Even More than Race, the South Is About Exploiting Workers

[G_j]

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/131359/even_more_than_race%2C_the_south_is_about_exploiting_workers/

Even More than Race, the South Is About Exploiting Workers
By Joseph B. Atkins, Progressive Populist. Posted March 13, 2009.

The heart of Southern conservatism is the preservation of a status quo that serves elite interests.

Cheap labor. Even more than race, it’s the thread that connects all of Southern history—from the ante-bellum South of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis to Tennessee’s Bob Corker, Alabama’s Richard Shelby and the other anti-union Southerners in today’s U.S. Senate.

It’s at the epicenter of a sad class divide between a desperate, poorly educated workforce and a demagogic oligarchy, and it has been a demarcation line stronger than the Mason-Dixon in separating the region from the rest of the nation.

The recent spectacle of Corker, Shelby and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky leading the GOP attack on the proposed $14 billion loan to the domestic auto industry—with 11 other Southern senators marching dutifully behind—made it crystal clear. The heart of Southern conservatism is the preservation of a status quo that serves elite interests.

Expect these same senators and their colleagues in the US House to wage a similar war in the coming months against the proposed Employee Free Choice Act authorizing so-called “card check” union elections nationwide.

“Dinosaurs,” Shelby of Alabama called General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler as he maneuvered to bolster the nonunion Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and other foreign-owned plants in his home state by sabotaging as many as three million jobs nationwide.

..more..

[F.C.James]

1. I hate to say it, but it always has been

Reading history will tell us that the South has always sought -- and preferred cheap labor to anything else. From the founding of Jamestown ... til now.

[MadMaddie]

6. I was going to say the same thing

This is not anything new, it is as it always has been.

[spooky3]

2. A brilliant comic by Jen Sorensen nails it:

http://www.slowpokecomics.com/strips/landofthefree.html

[jwirr]

3. That and their religious belief that the poor etc are being punished

by God combine to make sense of many of their problems. We had a minister who came up from the south to northern Minnesota and insisted that the government was bad because it did not work. We all wanted to ask "what government are you talking about"? He lasted about 5 months because all the anti union/government stuff does not work here. Their institutions fail because they want them to fail not because they are bad institutions.

[unc70]

4. The same is true for the North, the West, and everywhere else

We already have a couple of threads on this article. Oh! Look how stupid and bad the South is! The rich and powerful working to maintain their ability to exploit cheap labor. Must be comforting to believe that this is mostly a Southern problem, rather than being a universal one.

The self-serving positions of those Repub Senators in protecting local economic powers is little different than everyday actions by about 80 other Senators. There are few like Paul Wellstone who are advocates for the poor and the weak. (BTW Wellstone was the product of a good Southern education here at UNC; I knew him at the time.)

[G_j]

5. then you know NC is a "right to work" state

translation: little rights for workers..

I agree that now everywhere in the country has become worse for workers.
Still, I'm 57 yrs old, and I have never experienced such meager pay as I have since I moved to NC 16 yrs ago.
The reason I'm still here, is that I love the people.

[unc70]

11. I know NC labor law/history; not defending it. Tired of South being singled out.

Protecting the established institutions and the entrenched powers is common to all conservatism, not just that in the South.

Several times a week a new article smugly points out the various shortcomings of the South and its people. We certainly have our share of ignorance, intolerance, bigotry, and stupidity, but so does everywhere else.

Most politics involves manipulating emotions to create competing factions, divided by over-hyped "issues" rather than being united by their shared needs and desires in a "populist" movement.

In NC over the last 150 years, the issues have included race, rural vs urban, east vs west, men vs women, literacy, locals vs outsiders, elitism, and about anything else. During the first half of the Twentieth Centry, NC was one of the most corrupt states, mostly run by just a couple of party bosses. That was how long it was between "populist" governors.

[specimenfred1984]

12. The deep South keeps electing criminals

If you want to defend that, what does that make you?

[unc70]

13. Your post makes me "perplexed" since I have not defended those politicians

I am just tired of the general bashing of the South for things found everywhere.

You state that the Deep South keeps electing criminals. The same is true of Illinois or Ohio or California or ... So what is your point?

[Thothmes]

14. Like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton?

[kwenu]

7. Please spare me the bullshit of the South and "race." The North is no damned better.

[Deja Q]

8. North Carolina?

:hide:

Sorry. I could not resist. You are right; it seems the country is united in making this downward spiral inevitable.

[obiwan]

9. Try living in the Midwest. "Right To Work" State, my ass!

More like "Right To Be Exploited Then Unemployed".

I gave up on the Midwest after trying really hard for 15 years and winding up still poor. I left in 1981, moved to California and got a career and a life.

[misanthrope]

10. For years the Southern mantra of economic development...

...has been to face north and chant, "Cheap labor, cheap land, cheap taxes."

[psychmommy]

15. check out the privatized prison industry,

prison labor is damn near slave labor and they keep their prisons full. i would say that poor folks-especially men and especially men of color are part of the cheap labor supply. the mandatory minimums for crack and probably crank are outrageous-i know a young man sentenced to 10 years for possession with intent to distribute. insane. throw in a gun and that is a quarter of a century of cheap-damn near free labor.

[raccoon]

16. Glad I could still REC this! I live in a so-called right to work state.

So many morans here think unions are like the antichrist or Commies or something. These are usually the very people who would be helped by unions.

[burythehatchet]

19. My favorite Orwellian phrase - Right to WORK!

More like Right to Fire Your Ass Because I Don't Like Your Bumper Sticker.

[Belial]

17. Nebraska is the state to live..

[BlooInBloo]

18. Nothing makes white folks happier than telling black folks "it's not race, it's class."

[anonymous171]

22. Racism is just a (very real) side-effect of the Class War.

We must deal with Racism before we can deal with the Upper Class. Sweeping it under the rug by saying "it's not race, it's class" won't do.

[MellowDem]

25. I'm so happy!!!

I'm a happy white folk! If you want to know what makes racism stay alive, it's ignoring its connection to class. The whole reason racism was even invented was based on economics and class. They cannot be seperated. So, technically, racism really is based on class, not the other way around. And many poor whites continuously vote against their own economic interests because they view class as a race issue, when it is the other way around. And since they are the majority in many cases, they win. Because many poor blacks or other minorities see it the same way. Leaders of both sides of the aisle have made sure that class is seen as a sub-category of race instead of the other way around. Did you hear poverty mentioned in the campaign?

It's why race doesn't matter near as much now for wealthier minority races that were historically terribly discriminated against, like Indians, Asians, Jews or even Hispanics, compared to blacks. Class is the main issue, race is the sub-issue that is very effectively used as a distraction. Even to this day, many progressives perpetuate its effectiveness by refusing to see the connection between race and class.

Once you get rid of class disparities, racial discrimination and bigotry go down and are much easier to extinguish. As long as those racial class disparities exist, racial discrimination and bigotry will continue especially in the black communities. Poverty fighting programs and social relief are the best bets to extinguishing racism. Universal health care is a great start!

[OwnedByFerrets]

20. Yeah, that Right to Work thang has really worked out

great for us.:sarcasm:

[OwnedByFerrets]

21. I have tried to get rid of Shelby and Sessions, but I am

surrounded by idiots who cant see past Guns, Gays and god.

[cobalt1999]

23. The North industrialized on a foundation of cheap and child labor.

When workers finally got rights and pay, those Northern industrialists moved their work to cheaper countries.

So, what region of the country is truly about exploiting workers?

[4_TN_TITANS]

24. Sad but true....

I'm amazed at how the people around me continuously vote against their best interest because they cling to the 'party of God'. Religion has much to do with it - instead of questioning social injustices, people are convinced that it's God's Will.