Holt Baker: Union and Civil Rights Movements Can Turn Country Around

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/07/19/holt-baker-union-and-civil-rights-movements-can-turn-country-around

by James Parks, Jul 19, 2008

In this pivotal election year, the union and civil rights movements together can turn the country around from the disastrous course we have been on in recent years. But it will require members of both movements to “get angry and get our voters to the polls, fight through the barriers, wait in the lines and stand up” for our neighbors who are suffering in this economy, says AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker.


AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker

Speaking at the annual Labor Luncheon at the NAACP’s national convention in Cincinnati this week, Holt Baker said:

It seems to me that for the past 30 years, our country has been headed in the wrong direction, with our dual movements for civil rights and union rights struggling against a huge tide of oppressive history.

What we need now is a brand-new deal, because instead of a “can do” country, we’ve become a “negative nation.”

Holt Baker pointed out that the nation has lost half a million jobs in the past six months alone. Instead of investing our tax dollars in education for our children, she says, the Bush administration is “spending $10 billion a month on an unjustified war in Iraq and killing other people’s children.”

She challenged the audience to mount a campaign to counter corporations and the wealthy elite who are benefiting from the widening gap in wealth and who are thwarting workers’ efforts to join unions to create a better life.

The rich people and the right wingers in our country have their hands in our pockets up to their elbows, and they are not going to give up or give in without a fight.

To defeat them will take more than just a bigger and more powerful campaign by the civil rights movement and the labor movement. Together, we will turn around our economy. Together, we will turn around our health care. And together, we will turn around our country.

FULL story at link.

[flashl]

1. True, however, the civil rights part creates fear and suspicion. Opposition to civil rights

created one of the best wedge issue in the country and is still one of the most effective Repug tool.

[jody]

2. The civil rights movement won a major victory when SCOTUS said in D.C. v. Heller that theSecond

Amendment protects the right of individual law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

My point is many people don't know that RKBA is a civil right.

[flashl]

3. Gun right activists are selective?

Where are the Gun Rights, Second Amendment People With THIS Case?


Not being cheeky, I have followed discussions within the 2nd Am community where they posed the question.

edit: link and add comment.

[jody]

4. "With THIS Case?" Sorry but I don't know to which case you are referring. n/t

[flashl]

5. Sorry, just corrected link. nt

[jody]

6. Thanks, please visit the DU thread below where the case is discussed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=180378&mesg_id=180378

[flashl]

7. Thanks for link. nt