Just what is "reality", anyway?

Criticizing corporations for pathological lying is like knocking mosquitoes for sucking your blood—if they didn't do it, they wouldn't be corporations.  That doesn't make it any less fun, though.

Case in point: JetBlue's posturing after its financial settlement with Raed Jarrar, who was told he couldn't board a flight from JFK to Oakland until he covered up the shirt he was wearing that said "We Will Not Be Silent" in both English and Arabic.  Here's an excerpt of JetBlue's email statement:

In the settlement, Jarrar has acknowledged that neither JetBlue nor TSA officials admit any wrongdoing whatsoever with respect to his claims; in point of fact, JetBlue continues to deny, outright, every critical aspect of Mr. Jarrar's version of events.

What's included in "every critical aspect", you ask?  It just so happens that I've come into possession of a full copy of the email above, and I'm happy to share the rest of it with you:

In particular, JetBlue categorically refutes Mr. Jarrar's belief that he was denied a seat on the flight in question.  In reality, Mr. Jarrar did not board the plane at all, since no such flight was ever offered by JetBlue or its affiliates.  Mr. Jarrar's contention that JetBlue operates flights out of JFK airport is similarly fallacious, as is his belief that JetBlue is a commercial airline.  Furthermore, JetBlue unequivocally rejects Mr. Jarrar's allegations that JFK airport exists, that "John F. Kennedy" was a president of the "United States", or that her name is "Raed Jarrar" when it is, in fact, Gina Fufflen.  Finally, JetBlue repudiates Ms. Fufflen's notion that a shared system of regular, monotonically-increasing temporal measurement allows us to fix any event within a bounded frame of "time", and notes that in the absence of such a system her claims are completely baseless and without merit.

In any case, let's hope that this settlement will deter the airlines from any further clothing-related repression.

Comments

[Harold M]

I went to school with Gina. We all thought she had the stuff to become a great novelist. It's sad to see her sink so low as to attempt a shakedown of JetBlue, the famous croissant bakery.

[Catherine]

Wow, really had me going there for a minute. Took me until the questioning of the existence of JFK airport to catch on. But so much of what corporations say in these kinds of statements could easily look like those above.

So, they paid him $240,000 for what, exactly?

Think I'll mosey on over to the non-existent JFK airport and see what I can set up.

[Catherine]

Why do we have to take f--king eye exams before commenting?
It's scary enough to realize how much our faculties deteriorate over the years.

No, really, I don't understand the function.

[SteveB]

As someone who works for a peace organization, I think it's always important to thank the people who make our work possible, so I sent the message below to JetBlue at their "compliments page." In order to send a compliment, you have to choose from a pull-down menu of categories, one of which is "Customer bill of rights", which seemed to be the most appropriate choice for this case. You also have to input a "confirmation number" (not being very imaginative, I chose "1232456") and a departure and destination (I chose NYC to DC, since that was the flight Raed was attempting to fly on.)

Dear JetBlue:
I just wanted to thank you for the $240,000 you have given to Iraqi Journalist Raed Jarrar, to allow him to continue his courageous work opposing the criminal U.S. occupation of Iraq. As you can well imagine, the peace movement is often seriously short of funds, and so it's inspiring to see a civic-minded corporation like yours step forward to lend a hand in the struggle for peace.

P.S. I'm not sure what your "Customer bill or rights" is, but I assume it must have something to do with not refusing service to people based on messages written on their t-shirts.

[John Caruso]

Catherine: It's to stop comment spam—without the verification step to verify that it's a human doing the commenting, spam bots could post Viagra ads here all day long. Sorry if it's a problem for you. Personally, I think of it as a fun little guessing game!

Off to get a delicious croissant from my local JetBlue franchise.

[lover of jazz]

look, the folks at the airline merely thought jarrar's t-shirt was informing them in advance that he would likely be a noisy passenger. this seems reasonable to me.

i know, i know. not funny.

[John Caruso]

loj: Hey, I chuckled. It actually makes a kind of sense, since the average airline employee has no idea what "We will not be silent" means in activist terms.

[cemmcs]

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

John Lennon

[SteveB]

I got a reply from JetBlue already - now that's some speedy customer service, especially considering I'm not a customer:

Dear Steve,

Thank you for your interest in the settlement that has been reached between JetBlue, TSA and Mr. Raed Jarrer.

JetBlue believes diversity adds great strength to our company; diversity among our crewmembers as well as our customers. With this resolution, we can now direct our attention to continuing to provide the JetBlue Experience that has satisfied tens of millions of customers.

Sincerely,

JetBlue Airways
Customer Commitment

[KDelphi]

This just in! Obama is planning to "restructure" Medicar and social security--probably Medicaid, too! Where is neo-liberal outrage, like when Dubya or Reagan tried to do it??

[KDelphi]

Now, the Dems passed a bill suporting Israel--unconditionaly, in closed quarters...