Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Gingrich Blames Child Labor Laws for America's Economic Woes

There seems to be no end to the stupidity coming out of the conservative candidates' mouths.

Here's what a guy who wants to be president said recently:

"This is something that no liberal wants to deal with,” Gingrich said. “Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.” [...]

“Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

Child labor laws are truly stupid. 

Let's go back to the good old days of allowing corporations to exploit children and work them to death. 

CHILD LABOR IN U.S. HISTORY

Forms of child labor, including indentured servitude and child slavery, have existed throughout American history. As industrialization moved workers from farms and home workshops into urban areas and factory work, children were often preferred, because factory owners viewed them as more manageable, cheaper, and less likely to strike. Growing opposition to child labor in the North caused many factories to move to the South. By 1900, states varied considerably in whether they had child labor standards and in their content and degree of enforcement. By then, American children worked in large numbers in mines, glass factories, textiles, agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers, bootblacks, and peddlers.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the numbers of child laborers in the U.S. peaked. Child labor began to decline as the labor and reform movements grew and labor standards in general began improving, increasing the political power of working people and other social reformers to demand legislation regulating child labor. Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined, and common initiatives were conducted by organizations led by working women and middle class consumers, such as state Consumers’ Leagues and Working Women’s Societies. These organizations generated the National Consumers’ League in 1899 and the National Child Labor Committee in 1904, which shared goals of challenging child labor, including through anti-sweatshop campaigns and labeling programs. The National Child Labor Committee’s work to end child labor was combined with efforts to provide free, compulsory education for all children, and culminated in the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which set federal standards for child labor.

U.S. Federal Child Labor Laws.  Link here.

Child labor involves at least one of the following characteristics:

  • Violates a nation’s minimum age laws
  • Threatens children’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being
  • Involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, or illicit activities
  • Prevents children from going to school
  • Uses children to undermine labor standards

Where does most child labor occur?

Of an estimated 215 million child laborers around the globe: approximately 114 million (53%) are in Asia and the Pacific; 14 million (7%) live in Latin America; and 65 million (30%) live in sub-Saharan Africa.

And Gingrich would like to add American children to those statistics.

More here.

There's nothing wrong with teens having part time jobs.  The problem with Gingrich's "unconventional" suggestion to get rid of child labor laws that protect those teens who work is that that idea opens the door for corporations to abuse children who need to earn money. 

Gingrich trusts corporations to do the right thing while wanting the bottom line to grow?

This miserable idea combined with Michele Bachmann's  
proposition to get rid of the minimum wage would make way for a conservative paradise:  Poor children working for corporations for little money, so that those corporations will continue to fill the pockets of politicians like Newt Gingrich who would work tirelessly to represent the interests of the very wealthiest in America.


Source: Raw Story
By David Edwards

"New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says that Newt Gingrich is just the latest of the 'fools and clowns' in the Republican presidential race to become a frontrunner.

'I have a structural hypothesis here,' Krugman told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour Sunday. 'You have a Republican ideology, which Mitt Romney obviously doesn’t believe in. He just oozes insincerity, that’s just so obvious. But all of the others are fools and clowns. And there is a question here, my hypothesis is that maybe this is an ideology that only fools and clowns can believe in. And that’s the Republican problem.'

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan spoke up in Gingrich’s defense.

'We need a little on the pro-Newt side balance,' she remarked. 'The base of the Republican Party knows that the establishment of the Republican Party doesn’t like Newt. That’s a big plus.' "




"Newt Gingrich Is 'The Classic Rental Politician,' "--George Will         

Newt Gingrich:  "A stupid man's idea of what a smart person sounds like." --P.Krugman

28 comments:

Jerry Critter said...

I bet Democrats are already preparing the attack ads. Newt is really pandering to his base.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Jerry, one wonders who Gingrich is talking to. Why would any sane person want to turn back the child labor laws? Especially knowing how corporations have behaved in the past on this subject.

okjimm said...

Gingrich is a pompous ass....

the quote at the top, though, Coulter


"Remember the lesson from my book: It just took a few shootings at Kent State to shut that down for good."

is particularly odious...and completely false. The travesty of Kent and the Cambodian invasion galvanized the youth of America and ACCELERATED the anti-war movement.

Coulter is an anorexic shrill harpy..

Shaw Kenawe said...

okjimm, Coulter has squandered the money her parents spent on educating her. She's popular with the people who mistake hate-speech with deep thinking--or with thinking at all. She squawked some nonsense on Herman Cain being a more powerful black man than President Obama.

Apparently she counts on her fans' collective stupidity to swallow her inanities. Michael Steele, an MSNBC political analyst, Alan Keyes, what the hell does he do anyway?; Herman Cain, an ex-pizza marketer and radio talk show host, is more powerful than the President of the United States?

What an perfect jackass she is.

Anonymous said...

Newt Gingrich: "A stupid man's idea of what a smart person sounds like." --P.Krugman

LOL!

Les Carpenter said...

"FAUX NOOZ and Rightwing blogs labeled the failed assassin pictured above as an "Occupier." Of course, they are dishonest, lying sacks of fecal matter. The guy pictured above called Mr. Obama "the anti-Christ," which is a designation no liberal or "Occupier" would give to the POTUS. That is a label we hear given to Mr. Obama by extremist conservatives and the news readers of FN, and FAUX NOOZ's attempt to identify this nut as a liberal is just more of the same slimey propaganda that FAUX NOOZ constantly uses to smear the Left."

Shaw, this is the boilerplate rhetoric used by the left to stir up the sheeple. Exactly the same as used by the far right and neo-cons etc. to do the same in their ranks...Platitudes, hyperbole, and half truths for those who would rather be led than think for themselves.

Fox News is no more a propaganda machine than MSNBC is. Only the very extreme on either side buy the crap.

billy pilgrim said...

one master janitor with an army of devious children. let's see cain top that idea!

Infidel753 said...

If these people could figure out a way of making fetuses work while they're still in the womb, they'd do it -- those are supposed "persons", after all.

Good point, though -- to whom exactly is this supposed to appeal? The part about getting rid of unionized janitors is for those who love union-bashing, obviously, but the child-labor part? Maybe some people picture only teenagers doing a bit of light sweeping? But child labor laws as they exist wouldn't prevent that, any more than they stop you from paying a neighborhood teenager to mow your lawn. Calling those laws "stupid" shows how sinister the real aim is.

He's saying that children are "trapped" in school when they could be working. Almost every Third World government on this planet has had to struggle mightily to get parents to pull kids off of farm or hand work and send them to school, knowing that mass education is essential if they're ever to raise their national economic output and standard of living. Is Gingrich the only politician on Earth who doesn't grasp this point?

Les Carpenter said...

The point, as I was attempting to point out in my previous comment is this... all thinking people of either party realize that child labor laws are proper and were the right laws when passed. They continue to be the right thing today.

Let Gingrich do his own hanging. The American people are smart enough to read Gingrich's remarks for what they represent.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Ah, the endless debate as to who is crazier - can we simply call it a draw and move on finally?

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

Do we hafta! Talk about Gin-Grinch and Munchkin, I mean. No kidding! These people just dumb down the population and maketh me want to inketh the aquarium. Can't we talk about something more uplifting ... like helium-filled balloons or puffer fish or something?

Shaw Kenawe said...

I stand by my characterization of FAUX NOOZ. Their attempts to label the White House shooter as the "Occupier Shooter" is slime. Period.

The nut had no connection to OWS. FAUX NOOZ misreports and continues to promote an anti-Obama agenda. The internet is overflowing with evidence of this.

And no, MSNBC doesn't "do it too."

billy,

Each day bring a new madness from the fringe.

Will,

I invite you to come up with any presidential candidate on the Left who matches the craziness of Perry, Cain, Bachmann, Gingrich, and Santorum.

Good luck.

Infidel753,

I didn't think I would ever hear a presidential candidate call child labor laws "stupid." In a sane world, a candidate would be shunned, or booed, or both for spouting such insanity.

"Can't we talk about something more uplifting ... like helium-filled balloons or puffer fish or something?" --Octo

I don't think we really want to talk about Rush Limbaugh, do we?

Shaw Kenawe said...

More on FAUX NOOZ:

Fox News Blacklisted Me Following Rush Limbaugh Criticisms

"{David]Frum made the charge in a piece for New York magazine.

Back in 2009, he authored an article for Newsweek "arguing that Republicans would regret conceding so much power to Rush Limbaugh." According to Frum, he had been a frequent contributor on Fox News but "some kind of fatwa was laid down" on him following his Newsweek article.

Frum wrote that producers would call to book him on a segment. He then described the "embarrassed second call" he would receive, in which those same producers would call him back to say they had decided to go "'in a different direction.'

Frum has since become a fierce critic of Fox News. Most famously, he said in 2010 that "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox."



David Frum is a conservative I respect, as I do Kathleen Parker, Ross Douthat, and Jon Huntsman. I don't agree ideologically with them, but there is one important aspect of these people that is missing from the current group of flools and clowns running for the GOP presidential nomination: They are sane and can offer up arguments without resorting to crazy talk, gaffes, lies, flip-flops, and inanities.

Frum is precisely the sort of GOPer that has been hounded out of the GOP by FAUX NOOZ and the likes of Rush Limbaugh and idiots who believe WND is a internet news organizaation.

"Live by "the stupid;" die by "the stupid."

That should be the GOP's motto.

okjimm said...

RN... a propaganda machine....? Fox is the flagship TV production of Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Bias throughout News Corp has been topic of discussion forever.... I just feel extremely suspicious of any entity that needs to keep reminding us that they are 'Fair and Balanced'... it is almost well jingoistic propaganda....

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Shaw, this is how I described one of the recent Republican debates (the one that Mr. Huntsman, who I actually DO like, didn't participate in)............I'm going to be honest, folks. While I didn't see the entirety of yesterday's Republican debate, what I did see was more than sufficient. You had five lunatics (Perry, Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum), an interesting fellow who you wouldn't mind having as a college professor but couldn't quite see as President (Paul), and a phony baloney (Romney - sad, in that, if the fellow just went back to being who he was before this "metamorphosis", he probably wouldn't be half-bad). And the fact that I consider myself an open-minded and persuadable swing-voter - that, folks, made it all the more frustrating! Oh well, here's to yet another cycle of having to vote for the lesser......Like I said over on my blog, I DO NOT defend the indefensible. But to say that there aren't wingnuts on the left, too, is something that I simply cannot agree with. Of course, you may not think that people like Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, Michael Moore, Markos Moulitsis, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Howard Dean, Rachel Maddow, Mike Malloy, Bernie Sanders, Allen Grayson, Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, Meeks (Congressman, can't remember his first name), Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, etc. are wingnuts and that would be fine.

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

Of course, you may not think that people like Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, Michael Moore, Markos Moulitsis, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Howard Dean, Rachel Maddow, Mike Malloy, Bernie Sanders, Allen Grayson, Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, Meeks (Congressman, can't remember his first name), Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, etc. are wingnuts …

No, and, frankly, I resent the innuendo and implication you bring to the table. I’ll tell you what Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, Michael Moore, Markos Moulitsis, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Howard Dean, Rachel Maddow, Mike Malloy, Bernie Sanders, Allen Grayson, Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, and Meeks are NOT.

They are NOT Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Michael Savage, Jim DeMint, Scott Roeder. John Patrick Bedell, Jim David Adkisson, Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, Wayne LaPierre (of “guys with the guns make the rules” fame), Richard Poplawski, Don Young (R-AK), Hal Turner, Katherine Crabill, Paul Broun (R-GA), Andrew Breitbart, Gregory Girard, Solomon "Solly" Forrell, Sharron Angel, Joe Walsh (IL-08), and Joe Barton (R-TX), as examples.

I resent this refrain:

Well, your side does it too.

Bullshit! Liberals bloggers have never subjected Laura Bush to the same disgusting vitriol as your side has accorded Michelle Obama. This weekend, for instance, Michelle was booed at a NASCAR event. Have you spoken out against the gratuitous mudslinging and racist barbs hurled at the President, his wife, and their kids? Ahh, convenient errors of omission on your part. How nice!

So you visit a liberal blog and leave some half-hearted pious remarks to assuage the “libtards” but say nothing of the crap hurled by misfits on your side of the political aisle. Your party, your people, your problem! When will you show real courage and honesty for a change and hold your party to account on your own damn blog!

TAO said...

One simple question for Will....

When was the last time the Democrats filled a stage with as many crazy people, who all have have some desire to be president, as the Republicans have done this election?

Never.

Then to go have have debate after debate, allowing these, and by your own admission, crazies to continue to one up each other with sheer craziness....

This is what appeals to the base of the Republican party and that alone should tell you everything you need to know about the Republican Party.

It should also tell you what the Republicans and the right think about the office of President of the United States and this country as a whole when Bachmann, Gringrich, Santorum, Cain, and Romney represent the BEST that the Republicans can offer to lead this country.

Every debate is nothing more than an indictment of how little Republicans and the right think about our country, our history, our future, and our government institutions.

There has been no equal in the history of man to the absurdity of what Republicans consider leadership.

Jerry Critter said...

If I didn't know better, I would think that the republican debates were a Saturday Night Live skit.

Maybe it is...the republican party is a joke!

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Like I said, Tao, I don't defend the indefensible.............I'm not sure if I should respond to this Octopus fellow or not. I will just say that I wrote 5-6 consecutive posts in which I eviscerated Donald Trump for his idiotic usage of the birther issue and the very reason that I started blogging 4 1/2 years ago was to protest Fox News and the Iraq War. Yes, I ultimately started speaking out against MSNBC and the like when they started doing basically the same thing as Fox (Ed Schultz, for example, recently spliced footage of Governor Perry in order to make him look bad - or should I say worse?). But that's only because I'm intellectually honest and have a consistent moral yardstick - not because I'm any sort of right-winger.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

And I came here because Shaw came to my site. It was simple reciprocity and not an attempt to hijack the discourse. She can speak for herself if she would like it to continue, thank you.

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

"I'm intellectually honest and have a consistent moral yardstick ..."

But are you really "honest" and "moral" or just blowing your own horn? Saying so does not make it so.

Dave Miller said...

Will, I for one can acknowledge that the left does have its share of wackos too. The difference for us is that we are not seriously considering our sometimes extreme edge as legitimate presidential contenders.

Who are the left equivalents of the right wing crazies that we have recently run for president and are part of our mainstream?

Now make a new list.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

This goes deeper than just Newt being an idiot. It shows how the Newts of the world want to exploit the most desperate for their own gains. if the cost of shipping and manufacturing overseas becomes prohibitive then increase the labor force here be adding children. They are easily exploited. Newt is a true republican. No outrage is too outrageous if the waelthy can take advantage of it.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Dave, your point is acknowledged and well-taken. Still, though, I would seriously love to take guys like Olberamnn and Hannity and put 'em in a rubber-room.

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

It seems Will the Prisoner of Bad Logic has taken offense at some of my remarks and posted a rebuttal, Cutting through the bullshit. Bullshit? Really?

Here is a recap of the discussion (from above) that may have prompted his thin-skinned post.

What Will said …
Of course, you may not think that people like Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, Michael Moore, Markos Moulitsis, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Howard Dean, Rachel Maddow, Mike Malloy, Bernie Sanders, Allen Grayson, Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, Meeks (Congressman, can't remember his first name), Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, etc. are wingnuts …

Point #1: When you present a lengthy list of names, there is a high statistical probability that at least one name on said list may be someone’s favorite commentator or spokesperson. So what is the point … unless your intention is to BAIT and OFFEND someone, some reader of this blog.

Here is the Cephalopod reply:
I’ll tell you what [same names repeated from above] are NOT … They are NOT Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Michael Savage, Jim DeMint, Scott Roeder. John Patrick Bedell, Jim David Adkisson, Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, Wayne LaPierre (of “guys with the guns make the rules” fame), Richard Poplawski, Don Young (R-AK), Hal Turner, Katherine Crabill, Paul Broun (R-GA), Andrew Breitbart, Gregory Girard, Solomon "Solly" Forrell, Sharron Angel, Joe Walsh (IL-08), and Joe Barton (R-TX), as examples.

Point #2: FALSE EQUIVALANCE. Perhaps a point was lost on Will the Prisoner of Bad Logic. I interspersed the names of right wing pundits along with the names of known murderers … such as Jim David Adkisson who entered a Unitarian Church and killed two parishioners. In Adkisson’s car, police found a copy of Michael Savage’s book< Liberalism is a Mental Disease. In the political Universe, the left is NOT equivalent to the right. The left is all too often targeted with hate speech of the "eliminationist" kind.

Point #3: Gratuitous incitement – left-leaning pundits do not incite people to commit murder and hate crimes but rabid right wingers do. Ahh, yes, another point lost on Will the Prisoner.

Now Will the Prisoner of Bad Logic has a very thin skin and then proceeded to justify himself:
I'm intellectually honest and have a consistent moral yardstick …

Point #4: Self-Justification on top of bad logic. Whenever I read disclaimers and self-congratulatory posts such as this, I am immediately skeptical. If a blogger needs to pin a medal on himself, place olive branches on his own head, engage in chest-thumping, and other forms of auto-eroticism, the least he can do is do the self-love bit in the privacy of a locked bathroom where no one will see him.

Shaw Kenawe said...

(O)CT(O), thank you for your comment. I, too, don't believe there is an equal on the far left to Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter. No matter how hard they try to make it so.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Octopus, that post had nothing to do with you. It was in response to a comment that Sue made over at her blog. She claimed that I'm always defending right-wingers. It was a lie and I proved it.............And, Shaw, really, you don't think that Keith Olbermann, with all of that shit that he laid on Scott Brown, and Ed Schultz with all of the nasty stuff that he's constantly saying AREN'T divisive? Come on, Shaw, Ed Schultz purposefully spliced tape and Mr. Olbermann is a serial prevaricator. If it's wrong for Hannity (AND IT IS), then it's wrong for these knuckleheads, too.

(O)CT(O)PUS said...

Will Hart: “[Sue] claimed that I'm always defending right-wingers. It was a lie and I proved it …

Actually, you proved Sue right and yourself wrong. Here is your MOTIVATIONAL BLINDNESS (including your information deficit) speaking loud and clear:

Will Hart: “Shaw, really, you don't think that Keith Olbermann, with all of that shit that he laid on Scott Brown, and Ed Schultz with all of the nasty stuff that he's constantly saying AREN'T divisive?

Now compare the alleged journalistic indiscretions of Olbermann and Schultz to the following:

Man Shoots Two California Highway Patrol Officers:
Accused Gunman Acknowledges Influence of Glenn Beck

Three Pittsburgh Police Officers Ambushed and Killed:
Gunman Posted Glenn Beck Video on White Supremacist Website

Federal Prison for Man Who Threatened House Speaker Pelosi:
Mother of Accused Man Blames Fox News

Glenn Beck Fans Target Legendary Scholar with Death Threats

Death Threats Against League of Women Voters Linked to Glenn Beck

Murders, shooting sprees, domestic terrorism, private citizens hiding in fear, infamous intimidations and provocations broadcast on national television - all linked to Fox News! There is no equivalence between the right wing versus the left wing. I don’t recall Olbermann, Schultz, or Maddow inciting people to perform acts of violence as the right wing media has done. Here is your false equivalence, your information deficit ... and your motivational blindness.

Finally, your claim, “I'm intellectually honest and have a consistent moral yardstick …,” is especially empty. I have found your comments and your blog posts to be just as callous, rabble-rousing, and hypocritical as those of any right winger despite your rationalizations to the contrary.

Furthermore, I find your tendency to engage in VICTIM BLAME (such as punishing innocent newborns for the indiscretions of their parents) to be lacking in conscience and most disturbing.