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Dear Progressive Reader,

President Joe Biden announced via X (formerly known as Twitter) that he would join union workers in Detroit next week on the picket line. “Tuesday, I’ll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create,” he tweeted ([link removed]) . This may well be a presidential first. Historian Jeremy Suri told ([link removed]) Reuters, “It’s very rare for a President to visit strikers.” Suri, whose 2017 book The Impossible Presidency chronicles ([link removed]) the history of choices made by U.S. Presidents, went on to note, “The last U.S. President to show such support for striking workers was probably Theodore
Roosevelt.” In 1902, Roosevelt invited striking coal miners to the White House to meet with government officials and management. The President, Suri explained, was concerned that the country faced a coal shortage.

In July 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama joined striking hotel workers ([link removed]) at a picket in Chicago. Obama, however, is not seen in the video clip actually walking with the workers as Biden promises to do. Obama had later stated ([link removed]) in November 2007, “I’ll put on a pair of comfortable shoes, I’ll walk on that picket line as President of the United States.” But when the leather should have hit the road in Wisconsin in 2011, union activists marching against a brazen attack on worker’s rights by Wisconsin’s governor Scott Walker waited in vain ([link removed]) for the President to “find those shoes.” Obama never entered the state ([link removed]) during the entire year following
([link removed]) Walker’s February 2011 announcement of the anti-union legislation known as “Act 10 ([link removed]) ,” not returning until his 2012 campaign visits. Biden, who was Obama’s Vice President during all of those years, may have now found that pair of shoes, and the courage that goes with them.

This week on our website, Ashley Fitzgerald reports on ([link removed]) nurses’ strikes and organizing around the country; Jeff Abbott observes ([link removed]) the continuing threats to democracy in Guatemala; Miriam Davidson looks at ([link removed]) the failures of the “drug war” at the U.S. border; and Robert McCoy shines a light ([link removed]) on the rightwing lessons being pushed by PragerU into classrooms in several states. Plus, Mike Ervin celebrates ([link removed]) the fiftieth anniversary of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act; Lisa Hoyos opines
([link removed]) on ways that refitting schools could help address climate change; Todd Swanstrom explains ([link removed]) how fixing up older homes can save lives in times of extreme heat; and cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates ([link removed]) the “death subsidies” being given to the fossil fuel industry.

Finally, our new issue (October/November 2023) has gone to the printer—watch for it in the mail during the first week of October if you are a current subscriber, or visit this link ([link removed]) to subscribe now and get it in our second mailing a few weeks later! Plus, tonight at 7:00 p.m. Central Time, The Progressive will be streaming a video presentation of our annual Fighting Bob Fest on YouTube ([link removed]) and Facebook ([link removed]) . Tune in live, or watch the archived version for free at those links anytime.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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