In October 2008 my wife and I hopped on a plane and flew to Southwestern Ohio to campaign for Barack Obama in the Dayton area. We stayed in her folk’s house in Germantown and concentrated our efforts in that town, campaigning among the folks she grew up with and their parents. Soon we went to a subdivision on the edge of town to follow-up with people that yet to be id’d. Before we left the house of the local coordinator we were told that the subdivision had lots of empty houses and more in foreclosure. We were soldiers and headed off with the lists and the literature, smiles affixed and ready to make converts.
We weren’t really prepared for what we saw. One house in ten with a "For Sale" sign. Many others already abandoned. This was a newer subdivision, small cape cod style homes or ranches. Very modest and inexpensive by our Massachusetts standards. The three bedrooms selling for $179,900. One story stays in my mind. We were on a small cul-de-sac and my wife took one house and I took another. I spoke to a man watching his two young daughters play in the driveway. His garage floor was pristine. He said he was going to vote for Obama because of his frustration at the lack of concern for how the Republicans treated the working people in the area. He was a skilled machinist and he showed me his tool box in that perfect garage. He spat the words to no one in particular as he explained that his firm downsized because of the closing of the GM planet in Moraine. He didn’t need the tools anymore because he was now a janitor. His wages were cut and he was worrying about the bills. And his mortgage.
As I walked away, after thanking him and wishing him well and promising myself I would not forget the promise we made to improve opportunities for working families, my wife came with tears in her eyes. She talked to one of his neighbors; A middle aged woman who was one of the last employees at the Moraine plant. She knew she was out of work as of December 23rd. She had no idea how she was going to pay the bills and keep up the mortgage. Her husband was already unemployed. Moraine is a stone’s throw from Germantown.
Tonight HBO is running the documentary, "The Last Truck" about the closing of the plant. The last couple thousand jobs going away from a factory that had as many as 6000 just a few years before. In their own words the last few hundred workers in the plant tell the story of what America is missing now. There is a future that will never come for skilled workers who wanted a good job and a good place to raise a family. It is emotional listening to their stories and seeing the pain and the confusion for how things will be without their jobs. Certainly there will be unemployment assistance and it will help for a time and there would have been other assistance if GM had not gone bankrupt. There are small agreements negotiated between the IUE-CWA locallocal and the "new" GM.
Today the President was in Cincy and showed the fire to get things done that will make a difference for the people in the Moraine area, Ohio and the nation. I know Ron Bloom will bring creative ideas to his position as manufacturing advisor. I know that the economy will continue its long slow turn, like a freighter on rough seas, coming back from the brink.
We went to Ohio to elect a government that will listen to the hopes and needs of its people.
We went to Ohio because the economic devastation in Ohio and the physical and human losses in New Orleans stem from the same disregard for people and worship of capital. We went to Ohio so that we can disengage in Iraq and re-engage in our country and economy. We went to Ohio to make sure that corrupt elections in Afghanistan and Iran get called what they are and no young American man or woman would be asked to die for a regime that would make the Vietnamese juntas of the 1960’s blush. We went to Ohio to make sure all our neighbors have quality and affordable healthcare that does not come from begging insurance companies to do the right thing but because this human right belongs to us all. We went to Ohio to elect Barack Obama, the man who went to working America today and pledged to continue to fight for them. We will continue to walk the path with him, chiding when necessary and pushing and applauding and all the rest as he need and deserves.
Happy Labor Day and thanks to HBO for telling the important story of the workers from Moraine.