This blog is cross-posted at StewartAcuff.com
Will the Radical Rightwing Republicans ever quit? Are they absolutely determined to piss off every American except a few who look like me – bald and gray with bad knees?
This week the Michigan General Assembly and Gov. Rick Snyder are jamming through right-to-work-for-less in the home of the United Auto Workers.
Then yesterday US Supreme Court Justice Antonon Scalia compared being gay or lesbian or lgbt to murder or bestiality. People who are gay are born that way. As a person of faith I believe God created us all in a Divine Image. God made no mistakes when he created my friends and family who are gay. And they are deserving of my love and they have my love. Please never forget that the Radical Rightwing Republicans and bosses have always worked to divide us – divide us by race, ethnicity, language, gender, sexual orientation and any other way they could. We are all the Children of an Almighty and All-Loving God. And let’s work as hard as we can to break down the idea of the other.
Gov. Rick Snyder is a no good, no count, sorry liar. He campaigned against right-to-work. He lied. During his campaign he promised he would not support right-to-work. Snyder even did an editorial board meeting at the Detroit Free Press which went through a tough strike 15 years ago. The paper endorsed him. Monday’s Free Press ran a front page editorial outlined in red calling Snyder a liar.
On the basics, our research has shown that on every economic metric right-to-work states score lower than non-right-to-work-free bargaining states. Non right-to-work states have higher wages, better benefits, a better standard of living and better education. Right-to-work is an unmitigated effort to weaken our labor movement and WIDEN OUR GROWING INEQUALITY. And it is undemocratic government meddling in the bargaining between employees and employers.
Snyder and the lame duck radical rightwing Republicans are jamming through right-to-work now without hearings and a deliberative process because enough Democrats will be sworn into the General Assembly that Snyder knows they can’t pass right-to-work in the new Assembly.
But this is now how the Radical Rightwing Republicans do business – trying to roll back voting rights which cost the blood of average people. The Republicans tried to do it with voter suppression. They try to weaken labor by any means necessary like they did in Wisconsin and Ohio. They’re making people angry and determined. They’re actually helping us create a movement of freedom worker power and middle class growth.
This is what President Obama meant when he went to Michigan to campaign against right-to-work. It is not about economics, but about politics. The Koch boys, Karl (freak out election night) Rove and ALEC are doing all they can to weaken labor in key states to weaken the Democratic Party.
This is dirty pool, it’s the football player who always goes after his opponent’s knees to ruin his career, it’s the baseball player who slides into second base with his spikes high trying to cut his opponent, even cut a muscle.
And Americans don’t like cheaters and dirty players.
Do not forget we are in a desperate struggle to reduce inequality, poverty, hungry and cold children, and misery for those of us born to work. Our kids deserve as much dignity as anybody else’s. The kid whose daddy chases a garbage truck down the street deserves as much respect and dignity as the kid whose dad is a heart surgeon.
Stay strong. Hold up your head. We’re winning. We’re beating these bastards. Don’t let up.
Please watch for places we can plant seeds of movement and ultimate victory.
—–
Follow @StewartAcuff on Twitter!
Connect with Stewart Acuff on Facebook!
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!