I'm thinking of trying to organize a "walk for peace, social and economic justice" across the Midwest starting on May Day until Election Day. Anyone want to join me?
I'm thinking of a route from northern Minnesota through Wisconsin and down through Michigan--- ending up in Chicago. Blogging as I go and asking people in YouTube videos: How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you--- with lots of meetings around kitchen tables along the way leaving behind small grassroots organizations. So, it is not only walkers who would be needed.
I kind of look at it like we are each like one little snowflake--- alone we don't amount to much. It's time for the politicians to experience a northern Minnesota blizzard.
Let's get the snowballs rolling downhill like on a warm spring day--- gathering speed and weight as they go.
Let me know if you want to help out in some way:
Phone: 218-386-2432
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net
Here are the kind of ideas I would be getting out... kind of like a "Johnny Appleseed" for change---
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune---
The nation's wars are a heavy burden on the state
Article by: JACK NELSON-PALLMEYER and BILL HILTY
July 25, 2011 - 7:02 PM
Link: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/126142923.html
Budget gap could have been easily closed with the money we send away.
Citizens in Minnesota are being encouraged to see scarcity as the new normal. If you are an elected official at any level of government, your job has been reduced to managing austerity.
It doesn't have to be this way -- if we address the elephant lurking in the budget deficit hall. That would be the high costs of militarization and war.
Technically, the military budget is a federal issue, distinct from state, county and city budgets. However, we can no longer maintain the fiction that distorted federal spending that prioritizes war and militarism is disconnected from state and local budget crises and is eroding living standards.
According to the nonpartisan National Priorities Project, Congress devotes 58 cents of every dollar of federal discretionary spending to war-related purposes. To better understand the impact on Minnesota of privileging military spending priorities, consider this: We have just experienced a painful government shutdown over how to deal with a two-year $5 billion shortfall. Yet Minnesota taxpayers over the same two-year period will spend $8.4 billion just for our share of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
This will bring Minnesotans' total contribution to those wars to about $36 billion. Additionally over the next two years, Minnesotans will pay $26 billion for our share of the nation's base military budget, a budget that has doubled since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Every Minnesota citizen and every layer of government is impacted negatively by current war-related priorities. Faced with pressing local needs, taxpayers in Fergus Falls will pay $17 million for their share of counterproductive Iraq/Afghan wars over the next two years; Minneapolis taxpayers will contribute $255 million.
We believe it is time for Minnesotans to communicate clearly to our members of Congress and to President Obama that federal funding priorities must shift from unnecessary wars to meeting essential needs. A new citizen-driven effort, the Minnesota Arms Spending Alternatives Project (MNasap), is a vehicle for doing so.
We have crafted a simple resolution that can be adapted and enacted by individuals, community groups, library boards, city councils and other elected bodies throughout the state. It reads in part: "Whereas our nation desperately needs to better balance its approach to security to go beyond military defense and include the economic, social, and environmental needs of our communities, state, and nation ... Therefore [we] call on Senators Klobuchar and Franken, and Representatives Walz, Kline, Paulsen, McCollum, Ellison, Bachmann, Peterson and Cravaack as well as President Barack Obama, to shift federal funding priorities from war and the interests of the few, to meeting the essential needs of us all."
The state government shutdown has ended, but the pain will be ongoing for many Minnesotans. As a recent Star Tribune editorial ("New budget rests on shaky structure," July 20) states, borrowing against future state revenues and delaying school payments will have serious consequences, and the budget "inflicts too much pain. The hurt will be felt most keenly on college campuses and among those who serve low-income disabled and elderly people."
Imagine what we can accomplish if we stop squandering wealth and talents on militarization and counterproductive wars. Schools could reduce class sizes and have adequate supplies. Bridges could be repaired. Food shelves could be adequately stocked but rarely needed. We could take steps to make homelessness rare and temporary. Cities and states could adequately provide essential services, including meeting their authentic security needs. Critical investments could be made in infrastructure and green technologies. Public libraries could expand hours and programming. Urban and national rail systems could be built. The country could address climate change and end child poverty. All Americans could have access to quality, affordable health care.
This sounds like a fantasy only because current choices keep us on the dead-end road of militarization. It is a realistic possibility once we demilitarize priorities, realistically assess security needs and refocus governing on serving the common good.
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is associate professor of justice and peace studies at the University of St. Thomas. Bill Hilty, DFL-Finlayson, is a member of the Minnesota House. For information on the resolution campaign, contact MinnesotaASAP@gmail.com
Previously Pallmeyer and Hilty authored this resolution:
Resolution Calling for Re-ordering Priorities:
Whereas Minnesota is faced with a $5.028 billion budget shortfall; and,
Whereas past budget cuts have resulted in painful reductions in essential services and future cuts would further erode the quality of life for and, in fact, endanger the lives of many citizens; and,
Whereas many cities and communities in Minnesota are laying off police, firefighters, teachers and other essential employees; and,
Whereas past budgets have been balanced by cutting social services, under investment in essential infrastructure, and other measures that push the crisis onto local governments and the poor; and,
Whereas Minnesota taxpayers even during these times of economic crisis and fiscal austerity are poised to pay the equivalent of the entire state biennial budget, more than $35 billion over the next two years, for their share of the Defense Budget of the Federal government; and,
Whereas Minnesota taxpayers alone have already spent more than $27.5 billion, and will spend $8.4 billion more over the next two years for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and,
Whereas 58 cents of every dollar of federal discretionary spending is devoted to military purposes; and,
Whereas military spending priorities at the national level negatively impact budgets and quality of life at all levels of government and society; and,
Whereas our nation desperately needs to better balance its approach to security to go beyond military defense and include the economic, social, and environmental needs of our communities, state, and nation;
Therefore be it resolved that we, the Legislature of the State of Minnesota call on Senators Klobuchar and Franken, and Representatives Walz, Kline, Paulsen, McCollum, Ellison, Bachmann, Peterson and Cravaack as well as Congressional leadership and President Barack Obama, to shift federal funding priorities from war and the interests of the few, to meeting the essential needs of us all.
Approved [date]
Drafted by Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Representative Bill Hilty.
A more comprehensive alternative I put together based on talks with people across the Great Lakes Region:
A program for real change...
* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.
* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.
* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.
* Works Progress Administration - three million new jobs.
* Civilian Conservation Corps - two million new jobs.
* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.
* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.
* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage
* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.
* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.
* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.
* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.
* Defend and expand Social Security.
* Wall Street is our enemy.
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.
The two main eras of progressive change in our country in the last century were accompanied by a broad and spirited upsurge of people.
In the Depression years, a powerful people's movement, in the forefront of which was the working class and its organized sector (trade unions), crystallized into a mighty force for social progress. It was the backbone of a series of people's legislative victories - Social Security, unemployment insurance, welfare benefits, the right to organize into unions, etc.
Three decades later a movement led by Martin Luther King broke the back of legal segregation and enacted civil rights laws, while at the same time inspiring a host of popular struggles that followed on its heels.
Both movements - of the 1930s and the 1960s - were diverse, mass, militant and spontaneous as well as organized. Both combined political action and mass action. And both, as mentioned, were decisive to the change process specific to their era.
In other words, had they not been on the scene at the time, progressive change would either not have occurred or occurred in a much more limited way.
Which brings me to the present. Following the recent debt agreement between the president and the Republicans, progressive and left voices were critical of the administration. Many felt that it gave up too much and got little in return.
There is truth here, but I'm not sure if that is main lesson that should be drawn from this deal.
For me what stands out is the inadequate mobilization of the American people in this struggle. To be sure, the seniors movement left its imprint on the process in so far as entitlement programs were not touched for the time being. But that shouldn't obscure the larger reality that too many Americans were onlookers, waiting to see what would happen behind closed doors in the nation's capital.
If this were a problem specific to only this struggle, it would be one thing, but it isn't. It dates back to the day after the election of Obama.
For whatever reasons, the level of mass activity at the national level hasn't approached that which took shape in the course of the 2008 election campaign. During the campaign mass activity was broad, grassroots, united and sustained over time. It brought millions into organized activity as well as influenced the thinking and actions of many more millions who went to the polls.
But it didn't carry over to the post-election period. And in not doing so it reduced the progressive potential of the Obama victory since then.
Social progress without mass pressure is never easy in a capitalist system. Capitalism is structured to resist change of a progressive and radical nature. But it is especially tough going in circumstances where the right wing controls many levers of power, as it currently does.
Indeed, without a powerful people's movement mobilizing millions and advancing a program of a progressive character, the political discourse will tack to the right and legislative victories will be few and far between, as in the present situation.
The political imperative of this moment, therefore, is clear: the quantitative and qualitative strengthening of the people's movement for progressive change.
Whether it happens depends on the human factor, that is, on what ordinary people do. Just as the initiatives and actions of the American people were an essential ingredient in the progressive-democratic thrust in the 1930s and 1960s, so too will the initiatives and actions of millions feeling the awful weight of this terrible and protracted economic crisis be essential in today's conditions.
Seize the time!
In the Depression years, a powerful people's movement, in the forefront of which was the working class and its organized sector (trade unions), crystallized into a mighty force for social progress. It was the backbone of a series of people's legislative victories - Social Security, unemployment insurance, welfare benefits, the right to organize into unions, etc.
Three decades later a movement led by Martin Luther King broke the back of legal segregation and enacted civil rights laws, while at the same time inspiring a host of popular struggles that followed on its heels.
Both movements - of the 1930s and the 1960s - were diverse, mass, militant and spontaneous as well as organized. Both combined political action and mass action. And both, as mentioned, were decisive to the change process specific to their era.
In other words, had they not been on the scene at the time, progressive change would either not have occurred or occurred in a much more limited way.
Which brings me to the present. Following the recent debt agreement between the president and the Republicans, progressive and left voices were critical of the administration. Many felt that it gave up too much and got little in return.
There is truth here, but I'm not sure if that is main lesson that should be drawn from this deal.
For me what stands out is the inadequate mobilization of the American people in this struggle. To be sure, the seniors movement left its imprint on the process in so far as entitlement programs were not touched for the time being. But that shouldn't obscure the larger reality that too many Americans were onlookers, waiting to see what would happen behind closed doors in the nation's capital.
If this were a problem specific to only this struggle, it would be one thing, but it isn't. It dates back to the day after the election of Obama.
For whatever reasons, the level of mass activity at the national level hasn't approached that which took shape in the course of the 2008 election campaign. During the campaign mass activity was broad, grassroots, united and sustained over time. It brought millions into organized activity as well as influenced the thinking and actions of many more millions who went to the polls.
But it didn't carry over to the post-election period. And in not doing so it reduced the progressive potential of the Obama victory since then.
Social progress without mass pressure is never easy in a capitalist system. Capitalism is structured to resist change of a progressive and radical nature. But it is especially tough going in circumstances where the right wing controls many levers of power, as it currently does.
Indeed, without a powerful people's movement mobilizing millions and advancing a program of a progressive character, the political discourse will tack to the right and legislative victories will be few and far between, as in the present situation.
The political imperative of this moment, therefore, is clear: the quantitative and qualitative strengthening of the people's movement for progressive change.
Whether it happens depends on the human factor, that is, on what ordinary people do. Just as the initiatives and actions of the American people were an essential ingredient in the progressive-democratic thrust in the 1930s and 1960s, so too will the initiatives and actions of millions feeling the awful weight of this terrible and protracted economic crisis be essential in today's conditions.
Seize the time!
