Joe the Plumber helps big business con working people

March 27, 6:19 PMDC Corporate Ethics ExaminerJim Cunningham

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Joe cons working people into turning right.

The thing that always bothered me about “Joe the Plumber” was that he represents the part of the Republican “base” that are voting against their own interests. Sure, there’s the part of the Republican base that are the uber-corporate super-greedy richy-richy types and probably SHOULD be part of the Repubilcan base. And, yes, even though all those “Christian-Right” loonies are probably financially worse-off because of Republican policies, the thing they care most about, religious nationalism, is probably best represented by the Republican Party.

But “Joe Six-pack” – “Joe the Plumber”? Mmmmm. I don’t think so. They’ve been conned. Here a group of people who’ve been convinced, through Republican Marketing and peer pressure and through divisive issues like “Vote Republican or gays will take over the world” or “Vote Republican or your guns are going to be taken away” have been fooled into voting against their own best interests.

During the general election, Joe ‘The Plumber’ Wurzelbacher railed against Obama’s tax policy because Joe hopes someday he will make 250K/year at which point he can say, "I got mine. Screw everybody else." (Joe did eventually admit that he would, in fact, receive a tax cut under Obama’s plan. Never mind that he once was on welfare himself, a tool that helped him during what was perhaps his lowest point, now that he's out of the hole, he wants to deny others the same opportunity.)

But shouldn’t Joe the Plumber, as a working guy, be part of the Plumber’s Union? (If he were actually a plumber.) Wouldn’t he be better served by a strong worker’s union? Shouldn’t he be PRO-union? Wouldn’t he be better off as PART of the Labor Movement? Yes. Of that, there is no doubt.

That is, if he weren’t currently being paid by Republicans to say otherwise:

Joe the anti-union campaigner

Wurzelbacher will be touring Pennsylvania at the end of this month, giving speeches in three places against the EFCA on behalf of an organization called Americans for Prosperity.”

As always, ‘Joe the Plumber’ is the perfect mascot for the vote-against-your-own-interests set.

When will people learn that the Republican Party is the party of the rich and big corporations? I wonder, when ‘Joe the Plumber’s star falls, and he’s been forgotten by the powerful Right-side politicos, if he’ll ever have regrets?

Maybe he’ll take all this money he’s making during his ‘Fifteen Minutes’ and invest it in the stock market. After all, that’s a safe bet.

Right?