Selling Shoes Vs Selling Souls
By Repair Man Jack Posted in 2008 — Comments (53) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Senator Chuck Hagel has career advice for a new generation of Americans.
“If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. ... Don't hide anymore; none of us.” – Slate Magazine.
I’ve sold before to make both ends meet. I’ve sold water filters, men’s clothes, housewares and fast food that will up-armor your arteries. I don’t talk this talk to brag; retail selling is often the bottom rung on the employment food chain. It’s what you do to help pay for school, or because your resume doesn’t support more responsible employment.
Selling never proves easy and rarely glamorous. You meet a few very likeable customers in retail, the remaining majority treats you like a non-entity; providing you don’t screw up. Then you become the target reference point for them to dump the day’s frustrations. Once or twice I’ve stood there, and it’s never been pleasant.
Safe? Usually. Glamorous? Never.
Read on . . .
I point all this out simply to elucidate the extent to which Chuck Hagel is a tool. This has nothing to with the war that he, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry all four voted George W. Bush the authorization to wage. Nor does it have to do with his consequent retreat from that vote once the Shi’ite hit The Red Zone.
It simply relates to the man’s existential state. Chuck Hagel is a self-aggrandizing, hard-blowing, good-for-nothing, utter p*ss*ng tool. Providing I can say that without disrespecting catheters too greatly.
Regardless of whether Peggy Noonan or Mickey Kaus more accurately takes the measure of Chuck Hagel’s moral courage; I would NEVER vote for this man to be President. Yes, ban me from RedState all you want, but Hagel vs. Hillary makes me vote for Hillary.
I’ll be dragged forth and shot before I vote someone into the White House with that little respect for the common, working American. You don’t even have to hear the man’s voice to sense the contempt this overrated patrician has for the lady or gentleman who sold him his last pair of Johnston and Murphys’.
Anyone who hates the working class American so much that he invokes them in public debate, as a symbol worthy of contempt, deserves to work a few 3AMs in the drive-through at Hardee’s. Put him in the one next to the cigarette factory, over on Bells Road where all the tired crack whores go, after their Johns have done them a favor and passed out.
Most people don’t need the politically correct experience of seeing this type of poverty. I saw it, and aside from making me bust my rear more diligently in difficult college math courses, the experience didn’t help me, unless I smell better after being doused in burger grease. This type of work truly sucks. You have to dig really hard to find the love or the dignity.
Chuck Hagel, however, needs to be made to go digging. He needs to experience how safe selling shoes really is. He’ll stop disrespecting the retail salesman when he tries to sell that snappy pair of loafers to Jacob Marley or Ebeneezer Scrooge. Then he’ll see what real people see every day.
At that point, I hope, he’ll stop making fun of those who sell shoes. He realizes that it beats the living heck out of chasing the fame and the glory. After all, nothing is less safe than dismantling and selling small pieces of your own soul.
but I think I would vote for Hugo Chavez before I would vote for Hillary.
OTOH, Hugo Chavez has about the same chance of getting the Republican nomination as does Hagel.
They have a plethora of ignorant, boorish, egotistical, elitists (“Heffe, do you know what a plethora is?”). From the bottom to the top of their leadership it’s an “A” list of people who think America is a bad country. Their overdeveloped and fungible sense of “social justice” causes them to believe that a meritocracy is inherently unfair, and that totally pollutes everything they do. Every last one of them should be kept as far from the reigns of power as possible.
Hoyer
Pelosi
Biden
Boxer
Durban
Clinton
Levin
Kerry
Hagel
Kennedy
Schumer
, and it goes on and on.
It’s like choosing which torture implement is going to hurt and scar the least. At some point you almost have to think about which one is going to kill us all the fastest, and go with that one out of humanity. The only place you can find a reasonable Democrat these days is in the very back benches, because the most rabid socialist are running the show.
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem." - President Ronald Reagan
Hagel seemed to fit so well in that list of pathetic Democrats. It almost made me forget he was a Republican. Maybe the voters in Neb need to make him want to forget he's a Republican, during his next Primary contest.
Harry Reid is to ethics reform what HIV was to free love!
As was noted yesterday in this RedState blog (see Comment #13 - unless it changes due to further contributions), Senator Hagel has a lifetime rating of 86 from the American Conservative Union (and an ACU rating of 95 for 2005). Hagel was also one of the few senators to vote against NCLB.
I must surmise that your fundamental disagreement with the Nebraskan over the war in Iraq has driven you to make patently false claims (e.g., "rabid socialist"). I recognize that emotions run deep on that issue, but ardor cannot justify calumny.
Please stop doing this. It's shameful and demeans all of RedState.
lay off deciding what demeans the website, okay. I may think you posting here demeans the website but I don't say it.
rating systems like the ACU are generally so mushy as to be meaningless.
The war against Islamofacism, and specifically the conflict going on in Iraq right now, is the defining event of this generation. 911 happened because four consecutive Presidents ran away from the opportunity to confront and defeat evil. Carter whimpered and cowered under his blanky for 445 days. Reagan took bad advice and didn't let the Marines level major parts of Lebanon. Bush41 listened to Powell and stopped short of wiping out both Saddam and the Republican Guard. Clinton ignored the connections to the first WTC bombing, shrugged his shoulders at the African Embassies, wasn't sure what to do about the Cole and since the impeachment trial was over he didn't have to do anything.
If this President listens to the brain dead cowards who are screaming for a pull out (and yes, Chuck Hagel has morphed from an honorable combat vet to a brain dead coward) the Islamists will have their opinion of America once again reinforced. And, just in case you missed it, the opinion looks like a weak willed, spineless people incapable of winning a sustained war even with minuscule combat losses.
Hagel, Kerry, Murtha and their friends make Benedict Arnold look like a candidate for the Medal of Honor.
The best part of typing anything about Chuck Hagel is spellchecking it. Hagel is not in my dictionary so I get to click "IGNORE" every time the worthless sob's name comes up.
___________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer
Hagel is far from patrician in the true meaning of that term. It is my understanding that he grew up in housing with no floors.
I'm not going to say don't criticize the guy, but I think you're doing it in a less than maximally credible way if you intimate that his background or outlook approximates that of John Kerry's or-- dare I say it-- our current President's (they both got to go to Yale, after all)-- even if his current perspective on the war might tie him in with a party that is somewhat patrician-dominant.
Liz Mair is the editor of WWW.GOPPROGRESS.COM, a RedState-style blog for libertarian, mainstream and moderate Republicans
He is condescending. He implied that people working at real jobs, providing real services for other Americans were in cowardly positions. He seemed to say that the US Senate is full of men of courage and integrity, which I think we can all agree is bovine excrement.
I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.
If you grew up in the US and are Hagels age and are selling shoes, you are a joke. Lets not pretend that there is anything to praise in mediocrity.
Middle aged shoe salesmen = Pathetic.
Lets be like my son's 3rd grade class and give EVERYONE a blue ribbon and tell them they are a winner. Yeah, thats what our country needs.
well i will take you at your word. I was going to ask/hope you were very young. I will not convince you, but you might want to stop worrying about how others live their lives. If you are a great success, congrats, but I don't see how your comment insulting working people serves any purpose or has anything to do with this thread.
I'm sorry, but on a site like this, with most people having strong opinions on individuals life choices (ie. sexual orientation), comments like this,
"but you might want to stop worrying about how others live their lives."
keep me coming back for more laughs. Thank you.
With social Darwinism ?
I have known people that more than likely have better educations, and better intellects than you that due to circumstances have taken jobs that were less than desirable.
Of course kicking people when they are down is best, its less likely they will get up and beat the snot out of you.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
Sometimes people HAVE to take a job temporarily or are putting themselves through school or work nights to bootstrap their business or are mentally not up to anything better.
If you are of average intelligence, born with the opportunities this country offers and the best you can is shoe salesman, well, that's fine, but don't pretend their is anything noble in being mediocre or under achieving.
I was tired of this line of reasoning three posts ago. You have two choices; drop this, now - or achieve a distinctly minor and short-lived notoriety by being Six.
Not precisely the choice of Achilles, I grant you - but that's what you have to work with.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
What do you do for a living, big shot?
Please don't tell me you have a position with any responsibility, like supervising people, because supervisors generally have the ability to see the value and dignity inherent in any work.
They also value the people that work for them and show them loyalty.
Your attitude doesn't strike me as "conservative". It reminds me of the people that denigrate job growth numbers because they're all "service" jobs (i.e., "burger-flippers").
Stupid.
___________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer
you sell them, what kind you sell, and how well you do it. It isn't hard for the top book salesmen/women in women's shoes in a front rank department store, e.g., Nordstrom, Saks, Bloomies, etc., to make the better part of $100K or more a year. In the designer shops, you can make much, much more.
I'll guarantee you that I could work Men's Suits at Nordstom's in Anchorage or Seattle and make $60-$70K without ever working more than 40 hrs./wk. except during Christmas.
I learned to walk in a retail store, my dad was a small town merchant, and IF you want to be a pro, you can make good money in that business. In the late seventies, I would show up at Nordstom's Men's Suits in Anchorage and just say, "give me 7%, don't stack the floor (too many salespeople and too much quota), and don't sweat the draw" every Christmas. I could easily pocket $10K from Thanksgiving to Christmas working evenings and weekends.
That said, the lifestyle stinks, the hours stink, and the companies would rather have a bunch of kids on the floor making the minimum wage draw just selling what would sell naturally. But when they do keep some pros around, they make pretty good money.
In Vino Veritas
in a nearby town burned right after Christmas in '83. I think he'd last looked at his insurance in about '63, so he was out of business. I had what I thought was some money at the time and we owned a small commercial building in the hometown. So, we got the tenant out and I financed him getting back in business, specializing in workclothes and footwear. By then, you had to niche market because of WalMart, etc. He couldn't compete with them in tan, green, blue workclothes in 32, 34, 36 waist pants with 30 and 32 inseams and S, M, L, XL shirts, but he could sell the variety and sizes they didn't and made a pretty good business of it, enough to keep himself going, though I never got any of my money back.
He kept it going until February of '97 when he went home one evening and told my mother he wasn't feeling well. He never left the hospital. It was once a good life and a good living, though it got real tough near the end. Interestingly, he reverted more and more to old time rural Southern business practices, even going so far as to give some of the farmers "run bills," a line of credit until the crops come in; something that hadn't been around in the better part of 75 years. For a couple of years after he died, people would show up at my sister's house and say, "I owed him $n.00" and peel off the cash. I'd be willing to bet a third or more of the people at his funeral owed him money.
It is, or at least was, an honorable business.
In Vino Veritas
"but I think you're doing it in a less than maximally credible way if you intimate that his background or outlook approximates that of John Kerry's"
No, John Kerry, unlike Hagel, unlike Edwards, has learned a touch on nuance. So much so he gets ridiculed. Perhaps Kerry could trade Hagel about one half his nuance in return for 25% percent of Hagel's ability to ride sympathetic media coverage. Then Chuck Hagel wouldn't resemble the poor, belittled catheter so much and maybe John Kerry's White House bid wouldn't be "Stuk in Irak."
Harry Reid is to ethics reform what HIV was to free love!
is a joke.
A couple of clues here:
1) Very few patrician offspring choose to matriculate at trade schools such as the Brown Institute for Radio and Television, Hagel's alma mater (he later went to U. Nebraska, apparently on veteran's benefits). They go to good preparatory schools, like Phillips Andover or St. Pauls, and then proceed to ivy draped institutions such Yale, Stanford, or Duke. There's nothing wrong with being trained in a business at a for profit institute, but it's not exactly the patrician path.
2) Not so many patricians choose to join the army as enlisted infantry soldiers. It's so declasse to sleep in a foxhole when your cousins are staying at the Plaza in New York or at their cottages in Newport. Any self respecting patrician will insist on an officer's commission, and will certainly look at one of the services that offer beds and mattresses.
3) Not so many patricians win something called the Horatio Alger Award. If you are born a patrician, you don't need to resort to that pesky lifting-yourself-by-your-bootstraps thing.
BTW, what's the evidence for the proposition that Hagel hasn't had a job selling burgers/shoes/neckties? That it didn't make it onto his resume doesn't mean he never had a job like that.
He is a media (second word censured since there is no other alternative wording). Maybe he does believe what he says, but he has gone against his party and president many times. He glomed onto McCain when McCain was doing it, now that McCain is a "good guy" again, Hagel wants to be the new maverick and media darling.
Yes, Hagel served in the military, so what? Does that mean he is right on this war? Who were are two best War Presidents? Most would say FDR and Lincoln. Not exactly Audie Murphy's those two. For whatever reason, Hagel IS hurting our war effort, he is trying to surrender instead of trying to win.
You will NEVER have to choose between Hagel and Hillary. First of all, Hagel has NO CHANCE of getting the nomination. And if somehow our party is so weakend that he gets the nomination, there will be a major third party candidate from the conservative side.
why in the world do we continue to measure our politicans on their "salt of the earth-ness"?
if we do that, we're setting ourselves up for a bit of a fight with our current president - the son of a former president, billionaire business man who was fed with a silver spoon his whole life. He didn't even work hard to get into the "liberal", "left", "progressive" brainwash centers (i.e. Ivy League universities) - his daddy bought him a spot. His idea of hard work on the ranch is "clearing brush". While i support many of his policies, I'd sure hate to have to defend how down in the trenches he is with the common man. He may talk like us, but he ISN'T ACTUALLY ONE OF US. separeate the man from the policy please. and kudos to rhatican for pointing this out.
___________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer
Letting people have their say, is sometimes, unwittingly the worst thing you can do to them.
Harry Reid is to ethics reform what HIV was to free love!
I certainly don't hear him holding these people in contempt on any level. That, right there, differentiates him from Chuck Hagel in ways that you probably wouldn't understand.
Harry Reid is to ethics reform what HIV was to free love!
you make a good point. though the president may not come from the trenches, at least he doesn't talk down to them. agreed.
why the "in ways that you probably wouldn't understand comment"? i may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think i can still learn a thing or two.
neil
The entire point of the essay was that seperation. John F Kerry was for the war before he was against. He was a tool in each of those instances.
I've already written Re: Hagel's view of the war. I go into more specific detail about how he is both stupid AND gutless in that essay.
Harry Reid is to ethics reform what HIV was to free love!
In fact, isn't that "in ways you wouldn't understand" comment a form of talking down to someone. kind of like....
after your comment on GWB and the crack whores, you deserved a good talking down to.
Harry Reid is to ethics reform what HIV was to free love!
___________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer
banning? what on the earth have i said to deserve censorship? if it's about the use of the words "crack whores" that was a direct reference to the original post in which the author states:
"...over on Bells Road where all the tired crack whores go, after their Johns have done them a favor and passed out."
in all seriousness, I'd rather not be banned and would like to be able to participate in the discussion, so would someone please let me know the rules of this dialogue so I can avoid censorhip?
thanks,
neil
On this blog, at least, is about as easy as blinking, since nobody here works for the government in any way, shape, form or fashion.
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[F]or by the fundamental law of Nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred...
-John Locke
shoot your mouth off in a post with no particular point, freely admit to not being the sharpest marble in the box (which I doubt anybody will debate) and wonder why you would possibly be viewed as an unserious passerby dropping in for a flame war.
Slap yourself and take some time off.
___________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer
sorry, a bit too much too fast. coming on like a cheap date. will take some time off and just observe the discussion and not mettle until I have more hours under my username. (older = wiser, right?) but i'll be back, because i'm not a tourist. I've been reading this site for a long time and just finally got up the courage to express my own ideas. Too bad they weren't more popular with the cooler, older users.
until then, it's been emotional.
neil
trust me on this one, it was only emotional for you.
___________________
If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
Senior Writer
if not for those meddling kids!
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Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes
show me how this
the last time bush hung out with crack whores
deserves anything but contempt I'd be happy to entertain it.
GWB is hardly the son of a billionaire business man. GHWB came from a prominent, affluent New England family, but hardly of the billionaire class.
On the other hand, GHWB got brought into The Carlyle Group when it was just getting rolled out. I don't know what share of ownership he's got, but they've done very, very well, and it's very possible that his wealth has moved into a new, higher level.
The Forbes 400 is a good indicator of what it takes. If you are clocking at a mere $1 billion, you will be around #400.
The Bushes are not on the list.
To see who is on (and alas, it's not me), see:
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz_06rich400_The-400-Richest-Americ...
Not that there is any danger of Chuck Hagel seeing the inside of the White House ever again, unless his bud Joe Biden pulls off what would be only a lesser miracle.
and I admit (for myself only) that I grouped him up quickly with the others, but I did it because you could take his rhetoric on the subject of the war and substitute any other name on that list and couldn’t tell the difference.
The other party had disunities caused by the war, but now they are becoming unified using the catalyst of Bush hatred as the medium. Now the Republican minority is starting to have the same disunities, and I must echo the sentiment that a hundred years of voting to lower taxes, shrink government, and increase personal freedom amounts to naught if we are defeated by this enemy at this point in time.
I believe that this war is one of survival. I have listened to our enemies, and they believe that because their will is so much stronger than ours they will eventually win if it takes them this entire century to do it. They are prepared to fight that long if need be, and they are not afraid to talk about it.
If you have secret information that leads you to believe that they don’t really believe what they tell their own people, then I would like to see it, because I don’t want to believe them either, but I am left with little choice. I see this as the most important decision since Congress, at the behest of Roosevelt, declared preemptive war on Germany after Japan attacked us. Back then the “exit strategy” was too terrible to contemplate. With Iran poised to obtain nuclear weapons and openly declaring that they will use them the second they do, the worst nightmares of my generation realized, I do not see how we are in any better position today, or have any option but victory.
Our politicians and people are acting far more like we did during the American Civil War than our grandfather’s America acted.
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem." - President Ronald Reagan
I think I might be right there with you.