One of Palin’s political consultants posted a long paean to the glory and wonder of unions on her Facebook page, titled “Union Brothers and Sisters, Join Our Commonsense Cause!” Here’s the nut of the argument:
In the past there were many great union leaders who courageously defended the rights of workers. Unions were founded for all the right reasons! They were to give working men and women the clout to negotiate fairly with their employers and to fight for decent pay and working conditions. The unions of old would often end up fighting big government on behalf of the little guy. Today’s unions seem to be big government’s most enthusiastic supporters. It’s turned into some nonsense when union bosses back the government takeover of the car industry, and the mortgage industry, and the entire health care sector. And with the help of big government they aim to push through card check legislation that some characterize as being unfair to workers, and even un-American, because of its insistence on stripping workers of their right to privacy with a secret ballot. And that’s not just me voicing concern over card check – ask current union members how comfortable they are with what some of their leaders are saying about the legislation.
I know she spouts this kind of crap all the time, but this one verges on comedy, combining the crazy idea that government hasn’t done shit for unions, and the insane notion that there’s a place for unions in today’s Republican party.
beltane
You’d think that somewhere in one of Palin’s five colleges, she would have learned that the union movement fought big business, not big government. My socialist great-grandmother, an organizer for the ILGWU in the early 20th century, would spit in Palin’s corporate-sponsored face if she were still alive.
BC
About them “union bosses” – how do the Republicans think a person gets to be a “union boss”? Do they know that the “union boss” is elected by the union membership or do they have some fuzzy idea that the “union boss” is just appointed by the Democratic Party? Are any of these Republicans members of any kind of national organization, other than the Republican party? My god, the unions are organized just like the Rotary Club or the Elks Lodge – representation from local branches to the national level are pretty much elected, not appointed, positions. People with this level of ignorance about how national organizations function should just crawl into a hole and hide. I have to laugh, though, at that “It’s turned into some nonsense when union bosses back the government takeover of the car industry” as a way of courting union members such as members of the UAW!
arguingwithsignposts
@BC:
You and your silly “facts” and “truth” and stuff. Also, too.
And seriously, WTF is the Moose Princess doing here? Has the GOP ever believed in unions?
MattF
“The unions of old would often end up fighting big government on behalf of the little guy.” Um, wtf? Often? Is there something like a red flag for flat-out lying?
Villago Delenda Est
Next, Mooselini will be telling chickens that Colonel Sanders is their savior!
Linda Featheringill
Republican Party as the home of Unions? That’s actually no more unthinkable than the Log Cabin bunch.
beltane
@BC: Palin’s idea that unions were founded to fight big government and not big business was is especially laughable. It is a disgrace that this moron was allowed to graduate high school. Sarah Palin does not represent the average American-she represents the below-average American, the bottom 27th percentile.
Macsenmifune
Funny I don’t remember government being very big in the late nineteenth century. Weren’t all those do nothing presidents back then Republicans, sans Grover Cleveland?
arguingwithsignposts
@Macsenmifune:
Well except for that one guy, whatsisname … Lincoln.
jwb
@arguingwithsignposts: IIRC, Reagan was actually a president of a union.
Michael
God in Heaven, she is a stupid C-word.
beltane
@Macsenmifune: Yes and yes. Even back in its saner incarnation, the Republican party was fiercely anti-union. Sarah Palin just shat upon the graves of all those early union members who lost their lives in the struggle with the robber barons and their paid thugs.
arguingwithsignposts
@jwb:
Which made that love he showed the air traffic controllers all the more weird.
Chad N Freude
@Linda Featheringill: Republican Party +Log Cabin Republicans + Unions = REPUBLICAN GAY UNIONS! Welcome to Opposite World.
ppcli
@MattF: Now, now, let’s give Sarah credit for stumbling on a truth. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Unions were often fighting against a tyrannical government. The air traffic controllers come to mind.
TomG
Hey, the IWW is still around. Do they count in her book? Because if she really means what she says (stop laughing – I can hear you from here), the IWW is a hell of a lot closer to that ideal than most other unions.
arguingwithsignposts
Also, too, the Wasilla Grifter might want to check out a copy of Harlan County, USA sometime. 1970s seems like centuries ago.
scav
And to think that I was once blissfully unaware of how many people would fail the Turing test.
Chad N Freude
@beltane: It would be laughable if it were not even as I type this seeping into history textbooks from Texas to … everywhere. Eventually we’ll have a generation that believes that unions and their employers were united against big government, a struggle which endures to this very day.
And Reagan was a president of the Screen
Actors Guild:
His shift came about when GE paid him incredible sums of money to be their spokesguy, taking money from megacorporations being much pleasanter than fighting them.
doctorpsycho1960
It’s really very simple: if reality agrees with you, point it out. If reality trends away from you, spin. If reality is directly opposite to you, flat out deny reality and assert that your position is reality.
mclaren
There is a place for unions in today’s Republican party: beneath their heel, getting crushed into the mud.
ppcli
“Today’s unions seem to be big government’s most enthusiastic supporters. It’s turned into some nonsense when union bosses back the government takeover of the car industry”
Apparently in Sarah’s mind Walter Reuther would have preferred to let GM and Chrysler go bankrupt than cooperate in accepting government assistance (“the government takeover of the car industry”). Some seriously fact-free history that.
windshouter
I know facebook is one way, but if I wanted to form a union today at my workplace to fight big government and advocate for good working conditions, I would be unable to. It’s highly likely I’d be fired long before my secret ballot election to which I’m allegedly entitled. Card check is just one way to solve that problem. What’s Sarah Palin’s plan to solve that problem?
mai naem
That any attention is paid to the wholly unrepentant moron known as Sarah Palin makes me worry about the direction of this country. I seriously would like to boink her in the head over and over again, like in the old roadrunner kind of cartoons.
ppcli
@scav:
True dat. Brings back a memory of many years ago, when I was a logic student and Reagan was president. When Nancy remarked that Ronnie had a “brain like a computer” one of my fellow students added: “Yes. A one-state Turing machine.”
Villago Delenda Est
@windshouter:
What’s Sarah Palin’s plan to solve that problem?
She has no plan. She has no idea of a plan. All she has are platitudes, and that term is generous for what she’s got.
In the meantime, the Palin cash register ka-chings incessantly, which is what this is really all about.
arguingwithsignposts
If by “company town,” you could mean “government,” then Palinista might have a point.
ETA: Just as a thought exercise, what if we were to imagine a country where unions were automatic in all workplaces.
mclaren
@Chad N Freude:
Sorry, that’s pure Orwellian historical rewrite. Here’s the accurate version:
MikeBoyScout
Sarah Moosilini Palin is to union members what Tokyo Rose was to GIs.
morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Judging by her performance as governor, she does have a plan. A Two Year Plan.
RSR
laugh, but there’s an audience for this stuff
I’m always amazed at the republican-voting union members I know. Union republicans are right behind black republicans, IMO, in the list of self-defeating voters.
If you could find a black, gay, union, muslim, female republican, you’d hit the pentafecta!
morzer
@RSR:
Shhh! You’ll give Mad Sarah ideas. We really don’t need to advance the Cthulhu’s Return schedule.
Chad N Freude
@mclaren: The blockquote is from WhiteHouse.gov, which may qualify as a semi-Orwellian rewrite, but I think it’s more a gloss-over-the-naughty-bits rewrite. The story as I understand it was that Reagan was a traditional union lefty until the OMG-there’s-a-commie-under-every-bed panic hit, whereupon the patriotism so much in evidence in the film roles that made him look like a soldier/pilot/somebody who wasn’t staying home to make movies turned into Blacklist Enthusiasm Syndrome. This made him much beloved by the peasantry who were so worried about the Red Menace, resulting in the sanctification of St. Ronnie that has so enhanced our position in the world, economically and diplomatically.
Villago Delenda Est
@morzer:
Oh, she definitely has a plan, but it has nothing to do with union elections. Any political problem she addresses, she has no clue how to actually take on. All she has are words.
But the overall Palin plan is to take the money and run.
Firebert
In the nearly forty years that my dad was working at the cement plant, it wasn’t government that kept trying to slash wages and benefits, and the union was damn sure whose side the Republicans were on.
I know some crusty old guys more than willing to give Mrs. Palin specific instructions on where she can stick it.
Jennifer
How completely apropos that this mindless twit will be whipping up the cadres of knuckle-draggers at Beck’s Million Moron March today.
arguingwithsignposts
And just one more pitch for Harlan County, USA – it’s available on Netflix streaming as well. The collusion of government and big coal was (and is) atrocious. The fact that the doc was able to capture so much of the reality of what was going on is amazing. I am not sure you could do the same thing today.
And there’s a streak of constitutional knowledge that’s amazing among the coal miners’ wives.
I grew up in a right-to-get-shit-on state (TX) and worked in another (SC), but my step-father was a union electrician. I now work in a union shop, and it’s really something to see the difference. I didn’t really understand the benefit of the union when I was growing up.
JD Rhoades
It’s the same lack of principle that allows them to practice blatant racism while telling African Americans that it’s the Democrats who are the real racists.
JohnR
That’s actually pretty good “lie, confuse, divide and rule stuff”. I don’t know if the GOP guys do this carefully and deliberately or if it’s something that just comes naturally, but guys like Goebbels would really be a bit envious at how their hard work and painstaking craftsmanship has been turned into a sort of casual mass-production. Progress, I suppose, but I don’t have to like it!
arguingwithsignposts
@JD Rhoades:
Cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy: They’re doin it right!
El Cid
@Jennifer: The Fauxness Army?
R. Porrofatto
There is a species of imbecile who will fall for this deceit just like they did in the early 80’s — the Reagan Democrat. (I know union members who voted for Reagan even after he destroyed PATCO.) It’s all about power, and working people and union members used to have the courage and fortitude to fight for hard-won benefits and demand some power over their lives and labor. The last few decades of right-wing propaganda and the lack of government enforcement of labor regulations have resulted in a “pretty please, let me keep my job and I’ll give you anything” craven whine leading to endless “give-backs”: benefit cuts, wage cuts, you name it.
German and French workers enjoy a standard of living and working that is infinitely more humane and beneficial than their American counterparts, for the very reason that they did not abandon the power that unions afforded them. Suckers to their own bigotry, and devoid of any sense of solidarity, many American workers will continue to identify with their employers and succumb to the worst hucksterism of the Palins and Becks.
redoubt
“Union Brothers and Sisters, Join Our Nonsense Cause!”
Fixed.
In one of the 83 colleges she attended–did no one mention Taft-Hartley?
Edited to add: as mayor/governor did she not deal with AFSCME?
(Sorry, I’m married to a union member, and this pisses us both off)
Roger Moore
@mai naem:
I’m pretty sure you mean “bonk” her “on” the head. This alternative you’ve proposed is the kind of thing that would happen in an X rated movie, not a Roadrunner cartoon.
El Cid
I realize that there are simply various power interests using Palin as a PR conduit, but I do think it’s fairly clever portraying unions as sympathetic organizations of the little guy being simultaneously got-upon by Big Gubmit and by Big Librul Krupshun.
It allows conservatives to effectively union-hate while rhetorically once again pretending (badly, but still) to be doing so because they love unions so much.
mclaren
New GOP slogan:
VOTE REPUBLICAN, AND WE’LL DO FOR YOUR UNION WHAT WE DID FOR PATCO!
DoubleDutchPolitics
Live Blogging of the Beck Event here :
doubledutchpolitics.com/2010/08/restoring-honor%E2%80%9D-rally-live-blogging/
morzer
@El Cid:
We fuck you over because we love you? The wife-beater’s calling-card.
SMR
I suppose that is why the first dude needed to quit his BP job. He was an operator on the North Slope for BP, and they are union.
I guess they needed to unionize to ensure that they were paid fair wages and not subjected to a 3rd world working environment that might get them blown to smithereens.
If you want to be truly horrified about BP’s attitudes toward its workers, read the Rolling Stone piece about the Deepwater Horizon disaster/moratorium/etc, there are some truly disturbing emails excerpted.
Anyway, another day, another palin hypocrisy. This is such a surprise.
She’s not a Republican anyway, never has been, never will be. I wish they’d just call themselves the Conservative Party or the Tea Party, or some such shit, and go their own way.
Davis X. Machina
@RSR:
Welcome to America, the Saudi Arabia of false consciousness — world’s largest producer, world’s largest proven reserves…
morzer
@DoubleDutchPolitics:
Have they set up the America’s Freedom Meth Lab yet?
El Cid
@morzer: I think it’s more like the pre-CR Southern segregationists’ ability to blame all the violence against civil rights workers on the civil rights workers because it’s the “outside agitators” own faults for stirring everything up.
El Cid
Uh oh — it looks like the New York City government is trying to install Osama bin Laden as a new de facto City Manager.
How can we good Americans let the Democrats use taxpayers’ press-ganged stolen monies fund Al Qa’ida’s construction of the Mosque du Triomphe right on top of Ground Zero?
Davis X. Machina
@redoubt:
I’ve never met a small-town municipal official (and sorry, Wasilia is a small town anywhere but Alaska) whose default position isn’t “Everything private is better than everything public, and so long as one of us is covered by a collective-bargaining agreement, none of us is truly free.”
morzer
@El Cid:
It’s a little known fact that Mohammed’s surname was Liu…
geg6
This is just disgusting. Almost as disgusting as Beck’s attempt to co-opt the civil rights movement. As a descendant of miners and steelworkers who literally fought for their lives (which some lost) to unionize in the late 19th and early 20th centuries here in Western PA, it makes me so angry that I really wanna punch Beck and Palin in the neck, repeatedly. We are descending into fascism, I fear.
Macsenmifune
I should have quantified that statement as post reconstruction do nothing presidents.
There is also this-
Dropkick Murphys’ Worker’s Song.
Chris
I particularly love the “some say” dodge. We get this in the so-called news all the time now: “Some say the earth is flat. This scientist disagrees! Watch our 30-second interview with each position!” If it’s Faux News, the clip is followed by the anchor making fun of poindexter scientists, implying that the flat-earth position is obviously the correct one; if it’s the other major media, they stop after having “covered the controversy”.
arguingwithsignposts
@Macsenmifune: It’s always time for the Dropkick Murphys. And Billly Bragg: Which Side Are You On?
PaulW
There IS a place for unions in the Republican Party.
It’s called the bathroom. The CEOs want their toilet bowls all spit-cleaned and polished.
Ronald Reagan and his ilk were the worst things to have happened to Unions. And that’s including the mobsters’ leeching off the union dues over the last 80 years.
El Cid
@PaulW: Well, the unions didn’t bring in too much mob involvement until the governmental and private hired forces of anti-union violence forced them into self-defense. It’s a virtuous cycle!
mclaren
@redoubt:
Surely you mean Haft-Tartley. It’s similar to the Hoot-Smalley bill.
Davis X. Machina
@El Cid: Let’s be fair to the Mob. They’re equal-opportunity criminals, and have no ideological objection to shaking down businesses, too.
GregB
Is Leni Reifenstahl getting this all on film?
2th&nayle
@mclaren:
Mac, I’d hate to be accused of picking gnat shit out of pepper here, but I don’t think Stewart flew any B-29’s over Germany. B-17’s and B-24’s, yes. B-29’s, I don’t think so. To my knowledge B-29’s were not utilized in the ETO during WWII.
As to Palin’s babble, that woman needs a steaming, hot, cup of STFU.
burnspbesq
@mclaren:
Can’t even get the aircraft designations right. It’s either Me-109 or FW-190. Pathetic.
There are no words adequate to describe the vapidity of everything you “contribute” to this blog.
morzer
@2th&nayle:
Yup. The Superfortress was used in the Pacific theater, although it was briefly displayed in Europe to deceive the Germans.
Davis X. Machina
@GregB: Yes. Triumph of the Shill, coming to theaters this fall….
beltane
@Davis X. Machina: Triumph of the Shill will be like Hee Haw directed by Werner Herzog.
frosty
@2th&nayle: You beat me to that nit. Here’s another one: It appears that he only flew Liberators (quote from the Amazon review of “Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot”
The book was a good read. I found out that Clark Gable was a gunner in the Mighty Eighth also. Makes Reagan look like even more of a piker.
Chad N Freude
@burnspbesq: Since when was accuracy a requirement for posting here?
Davis X. Machina
I take immense satisfaction from the fact that if you ask Wikipedia for ‘Beck’, you get this.
And ten years from now, that’s still what you’ll get.
GregB
This just in.
The National Park Service estimate attendance at the Restore America Rally to be over 310 million.
handy
@GregB:
They surround you, GregB. You betcha they do!
aimai
Susan of Texas (The Hunting of the Snark) has a fantastic long quote from Megan McCardle’s new husband (P. Suderman) who is a Koch employee from way back. Basically, its an essay he wrote advocating just this kind of fake populism for the GOP. The essay comes from 2008 right before (?) McCain’s loss.
You should really read the whole thing, its pretty jaw dropping, but here’s a teeny taste:
Frank
@RSR:
What about poor people? I know a couple who live paycheck to paycheck and they vote Republican in very election. Why? Because they are against abortion. Nobody knows how many innocent children have died in Iraq as a result of the war that their party unanimously were for. I can never relate to the mindset and hypocrisy of these folks.
2th&nayle
@frosty:
I stand corrected! But, Steward did serve as a pilot instructor on B-17’s prior to being tranferred to Europe.
Speaking of the Mighty Eighth, I’m going to Savannah Georgia next week and plan to take in the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum. I understand it’s the shitz for WWII buffs.
Sentient Puddle
Because I was bored, I decided to take a count…
I might have missed a few, seeing as that shit is always so damned difficult to read.
Does anyone know why people on the right throw out the word “government” and act like it proves a point? It’s one of the more moronic things that stands out to me.
MikeJ
@2th&nayle: Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Linda Featheringill
A bit off topic, but if Deepwater is truly shut down, can we enjoy this again?
youtube.com/watch?v=W0I1gVqnGqM
MattF
Somewhat OT: Both WaPo and NYT say Beck’s DC “Jesus, Sarah, and little old me” rally has attracted “tens of thousands”, which, I suppose, is almost certainly true.
GregB
Is Dr. Laura going to come out and drop the N-bomb? Because, you know black guys use it on HBO.
arguingwithsignposts
@MikeJ: “Animal House” ref. FTW. Where would you like your Internets delivered?
Loneoak
@Villago Delenda Est:
She’s got planitudes!
morzer
@MattF:
I wonder when they’ll mention the fact that it repulsed millions?
Davis X. Machina
@Sentient Puddle:
Does the Id send a birthday card to the Superego?
monkeyboy
Can someone wake me up after PostModern Politics (a land where words and historical events mean whatever someone wants) has been killed?
It used to be that you could tell the crackpots and insane apart from more normal people because their reality was not the widely accepted version and it was full of inconsistencies and contradictions.
Now the right wing seems to encourage crackpots as long as hold views that might fire up their base against the ;eft. For example I saw a recent letter to the editor that assumed that the only supporters of public schools and public education are people on welfare and in the teachers unions – and this letter had a lot of people expressing agreement.
Equal Opportunity Cynic
@aimai:
I pretty much think Republican-voting working- and middle-class people are getting what they deserve anyway. That strategy you cite is pretty disgusting, but no more so than using cultural wedge issues to plunder people.
I don’t know what more you can say about a country that’s on the verge of voting itself into the third world.
Equal Opportunity Cynic
@monkeyboy:
It’s ironic, because conservatives used to treat postmodernism as the bogeyman.
Allison W.
So, Palin is trolling for some more poor white folks to join her shit stirring.
GregB
Dj Beck. Shut up and spin some tunes.
beltane
@Equal Opportunity Cynic: They were given enough rope and they hanged themselves with it. The suffering of Republican voters leaves me cold.
Davis X. Machina
@GregB: Tomorrow Belongs to Me, anyone
jwb
Has wingnut accounting inflated the numbers at the Beckteapatriotwetdreamfest2010 to eleventy billion yet?
Loneoak
@monkeyboy:
I for one do not long for a modern politics were there is a singular, agreed-upon reality and anyone who diverges from it is excluded from discourse as a lunatic. You certainly would lose gay rights and other gender-role bending, Barack Obama, good ethnic food, street art and other such delightful amenities of post-modernism. I’m fine with having many competing realities — and happy to point out how terrifying Mooselini’s reality would be if it were hegemonic. I’m certain that most of my fellow citizens prefer some analog of my reality, so Palin can go eat a bag of dicks.
Equal Opportunity Cynic
@Frank:
One solution would be to establish a pro-life center-left party. That party could pledge to work in coalition with Democrats on everything except abortion issues.
Under the two-party/first-past-the-post system this wouldn’t be easy, but Democrats could help it work by not running competing candidates in district where a pro-life, pro-Democratic candidate would be likely to win.
(In truth, I’m not sure how different that would be from the status quo. AFAICT, Democrats are pretty accepting of pro-lifers running in conservative districts. But obviously there’s a glass ceiling preventing such candidates from ever becoming President. Apparently Harry Reid is somewhat pro-life, though, right?)
I’m pro-life, but I’m pro-life about everything, so I can’t support Republicans in clear conscience.
You Don't Say
Anyone see estimates of how many showed up at the Beck thing? The NYTimes lede says “tens of thousands” but then Chuck Todd’s tweet says 300K?!
Citizen_X
BTW, Sarah hath spoke at Beckapalooza, and said that MLK would have wanted you to support the troops, and restore America by getting the N***** out of the White House, or something like that. No transcript yet, but you know that will not help your comprehension any.
Anoniminous
Up is down, blue is red, Oceania has always been a friend to East Asia.
Frank
@Equal Opportunity Cynic:
I’m pro-life myself, if you will. I just don’t think the government should have a right to dictate what the individual should do.
I am sure Harry Reid is pro-life in the traditional sense since he is a Mormon.
What these people are concerned about is the supreme Court judges, therefore they will always vote GOP in the Presidential race.
MattF
@You Don’t Say
What the WaPo article says about crowd size (note the ‘please don’t sue me’ disclaimer):
The size of the crowd promises to be a subject of contention. Estimates from organizers ranged from 100,000 (from Beck) to 300,000 (from Beck’s permit application to the National Park Service) to 500,000 (from the head of the tea-party organizing group FreedomWorks).
But crowd sizes on the Mall are notoriously difficult to estimate – and there is no longer an official source for such figures. Congress ordered the U.S. Park Police to stop estimating crowd sizes after organizers of the Million Man March threatened to sue the agency for saying that 400,000 had attended the 1995 event. (Authorities have provided an estimate only once since: Obama’s 2009 inauguration, which they pegged at 1 .8 million.)
aimai
@Equal Opportunity Cynic:
Is this some kind of a bizarre joke? There’s a “glass ceiling” for “pro life” democrats at the presidential level? Can you explain to me who is setting that glass ceiling other than, say, voting democrats? Is a pro life vote some kind of pity fuck that anti abortion democrats are entitled to get from everyone else? There’s a ginormous difference between being pro-life in any real sense and anti abortion in a legal sense. As far as I know Obama, being, you know, a certain kind of christian in the african american tradition is probably anti abortion. In fact, he’s been perfectly willing to use the government to limit the abortions available to needy women in order to get health care or peace and quiet for the rest of his program. Isn’t *that* enough for you?
aimai
jwb
@You Don’t Say: 300K is the number the organizers of Beckteapatriotwetdreamfest2010 put in their application for a permit. My guess is that Todd is being his usual idiot self, just transcribing the press release rather than doing his own reporting, since Beck himself was downplaying numbers expectation yesterday. But I haven’t seen any pictures, so can’t say for certain. In any case, due to the wingnut multiplier attendance will eventually be reported to be well over eleventy billion.
cleek
@You Don’t Say:
MSNBC’s current headline says “hundreds of thousands”. the text says “tens of thousands”. they don’t give sources for either number, nor do they show any full-crowd pics.
Citizen_X
@Loneoak: Fuck “competing realities.” I’m fine with differing points of view of subjective phenomena. But I’m a scientist, and thus sworn to test and discard “competing realities” wherever possible until one is left with, you know, reality.
The size of the crowd for Beckstock is a case in point.
jwb
@cleek: The Times has six pictures up, none of which makes it look particularly crowded for a mall event. There are no wide angle crowd shots, however. The fact that none of the media sources are showing crowd shots makes me very suspicious about the numbers, which I suspect are quite probably in the low tens of thousands.
Equal Opportunity Cynic
@aimai:
Point being, you have to recruit candidates for lower offices with the understanding that they can never be your party’s Presidential nominee. But a pro-economic-justice pro-lifer can’t ever be the Republican Presidential nominee either, and can do an awful lot to benefit the country as a Democrat.
scav
do any of the shots confirm which season the photo was taken during?
You Don't Say
@MattF: That’s interesting. So no more official numbers, just spin. Good to know.
Loneoak
LOL, the rotating headline at WaPo tells me “Palin gets huge applause at Beck rally”.
That pretty much sums up the state of journalism, don’t it?
ruemara
@windshouter:
Her solution is “Shut up and get back to work”. SATSQ
Frank
@ruemara:
That’s funny coming from her. She quit her job half-way into her term.
Loneoak
Yup. I don’t recall them ever having those headlines from any of Obama’s speeches. Or how about any of all the anti-war demonstrations against Iraq back in 2002/2003, which also had far more people in it?
This is why I no longer read WaPO or the MSM. They are so predictable in their bias.
Draylon Hogg
Stick a boy howdy on the end of that drivel and Bob’s your Uncle.
Linda Featheringill
@jwb:
Number of people at Beck’s rally.
WaPo has some more pictures. Beck may be about right on the 100K. The Mall is big. 100K people could rattle around a lot inside of it.
[Did you see the sign, “In Beck we trust”?]
S. cerevisiae
The Beckapalooza just proves that there is no shortage of gullible idiots in America.
danimal
It’s not a coincidence that Beck is claiming the civil rights mantle while Palin is pretending to love unions. It’s a deliberate strategy and Dems better prepare for it. They’re rolling out their new PR strategy, and we’ll see more of it in the coming months.
frosty
@MattF: More teatards on the way. We just passed a bus loading a bunch of them in Southern PA. It was all I could do not to yell “Tell ’em to keep they gummint hands off’n my Medicare!”
morzer
@frosty:
Interesting. I had always assumed that headless chickens were packed by the crate.
jwb
@Linda Featheringill: The only shot of the mall I could find was the one on the front page, but I couldn’t actually click to it in order to look at details of density. In all the other shots I saw on WaPo, the crowd looked pretty anemic.
Michael
I find myself wondering what the average German thought of that gibbering idiot Hitler in 1931-2.
Michael
@frosty:
You should have. Between their fatty scooters and Medicare-paid high blood pressure prescriptions, it isn’t like they could’ve caught up to you.
beltane
@Michael: Hitler was a failed artist and a buffoon. Failures and buffoons are capable of more evil than decent, thoughtful people. Glenn Beck’s trashiness is what disturbs me as it is a perfect match for the strain of trashiness that permeates the American psyche.
jwb
@beltane: What’s saved us so far is that both Palin and Beck have showed far more interest in money than in power. If either decided that they wanted power, that’s when I would make sure I had gold, guns and a valid passport.
Shalimar
Republicans don’t actually believe in anything except that the richest of the rich have a God-given right to get richer at everyone else’s expense. As long as you don’t believe most of the shit you spout anyway, why not pretend to be all things to all people?
PurpleGirl
Haven’t read the whole thread yet, but
Re Reagan and unions. While that man was the head of the Screen Actors Guild, he was not particularly good for the Guild or actors. Until him, agents could represent actors, or writers or producers but not both or all of them. He signed a waiver to allow one agency to represent actors and producers and the resulting company became Viacom. It completely changed the dynamics of the business. As he become closer and closer to big business and its leaders, he began to parrot their stances against unions and workers. But he was the “great communicator”, ah…. actor who could spread the bs around quite well.
For a generation or so in New York State, at least, Republicans and unions got along real well. Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits and a few others were very union friendly. I guess though that today, they wouldn’t be considered Republicans.
morzer
@Michael:
Some people called him der Teppichfresser (‘carpet-chewer”), because of his tendency to roll around, foaming at the mouth, during moments of particular rage.
jwb
@PurpleGirl: “Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits and a few others were very union friendly. I guess though that today, they wouldn’t be considered Republicans.” No, they’d be to the left of most of today’s Democratic party.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@JohnR:
Actually our garden variety liars today can run circles around Mr. G. and his ilk, whose techniques were primitive, crude and easy to decode and deconstruct by today’s standards. Modern advertising was practically invented in the US and we’ve only gotten better at it in the last 100 years through constant practice (yay capitalism!). This is one reason why I’ve long thought we will never see a true 1930s style of jackbooted facism in this country, no matter how bad it gets. That sort of very overt and explicit violence is a necessary tool for people who suck at marketing, but in the US today we know how to motivate and manipulate most of the population in ways that are more subtle and less dangerous to the powers that be, than that. Who needs camps when you have the Overton Window? Both work just as well at turning opponents into unpersons. The only reason to be kicking down doors in today’s US is so the police can have a bit of fun.
Cermet
@jwb: When he was a democrat and still young and with his (limited) set of marbles, not when he became the brain dead and puss filled ass licking ray-gun that was a repub-a-thug
PurpleGirl
Valdivia was covering the Beckathon today. She said she’d have a report for us — with pictures — later. (She and I exchanged a comment or two early this morning in the pet rescue open thread around 4:30 a.m.)
PurpleGirl
Some one mentioned that the Cordoba House project could be eligible for tax-free bond money. Yes, there was a tax-free bond program instituted to aid recovery from September 11. It has been used to create luxury residences downtown and other such stuff. It has a very broad interpretation of “helping business”.
Draylon Hogg
If this vacuous toe-rag is so against big government how come she ran for Vice President of what’s probably the biggest fucking government in the world? Why isn’t she hiding in the wilds of Alaska waiting for black helicopter day?
JohnR
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I think you’re a bit optimistic – it’s not about subtlety at all. The Beck/Palin/White Supremacy brand of “Rise up against the Backstabbing Others” populist rage-stoking is all about putting the boot in. Cathartic violence is one of the goals, not just a means to the goal. The main goal, of course is power, not simply money. Power gets you money, and all the other things you might want. The corporatists and the money/PR guys are playing the same dangerous game they always do in this situation – keep prodding and feeding the beast, confident that they can control it. Meanwhile, most of you guys are doing the same thing most opponents of these people always do – laugh at them and don’t take them seriously. This Beckapalooza? That’s bigger than the last rally. Every one of these drags more people into the group, and gets more attention and more fawning coverage from the media. It build on itself, and at some point reaches a tipping point where it becomes not just self-sustaining, but runaway. All the big bad guys started out as a small-time clown with big dreams. This has gone from a silly joke to a very scary movement in just a year or so. When is it time to begin actively working against it? You’re already considered active enemies, why not start acing like it?
Original Lee
Unfortunately, I’ve heard a few audio snippets from today’s Beckathon. There’s an awful lot of talk about “restoring America’s honor”. This is obviously code for “restoring America’s slaves,” because if they were serious about our country’s honor, they’d be talking about ending torture instead of ending Big Government.
PTirebiter
@Michael:
We do know what The New York Times was saying about der Führer baby in 1933. Right after Germany passed their comprehensive sterilization program, the Times tried to dispel any fears about Hitler pursuing “a discredited racial idea.” It wrote that Germany was simply following in the path of other civilized nations, like the US, “where some 15,000 unfortunates have been harmlessly and humanely operated upon to prevent them from propagating their own kind.”
As a resident of TX, I was shocked to learn that the American record for forced sterilization is held California, my original home state. Just wait until Rick Perry hears about this, he may want some of the stimulus funds after all.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@JohnR:
Optimism isn’t exactly what I’m made of, in this instance. I think our loopy postmodern soft authoritarianism is much harder to rally people to fight back against than the 1920s-1930s hardcore stuff, because they don’t give you as much in the way of a bloody shirt to wave. When our modern cult leaders stand up in front of an cheering audience and say ‘purple monkey robot dishwasher’ and the crowd goes wild, how in the hell are you supposed to refute that, or even convince anyone not already on your side that there is a genuine threat looming?
Put it this way: Germany in the 1930s aspired to European hegemony, with hints of something bigger, and plenty of people took notice of it before their conquests even began. Today the US exercises global hegemony, not as a distant dream but as a practical reality, and hardly anybody even notices. That is the soft power of modern propaganda techniques at work. Orwell had it wrong – you don’t need a jackboot stomping on a human face forever, when you can have a 24-7 cable TV idiotfest, the Atlantic and the NYT and the WaPo in your pocket, Koch brothers astroturfing campaigns running riot across the land, and an ADHD addled populace which can’t find their own states on a map, can’t remember anything that happened more than 2 years ago and cares more about the next episode of American Idol and Top Chef than anything our govt. is up to.
Critics looking for historical analogies with our society today should be looking at the declining years of the Roman Empire, complete with bread and circuses, not 1930s Germany.
Cacti
Government is taking over the entire healthcare sector?
When did this happen?
Draylon Hogg
You can call Hitler a lot of things, like genocidal maniac, unhinged Austrian and evil warmonger but I don’t really think gibbering idiot applies. He was particularly noted for his oratory skills, unlike Sarah Palin who is a gibbering idiot but as far as I know isn’t actually responsible for the death of millions.
Bill Murray
@Loneoak:
I’m guessing not all the sound was applause. Sin of Onan-based Palinism represent
tkogrumpy
@mclaren: Sorry Mclaren, nobody, not even Jimmy Stewart flew B29s in Europe during WWII.
tkogrumpy
@Roger Moore: Maybe so, Roger, but it works for me.