Dennis Affinati, business manager of Electrical Workers Local 910 in Watertown, N.Y.,--located near the Canadian border--doesn't turn his back on his friends.  

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In an Op-Ed in the Washington post yesterday (Destroying What the UAW Built), columnist Harold Meyerson brought up the post WWII history of the UAW and its late President Walter Reuther, whose forward thinking literally built the American Middle Class and gave us thirty years of prosperity which we can only hunger for now.

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Well, we know that Mitch McConnell's heart is definitely two sizes too small.  

The Republican Senate leader's successful efforts to block the auto bailout has struck fear into the hearts of hundreds of thousands of auto workers--and millions of people in their families, communities, and industry.  That's a lot of Whovilles.  And even by the Grinch's standards, the Mitch who Stole Christmas is diabolical.  

Unionized nurses around the country, members of the AFL-CIO just like our UAW brothers and sisters, are kicking off a new campaign to let the Mitch know he's gone too far.  Time to either get some Christmas cheer--or get booed off the American stage.  Please help out by sending a message to the Mitch here--think of it as his lump of coal. We'll send him your words....and the message that a revitalized labor movement is not going to let these jobs be lost.

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I'm in the middle of my first final exam period in law school, so I haven't been online much. But now and then I've tuned-in to right-wing radio to clear (empty?) my brain, and the fodder I've heard about the auto rescue is nothing short of...predictable.

There's a few dominant themes:

1. Politicians apparently think they know how to build cars better than Detriot

2. The free-market needs to run its course; let smaller, more efficient companies innovate and create the type of cars Americans want to buy

3. The Big Three find themselves in this ditch in part because autoworkers are overpaid and unwilling to make concessions

All three are either misleading or false. But the third is particularly pernicious: Republicans want to use this crisis to bury organized labor and the hard work of union members. It's almost like they're going for conservative bonus points, smearing the hard work of many thousands because the economic crisis presented the opportunity.

So check out this video (courtesy of Oxdown). Autoworkers gathered in the office of Senator Shelby (R-AL) to clear up some misconceptions with Republican staffers of the Banking Committee:

It's tough for Republicans to deny the fallout inevitable absent an auto rescue. If they didn't, the Bush White House wouldn't show willingness to tap existing funds. Would the White House be sending different signals if Bush's term wasn't over? Or if McCain had won? Probably. But Bush has no political capital left to lose, so a hint of reality has room to creep in.

On the other hand, Republicans in Congress (and on the airwaves) still can't help themselves.

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Thom Hartmann made an interesting statement on Olbermann's show Friday:

We have gone, when Reagan came into office we were the largest exporter of manufactured goods and the largest importer of raw materials on the planet. And the largest creditor. More people owed us money than anybody else in the world. Now just twenty eight years later we're the largest importer of finished goods, manufactured goods, exporter of raw materials which is kind of the definition of a third world nation and we're the most in debt of any country in the world. This is the absolute consequence of Reaganomics.

So here we are facing 2009 and it doesn't look like things will change anytime soon.

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