Textile CEO’s to help defeat Bush

[workenstiff]

On Friday NPR ran a story entitled "Textile Industry Gets Out the Vote" (there is no direct link to the audio but you can go to this page and scroll down about half way.

National Spinning Company in Burlington N.C., CEO Jim Chestnut made an unusual request, he asked all his employees to stop what they were doing and come to the cafeteria. There he stood before them and delivered a strong political speech against Bush’s trade policies.

“We have been devastated in North Carolina, slightly less than 200,000 jobs lost since we got a new administration in Washington. We have had the heart and the core of manufacturing just cut out and the jobs just given away.”

Then he passed out voter registration forms and promised to help get his employees to the polls next year. Jim Chestnut is part of an industry association that is disgusted with Bush.

Here is one Southern state we can win.

[Don_G]

1. Don't Forget The Furniture Industry Too

They've also been hard hit and bear watching.

[Noordam]

2. A couple days ago, I said NC could go for a Dem in 2004

and a lot of DUers have already written off NC and a Hard Repug state. I am not sure that is true like this article points out. It is STILL THE ECONOMY, and while NC has a large military presents, a lot of them are so not want another 4 years of MREs...........

[workenstiff]

6. Where is that FDR quote from?

I love his quotes. He knew how to frame the struggle against big money power in a real patriotic way. The following is from the FDR 1936 acceptance speech:

"Philadelphia is a good city in which to write American history. This is fitting ground on which to reaffirm the faith of our fathers; to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom; to give to 1936 as the founders gave to 1776 - an American way of life.
That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy - from the eighteenth-century royalists who held special privileges from the crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed; that they denied the right of free assembly and free speech; that they restricted the worship of God; that they put the average man’s property and the average man’s life in pawn to the mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented the people.
And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought. That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man, who won the right with his neighbors to make and order his own destiny through his own government. Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.
Since that struggle, however, man’s inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution - all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain free.
For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service."

[Grins]

16. It's a great quote..

The closest I could find to its source however, is that it was in a 1938 message (speech? memo? bill? ???) proposing the Monopoly Investigation.

It's all over the web. In digging around for myself, there was one site that I thought very interesting. It's in the same vein of monopoly, but the real thesis is de-regulation. Here's an excerpt:

"The large corporations that received tax bonanzas from the Reagan administration (I wonder if this would have been in the CBS mini-series?) under the disguise that lower taxes would spur growth didn’t invest their newfound wealth in research, instead they bought out smaller corporations. Moreover, with each new merger and buyout, power and wealth was concentrated. For the employees it meant massive layoffs. Congress and the Justice Department have both been comfortably asleep at the wheel allowing corporations broke apart to remerge together in case of a couple of the Baby Bells and Exxon and Mobil.

"Coupled with the earlier grievous court ruling of equating money as free speech and the reduction in the top tax rates for individuals and corporation, corporations were free to buy the politicians of their choice. The results have been a host of new bills enacted by congress granting corporations more corporate welfare, less regulations, more power, and more rights.

Jeeez. Does that sound familiar?

"In the end, none of the perpetrators of the failed savings and loans faced serious sentencing. Milken was fined heavily and sentenced to a short prison term, his fortune somewhat reduced but he still was left a multi-millionaire.

Well, I guess Ken Lay can breathe a whole lot easier!

And, he should be! Look at the history: "Evidence exists that in 1988 presidential candidate George Bush was implicated in delaying the closure of Silverado Savings and Loan until after the election, his son Neil was on the board of Silverado."

Nothing happened to Neil Bush at all. He was free to go to SE Asia and pick up minors for group sex. (But they were probably sisters. "Family values" you know.)


<http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/colawp2.html>

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. The press is lazy.

They are invested in the delusion that the south is primarily Fundamentalist or Evangelical Christians, due to the fact that The Christian Coalition set out to take over the Repukes, at the local and state levels, many years ago and largely succeeded. The press makes the specious connection that this means that everyone in the south is fundamentalist or evangelical christian.

Cluestick Moment: They are not. The ones that are are just loud, powerful and say outrageous things that attract the press like flies to shit.

Considering the fact that the textile industry in the south was one one of the biggest employers, if not THE biggest, and that so-called "Free Trade" policies, trumpeted by corporatist repukes as being the best thing since sliced yogurt, have decimated local economies and jobs in the south, it is starting to look like something is bubbling underneath the surface down there. Something populist. I mean really populist, not this faux populism of the right.

Of course, it's gonna take a while for this to be honestly reported in the corporate media. Between corporate editorial censorship and the fecklessness of the average reporter, a lot will go unreported.

Fact is, we really don't have a lot of reporters left who can move a story like this. What we have is reporto-pundits, who have been tasked to further agendas and who get their raw news from repuke blast faxes.

[workenstiff]

5. Your right about the press

I listen to NPR and then never hear those stories anyplace else.
The mainstream media just report the talking points.

P.S.
Lou Dobbs of CNN is the exception to the above. I love to watch his show. He seems to be disgusted with Bush's trade policies.

[StClone]

10. T.S. May I assume

You live in the South?

If so please expound upon how the South feels about Bush concerning religious, social, political, education and economic concerns. War, "flag waving," too...

[workenstiff]

17. I live in Tennessee

I certainly can't speak for the whole region, but I know many who hate Bush.

Many people here were for the war, but they feel betrayed now.

What the rest of the country needs to know is the South is not the place they saw on TV in the 60's, I personally know young people who have Rebel flag decals on their truck and wear the symbol on T-shirts and who have Nelly posters on their bedroom walls and rap music on the radio. There is a shop at the local "flee" market that sells nothing but Confederate stuff, it is the most popular place there.

The younger generation is supportive of gay rights, abortion, etc.

But here in the South it is impolite to speak against religion. We are just as much heathens as the rest of you, but most people are have been taught to publically respect religion.

Economically, their have been HUNDREDS of plants shut down in Tennessee. The working class people are hungry for someone in power to say something against free trade. If Democrats want to win in the South, they can, all they have to do is shut the hell up about interest group issues and SHOUT about bread and butter issues.

P.S. I know several black people who can't stand Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. They think those two are playing the politics of the past.

I am white. My aunt has been married to an African-American man for 17 years. They have two children who are fully accepted by my whole family. My kids would have no trouble in dating a black person. My kids all have friends who are openly gay.

The fundies are just louder, and have a great deal of the Lord's money to do things that He would not have done.

Democrats do the smart thing and quit listening to the talking heads.

[kodi]

4. this is true, i am in this industry & even top execs are pissed at bush

not a single textile company executive i have talked to in the last year said he will vote or contribute money to bush.

it shocked me because these guys have been staunch republicans but the wounds this economic downturn have caused has hit home with these guys.

they all know that bush's attitude is "get your own and the devil take the hindquarters."

these guys will flock to clark, but they still gag at dean. and its not because they dont like what dean is saying, but because the nedia has tied the traditional "liberal" sign around dean's neck.

dean has to move forcefully to counter that. if he can, he has a damned good chance to beat bush, even in the south.

what dean did last week is a move in the right direction with these folks

[Resistance Is Futile]

15. Wrong answer

Dean shouldn't fight on enemy ground by attempting to counter accusations that he's a 'liberal.'

Dean--and the entire party--must fight on its own ground by driving home the point that being a 'liberal' isn't a bad thing.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Can't say I'm all that sympathetic...

to the textile industry's problems after they moved south to kill off the unions. They devastated parts of upstate New York, New England, and a few other places by moving.

So, this guy hauls them all into the cafeteria for a "we're all in this together" political spiel, which is a good thing, but I can't help wondering how together they are when workmen's comp or other worker's issues come up?

But, any port in a storm, I suppose.

Another nail in the coffin of Republican lassez-faire.

[kodi]

8. any sympathy for the 350,000 laid off blue collar workers in the industry?

that is about how many have lost their jobs in the last few years.

parts of the rural south are now ghost towns.

the workers did not move south, the manufacturing plants did.

unemployment in parts of the carolinas is the worst since the depression.

"They're closing down the textile mills across the railroad tracks Forman says, "These jobs are going boys, and they ain't coming back."

My Hometown (1983) Bruce Springsteen

[shrike]

9. I should send this to my Carolinian aunt who blames the job slump

on Clinton. She'd probably never speak to me again. At present she refuses to ever set foot in Canada again (the family vacations there) because Canadians booed the American National Anthem at a hockey game around the time we invaded Iraq. (Her father was Canadian.) This is a woman who had a hard time finding a place to bury her husband because so many cemeteries in that area do not want Catholic graves in their sacred soil.

[StClone]

11. Shrike

Love you handle.

I am amazed that people (Auntie) that would rather eat poison than admit to themselves that they were wrong.

[shrike]

14. Thank you kindly

Guess you must know what a shrike is; most folks don't. Yes, this aunt of mine is a stubborn one. But she is blood, so what are you going to do?

[realFedUp]

12. Welcome to DU workenstiff

:hi:

[kskiska]

13. Another related article from Friday

"I have been to North Carolina a couple of times to express my concern, the president's concern, our compassion for the people being impacted by this," Evans said. "Those are the people I lay awake at night thinking about."

But textile industry executives said they want action, not compassion.

"We think it's time for the administration to stop giving us the warm and fuzzy in terms of 'it's going to get better,' " said Allen Gant Jr., CEO of Glen Raven Inc. near Burlington and a Bush supporter. "We want specific action on each of the categories for the China safeguard. That is a law in place and can be acted on. The administration needs to act, not to talk about it to us."

http://www.news-observer.com/front/story/3003604p-2749581c.html

Bush* came, and toid the textile workers they need to retrain – for bio-technology jobs. Yeah. Like some 56-yr-old woman who's been stitching kids' dungarees for 40 years should now go to college to get a degree in bio-technology.