We have just stepped away from three days of an Obama-bashing convention, put on by the RNC (Republican National Convention). There weren't many specifics to what the GOP and their candidate for president were going to do if they were given the reins of the government again, only that they were going to do better than Obama.
Now it's time to switch gears and find out where the DNC (Democratic National Convention) wants to take us for another four years.
The Democratic Party of course has supported labor causes throughout American industry, and that's because its focus has always been the average middle-class citizen, along with the social programs it's always supported for the poor.
This election will be very important for the Labor movement as Republican governors and state legislators across the country have gone on the attack against public unions and their workers. Wisconsin's governor Scott Walker passed legislation to deny bargaining rights to public workers while cutting benefits. Then at the same time, he passed tax cuts for the millionaires in the state. There are other Republican governors doing the same.
If Republicans pull a win this election -- perhaps by their voter suppression efforts in the states -- union workers and even non-union workers may see cuts in benefits and pay. This may be just my opinion but I see a Republican Party that is poised to bring down unions both public and private. They're interests has always been for big business, not for the average person.
When banks collapse because of very high-end gambling, it is the middle-class and even the poor who have to pay the price by joblessness and loss of benefits and pay for those who still work. Meanwhile, banks and corporations are back to giving each other huge bonuses, but you see; they hit it off big time in 2008 when the federal government under the Bush administration handed them an $800 billion bailout package, off the backs of taxpayers.
If we are going to protect the middle-class and average workers from having to take responsibility for irresponsible banks and corporations, then the Democratic Party needs enough seats in the congress and one very important seat in the White House.
We need to do this so that Democrats, along with Republicans interested in getting the country back on its feet again, so that they can move forward with a jobs bill and several other bills meant to get this nation rolling again.
As a gay man, the Democratic National Convention recognizing my right to the same privileges as heterosexuals means a great deal to me. I well remember a time in America's past that I could be thrown in jail and even fired from my job for expressing whom I was.
Living in a conservative state, I understand there are many who fear what gay marriage would do to this country. I think that if they just did a little internet searching for opinions of heterosexuals in countries that have legalized same-sex marriage, they'd find that there are no serious problems -- life just goes on as always. People living their lives the way they want and that's how it should be.
If Democrats win and Obama retains the presidency, it's highly likely in my opinion, that next year the "Defense of Marriage Act" could become history, because it will surely be a focus of an Obama second term and a Democratic Party that felt it important enough to put it on its platform for the 2012 convention.
The starkest difference between the two major political parties is that Republicans always look out for the interests of the wealthiest of Americans. Their solution for everything seems to be just more tax cuts and deregulation for banks and big business.
Democrats on the other hand have always stood on the side of the weak and the vulnerable, through social programs and protections to minimum wages and worker's rights.
This doesn't mean that Democrats are against big business. Under the Obama administration, tax cuts for corporations and the highest income brackets have continued. Corporations under Obama's watch have made record profits. Let us not forget that it was Obama's decision to bail out the auto industry, which is now booming back like never before.
Democrats understand one thing about the economy that Republicans seem not to understand; when the middle-class is strong and prosperous, the rest of the country is strong and prosperous. The Obama administration and the Democratic Party will seek to bring prosperity to the middle-class in this country while trying to protect the safety net set up for the poor.
As the 2012 platform of the DNC was just released yesterday, it includes language, which says,
"We Democrats offer America the opportunity to move our country forward by creating an economy built to last and built from the middle out. Mitt Romney and the Republican Party have a drastically different vision. They still believe the best way to grow the economy is from the top down -- the same approach that benefited the wealthy few but crashed the economy and crushed the middle class."
The Democrats and President Obama has not had a perfect run these last few years. They passed a historical health care bill that has divided the country but also was not the bill they set out to pass in the first place.
President Obama worked to fulfill many of his campaign promises, unaware that two years into his presidency, he would be confronted with a divided congress and a Republican Party set on defeating him at every turn and blocking his agenda, therefore in hopes to unseat him in this election.
So let us ask ourselves this my fellow Americans; has the Republican Party succeeded in blocking President Obama from helping the country get back on its feet? If so, then do we now give the Republican Party and their puppet candidate Mitt Romney control of the country again because they succeeded?
I have another idea; why don't we give President Obama another four years with a congress that's willing to work with him and lift our country out of the ditch it's been sitting in. That way, we eliminate the problem and we enhance the solution - sounds like a great idea to me.
This is a republish from my website: Fidlerten Place