“Take the Unions Out at the Knees”
Here it is, straight from the Koch Whore’s mouth.
To anyone who still thinks Operation: Destroy Unions has anything whatsoever to do with budget deficits — the Tooth Fairy called.
Check out this speech by Scott Hagerstrom, Michigan’s Useful Idiot for Americans For Prosperity. He was preaching to the choir at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual circle jerk.
(Hat Tip to TomCat at Politics Plus, where I first saw this story.)
Scott Hagerstrom probably didn’t think this speech would get out beyond his small plutocrats-and-their-inbred-worshipers audience:
“It’s easy to go out there and fight taxes and increased regulation, you know we send out an action alert on taxes to AFP and we get thousands of people to respond. You send out one on a more complicated issue and it just doesn’t quite resonate…We fight these battles on taxes and regulation but really what we would like to see is to take the unions out at the knees so they don’t have the resources to fight these battles.”
There it is in black and white. Plain as the nose on your face.
Any questions?
Labels: “take the unions out at the knees”, Americans For Prosperity, Conservative Political Action Committee, Scott Hagerstrom
posted by Tom Harper @ 4:32 PM
7 Comments:
No fucking questions whatsoever. See my post of today. Related.
What's going on is clear to those of us on the left. I think independents and know-nothings are put off when we talk about right-wing/corporate strategies, conspiracies, and the like.
This revelation is excellent and potentially helpful because it's a tea bag operative saying it flat out.
The problem that few if any independents or know-nothings come around to progressive blogs. The MSM should be all over this, but the closest we'll get is maybe something on MSNBC. Of course, CPAC got all kinds of air time, especially on CNN, C-SPAN and, I'm sure, Fox. Another case of right wing propaganda outpowering anything coming from the left.
Rats.
This won't matter, because the wingdings just don't give a shit. Like my poor as dirt, just divorced her 3rd husband SIL - she thinks that union workers who make $20/hour are making wayyyyy too much. She thinks that, rather than asking why she's slogging away at a desk for $10/hour and trying to raise a kid on it, that UPS drivers (for example) should be making what she makes. They can't see the forest for their own nose hair.
"They can't see the forest for their own nose hair."
(Slaps knee and keels over laughing.)
Whew! Best one of the day.
Maybe this will finally be the kick in the ass to get Unions back on track. For over 30 years they’ve been the brunt of a negative campaign by business and conservatives and fell for it hook, line, and sinker. They just never seem to get that the public really doesn’t care if a CEO makes off with all the funds but does pay attention if a Union head does, or finds out they are connected with organized crime.
Because of that Corporate Pay and irresponsibility went up. One factor that kept CEO pay down all those years was that Union negotiations kept the books open and you can’t justify not giving your workers a modest increase if you pay your CEO and staff in the 8 figures.
If Enron and Worldcom had a Union, they wouldn’t had this trouble. So now the public vilifies a union for having something they don’t have. Wonder how many guys who carry signs how they work and don’t have Insurance even care their CEO makes 100x more then they do... I mean I remember black Fridays too but that was decades ago.
That being said, Unions themselves are long overdue for a make over. Get back to the things that make you great, get rid of your top heavy 7 figure management and fight for all the workers, not just your piece of the pie. Hope this means the top Unions can really work together instead of being guarding their own little hoard and try to convince the public why they’re still pertinent.
Erik
jadedj: Good post.
SW: I hope that YouTube link goes viral. Straight from the teabagger's mouth -- there's no way they can cover that one up.
Even if the MSM keeps dropping the ball, jillions of bloggers and smaller news sites will at least help. They have high search engine rankings since their content is frequently updated. If a neutral or independent person does a web search on a political topic, they'll get swamped with stories and perspectives that the MSM doesn't bother with.
That's my theory anyway.
That's a pretty good theory, Tom. Buzz matters.
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