On the road for public health care...

I'm in Rhinelander, Wisconsin doing this blog posting from the Public Library.

People in Minnesota and Wisconsin have eagerly signed the statement we are circulating calling for a no-fee public health care system that would be financed by cutting the military budget.

Eight out of every ten people have been signing with many making contributions and offering to help spread the word.

Below is the statement people are being asked to sign:

Health care has two purposes:

1. Keep people healthy
2. Get people well when sick

Join our campaign for real Health Care Reform now!

What we want:

No-fees/No premiums
Comprehensive (cradle to grave)
All-inclusive (general, dental, eyes, physical therapy)
Universal (everybody in; nobody out)
Publicly funded
Publicly administered
Publicly delivered

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world.

Any country that can afford to finance three wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan at the same time; subsidize the Israeli killing machine to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year; and maintain a vast global network trying to dominate the world with over 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil dotting the globe... Can afford to provide a first-rate, world-class, free public health care system for its own people. Let’s get our priorities straight and build 800 public health care centers across the United States..

Count me in.

I agree and will only vote for, and support, candidates for public office who will pledge, in writing, to support a public health care system as described above. I will talk to my family, friends, neighbors and fellow workers. No public health care; no vote--- simple as that:

Name: _______________________________________________________ / / contact me to help

Address: ___________________________________________________________

City: _____________________________________________________________

State:_____________

Phone: _________ _________ __________________

E-mail: _____________________________________________________


Congressperson/Congressional District:

_________________________________________________________

Health care reform now! Everybody in. All the profiteers out.

Initiated by:

Minnesotans for Peace & Social Justice

Health Care for People Not For Profits (Wisconsin)

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Kent County, Michigan Chapter)

Mark Twain Readers Circle (Missouri)

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Funded in part by the:

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council & your generous contributions.

Contact and make checks payable to:

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell: 651-587-554
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net


I would encourage people to use this as the basis for their own Letters to the Editors of local newspapers and to create their own leaflets, petitions, etc... let's get a good public discussion going.


Below is the Letter to the Editor I have been submitting... so far the Grand Rapids Herald in Grand Rapids, Minnesota has agreed to publish the letter. They called me on my cell phone to thank me for dropping the letter off assuring me it will be published:

Letter to the Editor; submitted for publication.

Our country is embroiled in controversy and debate over health care reform. Focus on the purpose of health care has been lost. Health care has two purposes:

1. Keep people healthy.
2. Get people well when sick.

Our public officials squander our limited and scarce resources--- during a period of a crumbling economy--- financing wars in three countries; subsidizing the Israeli military machine; and spending trillions of dollars financing 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil dotting the globe; and then they tell us there is no money for health care. Instead, we should be building 800 public health care centers stretching out across the United States providing a public health care system which includes:

• No-fees/No premiums
• Comprehensive (cradle to grave)
• All-inclusive (general, dental, eyes, physical therapy)
• Universal (everybody in; nobody out)
• Publicly funded
• Publicly administered
• Publicly delivered

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world.

We can afford to provide a first-rate, world-class, free public health care system for our own people--- if we get our priorities straight.

We need health care reform based upon: Everybody in; all the profiteers out.

Health care is supposed to be about people, a human right; not about profits.

Representing workers employed in smoke-filled casinos suffering from cancers and heart & lung problems, I know a little something about why we need health care reform now.


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

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Call 800-517-5696 today to protest more war funding!

This important vote could come up this week; possibly next week… Act today.



Insist on a response in writing.



Call 800-517-5696 today to protest more war funding!



Do you want the United States government to spend tens of billions of dollars more to fund the war in Iraq and expand the war in Afghanistan?



Next week, your representative will be asked to vote on a war supplemental bill that would do just that.

Call toll-free on May 12
800-517-5696

Say no to more spending on two wars. Urge your representative to use our tax dollars to:

bring the troops home
take care of them upon their return
rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan
take care of health, education, and energy here at home
Oppose more war funding.



The U.S. government already spends $1.9 million every minute on the military — and that doesn't include funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.



This is the position of our Organizing Council:



All of this money could be going towards the creation of a public health care system. Any country that can spend this kind of money on wars and militarism that includes funding over 800 U.S. foreign military bases dotting the globe; subsidizing the Israeli killing machine; and fighting wars in three countries at the same time certainly can afford to provide its own people a first-rate, world-class public health care system that is comprehensive, all-inclusive and universal which is publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered. Everyone in. All the profiteers out. Health care for people not for profit.



As a working class mother I did not raise my children to go fight wars and kill other people so oil companies can profit.



I voted for Barack Obama very reluctantly and this war funding is not the change I voted for.



Please call today.



Call 800-517-5696 today to protest more war funding!



Maggie Bird

President,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council



Two-million casino workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry go to jobs in smoke-filled casinos getting poverty wages without any rights under state, federal or tribal labor laws.



The same government funding these wars created this injustice in the Indian Gaming Industry and refuses to right this wrong.








Distributed by:

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Organizing Council



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/

US House speaker Pelosi in Iraq discusses economy

The most interesting part of this story is this part at the very end because it tells what is happening with our tax-dollars going to Iraq:

Also Sunday, Iraqi police announced the arrest of trade minister's brother, who was wanted along with several other officials for allegedly embezzling some $7 million from the country's ration program.

Sabah al-Sudani was caught by police Wednesday in southern Iraq carrying large amounts of cash and two passports, in what the government is describing as an attempt to flee the country.

When the security forces first tried to arrest him and other suspects on April 29 in Baghdad, guards at the Trade Ministry opened fire, allowing them to escape.

The incident was embarrassing for the government, which has been begun responding to the rising public outcry against corruption. Al-Maliki called Saturday for a new campaign against corruption.

Corruption watchdog Transparency International rated Iraq in 2008 as the third most corrupt country in the world after Somalia and Myanmar.

But the Iraqi government has long downplayed the corruption riddling the country's ministries and hamstringing its reconstruction efforts after years of war.

I wonder where the United States stands on the list of corruption riddled nations?

If one were to follow Obama's "stimulus spending" I am sure the United States would move right to the top of the list.

If we really knew the truth about how our tax-dollars are being stolen through corruption we would likely find it would be enough money to finance a pretty darn good health care system.

It's like Minnesota's former socialist Farmer-Labor Party governor Elmer Benson always used to tell me:

"If you ended corruption in this country the entire goddamn capitalist system would collapse overnight and we wouldn't need a revolution."

Then there is this statement in the article below from Associated Press:

"A fierce critic of the U.S.-led Iraq war, Pelosi originally opposed the 2007 increase in U.S. troops credited with contributing to a substantial reduction of violence in much of country in the past two years."

Nancy Pelosi, a "fierce critic" of this war? Come on; get real. Pelosi and the Democrats haven't done a darn thing to end this dirty imperialist war for oil and regional domination in Iraq. As far as corruption. Corruption is part and parcel of imperialist wars because the wars are a corrupt business venture from the beginning... there isn't anything too honest about stealing another country's oil. And Nancy Pelosi is as corrupt as politicians get; one only has to look at the corporations she gets her bribes (campaign contributions) from.

Notice, the article doesn't mention if Pelosi discussed corruption with the U.S. installed puppet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

And if Iraq is "riddled with corruption," just imagine what kind government it must be in Afghanistan among the poppy growers; or, what about corruption in Pakistan?

And it's all your tax-dollars!

And this country can't afford socialized health care?

Come to think of it this health care system we have in this country must have its share of corruption, too--- don't ya think? How else could it be that only the insurance companies get a seat at Obama's table when it comes to health care reform?

Where's the change?

Here in Minnesota we don't have to look far for corruption... A Roseau County Commissioner who is spending our tax-dollars pleads guilty to tax-evasion and the Tea Party people don't even demand his resignation; every single state legislator is on the "to bribe list" of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association; and the Ford Motor Company has been bribing Minnesota politicians for over 80 years while the St. Paul City Council appoints an heir to the most crooked and corrupt real estate family in Minnesota history to make plans for the real estate speculators to make a killing from killing off two-thousand jobs when Ford closes the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and the corruption riddled Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party spends twenty-million dollars--- tax-payer dollars--- building a road out into the Big Bog for a Berger, Ltd., a Canadian multi-national corporation, to truck away the profits as our primary freshwater aquifer is destroyed after the Berger family of Quebec holds a party in Mike Hatch's Attorney General Office for all those they have bribed with Lori Swanson serving the h'orderves. And in the center of it all is good old honest Democrat James Oberstar who stands in front of two-hundred people at the Freeman Forum on "Water, Water everywhere" and calls me a liar for stating that he is involved in the peat mining boondoggle in the Big Bog as the Blandin Foundation tells public radio station KAXE they will lose their funding if they mention this corrupt peat mining fiasco.

With a government imposed by the United States on the people of Iraq, how can that government be anything but corrupt... after all, the whole idea was to export our system of government to Iraq... a thoroughly corrupt form of government... only a complete fool would think that there would be any chance of anything other than a corrupt government in Iraq considering who is teaching these Iraqi politicians--- the most well bribed politicians in the world... politicians like Nancy Pelosi. They should send Jim Oberstar over to Iraq to teach them how to take bids for roads and bridges:










Give the Democrats a few bucks to spend on a bridge or a war and it will turn in to a corruption riddled fiasco and disaster with the bodies piled high or laying in the bottom of a river.

Something to think about around the dinner table.

Alan L. Maki




US House speaker Pelosi in Iraq discusses economy

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20090510/D983ASC80.html

May 10, 6:36 AM (ET)

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

BAGHDAD (AP) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a surprise one-day visit to Baghdad Sunday and discussed U.S.-Iraqi economic relations with the prime minister, the government spokesman said.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked Pelosi, a California Democrat, to shield Iraq from the demands for reparations from neighboring countries dating back to the actions by the previous ruler Saddam Hussein, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

"Al-Maliki requested the United States protect Iraqi funds and put an end to the demands of other countries which feel they were harmed during the two Gulf wars of the former regime," he added.

Kuwait still claims billions of dollars in war reparations from Iraq dating from the 1990 invasion and has refused appeals by Baghdad to reduce their demands and forgive about $15 billion in Iraqi debt.

A fierce critic of the U.S.-led Iraq war, Pelosi originally opposed the 2007 increase in U.S. troops credited with contributing to a substantial reduction of violence in much of country in the past two years.

She has praised President Barack Obama's plans to bring home two-thirds of the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq by August 2010.

In the past, Pelosi has pushed the Iraqi government to make greater efforts at political reconciliation.

Pelosi last visited Iraqi in May 2008, when she also met with al-Maliki, and came in January 2007, shortly after Democrats took control of Congress.

Also Sunday, Iraqi police announced the arrest of trade minister's brother, who was wanted along with several other officials for allegedly embezzling some $7 million from the country's ration program.

Sabah al-Sudani was caught by police Wednesday in southern Iraq carrying large amounts of cash and two passports, in what the government is describing as an attempt to flee the country.

When the security forces first tried to arrest him and other suspects on April 29 in Baghdad, guards at the Trade Ministry opened fire, allowing them to escape.

The incident was embarrassing for the government, which has been begun responding to the rising public outcry against corruption. Al-Maliki called Saturday for a new campaign against corruption.

Corruption watchdog Transparency International rated Iraq in 2008 as the third most corrupt country in the world after Somalia and Myanmar.

But the Iraqi government has long downplayed the corruption riddling the country's ministries and hamstringing its reconstruction efforts after years of war.

__

Associated Press Writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

Health care reform: The Public Health Care Option--- Everyone in... All the profiteers out

This is a good editorial/newscast to get our discussion going: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30629823#30629823 because it shows what we are up against. I would encourage everyone to watch and listen closely to this several times.

I would note that not only single-payer universal health care has been excluded from any discussions by Obama and the United States Senate; but, public health care has also been excluded.

As many of you know, I pushed hard for single-payer and led the fight to get it to the floor of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party (MNDFL) State Conventions where it finally passed and became part of the MNDFL Action Agenda.

The Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council has always viewed single-payer universal health care the same way Canada’s Tommy Douglas viewed single-payer--- as a step towards real public health care; or, as Tommy Douglas put it: socialized health care.

We should not play around here.

There will be no serious consideration of single-payer by Democrats; certainly not by Republicans.

Politically, single-payer is dead. Obama and the Democrats have killed single-payer. It was a nice thought; but, political reality is something much different. It is one thing to have polls showing overwhelming support for single-payer--- but, just like polls don’t die in wars; polls don’t mount successful campaigns for reforms--- people do. People are not going to be brought out in support of a concept that is “good” when they know something else is better and the real McCoy… public health care is better than single-payer and this is what will drive a movement capable of winning real health care reform.

Everyone knows that any country that can fight trillion dollar wars simultaneously in three countries; support, to the tune of tens-of-billions of dollars annually, the Israeli killing machine; and finance over 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil dotting the globe--- this is a country that can afford to finance 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States providing its own citizens with free world-class health care second to none.

It is time to stop fooling ourselves; we need to bring the issue of public health care forward at this time.

Canada is a relatively poor country compared to the United States. The Canadians needed to start with single-payer; we don’t because the United States is the wealthiest country in the world. We need to go all out to fight for a public health care system.

Here in Roseau County, Minnesota; when we brought forward ALL options for health care reform… this is what passed unanimously at the Roseau County DFL Convention:

no-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive universal public health care from cradle-to-grave; publicly administered, publicly financed and publicly delivered

The first time single-payer universal health care passed unanimously; but, as the Party hacks dug in, in opposition to single-payer, then the people decided they had nothing to lose so they supported what they really wanted all along--- public health care; and in doing so, got a compromise: support for single-payer.

This is an important lesson and teaches us something about how to struggle for reforms. Don’t begin asking for a compromise because you will get nothing from those whose only goal is maximizing profits--- and campaign contributions.

There is nothing at all vague about what people really want when given every opportunity. Single-payer was always the begrudging second choice when public health care was included. This is supposed to be a democracy. The American people are entitled to the kind of health care system they really want.

There is a political lesson here.

Here in Minnesota, the DFL Party hacks only gave up their opposition to single-payer using all kinds of manipulations and control to allowing single-payer to be considered by state convention delegates after they became aware the popular movement was growing for public health care. The Party hacks hoped to derail the movement for public health care by allowing a vote on single-payer knowing that single-payer would meet its demise in the halls of Congress. In fact, most of Minnesota’s elected DFL politicians have refused to support single-payer mandate from the grassroots.

Now is the time to begin a discussion with the potential to drive a movement for what is really needed: a public health care system--- Everybody in… ALL profiteers out.

It will be the struggle for: no-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive universal public health care from cradle-to-grave; publicly administered, publicly financed and publicly delivered that drives the movement for successful health care reform in this country. Until public health care is placed on the table we will get nothing from Obama and the Democrats. Now is the time to move beyond single-payer universal health care in saying: Everyone in… all the profiteers out; public health care is the real solution.

A movement simply can’t be built fighting for part of the pie when people want, and are entitled to, the entire pie. With single-payer universal health care we only get a small slice of the population in action; not enough involvement for a winning movement.

There is a reason why doctors have come to the forefront in leading the single-payer movement… they want to protect their high incomes.

On the other hand, working people are defending their standard of living, as well as their health, by advocating public health care with: Everybody in… All profiteers--- including doctors with high incomes--- out.

Place the doctors on the public pay-roll just like teachers, professors, postal workers, municipal employees and librarians. Doctors employed by the Indian Health Service are perfectly happy being on the public pay-roll. Plus, we already have a very large Public Health Service employing many doctors… so, doctors on the public pay-roll is nothing new, not even in the United States… the great bastion of free enterprise.

There are no obstacles to public health care that can not be easily overcome--- once we exert the pressure required on the House and Senate; if they can’t be convinced to do what is right according to what the American people want, then the time has come to sweep the entire bunch right out of office with a new broom and a clean sweep.

What we need to win public health care is 800 citizen committees all over the United States clamoring for: Everybody in... profiteers out---

No-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive universal public health care from cradle-to-grave; publicly administered, publicly financed and publicly delivered.

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

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Language petition sign and pass on

We urge you to take the time to add your support to this important petition.

Please distribute and forward this e-mail widely.

We were #176 to sign

The Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council supports this petition and we are in full support of removing any and all barriers to revitalizing the Dakota and Ojibwe language in Minnesota. We represent forty-thousand casino workers employed in smoke-filled casinos paid poverty wages who are without any rights in the Indian Gaming Industry. When we win union recognition our contracts will be multi-lingual including in the Dakota and Ojibwe languages.

In solidarity and struggle,

Maggie Bird
President,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

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


Alan L. Maki
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/




Subject: Language petition sign and pass on

Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 14:14:30 -0500
From: Henry Flocken

To: Adrian Liberty , Anton Treuer
, Ben Burgess ,
Binesiidagoshin , Bob Jourdain
, , Candi Aubid
, Christine Gale , Dale
Greene Sr. , Dana Trickey
,
, David Aubid , David
Treuer , Dennis Jones , Diane
Kingbird , Diane Manuel ,
Don Day , Ed Flocken ,
, Henrietta , James Vukelich
, John Morrin , John
Red Horse , , judy
Fairbanks , Kim Anderson ,
Lee Staples , Lisa Jackson
, Melissa Azhawakibekwe ,
Mike Myers , Mike Swan ,
, ,
Niigaanaanakwad , Niigaanikwe
, Pam Aspinwall ,
, Tabahta Boyd , Theresa
Wilson , Todd Dahlberg
, Val Tanner , Wazhashk
Wiish






Hello Friends & Family

Please take a moment to help support some of the work that I have been
involved in for the past few years. The following is a link to an
online petition that we are trying to get passed around to support
language in the state of Minnesota. A lot of people have worked very
hard to be heard at the state level. Please help us have a strong voice
and take a moment to sign this petition and please feel free to share
with your family and friends that feel would like to support this
effort. Do not delay this legislative session is coming to an end and
we do not have much time to get the word out.



Here is the link for the petition: http://petitionspot.com/petitions/DOLRA



*Please note our new address we have moved*

*Stop by and see our new space*



Miigwech,

Pidamayaye,



Betty Jane Schaaf

*Wicoie Nandagikendan *

*Early Childhood Language *

*Immersion Project*

/Curriculum Specialist/

1433 Franklin Avenue E. Suite 6

Minneapolis Minnesota 55404

Phone (612)721-4246

Fax (612)721-2426

Email Bettyjaneschaaf@yahoo.com

Banned by Obama

I was banned from making the following post on my Blog on the Organize for America website maintained by Barack Obama for the stated purpose of allowing people to share their views and opinions about what needs to be done to set things right in this country.

So much for "change."

Alan L. Maki



Obstreperous citizens' movement demanding fundamental reform

obstreperous


Main Entry: ob·strep·er·ous

Pronunciation: \əb-ˈstre-p(ə-)rəs, äb-\

Function: adjective

Etymology: Latin obstreperus, from obstrepere to clamor against, from ob- against + strepere to make a noise

Date: circa 1600

1 : marked by unruly or aggressive noisiness : clamorous

2 : stubbornly resistant to control : unruly

synonyms see vociferous

— ob·strep·er·ous·ly adverb

— ob·strep·er·ous·ness noun



From a passage in:

Obama's Grade at 100? What About Our Grade?

By: Robert Borosage

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009041829/obamas-grade-100-what-about-our-grade



But what Obama has been missing has been an independent, obstreperous citizens' movement demanding fundamental reform. Roosevelt had the labor movement... socialists and communists challenging him from the left. Johnson had the civil rights movement forcing his hand.

This kind of opposition isn't easy. No president likes to face disruption, particularly from what he would consider his base. There are similar stories told about both Roosevelt and Johnson meeting with leaders of the movements and saying something to the effect of, "I agree with you, now go out there and make me do it." But in reality, Roosevelt wanted to squelch and tame labor. And Johnson repeatedly ordered Hubert Humphrey to bring the civil rights demonstrations to an end, saying that they weren't helping the cause. King got a lot of pressure —to say nothing of wiretaps and FBI investigations—to get back in step.

Yet it is precisely these movements—independent, disruptive, passionate, demanding bolder reform, taking on entrenched powerful interests—that enabled Roosevelt and Johnson to achieve far more than they ever thought possible. The New Deal we remember—Social Security, the Wagner Act, Fair Labor Standards, the SEC and Glass Stegall, progressive taxation—came not in the first 100 days, but as Roosevelt, under pressure from his left, geared up for re-election. The Voting Rights Act surely would not have been passed without Selma and many other sacrifices transforming public opinion to enable Johnson to act.

The absence of these movements on the left opens dangerous space for ersatz populist movements on the right. We saw that with the tea-bag parties that the Fox News Channel huckstered. We've seen conservatives conflate the trillions going to bolster the banks with vital spending in the recovery plan to get the economy going. They are weaving a corrosive message that ties big spending in Washington with Wall Street wastrels. The country would be far better served with an angry populist movement that indicts Wall Street but demands greater support for working families and Main Street. But anyone building that movement will have to understand that they might earn respect, but they won't be loved in the White House.

Robert Borosage



Suggestion: Start a Frank Marshall Davis Roundtable for Change in your neighborhood, workplace or school.

Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood.

Two great books by Frank Marshall Davis to get discussion going:

"Singin' the Blues, Memoir of a Black Journalist and Poet"

"Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press" ed. by John Edgar Tidwell; University Press of Mississippi, 2007. ISBN-10: 1578069211




Obstreperous citizens' movement demanding fundamental reform

Tell Barack Obama to close down the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil dotting the globe, stop wasting our precious resources on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and stop subsidizing the Israeli killing machine; and, instead, open up 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States providing free health care for everyone.

Alan L. Maki

Founder,

Frank Marshall Davis Roundtable for Change

Obstreperous citizens' movement demanding fundamental reform

obstreperous


Main Entry: ob·strep·er·ous

Pronunciation: \əb-ˈstre-p(ə-)rəs, äb-\

Function: adjective

Etymology: Latin obstreperus, from obstrepere to clamor against, from ob- against + strepere to make a noise

Date: circa 1600

1 : marked by unruly or aggressive noisiness : clamorous

2 : stubbornly resistant to control : unruly

synonyms see vociferous

— ob·strep·er·ous·ly adverb

— ob·strep·er·ous·ness noun

Obama's Grade at 100? What About Our Grade?

By: Robert Borosage

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009041829/obamas-grade-100-what-about-our-grade



But what Obama has been missing has been an independent, obstreperous citizens' movement demanding fundamental reform. Roosevelt had the labor movement... socialists and communists challenging him from the left. Johnson had the civil rights movement forcing his hand.

This kind of opposition isn't easy. No president likes to face disruption, particularly from what he would consider his base. There are similar stories told about both Roosevelt and Johnson meeting with leaders of the movements and saying something to the effect of, "I agree with you, now go out there and make me do it." But in reality, Roosevelt wanted to squelch Long and tame labor. And Johnson repeatedly ordered Hubert Humphrey to bring the civil rights demonstrations to an end, saying that they weren't helping the cause. King got a lot of pressure —to say nothing of wiretaps and FBI investigations—to get back in step.

Yet it is precisely these movements—independent, disruptive, passionate, demanding bolder reform, taking on entrenched powerful interests—that enabled Roosevelt and Johnson to achieve far more than they ever thought possible. The New Deal we remember—Social Security, the Wagner Act, Fair Labor Standards, the SEC and Glass Stegall, progressive taxation—came not in the first 100 days, but as Roosevelt, under pressure from his left, geared up for re-election. The Voting Rights Act surely would not have been passed without Selma and many other sacrifices transforming public opinion to enable Johnson to act.

The absence of these movements on the left opens dangerous space for ersatz populist movements on the right. We saw that with the tea-bag parties that the Fox News Channel huckstered. We've seen conservatives conflate the trillions going to bolster the banks with vital spending in the recovery plan to get the economy going. They are weaving a corrosive message that ties big spending in Washington with Wall Street wastrels. The country would be far better served with an angry populist movement that indicts Wall Street but demands greater support for working families and Main Street. But anyone building that movement will have to understand that they might earn respect, but they won't be loved in the White House.

Robert Borosage