http://www.unionofunemployed.com/blog/homepage/no-time-for-marquis-of-queensbury-rules/
“Now, some of these ideas I’ve talked about before. Some of the ideas I offer will be new. Some will require Congress. Some I will pursue on my own. (Applause). Some ideas will benefit folks right away. Some will take years to fully implement. But the key is to break through the tendency in Washington to just bounce from crisis to crisis.
What we need is not a three-month plan, or even a three-year plan; we need a long-term American strategy, based on steady, persistent effort, to reverse the forces that have conspired against the middle class for decades. That has to be our project. (Applause).”
–President Barack Obama
July 24, 2013 in Galesburg, Illinois
Dear Mr. President:
Don’t expect us to applaud. We cannot wait another 30 years. Our crises are persistent; our crises are now.
Rather than lofty rhetoric, Mr. President, we need you down in the trenches today and every day. Instead of long-range plans, we need you slugging it out with the GOP’s Tea Party Neanderthals, strong-arming recalcitrant Republicans and forcing Democrats to toe your line.
We need an American Jobs Act, a WPA 2.0 and a CCC. And so much more.
Our crises – millions who want to work, part-time jobs with no benefits, schools that fail our sons, drugs that destroy our daughters, and the indignities our parents face as they age – do not bounce. Nor can they wait.
Our lives are hard, unglamorous. Our days are filled with compromises between what we want and what we need to feed and clothe our families. As the years slide by, we lower our expectations, adjust to the new normal of joblessness, and find ourselves as outcasts of a working class that cannot find work.
So your middle-out strategy misses us by a mile. We fell out of the middle class in the massive layoffs of 2008 and 2009. We survive as part of an underground economy that pays no taxes. While we are not proud of that fact, eking out a living in the darkness is far better than starving in broad daylight.
Our greatest hope, Mr. President, was that you would put us back to work. It still is. But the sands of time are running out — for you to deliver on those promised jobs and for us to do the jobs that need doing. Resetting the timer beyond your last days in office only means a grimmer, meaner life for us, our kids and our grandbabies.
So the applause does not come from the jobless households that voted for you, twice. We are too ground down to stand up and cheer. And we are too focused on making ends meet to care about your legacy. Not when our legacy looks us in the eye every day and asks: when will it ever end?
Your job, Mr. President, is not to build a mythic city in the clouds. Rather, your job is to make our lives here on earth just a little bit better. And that requires more perspiration than inspiration, more sweat equity than eloquence, and more brawn than brilliance.
The endless pivots to the economy are lost on us. What we want are four letter words – work, jobs, help, food, book, care – that translate into acts not of human kindness but Acts of Congress that have a direct, measurable impact on our daily lives.
Those Acts of Congress can only be won by instilling a fear that you will use the enormous power of your office to punish opponents and reward supporters. Such a fear cannot be felt from a podium in Galesburg. But it can be felt up close and personal by those who have stood and still stand in your way.
Mr. President, our lives are no longer governed by the Marquis of Queensbury rules. And neither should be the final 1,275 days of your presidency.
So, if you intend to fight, really fight, for us, then we’ve got your back. But the applause will have to wait until the fight is won.
In unity – strength,
Rick
Rick Sloan
UCubed President
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