Many of our readers are probably wondering.....who the heck is Scott Paul? Is he running for something in the 2010 elections? No, although he ran for the Indiana General Assembly, way back in1992.
Scott Paul is a former intern with Republican Senator Richard Lugar, an adviser to former House Democratic Whip, Congressman Bonier; he was a staffer for two other Democratic congressmen. He is a former labor lobbyist, and is more recently (2007) the founder and executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. He is a widely published author, and has provided his expertise on the manufacturing sector of our economy in numerous media interviews, and has testified regarding it before Congressional committees. I believe it would be accurate for me to characterize Scott Paul as an advocate for American Manufacturing and for American jobs.
Today I'm adding Alliance for American Manufacturing's website to our blog roll. I hope Penigma readers will follow the link. My reason for doing this now is in response to the recent efforts in Congress by Republicans to give aid and cover for corporations sending American jobs overseas, while doing everything they can to make sending those jobs profitable, including in taxation breaks, for those corporations, instead of working to keep manufacturing jobs here.
This is in direct opposition to the success by President Obama and the Democratic policies which have been slowly - too slowly - but steadily improving statistics from the private manufacturing sector.
While Paul's web site eloquently addresses the big picture about jobs generally, and the importance of manufacturing specifically, to our economy, I would also like to direct Penigma reader's attention to a specific post on another one of the blog's from our blog roll, one for which I also write, OpinionEditorial.com. This post, "19 Facts About the Deindustrialization of America That Will Blow Your Mind" is from one of the conservative bloggers at OpEd, Michael the Patriot Blogger. On OpEd he describes himself as "attorney, a blogger, a Christian, a writer, a speaker and an activist". He is currently the publisher of The Economic Collapse blog (http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/)." for those of you who think we might have too liberal a point of view. Rather than repeat the points of 'Michael the Patriot', please - just follow the link, and read it.
Before the 2008 elections, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann made a complete ass of herself on the MSNBC cable news program, Hardball with Chris Matthews, asserting that some members of Congress were unAmerican. You can see that interview here.
Consistently, however much I may have disagreed with the political positions of others, unlike Bachmann I have steadfastly refused to view others who hold different views as UNAmerican. That reeks of the most despicable abuses of government, the most deplorable fearful attitudes from the shameful Macarthyism era of the 1950's. But when we have our own elected representatives to government, who have pushed for hidden political donations (albeit indirect ones) from corporations on the one hand, and then subsequently vote to benefit those same companies to the disadvantage of this country, I very, very reluctantly feel I need to reconsider. The politicians who may be acting against the interests of our government are not the liberal ones identified by Bachmann; they are Bachmann and her colleagues who are making it easy and profitable for those manufacturing jobs to go overseas, even providing tax breaks to the corporations that do it. For those same conservatives to make empty and insincere noises about job creation and patriotism is profoundly offensive.
The Republicans are the party which has opposed the successful stimulus spending which created jobs, then lied about the success of the spending -- while taking credit for job creation in many cases back in their home states, or other benfits from it, by appearing in their local media with oversized checks, at businesses where there are in fact new jobs. The Republicans are the party which brazenly accepts checks themselves, from special intersts, that appear possibly to buy their votes. John Boehner shamelessly distribute those kinds of checks to his political party members, on the floor of the House of Representatives (read it here). There is no longer even the pretense of serving their constituents instead of being bought and sold by big money and big corporations, including sending jobs overseas. We cannot, as noted by Scott Paul afford to fail rebuilding our industrial base. We cannot, as noted by 'Michael the Patriot', become a postindustrialized nation. We cannot support the Republican job-exporting policies; not if we want this country to continue to exist, not if we value our the industrial section of our economy as part of our national security, not if we value all of our citizens and not only a very wealthy few.
No comments:
Post a Comment