"soy capitán"!*: Americans and the Working-Stiff Concept of Labor

Well, Wisconsinites have reaffirmed their initial unfortunate choice of governors, and rather handily. Can't say I'm surprised, though I hadn't been following the recall election too closely. Walker got millions in outside billionaire money, I've heard, and outspent his not overwhelmingly impressive opponent by about 8 to 1, so whatever amount of good money does a person in an election, it certainly did for Governor Walker.

I'm not convinced that money can buy an election since sometimes very wealthy candidates lose by wide margins – you still have to sell the product well, so to speak, and voters don't automatically come around just because your vanity campaign sticks your mugly ug on every billboard in the state. But Walker is already an incumbent, so it probably helped him a great deal.

Perhaps, too, another factor is a certain squeamishness over kicking a man out of his job only a short time after you've hired him – Walker wasn't being challenged over Watergate-like offenses (though I believe there have been some investigations), he was challenged over his extremely anti-labor stances and actions. A fair number of voters who say they're Obama supporters obviously voted for Walker, and I doubt that they're really in favor of the governor's extreme anti-labor views. They probably just didn't feel right giving him the boot over policy and might vote for an opponent next time around. In other words, it may well be that some people simply don't like the idea of recall elections, even ones they're voting in. Sure, Californians kicked out Gray Davis years ago, but that only succeeded because Republicans whipped up fervor over Davis' not-so-great handling of a power-grid crisis – the people felt that they were getting ripped off and that he hadn't done anything about it. The GOP also fielded a celebrity candidate, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turned out to be a pretty good campaigner. Had Republicans picked some middling pol, I don't think they would have had such an easy time of it.

But the mentions of labor above bring me to my main simple-dino observation: I suspect that underlying Walker's reaffirmation Tuesday is a need on the part of ordinary people to distance themselves from the very concept of labor. Why? Because that concept is associated with being a working-class stiff. And if there's one thing we know for certain about Americans, it's that we are ALL card-carrying members of the "middle class." People who are patently working-class will tell you they belong to the great middle class. Here's a hint: if you work from paycheck to paycheck or nearly so, you're working-class; if you're fairly comfortable, own some property and have economic options to fall back on in case of hard times, you're middle-class; if you could retire right now without feeling pinched, you're rich; if you're currently scheming to corner the silver market, looking into a second yacht, buying a suit that costs more than most people's college education, or donating ten million dollars at a pop to your favorite politician, you're REALLY rich.

I don't believe the phenomenon I'm describing is due to highfalutin' cultural aspirations since a great number of self-describing middle-class Americans will snicker on cue at the merest whiff of Euro-baiting – you know, jokes about the French and all that. (Freedom fries all round, with extra ketchup, please. Take that, you over-edjikated socialist sissies!) Their contempt for or uneasiness with labor unions can't be derived from any expectation that they're all too busy listening to nuanced Haydn cello concerti or enjoying opera. No, most likely the uneasy feeling stems not from cultural or literary aspirations but rather from strictly economic ones: fear of being condemned to what Mr. Carlyle called the bourgeois "hell of not making money." Almost everyone here buys into the Horatio Alger up-from-nowhere, rags to riches dream, even if they've been stuck waiting tables for the last fifteen years and haven't a viable notion in their heads how they might ever do otherwise. There's something admirable about such optimism, but at the same time, I think, it gives a devastating blow to any hopes this country might harbor for social justice and genuine opportunity. Isn't the rise and fall of labor closely correlated with the rise and fall of the so-called middle class? I mean with the prospects of working people to move a bit beyond the very category so many of them deny belonging to and take up a position somewhat more secure and comfortable, more option-laden than working from one paycheck to the next?

No? Well, okay, then, America, let's all just keep thinking we're middle-class -- that ensures most of us never really will be, let alone Thurston Howell-rich. I say, Lovey, oh Lovey, where did I leave that third martini? Gilligan my boy, be a good lad and fetch me another, won't you?

*"Yo no soy marinero, soy capitán" (I'm not a sailor, I'm a captain) is a refrain from Ritchie Valens' hit song, "La Bamba" (Los Lobos, 1960), itself an adaptation, I’m told by the experts at Wikipedia, from a Mexican folk song sometimes performed at weddings in Veracruz.

Wisconsin is where Chicken Little crossed the road …

By Octopus

(This post started as a comment in response to three fine articles by our esteemed colleagues, Sheria, Nameless Cynic, and Shaw Kenawe. The subject is important enough to merit more commentary.)

Three decades ago, political scientist Theodore J. Lowi authored a ‘themed’ textbook titled, American Government: Incomplete Conquest. Although it received little attention at the time, its main ideas have special relevance today:

If the first problem facing our cave-dwelling forbearers was survival, the second, according to Lowi, was government.  No matter how enlightened any form of government appears in theory, all governments have a primordial mean streak, an instinct to lash out and violate their own laws and principles - especially in times of war or national emergency.  Consider the suspension of habeas corpus  during the Civil War, the internment of Japanese-Americans  during World War II, and the concept of eminent domain, as examples. Make no mistake. All governments reserve the right to violate your rights or confiscate your property.  Furthermore, no matter whom you elect, someone will control your life; and your choice at the ballot box is a choice between competing visions of governance.

This weekend, I watched an interview of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels on MSNBC - keeping these ideas of Theodore Lowi in mind.  Here is the gist of Daniels: A Chicken Little argument on deficits and spending framed as existential threats to freedom and prosperity. When the interviewer suggested a moratorium on social issues, Daniels invoked the words of Ronald Reagan: “Results, not rhetoric.”

Daniels gave a sky-is-falling, no compromise, non-negotiable performance that embodies his vision of authoritarian control.  It is the same script followed by GOP governors in Ohio, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, among others.  Between the lines, there is a master strategy at work framed long ago in the shadowy backrooms of GOP think tanks.

A Chicken Little argument is a coin with two sides. The side facing up is the fear factor warning of dire consequences and demanding urgent action. The facedown side masks the intent behind the fear: To preclude an open and honest debate and stifle dissent. In other words, when the sky is falling, there is no time to discuss the legitimacy of the claim.

On closer examination, is the sky actually falling? If the state of emergency is about the state of the budget, why are fiscal conservatives pushing a radical social agenda such as this? Which comes first: Chicken Little’s eggs or the almighty dollar?

H/T to Shaw Kenawe for this Joel Pett cartoon

In retrospect, we know the union-busting controversy in Wisconsin is not about budgets. We know Governor Walker’s predecessor forecast a $121.4 million budget surplus. We know Walker created a bogus shortfall by giving tax breaks to employers at levels far too low to spur real job growth (source). A classic Republican tactic, Walker eviscerated tax revenues as an excuse to gut a traditional Democratic power base.

In due course, Wisconsin Republicans forced union-busting provisions through the state legislature by stripping them from the budget bill, thus sidestepping a quorum requirement. This tactic exposed the deception behind the rhetoric:  Union-busting does not balance state budgets … confirmed by none other than Wisconsin GOP Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald in this astonishing admission:

If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.

As Lowi reminds us, citizens go to the polls to choose between competing visions of governance, and freedom is in the eye of the beholder.

Let us put naivety aside as we consider the rivalry between Democrats and Republicans. If the contest seems asymmetrical to us, it is because the GOP conducts politics with a primordial mean streak as if it were a sovereign entity engaged in actual war.  No longer a contest between rivals, politics has devolved into a contest to win by any and all means necessary (even in violation of democratic principles); and the weapons of partisan warfare are fear, deceit, pandering, legislative chicanery, and ruthless guerilla assaults against the assets of the opposition party.

Consider the asymmetry between union busting and the Citizens United decision. If Citizens United opened the door to unlimited corporate funding of political speech, events in Wisconsin have closed the door on union funding for Democrats. All told, union busting, Gonzo-gate, voter caging, voter ID cards, and the smear of Acorn are manifestations of a GOP master plan to eliminate traditional bases of Democratic support.

In theory, true democracy is predicated on choice, and choice connotes a policy debate between rivals. If one party, however, employs ruthless tactics to cripple the opposition beyond viability, what we have left is essentially a one party system with only token opposition. In other words: A democracy in name only. Wisconsin is where the GOP changed the dynamics of democratic engagement from contest to conquest. Wisconsin is where Chicken Little crossed the road to fascism.

Resources for political action:

1. Contribute to Act Blue
2. Join Working America, an advocacy group for non-union members who support the labor movement.
3. National Conference of State Legislatures: Recall Information Page
4. Website to Recall the Republican Eight
5. Website to Recall Scott Walker