I don't know if any readers are really into poetry, but I thought I'd post this anyway. I posted one of his poems called "I too sing America." in another thread.

Langston Hughes is often called America's greatest black poet. He is considered by many, myself included, to be one of America's greatest poets, of any color.

He was born in 1902 and died in 1967. He lived through some of the most vicious years of Jim Crow and fought against it his whole life. He flirted briefly with communism then rejected it when he saw it for what it really was - only another way for tyrants to hold power. This poem was first published in 1938 during Hughes brief period of support for communism. Many of his poems speak to the black experience, but many others speak to the universal human spirit. This is one that speaks to both.Many verses are especially relevant in this election cycle. The title of this poem was the source for John Kerry's campaign slogan.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has published a document based on over six hundred responses he received from his constituents and others on how the economy is affecting their daily lives. Sometimes it seems like Bernie is the only guy in Congress who listens to ordinary folk... and often he is just that.

Download the booklet, take a look at some of these, and drop Bernie a note. And write your own congressfolk, too.

Maybe we can get some regulatory action on this economy which we gave up years ago with Reagan and the Republicans.

Under The LobsterScope

Dear Hillary Clinton:

Since you like to bombard me with e-mail and recorded phone calls, I know you must be interested in me. After all, I'm a lower-middle-class (family income around $50K) white guy living in West Virginia... working a part-time teaching job (I got laid off a couple of years ago as a well-paid computer consultant to the IRS and folks in their sixties aren't readily re-hired in that field).

I live in Shepherdstown, where you visited on Tuesday. I didn't get close enough to see you (parking was a real drag and driving around looking for a spot on $3.71 per gallon gas was a real bummer), but I know you were really there talking to me.

I've been listening to your USA Today interview quote on TV yesterday and today... you know... where you distinguished between hard working white guys who you appealed to and Obama didn't. Frankly, I thought we had gotten beyond thinking about ourselves as black or white this year. I went to an Obama support meeting here in Jefferson County last month and there were members of several racial groups there... and many of us were white (I think we were all hard working, too, but I'm not sure about Asians or Hispanics or the African-Americans who were there... you'll have to let me  know.)

We get to do early voting in the WV Primary and I'm afraid to tell you that I already voted last weekend. And I voted for Obama.  Of course that was before you let me know how hard working white folks were supposed to vote.

So I guess what I want to say is "Sorry". And could you have your folks stop calling me and e-mailing me? I feel bad enough as it is.

- Blue Collar Bill

Under The LobsterScope

Cross-posted from EENR Blog

Campaign to Put Ohio's Middle Class First

I just love it when Ian drops these Press Releases in my lap. I can't catch enough news about "Bo", because he is on the move non-stop! It must be a residual affect of that NCAA-I "Stolen Base" title he held in college!

Democratic State Senator Holds Commanding 2 to 1 Fundraising Lead Over Republican Opponent

(Canton, OH)  Congressional candidate and State Senator John Boccieri(D) continues to build momentum for his campaign to put Ohio's middle class first by holding a commanding 2 to 1 financial lead over his opponent State Senator Kirk Schuring. Boccieri has a more than $200,000 fundraising advantage over Schuring and has out-raised him in all of the reporting periods this election cycle.

"John Boccieri has built a strong campaign that speaks to voters' demands for promoting policies that put Ohio's middle class first, invests in jobs and health care here at home, and ends tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas," said Boccieri for Congress Campaign Manager Ian Walton.

       Sunday at a rally in San Francisco Barack Obama made some controversial remarks about small town Americans and small town Pennsylvanians. He said,"And it's not surprising that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

       Those comments landed him in hot water with people in Pennsylvania and some in the media who decided to do their job and report it. Though the issue aside from Barack Obama's obvious disconnect with the average American majority is the obvious double standard in the media. MSNBC and NBC jumped all over Bill Clinton's comments about his wife's Bosnia story yet they didn't once touch the Obama story. It's kind of odd that Bill Clinton comments, that in no way were as controversial or serious as the Obama comments were the top news story for the Today Show and MSNBC, yet the Obama remarks were made last weekend. That's enough time for a responsible news media outlet to report on. But then again we're talking about MSNBC; home to such shows as Hardball with Chris Matthews, who once described a feeling he had for Barack Obama as a "thrill running up his leg". So Chris Matthew's erection aside, let's get to the real problem.

       Barack Obama is playing right into the role he had hoped he would keep secret. The role as the liberal elitist whose so far out of the mainstream that it really makes people second guess whether he's "the great uniter". This is the same man whose suppose to have integrity and judgement, all the while having a friendly relationship with William Ares and Bernadine Dohrn of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group from the 1960s.

   This guy is unraveling right in front of our eyes at the most critical point in his campaign. It's as if all Hillary Clinton's scenarios for staying in the race are coming true. As a Hillary supporter I honestly feel good about Obama slipping up because I don't think he's good for the country, I think he's a progressive elitist that teeters on the brink of Saul Alinsky and Michael Dukakis. I think he's both. So far he's mislead people about the taking money from oil companies comments, he distorted John McCain's comments about Iraq, by the way ever since McCain and his staff brought that up Obama has since backed off. He also distorted John McCain and Hillary Clinton's economic and foreign policy credentials. Whether it was Hillary and NAFTA or him saying that McCain will sit by and do nothing while families lose their homes. McCain has said, like Obama and Clinton, that the government should help those who were victims of predatory lenders.

     Senator Obama is sorely mistaken when he claims that middle class and small town people are "bitter" toward the elites Obama hangs with in Chicago. They aren't jealous of his Harvard buddies. The real truth is that average Americans are angry but they aren't bitter. They get up everyday and they work hard because theres no use whining and feeling bitter and not doing anything about it. That's something Barack Obama, of all people should know. A man who struggled with personal identity most of his life and got up and made something out of himself. So why the blatant misstatements and disconnect? Well, Barack Obama made many friends in the progressive world of politics. Whether it's William Ares or whomever, Barack Obama lost touch with the very world he came from. Unlike the Clintons Barack Obama and Michele Obama paint a view of America that's bleak and hopeless. An America only they can save and if not them then America is forever lost in it's ways, never to grow from our failures and move forward. They won't allow us to fail and learn from those failures because they prop themselves up as saviors.

    The reason why Bill Clinton is so symbolic in the lives of so many lower income and middle class voters in America is because he felt their pain. He knew where they were coming from because he came from that. Hillary has that same reach on the middle class, largely due to her husband, but Barack and Michele Obama are just too aloof and out of the mainstream perspective of the majority of Americans in this country.

     I think this will hurt him a great deal in the coming days leading up to Pennsylvania. This gaff, and not his poor bowling skills and obvious act he put on at that bowling alley will draw the final conclusion that he isn't that voice the average American voter is looking for. What good is change and hope, and a new kind of politics to a trucker or a waitress when you talk bad about them to your big money donors and affluent pals at banquets in San Francisco? But why do I feel so suprised each time he puts his foot in his mouth? I mean George Soros of all people donate millions to his campaign, whether it's through Moveon.org or Media Matters. Soros by the way is a secular-progressive billionaire who wants to create a barrage of smear ads against John McCain.

   I look forward to a 10-16 point victory in PA. This was the exact misstep Hillary Clinton needed to get her husband's minor slip up out the news and minds of voters. If they even cared at all.

If the middle class could give your Congressmember a grade, what would it be?  Today, DMI releases grades for every senator and representative, evaluating their votes on key legislation that affects the current and aspiring middle class.

2007 began as a year of great promise. Congress was flooded with dozens of new members, many elected with a pledge to address the middle-class squeeze and help more working people attain a middle-class standard of living. Important legislation--from expanding children's health coverage to bringing down the cost of college loans--was introduced and brought to a vote. But, faced with Senate filibusters and a recalcitrant President, many bills died or were passed in watered-down form. Still, the bills that did become law represent concrete gains for current and aspiring middle-class Americans, including a higher minimum wage, expanded Pell Grants, a freeze on middle class tax hikes and lower costs to fuel cars.

John Edwards is still focusing on Issues that matter to Working Families!

like the Economy ... like Taxes.


All the while the GOP continues to "debate" that "only MORE Corporate Tax Cuts will create Jobs and keep the Economy strong!"


Hmmm ... Where are all those Jobs, by the way?

Billions in Tax give aways to the Rich, for the last 5+ years, only seem to have strengthen the Rich, it seems to me.

From the John Edwards Issues pages:

In America today, families are working harder to get by.

Half of American families say they are living paycheck to paycheck,
and 3 out of 10 American workers have not been able to save a dime for their retirement.

...

John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, said 2 years ago:

"Today, the Employee Free Choice Act has 208 co-sponsors in the House, including 10 Republicans, and 42 in the Senate -- and we will pass it while George Bush is in office." John Sweeney at National Press Club 1/18/2006

Since then the EFCA, which adds penalties for labor violations, has passed the House, but has stalled in the Senate over a Republican blockade over a small change in "card check" organizing campaigns and has been abandoned by Democrats and Unions until 2009.

Currently employees can optionally organize or decertify a union using signature cards instead of secret ballots. Business groups only want to be able to decertify unions using card check, calling organization by signature cards "undemocratic" and condemning the entire EFCA as "Orwellian named." If the Republican position sounds like a double standard, thats because it is.

Sweeney and his Democrat allies in the Senate could easily shift the debate to just enforcing current labor law. Instead, they are letting the Republicans have a free ride this November by keeping the general public confused about technical aspects of forming a union.