US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

i know this is kind of dead point from upthread, but ... i always found it odd that some of the folks back in the day could accuse FDR of being a "fascist" in one breath and in another call him "President Rosenfeld" (b/c, you know, he was the Jews' plaything or something like that). sort of the same thing as the Teabaggers who call Obama BOTH a communist and a nazi (although in the minds of the far right communists and nazis ARE the same thing).

FDR about the bankers: "Don't these fools realize that I'm saving capitalism?"

Would vote for Sullenberger, he's a labor union guy.

Is it just me or is the US narrative incredibly anti-union? All my life (born in '81) I remember unions portrayed in pop culture almost always as corrupt, power-mad, etc. I mean there is some amount of corruption but it's totally the pot calling the kettle black. Seems like any and all unionization is thought of as evil to conservatives. I guess on this issue the right has the corporations on their side, which is why their view prevails.

The only (brief) honeymoon unions enjoyed was after the passage of the Wagner Act.

I grew up in a virulently anti-union household. My dad, in the airline business, simply didn't like to be dictated to by them.

My dad's always been a proud union man (IATSE), so I kinda grew up with a soft spot for socialism and workers' rights.

It's funny watching my dad try to be a conservative at the same time he's owed his ability to put food on the table to his (IBEW) union pension and the Veterans Admin.

My dad, in the airline business, simply didn't like to be dictated to by them.

ha did he not have a BOSS

neither of my parents were union members but as generic hippie liberal types they made sure i grew up in a strongly union-sympathetic househod

my dad's union concerns finally turned him against Nixon in '72 (then he voted for Reagan twice).

well he was president of SAG (a vantage point uniquely suited to exposing the names of those he considered potential communist traitors)

Does anyone know the republican justification for why unions shouldn't have a strong representation in the federal government? I mean especially in the light of the Citizens United case what is there reason for wanting to deny 1st amendment rights to unions? I'm not asking hypothetically.

Despite the fact that my father owned a small business that made money from union workers and their ability to afford his services, he hates unions. Now that the unions in his town are now a shadow of their former selves he wonders why business wasn't thriving.

Also, my mother called me a socialist and wants the government to stay out of her social security and medicare.

Does anyone know the republican justification for why unions shouldn't have a strong representation in the federal government?

Because they're communist. Seriously. That's really what it comes down to. They restrict the right of each worker to negotiate his own compensation with the employer, therefore they are bad.

collective bargaining is troublesome to individualists

Pancakes OTM. Unions = socialism.

wants the government to stay out of her social security and medicare.

would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad

collective bargaining is troublesome to individualists employers.

THE QUAYLE RETURNS!

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/quayle-51-votes-not-what-our-founding-fathers-had-in-mind.php?ref=fpblg

well that ought to settle it

why is Harry Reid such a fucktard

Plenty of people are progressive-leaning in one area of their life and conservative-leaning in others. It's why you can have gun nuts who care about the local environment in terms of fishing & hunting grounds(e.g. Ducks Unlimited).

^LOL reminds me of people in my neighborhood growing up who were all Izaak Walton League members; politicians were addicted to coming to their picnics whatever their party.

right-wing response to unions is interesting to see. i experienced it the other night in a conversation with an in-law who immediately located the reason for my job being outsourced in the fact that it's a high-paid union job. i said yes, that's true, but you see i have had this high-paid union job for seven years, which is seven years of high pay. and the people who are still there are still being paid very well. she didn't seem to appreciate this particular aspect of the situation.

(and of course as long as the company was raking in the dough, it could afford the union contract, and should have. the contract only becomes an issue when times get tight, which i understand. but people on the right just basically think workers should have as little leverage as possible, is all i can figure. because they really think capital is produced by the people at the top.)

My dad voted Republican half of the time but remained a union member for most of his working life. His rationale seemed to be that here were his tax issues on the one side but on the other side, here was the job responsible for the income to pay them, and that job sank or swam on collective bargaining.

xp

Yeah, that's more the feeling I always got; anti-union sentiment is much like tort reform, in that ire is drawn by things which can work to balance or check the unrestricted power of the idealized powerful. And these guys associate power & success with 'Good, disciplined morality', so anything going against the ability of your boss or your hospital to fuck you over any way they see fit must be destroyed.

Or pretty much just the authoritarian urge, yet again. Everything is about hierarchy and obedience to power & legitimate authority.

My old boss said it best that "no industry has an union that didn't deserve it."

That's pithy, and will be stolen by me.

Also, my mother called me a socialist and wants the government to stay out of her social security and medicare.

An interesting thing to me is that the sting has totally been taken out of the word "liberal." As few as a couple years ago, right-wingers would just roll their eyes and chuckle smugly at so-called "liberals." But it's just not enough anymore. Now they spit "socialist" with a righteous and incredulous fury at their political enemies.

Not necessarily anything to do with your mother mind. Just a thought I had.

Palin/Quayle 2012.

^^^^^^^^^ YES!

My old boss said it best that "no industry has an union that didn't deserve it.

^^^^^
i grew up in a reflexively anti-union environment, and it took me a while to learn.

and, yeah, seems like "socialist" or "collectivist" is the new "liberal," from my odd listening to conservative talk radio.

"progressive" too, which is sort of funny because it's the weasel word adopted by liberals who were too chickenshit to call themselves liberals. i've seen a few places on the right the notion that, "it's not the liberals who are the problem, it's the progressives." which i think sort of serves "progressives" right.

...i....don't know about that.

tipsy I think your understanding of the historical use of "progressive" is maybe a li'l bit rong

i know the history, duh. but in the post-atwater era and especially in the last 10-15 years it's become this preferred way for people to say liberal who don't want to say liberal. and the right wing has reacted accordingly.

oh ok I gotcha I glossed over "adopted" - sorry

yeah, it basically disappeared from political parlance for several decades and then got dusted off. this is wikipedia and all, but the entry on "progressivism in the united states" reflects the same thing:

Modern American progressivism includes political figures such as Barack Obama who calls himself a progressive, as do Joe Biden[29], Hillary Clinton[30], John Kerry[31] Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, Al Franken, Debbie Stabenow, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Cynthia McKinney, John Edwards, Sherrod Brown, Kathleen Sebelius, David McReynolds, Ralph Nader, Howard Dean, Peter Camejo, Al Gore, and the late Paul Wellstone and Ted Kennedy. Also in this category are many leaders in the women's movement, cosmopolitanism, the labor movement, the American civil rights movement, the environmental movement, the immigrant rights movement, and the gay and lesbian rights movement.

these are all people and movements that were or would have been "liberal" until people got too scared to say the word.

i thought it was a catch-all for people who considered themselves left-wing but thought "liberals" were too centrist (e.g., clintons)

ok that list makes it look like everyone

well, not that either word means a whole lot in and of itself. but i think it's predictable of the right to pick up on the shift and attack it, and shows the uselessness of that kind of evasive pussyfooting. e.g., glenn beck.

i thought it was a catch-all for people who considered themselves left-wing but thought "liberals" were too centrist (e.g., clintons)

Same here.

I don't see why the discourse should be restricted to liberal, conservative, and the degrees in between (centrist, left-center, right-center, lukewarmish-center, etc).

i think when someone like krugman (who isn't shy about calling himself a liberal) invokes "progressivism," he's deliberately drawing on history and the actual progressive movement. but when someone like obama or the clintons do it, it's a calculated way to not say the L word.

i feel like it's a calculated way to look more "progressive" than they are! but you're right, it's a useless game either way.

also "progressives" historically aren't more left than liberals. the progressive movement plus FDR basically invented 20th-century liberalism. two out of the three "progressive" u.s. presidents were republicans.

historically, no, but the definition used when it's thrown around now

i guess. it seems pretty squishy to me. like most of these words, obviously.

The most vigorous Progressive president was TR.

Steve Hackett imo

John Wetton fer veep.