Labor Crusader Against Obama Racism

1. Wow, what a pleasant surprise to hear this speech, and with such passion too!

VinnieMac136 at 2:29PM on Oct 10th 2008

2. Yes, I hope that one day we can eliminate the kind of black racism that is so rampant on this site.

Abner at 5:10PM on Oct 10th 2008

3. I am so grateful to be in the labor movement!!! Thank God for people who believe in humanity, dignity, and self respect for all peoples. Let's move on people..and begin anew!! Si Se puede..

Michele at 11:28PM on Oct 10th 2008

4. Let me remind you that it's not about racism, you must speak up where there is an injustice. You cannot shy away and allow one without rights to be unjustly dismissed by one with all rights. You must stand up to "At Will" terminations. You must fight for fair representation during union disputes. You must "Leave No One Behind" when settling labor agreements. The person you leave could be the one to start a movement. The person you leave could be selected by God to help the world see the way.

Cecil Jones at 9:31AM on Oct 11th 2008

5. Hello fellow Warriors...I am Greg Jones, National Director of Blacks4Barack....in harmony with millions of Whites4Barack...Asians4Barack...Hispanics4Barack...Jews4Barack...Republicans4Barack...Men4Barack...Women4Barack....Students4Barack....and united we are all... AMERICANS4BARACK....Together, We WILL Make The Difference !

This is a great speech from Richard Trumka that we aired on our show last week. Glad it's getting out there....NOW MUST HEAR ! Donna Brazille's powerful race speech....also Alaskan Independent Party Founder Joe Voegler speaks of his hatred for America...Republican women speak against McPalin tactics... and More ! ! Listen to Obama Talk Radio.....Nothing But The Truth with Greg Jones. What MSM omits....you'll hear on NBTT !

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stations/HeadingLeft/The-Greg-Jones-Show/2008/10/11/NOTHING-BUT-THE-TRUTH-with-Greg-Jones

Greg Jones at 1:11PM on Oct 11th 2008

6. yes i agree we must rid our society of rascism, look futher than a mans skin or national orgin look at mind, heart, character.

aishah khan at 3:06PM on Oct 11th 2008

7. Wow I hope that we can send this clip across the water so that ever country can hear what Mr. Richard Trumka so elelgantly speak about racism. Amen bro. May God also protect you and your family.

Albert L Grimes JR at 5:46PM on Oct 11th 2008

8. Wow! I felt deeply moved by his message. God bless him.

WENDY at 10:10PM on Oct 11th 2008

9. PLEASE READ THIS!! It now scary to the point that someone may actually get hurt. SOmeone in Britian wearing an Obama shirt was shot with a BB gun. I can't believe this and Palin is promoting the hate.

Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper): Palin Is “Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean”
September 5, 2008
by Charley James –

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.

Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”

Racial and ethnic slurs may be “just Alaska” and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.

Articles by Charley James:

The Morning After The Night Before’s Debate

“McCain Has Become a Walking Disaster”
From a Dog Named Checkers to the Wholesale Looting of America
Thanks, GOP, for Ruining Our Country So Your Friends Could Get Wealthy
The End Is Near For The Richest Poor Nation On Earth,
Interview Sarah Palin: “Not in the Campaign’s Interest”
Sarah Palin and Me

Alaskans Speak (In a Frightened Whisper): PalinIs “Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, and Mean”
“Bush Lied, They Died” Draws a Drunken Punch
Placid Lake Woebegon Begets a Nasty Police State
Edwards The Confessor vs. McCain’s Ongoing Philandering
Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch-It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.

But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We’re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.

No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it’s in their genetic code. So much for McCain’s pledge of a “high road” campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one.

Tough Getting People Who Know Her to Talk
It’s not easy getting people in the 49th state to speak critically about Palin – especially people in Wasilla, where she was mayor. For one thing, with every journalist in the world calling, phone lines into Alaska have been mostly jammed since Friday; as often as not, a recording told me that “all circuits are busy” or numbers just wouldn’t ring. I should think a state that’s been made richer than God by oil could afford telephone lines and cell towers for everyone.

On a more practical level, many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they’re afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters.

“The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here,” an insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, explained. “It’s corrupt and arrogant. They’re all rich because they do private sweetheart deals with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they have to.”

“Once Palin became mayor,” he continued, “She became part of that inner circle.”

Like most other people interviewed, he didn’t want his name used out of fear of retribution. Maybe it’s the long winter nights where you don’t see the sun for months that makes people feel as if they’re under constant danger from “the authorities.” As I interviewed residents it began sounding as if living in Alaska controlled by the state Republican Party is like living in the old Soviet Union: See nothing that’s happening, say nothing offensive, and the political commissars leave you alone. But speak out and you get disappeared into a gulag north of the Arctic Circle for who-knows-how-long.

Alright, that’s an exaggeration brought on by my getting too little sleep and building too much anger as I worked this article. But there’s ample evidence of Palin’s vindictive willingness to destroy people she sees as opponents. Just ask the Wasilla town administrator she hired before firing him because he rebelled against the way Palin demanded he do his job, or the town librarian who refused to hold the book burning Walpurgisnach Mayor Palin demanded.

Ironically, Palin was pushed into hiring the administrator by the party poobahs who helped get her elected after she got herself into trouble over a number of precipitous firings which gave rise to a recall campaign.

“People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day,” states Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla resident and one of the few Alaskans willing to speak on-the-record, for attribution, about Palin. In fact, Kilkenny actually circulated an e-mail letter about Palin that was verified and printed by The Nation.

For good measure, Palin booted the Wasilla police chief from office because, she told a local newspaper, he “intimidated” her.

Running on Extreme Fringe Evangelical Views
Sarah Palin drew early attention from state GOP apparatchiks when, during her first mayoral campaign, she ran on an anti-abortion platform. Normally, political parties do not get involved in Alaskan municipal elections because they are nonpartisan. But once word of her extreme fringe evangelical views made its way to Juneau, the state capitol, state Republicans tossed some money behind her campaign.

Once in office, Palin set out to build a machine that chewed up anyone who got in her way. The good, Godly Christian turns out to be anything but.

“She’s doesn’t like different opinions and she refuses to compromise,” Kilkenny notes. “When she was mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t hers. Worse, ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits but on the basis of who proposed them.”

Sound familiar? Palin may well be Dick Cheney’s reincarnate.

Something else has a familiar Republican ring to it: Her tax policies, and a “refund surpluses but borrow for the future” attitude.

According to Kilkenny and others in Wasilla as well as Juneau, Palin reduced progressive property taxes for businesses while mayor and increased a regressive sales tax which even hits necessities such as food. The tax cuts she promoted in her St. Paul speech actually benefited large corporate property owners far more than they benefited residents. Indeed, Kilkenny insists that many Wasilla home owners actually saw their tax bill skyrocket to make up for the shortfall. Two other Wasillian’s with whom I spoke said property taxes on their modest, three bedroom homes rose during the Palin regime.

To an outsider, it would seem hard to do, but an oil-rich town with zero debt on the day she was inaugurated mayor was left saddled with $22 million of debt by the time she moved away to become governor – especially since nothing was spent on things such as improving the city’s infrastructure or building a much-needed sewage treatment plant. So what did Mayor Palin spend the taxpayer’s money on, if not fixing streets and scrubbing sewage?

For starters, she remodelled her office. Several times over, as a matter of fact.

Then Palin spent $1 million on an unnecessary, new park that no one other than the contractors and Palin seemed to want. Next, Sarah doled out more than $15 million of taxpayer money for a sports complex that she shoved through even though the city did not own clear title to the land; now, seven years later, the matter is still in litigation and lawyer fees are said to be close to at least half of the original estimated price of the facility.

She also worked hard to get voters approval of a $5.5 million bond proposal for roads that could have been built without borrowing. Anchorage may not be the center of the financial universe but, like good Republicans everywhere, Sarah Palin knows how to please Alaskan bankers and bond dealers.

For good measure, she turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots.

Sarah Barracuda
En route to the governor’s igloo, Palin managed to land what Anne Kilkenny says is the plumb political appointment in the state: Chair of Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC), a $122,400 per year patronage slot with no real authority to do anything other than hold meetings. She took the job despite having no background in energy issues and, as it turned out, not liking the work.

“She hated the job,” an OGCC staff member who is not authorized to speak with the news media told me. “She hated the hours and she hated what little work there was to do. But she couldn’t figure out a way to get out of the thing without offending Gov. Murkowski” and the state Republican Party regulars, some of whom were pissed off they didn’t get appointed.

But ever the opportunist, Palin quickly concocted a way. First, she waged a campaign with the local news media claiming that the position was overpaid and should be abolished – despite the fact that she lobbied Murkowski hard to get it. Then, mounting what she saw as a white horse, Palin raised a cloud of dust by resigning from the OGCC and riding away with an undeserved reputation as a “reformer.”

But when a local reporter dared to suggest that the reformer Empress has no clothes, Palin tried to get her fired.

“She came at me like I was trying to steal her kids,” said the targeted reporter, who now works for an oil company in Anchorage. “I heard she had a wild temper and vicious mean streak but it’s nothing like you can imagine until she turns it on you.”

Not surprising since some of her high school classmates still openly call her “Sarah Barracuda,” Kilkenny insists.

Still, as a Republican Party hack Palin managed to get herself elected running under the false flag of a “reformer.”

And what did she bring to the job? No legislative experience other than a city council of a village of 5,000 people, which is smaller than some high schools in Chicago. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; after all, she needed to hire a city administrator to run Wasilla. No executive experience, except for almost being recalled as mayor. A philosophy of setting public policy based on one word: No.

And what has she done since winning the job?

According to Kilkenny, nothing. Well, nothing other than suggesting the state’s multi-multi-million dollar, oil-generated surplus be distributed to residents and finance future state needs by borrowing money. Gee, doesn’t that sound precisely what George Bush did with the surplus he inherited from Bill Clinton in 2001 and we all know in what great shape Bush’s economic policies left the nation.

It may explain why, when asked by reporters, including me, what she thought about Palin being picked to be McCain’s running mate, her mother-in-law replied with a sardonic, “What has Sarah done to qualify her to be vice president?” Of course, when the woman – said by many I spoke with to be well-respected in Wasilla – was running to succeed Palin as mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her, so that may explain the family tension.

As Governor, Palin gave the legislature no direction and budget guidelines, according to the chair of a legislative committee. But then she staged a huge grandstand play of line-item vetoing countless projects, calling them pork. “They were restored because of public outcry and legislative action,” the aide said. “She vetoed them mostly because she had no idea what they were or why they were important.”

But it was enough to get the McCain, who is mostly unobservant of the world around him anyway, to think Palin has a reputation as being “anti-pork”.

In fact, Juneau observers note that Palin kept her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork ladled out by indicted Sen. Ted Stevens. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be politically unwise to keep supporting it, these same insiders assert. Then, Palin fell back on her old habits and publicly humiliated him for pork-barrel politics.

As for being “ready on day one” to be commander in chief, despite the repeated public claims she’s made, the Alaska National Guard commander said that, “she has made no command decisions, other than sending some troops to help fight a few brush fires and march in parades at county fairs.”

“Sambo Beat the Bitch”
“Palin is a conniving, manipulative, a**hole,” someone who thinks these are positive traits in a governor told me, summing up Palin’s tenure in Alaska state and local politics.

“She’s a bigot, a racist, and a liar,” is the more blunt assessment of Arnold Gerstheimer who lived in Alaska until two years ago and is now a businessman in Idaho.

“Juneau is a small town; everybody knows everyone else,” he adds. “These stories about what she calls blacks and Eskimos, well, anyone not white and good looking actually, were around long before she became a glint in John McCain’s rheumy eyes. Why do I know they’re true? Because everyone who isn’t aboriginal or Indian in Alaska talks that way.”

“Sambo beat the bitch” may be everyday language up in the bush. Whether it – and the outlook, politics and worldview Palin reflects when she says such things in public – should be part of a presidential campaign is another thing altogether. The comment says as much about McCain as it does about Palin, and it says a lot of things about Americans who overlook such statements (as well as her record) and vote anyway for McCain.

by Charley James

Friends: This article has been inundated with comments. We are no longer accepting comments. Please see the followup article by reporter Charley James, “Me and Sarah Palin.” –Eds.

Charley James is an American journalist, author and essayist who lives in Toronto.

Concerned Citizen at 10:11PM on Oct 11th 2008

10. Palin started this with he is not like us what did she mean sure we know what the meaning was

bonita at 11:40PM on Oct 11th 2008

11. Excellent!!!!

Towan at 1:45PM on Oct 12th 2008

12. All I can say is Amen. This would be the time to change this racism and the hatred of one person to another around. To break this curse in all nations.All we can do ask for forgiveness, pray and move forward to change. Change our mind, body, and spirit. I would love to live in one harmony with all people before I die. We call learn so much from one another. One last thing TRUE LOVE SEES NO COLOR.

Overflow of Jesus' love at 4:31PM on Oct 12th 2008

13. This man has courage. I'm saying this as a hispanic guy, I believe racism against black people is still there, and its acknowledged as unacceptable by most sane people. However what I find appalling these days is how at the same time it has become acceptable to be racist against hispanics and arabs and other minorites such as Indians (i'm referring to people from India), and I see this daily in the mainstream media too. Racism is alive and kicking, its just doing it to somebody else these days.

nelsonvivas at 5:38AM on Oct 13th 2008

14. That was a great speech.I applaud him for his compassion, not a lot of caucasian men and woman express themself like that. Will maybe they do I just hav'nt seen or heard them personally

William at 3:00PM on Oct 13th 2008

15. How come when Oboma gets 90% of the black vote but its racist if the white people vote for a white person?

Earvin D Clark at 5:00PM on Oct 13th 2008