Beggar Thy Neighbor, Y'all
It's a good thing Alabama doesn't have its own monetary policy. Otherwise it might be tempted to devalue its currency to boost exports. But it can still subsidize domestic industry, not least of all its plants of foreign auto companies. Latest triumph is the $811 million greased path laid down for ThyssenKrupp. We trust the use of slave labor will not be permitted.
And it has a senator by the name of Richard Shelby to sabotage the competition. Shelby and other peckerwood princes block aid to U.S. auto companies, while they suck in dollars for pork and their state government does for foreign companies what Shelby won't let the Feds do for Detroit. My personal favorite project of Shelby's, who has a long career of pork-sucking, is the Federally-funded statue of Vulcan.
Harold Myerson is good on this today.
I'm not sure Richard Shelby should be the poster boy for the gang of Republican union busters. Better to choose the guy in the background -- Bob Corker (yes?).
Shelby led the opposition to the TARP; he's fiscally conservative; and he's consistent*.
* $1.5 million to repair Giuseppe Moretti's century old masterpiece doesn't seem like much of a sin.
December 17, 2008 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
And afterall, the job of a senator is to work in DC to benefit the state which elected him (and of course to get himself reelected.)
However, if his vote was to 'break' the union and not simply to benefit the car company in his state by possibly eliminating some of its competition, it's a different, and to me, sad story.
As far as 'pork' is concerned, it's the stealthy way it's sometimes slipped in - often literally in the dead of night - as though the person pushing for it knows it's got to be an undercover job, implying it's ugly.
December 17, 2008 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
If C.A. had his druthers we'd still have a buggy-whip industry and no statues.
December 17, 2008 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shelby was a long time Democrat until the Republicans won both Houses in '94, at which point he jumped to the Repubs.
December 17, 2008 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
He voted against impeachment.
December 17, 2008 9:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is a damn fine article by Meyerson. It's important to remember the history and importance of the UAW; to liberalism, to the Democratic Party and to American History.
The image of the UAW and Unions in general has taken a big hit in the last 2 decades, with the media aiding and abetting this idea that they are nothing but an anachronism and a drain on the Economy.
December 17, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Prince Richard makes a fine poster boy for any gang of Republicans, all of whom are showing themselves to be union busters these days, in part because he loves seeing his image on the poster. But I wouldn't object to a poster that lines them all up, like some deep southern nightmare reprise of the Village People.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a southern boy myself and I "get" the archetypal appeal of today's Theodore Bilbos. It oozes from Shelby, Corker, McConnell and their ilk and it cows the bejeezus out of those fine, upstanding democratic Senators who represent my home state of Arkansas. Down here it's the shadow we can't shake, and apparently don't want to.
Anyway, main reason for writing is to thank Rotwang for using the phrase "Peckerwood Prince." How wonderful. How apt.
And if you don't remember who Sen. Bilbo was (no relation to the Bagginses) take a peak at this Time Magazine article from 1946: http://tinyurl.com/5gtrlt . You'll like it.
December 17, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
We trust the use of slave labor will not be permitted.
Don't count on it. This is Alabama after all. I actually think that Shelby and the other members of the Senate southern Republican caucus are actively working on nationalizing a form of industrial peonage not unlike slavery.
December 17, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just wish these guys would be called on (by the media and other congressmen through the media) by the facts that proposing Tax abatements or general subsidies seems like a hypocrisy when considering these guys consider themseves small government and fiscally conservative types.
And I know this is off topic but what the hell is all this hoola-balu about AG holder being held up because the GOP wants to attack him for his role in the Elian GOnzalez case. Again what do these dumb ass GOP congressman think strong-arm government is? It's fricking ridiculous to say that you are a Small government type and then go advocating a case of asylum for a child despite the government and the courts deciding that the boy should be returned to his father.
December 17, 2008 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink