Missing Person Report: Candidate Obama

“It’s not enough just to help those at the top. Prosperity is not just going to trickle down. We’ve got to help the middle class.”

“The fundamentals of the economy have to be measured by whether or not the middle class is getting a fair shake.”

“The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel.”

“You know about the families all across this country who are out of work, or uninsured, or struggling to pay rising costs for everything from a tank of gas to a bag of groceries. And that’s why you know that we need change in this country.”

Is anyone else wondering where this guy disappeared to?  Perhaps we could pitch in for a reward of some type?

If having a Treasury Department loaded with Goldman Sachs weren't enough for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to revolt, then this should:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/21/obama-picks-jeffrey-immel-ge-jobs-overseas_n_812502.html

My good friend Chris Townsend, National Political Director for the United Electrical Workers, informed me that Jefferey Immelt, the CEO at GE, has overseen the closing or outsourcing of nearly 30 plants in the United States in recent years.  

So apparently, the supposedly labor-friendly candidate Obama who was the darling of big labor, has morphed into President Obama who thinks that the guy who thinks shutting down plants and shipping them overseas is the best guy to put in charge of job creation.  

I don't even know where to start on this one...

At least there is one politician with enough testicular fortitude to call the White House out on this steaming pile of you-know-what:

Bernie Sanders.  I am all for cloning if we can get a few more of his kind into Congress.

In Solidarity,

Joseph

The Employee Free Choice Act: An Obituary

Although I'm sure someone else has probably said it already, let me make this important declaration:

The Employee Free Choice Act is dead.

Deceased.

Kicked the Bucket.

Bought the Farm.

And with it, the hope for reviving the mainstream labor movement.

And who do we have to blame for the death of the most treasured piece of pro-labor legislation in the last sixty years? The pro-corporation, anti-worker fat cats? The Republicans?

Nope.

We have ourselves to blame. Allow me to explain:

For decades, the labor movement has continued to suck at the tit of a Democratic Party that has had a bosom full of poison since the party bosses managed to exchange Harry "the puppet" Truman for Henry "the real deal" Wallace in 1944.

For many years, we were able to survive by inoculating ourselves by investing dues money from the expanding membership. But with the declining membership and burdensome pensions that most unions have no real plan to pay for, the poison will finally begin to kill us, unless we begin to ween ourselves off of it immediately.

When we keep returning to the Democratic Party every election cycle like a prostitute to an abusive pimp(I apologize for the imagery, but it is a good description of the relationship between labor and the Democratic Party), we are extending the cycle that has brought us nothing in the manner of actual progress for the American working class. Every other November, the party puts(pimps) us out on the corner to attract voters(johns), and despite all our whining and complaining, what do we do? We put on our stilettos and fake mink coat and take to the streets.

The only way the labor movement will ever make a comeback in the hearts and minds of the workers is if we publicly cut the cord with the Democratic Party and begin to use our numbers to affect individual races that benefit us. No more dumping millions of dollars into the DNC, just so they can use it to promote the likes of Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson.

Let's go find us a few more candidates like Bernie Sanders, and let these anti-worker Democrats fend for themselves. After all that's exactly what they've done for us, isn't it?