Conceptual Guerilla has two list's of what the Conservatives do to sabotage the American dream in favor of their corporatist agenda. What I would like to do is support this work with point-by-point examples of the very travesties that are being perpetrated upon the American and World population. So in summary this is the theme most likely found in Conservative ideology:

"Cheap-labor conservative" is a moniker they will never shake, and never live down. Because it's exactly what they are. You see, cheap-labor conservatives are defenders of corporate America – whose fortunes depend on labor. The larger the labor supply, the cheaper it is. The more desperately you need a job, the cheaper you'll work, and the more power those "corporate lords" have over you. If you are a wealthy elite – or a wannabe like most dittoheads – your wealth, power and privilege is enhanced by a labor pool, forced to work cheap.

Now for the important highlights. We are living in the Randian Dream that first began its fruition in the Reagan years and has been expanded upon until wide spread poverty is the norm instead of the exception. What comes with these policies is an underclass with little means of support from the shredded social safety net. But that is done on purpose. Not that the Right can see that, to them even the poor in the U.S. aren't really poor.

Cheap-labor conservatives don't like social spending or our "safety net". Why. Because when you're unemployed and desperate, corporations can pay you whatever they feel like – which is inevitably next to nothing. You see, they want you "over a barrel" and in a position to "work cheap or starve".

To further the fairy tale, groups such as the Heritage Foundation like to show how wealthy the poor in America really are:

Fortysix percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a threebedroom house with oneandahalf baths, a garage, and a porch or patio. Seventysix percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning. Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than twothirds have more than two rooms per person. The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.) Nearly threequarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars. Ninetyseven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions. Seventyeight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception. Seventythree percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

True the standard of living here is higher than it is in nations without functioning governments but there is a significant factor missing from this assessment. Debt in virtually every household that these numbers are attributed to has to be significant for these families to obtain these commercial goods. These families did not gain these products due to high wages. These numbers were taken from, "various government reports," meaning they could not be verified. That is not unusual for Conservative talking points as we have learned in the health care debates.

One of the more cantankerous of the social safety nets that Conservatives object to is the minimum wage. Apparently under paid workers are still able to purchase the consumer goods needed to perpetuate our economic machine:

Cheap-labor conservatives don't like the minimum wage, or other improvements in wages and working conditions. Why. These reforms undo all of their efforts to keep you "over a barrel".

Increases in the minimum wage are fought tooth and nail by Conservatives even when our country's economic stability is at risk:

The Senate yesterday rejected a Democratic plan to boost the minimum wage for the first time in nearly a decade, but Democrats vowed to campaign on the issue this fall to highlight their differences with the Republican majority...The Senate has rejected 11 attempts to raise the minimum wage since 1998, according to a legislative history compiled by Democrats. House Republican leaders indicated this week that they would not allow a vote on the issue this year.

And we know what the result is when these policies are allowed to fester as is explained in this weeks mine tragedy. Article attributed to Meteor Blades.

In the meme of continuing to cater to business interests to the detriment of the country's financial well being free trade goes hand in hand with free markets:

Cheap-labor conservatives like "free trade", NAFTA, GATT, etc. Why. Because there is a huge supply of desperately poor people in the third world, who are "over a barrel", and will work cheap.

So in making the decision to reduce those pesky labor and wage regulations here is the Senate Voting Record on NAFTA. I'll let you count the Ds and Rs yourselves:

Grouped By Vote Position NAFTA Senate totals

YEAs ---61

Baucus (D-MT)

Bennett (R-UT)

Biden (D-DE)

Bingaman (D-NM)

Bond (R-MO)

Boren (D-OK)

Bradley (D-NJ)

Breaux (D-LA)

Brown (R-CO)

Bumpers (D-AR)

Chafee (R-RI)

Coats (R-IN)

Cochran (R-MS)

Coverdell (R-GA)

Danforth (R-MO)

Daschle (D-SD)

DeConcini (D-AZ)

Dodd (D-CT)

Dole (R-KS)

Domenici (R-NM)

Durenberger (R-MN)

Gorton (R-WA)

Graham (D-FL)

Gramm (R-TX)

Grassley (R-IA)

Gregg (R-NH)

Harkin (D-IA)

Hatch (R-UT)

Hatfield (R-OR)

Hutchison (R-TX)

Jeffords (R-VT)

Johnston (D-LA)

Kassebaum (R-KS)

Kennedy (D-MA)

Kerrey (D-NE)

Kerry (D-MA)

Leahy (D-VT)

Lieberman (D-CT)

Lott (R-MS)

Lugar (R-IN)

Mack (R-FL)

Mathews (D-TN)

McCain (R-AZ)

McConnell (R-KY)

Mitchell (D-ME)

Moseley-Braun (D-IL)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Murray (D-WA)

Nickles (R-OK)

Nunn (D-GA)

Packwood (R-OR)

Pell (D-RI)

Pressler (R-SD)

Pryor (D-AR)

Robb (D-VA)

Roth (R-DE)

Simon (D-IL)

Simpson (R-WY)

Specter (R-PA)

Wallop (R-WY)

Warner (R-VA)

NAYs ---38

Akaka (D-HI)

Boxer (D-CA)

Bryan (D-NV)

Burns (R-MT)

Byrd (D-WV)

Campbell (D-CO)

Cohen (R-ME)

Conrad (D-ND)

Craig (R-ID)

D'Amato (R-NY)

Exon (D-NE)

Faircloth (R-NC)

Feingold (D-WI)

Feinstein (D-CA)

Ford (D-KY)

Glenn (D-OH)

Heflin (D-AL)

Helms (R-NC)

Hollings (D-SC)

Inouye (D-HI)

Kempthorne (R-ID)

Kohl (D-WI)

Lautenberg (D-NJ)

Levin (D-MI)

Metzenbaum (D-OH)

Mikulski (D-MD)

Moynihan (D-NY)

Reid (D-NV)

Riegle (D-MI)

Rockefeller (D-WV)

Sarbanes (D-MD)

Sasser (D-TN)

Shelby (D-AL)

Smith (R-NH)

Stevens (R-AK)

Thurmond (R-SC)

Wellstone (D-MN)

Wofford (D-PA)

Not Voting - 1

Dorgan (D-ND)

I generally like the concept of globalism myself but there needs to be regulation. Greed is a very compelling addiction.

One of the more galling moves by the right is the criminalization of female reproductive choices. An act that leaves women in the deplorable position of not being the sole decision makers in regard to bodily functions. An ulterior motive could be easily explained:

Cheap-labor conservatives oppose a woman's right to choose. Why. Unwanted children are an economic burden that put poor women "over a barrel", forcing them to work cheap.

The patriarchal power over reproduction should end at the commencement of male orgasm as far as I'm concerned. If they wanted their spermatozoa to remain under their protection they should keep them to themselves. Unfortunately we know from recent actions in regards to the health care debate the Conservatives do not share my views of a Woman's Rights. As it is explained in this diary by mcjoan.

A huge dog whistle that the Conservatives paymasters have encouraged to drill into their followers is a dislike of unions. From the restriction of books that emphasise worker organization like The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. A book I believe should be required reading for every American especially at this point in time of our economy. To the travesties of the Mc Carthy Era and The strikebreaking acts of Reagan Conservatives do not want workers to know how vulnerable they do not have to be.

Cheap-labor conservatives don't like unions. Why. Because when labor "sticks together", wages go up. That's why workers unionize. Seems workers don't like being "over a barrel".

As an example this news was welcomed by the Right.

While a small group of conservative activists and journalists sat down for lunch at the University Club in downtown Washington, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform got a phone call from Sen. Arlen Specter’s (R-Penn.) chief of staff, Scott Hoeflich. Specter—the moderate Republican who had once co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for labor unions to organize—had changed his mind. Norquist led off his short speech with the news. “He will be announcing today,” Norquist said, “this afternoon, that he will be voting against cloture and against card check.”

The room erupted with applause.

Apparently American workers are not to be supported or have a means of ensuring safety regulations without fear of retribution.

But there is the moral high ground the Conservatives are always claiming between lap dances and tap dancing in the men's room. But not the moral rights espoused by their favorite philosopher Jesus because if you are poor it must be due to some sort of moral failing and thus not deserving of protection:

Cheap-labor conservatives constantly bray about "morality", "virtue", "respect for authority", "hard work" and other "values". Why. So they can blame your being "over a barrel" on your own "immorality", lack of "values" and "poor choices".

As we can readily find these same moral failings concern to those blessed with Conservative values. In a glaring case of do as I say not as I do:

They've preached that every social ill results from individual moral failing and/or a lack of religious faith: poverty, violent crime, teenage pregnancy, terrorist attacks, substance abuse—even natural disasters.

An obvious theme used by the Right and quite evident in the vitriol and spit spewed by the TEA Party "movement" is intentional social inequality:

Cheap-labor conservatives encourage racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among wage earners distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests as wage earners.

In this vein there is a host of negative social manipulation in the holding of power. If there is no division one will be created:

The toxic clouds that are the inevitable result of the fear and the bitter conflicts so relentlessly stoked by the Republican Party — think blacks against whites, gays versus straights, and a whole range of folks against immigrants — tend to obscure the tremendous damage that the party’s policies have inflicted on the country. If people are arguing over immigrants or abortion or whether gays should be allowed to marry, they’re not calling the G.O.P. to account for (to take just one example) the horribly destructive policy of cutting taxes while the nation was fighting two wars.

Needless to say this sort of divisiveness has left our country in a terrible economic state with people angry at the other victims instead of the perpetrators.

Except for Social Security, which barely escaped the Republican privatization rampage all of the safety nets brought to us through the New Deal are gone. The reason is obvious:

Cheap-labor conservatives opposed virtually all of the New Deal, including every improvement in wages and working conditions. Cheap-labor conservatives have hated Social Security and Medicare since their inception.

If you do not see that this is true I would suggest you go to your local homeless shelter and ask a few of those residing there what it would take to get them back to being stable productive citizens. In most cases it would have been addressed in the now ragged safety net set up by the New Deal.

There is a reason we are referred to as Progressives as opposed to Conservatives we like progress and the benefits it grants to our society. Conservatives not so much:

Cheap-labor conservatives have a long and sorry history of opposing virtually every advancement in this country's development going right back to the American revolution.

Do Conservatives really love America?

Supported George III in the American Revolution. Fully a third of the population of the colonies didn’t even want independence. Supported protection for the institution of slavery in the Constitutional convention. This included the bizarre insistence that slaves be counted in determining slave state representation in Congress. Slaves were people according to conservative planters, but only for purposes of counting them. Those same interests also prevented regulation of the importation of slaves prior to 1808. Opposed tariffs to protect American manufacturing. Reactionary southern planters failed to grasp the need to develop our own industrial base. They preferred to operate a slave labor driven cash crop economy for the simple reason that they – the wealthy planters that is – profited from economic underdevelopment. Supported “nullification”, which said that states didn’t have to enforce federal laws they didn’t like. This “theory”, such as it was, was in direct contradiction to the provision of the US Constitution that made federal law “the supreme law of the land”. Supported repeal of the Missouri Compromise so as to allow slavery in places like Nebraska and the deserts of New Mexico. Opposed the transcontinental railroad, because it might encourage small farmers who owned no slaves to settle in western territories. Contemporary conservative pundit, Joseph Sobran has dressed up opposition to this as a “principled” stand against “big government” proponents like Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln. Opposed the Homestead Act for the same reason. Opposed freedom of speech for Southern opponents of slavery. It seems the institution of slavery became so sacred, the conservative southern planters made it a crime to speak out against it. Before the 14th amendment, freedom of speech was not required of the states. Declared – contrary to Jefferson’s dictum that “all men are created equal” – that “the black man has no rights the white man is bound to respect”. This was the holding of Dred Scott v. Sandford, perhaps the single worst opinion in the history of the US Supreme Court. Supported destruction of the union rather than allow Congress to so much as restrict slavery to places where it already existed. Opposed the earliest civil rights legislation to enforce the 14th and 15th amendments. Obstructed, intimidated and harassed newly freed slaves who attempted to exercise their Federal civil rights, including the right to vote. Opposed preserving the union. Northern cheap-labor conservatives, not surprisingly, either actively or tacitly supported southern secession. This should not surprise us since Northern manufacturers were discovering the wonders of “wage slavery”, and didn’t necessarily have a problem with the southern version of “property slavery”. Supported a “mono-metal” currency standard. This policy is what William Jennings Bryant referred to in his famous “Cross of Gold” speech. Little remembered or understood today, this policy led to a deflation that began shortly after 1873, and lasted for a generation – condemning southern and western farmers to poverty that lasted until the New Deal. Supported the violent suppression of early efforts of industrial workers to unionize. Supported the acquisition of foreign colonies in the wake of the Spanish-American war. Supported the armed suppression of Filipino independence. Opposed anti-trust legislation. Opposed child labor laws. Opposed universal free public education. Some of them still do. Opposed literacy for African-American citizens, in particular. Supported the legal theory of “separate but equal”, a sham that led to . . . Supported the establishment of “Jim Crow” in the south. Opposed state laws guaranteeing minimum wages and restricting working hours for industrial workers. Opposed the right to vote for women. Supported prohibition. Opposed the League of Nations – and continue to oppose US participation in the United Nations. Were involved in countless financial and government scandals, including, manipulation of stock prices during the Civil War, rampant cronyism and nepotism during the Grant administration, the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920’s, Watergate, the Savings and Loan crisis, the present “no bid” contracts for Halliburton – the former employer of the Vice President – and many, many more. Opposed agricultural subsidies, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Rural Electrification, and almost all of the rest of the New Deal. Opposed Social Security. Opposed the Fair Labor Standards Act establishing the eight hour work day and overtime pay. Opposed the National Labor Relations Act guaranteeing workers the right to collectively bargain. Opposed US entry into World War II to fight fascism. Traded with the Nazi’s during the war. Noteworthy cheap-labor conservatives “trading with the enemy” included Henry Ford and one Prescott Bush, father and grandfather to two Presidents. Opposed the GI Bill of Rights. Opposed creation of the United Nations. Opposed the Marshall Plan. Opposed FHA Mortgages. Opposed the creation of Interstate Highways. These had to be billed as the “National Defense Interstate Highway System” to get some of them to go along with it. Opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Opposed the Civil Rights of 1964. Opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Opposed Medicare. Supported both overt and covert intervention, leading to the creation of right-wing dictatorships in Iran, Guatamala, Cuba [before Castro, mind you], Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, the Congo, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, the Phillipines, Indonesia and many others. Supported the war in Vietnam including “bombing them back to the stone age”. Supported covert and illegal air strikes against Cambodia. Supported domestic “surveillance” of opponents of the war, civil right supporters and other “dissidents” who believed in things like equality and democracy. Opposed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Opposed the Equal Rights Amendment. Supported shifting the tax burden from the top to the middle, and the creation of massive deficits for the purpose of bankrupting the Federal Government. Opposed the act creating “family leave” – unpaid mind you. Opposed and continue to oppose National Health Insurance. Support taxing the wages of working people, but not passive investment income such as dividends and “capital gains”. Support “vouchers” to subsidize parochial and private schools, in order to create a “two tiered” educational system. Remember, they opposed universal public education. See Item # 20, above. Support “free trade” policies that allow US manufacturers to export jobs to third world cesspools. Support the dictatorial regimes in those same third world cesspools. Oppose restrictions on green house gasses and other pollutants. Support “privitization” of Social Security, something they have hated since its inception, and which they have concocted a novel way to get rid of. Oppose government support for the development of alternatives to fossil fuels, but they . . . Support invasion of Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, in order to secure our supply of those same fossil fuels.

I'm not really seeing a lot of love there.

When it comes to education you would be faulty in deducing Conservatives would want an educated populace. They have made every effort to subvert the American ideal of an educated voter at every turn:

Many cheap-labor conservatives are hostile to public education. They think it should be privatized. But why are we surprised. Cheap-labor conservatives opposed universal public education in its early days. School vouchers are just a backdoor method to "resegregate" the public schools.

The concept of destroying an educated populace is actually a matter of pride to Conservatives; they think it is a worthy goal:

This proposal is not as radical as it sounds. Most mandatory public school laws are only about a century old. New Jersey’s law dates from 1874 and requires all young persons from six to sixteen to attend. California (a much younger state) passed its mandatory attendance in 1913. Therefore, the imperative for states to provide free public education is not ancient and immutable. The US Constitution itself says nothing about education. (Federal legislation regarding schools and colleges comes either through the executive for defense or interstate commerce clause.)

Forget the Founders in their knowledge that uneducated voters are more likely to be misinformed voters thus the concept of a free press was enshrined in our Bill of Rights. I guess the uneducated Conservative's stopped reading before they got to that part.

The largest howls of injustice we have been hearing from the Right have been in regards to taxes. Never mind the wealthiest among us have paid the least amount of taxes since the Great Depression. I wonder if our current economic stresses could be a coincidence in that regard?

Cheap-labor conservatives hate the progressive income tax like the devil hates holy water.

We were once the leading economic power in the world. But that was before the Right's agenda of cutting taxes became the mantra. There is a reason we were able to go to the moon in the 1960s, the poorest among us were not shouldering the burden of funding the tax cuts for the wealthy:

What factors were so different then that allowed the progress made? The strongly progressive income tax was a major reason things worked so well. Why? The progressive tax was a leavening agent. “A little yeast leavens the whole loaf.” It allowed for rewarding personal effort appropriately, and yet it did so on a diminishing basis. It can be observed without apology that this tax structure works the exact opposite of the way most of us have been taught to believe about the infinite fairness of capitalism and the free market economy. The underlying principle of the strongly progressive tax is the exact opposite: It assumes that –while respecting rewards honestly earned through hard work, creativity and risk should be guarded -- the greatest control and benefit should go into the common wealth, not to a privileged few, and that our system works at its best under those circumstances. There is strong evidence of this today that the highest economic growth rates and capital investments are in the countries that have universal health care, robust public education through the college level and a strong system of safety nets – the exact opposite of what we are normally told here at home.

And we wonder why there are lines at the DMV and we have a large National debt?

Speaking of debt it isn't the tax and spend Democratic Administrations in which we acquire grandiose debt but the slash and burn Republican Administrations in which we see stagnant growth and increases of debt loads on the GDP:

Wealthy cheap-labor conservatives like say, George W. Bush, buy the bonds and then earn tax free interest on the money they lend the government.[Check out Dubya's financial disclosures. The son of a bitch is a big holder of the T-bills that finance the deficit he is helping to expand.] The deficit created by cheap-labor conservatives while they posture as being "fiscally conservative" – may count as the biggest con job in American history.

This sort of behavior is economically unsustainable and creates great instability in our economic future. So why do we have such policies? Perhaps it matters what sort of mindset our leaders have:

Here's a quick review:

• Shortly after taking office, President Bush spoke to the the Republican Congressional Retreat in Williamsburg and blithely declared that his budget would “pay down the national debt."

• President Bush raised the national debt limit eight times during his administration.

• On July 30, 2008 President Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, which contained a quiet little provision raising the debt ceiling to $10.615 trillion.

• One week before leaving office, Bush asked Congress for the remaining $350 billion of the $700 billion Wall Street Troubled Assets Relief Program or TARP bailout package.

• That same last week, Bush signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 raising the national debt ceiling for the eighth time to $12.104 trillion to accommodate the $11.3 trillion all time record debt he left the incoming administration.

• George W. Bush's $11.3 trillion record debt comes to more than $37,000 each for every man, woman and child in the United States. And it will get worse because of what it is costing to clean up after him while still moving ahead on badly needed changes like national health care to rein in its current out of control cost.

I find it both bewildering and angering when Republican conservatives lambaste President Obama for the present state of indebtedness on America's balance sheet as if it was all his fault, spending like a drunken sailor. As if the previous eight years never happened.

So much for the grand policy of cutting taxes to encourage growth.

I like the concept of free trade. That said regulation should carry over to the corporations not only selling to us but our own companies as they branch out into the global economy. There is good reason for my wanting standards to be universal:

"Free Trade", globalization, NAFTA and especially GATT are intended to create a world-wide "corporate playground" where national governments serve the interests of corporations – which means "cheap labor".

The problem lies in how the world economy is dependent upon the companies to police themselves where it comes to economic, human, and, ecological responsibilty coming in. Especially in nations where a corporation's value may exceed the GDP of the country they are expanding to:

The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 signaled a sharpening corporate and government attack on labor. It is no coincidence that the early 1980’s also marked the acceleration of plant closings and downsizing in the manufacturing sector and greater investment by US-based transnational corporations overseas. This period also featured increased outsourcing of jobs and work overseas.

There is ample evidence that corporations are taking advantage of this country's resources to the publics detriment. What are they doing in countries where the oversight we have engaged in is not available.

What we have now is an economic disaster. One directly attributed to thirty years of Conservative malfeasance in the form of changing our social agenda to favor the corporation's and the wealthy that profit from those corporation's. We need to go back to the sound policies that brought this country to the apex of greatness that allowed us to be leaders in innovation, manufacturing, and technology. A service economy, such as we have now, will not be able to support our population if the bulk of this country's wealth is concentrated in the top twenty percent. We need to take a hard look at how we got to this point and decide how we are going to move forward to become a nation that has something to be proud of.