By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
I'm thinking about my interview with United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts a half-dozen Labor Days ago.
In Paducah for the city's 2013 Labor Day parade and picnic, he said it was time for unions to take back two big issues the labor-haters had hijacked from our movement: “The Bible and patriotism.”
Roberts' advice is still timely. An anti-union, draft-evading, flag hugger--literally--lives in the White House. Donald Trump never misses a chance to burnish his Christian creds, though he's a profane, adulterous, double-divorcee who seldom darkens a church house door.
A slew of other right-wing, union-busting Republicans are in the same boat with the hypocrite-in-chief.
Roberts, who spoke at the picnic, wanted to know “At what point in time did the Bible start belonging to the Republicans and the business folks? At what point in time did patriotism?”
Added the 72-year-old Christian and combat veteran of Vietnam: “If you want to find where this movement has its essence, take the Bible. Don’t wave it. Don’t point it. Don’t pander. Read it…Jesus of Nazareth would be walking with us and standing with the poor, standing with the sick, standing with the afflicted, if he comes back tomorrow.”
Roberts, a native of Cabin Creek, W.Va., is a sixth generation coal miner who grew up in a UMWA family.
Throughout the New Testament, Roberts said, Jesus Christ “talks about the people who are poor and living in poverty. Today, who tries to lift people out of poverty? It’s the labor movement.”
Roberts says all Americans should be grateful for veterans who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives so people can freely worship as they see fit. He is proud that unions include tens of thousands of men and women who served in the military.
Roberts was an Army infantryman, a “grunt,” in Vietnam in 1967-1968. He was in a mortar crew with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade of the 23rd “Americal” Infantry Division.
He has a message for flag-waving, conservative saber rattlers who never fought in a war. “Who is Sean Hannity to decide who is a patriotic American? Who is Rush Limbaugh? They were never in the service."
Who is Trump? He was dodging the draft stateside while Roberts was dodging bullets in Southeast Asia.
"Working class people fight most of the wars," Roberts said. "Working class people, when called upon, they answer the call, whether it’s World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam, the Mideast.”
Rich people like Trump always found ways to beat the draft. Trump had college deferments and a dubious deferment for bone spurs on his heels.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., an Army vet who lost her legs while serving in Iraq, dubbed Trump, who went to a military school, "Cadet Bone Spurs."
Wherever he speaks to a crowd, Roberts acknowledges fellow vets. He said every UMWA local has a veterans committee. “Thanks to our veterans, we live in the greatest country in the world.”
Roberts will return to Kentucky next month to again speak at a Kentucky State AFL-CIO biennial convention. This one's in Lexington.