Why do people elect to be treated this way?

[veronica_rich]

Part XXX in my continuing efforts to understand why anyone would vote Republican right now ... Did anyone else watch "Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" on MSNBC tonight? I'm referring to the bit with the Republican state senator in Wisconsin who was calling the protesters at the state capitol "slobs" and smiling indulgently while four of the protesters in another frame were airing their grievances.

I tune in to this program about once a week just to catch up on the debates flying around about politics; most of my news, I get through reading, not watching TV. I'm not a big fan of the "take a side and rip out a throat" brand of punditry, and that goes for liberals as well as conservatives. I admit as a liberal I usually take a little joy in seeing liberal commentators do this, but that might also be because there seem to be about 8 or 10 yelling conservative voices to 1 liberal, ratio-wise.

Anyway, you can look this up on the Internet if you like. It's quite obvious this senator regards this segment of people who pay his expenses and paychecks as little more than animals - he even talked about the protesters being a particular "breed" of people - and it's just as obvious the four protesters were pissed off. They didn't express themselves as eloquently as I would have liked (not a one of them reminded him of how he gets paid, for example, which is the first thing that came to MY mind), but given their conditions the last several days and their position, I can't blame them.

I know many sane people who still identify as GOP, who aren't classists - hence my initial remark "why are you still supporting this party?" (Although, there were like 7 Republicans in Ohio today who give me hope the GOP hasn't gone completely crazy - look up in the news about that state senate's vote on collective bargaining.)

And, I was going to say something about people who make under $250,000 a year thinking those who want to abolish unions have the right idea, but ... it's too depressing. If they think the 40-hour work week and insurance and retirement and other benefits, and OSHA-compliant workplaces, and other basic laws that require businesses to treat even non-union employees as human beings instead of chattel would even BE in place without the work of unions in the past, and now, there's nothing I can say to educate them. Advocating any abolition of the right to collectively organize and bargain for work conditions just because some unions have displayed corruption or weakness is akin to saying "well, having elected representatives hasn't worked out for us in getting us what we want all the time, so - let's get rid of this republic and put one man in charge of deciding everything!"

Comments

[finding-neo.livejournal.com]

The only thing that's going to save the American worker as we've known him and HER is unions. I have worked my entire adult life in an industry which does nothing but squeeze the most it possibly can out of its employees and tries to get around whatever labor laws they can, all while they tally up the earnings of their employer via a cash register. It made me sick when I was 20 and makes me sick today when I received notice that my electric bill will probably be going up $20/month on average. If I'm lucky I might get a $20/month raise next month. And it's always been like this - whatever raise I've gotten has been eaten up by my expenses increasing. Add to that the state increasing the income tax by 2/3rds and I feel very discouraged as an American worker right now.

I would happily pay union dues if it meant I would get a reliable raise every year, have respectable benefits I don't have to put half my paycheck toward and be able to bargain for extras like decent work hours, raises, etc. Not being able to bargain is why American workers have been exploited in the retail industry for decades.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Well, what these companies forget is that they GOT to where they are by their workers' efforts, not just those of a few people at the top. You might hit upon the invention or take out the loan and the risk of paying it back - but you wouldn't be able to make the widget or sell it to a wider population without the worker bees' efforts. (And you have people like me, who'll do work at home, too.) I think most people take pride in their work - after all, they spend a lot of their lives DOING it - and while there have to be realistic limits to what an employer can pay them, there are plenty of companies where executives hog SO much more of the money than they pay out to the underlings who do all the grunt labor.