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George McGovern
In Friday's Wall Street Journal, former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern published a fretful op-ed against the Employee Free Choice Act, extolling the 'his' Democratic Party to "respect" the current system to form unions. The claims made by McGovern in the op-ed are the exact same as those made by corporate-funded front groups opposed to the Employee Free Choice Act.
The op-ed surprised some on the left, and conservatives and business groups seized the piece as supposed evidence of a split in the party on this key piece of legislation. After all, as the former standard-bearer of the Democratic Party, doesn't McGovern speak for Democrats?
Well, in case you were wondering why McGovern decided to go off the deep end on the Employee Free Choice Act, it turns out he's already been swimming in it for some time.
It's safe to say George McGovern is a patsy for anti-union lobbyist Rick Berman, the leader of a $30 million front group interfering in key Senate and House races this cycle.
McGovern sits on the board of FirstJobs, another pro-business Berman front group, alongside the likes of Bush Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens, the editorial page director of the Washington Times, and the head of Sam's Club.
And in 2006, around when Berman started his "Center for Union Facts," McGovern took to the LA Times op-ed page to bash both unions and the multiple anti-Wal-Mart intiatives in full swing at the time. McGovern claimed at the time that paying Wal-Mart workers more would "eliminate jobs," but that the fairness of doing so "is a debate for another time."
The current frenzy over Wal-Mart is instructive. Its size is unprecedented. Yet for all its billions in profit, it still amounts to less than four cents on the dollar. Raise the cost of employing people, and the company will eliminate jobs. Its business model only works on low prices, which require low labor costs. Whether that is fair or not is a debate for another time. It is instructive, however, that consumers continue to enjoy these low prices and that thousands of applicants continue to apply for those jobs. [...]
Liberals must never abandon their core principles of justice and equality. But union leaders who still see American businesses as the enemy must update that vision.
At what point do we cast off McGovern as representative of any current Democratic Party principles? He's just rolling around in corporate cash and happy to sully his name in the process. Most Democrats in office support the Employee Free Choice Act, so McGovern is the one who's out of step. It's he who no longer represents what even moderate Democrats believe and it's time for him to stop trading on what he was yesterday, for cash today.
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George???
Politicians…they are all the same.
Very disappointing. McGovern should be embarrassed.
The good news…
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....6201.shtml
Is there anything at all to this post other than the title and the picture? Because if there is I’m not seeing it…
Where is the text to back up this provocative headline?
Yeah
I was going to Digg this post but I think I will wait to see what it says.
It’s not like Ian, so I’m guessing the squirrels were hungry and used his post for chow…
Sorry folks. Not sure what the heck happened there. Got a message saying “your post is a headline and a picture, is that what you intended?”
Since my response was not printable, I shall not print it.
well, there it is. I was thinking it was a ‘fill in your own post’ thing.
Since my response was not printable, I shall not print it.
good idea - lots of delicate ears ’round here. *g*
lol!
refresh page for comments is a feature rather a bug in this case.
Ah George.
I truly did believe in you at one time but thirty-six years really is a long time isn’t it?
Digg it!
Ditto!
Nothing surprises me anymore. Nothing.
LMAO! Too funny. ;-)
Wonder how much crap made in China he gets for all his support?
OK, NOW you can Digg it…thanks to nahant
How old is he now? Seriously … is age-related stuff a factor here?
Here IS something you can do about all this union busting:
Dear ****,
McGovern did just turn 86, although he appears to still have his wits about him. He has been away from the operational side of government for a long time, apparently it has negatively influenced his perspective. A shame for him to finish on a sour note just as his party is poised for a long overdue comeback.
At what point do we cast off McGovern as representative of any current Democratic Party principles? He’s just rolling around in corporate cash and happy to sully his name in the process. Most Democrats in office support the Employee Free Choice Act, so McGovern is the one who’s out of step. It’s he who no longer represents what even moderate Democrats believe and it’s time for him to stop trading on what he was yesterday, for cash today.
“What profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?” the Bible?
Maybe Lobbyist should be restricted to 30 small pieces of silver.
Wal-Mart plays anti-union videos to it’s workers during the workday. Nice, huh? Wal-Mart also takes out life insurance policies on some of it’s employees in case the employee is killed while at work.
Is George so hard up for cash that he had to pawn his soul? Are material things really worth your self respect?
Obama is very likely to win so why is George backing a losing horse?
That is most likely the reason. $$$$
Hey, they make some good crap in China. Sure the toys have lead paint and the pet food kills your dog but the prices are GREAT!
Anyway, to answer your question, as much as he wants.
NOPE! My self respect is worth a lot more.
My family and friends are not for sale either!
Mammon.
As someone who cast his first vote for George McGovern, it pains me to say this, but I think he has outlived his usefulness to real Democrats.
Ratfood….every time I read your name…I LMFAO….so funny.
Smells like “old Democrats”….
How about right now?
Yep. We’re agreed.
Hey — I resemble that!!! I’m an “old Democrat!”
Thanks, you’re making this humble rat blush.
Uh…Oh…I should have said “smells like old Democratic politicians”…707
ME to… What some would call a JFK one and we don’t give up on those ideals he told us about!
‘72? ;-)
Hmmph. Better. [smoothing ruffled feathers] (snicker)
I am an old Democrat, too.
1972 was a long time ago (I turned 18 before the general election so I got to vote for George in my state’s caucus while I was still 17)
but…I seem to vaguely recall that the McGovern presidential campaign was not exactly warmly embraced by some leaders of the labor movement (perhaps George Meany?)who preferred Humphrey for the nomination
Sometimes, payback takes a long time to reach fruition…
Are material things really worth your self respect?
If some kind-hearted soul would would just set me up for a year or ten, I’d be happy to test that and get back to you…
I love rats. My friend had one called Tilly, she used to run around the house, and if you pulled out a cigarette, she’d come out of nowhere and steal it…and once, I found a rat “pinky” in the barn…I took it to the Austin wildlife thingy, and they put it in with a mother rat, who grabbed it immediately, licked it all over and adopted it….amazing creatures.
what, aren’t you getting your checks from George Soros?
Sounds like he’s a fan of Taft Hartley type laws
LOL…I’m probably older than you are.
Fixed it for ya:
Yet another idol with feet of clay. I’ve lost count.
hehehe
Who knows? I’m vintage 1946.
Alright….”smells like old Democrat politicians that sell out for $$$”….*g*
sucks, doesn’t it?
Ha. I’m older than you.
Well, actually, earlier there wasn’t anything, and then a 404… But if we take the squirrels out of the equation you’re probably correct.
Sucks to be us.
Not by much, I’m guessing, or you have a portrait locked up in the attic somewhere…!
not just if the employee is killed at work -
believe they finally stopped the practice, but for years they took out and cashed in Corp Owned Life Ins policies on employees without telling them or their survivors
believe it’s artfully referred to as Peasant Insurance
worse, when the fit hit the shan in late 03, they claimed they did it for tax benefits and would invest the “benefits” in medical coverage for their “associates”
riiight!
I have to agree with george McGovern. What have unions ever given workers in this country besides higher wages, better working conditions, healthcare, and in the past job protection and pensions? It about time that workers were freed from these pernicious influences. Go, George, go. The 19th century probably looks good when you are in your dotage.
That’s pretty cool, although I hate to hear of good rats taking up smoking. Poor thing probably escaped from a Philip Morris lab.
Oh…Goddess….an age war….I believe in reincarnation…so I’m as “old” as the hills…no…the one-celled beings….Arghhh…*g*
Maybe I should “stifle”…:)
Words fail me…
Damn, if only Muskie hadn’t crashed and burned in New Hampshire after the Canuck Letter hit, we might have had a chance in ‘72.
She was a delightful thief…they were never lit…
It’s not just age. Time passes you by and you aren’t quite up with how things are. McG was a long time ago when we were not living with the trials we have today. He was ….and he isn’t any longer.
Me too, just don’t tell the priest! Were you speaking of chronological age or mental age? Mentally I’m probably, oh, maybe 24…!
Found this at Wikpedia.
A couple of years.
So sick, Cbl2. I also heard they would use the insurance money to fight lawsuits by the employee’s family after their loved one died on the job. Sick. Only right wingers would think of doing shit like that! Unfreakingbelievable.
LMAO at Hugh’s comment #58.
here’s the problem;
the republicans have managed to turn the word “union” into a perjurative
where once the union was respected and people went out of their way to buy union, now they are reviled and people go out of their way to undermine unions
we have to fix that, we have to point out that all a union does is allow the laborer to broken a fair contract for the product they provide
industry does not set the price for anything it buys, the seller sets the price, yet they have lowered the laborer’s position so that the industry gets to pay whatever they want rather then bargain for the correct market value
we MUST regain the word, the republicans have won the war of words, the war of ideas, the marketing, we have to change that
True. He’s just at a time in his life when he has to nail down his income for the rest of his life. Maybe he wasn’t financially savvy personally.
Look…nobody’s perfect.
Oh yeah….especially anyone in Bushco.
I’d rather dissect them for their crimes… not McGovern.
Matthew 17.
Just chewed tobacco, eh? It’s still bad for ya but I guess that’s all rat, provided she wasn’t a minor.
and oh, have not read the comments to see if this is posted but bush REALLY hates the veterans and knows that he has turned the military against the republicans
via the new york times;
that’s right, they do not want vets voting
now, why would that be?
when the republicans have lost the military and they know it, they are in really bad shape
Isn’t it obvious that I’m 24???? 25?…you know…isn’t it just obvious????
American workers hate the idea of unions, except for the part about joining one if they could.
i’m just waiting to see who takes the moniker ratblush.
I don’t think Tilly ate it…she just stole it, because it was funny, and she knew it!! So cute!
Yep! It’s generally interpreted somewhat differently from the pulpit, however.
my 76 was in response to this:
Yeah, well they just make up stuff, just like we do.
Well, of course it is! That’s why we converse so nicely. We’re of an age!
I have a friend who’s a lawyer for a union. He’s pretty discouraged. Sez that even though polls show Americans want to join union, they don’t do so when they have the chance. His interpretation is that polls are crap. I tried out the idea of all the right’s antiunion moves in the past several decades, but he didn’t buy it. He agreed it was a factor, but thought the far more important factor is that USians are mch more conservative than they admit to.
See!!! How are those cheetos? Yummmm…I like the crinkly ones.
Did she possible take them to tear up and turn into nesting material? Soft and fluffy…
Credit David Broder for sensationalizing that incident. Muskie maintained that the “tears” were just drops of snow melting on his face.
Just so long as they don’t drop the ‘L”… I wouldn’t want any proximity to Bush giving rats a bad name.
Early articles had stated that VA was worried about possible Hatch Act violations(hello ‘Cookies’ Doan), it later evolved into the voter drives would be serious distractions to staffers and patients alike…! Utter BS!
Agree. I think the Pukes effectively got across the anti-union message that they will “take your dues” and you’ll never get anything in return…”you are being used by the union leaders”…..”they are all corrupt”…etc. People hate being used (even though they are with just about everything)…but the Reagan era message exists…creating a country entering into a state of slavery.
I dedicate this song to George McGovern
I’m sure it would have NOTHING AT ALL to do with the fact that folks who frequent the VA have lived (barely) through W’s policies…
Why, of course not, don’t be silly…! ;-)
To be fair, the reputation of union leaders being corrupt wasn’t entirely unwarranted. Of course, the GOP has never had a problem with crooks (or brutal dictators). To overstate the obvious, their opposition to unions is all about increasing profits for their corporate sponsors.
Did you know that in the 19th and early 20th century, most people considered working for an hourly wage comparable to slavery?
their is plenty of anti union marketing going on, at every turn industry demonizes their problems and blames it on “the union”
they have all the chips right now
Another union leader story. Had dinner in DC about 15 years ago with Joyce Miller. She had achieved the highest rank of any woman in the union movement, and Clinton had appointed her to head the (now defunct) Glass Ceiling Commission. My intro to her was my sister-in-law, from whom Joyce had rented a cottage in the Poconos for several years. We talked all about the travails of the union movement; why unionization had declined so radically. I subsequently reported back to my sister-in-law, who preempted my report by saying that unions’ demise was related to bad leaders like Joyce Miller. Needless to say, Joyce didn’t put that one on her own list of reasons.
I’m sure as a New Yorker you remember that there used to be 7 daily papers in that city? Now, not so much. Turns out the printer’s union pretty much put themselves out of a lot of business.
I recognise the symptoms of senelity here. Isn’t NYT a union rag?
There’s plenty of blame to go around.
That was just an example of how the unions have been known to shoot themselves in the foot. I’m sure there are others.
The steel industry is a good example. Two gigantic strikes in the 1950s. So steel corps caved in. Which made US mfg steel noncompetitive globally. (Steel corps did other dumb things like not modernizing when the Japanese & European industries were necessarily reconstituting themselves with state of the art technology after WWII destruction. As I said, there’s plenty of blame to go around.) Next chapter: US steel industry gets protection from foreign competition from US govt. Finally it all caved in, and now there’s not much of a US industry except for Nucor recycling.
EFCA Petition for Communications Workers of America:
Enter local number 51026
As I recall McGovern had a horrible labor record when he was a Senator, so this is not so surprising.
Milk is the only example I can think of where the cream rises to the top. In human enterprises, it tends to be something darker.
Nothing the unions did to themselves compares to what was done to them by union busting Republicans and their corporatist masters.
Eureka Springs upstairs
http://firedoglake.com/2008/08.....-tell-you/
oops, it’s Phoenix Woman upstairs
sorry, PW
that’s so poignant. and bittersweet. for a few reasons. those people fought so hard and laid their lives on the line for a living wage. and it’s just all been taken away so brutally.
and…i used to go listen to pete seeger sing waaaay back when.
and…all those men wearing hats, as was the style then, made me miss my father, who had many hats like the ones in the photos.
thanks neurophius.
I think the UFCW is doing itself harm. It works for raises for food and retail workers, but only the most piddly of them. When i worked for a grocery under that union, i was lucky i got .15 cent raises. Now as a pharmacy technician (who’s national certification isn’t even honored by her employer) i’m lucky if i get a .30 cent raise every year. That would be fine if i was at the salary cap, but cost of living is far beyond what they pay me right now. The quarter of a dollar raises do nothing when gas has doubled in the last year.
Ironically? I got paid higher wages for being a telemarketer for SBC before it got gobbled up by ATT in 2001. The raises from THAT union on the other than? 1 to 2$, depending on where you were on the pay scale. The Food Service and Retail union is shooting itself in the foot. We get good health benefits(especially at the pharmacy) but our asses are kicked by the cost of living instead. I do mean to tell the new rep or at least make some sort of statement about the lousy raises before we ratify a new contract this fall(if i’m still with the company).
Steel suffered because of lack of investment in newer mills coupled with really cheap labor costs in a bunch of other countries. It is an early example of what has happened to so many manufacturing sectors and jobs in this country. Even so the loss of manufacturing jobs had really accelerated under Bush. There were 17,114,000 manufacturing jobs in the US in January 2001. The initial estimate for July 2008 is 13,501,000, a 21% loss or 3,613,000 in not quite 8 years. By comparison, Clinton actually managed to increase manufacturing jobs slightly ~300,000 in his 8 years.
i like ratlush
i was active in cwa in the 80’s…union steward and one of four union members on the company/union safety committee. and an intervention counselor.
the negatives-just off of the top of my head-
people hate paying union dues, figure they come in , do their job, why do they have to pay them? when a lot of the money goes to the national.
they hate workers being protected who shouldn’t even have a job there.
they hate that the union can’t ‘make’ management do something/changes, but management can make workers do something/changes.
a lot of what a union does isn’t seen by the workers. daily and yearly negotiations for issues-heath care coverage , safe environment, job security, treatment in the workplace-by management and co-workers.
in the 80’s there started to be a surge in union membership, they started a ‘grassroots approach to organizing’–the phrase ‘grassroots’ was coined by an organizer in kentucky who started it.he never got credit for it…..
Hmmm -I’m of two minds on this … I don’t particularly like the union model (very disparate outcomes) but, admittedly, at its inception and throughout times in our labor history it’s been a necessary evil. I would much prefer a revamp of the US Dept of Labor as well as labor laws that represent the interests of, you know … labor rather than the corporate overlords.