This is a defining moment for our country, and we need our President to lead. Will you join me

[midnight]

The attacks on our unions in Ohio, Wisconsin, and elsewhere aren't just labor struggles or budget battles. They're an attack on the American middle-class - an attempt to, in a single blow, undo generations of progress for labor and working class Americans.

President Obama needs to lead the charge against this affront on public workers and unions. He needs to be on the front-lines of these protests, as he promised while on the campaign trail in 2007.

This is a defining moment for our country, and we need our President to lead. Will you join me in signing this petition to our President?

http://kucinich.us/labor/petition.php

Let me be clear: President Obama stands with workers, unions, and the middle-class everywhere. I do not question that. But standing behind workers isn't enough right now. We need him to stand in front of workers and our movement. We need him to lead the charge - let everyone know that America does not sit idly by while a few Republican governors, backed by their big business interests, try to destroy the foundation of our middle class.

This is simply too important to sit on the sidelines. Imagine the impact on this struggle if the President of the United States would join, in-person, with the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators across this country. It could be a game-changer. Please join me in signing this important petition - and ask your friends, family, and neighbors to do the same:

http://kucinich.us/labor/petition.php

I've spent the last few weeks joining with workers in Ohio and around the country, rallying against this attack on workers' rights. It has been what I've done my whole life - from fighting unfair trade deals, to walking the picket lines at strikes everywhere, to expanding health coverage for displaced workers. This is my purpose: To stand up and to speak out on behalf of those who have built this country and who want to rebuild this country again.

The future of labor, as John L. Lewis said, is the future of America. And, right now, this is a turning point for both. We need our President to lead the charge.

With respect and optimism,


Dennis Kucinich

[msongs]

1. when you have to tell someone to lead, that someone is not a leader lol nt

[Doctor_J]

2. No kidding. The time for this "president" to lead passed two weeks ago

He's obviously decided that the billionaires' good will is much more important to getting re-elected than the support of the unwashed who worked for in in 2008.

[Demeter]

8. [phone] 0000000000000 00000000000000

[Lifelong Protester]

3. Jeez-o-pete, would it be asking too much to have SOMEONE

in the federal government make a statement? Get out in front of this? Cripes, our own WI senators seem mute on the issue.

Yeah, I've seen all the quoted pieces by Obama, and Biden, and Solis, but we need something more than "Oh, we stand with you". Really? I don't see 'em.

[swilton]

4. I believe in Dennis and I will do this for him

But I also agree with the posts here that if you have to ask/ someone to lead, they aren't your leader....This scenario seems to be a rerun of the BP oil spill April 2010. This is a hurricane Katrina moment. I just can't think of what Ted Kennedy would be thinking looking down on us now.

The time has come for us to find someone else who will wear those 'comfortable shoes' we have heard so much about in 2008.

[inna]

5. not terribly impressed with Kucinich, either, these days.

this whole petition is way too polyannish and i know for the fact Dennis knows better.

[slay]

6. Every time I say this I get jumped all over

by certain other DU members. This Has Nothing To Do With Obama - they say. And I say Bullshit! We have a Dem president for a reason - to stand up for - and with - the people of this country in their time of need. This country deserves better than Obama - much, much better - but the reality is he is the president and being so he should LEAD. If Obama refuses to lead I hope Kucinich changes his mind and challenges him for the primary in 2012. Unreal that we have to beg our Dem president - Mr. Hope and Change himself - to actually act like the president!!!

[Citizen Worker]

7. I respectfully disagree. If Obama enters the fray he will become the issue and not workers' rights

to collectively bargain. What we need is for the national leadership of the AFL/CIO to LEAD. Rich Trumka has done it before when he was president of the United Mine Workers Union and he can and should do it now. Where's the national leadership of AFSCME? However, there is something Obama can and should do and that's initiate legislation to repeal Taft-Hartley and reopen the slave trade agreements as he pledged during the campaign.

[Fearless]

9. Bullshit! The head of the party should be involved

There should be a national debate. That needs to happen now. We need to escalate this issue. And we need a national strike.

[Enthusiast]

10. K&R and done. nt

[midnight]

11. King also recognized that the anti-union politicians in the South were the same people who opposed

civil rights. That’s why he opposed union-busting ”right to work” for less laws. In fact, in 1961, he said:

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as “right-to-work.” It provides no “rights” and no “works.” Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining….We demand this fraud be stopped.

http://www.todaysworkplace.org/2011/01/17/4081/