Class Warfare Made SIMPLE
Mood:  irritated

Ever wonder why liberals and conservatives come to the positions they do? Here is your easy simple guide:

SOCIAL SECURITY:

Liberals believe that social security should be an inviolable safety net in case the worst happens. In other words, if your whole life goes to shit and your legs get cut off and the stock market crashes, you have a fall-back position.

Conservatives consider Social Security as simply a form of investment, and one which, being potentially less lucrative (and also more secure) than the stock market, should be abolished as soon as possible. Since Conservatives represent the interests of corporations as will become evident, having a form of emergency relief is not high on their list of priorities.

ABORTION:

Liberals believe that the government should stay out of the issue, aside from potential health ramifications (an indigent pregnant woman who goes into a public hospital and will die if the baby is not aborted, for example).

For Conservatives, this is a triple whammy issue. First off, abortion decreases the labor force and thus increases the wages of labor. It's supply and demand, and business wants the supply of labor high and the labor force desperate and pliable. Look at Mexico for an example of this philosophy in action. Unwanted children also keep families over a barrel and hence make them more pliable and more willing to put up with bad working conditions.

Secondly, Christianity is an important force for keeping the labor force meek and pliable and abortion has become a hot-button Christian issue, so the conservatives get a double benefit out of this.

CIVIL UNIONS:

Liberals: None of the government's business, two people of whatever sex can enter into any contractual relationship they please, so long as they aren't violating the rights of anyone else.

Conservatives: A double whammy issue for the conservatives. Gay marriage also decreases the work force since gay couples can't have kids of their own. It's also a hot-button issue with their devoted minions the Christians.

PHARMACEUTICALS FROM CANADA:

Liberals: People need medicines, they are not optional in many cases but necessities of life, and thus any means that can put cheaper drugs into the hands of the people who need them, particularly lower income people and elderly people on the aforementioned Social Security, is a good thing.

Conservatives: Representing as they do the interests of corporations, the pharmaceutical corporations are powerful and helpful allies, and anything that would impact on their profit margins is therefore a bad thing.

WAR:

Liberals: War is only to be used as a last resort.

Conservatives: War is an instrument of national political and economic interests and also makes money for a large number of corporations at taxpayer expense. Since individuals represent a larger percentage of the tax base than corporations do, that increase in tax cost is a good deal overall: all forms of corporate welfare are a good deal for corporations even if they wind up paying slightly higher taxes as a result.

DISSENT:

Liberals: Dissent is patriotic since the country is based on the idea that no individual or group has an ironclad claim on the truth.

Conservatives: Dissent is unamerican since it rocks the boat and disturbs the status quo, which is favorable to corporations.

SOCIAL SPENDING IN GENERAL:

Liberals: Social spending is a legitimate way to further better conditions for everyone.

Conservatives: Social spending is a disincentive to a pliable workforce. A desperate workforce is a cheap workforce. Any governmental attempt to make citizens more secure in times of need is therefore counterproductive.

MINIMUM WAGE:

Liberals: Everyone needs a living wage.

Conservatives: A minimum wage costs corporations money and works contrary to their desire to get the most work out of you for the least wage.

TRADE UNIONS:

Liberals: Workers have a right to organize for better conditions, and it was precisely this right to organize which is responsible for doing away with dangerous, inhumane, and abusive practices which corporations so willingly participated in in the past.

Conservatives: Conservatives don't like unions. Why? Because when labor "sticks together", wages go up. That's why workers unionize. Seems workers don't like being "over a barrel".

I could go on and on, it's the same story.


These same sorts of business-motivated conservatives historically:

Opposed anti-trust legislation.

Opposed child labor laws.

Opposed universal free public education. Some of them still do.

Opposed literacy for African-American citizens, in particular.

Supported the establishment of "Jim Crow" in the south.

Opposed state laws guaranteeing minimum wages and restricting working hours for industrial workers.

Opposed the right to vote for women.

Supported prohibition.

Opposed the League of Nations - and continue to oppose US participation in the United Nations.

Were involved in countless financial and government scandals, including, manipulation of stock prices during the Civil War, rampant cronyism and nepotism during the Grant administration, the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920's, Watergate, the Savings and Loan crisis, the present "no bid" contracts for Halliburton - the former employer of the Vice President - and many, many more.

Opposed agricultural subsidies, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Rural Electrification, and almost all of the rest of the New Deal.

Opposed Social Security.

Opposed the Fair Labor Standards Act establishing the eight hour work day and overtime pay, and some still do.

Opposed the National Labor Relations Act guaranteeing workers the right to collectively bargain.

Opposed US entry into World War II to fight fascism.

Traded with the Nazi's during the war. Noteworthy cheap-labor conservatives "trading with the enemy" included Henry Ford and one Prescott Bush, father and grandfather to two Presidents.

Opposed the GI Bill of Rights.

Opposed creation of the United Nations.

Opposed the Marshall Plan.

Opposed FHA Mortgages.

Opposed the creation of Interstate Highways. These had to be billed as the "National Defense Interstate Highway System" to get some of them to go along with it.

Opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Opposed the Civil Rights of 1964.

Opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Opposed Medicare.

Supported both overt and covert intervention, leading to the creation of right-wing dictatorships in Iran, Guatamala, Cuba [before Castro, mind you], Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, the Congo, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, the Phillipines, Indonesia and many others.

Supported the war in Vietnam including "bombing them back to the stone age".

Supported covert and illegal air strikes against Cambodia.

Supported domestic "surveillance" of opponents of the war, civil right supporters and other "dissidents" who believed in things like equality and democracy.

Opposed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Opposed the Equal Rights Amendment.

Supported shifting the tax burden from the top to the middle, and the creation of massive deficits for the purpose of bankrupting the Federal government.

Opposed the act creating "family leave" - unpaid mind you.

Opposed and continue to oppose National Health Insurance.

Support taxing the wages of working people, but not passive investment income such as dividends and "capital gains".

Support "vouchers" to subsidize parochial and private schools, in order to create a "two tiered" educational system. Remember, they opposed universal public education.

Support "free trade" policies that allow US manufacturers to export jobs to third world cesspools.

Support the dictatorial regimes in those same third world cesspools.

Oppose restrictions on green house gasses and other pollutants.

Support "privitization" of Social Security, something they have hated since its inception, and which they have concocted a novel way to get rid of.

Oppose government support for the development of alternatives to fossil fuels, but they . . .

Support invasion of Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, in order to secure our supply of those same fossil fuels.

AND YET, SOMEHOW, these people have the unmitigated gall to call themselves the party of the people, as versus those "New England Liberals" and "Hollywood" and "cultural elites".

Just goes to prove Hitler's dictum: TELL BIG LIES.