South City Mouth

OK, so enough on Howard Dean, already. Right? Yes, but in light of the self-righteousness and self-serving indignation conservatives have been raising over Dean's comments about Republicans, I thought it might be nice to review some of the many thoughtful things conservatives have been saying about us liberals.

"Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam. Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like liberals do. They don't have the energy. If they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now."
- Ann Coulter

"Liberals hate religion because politics is a religion substitute for liberals and they can't stand the competition."
- Ann Coulter

"I'm not saying that liberals...are evil. I'm saying they have a disturbing habit of winking at evil-of ignoring it or turning a blind eye to it."
- Sean Hannity

"I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians, who are actively trying to make an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way...I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"
- Jerry Falwell on the events of Sept. 11

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is that he did not go to the New York Times building."
- Ann Coulter

"Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position."
-Ann Coulter (I'm already weary from quoting her this much.)

"(The Democratic Party) has reinvented itself as a cool hangout financed by Hollywood celebs, media yuppies, trial lawyers, multiculturalists, God-haters and the race-relations mafia who look down on the working people who once made up the backbone of the Democratic Party."
- Laura Ingraham

Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism
- book title by Sean Hannity

The Enemy Within: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Schools, Faith and Military
- book title by Michael Savage

Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity
- book title by David Limbaugh

Now tell me, which side should really be hanging its collective head in shame?


Wal-Mart un-American

For years Wal-Mart has wrapped itself in red, white and blue as some sort of lovable, wholesome embodiment of everything great about this country. Of course, we've also been hearing for years about what a scourge they are on the middle class that makes this country so great. It's certainly no breaking news that their single-minded drive for the lowest-possible prices on goods to be borne on everybody else's back has led to a massive exodus of manufacturing jobs out of the U.S.

But have you seen the recent Frontline on PBS dealing with this topic?

I was out of town last week and saw it on a PBS affiliate in Columbia, Mo. What was striking was the degree to which Wal-Mart has actively and quite vocally pressured and even bullied American manufacturers to ship jobs overseas, especially to China, so they could sell their goods to Wal-Mart for an even cheaper price.

This episode didn't talk about all the other reasons to hate Wal-Mart: forcing people to work off the clock, locking workers in buildings. encouraging employees to apply for public assistance to supplement the substandard wages they pay, busting up union organizing, lying to the public about its "Made in America" policy, driving under mom-and-pop businesses and so forth.

No, this business of forcing manufacturing jobs overseas is Wal-Mart's greatest ill, and we're all paying for it. Not only are we losing jobs, but our trade deficit now stands at an all-time high of $195 billion. Allen Greenspan certainly didn't mind crowing about how Wal-Mart has single-handedly kept inflation low. He neglected to talk about Wal-Mart's share in driving up our trade deficit.

You can watch the episode or read a transcript by clicking here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
It's the kind of journalism Ken Tomlinson is trying put an end to at PBS.