Labor leaders say politicians won't end war, urge workers to protest

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

By Susan Sward

Labor leaders from around the world gathered in San Francisco Saturday to call on workers to stand up and take organized action against war in Iraq, saying that politicians can't be counted on to halt the bloodshed.

Several speakers cited the civil rights movement of the 1950s and the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960s as models to follow, saying that both achieved change that would not have occurred if matters had been left in the hands of those running the country.

"Until people get off their asses and do something, there won't be a change," Clarence Thomas, past secretary-treasurer of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 and a third-generation ILWU member, told the audience at the local's hall near Fisherman's Wharf.

Jeremy Corbyn, a Labor Party member of Parliament in Britain, cited the staggering number of civilian deaths in the Iraq war and the thousands of returning soldiers who have needed psychiatric care to deal with what they faced during battles in that country.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/21/BA0GSTIOK.DTL

Ain't that the truth.

as you may recall Dennis Kucinich has been stedfast against it all along and wow he's even running for president, imagine that? Maybe we need more dems to back DK rather than bushlite or the others who switch their views later saying, oops I goofed before.

Is that more a commentary on the sad state of the union movement or the sad state of the progressives who haunt this board?

and can't really add to it. At least that is why I usually don't write anything.

zalinda

...it's a little of both, due (in my mind) to increasing sentiment among many Americans to drift toward the ideological center.

We can disagree on this, but I know what I'm talking about. Five hundred people per day move to Arizona. One thousand people per day move to Florida. Retirees are flooding out of Rust Belt states, trying to avoid taxation. The trend is REAL.

The Democratic party's dependence upon feminists, gays, minorities and organized labor as the four legged stool upon which to build a political party is sadly out of date. There are simply too many places for corporations to run, and their supporters in Congress in both parties are simply too powerful to overcome.

The Democratic party has to realign. It either realigns or disappears.

DLCer. :eyes: :puke:

...the REAL reason we went to war?

It's not the reason you think, by the way.

The reason we went to war was because Democrats can't win elections in southern states. THAT is the reason and there's no OTHER reason. Gore wouldn't have taken us into Iraq. I think we all know that. Afghanistan was a different story given the reality of 9/11 but Iraq wouldn't have happened because it had no reason to happen...

...except for Hussein trying to kill Dubya's father.

Gore couldn't win Florida or anything else in the Old Confederacy. So, Bush got his war. He also got a lot of other things done that we'll be living with for many years to come, probably until I'm a little old man.

And...if you're one of those people who don't think it's important for Democrats to carry states in the South, it's YOUR goddamn fault!

Gore was a good candidate, given what he was up against. He would still be a good candidate. Kerry was awful...the personification of every single New England liberal personality stereotype there is. Watching his patrician mannerisms in those debates was almost more than I could stand...and all the way through, there's Bubba pointing his finger and laughing with his buddies.

We NEED Bubba.

We need Bubba badly...but Bubba hunts and fishes on Saturday, and Bubba's wife drags him to an Evangelical church every Sunday morning. So, you can't sell abortion, gay rights, gun control or unionism to Bubba...

...and because you don't have Bubba's support (white, southern males), you habitually lose national elections. This is precisely what happened all through the eighties. Every cycle, liberal Democrats go through the motions of nominating the same old tired advocates of things no one in growth states wants anything to do with...and then the Republicans humiliate the living, fucking shit out of them. And it's been going on for YEARS. Susan Estrich has discussed this in some length. She says something's wrong with the party. She's right.

Bill Clinton was able to win the White House because he was nothing more than a very well educated and well spoken version of Bubba. He wasn't some obsessive-compulsive 98 lb little vegetarian dweeb who runs around in a turtleneck sweater, trying to save the world. The party is full of that and that's another problem.

You can't sell that shit to middle America! Get the picture?

Did you know Bill Clinton failed to carry Florida in 1996? Yeah! But, it didn't matter. He was so powerful down there (and Dole was such a weak candidate) that he carried a minimum of five southern states in each race. If that doesn't prove my point, you're not interested in hearing the truth.

What the Democrats needed was for a Dixiecrat to run in 2008. It didn't happen.

That's why I say the party as we know it may not survive. There isn't much of one there now, outside of crazy college kids in sandals who end up turning Republican after they buy their first house, and aging San Francisco hippie types who pine for the good old days when they could still get it up. Out in the suburbs, the organization is basically dead man walking. That has to change.

What happens when all the aging San Francisco hippies start dying off in about ten years? What happens to the party as the population continues shifting to states that are far more culturally and economically conservative?

Why would any supposedly vibrant political party be forced to bet the farm on someone who voted for a war that most of its members opposed? Moreover, why would any supposedly vibrant political party continue to put with the constant, ongoing embarrassment coming from Dennis Kucinich? Cities like Dallas and Houston would never stand for it. Martin Frost is a great guy who got a lot of very good things done in Dallas. Atlanta had a mess to clean up with Cynthia McKinney...and did. Miss Pink High Tops had a reputation for periodically losing her mind. The local organization finally got fed up with it, threw their support behind someone else and now what's her name is only a memory. I read postings from Cleveland blogs on a regular basis that advocate NE Ohio Democrats doing the same with Dennis The Menace. Why hasn't it happened?

I've haven't heard such insightful political analysis since Archie Bunker:
"You get Feldman for treasurer. That's perfect. Them people know how to handle money, y'know what I mean? Then you get Salvatory for district attorney - to keep an eye on Feldman. And let me tell you about them Eyetalians - when you do find an honest one, you really got something! Then you get a Mick - O'Reilly - to make sure the graft is equally distributed. And you get Nelson, a regular American, to do the TV appearances, to make the rest of them look respectable."

:dunce: :dunce:

Most people are economic progressives, many just voted for the Pukes over God, gays, and guns but that has been changing over the past 2 years.

As far as I'm concerned anyone that bashes organized labor has no right to call himself/herself a Democrat.

the country's death spiral

...we're gonna have a general strike. That'll really work.

What a general strike would do is empower every company which employs illegal immigrant labor. That's a lot of companies especially in southern and southwestern states.

Is it legal? NO. Is it moral? Certainly not.

But, would it happen? YES.

The only people who think "general strike" are the same people who think everyone should live the way people live in Northern California...except that very few people have either the money or tolerance for taxation that people in Northern California have. It's just like the doctors say: If you want Mercedes-type healthcare, you have to have Mercedes-type resources to pay for it.

And that's not gonna change no matter who becomes President, Hillary included. ESPECIALLY under Hillary.

The United States is not Europe. If you want to live like the Europeans, move to Europe.

And that's the end of it.

feel free to leave if you don't want to be part of the change.

Yes, your DLC/GOP vision for America is REALLY working well. 3 times the health care expenditures with 1/10th the service. tiny, weak, disenfranchised middle class. a few hyper-rich individuals deciding who/what I can read, watch, listen to, and vote for.

What I want is the America that we were headed for before your beloved American-hating right wingers took over. And yes, if the 50,000,000 of us who want change didn't show up to work for a month, something would change. Instead of moving to Europe, I will stay and get rid of malignant filth who currently rule. Then maybe YOU can move to Saudi Arabia and the oligarchy that you want so badly.

...what's going to happen is that, most of the time, you'll have defeat shoved up your ass like a steel rod during national elections.

That's what'll happen. That's what's been happening most of the time since the end of World War II. Look it up. Pay close attention to the Electoral totals and their historical distribution.

Pelosi is in a box. She needs the support of the Blue Dogs but she can't afford to alienate her core constituency.

If the party does not change, it will be in trouble. I'm betting the party leaders will allow incremental change (it's already happening) and chalk up the loss of the left as a cost of doing business.

As I said, most of this is already happening.

They weren't exactly in the front ranks on either civil rights or Vietnam. Well, they were, but on the wrong side in Vietnam. Too many nice manufacturing jobs making helicopters & bombs.

more and more

list has this article.

"Until people get off their asses and do something, there won't be a change,"

....we need to forge a new anti-corporate political coalition between labor, students, progressives, environmentalists, small business, farmers, disgruntled professionals and unhappy people everywhere....

....today we could agree upon many things....

We got people elected who were supposed to do as they promised...but they caved.
we write, we call, we email, we publish, we demonstrate, we protest...GET OFF OUR ASSES AND DO WHAT BIG MOUTH?
The corporate media and the DC insiders have sided with Bush and the Pentagon to continue to support the war profiteers at the expense of our soldiers lives. They even want to expand the carnage to Iran. None of our elected officials can get it done and they might as well shut down the congress as far as stopping the occupation-war.
Shutting down the nation in protest might have an effect on stopping the war but next to that it's time to start taking lessons from the Sunni insurgents because we are soon to be in the same position...occupied by a group that are not Americans but only claim to be while the perpetuate war.
I'm tired of hearing..."Americans need to wake up"... or "Americans need to get off their asses and start doing something". WE ARE AWAKE AND HAVE BEEN DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN THINK OF TO END THIS WAR WITH IRAQ.
The right doesn't want to talk or discuss...they want to dominate. The neocons want world domination and are beyond insane. The only terrorists to fear are in the WH and have been terrorizing their own nation. They aren't the majority so how do the keep getting away with it???...Pelosi, Reid, Rockefeller, Fienstein, Emanuelle,Dean,Nelson...all the 'blue' dogs and 'Bush' dogs. America under this administration really is the "Great Satan"...if you believe we are all like Bush and Cheney and Rice...but the majority of us are not. We are wide awake and off our asses just looking for the next opportunity to end this war and stop Bush and Cheney.

So unless you got a plan mister union rep...STFU.