We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Look what happened when they kicked the “reds” out of the unions…

A suggestion updated
http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010083530/america-strong-when-our-unions-are-strong#comment-13051

By Alan Maki | August 30, 2010 - 4:52pm GMT
Perhaps you should ask what happened in the years 1945 to 1948 if you want real answers to your questions... because, as Utah Philips always pointed out, this in when they "kicked the 'reds' out of the unions."
In fact, many unions have bargained away the 8 hour day. You conveniently use 40 hour week but it was the 8 hour day/40 hour week which was fought for; not ten hour days/40 hour weeks or 12 hour days/4 day weeks.
In addition, organized labor has never pushed for the kind of minimum wage legislation really required to end poverty based upon all cost of living factors... choosing instead to negotiate a poverty minimum wage for the workers they don't represent and working with management to enforce union contracts increasing productivity at the expense of the entire working class and the union members paying their big fat salaries through union dues.
Unions, deprived of the best fighters (the left) were then confronted with Ronald Reagan and were impotent in waging any kind of struggle to fight back. Believe me, I know first hand about this because Lane Kirkland threatened to place unions and entire labor councils under trusteeship if they didn't get rid of me--- a "red." And this happened to hundreds of working class activists--- blacklisted by management; blacklisted by the unions... and now you cry.
Figure it out, Utah Philips did; when the reds were kicked out the unions everything went to hell... union membership and the standard of living of the working class.
For years most of you have been afraid to utter the term "working class;" choosing instead to use managements' imposed term: middle class.
Since when are workers ever in the middle class when it comes to the class struggle?
Half the time workers in AFL-CIO unions don't even find out what is in a contract before voting... kind of like what we get from Obama and his Administration with legislation.
How is it the AFL-CIO would support legislation to save the jobs of some teachers when the same legislation involves cutting the Food Stamp program... do you really think that this instills in working people suffering the most from the impoverishment of the working class wanting to organize?
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Friday, August 27, 2010

Interesting article in the Communist Party USA on-line newspaper posted by Joel Wendland here on UnionBook about campaigning for the Democrats in Ashtabula, Ohio...

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Interesting article in the Communist Party USA on-line newspaper posted by Joel Wendland here on UnionBook about campaigning for the Democrats in Ashtabula, Ohio...

· Posted by Alan L. Maki on August 27, 2010 at 4:00pm

· View My Blog

Please note: I posted this comment to the People's World website and the editor deleted it. I guess the questions were too tough to answer. I kind of wonder why they are posting their articles to other sites if they fear discussion?

Link to article: http://peoplesworld.org/in-rural-ashtabula-ohio-rally-calls-for-gop...

Has anyone considered in all this talk about "green economy, green jobs," included should be the demands:
What tax-payers fund and finance, tax-payers should own--- including the profits?

Also, that these jobs should be real living wage jobs based upon cost of living factors with affirmative action being enforced according to Executive Order #11246.

It seems to me that it is inappropriate to call for blanket support for Democrats as this article implies is being done considering the way Obama has betrayed the American people on so many issues without these candidates clearly articulating where they stand on issues of importance to working people.

Will people just be electing a bunch of Obama clones?
For instance, are any of these candidates campaigning on the theme, "Tax the rich;" or, are working people going to be expected to pay for all of this "green" through higher taxes, user fees, and increases in their electric bills?
And, are these Democrats addressing the expenditures on wars and militarism?

Is anyone asking the all important question while doing all this phone banking for the Democrats:
How is this WAR ECONOMY working for you?

It is definitely good that efforts are being made to encourage people to join the march on Washington on October 2; but, the article is not clear; are these Democrats being campaigned for supporting the calls for peace, jobs and justice? WE know that not all Democrats are for peace because most Democrats have voted to go to war and fund these wars. If this wasn't the case we wouldn't have these dirty wars for oil and regional domination requiring long-term occupation.

I look forward to a discussion on these issues... of course, this kind of begs a discussion about whether or not we need some kind of labor-based people's party in the United States similar to what labor has in Canada with the NDP?

Quite frankly, in my opinion, it is the responsibility of unions to bring forward the issues of importance to working people and if politicians want the votes of working people these politicians should be responding to the issues and concerns of working people.

From this story we don't know if these Democrats receiving this blanket support really deserve it. For all we know these Democrats are part of Obama's team of salespeople for Wall Street's health insurance industry and they are going to be joining the majority of the Democrats in Congress who continue to fund these dirty wars... it is kind of like we vote for Democrats but end up getting what the Republicans would do if they got elected.

Perhaps Joel Wendland could answer some of these concerns.

Tags: CPUSA, Democrats, PW, Republicans, jobs, justice, ohio, peace, workers

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/

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

My response to a discussion about “affordable” health care

 

Alan L. Maki

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world. This wealth created by working people is being squandered on fighting two wars, financing the Israeli killing machine and funding over 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil protecting Wall Street's interests--- instead, what we need is a public health care system of 800 primary community public health care centers serving as the base for over 30,000 neighborhood health care centers spread out across the United States providing free health care for all Americans which would create around ten-million new, good-paying jobs. Even a dumb donkey should be able to comprehend the benefits from peace.


How is the WAR ECONOMY working for you?

 

 

Alan L. Maki

‎I don't think the details will take care of themselves. In fact, during the 1930's, the advocates of social and economic reform with a great deal of help from Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, often drew up their own very detailed legislation and then had the more left, progressive and liberal members of congress present it... almost every piece of New Deal legislation that was passed went through this process. It is largely because we, as a healthcare reform movement/s, didn't have an adequate piece of legislation for people to rally around that Obama and the Democrats got away with passing their "health insurance industry bailout and profit maximization act."

 

 

Alan L. Maki

This piecemeal approach to healthcare reform will never work... Canadians never would have got health care reform unless Tommy Douglas and his socialist party (the CCF now the NDP) would have placed socialized health care in front of the Canadian people. Tommy Douglas continued to insist that what was needed was full-blown socialized health care and as a result of their struggles the powers that be caved and and a compromise was reached.


To be honest, I really resent this advocacy of a piecemeal approach to health care reform because when working people are asked, given ALL options, they always chose socialized health care... usually the example they give of what they want is VA. Make no mistake, VA is socialized health care; the very best socialized health care system in the world. And the Indian Health Service is even more socialized and if it was not severely under-funded because of institutionalized racism it would be the very best socialized health care system in the world. I constantly hear from people things like, "Socialized health care will never fly in the United States." Well, this is an outright lie. If the organizations involved in health care reform would be honest enough and not intimidated by the remnants of McCarthyism we could achieved a united movement for a public (socialized) health care system. I don't see one single person being provided health care through VA or the Indian Health Service turning down health care from either program because they are socialized health care.


As for our own National Public Healthcare Service that few people are even aware of its existence even though their tax-dollars fund this socialized health service, too, providing many needed services people have come to take for granted... I have yet to hear one single person or politician calling for shutting it down.


The logical position for all organizations involved in working towards health care reform to take would be to call for the expansion of these three excellent socialized health care programs to cover everyone.


What we need to put in front of the American people is draft legislation to accomplish this.

 

 

Alan L. Maki

First of all, people have not been given ALL the options in order to freely discuss this healthcare reform issue in the proverbial "public square." Until socialized healthcare--- public healthcare--- is placed on the table right alongside everything else no meaningful discussion has taken place.


I wrote the single-payer universal health care resolution based upon the Canadian health care model which 72% of the delegates to the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party's State Convention passed and I intentionally left out "affordable health care" because no one should have to pay one single penny for healthcare.


In order to get support for this resolution... it was defeated three times at state conventions, I traveled to all 87 counties in Minnesota and presented ALL options to anyone willing to listen... the favored choice in every single county was "no-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive universal public health care; publicly financed, publicly administered and publicly delivered.

 
Single-payer always came in second to a public healthcare system.


At the time, I was a member of the MN DFL State Central Committee... the well-heeled members of the "Summit Hill Club" who control the MN DFL through manipulation called me every dirty name in the book and I think they even invented a few I hadn't heard before... immediately after passage of this resolution by this overwhelming majority of grassroots delegates, Amy "Republican Lite" Klobuchar went stomping out of the convention straight to the media announcing that she would never support this resolution because she favored "affordable health care."


We are not playing a game with words here... "affordable" means something completely different from either single-payer or socialized health care.


If words mean nothing then just call for "VA for all."


Is there a reason advocates of healthcare reform have not banded together in unity around "VA for all?" You bet there is because some people are deathly opposed to socialized health care. But, the divisions are no more extreme than on any other political issue or piece of legislation.


Time and time again the American people have demonstrated strong and overwhelming support for their public institutions why not give the American people the democratic choice of public health care?


Yes, I notice no use of the terms right, left, blue, red, center and this is part of the problem because historically the only time any significant social progress in this country has been made is when liberals, progressives and the left come together in huge coalitions to press for change... the right will never be part of any movement for single-payer or public health care and we don't need them.


In fact, we got this "health insurance bailout and profit maximization act" from the Democrats because Barack Obama walked across the aisle seeking support for healthcare reform from a bunch of Republicans when he should have walked out into the streets of this country appealing to those who elected him believing he was for real change and told them to stay in the streets until Congress passed single-payer universal health care based upon the Canadian model.

As I am sure you must know, Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to pull over the same kind of crap when Social Security was being considered (and originally socialized health care was part of this New Deal package of reforms); but, when FDR tried this, Minnesota's socialist governor Floyd Olson and the Communist Party's Earl Browder went out into the streets and for weeks on end made national radio appeals to the American people not to put up with this "reaching out across the aisle for bi-partisan unity" because they understood what was going to happen... people would end up with nothing. The American Medical Association and the National Association of Manufacturers together with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce screamed, "The Bolsheviks are coming, the Bolsheviks are coming" the minute they heard that socialized healthcare was being considered. Frances Perkins was pilloried to no end as a "Communist fellow traveler" by these big-business elements who accused her of trying to implement the program Marx outlined in the Communist Manifesto to which she had the courage to respond, "I would rather see these things as part of government programs helping people rather than remaining mere words on the pages of a pamphlet." Where do we find those with the courage of Floyd Olson, Earl Browder and Frances Perkins today in this battle for health care reform?


Here we are celebrating Social Security's 75th birthday and we still don't have socialized health care to go along with it.


Come on, really, do you expect any politicians trying to run a scam on the American people to cut the Social Security program to support any kind of meaningful healthcare reform unless faced with a huge and massive movement of the people threatening not to re-elect them and to turn towards building some kind of labor-based peoples' party similar to what the Canadians have with the New Democratic Party?

Just like we have no "details" about what this health care reform should look like; we don't have any details about what kind of movement will win these reforms.
I hardly think that people who are scrounging to find the money for their next mortgage payment or heating bill are going to welcome one more bill consisting of "affordable health care."


See, no details; dare I ask what you consider "affordable" for a family of four? Certainly you must have a ballpark figure in mind... let's hear it.

“Letter to the Editor” submitted for publication in Labor World

Dear Labor World Editor, Larry Sillanpa;

I am submitting this “Letter to the Editor” for publication in Labor World; I hope you will consider its publication along with the title I have given it; I am also attaching a photo you might want to include.

Alan L. Maki

 

How is the WAR ECONOMY working for YOU?

With Labor Day just around the corner, I would like to share a left-wing working class perspective with readers of Labor World in the interest of dialog, discussion and debate.

I attended the Stewart Acuff “book signing” at the Duluth Labor Temple. This letter is largely based on the notes I made listening to Brother Acuff’s presentation, listening to questions and his responses and reading his excellent book: Getting America Back to Work which set me to thinking that it will only be through solving the problems working people are experiencing that most new jobs will be created.

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world.


This wealth created by working people is being squandered on fighting two wars, financing the Israeli killing machine and funding over 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil protecting Wall Street's greedy interests--- instead, what we need is a public health care system of 800 primary care facilities serving as bases of support for over 30,000 neighborhood public health care centers spread out across the United States providing free health care for all Americans which would create around ten-million new, good-paying jobs with affirmative action enforced.
We wouldn't trust a private-for-profit free enterprise system to teach our children to read and write so why would we continue to rely on this failed private-for-profit health care system? Public education provides quality education for our children and a public health care system will provide us with a world-class health care system.
As for anyone concerned about the high cost of health care; VA, the Indian Health Service and the National Public Health Service have all proven we get the best health care at the best price through public health care.


Elected public officials should be able to comprehend the benefits from peace and a public health care system. Look at unemployment; our country and our state need jobs, not war.

By ending these dirty wars and implementing Mark Dayton’s call to “Tax the Rich” we can get America back to work.

In order to turn this country around, we are going to have to rebuild the historic coalition of liberals, progressives and the left; the only coalition which has ever won real progress for working people. To accomplish this we need to consider Brother Acuff’s suggestion (Getting America Back to Work- Page 83) that each and every worker needs to become “a warrior for peace and social justice.”

How is the WAR ECONOMY working for YOU? Does it make you sick?

Let’s talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for real change on this Labor Day.

Alan L. Maki

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

How is the WAR ECONOMY working for you?

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world. This wealth created by working people is being squandered on fighting two wars, financing the Israeli killing machine and funding over 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil protecting Wall Street's interests--- instead, what we need is a public health care system of 800 primary community public health care centers serving as the base for over 30,000 neighborhood health care centers spread out across the United States providing free health care for all Americans which would create around ten-million new, good-paying jobs. Even a dumb donkey should be able to comprehend the benefits from peace.

How is the WAR ECONOMY working for you?

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Are you voting out of fear?

  • Alan L. Maki

    The problem is... without the Blue Dogs the Democrats have no majorities. Now what? Hold our noses and vote for warmongers and bigots like Collin Peterson who boasts to the media that he is more conservative than any Republican like I would... have to do.
    I would suggest there is a better way of doing this:
    No peace or an end to occupation by Election Day; no votes.
    No jobs; no votes.
    Most working people are employed by managements who are thousands of times scarier than these well-heeled Republicans. Why should we vote out of fear of these Republicans.
    In countries all over the world, two-bit half-assed fascists risk being elected as people vote in multi-party systems and they don't vote out of fear of who might get elected and neither will I.
    Those liberals, progressives and the left who continue urging a vote for the Democrats out of fear of the Republicans should have thought about this a long time ago and not tried to hood-wink people into believing that Obama is something that he is not.
    I would suggest Obama's supporters among liberals, progressives and the left had better make some quick adjustments in their strategy of trying to bully people to give up their votes for a bunch of warmongers based on fear because this doesn't seem to be working.

  • Monday, August 16, 2010

    Minnesota State Representative John Persell… the epitome of everything rotten and corrupt in the Minnesota DFL…

    Alan L. Maki

    The John Persell's are a dime a dozen... he is no water quality specialist or environmentalist. The Leech Lake Tribal Council doesn't even employ him for the purpose of getting "educated" advice on any of these matters... he is in this posi...tion only to serve the purpose of bringing in state and federal funds and grants with this money being used to line the pockets of a bunch of crooks... anyone who has ever spoken to Persell quickly learns he is barely smart enough to figure out how to put his shoes on the right feet.


    Where are there any written reports that Persell has presented to the Tribal Council or the state committees he sits on? There are none. The guy isn't even capable of writing up an environmental impact statement concerning water quality, the effects of pipelines or power lines on people or the environment.


    John Persell didn't even have the common human decency to stand up for a smoke-free environment in the casinos because he doesn't have the scientific knowledge to draw a conclusion or make such a decision.


    John Persell knows enough to go put up the yard signs that John McCarthy makes for him and he is lucky if he gets the signs with the his name right-side up.
    John Persell has sat back in silence as peat mining proceeds in the Big Bog... the largest freshwater aquifer in the lower forty-eight. What kind of water quality specialist would ignore the words of Roger Jourdain who stated that this freshwater aquifer is, "The life-blood of my people... destroy this freshwater aquifer and you destroy my people." I don't see any of the scientists who contributed to editing and writing the book, "The Patterned Peatlands of Minnesota" quoting "water quality specialist" John Persell; but, these scientists sure quoted the words of Roger Jourdain and considered his words of utmost significance. How could anyone claiming to be a water quality specialist employed by a tribal council whose people's very existence depend on this freshwater aquifer known as the Big Bog sit in silence as James Oberstar orchestrated a racist back-room deal along with a Canadian multi-national corporation to truck away the profits. No real water quality specialist would sit in silence as John Persell has done.
    Again, anyone can check the written records of John Persell's employment with the Leech Lake Tribal Council and they will find he has done absolutely nothing but sit in a chair at a desk for the express purpose of corrupt federal, state and tribal politicians to launder tax-dollars through this office which these crooks use to line their pockets.


    John Persell has not even demonstrated any concern that Enbridge pipe-lines have deteriorated to such an extent in Michigan that the pipes leaked from simple corrosion because for Enbridge the cost of properly checking its pipelines cuts into its profits. What happens if such a leak occurs on the pipeline crossing Leech Lake lands which are much more environmentally sensitive than where the leak (over a million gallons!) occured in Michigan. None of this matters to John Persell the "water quality specialist" because he doesn't even have any comprehension what the consequences would be. This puppet of John McCarthy's is getting paid for not knowing anything in the Minnesota State Legislature and he is being paid a huge salary for pretending to be a "water quality specialist;" which he is not--- if he was a "water quality specialist" he would demonstrate concern for water quality. Has anyone ever heard John Persell demonstrate one iota of concern for the quality of water on the Leech Lake Reservation or water quality anywhere in Minnesota? If so, where is the paperwork to go along with what would be the records and journals maintained by a water quality specialist?


    Ask the Leech Lake Tribal Council for John Persell's W-2 forms... then ask to see his written records and reports... do these written records and reports reflect what he is being paid a humongous, obscene salary to do--- protect the water quality?
    Does anyone really believe that John Persell could be elected to the position of the proverbial dog catcher, let alone to the Minnesota legislature without the backing of John McCarthy and the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association?


    John Persell has not even demonstrated the common human decency to step forward and insist in his capacity as a Minnesota State Legislator that affirmative action be enforced at the BREC even though he is well aware of the shameful poverty among Native American Indians.


    Is affirmative action an issue or not? Well, the DFL candidate for Governor seems to think that the fact that Minnesota Departments and agencies not enforcing affirmative action is such a serious problem he called a press conference to announce his intent to see to it that these agencies will have to enforce affirmative action once he is elected... now, did anyone see John Persell standing at Mark Dayton's side during this most important press conference? No; because John Persell has never had the moral or political courage to stand up for what is right and just... be it to protect water quality or ending racist discrimination and poverty and when we examine these issues closely what we always find is they are closely related and interconnected and always linked to the sleaziest kinds of corruption with big money involved

    Getting America back to work…

    What we need to do in order to put America back to work is create even larger government jobs programs that what we have with the largest government jobs program to date: the military which is our largest employer and least productive.

    To start with the Civilian Conservation Corps and the WPA programs should be started up again on much larger scales than the military--- we should be looking at around 15 million jobs between these two programs.

    Then we should place the more than 3,700 closed and idle mines, mills and factories under public ownership and bring them back into production producing what society and people require to live better lives.

    Third, we need a national public health care system which would create up to ten-million new, good-paying jobs providing the American people with free health care. We already have three very good socialized health care programs of a similar nature in this country which work very well: VA, Indian Health Service and the Public Health Service and I have yet to hear any of the Tea Baggers suggesting we close down any of these socialized health care systems.

    Anyone with an ounce of common sense can understand that there is no way under current economic conditions that we will ever have anything close to a full-employment economy if we leave job creation to the "free-market, private sector" of Wall Street coupon clippers and parasitic vultures.

    Any country that can afford to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and maintain over 800 foreign military bases scattered around the globe protecting cheap resources and cheap labor markets for Wall Street certainly can find the financial resources to implement these kinds of public works programs.

    The way to create jobs is to look at what society and people need to live better lives and what is required to solve our problems... putting people back to work by solving our social problems is the only way to go about getting out of this economic mess we are in.

    Another suggestion that would solve a very pressing problem for most working class families would be a national system of public day care and pre-school centers... this would create well over four-million new jobs.

    I find it interesting these politicians working for Wall Street's merchants of death and destruction have no qualms about spending more and more on these dirty imperialist wars of Obama's and the Democrats initially begun by George Bush; but, when it comes to spending on what working people need to live better lives there is always this concern about "fiscal responsibility" and "where the money is going to come from.

    Well, if we don't have the required funds to do all of this after ending these dirty wars, then just tax the hell out of the rich to pay for it all--- this is what redistribution of wealth is all about. Tax the rich until they squeal like the big fat pigs they are. Tax the hell out of their income and tax them to beat hell on their property and mansions.

    Saturday, August 14, 2010

    Green Jobs That Can Be Outsourced

    http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/11/green-jobs-that-can-be-outsourced/
    August 11, 2010
    By Joseph B. White

    President Obama promotes federal subsidies for the renewable energy industry, saying they will create “the jobs of the future, jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced.”

    But some green jobs can be outsourced, as Michigan solar cell maker Energy Conversion Devices, Inc., demonstrated Tuesday.

    ECD said it will move final assembly of some of its existing solar cell products out of an Auburn Hills, Mich. plant to Tijuana, Mexico. The decision means 140 of ECD’s Michigan workers will be out of a job this fall, the company says. About 750 ECD jobs will remain in Michigan, it says.

    ECD’s decision to shift what it described as low-skill assembly jobs to Mexico is part of a broader effort to cut costs and compete with solar cell makers which have manufacturing operations in China, Malaysia and other lower-wage nations, says Martha Duggan, ECD’s head of government and regulatory affairs.

    ECD says it’s pushing ahead with plans to use the $13 million stimulus tax credit it received to upgrade other parts of its Auburn Hills operations to produce a new, more efficient line of solar cells. When ECD announced the Department of Energy award, it said the $42 million project would create about 600 additional jobs in Michigan.

    Duggan says the company still expects to create those 600 jobs. But that could take longer than originally planned. Uncertainty in the global solar cell market has led the company to stretch the investments into 2012, she says.

    The Energy Department said ECD’s announcement isn’t related to the investment that was declared eligible for a stimulus tax break.

    A reality check for Minnesota politics

  •  

  • Alan L. Maki

    Why are so many lies being spread about Mark Dayton's "Tax the rich" initiative?
    Here are some facts:
    Reality Check: Mark Dayton's 'Tax The Rich' Pledge Reporting
    ...Pat Kessler MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO)
    DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton said he'd solve most of the state's record budget deficit by raising taxes. He calls it his "tax-the-rich" plan.
    But listen up: Dayton's plan goes beyond income taxes.
    "I know where that money is," said Dayton, one of three major Democrats in the race. "I know who has it and I will get it if I'm your governor."
    IN FACT....
    Dayton's proposing as many as three new income tax brackets.
    Singles and couples with incomes between $130,000 and $150,000 would pay "slightly more" according to Dayton. For those earning more than $500,000 a year -- a sharper spike. And at $1,000,000 and above: "significantly more" in income taxes.
    Dayton says million dollar "homes" deserve special attention too.
    Remember that $53 million home for sale on Lake Minnetonka?
    It's taxed at the same percentage as a $500,000 home in Fridley.
    It's TRUE.
    Currently, Minnesota has two property tax rates: 1.0 percent for homes valued under $500,000 and 1.25 percent for homes valued above $500,000.
    Dayton would change that with a special tax on homes worth $1 million or more.
    And ONE MORE THING:
    Avoiding winter is one thing but if you're snow-birding to avoid taxes, your wings could get clipped. Minnesotans who live 6 months and 1 day outside the state currently don't pay Minnesota income taxes.
    Dayton said that's over if he's elected: You live in Minnesota and pay taxes or you don't.
    The super wealthy among both Democrats and Republicans have called Mark Dayton "crazy." Even Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Chair Brian Melendez called Mark Dayton "crazy." But, we should all remember how these same Democrats and Republicans who are members of the very tiny and select Summit Hill Club called Rudy Perpich "crazy red Rudy" when he proposed a steep increase in stumpage fees for the forestry industry and a very sharp increase in the taconite tax to fund public education and other social programs.
    These extremely wealthy members of the Summit Hill Club like to call names instead of engaging in real debate since they have no position on taxation which they dare to place before Minnesotans.
    Another Minnesota governor during another period in our history was smeared in much the same vicious way by the Summit Hill Club as they relentlessly and viciously attacked Minnesota's Farmer-Labor Party governor, Elmer Benson, in the very same way when he proposed "taxing the rich."
    The Summit Hill Club domination of the Minnesota DFL has to end--- let these rich SOB's who contribute nothing to political campaigns other than name calling go join the Republican Party where they should have been all along ever since Lincoln was shot.
    Brian Melendez goes around calling "tax the rich advocates" crazy when he is bringing home a six figure salary employed by a corporate law firm which has undermined the MN DFL to prevent working people and the racially and nationally oppressed and women from fully participating in the political process in a way where their political activities can solve their problems.
    Anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that if we are going to turn this country around and solve the problems of working people we are going to have to redistribute the wealth in this country and "taxing the rich" is the first way to begin this process.
    Of course, ending these dirty wars and re-ordering this country's priorities away from war and military spending is going to have to be placed at the very top of the political agenda along with "taxing the rich"--- their homes and incomes.
    No doubt as Minnesota's campaign for governor begins to really heat up, we are going to be subjected to lots more name calling, and red-baiting is going to raise its ugly head again in Minnesota against Mark Dayton just as it did against Elmer Benson and Rudy Perpich.
    No doubt the Summit Hill Club will start quoting from the "Communist Manifesto" that "tax the rich" is part of the Communist Party platform. One can only hope that Mark Dayton will respond with the same kind of courage demonstrated by Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins; when she was confronted by such accusations she responded, "I hate to see good ideas remain on the pages of a pamphlet; I would much rather see them being carried out in real life helping people."
    Right-wing talk radio, the Tea Baggers, Republicans and the Summit Hill Club of the MNDFL are sure to launch vicious red-baiting attacks against Mark Dayton.
    In addition to Dayton's "tax the rich" agenda; these right-wingers of all political persuasions and stripes hate his support for affirmative action which is another part of redistributing the wealth in our state more equitably and fairly since the wealthy have reaped tremendous super-profits from the racism they have sown going back to the days when they stole the land and resources out from under the Indians and supported chattel slavery. Take a drive down Summit Hill and check out how long this disgusting institutionalized racism and the rape of Minnesota's resources and exploitation of labor has been going on.
    Mark Dayton, a long-time peace and anti-war activist and advocate, is now proposing just what is needed to redistribute the wealth in our state: Tax the rich and full implementation of affirmative action in hiring.
    Let's see if we can't get Dayton to call for an end to the most Draconian, anti-labor legislation standing in the way of union organizing: "At-will hiring; at-will firing." This will give the right-wing radio hosts, the Tea Baggers and the Summit Hill lub even more to rant and rave about.
    That's Reality Check.

  • A response to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

  •  

  • Alan L. Maki

    Every job should be a "good" job with real living wages, good benefits and safe and healthy working environments.
    In fact, the jobs you are pushing for--- green jobs and a green economy--- will amount to no more than the poverty wage jobs so... many working people in this country are already employed at.
    You supported an extension of unemployment benefits legislation that included a cut in food stamps. Food stamps supplement the incomes of millions of working people employed at jobs paying less than minimum wages. More than two-thirds of the two-million workers employed in the smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws by the Indian Gaming Industry will have their food stamp benefits cut as a result of this legislation... there wasn't a peep of protest against this cut in food stamps from the AFL-CIO nor its Democratic Party coalition partners or other of its partners like the Campaign for America's Future.
    The AFL-CIO supported the "compacts" creating this Indian Gaming Industry knowing full well that these "compacts" would result in poverty wage jobs simply because the rights of working people were not included in these "compacts."
    Now, we see the same thing happening with your call for a green economy and green jobs where you claim you are for "good jobs" when the facts bear out just the opposite... most of the "green jobs" to date have been poverty wage jobs with no effort expended by the AFL-CIO to assure these "green jobs" in a "green economy" will be "good jobs" paying real living wages with good benefits in safe and healthy working environments.
    Here in Minnesota, without a peep of protest from the state or national AFL-CIO, these "green jobs" have been subsidized to the hilt in a joint venture with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe where workers are employed in an old dilapidated roller-skating rink building in McGregor, Minnesota without any rights or protections under state or federal labor laws while being paid poverty wages.
    You and the AFL-CIO are serving as a cover to protect Barack Obama and the Democrats from criticism for the Wall Street stooges they are.
    I would remind you, that while you claim all responsibility lies with the Republicans for the destruction of jobs in the United States, it was one of Barack Obama's biggest campaign contributors who is responsible for thousands of washing machine manufacturing jobs being lost in a "green industry" producing "green products."
    Democrats, just like the Republicans, are every bit as responsible for the loss of jobs in this country and have abetted the low wage "entrepreneurs" and "investors" (Wall Street parasites all) in creating this "green economy" with "green jobs."
    You rightly rail against Wall Street out of one side of your mouth while the lips on the other side of your mouth fail to disclose that Democrats are an integral part of this "mechanism" known to most working people as "the two-party trap."
    We are getting "more of the same" with Obama and the Democrats--- a lot more, in fact. Democrats are doing a very good job all on their own in allowing Wall Street to destroy union jobs while replacing these union jobs with poverty-wage paying jobs. I don't call this "getting America back to work."
    What has become of the idea that "every worker should become part of a united movement as warriors for peace and social and economic justice?" Does not the concept of "warriors for justice" extend into the electoral arena? And does this not require working people and their unions to look to building an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans just as Canadian workers and their unions have very successfully done and just as the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party did back in the 1930's? In fact, it was from the success of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party that Canadians got their idea for what is today their party of labour, the New Democratic Party--- ironically, and sadly--- American workers and their unions have yet to learn this lesson from our own history.
    Richard, rather than fronting for Barack Obama and the Democrats always claiming their programs and legislation to be labor friendly when in fact this legislation always turns out to be just the opposite... maybe you should spend a little time exploring the possibility of the need for a real labor based people's party.
    By the way; you sure post a lot on here to FaceBook but you never respond to the views, questions and suggestions of others... to me, this appears to be very snobbish and arrogant... kind of like the lack of response working people receive when contacting Barack Obama and most Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate.
    What has happened to what is supposed to be the very basic and fundamental cornerstone and building block of modern democracy: The right to participate in the decision-making process of society in a way enabling people to solve their problems?
    And, in conclusion; what labor leader would share the podium with a crooked and corrupt anti-labor creep like Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa? Did you know that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gets millions of dollars from the Indian Gaming Industry without standing up for the rights of casino workers and those employed in this "hospitality" industry at poverty wages and without any rights on the job... and you know as well as I do that workers who have no rights protected under state or federal labor laws have no rights in the communities where they live... heaven forbid what will happen to anyone employed in the Indian Gaming Industry for suggesting that the "compacts" devised by Democrats creating this industry should include the rights of its employees fully articulated and spelled out.

  • Sunday, August 1, 2010

    WE need to break the back of institutionalized racism if Minnesota is going to move forward…

  •  

  • Alan L. Maki

    The business interests controlling the MN DFL refused to allow a full discussion of the issues confronting Minnesotans at the State Convention in Duluth... Mark Dayton was nominated from the floor by Greg Paquin a Native American Indian union pipefitter and Melendez, completely ignoring Robert's Rules of Order, refused to allow his nomination to stand. If delegates wanted the right to vote for Dayton at the convention this was their right and no one else's. Mark Dayton was not even allowed the courtesy of entering the convention even though he was nominated and there were hundreds of seconds to the nomination.
    Both Kelliher and Entenza have a proven track record of the inability to stand up to the Republicans and the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association which forces more than 40,000 Minnesotans to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws and the union bosses who are completely out of touch with the rank-and-file of their memberships work in cahoots with the Democrats and the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association to perpetuate these injustices and the Minnesota AFL-CIO works in league with the racists who control the MN DFL preventing the enforcement of affirmative action on public works projects... these union bosses are now split between supporting Entenza and Kelliher who have not lifted one little finger in opposition to this institutionalized racism while Mark Dayton has stepped forward and stated in no uncertain terms that he will push ahead with a state-owned casino challenging the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association's injustices towards all working people including Native American Indians who suffer most at the hands of these casino managements. Dayton has also made it clear that affirmative action is the law of the land and he will see to it that all Minnesota Departments and agencies enforce its implementation... neither Entenza nor Kelliher have had the moral or political courage to do this while the DFL State Central Committee held its meeting in Bemidji, Minnesota where the largest public works project, the Bemidji Regional Event Center, is going up without the implementation of affirmative action while a notoriously racist, anti-labor, union busting outfit, VenueWorks, has been hired to manage the facility, again without implementing affirmative action.
    Minnesota has a large Native American Indian population and there isn't one single Native American Indian among the more than 200 state legislators and the leadership of the Minnesota DFL has enforced this racism through its undemocratic control and manipulation... both Kelliher and Entenza have been a party to this institutionalized racism in their "leadership" capacities. This institutionalized racism has prevented a progressive blooming that Minnesota is known for. Anyone who challenges this institutionalized racism deserves to be elected. This institutionalized racism has created the fertile ground for the most reactionary politics--- in both the Democratic and Republican parties to thrive--- thus leaving us saddled with the mess we are in where our public institutions are literally crumbling, falling apart... and in the case of the I-35 Bridge, falling down. Racism helps breed the kind of corruption that has taken hold over the years.
    If Dayton doesn't win in the primary I'll look for a principled minor party candidate to vote for--- unfortunately the Green Party has shown itself to be just as racist as the leadership and most of the politicians in the Minnesota DFL--- we saw this with Rhoda Gilman's racist attacks on Jeff
    Hayden, and her racist attacks on Jeff Hayden helped set the stage for affirmative action not getting enforced in Minnesota because Jeff Hayden has been one of the few state legislators trying to push this issue forward with no support from Margaret Anderson-Kelliher or Matt Entenza.
    Even the Communist Party USA has dirty hands when it comes to institutionalized racism in Minnesota as its National Committee member, Mark Froemke, working at the behest of the AFL-CIO pushed the vile racist Collin Peterson down the throats of 7th Congressional District Delegates by preventing Curtis Buckenaga from being nominated by 7th Congressional District delegates to challenge Collin Peterson who is getting away with boasting that he is "more conservative than my Republican opponent."
    The Minnesota DFL, the Minnesota State Legislature and obviously the Republican Party is mired in a cesspool of institutionalized racism and if Mark Dayton can lead the way out of this swamp as the only thing he does it will have been worth it to elect him.

  • Austerity: Wall Street profiteers grow fat by tightening the noose around the necks of working people

    I find it interesting that these two "left writers/economists" rely onJoseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman to support their own position which is not altogether complete.

    Why aren't these two economists advocating what is really required: ending these dirty wars, closing all U.S. military bases outside of our own borders (some 800 of them) and further drastically cutting the military budget while significantly taxing the wealthy and the corporations more than they are taxed now so that money can be used on massive public workers projects with the government the project manager and employer working on infrastructure and solving the problems of the people--- better schools and recreational facilities, decent housing, a free public health care system... solving the problems of our deteriorating infrastructure and solving the problems of the people is what create jobs and if these jobs pay real living wages the government can bring the 3,700 closed mines, mills and factories under public ownership to begin producing consumer goos and services.

    It seems to me what these "radical" economists are proposing is no better than what the social democrats are doing.

    WPA and CCC type government jobs programs on a massive scale could easily create ten million jobs in this country; a national public health care system providing the American people with free healthcare would create another ten-million jobs.

    Social democrats, neo-liberals, liberals and even many progressives and leftists who have aligned themselves with the G-8/G-20 by supporting Obama just as the social democratic International Trade Union Confederation has done by allying itself with the present Greek government are undermining the attempts being made by working people to fight back... but, except for in a few countries like Greece where Communists are giving direction and leading these struggles, no inroads are going to be made by the people in standing up to the centers of big capital like Wall Street, Bay Street and The Square Mile.

    There needs to be a Marxist analysis of the final agreement reached by the G-8/G-20 which you can read here, along with Naomi Klein's very intelligent commentary )which makes a lot more sense then what is provided by "Why Are Center/Left Political Parties Supporting Global Fiscal Austerity") "Sticking the public with the bill for the bankers:"

    http://mnmarxist. blogspot. com/2010/ 07/sticking- public-with- bill-for- bankers.html

    Why do these "radical economists/writers" rely on Stiglitz and Krugman rather than Marxists... after all, neither Stiglitz or Krugman are anything other than neo-liberals themselves.

    Alan L. Maki

    Alan L. Maki
    58891 County Road 13
    Warroad, Minnesota 56763
    Phone: 218-386-2432
    Check out my blog:
    http://thepodunkblo g.blogspot. com/

    Subject: [Out_Of_The_ Frying_Pan] Why Do Liberals Support Right-Wing

    Why Are Center Left Political Parties Supporting Global Fiscal Austerity?

    Contributed by blackandred on Sun, 2010/07/25 - 9:22am.

    Supporting Global Fiscal Austerity?

    By Peter Bohmer and Robin Hahnel; July 25, 2010 - Znet Commentary


    http://www.zcommuni cations.org/ why-are-center- left-political. ..

    [This is the second of a three part ZNet commentary series this month, about global economic crisis and relating to Greece, by Peter Bohmer and Robin Hahnel. Hahnel spoke at the Greek anti-authoritarian movement’s B-Festival in Athens last May and Bohmer will be speaking at the festival in Thessaloniki in September.]

    At the recently concluded G-20 meetings in Toronto, Canada the leaders of the major economies issued a communiqué pledging to cut their budget deficits in half over the next three years. Instead of draconian fiscal austerity, what is needed is a massive, globally coordinated, fiscal stimulus to pull the economy out of the worst global recession in over eighty years. In Greece, when PASOK was in opposition it called for pro-growth policies favoring middle income sectors. Now, as Prime Minister, Papandreou is presiding over policies even more draconian than those of the previous right wing government he and PASOK criticized. How does one explain this madness?

    One possibility is that many in the economics profession have contracted amnesia and forgotten the most important economics lesson learned during the twentieth century – governments must spend more when the economy is depressed and save only after the economy has recovered -- and that center left, along with right wing politicians, have now made the mistake of embracing the advice from misguided establishment economists to do just the opposite.

    Two Nobel Prize winning economists, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, who have not forgotten Keynes’ lesson believe this is exactly what has happened, and there is evidence to support their hypothesis. Keynes was only able to successfully challenge the wisdom of traditional, balanced budget orthodoxy which requires governments to cut spending when recessions reduce their tax revenues with a powerful assist from practical experience during the Great Depression. Moreover, even when conservative economists like Milton Friedman and right wing politicians like Richard Nixon were quoted saying “We are all Keynesians now” during the late 1960s and early 1970s, many economists and politicians remained uncomfortable with Keynesianism and were already hard at work organizing an economics counter revolution. Over the ensuing decades establishment economists labored mightily to write Keynes out of their macroeconomic theories, models, and text books, and conservative politicians happily reverted to their pre-Keynesian, balanced budget orthodoxy. These conservative politicians and their advisers focused on balanced-budgets and zero inflation in order to accomplish their real agenda -- decreasing the bargaining power of working people. There was never any great mystery about why right wing political parties pushed an agenda designed to increase unemployment rates, weaken unions, and raise the cost to workers of being unemployed by cutting the social wage.

    But now center left political parties are embracing the same economic policies and consorting with anti-Keynesian macro-economists, leaving the likes of Krugman and Stiglitz to wring their hands on the sidelines. Is this simply an intellectual mistake on their part? What if we drop the assumption that the purpose of today’s economic policies is to rescue us from the Great Recession, and put in its place the hypothesis that center left political parties are now aimed at benefiting higher income groups rather than promoting the interests of their former political constituencies.

    After all, for decades prior to the financial crisis of 2008 and the onset of the Great Recession neo-liberal economic policies were championed by center left as well as right wing governments. Not only Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, but Tony Blair and Bill Clinton also claimed that neo-liberal policies would improve economic performance by removing unnecessary and counterproductive shackles on corporate creativity. But while privatization, deregulation, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, capital liberalization, and trade liberalization did not increase global growth rates or reduce poverty as advertised, these policies did greatly enhance corporate power, disempower workers, consumers, and citizens, and produce the greatest redistribution of income and wealth from poor to rich the world has ever seen. It is now apparent that these neo-liberal policies which laid the groundwork for the present crisis were never about improving economic performance, but merely about redistributing power, income, and wealth. So why should we now believe that the same center left political parties, following the advice of the same economic advisors, actually believe, or care if lavishing generous bailouts on banks without conditions while imposing fiscal austerity on workers and ordinary citizens will pull the global economy out of recession? There is a more simple explanation for the behavior of today’s center left politicians, which is becoming more credible by the day.

    Fiscal austerity and stalling financial reform in response to the worst financial crisis and deepest recession in eighty years is not about improving economic performance as its proponents claim. These policies are simply about continuing to shift income and wealth from the poor to the rich, and from the manufacturing sector to finance, insurance, and real estate (known as FIRE) which have become increasingly ascendant in the US and Europe -- despite the fact that these policies will worsen the economic slump and make another financial crisis likely.

    The claim that fiscal austerity during recession is “good economics” when it is actually “bad economics” is merely a “cover story” for public consumption. As for why center left political parties and politicians now support this disastrous policy, the simple answer is these parties no longer care about economic performance, much less the interests of workers and the poor, but instead identify their interests with those of Wall Street and the upper middle class who appear to be the focus group for the Obama Administration and Nancy Pelosi. Democratic Party politicians used to promise to press for policies to help workers, minorities, and the poor. They usually failed to do so, but that was their campaign rhetoric nonetheless. But for many election cycles in the United States Democratic Party candidates have been promising instead to champion the interests of what they call middle-class Americans. If center left politicians no longer make a secret of pretending they are concerned about unemployed workers and the poor, why should we be surprised when they adopt policies detrimental to their interests?

    Voters in the UK already sent Gordon Brown and the Labor Party packing. Will other center left politicians and their parties -- Zapatero and the Socialist Party in Spain, Papandreou and PASOK in Greece, and Obama and the Democrats in the US -- who agree to impose fiscal austerity also be punished at the polls by voters who know we did not create the crisis and are furious at governments who subject us to counterproductive austerity?

    When center left politicians echo false hopes that the economy is recovering promoted by right wing think tanks and the corporate owned media who shout “green shoots” whenever the prices of bank stocks or an index of consumer confidence stabilize momentarily, even while unemployment and home foreclosure rates hold steady or worsen, one can only hope they badly miscalculate their own political self-interest.

    But it is apparent that more and more center left politicians are quite willing to gamble that they can bamboozle a guileless public into thinking that fiscal austerity is necessary and wise and avoid voters’ wrath. It is also increasingly apparent that center left political parties are more afraid of angering Wall Street and upper middle class funders by opposing policies that continue to redistribute income and wealth their way than they are of angering ordinary people who have traditionally voted center left because the right wing alternative is even worse.

    However, people know when either they or some relative or friend has lost their job or home. And they will eventually turn on those who persist in telling them that the economy is recovering when they know it is not. The question is where voters will turn when they abandon traditional center left parties who have abandoned them.

    What is needed are social movements and new political parties who answer to and are led by those whose interests are being trampled on, who fight for policies which actually do generate high employment and greater economic equality, and who say no to counterproductive fiscal austerity, trickle down economic nonsense, and corporate sponsored globalization. We need to build movements and parties which will take power back from multinational corporations and Wall Street, and launch the kind of Green New Deal needed to address the economic and ecological crises which otherwise will continue to worsen by the day.

    Peter Bohmer is Professor of Political Economy at Evergreen State University in Olympia, Washington. Robin Hahnel is Professor Emeritus at American University in Washington DC, and Visiting Professor of Economics at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

    http://mostlywater. org/why_are_ center_left_ political_ parties_supporti ng_global_ fiscal_austerity