Alan L. Maki

"Unless WE stop them"...

We can't do it without fighting for power... the entire political and economic system in this country from top to bottom is so corrupt and rotten that to attempt to even discuss any of these things with "public officials" its like sticking your head down into a stinking maggot filled garbage can. We are going to have to build a grassroots and rank and file movement of working people taking to the streets while fighting for power at the ballot box because all these so-called "leaders" getting paid with our dues are just making excuse after excuse for Obama and these dumb donkeys.

Here is what I think should be done--- Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney and Margaret Flowers should go someplace for a weekend and figure out how they are going to campaign for President as they build up a new kind of "people's party" for peace and social justice. Tour the entire country holding mini-people's summits and encourage working people with liberal, progressive and left views to come together to turn this country around.

The American people want three things:

Peace
Real healthcare reform
Jobs

There is the program to take to the American people:

Stop these dirty wars and use the money saved to pay for a national public healthcare system based upon the very best socialized healthcare systems in the world that no one--- not even Tea Baggers--- want to see ended... the underfunded VA, Indian Heath Service and the National Public Health Service...
Such a nation-wide public health service would create almost ten-million new jobs with affirmative action being enforced protecting the rights of people of color, women and the disabled while providing:

A No-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive, pre-natal to grave, universal public healthcare system that is publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered.

Powerful coalitions bringing together liberals and the left have created massive progressive coalitions in the past winning Social Security and forcing Lyndon Johnson to sign Executive Order #11246 (affirmative action).

The time has come to table a real people's program to turn this country around giving the American people a clear choice at the ballot box.

We need to get back out into the streets, take this kind of campaign into our neighborhoods, where we work and go to school.

We need to keep the pressure on these dumb donkeys as we work to replace them.

No peace; no votes.
No real healthcare reform; no votes.
No jobs with enforcement of affirmative action; no votes.

In a democracy, this is called accountability--- especially when you have candidates offering clear alternatives.

"single-collector" not "single-payer"… there is a difference

Re: Minnesota Health Act... it's "single-collector" not "single-payer"--- John Marty is a scam just like his legislation

Mr. David Swanson,

You continue to spread the lie that the proposed Minnesota Health Act legislation created by John Marty who is about  as progressive as Barack Obama is “single-payer universal healthcare.”

Maybe you don’t understand the difference between “single-payer universal healthcare” and “single-collector.”

You are one of the few people still calling the Minnesota Health Act, “single-payer.” It is in fact “single-collector;” the state collects the premiums for the insurance companies who will underwrite this plan.

For you and others to continue portraying the Minnesota Health Act as “single-payer” does a grave disservice to the single-payer movement.

Please note that on the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition’s (MUHCC) web site--- they, along with Senator John Marty, being the major backer of this legislation--- two things are lacking:

1. We are not told what the premiums will cost us.

2. There is no claim the insurance companies have been eliminated from healthcare with this legislation.

I would note that previously, MUHCC called for the elimination of the insurance industry from healthcare; if this legislation accomplishes this, why is no such claim being made?

I seriously doubt you have taken the time to read the entire legislation and YOU have a responsibility to do this before you go around the country promoting this legislation.

At the present time, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party has the best single-payer universal healthcare resolution as part of its “Action Agenda;” I should know how good it is--- I wrote it, and it was approved and passed by 72% of the delegates to the MNDFL State Convention in 2006. You can read this resolution on the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party’s website under “Action Agenda.”

Your promotion of the Minnesota Health Act is contributing to a campaign in support of a resolution that will undermine the present single-payer resolution because you are contributing to a very powerful misinformation campaign for this new resolution being brought before the state convention--- I have suggested to people that we no longer bother to refute the lies about this legislation; that, instead we point our fingers at the perpetrators of these lies AFTERWARDS.

It is because of having to work with completely dishonest people to achieve a very simple and mild reform to a thoroughly corrupt and rotten healthcare system like we have at present and made worse by the recent passage of Obama’s and the Democrats’ legislation, that I will suggest to everyone I know that we not settle for anything short of the socialized healthcare systems which have been proven to work the best when properly funded--- like VA, the Indian Health Service and the National Public Health Service… the finest healthcare delivery services in the world all free of charge--- socialized healthcare for everyone.

For your information: The majority of Minnesota legislators who are supposedly “sponsors” of this legislation have told me in person they would never vote for this legislation… for, as Minnesota State Senator Rod Skoe, a sponsor told me when I asked him why he was a sponsor if he has made up his mind he will not vote for it if it ever gets to the Senate floor, exclaimed to me, “To get people like you off my back.”

I have placed a box with three great articles on my blog in the upper right-hand corner about the federal legislation that just passed; your opinion has not been included because you are not credible on healthcare issues because of your continued deceptive promotion of the Minnesota Health Act, which is not single-payer; but, rather, single-collector bolstering the profits of the insurance industry. You do, however, join with the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and Wayne Newton and his quacking white duck hawking AFLACK in supporting this legislation--- quack, quack!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhWrABF4Yyo

Yours in struggle and solidarity,

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Please check out my blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Let’s talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for real change.

A proud “red” Finn speaks out about current problems in the CPUSA…

 

From a FaceBook discussion; a comment I posted.

Alan L. Maki

What is really at issue is the CPUSA has no "Party line on peace... or anything else for that matter other than "support Obama and the Democrats."

A more specific discussion is in order: What should the "Party line" be?

First consideration: It is the role, A PRIMARY ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITY, of the CPUSA to conduct anti-imperialist education among the American people and the working class specifically.

Second consideration: What do the majority of the American people desire.
What do the American people want?

The American people at every opportunity have made it clear in large majority they want peace by ending these dirty wars.

Again, at every opportunity and in every poll the majority of the American people are for real healthcare reform--- single-payer universal healthcare based on the Canadian model is the clear choice but people vote for and approve of socialized healthcare by their use--- without complaint--- of three popular socialized healthcare systems already in place: VA, Indian Health Service and the National Public Health Service... millions use socialized healthcare without any complaints against these systems.

The majority of the American people want "Jobs, jobs, jobs" with most people supporting the enforcement of affirmative action which is the law of the land (Executive Order #11246 which had been a much recognized law until Obama took office).

Peace, healthcare and jobs.

One would think that any Communist Party confronted with the need to develop a "Party line" would have a relatively easy time considering the majority sentiment for Peace, Healthcare and Jobs.

What is so difficult here:

Peace = Healthcare + Jobs

End the wars and use the money saved to finance real healthcare reform which will create million of new jobs while making healthcare universally accessible to the American people. Single-payer creates almost 3-million new jobs... socialized healthcare like the VA system creates almost ten-million jobs.

Sam Webb has slandered and libeled me as an "ultra-leftist" all across the United States for putting forward this "Party line." Scott Marshall has branded me a "Stalinist" for advocating this as "the Party line"... even though there is no such thing as a "Stalinist;" we are Marxist-Leninists... a term Sam Webb eschews and Danny Rubin refrains from using too often... maybe once in his new book, Can Capitalism Last?

Ok, we have a "Party line:"

Peace = Healthcare + Jobs

Even my 6 year old grand daughter understands this formula but not the university educated Webb.

In order to rebuild the Clubs as the only way to rebuild the CPUSA we need to advance this as "the Party line."

I challenge Sam Webb or anyone else to dispute that this should be "the Party line."
On the basis of advancing this "Party line" we will rebuild and build Communist Party Clubs which are the key building block and foundation of any Communist Party.
This line incorporates the struggle against U.S. imperialism while simultaneously advancing crucial initiatives and struggles for reforms... it is a "Party line" upon which the call for a real people's party can be advanced.

Never has life presented a greater opportunity in any country at any time on the face of this earth for a Communist Party to put forward its "Party line" in a way that leads the masses of the people away from imperialism and capitalism while putting us on the road to socialism--- open up a country-wide discussion about socialized healthcare and this opens up a huge national debate about socialism where REAL socialism is talked about and not this idiotic caricature of socialism being advanced by the thoroughly reactionary and ultra-conservative Tea Party movement.

I would encourage anyone and everyone going to the CPUSA National Convention to get some red paper and with yellow letters print off a small sign that says---

Peace = socialized healthcare + jobs

Which Sam Webb and the leadership and each delegate and every guest will have to ponder for the duration of the convention.

Now, more than ever we need a bold Communist Party USA seeking new members while simultaneously taking the struggle against imperialism and for peace, healthcare and jobs into every neighborhood, mine, mill, factory and school.

At the ballot box the "Party line" should be:

No Peace; No Votes.
No real healthcare reform; No Votes.
No jobs; No Votes.

If the dumb donkeys running the Democratic Party don't want to deliver peace, healthcare and jobs they should be told to go to Hell because they sure as hell are dragging the working people down the dark, bumpy, curvy dangerous road to perdition without any stop-overs in purgatory as this rotten capitalist system in on the skids to oblivion... with socialism the only life-line to hold onto.

And you know what?

 
Peace = socialized healthcare + jobs

This has been "the Party line" since the day Marx and Engels wrote the "Communist Manifesto" and it has served the Communist Movement well.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the other issues that fall into place with this Party line being advanced.

Damn, I hate it when the "ultra-leftists" of the phony left call me a "liberal" when I advance this Party line.

 

Alan L. Maki

Where is Richard Trumka’s big loud voice?

Alan L. Maki

Laura, I appreciate this dialog.

You state:

" From your remarks it sounds like we are both fighting for what we believe in. So in conclusion lets agree to be respectful and support each other to make change because our motives are for the betterment of society."

People fight for a lot of different things based on "what they believe in" based on how they view the world and what is going on with their lives.

The question, in my opinion, is not about whether or not we are fighting for what we believe in but rather if we are fighting for what is right.

I authored the single-payer universal healthcare resolution that took us six long years to pass through the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Convention because the President of the Minnesota AFL-CIO motioned for his delegates to remain seated in opposition to single-payer--- faced with an uprising from the rank and file in the affiliated unions, Ray Waldron--- after a vicious campaign of red-baiting me across this state because I called single-payer the first step on the way to socialized healthcare--- dropped his opposition or faced being run out of office in shame and disgrace.

But, the fact remains, this President of the Minnesota AFL-CIO used his position and influence, not to mention resources from the dues of union members to fight single-payer in this most shameful way.

In fact, it was the AFL-CIO's bought and paid for "think-tank," the Campaign for America's Future which sabotaged and derailed the single-payer movement--- Sweeney and Trumka subsidized Roger Hickey's book that was used to undermine single-payer.

I have worked in the labor movement in one capacity or another for over 30 years and those "leaders" like Lane Kirkland threatened to yank local union and local labor council charters for having me on their pay-rolls because of my political beliefs... no better than the bosses we were fighting.

Two articles I wrote about single-payer universal healthcare were circulated on the floor of the last national AFL-CIO convention in your state and some people had the leaflets yanked from their hands as they were distributing them--- this is not democracy nor is it respect for the views of others.

Not only have I worked in the labor movement for over thirty years; I have worked in the Democratic Party in three states and I have worked in the New Democratic Party in Canada.

I have heard John Sweeney praise to high heaven the Canadian workers for having their own political party yet when he came back across the border it was like he had never heard of the New Democratic Party.

Just over these past several months I received a call from labor activists in the state of Virginia to represent a young woman fired from Wal-mart FOR BEING PREGNANT who worked at the Wal-mart Super Store in Portsmouth... Wal-mart then opposed her right to collect unemployment compensation... I asked why they were calling me here in Minnesota--- the answer was, no lawyers or unions would help her fight for her job and her right to unemployment compensation. She won her right to unemployment compensation with me representing her--- I want to know where organized labor is in these struggles of working people to defend their livelihoods and their rights. This is the fight. These are the struggles. We still can't find a lawyer to represent this youn mother-to-be to get her job back--- she wasn't even provided the entitlement of protection under the Family Leave Act!

Talk about the EFCA--- As an elected member of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party's State Central Committee I authored a resolution calling for a plank in the MNDFL's "Action Agenda" that legislators should rescind the "At-will hiring; at-will firing" legislation presently on the books--- this legislation is on the books in some 28 states as far as I can determine--- it is the single biggest obstacle to union organizing in this country bar none... even the EFCA could not overcome this. Who opposed my resolution? The "leaders" of the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

Right now here in Minnesota, a resolution supporting the enforcement of affirmative action (Executive Order #11246) has passed many precinct caucuses and county conventions--- this is the most important and fundamental piece of civil rights and human rights law in this country protecting people of color, women and the handicapped which Barack Obama CHOSE NOT TO ENFORCE in dishing out his trillion dollars in "stimulus funds." Who is the main opposition to this resolution passing at the upcoming MNDFL State Convention to be held in Duluth, Minnesota on April 23,24, 25? The Change To Win building trades unions AND the Minnesota AFL-CIO.

I have written Richard Trumka numerous letters about this; no response even though he said at the top of his lungs he was supporting Barack Obama as an act against racism which would benefit working people.

Supporting affirmative action is an act against racism in support of working people--- where is his big loud voice? Silent.

I wonder, if we are all fighting for the same cause.

By-the-way... it was announced that our Roseau County DFL Convention where among other things, members of the MN DFL State Central Committee are elected was going to be held at one place--- well, member of the teacher's union decided they wanted to seize control of the Democratic Party apparatus and to do this they needed to remove me from the State Central Committee; so they changed the time and place without informing anyone except for a select little group of their friends while leaving over 90 of us waiting outside in near zero temperatures for over two hours waiting for the County Convention to begin only to have the County Chair, Ley Soltis whose wife is a teacher, drive up and say, "I forgot to put a notice on the door that we changed the time and place of the convention; sorry; nothing we can do about this now."

You might think I sound like I'm pissed; I am--- because the very people who are supposed to be advancing the movement for real reforms defending the rights and livelihoods of working people and the working class are working against us every step of the way.

You bet I am a Marxist because this thoroughly rotten capitalist system is on the road to oblivion and we are all being dragged down the dark, dangerous, bumpy, curvy road to perdition without any breather in purgatory along the way. Socialism is the working class alternative to capitalism and this is what labor leaders should be talking about in addition to real reforms.

I don't know of any other advanced capitalist country in the world where organized labor chooses to cow-tow to the political parties of the bosses and a bunch of dumb donkeys.

Do the American people want socialized health care? Well, I haven't heard any people using the VA, Indian Health Service or any of the services of our National Public Health Services calling for the dismantling of these socialized healthcare programs... nor do I see many people calling for shutting down our public schools--- if we couldn't teach 300 million people to read in write in private-for-profit schools; why would any thinking person possibly believe that private-for-profit health insurance can provide the American people with the health care they are ENTITLED to as a human right by birth? How can you or anyone else say the American people don't want socialized healthcare when, like single-payer, it is kept off the table by politicians who boast to the world that we live in the greatest "bastion of democracy?"

Here in Minnesota, many Democrats in their precinct causes have passed this resolution, or something similar, after I toured all 87 counties promoting this:
"No-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive, pre-natal-to-grave, universal, national public healthcare; publicly financed, publicly administered and publicly delivered."

What happened to the “warriors for justice?”

Richard Trumka: Big Health Insurance to Sick Kids: Suffer

Richard's Notes|Notes about Richard|Richard's Profile

Big Health Insurance to Sick Kids: Suffer

Today at 3:01pm

It didn’t take long for Big Insurance to look for loopholes in the health care reform law. Just days after it was signed by President Obama, insurance companies are trying to weasel out of provisions designed to end the abuse and outrageous practices the insurance industry has inflicted on consumers and patients for years.

Sick kids are their first target.

Starting Sept. 23, the bill will ban insurance companies from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. But as The New York Times reports this morning, insurance lawyers are claiming the bill’s “fine print” allows them to refuse to cover children with pre-existing conditions such as asthma, diabetes, orthopedic problems, birth defects and other illnesses.

That claim is “outrageous,” says Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).

The ink has not yet dried on the health care reform bill, and already some deplorable health insurance companies are trying to duck away from covering children with pre-existing conditions. This is outrageous.

The new law says insurance companies “may not impose any pre-existing condition exclusion” in their policies covering children under age 19. The insurance companies assert the law only requires coverage for pre-existing conditions ifa policy is sold and that it does not require access to a policy. In other words, insurance companies claim they can deny coverage for an entire family if one child is sick.Says Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.):

The concept that insurance companies would even seek to deny children coverage exemplifies why we fought for this reform.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)spokesman Nick Papas told Kaiser Health News:

The law is clear: Insurance plans that cover children cannot deny coverage to a child because he or she has a pre-existing condition. To ensure that there is no ambiguity on this point, the Secretary of HHS is preparing to issue regulations next month making it clear that the term “pre-existing exclusion” applies to both a child’s access to a plan and to his or her benefits once he or she is in the plan.

But you can bet the insurance company and their lawyers will fight every step of the way.

Click here to find out more about what the new health care reform law will do for you and your family.

Updated 5 hours ago · Comment ·Like Unlike · View Original Post · Report Note

2 people like this.

Alan L. Maki

@ Richard... you approved this dirty healthcare deal when you could have stood up and fought for socialized healthcare.

4 hours ago ·  

 

 

 

Jess Minks

Alan read what the fight is about. Rich has done so and like many other people knows the heath care system is broken and this is the first step to fixing it. The system has many parts that don't work the way we want, so this imperfect bill is a start to put in place a method to improve health care so it will become what will help all the people.

2 hours ago · Report

 

 

 

Laura Kowalski

No one said this bill was perfect or would be a fix all for 100 years of problems with health care. Passing this bill was and is a major victory in a long, hard, brutal war.
Are you really surprised the insurance companies want to protect their outrageous profits? I have always backed a single payer system but Americans are not ready for that.

However- do not become discouraged. Most importantly do not see this as a defeat and lose hope. We need to remember what a tremendous victory this is, keep fighting, and do not quit until we ensure that the True Intent of Health Care Reform is realized.

about an hour ago · Report

 

 

 

Alan D. Vandersloot

Organized labor backed a progressive bill to start the changes needed in the future for this country, There was a lot of opposition and most of it was orchestrated and funded from the profits of the insurance companies. It's a start- not a bad one either. More needs to be accomplished.

about an hour ago · Report

 

 

 

Alan L. Maki

This was no victory; this was major defeat for the working class. We need socialized healthcare. I wouldn't vote for Obama or any of these Democrats promoting wars instead of healthcare. Socialized healthcare would create almost ten-million new jobs... pay for it by stopping these dirty wars. The AFL-CIO hasn't stood up for anything for working people--- you dumped all this money down a rat hole supporting Obama and got nothing in return.

about an hour ago ·

 

 

 

Laura Kowalski

Sounds like you have got your work cut out for you in mobilizing the public support for socialized health care. What is your plan?

52 minutes ago · Report

 

 

 

Jess Minks

Makes one wonder what people think can be done with the stroke of a pen and a wish.

48 minutes ago via Email Reply · Report

 

 

 

Alan L. Maki

@ Jess: A lot can be taken away with the stroke of a pen--- but, it is through struggle that working people win.

@ Laura: We have been talking to people in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan about organizing around this very simple formula---

Peace = Socialized healthcare + Jobs

Jobs with the strict enforcement of affirmative action for people of color, women and the handicapped.

We, the Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council, are making this our outreach project.

Healthcare is real important to this country's more than two-million workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry working in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos getting poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws.

After a few years working in these casinos most workers, if they are lucky enough to dodge cancers, develop some kind of heart or lung problems--- sometimes all three.

Of course, to keep your coalition partners (the Democratic Party) happy... the AFL-CIO is willing to overlook the problems of casino workers as the campaign contributions from these casino managements come flowing in.

I wouldn't expect you to understand... but, don't worry; you will understand soon enough as your hero Barack Obama and his Wall Street partners drive the standard of living of all workers down to the level of casino workers in the Indian Gaming Industry--- then we will all be in the same stinking, sinking boat.

 
First there was the bailout of the banks and financial insurance companies, then GM and Chrysler... now the health insurance industry is getting 30-million new customers compliments of the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Party... next will be a presidential pardon for Bernie Madoff one of Obama's biggest backers... maybe after Barack Obama's re-election in 2012 he will get around to the problems of working people--- oh, ya, before he does that he has to finish giving the rest of the country away to Wall Street under the guise of his "green economy/green jobs" which you will hail no matter how rotten the deal is as a great victory just like this health insurance bailout scam that is unconstitutional to begin with--- but, who cares about a little thing like legislation being unconstitutional if it might save Barack Obama's worthless political butt.

You know, this "green economy/green jobs" thing really has me puzzled. Why is Barack Obama, whose big campaign contributors, the Crown family, not talked to the Crowns about keeping those refrigerator jobs in this country instead of shipping the jobs to Mexico? Wasn't this a perfect example of green manufacturing producing a green product in a smoke-free workplace unlike what casino workers have to suffer? Isn't it time to begin talking about public ownership of plants and nationalization of industries to save American jobs?

The "reds" fought to organize the unions to protect the rights and livelihoods of working people and now a bunch of wimpy union "leaders" are refusing to defend these very jobs.

Really; I don't get it... why isn't the big, powerful AFL-CIO standing up for workers' rights, livelihoods and health?

Workers in Canada who are members of unions affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress, go to the polls voting for their socialist party--- the New Democratic Party... it seems like their is a message here for American workers and the AFL-CIO: Wake-up! Stop voting for the bosses' party.

Well, Laura; we do have a plan and our work is cut out for us--- it might be a little easier if all the over-paid, big-mouth labor leaders like Richard Trumka put a little fight behind their militant sounding rhetoric and actually put some resources behind the idle-rhetoric coming from people like Stewart Acuff who claimed he was going to be bringing "warriors for justice" into these battles.

Where are these "warriors for justice?"

Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party leader says: “Silence Maki”

26 minutes ago

Alan L. Maki

If anyone wants to protest what the Democrats are doing, protest that they are deleting my posts on the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party FaceBook page:

http://www.facebook.com/notifications.php#!/pages/Minnesota-DFL-Party/95779211526?ref=ts

For over a week now they have been removing my posts and I have been reposting... they say they wish I would leave the Democratic Party :)

Brian Melendez, the Chair of the Minnesota DFL, says it isn't proper for me to refer to "the Israeli killing machine" or to be charging that the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party is responsible for using redistricting to exclude Native American Indians from the Minnesota State Legislature and our congressional delegation.

Redistricting in Minnesota--- a question of unbridled and organized racism

Maybe someone could explain why Democrats and Republicans collude in redistricting to prevent Native American Indians from maximizing their votes so as to exclude them from the Minnesota State Legislature?

Why shouldn't Bois Forte, Fond du Lac, Leech Lake, Red Lake and White Earth Indian Reservations all be in the same Congressional District?

What is going on here?

Maybe the State Convention Delegates and organizations like the League of Women Voters should look into this?

We see the hand of systemic and institutionalized racism at work here in Minnesota.

If we had a just political system here in Minnesota, Minnesota Senate Districts 4 and 2 and House Districts 4-A and 2-B would be majority Native American Indian districts.

I find it interesting Native American Indians have been the victims of this racist injustice for years and most everyone just continues on with life as if nothing is wrong... the politicians make their pilgrimages to see gaming and tribal officials and ignore the poverty then they have the nerve, like State Senator Mary Olson of Senate District 4 to make the claim that "this is democracy in action; democracy works." Yes, she takes the campaign contributions from the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association leaving the poverty created by joblessness behind as she refuses to insist upon the enforcement of affirmative action on public works projects like the Bemidji Regional Event Center.

There is a reason redistricting is so important and anyone who looks for a reason why no Native American Indians are sitting in the Minnesota State Legislature or among its federal Congressional delegation need look no further than redistricting.

Perhaps the MNDFL Native American Indian Caucus would like to study this issue? Or what about the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council? Certainly a lawsuit should have been filed by now seeking justice here.

The Minnesota Indian Gaming Association is loaded with money... seems kind of odd and strange to me that this outfit which derives its revenues off the backs of the poor and disenfranchised is demonstrating all too little concern... perhaps this organization is satisfied that among Native American Indians the gaming industry has a pool of cheap labor and people they can abuse at will?

I don't suppose Brian Melendez would like to discuss this issue?

More on healthcare… refuting the lies and liars

I'm not sure length of time for involvement in the struggle for healthcare reform has anything to do with this discussion--- in fact, I know it has nothing at all to do with anything because access to healthcare is a basic and fundamental  human right.

I have always--- since 1968--- supported any healthcare reform no matter how small; yet, I oppose this draconian piece of legislation which violates the most fundamental and basic constitutional rights of the American people--- forcing people to purchase health insurance from private corporations.

In fact, some kind of legislation could very easily have been forthcoming that was public and universal financed just like Social Security.

I doubt the mandatory aspect of this legislation will stand up to a court challenge. It is one thing to tax the people for a public program; quite another to force and coerce people to purchase insurance from private-for-profit insurance companies and then use the United States' Internal Revenue Service as the collection agency--- this is blatantly unconstitutional on its face.

Obama argues that people are forced to purchase auto insurance; wrong, wrong, wrong--- the government doesn't force anyone to own a car or to drive a car... this is voluntary.

John Cline does not have a clue as to what progressive is. He isn't even able to provide a concrete example. What he has done is fabricated the reasons we on the left are opposed to this health insurance legislation which is, in fact reactionary and regressive--- that there are approximately 18 points in this legislation that will in fact help some groups of people within the framework of the for-profit healthcare system is not the point because had Mr. Cline and his friends who SABOTAGED the single-payer movement for the political expediency of saving Barack Obama's worthless political butt, the good points could have been incorporated into a piece of legislation and passed on its own as a stand-alone.  There are in fact dozens of points in this legislation that hurt the working class as a whole but that doesn't matter to the middle class Mr. Cline for whom politics is a mere game. If there had been just one point of help to people Mr. Cline would have supported this legislation.

Anyone can set strawmen up in a row to gallantly knock down as Mr. Cline has done... not one single person or organization does Mr. Cline cite as being the ones who supposedly adhere to the views he claims to refute.

So, what is progressive?

Progressive is the point where liberals and leftists come together to push a common platform and agenda for change; simple as this.

Chris gave a perfect example, above, of progressive. Liberals aren't ready to support socialized healthcare; leftists support socialized healthcare. Liberals and leftists came together to push for progressive change known as single-payer universal healthcare. Very simple what progressive is all about and it is easy to understand yet Mr. Cline never came close to providing us a definition by way of example of what progressive means.

I find Mr. Cline's position really quite dishonest because he fails to note that the "leaders" of virtually every single organization whose members supported single-payer deserted their own memberships who wanted to struggle on for single-payer.

Here is a name for you Mr. Cline; Roger Hickey and the Campaign for America's Future, an AFL-CIO think-tank along with all the organizations and think-tanks falling under the umbrella of the Century Foundation decided to attack the single-payer movement in the most dishonest way by claiming they were for single-payer at the very time they were undermining the single-payer movement. In fact, you can look at the Campaign for America's Future's website and find a number of discussions between myself and the leaders of that organization who "refuted" my accusations that Roger Hickey had a book going to press for the explicit purpose of undermining the single-payer movement when in fact these dishonest people did in fact have such a publication going to press.

Mr. Cline; just as you do not know the meaning of the term "progressive" you do not know the meaning of the word "reform." This legislation is reactionary and regressive because it takes the responsibility and cost of healthcare off the back of business--- small and large--- and places the cost on the back of the working class.

This legislation should have been titled,"The Health Insurance Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010."

Mr. Cline; whether you know it or not, Wall Street is our enemy and healthcare legislation cannot serve both the interests of Wall Street and the working class at the same time.

Mr. Cline; if you were the least bit intellectually honest you would take apart each piece of this legislation and place in one column those aspects of the legislation that help some people and those parts of it that almost universally harm us all (except of course those who stand to make a profit). Then we would have a better concept of where we really stand.

Also, to be completely honest, you would provide the costs involved and who the profits will go to. I other words, who pays and who profits.

What you make no attempt to explain is how working people who are in dire financial straits already, unable to pay rents and home mortgages, unable to pay heating bills and homeowner's insurance not to mention auto insurance premiums are going to be able to afford healthcare premiums with little co-pays? Have priced out the cost of health insurance these days for a young family of four with parents still in child-bearing years? I doubt that you have since you don't print this figure--- or, perhaps you are ashamed to publish this figure--- and, oh, did I mention the unemployed? Who will pay their health insurance premiums? Perhaps the government? LOL!!! Like a bankrupt government spending trillions on wars can cover this.

And, Mr. Cline; you say you checked the proposals coming from the "left." Obviously you did not check anything I have written because I have repeatedly stated that we could provide every single American with free healthcare simply by halting these dirty wars and using that money to create a world-class public healthcare system... instead of 800 U.S. military bases dotting the globe on foreign soil protecting Wall Street's access to cheap resources and labor, we could have 800 public healthcare centers strung out across this country serving more than 30,000 community and neighborhood walk-in clinics. And, if we cut off all funding to the Israeli killing machine we would for sure be able to create a "no-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive, pre-natal to grave quality universal public healthcare system--- publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered... just like our public schools--- I am sure not even you would suggest that we could teach 300 million people to read and write without a public school system so why would you think a private-for-profit healthcare system could provide our nation with quality healthcare? After all, the best healthcare in this country comes from two socialized healthcare programs: VA and the Indian Health Service.   

CHICANERY OF DEMOCRATIC FOXES

In my opinion we have to be careful we don’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater” when it comes to the Democratic Party because there are people who don’t understand how movements for real change develops… this is a response I wrote to an article being widely circulated which needs further discussion and clarification:

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan L. Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 1:13 PM
To: 'David Shove'
Cc: johnamurphy@comcast.net
Subject: RE: Chicanery of Democratic Foxes

David,

This article is not at all like what New Broom has done--- no suggestion here of working with right-wing elements like the racist John Birch Society and its supporters like Rand and Ron Paul and the "End the Fed" group that is a front for the John Birch Society based upon the most conservative and reactionary .

New Broom has probably destroyed its credibility with people of color and Jewish people with its association with the groups cited above.

Second; this article is quite good; however, there are two problems that I see:

1. The suggestion there be a complete break from the Democratic Party; in fact, there are many good people who work inside the Democratic Party and/or use the Democratic Party as a vehicle to try to make very good progressive change.

2. While it is very important to note the phonies and fakes claiming to be liberals, progressives and leftists (and these people should be named to provide examples: Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Carl Davidson, Sam Webb, Erwin Marquit, Robert Borosage, Roger Hickey, Al Franken, Matt Entenza and labor "leaders" like Richard Trumka, Shar Knutson who talk about "jobs, jobs, jobs" but conveniently ignore the need to enforce affirmative action, etc.) what really needs to be explained is what real progressives are because in explaining the word "progressive" we begin to understand who the honest liberals and leftists really are. Progressives are created when social/economic problems become so severe liberals and leftists decide they have to work together towards common solutions to their common problems... at this point they become progressives and it is "the people's front," the great progressive coalition of the people which results which includes anyone and everyone willing to work and struggle for the agreed upon agenda. An example would be: People coming together understanding these dirty imperialist wars are wrong and need to be ended with the money saved going to finance real healthcare reform/s thus creating millions of new, good jobs in the process with the enforcement of affirmative action.

3. There is no basis for unity with the right-wing racist and anti-Semitic elements like Ron Paul and Rand Paul and their John Birch Society or other hate organizations because such people drive away the very core of any progressive coalition, the people suffering the most--- people of color, women and the handicapped. These right-wing elements who foster hate are never supportive of ending racism--- be it ideological, systemic and/or institutional--- by using affirmative action in hiring which is embodied in legislation won through tremendous and great struggles of the people resulting in the only real lever that government has to "create a level playing field" which is a requirement for ending systemic and institutionalized racism which chips away at ideological racism as every racist obstacle to equality crumbles.

4. This essay, as good as it is--- as far as it goes, pushes the idea that many different political parties are welcome and needed--- in a democracy certainly all political parties are welcome; however, only one political party is needed to speak for "the people's front."

I always find it interesting when "the people's front" is omitted from these kinds of discussions because it has been the politics, tactics and strategy associated with "the people's front" which has been responsible for wining every single major and minor reform making life better for ALL people. We need only point to Social Security, minimum wage legislation, public housing, affirmative action (Executive Order #11246), school lunches and so on.

I also find it of interest that seldom is the old, real Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party's history never mentioned as the best example ever in the United States of people building a political party as part of "the people's front."

What we need in this country right now is greater unity of all people being hurt by big-business interests looking to profit from the poverty and misery of the people--- not all kinds of splintered organizations whose members are at each other's throats.

I hope New Broom can salvage some of what it set out to accomplish in the way of political reform here in Minnesota though I think there are now a number of other campaigns taking place inside and outside the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party providing better examples... there are the Rukavina and Dayton campaigns both making some contributions towards liberal and progressive politics; there is a political independent challenging to run as a Democrat against Michelle Bachman making inroads against the well-heeled Democratic Party machine, there are the campaigns--- two DFL and one independent--- up here in northern Minnesota and there are many progressives running for county commission seats and local offices across the state--- some inside the Democratic Party and some challenging from outside of it; but, the real question is not whether people are working in the Democratic Party or outside of it--- the question is what kind of programs and policies are being advocated because we want to encourage people to engage in healthy progressive politics that brings together people working for peace, pro-labor and for civil rights and human rights and these people for the most part will be liberal, progressive and left.

Thanks for passing this article along because it provides a lot of "food for thought."

Alan

Alan L. Maki

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Please check out my blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

-----Original Message-----

From: David Shove [mailto:shove001@tc.umn.edu]

Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 10:21 AM

To: New Broom; unified-insurgent-candidates@googlegroups.com

Subject: Chicanery of Democratic Foxes

[An agenda very like that of New Broom. See "What we must do" at end]

http://www.blackcommentator.com/368/368_kir_democrat_party_foxes.php

CHICANERY OF DEMOCRATIC FOXES

by Larry Pinkney

BLACK COMMENTATOR Mar. 25, 2010

A rotten, poisonous, stinking pie is far worse than no pie at all. Yet, this is precisely what the corporate Democratic Party and corporate "news"

media have repeatedly forced down the throats of the 'American' people, cloaked in the deceptive rhetoric of "change" and "reform."

The Democratic Party foxes and the Republican Party wolves are not in the least bit interested in breaking their insidious feeding frenzy with the corporate Wall Street military industrial complex. However, at this stage in history, it is the Democratic Party foxes who have taken deception, authoritarianism, wars abroad, a de facto police state at home, and constant subterfuge to the lowest depths of political cynicism and manipulation yet to be experienced by this nation.

The authoritarian and discriminatory, so-called health care "reform" of Barack Obama and his confederate Democratic Party foxes is a horrible sham. It is a big, fat financial gift to the corporate elite, which is exactly why back in August of 2009, Barack Obama cut a back room deal with the lobbyists of the pharmaceutical, insurance, and hospital industry's to kill the "public option"; despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of people supported this option. In relative short order the hurting peoples of this nation may come to realize that they have once again been blind-sided and economically pimped by the systemic politicians and their scurvy media allies.

It is apparently not enough that everyday Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow people in this nation, as well as people in other nations, are being brutalized by the murderous and unjust U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere. No! Corporate brand Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and his media cohorts cynically engaged in diverting the attention of the people from these horrors to a fake, one-sided monologue re alleged health care "reform" which was in fact never intended to include what the vast majority of people most need and want, i.e. the single payer universal health care public option. As is Obama's practice, using deception and rhetoric, he cynically utilizing the terrible pain of everyday people against everyday people themselves all in the fallacious name of "reform."

Moreover, it is apparently not enough that Barack Obama gave a big, fat bail-out gift [of trillions of dollars of the people's money] to the very corporate Wall Street barons who manipulated, blood-sucked, and brought about the financial melt down that is most impacting everyday Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow people who are simply trying to survive this economic horror. Think about it. Obama's "change" is more of the same only sneakier.

In this, the second year of the Obama/Biden/Rahm Emanuel travesty, even as the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan rage on and economic conditions steadily worsen for everyday people right here at home, the Obama [so-called] Democrats intensify in engaging in meaningless rhetoric and political, smoke and mirror trickery. The people in those aforementioned nations continue to die, even as the body bags containing the remains of U.S. military personnel just keep on returning from the U.S. wars abroad. The sorry and pathetic corporate media, in fact, continues to be complicitous in beating the drums of war, while fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, and friends die, are wounded or are psychologically damaged scarred as the cannon fodder of corporate capitalism and deceit.

Led by Barack Obama, the Democratic Party foxes and the Republican Party wolves are busy revitalizing and retooling the extremely dangerous and unnecessary nuclear power plant industry in this nation. This is being done to further enrich the coffers of the corporate elite, not to protect or serve the everyday people throughout this nation. This course of action is utter insanity. Some conscientious serious, informed, and concerned environmentalists have sounded the alarm about this, but relatively few people thus far are aware of what the Republicrats [i.e. Democratic and Republican Party politicians] are up to in this arena. The only thing truly green about Barack Obama is money, his insatiable appetite for more of it, and his corporate envy. Once more, the everyday people be damned.

With the complicity of the corporate media Obama, via his current U.S.

Secretary for Education, stealthily goes about the business of privatizing public education and breaking the back of teacher's unions. This privatization of education negatively impacts economically poor people of all colors, but its most severe debilitating affect is upon Black, Brown, and Red students, not to mention teachers educators across the academic spectrum.

Rest assured that it is only a matter of time before Barack Obama, the Democratic and Republican Parties, and their corporate puppet masters set out to seriously dismantle and destroy Social Security, further negatively impacting the everyday people of this nation and most particularly disabled people and the poor. The recent authoritarian Obama Democratic Party sham health care "reform" package has in essence already begun this process. Once again, misleading & deceptive rhetoric and fear tactics will be vigorously employed by these cynical rascals, unless they are exposed and stopped.

The Obama Democratic Party foxes have already overwhelmingly supported the trillion dollar criminal bail-out of the Wall Street corporate vampires at the expense of everyday people. They have already overwhelmingly supported the extension of the unconstitutional and police-state 'Patriot Act.' And they have overwhelmingly and shamelessly supported both the extension and broadening of illegal U.S. kidnapping and torture under the auspices of what is known as 'Rendition.' The everyday people of this nation are in serious trouble.

None of these dangerous and despicable things could have occurred without the complicity of liberals, fake progressives, and phony leftists. These politically-putrid, pontificating pundits of profundity are ushering in a bizarre form of 21st century authoritarianism/fascism whose clutches are already upon us. Indeed, as liberals, fake progressives, and phony leftists persist in being the willing, silent and/or groveling supporters of corporate brand Obama and his Democratic Party foxes it must be remembered that ultimately "the [proverbial] chickens will come home to roost." Increasing joblessness, homelessness, home foreclosures, ongoing U.S. wars abroad, coupled with the very real and growing police-state in this nation are reaching a boiling point - despite the corporate media's omissions, denials, and constant disinformation & rhetoric to everyday people.

WHAT WE MUST DO

The very first thing we must do is to mentally and in deed divorce ourselves totally from the death grip of both the Democratic Party foxes and the Republican Party wolves. We must stop falling for the rhetoric of these corporately controlled, blood-sucking conjurers.

We must boldly form, build, and invigorate third parties [plural] outside of and away from the foxes and wolves of the Democratic and Republican parties [the Republicrats]. We must not wait for a local or national election; we must begin this process in earnest NOW! We must disregard the claims of those who say that real change can only be brought about through the Democrat or Republican parties for they are in fact acting as the gate-keepers for this politically bankrupt and amoral system.

We must organize for fundamental systemic change that really serves the daily needs of everyday people. This means starting locally where we live and/or work.

We must educate ourselves and each other, always remembering the corporate controlled and/or corporate-sponsored media is unwilling and incapable of biting off the corporate hand that feeds it.

We must audaciously, and in the clear, down-to-earth, understandable language of everyday people, expose the lies and subterfuge of the Democrats and Republicans.

We must break the habit of relying, solely and without question, upon the corporate or corporate sponsored media for honest news and information. In breaking this habit we will not only feel better but we will think clearer. Give much credence to your common sense.

We must become our own media, disseminating first hand information to our community locally, and to persons of like mind nationally.

We must learn to encourage one another and to remind each other that every defeat and/or set-back that we experience can become a prelude to an important future people's victory in our community or indeed nation-wide.

We must be organized and serious, not haphazard and/or lethargic in this people's struggle.

We must expect subterfuge, agents, and/or agent provocateurs but never be deterred by them. Learn from the experience, make the necessary adjustments, and continue in the struggle. Remember that our actions (large or small), coupled with persistence and patience are revolutionary virtues and we must be creative revolutionaries.

We must believe in ourselves and each other and when or if we stumble, reach out to those who inspire and motivate us, as we do them.

We must develop, as Ernesto 'Che' Guevara put it, "the faith of the revolutionary," and actualize that faith by what we do.

The Democrat[ic] and Republican Parties have demonstrated time and time again that they are the enemies of the people - the enemies of real systemic change on behalf of the teeming masses of everyday people. The systemic terrorism and disinformation against everyday people will continue unless *we* collectively do something about it. We do not have to accept this rotten, poisonous, stinking systemic pie.

Each one teach one! There is much to be accomplished. Onward then sisters and brothers! Onward!!!....

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/LehrerNewsHour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn].

An Open Letter to Dr. Quentin Young and PNHP---

From Alan L. Maki--- Founder, Minnesotans for Peace and Social Justice

Dr. Quentin Young, Physicians for a National Health Program ;

Please let me begin by stating that those of us in Minnesota (liberal and left grassroots and rank-and-file activists inside and outside the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party who come together as progressives for real healthcare reform along what was advocated by the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party of Floyd B. Olson, Elmer Benson and John Bernard which was torn asunder by the anti-communism initiated by Hubert H. Humphrey wielding the Communist Control Act of 1954) who have supported single-payer universal healthcare as a first step towards socialized healthcare, are at one and the same time: supportive, disappointed and dismayed with you and your organization--- PNHP; and, the position you have taken regarding healthcare that has both awakened the American people for the need for healthcare reform and pointed the general way we need to be moving towards a single-payer universal healthcare system best reflected by the Canadian example which was the compromise reached with a reactionary Canadian government then dominated by the reactionary Liberal and Conservative parties after the great Socialist leader Tommy Douglas and the Communist Dr. Norman Bethune launched the movement for socialized healthcare in Canada--- or, as the great working class leader Tim Buck, and head of the Communist Party of Canada, used to say, National Public Healthcare.

We think it is wrong that PNHP has continued to push single-payer universal healthcare as the main solution since single-payer is only one very small initial step on the road to socialized healthcare.

You and your organization continue to peddle the myth that the American people insist of “freedom of choice” and “private delivery of healthcare” which weakens the movement for real healthcare reform in this country because most people are satisfied just to have access to qualified doctors and other healthcare specialists to keep them healthy and get them well when sick.

Healthcare is a human right; not a “civil right” as some associated with PNHP are now claiming.
As a “human right” people are entitled to healthcare without any attached prerequisites of “affordability;” you need health services, you walk in and get those services required--- no questions, no fees.

Here in Roseau County, Minnesota we have articulated very simply what people living here in the wealthiest country in the world are entitled to by birth in the way of healthcare:

“No-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive, pre-natal to grave universal healthcare; publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered.”

PNHP makes the claim that only single-payer universal healthcare has been “kept off the table;” when, in fact, socialized healthcare has been left off the table, too.

Now is the time to kill this reactionary and regressive piece of legislation being put forward by Barack Obama and the Democrats. Let me remind you that you were a part of these “progressives for Obama” who helped dupe the people of this country into believing that Obama was something that he is not--- a friend of the people. You used your prestige as an advocate for single-payer universal healthcare to do this. We aren’t going to belabor this point at this late hour; sufficient is it to note this fact. True, you didn’t bully and badger as your buddies Carl Davidson and Tom Hayden did; but, still you helped create the “myth” of Obama being liberal or progressive in the eyes of many people. Well, now we all know just what Barack Obama is: a worthless warmonger who would rather dole out our tax-dollars to the military-financial-industrial complex fighting dirty wars in three countries while funding over 800 U.S. foreign military bases dotting the globe and keeping the Israeli killing machine rolling in carrying out its pogroms against the Palestinian people instead of creating a public healthcare system comprising 800 healthcare centers which would serve as the beginning of a public healthcare system which would eventually include the more than 30,000 community-based community and neighborhood healthcare centers that are required to provide for the healthcare needs of the American people the same way our public school system provides everyone the opportunity to learn to read and write. 

Dr. Young, what makes you believe that if we can’t teach people to read and write without this vast public institution known as our public schools, we can continue to rely on private delivery of healthcare services--- how many of us have had: “choice of teacher;” parents and students alike are satisfied with QUALIFIED teachers, just as everyone will be satisfied with qualified doctors and healthcare professionals and workers employed by a public healthcare system just like teachers receiving the same kind of pay.

You and the PNHP owe it to the American people to properly frame the debate over healthcare reform because you bungled movement building by tossing in “private delivery” of healthcare when public delivery is what is required; you then compounded your bungling by supporting Barack Obama in the manner you did that helped create a mythical figure with no association with reality.

With you being a physician, I am sure you always have found a way to tell your patients the truth about their illness; well, healthcare reform requires telling the entire truth if we are going to have a chance of solving the problem we need to understand the “cure” for what is causing the ailment: a private for profit healthcare system where everyone involved in healthcare delivery has had their greedy, corrupt fingers in the public till and in our pockets--- everyone, beginning with the profit-gouging insurance companies, HMO’s, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and, yes, even the doctors.

In the midst of this greed driven frenzy and profit orgy, we have seen socialized healthcare systems in the form of VA and the Indian Health Service, not to mention the National Public Health Service, serve the healthcare needs of people well in spite of severe underfunding by both Democrats and Republicans with these worthless bribed politicians more often than not working together to deprive these fine public institutions of funding required to serve the healthcare needs of people rather being in operation to reap maximum profits and wealth.

Public and socialized institutions in our country are many and often so taken for granted we do not even consider they are public institutions in a country where we are bombarded day-in and day-out with the fallacy that “free enterprise capitalism” is the only road to take where “capitalist markets” regulate everything successfully--- well, we have plenty of socialized public institutions operating just fine which proves these musings concocted by  high-paid Wall Street apologists to be the lies that they are just like the insurance companies that are now bombarding the airwaves with advertisements in a manner of the snake-oil salesman hawking his “cure-all” claiming that if you don’t buy it now you will be shit-out-of-luck as this most reactionary and regressive piece of legislation that has ever come down the pike out of the U.S. Congress--- and there have been some real doozies in the last 100 years--- is about to be voted on by the most well-bribed gathering of politicians beholden to the profiteers in the healthcare industry.

Here is a partial listing of our public and socialized institutions---

Every single American benefits from many socialized/public programs in this country without any complaints every single day of their lives:

· Public schools.
· United States Post Office.
· Police.
· Fire.
· Libraries.
· Parks and recreation.
·  Water and sewer.
· Public transit.
· Courts.
· Roads, highways and bridges.
·  Power lines.
· Sidewalks.
· Public forests and lands.
· Public fishing accesses. (These are very important to people here in Minnesota)

Dr. Young, I encourage you to have the courage of Frances Perkins to stand up and help initiate the struggle for real healthcare reform this country requires--- single-payer universal healthcare with a vastly expanded public healthcare system.

This fiasco is the: "Health Insurance Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010"
No one but the profiteers and those who have been scared and frightened are for this; everyone else is opposed to it.

Dr. Young, in the interest of unity I am requesting that you and PNHP reconsider this idea that “private delivery” of healthcare services is wanted and a requirement for healthcare because it is simply not true and it is an impediment to building the kind of movements that have so successfully won reforms of many kinds over the years. The majority of the people in this country are liberal-minded or left-wing thinking, especially among working people.

The great reforms have come as a result of liberal-minded and left-wing thinking people coming together in unity forging massive progressive coalitions to accomplish specific goals and objectives…

The American people desperately want three things more than anything:

1. An end to these dirty wars.
2. Real healthcare reform heading us towards a national public healthcare system.
3. Jobs, jobs, jobs with the enforcement of affirmative action.

We need to pull together in this country a massive progressive coalition that will fight to end these wars which will provide the money and resources to build this national public healthcare system and this will create up to ten-million new, good-paying jobs.

Peace = Healthcare reform + jobs

The “Health Insurance Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010” is tantamount to the doctor killing the patient. The American people are entitled to more.

We agree with you completely when you state:

The House bill, contrary to many who believe otherwise, is disastrous. And if such a thing is possible, its Senate counterpart is even worse. Both would shovel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the private health insurance industry. Both would make it a federal offense, with fines, for a person to fail to buy the insurers' shoddy products.

Even so, at least 23 million people would remain uninsured under the new law. And those who have insurance would remain vulnerable to extort premium increases, not unlike Anthem Blue Cross' recently announced premium hikes of up to 39 percent in California.

While one could imagine the enactment of certain piecemeal measures that might ameliorate our condition -- e.g., a simple prohibition of insurance company denials of coverage because of pre-existing conditions -- these are precisely the stand-alone measures most stubbornly opposed by Republicans, conservative Democrats and their corporate patrons. Such concessions, in their eyes, must be linked to shoring up the very culprits who are most responsible for our health care mess. The presence of the for-profit health industry -- the private health insurance conglomerate and the Big Pharma drug companies in the first place -- in the legislative process has certainly been "transparent" from the get go. Through their lobbyists and campaign contributions, they shaped a bill that would enhance their domination of our health system. They are at the root of the catastrophe that passes for health care financing in the United States today.

Hoping you will consider what I have said on behalf of Minnesotans for Peace and Social Justice--- the organization that fought for six years to win passage of a resolution supporting single-payer universal healthcare as part of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party’s “Action Agenda” because we see single-payer universal healthcare as the needed intermediary and baby step on the way to socialized healthcare.

Let’s not fear this word “socialized” healthcare; we see how Claude “Red” Pepper, the architect of modern Medicare/Medicaid, was driven from public office for so many years which held back healthcare reform in this country for decades. Of course, let us not forget, that it was Earl Browder who was the architect of the great progressive coalitions which brought liberals and the left together in these mighty winning coalitions which brought real change for the better to the lives of so many Americans.

There isn’t one single Democrat or Republican who should go unchallenged at the polls--- these enemies of the American people who have so loyally served Wall Street should be punished at the polls.

No peace; no votes.

No real healthcare reform; no votes.

No jobs without the enforcement of affirmative action; no votes.

In a democracy this is called “accountability.”

People listened to your advice about the “choice of doctor” they should choose to solve what ails this country; on the basis of your opinion they chose Barack Obama. Quite frankly, your suggestion for a doctor turned out to be nothing more than a slick health insurance salesman practicing medicine without a license and running a scam.

Dr. Young, you really did make a bad referral. You relied on a crooked and corrupt Congressman like John Conyers to carry your diagnosis to the “doctor” and you allowed a gutless little twerp like Dennis Kucinich who sees flying saucers and faints at the slightest smell of gas or the sight of blood to assist the unlicensed “doctor” you chose.

Alan L. Maki
Founder,
Minnesotans for Peace and Social Justice

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell Phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net
Please check out my blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/


From: brojoe1@comcast.net [mailto:brojoe1@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2010 8:10 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Fwd: Put Single Payer Back on the Table -- By Dr. Quentin Young (Huffington Post, Feb. 22, 2010)
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Joseph Balkis" <brojoe705@yahoo.com>
To: brojoe1@comcast.net
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2010 8:07:21 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Fw: Put Single Payer Back on the Table -- By Dr. Quentin Young (Huffington Post, Feb. 22, 2010)

--- On Sat, 3/20/10, U&I <ilcinfo@earthlink.net> wrote: From: U&I <ilcinfo@earthlink.net> Subject: Put Single Payer Back on the Table -- By Dr. Quentin Young (Huffington Post, Feb. 22, 2010) To: Date: Saturday, March 20, 2010, 1:53 PM {please excuse duplicate postings, please distribute widely) [Note: Four bold-face highlighted paragraphs summarize the Obama healthcare plan that will be voted on in Washington on March 21. -- AB] Put Single Payer Back on the Table By Dr. Quentin Young The Huffington Post February 22, 2010 One year after its much-ballyhooed launch, the Obama administration's approach to health reform is now in serious disarray. The president's health care summit on Feb. 25 is being portrayed as a last ditch bid to find some common ground with his "just say no" Republican opposition. He also faces an increasingly wary group of disgruntled Democrats, whose memory of the Massachusetts massacre -- the election of a Republican to Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat -- remains fresh. The summit proceedings, which will be televised in the name of "transparency," will no doubt be laden with a formidable amount of stagecraft. They will be preceded by the unveiling of the president's own legislative proposal -- presumably the odious Senate bill with some tweaks -- a few days before. But it's almost certain that this latest White House initiative, undertaken with the stated goal of salvaging and passing at least some elements of the stalled congressional bills, is foredoomed. The House bill, contrary to many who believe otherwise, is disastrous. And if such a thing is possible, its Senate counterpart is even worse. Both would shovel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the private health insurance industry. Both would make it a federal offense, with fines, for a person to fail to buy the insurers' shoddy products. Even so, at least 23 million people would remain uninsured under the new law. And those who have insurance would remain vulnerable to extort premium increases, not unlike Anthem Blue Cross' recently announced premium hikes of up to 39 percent in California. While one could imagine the enactment of certain piecemeal measures that might ameliorate our condition -- e.g., a simple prohibition of insurance company denials of coverage because of pre-existing conditions -- these are precisely the stand-alone measures most stubbornly opposed by Republicans, conservative Democrats and their corporate patrons. Such concessions, in their eyes, must be linked to shoring up the very culprits who are most responsible for our health care mess. The presence of the for-profit health industry -- the private health insurance conglomerate and the Big Pharma drug companies in the first place -- in the legislative process has certainly been "transparent" from the get go. Through their lobbyists and campaign contributions, they shaped a bill that would enhance their domination of our health system. They are at the root of the catastrophe that passes for health care financing in the United States today. Of course, the conspicuous omission in the debate has been single-payer national health insurance proposal, an improved Medicare for All. This was assured on the Senate side when the powerful chairman of its Finance Committee, Max Baucus, D-Mont., informed the world that everything was on the table but single payer. How the chairman of a congressional committee, however powerful, can set the terms of debate in a democratic society by excluding such a popular and well-substantiated solution is hard to rationalize. Baucus did, of course, prevail, and what came out of the Senate was execrable. Like the House bill, it fails the three tests of genuine reform: universal coverage, quality improvement and cost control. One can reasonably suspect that President Obama now wants something -- anything -- to pass in Congress as evidence of the fulfillment of his campaign pledge to accomplish health care reform. But if he looks to the House and Senate bills as the starting point, his efforts will be in vain. It's not too late for the president to re-embrace his earlier support for single-payer national health insurance and set the nation on the right path. Were he to lay out the facts to the American people and provide energetic leadership for this eminently rational proposal, he would get strong, grassroots support from the public. We're now spending $8,000 per capita annually on health care, $2.5 trillion in total. That's nearly one-fifth of our GDP. Yet our health outcomes rank among the lowest in the industrialized world. Some 45,000 people die each year chiefly because they have no health insurance, and medical bills and illness are now linked to nearly two-thirds of personal bankruptcies. This reality in the richest country in the world is unnecessary and intolerable. I suggest the president look to an improved and expanded Medicare program as the solution. Medicare, which was enacted in 1965 and which has served our elderly and the totally disabled so well, is a solid foundation to build upon. Enactment of an improved Medicare for All would save our nation $400 billion annually by eliminating the bureaucracy and paperwork inflicted on our system by the private insurers. That's more than enough to provide universal, comprehensive care to everyone and to eliminate all co-pays and deductibles. A single-payer system would also allow us to rein in costs and better allocate resources. We have a talented health care workforce. But to fully unlock their potential, we need to get out from under the greedy dictates of the health industry. Mr. President, it's time to put single payer back on the table. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-quentin-young/put-single-payer-back-on_b_471811.html Physicians for a National Health Program 29 E Madison Suite 602, Chicago, IL 60602 Phone (312) 782-6006 | Fax: (312) 782-6007 http://www.pnhp.org/ | info@pnhp.org © PNHP 2010

The healthcare debate rages on… some more of my thoughts from FaceBook

Look, we wouldn't even have Medicare today if not for Claude "Red" Pepper and George McGovern... and the Democrats did their damndest to keep Claude "Red" Pepper from holding national office and the same Democrats went on strike rather than campaign for George McGovern with many top Democrats boasting they voted for Richard Nixon!

There is not one single member of the United States House or Senate that has the courage to stand up for the right to healthcare by all the people like Claude "Red" Pepper or George McGovern did... Obama could just as easily have pushed through socialized healthcare or even single-payer but he chose not to mobilize the very people who elected him based upon his calls for "hope" and "change."

I don't believe in the politics of "fear;" I believe in the politics of grassroots and rank and file movements and if we don't move now on single-payer or socialized healthcare we probably will never get healthcare reforms in this country until there is a socialist revolution--- which is beginning to look like the best alternative of all.

Check out what the Democratic Party machine did to Claude "Red" Pepper for advocating socialized healthcare; the very same socialized healthcare advocated by Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, who was pilloried and attacked by the very same kind of Democrats pushing this "Health Insurance Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010."

Another FaceBook comment I made about healthcare

Alan L. Maki

Here is the thing... they had to put a few things in this legislation that offer a few things to a few people in order to further divide the movement for real healthcare reform and now these few people who will benefit are running around, "pass it, pass it" without any consideration at all for most of us who will suffer the consequences of the insurance companies, the hospitals, the greedy, money-grubbing doctors and the pharmaceutical companies gorging themselves courtesy of this most regressive and reactionary piece of pro-corporate legislation intentionally designed for the benefit of Wall Street coupon clippers.
We see small groups of people clamoring, "Pass this legislation because it will help ME."

Me, me, me... is what this entire rotten and thoroughly corrupt system thrives on.

What will benefit all of US?

Do these "Me, me, me" people ever stop to think what would benefit all of US?
Socialized healthcare would provide everyone free healthcare based upon their healthcare needs--- everyone, even the filthy rich who bemoan anything "socialized;" yet, who are always pushing and shoving their way to the front of the line to get the benefits when they are there.

To even bother or attempt to debate whether this or that portion of the legislation will "work" or not work creates a trap in itself for the movement for real healthcare reform.

The fact of the matter is such that those who are screaming the loudest to support this legislation will in the end turn up crying the loudest when they find out how they have been sucked in.

Let me just remind everyone that when Medicare was passed... many people at that time had been pushing for it to cover everyone... and then we had the exact same forces in the labor movement--- different names, same backwards ideas--- saying that, "This is the first step; in a few years everyone will be covered;" and they dragged out all those who would benefit to say, "Pass it, pass it, this is going to help ME." The "me, me, me" crowd not once looked back to care about US.

There is an "art of compromise" and a time and place for compromise--- when it comes to healthcare there is no room for compromise because the right to healthcare is a basic and fundamental human right--- anything less than socialized healthcare is a denial of human rights--- Dennis Kucinich thought he could escape this basic fact by starting to call healthcare a "civil right;" which he has been good at compromising over--- he turned his back on the civil rights of others and figures he can get away with turning his back on a civil right easier than a human right.

As for John Conyers he is just a plain old corrupt crook and it makes me sick to see the "progressives for Obama" defending him after he took corporate bribes in return for being part of criminal corporate wrong-doing.

Al Capone and Meyer Lansky could only have dreamed about owning these kinds of politicians backing their rackets.

More thoughts on healthcare reform…

Alan L. Maki

 

Kyle, PNHP, as a matter of the written and verbal record--- listen to their statements and read their web site--- supports private delivery of healthcare and they make a point of stating single-payer is not socialized/public healthcare... they state this over and over again because they fear "being discredited in the eyes of the politicians" and think they remain "credible" by saying they are not for socialized healthcare.

Of course, as we have seen, the politicians, instead of listening to PNHP, had their leaders and members arrested so they didn't have any credibility with them anyways... which also says something about the state of our "democracy."
In fact, many of their own members bailed out on them when Obama included huge increases to doctors for fees for services under Medicare.

I'm not opposing PNHP; they have done a lot of good in this country. However, I think that in order to build a larger coalition, they are going to have to drop their opposition to public delivery of health services and their support for private delivery and stop saying single-payer is not socialized healthcare. We all know that single-payer is not socialized healthcare; but, progressives need to advocate for single-payer at least as a step towards socialized healthcare or as some people are more comfortable calling it: public healthcare which is the same. We are talking about something like VA and the Indian Health Service.

A Native American Indian candidate running for a state legislative House seat stated in her announcement that she wanted to see the Indian Health Service extended to everyone: check her statement out:

http://anishinaabecandidate.blogspot.com/

There is a lot more... I would encourage everyone to read this.

The fact of the matter is we had some 40 to 50 million people in this country with little or no access to healthcare and now we have like almost 40-million people unemployed and growing by the day.

Under these circumstances not even single-payer would provide all of these people with healthcare... we are talking more people than all of Canada.

With the number of wars the United States has been engaged in leaving hundreds of thousands of people needing healthcare for the rest of their lives, private delivery of healthcare services would have bankrupted the country by now, proving that socialized healthcare is the most cost effective healthcare, too--- for those so concerned about "fiscal responsibility." In one area where free-market solutions definitely do not work is in the field of healthcare; if it did, VA and the Indian Health Service would have been privatized long ago. I have yet to hear even the most die-hard proponents of free-enterprise call for privatizing VA or the Indian Health Services. Of course, for such public healthcare services to work properly they need to be adequately funded which they are not at present because the politicians are feeding the gigantic war machine, instead.

Obama’s Healthcare Legislation: Everybody Knows the Deal is Rotten… some comments I posted on FaceBook.

Alan L. Maki

David Sirota has done plenty to add to the confusion over the last several years or more... all these so-called liberals and leftists who tried to palm themselves off as progressives supporting Obama left this country sinking in a stinking rotting corrupt pit of confusion.

To this day we don't see the left coming together with a solid program on healthcare reform which can only be some kind of socialized healthcare... with the PNHP clinging to their "Americans want private delivery of healthcare" this hasn't helped matters either and the left has refused to challenge this crock of donkey dung.

I'm sure there are people in this country who actually get to chose their own doctors but I sure as hell am not wealthy enough to walk among these chosen few and I don't know a single person who gets to "chose their own doctor" for anything.

Here in Roseau County, Minnesota, our Democratic Farmer-Labor Party's bi-annual county convention passed a very clear resolution stating what we expected in the way of healthcare reform--- and, by the way it passed unanimously.

 
This is what we called for:

"No-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive universal healthcare from pre-natal to grave; publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered."

The first person to speak in support of this resolution I wrote was a teacher who said: "Let me understand this; you want healthcare to be like our public schools?" I said, "That's right." And she said, "I'm all for it." The next guy who spoke said, "All I want to know is if this is socialized healthcare; if its another scam I'm not for it." I said, "That's what we are talking about, socialized healthcare." He said, "Good, I'm for it."

Up piped the Democratic Party hack they sent in from St. Paul to monitor us "radicals" and he said, "I want everyone here to know that Maki is a card-carrying Communist."

An old man rose shaking his cane and said, "We all support this, we all must be a bunch of Communists. We've talked about this long enough. I worked all my life and everything I worked for the doctors and the hospitals are taking away from me. I move we vote." The vote was seconded and passed unanimously... the party hack ran out into the hall and got on his cell phone and we never saw him again.

At the state DFL convention we worked out a compromise to support a single-payer universal healthcare resolution... the doctors from PNHP went on "strike" and refused to help because I toured the state calling single-payer the first step towards socialized healthcare.

Liberals and leftists went into the state convention and presented a progressive united front and we won a single-payer resolution... passing with 72%, the best single-payer resolution in the country because we refused to back down and give in--- it only took us six years to pass the resolution.

By the way... U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (then the DFL designated Senate candidate) stamped out of the convention and went right to the media saying she would never support legislation based on this resolution.

If we want to see socialized healthcare in this country in our life times we, as the left, had better put forward an alternative to Obama's crap and come out swinging because otherwise we are going to be stuck with what the Democrats have delivered--- nothing but one more payment to some insurance companies for policies that are good until needed.

Pay for socialized healthcare with funds cut from ending these dirty wars... a socialized healthcare system would create ten-million jobs.

In my opinion, the Wall Street coupon clippers who are using Barack Obama to run this country are afraid that socialized healthcare is going to lead to socialism :)

 

 

Alan L. Maki

Healthcare IS a human right... unless the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights is just a piece of paper meaning nothing.
Check it out:
http://unudhr.blogspot.com/

 

 

Alan L. Maki

It's Not That the Health Care Bill Does Too Little Good, It's That It Does Too Much Harm

 

 

Alan L. Maki

Everybody Knows the Deal is Rotten.