We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

A program for real change...

http://peaceandsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-progressive-program-for-real-change.html

Monday, February 14, 2011

Ken Martin, the new Chair of the Minnesota DFL is orchestrating a campaign against our organizing efforts...

Ken Martin, the new Chair of the Minnesota DFL is orchestrating a campaign against our organizing efforts...

The leadership of the Minnesota DFL has launched a vicious racist anti-union attack against our casino worker organizing efforts. Every worker in Minnesota should be concerned because every worker has become a target.

This is my response to one of these attacks by DFL'er Dave Butcher whose comments are posted in full at the bottom:

Members of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party have launched into a vicious attack against our casino worker organizing efforts, and me personally, after we asked that this MNDFL conference, Greater MN DFL Summit, hosted by C D 6, 7 & 8, not be held at Northern Lights Casino.

Read on; the attacks take on a very vicious racist and anti-union character---

Two-million workers in the Indian Gaming Industry in the United States--- 41,000 in Minnesota--- are excluded from ALL labor laws. All these casino workers are forced to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws while Democratic Party politicians take in millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

These casino operations include huge hotels/motels, restaurants, theme parks/golf courses.

Most of the casino operations pay no taxes. Minnesota derives NO revenue from these casino operations yet tax-payers subsidize and pay for all infrastructure while corrupt tribal officials have diverted federal and state funds ear-marked for health care and education into building these casinos.

All the slot machines and table games are owned by the Lansky operation with the Kansas City Mob tending the "skimming" operations.

The main lawfirm/lobbyists of choice for the industry is Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck.

Barack Obama and almost every single Democratic Party politician gets huge campaign contributions in return for Democrats having created the "Compacts" which brought this industry to life. In Minnesota not one single Native American Indian sits in the state legislature.

The National Indian Gaming Association has hired Altegrity/USIS a union-busting outfit that uses the tactics of the Pinkertons and Knuckles along with inventing many dirty tricks of its own.

Here is a typical Democratic response, posted just today, to our organizing efforts--- the Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council--- after I asked the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party to not hold meetings, conferences and conventions in these casino facilities. Here is one of the diatribes against our efforts that concludes with an attack on all unions. Interesting how the attacks are all anonymous with these cowardly liars not daring to attach their names to what they have to say:

Dave Butcher is the person who posted this on FaceBook:

Here are a few of the comments when I broached the issue to others:

"I have a friend who works in one of those establishments and thinks he has the greatest benefits of all. Also, this is a separate country with a separate judicial system different from our own, so there is a judicial remedy that actually works better than ours. Each tribe has a different setup."

"ask him to back up the allegation with specifics. he's wrong"

"I support unions so I like that but I think the approach on attacking the tribes is not going to get the people organized to really form a union - jursidictionally - I am not sure how unions would hold power to do anything on the tribal level. The tribes are another nation within a nation."

"Alan Maki is like the mean dog barking on the block and I have learned to just cross the street and keep on walking to avoid an unnecessary bite."

"Hmm. When I was in the union, i was laid off three times (losing my health insurance each time), had my sick time negotiated away into an annuity that I can't touch for five years (but they can take $100 a year out of for administrative cos...ts), and nearly got thrown out of the apprenticeship program and the union because I missed a class when my daughter was in the ER.

I actually stood up in front of hundreds of union members at a contract meeting and asked our union president and the negotiating committee what benefit being in a union offered me. Not a single one could give me an answer.

So I'm sorry, but until the unions start actually taking care of the workers at the bottom of the pile, I don't really give a damn what they think about where we hold our meetings."


Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council


Below are some of those who will be attending this conference who have no qualms about being union busters:


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Sunday, February 13, 2011

There is no heat because someone forgot to strike the match

Alan L. Maki



I have noticed that all these "Progressives for Obama" are now stating they are for a new party but it seems to be that they intend to end up saying, "There is no alternative so we are going to vote for Obama."

If people like Cornell West really wanted a third party all they would have to do is convene a national conference to organize it.

The "Progressives for Obama" claim to influence "millions." The "Progressive Democrats of America" boast a membership of 70,000. The Campaign for America's Future" operates national conferences drawing in thousands. We know the reason the leaderships of the NAACP and the AFL-CIO put the screws to the "One Nation Working Together" movement was that the majority of the 150,000 who turned up in Washington on October 2 came fed-up with Obama and the Democratic Party and want an alternative labor-based people's party.

I would point out that it was Cornell West and his "Progressives for Obama" and these other outfits who told us they were going to "hold Obama's feet to the fire." Well, apparently, according to Harry Belafonte, Obama lectured these people about playing with matches and no one struck the match to light the fire.

Harry Belafonte let the cat out of the bag with great reservation, after carefully considering what he was about to say to Amy Goodman during an interview, that Barack Obama asked him--- and Cornell West--- to "cut me a little slack." In other words; "please don't strike the match and light the fire."

A conscious and intentional decision was in fact made by all of these people not to strike the match to light the fire under Obama's feet.

If there is going to be a third party initiative and any kind of mass movements in this this country these will have to be built from the ground up because those with the organizational resources are going to continue backing Obama and the Democrats.

We are now hearing a plethora of excuses for refusing to initiate a new political party and for the lack of mass action.

Barbara Ehrenreich, in In These Times, has gone so far to say that we should stop talking about Obama completely and concentrate on the corporations. All the while her name appears right at the top of the "Progressives for Obama" web site just below a photo of Obama speaking at a huge peace demonstration. On the list is the name: Cornell West along with Jim Hightower. Here is the link:

http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com/

On the list is Frances Fox Piven and not a day goes by that I don't receive a call or e-mail from someone telling me their posts to the "Left Forum" calling for a discussion on Barack Obama has been removed.

These well-heeled middle class intellectuals are playing us for fools. They face no crisis of everyday living that most working people are experiencing. Their lives are comfortable. For them politics is a comfortable game they play because touch football is too tough for them. For working people, politics is a matter of attaining a better life. These same people played a dirty game in the exact same way when it came time to stand up for health care reform--- again, they all "reluctantly" supported Obama.

I find it interesting that these "Progressives for Obama" cry like a bunch of babies when Glenn Beck attacks them like he is attacking Frances Fox Piven but we are told we should keep our mouths shut when Obama and the Democrats attack our standard of living and our right to full employment and health care.

Let's be clear here: Support for Barack Obama is support for wars and an attack on our standard of living. We have a right--- we have a responsibility--- to defend ourselves, to defend our living standards, to defend the right of peoples to live in peace by vigorously attacking and opposing Barack Obama and this means holding the feet of the "progressives for Obama" to the fire, too.
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Democracy and the purchase of Huffington Post by AOL---

This is a general trend of these corporations buying up liberal, progressive and left media.

Even the French Communist Party sold its famous newspaper, L'Humanite, to a grouping of right-wing media corporations!

The intent is not only to turn a profit, but to assure mass confusion and mis-information.

What it all means is that there will be democracy for everyone to the right of Obama and anyone left of Obama will not be allowed to participate in any discussions other than those they create on their own.

Most MSM newspapers have clamped down on their "letters to the editors" and what op/ed pieces they publish.

Even FaceBook has clamped down. As an example: FaceBook has prohibited me from using the "Like" function because they said I inappropriately used this function to post on Republican Tim Pawlenty's FaceBook page--- I challenged his claim that he had helped public education in Minnesota; and, FaceBook prevents me from using its "messenger" because I used it in an "inflammatory manner to spread hate" when I called Norm Brownstein of Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck a "supporter of the Israeli killing machine."

My FaceBook account was also closed because I called Barack Obama a "Dumb Donkey." I had to fight with them including getting an attorney to threaten to sue them after Brian Melendez, a corporate attorney who was the head of the Minnesota DFL complained that my calling Barack Obama a "Dumb Donkey" was a racist comment.

We are in for some very rough times where the greater the resistance to Wall Street's domination is challenged, the more we are going to be excluded with our left wing views, and unless we use the openings provided right now by blogging and FaceBook to network and build organizations in real life we are going to be in for some real tough times.

My blogs have also been closed by Blogger.com for violating the "Terms of Agreement" on numerous occasions.

Yahoo now restricts me to ten e-mails sent at a time and my ISP, Centurylink, restricts me to 500 outgoing e-mails a day.

During the sixties, as we were beginning to pull out of McCarthyism, I was arrested over 60 times for distributing leaflets and newspapers.

Labor organizer Phil Raymond used to tell me about capitalist democracy: "You can pass out anything you want as long as no one reads it." This seems to be applying more and more to modern Internet communications, too.

In fact, the National Labor Relations Board just ruled that employees had the right to use FaceBook and blogging to voice their concerns about management--- but, not mentioned is the fact that legal fees and expenses fighting to get this ruling were over $300,000.00 dollars--- quite a price to pay to exercise your democratic rights in the world's greatest bastion of democracy. But, many employers, in spite of this ruling--- which doesn't apply to over two-million Americans employed in the casinos of the Indian Gaming Industry--- are still being fired by corporations like Wal-mart and Target who intend to put workers "through the ringer" on this one.

For any worker wanting to fight for their right to blog or discuss their working conditions using social networking like FaceBook, attorneys estimate the cost of hearings, etc. will be around $14,000.00.

Right now I am representing two casino workers in Minnesota and one in Michigan who were fired for blogging working conditions; they were not only fired for blogging, both Minnesota and Michigan have denied them unemployment benefits because they were fired for "knowingly violating their terms of employment;" they were forced to sign statements as conditions of their employment that they would "not engage in any kind of union organizing."

We have won dozens of these denial of unemployment claims over the last ten years; but, both management and the states working with these corrupt casino managements continue to "put workers through the ringer. Red Lake Gaming Enterprises has hired three lawfirms plus the detective agency of Altegrity/USIS to fight just ONE unemployment claim!

Democracy in America extends to those who can purchase it; just like any other commodity.
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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

An alternative to Obama's Wall Street unconstitutional "Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010"

I think this judge made the correct decision in finding Obama's "Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010" as being unconstitutional.

I have been a vigorous supporter of single-payer universal health care as a first step towards a National Public Health Care System. In my opinion, the single-payer movement is dead.

It has died because so many people in this country are looking for a health care system that is:

* publicly financed,

* publicly administered, and

* publicly delivered.

People just are not gung-ho over private delivery of health care services. People resent the big money doctors have made off health care just like they resent the insurance and pharmaceutical companies making big profits and feeding at the public trough.

In my opinion what we need to do is start a labor-based people's party as an alternative to the Democratic Party and a National Public Health Care System (VA for all) should be the centerpiece of its program and platform.

Plus, single-payer would create around three-million jobs; a National Public Health Care System would create around ten-million new jobs.

We should push to phase in a National Public Health Care System beginning with Primary Health Care. 30,000 community health care centers providing free pre-natal to grave health care.

Financing would be very simple and could come from numerous sources from funds cut from war and military spending (remember the promises of "peace dividends") to taxing the wealthy and corporate profits or just a pay-roll tax like what finances Social Security--- or a combination of these.

Single-payer advocates complained that single-payer wasn't given a fair hearing; well, neither was a National Public Health Care System provided a fair hearing--- in fact it received no hearing at all.

No-fee/no-premium, comprehensive (pre-natal to death), all-inclusive (prescription drugs to eyes to general health care to mental), universal (everyone in, nobody out); publicly financed, publicly administered, publicly delivered.

There is nothing radical about: publicly financed, publicly administered, publicly delivered... isn't this the same way we our public schools operate?

If we can't trust the private sector to teach our children reading, writing, math and science; why would we trust the private sector with our health care?

Put doctors, nurses, all health care providers and the support network on the public payroll just like teachers and janitors in our public schools at the very same wages.

We already have three very fine public health care programs to build a National Public Health Care System from:

* VA (Veterans Administration)

* Indian Health Service

* National Public Health Service
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