A fascist "culture of graft and corruption" now threatens to throw the Ukrainian economy into chaos.

Now the EU and the United States are backing away from bailing out the Ukraine because, they say, they can't trust these two-bit, half-assed fascist bastards they brought to power because they have a "culture of graft and corruption."

On top of this, these Ukrainian fascists have begun harassing the Crimeans by sporadically shutting down their electricity and water and threatening to raise the prices of electricity and water sky high.

Just like when the fascists came to power in Spain going into world War II; these fascists are going to push things to the limit in order to start World War III.

It won't be long before these fascist bastards start implementing austerity measures against their own people and all hell is going to break loose.

The Wall Street banker crooks don't trust the Ukrainian fascists with their money; the crooks don't trust the crooks... what a world!

The Dumb Donkeys are at it again.

You know, these Hillary Clinton supporters add me to their facebook pages without asking me, and over the past couple weeks I have been blocked from posting on over twenty of their sites because I asked this very simple question:

Can someone tell me where I can find the complete transcripts of Hillary Clinton's speeches?

And then what really gets me is when you use her quotes from these 60 second sound bites from the speeches or quotes from newspapers, radio or television these Dumb Donkeys say, "You are taking what she said out of context."

I then ask them to provide the complete transcript of the text of the speech and then they get mad over that.

In fact, they don't even know what she is saying in these speeches but they are so intellectually dishonest they say I am "taking her words out of context." How would they know if they have never heard or read the entire speech?

Obama pulled this same shit.

It is totally dishonest.

I don't know if this is true or not but someone told me that when Hillary Clinton speaks to these groups in closed meetings they have to agree not to release the transcript of her talks.

What is going on? Is she going from group to group telling each group what they want to hear and changing her message to each group?

There is nothing more dishonest than doing this. She talks to the wealthy seeking money and the rest of us are not supposed to know what she is saying.

This has nothing in common with democracy.

World Water Day

This Saturday, March 22 is World Water Day... here we are in Minnesota living in the "land of ten thousand lakes" with every ditch, creek, stream, river and lake polluted and a bunch of Democrats destroying the largest freshwater aquifer in the "Lower Forty-Eight," the Big Bog, with peat mining--- and getting ready to contaminate more of our northern waters for centuries to come with sulfide mining.

So much for the way Minnesota politicians respect water.

How about we all get together to celebrate World Water Day on the shores of United States Steel's "Clearwater Reservoir" at their huge MinnTac operation in Mt. Iron?

Anyone up for a dip?

Anyone want to purchase "lake front property" on "Clearwater Reservoir?"

A message to politicians...

Carri Jones, the thoroughly corrupt Chair of the Leech Lake Indian Nation, claims the Republicans are paying me to attack her.

I always find it so interesting the way these crooked and corrupt politicians without any ethics or morals work...

Governor Mark Dayton after coming begging to me for my support and endorsement is now running around accusing me of "winding the springs too tight" when I insist the Minimum Wage.

Then there is Carri Jones, the thoroughly corrupt Chair of the Leech Lake Indian Nation. She doesn't want to talk about a union contract for casino workers, the hideous "At-will employment practices" or the unjust firings of dozens of casino workers; so, what does she do? She goes around telling everyone the Republicans are paying me to attack her.

What is most interesting is that these politicians go all over the place attacking me but they refuse to sit down and debate or discuss any of these issues in a public venue with me.

All they have to do is set a time, date and place for a discussion or debate on these issues and I will be there.

And if Carri Jones has any proof what-so-ever that the Republicans are paying me to attack her--- she can bring this proof forward for the public to see.

There will be a debate this Saturday in Bemidji, Minnesota with all the people running for tribal office invited to participate... I hope Carri Jones shows up to present any proof she has that I am being paid by the Republicans to attack her.

The mainstream media turns lies into facts.

I have been doing some research on a few issues--- the Minimum Wage, the Full Employment Act of 1945 and the level of labor struggles going back to the period between 1945 and 1968 or so.

The mainstream newspapers were just filled with lies and misinformation; barely a day went by when there wasn't the most vicious red-baiting and anti-Communist hysteria being whipped up with big doses of the most reactionary and putrid forms of jingoism and national chauvinism prepping the American people for wars.

But, the mainstream media today is far worse--- often the lies don't even come shrouded in kernels of truth.

At least previously there were enough facts and bits of truth so one could learn to "read between the lines" and there was some coverage of alternative views so one could sort fact from fiction.

In contrast, today we are being fed a steady and unending stream of nothing but lie after lie making it difficult to even "read between the lines."

And then on top of these lies we get all these phony "liberals," "progressives" and "leftists" picking up these lies and repackaging them passing them off as the truth.

It doesn't seem to make any difference if the issue is Obama, Venezuela, the Ukraine or the Minimum Wage--- you go to the newspaper or magazine rack in a library or a news stand and you can't even purchase the truth.

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Elizabeth Warren is fronting for Hillary.

Have you noticed how the Democrats are trotting out Elizabeth Warren to front for Hillary Clinton at many of their functions.

Minnesota Democrats, who are gearing up to support Hillary (which is pretty much the entire Democratic Party apparatus) are bringing in Elizabeth Warren to speak at their big fund-raising bash/prep the troops for 2014/2016 "Humphrey-Mondale Dinner."

Now, really; is there anyone who believes Elizabeth Warren offers any kind of progressive alternative?

In fact, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party's hacks are even giving out the orders for the faithful to begin distancing themselves from Obama to make way for the re-imaging of Hillary since it would be impossible for Democrats to get elected to any office running on Obama's record of subservience to Wall Street... hence the need to bring in Elizabeth Warren with her phony populist rhetoric pretending to be anti-Wall Street.

It really is quite difficult to argue with "lesser evil logic."

A Minimum Wage of $7.75 is better that a Minimum Wage of $7.25.

Obamacare is better than no care.

Obama makes a better president than Romney.

It's better to use drones because "boots on the ground gets Americans killed."

Hillary will be a better president than Scott Walker, Rick Snyder or Pat McCrory.

It's better to eat shit than starve.

It's better to be alive than dead... except when its better to be dead than "red."

Just read what head Democratic Party hack, linguist George Lakoff, writes about why Democrats are better than Republicans and you will understand all of this.

I figured since I couldn't get anyone to provide me the full text of her recent writings and speeches, I would go directly to Hillary's own website: HillaryClintonOffice.com.

I made this very simple request:

"I would like to know where I can locate copies of Hillary Clinton's writings and speeches in their entirety. Can you provide me links to these speeches?"

Instead of being provided the information I requested, I was asked to make a financial contribution.

I am going to place in writing what many people are thinking.

I responded to an "interview" of a Socialist alternative member in Philadelphia concerning this "15 or Fight" movement:


http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/phillynow/2014/03/07/qa-socialist-alternative-member-on-fight-for-15-minimum-wage/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=qa-socialist-alternative-member-on-fight-for-15-minimum-wage


I'm not all that concerned with what members of this Trotskyite Socialist Alternative sect has to say since they didn't show up to support the struggle to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant nor have they ever taken a position in support of casino workers struggling for their rights.


After years of badmouthing anyone working with grassroots activists inside the Democratic Party all of a sudden this outfit joins with the Democrats and their foundation-funded front groups and hacks to bring forward the same old classless crap as the Democrats only upping their poverty wage.


I expected Minnesota Greens to support this "15 or Fight" initiative since they too refuse to enter the struggle for casino workers' rights and they joined with the Ford Motor Company to kill 2,000 jobs, demolish the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and give the Ford Hydro Dam to a multi-national conglomerate to profit from.


Quite frankly, I support any improvement in the Minimum Wage. For working people, any Minimum Wage higher than $7.25 is a "better" wage.


Are we building a movement for a "Better Minimum Wage" or are we building a movement for the Minimum Wage to become a real "Living Wage?"


If we are for a "better" Minimum Wage I would suggest we just accept what the Democrats are willing to give us as part of their scam to get votes. $7.75 would be a good place to settle since it is most likely what we are going to get. Perhaps the Democrats will agree to legislation creeping up gradually $9.50 after a few years. That will get people off their backs through 2016.


I have noticed neither Socialist Alternative nor the Democrats have taken note of the $10.25 Minimum Wage that the Leech Lake Tribal Council has legislated for all tribal employees--- including casino workers. As far as I know, this is the highest Minimum Wage in the country that universally enforced. $10.25 is better than what the Democrats offer and it is more than what this tiny sectarian Trotskyite sect or the Greens will ever win.


If "better" is what we are after, I would suggest joining with most of the Democrats and their partners among the millionaire labor leaders, their front groups like Take Action Minnesota and Working America, and all these muddle-headed, upper-middle class pundits and hacks for whom politics is a form of sport because touch football is to tough and grueling in advancing a $9.50 Minimum Wage--- after all, $9.50 is better than $6.15 or $7.25 or $7.75 and we don't have to fight.


This was my response in PhillyNow:



Leave it to a small Trotskyite sect to join the Democrats to advocate a Minimum Wage that is less than a real living wage in relation to the actual “cost-of-living.”


For sure $15.00 an hour is better than $7.25; but, $15.00 an hour is still a poverty wage.



Are we seeking a Minimum Wage that is a real living wage or are we seeking a Minimum Wage that is a “better wage?”


$7.75 better than $7.25.


$9.50 is better than $7.75.


$10.10 is better than $9.50.


$15.00 IS BETTER THAN $10.10.


But, being a “better” Minimum Wage does not make the Minimum Wage a “living wage.”


Are we seeking to boost the Minimum Wage incrementally or are we seeking to establish a just Minimum Wage based on actual “cost-of-living” factors?


The one and only way to judge wages are in comparison to “cost-of-living;” right?


Everything else supports some kind of improved Minimum Wage or amounts to very superficial comparisons.
The person being interviewed for this article just casually tosses in mention of “cost-of-living” as if it is just one more factor to consider in relation to establishing the Minimum Wage.


“Cost-of-living” is not just another factor; it is the primary factor in determining what is a living and just wage.
For a working class family, the one and only relationship is that between wages and what it costs to live— cost-of-living; what can be purchased with wages paid.


$15.00 an hour and a few credit cards maxed out gets a working class family a decent “standard-of-living”… until bankruptcy hits.


This is the old Walter Reuther ploy— get workers by on wages and credit cards and workers will think they are doing good. It wasn't coincidental Walter Reuther surrounded himself with Trotskyites; his self-serving leadership "qualities" and working class betrayals required this kind of left-sectarian support.


If people are satisfied with replacing one poverty wage with another poverty wage that is up to them.
People willing to get by on $15.00 an hour and a few maxed out credit cards does not amount to a real living wage.


The only way to arrive at a real living wage is to legislatively tie the Minimum Wage directly to the actual “cost-of-living” based on the factors tracked by United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics findings compiled for the Consumer Price Index consisting of 8 categories each with 200 sub-categories.


This would then have to be tied to the real inflation rate for the basic necessities of life working class families purchase:


Food.


Clothing.


Rents/Mortgages.


Health care costs.


Transportation costs.


Child care costs.


Home/Auto Insurance.


Electricity.


Home heating costs.


Cost of higher education.


The government has failed to control any of these costs choosing, instead, to leave working class families at the mercy of the Wall Street monopolies fixing prices from which they derive super-profits in the same way these monopolies derive super-profits from any wages that are poverty wages.


On top of this base living Minimum Wage indexed to inflation there would be periodic increases allocated for an improved “standard of living.”


This all needs to be included as part of a reform package intended to upgrade the “New Deal” to meet today’s problems.


Included in such a reform package would be the need for a Basic Income Guarantee because any Minimum Wage that does not include a job with 40 hours of work still won’t provide a real living wage.


Also required would be a Full Employment Act mandating the president and Congress to attain and maintain full employment since workers without jobs are going to be poor.



We need a 21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity which would include these three basic reforms as an upgrade to the New Deal reforms.


Peace would have to be part of the package since it will be impossible to implement full employment without a huge “Peace Dividend.”


The government will have to create socially useful and necessary jobs to put everyone to work through programs like the WPA, CCC and C.E.T.A.because private enterprise and the free market have failed to overcome massive unemployment.


There are two things the American people desperately need:


Real health care reform and child care. Both provide massive job-creating opportunities. Both put people to work providing people what they need for improved lives and livelihoods.


A National Public Health Care System would create over 12-million new jobs putting people to work providing the American people with free health care through a network of community and neighborhood based health care centers.


A National Public Child Care System would put another three to five million people to work providing the American people with free child care.


Both of these programs would cost less than what we pump into the Military-Industrial Complex, squander on these never-ending dirty imperialist wars and what it is costing us to maintain over 800 U.S. military bases dotting the globe on foreign soil protecting Wall Street’s interests, assets and profits these greedy Wall Street “investors” seek to maximize their profits exploiting cheaper labor in the process of raping Mother Nature.



Both health care and child care should be based on the model provided by public education:


Public funding.


Public Administration.


Public delivery.


When all is said and done we need an anti-monopoly coalition and a broad-based working class based progressive people’s party capable of winning reforms AND challenging Wall Street for political and economic power.


We shouldn’t waste our time with these tiny, sectarian Trotskyite sects which opportunistically latch on to an issue in a less than honest manner because we have credible examples of actual anti-monopoly coalitions and parties that have worked— including the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and its Farmer-Labor Association… both of which were smashed, after tremendous success, by government repression ordered by Wall Street.

More than Communists got purged from the labor movement.

"Cost-of-living" has been purged from our working-class vocabulary right along with the purging of Communists from the labor movement; coincidental?

To make way for concession bargaining and to prevent any meaningful discussion of wages.

We see this in the discussion taking place around the Minimum Wage and contract negotiations.

There is only one thing that wages can legitimately be compared to: "cost-of-living."

What can you purchase with your wages?

Your "standard-of-living" is determined by what you can purchase with your wages combined with access to universal social programs.

Something to think about:

When Communists were purged from the labor unions the millionaire labor leaders stopped talking about the relationship between wages and cost-of-living and concession bargaining began.

In addition, very simple yet truthful ideas are being left out of the national conversation spreading to the public square concerning poverty, income inequality and the Minimum Wage:

Workers paid poverty wages are going to be poor.

Workers without jobs are going to be poor.

We had better come up with real, specific solutions to both of these problems:

Paying workers real living wages in relation to cost-of-living.

Providing workers with real living wage jobs.

Question:

What is preventing every job from being a decent, living wage job?

Isn't this a legitimate question?

What about Polymet?

I generally agree with Tom Rukavina... 99.999% of the time. On this issue of sulfide-mining I, too, am in complete disagreement.

These so-called "hearings" are a fiasco--- window dressing for allowing the mining companies to do as they please in the name of "jobs, jobs, jobs" when the real issue is "profits, profits, profits."

I don't understand why anyone with labor's interest in mind would support permitting any other mining projects--- especially when nothing has been done to halt the decades of these mining companies swindling Iron Rangers out of their pensions while leaving behind polluted pits and massive poverty after they abscond with the profits.

United States Steel's huge MinnTac operation, the largest of its kind in the world has provided us with the "jewel" they call the "Clearwater Reservoir"--- what they call their gigantic tailing pond stretching for three miles and two miles wide--- leeching billions of gallons of the most dangerous contaminants and pollution into the Dark River and St. Louis River watersheds reaching into the depths of Lake Superior and even as far north as Hudson's Bay!

"Jobs, jobs, jobs"--- from 80,000 jobs in mining on the Iron Range to 12,000 jobs today.

Machines and technology have been allowed to replace workers.

While workers in the mining industry have been laid off; many of the remaining workers are forced to work ten and twelve hour days--- five, six and even seven days a week.

Want job creation in the mining industry?

Try a shorter work week with forty hours pay. Longer vacations. Earlier retirements with pension funds protected. Polymet will maybe create a few hundred jobs--- in the existing taconite industry, these kinds of reforms combined would create thousands of new union jobs.

Will Polymet be a union operation? Since the USW maintains a sweatheart agreement with Cleveland Cliffs to enable a gigantic non-union taconite operation at Silver Bay, judging from its current relationship of the way they are supporting this hideous Polymet project, it is doubtful the USW will ever try to organize Polymet. Jobs where workers unprotected without union contract have no rights; just what we need more of in Minnesota; like 44,000 casino workers employed in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages and without any protections under state or federal labor laws isn't bad enough. 

I was glad to see and hear where rank-and-file union members of the United Steelworkers Union have organized a rank-and-file caucus, the Hard Rock Miners--- demanding that their pension funds be honored.

I would expect the entire Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party's Iron Range contingent to stand up in opposing any further mining permits--- at least until all of the pension funds of present and former miners have been honored. This is the very least these DFL politicians and party hacks can do.

These "public hearings" are meant to foment anger and sow confusion and discord  among the very people who should be united in making sure more mining companies are not allowed to shit on working people, the communities workers have to live in and the healthy ecosystems required for survival.

If not for the out of control Military-Industrial Complex requiring these non-ferrous minerals and metals, this mining would not even be under consideration. Why else would Congressman Rick Nolan have co-sponsored this legislation with Republicans protecting this mining Polymet as a "national security" project?

There are hundreds of projects that the government could undertake to provide Iron Rangers with jobs--- good jobs paying decent wages. Anyone can come up with a list of what needs to be done to improve the lives and livelihoods of people living in Appalachia North.

There are tens of thousands of existing jobs on the Iron Range that could be turned into good, decent, living wage jobs if only the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party with its super-majority would wield its power and pass Minimum Wage legislation making the Minimum Wage a real living wage based on cost-of-living, indexed to real inflation with regularly scheduled raises to improve the standard-of-living of working people--- of course, one has to ask why the unions affiliated with Change To Win and the Minnesota AFL-CIO have made nothing but half-hearted attempts to organize all of these workers? Isn't a good union contract better than any government anti-poverty program?

We should be telling the Minnesota DNR to take these hearings and shove them straight up their ass; what we need is a series of roundtable discussions bringing workers together to talk about all of this in a civil way; do we have a democracy that will tolerate this?

Many years ago, both socialist Farmer-Labor governors, Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson proposed that if mining was going to continue with our communities and jobs protected and the profits from mining going to make life better for people, mining was going to have to be brought under public ownership.

Were their concerns legitimate?

Apparently so given what the situation is today on the Iron Range--- yet, why isn't this idea of public ownership of the mining industry being brought forward and discussed here and now?

Wouldn't it make more sense to put all proposed mining projects on hold until public ownership has been discussed rather than allowing these mining companies to come in--- exploit workers, swindle them out of their pensions as they rape the land leaving nothing behind but massive poverty and a dirty mess for tax-payers to clean up?

The Minimum Wage... more thoughts.

Many articles are being written about the Minimum Wage. Most of these articles are nothing but nonsense as far as working people are concerned--- or should be concerned.

Most of the articles in the mainstream media only have one purpose: to confuse and disorient working people.

But even articles in the alternative media often fail to get it right.

I think some of the articles makes a lot of good points but have some very faulty conclusions in my opinion.

The number one problem is these articles mainly compare the Minimum Wage to everything except the actual "cost-of-living" and this is the one and only thing that really counts.

Also, I don't agree that 60% of the industrial wages is what we should be aiming for.

First of all because industrial wages are falling mainly because of concession contracts--- even in Canada, but worse here in the U.S. where labor is much weaker.

Second; because everyone has the right to real living wage jobs no matter what those jobs are.

Third; most industrial workers can't get by without using at least several credit cards usually always nearly maxed out.

Working class debt is not even part of the discussion at this point--- because you can purchase what you need to live on credit does this mean you are receiving a real living wage? Of course not.

Studies show most working class families are only a paycheck or two or three away from poverty and often bankruptcy and losing their homes and cars.

At least Canadians don't experience medical bankruptcies but even excluding this, most working class families in the United States and Canada are living at, or very near, poverty--- when actual cost-of-living factors are considered.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics is the most thorough and credible government agency in the world when it comes to tracking actual "cost-of-living" factors which the U.S. Congress has required them to call the "Consumer Price Index" which includes eight categories with each of those eight categories having 200 or so sub-categories.

You won't find most U.S. or Canadian politicians, nor even labor leaders, talking about "cost-of-living;" and, in my opinion, this is why we haven't been able to win a Minimum Wage that is a real living wage.

I think this concept is very important:

We shouldn't be talking about a living wage as if it is not connected to the Minimum Wage.

We need to be very clear: We want the Minimum Wage to be a real living wage. If anyone disagrees with this let them have the moral, political and intellectual courage to argue otherwise.

The whole idea is to win, through struggle, a Minimum Wage that is a real living wage and the ONLY way to accomplish this is to legislatively tie the Minimum Wage to all "cost-of-living" factors, then determine the LEGITIMATE inflation rate and recalculate for inflation quarterly with periodic increases in the Minimum Wage just for the sole purpose of improving the Standard of Living of working people.

The fact of the matter is, the working class has one inflation rate and the wealthy quite another. Inflation doesn't matter to anyone if you have the money to purchase whatever you want. Have you ever heard a wealthy person complain about the price of hamburger or a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread or the price of gas or electricity or the cost of heating their home?

I challenge anyone to tell me there is any other way to arrive at a just Minimum Wage other than tying it to "cost-of-living."

In fact, the greatest advances in union organizing have been achieved when the unions focused on wages in relation to "cost-of-living."

Employers cringe when they hear wages compared to "cost-of-living." And they should because when workers fight for wages in line with "cost-of-living" business profits are going to be diminished--- should we care about their profits? Hell no! Because workers create the wealth.