So, what did that Southwest pilot actually say?
You may have noticed that I haven’t yet written about the Southwest pilot who supposedly said, “Let’s go, Brandon” over the flight intercom. That’s partly because there’s been so much news so much more pressing, but also because I was waiting for some sort of convincing confirmation of the story.
I’m still waiting.
My gut told me there was good reason to hesitate, mainly because it was an AP reporter saying it had happened. That’s a sorry reflection on the fact that the press has richly earned my doubt. And where were all the passengers who supposedly “gasped” and then came out of the woodwork to corroborate the reporter’s story?
So now we see this:
As it happened, Associated Press reporter Colleen Long was on the flight, and was even working on a story about the phrase…
That’s already interesting, because our perceptions of what we hear can be distorted by what’s on our mind at the time, especially if the sound isn’t crystal clear, and airplanes are not exactly the place where people tend to hear speech that’s crystal clear.
…[T]his Southwest pilot, who is now facing getting suspended or fired, or worse, subjected to the treatment that the Left reserves for dissenters, may not even have said “Let’s Go Brandon” at all. Audio of his in-flight announcement was posted on TikTok as a video with subtitles.
While the subtitles say “Let’s Go Brandon,” the audio only has the pilot saying “Let’s go Bra—” before it cuts off. Could the pilot have been an Atlanta Braves fan and was saying “Let’s go, Braves”? The TikTok video was posted on October 11, while the Braves were in the National League Division Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. Maybe the entire pandemonium over this pilot is based on a mishearing. Or something worse: Colleen Long says she heard the pilot say this on October 29, 18 days after the audio was posted. The plot thickens.
You can see the same story here.
Southwest is supposedly investigating, but will we ever hear much more about it, or has the story already served its purpose? Like the story of the border patrol whipping the Haitians, and the investigation about that – one announced on September 21 and which was supposed to be completed in days, and for which we’ve never even gotten an update?
For the record, though, in case the Southwest story turns out to be true – I don’t think pilots should be making any political statements, even as a joke. But I think a simple reprimand would do, especially for something so mild.
But practically nothing seems simple or easy these days because the woke virtue-signaling cancel culture squad never rests. It’s ever-vigilant, ever-ready to to believe the worst of the right and even of anyone on the left who dares to agree with the right even one time even on one issue. Or, if necessary, the woke squad is ready to imagine or even make an incident up that it sees as politically helpful.
The almost invariably disgraceful Pravda-on-the-Potomac published a piece of pearl-clutching nonsense several days ago entitled “Biden’s Critics Hurl Increasingly Vulgar Taunts”. Of course, the “norm-breaking” and the “vulgarity” of Trump and his “deplorable” supporters were to blame, nor is it likely that the same writers at WaPo would ever condemn the viciousness of the language used frequently by deranged leftists (including Antifa and BLM thugs and rioters). A few years ago The New Criterion (one of our finest magazines) ran a fine piece, inspired by the shameful mistreatment of Roger Scruton, on what it called “Offense Archaeology” as it is practiced, all too predictably and all too often, by mobs of ill-bred SJWs on social media.
Long immediately stormed down the aisle and demanded to be let into the locked cockpit, which led, she claims, to her “almost get[ting] removed from plane.”
This reporter seems to be a little unhinged if merely hearing that truncated phrase precipitated such a response. Didn’t she also equate insulting Biden with being a member of ISIS? I guess she must think Biden is some sort of God-King who must never be gainsaid?
Once I realized this was all based on an AP reporter’s account, only, it became reasonable to wait and see if it was true.
back hole… black hole… black whore h/t NAACP
a baby… a “burden” h/t Obamacares
Ok. pun intended
leverage… nothing but leverage.
I’ve been blocked on Twitter by at least 6 former or current Omaha World-Herald reporters. They are all shockingly liberal. They don’t even try to hide it.
One guy covered Husker football and basketball. He’s to the left of Bernie Sanders.
Since I’m a Creighton alum, I was rough on him about how terrible Nebraska is in both football and basketball. CU has owned UNL in basketball and it has been a great thing.
I hope he did say it. And I hope he acknowledges it and stands by it. Since everything is political to the left, let’s live up to it. A vast swath of the country agrees with him. The woke mobs of ‘cancel culture’ and their corporate enablers have as much power as the do largely because many on the right are either intimidated or still want to try to maintain civility or preserve apolitical space.
Bollocks to that!
It’s a sad state of affairs, but it is reality: fighting back effectively is going to have include some of the tactics used by the Left. Interjecting political opinions into every aspect of life is one of them. Make them uncomfortable, even apoplectic. This was what Trump does best. Follow his example.
As someone, I think correctly, noted, if the story is true, he will be fired. Then the Union will come to his defense and he will be reinstated very quietly.
This would be the typical Kabuki play.
I had a friend who was a pilot for UPS when they started their own airline and the pilots were represented by the Teamsters. He said the little charade went on constantly. UPS was a hard taskmaster and eager to prove it; the Teamsters were eager to prove to the rank and file that they had their backs. Individual employees were frequently caught in the middle; but after some period of uncertainty for the targeted employee things usually worked out.
I am very pleased that the Left has helped to make the innocuous phrase “Let’s Go Brandon” such a world-wide meme. (The Babylon Bee suggests that if you have an athletic son named Brandon your politically acceptable cheer might be “Make Haste Brandon”). Resonates.)
Is “AudioShopped” a word?
Someone sent me a “cockpit recording” (clearly false) that begins “Trump is still President” and includes “the cockpit door is open in violation of Federal regulations so you’re welcome to come up and see that I am not wearing a mask” and so on.
As someone said yesterday, you can’t get a news story full of crap without “AP”.
I would argue if a pilot for instance said BLM the same people complaining wouldn’t bat a eyelash or say a word about it to anyone.
The duel justice even in the public forum is sickening.
Agree with @Skip. Further, Major League players doing “their job” did just that, didn’t they? No repercussions. Also, read somewhere in last day or two, that the pilot was cut off at “let’s go bra-“ and others have conjectured that it was “let’s go braves” as the braves were playing then. But I sure love “let’s go Brandon” songs on tik tak (tiktok) and Lesko Brandon jokes in general. So much more pleasant than the f*** you Trump we had to listen to…still. Vive l’resistance.
There was another Southwest pilot who delivered a famous rant last March about the SF Bay area– although that incident involved a hot mic with the ATC rather than the plane’s PA system. If you don’t mind the f-word, it’s pretty much what a lot of people would say about SF:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQaYKOquFyI&ab_channel=VASAviation-
The demand for cancel opportunities far exceeds the supply.
John Hayward aka Doc_0 on “Let’s go Brandon.”
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1455508712890814476.html
Kind of ironic considering that “Let’s go Brandon” was itself a politically convenient mishearing.
As usual the Simpsons got there first:
Mr. Burns : Smithers, are they booing me?
Smithers : Oh, they’re not booing you, Sir, they’re shouting “Boo-urns! Boo-urns!”
Mr. Burns : [to Audience] Are you shouting “Boo!” or “Boo-urns!”?
Audience : Boo!
Hans Moleman : I was shouting “Boo-urns”…
Why bother with “The News”?
It is all BS run by Leftists.
Best thing to do is to deprive them of revenues.
I take only the Epoch Times, which comes in print full of readables to use up the weekend; the Washington Examiner; and, with some reluctance because of its long pro-globalist stance and fools like the pompous self-righteous Peggy Noonan, the WSJ. I check Fox News on my PC, scan the heads, but the stories are all too predictable.
My TV has no inputs other than DVDs, none.
I note my local Gannett-owned paper is a very thin fragment of its former self. Every once in a while, a copy gets tossed onto my front yard. There was a time, maybe 10-15 yrs ago, when the editorial page editor, a self-admitted Leftist, would deign to print an opinion piece of mine, but the paper has let go most of its staff, him included. Just made him more of a Leftist, I expect: capitalist oppressors laid him off!
One of the dumber things I read today was that Southwest needs to hire all new pilots, what with the vacc thing and now this. (Must stop calling people stupid on the internet, must stop calling people stup………)
“It’s ever-vigilant, ever-ready to to believe the worst of the right and even of anyone on the left who dares to agree with the right even one time even on one issue.” neo
Given his recent monologues, how long till Bill Maher is canceled? How many liberals, how many leftists, realize how thin is the ice upon which they skate?
As we all know, Marxism divides humanity into the oppressors and the oppressed. Marxism now has a long track record, the very, very small group of people at the very top, a small army of fearful apparatchiks and the vast oppressed.
In fact, I can’t think of any other ideology that results in a comparable disparity between the ruled and the ruled over. Were it not such an obscenity, the irony would be biblical.
Marxism’s history demonstrates that its road to hell is paved with the crushed bones of its well intentioned builders.
“… Or, if necessary, the woke squad is ready to imagine or even make an incident up that it sees as politically helpful.”
Finally!
Of course. The psychology here is bone-simple. Start with a complete indifference to truth or falsity, and a corresponding obsession with gaining power over your adversaries, peers, victims. Then simply wander through the world with a giant chip on your shoulder and a refined routine of taking offense and demanding redress.
No need to find a real insult; just start howling with outrage and get your cronies to flock to you and berate the authorities to “fix the problem.” Pure theatrics.
By the time anybody can expose the lie, the payoff has occurred and the damage has been done.
This works just fine so long as you have no intention of rebuilding trust with anybody else. Which is, frankly, the scariest part of all.
As a former airline pilot, it’s easy for me to imagine he didn’t get off the mike before he said “Let’s go, brakes off.” The cockpit often requires multi -tasking. You can be talking on the PA system at the same time you’re listening to the ground crew. If the ground crew said, “Brakes off, : signaling they are ready t o push you back, it’s conceivable that the pilot momentarily forgot he was on the PA and what came out was, “Let’s go, bra…”
Southwest has its own pilots union. They aren’t nearly as hard-nosed as the Teamsters or even ALPA. So, whether they will defend the pilot strongly depends on how it might affect their next contract talks. They might be wiling to sacrifice one member for later advantage. It’s Machiavellian, but that’s the way the world turns.
They are trying to stop from speaking you and me and everyone else that doesn’t support Biden. To which I say, Let’s Go Brandon!
Makes no difference, the pilots have a strong union and the company will just secretly hire him back after a short absence.
Exactly. And that should be the story. Members of the Left calling for his firing. A disgusting call for an over-reaction for what is, at worst, a mild joke. (And, yes, that – a reprimand – is what I would expect for a pilot who said, “Remember, Black Lives Matter.”)
In fact, the AP reporter, Colleen Long, just might deserve being arrested and charged with a crime. She admits to creating an incident during right after that had the flight crew considering having her removed from the plane:
https://twitter.com/ctlong1/status/1454472349399453700
Reprimand sure. Plus back to the Simulator for a week of unpaid retraining.
Why? Because it’s @#$%tarded to go about painting a target on your back in the current highly-charged climate, and it’s unprofessional, and both demonstrate a lack of judgement — not something you want in an airline pilot.
Probably also dock him another week’s pay for not saying “$%^& Joe Biden”. I mean either do it properly or not at all. It’s all a bit Teapartyish and MAGAhatish, this Not Who We Are coyness.
Subject to future good behaviour (i.e. silently working toward overthrow of FedGov on personal time/dime), promote the man to Training Captain in due course.
Who is kidding who here?(Or is it “whom”.) Nobody is going to “cancel” Southwest. Its hard enough for those addicted to travel to get around with all the airlines at full strength. Suddenly all the leftists are going to stop buying SWA tix and fly United or American, who pretty much already run with full flights…?
Southwest management should just say “We have listened to the recording, partial recording, and do not hear anything offensive. No one other than the original complainer has been found to corroborate any of this story. However, the publicity about this has revealed that a passenger on that flight did attempt entry to the flight deck, and we will be referring that to the appropriate law enforcement authorities for review. It is a crime to do that.”
And that is probably why I am not an executive with any company…..
@ J J – that sounds convincing to me, but don’t the planes have cockpit recorders? Wouldn’t the airline know exactly what the pilot said, instead of relying on either TikTok’s possibly audioshopped (love it) version, of the biased reporter’s statements.
Even if there wasn’t an official recording, why jump on him without even getting an explanation or statement from the pilot?
If he did say “Let’s go Brandon,” I would suspect he’s already planning to retire or walk out over the vaxx mandates.
Too good not to share.
https://babylonbee.com/news/man-declares-his-pronouns-are-letsgobrandon
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/29/brilliant-agitprop-the-lgb-community-theme-song/
I don’t think pilots should be making any political statements, even as a joke.
Whereas I, who fly frequently on SW between Seattle and San Jose, have heard some of the best wisecracks ever, coming from the cockpit. Being involved heavily in music, I’m also used to the fainting spells among my associates whenever fun is made of ‘progressives’, BUT I cheer those irreverent pilots no matter who’s the butt of the joke.
Save the wisecracks!
Insufficiently Sensitive:
Did I say pilots should never joke?
No, I didn’t. I said that shouldn’t make political statements, even if those political statements were merely jokes.
Why is no one discussing the TikTokker who posted the deceptively edited video?
https://twitter.com/LexitMovement1/status/1447940439139618819
Southwest pilot says, “Let’s go Brandon!” ??? @libsoftiktok
And Andrea Widburg (Bookworm) Has Thoughts:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/is_the_southwest_lets_go_brandon_story_all_wrong.html
And besides that – even in this ego-driven media-obsessed age, who randomly records pilots’ take-off statements just in case they say something offensive?
Granted, SWA has a reputation for crew patter that rivals some stand-up comedians, but does this TikTokker record everything on the off chance they can make some mischief out of it?
And why didn’t SWA investigate before jumping on the runaway roller-coaster?