They’re Still At It

It starts at The Washington Times which, as my readers know, is a front/propaganda organization for Sun Myung Moon. That’s right, the “Moonies”.

77,000 federal workers paid more than governors

”More than 77,000 federal government employees throughout the country — including computer operators, more than 5,000 air traffic controllers, 22 librarians and one interior designer — earned more than the governors of the states in which they work.

The findings, from a Congressional Research Service report requested by Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, were released at a time when public workers’ salaries and benefits are under scrutiny across the country as governments try to streamline.”

Then the Washington Post picks it up. Then I blog about it. And we’re off to the races. Which of course, is what Senator Tom Coburn wants. He wants people talking about anything but this:

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I’m still trying to figure out how some controllers can vote Republican. I haven’t figured it out. Unless being anti-abortion is more important than being gainfully employed.

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The abortion issue isn’t an issue for me per se. The culture wars are. And this is all about reviving the culture wars to provide the Republican Party the votes it needs to win an election. Killing the economy, unions and Medicare were losing issues for Republicans. Look for a return to the base -- gay bashing, guns and abortion. And, yes, you can look forward to more racism too.

The Party that wants you to vote to keep your guns will use your vote to kill your union. The Party that wants you to vote against abortion will use your vote to privatize Medicare. The Party that wants you to vote against gays will use your vote to ruin the economy (again.)

I’m reading a novel about World War I right now -- Ken Follett’s Fall of Giants. A passage from it really hit me.

”Like all great press men, he really believed the drivel he published. His talent was to express his readers’ most stupid and ignorant prejudices as if they made sense, so that the shameful seemed respectable. That was why they bought the paper.”

I live in the South where the business of making shameful racism seem respectable has a long and brilliant history. Don’t delude yourself into thinking it’s only a Southern issue and it’s only about blacks and whites. It’s about anybody that is different from “us”. Mexicans, Jews, Arabs, African’s -- anybody.





The shameful might seem respectable right now. But in the future, it always winds up looking stupid and ignorant.


Don Brown
June 3, 2011