Tuesday, February 18, 2014

GOP = Nasty mix of HYPOCRISY and INTIMIDATION,
topped with LIE sprinkles



Two stories come together that represent the worst of hypocrisy and partisan intimidation, combined with the typical stupidity of people in southern states in voting against their own self-interests and the local, state and national interest in favor of special interests and the worst of partisan games.

The two stories: Joe-Not-My-Name-Not-a-Real-Plumber Sam Wurzelbacher is now working a union job at Chrysler.  He claims he now doesn't REALLY hate unions, he LIKES the UAW, the unions he hates are just PUBLIC Unions.   The difference is there is no difference, but hey -- conservatives don't mix well with facts.  Apparently ol' Sammy-Joe thinks the private unions are great, NOW.  Of course, like a true conservative, he's obsessed with homophobia and whining about what a victim he is.  (For the record, once and for all -- 'tea bagger' is not a gay slur, unless the person making it is a homophobe.) The other story that relates to this is, of course, the intimidation by Republicans of the VW plant workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

He conspicuously forgot to mention that union attitude, over and over and over and over in the past.

Joe/Sam announced his new job:
Wurzelbacher wrote, “I was just recently hired on at Chrysler. Can a conservative work safely and soundly in a union environment – in a shop filled with union workers, activists, voters and life-long supporters of the Democrat Party? You betcha. Yes, I have a website that puts out conservative news. Yes, I am part owner of a gun company. Yes, I’m a Republican who was cast into the limelight for having the temerity to confront Barack Obama on the question of redistributing wealth… But I’m a working man and I’m working.”
"Temerity", Joe? No, there was no temerity; you just demonstrated you had a poor grasp of the facts of the ACA and of the real nature of redistributing wealth, and that IGNORANCE was seized upon by the radical right, who then exploited and used you.

Let the whining begin:
"I had three days of orientation, and now I’m “on the job” over here at Chrysler and on Day 4, I’m outside on a break smoking a cigarette and right on cue – some guy calls me a “teabagger.

Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Democrats and liberals, who are supposed to so tolerant and enlightened regarding homosexuals have for three or four years now, have been using a gay slur to describe people who they think are associated with the Tea Party. “Tea Bagger” has traditionally been a derogatory slur used to intimidate, put down, humiliate and otherwise taunt, smear, bully or just discriminate against gays – usually gay men – based on a sex act that gay men apparently made popular.
Decorum prevents me from describing it – they got this thing called “Google” now for that – but suffice it to say that the double-standard for what Democrats can say and what conservatives can say continues unabated, but still I thought to myself, did this guy think I’m gay, or was he making a statement of my political affiliation?
Joe, are you that stupid, and that much a prude, that you REALLY believe teabagger is a homophobic slur? You must have gotten that idea from your homophobic culture-war-waging CONSERVATIVE friends.  It's a pretty safe bet that the term was used to reference your political bent, not how your sexuality is bent; but if you aren't sure, why don't you ASK?  I think you don't ask, because you already know, and you are engaging in the typical conservative whine-fest, looking for a fake excuse to claim to be a victim, AGAIN.  You might want to rethink that; I don't see making that kind of fake claim endearing you to your new co-workers, on the basis of misrepresenting the exchange and them in a presumably public forum.  Among other objections Joe, it smacks of YOU being a homophobe, what with homophobe and teabagger being pretty much synonymous.  It's not like Joe/Sam hasn't raucously exchanged the vulgar slang term 'C*ck-s*ck*er' before in conversation, so it is overstretching credulity to assert this new delicacy relating to crude oral sex references.

We go from the individual auto worker / radical right wing hack to the group-think radical right wing hacks, with a huge propaganda launch by them to mislead and intimidate union membership in Tennessee.
This story is just one of those which smacks of the fact-deficient and emotional appeal of propaganda to mislead and deceive.

From the Tennessean:  TN taxpayers subsidize UAW outrage at VW plant
When Volkswagen Chattanooga opened its doors in 2011, it did so with generous help from the Tennessee taxpayer.
In fact, the more than a half-billion dollars in subsidies that the company received to come to Tennessee amounted to the “richest incentive package — and perhaps the most government assistance and tax breaks ever for an American automobile plant,” according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
And here is what the taxpayers of Tennessee are getting for their money: The United Auto Workers, a hard left political organization that bankrupted General Motors and spends millions to elect liberal politicians, has been given full access to the Chattanooga facility.
Sticking a wrench in the spin here,when Republicans spend a heaping helping of tax dollars to bring in the auto plant, without unions, to enhance getting Republicans elected, that's ok.  The claims of the UAW bankrupting General Motors or any of the other auto manufacturers is bogus; it was poor management decision making, as we see from the new rebirth of the auto industry, with help from Democrats - and unions.  The spin continues at a high RPM:

Union officials, including Region 8 Director Gary Casteel, have been granted office space in the plant to better force-feed his union’s propaganda to the workers (who were not given the opportunity to ask questions in return, according to sources). And UAW troops sporting shirts emblazoned with the union logo have been roaming the production lines, intimidating workers who are just trying to do their jobs.
And here is what else is going on in the tax-subsidized VW plant: Workers who have requested equal access to those facilities to talk about alternatives to UAW representation have been denied permission to do so by Sebastian Patta, Volkswagen vice president of human resources at Chattanooga.
Back in Germany, the Volkswagen Works Council is controlled by IG Metall, a powerful union that is allied with the UAW and has strongly urged Chattanooga workers to accept UAW representation.
There are no credible reports of any kind of intimidation.  Identifying someone as a representative of a union available to answer questions is not intimidation -- unless you want to get into the potential for wearing a t-shirt to represent intimidation, including some of the more hateful conservative mottos and logs as such.

Unless another entity has some kind of official standing in organization of workers, there is no legitimate reason for a VW plant to give anyone else an office.  OR does anyone else think that a plant should not have some directorial control over their office space allottment?

And now we are to believe that the poor dumb people of Tennessee, especially the ignorant residents and representatives of Chattanooga are just finding out NOW about VW's relationship with unions?  It's never been a secret, at any time, to anyone who did even minimal homework on VW or German labor practices for that matter.  And here's the big news bomb--- IT MAKES THEM MORE COMPETITIVE AS MANUFACTURERS! IT WORKS, REALLY REALLY WELL FOR BOTH THE COMPANY AND THE WORKERS AND EVEN THE NATION OF GERMANY.

The propaganda disinformation continues:
Would the state of Tennessee or the city of Chattanooga have given so much so willingly to Volkswagen had they known the UAW was part of the deal? Doubt it. Here’s why:
At the time Volkswagen was breaking ground in 2009, the UAW was part owner of General Motors, having been given one-sixth of the company during the auto bailout. GM is a competitor of Volkswagen. Then there’s the UAW political agenda. This union is bad for business and bad for politics. And no one in Tennessee was told that this union poison was going to be poured into the economic pool.
Let’s be clear about what’s happening in Chattanooga. Upper management is conspiring with the union to give it every advantage in the coming election, while doing everything it can to shut down dissenting voices. Sources tell the Center for Worker Freedom that plant supervisors who oppose the union are afraid to speak out for fear of their jobs. Sources also tell us that workers feel they are under “lockdown” while they are on the job, as union troops patrol the production lines in a classic projection of power and intimidation.
Unions probably ARE bad for the kind of partisan politics that the radical right likes to engage in, including the radical redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the 1%. But Unions are not bad for business and they are not bad for government. The only people pushing fear and lies are from the right. You know -- like Sam/Joe the not-a-plumber. Same whine, same lies, just on a larger group level further south, where the ignorance grows tall and wide.

Both stories are about one thing, and one thing only - lies and distortion to generate fear, and highly partisan politics at the expense of the average citizen who works hard.


1 comment:

  1. Sam the Sham would hardly be the first blue collar, union card carrying, bigoted homophobe and kiss up/punch down GOP douchebag I ever had to work with. I will say that authoritarian a-holes in unions are pretty obvious, most of them flee to management as soon as they get a chance--and then want to "retreat" to the union when there's a management RIF. Wurzelbacher the Wurlitzer is part owner of a gunshop and he's not making enough money? Something's wrong with that picture. If a guy can't make money selling gunz where he lives, he's gotta be an amazingly shitty businessman.

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