It needs to be higher, right after her telling Trumka and other union leaders that they need to have action to match rhetoric.
But, it's still good, no matter the location:
Third, we have to be prepared to carry out a new political strategy from more than one election cycle. ...Amen to all of this.
To carry out a long-term strategy, we have to be prepared to give up our current illusion of influence. Too often, we are charmed by access. We are invited to sit on White House roundtables, or we are impressed that top officials will answer our calls. But what has this gotten us? If anyone has doubt about why simply electing more Democrats will not be enough for the labor movement to thrive - let alone survive - they need only to look at the track record under our past three Democratic presidents. Pro-union legislation and labor law reform failed under President Carter. It was never seriously considered under President Clinton. And EFCA was dead on arrival under President Obama.
We cannot keep making excuses for elected officials, saying that the "political will" necessary for them to do their jobs was not present. Political will begins with us. If we want a different result in the future, we must begin to do politics differently. And that means getting serious about putting force behind our declarations of independence.
It exactly parallels the message Gang Green environmental groups need to heed about the current state of the Democratic Party and the often anti-environmental stances and actions of President Obama, as blogged here.
But, there's still something missing. And that is a failure to make an explicit call to arms for third-party voting.
Dean has a more in-depth piece on what labor can do at In These Times, but, it too has the same "missingness."
Amy, you can do even better.
You should know, and I think somewhere, you do know, that if push comes to shove, you need to shove. Period.
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