Category Archives: GOP

GOP, labor

Local Postal Workers Join Nationwide Protest to Defend USPS

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Altmire-speaking

Beaver County Mail Carriers Rally

at Rep. Altmire’s Office to Stop

GOP’s Wrecking of National Postal Service

By Carl Davidson
Beaver County Blue

Fifty postal workers and their allies rallied outside the Aliquippa office of Congressman Jason Altmire on the afternoon of Sept 27. They joined postal workers around the country demanding changes in special accounting rules imposed on them by Congress. The cost of the rules threatens to end Saturday deliveries, lay off 120,00 workers and close many post office facilities across the country.

“Congress created this problem and Congress can fix it,’ states a USPS TV ad explained the problem. Unlike any other agency, the are required to overpay billions of dollars into their pension fund by the same amount that it would take to clear up the Post Office’s current deficit.

“They could fix this problem with the stroke of a pen and not cost the taxpayers a penny,’ said Charlie Hamilton, a retired mail carrier and Labor Council member who organized the rally. “But the Republicans are determined to destroy anything with ‘public’ in it connected to the government.”

Altmire spoke briefly to the gathering, saying that he agreed with them, and would back legislation to support them. He warned, however, that the fight would be hard.

“What’s with Issa? Why is he doing this?” shouted one of the workers in a question to Altmire. He was referring to California GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, the House leader of the drive against the Post Office.

“We have a block of people in Congress with the ideology that government shouldn’t do hardly anything, that wants private businesses to take over things like the Post Office. They’re a minority, but they’re what’s making it a tough fight.”

The workers were glad to get Altmire’s support on the issue, but many were still wary due to his recent ‘Blue Dog’ votes with the GOP on other budget matters.

GOP, Right Wing, unemployment

Jobs and GOP ‘Dialectics’: Turning Things Into Their Opposites

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By Carl Davidson

Beaver County Blue

People sometimes either groan or laugh when they hear the term ‘dialectics,’ a word which some people use to bamboozle others into thinking they know something when they don’t.

But here’s a great ‘laughing out loud’ example inspired by a few lines for Mike Hall’s current post on the AFL-CIO blog today, Aug. 2:

“The 4,000 furloughed Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) workers and 90,000 workers on airport construction projects stalled by the Republican shutdown of the FAA are worrying about how they will pay their bills in the coming weeks.

“But the only worry House Republicans have is how they are going to spend their six-week summer vacation. House Republicans leaders adjourned the House last night until Sept. 7 without taking action on reauthorizing an FAA bill so the agency—shutdown since July 22—could reopen and construction funds move down the pipeline again.”

So here’s a great example of Republican ‘dialectics’, their ‘Jobs Plan’ of turning real jobs into their opposites, non-jobs. It’s easy to laugh at, if it didn’t mean so much suffering for so many working-class families. I suppose we could say there’s a ‘unity of opposite’ there, too.

One thing that burns me up more than GOP nonsense, though, are many of the mainstream media pundits who don’t have any idea on how to ask a decent follow-up question. When our right wing lawmakers (and their White House allies) go on at length about cutting this and slashing that, taking money from low-income and middle-income workers and giving it to the super-rich, there always comes a point where they assert, ‘and this will create jobs!.’

Back in my youth I taught logic for a year at the University of Nebraska. Full disclosure here: I actually appreciate real dialectics, and other rules of argument. But one point I often made to my students: An assertion is not an argument.

Now why can’t our media pundits say, ‘Wait a minute here, Congressman (or other policy wonk). You’re cutting both spending and jobs, reducing overall demand. Then you assert this creates jobs? Can you tell us exactly how that works? Especially when it’s mainly demand that creates jobs? An assertion is not an argument.”

If I heard it just once on CNN, it would make my day.

My logic course back in 1965 was for incoming freshman. Wouldn’t it be great if news anchors could at least reach that level, even if it’s too much to expect of Congress and the White House? All the more reason we have to rely on our own labor-oriented blogs and news services. We know how to make use of decent dialectics, and put a spotlight on the foolish versions of our adversaries.