Robert Reich: Why we need a President who will fight for workers.

Why We Need a Fighter in the White House
by Robert Reich
March 24, 2011

Big business and Wall Street have emerged from the Great Recession with their pockets bulging. Profits and bonuses are as high as they were before the downturn. And they’re spending like mad on lobbying and politics. After the Supreme Court’s disgraceful Citizens United decision, there are no limits.

Pro-business goals are breaking out all over. Governors across America are slashing corporate taxes as they slash state budgets. House and Senate Republicans are intent on deregulating, privatizing, and cutting spending and taxes so their corporate and Wall Street patrons will do even better.

But most Americans are still in desperate trouble. Few if any of the economic gains are trickling down.

And it’s why we need a President who will fight for workers and fight against this assault — just as Perkins and FDR did.

Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/24-2

advocate in sight (fierce advocate = actions, not meaningless words) nt

That worked out real well, didn't it? :sarcasm:

That being said, I think there should be a primary challenger, AND other parties with strong labor candidates to shake up the players who think they've got it made.

I don't disagree with you basically -- but that "We have to rely totyally on ourselves" is kind of counterproductive.

The ultimate purpose of agitation is actual action. That requires a political system that can translate goals into real laws and policies and priorities.

So the grassroots and politicians are like as a horse and carriage -- You can't have one without the other.

What are your concrete ideas?

Taking it to the streets, our neighborhoods, where we live and work.

Doing what all successful mass movements for change have done in the past to accomplish their objectives.

Learning from that history.

At least, they used to stand for.

Big Business has their own party -- they're called Republicans.

K&R. Thank you, Better Believe It: A must-read from Dr. Reich.

Fast forward 75 years.

Big business and Wall Street have emerged from the Great Recession with their pockets bulging. Profits and bonuses are as high as they were before the downturn. And they’re spending like mad on lobbying and politics. After the Supreme Court’s disgraceful Citizens United decision, there are no limits.

Ain't that the truth.

someone who TRULY does value the America people...who make this country work...with OUR tax dollars. Bernie Sanders. I so wish he'd run. I'm not so sure there are any politicians left, besides Bernie and Congressman Wiener, who give a rats ass what happens to us. Seriously.

in U.S. history. We can't survive four more years of this shit.

:shrug: We are on our own and the sooner we realize it the better off we will be.

It should be automatic for the party leadership. But it isn't.

K&R -- Reich is really doing good these days in reminding Democrats what the party is supposed to stand for.

I'm reading Aftershock now. He makes everything so clear.

Bake

For Wall Street to work over the long term, the two WS and MS
have to be in step and moving along together.

You can bet your bottome dollar that Wall Street will
be on another gambling bing if Main Street is still out
thers suffering in the dumper. When we crashed Wall St
was proved to have been gambling--Main St. was no where in
sight.

The Republicans can give the Businesses and Wall St. all
the advantages in the world but if they ignore Main Street
and worse yet deliberately pass policies which lead to its
demise---Yes, these same Republicans will have driven a stake
into the Heart of WALL ST.

and running.

nt

Maybe we need to elect a worker as President.

At one point, before I started running for Congress, an important guy on the County Committee said the party was looking for a serious candidate. That they wanted to find a "successful businessman". I felt sorta humbled, thinking that I was not good enough to run for office. Then I thought "wait just a damn minute. Since when are we the party of "successful businessmen"?"

Then I sorta thought I needed to run to fight for the soul of my party. To run, as a working man, to represent the party of the working people. As it turned out though, I could not even win the primary. Maybe my message didn't get out.

The problem is, that if a successful businessman had entered the race, the party and the press would have annointed him as THE candidate. In fact, that is sort of what happened. Sean Tevis, a prolific money raiser from a previous state election, entered the race, and one article mentioned him as "the obvious choice" except for the fact that a) he didn't live in the district and b) he wasn't campaigning. So he came in third, but he still got over half as many votes as I did, despite doing less than 1/10th of the work.

Many party activists still talk like they want "the party" to find a candidate. As in, the insider bigshots will pick somebody and all of us are just supposed to fall in line and push for their choice. Which, in this state, would mean a DLCer. Even Democratic leaders seem to think we should also be a party that is "pro business".

I think this dichotomy that hasd developed over the years that as political party or candidate -- or just us ordinary schmucks -- have to choose between a "pro-busines" agenda or a "pro-worker" agenda is a big part of the problem.

Why can't people be both? Or, more specifically "pro-decent, ethical business and pro worker."

Personally I don't a person's background or current occupation is as relevant as whether he or she supports liberasl/.progressive policies and values that benefit society as a whole and individual workers. It is possible to run a profitable business that is also a contributing member of society in a positive sense.

since I had a business for seven years.

But I think occupation can make a huge difference. Being a manager or an owner/employer is naturally gonna make you think like an employer. You won't have the same perspective as the workers. Neither is a rich person gonna have the same perspective as somebody in the middle class, or a poor person.

That doesn't necessarily mean that Joe the Plumber would be a better representative than millionaire Mark Dayton who was once the most liberal member of the Senate and is now Governor of Minnesota.

Still, the example that Reich gave was of a Governor wanting to erase labor history because it doesn't fit his pro-business outlook. The party, however, wants somebody with money and who can raise money. Which kinda makes them beholden to money, and not necessarily representative of those of us who have much less money.

is infantile, quite stupid, and frankly a waste of time.

Someone to the left of Obama WAS elected president. He was called candidate Obama. He just swung hard right as soon as he got in there.

He's come in about right where a reasonable person would expect him to.

Because when you have three different groups and you promise all three mutually exclusive things, you're lying to at least two of them.

Take the emotion out of it. When he was speaking, he wasn't speaking to just you. He's speaking to liberals, large democratic constituencies, third way democrats, independents, hard working white Hillary voters... it's a pretty big and diverse group. There's a lot of people you need to speak to trying to get elected as President of the United States. Lying? Come now. Put your big boy britches on. You got yourself a slightly left of center Democrat. You may have thought you voted for a better looking and cooler Dennis, but you'd be wrong.

Evidently he doesn't really want a second term or he thinks moderate Repuke will vote for him now that he has bowed down to the GOP as his betters.

If so, it's just weird that he's changed his tune.

He carried plenty of water on NAFTA and the rest of the Clinton administration agenda when he was actually in the government; an agenda which could hardly be called "pro-worker".

I appreciate that as a professor, lecturer and "talking head" he is saying things that need to be said. I just think it is worth pointing out that when he was actually IN the government and in a position to shape policy, he went right along with the corporate program of his boss.

and an election winner to boot. But for some reason, such a atrategy will not be used by the Dems. Wonder why?