The Western Kentucky Worker

Official newsletter of the Western Kentucky Area Council, AFL-CIO

Prepared by Berry Craig, KEA-NEA and AFT- Kentucky

Volume 7, Number 10, November 2006

Gerald Watkins isn't worried about Mayor Paxton's prediction

Gerald Watkins isn't worried about Mayor Bill Paxton's prognostications for the Paducah City Commission race.

“I have been told that he is picking me to finish seventh or eighth,” Watkins told delegates at the October council meeting. “I guess that's an improvement. He said I had no chance of winning in the primary.”

Watkins finished third in the May primary, making him eligible to run in the Nov. 7 general election. A political science professor at the West Kentucky Community and Technical College, Watkins is one of three union-endorsed candidates in the field.

The others are Commissioner Robert Coleman and Richard Abraham, a former city commissioner who wants back on the panel. “We've got to get Robert some help,” said Jeff Wiggins, council president. “Robert Coleman is the only voice for working people at city hall.”

Watkins said he is “excited about the possibility of pro-worker candidates getting control of the commission and also electing a pro-worker mayor in '08.”

Wiggins said Paxton “has no clue about what working families need in the town. They need a good fire department and a good public works department. Paxton wants to bust the firefighters' union and the city workers' union.”

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Bluegrass Politics: The Grand Old (hypocrite) Party

By MARK NICKOLAS

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article appeared in the Louisville Eccentric Observer newspaper and on LEO's Internet website, www.leoweekly.com.

“As Republican Members of the House of Representatives and as citizens seeking to join that body we propose not just to change its policies, but even more important, to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives ... To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace.”
—From the Republican Party's Contract With America (1994)

They took the reigns of power 12 years ago on a pledge of moral values and fiscal responsibility. Among the first legislative promises in their Contract With America were the “Fiscal Responsibility Act” and the “Personal Responsibility Act.”

As history often has it, though, the 2006 Republican Party looks like the very monster it vowed to slay in 1994. Bribery, corruption, back-room deals, fiscal mismanagement — and now the apparent cover-up by its leadership of a sexual predator — define today's Grand Old Party.

But the scandal surrounding lurid e-mails sent by former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to underage congressional pages has been part of a larger story brewing over the past few years. It speaks to a political party that has lost its moral and ethical compass while never missing a chance to paint itself as the party of family values, and one that has placed winning elections above all else.

Consider how far the pre-eminent voices of conservative evangelism have fallen of late.

Talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh always maintained a hard line on those suffering drug addiction. On-air in 1995, Limbaugh said that “if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.”

But just two years ago, Limbaugh himself faced a criminal investigation for purchasing more than 30,000 OxyContin, Lorcet and hydrocodone pills. Limbaugh denied the allegations until incontrovertible proof surfaced (his housekeeper turned over e-mails and ledgers), then admitted his addiction on-air, spent a month in rehab and last year reached a plea deal with prosecutors.

Equally as brazen is William J. Bennett, arguably the person most associated with lectures on morality and personal responsibility. For decades, Bennett led the Republican cultural war with his best-selling books, “The Book of Virtues,” “The Moral Compass” and “The Death of Outrage,” where he decried the public's failure to take President Clinton's sins more seriously.

In 2004, Bennett admitted he had wagered and lost more than $8 million at Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos over the last decade (Bennett … [had claimed] he broke even). Republicans rose to defend his actions, saying he never specifically criticized gambling and that his gambling never harmed anyone else — arguments usually reserved for defenders of legalization of drugs and prostitution.

Nevertheless, as blogger Josh Marshall remarked then, “Bennett spent the last dozen or more years not only being a big hawker of ‘morality,' but also a prime advocate of the proposition that there is an unbroken thread connecting our private habits to our public selves and that we — the media, the chatterers, everyone — should happily pull on that thread and see what we find.”

And at the very time Republicans moved to impeach Clinton for trying to cover up an extramarital affair, then-outgoing Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was having an affair with a congressional aide 23 years his junior. Gingrich's heir apparent, U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston, fared no better after confessing, on the House floor, his own marital infidelities before ever being sworn in. The Republicans then turned to a little-known former wrestling coach named Denny Hastert to pick up the pieces.
Of course, Hastert now faces public outcry that he put his party's electoral hopes above protecting teenage pages. His survival as Speaker seems doubtful.

Clearly members of both political parties fall victim to their own personal failings, but it's the Republican Party that's mastered the technique of legislating social behavior as a political wedge to scare voters and help win elections, while hiding behind a phony façade of moral superiority.

But on Nov. 7, voters will pass judgment on how they're governed. One hopes they'll no longer accept holier-than-thou political leaders taking to their bully pulpits to condemn the moral failings of our society while behaving in those very same ways when they think no one is watching.

While the Republican establishment appears to have little problem with its own hypocrisy, there are increasing signs that voters do and that 2006 may end where 1994 began, with the winds of change blowing through Washington.
Mark Nickolas is publisher of Kentucky 's most widely read political blog, BluegrassReport.org. Contact him at Mark@BluegrassReport.org

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Earle: Beware of the GOP's social issues sucker play

Don't be suckered by the social issues on Nov. 7, election day, says council delegate Steve Earle, also an international representative for the United Mine Workers.

“The Republicans will try to play up issues like abortion and gays and guns,” Earle warned council delegates at the October meeting. “Don't led them fool your or mislead you.”

Earle challenged delegates to help make history on election day. “History is full of examples of people who had right on their side and faced tremendous odds and won because they worked hard to be victorious,” he said. “History is also full of examples of people who just sat on the sidelines and lost.”

Based in Madisonville , Earle is a state election coordinator for the Kentucky AFL-CIO.

'“Bill Clinton was president for eight years, and we didn't lose a single gun,” said Earle.

First District U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield is one of many anti-labor Republicans who hope to split the union vote by pandering to social issues, Earle said. He added that Whitfield has voted labor's way only 12 percent of the time. “He refuses to sponsor the Employees' Free Choice Act,” Earle said. “He has sponsored a national right-to-work law.”

The state AFL-CIO has endorsed Whitfield's opponent, Paducah Democrat Tom Barlow. Barlow was elected to Congress in 1992, but lost his seat to Whitfield two years later.

Jeff Wiggins, council president, said Whitfield also tries to play off one union against another. “During his Labor Day speech, Whitfield talked about all his friends in the union at the gaseous diffusion plant. But Whitfield is no friend of any union anywhere.

“Union members everywhere need to put the whole union movement first when they vote. The movement is more important than any individual union or any individual union member.”

Here are the labor-endorsed candidates in our region, according to Jeff Wiggins, council president:

Congress, Tom Barlow, D-Paducah; Kentucky Supreme Court, Rick Johnson of Symsonia; Court of Appeals, District 1, Division I, Shea Nickell, Paducah; Court of Appeals, District 1, Division 2, Donna Dixon, Paducah; State Senate, Carroll Hubbard, D-Paducah; State House of Representatives, District 2, Fred Nesler, D-Mayfield; State House of Representatives, District 3, Frank Rasche, D-Paducah;

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Your union presents a day in the life of ‘ Joe American'

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medications with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to ensure their safety and guarantee that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of the medicines' cost is paid by Joe's employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance. Now Joe get it too, because his employer needs to offer competitive benefits to hire the best people.

Joe prepares his breakfast bacon and eggs this day. Joe's bacon and eggs are safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing and poultry industries. Joe takes his morning shower, reaching for his shampoo. The bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air is clean because some tree-hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting the air.

Joe drives to work in one of the safest cars in the world because some liberal fought to raise safety standards and emission controls.

J oe begins his work day. He has a good job with good pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these improved working standards. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a workers' compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It's noon and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC up to $100,000 because some liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from greedy, unscrupulous bankers like the ones who ruined the banking system and helped cause the Great Depression.

Joe needs to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten mortgage and his below-market interest rate federal student loan, which he got because some liberal decided that Joe and his family and our society would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. Joe was the third generation to live in the house, which was financed by Farmers Home Administration because town bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

Joe is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure Joe's dad could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. After his visit with his dad, Joe gets back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio talk show. The host keeps ranting that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn't tell Joe that his conservatives have fought tooth-and-nail against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.) Joe agrees that “We don't need those big government liberals running our lives; after all, I'm a self made man who believes people should take care of themselves, just like I have.”

-- From organized labor , the men and women who brought your good union job.

Don't take any of it for granted.

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Got news? Email it to Berry Craig at bcraig8960@charter.net or Jeff Wiggins at JLWiggins2@Juno.com.

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