An Achillies Heel in the Fox/GOP attack message against public workers

[Armstead]

The basic message coming out the the GOP and their spokesmachine at Faux news is pretty straightforward.

"Public workers make more money than their counterparts in the private sector. They pay less into their pension and benefit plans. And they are simply being asked to make the same sacrifices workers in the private sector have to make under these economic conditions. So they shouldn't be complaining."

One way to translate that is: "Two wrongs do make it right."

In other words, average workers in the private sector are getting screwed. Their wages and benefits are being slashed to make their employers profitable in a recession. So therefore, public-sector workers should willingly accept getting screwed too.

Setting aside the obvious fact that most public workers do NOT make more than their counterparts, the fatal flaw in this argument is pretty clear. All workers are getting screwed. Public sector workers should accept being screwed, just like those in the private sector have been screwed.

It would be great if the politicians and other people with a public voice on our side would challenge this argument on those terms.

In other words, "shared sacrifice" is one thing and is sometimes necessary. BUT NOT WHEN THE SACRIFICES ARE ONE SIDED.

Many corporations are sitting on huge stacks o' cash. The executives and big investors in the corporate sector and Wall St.have continued to make huge salaries and bonuses, even when they are laying off front-line workers or demanding "sacrifices" from them.

In short -- Instead of the GOP/FOX goal of adding the wrong of screwing public workers to the ongoing bleeding inflicted on private-sector workers, we should be both defending public sector workers AND restoring the rights and livable wages of private sector workers too.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. This would seem to be

their usual "divide & conquer" strategy using scapegoating, and "politics of resentment". Basically, it boils down to "hey, look at those people over there have it better than you (or are getting money for nothing) while you're getting screwed or costing taxpayers money we can't afford! That's not fair!!! They need to be brought down!!!!" It's sick. It's awful. But, unfortunately for all of us, it has historically worked in their favor.
:eyes: :puke:

[Armstead]

2. It's worked becauase there has not been enough pushback against it for too long

Decades of too many politicians on our side letting that crap go basically unchallenged has allowed it to become embedded.

IMO this is an instance where that crappy ideology can be challenged...Will we do it? Who knows?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. I hope so

n/t

[JuniperLea]

3. Isn't Fox a union shop?

Seems to me they must be using union workers on air and in production areas. I wonder how these people reconcile the union hate they help produce.

[Armstead]

5. Would be interesting to know

[DCKit]

6. A manufactured crisis (Shock Doctrine), circular logic and the M$M to propagandize on their behalf.

And it stinks of desperation.

[Armstead]

7. Shock Docturne..I'd forgotten about that but it does fit

[Empowerer]

8. A fact that's rarely mentioned - but is important:

The portion that workers pay for their benefits was negotiated - and usually was reduced to help offset the significant salary and other concessions that they agreed to in other areas.

And now the small perk that they were given in return for giving up a lot is now being taken away from them, too.

[bleever]

9. Analogous to "moving the center" politically, so that right-wing ideology,

by going waaaay out there, makes the "middle" an artificially reasonable mid-point between traditional progressive ideas and the John Birch-types who were once dismissed even by their own Republican compatriots.

Good post.

[Shallah Kali]

10. 'In other words, if I can't have a good job, I'll be damned if anyone else gets to have one.'

Who will Scott Walker's union-busting break?

By picking a fight with state employees, Wisconsin's governor may have misjudged his enemy – America's toiling middle class


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/18/us-unions-wisconsin1

With private sector union membership in freefall, it could be said that public sector unions are the only ones left to beat up. But the fact that garbage collectors have come to replace al-Qaida terrorists and Mexican landscapers as the right's bogeyman-of-choice can't be explained simply as an anti-union backlash. Fundamentally, it's an anti-public sector backlash, made possible by real cyclical tax revenue shortfalls and rising healthcare costs, and ginned up by politicians who failed at basic accounting.

Until now, bashing state workers has paid off handsomely. At a time of 10% unemployment, talk of lazy bureaucrats cashing fat paychecks is explosive, and can fuel anything from a GOP voter registration drive to a kamikaze attack on an IRS building. Underlying this anger, too, is a healthy dose of envy. As one Tea Party counter-protester fumed:

"Their benefits are so much better than mine and their pay is so much better than mine, but they are still crying."

In other words, if I can't have a good job, I'll be damned if anyone else gets to have one. Unions used to brag about their benefits to recruit new members; now, they have to hide them.