Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Please note I have a new phone number...

512-517-2708

Alan Maki

Alan Maki
Doing research at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

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


What we need is a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would make it a mandatory requirement that the president and Congress attain and maintain full employment.


"Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens"

- Ben Franklin

Let's talk...

Let's talk...

Friday, July 18, 2008

I join you in wishing Nelson Mandela a 90th Happy Birthday

Alan,

Your Happy Birthday wishes to Nelson Mandela and comments about poverty are right on the mark.

I join you and millions of people around the world wishing Nelson Mandela a Happy 90th Birthday.

I would add one thing; Nelson Mandela is one heck of a man to have endured so many years of repression and he still has the humanity to suggest to the multi-national corporations they need to return the wealth they have stolen from the people of South Africa because as anyone can see the workers of South Africa are organizing to take what rightfully belongs to them.

Those greedy people who have become filthy rich by creating so much misery for so many people are once again ignoring the warnings Mandela is giving to them by suggesting they should use their wealth to fight poverty.

No doubt these greedy capitalists are going to push South African workers to take what they are entitled to.

In my opinion, the struggle against apartheid was just a dress rehearsal for the struggle to come.

I have been to South Africa a number of times and I could just feel the revolution that is brewing.

Mandela has given these greedy capitalists fair warning; just as he warned that racist apartheid oppression would be eliminated by the struggle of the people. They didn't listen to Mandela's plea for justice then and they won't now.

Brianna Walters
Member, NAACP

Happy 90th Birthday Nelson Mandela!

People struggling against racism & repression, for peace, freedom, social & economic justice, against capitalism & imperialism and for socialism are joining together to wish Nelson Mandela, the heroic South African freedom fighter, a happy 90th birthday.



I join in wishing Nelson Mandela a happy 90th birthday!

Mandela, in news interviews, has called on the rich to share their wealth with the poor.

People are poor and impoverished because the rich have stolen the wealth working people have created. The rich are not going to voluntarily give up any of their wealth to help the poor.


Included among the "news" reports coming from the main stream media is the false idea that Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for almost three decades for the very struggle he led for which today he is recognized as a great hero, is the totally erroneous and fabricated misinformation that Mandela was, "released in 1990 to lead negotiations that ended decades of racist white rule."

Nothing could be further from the truth; it took a very powerful international movement to free Mandela and his comrades and end the racist system of apartheid which had been kept in place by the largest multinational corporations--- from the Ford Motor Company to General Motors and international mining corporations.

South Africans are plagued by poverty today, like impoverished people everywhere, because these corporations, quite literally, "robbed them blind."

As Mandela is aware, and the main stream media refuses to report, a more powerful, more militant, more united international working class movement will be required to eradicate poverty than the movement which was required to free Mandela and put an end to apartheid.

Very powerful social and working class movements will be required in order to wrest the wealth from the rich.

We are not simply speaking of relieving the rich of their wealth and distributing this wealth to the impoverished of the world.

What we are talking about is placing the mines, mills and factories presently under the ownership of powerful Wall Street coupon clippers, bankers and investors under public ownership so what is produced is owned by society and distributed according to need.

This is the only way to end poverty; to replace capitalism with socialism.

A socialist revolution is needed... workers rising in revolution to put an end to exploitation and poverty in every land would be a fitting present for Nelson Mandela on his next birthday.






Happy birthday Nelson Mandela... we appreciate your example of courage in the struggle... we share your thoughts of socialist revolution on your 90th birthday!















































Happy 90th Birthday, Nelson Mandela!




Mandela on 90th birthday: Rich should help poor

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080718/D9206VFO0.html

Jul 18, 6:22 AM (ET)

By CELEAN JACOBSON


QUNU, South Africa (AP) - Nelson Mandela celebrated his 90th birthday Friday by calling on the wealthy to share with the less fortunate and wishing that he had been able to spend more time with his family during the anti-apartheid struggle.

In an interview at his home in rural southeastern South Africa, the anti-apartheid icon was asked if he had a message for the world.

"There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty," Mandela said.

Sitting with his wife Graca Machel in a lounge of the large home he built in Qunu, Mandela said he was fortunate to have reached 90, but in the countryside and in the towns "poverty has gripped our people.

"If you are poor, you are not likely to live long," he said.

At one point, a granddaughter brought a bowl of flowers into the room and gave Mandela a birthday kiss. He was asked if he wished he had had more time with his family during a life spent fighting apartheid and then leading South Africa.

"I am sure for many people that is their wish," he said. "I also have that wish that I spent more time (with my family). But I don't regret it."

Mandela was imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against apartheid.

He was released in 1990 to lead negotiations that ended decades of racist white rule. He was elected president in South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994. He now campaigns against poverty, illiteracy and AIDS in Africa.