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Trumka: Don’t Let Opponents Divide Us by Race in 2008 Election |
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Barack Obama is the only candidate in the presidential race who is on the side of working people, and we must defeat attempts to divide workers by race and put him in the White House, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka says.
Speaking to the United Steelworkers’ (USW) convention in Las Vegas this week, Trumka said:
[At] the end of the day, what people are going to need to hear is that when it comes to protecting jobs, when it comes to protecting pensions, when it comes to health care, child care, pay equity for women, Social Security, Medicare, seeing to it that people can afford to go to college and buy a home—and restoring the right to collective bargaining—Barack Obama has always, always been on our side.
This is a guy who’s voted with labor 98 percent of the time!
Now, contrast that with John McCain.
On one side, you have Barack, a man who worked full-time helping laid-off steelworkers in Chicago.
On the other side, you have John McCain, who helped pass the trade laws that resulted in laid-off steelworkers in Chicago.
Click here to read the entire speech.
Recognizing that opponents of working people will try to divide them by using Obama’s race as an issue, union members must lead the fight against such divisions and, instead, look at the bottom line, Trumka said.
There’s not a single good reason for any worker—especially any union member—to vote against Barack Obama. There’s only one really bad reason to vote against him: because he’s not white.
A lot of good union people just can’t get past the idea that there’s something wrong with voting for a black man. Well, those of us who know better can’t afford to look the other way.
[There’s] no evil that’s inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism—and it’s something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge.
Trumka reminded delegates that McCain has been a strong backer of the Bush administration’s policies of globalization, privatization and favoritism for corporations over workers. And it will take the entire union movement in solidarity to turn the country around.
You know that what makes all of us union isn’t some card we carry in our pockets. It’s the commitment, the caring and the love for one another we carry here in our hearts. And it’s because you know that there is only one way working people ever won in the past and only one way we’re going to win today. It’s not by turning on each other; it’s by turning to each other. It’s by organizing, together. It’s by mobilizing, together. It’s by working and planning and building, together. Brothers and sisters, it is by standing tall and fighting, together.
After asking the delegates if they wanted a president who would fight for national health care, sign the Employee Free Choice Act, strengthen safety on the job, defend Social Security and protect American jobs, Trumka said:
Well, congratulations—you just answered the question that’s stumped all the commentators and columnists and consultants in Washington, D.C., who are asking how Barack Obama is going to win the votes of workers in states like Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
How can he do it? You’ve just said how: by speaking out about the issues that matter to working people.
During the convention, the USW and Unite, Britain’s largest union, took a giant step toward global solidarity by formally joining together to form Workers Uniting: The Global Union, which will draw on the energies of more than 3 million active and retired workers from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. Speaking at the convention, USW President Leo Gerard challenged union members to “go on the offense” and seize the chance to create a better world. Trumka urged delegates to spell out the bottom line when talking with their co-workers, family and friends: “This election is about who will stand up for working families.”
I don’t think we should be out there pointing fingers in peoples’ faces and calling them racist. Instead, we need to educate them that if they care about holding on to their jobs, their health care, their pensions and their homes; if they care about creating good jobs with clean energy, child care, pay equity for women workers, there’s only going to be one candidate on the ballot this fall who’s on their side. Only one candidate who’s going to stand up for their families, only one candidate who’s earned their votes, and his name is Barack Obama!
And come November, we are going to elect him president.
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It is an on-going tragedy that the labor movement does not have pro-labor working people running in November to represent the interests of all working people at every level of government. Nothing less will bring any hope to working people, who are now being ground under with massive personal debt, unable to afford decent health insurance, unable to find living wage jobs, their children and grand children now seeing the public education system systematically destroyed. A couple of articles critically evaluate Mr. Obama.
Obama’s patriotism tour: the last refuge of a Democratic scoundrel
By Bill Van Auken
2 July 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/obam-j02.shtml
(To this article I commented elsewhere the following:
Given Obama’s mad rush to the “center” (i.e., right), the next step is obvious. McCain should be Obama’s vice president! This would be a simple solution for everyone in power, Democrats and Republicans, and their corporate masters.”)
And today another examination of Obama:
Obama continues lurch to the right on Iraq war and militarism
By Bill Van Auken
4 July 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/obam-j04.shtml
“The embrace of key elements of the Republican agenda and jettisoning of positions that he advanced during his “Change you can believe in” primary campaign have become a daily routine, as the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential candidate Barack Obama carries out a dizzying turn to the right.
In speeches and press appearances on Wednesday and Thursday, Obama continued to identify his campaign with support for American militarism, while backing away from his primary-campaign pledge to withdraw US combat forces from Iraq based on a definite timetable.”
Obama supports:
* Health care reform
* Getting our troops home from Iraq
* Employee Free Choice Act
* “Fair trade” agreements, as opposed to “free trade” schemes
* Public education – including college – for all who want it.
* Affordable housing
* Saving our environment
* Protecting Social Security and workers’ pensions
* Safe worksites
McCain doesn’t!
If working men and women opt to hold out for the “perfect candidate”, i.e. one who agrees with everything we say (even though we don’t always agree with one another) our “purity” will assure that people like Reagan and Bush I & II will continue to occupy the White House. Who in their right mind wants that?
Rather than bemoaning all that is wrong, we must instead focus on all that we will help make right. If we do, social and economic justice…and peace will follow.
Elect Obama in 2008. Elect him in a landslide! When doing so we’ll be telling the greedy, power-driven neoliberal/neoconservative hate-mongers that their mean-spirited agenda is doomed.
Our time for change has come! Don’t be late!
Here is yet another more nuanced view on Obama vs McCain which tries to compare the positions of the two candidates. It is just not a simple “black and white” issue (pun intended). Obama seems more intelligent, educated, articulate, and more progressive. Obama is also much younger. McCain is in his 70s, an age in which mental abilities are typically on the decline. (Reagan’s altheimer’s was evident while still in office. Bush was psycho-analysed by one writer with a personality disorder (from childhood), autism? (language problems), a recovering alcoholic and alleged cocaine user.) We don’t deserve any more mental cases for President!!)
Candidate Obama: A Less Risky Alternative
by Prof Rodrigue Tremblay
Global Research, July 6, 2008
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9516
“To conclude, Sen. Obama may be a better alternative than Sen. McCain, but his propensity to double-talk can be disconcerting. Let’s say that he is possibly the least worst of the two main presidential candidates”
In any case, I still think that once the election is over, working people and organized labor will still need to raise hell to get our needs even considered.
Congress and the White House will still be controlled by corporate interests, wealth and agendas.
I still think organized labor must really call for a new political party to represent the economic interests of working people. New national mass media must be created to educate working people on the underlying facts. (NOTHING is being done by organized labor in this area. NOT ONE National newspaper or television network (including PBS) has anything the informs the public about our needs, the attacks upon public education, housing costs, etc.etc. EVERYTHING is biased to business and corporate perspectives. All “solutions” to economic problems consider first (and often only) the needs of business and corporations to make profit. No mention every of the crises of working people.)
JerryWells,you have hit the nail on the head, again we are faced with the lesser of two evils,not the best man for the job.I can not vote for McCain and I’m getting really tired of Obamas lies.He has not shown anything as to how he supposedly will make change in Washington.I can see nothing changing until we voters throw out the biggest cause of all the problems in this country and that is the United States Congress.When you go to the polls vote against every incumbent and pershaps the rest will get the message.