Building, Construction, Veterans, Flags and Obama

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Wed Apr-16-08 11:13 AM
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Building, Construction, Veterans, Flags and Obama

In a rousing appearance before 3,000 delegates at the Building and Constructions Trades' (http://www.bctd.org) Annual Legislative Conference, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama detailed his proposals to invest in America's infrastructure and to fortify the Davis-Bacon Act.

"We're going to invest in this country," said Obama. "Back in the 1950's, Americans were put to work building the Interstate Highway system and that helped expand our middle class. We need to show the same kind of leadership today. That's why I've called for a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that will invest $60 billion over ten years and generate millions of new jobs. We can't keep standing by while our roads and bridges and airports crumble and decay. For our economy, our safety, and our workers, we have to rebuild America."

And in reference to federal prevailing wage standards, Senator Obama forcefully declared, "After Katrina, George Bush suspended Davis-Bacon. Families had nothing left. Whole communities had been destroyed. But George Bush thought people didn't deserve to make 9 or 10 bucks an hour to rebuild that city. And John McCain isn't much different. He seems to think Davis-Bacon is something that comes from a pig farm. He's opposed it time and time again. That's wrong. We need to strengthen Davis-Bacon, and make sure any new infrastructure projects we're proposing adhere to Davis-Bacon standards. And that's what I'll do when I'm President of the United States of America."

Barack Obama said yesterday that voters are justifiably angry over high gas prices, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and other examples of economic insecurity, yet that is no reason to give up hope.

"Just because you're mad, just because it seems like nobody is listening to ordinary Americans, that's not a reason to give up hope," Mr. Obama told the Building Trades National Legislative Conference. "You get mad and then you decide you're going to change it. If you're not angry about something you're going to sit back and let it happen to you. If you're only angry, you don't feel hopeful, and you won't get the energy to change it. I'm mad, but I'm also hopeful."

Obama, addressing the Building Trades National Legislative Conference in Washington, said, "Your voices will be heard." The Illinois senator promised that if he's elected he will support union measures not backed by the Bush administration: the Employee Free Choice Act, giving unions more power to organize; federal government use of "project labor agreements"; and tax policies to discourage sending jobs overseas and to reward the creation of U.S. jobs.

He said federal infrastructure projects should use union laborers who were paid prevailing wages and good benefits.

"It's time we had a president who didn't choke saying the word union," he told a crowd that roared in agreement. "We need to strengthen our unions, not weaken them, not tear them down. We need to build them up."

"We meet here at a challenging time for our families and a challenging time for America," Obama told the union crowd. "All across the country, Americans are anxious about their future. In a global economy with new rules and new risks, they've watched their government do its best to try and shift those risks onto the backs of the American worker. And they wonder how they will ever keep up."

"In coffee shops and town meetings, in VFW halls and right here in this room, the questions are all the same," he said. "Will I be able to leave my children a better world than I was given? Will I be able to save enough to send them to college or plan for a secure retirement? Will my job even be there tomorrow? Who will stand up for me in this new world?"

"In this time of change and uncertainty, these questions are expected, but this isn't the first time we've heard them," Obama said. 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."

"But we know that for the past seven and a half years, we've had a whole different philosophy in the White House. They call it the ownership society - but what it means is you're on your own. You're a worker who's been laid off from a job? Tough luck, you're on your own. You're a single mom trying to find health care for your kids? Tough luck, you're on your own. You're a senior whose pension got dumped after a lifetime of hard work? Tough luck, you're on your own."

"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," Obama told the crowd.

Sen. Obama on Tuesday dismissed a voter's suggestion that when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called him elitist it "bordered on uppity."

At the town-hall meeting, an audience member said he was angry at Clinton's suggestion that Obama's comments were elitist.

"As a white person, this term, the way it's being used against you, it isn't far from 'uppity,' " the man said.

"I think the Clintons are getting away with something that they must be called on. They will continue to do it until somebody states, 'Mrs. Clinton, you are really close to prejudice here.' "

Obama said he didn't believe race played a role in Clinton's strategy.

"It's politics," the presidential candidate told a town-hall meeting on veterans affairs. "This is what we do politically, when we start getting behind in races. We start going on the attack."

Asked about the flak he�s been taking, Obama said the charges make little sense to him.

�I am amused about this notion of elitist, given that when you�re raised by a single mom, when you�re on food stamps for a while when you were growing up, you went to school on scholarship�.� he said, also talking about his wife Michelle�s money troubles.

�So when somebody makes that argument, particularly given that I spent my entire life working with workers, low-income communities to try to make people�s lives a little bit better, then that�s when you know we�re in political silly season,� he told a veterans forum in Washington, Pa.

�Hopefully it�ll come to an end fairly soon and we can start focusing on the issues that the people of Pennsylvania and the American people care about.�

The flag pin is back on the lapel of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. Look very closely at the left coat lapel of Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaking in Pennsylvania Tuesday There's the famous flag pin back on his chestLook closely at his left lapel in this photo from MSNBC on Tuesday. (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/04/obamaflagpinlap.html)

You may recall Obama removed the lapel flag pin last fall . . .

However, when a sharp-eyed local ABC-TV reporter in Iowa asked him, half-jokingly, about it in October, Obama went on seriously at some length:

"You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest.

"Instead," Obama added rather grandiosely, "I'm going to try to tell.... the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

Once the flames of controversy really got roaring, Obama reasonably explained, "I'm less concerned with what you're wearing on your lapel than what's in your heart. You show your patriotism by how you treat your fellow Americans, especially those who serve. And you show your patriotism by being true to your values and ideals. And that's what we have to lead with, our values and ideals."

Ticket reader Ariane provided a video of Obama acknowledging a disabled vet who had convinced the senator to wear the pin: (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/04/obamaflagpinlap.html#comment-110936664)

Ariane: "Since you were wondering about the story that a vet had given it to him, here's the video of the veterans event where Obama puts on the flag pin; he says aloud the name of the veteran who had just given it to him and the guy is present so..... I reckon the vet just gave him a pin, and what's he gonna do, say no? It is special coming as a gift from a disabled vet- - Obama thanks the vet for his service and tells him that the pin means a lot coming from him."
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/04/15/obama.flagpin.cnn

"But I knew what Obama meant by how the flags everywhere became a symbol of uncritical support for the Iraq war . . ."

from CNN: (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/04/15/obama-dons-flag-pin-once-again/)

"I was just handed this," Obama said. "It's a flag pin. I think I'll go ahead and put that on."

He then did just that.

"I appreciate your service," Obama told Philip Fiumara, Jr., a Vietnam era veteran and undecided voter, according to the campaign.

"Thank you so much. It means a lot coming from you, and we are grateful to you," he said.