An Encounter With Hogs On The Road To Alabama»

[babylonsister]

An Encounter With Hogs On The Road To Alabama»

Our guest blogger is Barry Nolan, a veteran TV journalist who was fired by Comcast Cable’s CN8 channel in Boston for protesting an award honoring Bill O’Reilly.

snip//

This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.

It has been a longstanding part of the conservative’s core philosophy that unions are simply bad for business. That is why is why conservatives who are making $169 K per year for standing around arguing, just can’t understand why someone who is making the princely salary of $24,752 for working 40 hours a week in a slaughterhouse would ever want to join a union. It could eat into a company’s profits. Never mind that as a non-union hog butcher, you may bring home a little bacon, but good luck sending your kids to college.

The Federal Poverty guideline for 2008, sets $22,200 as the poverty level for a family of four. Those who do the hard spirit killing, tendon ripping work of slaughtering hogs, forty hours a week, 52 weeks a year, are just barely, faintly above the poverty level.

So just who are these people the GOP sees as the enemy? These awful, greedy, lazy Union people?

If you take a look at the largest unions in the U.S., you will see that they are teachers, hotel workers, truck drivers, laborers, electrical workers, machinists, communications workers, letter carriers, firefighters, nurses, sheet metal workers, bakers and bricklayers. They are all people who shouldn’t have to listen to lectures from men in expensive shoes about the American work ethic.

And, given the recent global meltdown, no one is particularly interested in taking advice on an economic plan from the people who have been steering the Titanic for the past 8 years. Especially since the news on the availability of lifeboats does not appear to be happy news.

I also suspect it must be especially galling for the people of Michigan to hear the senator from Alabama go on and on about how Detroit needs to get more in line with Alabama. That’s because ‘Bama ranks 47th in median household income in the U.S, 47th for Infant mortality rates and 47th in fourth graders who scored at or above the proficient level in math. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Yes, the mantra for the conservatives in this past election cycle was more or less: “At least you aren’t all dead!” It looks like moving forward it going to be along the lines of: “Dream of an America like Alabama - only colder!” Good luck with that.

– Barry Nolan

[Syrinx]

1. I don't like Richard Shelby

But he has been consistent about government bailouts.

He voted against the Big 3 bailout. He voted against the Wall Street bailout. And he voted against the Chrysler bailout in 1979 (when there was no auto industry in Alabama).

[nosmokes]

2. so he consistently makes piss poor decisions. I s that why Bama keeps

re-electing the pompous, genteel, ultimate planter's son? it's a rhetorical question. I grew up in Alabama and know how the politics work. Doesn't make it any easier to swallow, though.