Glenn Beck and the 99ers

[filkertom]

I agree with karoli: Even though there's a transcript just below, you really have to watch this to get the sense of how Beck is saying what he's saying.

What we have is a rich guy berating people for not being able to get a job in an environment, a country, where so many jobs have been outsourced or eliminated or consolidated, that there are five applicants for every job remaining.

A rich guy berating people for thinking that, after having paid into the unemployment system for years, maybe they should get back more than a few months.

Goodness knows I felt that way. Kickin' into unemployment for 30 years, and when I was laid off in 2004 I got six months? WTF?

Anyway. If you can't find a job in this shitty economy, and you'd like help from the government so you don't get kicked out of your house and starve on the street, Glenn Beck thinks you're a Wobbly, and therefore evil communist/socialist/democrat/somethin'.

If you have any unemployed friends or family who happen to follow Mr. Beck, it likely can't hurt to inform them of that little tidbit.

Comments

So? One of our friends IS a wobblie.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

And it doesn't matter. Most of the more right-wing people I know ARE unemployed. They seem to be convinced that if this country were treating rich people well enough, either they could get a job or that THEIR circumstances are special and don't apply but those other lazy bums should work harder.

Re: So? One of our friends IS a wobblie.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

You're right. I should amend that.

[antinomic.livejournal.com]

I'm very fortunate to never have collected unemployment. It is not itemized on my paycheck. So, what is the payout versus the monthly tax? In short, did you draw everything you put in in 6 months? God knows we would never collect interest on that balance....

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Lucky you. As for "collecting the interest on that balance", it's called unemployment insurance for a reason. I've never got back the money from my car, health, townhome, mortgage, etc insurance either. Yet I continue to pay those because it should be there IF I ever need it.

It helps to see unemployment insurance as a "minimum paycheck" as you look for work. During which time your job is to find an actual job and you have 6 months to do it.

[tandw.livejournal.com]

And in a more reasonable economy, six months will generally be enough. Now, though, not so much, which is why I wholeheartedly support extension of benefits until the country gets back to something like full employment (i.e., somewhere around 5%, with a median time on unemployment of a month or so).

When I was suddenly facing joblessness

[capplor.livejournal.com]

It took 3 months of seriously pounding before I got any replies. And that was BEFORE the economy tanked.

[tarsa.livejournal.com]

How nice to know that Beck wouldn't piss on me even if I were on fire to put the flames out. :~P

I agree that this bastard needs to find out how the "other half" lives. Let his kids not get the medical care that they need because his employer(s) won't/can't spend the money on group insurance. Let his hours get cut without notice or be "laid off" without any separation pay.

Where's Jacob Marley when you need him??

[terriwells.livejournal.com]

Jacob Marley is dead; I thought everyone knew that. :-/ *sigh* (Though I do admit, the image of Glen Beck as Scrooge is intriguing, if he actually experienced the change of heart for real at the end).

[tarsa.livejournal.com]

*grin* Then we need to summon his ectoplasmic~ass back to do some more work!

[alverant.livejournal.com]

If he goes blind from the disease he has, how much effort do you think Faux Snooze will expend to keep him? Or will he be kept as the token disabled guy saying, "Hey I'm disabled and I still have a job. Those other guys are just lazy."

Ironically going blind may be the only way for him to see the light.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

My grandfather was a Wobbly. It's because of people like him that my generation gets the weekend off. Seems to me, in a just world the skull fracture he took from a Pinkerton while fighting for the little guy in America would earn him a purple heart, the same as for any other wounded combat veteran.

Of course, in Beck's world, samuel Gompers and Eugene Debs belong on the wall of the most infamous villains in history, right along with Hitler, Satan, Martin Luther King, Stalin, Chairman Mao, Janet Reno, FDR, Mother Theresa, Susan Sarandon, Karl Marx, Al Gore....

If Beck's so rich, why ain't he smart?

[his-spiffyness.livejournal.com]

He's smart; but he's also greedy, narcissistic, and apathetic to the plight of the less fortunate than him.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Glenn Beck should be more careful. He starts calling us geeks Wobblies, we're likely to take a notion to live up to the epithets thrown at us. Start throwing wooden shoes, and such like.

I feel a rant coming on, but I've got a job interview in four and a half hours...

[tarsa.livejournal.com]

::crosses fingers for you::

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

why thank you!

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Good luck man!

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind, though, that your grandfather's organization, the IWW that I joined in 1970 (and remained a member of while I organized factories for nine years) would be horrified at the thought of the government being involved in caring for people.

They're anarchists, for goodness' sake, and saw government (and the cops and national guard) as tools of the corporatist state. Their official line was that government is the enemy, not some benign entity that's there to lend a helping hand (the hand's there, instead, to grab the workers of the world and squeeze the life from them).

Unemployment benefits are not for six months, btw, they now last for 99 weeks. Not sure what exclusions there are, though.

Tom Trumpinski

PS, ask Leslie Fish what she thinks of government help, or maybe Eric Flint--they're both still Wobs, I think. (Hell, Flint ran for city council in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1970s as a Socialist...heh heh.)

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

Here's a nice piece about the Wob's transition in the early 20th from a "ballot box" organization to an "ass-kicking", radical anarchist outfit and how the first round of arrests in 1920 cut the head off.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/143783.html

(Of course new heads grew back immediately.)

Wobbly Hall in Chicago was at 2440 North Lincoln Avenue--right next door to the Biograph in Old Town.

"Workers of the World
Don't let 'em all trouble ya
Time to join
The I-Double-W
Ho, ho, Stalin take a purge on me...." --Celebrated Robitussin Blues by Goddard Graves, 1969.

By the 60s, there were only about a thousand members left. I came upon Goddard hawking the Industrial Worker on the back steps of the Illini Union...."Wobbly papers, getcher Wobbly papers, just fifteen cents..."

Nowadays the paper costs a bit more, but they take PayPal.

http://www.iww.org/projects/IW/

Joinin' the Wobs isn't a bad project for someone out of work--I guarantee that folks'll be a lot more receptive to radical action after disasterous unemployment lasts another four or five years.

Tom

[old-fortissimo.livejournal.com]

No, Tom.

Fortunately, the country is still free and sane enough that under no circumstances do I have to watch Glen Beck. Ever.


Whenever circumstances seem too dire and depressing, remember what I just wrote, and it will cheer you right up. :)

[mythdude.livejournal.com]

Yes Glenn, I temp 20+ hours a week because I enjoy not having benefits, stable work, or doing anything that I like. I consider myself a professional writer but I can't pay my bills based on my freelancing salary alone.

Seriously, he can be sent to Rura Pente and no one would miss him.

[mike46.livejournal.com]

I got let go a little over a year and a half ago now. Still not working, full time anyway. Just a part time thing for minimum wage. I burned thru my unemployment, while looking for full time work. Now I'm retraining for a new line of work on my own dime. So I don't agree with Glenn that everyone out of work is lazy/communist/whatever he makes up this week.

But, AFAIK, neither I or any other individual worker ever paid INTO unemployment insurance. It's all funded by the employers, not the employees. I could be mistaken, but I don't think so.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

If that's the case, the cost is filtered down to employees in the form of lower salaries.

[mike46.livejournal.com]

That's quite possible I suppose. The FUTA(Federal Unemployment Tax Act)collects $56 per employee per year from a business. So It wouldn't take someone who collected the maximum allowable from their state - like me for instance - to get back what they(or someone on their behalf) paid in, no matter how it was collected I guess. I figure it took me about 3 checks worth.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I haven't been at a salaried job where you didn't have to put in a little extra overtime. Spread a few hours over a year (inventory, conference preparation, etc) and you'll get more than enough in work to offset that expense.

[mike46.livejournal.com]

True, that's why companies like salaried positions I suspect.

[signy1.livejournal.com]

And really cute how he prefaced the whole speech with that bit about how companies that have their operations overseas are the smart ones. Tell me, Glenn, if we ship all the jobs overseas so as to spare the poor captains of industry from having to pay fair wages, (let's not even *mention* health care; it gives them the vapors,) precisely where are we supposed to get these jobs you're talking about? Trust me, minimum wage retailers and burger joints aren't looking for more help. They're trying to fire the workers they have now! So then what?

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

I hope Glenn Beck falls down a deep dark hole with wet, slippery sides and the only one to rescue him is an unemployed man who just became homeless, and that the man mocks and derides Glenn Beck with taunts of "You can't just climb out of that hole? You must be a lazy wobbly who wants a government bailout!" and then walks away.

[cscottd.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that over the past week or so, the right-wing have started actually using the word "welfare" to refer to unemployment benefits, instead of just implying that it was a government hand-out of some kind (which it isn't).

[lariss.livejournal.com]

"Work at McDonalds."

I wish I could meet Mr Beck and have him join my Employment Specialist (a partner in mental health care) in "job development" for a week. In "job development," the poor job coach spends hours tramping around cities asking whether businesses are hiring, picking up applications for our clients, calling businesses repeatedly to follow up on possibilities.

Here's what my E.S. has found: there ARE no jobs. Not even crappy, minimum wage, work your buns off jobs. IF you can't drum it up for yourself, then you can't have it.

eff him, is what I say.