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It’s Labor Day!

And here to celebrate unions and labor is…an incoherent union-hating Republican. Watch Sarah Palin strain to be cute and bubbly and enthusiastic about socialist ideas — you can just see her brain breaking as she tries to paint a happy conservative face on progressive ideals.

Man, I’ve been cruelly slamming you with painful videos this morning, haven’t I? I should stop. I think I’ll go work with my fish for a while.

Good idea in the comments: here’s an antidote.

Holy crap, major shakeup at the JREF » « Did you know teaching is a skill?

Comments

  4. Holms says

    Jesus christ that was nonsense. I liked the bit where she says she is for all the union workers, but totally not the union leaders (who are thugs of course) whose job it is to promote the interests of said union workers.

  6. knowknot says

    – The potential benefit Sarah Palin could provide to world of materials science and manufactuaring is enormous, and almost unversally overlooked.
    – If only she would just let us know how she has perfected the synthesis, production and maintenance of the bubble that allows her to maintain the isolated and impenetrable ecosystem around her head. That thing is impervious to absolutely everything. We’d be walking the face of the sun and documenting the impact of nuclear blasts hands on, in perfect, transparent safety tomorrow.
    – Of course, it would take quite some time to work out the obvious problems with incoming communication, but there’s always something.

  7. nomadiq says

    I haven’t listen to a word that Sarah Palin has said in a while. Has she been babbling like this for a while now? I mean, this really made no sense at all. Worse than I remember.

    The really odd thing is there are all sorts of conservative talking points that many people in organized labor could or would get behind – from a selfish point of view anyway. Policies orientated specifically toward families, growth in the economy at any cost, support for domestic jobs, halting immigration (specifically from poor countries where workers would do their job for half the cost). Yet, SP mentioned none of this. Just some rambling bullshit about how conservatives have their backs, conservatives are members of unions too. Why is she on the defensive here? Why is she assuming the average working Jane and Joe is against her?

    Conservatives can’t make an honest appeal to the hopes and desires of workers even when it is easy, although still disingenuous, for them to do so. You can only conclude the likes of Palin really don’t give a shit.

  9. says

    Well, watching that Palin video was painful. Her video segments are always distressing. We need to come up with an antidote.

    But some right-wingers have found an even more painful way to mark (not honor, nor celebrate) Labor Day. They want to encourage you to work on Labor Day.

    A conservative think tank is protesting the federal Labor Day holiday by staging a work-in on Monday in a gambit to celebrate “the freedom to keep your job when you choose not to join a union.”

    “We’re calling it Right-to-Work Day,” Tom McCabe, CEO of Washington state’s Freedom Foundation, announced in a post on the organization’s website. The name refers to an effort by conservative lawmakers across the country to advance so-called “right-to-work” legislation that would allow union members to opt out of paying union dues while still benefiting from union contracts. […]

    “Right to Work” legislation is all about weakening unions and strengthening the Head Honchos of the world.

    “At the Freedom Foundation, we celebrate freedom of choice and transparency – ideals the labor movement has vowed to oppose. Consequently, we’ve chosen to spend our holiday honoring the right-to-work movement instead,” the post says. McCabe goes on to argue that all problems in society can be “traced in some way back to the abuses of organized labor.”

    But according to research from the Economic Policy Institute, right-to-work laws — which have the impact of weakening unions and lowering union membership — have almost no impact on job growth and actually reduce wages for union and non-union workers by up to $1,500 a year. Workers are also less likely to receive “healthcare or pensions through their jobs” and are hurt on the job with greater frequency. “For instance, the occupational-fatality rate in the construction industry—one of the most hazardous in terms of workplace deaths—is 34 percent higher in right-to-work states than in states without such laws,” David Madland, Director of the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, notes. […]

    http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/09/01/3477750/conservatives-protest-labor-day-by-staging-a-work-in/

    More info, and graphs here:
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/01/1324794/-This-Labor-Day-a-reminder-of-what-unions-really-do

  13. says

    Boringly silly madam. I do wish that some social history were taught in your schools, not to mention a little about the industrial revolution in the UK. It might give these self confident ignoramii some pause for thought.

  15. says

    christopherphillips:

    I do wish that some social history were taught in your schools, not to mention a little about the industrial revolution in the UK.

    I went to school in one of ‘your’ (U.S.) schools, and I was taught about those things. However…

    It might give these self confident ignoramii some pause for thought.

    self confident ignoramuses are seldom interested in study or learning.

  16. congenital cynic says

    I didn’t last a minute. She’s so smarmy, so stupid. How did she ever become a governor of a state, and a candidate for VP? I worry about the US. Too many crazies in positions of influence there.

  17. gmacs says

    From the video:

    Few people have been beaten down like the American Workers.

    Except maybe Gazans, Egyptian Christians, Egyptian secularists, Egyptian Jews, Egyptian Muslims-who-don’t-agree-with-the-regime, gays in Africa, Somalis in Kenya, black people in the US, Yazidis, America’s immigrants, and women and trans-anyone pretty much anywhere.

    I actually got a chuckle out of watching her squirm in response to absolutely nothing anyone directed at her. I guess she felt she needed some more attention.

  19. PaulBC says

    Billy Bragg did a version of “Which side are you on?” (with different lyrics).

    For today, though, I would go with Billy Bragg singing “There is power in a Union”:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CkFPyH8v1c

    (In an age of irony, it’s refreshing to hear forthrightness.) “Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone?”

  22. shouldbeworking says

    I didn’t make it through 1 minute of the Palin before I did did some chores. There was less offensive material in the litter box than in that video clip.

  23. laurian says

    I suddenly grok Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods. At some point she had a minor stoke. Just look at her left eyebrow.

  24. says

    Dalillama, Iyéska:
    Thank you both.

    ****

    I just walked to the convenience store and decided to listen to the video on the way. I really should have counted the number of times I rolled my eyes at something she said (it may have come close to equaling the number of steps I took).

  26. toska says

    It looks like Palin still hasn’t figured out how to edit videos. Or write a script.

    But seriously, you don’t have to publish the first take. Unless she actually some editing and figured this was the most coherent she can get.

  27. disgruntleddog says

    Got 30 seconds in to the Palin video. Couldn’t watch anymore.

    One more Billy Bragg.

  28. chigau (違う) says

    I’ve been reading up on the history of the labor movement.
    (again)
    I now intend to get drunk.

  29. robro says

    Dalillama, Schmott Guy @20

    It’s supposed to be celebrated on May Day (May 1st), not September 1st.

    What!? Why that’s…Communism! Note that in her skewed history lesson she did not mention Haymarket or the role of Grover Cleveland and other politicians in enacting Labor Day in early September rather than on May Day.

    Sadly this kind of shtick seems to appeal to a lot of working class people in this country. I know several who would probably nod their heads and say, “Yep, that’s why I’m votin’ Republican.”

    And did you notice that of the dozen or so “hard working folks” there wasn’t a single black. There were only three women, one a mother with children and two working in a lab. You see by “working folks” she really means white men. Blacks don’t work, you know, and women should stay home with the kids and let the men have the jobs.

  32. quasar says

    Hah. “I don’t have anything against Unions” repeated over and over and over (and over) until finally at 1:42 it happens:

    “Uh, I do have something against the Union Thugs, though, that are, the leadership“

    … and then she slips back into platitudes to finish off.

    So to translate: “Us conservatives don’t have anything against hard working union members so long as they don’t actually, y’know, band together and form an organised group that stands up for the rights of workers.”

  33. robro says

    And note, quasar, that the hubster Todd was the treasurer of his local…so does that make him one them union thugs?

    And isn’t repeating an assertion “over and over and over (and over)” one of those signs of lying, along with the darting and rolling eyes and the skewed smile? Perhaps it’s just bad acting.

  36. quasar says

    @robro:

    I don’t know about lying: I have no doubt she believes every word she’s saying in a weird kind of way. Palin reminds me of Ray Comfort: so sincere in their belief that they loop right back around into defending it with dishonesty, without ever seeming to realise they’re being dishonest.

    But you’re right: her body language and weird “talking to the kiddies” tone of voice all reek of something… not so much dishonesty as insincerity.

    I don’t think she’s lying about what she’s saying, but she certainly is lying by putting on that cheerful face and trying to convince she’s genuinely trying to educate us about the history of the labor movement. I think she’s fully aware she’s putting this out as propaganda.

    @grumpyoldfart

    I get what you were going for, but that’s kind of unfair. Most kindergarten teachers don’t put on a blatantly insincere facade, and most kindergartners wouldn’t be fooled by it anyway.

  37. Saad says

    It’s also not just what she says. It’s also how she says it. Give her a stack of scientific papers to read in front of a camera. She would make quantum field theory sound like utter garbage.

  38. moarscienceplz says

    Look, we’re all for hard-working Americans.

    And if they all owe their souls to the company store? Well, heck, billionaires need to make money too, amirite?