Tag Archives: Tea Party

Political Rants

Them-ism.

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I’ve never been a union member for more than maybe eighteen months as a part-timer, back when I was a 1/8-time adjunct at S.U.N.Y. Empire State College and belonged to the A.A.U.P. (I paid dues to the Teamsters for about two weeks when I had a stock room job at a Caldor in Albany back in 1982 – the kind of job that lasts two weeks when you’re me.) Likewise, my dad spent the vast majority of his working life – perhaps all of it – unaffiliated, unorganized, call it what you will. But though he was no fan of Hoffa, Meany, and the other union bosses of his day, he understood the power of labor organizing and was always supportive of it – not out of loyalty to an organization, of course, but from a deep identification with the experience of working people, as he worked hard pretty much the whole 40 years I knew him.

I have to say that my sentiments run along the same lines, though I’ve never worked as hard as my father did. Still… I understand what it is like, what many of the hidden costs of labor are, and that informs my perspective as well as that of many, many Americans. A vast majority of Americans, in fact, if recent polling is to be believed – Wisconsin Governor (and former pop star) Scott Walker and his peers in Indiana, Ohio, and elsewhere appear to have been working on the assumption that most people who do not belong to a union see no value in organized labor and have no knowledge of its history in this country. Evidently, they are mistaken. Polling has long shown that most American workers would, if given the opportunity, join a union. While they understand the necessity of making concessions from time to time, they do not agree that one should concede one’s basic rights. The right to collective bargaining was hard won, fought for. It will not be relinquished casually.

Of course, it’s no surprise that organized labor is under attack five minutes after the latest crop of Tea Party-fueled Republicans have taken office. For some reason, most people think the GOP is going to be reasonable if we just allow them to take power. The fact is, every successive time they win an election, they get more aggressively destructive than the time before. Walker and others were trying to cram this anti-union legislation through before anyone noticed. They are trying to drive a wedge between “us” (non-union workers, or at least those who don’t belong to public employee unions) and “them” (union workers), for the benefit of their well-heeled patrons… like the real David Koch (not the admirable ersatz one from the Buffalo Beast who called Walker a couple of weeks ago). Typical divide and conquer strategy – the top 2% who made out like bandits over the past 10 years in particular are taking time out from collecting their tax breaks to help set the rest of us at each other’s throats, fighting over the scraps that remain.

Remember, friends. If there’s a “them” here, it’s not organized labor. It is, rather, that thin layer of folks who own everything and wish to part with none of it.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

What’s up.

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Just a few thoughts prior to the most expensive mid-term elections in U.S. history.

Don’t abstain. You’ve heard this before from wiser people than me. You’ve even heard it from me. In any case, here it is again – don’t stay home on election day. Go out and vote. Vote against the money tide from corporate America. Make their Supreme Court-sanctioned pay-to-play electoral machine useless to them. It only works if we cooperate by failing to oppose their favored candidates – don’t. Get out there and mark those ballots – again, not because that’s the only thing that needs to happen in order to build a better world, but because it’s necessary to keep the media-fueled G.O.P. “tsunami” myth from materializing.

I’m most particularly addressing this message to folks in states like Wisconsin, where you are represented by the finest member of the U.S. Senate. For god’s sake, don’t replace Feingold with some vacuous millionaire CEO. And for those of you in Nevada who, I’m sure, read this column religiously, I encourage you to hold your noses and vote for Harry Reid, rather than allow that bigoted Schlafly clone to become one of the most narrow-minded members of the world’s greatest deliberative body. (Any sane person would vote against her on the basis of her incendiary anti-immigration ads alone.)  

Bloody mess exposed. I’ve sifted through only a tiny corner of the Iraq War documents released by Wikileaks, and I have to say I feel something distantly related to PTSD. Go to the Guardian site and check it out. This trove helps to confirm the oft-criticized claims of the antiwar movement; that the Bush administration was wanton in its disregard for the well-being of Iraqi civilians, that it had an administrative policy of non-intervention when detainees were being tortured, and so on. The torture revelations are not that surprising – this is the kind of approach we traditionally followed with third world allies prior to Bush’s wars: have the CIA guy observe while the El Salvadoran officer applies the thumb screw or the electrodes. In Iraq we had both the new way and the old.

Relax. When the power went off on that nuclear missile base in Wyoming, the major media outlets – including NPR – offered a brief item that amounted to, don’t worry, we never lost the ability to launch them. I slept a whole lot better after hearing that.

luv u,

jp

Uncategorized

Tea totalers.

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Fast again, my apologies.

Our friends in the mass media are breathless over the primary elections this past week, particularly with regard to the triumph of certain “tea party” affiliated candidates. This is the big story, we’re told – the tea party conservatives are where all of the enthusiasm is this year. It’s a growing movement, says old Pat Buchanan, as if we’re witnessing anything new. Have any of these people actually lived in the United States over the past twenty years? I wonder.

What is the tea party movement, after all, but the hard core of the Republican party conservative base? Chris (Lambchop) Hayes made this point on Rachel Maddow’s show the other night. Think about it for a minute – even at his nadir of popularity, George W. Bush could count on the unquestioning love of 25-30% of the country. This country is home to more than 300 million people, so that 25% adds up to 75 million people. Based on their rallies and their primary returns, the tea party appears to be a subset of that block – more like Glenn Beck’s 10% vanguard. These are people who loved Bush/Cheney, supported both wars they started, ate up the tax cuts, blamed Katrina on the victims, and called Obama a terrorist during the McCain campaign. “He’s a… an Arab,” said the crazy lady at one of McCain’s rallies, searching for the right epithet.  From the moment of Obama’s election victory, these people have been screaming to “get their country back.” My question is, “back” from whom? The people who voted in the last national election? Screw that.

The simple fact is, these people have only effectively been out of power for less than two years. Sure, the Democrats took control of the Senate and House in January 2007, but they had razor thin majorities and a Republican president to work with. Bush was able to triangulate with the always-useful conservative Dems in both houses to block any progressive legislation and keep the cash flowing for both wars. So they are complaining about what amounts to the last 20 months. Indeed, their complaints would have no traction at all were it not for the horrible unemployment rate and the continuing sluggish economy – due in large part to the consistent blocking action of congressional Republicans and (again) conservative Dems, who cut the vast majority of infrastructure spending from the stimulus package and now whine that it didn’t do enough. I guess Bill Clinton did have a point with “It’s the economy, stupid.” In the absence of a draft or a war tax, nothing resonates with the American voter more than jobs, jobs, jobs. 

To paraphrase the old WWII sign about carpooling – If you stay home on election day, you ride with Boehner. Whatever else poor, working, and left-leaning people need to do to make life better in this country, they need to get out and vote. Need a ride to the polls? Call me.  

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Race to the bottom.

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This whole business about Shirley Sherrod, the Agriculture Department staffer from Georgia –  this is an extremely ugly picture, and we’ve seen it before. What’s more, we’re likely to see it again before long.

There’s been enough commentary on this to fill a supertanker, so I’ll just make a few brief observations. What this event tells me most superficially is something I already knew – that the Obama administration is unbelievably pusillanimous. Christ almighty, sometimes these guys make Bill Clinton seem like Hercules (… and he wasn’t). They may be the only people outside of hard-core tea party types that appear to believe everything they hear on Fox news. More likely, though, they are so focused on projecting this image of post-racial America that they respond in knee-jerk fashion to any claim of reverse racism, no matter how unfounded. Combine that with their tendency to throw left-leaning staffers, like Van Jones, overboard at the first sign of trouble (unlike the Geithners and Salazars of the world), and you’ve got a White House that allows Roger Ailes to make their personnel decisions for them. Now there’s a real formula for success.

My main question here is, who is behind this? We’ve heard the names of the idiotic right-wing blogger and the various Fox news spokesmorons. But where did that clip come from originally? Who, exactly, is trying to promote racial resentment among whites? No question but that right-wing elements of the Republican party are exploiting this sort of thing all the time. They have their sources. So… who looked at this video, made the precise edit that would create the erroneous inflammatory impression, then sent it along to the clown-like Breitbart?

One thing we would do well to remember – racism remains a strong undercurrent in American life, and so long as it does, there will be those who will use it to their political advantage. With a black man in the White House – one with an overtly African name – there will always be suspicions on the part of crypto-racists that black people are taking over, pressing their momentary advantage, marginalizing good, upstanding white Christian Americans. That’s why we’re hearing all these ludicrous stories about the “New Black Panthers” – i.e. two dudes standing outside a polling station in a majority black district. That’s why we get Breitbart, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Beck, and Hannity screaming about reverse racism. Even when it’s ultimately demonstrated as bogus, the impression remains with those whose prejudices need only the mildest validation.

Shall we overcome? We shall see.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Crazytown.

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Okay… this really WILL be short takes, because I have zero time to think about this.

Tea Party Rallies. “We want our country back?” Seriously? When did you lose it, exactly? You who appear to be richer, whiter, and more well educated than the rest of us. Last I looked you were doing pretty well. You’ve got a timid Democratic president, a cowardly Democratic congress, and a conservative judiciary. So how does this differ from four years ago when you ran everything? As recently as two years ago, you had a split Senate, the presidency, and a narrow minority in the House. No one has raised your taxes. No one wants your guns. Obama’s going to drill baby drill. W.t.f., come back when you’ve got something to complain about.

Palintology. Speaking of tea parties, Sarah Palin strikes me like some annoying neighbor up the street who has a voice like a grammar school bugle (as well as an upcoming show on Animal Planet that I encourage you to join Defenders of Wildlife in protesting.) I would say she annoys me, but I know that’s the whole point of her – annoying leftists – so I refuse to cooperate. So instead I’ll just say…. HOWDY, NEIGHBOR! Or should I give a nod to Jello Biafra and just say, “SIEG HOWDY!”? 

Help yourself. Looks like ACORN got punked. Big surprise there. A group that works with poor people, helping them register to vote and make ends meet in some of the most impoverished communities in America. What a perfect target for right-wing screwballs! Of course, the famed videos were creatively edited (that jerk-ass pseudo journalist wasn’t wearing his pimp getup and exculpatory footage was deliberately excised). But no matter – success was had, mainly because the useless thing that passes for a party of the left (with a handful of honorable exceptions) would not rise in their defense (since they mostly represent bankers). Lesson: The right wins when the left folds. Want to win? Stop folding.

That’s all I’ve got. I’m freaking tired.

luv u,

jp