Saturday, June 09, 2007

Umm Hillary, This Means Something

I've called Hillary a corporate whore, and it wasn't joke, and I wasn't laughing. Now The Nation makes it a little clearer. The chief strategist for the Clinton campaign is Mark Penn and that has some folks like AFL-CIO's John Sweeny and SEIU's Andy Stern pretty darn unhappy. What could a NY (D) Senator do to upset the biggest labor unions? 'Penn's PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, was helping corporations block union organizing drives, including one their unions were involved in at Cintas, a highly profitable uniform and laundry supply company.'(Nation)

Penn says he will "he will cede all oversight responsibilities for his company's labor relations clients to other managers." (Atlantic) So...

'A few weeks back Penn told The Nation that he had "never personally participated in any anti-union activity." He said today, via email, that he is "sending a clear message that I have no role in this and as a matter of conscience will not."
Penn's statements raise the question: how does one recuse themselves from work they claim not to be doing?' (Nation)

The chief strategist for the woman who told us last week we're safer since 9/11 is a part of a union busting firm. If you can't figure out what that means, let me lay it out a little, this means that if we were unsafe then BushCo's policies - going to war in Iraq, stomping on our civil liberties, and Gitmo etc - make us safer and she promised to increase our safety. Just how draconian will that be? So by extension since union busting is just fine for her people and BushCo's labor policies are the re-institution of serfdom we'd best all learn how to say Massa in the most ingratiating tones in a Clinton administration.

People keep saying politicians are liars, some of them - Cheney, Bush, Romney - are, but a lot of them actually tell you in various ways but you just don't pay attention. You're not supposed to pay attention. Hillary says if we knew then what we know now she wouldn't have voted for Use of Force. Funny, some didn't vote for it. Funnier yet, she never raised a stink until we knew what we know right now ... in the campaign - it's damn unpopular with the voters. That wasn't quite so clear over the past couple years leading up to the 06 election and she wasn't quite so vocal - either. Like real quiet.

Folks this is Bush with brains, good grief, how's that play on your horror show scale?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Paul Pelosi son of Nancy Pelosi house speaker and Bill Clinton are both on the payroll of INFOUSA a huge Big Business ally and lobbying business. Paul is getting around $150,00.00 for part time work...I guess when at dinner with mom and lobbying is tough work, even if part time. And old Zipper dropper @ $50.000.00 may just have the next president's er a EAR. And we fools think Democracy works...ya, only if you own a Forbes 500.

Chuck Butcher said...

Then we need to make it work for us. It's that darn simple. We stand up or we lie down, there really isn't much of a choice.

Anonymous said...

True enough Chuck. We should all get off our lazy butts (and mine is one of the laziest of them all). Republicanism (small 'r') requires active participation. Otherwise it devolves into oligarchy or tyranny.

Been reading some Patrick Henry and Ed Abbey. Those were some rebel rousers! Rebels sure need some rousing these days.

Zakariah Johnson said...

"Bush with brains," kind of sums it up. She has a very long history of following the "by any means necessary" school of policy making, not to mention a history of preferring secret deals to open discussion. She seems to combine the worst totalitarian impulses of the right and the left: the police state and the nanny state all at once. Scary.