Sarah Palin Reveals Hypocrisy In Wisconsin Union Debate

By MARC McDONALD

Perhaps it was inevitable, but Sarah Palin has finally waded into the Wisconsin union controversy. But her comments have only revealed her ignorance and hypocrisy on the union debate.

As she has constantly pointed out, Palin's family has long had union connections. Her husband, Todd, was a long-time United Steelworkers union member, enjoying a nice salary and generous union benefits. (For example, Todd Palin earned $102,716 in 2006, working for BP, as a union member).

Clearly, the Palin family has long enjoyed the benefits of union membership. But instead of doing anything to help unions in return, all Palin has done is try to exploit her family's union ties in an effort to boost her political standing with union members.

In short, Palin has cynically used organized labor as nothing more than a prop (just as George W. Bush often used the military as a prop, in publicity photos, to further his own career).

On Friday, Palin waded into the Wisconsin union debate, with a typically ignorant and ill-informed Facebook post. In her post, Palin managed to simultaneously try to polish her labor credentials, even as she blasted the Wisconsin public employee union and urged its members to break away from their leadership.

In other words, while sucking up to the union members (even repeatedly addressing them as "brothers and sisters") Palin secretly pulled out a knife and stuck it in the back of the union workers. She must think these people are really stupid.

Union members must "sacrifice and carry our share of the burden," Palin wrote.

Ho, hum.

Palin is nothing is not predictable in her comments. And she's also dishonest. Her buddies like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would never address union members as "brothers and sisters." At least Limbaugh and Hannity are being honest in their open contempt for organized labor.

Palin tries to have it both ways. Her husband enjoyed a nice, well-paid union job. She then uses this fact to try to bolster her cred with union members. And then, at the same time, she embraces the extreme far-right policies of today's GOP: a party that has a pathological hatred of unions and seeks to abolish them completely.

In 2008, United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard got so sick of Palin's hypocrisy on unions that he blasted her "worker-savaging positions" in a statement and called upon her to stop using her husband's union membership as a "prop."

Indeed, Palin's 2008 running mate, John McCain, has had a long history of extreme hostility toward unions. In 2007, he voted against the Employee Free Choice Act, for example. In 1994, he also voted against a bill protecting discrimination against workers who go on strike.

But for all her professed love of her union "brothers and sisters," Palin apparently believes they're so stupid that they'd support a fire-breathing, far-right extremist like her.

And it's easy for Palin to ask that the Wisconsin union members accept "sacrifices" and tighten their belts. After all, this is a woman who has made an enormous fortune since she quit as Alaska's governor. In a mere 9 months after she quit, Palin raked in an incredible $12 million.

Yet she insists that the Wisconsin union members need to "sacrifice."

Wisconsin Workers, Remember: "There Is Power In A Union"

.

.
By MARC McDONALD

Welcome to another edition of Progressive Music Classics.

As the workers in Wisconsin stand up for their rights, I thought I'd serve up some classic labor music that has inspired me over the years. Although many of us can't be in Wisconsin at the moment, we're definitely with the workers there (and everywhere) in spirit.

In 1986, Britain's Billy Bragg served up his take on the traditional worker's anthem in this track from his classic album, Talking with the Taxman About Poetry.

I saw Bragg in concert back in 1986 at a small club on Greenville Avenue in Dallas. It was a no-frills show: just one man and his guitar--but Bragg held the audience spellbound. It was a welcome tonic for us workers back during the dark, gloomy days of the Reagan era.

There is power in a factory, power in the land
Power in the hands of a worker
But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand
There is power in a union

Now the lessons of the past were all learned with workers' blood
The mistakes of the bosses we must pay for
From the cities and the farmlands to trenches full of mud
War has always been the bosses' way, sir

The union forever, defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and out sisters from many far off lands
There is power in a union

Now I long for the morning that they realise
Brutality and unjust laws can not defeat us
But who'll defend the workers who cannot organise
When the bosses send their lackies out to cheat us?

Money speaks for money, the devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone
What a comfort to the widow, a light to the child
There is power in a union

The union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and out sisters from many far off lands
There is power in a union.

Thom Hartmann Smacks Down NeoCon On Wisconsin Union Busting

.

.
By MARC McDONALD

The normally mild-mannered Thom Hartmann finally got enraged when NeoCon Seton Motley spewed one wingnut lie about labor unions too many on his "The Big Picture" TV program yesterday.

The two were discussing Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's war on state workers when Motley started spouting endless, predictable NeoCon bullshit about how public sector unions are basically evil and should be abolished.

Even a cool, rational figure like Hartmann, though, has his limits of tolerance and he finally called out Motley for his lies. When the latter continued to spew his wingnut venom, Hartmann showed a rare (for him) flash of anger. Although he lost his cool, Hartmann didn't lose his head and he proceeded to completely demolish every lie that Motley spewed out.

"I'm not going to let you get away with these lies!" Hartmann said. (I hope the "liberal" corporate MSM was taking notes on how to counter blatant Conservative propaganda).

One thing I've long admired about Hartmann is that he is always well-informed and he always has a ready comeback, with a heavy dose of the facts, to any NeoCon who is simply making up bullshit.

At one point, Motley claimed that unions were forcing themselves on the American people. "People don't want to unionize!" he claimed.

To this sheer nonsense, Hartmann had a ready reply: "More than 60 percent of Americans say they would join a union if they could."

To which Motley could only meekly (and falsely) reply: "That's a lame poll."

Yeah, right, whatever.

I myself have personally been intimidated and threatened by employers for simply talking about unions (even though it was on my own time and it wasn't on company property). I personally know of many other people who were threatened and even fired for simply talking about organizing. Yes, there are supposedly labor laws on the books that prohibit this sort of thing, but since the Reagan era, such laws have been rarely enforced.

The bottom line is: the capitalist bosses will do anything (even kill) to prevent American workers from joining unions.

I applaud the union workers in Wisconsin and I wish them well. However, I think they should be aware that Walker's threat to use the National Guard is no empty threat. Indeed, when I think of previous labor clashes in our nation's history (like the 1914 Ludlow Massacre, in which 19 people were killed by the Colorado National Guard), it makes me worried.

Hartmann's "The Big Picture" TV show airs live Monday through Friday at 9:00 p.m. EST with a repeat broadcast at 2:00 a.m. EST on FSTV DISH Network channel 9415, DIRECTV channel 348.
Additional program info is here.