he was a voice for Union workers and in the end he unwittingly helped in the down fall of American job creation.

Jimmy Hoffa was a convicted felon sent to jail and was given a pardon. His life ended early with all the mystery of a Hollywood script. His death was not of natural causes. He literally disappeared off the face of the earth from a Suburban Detroit area restaurant, which I used to dine at. Though his body has never been found, nor has the perpetrator been sentenced and jailed, many believe that his death was due to a mob hit. I am not fabricating this story.

Jimmy Hoffa was full of vitriol and hatred for big business and then Attorney General Robert Kennedy Jr. The slogan Run, Jimmy Run came about when he ran to become President of the Teamsters Union. He served as the union's General President from 1958 to 1971. He secured the first national agreement for teamsters' rates in 1964, and played a major role in the growth and development of the union, which eventually became the largest single union in the United States, with over 1.5 million members during his terms as its leader. Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery and fraud in 1964. After many appeals he was imprisoned in 1967, and sentenced to 13 years, after exhausting the appeal process. It was not until mid-1971 that he officially resigned the Teamsters' presidency, an action that was part of a pardon agreement with then President Richard M. Nixon, in order to facilitate his release later that year. Nixon blocked Hoffa from union activities until 1980; Hoffa was attempting to overturn this order and to regain support. Hoffa was last seen in late July 1975, outside the Machus Red Fox restaurant in suburban Detroit. A shady time for a shady character!

Fast forward to this year’s Labor Day visit to Detroit by his son, Jimes P. Hoffa and the President of the United States. We now should have a pretty good picture of why these Unions have diminished in their stature. James P. Hoffa is the General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Hoffa was first elected during December 1998 and began office on March 19, 1999. He was re-elected subsequently during 2001 and 2006 to five-year terms.
What do these three figures have in common? They are Democrats. They are and do have President as a title. They did and still lead political machinery. They all had a roll in the demise of labor, even after they said they helped labor.

James P. Hoffa said before the President stepped onto the stage in Detroit on Labor Day, “Everybody here has a vote, if we go back and we keep the eye on the prize. Let’s take these sons of bitches out and give America back to America where we belong.” What is so wrong with this rhetoric? Can you imagine what would have happened if Mitt Romney said this in his home State of Michigan and in the city that made his family great? We can’t, because Mitt would never say anything similar to this type of rhetoric. Mitt is not responsible for the downfall of labor, jobs and Detroit like Obama and Hoffa are. Those two are birds of a feather, because they believe in the same things and if the President could have uttered those words he would have.

Hoffa said this is a war against the Tea Party. The Vice President said this is a fight for our existence. The Barbarians are at the gate. Don’t these guys understand that it was the Tea Party that gave us our seeds of freedom over 200 years ago? Today’s Tea Party did not give us the low growth, no jobs recovery, because the Tea Party does not have a leader. The Tea Party did not give us 9% unemployment because The Tea Party came into existence after the fact.
Truth be told, guys like the Hoffa’s and the President, through their policy initiatives, have destroyed jobs, industry and manufacturing in this country.

If you take the setting of Detroit, contrast that with the time Governor Romney Mitt’s father was Governor of the State of Michigan and over saw the manufacturing strength, the economic strength and the corporate strength of what Michigan and the City of Detroit represented, to what happened when Democrats and the Unions took over 40 years ago, it becomes a stark reality check. The Democratic machine and the unions are responsible for the empty shell that now defines Detroit.

Many of the Union members just do not understand how the organization and Party that protected their fathers has ruined their choice and the opportunities for their future. It was not the conservative, it is not the Republican Party or the Tea Party that has caused Detroit to become the poster child for the rot and decay we now see in our once great Cities that provided opportunity, fed families and raised great leaders.

It is the Union thugs. It is the Democratic machine that is responsible for much of the decay we see in every facet of this nation. So I say, run, Jimmy run, because you cannot run far enough or fast enough from being held accountable and answering for your role in the demise. I can say this, because I live in the suburbs of Detroit and I see it everyday.

Jimmy and Mr. President, you would be better served in your next speech to use these words: "The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government." Thomas Jefferson used these words when he addressed the Maryland Republicans in1809. I do not expect you to use or even understand these words, because you two are incapable of using these kinds of words. I can use these words, because I believe in them. That is the difference.

Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A footnote: This bit of history is representative of the problems we are now faced with. This bit of history is the result of forgetting the words of people like Jefferson and listening to the words of people like the Hoffa’s.