[wmv width=”360″ height=”280″]http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/capi001/johnlennon/workingclassher/video/workingclassher_v300.asx[/wmv]
from the John Lennon, the Official Website
Working Class Heroes
SpinZone
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Bill O’Reilly may proclaim at the beginning of his program that viewers are entering the “No Spin Zone,” but a new study by Indiana University media researchers found that the Fox News personality consistently paints certain people and groups as villains and others as victims to present the world, as he sees it, through political rhetoric.
from an Indiana University Press Release, May 2
This ought to be really obvious, but it is interesting to see demagoguery fought with simple fact. Or maybe this is just childishness fought by adults. In any case, the researchers also made a useful list of O’Reilly’s techniques, including what they call his “seven propaganda devices”:
* Name calling — giving something a bad label to make the audience reject it without examining the evidence;
* Glittering generalities — the opposite of name calling;
* Card stacking — the selective use of facts and half-truths;
* Bandwagon — appeals to the desire, common to most of us, to follow the crowd;
* Plain folks — an attempt to convince an audience that they, and their ideas, are “of the people”;
* Transfer — carries over the authority, sanction and prestige of something we respect or dispute to something the speaker would want us to accept; and
* Testimonials — involving a respected (or disrespected) person endorsing or rejecting an idea or person.
Again, not surprisingly, the researchers note that these were common practices during the 1930s, evoking Father Charles Coughlin particularly, the anti-New Deal and pro fascist priest. Coughlin was instrumental in stunting U.S. governmental support for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which unsuccessfully tried to help democratic forces defeat Franco during the Spanish Civil War.
The Spanish Civil War was the first battle against European fascism; its been argued that if Franco had been defeated in Spain, the worst of the Second World War could have been avoided. Amy Goodman writes about the Spanish Civil War and the Brigade, here; the Brigade was recently honored at a recent Museum of the City of New York exhibit “Facing Fascism.â€
What I find fascinating is how the very same sorts of rhetoric, focused on fear and xenophobia, could be used in such different historical times. Or, perhaps we are not so different. Fear is always useful in domestic politics.
Card Check
Because it is very difficult for workers to form a union by going through the NRLB election process, the UAW and other unions now use an alternative technique known as “card-check recognition.†Under card check, the employer voluntarily agrees to recognize the union if the union presents signed union authorization cards from a majority of workers. In most instances, the authorization cards are validated by an outside person, such as an arbitrator or religious leader.
from the UAW’s Labor Law
Here’s another reform that seems minor to most– except those who don’t want workers to have any power– but that might make a huge difference in shifting the balance of power away from corporations. It’s also an example of how large-scale changes in the world– the decline in unionization in the United States– can be dependent on very small factors.
Actually, it’s not one small factor that led to the decline of unions, but many small factors. Among the most important, though, you would have to include the myriad of ways that it became increasingly difficult and complex to vote for a union at your workplace. As usual with the right wing, this ongoing attack on the things ordinary people need and want– good wages, health care, freedom of speech– is couched in the usual Orwellian patriotism.
The idea, generally, is that the less organized we are the more powerful we become. War is peace, too. Card check laws try to turn that around in a small way. Keep an eye on the (unfortunately named) Employee Free Choice Act, which, if it passes, might be a sign that things are turning a bit away from the bosses.
Wal-Mart’s Local Harvest
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. unveiled a national TV advertising campaign on Sunday aimed at burnishing the image of the world’s largest retailer.
The 30-second and 60-second spots, which initially broadcast in Omaha, Neb. and Tucson Ariz., in the summer, feature Wal-Mart employees describing cost savings for shoppers, charitable donations and the company’s recent efforts to provide health insurance for eligible employees, according to a press release from the retailer.
Market Watch, January 7, 2007
At Wal-Mart, we know that being an efficient, profitable business and being a good steward of the environment are goals that can be accomplished together. And our environmental goals are simple and straightforward: to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy; to create zero waste; and to sell products that sustain our resources and our environment. We believe that corporations can develop and implement practices that are good for the environment and good for business. We’re making amazing strides in this endeavor and we’re doing more every day.
from the Sustainability page, on Wal-Mart Facts
A study by the consulting firm Global Insight, which concludes that Wal-Mart’s expansion has saved U.S. consumers $263 billion, is deeply flawed. The statistical analysis generating this widely quoted figure fails the most rudimentary sensitivity checks used in good economic analysis, rendering its conclusions unreliable.
A robust set of research findings shows that Wal-Mart’s entry into local labor markets reduces the pay of workers in competing stores. This effect is largest in the South, where Wal-Mart expansion has been greatest.
Wal-Mart could raise wages and benefits significantly without raising prices, yet still earn a healthy profit. For example, while still maintaining a profit margin almost 50% greater than Costco, a key competitor, Wal-Mart could have raised the wages and benefits of each of its non-supervisory employees in 2005 by more than $2,000 without raising prices a penny
from the Economic Policy Institutes’ Report, “The Wal-Mart debate:A false choice between prices and wages.”
I live in one of those small central Illinois towns where it can be difficult to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart. Actually, there are two Wal-Marts nearby, one here in Charleston, and another about fifteen minutes away in Mattoon. We do have another grocery store, a local chain that was recently swallowed up by County Market, but they can’t beat the prices created by the economies of scale. Wal-Mart has, according to it’s website, “more than 6,600 stores in 13 countries and serve more than 176 million customers around the globe each week.”
If you are relatively affluent (or bored or both) and willing to spend the money, you can always drive an hour north to shop in Champaign, which as a university town has the usual quota of so-called health food groceries and the like. And, even though it makes no sense at all to burn up all that global-warming carbon just to avoid Wal-Mart, that is a fairly common thing among the local liberal cognoscenti, such as it is. (We have our own, much smaller university.) My guess is that Wal-Mart caught on among a lot of academic liberals because it meshes so well with their sense of superiority.