Rand Paul is liar and a blatant hater of working people!
In his ad for a proposed piece of antilabor legislation called the National Right to Work Act, Senator Rand Paul refers to mob violence, i.e., violence coming from union activists, or, in his own words that "forced unionism breeds violent strikes and a hate-the-boss mentality."
This coming from a Senator whose own supporters violently stomped on the head of a peaceful protestor.
Rand Paul is thus a blatant hypocrite.
Back in October, as I reported here, I had called Paul's campaign HQ and got a staffer on the phone with me, who then tried to rationalize Paul's supporters sickening violence against MoveOn volunteer Lauren Valle. My shock at what I heard led me to label Paul a sociopath, which while perhaps hyperbole on my part, expressed what I saw as Rand Paul's character: pathological lying, contemptuousness of those who seek to understand them, inability to perceive that anything is wrong with them, and a lack of remorse.
And sure enough, here is Rand Paul, libertarian and social darwinist, elected by fools who will not get the progressive representation that they actually need, doing all he can, in his first year in office, to be the go-to Senator for union bashing legislation.
Here he is, the Senator who rationalizes, excuses and downplays violence when it is on his side, invoking the spectre of violence coming from organized labor. and in invoking this spectre, doing so without any notion of context. And the context is one of a class warfare that has always been waged on workers by elitists, who have always been aided and assisted by people like Rand Paul.
Thus, we have the following. What this appears to really be targeting is the possibility of political action by unions. Rand Paul, if he could, would ban this (while of course, allowing businesses to continue with their PACs).
National Right to Work Act Petition to:
My U.S. Senators and Congressman
Whereas: Federal law permits Big Labor to confiscate $8 billion from American workers’ paychecks every year just to get or keep a job;
Whereas: This forced unionism breeds violent strikes and a hate-the-boss mentality which drive good jobs overseas, jack up prices and risk re-igniting inflation:
Whereas: Union bosses use this forced-dues fortune to corrupt our political system with over a billion dollars every election cycle;
Whereas: Union-puppet politicians routinely vote for higher taxes, bailouts, job-killing bureaucracy and even more porkbarrel spending keeping our nation locked in recession;
Therefore: I urge you in the strongest possible terms to strike a blow for freedom and American prosperity by co-sponsoring and casting your every vote in favor the National Right to Work Act.
Elsewhere, in promoting this petition, Paul uses violent rhetoric, taking about taking a "sledgehammer" to the unions.
Dear Concerned American,
They snickered when I said I came to the U.S. Senate to change Congress.
But their laughter stopped when I sponsored the National Right to Work Act to free U.S. workers from forced unionization and break Big Labor's multi-billion dollar political machine forever.
President Barack Obama and Big Labor allies in the Senate are now feverishly scheming to bury the National Right to Work Act without a vote.
So I have a question for you.
Will you be my sledgehammer?
Your signature on the petition to your Congressman and Senators is what is needed to bust through the opposition and force a vote on the National Right to Work Act.
Rand Paul is one of the main faces of the union bashing, teabagging reactionary politics right now, and he is a violence rationalizing hypocrite. To respond, it is time for progressives and the labor movement to come together. It is also time, as is pointed out below in some progressive commentary for Barack Obama and the Democratic leaders to recommit to workers, to stand up to GOP thuggery and lies, including projecting lies that are more self-descriptive of the right onto the left, and to stand up to the right's union bashing.
While I don't expect Rand Paul's union bashing legislation to get very far, the fact that he is promoting it, and how he is promoting it, should be an occasion for a progressive, articulate response. And it should also be an occasion for Democratic leaders, including President Obama, to stand up for working people and against reactionary, labor bashing actions by the likes of Rand Paul.