Democracy is just another word for nothing left to lose...

Dear Dan DuHamel, member MN DFL State Central Committee;

Ok, I will remove your name from the “list” as you have requested for the first time. Please understand the list you refer to is the list Susan Rego made available to each member of the DFL SCC. It is not a list I created. I obtained this list in the same way each and every other member of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Central Committee has obtained it. Just as you have obtained it in fact.

Someone has even been so dishonest as to state to Yahoo Abuse and CenturyTel Abuse that I am no longer a member of the MN DFL SCC which is an outright lie and another method of harassment.

I am requesting that Audrey Thayer of the Bemidji, Minnesota Racial and Justice Task Force of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union pass this letter along to the executive board of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union.

I would suggest that you request of MN DFL Secretary Susan Rego that she remove your name from this list because every time she updates the list your e-mail address will reappear on it and then we have to go through this all over again.

I will not waste my time continuing to search for your e-mail address for removal each time.

YOU, Mr. Du Hamel, have a responsibility to make sure you don’t give out your e-mail address willy-nilly and then complain like this. You are an adult with the responsibility that goes along with it… one of those responsibilities is not giving out your e-mail address if you don’t want to receive e-mail. Anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that when they willingly provide their e-mail address to be included on an e-mail list of a political Party’s State Central Committee they are going to receive many e-mails from many different people who have a variety of political opinions and world views often different from your own.

The purpose of having a DFL SCC e-mail list is for each member of the SCC to convey and exchange ideas with other members.

I find it rather ironic that when I first started circulating my e-mails to the list Andrew O’Leary, Susan Rego, and Brian Melendez cried the loudest because I was not including them on the list. Then a secretary from Walter Mondale’s office called me and threatened to sue me if I did not include her on the list so old Fritz could read what I was saying about him.

Just so you know, I will be reporting future requests to have names removed from updated lists to the proper law enforcement agencies because I consider that when Brian Melendez and Susan Rego single out my e-mails in asking their chums to write me to remove them from an e-mail list they in fact created and distributed and disseminated for use by each member of the DFL SCC this is, in fact, a form of harassment that rises to the level of a hate crime.

I do don't have time to go searching for names on a list. Some of those who wrote requesting I take their names off actually wrote me from different e-mail addresses than what I was sending to causing me to waste untold hours of my time; this was not by accident, but through malicious intent; people treating politics as a game.

You are aware that the MN DFL, its various Party organizations, and political candidates send out numerous unsolicited e-mails. Walter Mondale sent me all kinds of e-mails I never requested as did many other candidates? Where did they get my e-mail address? From Brian Melendez and Susan Rego. Did I complain? No. What I didn't want to read I just hit the "Delete" button.

You know, when someone of the dwindling stature as Walter Mondale publicly advocates for a “pre-emptive” strike against North Korea in order to gain a higher profile, I think I have a right to voice my views in opposition to such a disgusting suggestion and that I have a responsibility to make my views known to EACH and EVERY member of the MN DFL SCC.

Likewise, when the MN DFL State Legislative Caucus which overwhelmingly controls--- by a numerical majority--- a Senate Committee which determines whether or not legislation to save the Ford Plant will get before the full Senate and House and without being able to account for how this legislation does not make it through this most important Senate Committee presided over by a member of the MN DFL Legislative Caucus who also happens to be the town drunk, who inadvertently forgets to ask the secretary of the committee to take proper minutes and then in his drunken stupor forgets to request a roll call vote leaving us without any accountability as to what went on in these proceedings while another DFL’er, Rod Skoe, was out to dinner paid for by his Republican colleagues; again, I think I have the right, and the obligation, to make my views known to each and every member of the MN DFL SCC.

In the case of your fellow Minnesotans, over 20,000 and growing, who are forced to go to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages and without any rights under state, federal, or tribal labor laws under the most Draconian conditions without any voice in the workplace as the Chair Melendez welcomes “our Native American friends in the casino industry” to our state convention as he did in Duluth--- again, I think I have an obligation to raise this issue; to raise it repeatedly; and, to raise it vigorously since neither you nor any other member of the MN DFL State Central Committee has had the common decency and lacked the moral and political courage to do so as you turn around and try to coerce everyone else into silence.

As for the issue of that poor old grandmother who used the deployment to Iraq of her grandson as political fodder to drum up support for legislation to continue funding this dirty, senseless, illegal, and immoral war in Iraq because she didn’t want her grandson to be “without bullets and armor” and I responded by making another political point in suggesting she “not cry if her grandson returns in a body bag,” Susan Rego has arbitrarily cut me from the DFL list serve. I want this to be made very clear… this grandmother lacks complete love and respect for her own grandchild.

Any grandmother who would use her grandchild as a political prop to advocate for continuing funding for this dirty war in Iraq demonstrates neither “respect” nor “love” for her grandchild; nor the rest of humanity. I was demonstrating love and respect for her grandchild, and for all those dying in this senseless war when I made this observation which shook many people to their senses as to how pitiful it was that Brian Melendez and Susan Rego would stoop so low as to encourage and allow this uncaring and unthinking grandmother to support a war in which her own grandchild might come back in a body bag so that Bush and Cheney’s oil buddies might profit as United States imperialism gains a strategic foothold through the establishment of permanent bases in the Middle East as part of its policy to dominate this oil rich region of the world which Republican Party fund raiser and Enterprise Institute founder Richard DeVos once referred to as a “big kitty litter box,” meaning it is ok to shit on the people in the Middle East as long as the oil continues to flow.

As you are fully aware, there is nothing of an illegal or immoral nature to my e-mails, but rather, each and every one of my e-mails has related to very legitimate issues of what is taking place in Minnesota politics.

I have checked with other who have e-mailed you as part of mailing to the entire list and you have never objected to receiving e-mails from them. My only conclusion is that you are part of the campaign being whipped up by DFL Chair Brian Melendez and DFL Secretary Susan Rego who fear a challenge to their positions. And, as far as I know, in a democracy and a political Party that supposedly prides itself on democratic ideals, it is still proper and fitting that I am part of a campaign by the Democracy Caucus to challenge them for the position of Chair and Secretary.

I think it is very unfortunate that you would heed the call of Brian Melendez to insist I take your name off of the list Susan Rego created. I have to wonder if you are even capable of thinking for yourself when you allow someone else to tell you what you can and can not read as if you are a small child in a Sunday school class being taught by Pat Robertson.

I hope you do not turn around and complain like several other people have done that once I took them off of these mailings they now want back on because they want to know what is going on. I will tell you the same thing I have told these other people, including Rick Stafford, “You wanted your name off because Brian Melendez told you to harass me with the request to take your name off, now go ask Brian Melendez for copies of what I send out."

I will have you know that while Brian Melendez and Susan Rego have made such a big deal of insisting that no one should read my e-mails and insist I take them off the list they in fact created, I have never received a request from either Brian Melendez or Susan Rego for me to remove their own names from these mailings… now, if that doesn’t appear just a little strange to you and the people at CenturyTel abuse and Yahoo, Inc abuse… someone doesn’t have much common sense or understand the nature of democracy… I am sure you would have joined the British in trying to silence Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin as they pamphleteered and leafleted.

By the way, this letter will be the feature of my blog today… and I will dedicate it to you and the others who have requested their e-mails be removed at the request of Brian Melendez so Minnesotans get an idea of the sheep at the helm of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party. I will be posting your names (all ELEVEN of you) and e-mail addresses on my blog.

I hope this e-mail will be distributed widely; and with the posting of your e-mail address on my blog I hope you begin to hear from many Minnesotans who are fed up with those who have been elected to public office then sticking their heads into the sand like you apparently intend to do so that they can say they do not hear the pleas of Minnesotans for peace and social justice… or, the demand for single-payer, universal health care.


Alan L. Maki

Elected Member, Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Central Committee, Roseau County

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/


CC:
Ley Soltis, Chair, Roseau County DFL
58716 355th Street
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2293

So far, after a three week campaign, DFL Chair Brian Melendez and Secretary Susan Rego have convinced ELEVEN members out of hundreds to ask me to stop sending them my e-mails. Everyone knows how much time and energy Melendez and Rego have expended on their hate campaign against me in retaliation for my suggestion that what we really need is accountability from the DFL Legislative Caucus.

Had the equivalent energy and resources of the MN DFL been utilized to bring about accountability in assuring a democratic process on an issue like single-payer, universal health care Minnesotans would be very happy. But, Melendez and Rego have established their priorities and trying to silence me has been just another one of their unsuccessful campaigns, just like the loser they supported for Governor.

Dozens more have told me in phone calls, in person-to-person discussions, and through e-mails to keep my e-mails coming:

I am posting the e-mail addresses of those who have asked me to stop sending them e-mails about the war in Iraq, single-payer universal health care, the rights of casino workers, efforts to save the Ford Plant, and accountability & democracy... I am sure they would be just as thrilled to hear from you as they have been to hear from me... especially Betty Folliard who was the architect of the plan to get a Democrat elected governor by ignoring the plight of working people and reaching out to those in the affluent suburbs and gated communities. Of course, "uncle george" George Greene is everyone's favorite uncle and I am very unhappy he has chosen to ignore his "nephew" in consideration of his favorite cause... Israel's warmongering policies aimed at destroying the Palestinian people; as for Rick Stafford who begged, and begged, and begged for my vote at the State Convention promising to take up these issues... well, he is just another Party hack well on his way to being another politician without any accountability wallowing in contributions from the health care industry; poor Dan Du Hamel... there at the bottom of the list just because he went along to get along; then there is David Lee the "progressive" crusader who objects to roll-call votes and accountability and public ownership of the Ford Plant which is located in his own district... not a peep out of him as thousands of jobs and Minnesota's industrial base is sold down the River:


vsosp@scc.net

dweinand@gmail.com

newdlwig@mindspring.com

Travalfie@aol.com

David W. Lee [chair@cd5.dfl.org]

Betty Folliard [bfolliard@strategypartners.biz]

Amanda Tempel [atempel@visi.com]

Rick STAFFORD [rickatmpls@msn.com]

George Greene [unclegeo@bstock.com]

Sharon Rickert [sharon@holoweb.com]

Daniel DuHamel [djduhamel@comcast.net]