I don't care about Obama or Clinton

[louis c]

or Biden or McCain or Bush or Romney.

I don't know them and I probably will never meet them.

I care about me and people like me. The American middle class.

I know history. In the last one hundred years, every single law that helped working people was passed by Democrats over the Republican opposition. Child labor laws, the right to form a union, equal pay for equal work, safety standards in the workplace, 40 hour week, the right to strike for better pay and working conditions, Social Security, Medicare, overtime, paid holidays, the 5 day work week, the Family Medical Leave Act....just to name a few. Not one, not a fu@@ing one of them passed without the Democratic Party's support and overcoming Republican Party opposition.

This isn't about Barack or Hillary. This is about our country, which has lost it's way. Our fathers and grandfathers voted with their heads, not some emotion. FDR, Truman, even Ike (who wasn't really a Republican or a Democrat at heart) and JFK all respected the middle class. Even that bastard Nixon played footsies with Hoffa and George Meany to cater to the blue collar men and women of this country. It all changed in 1980. Reagan made it fashionable to f@2k the little guy, to destroy unions, to eliminate the middle class. Bill Clinton is not blameless in all this. I remember when he twisted arms to force enough Democrats in Congress to join almost every Republican to pass NAFTA. House Speaker Dick Gephardt stuck by his guns, but to no avail. Then the worst of the worst became President. Satan could not had devised a more destructive person to put us in the most dire of spots than George W. Bush.

This is, without question, our very last shot at ever having a chance of returning to even a semblance of a working, middle class. Obama isn't the Savior, he's just the last, best chance we have.

This isn't about him, it's about us, so let's not leave a stone unturned, a door unknocked, an ear unfilled or an unsubstantiated charge unchallenged. Let's give 'em hell, or we will surly be living there.

[aquart]

1. Pretty much.

[louis c]

8. Yup, I guess you get it

[Beregond2]

2. Exactly.

Where Democrats lost their way was when they stopped taking care of the middle class.

Don't you sometimes wonder how Republicans do it? I mean, how do they lie with themswelves? How do they look in the mirror? What do they tell themselves to justify their actions, their beliefs? I mean, sure the ones at the top are sociopaths, but they can't all be.

[OwnedByFerrets]

3. They never look in the mirror without looking in their

wallets first.

[louis c]

5. I'm 56 years old

I've been working for democrats since Mcgovern. Every time we lose, we really lose, and the people we are trying to help work the hardest against us.

Example. a blue collar guy at work has a 15 year old son. The worker makes $50,000 a year. how the fu*k can he ever vote for a Republican president. Who will fight McCain's wars? Bomb Iran. Stand up to Russia. Fight in Iraq for 100 years. Track down bin Laden. Now, some of these may be necessary, like finding bin Laden and destroying the Taliban. But who will fight all the other wars. Let's finish what we have before we start a new war, don't you think, John? So, how can a working class man with a family that includes a potential draft-age son vote McCain? For the dumbest of reasons, like Obama's half brother lives in a hut in Kenya. Who fuc*ing cares? How about "you may be homeless if the plant closes and your kid is fighting another of McCain's wars"?

[DailyGrind51]

10. Exactly! The average blue collar worker is much more likely to die of heart disease,

cancer, or diabetes, than acts of terrorism, yet he/she falls for the "security" argument every time!

[rebel with a cause]

4. I don't mean to disagree with you, but

should not the working class in general be our concern. I don't like when we pick just part of our working class to be concerned with. There is the poor working class and the middle working class, and they both have been f**ked over by the republicans over the last twenty + years. As a member of the poor working class, I can tell you that the loss of "Child labor laws, the right to form a union, equal pay for equal work, safety standards in the workplace, 40 hour week, the right to strike for better pay and working conditions, Social Security, Medicare, overtime, paid holidays, the 5 day work week, the Family Medical Leave Act....just to name a few." If anything, the poor working class is more harmed by the loss of these social/economic protectors than those who above them in social position.

If you had included all of the working classes in your op, I would agree with everything you said, except I still somewhat care about Obama. But like he has said all along, this is not about him, it is about us all and we all have to work/fight to take even a little bit of our country back from this corporation ran government.

Edited to add: I don't work anymore because I am disabled, but my daughter does. We both have (multiple) college degrees, and she works at a job that only requires (maybe) a high school diploma. And she is not the only college graduate working there.

[louis c]

6. I understand what you mean

but the middle class should be expanded by lifting the poorer workers into it. The right to form a union will indeed make working conditions better for all workers. no one should work 40 hours and not receive at least a $600 pay check in this country. and no one should work 40 hours and not receive health care provided by either the employer or the government. Anyone receiving less is tantamount to slave labor, as far as I'm concerned. It is a human right to have at least these minimum standards for any adult working in America.

[cliffordu]

7. Yep.

[louis c]

9. yep