Poor Rick Perry: At last week’s Republican debate, he unveiled yet another “enemy” that a President Perry would destroy for America–but no one paid attention. Gov. Perry’s newest monster he’s vowed to slay is the TSA union, targeted for the same destruction by Perry as Social Security, climate change science, Iran, and three other federal agencies TBA later.
Here’s the quote from last week’s debate in which Perry vowed that as president, he would vanquish the TSA union dragon:
“I would privatize [TSA] as soon as I could and get rid of the unions.”
This comes less than six months after the TSA’s 40,000-plus employees finally won (partial) collective bargaining rights, a hard-won semi-victory after their decade-long struggle to unionize, in what turned out to be largest single pro-unionization drive in decades.
By targeting the TSA union for destruction, Rick Perry has placed himself in some mighty fine company. For your reading displeasure, The eXiled is publishing a partial list of the TSA-union-bashing jihadists allied with Rick Perry’s Crusade to kill TSA workers’ collective bargaining rights:
* GLENN BECK: “You know they are trying to unionize TSA and they are being courted by the unions….You know when Barack Obama said he was creating his own private army? … But if you wanted to really have a security force, wouldn’t a unionized TSA under the umbrella of Homeland Security be the best thing? I mean, why start a whole new security force when you already have one?” (Glenn Beck, February 7, 2011)
* SEN. JIM DEMINT: “Collective bargaining is a payback to unions with a kickback for lawmakers,” DeMint said Monday in an interview. “Unionizing the 43,000 security screeners at TSA could give labor unions a $17 million annual windfall in the form of new union dues.” (“DeMint leads GOP bid to strip TSA bargaining rights,” March 5, 2007)
“DeMint said in a statement that the attempted [Underwear Bomber] attack ‘is a perfect example of why the Obama administration should not unionize the TSA.’ If organized labor got involved, DeMint said, union bosses would have the power “to veto or delay future security improvements at our airports.” (“Who’s running the TSA? No one, thanks to Sen. Jim DeMint,” Dec 29, 2009)
* RADLEY BALKO, REASON MAGAZINE/CATO INSTITUTE: “Whatever you do [Obama], resist the temptation to let TSA workers unionize. Security from terror attacks should not be a federal jobs program. You need the authority to fire underperforming screeners quickly and effortlessly.” (“Unsolicited Advice For Obama,” November 17, 2008.)
* RORY COOPER, HERITAGE FOUNDATION, ex-BUSH DHS: “Unionizing the TSA personnel would be a mistake of epic proportions.” (“TSA Should Not Unioize,” December 1, 2010)
* DICK ARMEY, FREEDOMWORKS: “It’s all about union membership in a union that imposes compulsory dues that fund their campaigns.” (“Busy may be above fray, but partisan battles go on,” November 4, 2001)
*JOHN FUND, WALL STREET JOURNAL: “After 9/11, Congress wisely decided to forbid TSA employees from coming under union work rules out of fear that it could compromise security. While it is not easy to fire TSA personnel now, just think how difficult it will be to remove bad employees if they are covered by union job protection agreements.” (“How to make air travel more infuriating,” November 26, 2010)
*JOHN TYNER, “DON’T TOUCH MY JUNK” GUY:
“I’m all for privatization of [airport] screening so long as the private sector is solely in charge of it and the TSA/FAA/etc. is out of the picture. I thought I had written about privatization under TSA direction before, but I must be remembering a message sent to a staffer in my congressman’s office [Darrell Issa].” (“TSA In The News,” February 2, 2011.)
“Firing workers does not violate the workers’ freedom of association. If the government doesn’t like the union, it should fire the union workers. It shouldn’t be passing laws to determine in which manner a peaceful assembly/association/whatever can act.” (“Democrats Flee Wisconsin,” February 18, 2011.)
John Tyner–who last year became the honest-to-goodness face of anti-TSA hysteria–admitted that he was deceptive about last year’s TSA “Don’t Touch My Junk” media campaign that became a two-week headline sensation. Here’s Tyner’s confession:
“To those of you who feel duped, I apologize…I hope that the “revelation” that I had written about how to handle an encounter with the TSA and deleted said writing doesn’t thrust me back into that spotlight…” (“The Whole Truth,” November 30, 2010.)
This year, John Tyner unleashed his inner John Birch, which is something to keep in mind when recalling Rick Perry’s vow to destroy the TSA union and privatize it. Here is the “ordinary American fed up with TSA oppression” John Tyner, now out of the looney-right closet, arguing: “the state is a criminal conspiracy.” That’s “Criminal.” “Conspiracy.” The American government. Where did Tyner get such a whacky idea? Tyner writes that he gets his ideas from Murray Rothbard, the radical libertarian who co-founded the Cato Institute with Charles Koch back in 1977.
If you don’t know the name Murray Rothbard, guru to John “Don’t Touch My Junk” Tyner, then this quick primer might help:
* Here is Murray Rothbard praising The Bell Curve, a racist book which argued that whites are racially/genetically superior in intelligence to blacks;
* Here you can read Murray Rothbard, John Tyner’s guru, praising former KKK Grand Dragon David Duke;
* And here is Murray Rothbard the Social Darwinist worshipping the 1-percent oligarchy against the dreaded “egalitarians” (no wonder Charles Koch loved Rothbard!);
* And here you can read Murray Rothbard’s definition of a “criminal,” since John Tyner argues “the state is a criminal conspiracy.” Hint: Rothbard’s “criminals” are not white collared, or white period, as Rothbard explains in his political program:
4. Take Back the Streets: Crush Criminals. And by this I mean, of course, not “white collar criminals” or “inside traders” but violent street criminals – robbers, muggers, rapists, murderers. Cops must be unleashed, and allowed to administer instant punishment, subject of course to liability when they are in error.
5. Take Back the Streets: Get Rid of the Bums. Again: unleash the cops to clear the streets of bums and vagrants. Where will they go? Who cares? Hopefully, they will disappear, that is, move from the ranks of the petted and cosseted bum class to the ranks of the productive members of society.
Yes folks, this is the Cato Institute co-founder, Murray Rothbard, who shaped the mind of John “Don’t Touch My Junk” Tyner, hero to so many liberty-loving freedomworks-fighters a year ago this month.
On so many levels the links between the anti-union Tyner, the anti-union Glenn Beck, and the anti-union Rick Perry make a little more sense–after all, Rick Perry is surrounded with racism questions, as both Salon.com and Max Blumenthal have written. And while John Tyner may be the most racially tolerant American alive, it’s certainly disturbing that Tyner gets his ideas about the US government as a “criminal conspiracy” from Murray Rothbard, who was up to his eyeballs in sympathy with racism, authoritarianism, and union-bashing.
One thing I’m sure Perry, Beck, DeMint, Balko, Tyner and their TSA-union-bashing comrades would agree on: the only reason they’re out to destroy the TSA union is their noble selfless desire to protect our “Constitutional liberties.” They’re fighting for our children, and our children’s children, so that they might some day live free from the terror and tyranny of TSA unions.
And the depressing thing is, some of you suckers still believe them.
Would you like to know more? Read Mark Ames and Yasha Levine’s articles “Did You Fall For It? America’s Outrage Over TSA ‘Porn Scanners’ Was Right-Wing PR To Prevent Workers From Unionizing” and “The Real John Tyner: Anti-Labor Extremist, Anti-Gay Marriage, Pals With Neo-Confederates and John Bircher Conspiracy Theorists, and Deceives America” and for background, their original article in The Nation: “TSAstroturf: The Washington Lobbyists and Koch-Funded Libertarians Behind the TSA Scandal”. Also read “Porn Scanner Propaganda Watch: Texas Anti-TSA Movement Led By Far-Right Christian Fascists” by Yasha Levine, and “Khloe Kardashian’s Army: Meet The C-List Celebrity Martyrs To TSA Oppression” by Mark Ames.
Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine.
Click the cover & buy the book!
Read more: anarcho-libertarian, cato institute, charles koch, charles murray, conspiracy, david duke, Dick Armey, don't touch my junk, freedomworks, glenn greenwald, Heritage Foundation, jim demint, john fund, john tyner, junktard, libertard, libertarian, murray rothbard, reason magazine, ron paul, the bell curve, tsa, wall street journal, Mark Ames, Class War For Idiots, Koch Whores
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25 Comments
Add your own1. John Drinkwater | November 28th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
It would be better if we just got rid of the TSA completely and instead created jobs that would actually contribute to society. That’s my high and mighty way of avoiding addressing the whole “union-bashing” issue, is by positing a perfect ideal that makes me moral without having to say I’m for busting the TSA union. Gotcha!
2. Doug | November 28th, 2011 at 3:20 pm
“Here is Murray Rothbard praising The Bell Curve, a racist book which argued that whites are racially/genetically superior in intelligence to blacks;”
Mountains of evidence indicate that libertards have penises 5-10 centimeters smaller than non-libertarians. Just look at Murray Rothbard’s face. To deny that libertarians have smaller penises is to deny the scientific method in favor of PC propaganda.
3. the_facts | November 28th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Tyner’s with Rothbard? I thought you said he was a Koch man. I mean the fact that Murray Rothbard started up Cato with Charles Koch and that Rothbard was with the Mises Institute with Ron Paul, whose biggest funder was David Koch, in no way suggests that Rothbard was in any way connected with the Kochs.
Also, while it’s true that your article didn’t say Tyner was in with the Kochs (you said the fact that he was libertarian and in contact with other Koch-linked libertarians looked fishy, and you turned out to be right when Tyner admitted he’d deceived everyone)–nevertheless, I’ve got this cognitive dissonance thing that makes me want to believe, in a “Hope We Can” sorta way, that Tyner was just a regular guy who spontaneously fought back against the TSA with no planning whatsoever with other libertarians. Why? Because Master Koch says this is how it is, and whatever Master Koch says, goes.
4. Nazidethpig | November 28th, 2011 at 3:51 pm
God Damn your professionalism, Mr. Ames. I suspect that’s what’s keeping you from prefacing every Libertarian in your articles with “Evil, Fucking, Bastard.”
5. Lumpenproletariat | November 28th, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Goddamn. I knew Rothbard was a voodoo economist, but I never knew the guy was that much of a scumfuck. In a reasonable society, it would be open season on these fucking capitaliban assholes year round.
6. az | November 28th, 2011 at 7:28 pm
Can we have some more Victorville articles please? I still want to know what is going on there but am too lazy to look it up myself because I don’t live there.
I can see though that apartments there are really cheap and there is a lot of foreclosures
http://archive.vvdailypress.com/classified/
And that consumerism there is really big even though no one has any money
http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/victorville-31574-closing-dec.html
“The trendy clothing store took over the 76,186-square-foot space previously occupied by Mervyns in March 2009. It nearly triggered a riot when it opened, with San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies forced to pull out their Tasers while controlling the massive crowd of shoppers.
“Now, less than three years later, it’s slated to close after the holiday season.”
And that there’s a lot of really weird crimes
http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/stabbed-31576-theft-attempt.html
And this is just the front page. Does Yasha still live there?
7. super390 | November 28th, 2011 at 7:49 pm
I could see a sincere libertarian wanting to destroy the TSA, but in that case he should want the TSA to be unionized, because according to his own theology unionized employees destroy their employers.
I mean, isn’t that the reason the only union President Reagan supported was Poland’s Solidarity? As Fifth Columnists?
8. who | November 28th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
It amazes me how libertarians and austrian schoolers preach so much about freedom yet their leaders all seem to be fascists of one sort or another.
9. helplesscase | November 28th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Ah, not surprised Rothbard tries to take on the “egalitarian ideal”–the perennial foe of the Right. They just can’t operate without a race of “innate” inferiors who they feel entitled to push around.
10. boson | November 28th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
fascist pigs!!
11. Trevor | November 29th, 2011 at 5:09 am
When I saw the headline – with that picture – I thought this was going to be about the many gay rumors surrounding Perry.
12. BillyBigRigger | November 29th, 2011 at 8:12 am
Please do an article on how the Teamsters endorsed Reagan for both terms! Today’s republicans are far worse than Reagan.
13. Fischbyne | November 29th, 2011 at 11:12 am
I think the TSA should endorse Newt Gingrich for president, just like the air traffic controllers’ union did Reagan in 1980. Bipartisanship worked out so well for those guys.
14. Con O'Rourke | November 29th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
statistically, Libertarians are more likely to be paedophiles. That’s a scientific fact.
15. helplesscase | November 29th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
Statistically, libertarians are more likely to be adult virgins but the totalitarianism of PC ideology keeps us from being able to talk about.
16. the dude | November 30th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
derrr taxes derr nigger-union-abortionists derrrrr takin-my-job but not-workin-for-free-welfare–dddddeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr!
17. dawid | November 30th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Rothbard left Cato on bad terms in the early 80s to join the Mises Institute. The paleocons/Mises people went to Alabama (Mises Institute), and the Reason/Cato people went to California and DC. The 2 camps have hated each other since the split. The Mises Institute has never gotten Koch money, partly because of their association with Rothbard.
“Crane and Koch could not tolerate what they deemed blatant disloyalty [from Rothbard]. Even though Rothbard was the leading theorist of libertarianism and the Cato Institute had been established to promote his views, they expected him to obey the orders sent down from on high… Rothbard was removed from his position at Cato, and he was no longer invited to lecture at the Institute for Humane Studies, another organization under Koch’s patronage…the efforts of the Kochtopus against the Mises Institute have continued to the present… owing to [Ron] Paul’s long association with Rothbard and Rockwell, his campaign had little appeal to Cato. High officials of Cato cooperated with James Kirchick’s malicious smears against him in The New Republic.” This is also why Reason and Cato push anti-Paul stories, like the racist newsletter from the 08 campaign. All the quotes are from the article “The Kochtopus vs. Murray N Rothbard” from lewrockwell.com (a site which frequently, harshly criticizes the Kochs).
Of course, this doesn’t explain why the Koch brothers were such major funders of Ron Paul after he moved to the Mises Institute with Rothbard, but we won’t get into that will we?
18. dawid | November 30th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
i can’t seem to find any evidence that the Kochs have given Ron Paul any money at all since he left that chairmanship they gave him at some econ think tank after he lost his re-election bid in the 80s. according to that same site, Paul’s contract wasn’t renewed because he wouldn’t publicly endorse the Fed, and since then he’s been estranged from the Kochtopus. the only relationships i can find are that the Kochs funded Rand Paul’s opponent in KY, and the beltway libertarian, Reason/Cato, Koch mouthpieces have been openly hostile to Ron Paul, especially during elections. there was just an interview on antiwar radio (ames has been on there before) where they talk about this split. apparently the Kochs don’t like antiwar.com either; they use Cato/Reason to give “libertarian” cover to standard AEI, neocon warmongering, which antiwar.com just doesn’t do for obvious reasons. according to Rockwell, Paul’s refusal to change his anti-war and anti-Fed dogmatism is what pissed off the Kochs enough to cut him off.
Then again, I did try to say that when Murray Rothbard was tossed out in 1981, that the Kochs would never have anything to do with him or anyone with him at the Mises Institute again, but of course that contradicts Ron Paul’s role in the Mises Institute founding and the Kochs’ role giving him money after 1981. Oops!
19. matt | November 30th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
15. helplesscase
You would have thought what with their obsession with the free market they would have realized they can just use hookers.
20. dawid | December 2nd, 2011 at 10:50 pm
I’m not trying to contradict anything you say here, I’m trying to figure out if the Mises crowd is lying about their supposed feud with the Kochs. Can you provide a source/link that says how recently Ron Paul has gotten money from the Kochs? Because he’s not on the list in the article, and I can’t find any info about the Koch’s funding him after the early 80s. If I understand correctly, you’re saying the Kochs didn’t cut ties with Mises/Rothbard/Paul in 81 because they’ve funded Paul since then, and he was involved in the the Mises Institute’s founding (w/ Rothbard). I’m saying the only info I can find about their relationship w/ Kochs indicates that the Kochtopus actively tried to prevent the Mises Inst.’s founding, have never given them money, and that they’ve actively tried to undermine Paul’s career (and the Mises inst.) since at least 81-ish to today. If you have sources showing the Kochs funded Paul (or Rothbard/Mises inst.) after 81-mid80s, it’d be pretty significant because that whole paleo crowd loves to bitch about the Kochtopus and how Reason/Cato are just beltway Kochwhores and not “real” capital-L Libertarians. If you have evidence to the contrary, it’d make their whole “libertarian division” story transparently full of shit/ a controlled opposition ploy.
21. Artichoke | December 4th, 2011 at 2:08 am
Mark, your commenters are becoming unbearably retarded.
22. dawid | December 4th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
after mid 80s is fine
23. dawid | December 4th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
or after 81. i’m saying the last Paul-Koch funding I can find is that econ chairmanship, which i think is mid 80s. there’s a near-complete lack of koch-paul link articles on places like alternet and nation showing direct funding. when i googled “ron paul” and “koch brothers” there was similarly little, so I’m saying if you’re sitting on evidence, it’d probably help get antiwar left Paul-sympathetic voters away from Paul. or you could just save it until right before Iowa.
24. dawid | December 4th, 2011 at 11:34 pm
I think this might clear up what I’m asking: if you post the link/source that shows the most recent instance of Ron Paul or Rothbard/Mises inst. getting funding from the Kochs, we can cross-reference it with the time-line given by LewRockwell.com (from the piece I quote above) to see if the Mises camp or the Paul campaign has been lying about the timing (or even the existence) of the supposed “split”. I’d have to look up the exact date, and I will if you post it, but I’m asking you to show the most recent Koch funding evidence you can find for Paul or Mises/Rothbard. Then I can see where it falls on the time-line. This is relevant for Paul because if he’s gotten any Koch money after that econ chairmanship (the last Koch connection he admits to), then Paul and all the Mises people have been lying about this supposed “split” and mutual animosity since the 80s, and – at least from what I’ve been able to find from google – it seems that the Koch-Paul relationship has gone virtually unexplored at least on familiar, reasonably well-known sites. So if there’s a Paul-Kochtopus link they’ve been hiding, it’d be a brand new line of inquirty for friendly media (Nation, Alternet, etc.), and it’d show that Paul and his friends have been lying through their teeth for 2 decades when they denied being Kochwhores.
25. frank sekach | December 7th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Ever wonder why repubs hate unions? For one thing without unions their never would have been a middle class. Unions forced begoiations for a fair days pay for a fair days work, now as we can all see republicans such as Beck, Rushblow Perry and the rest of them do not want a blue collar worker making a decent wage if they do that the CEO CFO and every other O would only be able to give theirselfs a 10 million bonus instead of the usual 20 (or more) What else do unions do to screw the big boys, 40 hr workweek with time and a half for OT. How dare they!! Healthcare forget that if you get hurt or sick or get hurt just die and get out of the way. You say you want a pension so you’ll have a life when you retire after working in coal mines or factories your whole life.Are you nuts when you get old just do your civic duty and die, of course if republicans have their way you will not need social security, healthcare or pension because you’ll never see 55 never mind 65.(just think when the average coal miner in Pennsylvania,W. virginia and the rest of country rarely saw 50(aw the good old days. Lets do away with the EPA who needs clean air to breath or clean water to drink? If you have these luxurys you live longer and if you live longer that just takes more money from the rich!! I mean 20 mil just doesn’t go as far as it used to. So lets all bash unions and make sure the rich get richer!!
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