Politics on the job
by digby
This story of the Tucson firefighter who refused the call to assist in the Giffords shooting is just plain weird. At first blush it sounds as if he is a soulless right winger who didn’t want to help a Democrat. But when you look at it more closely it appears that it might have been that the fire crew was making unsavory jokes and he didn’t think he could keep it together. Or something.
The firefighter has retired and is apparently one of those “never complain never explain” stoic types so any attempt to find out what he was really thinking has been unsuccessful so far. But I wonder if anyone’s tried to talk to the rest of the crew to find out what they were all saying that might be referred to as “political banter.”
Whatever the case, it’s another example of how the polarized politics of this era are filtering down to the every day working lives of Americans. In most cases, I’m not sure this is a bad thing — perhaps people need to get in tough with this reality a little bit more. Certainly it’s happening in Wisconsin and Ohio right now in a way that real and meaningful. But when it becomes an issue in firehouses and police forces (as it has recently in other contexts as well) then we probably need to start asking ourselves where this is heading.
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