Media Matters for America is a great resource. They listen to Rush Limbaugh so we don’t have to. They’re kind of like Christ in that way: suffering for the sins of the right wing echo chamber. But I’ve always been a little bit skeptical of them, because let’s face it: David Brock has a questionable past. He is, after all, the totally unprincipled writer of The Real Anita Hill. And even after his liberal awakening, he used the same disreputable conservative tactics to push his book Blinded by the Right. I’ve always felt that Brock wasn’t so much a liberal as a New Democrat. And regular readers should know that I believe that the New Democrats have been responsible for destroying both the Democratic and Republican parties. (See for just one example, Robert Rubin and the Villainy of the New Democrats.)

So I was not surprised on Monday when Huffington Post published, Media Matters Employees Feel “Betrayed” By Management’s Opposition to Their Union. According to the article, “Media Matters management recently declined to recognize the union through the ‘card check’ process, instead exercising its right to force a union election under National Labor Relations Board oversight.” Card check is where a union can collect employees’ identification cards and present them to the management to indicate that the employees want to join the union. Businesses hate this because it doesn’t allow them to run their usual little campaign of fear and intimidation to change the vote. And because we don’t live in a democracy, companies are not required to accept card check.

But Media Matters is a liberal organization. Being liberal is a big part of their brand. Surely they would accept card check! But of course not. Because when you get right down to it, Media Matters is still a company, even if it is a nonprofit. The managers still make more money than the workers. And the more money the workers make, the less will be available for management salaries. And those salaries, while hardly excessive are certainly not bad. According to Poynter back in 2011:

David Brock (chairman/CEO): $286,804

Eric Burns (president): $240,579

Tate Williams (chief of staff): $162,812

Eric Boehlert (senior fellow): $115,000

Ari Rabin-Havt (VP-communications and strategy): $134,484

I could be all wrong about Media Matters, of course. And I thought I was when I a saw a Politico headline today, Media Matters “Not Opposed” to Unionizing. But all the article did was reinforce my original suspicion. Vice President Angelo Carusone said, “People have that right, so yea, of course they do. It’s a choice. What’s guided us the entire time is making sure the process is really clean.” If I had not yet made it out of preschool, I might accept that. But I have and so what I see is that Media Matters is doing what all companies do when faced with unionization: stall. They want time to organize themselves so they can kill the unionization effort.

It is possible that this move will be bad for the bottom line at Media Matters. But I doubt it. I suspect the rich people who give money to organizations like Media Matters are the same kind of New Democratic “liberals” who believe in individual rights and equity—as long as it doesn’t cost them any money.

Afterword

Actually, the issue with unions isn’t usually about money. It is about power. Management does not want to give up any of the power that it has. Of course, when forced to, management quickly gets used to it. I suspect the managers at Media Matters are fighting this because it is an affront to their feelings of self-worth. I hope the workers don’t back down. But if they do, I understand. It is not a good time to be a worker in America—a fact of which I’m sure all the managers at Media Matters are aware.

Whenever I think of conservatives in the general sense, I think of a quote by Malcolm Nance. According to Wikipedia, he is “a former US Navy Senior Chief, SERE instructor, and expert in prisoners of war and terrorist hostage survival techniques.” So he’s a serious guy in the arts of war. But after 9/11, he was forced to work with the Bush administration chicken hawks. He derisively referred to them as practicing “Tom Clancy Combat Concepts.” He characterized their attitude, “We’re going to be hard, we’re going to do these things, we’re going to go out and start popping people on the streets and we’re going to start renditioning people.”

Other than racism (which is related), this is the conservative mentality. Liberals have “bleeding hearts” but conservatives think they see the world clearly because of their hearts of stone. This is why every lower class white guy I run into is a Republican. They want to be “tough,” so they vote for the Republicans. But really, the Republicans are not tough in any sense of the word I know. They are simply bellicose. And it isn’t even a real willingness to fight. It is just the rhetoric of strength. Real men don’t feel the need to threaten violence.

That brings us to Chris Christie. He is just the governor of New Jersey. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t really care about him. But he is the ultimate example of the brutish behavior that undergirds the rhetorical appeal of conservatism. You see it throughout the movement. It is evident in Ted Cruz And Allen West. But Christie illustrates what is most important about conservatism: he is a bully.

So it was with some glee that I saw Andrew Prokop’s article in Vox yesterday, If You Dispute Chris Christie’s Budget Estimates, He’ll Go After You—Even if You’re Right. It tells the story of a two year bullying campaign that Christie was engaged in against the highly respected head of the New Jersey Office of Legislative Services (OLS), David Rosen. In 2012, Christie came out with a ridiculous budget that assumed the state would see a totally ridiculous growth rate of 7.4%. Rosen, as part of his job, analyzed the numbers and found that Christie’s budget would be out of balance by many hundreds of millions of dollars.

Christie fired back, going so far as to make a 20 minute long tirade against the OLS chief. He said, “Why would anybody with a functioning brain believe this guy? … How often do you have to be wrong to finally be dismissed?” That is typical Christie rhetoric, which should be familiar to anyone who has ever heard him talk to a teacher. And the attacks continued. Rosen is not a partisan guy; he’s respected by both sides of the isle in New Jersey. But Christie just knows that no one should listen to anyone who disagrees with him.

Well, it is two years later and it turns out that Rosen was completely right about the budget. But don’t expect Christie to apologize. For one thing: that isn’t who Christie is. What’s more, Christie didn’t listen to facts then; why would he listen to them now? And finally, he has Hurricane Sandy to hide behind. He’ll just say that New Jersey didn’t grow at 7.4% because they aren’t stronger than the storm.

What’s interesting is to see how this is typical of the conservative movement: resistant to facts, never admitting wrong, being mean to show how tough you are. It’s all in what Malcolm Nance said above. Most telling of all, it is what our torture program was all about. The FBI was extremely good at interrogation. They knew that torture didn’t work and was generally of negative value. But the conservatives in charge of the government wanted to be “tough” and “hard.” That’s what torture was all about: looking like you were strong with no concern at all about actually being strong. It is the mentality of a bully. That’s half of American politics.

Over the weekend, I was at the graduation party for my niece. Actually, she is the daughter of the sister of my sister’s husband. And I have to say, they put on a good party. The father is a constant builder and one thing he has built on their vast property is a bar. Admittedly, the beer on tap was marginal and most of the beer in bottles sucked. But since the demand for good beer was low, I managed to spend the day drinking little else but Lagunitas.

At one point, I got into a conversation with the mother about Johnny Horton who was born on this day in 1925. It turned out that she is a big fan of his music and I had to maneuver to avoid borrowing a CD of his music. It wasn’t that I don’t like his music, it is just that it would have been a hassle to get it back to her. I was raised on the music because my own mother was a fan.

Horton was best known for “saga songs,” which I always associate with folk music, but apparently he was considered rockabilly. His best known song is Jimmy Driftwood’s The Battle of New Orleans. I like the song, but I’ve always thought the production was silly with the drums and the “Hup, two, three, four!” part. In fact, Driftwood’s version is far superior.

But I do love Horton’s voice. He has just enough of that bluegrass hollering thing going on to make what is essentially a pop voice interesting. He also has great variety in the timbre of his voice. And for all the silliness of the production of his songs, they have a gusty appeal. Here is “North to Alaska”:

While on tour in Texas, Horton’s was killed at the age of 35 in a car accident when a drunk college student hit the band’s car while crossing a bridge. The other two survived, although guitarist Tommy Tomlinson lost one of his legs. The drunk kid, of course, suffered only minor injuries.

Happy birthday John Horton!