the rix mix

That's Rep. Barney Frank, who made a persuasive appeal on Charlie Rose's show last night for a promoting a liberal, populist agenda in '08. In Frank's talk about wage stagnation, it was pretty easy to make a connection between that & the scapegoating that fuels the immigration debate, although Rose didn't pick up on it. Just as well, probably. Scapegoating is the most reliable diversionary strategy in the reactionary playbook.

Why did Democrats win in the 2006 congressional elections? Partly the war, and partly because the Republicans stressed the economy, in their words a very healthy and robust, growing economy. But reality is that 95% of the population has had no growth in real income over the last 6 years. When people feel they are not receiving their fair share of a steadily growing economy, and not just that but losing their investments, their pensions, and their health care, they start to ask where is all that growth going?

Frank also hit on the need for unionization:

The greatest growth in jobs has been and will be in services, occupations that are not generally protected by unions. They should be unionized and can be because they cannot be outsourced; nobody in Mumbai can make the hotel beds in Peoria. That’s another big difference between the parties, Democrats support unions and Republicans try to destroy them.

He means all the lower tier "dirty" jobs that are largely done by immigrants, legal or not. Republicans have not been able to explain just exactly who will be cleaning nursing home bathrooms if a substantial portion of the labor force disappears, or why unionizing these occupations would be a bad thing if they expect native-born Americans to be doing that work.

The video isn't up yet at Charlie Rose website. Democratic presidential candidates should be listening to Frank. He's hardly a radical leftist. He's endorsed Hillary.