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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'What is it about working men and women they find so offensive?'
Posted with permission.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/28/10532944-what-is-it-about-working-men-and-women-they-find-so-offensive
'What is it about working men and women they find so offensive?'
By Steve Benen
-
Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:01 PM EST
Listening to President Obama's speech this morning at the United Auto Workers Annual Conference, Benjy Sarlin noted Obama was delivering a "barnburner," adding, "This is old school Obama."
After having seen it, that assessment seems more than fair. The president is eager, especially today (see Michigan, Republican primary in) to remind the country that at a time of crisis, when the American automotive industry was on the brink of collapse, the right was wrong and the left was right.
Video @ link~
After walking through the circumstances that led to the rescue policy -- and noting for the record that there was no private capital lying around, ready to bolster the Big Three -- Obama reminded folks that there were some who wanted to "do nothing," and "allow these companies to fail." He added, "Some even said we should 'let Detroit go bankrupt.'"
The president didn't mention any names, but he didn't have to.
At that point, Obama lowered the boom.
"Or you've got folks saying, 'The real problem was with the workers. They all made out like bandits. Saving the American auto industry was just about paying back unions.' Really? Even by the standards of this town, that's a load of you-know-what. About 700,000 retirees saw a reduction in the health care benefits they had earned. Many of you saw hours reduced, or pay and wages scaled back. You gave up some of your rights as workers. Promises were made to you over the years that you gave up for the sake and survival of this industry, its workers, their families.... I keep hearing these folks talk about 'values' all the time. You want to talk about values? Hard work -- that's a value. Looking out for one another -- that's a value. The idea that we're all in it together -- that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper -- that's a value.
"But they're still talking about you as if you're some greedy special interest that needs to be beaten down. Since when are hardworking men and women special interests? Since when is the idea that we look out for one another a bad thing? I remember my old friend Ted Kennedy; he used to say, 'What is it about working men and women they find so offensive?'"
It was as stark a reminder as any that the success of the president's policy will be at the heart of his re-election effort. Indeed, as Greg Sargent noted earlier, "Obama used the auto-bailout argument as a jumping off point for his larger case: That Democrats and Republicans have fundamental ideological differences over government's role in stepping in and protecting working people and ordinary Americans against the depredations and excesses of unfettered free market capitalism, and that this all flows from a difference over moral values and priorities."
If that's not a good debate to serve at the heart of a national clash between the parties, I don't know what is.
rfranklin
(13,200 posts)that's what they have against working people. If they could have those working people as slaves, they would still resent the expense of feeding them and the cost of the chains to restrain them.
Warpy
(111,255 posts)is for all of us to pay them for the privilege of doing their shitwork, feeding ourselves out of backyard gardens in their company towns, maintained on the half day a week they "give" us, Sunday morning after church.
This is who they are. We can't change them. We can only work to defeat them.
trof
(54,256 posts)Game, set, match.
GObama!
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)He needs to run with this and tell his advisors to keep quiet.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)chieftain
(3,222 posts)I love watching the President give the lie to the you-know-what the GOP spreads.
socialindependocrat
(1,372 posts)All we were taught about trusting our leaders
Police
Politicians
Clergy
Doctors
Teachers
Parents
And now it's going t take years and years to get things
back to where we have some discretionary income.
We trusted congress and they sold us out
and the GOP was working for the 1% all along.
Even now the GOP is trying to reverse women's rights!
They need to go...
varelse
(4,062 posts)More of this, please
saras
(6,670 posts)Zalatix
(8,994 posts)But "Obomber" didn't turn out to mean what they thought it meant.
It turned out to mean he dropped a big fat bomb on their asses in the form of the auto industry bailout... and it is just now detonating.
Obama can now come back during his campaign and say "Hey, I did this back in 2008. The jobs are coming back to Detroit. See this video where the GOP said I was wrong? Now who ya gonna vote for?"
GET BASIC WITH THESE SAVAGES, OBAMA!!!
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)I thought the question was about the Democratic Party. As in "What is it about working men and women that they (the Democratic Party) find so offensive?"
For one thing, perhaps, the ignorant idiots mostly don't have them collidge degrees.
For another, they are a bunch of racists, sexist bigots.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)Most of us collidge edjumacated people are no richer than working class or middle class.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Because it reads like you're saying the Democrats hate working men and women because they're ignorant idiots without college degrees who are racist, sexist bigots.
Which is a load of shit.
malaise
(268,980 posts)K & R
They don't just hate the working man - they expect him to cheer on the rich.