The NY Republican party is nothing unique.
Posted on 08/02/2004 2:08:52 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
On the first day of the Democratic national convention, Andrew Stern, the head of the 1.6 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), dropped a bombshell in an interview with The Washington Post. He said that both organized labor and the Democratic Party might be better off in the long run if Sen. John Kerry lost the presidential election this fall. Stern´s remarks were quickly rebuked by AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, who pledged anew his support for Kerry. However, the SEIU is the largest and fastest growing union in the AFL-CIO and has banded together with other expanding factions of the labor movement to push for a more radical-left agenda than the Democratic Party is presenting this time around.
Stern sees a “deep crisis” on the left. The Kerry-Edwards ticket is trying to identify itself with the moderate-liberal legacy of the Clinton Administration, which Stern also criticized as having been harmful to “reform.” The SEIU had been an early supporter of Howard Dean, especially when he was the darling of the anti-war movement. Dean re-ignited the mythology of the New Left of the 1960s, but the Democratic establishment rallied around Kerry to head off another McGovernite debacle.
The SEIU´s involvement in the antiwar movement was independent of the Dean bubble. At its national convention this June in San Francisco, the SEIU adopted foreign policy resolutions which included calls for “An end to the U.S. Occupation of Iraq,” and “The redirecting of the nation's resources from inflated military spending to meeting the needs of working families for health care, education, a clean environment, housing and a decent standard of living.” And to put meaning into its claim as an “international union,” the SEIU platform repeated a statement made in the letter Stern sent to President Bush in January, 2003 opposing a war with Iraq. That statement claimed, “The goal of our foreign policy must be to promote a safer and more just world - promoting peaceful, multilateral solutions for disputes” and “must give high priority to improving the lives of people around the world.” The SEIU believes that forcefully removing Saddam Hussein from power violated these principles.
The Democratic platform takes a very different approach. It attacks the Bush administration for “badly exaggerat[ing] its case [for war], particularly with respect to weapons of mass destruction and the connection between Saddam's government and al-Qaeda.” However, now that the U.S. has overthrown the Saddam regime, it “cannot allow a failed state in Iraq that inevitably would become a haven for terrorists and a destabilizing force in the Middle East.”
The Democratic platform also calls for adding 40,000 troops to the U.S. military, and doubling the strength of special operations units, which are used in unconventional warfare and anti-terrorism actions. In his acceptance speech for the vice-presidential nomination, Sen. John Edwards cited the need to “strengthen and modernize our military” and said in regard to Iraq, “We'll win this war because of the strength and courage of our own people.”
The SEIU is a member of the New Unity Partnership, which also includes the Laborers' International Union of North America, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. The wing of the union movement representing the most unskilled and lowest paid workers has always been the most radical in its demands. Before their merger, the AFL, which represented skilled craft workers, and the CIO, which represented the unskilled, were often bitter political rivals.
During the rise of the United States to world economic leadership, the bulk of the “working class” in industry was elevated to middle class living standards. This was a great success story and a key reason why American politics have been more stable, moderate and realistic compared to what other countries have had to suffer with cycles of demagogues, suicidal policies, and mob violence. Workers who could afford to own homes and send their kids to college where not vulnerable to calls for a Marxist proletarian revolution.
Unfortunately, industrial decline has eliminated millions of middle-class blue collar jobs as America´s “labor aristocracy” has been undermined by cheaper foreign production.. The balance of power within the labor movement has shifted away from the “hard hats,” who wave the U.S. flag from their pickup trucks and send their kids into the military. They confronted the New Left in the streets in the 1960s and emerged as Reagan Democrats in the 1980s. The irony for Republicans is that by embracing the “free trade” policies pushed by corporate interests whose loyalty to the nation and its values is questionable at best, they have decimated the most patriotic and socially conservative segment of the labor movement.
As the number of workers in the shrinking industrial sector has declined, so has that sector´s influence in the labor movement. Service and government-sector unions have recruited members of growing sectors in the economy – service workers and government employees, whose interests and ideologies are much further to the left.
A key feature of the New Unity Partnership is the high percentage of immigrant workers they represent, including large numbers who are in the United States illegally. The SEIU claims to be the nation´s largest immigrant union and has stressed the need “to build a powerful, new immigrant electorate.” The SEIU strategy is to win a complete amnesty for illegal aliens to pave the way for their recruitment as left-wing voters. They have rejected President George W. Bush´s plan for an “earned” legal status through employment because it does not clear a path to full and immediate political rights. The SEIU urges its members to participate in politics even if they are not citizens or even legal residents. Its website states, “While we may not all be able to vote, we can all participate. If you can´t vote, you still have a voice. You can make phone calls, walk precincts, and pass out literature to ensure that everyone who is eligible to vote can.” The union itself has raised about $65 million for use in this year´s political campaigns.
The other unions in the New Unity Partnership coalition are also heavily involved in protecting massive illegal immigration, which has provided them with so many members. LIU resolutions call for “effective and far reaching reform legalizing undocumented workers and oppose current guest worker programs.” These sentiments are shared by all groups on the far left.
Those who want to radically transform the United States need to create a new proletariat which is as alienated from American society on class, ethnic, and cultural grounds as leftist intellectuals are alienated on ideological grounds. Drawing more illegal aliens into the country is the strategy for creating such a movement. In a evenly divided electorate, the influx of millions of foreign-born voters skewed towards one end of the political spectrum would be decisive. Thus behind the hiring of a few more janitors, kitchen helpers, and day laborers lurks the far more ambitious project of importing revolution.
You aren't going to let me pretend to be optimistic are you? Buzz kill! Well that's what I get for trying to talk so many people down from dreams of a significant change in black voting patterns.
I'd be more impressed if I saw both Alan Keyes and Tom McClintock on that stage. Were they even invited? I can see why Alan Keyes wasn't invited from the time they had him arrested LOL. My mother is voting for Michael Peroutka. I live in New York where the establishment republican party is a complete joke. That's sometimes better because when a good pubbie comes along he/she is GOOD. Rudy is popular, more popular than Arnold I'd say.
It is the liberalism of the church that leads it to become less effective and more people to become disinterested in the church; but their thirst for spirituality remains. So they look elsewhere; Buddism, Janism, Hinduism, Islam... most critically Islam. Many folks may want to become Islamic as a fashion statement like Tyson or use it to fill their spiritual identity. A culture without morings floats around looking for anchor... Much of Europe is looking for a base.
Hispanics not just Mexicans. It is the Catholics that will keep things grounded.
You mean like they did in Taxachusets electing anyone with a D next to their name? As a Catholic I can say there is simply no evidence to support that. I would have more "faith" in a huge surge in Evangelicals makes a positives social impact that I would people who call themselves Catholic.
Looks like some of those missionaries will have to take a turn around.
The NY Republican party is nothing unique.
Just which ULTRA CONSERVATIVE speakers are going to make YOU "optimistic"?
And NO ULTRA CONSERVATIVE speakers,"good" enough to please the rabid purists on FR,will bring in ANY Black votes.
So,would you please be so kind as to explain your post?
Anyone with a truly grounded faith that doesn't bend to the socialist.
Alan Keyes showed up at the republican debates during the 1996 election and got arrested once. I think he's respected now more than ever and has quite a following but I don't think he's got the presidential fight in him.
I believe Karl Marx also said, "I love Kraft Macaroni and Cheese! It's the cheesiest!" Doesn't mean you're a useful idiot if you cook some up.
I think 2 mentioned a number of times on here would be fine ones to start, Alan Keyes and Tom McClintock. Putting up Tom Tancredo would be a brilliant coup on their part to defuse the populist outrage here in CA about illegals. Gee, somebody from the Heritage Foundation, Micheal Reagan, Rush, I mean there are many members of the GOP who are conservative. Not putting up one makes people a bit nervous considering Bush and Cheney aren't exactly ideologues. I'm voting for them, but even if it was Reagan and a bunch of RINO hacks I would be a bit concerned about the party. As for using the word "ultra" that is a liberal media trick. I admire your passion for the Grand Old Party but don't use such transparent semantic tricks.
You need to learn the FACTS about Keyes. :-)
Go tell that to the Mexican government that has marxist style controls on major industries that would make Chirac jealous, buddie.
http://www.renewamerica.us/
I do know a lot of him, but don't see him making another run at all.
Alan Keyes is a nobody,who talks down to everyone,has had trouble with respecting the monetary laws that rule campaigns,and has used the RACIST "victimology" of the likes of Jackson and Sharpton,when he didn't get his way.He has NEDVER held an elected office,but thought that he could start at the top and run for president.And,to top all of that off,he went on cable,badmouthing President Bush,immediately after the inauguration. He's a nobody and deserves NO place at the GOP convention.
Tancredo is worse than that.He's a nobody,who outside of FR and his constituents,has absolutely NO name recognition.He's a one issue politician,who even went after a constituent and then pulled back.Having him speak in prime-time would be a stupid move and an invalid one.He's a backbencher with NOTHING to offer.And,he'd be worse than Pat Buchanan,for media hype afterwards.
Michael Reagan IS speaking!
I used the word "ultra" because the purists here are so faaaaaaaaaar right,that they're almost out of the party.
Conventions are now for show.They used to serve more a purpose other than rallying the troops and attracting new voters,but those days are now long gone.
I was only pointing out what you had just gotten through saying in the previous post. Anyone with a truly grounded faith that doesn't bend to the socialist. You can't get mad at me til you get your Talking Points straight, either the white Euros are faithless for allowing the socialists to take over because they don't have "faith", which would then apply the great nation of Mexico who's people have so little faith apparently that they failed to stop the same thing happening in their own country- or its not. You can't have it both ways. Think it through, if its the cause for one its certainly the cause for the other.
Conventions are now for show
** and for maybe helping out the local economy where they are sponsored, with the exception of this last democrat one. I heard they bombed big time.
Yes.
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