"As President, I cannot just impose my will on Congress even though sometimes I wish I could.”
"Now I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the (immigration) laws on my own (applause). Believe me the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting.”
"We understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our citizens are among them. I know there are some who ask why don’t we just ban such a video.”
- President Barack Hussein Obama, Yangon University, Burma, November 19, 2012; President Barack Hussein Obama, Remarks to the National Council of La Raza, July 25, 2011; President Barack Hussein Obama, Speech before the United Nations, On Anti-Muslim Video, September 25, 2012, respectively.
By: Linda Case Gibbons
It shouldn’t have happened, not in America.
People who don’t like them and say they don’t eat them are nonetheless crushed by the news that there will be no more Twinkies.With more than 80 years of baking under its belt, this week Hostess Brands, Inc. bit the dust after no agreement could be reached with union members over wages and benefits. The union opted to scuttle the jobs of 18,500 union workers nationwide rather than work to find a way to save the company. Go figure.
"Not true!” the union said, "Don’t blame us!” they shouted, insisting that it was the company’s fault, not theirs. The company had been mismanaged for some time, they said. Eating habits had made the Twinkie a treat to be shunned in this day and age, rich as this tasty confection was in sugar and preservatives.
So sugary were these little cakes, that Twinkies became famous when the "Twinkie Defense” was created in a murder case in San Francisco. The defendant, his attorney maintained, suffered from depression which was caused by his switching from healthy foods to Twinkies and other sugary foods.
But dessert lovers kept loving ‘em anyway. In the end the defense didn’t work and the defendant was convicted, but only of voluntary manslaughter, which was pretty good.
But that doesn’t matter. It was a catchy defense – to have a little yellow cake with a creamy center in the courtroom --and it will be sorely missed by lawyers everywhere.
But hey, it’s not just Twinkies about which America should be grieving. Wonder Bread will soon meet a similar fate. It, too, of recent years, has received the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune from the Whole Foods types because it was "white.”
Tragic and absolutely criminal when you think of this bread’s noble history.
Back around World War II, Wonder Bread began to "build strong bodies 12 ways” when it produced a vitamin-enriched bread to address the vitamin deficiencies suffered by millions of Americans during those years.
But whatever the reason these iconic foods are disappearing, it’s pretty clear the Bakery, Confectionery & Tobacco Workers are out of luck, even though their union boss, Frank Hurt, is sitting pretty with a six-figure salary and fully-funded pension fund and benefit plan.
It just doesn’t make sense, does it? When the dust clears, do the workers think they won? It looked like Frank did, but I don’t think the workers scored any victories.
It is hard to understand, but there is so much that doesn’t add up these days, isn’t there?
Years ago things seemed to make sense. Maybe they did or didn’t, I don’t know. Or maybe it’s because it’s the holiday season and that makes everything in our past seem better. But one thing is true, the stories were nicer then.
Take for instance a woman who worked at the textile plant for 16 years, folding towels, earning $2.65 an hour. In 1973 she was fired for pro-union activity.
In defiance, Norma Rae stood on her workstation and held up a sign, "Union.” Crystal Lee Sutton, the real Norma Rae, risked everything.
In December 1995, Aaron Feuerstein’s textile factory burned to the ground. Instead of taking the insurance money and retiring in comfort or relocating overseas, he continued to pay the salaries of all his employees until the factory was rebuilt.
These were good things done for the right reasons. The people involved may not have gone to the "best schools,” or displayed a chest full of medals, but they knew how to do the right thing.
We knew then and we know now that there are no absolutes in life for anything. Unions are not all good or bad. Corporations and business owners are not either. The rich aren’t all evil and the poor aren’t unquestionably valiant.
But not so many years ago, we as Americans never even thought in terms of absolutes.
We didn’t resort to the kind of bitterness, the class warfare and the naked hatred, one group for another, that exists now as part of daily life.
We didn’t call everything a racial attack as a reflex act without questioning the merit of the comment itself. We knew that was ignorant.
Until now. In our world today the Norma Rae’s and Aaron Feuersteins are in short supply and we wonder how we got here.
Used to be we really did look for the union label, heck, we even sang the song. Used to be that unions really did protect their workers and workers really did have pride in the company for which they worked.
Used to be employers valued good workers and workers were loyal to their companies, taking pride in a job well done. We were happy to be working, to be self-sufficient and to be able to pay our bills. We were happy we could achieve the American dream by working hard and were grateful to the great country that made it all possible.
Used to be we were taught to be honest and do unto others.
It would be easy to become discouraged, especially when watching what passes for news nowadays from what passes for journalists because we see so little of the American brand of courage and moral character in the stories that are reported.
Going way back, we Americans stood tall and took our medicine if we did something wrong. And those of us who were raised right still do.
We loved our country and believed we and our country were exceptional. We still believe it and don’t you let anyone tell you anything different.
That’s why it doesn’t make sense when we see a United Nations official pulling the race card, blaming "old, white guys” for attacking her politically because she is a black woman when all these "guys,” senators actually, did was ask a question that she should have, in her professional capacity, answered honestly.
It doesn’t make sense when a general gets a second chance to testify about what he knows to be true about his job and lies a second time or at least parses words about what he said he said, in a move borrowed from former president Bill Clinton.
It doesn’t make sense for the people directly responsible for so much that is happening in our country that needs 911 attention to take off for a "Sentimental Journey” to a strange mix of countries – Cambodia, Thailand and Burma/Myanmar – now, of all times.
And it doesn’t make sense when the families of Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty celebrate Thanksgiving this year and there is an empty chair at each of their tables, yet no one in this administration took the time to tell them what happened to their loved ones.
And it doesn’t make sense when we hear the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Lisa Jackson, is using fictitious e-mail accounts to conduct EPA business, hiding their content from public view. This is such a blatant violation of the Federal Records Act that even the liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), an Obama favorite and one of Soros’ watchdog groups is outraged, that it does make one yearn for the good old days when grown-ups ruled the world.
"The fact that others may have engaged in such conduct before her tenure in no justification,” CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said. "’Everybody does it,’ is an excuse for kindergartners, not cabinet officials.”
True. Ask Gen. David Petraeus.
One thing I know is Americans know how to do it best.
If it’s broken, Americans can fix it. If assistance is needed, we’ll figuratively or actually "send in the Marines.” If we need to do without we can and if there is something innovative that needs to be created or built, we can do it, because the majority of what’s good in the world today is because we sent it, we made it, we did it, we protected it, we invented it, us, the United States and Americans.
And those who choose to hate our country, both here and abroad, know this is true. And it makes them hopping mad. That’s why they go out of their way to tell us how bad our country has been, how it still is and what is wrong, never, ever right with us.
They know freedom lives here, that capitalism works and their way does not, and they are so, so very angry, so they lash out, vilify and humiliate everything in their path.
Don’t listen.
Our current president can lecture to college students in Burma at Yangon University about how he would like to impose his will on our Congress, but we’ve heard him do that before on other apology tours and he embarrassed himself and us then, too.
And he can tell the citizens of Burma,
"Today, I have come to keep my promise and extend the hand of friendship. The flickers of progress that we have seen must not be extinguished. They must become a shining North Star for all this nation’s people,” when we know he doesn’t do that – keep promises.
And it doesn’t matter that this trip was redundant, that Hill already visited and extended the hand of friendship to Myanmar last November or that Myanmar, "shining star” that it is, still holds hundreds of political prisoners and is a hotbed of racial violence, because we understand who our president is and we are resilient. We will weather this storm, no matter what gets thrown our way.
Happy Thanksgiving, America.
Hold the line, America.