With so many people rallying in Washington over the weekend led by charlatans and hypocrites Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, who have convinced themselves they are heirs to the civil rights movement the real rally that will bring real civil rights to our country must begin. While it will not be led by false prophets who care only for their own greed and seek to brainwash their audiences that they care about anyone but the greediest and least patriotic among us it will need to take the route of the civil rights movement they have sought to hijack. You see, in the south we see all that has been going wrong in this country. Exploitation of workers, low wages, few worker protections and low union representation and the disasterous effects of bad trade deals and uncaring, greedy "Conservative" representation.
We are getting quite used to Sarah Palin opening her mouth and idiotic nonsense spewing forth. However, in the case of the expiring Bush tax cuts she has passed beyond idiocy and become a complete liar. You see, Democrats are in favor of retaining all the tax cuts for everyone except high-end earners. You know, the Republican base that has plenty of money to support folks like Palin and the propaganda they spread to convince you to let the wealthy have more of your money.
What do you do when you are the "Architect" of the near destruction of the American economy?? What do you do when you were central to an administration that divided and nearly destroyed your country?? Well, in the case of "Turd Blossom" Karl Rove you do not put your head in the sand and hide as any self-respecting person would do but you go on TV and lie through your teeth and try to convince the American people that someone else is to blame for the problems you savaged upon your country. Yes, the "Turd Blossom" is back and as always he is sprouting a bunch of crap.
Remember just after the banking bailouts when Republicans threw such a hissy-fit about not letting American car companies go under and losing thousands more jobs in many already economically depressed areas using a fraction of the money used to bail out the bankers?? Well, as always these folks appear once again to be completely wrong. You see, a funny thing is happening. One year later our car industry is recovering and sales are going up. Jobs have been saved, and the taxpayers are likely to get most of their money back for investing in America, her workers and products.
This has been a problem for a long time now. China manipulating their currency to cost Americans manufacturing jobs and cause a huge trade deficit for our country. It also drives down wages as greedy corporations take advantage of the virtual slave labor pool that exists among the oppressed people in Communist China. Of course, with so many "leaders" in our Congress like the Senator for Communist China Mitch McConnell it is no surprise nothing has been done. Now, July 13 is National call in day to tell Congress to end Chinese currency manipulation.
The hypocrisy of the Republican Party is astounding. When in control of our government they took a surplus and turned it into a huge deficit. They allowed the worst attack ever on American soil and stole generations of Constitutional protections while starting two expensive and ongoing wars to hide their own incompetence. Their policies of spend, and spend, and then give out a little Corporate welfare all while outsourcing middle-class jobs was a failure, all while crashing the American economy in the ditch.
In a reversal from the previous disgraceful Labor Department led by the wife of the Senator for Communist China Mitch McConnell, none other than Elaine Chao new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has a message for employers that would steal their worker's wages. She is also trying to inform vulnerable workers of their rights by launching the "We Can Help" campaign that will address other topics such as workplace safety and help inform workers how to file a complaint against their employers with the Labor Department.
Now that the Healthcare fight has ended in a disappointment for many of us it is time to move onto other fights and show some real fights. Especially the fights where the facts are on our side. It is time that we fight for the Employee Free Choice Act because the facts are on our side and it is far past time the middle-class saw a rebound. You see, one fact is that First Contract Arbitration does nothing to kill "small businesses".
Democrats should realize that although a healthcare bill was passed most of us thought that it accounted to little more than Corporate Welfare. To see that, one need only look at the stocks of the drug and healthcare companies. While the healthcare bill may be a baby step in the right direction for working America, much needs to still be done and this time a fight will be required to enact Progressive change for working Americans.
I wrote a few diaries several months ago about a Democratic newcomer in Kentucky politics when John Waltz announced his run here, here, and here. While I very much liked what Waltz was saying, I wondered about his ability to mount a race as a newcomer and in Kentucky's Fourth Congressional District. However, as this race is progressing John Waltz is proving to be an extremely viable candidate as well as being a real fighting Democrat. Now, Waltz's campaign is picking up steam and with our help could mount a real challenge to put Republicans on defense this fall in at least one previously secure district.
Some of the most frustrated folks in America right now are the leaders of America's labor movement. They have good reason to be, as an all-out war has been waged basically by both parties upon them in the last several decades. After the last election, when they used so much energy and support working Americans won the White House and a huge majority in both chambers of Congress they had really hoped that the plight of working Americans would be addressed through healthcare, wages, an end to outsourcing and the Employee Free Choice Act.
I think everyone agrees that America needs to be creating jobs. Although they do not agree how, it seems that some sort of legislation to create jobs is favored by both parties. However, as always with the Democrats they seem to be taking something that could be good and turning into a very different animal. You see, in all his "wisdom" Harry Reid has decided to add a re-authorization of the Patriot Act into the Jobs Bill.
In a long overdue move that is sure to upset the Senator from Communist China, Mitch McConnell the Obama Administration is starting to push back against China as tensions mount between the countries. It all started with Obama's first visit there when he was chided about the state of the American economy and his visits were staged while the Chinese refused to concede anything on climate change, human rights and would not join in demands for tough security sanctions against Iran.
I keep hearing from the President and other party leaders how our country needs to get past "partisanship". Well, sometimes it is a very good thing to work together and try to agree but the times we live in do not call for that particular solution. Yes folks, what we need right now is a good round of ugly, nasty, bitter partisanship to achieve progress for the working class.
With the current setbacks in election results President Obama is trying to retool his message and offer measures to give relief to the middle-class. While some of it sounds good, to me it seems as if it will fall short in really helping some middle-class folks. Another huge problem is it seems to not address the real underlying problem, the RE-BUILDING of our middle-class which has been disappearing.
On New Year's Eve we will be ushering in not only a new year, but another new decade. The twenty-teens will be upon us and looking both backwards and forwards one can only wonder if it would be possible for the next decade to be nearly as bad as the last. From the promise of the 1990s, we took so many steps backwards in so many regards one would hope that the new decade can only bring improvements.
One thing that Democrats have always proclaimed about our party is that we have a "big tent". Within this big tent we have always excepted many different people from different walks of life. However, recent developments should show us all that sometimes a "big tent" is not the greatest thing in the world, especially in the world of politics. Perhaps we should consider the fact that quite possibly our "big tent" has outgrown itself.
Today President Obama came up with a proposal to create jobs and deal with his Achilles heel among Republicans, unemployment. Of course these same hypocritical Republicans seem to forget it was their policies and President that caused the hemmoraging of jobs in the first place, and America has a short memory.
One thing that has been lost in the shuffle through decades of free trade zealously is the simple fact that it matters where things are made. With the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs and the closures of hundreds of thousands of factories the ability of our country to innovate and to make the products we consume has been greatly diminished. This in turn has shrunken our middle-class to disasterous levels.
Well, the Senate Finance Committee has voted to pass the junk reforms of Max Baucus. In a way this may be good, because now that Baucus has his Corporate Welfare bill through his committee, maybe the reconciliation process can bring about something that more resembles real reform. While I still honestly believe that single-payer is the only thing that will deliver the reform to our system we need, I am hoping the Senate Finance version gets a serious facelift in reconciliation. Anything that mandates coverage for Americans without a strong, viable, robust, or whatever you want to call it public option is political suicide for the Democratic Party. Of course if they are that stupid, they deserve the defeat they will get for acting like watered-down Republicans.
