Photographer: Jack Delano
Library of Congress
How many leftists wish we did get checks?
Except for a few bloggers—pretty much of the barely liberal-ish variety—plus a similar think tank or two: WTF "professional left" is there? In a country where even "liberal" has been successfully demonized for thirty years? When, in depressing reality, a very well-paid Professional Right controls the messages?
Yes, Robert Gibbs' outburst was taken personally by all who rightly interpreted it as yet another effort to throw the base under a bus...
Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher on the administration's going after the wrong targets—and the implicit contempt for the public (rather than corporate) good in Gibbs' sneer at the "Canadian health care system."
Meanwhile, wage slave America found a new hero.
Employee violates the holy writs of Customer Service (even if provoked), then grabs beers before deploying an expensive piece of equipment to clear out...
It's hard to decide what factor, or combination of factors, led to the instant elevation to folk hero. Was this due to the public's identification with someone who quits dramatically; disgust with worsening air travel conditions; the general coarsening of social interactions?
Steven Slater may well cash in on the instant fame. As Marcy Wheeler writes, it is quite a contrast with last year's air travel hero: Pilot "Sully" Sullenberger, who saved 155 passengers with a "miraculous" landing in the Hudson. A union professional, who led a crew of well-trained, union professionals, who were then joined by union first-responders, in a "Miracle Brought To You By America's Unions."
True heroism is often found in the stories of those who—against harsh odds—endeavor to organize workers. But there won't be mass media coverage, unless there's something that can be used to demonize unions.
An unspoken fact behind the Slater incident is what happens in this economy to someone who reacts to bad working conditions... Add a few years to Slater's 38, and for an older worker who suddenly walks off the job: how likely is that ex-employee to find a means of surviving?
Whenever there's news of a workplace shooting, I suspect that if there is any degree of rational thought behind the perpetrator's actions, it would be recognition that termination was the burning of his last bridge, and he will never see another paycheck.
Not that my job is particularly secure, or that I'm young enough to find something else easily. But I figure women will always have one advantage being hired for office jobs: employers feel confident that women doormats won't someday show up toting a semi-automatic...
As for those leftists not on the payroll—who voted for Obama, some with great enthusiasm—they generally want what most of the country would, if our public discourse weren't so tightly controlled. Just little things, like a decent standard of living.
Instead of scenes like this, as 30,000 desperate people try to apply for 10,000 units of non-existent housing.
Scenes which can only be expected to multiply, as we complete the devolution to a third-world standard of living.
So, ask me a question I don't already know the answer to...
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