He'll go into a decline carrying on in that manner. He may need to invest in smelling salts and a fainting couch.

And like your friend, I think they know it.

Nothing, nada, zero.

so that companies would NOT have to pay overtime. It effected almost 13 million workers who ended up taking a 10-20,000 hit to their incomes.

They want ALL overtime pay eliminated.

The reason people aren't hearing about this is that the news was very much suppressed in 2004 - Broadcast and print media companies were filled with the workers whose positions were being reclassified. After the media kept Bush in office, they followed through.

My husband started 2005 knowing he would be making 10,000 less. That money was taken OUT of the middle class and working class and redistributed to the financial elites.

I have brought this up before with this certain individual as well. He's one of those union members that hates unions. He always complains that unions support Democrats. I use the example you just gave to let him know why they don't support the GOP. I also have discussed H.R. 1406, "The Working Families Flexibility Act" with him. That's were they want to replace overtime with time off later, as if that would ever work.

noise brainwashing techniques.

Thanks for giving him the straight story, nonetheless, loe.

President Obama announced in March that new regs would be issued to change this. Some employers won't be happy, but many are wondering how far they will go.

The money stolen from your husband was class theft pure and simple, much worse than shoplifting a box of cheap cigars.

Work a person 60~70 hours a week. That extra 20 to 30 hours allows the worker time to be with his/her family.

-- Lt. Col. Jessup

Nearly every single hard core R/tea bagger is directly taking from tax payer dollars or benefiting from some kind of "liberal" policy.

How people can be so unaware or operate from such a massive disconnect is bewildering.

BUT, it is there and it isn't going away.

That republi-CONS alone, CONservatives and their ilk, are the only deserving ones, the anointed ones, the ones who are entitled to rule and to hold sway over others. THEY'RE the important ones. THEY'RE the superior ones. THEY'RE the deserving ones. So it's okay when THEY do it. And it's okay when THEY take it and cash the government checks for themselves. Just don't let the other guy get any...

that about sums it up ...

One who toils all day at an hourly job, earning the wages of a working class democrat, then clocks out and starts channeling the economic teachings of Steve Forbes. Sean Hannity does not have his interests in mind, but it all makes sense when presented without debate.

Maybe one day he'll realize that.

They believe that loyality to people who regard them as fools will trickle down some money on them. If they were waiting table for them, they'd find they wouldn't even tip.

The way Romney did which is part of what got the 47% video released. The staff had always been treated nicely by Clinton, etc. and made to feel part of something of importance. The guy who recorded the video was shocked at the rude way they not regarded the staff as anything but not waiting on them fast enough. It hurt.

People that follow the monied class when they have little or no money to invest in stocks are 'basking in the glow' and living in a fantasy.

You need to let your tea party friend know that the Republicans in Congress want to take away his overtime, either by making him exempt or by doing away with overtime all together.

Glad you're here. SPECTACULAR point you make! You need to let this individual know that his precious republi-CONS are the ones who are trying to take that overtime away. And that's only SOME of what they'd like to deny him and take away from him and cut back on him.

I have wingnut family members and coworkers. They lap up every piece of drivel that Faux News and talk radio put out as if it were gospel truth. But yet they benefit from liberal policies. When you bring up the fact that EVERY good thing that workers have and that we take for granted---forty hour work week, overtime pay, pensions, sick leave, etc---was enacted because of liberals they just don't wanna hear it. I get the "Well that would have happened anyway" BS from them. No it wouldn't have. Conservatives fought against all those laws and still do today. But yet, like lemmings, my wingnut family members and coworkers will march to the polls to vote for the GOP every time---even though it is against their own interests. It's maddening.
My brother has worked for a manufacturing plant for 30 yrs and many times the company has screwed the workers over--cutting their pay, benefits, etc--and my brother bitches about it. But yet he hates Unions! My 86 yr old dad votes for Republicans who want to privatize or eliminate Medicare and Social Security. That's just insane! "Oh they won't do that" he says mindlessly. Yeah dad they will! I honestly don't get it. What does it take to wake some people up?

Good to have you with us! I don't know what it takes to wake some of them up. I think they have bought into this whole weird utterly nonsensical idea that if you just keep on voting republi-CON, then YOU TOO will be rich someday! Magic! Maybe that's what is really meant by "magical thinking." And they'll be waiting til their corposes are cool, hauled away, and properly boxed up.

it's like a mass kind of intellectual disconnect has occurred.........I can't believe some of the mindless email I get from conservatives, touting a ridiculous message that could be disproved with one google.......it's pathetic

Proving what liars rush and BillO are too...*crickets*

I think the reason this happens is because like it or not the republicans figured out their messaging decades ago.
They realized that it is more important that substance when it comes to getting votes.

This was accomplished by somehow equating being a patriot with voting gop and supporting the nra (although that last one is more recent).

Likewise they exploited people's religious beliefs and connected being a christian to voting gop.

I live in the south and many people here would be ashamed to say they vote democrat. Somehow they think that it is not the "real american" thing to do...

Very strange phenomenon indeed.

There are so too many other ( excellent ) posts on this thread for me to agree with and as my own observations, as I have to suffer through benighted friends/family/co-workers: It's all been said.

But what it really comes down to is stupid tribalism/team-player bullshit. It really is a strange phenomenon because whatever sense of fellowship they think they get from their beliefs are so categorically against them in cold hard reality. It's not easy for some to admit that they played for the wrong team: the cognitive dissonance can rip their innards to shreds, so they tend not to rock the boat among their peers.

I live in the south ( as a 20+ year transplant ) as well and used to be a center-right republican. As I became more politically aware, and let empirical evidence guide my thought process, I had no problem whatever in not only quitting my team, but wanting to smoke them. I sense others making the connection but can't understand why they choose tribalism over reality.

Never been a sports fan or religious so I can't sense the need to belong somehow.

Oh: Major big welcome to DU.

GWB is a prime example, but there are many others. The derision, bluster and bile spewed forth by Hannity, Limbaugh, et al are part and parcel of how the wingnuts "get over". It's why facts and reason dismay them so - authouritarians rarely deal in facts!

Palin and Steve King. They actually do not get the fact it has taken presidents like FDR, LBJ and BHO to provide programs such as overtime pay, social security, civil rights, medicare, and healthcare. If he is getting overtime pay and lives long enough he will receive Social Security unless his GOP and TP friends is able to stop it.

eom

= class traitor.

Great to have you join us! Yeah, the part that bothers me most is not just the ferocity of their clinging to these bad ideas, and the fervency with which they believe they're somehow "right," or somehow Jesus-sanctioned. It's that they're proud of it. They're proud of their delusions. Some of these poor folks - I wonder if this is so deeply embedded by now that I don't know if they can be reached (although we should not stop trying, I suppose). They're proud of their firm convictions. Proud enough to want to back it up with force.

Which NEVER ends well.

I think the answer to the conundrum is that many working people don't think the lib/left is going to deliver more to them than their beliefs will.

I'm learning you can't convince a teabagger of anything fox-nonsense doesn't stuff between their ears. I've given up on my relatives. We'll just have to die out, and hope the younger generation isn't so superficial and ignorant as my generation is.

There will ALWAYS be fodder for fox-nonsense, as there will always be fearful, hateful, ignorant and selfish people in this world; but I think there is a difference between THEM and what fox-nonsense has set it's parasitic sights on. My generation are "stuck in the mud"...the old way of thinking. We miss the 1950's. We watched the US as the world's police and model to look up to. Sorry folks, but THOSE DAYS are gone! ...and they want them back terribly. Oh well.....

So, talk if you want to the teabaggers; but it's a lost cause in my mind. There isn't anything they don't already know "with fox-facts" and right wing talking points. There is NO depth to their reasoning at all. Simple = good, in their feeble minds. We'll die out, and hopefully the emerging population will take their responsibility more seriously than they have shown so far, and VOTE THEIR INTERESTS, and the interests of the nation FIRST!!

You're right! Trying to reason with wingnuts is a lost cause. They always have their Faux News talking points and bumper sticker mentality. (As they say, you can't fix stupid.) They long for a return to the 1950's where, in their minds, everything was swell! Blacks "knew their place", woman were in the home, gays stayed in the closet and everyone loved the baby Jesus. They also believe that back in the "good old days" that taxes were low as was government regulation. (That's totally untrue. Taxes on the uber-rich were as high as 90% and Unions were strong but I digress.)
My hope is in the younger generation. They are much more progressive in their thinking and once the dinosaurs of the Right die out things can change for the better.

Every bagger I've ever encountered would simply dismiss such an inconvenient truth as a liberal lie and then pull some "fact" out of their ass to explain it away.

I guess I didn't mention that part. He's been hard at work looking it all up on the internet trying to prove me wrong. This has been going on for about a week.

Keep on asking him for frequent updates.

With any luck at all, as he over and over again only finds that it was under FDR (and over the vociferous protestations of Republicans and all big business) that we got the 40 hour week and time and a half overtime, maybe he'll start to realize how wrong Fox News really is.

A couple of other things. In the 1970's I had a job that, while I was not in a union, benefitted from a strong union presence in that industry. As a consequence, any time I worked more than 8 hours in a day, I got overtime. Even if for some reason I didn't work 40 hours in the week. It was quite nice.

The other thing is that some months ago I read an interesting article about overtime, the 40 hour week, and what's wrong with all the work-obsessed people who run Silicon Valley and such places. It pointed out that back when we went from a standard 12 hour day/60 hour work week to a standard 8 hour day/40 hour week, business owners were flabbergasted to discover that the workers were MORE productive in those 40 hours than they had been in 60. Businesses got more than their money's worth. There was also an interesting analysis of the idiocy of 80-100 hour workweeks in the computer field, and how that sort of work schedule reduces productivity. By a lot. According to the article someone had looked at how Apple employees had worked such insane hours when working on the first IPhone and concluded that the phone would have come to market two years earlier had the employees worked a normal schedule. But the problem is that companies like Apple are run by people who have essentially no life whatsoever outside of the job, and they don't respect people who aren't like that. Me? I work to live. I do not live to work.

I long ago figured out that diminishing productivity thing. I observed people in jobs where they were working 80 hour weeks during budget time, and could tell by listening to them describing what was happening, that basically NO work was being done during the extra time, and probably the quality of the work in the otherwise regular time, wasn't so hot.

Just my personal observations there.

but, you know, the golden rule and all that liberal crap lol

at times like these: "Riiise above it." Hold the long "I" vowel a beat or two.

The good: You drove him crazy. I always love it when I confront a right winger who has no view outside their own little bubble. You actually penetrated the bubble. Good job.

The bad: No matter what you say, or do, they will never change.
FAUX news has brainwashed these idiots. They constantly say to themselves, "Stay within the bubble. It's my way, or the highway". They're hopeless.

The ugly: Glen Beck

What a load of cobblers. If you want to find someone to thank for your rights as a worker, find a Democrat - preferably a Democrat that's also a member of a labor union.

they didn't reason themselves into.

But it's fun to try.

also had a huge majority in the House and Senate when the New Deal passed.

Being completely ignorant of history is a prerequisite for Tea Party membership.

As Colbert says, facts have a liberal bias.

When Republicans got in, they started repealing parts of the New Deal, and for whatever reason, FDR signed those bills, too.

Abortion derangement syndrome, homosexual derangement syndrome, so many conditions......

belief is emotion is there's some emotion driving their "thoughts" .... they hate the idea that they have to share the programs they've benefited from liberals/unions with the "undeserved."

I always ask them why they think others don't deserve these benefits and follow up with asking them rhetorically if the 1%ers feel 'their" deserving.

...but CAN'T because the government is taking too much away in taxes.

Then they're told MOST of that money is going towards welfare so lazy people (guess which color) don't have to work.

The rest is wasted because government is horribly inefficient. The old "crime wouldn't pay if the government ran it" joke.

Then there's all those stupid regulations their boss is burdened with. You know, like the government designed horse with a safety net around it.

They really believe this stuff. It's like when Michael Moore asked about how much it cost to run Social Security and most people thought it was a half or a third what they collect and it's actually .5%.

This is why it's called "spin". You twist things around to be the opposite of what they are. In this case, the underlying truth is your boss does NOT want to give you a raise. In fact, he would love it if he could cut your pay to $3.50 an hour and then pay it in currency he prints himself that's only good at his own store.

That's the way many mining towns operated.

You are pointing out the mining town run by the company. This reminds me of "germinal" which is about the plight of early to mid 19th century workers in france. Exactly like you describe.
A masterwork by emil zola who wrote many novels on the condition of the workers during the industrial revolution.

If it was not for liberals we would still be laboring under that.

He needs to get off the Fox News habit!

Give him a copy of The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, and see how he reacts to that!

If he likes his overtime he's gonna LOVE the rest of the stuff that unions and liberals got him.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/RepublicanDay.htm

http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/editorial/guest-commentary/21099-day-in-the-life-of-joe-middle-class-republican.html

I posted this upthread, too. It's freakin' BRILLIANT!!! There should be a WHOLE BUNCH of posts of this all over the place.

First - because WE need to see it and be reminded.

Second - TALKING POINTS! Have you ever been in a situation where you know full well what the issue is and how it extrapolates out into consequences that the other side hasn't really bothered considering because they truly don't understand, and don't grok* it, and don't hear it or see it or feel it for themselves, and they can't relate, so they don't. Maybe you get tongue-tied. Maybe you don't like confronting people. Well - read this over a few times. You'll have all kinds of simplified, down-to-earth where everybody can relate to it, universally shared, experienced, and understood truths to illustrate your larger point - that LIBERALS are the ones who are your friends. LIBERALS have put their money where their mouths are, and their asses on the line, and have stuck their necks out so that life could be a wee bit better or easier for you and everybody else. WE LIBERALS are the ones who've attempted to sand down some of the rough edges we have to pass by, out there. It's the LIBERALS you should be siding with and appreciating, and understanding honestly for what we are - NOT what your GOP/teabagger friends or Pox Noise might tell you.

(*grok, v. - from the Robert Heinlein book "Stranger in a Strange Land" - infinitive: to grok. Which means to understand, or ingest, or take in, or "get," or empathize with an idea or concept SO thoroughly, SO deeply, SO intimately that it's as though you actually ate it.)

and points out all the everyday things they benefit from compliments of unions and liberals.

Those who whine - "I want my America BACK!!!" Well, bring to their attention the fact that the 1950s "Father Knows Best"/Beaver Cleaver America they think they remember - was an America where UNIONS WERE STRONG. It was strong unions back then that allowed for Dad to bring home a paycheck, with pension and benefits, large enough to support a family of four or five - so that Mom could stay home in her nice house dress and pearls and make cookies and run the vacuum cleaner til the kids came home from school every day. So - you turn to them and say "WOW, I'm SO Glad you agree about the value of strong UNIONS!" And watch 'em go "TILT!"

we wouldn't have overtime, as well as sick days, vacations, medical coverage, etc, without unions.

If they are faced with facts that denial disappears. If one thing that protected them from knowledge and therefore reality is challenged, they are lost.

Idols with feet of clay that crumble before them are hard to deny and therefore they are left with no coping mechanism. It would be a good time to bombard them with quotes from Ronald Reagan about immigration and guns. They might meltdown. It would be fun to watch, but then rational people could offer support.

A large dose of actual labor history is in order.

worked well for some mental illnesses. However, I don't have much hope for the tea partiers.

things collective bargaining and unions have achieved for workers?

might want to break that to him after a couple more days.

oh, and don't forget to bring up social security and medicare and the players who are slowly dismantling it - including the leadership of aarp and their stake in the insurance business pie.

without getting clocked smartly between the eyes with a two by four first. Unless you associate unwelcome truths with unpleasant stimuli, they generally don't remember it.

You're going to have fun watching this guy try to tapdance around every positive thing done for labor being a liberal idea. Twisting and tapdancing is a fun combo to watch.

Eventually he'll just reboot and discard any information that doesn't fit the world view the fascists have spoon fed him.

I find these types could care less about any facts. Well your a liberal aren't you? That alone discounts anything you say. Reality is irrelevant and the only true reality is Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. Only a Liberal, Pinko, Commie would think otherwise. They aren't stupid like you are. You just want to steal from the rich who earned it and give it to the lazy good for nothing bastards who don't even want to work. People like you will lie about anything.
I have tried but never succeeded myself to influence the other side in my day to day life.
Keep up the good work.
-Airplane

He can thank the socialists for those.

"Son, don't wrassle with a pig. Everyone gets dirty, nothing gets solved, but the pig loves it."

Don't try to teach a pig to fly.
You will only frustrate yourself and piss off the pig.
-Airplane

how a country of seemingly normal people allow such atrocities to happen in their own back yard. For example, ethnic cleansing, nazi party, etc. Then I inevitably hear someone get insulted and say "how could you compare the two" as a way to deflect their own short comings. The narrative has degraded to a dangerous level in this country. If history is any indicator, it doesn't look good for the future. I hope I'm wrong.