We
need a “21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace &
Prosperity.”
The
time has come to fulfill the dreams and promises that were intended
to be part of the New Deal reforms initiated by Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Henry A. Wallace and Frances Perkins. This legislation
would include:
*
Make the president and Congress legislatively required to attain and
maintain full employment.
*
A Minimum Wage that is a real living wage based on all cost-of-living
factors.
*
A National Public Health Care System (12-million new jobs).
*
A National Public Child Care System (4-million new jobs).
*
Restore Works Progress Administration [WPA] (5-million new jobs).
*
Restore Civilian Conservation Corps. [CCC] (3-million new jobs).
*
Restore Comprehensive and Employment Training Act [CETA] (3-million
new jobs).
For
the price we pay for militarism and wars we can achieve full
employment putting people to work solving the problems of the people
and society.
If
a “peace dividend” isn't enough to pay for this legislation then
tax the hell out of the rich to pay for the rest.
Unless
we make the president and Congress legislatively responsible for full
employment we will never achieve full employment because it is easier
for these politicians to campaign on promises of “jobs, jobs, jobs”
and then doing nothing once elected.
Working
people without jobs are going to be poor.
Working
people employed at poverty wages are going to be poor.
Full
employment will assure Social Security is adequately funded with
programs expanded and benefits increased to what's a real living
income.
We
can't achieve full employment without peace because these dirty wars
kill jobs just like they kill people.
We
will need a massive groundswell of support from the grassroots to
achieve this kind of reform because Democrats and Republicans are
beholden to Wall Street whose vultures profit from militarism and
wars the same way they profit from unemployment which pushes wages
down thereby driving profits up.
Alan
L. Maki
Founder
and Chair,
Minnesotans
for Peace and Social Justice
58891
County Road 13
Warroad,
Minnesota 56763
Phone:
218-386-2432
Cell
phone: 651-587-5541
For more information check this
out:
Sisters and
Brothers, Fellow Workers;
Uniting
People (UP) is a new national organization for Peace,
Equality, Full
Employment, Universal
Health Care and Protection
of the Environment. We appreciate the invitation extended by the
AFL-CIO to all people and organizations to comment on its White
Paper, “Prosperity
Economics, Building An Economy For All” by Jacob S. Hacker
and Nate Loewentheil, intended to create discussion about the
direction of organized labor and the kind of country we all want to
live in where peace, social and economic justice for working people
prevail.
Democracy---
as well as social, economic and environmental justice--- require no
less than a full and broad discussion of these important concerns and
issues.
We agree with the concept of “prosperity
economics” by “building an economy that works for
everyone.” There are several very basic facts left out of this
“White Paper” and it is very hazy, vague and nebulous as to what
our concrete and specific goals and objectives are to be and what
kind of movement and struggle it will take for the working class---
organized and unorganized together--- to create a prosperity
economics for us all.
The
“White Paper” does
not clearly
articulate our main enemy: Wall Street. The
“White Paper” doesn't
reflect the fact that we,
as working people, are
engaged in a social, political and economic struggle for power with
the intent to replace Wall Street's dominance over every aspect of
our lives--- in
our schools, at work and in our communities.
Let's
state right up front workers create all wealth but workers have had
no say in how this wealth is distributed and used. This needs to
change. Democracy requires no less.
Let's
also put it right out there before the American people that
militarism and wars are squandering the wealth of our Nation to such
a large extent we don't have the resources to solve our many domestic
problems. These dirty imperialist wars are killing our jobs
and our standard of living just like they kill people.
Militarism
and wars are a major contributing factor to the world-wide collapsing
capitalist economy. No nation can continue to endlessly use the
wealth of its nation to prepare for wars and to fight wars. This is
sheer insanity.
Wall
Street's greedy drive for profits results in wars which exacerbates
our problems.
Detroit
goes broke; the rest of our cities are sure to follow as Wall Street
wallows in profits.
Working
people go without adequate health care; insurance and pharmaceutical
companies get fabulously wealthy. Shorter workweeks/longer vacations
with no cut in pay create jobs and would keep us healthier, too.
Our
public institutions like public education fall apart, crumble and
collapse just like our roads, highways and bridges because we are
constantly feeding a war machine intended to fight never-ending wars
waged to protect Wall Street's assets and profits.
Prosperity
for all begins with the recognition peace is required to achieve full
employment.
Full
employment is about the government seeing to it that jobs are created
for all at real living wages. It is about putting people to work by
creating massive universal social programs like Medicare for All, not
job destroying legislation like Obama-care as detrimental to our
health and jobs as wars without providing real health care reform
while pushing the price of health care up instead of its stated
intent to push prices down.
Eliminating
militarism and wars eliminates the largest carbon footprint
contributing to global warming and climate change as the Military
Industrial Complex wastes our precious resources in a huge, monstrous
complex that ruins our environment--- power generation, mining,
manufacturing, the resources like oil and gas required to fight wars.
Preparation for war, and war itself, creates a mammoth sized carbon
footprint destroying our living environment while creating massive
joblessness and poverty and ill health for our people as our air,
water and land gets polluted.
The Wall Street selected
politicians talk about “jobs, jobs, jobs” when their hidden
agenda is really “profits, profits, profits” and “war, war, and
more war.”
The
time has come to make politicians legislatively responsible for full
employment and peace because prosperity economics requires: peace and
full employment--- a healthy people and a healthy environment.
Therefore,
we propose that a central goal of the American labor and working
class movement needs to be the building of an economy for all that is
inseparably linked to peace and full employment which must include:
A
Minimum Wage tied to all cost of living factors indexed to inflation.
Jobs or a living income for all.
Medicare
for All. Protect, defend and expand Social Security programs.
Legislation
prohibiting lockouts and scabbing. Repeal of “At-Will Employment”
legislation--- the primary obstacle to worker empowerment and union
organizing.
Price
controls are needed for food, gas, home heating fuels and
electricity.
A
healthy economy means a healthy living environment and a healthy
planet. We need a quality of life index.
The
two-party system is a trap for working people. We must free ourselves
from the Democrats and Republicans. A working class based people's
party is required if we are going to have a prosperity economics that
works for all of us. We can learn a thing or two about health care
and politics from our Canadian Brothers and Sisters.
We
are now at a crossroads.
We
will have an economy that serves Wall Street or we will have an
economy that works for the rest of us--- we can't have both just like
we can't have both war and full employment.
We encourage the
use of the proposed Full Employment Act of 1945 pushed
by the CIO unions and authored by liberal Texas Congressman Wright
Patman and the associated hearing testimonies to broaden this
discussion:
We
also call to your attention the excellent Op-Ed piece by Bob
Herbert, “Losing
Our Way,” his last piece in the New York Times (March 25,
2011), which declares:
"The
U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful
country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the
horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its
people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way
entirely."
We
ask: What ever happened to William Winpisinger's "Rebuild
America Act" and the “peace dividend?”
The AFL-CIO should bring back to life its Committee
on Conversion--- from military
production to producing for human needs; swords into plowshares is
what was advocated by the International Association of Machinist's
former President, William Winpisinger. Where is this advocacy for
peace and reordering our Nation's priorities now?
Thank
you for allowing us to offer our critique of the AFL-CIO's “White
Paper” and our alternative perspectives.
In
solidarity and struggle. Uniting People (UP) for
peace, equality,
full employment,
universal health care and protection of the environment.
Blog:
http://unitingpeopleworks4us.blogspot.com/
Contact by e-mail: uniting_people@lists.riseup.net
