My friend Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, most labor union rank and file activists, and most of you reading this are right. If we work as hard as it takes to get a Democrat elected to any seat, and give the money we can, we have a right and an obligation to expect that those Democrats and that party work to make our lives better.
Democrats should be kicking ass for the middle class, giving workers and average Americans more power. They should be strengthening and increasing the middle class, raising our wages and standard of living, securing our future and the future of our offspring, and helping us strengthen Democratic institutions including labor unions. And they should be fighting the right-wing.
All of us have a responsibility to work for these policies and goals. Those we support have that very same responsibility.
I was happy to see a column by Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, calling on the 2016 Democratic Presidential Nominee to take on the “monied interests.”
I almost lost my teeth when I read Reich criticizing trade agreements, which hurt workers because he was the father of NAFTA, the notorious trade agreement that greatly accelerated American de-industrialization, destroyed whole cities, towns and counties, and essentially blew up the base of the modern labor movement. One night over a fancy dinner Secretary Reich and I had an argument that he called a debate over NAFTA. I think that’s what Momma meant when she said you can dress him up, but you can’t take him anywhere. I just thought the stakes too high to not confront him.
But there now is a reformed Robert Reich coming out against corporate favored trade deals.
His column also included a lot of other good policies to make our lives better:
- Busting up Wall Street’s biggest banks, limiting their size, sending bankers who break the law to jail, cracking down on insider trading, and enacting a small Robin Hood tax on every financial transaction.
- Ending corporate welfare tax breaks, subsidies, patents, and trademarks that prevent competition.
- Tougher anti-trust regulation.
- Higher taxes on the the absurdly rich to finance education and infrastructure improvement, thus improving the education of our children. This puts more people to work at family sustaining jobs that will improve our nation’s productivity.
- Pushing for election reform to begin to restore democracy.
It’s a tall order, but our side is way overdue. Time we turn the tide on the class war and start kickin’ some ass!
Image source: @Springsteen