Liberty, Equality, Society: The Moral Failure of the Religious Right

The culture wars are raging. That is, of course, no secret to anyone. It is no secret to my tiny handful of readers here that I have tended to avoid the grimy distractions of same in an attempt to write about public policy, both to criticize that with which I find fault and to suggest what I believe wise. Recently, however, I began to just get too pissed to ignore the issue. Proposition 8 may have started the process, though my original reaction to it was disgust with all the allies of civil rights who were turning on each other both during the ballot initiative's campaign and in its aftermath. Fortunately, religious reactionaries have been busily showing me just where I should really be focusing my anger.

I had never read the Anonymous Liberal before today, but to say that I read Ron Chusid's Liberal Values every day might actually be an understatement. Ron wrote a post making reference to the Anonymous Liberal that I noticed because it touched upon a theme which I just wrote about not too long ago.

A conservative blogger, Robert Stacy McCain, made an aggressive attack on fellow conservative (but gay) Andrew Sullivan over Sullivan's very apt comparison of the culture warriors to the Western anti-Semitic movements of recent history. Now, I am no great fan of Sullivan's and I certainly do not agree with the bulk of his political ideology. However, I agree entirely with his thesis that the attitudes expressed by the virulent homophobes of the religious right are not at all Christian in any sense of the word I was ever taught by my MDiv mother. I am also forced to agree with his characterization of the religious right at this point in time. McCain, however, felt very differently:

"This is what is so absurd about Sully likening "homophobia" to anti-Semitism. It is he who has succumbed to the paranoid tendency, suspecting that "homophobes," like the Jews of anti-Semitic imagination, are conspiring to deprive him of happiness. Here he is, a successful and famous journalist, with lucrative book contracts and nearly carte blanche to publish in prestigious publications, yet he sits around fretting and fuming over the pathological suspicion that other people don't like him because he's gay."

I will try not to dally here too long, because I have already slammed McCain over this particular statement. I will simply say that you read that right, the bigot is indeed accusing the object of his bigotry of seeking to repress his rights, as a bigot, out of paranoid prejudice and that this passage cannot be quoted enough on liberal blogs to truly illustrate the mindset we are dealing with. Which brings me to the Anonymous Liberal.

Quoting Rod Dreher,

"This morning, I had breakfast with some guys, including a lawyer. We weren't aware of this decision, but we talked about this issue. The lawyer said that as soon as homosexuality receives constitutionally protected status equivalent to race, then "it will be very hard to be a public Christian." By which he meant to voice support, no matter how muted, for traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality and marriage. To do so would be to set yourself up for hostile work environment challenges, including dismissal from your job, and generally all the legal sanctions that now apply to people who openly express racist views.

That world got a little bit closer this morning. And most people don't even see it."

and then responds, quite aptly in my view,

"Yeah, it's pretty rough being a Christian in America. Maybe Dreher should try being a "public homosexual" for a while and compare the experience. If I had a Quantum Leap machine, I'd be tempted to zap Dreher into the life of a gay high school student or maybe a gay man in a small Southern town and see how easy he finds it to publicly be himself. I wonder if Dreyer has any clue how much harder that would be than anything he's ever had to deal with as a straight white christian male."

There is certainly an element of tit for tat in this response, but the point is valid and very clear: It is ridiculous for the bigot to decry bigotry. Many religious conservatives of the stripe of Dreher and McCain will claim boldly that they are not bigots, that they are defending tradition and morality against a dangerous threat. That is exactly what the anti-Semites McCain rejects as a model, and attempts to ascribe as a model to the gay rights movement, said. The very suggestion that a conspiracy exists to destroy Christian values and suborn the church and its believers to secondary status is straight from The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. The tactics of homophobia are the tactics of anti-Semitism. In fact, the tactics that the religious right uses against the left (and center) wholesale are nearly all the same tactics used by the anti-Semites. Their goal is the same as well, and the same as the goal of the Ku Klux Klan in its intimidation of black Americans in its own heyday: the denial of a full share in civil society to a portion of the population deemed dangerously 'other' from the mainstream by political manipulation and intimidation. Looking at the very tactics used by the bloggers in question, it is impossible to accept the thesis McCain advances: that somehow homophobia is a paranoid fantasy of the gay activist that does not exist outside the mind of the gay American.

This is reprehensible enough. However, this is not enough for McCain. He must respond to the Anonymous Liberal as he attacked Andrew Sullivan:

"What is asserted here is that homosexuals are so inherently weak that they cannot survive mere disapproval of their preferences. Anonymous Liberal has witlessly dispelled all the legalistic nonsense about "equal protection" and confessed the real purpose of the crusade for same-sex marriage, which might fairly be summarized thus:

We will compel you hateful small-town troglodytes to approve of homosexuality, and will punish those who persist in displaying an anti-social attitude of disapproval.

Anonymous Liberal is not only contemptuous of the ability of homosexuals to withstand public disapproval, but seems to assume that opponents of same-sex marriage are either too stupid to see through his charade or too cowardly to denounce it as the dishonest humbug it is. And why should he think otherwise, when so many conservatives have been so silent about liberal humbug for years?

The differences between men and women, according to the egalitarian view, are so trivial that the law must forbid any recognition of such differences, so that the sexes are treated as interchangeable. As I argued in January, it is from a careless acquiescence to this egalitarian falsehood that Americans have been steadily -- one might well say "progressively" -- marched to the point where the Iowa Supreme Court mandates gay marriage and anyone who questions that ruling is dismissed as an ignorant, hateful bigot suffering from the mental disorder of "homophobia."

That's from my column that won't be officially published until Monday, but you can go ahead and read the whole thing now. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm tired of having my intelligence insulted by these arrogant bullies. Therefore, thanks to Rod Dreher for smoking them out of their rathole."

The complete article to which this links entirely undermines McCain's claim that he is somehow not a hateful, ignorant bigot. The irony that he can deny his bigotry while spewing forth more bigotry is really quite amazing. Of course, to those who think as he does, he makes perfect sense. To the majority of Americans, even moderates opposed to full marriage equality but inclined toward civil unions, McCain's diatribe is hateful bigotry. I'm sorry if he doesn't like that, but his words, thoughts, and actions are his responsibility and his choice. He is free to be a bigot if he so wishes, he will never lose that freedom... and we are free to call him a bigot, and think less of him for being one, if we so wish.

That is beauty of a free society.

To the Anonymous Liberal, I offer a strong second.

More Recommended Reading

It took a great deal of deliberation to decide whether or not to link a conservative Republican blog. It goes without saying that I disagree with the majority of views of the majority of conservative bloggers the majority of the times. I am, after all, on the liberal fringe of the Democratic Party... probably ideologically closer to Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont than to any actual Democrats (except, maybe, for Dennis Kucinich) most of the time.

Yet there she is on my required reading list: Jenn Q Public. No, I don't endorse the majority of her opinions.

So you ask me... if you don't agree with that there person, Mr. Radical sir, why are you putting their blog on your required reading list?

The answer is simple. Shameless self-promotion.

See, I am her very own liberal troll.

If you are reading this blog, the odds are that you have some interest in my positions and appreciation for my writing. On Jenn Q Public you can see me arguing with Jenn about health care policy, about crazy old men saying reckless and foolish things about HIV, and about taxes and the economy. If you really must, you can read her stuff as well, to help you better understand what I'm heckling her about. Still, the big reason is that I want you to see me doing the heckling. I am just that impressed with myself.

Jeffrey Ferguson needs to get back on the job, dang it. I'm trying to be funny again. I need to stop that.

Now HERE'S circular logic for you!

Apparently, conservative blogger Robert Stacy McCain believes that gays unhappy at being denied equal justice under the law and angry at those who campaign viciously to prevent them from gaining said equal justice are akin to anti-Semites. This is a fascinating piece of mental yoga, twisting a thought into such an unnatural shape as to be nearly unrecognizable.

McCain takes aim at fellow conservative Andrew Sullivan, who has never been the favorite of the religious right for obvious reasons. He's never been fond of them either, and it's difficult to blame him. In an Atlantic column by Ta-Nahisi Coates, Sullivan is quoted at length. I normally do not agree with Mr. Sullivan on a wide range of topics, but one area in which we are in agreement is this one:

"The reduction of these shared lives and loves to abstract sexual acts is itself a form of bigotry. It is an attempt to reduce the full and complex human being to one aspect of his or her humanness. It is, in my view, anti-Christian to speak of gays the way this Pope does. The Christian calling is not to guard ferociously the ramparts of the 1950s out of fear but to listen to the experiences of gay people - what the Second Vatican Council calls the sensus fidelium - and try to integrate their humanity into the structures from which they have been so cruelly excluded, with such horrible human consequences, for so long."

Sullivan goes on to aptly compare homophobia on the religious right to the anti-Semitism that once sank its oily claws into nearly the entire European polity at one time or another. His comparison is very apt. Both the culture war, today, and the Jewish Codes of the Middle Ages deprive a specified group of their full share in civil society because they do not conform to a subjective definition of morality mandated by another group.

Democratic societies are based upon a cornerstone belief in certain fundamental human rights in which all people share because they are human. Those fundamental human rights must be recognized and respected by society, and the society as a whole must defend its members from bigots who wish to eject the 'other' from civil society. In a free society, we have the right to believe as we choose but we do not have the right to legislate that all should believe as we do.

McCain clearly does not agree. Furthermore, he appears to deny the relevance or perhaps even the reality of bigotry in this area:

"Getting a bit more specific, there is a reason why the accusation of "homophobia" does not intimidate me: I refuse to accept that "homophobia" accounts for most of the problems experienced by gays. Define "homophobia" however you wish, if you are gay, ask yourself this question: What percentage of the daily problems and hassles in your life are the result of this supposedly pervasive phenomenon?"

Some problems and hassles in the life of gay Americans are very clearly traced to homophobia. Homophobes, under the guise of religion, have crusaded to block every attempt by gay Americans to become fully equal and accepted members of civil society. They have opposed protection from discrimination in the workplace. They have opposed the repeal of sodomy laws. They have used religious arguments to interfere in the family in a manner entirely unreconcilable with any real 'family values.' They oppose granting equal marriage rights to loving couples. They even sponsor programs to brainwash gay Americans into becoming 'normal', 'normal' of course meaning just like them... bigots who cannot distinguish between nurturing faith and bloodthirsty cult.

All of these issues are real and quantifiable, they are not figments of the imagination of gay Americans and all of us who support the American ideal of personal liberty and equal justice under the law should fight for the full inclusion of our gay fellow Americans in our civil society. Those who wish to exclude them are fighting against the very concept of America.

McCain, however, appears to believe that 'homophobia' is a paranoid delusion.

"This is what is so absurd about Sully likening "homophobia" to anti-Semitism. It is he who has succumbed to the paranoid tendency, suspecting that "homophobes," like the Jews of anti-Semitic imagination, are conspiring to deprive him of happiness. Here he is, a successful and famous journalist, with lucrative book contracts and nearly carte blanche to publish in prestigious publications, yet he sits around fretting and fuming over the pathological suspicion that other people don't like him because he's gay."

Considering that McCain has made it pretty clear that he doesn't like gays because they are gay, both in the quoted post and others, it's very difficult to call any such suspicion a gay American might have 'pathological.' Railing against Sullivan for attempting to 'diagnose' the psychopathology of the religious right and then attempting diagnose Sullivan's psychopathology in equal measure suggests a narcissism unworthy of a proud 'public intellectual.'

The glaring problem with McCain's thesis is this:

If the religious right is just a figment of our imaginations, how are we possibly waging a culture war to persecute them?

Bad Sports: A Marketing Story

CBS Sports broadcast man Greg Gumbel (brother of the more famous Bryant of NBC, CBS, and HBO fame) alleges that he was tricked into making intros for infomercials under false pretenses. This a rather bold scam, swindling a celebrity into making what he thinks is a series of internet educational videos to cobble into direct marketing advertisements. The alleged culprit, Paul Douglas Scott (owner of 'Encore Television Group Inc'), is innocent until proven guilty, as far as the law is concerned, of course. Please forgive that O'Riley-esque turn of phrase, but I am strongly inclined to believe Gumbel in this case. Gumbel is suing over the alleged fraud, and the main thrust of his suit (though unspecified monetary damages are mentioned as well) is simply getting the offending material out of circulation.

Normally I rail against the kind of fraud and exploitation committed by big corporations, rather than little incidents like this. However, the stones involved in perpetrating a fraud like this takes me by surprise. Nor is this inconsistent with my one of my chief indictments of our modern pseudocapitalism... this kind of behavior is an attempt to use trickery to gain an advantage in manipulating the allegedly 'free' market. Celebrity endorsers are one part of a core component of the corporate-commercialist economy: the huge industry in deliberately manipulating consumers to continue to consume regardless of their genuine best interests. This, in the form of the commercial media, is perhaps the biggest industry in the nation and it produces nothing, creates no wealth. It is perhaps only the natural extension of an industry based on varying degrees of deceit that such frauds should occur. It could even be called inevitable. After all, an endorser will be so much more sincere in his deception of the target audience if he himself is deceived into believing he is doing something 'sincere.'

I hope that Gumbel wins his lawsuit, but it is likely that (despite the apparently obvious elaborate fraud of this incident) Scott has not broken any criminal codes. This may be shocking, as Greg Gumbel was clearly defrauded of his self-respect and his confidence in his integrity, but criminal fraud generally requires a monetary profit from the swindle. Damages in the lawsuit may be very minimal, if a judge decides that the damage done to Mr. Gumbel does not justify significant monetary compensation. So Paul could get off very near 'Scott' free even if Gumbel wins his lawsuit. It is, of course, also possible that the judge could decide the damage to Gumbel's reputation justifies punitive damages... but Scott has already pulled the phone number from his company website and I am betting the company website will disappear too if this continues. Even with a judgement in his favor, Gumbel may not be able to collect anything.

This will serve as one more proof that, in modern American culture, the truth matters very little. Paul Scott's actions may have been unethical, by the standards of the advertising industry, but hardly shocking in an entire industry based on the notion of fungible truth. What is more, in many ways the commercial media (of which Scott represents a distinctly bent cog, small he may be) has been instilling a culture based on fungible truth. Political and business ethics are eroding, journalism is being subverted to just another means of marketing, and conspiratorial fantasy about education, race relations, and poverty (from both the socialist left and the libertarian right) can appear all too plausible set against our corporate commercialist society. One doesn't have to believe John Taylor Gatto's conspiracy theories on education are genuinely based on fact to see how they are frighteningly convincing they can be. Nor does one really have to wonder why some give credence to the 9/11 Truth Movement. The media tries to program us in so many ways every day, to make a buck, that paranoid fantasy becomes so very plausible. The deep, dark conspiracies may not be real... but many of the motives and goals ascribed to those conspiracies can be found without a great deal of difficulty. Schools may not be in horrid shape because of conspiracy, but people clearly benefit from the poor shape American education is in. Dick Cheney may not have orchestrated 9/11, but he clearly used it for maximum advantage.

We need to start putting a value on genuine facts, at every level of our society, or things will only get worse.

Economics, Equality, and Civil Rights

The economy is the biggest issue on everyone's mind right now and, except for my post about how I see and define capitalism, I have written on it only tangentially (in discussing the EFCA, trade or health care reform) so far this year. While I am more confident in my knowledge of economics than John McCain and comfortable with my grasp of logic and common sense, I make no pretense at being a professional economist. I have taken collegiate micro- and macroeconomics, passed both classes, and engaged in as much discussion with my professor as possible. So I am neither ignorant nor an expert. However, I do take pride in my familiarity with logic and common sense and in my judgment. So if Senator McCain could profess ignorance and then proclaim an economic agenda with confidence, I feel able to offer commentary on economic issues.

The AIG bonuses were covered heavily in the blogosphere last week, and I didn't have to much to say about them. I had more important things to talk about. I still don't intend to talk, directly, about the AIG bonus issue except to say briefly they are merely more evidence of the breakdown of ethical culture in our financial markets. The bonuses were part of a tax dodge, by paying executives nominal salaries and giving them the bulk of their pay in bonuses, AIG was able to write the entire paycheck for every executive off their corporate taxes. Instead of pandering to populist fury over the bonuses, both Congress and the administration should be focused on meaningful evaluation and reform of the system.

There has been focus on more meaningful issues in some quarters. Senator Bernie Sanders (I - Vermont) wrote a very on-target piece for CommonDreams.org. He hammers the financial industry leaders as loan sharks and advocates a strong national usury law to control the interest rates banks charge consumers. I particularly enjoyed the piece because it's not every day one gets to see a socialist (Senator Sanders is a real socialist, as opposed to being called one by Republicans) cite an amendment offered by a conservative Republican in 1991 in support of his proposal for new regulation. Senator Sanders also makes cogent statements about the way credit unions (non-profit by definition) have been unscathed despite the credit disaster. I am a credit union member myself, and I can testify to the truth of the senator's statements. I have been given no reason to believe my money is in jeopardy, and my financial institution is in no danger of going out of business tomorrow and not demanding government bailout money. Conservatives should really stop and think about that when railing against 'socialism'... the capitalist banks are in trouble and the cooperative credit unions are not. I have to say I support an usury law.

On HuffPo, Ian Welsh writes with equal cogence about the stock market's recovery last week. He states, clearly:

"Repeat after me. The market is not the economy. The market is not the economy."

That is common sense one does not hear or read often enough, from the left or the right.

In fact, this is very important to remember. The same thing that conservatives say about government is also true of Wall Street: the capital/financial markets cannot create wealth, they can only redistribute it. Wall Street takes money from individual investors and funnels it to corporations. This is a necessary part of capitalism, but it has become the cart that drives the horse. Does anyone remember the stock manipulation scandals of a few years back? Enron ring a bell? Corporations manipulated their stock price to increase capital gains, while ignoring actual business operations. During the tech bubble of the '90s, a slough of companies that never made a profit were trading at huge volumes. This is not capitalism, this is policy banking in the guise of capitalism.

Financial markets serve an important purpose in a capitalist economy, at least in theory: they serve to finance entrepreneurism. The theory is that one buys stock in a company to finance its growth with the understanding one will share in its prosperity if it succeeds. Our markets, repeatedly through our history, have been hijacked by speculators, corrupt business leaders, and banking scandals. When this happens, they do not properly serve capitalism. Instead, they do it terrible damage. This is why they were regulated during the 1930s in the first place.

I am going to repeat a point that I have made on several other occasions, when discussing several topics, a point that I continue to repeat because of its importance in today's political climate. The greatest threat to the civil rights of American citizens, right now, is not the government. It is unfettered corporate power, allied to political corruption. Equality before the law is impossible when massive coporate interests concentrate the bulk of society's capital in a few hands. Steps must be taken to rectify the balance. A vast amount of law (from the privatization of state services to the mandating of digital television technology to the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit of the Bush administration to the repeal of Glass-Steagal during the Clinton administration) has been passed for the benefit of corporations to the detriment of the public interest. Corporations are able to secure this kind of governmental assistance because of the vast imbalance of wealth in American society. The American worker, the middle class voter, the family farmer, and the small businessman are all there to be screwed for the benefit of these interests. They do not have the 'political capital' the corporations possess.

A common conservative response to these concerns is to expound at length about class warfare and to justify supply side economics on the notion that what is good for business is good for the economy, as Jenn Q Public does in the linked post. Clearly, however, what was 'good for AIG' wasn't even good for AIG, let alone the economy. This returns to another theme I have repeated before: the capitalist system is based on enlightened self interest and cannot succeed when sufficient enlightenment to determine one's own self-interest does not exist.

The Founding Fathers are frequently quoted in support of numerous positions by all factions in American politics, but I want to offer a very different kind of quote from the usual offered from the heady days of America's origins.

A Privates Committee drew up a bill of rights for the Pennsylvania state constitution during the framing convention in 1776. It included the following clause:

"An enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property."

I am not advocating dispossessing the rich of their property, but I do believe that the public interest, the economy, and the stability of capitalism in America would be best served by remembering that this is a nation in which citizens are supposed to enjoy equality before the law. We need to be genuinely aware of the practical truths of daily American life and to think about them, in our political debate, as much as we think about ideology.

The clause quoted above was ultimately not included in the Pennsylvania state constitution, but it can be taken as prophecy if one changes the word 'individuals' to 'corporations.' Type it up in note pad with that change and just look at it for awhile, and think about what is happening now. Do you think the credit crisis would have happened on the same scale if a few companies didn't have such a tight grip on the financial markets nationwide?

Are the Republicans really looking out for the interests of workers?

As last week, with health care, I find myself motivated this week to write beyond my normal once-weekly update pace because of my strong feelings on an issue. Anyone who has read my thoughts here knows that I feel very strongly about the civil rights of working Americans and American consumers. Nor will it surprise anyone who has been reading this blog that I feel the greatest threat to the civil rights of Americans in this era is unrestricted corporate power. I have shared what I feel is compelling evidence advancing this argument. I have compared the chief executives and board members of American corporations to pirates, and generally I have had to admit the pirates come off as more honorable and less nakedly predatory. My update this week was a piece in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, one the pieces linked above. Yet I feel the need to write again on the same topic before it is even Friday. Why?

Part of it is what Peter Ferrara wrote in the American Spectator just the day after I wrote my piece on Senator Specter and the EFCA. The misrepresentations of history, distortions of polls and statistics, and outright lies in Mr. Ferrara's article are too numerous to list. Labor unions are responsible for helping bring workers the 40 hour work week, cost of living raises, overtime pay, and vacation/sick pay. From Mr. Ferrara's writing, however, one would assume labor unions were directly responsible for the credit crisis and our current economic woes, despite the fact that I am unaware of any Teamsters working on Wall Street. Mr. Ferrara writes about health coverage and paid family leave as if these were bad things that no sane employee would want.

The real parties responsible for the weakening of American industry are the leaders of American industry. The outsourcing of manufacturing jobs has put thousands of people out of work and turned industrial towns into ghost towns. The same companies that are responsible for this job loss have asked for government money, because their problem is not a problem of production costs: it is a problem of failing to make a product that Americans want to buy and putting a price tag on it that Americans can afford. Automoible prices have skyrocketted even as Detroit has dumped workers and shifted manufacturing to Mexico, and yet Ford and GM are surprised no one buys their cars? No one can afford to buy their cars!

Mr. Ferrara's arguments are terribly weak. This is a typical paragraph of his article:

Unions also routinely suffer corruption. Dues are diverted for the personal gain of union leaders. Union pension funds are looted. Check out this history yourself as well.

Perhaps Mr. Ferrara should, himself, read the history of what has been going on in the banks and on Wall Street. I'm pretty sure I remember hearing about corruption. Yet he attacks unions and argues that business is the best defender American workers can have. He continues to claim (as all the opponents of the bill claim) that the EFCA robs workers of their right to vote by secret ballot. This is not true. It is a pure lie. The law does not prevent a secret ballot. It allows a petition in cases where employees believe that their employer will take measures to prevent or influence a union vote. Mr. Ferrara claims that in half of all union elections, unions are voted down.

This sadly is true, but it is not because of the free choice of workers. It is because of the union busting powers given to corporations by state 'right to work' laws and 'at will' employment agreements.

Unions give workers the power to bargain collectively instead of singly. A lone worker, arguing with the human resources representative in a corporate office, is at a significant disadvantage in negotiating. He has no advocate or support, and the company has the power to fire him if his attempt to advocate for his own interests cross whatever line they wish to draw. I have been in this situation, alone and knowing that I have no power to do anything to defend myself against clear injustice. I wonder if Mr. Ferrara has.

While Mr. Ferrara's article admittedly makes me quite angry, it is not the only reason that I am writing. I made the attempt (which I admit to knowing was futile) to lobby my state's two senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, to vote for the EFCA. To the credit of both senators, I received replies. To the discredit of both senators, these replies were entirely dismissive of my concerns and extremely personally condescending.

This is the reply of Senator Alexander:

Dear Chris,

Thank you for getting in touch with me and letting me know what's on your mind regarding the rights of workers.

All Americans should have the same freedom to work. I believe that working Americans should have the choice to join a labor union or not join a labor union. I also believe that workers should have the right to decide important issues through the use of a secret ballot.

There are few more fundamental rights than the secret ballot, whether it's a vote for president, mayor, or to unionize a workplace. American workers - particularly in right-to-work states like Tennessee - deserve to be able to vote their conscience without having to worry about potential retaliation.

You don't have to be a labor lawyer to know that peer pressure and outright intimidation are often factors in unionization campaigns. The secret ballot grants workers the freedom to make their decision on the merits, rather than pressure from union organizers or management. That is why I joined as an original cosponsor of the Secret Ballot Protection Act, and will continue to oppose legislation that would allow a workplace to be unionized simply by the gathering of signatures from a majority of employees.

I'm glad you took the time to let me know where you stand, and I'll be sure to keep your comments in mind as this issue is debated in Washington and in Tennessee.

Sincerely,

Lamar

As you can see, Senator Alexander essentially repeats conservative talking points while telling me that he cares deeply about the rights of workers and is only screwing them over for their own good. I don't think his good intentions will help them very much. He is not only opposed to the ECFA but he is a co-sponsor of the grossly misnamed Secret Ballot Protection Act, because he believes the American worker needs to be protect from union tyranny so much that American corporations must be granted more union-busting power than they already possess.

Worst of all, Senator Alexander has the gall to claim that 'right to work' laws are good for workers. Perhaps Senator Alexander is unaware of this fact, but 'Right to Work states' have the lowest real wages and most crushing poverty rates in the country. Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Tennessee are not precisely known for their large and prosperous working class. He is greatly concerned about workers' right to vote to unionize by secret ballot, but appears unconcerned that those who attempt to organize union votes are frequently fired for the attempt. What about their 'right to work'?

At least Senator Alexander actually understood my point of view, however. Senator Corker either did not, or failed miserably in an attempt to be 'cute' with his reply.

Dear Mr. Richards,

Thank you for taking the time to contact my office with your opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. Your input is important to me, and I appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts.

I agree with you that the various card check legislative changes that have been proposed would amend federal labor law in ways that take them back a hundred years. Chief among these is the Employee Free Choice Act. It would allow union leaders to strong arm and pick off workers one by one, intimidating them into signing cards to organize a union. I do not believe that most Americans or most union workers who truly understand what this bill means would support it. This "card checking" would end the 72-year precedent whereby workers are guaranteed the right to unionize through federally supervised secret ballot elections. The right to secret ballot has been something that we have practiced since our birth as a country.

On June 26, 2007, I voted against moving forward on H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act of 2007, a bill that was passed in the House of Representatives two years ago. The motion failed, effectively stopping the Senate consideration of the bill at the time. More recently, Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts introduced a new version of the Employee Free Choice Act, S.560, on March 10th, 2009. The bill is currently before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Please know that I will continue to oppose any such card check legislation as we move forward in Congress.

You may be interested to know that on February 25, 2009, I became an original co-sponsor of S.478, the Secret Ballot Protection Act of 2009. This bill, as the name implies, would guarantee American workers the right to a secret ballot vote on whether or not to form a union. As with current law, these elections would be overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. Action has not yet been taken on S.478, but I look forward to supporting this bill should it be brought to the Senate floor.

Thank you again for your letter. I hope you will continue to share your thoughts with me as I serve you in the United States Senate.

Sincerely,

Bob Corker
United States Senator

Anyone reading this should know by now that I most certainly do not believe the ECFA is the chief threat to workers' rights in this country, nor am I particularly threatened by card check. After I made the earnest request that he reconsider his position, Senator Corker instead gloated about the votes he has made to continue to allow a company to deprive me of my civil rights with gleeful pride. Suffice it to say that I certainly do not believe that Senator Corker is serving me in the United States Senate. He's serving the people who fired me when my girlfriend was hospitalized and required care. At least 'Lamar', or whomever on his staff wrote the reply for him, actually read what I wrote to him.

If you live in Tennessee and you work for a living, you should be aware that Senators Alexander and Corker believe your interests are best served by serfdom.

My girlfriend's employment agreement was updated recently, to include a policy stating that her employer will fire her if they feel her conduct on her own time, away from the workplace, when she is not on their clock 'reflects poorly' on them. Corporations are now seeking to deprive people of their civil rights off the job, as well as on the job.

Yet Mr. Ferrara, Senator Alexander, and Senator Corker believe that the biggest threat to the rights and livelihood of working Americans, in these difficult economic times, is organized labor.

The term 'out of touch' has been ridden into the ground. So I am just going to suggest that the three gentlemen are out of their minds.

Economic Reality vs Moral Imperative: Are they really incompatible?

After smug Twittering by Republican operatives that it might be so, it is now official: Arlen Specter (R - PA) has declared on the floor of the Senate that he will be voting against the Employee Free Choice Act at this time and won't reconsider 'until the economy returns to normalcy.' This is both an unfortunate decision by Senator Specter and an unfortunate choice of words with which to deliver it. I'll start with my substantive policy position on the EFCA, before veering off into political polemic about the choice of words.

The EFCA is a reaction to the harsh union busting tactics adapted by corporations, to control their employees' right to protest and bargain collectively in defense of their rights, with the license granted by 'right to work' state government policies and 'at will' employment policies.

'Right to work', in theory, protects the right of the hypothetical Working Joe not to join a union if he chooses not to do so. This sounds great on paper. The problem is that state 'right to work' laws always contain provisions that go beyond allowing Working Joe to refrain from joining a union if he so wishes. These provisions vary in their specifics, but they are remarkably uniform in their effects: they restrict the ability of unions to organize themselves, to bargain collectively, to strike, and to address employee grievances. Thus every individual is alone facing his employer when strolling into the human resources department, without an advocate or ally. Working Joe is free to refrain from joining a union if he wishes, sure, but if his coworkers manage to unionize they will not be able to gain any positive benefits from it. One is forced to wonder whether the purpose of such state laws, then, is really to protect Working Joe's rights or instead to eliminate Working Joe's rights by rendering impotent the only advocate he might have for those rights. Furthermore, 'right to work' laws are guilty of a particularly reprehensible intellectual dishonesty: they posit a counter-intuitive argument in which Working Joe's rights are threatened by a predatory union and safe-guarded by a benevolent employer.

I don't know what is more morally objectionable: the bald-faced arrogance of that lie, or the moral failure of many voters and politicians in both parties in either believing it or failing to properly expose it. This is not a case of Republican bad guys and heroic Democrats, sadly. Many Democrats have co-operated in advancing these swindles. Nor have we seen significant checks on these policies by either state or federal judiciaries. 'Right to work' violates the citizen's constitutional rights to speak and publish his views and to assemble freely in protest. The corporation, through 'right to work', is given fascist police powers that the government itself is denied by the U.S. Constitution. All those libertarians out there who interpret 'less government regulation' as meaning 'greater individual liberty' should have a much harder time swallowing that than they do.

This brings us to the second half of the one-two punch, the right cross to punctuate the left jab: 'at will' employment agreements. Once again we are addressing a policy grounded in a legal fiction. The 'at will' position assumes that employee and employer suffer equal restraint from a contractual agreement and receive equal freedom from restraint by the absence of a contractual agreement. An 'at will' employment agreement gives Working Joe the theoretical freedom to leave his job at any time for or without any reason, if something better comes along. However, it contains no protections allowing Working Joe to secure his benefits, last paycheck, or a good reference is he does so. Most companies require an employee to sign away his right to secure the return of deposits paid to the company or remuneration for unused benefits (such as sick time or vacation pay) should he quit without notice. So Working Joe is not really free to quit at any time.

More importantly is what Working Joe gives up in return for receiving his questionable right to quit at any time for any or no reason. He gives up his right to sue for wrongful termination unless he can prove discrimination covered by the 14th Amendment. This is because the 'at will' agreement gives the company the right to fire Working Joe at any time, for any or no reason, without notice or warning. This not just the freedom to lay Working Joe off if necessary, with recourse to union benefits or federal unemployment aid. This is the right to fire Working Joe and leave him without legal recourse, at the company's pleasure. Working Joe's very right to seek redress in court is contractually eliminated by an agreement alleged to give him more 'freedom.' When really read and considered, the typical employment agreement under 'at will' policies is not an 'at will' agreement at all. It is a pernicious one-sided contract that binds the employee while leaving the employer absolutely free. This rather blows 'equal protection under the law' out of the water.

It should be noted that none of this, neither 'right to work' state laws nor 'at will' employment regulations, serves any purpose but to increase the ability of an employer to control the life and limit the liberties of his employees. 'At will' employment agreements have justified firing employers for their political opinions, for the way they vote, for their internet activity at home, for personal activity far removed from the workplace, and a great many other personal areas into which the employer should have no power to intrude. These agreements are possible because 'right to work' inhibits the creation and operation of a union to oppose these policies. 'Right to work' is bolstered, in turn, by the most important right the employer gains from 'at will' agreements: the freedom to specifically fire an employee for union activity. Remember, the employer can fire the employee at any time, for any or no reason.

Which brings us to the EFCA. Labor unions offer the first line of defense against the kinds of abuses specifically legalized by 'right to work' and 'at will' laws and policies. Labor unions can (and have) organized aggressively against 'right to work' laws, and a strong union can prevent an employer from requiring and enforcing 'at will' employment agreements. When one really considers the minimal gains that Working Joe receives from these laws and agreements against the vast power the employer receives over him in return, it is impossible to claim that these laws are for Working Joe's benefit. They very specifically and explictly benefit corporations to the detriment of the civil rights of American citizens. Passing the EFCA would be a beginning (not the end, it is not radical enough to finish the job, merely to start it) of the restoration of the balance of power between business and labor.

Which brings me back to Senator Specter and into the political polemic portion of this post. His statement 'until the economy returns to normalcy' is fraught with conservative economic meaning. 'Return to Normalcy' was the campaign slogan for President Warren G. Harding, an affable newspaper publisher from Ohio who was driven into politics by a combination of naive political idealism and a lot of corporate money. At the time he ran for president, then-Senator Harding was a member of the reactionary wing of the Republican Party which had helped to destroy President Woodrow Wilson's second term in the wake of WWI. His nomination was a rejection of the more left wing 'Progressive Republican' policy positions of Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, and Robert 'Fighting Bob' LaFollette (one of Harding's opponents for the presidential nomination) and an embrace of the conservative, laissez-faire stance for which President William McKinley's administration had been infamous during the beginning of the Gilded Age.

The meaning of the slogan, 'return to normalcy', was two-fold. The first and obvious meaning was that WWI was over, the peace settlement was settled, and the country would get back to business as usual. The second was a complete rejection of reformist politics, both President Wilson's Democratic 'liberalism' and a rejection of the 'progressivism' and 'gradualism' (both, as more than one historian has noted, were very close to the same thing) that had come to dominate the Republican Party under presidents Roosevelt and Taft. The people backing Harding believed nothing was wrong with the country and nothing needed to be changed. Temporary crises had been conquered and life would go on as it had before them.

This led directly into the counterfeit prosperity of the Roaring Twenties and the tragic economic collapse of the Great Depression. Temporary measures had clearly not been enough, meaningful reform of the system was still needed and had been rejected.

Senator Specter's use of the phrase now is even more egregious, because we are still in the midst of crisis. The ECFA is part of the means of defeating that crisis. Now, as during the Gilded Age, we are faced by jarring imbalances between the rich, the middle class, and the poor while the divisions between the middle class and the poor continue to break down. We cannot wait for matters to 'return to normalcy' before acting to face that crisis, we must move boldly to fix the broken parts of the system. Not only will that bring the current crisis to an end more rapidly, but it will secure us from future repetitions of the same. I firmly believe that the decline in real wages for the working class, the loss of blue collar jobs overseas, and the Bush-era gutting of the middle class all directly share portions of the responsibility for the current crisis. We must act to correct these problems as surely as we must act to correct the problems of the financial markets.

Senator Specter's argument is that in times of economic difficulty, major corporations should have more power to exploit their employees and employees should have less freedom to guarantee their livelihoods and civil rights from the most egregious exploitation. He may not realize it, but it is. The employer-employee relationship at the present time, under present conditions is as adversarial as the political system or the criminal justice system. The employee needs to be restored his legitimate ability to defend himself in that system. The current economic crisis makes that moral imperative all the greater rather than reducing it in any way.

Senator Specter is wrong to change his vote on the EFCA. I can only hope that he realizes he is wrong or that another Republican steps into the breach to fight for the right and the good in our time of crisis.