Steele Praises Discrimination. It Keeps Wages Low and Business Profits Up!

McCamy Taylor

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Sat May-16-09 02:07 PM
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Steele Praises Discrimination. It Keeps Wages Low and Business Profits Up!

Edited on Sat May-16-09 02:13 PM by McCamy Taylor

I. RNC Chairman Michael Steele Eats Crow

A funny thing happened in Georgia. The current RNC Chairman, Michael Steele, who—last time I checked---is Black, came out in favor of discrimination because it is good for business .
Here is what he said verbatim:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele recast the gay marriage debate as a fiscal issue Saturday, saying allowing same-sex couples to marry places a financial burden on business.
In a breakfast speech to delegates of the Georgia Republican convention, Steele put himself in the shoes of a small business owner having to pay for health care and life insurance for a same-sex couple.
“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele said. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”

http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2009/05/16/from-the-gop-convention-expand-or-die-says-rnc-chairman-michael-steele/?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

Words are tricky things and institutionalized discrimination is even stickier. Once you tolerate unequal treatment for one group on the grounds that it keep business profits high, you give tacit approval to a whole host of discriminatory policies. Here is what Steele also said to the Georgia Republican Convention. The words in bold are those I have substituted.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele recast the Jim Crow debate as a fiscal issue Saturday, saying allowing minorities equal rights places a financial burden on business.
In a breakfast speech to delegates of the Georgia Republican convention, Steele put himself in the shoes of a small business owner having to pay survival wages to Black and Latino employees
“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who was a second class citizen before, that I had no responsibility to pay a fair wage, benefits and maintain safe work conditions , who is now getting claimed as a real American ,” Steele said. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”

For those who have been wondering what the hell Steele is doing defending the bigoted policies of the modern Republican Party, I think we now have our answer. Assuming he practices what he preaches, the RNC is probably getting him for half the money it would cost to hire a white man.

II. He Forgot “Shiftless” and “Lazy”

Just how far will Michael Steele go? Read about how he attempted to reinforce one if the nastiest stereotypes of African-Americans.

CALLER: It's just like the LA Times said last year, or two years ago -- he is the magic Negro.
STEELE: Yeah he is -- . You read that too, huh?
CALLER: Oh yeah. I read that too. And even when things go wrong, he still manages to come out smelling like a rose.
STEELE: Well, yeah. And it's because he's getting unprecedented coverage -- cover -- by the media.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/01/steele-agrees-obama-is-th_n_194657.html

According to Steele, Obama is not respected by the press because he is competent or honest or even because the office he holds is respected. President Obama is a trickster who avoids responsibility for his actions by doing some sort of modern day shuck and jive to amuse and distract his fellow Americans.

There is a name for what Steele does. It is called "kissing ass". He does it regularly for the folks who run big business in this country.

III. Latino Second Class Status, Good For Business, Good For Republicans

Newly elected RNC Chairmen Steele was quick to praise his party’s efforts to keep Latinos oppressed in this country. From the website America’s Voice

So, according to Steele, the problem isn't the GOP's position on immigration reform, it's their messaging? Republicans in Congress worked to pass the infamous "Sensenbrenner bill" in 2005 that would have turned 12 million undocumented immigrants into hardcore felons, blocked bipartisan attempts at passing comprehensive reform in 2006 and 2007, and drove millions of Latinos and other Americans to protest in the streets (and ultimately the voting booth) -- and Steele still thinks the GOP is in line with what Hispanic voters want?

http://www.americasvoiceonline.org/blog/entry/new_face_same_ignorance_from_gop_on_immigration_latino_issues/

Republicans in the United States have attempted to strip the children of immigrants born in the U.S. of their citizenship. This would make them workers without a country---and without rights under the U.S. Constitution. A permanent slave labor class that business could exploit to keep their operating costs down.

Here is Alan Greenspan, arguing that illegal immigrant labor is good for the economy.

Illegal immigration has been good for the economy, Alan Greenspan said this afternoon.
Arguing that a solution to America’s border woes must include a way to legalize low-wage undocumented workers, the legendary former Federal Reserve chairman said they have been a boon to the country.
“There is little doubt that unauthorized, that is, illegal, immigration has made a significant contribution to the growth of our economy,” Greenspan told a subcommittee.of the Senate Judiciary panel.
Undocumented workers accounted for a sixth of the growth in the nation’s workforce over the first eight years of the decade, Greenspan said, adding that even after the flow of illegal workers has slowed with the recession, they comprise 5% of the labor pool.
Having those people in the economy, he argued, gives businesses a margin of error to weather booms and busts.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2009/04/greenspan-illegal-immigrant-he.html

WTF? Since when have illegally low wages been a "margin of error"? Why does the worker have to be the one to absorb all the hurt when profits take a dive---but the CEOs get all the reimbursement when the cash is rolling in? "Margins of error" go both ways. The current system only helps the bosses.

Greenspan laughed off concerns that the artificially low wages paid to illegal immigrant workers suppress wages for all Americans. Everyone knows that starvation wages are good for business. Hmmm. Have we figured out Greenspan's secret for keeping interest rates and inflation rates low? Pay worker so little that they have nothing left after necessary bills to spend (on luxuries like health care and a decent education for their kids). That is one (brutal) way to keep inflation under control.

How do you create workers who will accept substandard wages? You encourage them to become unwed mothers through Medieval contraception policies so that they are stuck in the pink collar ghetto for life. You have your media whores portray minorities as something other than "hard working Americans". You let them into the country to work but keep INS on their backs so they are too scared to ask for a better wage.

Some say market forces will eliminate salary inequities, yet it has been 41 years since the Equal Pay Act was signed into law and 40 years since the Civil Rights Act was signed into law. Still, discrimination exists. If we had relied on market forces to implement fairness, we never would have needed the Civil Rights Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, or the Americans with Disabilities Act. Market forces do not overcome bias in the workplace. Bigoted employers will pay more to work with white people, for example. Even Alan Greenspan has acknowledged that too often, companies practice discrimination, which hurts America's economy.

http://www.pay-equity.org/info-top10.html

Too bad Alan Greenspan is such a staunch advocate of market self regulation---except when the market needs an infusion of hundreds of billions of tax dollars paid by hard working Americans. Then, he is willing to concede that a so called free market economy may need a little government tinkering.

IV. Low Unemployment is Bad for Business

Michael Steele thinks that our nation’s unemployment rate is right where it ought to be at an estimated 13% (if you count people who need full time work but are having to make do with part time jobs along with those who have finally given up the job search altogether). He criticized the jobs bill, aka the “stimulus”, claiming "The government has never created a single job.".

http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/yates250209.html

At first glance Steele appears to be a nitwit. We all know that the WPA under FDR created jobs which helped Americans regain their sense of self worth and optimism. Studs Terkel’s Hard Times is full of such stories. We know that the various governments in the U.S. are significant employers---

And Steele, a former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, has first hand experience being a government employee. So, why the disconnect between what he said---"The government has never created a single job."—and what he knows to be true?

Steele, like many lapdogs of big business, lies in order to delude the public that policies which favor the rich are actually good for everyone else, too. These folks call day “night” and profess to believe that there is something called “optimum unemployment” which lives next door to the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Here is the Associated Press via the Washington Post back in 2007 decrying low unemployment rates in parts of the American west.

"The squeeze is on. You get into these 2 percent and less unemployment rates and you're moving into a seller's market with the seller being the worker," Swanson said.
snip
But questions remain about how long the West can weather the problems that come with low unemployment.
"The hardest thing is to keep the economy growing at a strong rate when you have a low unemployment rate," he said. "Take a company that wants to expand. Where is the next worker going to come from?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/25/AR2007082500081_2.html

Squeeze???. Squeeze is when you have to make the same dollar pay for food, electricity and health care---all at the same time. Business owners who have plenty of customers flush with money but which have to share some of their profits with their workers in the form of higher wages and benefits---the only squeeze they are feeling is when they try to stuff their fat asses in last year's pants.

Those who have read my older journals know that I believe that our current recession/depression was engineered by the Bush administration. Low employment is bad for business. People are more pliable, more willing to accept infringements of their rights when they are faced with starvation and homelessness. And therefore, we get the mouthpiece of business, Michael Steele preaching against new jobs and laws that would ensure equal benefits and wages.

There are all kinds of moral arguments that can be made for and against gay marriage. Preserving high profits for employers who benefit from unequal treatment has no room in the debate and is just as offensive as discrimination against Latinos, Blacks and women in the name of higher corporate profits.