(This article originally appeared at The One About...)
Well, you can now add post natal abortion candidate, Michele Bachmann, to the list of Wrong Wing Nut Jobs, who are firmly convinced that everything in this country would be just fine and dandy, if only it weren't for that evil evil Federal Minimum Wage.
I tend to suspect that the anti-FMW talk is largely a ploy, to demonstrate to their Corporate Masters how compliant they are to the Corporatist agenda. Kind of the way that a dog will show it's belly, as a sign of submission to the lead dog. But frankly I'm more than a little bit sick and tired of it. At this point it's abusive.
I refer to their persistent rhetoric against the FMW as abusive for this reason... It's like living with someone who is physically abusive. You know that this person has beaten you before. You know that in all likelihood they will beat you again. And their idea of great fun, is to raise their fist from time to time to watch you flinch. That is also a form of abuse. Just like passing so many horrific laws that have the cumulative effect of turning people into little more than bond chattel, and then threatening even worse regressive laws, just to watch people flinch.
There was a time when we all assumed (...mistakenly so...) that the Republicans were essentially sane decent people, and for all I know the average citizen still is, even if I personally find the very idea of voting for a Republican, or supporting their policies, as distasteful as licking a dirty ashtray. But the politicians who fill the GOP have long been a fairly unpleasant lot. Something though, seemed to keep them at least somewhat restrained. That restraint is now gone, and they are enacting, and seeking to enact, policies that are so fundamentally anti worker, anti human, anti woman, and anti reason that they cannot be trusted not to act on their rhetoric, no matter how insane or vile.
Like most abusers the Right assumes that their position is so untouchable, so superior that nothing they have done, are doing, or will do, could possibly change that. And also like most abusers, they are completely blind to exactly how close to the edge their victims are. Right now there is an epic storm of rage and despair in this country. There are precious few structures left keeping this rage and despair from turning into a flood, the likes of which not seen since Noah woke up one morning with a major hard on to build an ark.
But here's the thing... There is a part of me, that honestly wishes the bastards would actually go ahead and do it. Try and end the Federal Minimum Wage. Because if anything could get Working Class Americans to wake the fuck up in a hurry, and go after these Wrong Wing Fuckernutters like angry villagers after Frankenstein's monster it would be that. In some ways it would be worth the RWNJ doing it, just to watch them quickly get torn limb from limb.
Right now, they are trying to destroy Medicare, and Social Security, and most depressing of all it seems like they might succeed. If they do, then the last bulwark against all out revolution is the Federal Minimum Wage. A minimum wage which is still far too low for people to truly have any kind of real quality of life. There are some people like myself who live in a depressed area where the cost of living is low enough that it is possible (...if one doesn't have kids...) to live on the minimum or a bit above and be relatively comfortable. Not safe mind you. But for life to at least have some enjoyment to it, to be more than mere survival.
Get rid of the minimum wage though? Let companies try to pay people five dollars an hour? Three? Two? For back breaking, mind numbing, soul destroying work, with all the meaning and value of a gerbil on an exercise wheel? Well, all I'm going to say, is that if you are going to participate in a betting pool on how long it will take before there's open revolt, and rioting in the streets, I'd not put my money on anything in the month or more category.
So, GOP, go ahead. Abolish the Federal Minimum Wage. You claim you want to see people take their country back? Well I can guarantee you that you'll see that happen one hell of a hurry. Although you might be more than a little bit surprised to discover that it's you and your Corporate Masters that we're taking it back from.
Don't say you weren't warned.
Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!