I’ve been in a fit of apathy over the past couple of days, and what better to reinforce that apathy than ANOTHER “debate”. This one dealt with some issues that are actually interesting to me, primarily dealing with labor. Still, we had to hear Obama shove his foot in his mouth, and Chris Dodd (27 years in the Senate), Joe Biden (34 years in the Senate) and Hillary Clinton (7 years in the Senate, 8 years in WH) apologize for helping create/maintain much of the mess, particularly with labor, that we currently have.
I find the idea of the whole thing quaint, quite honestly. In the past 27 years no President has done ONE POSITIVE THING for the workers of this country, period. Granted, 5 of those 7 terms have been run by the Republicans, the other two, by the 20th century’s most successful “republocrat” and husband of the front-runner. What exactly does the AFL-CIO expect from this panel of insiders and general rich folk? What the hell do you expect them to say, “We’re working for more jobs in China and Mexico”?
The fact of the matter is that the Democratic Party has been running scared from labor ever since Regan busted up the Air Traffic Controllers strike back in 1981. Think I’m nuts? Check this out.
Democrats, as a national party, have not done anything to strengthen unions. We’ve been cow towing to business interests to trying and seem more Republican. We’ve left the American worker behind, and they should be suspicious of us.
To my way of thinking there were two credible candidates up there last night, one is a character in a Tolkien novel and IATSE #600 member who irritates me, the other is a guilty rich guy (whom I happen to support, FYI). The rest are old school blowhards, and the NKOTB who did everything in his power to harness the credibility of being in his home state and not THEM.
I have to wonder if there will be a Republican version of this. Labor as an organization may lean left, the members don’t necessarily, particularly in states in the mid-west. Perhaps they would like to hear just how soundly they will be screwed under another Republican administration. It’s not as bad now that Johnson & Johnson has that special “warming” formula, and hell, they should be used to it by now.