Published: November 06, 2009 07:15 pm      

Obama gives up too much in talks

Editor:

We’ve learned through years of watching the union movement, through everything from sports to firefighters, that our president, Mr. Obama lacks the savvy for collective bargaining.

The extreme political Right has re-emerged during a time of crisis. They are doing this through a series of appeals to racial fears about Obama and his administration, and through the larger insecurities everyone has due to the economic downturn. This is common practice, but it seems that the president is helping them by displaying his obvious lack of experience in collective bargaining.

Having been a student in the labor movement under the late Walter Luther, I learned that you don’t start off negotiations by giving what the other side wants and compromising your principles. You ask for more than what you want, and you seemingly come down to them, all the while making them come up to you.

The art is give and take. The president seems to be losing before he even starts. Case in point, health care. By trying to please the Right beforehand, citing the need to stay on middle ground, he eliminated the possibility of single-payer health care from the beginning.

As an avid Obama supporter, I’m not against giving him more time. My only hope is that he recognizes that if he continues try to come in the beginning from the middle, thereby losing key points in his retreat, then nothing will change no matter how much time he has. The Right will have won.

The changes that seemed to be so imminent with his presidency will have again fallen by the wayside.

The struggle continues …

Eugene Thompson

Danville