AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka released a statement Friday commemorating the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 — and promptly turned it into a political opportunity to bash Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove and other conservatives for opening “the door to hate” in the decade since the attacks:
Wealthy CEOs, anti-government extremist front groups and frothing talk show hosts—from the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks to the Koch brothers, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads group, Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the American Legislative Exchange Council—also pushed open the door to hate.
Despite the unity Americans first felt in the wake of 9/11, that hate has led to “ill-thought wars,” the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and attacks on immigrants and members of the LGBT community, Trumka said. It is also responsible for a racist conspiracy against President Barack Obama:
We saw it in the racism that has found overt and covert expression since Barack Obama began his run for office—from outright declarations of people who said out loud they would never vote for a black man to the ridiculously persistent obsession with our president’s birth certificate. Regardless of his policies or priorities, President Obama is shadowed by the drumbeat of suspicion based on his “other”-ness. And those suspicions are fed and watered constantly by forces that were threatened by his message of “hope and change.”
Trumka, who attended Thursday‘s speech as the president’s guest, said workers have been “vilified” by the “extremist small government posse” that has turned them into “public enemy No. 1.” In state after state this year, politicians have gone after the “paychecks, benefits and basic rights“ of workers and sought to pit them against each other ”in a rabid campaign to shift government support to tax breaks for the wealthy and already profitable corporations.”
Recall that before the 2004 election, the AFL-CIO heavily criticized President George W. Bush for using images of firefighters from Sept. 11 in campaign ads, calling them “disgraceful” and saying they “smack of political opportunism.”
But this time, Trumka outright calls for union activism to honor the anniversary:
Brothers and sisters, friends, I hope you will join me in marking this solemn anniversary by committing to redouble your activism on behalf of America’s everyday working heroes. We will rise or fall together.
Interesting to see how the times have changed.
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