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Berry CraigBerry Craig is a professor of history at the West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah, a member of AFT Local 1360 and the author of "True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon & Burgoo," "Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War," and "Hidden History of Kentucky Soldiers." |
Workers Don’t Fit into Rand Paul’s World |
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Kentucky State AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan doesn’t pull punches when he talks about the Bluegrass State’s Tea Party-backed Republican U.S. Senate candidate. Speaking to a sun-baked crowd at Paducah’s 35th annual Labor Day picnic Monday, he warned:
A vote for Rand Paul is a vote for the continuation of the economic nightmare now facing workers across Kentucky. Vote like your job depends on it—because it does.
The state AFL-CIO unanimously endorsed Democrat Jack Conway over Paul, whose anti-union views earned him a $2,500 donation from the National Right to Work Committee.
Conway is the state’s attorney general. An ophthalmologist, Paul is the son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). Dr. Paul is bad medicine for Kentucky’s working families, according to Londrigan.
He supports privatizing Social Security and increasing the retirement age for Social Security eligibility. He supports so-called free trade agreements like NAFTA, which are responsible for shipping millions of good-paying American jobs overseas.
When it comes to jobs safety, a vital issue for state’s coal miners and other workers, Londrigan said Paul’s response to catastrophic mine accidents and oil rig explosions is:
“‘accidents happen.” In Rand Paul’s world, corporations should be completely unregulated so they can cook the books and undermine our economy.
Londrigan went on to highlight the differences between Rand Paul’s world and the world in which most Kentucky workers live.
In Rand Paul’s world, Social Security is a burden and not a reward for a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice and something to be handed over to Wall Street.
In Rand Paul’s world, the budget deficit is a monstrous problem, but tax cuts for the rich are still a priority.
In Rand Paul’s world, teachers and the Department of Education are a hindrance to learning. In Rand Paul’s world, farm subsidies are a handout. In Rand Paul’s world, lowering workers’ wages is the way out of a recession.
And in Rand Paul’s world, property rights trump civil rights. If you’re an ordinary American, a hard-working Kentuckian, you can’t afford to live in Rand Paul’s world.
Jeff Wiggins, a United Steelworkers (USW) members and president of the Paducah-based Western Kentucky Area Council, said Kentucky union families are a vital element in the fight to send Conway to the Senate and Paul back to his practice.
But Wiggins, the Labor 2010 coordinator for western Kentucky, also says working families must be mobilized. He doubts Paul will win many union votes, but says the Republican is hoping for the next best thing: a slew of union card-carrying Kentuckians will forget that the GOP’s gospel of greed caused the recession, will blame hangover hard times on the Democrats and will show their disdain by not voting.
Wiggins has a message for potential non-voting union members:
If you stay home on Nov. 2, you’ll be helping the same sort of people who tried to push labor off the cliff under Bush. Democrats like Jack Conway want to throw us a rope and pull us away from the edge. But Republicans like McConnell and Paul still want to push us off.
For the latest on Labor 2010 in Kentucky, click here.
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Ron Paul wants to privatize and thus destroy Social Security. Working people should certainly not support Ron Paul for this reason alone.
Obama recently created a “deficit reduction” committee, whose chairman recently got himself in hot water by bluntly stating his extremely negative view about Social Security.
Obama wants to “fix” the deficits he has created giving billions to the banks, by expanding wars in the Middle East, by destroying Social Security. The “entitlements” essential for the economic survival of working people are being methodically underfunded and destroyed: Social Security, Medicare, public education, public health, etc.
What should the AFL-CIO do when both political parties are controlled by corporate money (campaign contributions,etc) and corporte agendas?
Since the November 2010 election is upon us, perhaps not much can be done. President Trumka (with the UAW) is giving the Democratic Party
$80 million dollars for this November 2010 election. This is a big mistake.
Perhaps individual Democrats, who have always supported Social Security and other issues vital to organized labor and working people should be supported. But only about 10% of the Democrats are pro-labor. The rest have “sold out” in supporting Obama in expanding wars, supporting corrupt “bail out” of gangster capitalists, supporting the fraudulent “Health Care Reform”, etc.
Looking to the 2012 election, if the interests of organized labor and working people especially are concerned, a new political party must be established to struggle for the economic needs of working people.
First on the platform of economic demands must be to support Social Security.
Next, must be the massive aid to the millions of unemployed working people to secure millions of “living wage” PUBLIC SECTOR JOBS. Private sector jobs will never be created by existing corporate Capitalism because their drive is to maximize profits, which entails reducing labor in this country to slave-wage conditions of third world countries.
Funding of public sector jobs can be realized by many measures: End the wars in the Middle East, shutdown most of the 700 foreign bases, cut the “defense budget” by 50%. Tax cuts, tax breaks, subsidies to big-business should be eliminated. Serious progressive taxation should be implemented immediately, especially upon the wealthiest individuals and corporations.
Social Security has no immediate financial problems. Further funding can be secured by “tweaking” the system, perhaps raising the “cap” on Social Security taxation so that wealthier people pay more to Social Security. So called “Middle Class” working people will probably be desperately needing Social Security benefits by the tiime they retire, given the destruction of retirement funds that has occurred in the last several years.
Without the effective POLITICAL STRUGGLE of organized labor, united with the vast majority of unorganized working people, in the form of a mass anti-capitalist political party, the works for the economic betterment of all working people, the impoverishment of the majority of working people will continue.
The AFL-CIO, with millions of dues paying members, able to organize millions of working people in united effort, is the largest pro-labor organization with the resources to effectively call for the formation of a new political party. What is lacking is the political understanding, and political will, to make it happen.
Continued blind support of Obama and the Democratic Party, to simply oppose Ron Paul and the Republicans and supporting the Democrats, will continue the destruction of the economy and millions of working people of this country.
I’m sorry to inform you that the age of distorting the minutiae to further your cause is over and the attempts there of, are now laughable and expose you for who you are. Do you really think that in 2010, people don’t stop to check your out of context quotes? Continue playing the game the only way you know how, but don’t be surprised by the revolution.
I wonder how big the government has to be before it is big enough? We are looking at spending so high that interest on the federal debt will be a trillion dollars.
I admire Dr. Paul for pointing out we have serious problems in DC. He has also pointed out the Republicans share the blame.
Workers today pay so much of their income in taxes they have lost buying power. The current regime in DC has increased spending so much that the fed has printed money and sold debt as fast as it can. That means the dollars we earn and the dollars we save will continue to lose value.
If our generation does not get a handle on spending the next generation will suffer greatly.
I have read a lot of critics of Dr. Paul but didn’t see any plans to stop the madness called deficit spending.
When is enough, enough?
guess you haven’t seen the video where Rand Paul said we were going to have to work for less ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCwE5dKhl_M&feature=player_embedded
AFL-CIO has failed us all. Period! NAFTA was a big government Democrat program (which this president said he would fix, until he admitted it was only campaign rhetoric). The big unions’ biggest failure has been their allowance for the importation of cheap labor. Our wages are stagnant, and our standards-of-living are on the decline, Prof. Craig! Our dollars are being destroyed by inflation: what has the AFL-CIO and the Democrats done about that? This lack of understanding of economics mirrors that of the US Chamber of Commerce, that represents the Wall St. and multinational corporate interests, not that of working folks. The Conway/Keynesian view of economics has failed US workers, and has been discredited, and yet the unions continue on in self-interest. You are counting on Social Security? Privatizing SS sounds horrible, but we both know that there is no trust fund, and there is no money! The best we can hope for is that we are able to claim our own money and invest it how we see fit for our own future.
Your unions work on the assumption that the progressive statists won’t stab you in the back– while at this moment they are planning on using your pensions to prop up the dirivitives bubble!