This blog is cross-posted at StewartAcuff.com
“Congress is reprehensible. John Boehner should definitely be ashamed of himself,”said Monica Byrne, small business owner devastated by superstorm Sandy. After Northeast Republican Members of Congress spent two days pouring scorn on Boehner for adjourning the 112th Congress, he promised votes for Sandy relief in the next month.
But people in New Jersey and New York have waited more than two months for Congressional relief to rebuild their homes and businesses.
That’s why Republican Congressman Peter King went on a one man campaign to stop contributions to the Republican Party.
You have to wonder why the Radical Rightwing Republican House of Representatives has refused to act with financial assistance for the victims of Sandy. Could it be because Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie praised President Obama for the preemptive work of FEMA and his administration to the crisis of Sandy?
Is this Radical Rightwing Republican Congress so cynical that they would withhold necessary funds for disaster victims because a Republican Governor showed respect for the American President who happens to be Black?
No wonder the outgoing Congress is the sorriest, most worthless do nuthin’ Congress in American history.
This whole bunch of Radical Rightwing Republican politicians are either directly or indirectly influenced by Russian anti-democratic bad novelist Ayn Rand who divided our country and the world into makers and takers – remember the 47 percent. They believe economics is a zero sum game – you either win or lose, beat your opponent or be beaten.
The truth is that in a healthy, middle class economy we are interdependent. As wages rise, small businesses sell more and better products, auto companies sell more cars and hire more workers. Those workers buy more, pay more tithes and contributions to their Houses of Worship and pay more taxes that pay teachers better and build better schools.
We are interdependent. We are social creatures for a reason. That reason is to use our social nature to lift up each other.
And that is what the labor movement exists to do. And that is why union work and activism is holy work. “Love one another,”
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Stewart Acuff is the former organizing Director of the AFL-CIO. Acuff has also written two books: Playing Bigger Than You Are: A Life in Organizing, and Getting America Back to Work.
Get the e-book edition of Playing Bigger Than You Are by clicking here!