The Republican Party's transparent agenda of class warfare & Economic conservatives take religious conservatives for suckers 2MAR14

ONE of the main things I remember from my Labor Relations class in college is my professor explaining how management will employ policies to keep employees on edge, distrustful of each other, in order to keep them from organizing together for better pay, benefits and equal, fair consideration for promotion. I have seen it at work in many of my jobs. And I see it in how the gop and tea-baggers play their supporters. Through lies, deception, manipulation and misrepresentation they are able to keep the members of their party and tea-baggers in line and voting for them. Propaganda heavy on fear, uncertainty, insecurity, tinged with racism and blatant perversions of religion keeps their followers fired up just enough that they can't see they are actively working against their own best interest. I just don't get it. Maybe the nation will have to devolve into a Third World plutocracy for these people to finally rise against their masters. One article on the  class warfare being waged by the gop and tea-bagger, the second expands on the way the gop and tea-baggers manipulate the conservative religious community in the U.S. to support their policies, when these policies are obviously in conflict with and pointedly in violation of the primary teachings of their faith. From Daily Kos.....

attribution: None Specified

The Republican Party's economic agenda is obvious. In the era of democracy and republic, class warfare has never been more transparent. These are not policies cohering by mere random maliciousness, they are deliberate and calculated. The sum is so much more reprehensible than the nefarious parts. Republicans oppose jobs bills. They make whatever excuses seem expedient at a given moment, but the reality is that they have no interest in helping to create jobs. The Republican agenda depends on a continuing paucity of opportunities. Republicans know that trickle down economics doesn't work, and that making the wealthy wealthier does not motivate them to create jobs. They know that making the wealthy wealthier mostly results in hording in offshore accounts, and obscenely ostentatious self-indulgences. Trickle down isn't just a failed economic theory, it's a red herring.
Republicans know that there are far more people seeking jobs than there are jobs available, but they don't see that as a problem, they see it as a solution. Not only do they not care about the suffering of those who want but cannot find work, they depend on that suffering, and intentionally exacerbate it. That is why they also oppose government spending to benefit the long-term unemployed. Republican antipathy to paying taxes isn't only about avarice, it is about ensuring that there aren't enough public resources available to alleviate those economically suffering.
Republicans like to pretend that their economic cruelty is about not coddling, but it's actually about punishing. Republicans aren't really worried about people being soft, they're actually worried about people not hurting. To Republicans, schadenfreude may be a favorite form of entertainment, but hurting people economically also serves a critical purpose. The more desperate people are to find work, the more likely they will be to accept any work at any wages under any conditions. Kick them while they are down, and try to make them beg. Being able to disparage and demonize them is an added bonus.
Please read below the fold for more on this story.

The final piece of the puzzle is the Republican focus on making life more difficult for those who do have work. Republicans oppose increasing the minimum wage. They want even the employed to know economic want. Republicans oppose workplace safety regulations, and they want to destroy unions. They want workers completely subject to the whims of management, and unable to quit lousy jobs because there are no good alternatives and there is no social safety net to protect them. Under the Republican agenda, workers have to do what they're told or suffer even worse consequences.
In short, the Republican agenda is to keep people desperate for work, with more people seeking jobs than can find them, with no laws or other forms of assistance or protection for those who can find jobs, and no safety net for those who can't. Lack of opportunity ensures a glutted labor market, which drives down wages, forcing many of even those who do find work to seek more. Exhausting hours, inadequate pay, and broken unions ensure that workers are hungry and tired and incapable of defending themselves.
It could be called a new form of feudalism, but that feudalism actually made necessary more responsibility from the aristocracy toward the peasants and serfs than does unregulated bastard capitalism from owners and management toward labor. It is class warfare. Simple, straightforward, class warfare. For Republicans, poverty, hunger, and unemployment are not tributary outcomes of their economic model, they are deliberate means toward insidious ends. Make people hurt. Make them desperate. They will do what they are told. They will ask for no more than that they be allowed to survive another week.
Or so Republicans hope.

Sun Mar 02, 2014 at 12:00 PM EST

Economic conservatives take religious conservatives for suckers

by Ian Reifowitz

Oh noes! Not again!

Will religious conservatives never learn? You watch them, and you cringe. It plays out just like it did in the classic tale of the Great Pumpkin, and the Thanksgiving special, and once almost every fall in the print run of the Peanuts comic strip. You hope against hope that Charlie Brown isn't going to fall for the trickery of that crafty Lucy Van Pelt another time. You scream at your television (always a productive thing to do): "Come on, man! Wake up!" But your cries go unheeded. And he ends up flat on his back. Again. And that's exactly what happened to religious conservatives in Arizona when Governor Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062, a bill that would have allowed businesses to refuse service or otherwise discriminate if their actions derived from a “sincerely held religious belief.” Let's start with the setup. Religious conservatives make the case that the conservative movement should take their priorities seriously. Ryan T. Anderson, William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, makes an impassioned plea along those lines, which was published late last year. He cites a study from another conservative advocacy group showing that religious/social conservative positions are popular, and declares: "a unified platform of social and economic conservatism is a winning electoral strategy." Leaving aside whether that's actually true, what's most relevant to the discussion of the Arizona law is what Anderson had to say about same-sex marriage.
After some claptrap about how government should "[allow] autonomous adults to act without government interference," Anderson then gives us the classic "won't someone please think about the children?!" lament (I've placed the video at the end of this post for you fans of The Simpsons). Never mind that conservatives don't explain how banning same-sex marriage actually helps a child. Anderson's implication is that limiting marriage to a man and a woman will somehow create more heterosexual parents (as LGBT folks throw up their hands and turn straight?). Anyway, as I said, it's claptrap. In conclusion, Anderson calls on Republicans to "stand on principle with respect to social issues. ... We should present an 'Indivisible' conservative vision." Indivisible. That works for economic conservatives, at least so long as it doesn't cost businesses any money.
Please follow me beyond the fold for more.

To return just for a second to the content of the arguments in favor of the Arizona law (and ones like it in Kansas, as well as Oklahoma, Missouri, and Mississippi, and other states), the proponents love to talk about their freedom of association and their religious liberty. The head of National Organization for Marriage said the fight is about the First Amendment, and isn't “somebody adhering to old Jim Crow lunch-counter discrimination."
See, the thing is, that's exactly what it's about, at least morally speaking. There's the part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that outlaws discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, and national origin in "public accommodations," i.e., businesses. That's how the law made it illegal for Woolworth's to refuse service to black people under Jim Crow. Unfortunately, the 1964 Act doesn't protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation, and neither does current Arizona law. That's why another step in the fight for equality is to pass laws that do ban such discrimination.
You know what, the image below says it much better than I can.

On a tangential note, you may remember that the "public accommodations" part of the Civil Rights Act is what tripped up Sen. Rand Paul. It's also why right-wing media star John Stossel called for that part of the law to be repealed, saying: "private businesses ought to get to discriminate." Back to Arizona. So after SB1062 passed the state House and Senate with only Republican votes, the pressure began to bear down on Gov. Brewer. Three of the Republican senators who had voted yes said "oops, my bad," and asked for a take back, or, as a fallback option, for Brewer to come to their rescue and veto the bill. Then the business community weighed in, as negative reactions flowed from giants such as Apple and JP Morgan Chase, as well as Arizona based companies like GoDaddy and PetSmart. There was talk that the NFL was considering moving the 2015 Super Bowl out of Arizona, something the NFL had done once before, when that state refused to officially recognize Martin Luther King Day as a holiday. All those dollar signs. So Gov. Brewer took out her veto pen.
The religious conservatives were apoplectic. Pat Buchanan lamented the death of freedom. Pundit Ben Shapiro wondered what the Republican party even stands for when it "stands against religious freedom out of pure fear of political correctness." Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council had this to say: "by vetoing this bill, Gov. Brewer is saying she supports government discrimination against people’s religious freedoms."
True believers on the right really do embody the spirit of the Confederacy. They love lost causes. Pickett's Charge remains the gold standard for the hard right in general. If you can't win, charge ahead anyway with your unsheathed swords gleaming in the sun. Run right into the lines of the enemy, even if it's a suicide mission. Well, the Chamber of Commerce folks aren't suicidal.
The question is, when will these religious conservatives learn. Look at the big picture. Yes, George W. Bush spoke their language, and yes, his party pushed state laws banning gay marriage—when they were popular—but what were his real domestic priorities as president? What did he push at the federal level? Cutting taxes for the rich. For the leaders among religious conservatives, that may have been just fine, given that they are, well, rich guys. But when will the rank and file religious conservatives—the people who, whatever their reasons, really do believe this stuff and look to the Republican party to act on their principles—finally realize that the GOP will always choose the almighty dollar over them when push comes to shove.
Here's what it comes down to: When a conservative Republican governor vetoes a "religious liberty" bill passed by a conservative Republican legislature because the business community tells her to, it shows who really calls the shots on the right.
Oh, and as promised:

Originally posted to Daily Kos on Sun Mar 02, 2014 at 12:00 PM EST.

Also republished by Baja Arizona Kossacks.

 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/02/1281061/-The-Republican-Party-s-transparent-agenda-of-class-warfare?detail=email

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/02/1280725/-Economic-conservatives-take-religious-conservatives-for-suckers?detail=email 

Sex, bus ads and religious conservatives from Speaking Of Faith 2JUL10

THIS is a threat to multiple freedoms in this country....freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and I hope the ACLU (I am a member) will check this out to see if any laws have been violated. Before it comes to that I hope someone with a level head and the power to make decisions at the NYC MTA reverses this policy. AND TO THE ORTHODOX JEWISH COMMUNITY, CONSIDER THIS.....YOUR ACTIONS ARE THREATENING THE VERY CIVIL RIGHTS THAT ALLOW YOU TO LIVE AS YOU CHOOSE IN THIS COUNTRY! THIS IS A REPUBLIC, A DEMOCRACY NOT A THEOCRACY!!!!
 
Should our nation be governed by laws or by the whims of narrowly defined religious groups? As we fight for greater freedom of expression in Afghanistan, can we still assure our own freedom of expression here at home? Sadly, those questions are up for grabs in New York City, and if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.
The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority removed advertising from all its buses which pass through heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Well, not all the ads, just the ones for Georgi vodka, which feature bikini-clad women. They did so out of consideration for the religious sensibilities of the communities through which the buses pass.

What's next? No pork adds in heavily Muslim neighborhoods? Perhaps we should accept the removal of all images of black people if enough white residents request that.
However well-intentioned the MTA may have been, their decision is nothing less than complicity in the Talibanization of Brooklyn. It's profoundly stupid, ultimately dangerous, and I cannot believe it is legal.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that Brooklyn Hasidim and the Taliban are the same. But this case suggests that given sufficient power, the propensity for at least cultural totalitarianism, if not political, is more similar than anyone should find acceptable.
I want to be equally clear that I find the ad itself disrespectful of women and in generally poor taste. It bothers me as parent and as a Jew, failing pretty much any test of decency I can imagine.
I don't think that we need to connect sex and drinking any more than they already are. I am certain that we don't need to be confronted by any more images of artificially inflated boobs on top of underfed bodies as paragons of feminine beauty.
To that degree, like the members of the Hasidic community which objected to the ads and called for their removal, I agree about their being objectionable. But when any one group gets to decide what any of us has a right to see, we are all in trouble, especially when that conclusion is reached through political pressure as opposed to democratic process.
If the Hasidic community were to take the lead in organizing people across the political, cultural and religious spectrum to lobby for stricter guidelines about what belongs on any bus, I might join them. Or I might not, preferring to deal with the challenges of a pop culture saturated with ersatz sexuality in other ways than limiting expression.
What nobody should stand for, however, is the carving up of a wonderfully diverse city into culture ghettos any more than is already the case. While I certainly appreciate that some people prefer greater diversity and others less, when public institutions limit public expression and commerce simply because some people don't approve, we really do start to resemble the nations we claim to be liberating.
The argument, always advanced in these cases, that removing these ads is no different than not forcing people to work on the Sabbath or eat pork is also absurd. One should never be compelled to act against their conscience, but the presence of these ads does not demand that.
The presence of these ads simply demands that people figure out how to live with the expressions of other peoples consciences. And if a community cannot do that, then its inability to do so threatens all of us by holding us hostage to that group's views.
I really don't like these ads. But I love both the freedom which currently allows them, and the political process through which they might be removed, a whole lot more. This really is one of those moments when we are called upon to think beyond our own immediate cultural and religious needs and protect the very system which assures them.