The GOP's "raison d'etre"?

[Atticus]

I think the best answer I've heard is two simple words: cheap labor.

If you think about it, just about everything undertaken by the moneyed white men who run the show, if successful, eventually results in cheap labor.

The social issues are just window dressing and diversion. They don't really care about abortion or gay marriage, but such issues are useful to divide and conquer. If enough people think that sexual "morality" is the most important consideration in choosing a candidate, "useful idiots" can be trained to parrot pre-tested sound bites which the right wing talkers will repeat several times an hour, aroung the clock, around the dial.

Once elected, their support system of corporate money and fawning treatment by the "journalists" at Fox will continue so long as they oppose increases in the minimum wage, any legislation favorable to unions and any attempt to give ordinary citizens meaningful access to the courts. They will, of course, do all they can to decrease taxes on the wealthy and their companies. They will find new ways to shift the burden for basic social services to the hourly wage worker, thereby excusing corporations and their owners from having to concern themselves with things like health care, pensions or education.

I've been thinking about all this recently because it sure looks like the insurance companies, spending $1.4 million a day on lobbying, are about to "have their way" with our public option. Forty Republicans in the Senate, aided, abetted and, in some instances LED, by so-called Blue Dog Democrats, are about to "change" the health insurance industry by furnishing it with nearly 50 million more customers. With no apologies at all to Lil' Sarah, this is truly putting lipstick on a pig.

Similarly, card check, we're told, will "have to wait", pensions are now dischargeable in bankruptcy, and, while mega-banks and brokerage houses continue to award "bonuses" that would pay off the mortgages for entire subdivisions, labor is told they have to make more concessions if they want any job at all.

How long will it be before company busses are making morning runs to tent cities to pick up that day's workers? How long before workers are bidding against each other for jobs that have no insurance benefits, no retirement plan, don't pay overtime and laugh at the concepts of sick leave and workmens' compensation?

But, it ain't all negative. We should soon see an end to the "outsourcing" of American jobs to third world nations with low wages and lax enforcement of health and safety regulations. Hell, at the rate we're going, they'll be outsoucing their work to US!

Cheap labor: it makes all the puzzle pieces "fit".

[kentuck]

1. Amen Brother or Sister !!

Preach the Word.

[DJ13]

2. You need to go one step higher

Cheap labor serves the corporate interests, so they really serve the interests of big business above all else.

(But I agree 100% with your excellent thesis.)

[GrantDem]

3. Everything Repukes do are for one of two purposes.

A. To redistribute wealth from those with the least to those with the most.

or

B. Cause a distraction while they do A.

[cliffordu]

4. DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNNAH!!!!!!!

Best post of the WEEK, Michael Jackson or not.

Nice take.

[checks-n-balances]

5. They're strongest in the South, and we know about that legacy

They replaced that with rabid anti-labor forces and the desire for cheap labor trumps most anything else in life with those in control.

Thanks for your astute analysis.

[applegrove]

6. You said it. It has been class warfare for a long time.

[RufusTFirefly]

7. But, of course, mentioning "class warfare" is strictly verboten

[Mythsaje]

8. Forbidden to whom?

People in the corporate media? Surely. But the rest of us? Hell no.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

9. Myth America

A new good read.

10 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution!


http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2009/03/myth-america-by-cindy-sheeha-pre-order.html

[troubledamerican]

10. Y E S. Cheap labor is the end goal of fascism.

[CrispyQ]

11. The irony is,

the elite tell us, "If you work hard, you can get where we are." Yet they disdain labor.

[dugaresa]

12. That is why they hate an organized populace.

Cheap Labor has always been the desire of the rich. The only way to keep the rich in check is to scare the shit out of them and win concessions. Sadly this typically takes violence but it doesn't have too, But as long as Joe and Janet Public are willing to take a beating from the rich guys they will continue to administer it until Joe and Janet say, "wait a minute" and start slugging back.

To be honest we are heading in that direction again. People typically don't fight for what is right until they have nothing else to lose. Too many folks are complacent with what they have but once enough folks are screwed over, we will once again see the rise of socialism in this country.

[el_bryanto]

13. Yeah I'd say that's true

I mean if we are talking about the powers behind the rhetoric certainly.

Most of them wouldn't phrase it that way, of course. In their opinion, American Workers have had it to easy and the American corporation has it to hard. So they see it as a readjustment to the way things should be.

Bryant

[Canuckistanian]

14. I recommend Conceptual Guerilla's "Cheap Labor Conservatives Issues Guide"

The article explains how CHEAP LABOR rules and guides everything they do, from the War on Drugs to tax cuts.

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16

On edit: There's a more comprehensive and convincing article called "Defeat the Right in Three Minutes"

An excerpt:

The Cheap-Labor Conservative "Dirty Secret" : They Don't Really Like Prosperity

Maybe you don't believe that cheap-labor conservatives like unemployment, poverty and "cheap labor". Consider these facts.

Unemployment was 23 percent when FDR took office in 1933. It dropped to 2.5 percent by time the next Republican was in the White House in 1953. It climbed back to 6.5 percent by the end of the Eisenhower administration. It dropped to 3.5 percent by the time LBJ left office. It climbed over 5 percent shortly after Nixon took office, and stayed there for 27 years, until Clinton brought it down to 4.5 percent early in his second term.

That same period – especially from the late forties into the early seventies – was the "golden age" of the United States. We sent men to the moon. We built our Interstate Highway system. We ended segregation in the South and established Medicare. In those days, a single wage earner could support an entire family on his wages. I grew up then, and I will tell you that life was good – at least for the many Americans insulated from the tragedy in Vietnam, as I was.

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/55