Southern Oligarthy & Labor Unions

Since Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, America's corporations still demand their labor dirt cheap since it's no longer free. Hence the big fight in Congress against allowing Card Check otherwise known as Employees Free Choice Act so that people can join a labor union freely.
From Meg White at Buzzflash and Joseph P. Atkins of Progressive Populism via Southern Studies org.

Cheap labor. Even more than race, it's the thread that connects all of Southern history -- from the antebellum South of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis to Tennessee's Bob Corker, Alabama's Richard Shelby and the other anti-union Southerners in today's U.S. Senate.
It's at the epicenter of a sad class divide between a desperate, poorly educated workforce and a demagogic oligarchy, and it has been a demarcation line stronger than the Mason-Dixon in separating the region from the rest of the nation.
The recent spectacle of Corker, Shelby and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky leading the GOP attack on the proposed $14 billion loan to the domestic auto industry -- with 11 other Southern senators marching dutifully behind -- made it crystal clear. The heart of Southern conservatism is the preservation of a status quo that serves elite interests. (Fat bastard Rush Limbaugh sneeringly calls Liberals elites knowing he is a leading member of this special group as he pours out his daily poisonous "socialist stew" while earning his multi-millions. Who do you think pays him?)
Expect these same senators and their colleagues in the U.S. House to wage a similar war in the coming months against the proposed Employee Free Choice Act authorizing so-called "card check" union elections nationwide.
"Dinosaurs," (pasty and obese) Shelby of Alabama called General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler as he maneuvered to bolster the nonunion Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and other foreign-owned plants in his home state by sabotaging as many as three million jobs nationwide.
Corker, a multimillionaire who won his seat in a mud-slinging, race-tinged election in 2006, was fairly transparent in his goal to expunge what he considers the real evil in the Big Three and U.S. industry in general: unions. When the concession-weary United Auto Workers balked at GOP demands for a near-immediate reduction in worker wages and benefits, Corker urged President Bush to force-feed wage cuts to UAW workers in any White House-sponsored bailout.
If Shelby, Corker, and McConnell figured they were helping the Japanese, German and Korean-owned plants in their home states, they were seriously misguided. The failure of the domestic auto industry would inflict a deep wound on the same supplier-dealer network that the foreign plants use. The already existing woes of the foreign-owned industry were clearly demonstrated in December when Toyota announced its decision to put on indefinite hold the opening of its $1.3 billion plant near Blue Springs in northeast Mississippi.
The Southern Republicans are full of contradictions. Downright hypocrisy might be a better description. Shelby staunchly opposes universal health care -- a major factor in the Big Three's financial troubles since they operate company plans -- yet the foreign automakers he defends benefit greatly from the government-run health care programs in their countries.
These same senators gave their blessing to hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to the foreign automakers to open plants in their states, yet they were willing to let the U.S. auto industry fall into bankruptcy.
In their zeal to destroy unions and their hard-fought wage-and-benefits packages, the Southern senators could not care less that workers in their home states are among the lowest paid in the nation. Ever wonder why the South remains the nation's poorest region despite generations of seniority-laden senators and representatives in Congress?

It is a miracle Hilda Solis was confirmed as the new Labor Secretary considering the last Labor Secretary, Elaine Cho was the wife of the chinless Sentator Mitch McConnell. Thank God for the Democratic majority. This time, they will not win. Unless of course, the new group of 15 Democratic Senators within the Democratic Majorty led by Evan Byah and Mark Warner (glad I never sent him any campaign donations) decide to vote with the southern neanderthals. And how about that creep Governor Mark Sanford foregoing the Stimulus money for his state of South Carolina that would help his out-of-work labor force from receiving extended Unemployment Insurance. Bastards, all.