But what caught my attention [...]]]> Salon has an interesting interview with Arthur Goldwag, author of the new book The New Hate: A History of Fear and Loathing on the Populist Right.  He argues that the racist and conspiracist approach of today’s right-wing nut jobs is “largely the same as it was 50 years ago.”

But what caught my attention was this question and answer because I think it goes a long way towards understanding recent attacks on public workers in Wisconsin.

Why is this resurgence of the “old hate” happening now?

We’re going through a historic shift in this country.  We were on an incredible run of prosperity in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, thanks to the New Deal social compact, thanks to big unions, thanks to very strong regulation – thanks to all the things that Glenn Beck’s followers think are the most evil things in the world.  Fairly unskilled, uneducated people were able to earn a good living, and send their children to college.  And that’s changed.  Income inequality is growing.  If you look at American history, the bottom has dropped out of rural people’s lives every five years, but there used to also be a manufacturing class that made a decent living.  There used to be a route for people that weren’t well educated to make a decent living.  There isn’t anymore. There’s a lot of anxiety about our individual positions in our society, and our country’s position in the world. If you’re not educated to be able to understand it, and you’re trapped in a disadvantaged life, you might become really, really angry. (emphasis added)

I believe that this is, fundamentally, correct.  His assessment of the level of anger and vitriol in the undereducated population is being exploited by the right wing of the GOP in ways that are, ultimately, detrimental to their own interests.  Rather than expressing solidarity with public workers who, while not paid as well as private sector workers in general, certainly retained levels of benefits not seen in the private sector since the 1970s.  And that was achieved, of course, through collective bargaining.

You want to see envy in action, here it is.  If you think the 99% envy the wealth of the 1%, private sector workers, many of whom have ceded more benefits and more compensation to their employers demands, are most certainly envious of the benefits of their public sector brothers and sisters.  You can hear it in their rhetoric.  The rich capitalize on this envy through the omnipresent right wing media who stoke these fires of jealousy into action against working-class Americans.  They’ve even convinced these “useful idiots” that “right to work” laws will benefit workers! As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said,

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights.Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.  (Martin Luther King, speaking about right-to-work laws in 1961)

Instead of standing in solidarity with the public sector and demanding the same benefits from their private sector employers, these cowards resort to jealous tantrums against “pampered” public sector workers.  These class traitors demand that the benefits bargained by public sector workers be slashed to the same meager levels they suffer in the private sector.  All the while, heaping opprobrium onto the very institution, the labor union, that could help raise them up.

Working class people tearing down working class people.  The capitalists have certainly won.

Jay Gould’s dystopian worker’s paradise has certainly come to pass…

I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.

Listen for the bit around 7:30 where McWilliams talks about working in [...]]]> Great review of the crisis in Europe by Irish economist David McWilliams!  McWilliams has worked as an economist with the Central Bank of Ireland and as a banker with UBS bank and the Banque Nationale de Paris.  He currently does documentary television.

Listen for the bit around 7:30 where McWilliams talks about working in Boston in the 1980s when the Boston & Massachusetts economy took a nose-dive and how the Federal Government stepped in to help with various transfers.  Then remember that we have a governor who is to feckin’ stupid to know how economics works and turned down millions and millions of dollars in transfer payments from the Feds.  When you elect a moron, you get moronic policies.

Here in Wisconsin, we’ve got a long, proud tradition of progressive politics, and that’s why it’s been so disappointing to see what Republican elected officials are doing to our state. Whether it’s concealed carry and the Castle Doctrine, the weakening of [...]]]> It’s no secret what my political beliefs are – I’m a proud progressive.

Here in Wisconsin, we’ve got a long, proud tradition of progressive politics, and that’s why it’s been so disappointing to see what Republican elected officials are doing to our state. Whether it’s concealed carry and the Castle Doctrine, the weakening of mining regulations, the revocation of collective bargaining rights for public employees, or the deeps funding cuts to our public education system, Wisconsin’s Republican elected officials have declared all-out war on progressive values, and I say enough is enough!

It’s time we progressives fight for what we believe in, and we can start by helping elect progressives to office. Run for America, a coalition of groups led by Progressive Majority, wants to help get progressive elected to office here in Wisconsin. To date, over 4,000 individuals have signed up nationwide to enter the Run for America candidate training program, but if you’re not interested in being a candidate for office, you can sign up to be a recruiter. If you know some great progressives who’d be equally great elected officials, sign up to be a recruiter!

It’s time we progressives take back Wisconsin, and we can start by identifying those progressives we think would make great candidates and encouraging them to run for elected office.

NYT: You recently said about Newt Gingrich: “He’s just one [...]]]> The New York Times featured a short interview with Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank in last week’s The New York Times Magazine. Rep. Frank lays it on the line and basically puts the blame for the current political divisiveness at the feet of Newt Gingrich:

NYT: You recently said about Newt Gingrich: “He’s just one of the worst people I know of who didn’t commit violence on somebody.” Did he kill your dog?

Rep Frank: He transformed American politics from one in which people presume the good will of their opponents, even as they disagreed, into one in which people treated the people with whom they disagreed as bad and immoral. He was a kind of McCarthy-ite who succeeded.

There clearly is a class of people willing to sacrifice the livelihood and well-being of others in pursuit of their ideological goal of a smaller government (so long as their own future remains secure). The notion of “expansionary austerity” was the cover, but so long as government shrinks as a result of [...]]]> Mark Thoma:

There clearly is a class of people willing to sacrifice the livelihood and well-being of others in pursuit of their ideological goal of a smaller government (so long as their own future remains secure). The notion of “expansionary austerity” was the cover, but so long as government shrinks as a result of the policy, the expansionary part is secondary. If reducing the size of government slows the recovery, that’s a small price to pay for such a worthy goal — for them anyway, the power behind this is in no danger of becoming unemployed. The main thing is to impose the small government ideology whenever there is a chance, and to use whatever argument is needed to serve that purpose, austerity is expansionary, tax cuts pay for themselves — whatever works — the ideologues will even embrace Keynesian economics if it allows them to argue for tax cuts that might further “starve the beast” (e.g. see Bush’s argument for the first round of his tax cuts). But in the end the goal is a simple one, reduce the size and influence of government, and everything else is just a means of getting there.

This always gets me scratching my head.  Tell me again why a smaller government is magically better?