Everyone needs someone to look down on

An excerpt from this observation from Joan Walsh.

It troubles me beyond reason that the face of the white GOP backlash is so frequently Irish Catholic: O’Reilly, Hannity, Pat Buchanan. Reading Kelly’s book again reminded me that everything racists say about African Americans was once said about my own people, and in the famine at least, with a deadly outcome.

To justify shutting down aid mid-famine, the London Times editorialized that it was to help the poor Irish themselves. “Alas, the Irish peasant has tasted of famine and found it good…the deity of his faith was the government…it was a religion that holds ‘Man shall not labor by the sweat of his brow.” Sounds like Bill O’Reilly, only more clever. “There are times when harshness is the greatest humanity.” The Times’ “chief proprietor,” John Walter, put it more crudely. The Irish were no more ready for self-government than “the blacks,” he said in Parliament (he was also a Tory MP).  ”The blacks have a proverb,” he explained. “‘If a nigger were not a nigger, the Irishman would be a nigger.’”

I am neither Irish nor Catholic.The contempt of Irish immigrants in the New World was well-played satirically by Daniel Day-Lewis in "Gangs of New York". (He's in another film currently where his character demonstrates a great deal more tolerance toward a different tribe of people.) Walsh's point is that history -- like science and logic and common sense -- is still lost on the right-wing and their bloviators.

We need conservatives to hurry up and begin to understand what's true and what's fiction. And that's about the kindest way that it can be said.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is rested and ready after the holiday weekend as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff notes that for the second election in a row, the city of Houston voted 61% for President Obama. Keep that in mind the next time someone tries to tell you that Texas is Austin surrounded by a bunch of Republicans.

Success for Democrats in Williamson County has been few and far between in recent years, and has only come through hard work. WCNews at Eye on Williamson points out that little has changed: It won't just happen...(continued).

Barack Obama's re-election to the presidency, just as his first election, is defined in large measure by the pathetic quality of his competition. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs observes that while Republicans have only themselves to blame for their circumstances, maybe it's time for the victors to help them work through their bitterness.  

BossKitty at TruthHugger believes it's time to instruct those we elected to legislate responsible actions and stop polluting America's water: Water – Supply and Demand, Cause and Effect.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that establishment Republicans hate their base. I can understand that.

Neil at Texas Liberal said that the table of self-respect is always set. The question is will people show up?

Sunday Funnies

Walmart's low wages, every day

This comes a little late for those who are already out there busting doors, pepper-spraying their opponents, and otherwise celebrating the corporation's most wonderful time of the year.

A half century ago America’s largest private-sector employer was General Motors, whose full-time workers earned an average hourly wage of around $50, in today’s dollars, including health and pension benefits.

Today, America’s largest employer is Walmart, whose average employee earns $8.81 an hour. A third of Walmart’s employees work less than 28 hours per week and don’t qualify for benefits.

There are many reasons for the difference – including globalization and technological changes that have shrunk employment in American manufacturing while enlarging it in sectors involving personal services, such as retail.

But one reason, closely related to this seismic shift, is the decline of labor unions in the United States. In the 1950s, over a third of private-sector workers belonged to a union. Today fewer than 7 percent do. As a result, the typical American worker no longer has the bargaining clout to get a sizeable share of corporate profits.

It was not surprising to see all of the Khronically Konservative Kommenters blame the bakers' union for the demise of Hostess this past week. After all, a company's primary product being Type II diabetes and a management that awarded itself bonuses every time they put the operation into "a chapter", as Donald Trump once said, cannot possibly be responsible for its own failure.

If we still had a strong labor movement in this nation, I assert that people wouldn't be peeing into cups in order to acquire or even keep their jobs, and thus would not be demanding that poor people do the same in order to secure some meager welfare benefits.

Card-check. "Right-to-work" laws. Reagan -- a former union man himself -- busting the air traffic controllers' union. This triumph of capitalist pigs over common people goes all the way back to the Democratic National Convention of 1944, when the party bosses (like Houston's own Jesse Jones) installed Harry Truman over Henry Wallace as vice-presidential nominee. Watch Oliver Stone's "Untold History of the United States" for the story.

But that's a digression. Later this morning at the new Walmart in Houston's Heights, and all across the nation, people will protest outside the stores, calling attention to the fact that Walmart earns $16 billion in profits annually yet pays its employees starvation wages (which is why so many of them are also on food stamps).

The most effective way to fix this, as the conservatives will attest, is through the free market. Don't buy anything today unless you're buying it from a locally owned business, preferably a mom-and-pop. And for God's sake, if you have to go to Walmart, join the real people outside asking the corporate people inside for a little better way of life.

Less meat, fewer starches, more vegetables

Defined by the quality of the competition

It isn't meant to be mean to say that Barack Obama's legacy as a presidential candidate is tied in no small way to the quality -- more specifically the lack thereof -- of his two rivals, John McCain and Mitt Romney.

They have demonstrated their presidential mettle in recent days, as you are likely aware.

With conservatives still in grief-stricken denial about their loss and the reasons why, it would be merciful -- and simplistic -- to chalk 2012 up to their powerful ignorance and dishonesty. But it would be more accurate to observe that, while Obama's presidential campaigns have been transformative (his presidency, not so much), it is also correct that his two relative mandates to govern have not been met with gracious concession or even professional courtesy on the part of his adversaries.

McCain's slow-motion implosion has been going on for at least five years. His enablers -- like Steve Schmidt and more recently Joe Lieberman, for example -- have gradually excused themselves to a safer distance. Romney's delusional tumble from a perch believed by him and everyone around him to be his birthright has been more clinically fascinating to observe. The photo that surfaced on Reddit this week of the $250 million dollar man in a wrinkled shirt, with disheveled hair, pumping his own gas in La Jolla, reveals the depression brought on by the crushing reality of defeat.

It would be easy to keep on laughing if he didn't look so much like someone who needs to call a suicide hotline. While Mitt needs an intervention, the embittered McCain and the Republicans who are still seething and ranting need some help of their own. Greg in the comments of this post is evidence of this unhealthy anger. (He's sent me additional comments which won't appear. He's in a timeout lasting at least through the end of the year.)

I've had high school friends, others I've known for decades, click the unfriend button on Facebook because they couldn't stand to have finally figured out that I am a "librul". And that was well before November 6. Their moods must be wretched since the election results came in a couple of weeks ago.

I'm going to enjoy my turkey and dressing with several members of my extended family tomorrow, some of whom are as hard-boiled Republican as they come. I hope they can manage the few hours okay. It's got to be awful tough for some of them, still.

Anyway, help a few of these people -- you know who they are in your life -- along in their stages of grief by being a little nicer than you normally would. They might not yet be able to appreciate it, but they deserve it just the same. Their transition to something approaching calm is important for all of us.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. And don't gloat. The time for mending fences is nigh.