Why I Support Obama

There are lots of reason why I decided to support Obama once my candidate (Dodd) dropped out and 1st among those is best summed up by Senator Obama:

In this time of change and uncertainty, these questions are expected, but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard them. These are the same kinds of questions I heard over two decades ago after I turned down a job on Wall Street and went to work as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. The job was to help lift up neighborhoods that had been devastated by the closing of local steel plants. So I worked with unions and the city government to organize job-training for the jobless and hope for the hopeless, and block by block, we turned those neighborhoods around.

It showed me the fundamental truth that’s been at the heart of America’s success – and at the heart of the labor movement in this country – the idea that we all have mutual obligations to one another, that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper, and that in this country, we rise and fall together.

Today, Obama spoke at on the 2nd day of the Building Trades Legislative Conference, the 100th anniversary!

Ayers opened it yesterday with a line that I think will now be at the top of my page:

Ayers went on to state the building trades’ case against John McCain. "Ladies and gentlemen, I was always taught that charity begins at home, that true patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else. The America we know and love, the America we have and will defend, deserves better than John McCain."

But I'm not here talking about Ayers today, I'm here to talk about why he's my candidate.

Even though I decided that he was my candidate, I continued to listen to Senator Clinton. And what I continue not to hear or read from her is the committment to community, to organizing, to solidarity that I'd like to see from her.

I had this little list os strikes against her from Penn to NAFTA. She's just not a viable candidate for me. Nor is McSame. Mr. Right To Not Work State will continue to fill the NLRB with the same industry types and the work we do to show Elaine Cho's shameful behavior will need to be doubled with McSame at the helm.

That's how I came to Obama, with the eye toward how bewildered I've felt due to this administration, and Obama nailed it today in his speech before the trades with this one:

It’s not just that this administration hasn’t been fighting for you; they’ve actually tried to stop you from fighting for yourselves. This is the most anti-labor administration in our memory. They don’t believe in unions. They don’t believe in organizing. They’ve packed the labor relations board with their corporate buddies. Well, we’ve got news for them – it’s not the Department of Management, it’s the Department of Labor, and we’re here to take it back. That’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.

I think of American Axle and Kongsberg and the Writer's strike, Smithfield, Hard Hatted Women, Aramark, American Eagle, Men's Warehouse, the Teamsters and their battle to keep trucks from Mexico from driving our roads, and I think of the ILWU and the May 1st STRIKE...and he's got me thinking about what we can do. Finding hope for a new tomorrow. I find that hope in statements like these:

Your voices will be heard. If you have any doubts, you can ask the union leaders in Illinois. When I was home talking to some of the local leaders there a couple of years ago, they told me they were being underbid on projects because unscrupulous builders were gaming the system. And I listened. They said that on some construction jobs, those builders were calling their employees “independent contractors” to get out of having to pay employment taxes and workers comp or overtime.

That didn’t sound right to me. So I set about leading an effort with Senator Durbin, Senator Kennedy and others in the Senate to end this practice. Because if you’re doing the same work as other employees, you should have worker protections, the same ability to organize, and the same wages and benefits. And I’ll fight to make that the law of the land when I’m President of the United States.

It's other statements like these:

It’s time we had a President who didn’t choke saying the word “union.” It’s time we had a Democratic nominee who didn’t choke saying the word “union.” We need to strengthen our unions by letting them do what they do best – organize our workers. If a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union. And that is why I’ll fight for and why I intend to sign the Employee Free Choice Act when it lands on my desk in the White House.

Here’s what else we’ll do – we’ll put Americans back to work. I applaud your partnership with Helmets-to-Hardhats. I believe we have a responsibility to serve our soldiers as well as they’re serving us, and by helping make sure they have the skills to work in the trades when they come home, you’re living up to that responsibility. As President, I’ll support funding for this critical program.

And we won’t just promote job-training, we’ll promote job-creation. That’s why we’ll pass what I’m calling the Patriot Employer Act that I’ve been working on since I got to the Senate – because in my administration, we’re not going to give tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas; we’ll give them to companies that create good jobs with decent wages here in America.

It's his support of EFCA, his organizing his WILLINGNESS and ABILITY to not only SAY the word UNION, but to show that he knows what it freaking means.

It's an amazing speech. I highly recommend a full read of it.