Tonight was the first commercial I was impressed with since Clara Peller Asked "Where's the Beef?" albeit [...]]]> I do not watch the Super Bowl for the commercials for a couple reasons, 1. They usually suck and 2. if they are good you will see them about 157,000 times in the next month.

Tonight was the first commercial I was impressed with since Clara Peller Asked "Where's the Beef?" albeit for different reasons. Tonight Chrysler stole the show(at least until Eli Manning engineered the game winning drive) and aired this “Halftime in America” spot narrated by Clint Eastwood.

This was a commercial touting American Made cars and the resurgence of Chrysler. They even used some footage from WI.

The bailout/saving of the American auto industry by President Obama will be a campaign issue. I stand with President Obama on this and will be interested to see who stands against him,especially Paul Ryan’s view!

We will all be awaiting the answer to Clint’s questions. ”

By the way, what was the hero of the right Rush Limbaugh doing while Chrysler was airing this commercial asking tough questions?

Picking his nose:

Our findings here echo those discussed in a [...]]]> Interesting graph from VoteView showing the GOP lurching to the right over the years and dragging the Democrats with them.  Interesting to note that the Nazi Socialist Marxist Kenyan Non-President Obama-nation is about as “liberal” as Truman and LBJ (in other words, not so much…)

Our findings here echo those discussed in a prior post that Republicans have moved further to the right than Democrats to the left in the contemporary period. Indeed, as seen below, President Obama is the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II, while President George W. Bush was the most conservative president in the post-war era.

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.

On Martin Luther King, Jr. day, a teacher from Racine refused an award because it was given to him by Paul Ryan (R-Wall St.). The same Paul Ryan who has perpetually been adamantly against [...]]]>

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
Martin Luther King, Jr.

On Martin Luther King, Jr. day, a teacher from Racine refused an award because it was given to him by Paul Ryan (R-Wall St.). The same Paul Ryan who has perpetually been adamantly against extending unemployment benefits for the unemployed workers in his district(which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country), protections for General Motors and thousands of other American jobs and also has his sites set on dismantling Social Security and Medicare as we know it.

Al Levie had this to say about his refusal of the award from Pink Slip Paulie:

“I would not accept the award from Paul Ryan because Paul Ryan is a lackey for the 1 percent,” he said. “Paul Ryan had no business at a Martin Luther King event, it’s totally hypocritical. On the one hand he votes to slash health care, while on the other hand, King dedicated his life and he died for it, for people to have adequate healthcare, to have adequate jobs.”

“King made it very clear that he was on the side of working people,” he continued. “Ryan on the other hand, he has absolutely no affinity for the working class and for him to come to an event where somebody of King’s stature was honored is wrong.”

This tremendously upset the right wing as people like the rights brilliant orator Andy "go to hell" Breitbart labeled this "Liberal Hate".

No way that Paul Ryan (R-$350 bottles of wine) would ever treat anyone with such contempt, right?

Packer/Badger Schedule anyone?

I think the one thing that bothers me most about the current republican party as a whole, is their unmitigated gall and lack of shame. Here the daily show exposes it brilliantly!

The Daily Show with Jon StewartGet More: Seems to be high up on the republican platform.