I went to see Eric Alterman talk about his new book last week. During the discussion, he noted to nodding heads all around how remarkable progressives’ unity against Bush is.
Everyone thinks he’s the worst president we’ve seen in a generation. Enviros, women, African-Americans, education voters, health care voters, and every other member of the left-liberal coalition can’t stand him.
For those of us in the labor movement, Secretary of Education Rod Paige’s sad attack on union teachers as “terrorists”—followed quickly by Paige’s “Sorry I called you an idiot, you moron” non-apology—was another reason to look forward to fighting back.
Paige’s remark wasn’t a fluke. Putting aside the obvious problem—Bush’s unquestioning devotion to the economic comfort of corporate special interests—Bush has certainly put in an extra effort to insult the values of working people by weakening overtime protections, adding new red tape to restrict working people from speaking out in politics, and taking away the right to form a union from airport security screeners.
No slight is too minor: Bush’s administration even put a violently anti-union corporate executive into the Department of Labor’s Hall of Fame.
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