If you wanna a fine example of how ignorant and self-defeating republican voters can be on a local level, you need look no further than the Volunteer state of Tennessee.  Like much of the solid red states of the South, the poorer the population is, the more supportive they are of politicians who’s policies support the rich and powerful, and shit all over their own well being.  Tennessee’s city of Chattanooga is home to a Volkswagen, a German manufacturing plant, who is in the process of conducting a three day vote on whether or not it’s workers will join the UAW union.  If it does so, it will be the first foreign owned auto company in the South to have union representation.  It is currently the only Volkswagen plant in the world without some type of worker or union representation, and that is just the way the republican leadership in Tennessee wants to keep it.  So dedicated are the elected republican leaders in the state committed to preventing it’s citizen workers from organizing for their rights and conditions in the workplace, that Governor Bill Haslam and other state legislators are actually threatening the workers and the Volkswagen company publicly with retaliation if they chose unionization.

Republican state legislators have actually threatened to withhold future tax incentives for factories thinking of moving to Tennessee, if the Volkswagen plant joins the union.  Most likely this in violation of federal laws that still protect workers rights to join unions.  Employers are not legally allowed to retaliate against workers seeking to unionize, so now the good republican governor and his army of republican legislators are attempting to intervene by threatening to withhold future corporate welfare for other companies considering location in Tennessee.  Apparently, the republicans in the state want to keep the workers rights, pay, and working condition more in line with that of Mexico and other third world countries.  And the real question is, how stupid are the citizens of this state who vote for these assholes that clearly have nothing but disdain for the working class and poor?  Will they be stupid enough to vote no to joining the union?

When I was a young man many moons ago, living in Tennessee, I remember seeing workers of the Nissan auto plant, and their spouses and girlfriends, wearing tee-shirts that read “Eye Can Speak for Myself” with the “I” being spelled like an actual eye, with a big eye drawn onto the shirt.  This was part of the campaign then to vote no against unionization of that plant.  These idiots actually thought that the union was some outside force that was seeking to take over their job and do them harm, charge them membership fees, maybe even make their benevolent employer Nissan pull up stakes and move elsewhere, where the local population would be happy to work for less and with less benefits.  That campaign succeeded, the union was voted down, and moron workers got what they voted for and deserved:  now days Nissan employs “contract workers” who make as little as 12 dollars an hour, while the temp agency that technically employs them, earns upwards of a 30 percent fee for their part as acting as a vulture and roadblock to workers pay and rights.

Outside groups have bought up billboard ads in Tennessee urging the workers to vote no.  One billboard called the UAW the United Obama Workers union, in a cynical ploy to play not only on the president’s unpopularity in the state, but to stir racists feelings in the former Confederate slave state.  The irony of this is of course, that these working class people of the state, fearful of Obama putting their white asses in chains, are in practice, voting to enslave themselves to the corporate managers and CEO’s, and voting for republican politicians who are staunchly dedicated to tending to the needs of the rich and all powerful corporate paymasters, and staunchly dedicated to making sure that the workers who put them in office, have absolutely power or voice in the workplace.

It is nothing short of stunning, and infuriating.  Watching these dumb, easily manipulated, pay check to pay check living, working poor, continually vote for rich republicans who do not give a shit about them, their pay, their plight, their healthcare,  or their food supply, is about as frustrating to me as I imagine it is to a cop watching an abused woman continue to return to her abuser and refusing to press charges, even though legal protections and help is right under their nose.

Let’s hope the workers at the plant are smart enough to vote yes this time around at a chance to having a collective voice in the workforce. Let’s hope they are smarter than the tea-baggers of the state who vote for their elected officials to stand up and fight against the workers of the state in order to enrich further the handful of corporate swine that they work for.  Another irony in this story is that the Volkswagen leadership and ownership don’t have a problem with the workers joining the UAW.  Germany, the strongest economy in the European Union, is used to workers having rights, decent pay and benefits, and a say in the workplace.  In fact, most all of our European counterparts give their workers more rights, better pay and better benefits.  Contrary to popular belief among conservatives in this country, unions and a livable wage haven’t killed the economies of our Western, European neighbors.  Neither has nationalized healthcare – in fact, it makes the citizens’ quality of life better.  But here, tea-baggers still trust the “job creators” while being suspicious of Big Government, too brainwashed to realize that Big Business currently occupies OUR government, and that they are the fools voting them into power.

I have spoken many times about the sophisticated propaganda system of the super rich that is used to control public opinion, and this is a prime example.  Simple review of the facts and history of organized labor in this country show that when unions had the most membership, the middle class earned more and had better benefits.  As membership of labor unions has declined in this country, so have wages and benefits.  Sometimes the dumber of anti-union working stiffs will say something like “unions are the reason these companies moved to Mexico and China in the first place, they make it too expensive for the company to survive here.”  To which I respond, “No, you dumb son-of-a-bitch, our elected officials writing trade laws that allow these greedy companies to move to Mexico and China for the purpose of exploiting their slave labor market and lack of environment regulations for huge profit increases are the reason they moved to Mexico and China.  And now they have your dumb ass actually paying these companies through your  tax dollars to come to your state and allow you the privilege of working for them, if you are willing to do it at a low enough wage, with minimal benefits, and under a totalitarian, corporate structure in which you have almost no rights.  Or, as your slave masters’s bought and owned republican politicians that you voted for calls it, “a right to work state.”

Surely a salute to our former terrorism sponsoring and class warfare against the middle class and poor, President Ronald Reagan, deserves some credit for helping propagate the myth that “government is the cause of your problems, not the solution.”  Because what of course he really was saying was, “government is the solution for helping the rich and powerful take away your rights enrich themselves even further.”  He convinced workers in this country that “getting the government off of their backs” would make them richer and more free.  Of course what he meant by that was getting the government off of the backs of the big corporations and allowing them to do whatever the hell they want, such as poisoning the water we drink and polluting the air we breathe; move our jobs overseas to sweat shops, use our volunteer army and tax dollars to terrorize and murder people of the third world to allow them to be more profitable; to create a private owned monopoly system over our medicine supply, and allow our insurance companies to determine who gets medical care and who does not; to subsidize companies like Walmart and McDonald’s by allowing them to pay their workers poverty wages while our tax dollars provide food stamps and medicaid to allow their workers to live.  Or, as Reagan also championed this job creation theory: “de-regulation.”

Generally speaking, whatever term a republican comes up, actually means the opposite.  Slogans like “Eye Can Speak for Myself” really mean, vote no on collective bargaining so you cannot speak for yourself in the workplace.  “Support the Troops” really means pay them jack shit, abandon them when they come home, and deploy them multiple times into combat zones to kill and be killed for the private wealth of the trans-national corporations while telling them they are defending freedom.  “Invest in Clean Energy” means continue to subsidize dirty fossil fuels with tax payer money.  “Keep the government out the way between you and your doctor” has meant and still means keep the insurance company in the way of you and your doctor.  The list goes on.

In Tennessee, the term “Volunteer State” apparently means volunteer to give all of your rights to the private and powerful corporations you work for.  And if you don’t, your elected republican governor and legislature just might not give away your tax dollars in the future to companies that you work for.  Volunteer now apparently means to volunteer yourself as a grateful slave, thankful to have your corporate master give you a job, as long as you pay your taxes to pay for their “investment” in your state.

Unbelivable.  Make me proud, the state of my birthplace.  Take back some power for the working men and women and vote yes for that union.