It's Workers' Rights That Should Take Center Stage in Obama Administration

First, let me tell you that I am a union activist. I have demonstrated for gay rights, although I am a heterosexual Male. I believe in equality at all levels. As a union president, two of my three appointed assistants are women. They were the first women assistants in my union, ever. I chose them for their ability, not their gender. I have worked for negotiated equal rights in both my labor contracts (civil unions). I believe in civil rights, having been a product of the sixties and seventies (born 1952). I know we can do more than one thing at a time. However, I also know that priorities matter and I also know history.

In 1993, when Clinton became President, we got mired down into this "don't ask don't tell" gays in the military controversy. I'm a pragmatist. I believe their is just so much political capital and the most political capital that a chief executive has is when he first takes office or immediately after a crisis (9/11). Health care should have been first up at that time, but wasted time and effort caused a distraction from an issue that affects 47 million people to deal with an issue that affected no more than 10 thousand (gays in the military). I'm not arguing against the merits of the idea, just the politics of it and what resulted from it.

In 2004, we had Bush on the ropes. Up pops the Gay Marriage issue. Mind you, I'm for it, it's just not my priority. Enter Ohio. We needed this state in '04. Ohio was ripe for the Democratic pickings. KKKarl Rove seized the opportunity and placed that issue on the ballot. Many pundits now blame that initiative for our failure to win Ohio and capture the White House. Four more years of agony. For all the merits of Gay Marriage, it is not a popular issue. Can't it wait until Americans have jobs and health care?

Let's look at the decades that have just passed. In the 1960's, not a politician would dare speak ill of unions. Nixon was afraid of the Teamsters. The AFL-CIO was revered like a religion. Nearly half the work-force was unionized. At the same time, African-Americans, Women, and Gays were less than citizens. We all worked to end that discrimination. Now, Woman's rights are front and center. No one, no one dares make a sexist remark in politics and hopes to recover. Gays have come to the point of having hate crimes legislated, equal opportunity in housing and employment. Civil unions. No politician, even deep Southern Conservative Republicans dare speak ill of Gays. And we are better for it. Discrimination in the work-place against African-Americans is illegal, where it was far from that 50 years ago. We've come a long way in equal rights for groups that a generation ago were treated like second class citizens, or worse.

All except unionized blue collar workers. In 1982, 27% of America was unionized, now it's just 7% of the private sector. Senators Chambliss, Corker, Bunning and the rest, made anti-union remarks just two weeks ago and brag about it. McCain, at his acceptance speech in Minnesota, talked about standing up to "big labor". In the last two decades, right to work laws have passed in states that have decimated unions. Trade deals that killed manufacturing was passed by both parties and encouraged by President Clinton. Politicians and pundits openly declare that our economic crisis is caused by organized labor. The National Labor Relations Board, an agency set up to protect us, has been staffed by Bush cronies that make no bones about the fact that they want to crush us. The Secretary of Labor, Chow, (Mitch McConnell's wife) has done everything in her power to undermine and discredit unions.

In summary, let me just say this. Minorities, Gays and Women have come a long way in 50 years. A real long way. We have stood beside you every step, even though we had a lot of convincing to do to our members. These groups have a true friend in Barack Obama and in Labor. But Labor's rights and Labor's ranks have diminished during these same 50 years. If we don't lead this agenda and regain our status as the leaders of the middle class, we will all suffer. Everyone needs to progress in this progressive administration. Just as the most critical patient is first up in a triage unit, it's my opinion that Labor should be first up on this agenda.

What does that mean exactly?

:shrug:

around by the nose, because they do not have the people's best interests at heart. Labor is the people. Labor helps Americans overcome their tendency to vote with their hearts and not their minds. It can help them see through the propaganda. Business has persuaded people that "Labor" does not belong to us. And some labor leaders are corrupt, Business makes them that way---or uses its tools in the government to persecute the non corrupt ones.

Vive la Revolution!

What the US has is what Eisenhower warned about as far as the "military-industrial complex." Americans did not heed his warning, and we have paid bitterly in the form of coffins coming home from fruitless wars that serve the many nothing. Out of these fruitless wars in the developing world, a few have made themselves wealthy, at the expense of human life.

I would submit that no Democrat can be pro-war at the same time as being pro-labor. No Democrat could possibly stand before me and argue that he is pro-labor when he talks of sending the sons and daughters of hard workers to die in wars that will benefit nobody but bomb-makers and gun-makers and mercenaries. Down that path is nothing but misery for all involved. It is the path of the Roman Empire.

There may be a day when war is truly necessary for survival, but neither Iraq nor Viet Nam came close to satisfying the definition of a necessary war. World War 2 was the closest, but even then, that war could have been avoided if it weren't for grotesque nationalism and greedy opportunism.

It's about real money and power. The elite don't care about social issues. They will use them if they must to retain power, to destroy unions and turn us all into serfs.

For the Democratic party to be a real party, substantially different from the other party, it must not allow that to happen.

I'm right there with you, but I disagree that this is separate from any other struggle for equal rights.

We're fighting a really big battle right now for the heart and soul of this country. Do we value people, or do we value corporations? Are people commodities or are they sacred? Is consumption the value underlying everything we do, or is there something more?

The "far left" fights this fight every day, and we are all in it together.

Every one of your explanations are right on target. you responded as if you could read my mind. Thank you for understanding the OP and responding so precisely, while I slept.