Bad Deeds for 8-18-2010

 

Rupert Murdoch’s Hypocrisy – Monday, NewsCorp, parent of Fox News, gave $1,000,000 to the Republican Governors Association, making them the organization’s largest single contributor. Rupert Murdoch was singing a different tune back in April when he was confronted at the National Press Club about Fox News’ support of the Tea Parties. At that time, he said, “I don’t think we should be supporting the tea party or any other party”

Now it is clear Rupert Murdoch lied.

Of course, this money is just a drop in the bucket when compared to the tens of millions of dollars Fox News’ contributors have raised for Republicans. Furthermore, “at least twenty Fox News personalities have endorsed, raised money, or campaigned for Republican candidates or causes, or against Democratic candidates or causes, in more than 300 instances and in at least 49 states. Republican parties and officials have routinely touted these personalities’ affiliations with Fox News to sell and promote their events.”

Now no one can ever doubt that Fox is not a news network — they are simply part of the Republican machine.

 

Irresponsible Republican Statements on New York Community Center Endanger American Security – It is obvious to many Americans who believe strongly in our Constitutional values that the Republican attempt to use the New York Muslim Community Center as an electoral issue is a direct assault on the constitutional protection for freedom of religion — one of the most fundamental principles that lie at the foundation of our country.

Every time a Republican “leader” attacks the notion that a Muslim mosque should be built two blocks from Ground Zero, they are endangering Americans’ national security. Perhaps they haven’t noticed that America is still involved — at one level or the other — in two ground wars in Muslim countries that General Petraeus has correctly defined as battles for the hearts and minds of their Muslim citizens. Perhaps they forget the long struggle to prevent young Muslim men and women from becoming suicide bombers and fundamentalist extremists that endanger our country. Every time one of them attacks mainstream Islam in the United States by saying that it would defile “sacred ground” for Muslims to build a community center near Ground Zero, they legitimize the claims of Osama Bin Laden to young, impressionable Muslims across the world. What do they think Muslims around the world hear when they say it would “defile sacred ground” for them to worship within two blocks of a sacred American site? They hear contempt and disrespect.

It’s Al Qaeda that wants Muslims around the world to believe that the United States is at war with all of Islam. These Republicans might as well sign up to work for the Bin Laden propaganda ministry. Their outrageous pandering to put fear in voters does direct damage to the national security of the United States. Who’s helping Bin Laden?

 

Terrorist Attack in McKinney, Texas – A man apparently bent on destroying the police headquarters in McKinney was shot and killed this morning after spraying the building with bullets.

Police say 29-year-old Patrick Gray Sharp drove a Ford F150 pickup pulling a trailer to the station and set it on fire in an apparent attempt to draw people out of the building. Inside the trailer, police said, were wood chips, roadside flares, gasoline, and ammonium nitrate fertilizer, the type used in the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

A Patrick Sharp of Anna had a MySpace page that showed a man holding a number of firearms. One caption read, “I love guns more than toothpaste.” Another photo showed a steel plate that had been shot up. The caption read, “What if that was your face?” A third image showed a target with a photo of Osama bin Laden.

 

Cheap Labor ConservativesNote: The following was written in 2006 and it’s even more true today.

At bottom, conservatives believe in a social hierarchy of “haves” and “have nots” that I call “corporate feudalism”. They have taken this corrosive social vision and dressed it up with a “respectable” sounding ideology. That ideology is pure hogwash, and you can prove it.

When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just “dime-store economics” – intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don’t really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don’t. It all gets down to two simple words.

“Cheap labor”. That’s their whole philosophy in a nutshell – which gives you a short and pithy “catch phrase” that describes them perfectly. You’ve heard of “big-government liberals”. Well they’re “cheap-labor conservatives”.

You see, cheap-labor conservatives are defenders of corporate America – whose fortunes depend on labor. The larger the labor supply, the cheaper it is. The more desperately you need a job, the cheaper you’ll work, and the more power those “corporate lords” have over you. If you are a wealthy elite – or a “wannabe” like most dittoheads – your wealth, power and privilege is enhanced by a labor pool, forced to work cheap.

Don’t believe me? Well, let’s apply this principle, and see how many right-wing positions become instantly understandable.

• Cheap-labor conservatives don’t like social spending or our “safety net”. Why. Because when you’re unemployed and desperate, corporations can pay you whatever they feel like – which is inevitably next to nothing. You see, they want you “over a barrel” and in a position to “work cheap or starve”.
• Cheap-labor conservatives don’t like the minimum wage, or other improvements in wages and working conditions. Why. These reforms undo all of their efforts to keep you “over a barrel”.
• Cheap-labor conservatives like “free trade”, NAFTA, GATT, etc. Why. Because there is a huge supply of desperately poor people in the third world, who are “over a barrel”, and will work cheap.
• Cheap-labor conservatives oppose a woman’s right to choose. Why. Unwanted children are an economic burden that put poor women “over a barrel”, forcing them to work cheap.
• Cheap-labor conservatives don’t like unions. Why. Because when labor “sticks together”, wages go up. That’s why workers unionize. Seems workers don’t like being “over a barrel”.
• Cheap-labor conservatives constantly bray about “morality”, “virtue”, “respect for authority”, “hard work” and other “values”. Why. So they can blame your being “over a barrel” on your own “immorality”, lack of “values” and “poor choices”.
• Cheap-labor conservatives encourage racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among wage earners distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests as wage earners.
• Cheap-labor conservatives have a long and sorry history of opposing virtually every advancement in this country’s development going right back to the American revolution.
• Cheap-labor conservatives have hated Social Security and Medicare since their inception.

The ugly truth is that cheap-labor conservatives just don’t like working people. Click on the link at the start of this section for more.

Regards,

Jim