i don't see what's so exciting about a failed minority party, with a course of conduct of betraying labor, supporting a card check bill.
if a candidate cares about labor, why would s/he be a democrat?
>Pro-labor Democrats
>never had a strong majority in Congress and never enough to overcome the
>joint GOP-southernDem filibusters that blocked labor law reform.
democrats opposing labor law reform were not just southern democrats (commonly referred to as dixiecrats). you know this don't you?
>Today,
>many of those former conservative southern Dems are now Republicans,
many, but not all.
we have a crop of neoDixiecrats in the democratic party -- to "liberal" to be acceptable to southern republican voters, and yet too right wing to be liberal democrats. just conservative enough.
>but
>the encouraging thing is that there are competitive Democrats running in
>those states who are pro-labor.
how is this encouraging? when pro-labor "competitive democrats" get elected, let me know.
if one gets elected, it might be encouraging *assuming* s/he means what s/he says and is not just whoring for the labor vote; and most importantly has more than a snowball's chance in hell of accomplishing anything in washington, dc.
>Forget the blabbing on about trade agreements-- I've pointed out endlessly
>that large majorities of Dems voted against NAFTA, fast track and a range
>of other trade deals in the last decade or so.
which means absolutely nothing. pointing out something endlessly doesn't make it true. dems voted for and against anti-labor deals. what's your explanation for that, nathan newman?
you conveniently ignore the fact dems supported anti-labor deals, including your dem president who fought for "free trade"; and the position of the DLC supporting "free trade." these are democrats, too. you look one way, present a completely biased, one sided picture of the dems, float hollow statistics, write with blinders on, and expect yourself to be taken seriously.
>So what's your evidence
>that Northern Democrats were not pro-labor in the past?
is it only northern democrats you're interested in? surely you can find some of the "evidence" you're allegedly seeking in the west, too.
here's three western democrat senators who voted to override harry truman's veto of taft-hartley (unless you consider texas a southern state):
John Connally; Hatch; O'Daniel
there's more evidence, nathan newman, if you take time to look it up yourself.
>They opposed
>Taft-Hartley and supported labor law reform repeatedly-- it was only
>GOP-southern filibustered that stopped it's enactment.
GOP-southern democrat filibuster, you mean?
ever heard of cloture? it was the weakness of the democratic party, with its beloved dixiecrats (who not only filibustered labor bills but filibustered every racial equality bill that ever inadvertently reached the floor of congress), that made filibuster such a successful tool. the democrats, over and over again, failed to stop filibusters because they gentlemanly looked the other way regarding the quaint idiosyncrasies of their racist, conservative, anti-labor southern brothers -- who were crypto republicans anyway, as the dems later discovered.
the US senate voted 68 to 21 in favor of the Taft bill (later combined with the house's hartley bill). the democrats voted 21 against and 21 in favor. did all those 21 votes in favor come from the south?
harry truman, democrat that he was, did not want to veto the taft-hartley bill. but did so at the last possible minute because in those days the dems were still playing the pro-labor card and didn't want to upset unions and labor voters. he did little or nothing to influence the override vote that followed, behavior democrat bill clinton would have embraced.
"On occasion President Truman still likes to lay an occasional verbal wreath on the grave of the New Deal. But the hard facts of roll call votes show that Democrats are voting more and more like Republicans. If the Republican Taft-Hartley bill became law over the President's veto, it was because many of the Democrats allied themselves to the Republicans. Only 71 House Democrats voted to sustain the President's veto while 106 voted to override it. In the Senate 20 Democrats voted to override the veto and 22 voted to sustain it."
-- from The Third Party, a pamphlet by Adam Lapin published in 1948
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09062004.html
think all these democrats voting to override truman's veto were southerners, nathan newman?
>So why keep repeating lies and distortions?
why not ask me when the last time was i beat my wife?
try thinking outside the box you've build around yourself.
>I swear, listening to George
>W. Bush and to a lot of LBOers often seems like the same experience--
>statements taken out of context to lie and distort.
reality sucks doesn't it, nathan newman? if shrub and "a lot of LBOers" can mess you up this badly, i hate to think what karl rove would do to you. it's easy to see what he's done to the democrats: throwing the 2000 election was a democrat party masterpiece which we all can regard warmly as we reflect what almost four years of shrub has brought this nation and the world.
>The basic fact is that we need 60 pro-labor Senators to get labor law
>reform.
"we" need these senators all right. couldn't agree with you more. but, there's no reason at all for these senators to be democrats.
>Which means that if you care about labor law reform, you should be
>cheering on the victory of pro-labor southern Democrats as crucial for
>building toward that margin.
is it all right with you, nathan newman, if i cheer for pro-labor candidates who aren't democrats?
at the current rate, when do you think the dems will reach "that margin"?
anyone who cares about labor law reform must work to end the strangle hold the misnamed two party system has on american politics. the democrats have proven their impotence to affect any improvement for decades. in fact, the reason i keep mentioning NAFTA and other trade agreements, fast track, etc -- despite the fact my comments upset you so -- is to demonstrate how the democrats have helped move the cause of labor backwards time and time again. even pat buchanan could do better than this.
the dems are republican lite; they will side with corporate interests. as bill clinton, a quaint neodixiecrat said, this dog won't hunt.
>Or do you really think big rallies in Washington, D.C. are intimidating to
>GOP Senators from Red states?
>
>Nathan Newman
are you planning to stage one?
R