Political Ruminations

DNC Convention Quotes–Gov. Ted Strickland

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland on how little American workers mean to Mitt Romney during a rousing speech at the DNC’s convention last night:

“Now, Mitt Romney, he lives by a different code. To him, American workers are just numbers on a spreadsheet.

To him, all profits are created equal, whether made on our shores or off. That's why companies Romney invested in were dubbed "outsourcing pioneers." Our nation was built by pioneers—pioneers who accepted untold risks in pursuit of freedom, not by pioneers seeking offshore profits at the expense of American workers here at home.”

“Mitt Romney proudly wrote an op-ed entitled, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." If he had had his way, devastation would have cascaded from Michigan to Ohio and across the nation. Mitt Romney never saw the point of building something when he could profit from tearing it down. If Mitt was Santa Claus, he'd fire the reindeer and outsource the elves.”

“On what he's saying about the president's policy for welfare to work, he's lying. Simple as that. On his tax returns, he's hiding. You have to wonder, just what is so embarrassing that he's gone to such great lengths to bury the truth? Whatever he's doing to avoid taxes, can it possibly be worse than the Romney-Ryan tax plan that would have sliced Mitt's total tax rate to less than one percent?”

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Morning Quote: Jimmy Hoffa

President of the Teamsters, Jimmy Hoffa, has the Tea Party totally pissed off over his remarks made at a rally in Detroit, Michigan yesterday:

“We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They've got a war, they got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner. It's going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We're going to win that war.

President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.”

Morning Quote

Stewart Acuff, labor leader:

“They have waged class war on us. It is time for our class to fight back. It's time for us to reach out to one another to fight for the right to organize, to fight corporations that would fight us, to demand that trade agreements protect workers and workers' rights, children, our environment, and our quality of life, and to fight for human dignity.”

Morning Quote: Martin Luther King

A huge supporter of labor, Martin Luther King, Jr. on the accomplishments of the labor movement:

The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society

Morning Quote: MLK

Martin Luther King Jr. was a huge supporter of the labor movement; this is one of his most memorable quotes re labor:

History is a great teacher. Not everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.

Morning Quote: Martin Luther King Jr. on the Labor Movement

From a speech to the AFL-CIO Illinois state convention on Oct. 7, 1965, emphasis mine:

The labor movement was the principal force that transforme­d misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployme­nt insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transforma­tion; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organizati­on crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society.

I wish he were here to advise us today.

Ronald Reagan was the President of a Union

Former President Ronald Reagan, did not share his party's hatred of unions. From Think Progress, emphasis mine:

As the Main Street Movement of students, workers, and other middle class Americans erupts across America, many conservatives have invoked the legacy of former president Ronald Reagan to demand that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) not back down from his push to end collective bargaining for his state’s public employees. In a prank call with the Buffalo Beast’s Ian Murphy, where Murphy pretended to be right-wing billionare David Koch, Walker himself even fantasized about being just like Reagan.

Yet conservatives may be shocked to learn that their idol Reagan was once a union boss himself. Reagan was the only president in American history to have belonged to a union, the AFL-CIO affiliated Screen Actors Guild. And he even served six terms as president of the organized labor group. Additionally, Reagan was a staunch advocate for the collective bargaining rights of one of the world’s most famous and most influential trade unions, Poland’s Solidarity movement.

Founded in September 1980, Solidarity was formed in Soviet-occupied Poland as the USSR’s first free and independent trade union. By 1981, the union had grown to 10 million people and became a powerful force for demanding economic and political reforms within the Soviet Union. Solidarity began to use strikes to demand these reforms, and the Soviets responded by jailing their leaders and cracking down on their right to organize. During his Christmas address to the nation on December 23, 1981, President Reagan condemned the Soviet-backed Polish crackdowns on labor unions, promoting the “basic right of free trade unions and to strike”:

REAGAN: The Polish government has trampled underfoot to the UN Charter and Helsinki accords. It has even broken the Gdańsk Agreement of 1980 by which the Polish government recognized the basic right of free trade unions and to strike.

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