We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Hillary Clinton makes most political remarks since losing election

Note: My comments are in red.

I wonder whose stupid idea it was to try to revive the Democrats by trying to sanitize Hillary Clinton's image as a contrast to Donald Trump? Anyways the publicity stunt seems to have fallen flat as there is nothing anyone can do to distance her from barbaric drone attacks, bringing a bunch of fascists to power in the Ukraine and interfering in Russia's government, her role in the brutal murder of Qaddafi, her support for Bush's war for oil in Iraq that has been going on for years with only more carnage in sight, her political shenanigans during the Democratic Primary, her huge speaking fees paid by the Wall Street crowd in return for her service to U.S. imperialism and her time on Wal-mart's board when she helped to implement their corporate policy of firing pregnant women because they had to go too the bathroom too often.

Note: Hillary Clinton has no empathy for the women and children being killed in wars and drone attacks she fostered and instigated.

Posted: Mar 28, 2017 8:31 PM CST Updated: Mar 28, 2017 9:01 PM CST

http://www.crossroadstoday.com/story/35018837/hillary-clinton-makes-most-political-remarks-since-losing-election

 Hillary Clinton took the stage at a diversity conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, making her most political comments since losing the 2016 presidential election

Why is it so difficult to find the full text of her speech? Why isn't the full text and video of her speech here? https://hillaryspeeches.com/


Isn't it interesting the Main Stream Media owned by the very Wall Street corporations never questioned Hillary Clinton's self-serving hypocritical remarks?
By Tanzina Vega and Eli Watkins CNN



(CNN) -- Hillary Clinton took the stage at a diversity conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, making her most political comments since losing the 2016 presidential election.


"There is no place I'd rather be than here with you," Clinton said, before adding: "Other than the White House."


Nobody is laughing; she and the Democrats who ran her are responsible for Trump being in the White House.


During her keynote address at the annual conference hosted by the Professional BusinessWomen of California, Clinton spoke largely about women's equality and peppered in criticism of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.


"Obviously the outcome of the election wasn't the one I hoped for, worked for, but I will never stop speaking out for common sense benefits that will allow moms and dads to stay on the job," Clinton said.


Hillary Clinton's support for NAFTA put millions of working class moms and dads out of work. She has refused to support a full employment act brought forward by New Deal Democrats which would have made the president and Congress responsible for attaining and maintaining full employment--- a job at real living wages in line with the actual cost-of-living for everyone who wants to work.


Besides a few comments in public gatherings and tweets from her personal account, Clinton has largely laid low since the election. She was spotted after the election in the woods near her New York home and, along with her husband former President Bill Clinton, she attended Trump's inauguration.


Why did the Clinton's attend the Inauguration when millions of people boycotted it or protested against Trump's election?

She called Republicans' attempted replacement for the Affordable Care Act "a disastrous bill," adding that the Trump administration has been "met with a wave of resistance" that indicates the protests against Trump's policies are just getting started.


While it is true the Democrats are launching demonstrations against Trump, it is a fact that these Democrats are anti-Trump and sometimes protest what he is doing but NEVER provide alternatives that would solve our many problems. The Affordable Care Act which is not affordable for working class families needs to be repealed and replaced with a National Public Health Care System not defended as the Democrats are doing thus creating disunity in the movement to stop Trump. Obamacare provides no basis for unity because it is hurting far more people than it helps and it is centered around private for-profits health care. Hillary Clinton and the Democrats keep claiming Obamacare needs to be "fixed" yet they have never provided any details for fixing it; because there are no "fixes" beyond the hype.


"People who had never been active in politics told their stories at town hall meetings." Clinton said. "They were people who had something to say and were determined to be heard."


Clinton and the Democrats refuse to listen to the voices of the majority of the American people, millions of whom are now citizen-activists following in the footsteps of the heroic revolutionary Thomas Paine who are for peace, against racism and discrimination, for full employment and a minimum wage that is a real living wage.


During the question and answer portion of her appearance, she grew incredulous at the GOP health care debate.


"Really? Take away maternity care?" Clinton said. "Who do these people talk to?"


In fact, while Hillary Clinton was on Wal-mart's Board she devised the scheme used by Wal-mart to fire pregnant women because they had to use the bathroom too often.

Clinton also focused on issues like inclusivity and diversity of women in the workplace and the need for the private sector to make better efforts to bring more women to the table.


Not one single specific recommendation from Hillary Clinton for doing this.



"Advancing the rights and opportunities of women and girls is the great unfinished business of the 21st century," she said, while noting that women's representation in Washington is "the lowest it's been in a generation."


What "rights" has Hillary Clinton advanced? Certainly not those rights articulated in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights: http://unudhr.blogspot.com/


The former secretary of state also responded to racially charged incidents directed at two prominent black women today.


But no words for the racism and sexist discrimination emanating from the corporate boardrooms intended to bolster corporate profits through the super-profits derived from such discrimination.


In one, White House press Secretary Sean Spicer told April Ryan, a longtime White House correspondent and one of the few black women journalists in the press briefing room, to "stop shaking your head" and accused her of being "hell-bent on trying to make sure that whatever image you want to tell about this White House stays."


In another, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly came under fire for racist comments mocking Rep. Maxine Waters' hair, saying her hair looked like a "James Brown wig."


O'Reilly later apologized, but not after a slew of controversy. Tuesday, Clinton said Waters had been "taunted by a racist joke about her hair."


However, Clinton refuses to push for Trump's impeachment which Maxine Waters has called for and was the reason O'Reilley launched his racist anti-woman insults at her.


Women of color, said Clinton, have "a lifetime of practice taking precisely these kinds of indignities in stride."


Hillary Clinton mocks black women who not only have not "taken indignities in stride," but  have struggled relentlessly without let-up for centuries against racist discrimination in education, health care, housing, employment, politics and business. Clinton's remarks were as vile and racist as those she claimed to be condemning. Clinton has refused to support and push for the enforcement of Affirmative Action, the main remedy for racist discrimination in all areas, especially education and employment. Hillary Clinton refused to push for fully integrated public education.

On the policy front, Clinton criticized the US for still not having a national paid family leave policy and said those who do benefit from such policies are often among the highest income workers. Clinton called on the private sector to do more to help.


Clinton refused to support specific legislation for paid family leave.



"You're the people who figured out how to fit computers in the palms of our hands," she said. "You have the power."


And were these the people responsible for turning hi-tech into a profit orgy instead of serving people?

But overall, Clinton offered an optimistic tone in the face of Trump's victory.


On what does Hillary Clinton base such "optimism?"



"Where some see a dark vision of carnage, I see a light shining on creativity and opportunity," she said, referencing the inaugural address.


In fact, Hillary Clinton foments, instigates and encourages the most barbaric and bestial carnage with her support for overthrowing governments, assassination, wars, drone attacks and installing fascist governments in places where millions of people died fighting Hitler fascism such as in the Ukraine and the Baltics.

She offered the audience her new mantra: "Resist, insist, persist, enlist."


Resist Trump to put another Dumb Donkey in office?

She encouraged the audience to "resist actions that go against our values as Americans," insist on "putting people first," "persist" like Sen. Elizabeth Warren did when she was prevented from reading a letter written by Coretta Scott King about Sen. Jeff Sessions, and "enlist" others by running for office or opening a business.


Hillary Clinton has done more than many to silence the voices for peace and against racism. She and her Democratic Party hacks are reviving an anti-Communist campaign.


"I'll be right there with you every step of the way," she said.


Ya, sure; you betcha... just like Barack Obama put on his "marching shoes."




Apparently the media has been reluctant to provide full coverage to this other speech delivered by Hillary Clinton this past week at Georgetown University because the stark hypocrisy is just too much to take from one of the world's leading warmongers:

On Friday, Hillary Clinton spoke at an event on the campus of Georgetown University. She spoke about the importance of women being in leadership in America and around the world. She stressed the importance of women taking part in peace negotiations and the peace process. Clinton said that when women are involved “peace negotiations [and] agreements are less likely to fail and more likely to last.” Clinton’s backed up her claim with data from United Nations Women. The speech was her second this week, and she took the opportunity to take a swipe at President Donald Trump saying, “Here I go again, talking about research, evidence, and facts.” Watch a video from the event below and read a transcript of Clinton’s speech HERE.

http://time.com/4721094/hillary-clinton-georgetown-transcript/

Fidel Castro- How I became a Communist


The text is the transcript of a Questions & Answers session between Fidel Castro and students at the University of ConcepciĆ³n, Chile, on November 18 1971.
I was the son of a landowner—that was one reason for me to be a reactionary. I was educated in religious schools that were attended by the sons of the rich—another reason for being a reactionary. I lived in Cuba, where all the films, publications, and mass media were “Made in USA”—a third reason for being a reactionary. I studied in a university where out of fifteen thousand students, only thirty were anti-imperialists, and I was one of those thirty at the end. When I entered the university, it was as the son of a landowner—and to make matters worse, as a political illiterate!

…And mind you, no party member, no Communist, no socialist or extremist got hold of me and indoctrinated me. No. I was given a big, heavy, infernal, unreadable, unbearable textbook that tried to explain political economy from a bourgeois viewpoint—they called that political economy!
And that unbearable book presented the crises of overproduction and other such problems as the most natural things in the world. It explained how in Britain, when there was an abundance of coal, there were workers who didn’t have any, because by the inexorable natural and unchangeable laws of history, of society and nature, crises of overproduction inevitably occur, and when they do, they bring unemployment and starvation. When there’s too much coal, workers will freeze and starve!
So that landowner’s son, who had been educated by bourgeois schools and Yankee propaganda, began to think that something was wrong with that system, that it didn’t make sense…
As the son of a poor man who later became a big landowner, I had the advantage of at least living in the countryside, with the peasants, with the poor, who were all my friends. Had I been the grandson of a landowner, it’s quite possible that my father would have taken me to live in the capital, in a superaristocratic neighborhood and those positive factors at work on me wouldn’t have been able to survive the influence of the milieu. Egoism and other negative traits we humans beings have would have prevailed.
Luckily, the schools I studied in developed some of the positive factors. A certain idealistic rationality; a certain concept of good and evil, just and unjust; and a certain spirit of rebelliousness against impositions and oppression led me to an analysis of human society, and turned me into what I later realized was a utopian Communist. At the time, I still hadn’t been fortunate enough to meet a Communist or read a Communist document.
Then one day a copy of the Communist Manifesto—the famous Communist Manifesto!—fell into my hands and I read some things I’ll never forget… What phrases what truths! And we saw those truths every day!
I felt like some little animal that had been born in a forest which he didn’t understand. Then, all of a sudden, he finds a map of that forest—a description, a geography of that forest and everything in it. It was then that I got my bearings. Take a look now and see if Marx’s ideas weren’t just, correct, and inspiring. If we hadn’t based our struggle on them, we wouldn’t be here now! We wouldn’t be here!
Now then, was I a Communist? No. I was a man who was lucky enough to have discovered a political theory, a man who was caught up in the whirlpool of Cuba’s political crisis long before becoming a full-fledged Communist…
I went on developing. Afterwards, I had the opportunity to know imperialism more concretely than I had through Lenin’s book. I got to know imperialism—the worst and most aggressive of all… And I believe life has given me a better understanding of reality. It has made me more revolutionary, more socialist, more Communist…

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Are we fed up enough to do something about it?

I’m fed up; are you?

We the People need to come together if we are going to turn this country around. We need to bring our views into the proverbial public square which Wall Street has been monopolizing for far too long.

Some people, mostly well-heeled intellectuals, have initiated a campaign around the need for a national dialog concerning an alternative to this problem-plagued system. The system is capitalism in its most moribund, brutal, bestial and barbaric stage of imperialism where Wall Street monopolies dominate the government from local to national


We need a “Prosperity Economics, An Economy For All.” Most people know this as socialism. As far as I can tell, socialism is the only alternative to capitalism.

We need to create discussion about the direction of organized labor and the kind of country we all want to live in where peace, social justice and economic justice for working people prevail.

Democracy --- as well as social, economic and environmental justice --- requires no less than a full and broad discussion of important concerns and issues.

At a time when democracy needs to be expanded it is being smothered by big money, government decrees and sheer arrogance on the part of politicians and prosecutorial police repression.

We need to advocate for “prosperity economics; an economy that works for everyone.”

There are several very basic facts left out of discussions in our country when it comes to using the wealth of our Nation created by workers.

Politicians seeking election are very hazy, vague and nebulous as to what the concrete and specific goals and objectives are to be and how the wealth of our Nation will be spent.

The politicians try to “frame” issues in a way to trick us into giving up our votes thinking we are actually going to be getting something of substance in return for our votes when they have no intention at all in solving our many problems. There is a never-ending bunch of over-paid “pundits” who are nothing but liars and professional tricksters. Are we not entitled to something in return for our votes?

Millionaire labor “leaders” are equally as vague about what kind of movement and struggle it will take for the working class --- organized and unorganized together --- to create a prosperity economics for us all. They are all hot air; bark without bite but they aren’t shy about living off our union dues.

Because of the lack of rank-and-file empowerment within the working class, we do not hear a clear articulation that our main enemy is Wall Street. Politics and working class activism haven’t risen to reflect the fact that we, as working people, need to be engaged in a social, political and economic struggle for power with the intent, of not just curbing Wall Street’s power and influence, but ending Wall Street's dominance over every aspect of our lives --- in our schools, at work and in our communities.

Let's state right up front --- workers create all wealth, but workers have had no say in how this wealth is distributed and used. This needs to change. Democracy requires no less. Without economic democracy there is no democracy at all.

We have no say in how our tax dollars are spent. Most people want peace; what we get are costly wars. This is not democracy.

Let's also put it right out there before the American people that militarism and wars are squandering the wealth of our Nation to such a large extent we don't have the resources to solve our many domestic problems.

These dirty imperialist wars, as Mark Twain correctly called them, are killing our jobs and our standard of living just like they kill people. 
Militarism and wars are a major contributing factor to the world-wide collapsing capitalist economy. No nation can continue to endlessly squander the wealth of the nation to prepare for wars and to fight wars. This is sheer insanity. We might as well be dumping the wealth of our Nation into the deepest depths of the oceans.

Wall Street's greedy drive for profits results in wars which exacerbate our problems.

Detroit goes broke; the rest of our cities are sure to follow as Wall Street wallows in profits.

Working people go without adequate health care. Insurance and pharmaceutical companies get fabulously wealthy. Shorter work weeks/longer vacations with no cut in pay would create jobs and would keep us healthier, too. Working ten, twelve and fourteen hours a day certainly can’t be healthy for human beings while the resulting unemployment ruins lives and wrecks families.

Our public institutions like public education fall apart, crumble and collapse just like our roads, highways and bridges because we are constantly feeding a war machine intended to fight never-ending wars waged to protect Wall Street's interests, assets and profits abroad.


Prosperity for all begins with the recognition peace is required to achieve full employment and a Basic Income Guarantee for every citizen.

Full employment is about the government seeing to it that jobs are created for all at real living wages. It is about putting people to work by creating massive universal social programs like a National Public Health Care System and a National Public Child Care System all financed, administered and delivered just like public education but with adequate funding instead of job destroying legislation and trade agreements like the TPP and TTIP as detrimental to our health and jobs as are these wars. Without providing real health care reform the price of health care goes up when the intent should be to the push the real prices down while providing adequate health care for all.

Eliminating militarism and wars eliminates the largest carbon footprint contributing to global warming and climate change. The Military Industrial Complex wastes our precious resources in a huge, monstrous complex that ruins our environment and our health --- power generation for mining and manufacturing. Resources like oil and gas are required to fight wars. Preparation for war, and war itself, creates a mammoth sized carbon footprint destroying our living environment while creating massive joblessness and poverty and ill health for our people as our air, water and land gets polluted. Rebuilding in the aftermath of these wars is a double whammy inflicted upon people and Mother Nature. The stupidity of destroying what precious human labor has created--- sheer insanity.

There are only two sources of wealth: Labor and Mother Nature. Wall Street exploitsLabor and rapes Mother Nature. Common sense should tell us this can’t continue.

The Wall Street selected and bribed politicians talk about “jobs, jobs, jobs” when their hidden agenda is really about “profits, profits, profits” and “war, war, war”… more war, more profits for Wall Street’s merchants of death and destruction… so Bob Dylan’s song “Masters of War” goes.  War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

The time has come to make politicians legislatively responsible for full employment and peace because prosperity economics requires: peace and full employment --- a healthy people and a healthy environment.

There is no reason for poverty here in the wealthiest country in the world. If we can’t end poverty here in the United States, how can much poorer countries put an end to poverty? It is all about priorities.
We need a government that provides jobs.

We need a government that will assure a Basic Income Guarantee for every citizen just as our own revolutionary hero, Thomas Paine, advocated.
The central goal of the American labor and working class movement needs to be the building of an economy for all that is inseparably linked to peace, full employment and a Basic Income Guarantee which must include:

A Minimum Wage tied to all cost of living factors indexed to inflation. Jobs and a living income for all.

A National Public Health Care System… twelve-million new jobs.

A National Public Child Care System… three-million new jobs.

Protect, defend and expand Social Security programs.

Legislation prohibiting lockouts and scabbing.

The repeal and rescinding of “At-Will Employment” legislation --- the primary obstacle to worker empowerment and union organizing needs to become a priority.

Price roll-backs and Price controls are needed for food, medication, gas, home heating fuels and electricity.

A healthy economy means a healthy living environment and a healthy planet.

We need a quality of life index as called for in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The two-party system is a trap for working people. We must free ourselves from the Democrats and Republicans. A working class based progressive, populist people's party like the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party of Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson and John Bernard is required if we are going to have a prosperity economics that works for all of us.

We can learn a thing or two about health care and politics from our Canadian Brothers and Sisters who are now challenging Wall Street and it junior partner in crime, Bay Street, for political power.

We are now at a crossroads

We will continue to have an economy that serves Wall Street or we will create the kind of economy that works for the rest of us --- we can't have both, just like we can't have both wars and full employment.

I would encourage the use of what was the proposed Full Employment Act of 1945pushed by the left-wing led CIO unions and authored by liberal Texas Congressman Wright Patman and the associated hearing testimonies to broaden this discussion. You can check it all out here:



I also call to your attention the excellent Op-Ed piece by journalist Bob Herbert, “Losing Our Way.” This was his last piece published in the New York Times (March 25, 2011 [See full article at very end]), in he which declares:

"The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare, but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.”
As a trade unionist, I am asking:

What ever happened to William Winpisinger's "Rebuild America Act" and the “peace dividend”? The AFL-CIO should bring back to life its Committee on Conversion launched under the initiative of William Winpisinger --- from military production to producing for human needs; swords into plowshares is what was advocated by the International Association of Machinist's former President.

Where is this advocacy for peace and reordering our Nation's priorities now?

Thank you for taking the time to read and consider my views. I thought it was important that as a working class activist and concerned trade unionist I speak up and bring forward an alternative perspective.

As a working class youth I fought to end that dirty war in Vietnam.

As a rank-and-file worker and often an elected union leader and union organizer, I have fought to expand the rights and defend the livelihoods of working people. I felt now as we approach another election this was an appropriate time to share my views. We are living in a very dangerous world with wars and crumbling economies all around us. Wall Street is trying to solve its problems at the expense of working class families while making even larger profits in the process of taking advantage of our problems. 

We have been forced into a crisis no one wants to talk about: A Cost-of-Living Crisis. Anyone who doesn’t understand what I am talking about has never had to make a choice about what to buy in a grocery store or tried to figure out how to pay the winter’s heating bill or to pay for health insurance or child care. Prices for goods and services soar; wages stay the same or go down.

We need a broad-based campaign to win a “21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity” as part of a populist agenda which would include the kinds of reforms which I have described. Together we can win.

Let’s talk about the politics and economics of livelihood from a rank-and-file working class perspective for real change.

I’m fed up with Wall Street’s agenda and I am ready to move on to the “next” agenda which I believe to be a socialist agenda which includes fighting and struggling for reforms working class families require to get beyond these systemic problems and on the road to socialism. Are you fed up, too? If so, let’s get our two-cents into this discussion.

In solidarity and struggle,
Alan L. Maki


Please check out my Blog, The Podunk Blog:

Contact me by e-mail:

Contact me by telephone:

Feel free to write me at:

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Something to think about: Instead of free health care and child care which would create millions of decent new jobs we get warfare. This just isn’t right; especially when we could put everyone to work solving the problems of the people. What happened to the only justified war; the war on poverty?

Another thing to think about: Minnesota politicians had a blitz to shove a football stadium, a billion dollar plus boon-doggle, down our throats from which the billionaire owners of the Minnesota Vikings will profit. But they won’t mount a similar blitz to end the scourge of poverty; what the hell is going on here?

Losing Our Way

By BOB HERBERT       Published in the New York Times         MARCH 25, 2011


So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.


Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.


Arthur Miller, echoing the poet Archibald MacLeish, liked to say that the essence of America was its promises. That was a long time ago. Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic decline. Young people today are staring at a future in which they will be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should send a shudder through everyone.


The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.


Nearly 14 million Americans are jobless and the outlook for many of them is grim. Since there is just one job available for every five individuals looking for work, four of the five are out of luck. Instead of a land of opportunity, the U.S. is increasingly becoming a place of limited expectations. A college professor in Washington told me this week that graduates from his program were finding jobs, but they were not making very much money, certainly not enough to think about raising a family.


There is plenty of economic activity in the U.S., and plenty of wealth. But like greedy children, the folks at the top are seizing virtually all the marbles. Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have reached stages that would make the third world blush. As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.


Americans behave as if this is somehow normal or acceptable. It shouldn’t be, and didn’t used to be. Through much of the post-World War II era, income distribution was far more equitable, with the top 10 percent of families accounting for just a third of average income growth, and the bottom 90 percent receiving two-thirds. That seems like ancient history now.


The current maldistribution of wealth is also scandalous. In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent.


This inequality, in which an enormous segment of the population struggles while the fortunate few ride the gravy train, is a world-class recipe for social unrest. Downward mobility is an ever-shortening fuse leading to profound consequences.


A stark example of the fundamental unfairness that is now so widespread was in The New York Times on Friday under the headline: “G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether.” Despite profits of $14.2 billion — $5.1 billion from its operations in the United States — General Electric did not have to pay any U.S. taxes last year.


As The Times’s David Kocieniewski reported, “Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”


G.E. is the nation’s largest corporation. Its chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, is the leader of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. You can understand how ordinary workers might look at this cozy corporate-government arrangement and conclude that it is not fully committed to the best interests of working people.


Overwhelming imbalances in wealth and income inevitably result in enormous imbalances of political power. So the corporations and the very wealthy continue to do well. The employment crisis never gets addressed. The wars never end. And nation-building never gets a foothold here at home.


New ideas and new leadership have seldom been more urgently needed.


This is my last column for The New York Times after an exhilarating, nearly 18-year run. I’m off to write a book and expand my efforts on behalf of working people, the poor and others who are struggling in our society. My thanks to all the readers who have been so kind to me over the years. I can be reached going forward at: bobherbert88@gmail.com


What you can do:


* Gather a few friends around your kitchen table to discuss all of this



* Share this leaflet with your friends.


* Write a “Letter to the Editor”


* Express your views often. What good is any discussion about the problems we are experiencing if the views of workers are not included in a discussion about the solutions?


Individually we are like one little rain drop; we don’t amount to much. But, together with a common agenda we become a torrential downpour.

There are several other initiatives coming up which may be of interest:
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) invites you to

A National Antiwar & Social Justice Conference to Stop the Wars at Home & Abroad! Bring All U.S. Troops Home Now! Self-Determination for All Oppressed Peoples! Stop Police Abuse at Home! End All U.S. Support for Israel! Stop Pentagon Climate Pollution! Good Jobs, Quality Education, Affordable Health Care! Civil & Democratic Rights for All!

Friday, May 8 – Sunday, May 10, 2015

Empire Meadows (Clarion) Hotel Secaucus, New Jersey (30 minutes from New York City)

The world is being ravaged by endless U.S. wars, both open and secret; life-threatening global warming and environmental destruction; devastating poverty and disease. Here at home we face unprecedented attacks on labor, immigrants, the poor and oppressed; a massive and racist prison-industrial complex; the increasing militarization of the police and an epidemic of police abuse as in Ferguson, Mo.; widespread domestic spying and an expanding "national security state"; trillions of dollars spent on the military to police the world and bail out the corporate 1 percent while we face severe attacks on the basic necessities of life.

It's time for a massive, united and independent response!

For details contact: United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) - Phone: 518-227-6947
Email: UNACpeace@gmail.com

______________________________________________________

Call to the Second National Labor Fightback Conference at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ,

May 15–17, 2015

Dear Brothers and Sisters: While attacks against the labor movement have been mounting across the board over the past decades, they are escalating now as a result of the November 4 elections.
Among the right wing's top priorities in this new period are implementing the provisions of the $1.1 trillion spending bill passed during the lame-duck session which, among other things, has opened the door for sweeping additional cuts in pensions received by tens of millions of retirees; cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other progressive social programs; obliterating all consideration for establishing a national universal single-payer health care system; expanding the number of right-to-work (for less) states; stepping up the assaults against labor with more repressive legislation on the state and municipal levels; doing away with abortion rights; increasing astronomical military spending to fund expanded U.S. interventions and occupations, while funding for human needs, including education, are sharply curtailed; turning back the struggle for justice waged by the Black Freedom Movement against police violence and killings; maintaining the deportation and other anti-immigrant policies; adopting anti-labor trade pacts; and turning a deaf ear to the environmental and climate change crises.
Trade unionists and our allies in community organizations need to address these challenges, which imperil the very continued existence of the labor movement as a viable social and economic force. That is why the Labor Fightback Network is convening the Second National Labor Fightback Conference to be held May 15–17, 2015, at the Rutgers University Labor Education Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

The cornerstone of this conference is having participants join in hammering out an action program aimed at revitalizing the labor movement. This means building on the opportunities that have opened up on several fronts as a result of struggles waged to counteract the corporate class's many-sided attacks on working people. These struggles include:
•Approval of minimum wage increases in several states on November 4 and the campaign for $15 becoming a mass movement;
•Success of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer in winning support for its goal throughout the labor movement, crystallizing in the AFL-CIO and the National Education Association endorsing that goal;
•Fast food workers in the streets in large numbers demanding a living wage and respect on the job;
•The AFL-CIO endorsing the demand to halt all deportations;
•The AFL-CIO approving unanimously a resolution calling for a major emphasis on Organizing the South;
•Emergence of a new civil rights movement powered by Black youth demanding, among other changes, justice and the prosecution of police who kill unarmed African Americans and Latinos;
•The Moral Monday Movement, which mobilized 100,00 in the streets of Raleigh on February 8, 2014 and the birth and growth of the Southern Workers Assembly;
•The mobilization of 400,000 people in New York City on September 21, 2014, with 60 unions participating and demanding action on climate change and good union jobs;
•The Call by the Peoples' Organization for Progress (POP) for a demonstration in Newark on July 25, 2015, with the goal of galvanizing a turnout of a million people;
•The growing movement against destructive and pervasive drone bombing attacks, which have killed or severely wounded so many civilians.

One of the most notable developments was the action taken by unions in Lorain, Ohio in 2013 breaking with the Democratic Party and establishing — at least on a temporary basis — an independent labor formation, which successfully ran its own candidates for public office. At the heart of labor's crisis is the reality that we have no effective political voice, as witnessed by the fact that the $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill was passed by a bipartisan majority.
The same has happened with regard to other measures of critical importance to the working class that were approved by the Democrats and Republicans working together "across the aisle." These developments and others underscore the urgent need for trade union leaders and activists, along with representatives of progressive community organizations, to meet together and develop an independent mass action program to advance the interests of the working class and our allies.
The national conference to be held at Rutgers will provide a forum for the necessary discussion to take place. It will also continue the discussion initiated at the first National Labor Fightback Conference on promoting independent labor-community candidates for public office. The following workshops will be held at the conference: Attacks Against Labor: a Fightback Strategy, Independent Labor Political Action, Immigrant Rights, Expanded Black Freedom Movement, Single Payer Health Care, Crisis in Education, Organizing the South, the Anti-Intervention Struggle. (For details on these workshops, click here.)

These workshops are intended to be action-oriented with action proposals to be agreed to by each and then submitted to plenary sessions for consideration by the conference itself. The Rutgers conference will also feature speakers and an opportunity for attendees to caucus and network. Caucuses will be held on women's rights and climate change.

More details to follow, but please circle your calendar for May 15–17. Register for the Rutgers conference now and be there for an educational and action-oriented experience aimed at promoting desperately needed change as labor confronts the difficult challenges in the period ahead.
P.O. Box 187, Flanders, NJ 07836

Don't forget to check out the work being done by the New Progressive Alliance:

http://www.newprogs.org/


For very informative commentary on current events, tune into Stewart Alexander's blog talk program via his FaceBook page:

https://www.facebook.com/stewart.alexander.35?fref=ts



Lots of good information is available from United States Labor Against the War: