Ever wonder why "Workers have been tricked into being antiunion, antilabor, and antigovernment"?

I read this statement in an earlier DU thread that's currently on the Greatest Threads list "The Unemployable 50 Something Will Be Permanent Part Of The Labor Landscape Now":

My response: those same workers getting screwed by big corporations who pollute environments and abuse workers in the name of PROFITS also get hammered with right wing propaganda on the drives to and from work, with radio hosts like Sean Hannity (whose show is during East Coast afternoon drive) or Mark Levin (whose show is during West Coast afternoon drive & East Coast early evening/dinnertime) pushing the "antiunion, antilabor and antigovernment" message.

Not only that kind of message politically but culturally as well. Consider why you've heard your Republican-voting grandfather, brother, nephew, or co-worker complain about "government schools indoctrinating our children with anti-capitalist, anti-white, anti-American, anti-Christian messages every day". The right wing code word (used before Frank Luntz turned it into a mainstream dialect for campaigns) for public schools = government schools. That kind of message I just shared = anti-government message. Puts "government = bad" emotional message into right wingers' head far better than Reagan could with "government isn't the solution, government is the problem." Wingnut freaks out. Starts to cringe over ANYTHING related to that EVIL "government".

Which brings me to the latest such story, from a friend's Facebook page. It's about a high schooler from McAllen, Texas named Brenda Brinsdon, who's suing her HS district because according to the link provided, a story by Todd Starnes of Fox News Radio:

(If you want non Fox sources other news sources covered Brinsdon's story when it first occurred late 2011, like WFAA TV Dallas, Huffington Post, hell even Simon Maloy at Media Matters wrote a mockery of The Blaze's story of the case!)





The US Supreme Court ruled in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) against compulsory pledge recitation in public schools. So I think Brinsdon will win her lawsuit.

I've seen Starnes's name before, I googled his name and...damn he must make a LIVING hunting down these "liberal public school" stories to get his base fired up, see this one "Students Told to Call 9-11 Hijackers 'Freedom Fighters'"

You probably have seen plenty of stories like Brinsdon's, in a "tl;dr" format "WAH WAH SOB SOB why don't those commie public schools respect MY American heritage and flag ENOUGH??" And of course I bet a lot of the people in the comments section of the article who were complaining about our public schools "not respecting our flag & our freedom & our culture" then turn around and:
- Vote for the same Republi-CON politicians who filibuster bills that provide tax incentive for corporations to stop outsourcing jobs;

- Go shopping at Wal-Mart and other chain stores that import way more than half the stuff on the shelves from China, Mexico, or other low-wage countries yet wonder why the American Midwest lacks well-paying manufacturing jobs!

- And despite wonder where those good middle-class jobs are, AGAIN because their brains got warped by too much "CULTURE WAR" pout-rage on Fox Boobs, they KEEP voting for politicians who support Orwellian "right to work" (as Thom Hartmann adds "for less&quot laws, i.e. Rand Paul, Rick Snyder, Mitch Daniels, etc.
- Oh, their employer screwed them some way either by discriminatory pay, arbitrary pay cuts, arbitrary revocation of benefits, abuse of "at will" cause, etc.? Or if they got injured by a defective product and want to sue due to the medical bills? "Nah, I'll keep voting Republican, they love their country and the American Way like freedom and the flag and stuff!" Even if the Republican candidate gets campaign contribs from PACs like "Tort Reform PAC" by the SAME corporation that negligently manufactured the defective product.

- Not to mention that even many Republicans would not want their Social Security or Medicare cut off (remember those "Hands off my Medicare" signs at Tea Party rallies?) DESPITE voting for members of Congress who would like to hand off those programs to Wall Street or Steven Hemsley types.

I think most Americans who don't necessarily identify with the Democrats or Republicans have decided it's not worth it fighting against gay marriage or abortion anymore. But think about this: why do we have such an inefficient Congress with such clowns as Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann, Virginia Foxx, Jim Inhofe, Steve King, Steve Stockman (who ACTUALLY INVITED FUCKIN TED NUGENT TO THE STATE OF THE UNION), etc.

We've got a huge swath of middle class voters - whether registered Republicans or "independent" voters who think "both parties are just as bad" - fooled into voting against their own economic interests thanks to distractions like Culture War stories promoted by Starnes & Fox as I've shared, as well as the billion-dollar union-busting industry that keeps the peons distracted and fighting amongst one another so that the corporate thugs may retreat to their board rooms and concoct new worker-screwing schemes. It was bad enough with those so-called "[link:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_Democrat|Reagan Democrats]" who voted against Carter and Mondale because, as Stan Greenberg found, those white working class people thought the Democratic Party to be too much for the people of color, feminists, POORER people, and other "undesirables" and objectionable on porn, crime, and taxes.

So how do Democrats reclaim those middle- and working-class voters who've been warped by the Fox & right wing "culture war" machine? How can we stand for our values on education that intend for children to be critical thinkers rather than mindless patriots and appeal to those heartland Americans who are part of unions and want their Social Security but may not feel comfortable with multiculturalism or feminism or anything "un-American"? I don't know what's worse, Harry Reid being nonchalant about the filibuster or culture war issues derailing the political dialogue.