Remember on This Labor Day

On this Labor Day it's important to remember, the working man has an enemy in the Republican Party. Remember that your property taxes (if you are lucky enough to have some) are going up because of tax cuts to the wealthy. Your wage has been stagnant for the past few years, despite increasing inflation and record profits. Your Social Security fund has been raided by tax cuts for the wealthy. Your pension fund is likely underfunded so may not be around when you retire. Your future health care under Medicare is very much in jeopardy, because of tax cuts for the wealthy. The Republican party has been at war with the working people of this country for over one hundred years. Everything accomplished by the "New Deal" of FDR has been for the most part, rolled back and returned in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy. Most of the billions spent on the war has gone into the pockets of the corporate friends of the Bush family. And the national debt is destined to paid for by your children's and grandchildren's taxes. Worse yet, they will not have Social Security or elder healthcare.
SFGate.com

U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige labeled one "a terrorist organization." Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called them "a clear and present danger to the security of the United States." And U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., claimed they employ "tyranny that Americans are fighting and dying to defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan" and are thus "enemies of freedom and democracy," who show "why we still need the Second Amendment" to defend ourselves with firearms.


Who are these supposed threats to America? No, not Osama bin Laden followers, but labor unions made up of millions of workers -- janitors, teachers, firefighters, police officers, you name it.


Bashing organized labor is a Republican pathology, to the point where unions are referenced with terms reserved for military targets. In his 1996 article, headlined "GOP Readies for War With Big Labor," conservative columnist Robert Novak cheered the creation of a "GOP committee task force on the labor movement" that would pursue a "major assault" on unions. As one Republican lawmaker told Novak, GOP leaders champion an "anti-union attitude that appeals to the mentality of hillbillies at revival meetings."