Donna Brazile and Ed Shultz

Day four featured two dynamic speakers Donna Brazile and Ed Shultz.
It took speakers who are not President’s of Unions to get this crowd really fired up.

Democratic Strategist Donna Brazile took the microphone and encouraged us to “Take names and kick ass.”

“There is a war going on against service employees, we need to get tough and stand up. Hell no we won’t let those jobs go.”

She affirmed that she is a Democrat. But she was very clear that she is “not the happy talk person of the party.” She is the person to speak truth to power. “We have more toppings and flavors in the Democratic Party than Papa John’s and Ben n’ Jerry’s”

“We are not going to apologize to BP or to anyone.”

We have the power to put a black man in the White House and any man or woman in the state house.”

Progressive Radio and Cable TV host Ed Shultz was the next to take the stage.
Recognized AFSCME as the organization of 1.6 million members who care about America”
We need to remind Congress and the White House who put them there!
We just lived through the most selfish years in America.
The road we are on now is one of the filthy rich and the dirt poor.
To change that we must stick with organized labor.
We don’t like how the Employee Free Choice Act has been thrown under the bus by the Democrats.
All of a sudden the Repugs are concerned about deficits. Dick Cheney said “Deficits don’t matter.” When we were cruising toward the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush had a successful presidency because he was able to appoint two conservative members to the Supreme Court and cut taxes for the top 2%.

Ed went on, we need to ask Democratic Candidates for local, state and federal office, “Are you for labor or are you gonna run from labor?”
“Are you for the EFCA as it is written?”

“We must have the guts to find that moment to do a little more.”
“This is the generational and ideological fight for America.”
The working folks of America did not cause the problems but it is up to us to fix it.

During Ed’s presentation he showed videos of there members. One of them had this great quote to add to the day. “It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a Union to save the village.”
I wonder what Ed thought when he gave big praises and thanks to Gerry McEntee and the hall was pretty much quiet in response.