Honest Abe knew the score

The assault of Republicans on working Americans in Wisconsin and elsewhere clearly goes against traditional American values of fair play and equal opportunity. Yet many Republican voters don't seem to realize that they aren't just voting against their long-term interests. They are also voting for rapacious thugs who are betraying the ideals of their party's greatest leader. In an address to Congress on December 3, 1861, Republican President Abraham Lincoln said this:

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

What was true a century and a half ago is still true today. Long before the great advances of organized labor in the 1930's and '40s, Americans recognized that productive work was the foundation of our nation's prosperity. Exploiting the surplus value of labor, speculating in stocks and commodities, lending at high interest-- these aren't necessarily evil, but they're definitely parasitical activities. Most people at least vaguely understand this reality. This is why the parasitical classes, and their puppet politicians, must constantly struggle to divide and distract those of us who make their privileged lives possible. When Abraham Lincoln made this observation the survival of our nation was in grave doubt. If we don't come together now, to reclaim our country from the Koch brothers and their minions, the fate of our Union will again be in peril.