Look for Working-Class Warriors at Picket Lines, Not Podiums

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/05-4

:snip:

Since announcing his jobs bill to a joint session of Congress last month, President Obama has been accused of engaging in class warfare, but not on the side of the rich. After all, for the wealthy and their ideological water carriers on the right, there is no such thing as class warfare against the poor – that’s just business as usual. Instead, the right has pilloried the president as a “class warrior” against the rich. It is a curious charge considering Obama’s record of facilitating the ongoing class war against workers and the poor.

:snip:

But this is the same Obama who abandoned labor law reforms favored by unions. It’s the same Obama who extended the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich and who put cuts to Medicare and Social Security on the table. It’s the same Obama who froze wages for federal employees, putting his stamp of approval on the wider assault against public sector workers. It’s the same Obama who agreed to over $2.1 trillion in spending cuts as part of the debt-ceiling deal. And it’s also the same Obama who has pushed corporate school reforms that have fueled a national war on teachers and their unions.

So, if the president’s sudden passion for fighting on the side of workers and the poor seems like election-time posturing, that’s because it is. And ordinary people across the country are increasingly coming to understand this fact. After so many years of corporate-led assaults on wages and living standards, the victims of Wall Street’s class warfare are fighting back on their own terms.

:snip:

All around the country, workers, students, the unemployed, and the poor are standing up and fighting back with protests, pickets and strikes.

The working-class warrior badge of honor belongs to them, not the president.

More at the link --