Are we sticking with the Democrats in 2010 and 2012?

I hope people will distribute this widely for discussion in spite of its controversial aspects.

This is an interesting article below for discussion by Howie Hawkins.

I would like to point out two major problems in this article:

First; the Green Party while somewhat of an alternative to the two-party trap; it hardly qualifies, in most areas, as a "left" alternative. .. it is actually mostly a junior Democratic Party with some of the same anti-labor biases. There are some very notable exceptions, like in Michigan; but, the pathetic Minnesota Green Party is not one of these notable exceptions... in fact, the Green Party in Minnesota of which I am most familiar is comprised of many racist bigots and anti-labor members whose anti-communist, anti-socialist positions are well documented. Many members of the Minnesota Greens have quit in disgust over various issues--- some moving left, others, unfortunately looking for a quick fix by making alliances with the supporters of John Birchers Rand and Ron Paul; and most members of the Minnesota Green Party wouldn't lift a finger to help Cynthia McKinney's very excellent and noteworthy campaign centered around a very progressive and decidedly progressive-left agenda which included her very pro-labor agenda including her support for saving, through public ownership, the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, some 2,000 good union jobs.

Second; this statement from this essay is factually incorrect:

"As the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Social Security Act were enacted that year, the third party movement subsided."

In fact, it was mainly socialist Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson's untimely death that served to hold back the growing momentum for a National-Farmer Labor Party similar to what was so successful in Minnesota combined with the refusal of the Socialist Party to become part of this "people's front" movement on the political scene. The Trotskyites, although quite insignificant, also played a very divisive role in trying to forge a national Farmer-Labor Party. 

In my opinion; liberals, progressives and the left would do well to consider a national ticket headed up by Cynthia McKinney and Cindy Sheehan coupled with people running for congress and the senate and state legislatures.

I think the majority of the American people would love to see a ticket focused on real health care reform paid for with peace dividends derived from ending these dirty imperialist wars. What is needed is some kind of "Declaration of Independence" from the Democratic and Republican Parties aimed at accomplishing and building such unity.

Why even bother to quibble over other differences when we have two important unifying issues--- peace and health care--- bringing all of us together?

We now have tens of millions of people in this country who, from the very beginning, saw right through the farce we call Obama and now there is a growing segment of Obama supporters who have already jumped ship with many more about to take the plunge... fertile ground for building the base of a true anti-monopoly worker based, progressive political party.

For the most part these aren't rats jumping from Obama's sinking ship--- except of course those like Tom Hayden and some of his followers.

For the most part those jumping from Obama's sinking ship are jumping into rough, choppy cold waters because there are no life-boats--- an alternative progressive/left/liberal political party--- in sight.

It is rather obvious that many, many people in this country are just plain "fed up."

Up here in northern Minnesota we held a meeting this afternoon which included four DFL county chairs from around the state and a number of Obama supporters... all fed up and ready to bolt the Democratic Party except there is not yet any other place for them to go.

Reports are now coming in that people are telling the DFL candidates running for governor they want no part of any of their campaigns because these eleven politicians have not demonstrated any concern for their problems. The same problem has surfaced with Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party precinct caucuses now less than a month away--- people who turned out in droves just two years ago are refusing to participate; making it clear they are "fed up" with the Democrat's and Obama's betrayals on peace and health care reform. People--- from all walks of life--- all over the state of Minnesota are asking, "Where's the change?"  

Being able to build a political party capable of robbing the Democrats of an unearned and undeserved victory, even if the Republicans win, is an important component in building a real people's alternative to the present Democratic Party.

We shouldn't buy into this crap and nonsense that we need to continue supporting the Democrats because they are the only team in town capable of "winning."

It is possible to build a progressive political party which even if defeated at the polls simultaneously carries the struggles of the people into the streets, and just as important, into the mines, mills, factories and schools which is capable of winning major UNIVERSAL reforms making life better for most people.

It seems to me we really need to take note that much of the confusion around what Obama represents-- - Wall Street's interests--- stems from people not being able to understand the difference between reforms which help segments of society instead of UNIVERSAL reforms which make life better for everyone. Obama and the Democrats have played this lack of understanding about reforms to the hilt in dividing the people--- the struggle for health care reform being the primary example where we see union "leaders"--- as distinct from the rank-and-file--- coming in and crippling, then killing the single-payer movement to come back and object to Obama and the Democrats wanting to tax health insurance benefits and then being so stupid to think that people are going to jump to support a narrow segment of the working class which receives adequate health care benefits after betraying the entire working class--- most of which has little to no health care benefits. This is the epitome of what has been passed off on working people as union leadership in this country since about 1947… and with such union “leadership” working people have suffered defeat after defeat.

We see all the union pork-choppers lined up behind these kinds of very selfish and short-sighted policies based upon the sell-out ideas of those like Walter Reuther and George Meany--- John Sweeney and Richard Trumpka, while pushing a line using different words still have the same class collaborationist mind-set holding back, thwarting and trying to prevent the working class from moving outside of the two-party structural trap built by big-business using the imperialist ideology of "pragmatism. "

Fear of a Republican victory at the polls is no excuse for continuing to support and vote for a bunch of pathetic Dumb Donkeys; but, it is important that people understand that it is necessary to build this alterative around a PROGRESSIVE AGENDA because we don't want to confuse the fascist movement like that which sprang up around Huey Long with an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.

The populist right-wing movement that was the base of Huey Long should not be confused in any way with the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party of Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson and John Bernard... that Howie Hawkins has sown such confusion as to lead people to assume that Huey Long's movement is an alternative to the Democrats is an unacceptable analysis which could lead to all kinds of problems, including leading people to think that there might be some benefit in linking up with Birchites Rand and Ron Paul who peddle a fascist message very similar to that of Huey Long.

At some point progressives are going to need some kind of list serve that allows the freedom to thrash out these problems hindering and retarding the development of an alternative to the two-party trap... an alternative to the Democrats is never going to happen without some kind of liberal-progressive -left unity which eluded the movements of the 1930's and 1940's.

Now is as good as time as any we will ever have with the Democrats having so openly betrayed the American people on everything from health care reform to escalating these dirty wars.

As liberals, progressives and leftists we have every right--- and responsibility- -- to take full advantage of the opportunities that have opened up before us as Obama and the Democrats plunge in the polls.

Make no mistake; the Democrats are a racist, anti-labor, warmongering political party looking after the big-business interests of Wall Street and Barack Obama has facilitated this big-business agenda.

We see the desperation growing in the Democratic Party all over the United States where the wealthy leaders, led by such noteworthy but disgusting elements like those associated with major support for Barack Obama like the law-firm/lobbyists--- Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck, which is not only the lawfirm/lobbyist of choice of the mobsters in the casino industry, but of much of corporate America… working overtime with the likes of wealthy corporate  lawyers like Brian Melendez and the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association to silence, badger and bully progressives into silence inside the Democratic Party. Because we are for breaking with the Democratic Party is no reason not to continue pushing forward with a progressive agenda inside the Democratic Party even as we prepare to break with it.

Progressives should be bringing forward resolutions as well as challenging the big-business interests controlling the Democratic Party in order to get discussion going which encourages people to re-think and think about what it will take to turn this country around placing people before profits.

We would all do well to consider, that even on this issue of affirmative action in hiring, Barack Obama and the Democrats along with the AFL-CIO and Change To Win who cried racism as they decried the lack of support Obama was getting from working class voters and no matter what is said about Obama’s supposed popularity, the Democrats had many non-voters in 2008 among the working class and it looks like left to Obama and the Democrats without a progressive third party formation, even fewer working people will bother making the trip to the polls in 2010 and 2012… that those who screamed “racism” at the lack of support Obama was receiving, these same people like Richard Trumka and Leo Gerard, have not lifted one finger or raised their booming voices to demand full implementation of affirmative action guidelines and policies in hiring women and people of color even when huge public funding is being used on huge public projects.

Those middle class intellectuals associated with the Century Foundation and its “partners” have steered the labor “leadership” on a course where the only important thing is electing Democrats even when it means betraying working people on peace, affirmative action and health care reform. This is what has to end.

Spread the word:

No peace; no votes.

No real health care reform; no votes.

No enforcement of affirmative action; no votes.

The time has come to declare our independence from the Democrats (working people have long ago declared their independence from the Republicans).

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Check out my blog:
http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

--- On Tue, 1/5/10, Rick Kisséll wrote:

From: Rick Kisséll
Subject: [progressivesforoba ma] "2010: Third party time for progressives and independents? " by Howie Hawkins
To: "Progressive Wisconsin list"
Date: Tuesday, January 5, 2010, 3:53 AM

 Slightly edited...

2010: Third party time for progressives and independents? by Howie Hawkins December opened up with another escalation in Afghanistan. Then there was the sabotage of binding carbon reductions in Copenhagen. On Christmas Eve, there was the Insurance Company Entitlement Act masquerading as health care reform. By the end of the month a sharp debate had broken out in the progressive media and blogosphere. The number of progressives airing their nagging doubts about the wisdom of putting all their eggs in the basket of the Democrats reached a critical mass. It is not enough to say that Obama and the Democrats have betrayed progressives, or that, as always, the path to change begins with grassroots mobilization. A critical part of the solution is a progressive third party. Without the political independence of progressives, both major parties ignore progressives who are left holding their nose and voting for the Democrats as the lesser evil. All the doubts in the back of progressives' minds are coming into sharp focus. The recycled Bushies and Clintonites appointed by the administration. The trillions for war and Wall Street while unemployment, foreclosures, and economic stagnation deepened. Single payer "off the table." Card check union recognition abandoned. Complicity in Bush-era war crimes by refusing to "look back" and prosecute. New crimes committed with the continuation of extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, torture by proxy, targeted assassinations, indefinite detention, habeas suspension, state secrets, military commissions, and warrantless wiretapping. Tacit support for the Honduran military coup. "Secret" wars in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The list goes on. We shouldn't be surprised. History shows that for more than a century the Democrats' role in the two-party system of corporate rule has been to co-opt, absorb, weaken, and defeat movements for progressive change. Right now, the evidence for this corporate function of the Democratic Party is as stark as it has ever been. The Democrats swept the election and the corporate agenda swept the Congress. Most progressives spent the 2000s working to put the Democrats back in charge of Congress and the White House. They can't blame the Republicans now. The Democrats have the power. Progressive Democrats got what they wished for, but what do they have to show for it? It's a year later and their mandate for change is fast eroding. Democratic politicians and progressive leaders were merely cheerleaders who never made demands and backed them up with action. The Democrats' corporate backers weren't so naïve. They demanded and received their IOUs. The Democrats are pursuing corporatist policies across the board, using big government to subsidize big business in return for big campaign contributions. It's just a rebranding as Democratic of Republican policies of corporate welfare for the rich, which is supposed to "trickle down" as jobs and income for working people, but never does. Even before the election, it was the Democratic leadership in Congress, with Obama's outspoken support, who pushed through the $700 billion TARP bailout for Wall Street just days after it was at first defeated in the face of popular outrage. The Democrats are not only alienating voters on the Left, but also independents in the Center. Polls now indicate that these independents are swinging back to the Republicans as the lesser evil because their small government rhetoric at least promises to cut taxes. Many voters realize they are being ripped off by both major parties. They correctly understand that Democratic power brokers don't look out for the little guys anymore than Republicans do. If the Left doesn't offer a progressive alternative to the Democratic corporate liberals, the Republican corporate conservatives will be the only alternative that angry voters will have in 2010 to get back at the party in power. It could have been different. When the Democrats swept into power, they had a mandate for bold progressive change. They could have enacted, with broad Center-to-Left popular support, a Green New Deal to address the interrelated crises of energy, climate, and economic depression. Instead of bailing out the big banks and automakers, they could have nationalized them on the cheap when they were insolvent. Public banks could have then restructured millions of mortgages on affordable, long-term, fixed-rate terms for homeowners facing foreclosure. The automakers could have been retrofitted to produce electric cars, mass transit, wind turbines, and solar panels just as the federal government had them make tanks, trucks, and airplanes for World War II. With investments from public banks and federal infrastructure spending guaranteeing a market for a green reconstruction of the nation's energy and transportation systems, US manufacturing, jobs, and the whole economy could have been renewed on a sustainable basis. It could have been different. But what to do now? Some progressives are rallying to the defense of the Democrats, defending the indefensible as the lesser evil to Republican reaction. They want to "save the Obama Presidency" no matter what he does. This approach will only discredit the Left and demoralize its voters, who will sit out the 2010 elections in large numbers. It will also lose much of the independent Center, which will swing back to the Republicans if only in disgust and protest. Other progressives say it's time to challenge conservative Democrats in the primaries. But it was the progressive Democrats in office who never planted their flag or refused to compromise any further while Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress made one concession after another to Republicans and Blue Dogs on the stimulus bill, health care, labor law reform, global warming, and the wars. Progressive Democratic politicians went along with the concessions because they know, as well as conservative Democrats know, that the Left has nowhere else to go with their votes. Another school of progressives says it is time to build protest movements that can make the Democrats live up to their reform promises, citing how the labor movement pushed through New Deal reforms in the 1930s. These progressives forget that the impact of the labor movement was multiplied tremendously by the election of many third party progressives as Representatives, Senators, and Governors. By early 1935, Floyd Olson, the Farmer-Labor Governor of Minnesota, Robert La Follette, Jr., the Progressive Governor of Wisconsin, and Huey Long, the "Share Our Wealth" Democratic Senator from Louisiana, were all potentially powerful populist third party presidential candidates. Democratic National Committee polling found such an electoral challenge might cost Franklin Roosevelt the election in 1936. This third party electoral threat played a major role in instigating the more progressive Second New Deal of 1935. As the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Social Security Act were enacted that year, the third party movement subsided. No doubt social movements and protest demonstrations are needed. But without an independent progressive electoral alternative, the Democrats know they can take the votes of progressive social movements for granted. Witness the failure of the massive anti Iraq war demonstrations in early 2003 to move the Democrats to take an antiwar stand. The Democrats voted funding for Bush's war throughout three national election cycles because they knew the peace movement would support them anyway. What is missing is the political independence of progressives. Progressives need to build independent social movements, not movements dependent on electing and lobbying Democrats. And the independent social movements need their own party to exercise their own independent power. With a powerful party on the Left, the Democrats will no longer be able to take progressive movements and votes for granted. The Left will be able to speak directly to the people with its own voice, for its own program, on its own power, without having their progressive demands mistranslated and watered down by Democratic politicians who appeal to their Right while they count on their captive voters on the Left. A strong Left party would also win over many independents in the Center, the largest bloc of voters. Polling shows these independents would prefer a Green New Deal of public jobs, health care, and enterprise to the Democrats' tribute payments to big business and the Republicans' domestic spending cutbacks that will devastate public services and worsen the interrelated crises of energy, climate, and economy. It is time for progressives to face the reality of a two-party system of corporate rule where competing coalitions of corporate investors in the political process fundamentally agree on a bipartisan consensus for empire abroad and anti-worker policies at home. Democrats and Republicans limit their advertised competition mainly to liberal vs. conservative approaches to cultural issues. The Democrats are more beholden to campaign contributions from Big FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) than they are to their voters. The main financial base of the Republicans is Big Fossil (Coal, Oil, Gas), hence their anti-scientific denial of climate change. When Big FIRE vs. Big Fossil dominates politics, the ordinary people get screwed. The best way to fight the Right is to build an independent party of the Left. The Right we have to fight is the corporatist bi-partisan consensus for empire and exploitation. The corporate bosses have two parties. It is time that working people built one of their own. Yes, the American electoral system of winner takes all in single member districts is stacked against third parties. But that system did not stop progressive third parties from realigning the party systems in Mexico and New Zealand to the point where they could institute more democratic electoral systems based on proportional representation. Almost all of the few remaining countries that don't have proportional representation have still been able to create major third parties, notably Canada and the UK. Because these countries have independent leftwing parties based on labor and other progressive movements, they have won standards of workers' rights, public services, social welfare, corporate regulation, environmental protection, and defense-oriented militaries that are far more progressive than US standards. While the electoral system presents serious obstacles, the far bigger obstacle in the US has been the unwavering commitment of the leaders of labor, peace, and environmental organizations to the Democrats who consistently betray their progressive goals. We can end these self-inflicted defeats through independent political action. It is the grassroots organizers and activists who will have to lead the break out. Most of the leadership and staff of these organizations are too tied to Democratic politicians and operatives through patronage, grants, jobs, and their social class, status, and networks. The Green Party has been organizing toward an independent progressive alternative for years. The Greens have won hundreds of local elections throughout the country in recent years, almost a third of those they enter. Their percentage of votes in state and national legislative elections has steadily climbed, often to double digits. These results indicate the potential. But it will not be realized until a critical mass of progressive organizers and activist break with the Democrats. The Democratic Party has been the graveyard for every broad progressive movement since the Populists more than a century ago. 2010 should be the year when progressive movements finally break their dependence on the corporate-sponsored Democrats and present their programs directly to the voters through their own independent candidates and party. Let's make the choice in 2010 between a Green New Deal and the corporatism of the two old parties. Howie Hawkins is a Teamster who unloads trucks at UPS in Syracuse, New York. He has been an organizer in peace, justice, labor, and the environmental movements since the late 1960s and was a co-founder of the Green Party in the United States.

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/

Racist Bemidji City Planner and Public Official--- Rita Albrecht--- cries over the elimination of her position

Racist Bemidji, Minnesota public official and city planner, Rita Albrecht,  in her own blog posting, vows revenge for the elimination of her position as Bemidji, Minnesota "City Planner" as she states her intent to remain on unemployment compensation for its full duration in clear violation of Minnesota laws and statutes... According to Minnesota unemployment law and statutes, anyone not seeking employment should not receive unemployment compensation so why is Dan McElroy, the head of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development paying unemployment compensation to this racist bigot who only wants to remain unemployed out of revenge from her justified removal from public office? Everyone knows that Rita Albrecht's friends like racists John McCarthy and racist and corrupt Minnesota State Senator Tom Bakk can find her employment just like they did for her daughter who is employed by Senator Tom Bakk.

The City of Bemidji hopes to escape long, costly litigation over racist hiring practices in construction of the Bemidji Regional Event Center resulting from failure to implement the affirmative action policies of the City of Bemidji by eliminating the position of "City Planner" the only way they could find to fire Rita Albrecht without facing more costly litigation from her... as is typical, to protect the "good ol' boys club," they had to "throw the baby out with the dirty bathwater" by eliminating the position of "City Planner" in order to avoid explaining why they tolerated and allowed Rita Albrecht to work with one-hundred million dollars of tax-payer funds in such a racist manner intended to exclude intentionally impoverished Native American Indians from bettering their lives through employment opportunities.   

I attempted to post this comment on Rita Albrecht's blog posting on her blog--- Albrecht has refused to post my comment to her blog posting on her blog--- Bemidji Bits--- which can be read here:

http://bemidjibits.blogspot.com/2010/01/last-days-of-community-development.html

I invite Rita Albrecht to respond to my comment and I will post her response to my blog.

Rita Albrecht claims in her blog profile:

I am passionate about promoting civic engagement and hope that discussions on this blog will spur readers to get involved. I hope you will comment on my posts--whether you agree with me or not! Thanks for reading my blog.

Apparently her invitation to comment extends only to those with her like-minded bigoted and racist views since she has refused to allow my comment to be posted... like affirmative action, democracy is something to be "on the books" but not practiced. 

Here is the comment I attempted to post in response to Rita Albrecht's blog posting lamenting the elimination of her position as if she ever did anything for the community she was hired to be a "community planner" for--- not working people nor people, like Native American Indians who have faced racist abuse for the better part of the last one-hundred and fifty years or longer in northern Minnesota, most notably in and around Bemidji--- but for the lily-white racist establishment of the forestry, banking and mining industries along with the foundation flowers of the Northwest and Blandin foundations who try to eliminate poverty by giving poverty new, more acceptable names:



Rita Albrecht;

Getting rid of you was the best decision the City of Bemidji ever made.

I am sure you can find employment with the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association; or, like your daughter, a job with one of the racist and corrupt politicians in Minnesota.

I think it is terrible you intend to milk the unemployment compensation system for everything you can get out of it as part of your campaign for revenge just because you are upset your position was eliminated when you know darn well you have many jobs just waiting for you among the politicians who have been bribed by your good friend John McCarthy and the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association.

That you did nothing to implement, let alone see to it, that affirmative action policies assuring Native American Indians the right to training and employment in the construction of the Bemidji Regional Event Center is shameful; this is not the hallmark of a good city planner; but, rather, that of a die-hard racist bigot.

You obviously are not suited for public employment; you belong employed among the corrupt politicians in the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party who are responsible for keeping Native American Indians out of the decision-making process for so long--- including as participants in the Minnesota State Legislature.

That you demonstrated such deep concerns for the shrubbery to be planted around the BREC in an attempt to hide and obscure the racism without demonstrating one iota of concern for affirmative action enforcement is testament that you acted in your capacity of a "city planner" committing the most atrocious and egregious racist acts rising to "malfeasance" and "misfeasance" on the part of a public official that has now resulted in the City of Bemidji, Kraus Anderson Construction and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development being dragged into costly and expensive litigation simply because you chose to push your bigoted and misguided racist views as public policy.

And the very worst part of all of this is that even when it was pointed out that you had acted illegally and improperly in such a racist manner, you did nothing in your capacity as a public official to make sure that existing affirmative action guidelines would be enforced in hiring the maintenance and service staff of the completed BREC with workers receiving real living wages instead of the sub-poverty level wages for which the hospitality industry, including the Indian Gaming Industry, is so nefariously and infamously known for in Minnesota and across the country of which VenuWorks--- the private firm hired to manage this public facility, the Bemidji Regional Event Center in quest of huge corporate profits--- is a party to... one more favor you did for the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and your friend John McCarthy along with local tribal leaders who fear real living wages being paid to Bemidji Regional Event Center employees will push wages at their casinos up.

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

Note: The minute Rita Albrecht cashes her first unemployment check she should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law which requires she be seeking gainful employment.

Through her own blog posting, Rita Albrecht has stated her intent to violate the law in collecting unemployment compensation as a form of revenge against her former employer, the City of Bemidji--- there simply is no other way to read Rita Albrecht's very own blog posting. Unemployment compensation is intended to help unemployed workers through tough and troubling times and economic hardship... not for racist public officials who have been terminated for their racist crimes in failing to implement affirmative action policies in hiring as a way to combat the racist, intentionally maintained poverty of communities of people of color.

Native American Indians living in the City of Bemidji, comprising 25% of that city's population suffer over 70% unemployment and over 80% live in conditions of the most deplorable and disgraceful poverty with three large Indian Reservations near-by suffering the same kind of racist induced debilitating and shameful poverty which is the intentional creation of a racist, corrupt and rotten-to-the-core political, social and economic system where Native American Indians are now seen by a bunch of mobsters as the base and foundation for cheap labor in their Indian Gaming Industry.

Rita Albrecht knew exactly what she was doing, and who she was doing her dirty deeds for, in failing to implement the City of Bemidji's affirmative action policies in the construction of the Bemidji Regional Event Center...

Rita Albrecht was doing a political favor for her friends John McCarthy and Minnesota State Senator Tom Bakk...

McCarthy whose clients, members of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association profit from cheap labor...

and Tom Bakk, the golden boy of the historically and presently racist building and construction trades unions who wanted to make sure that Native American Indians would not make it into the ranks of the building trades unions while working in constructing the Bemidji Regional Event Center...

for the racist Tom Bakk, it is all he can stomach that a handful of Native Americans are already members of the building and construction trades unions--- the racist Bakk, now a MNDFL candidate for Minnesota governor, can't stand to see any more Native American Indian members among his union members.

It is no accident that Tom Bakk has been one of the major benefactors from the bribes handed out by John McCarthy and the mobsters comprising the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association.

These mobsters and the politicians like Tom Bakk they pay off and the public officials these elected politicians appoint, like Rita Albrecht; are content to reap the exorbitant profits in billions upon billions of dollars from the Indian Gaming Industry as they turn a blind eye to the poverty this Indian Gaming Industry has helped to create and maintain.

As any school child understands: When you pay workers poverty wages; poverty for them, their families and the communities they live in will be the result.

One only has to ask one very simple question to see the hypocrisy in all of this:

How is it that the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association has spent millions of dollars for campaign contributions in Minnesota; yet, not one dime of this money has been used to elect Native American Indians to the Minnesota State Legislature where they could be part of the decision-making process? This is the trillion dollar question that John McCarthy and Mr. Stanley Crooks need to answer.

Why tribal elected officials and Shar Knutson of the Minnesota AFL-CIO are not asking this trillion dollar question also needs to be answered. The head of the "Summit Hill Club," Brian Melendez, who also heads up the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, refuses to tolerate any discussion pertaining to this question.

Which begs another question: Why?

In addition, there is another, final question, begging for an answer from State Senator and wannabe Minnesota Governor, Tom Bakk who complained in opposition to the "Freedom To Breath" legislation requiring all workplaces--- except for casinos to be smoke-free; that the Minnesota State Legislature had created an "unlevel playing field" for the rest of Minnesota's hospitality industry. Well, we now need to ask Tom Bakk why it is he isn't calling for "leveling the playing field" for the rest of the hospitality industry in Minnesota by taxing the Indian Gaming Industry when, in fact, taxing the Indian Gaming Industry at the same rate as the rest of the hospitality industry and other businesses in Minnesota would immediately solve all the financial problems of the State? A little detail and fact that tax-payers might want to ponder and consider as they head for the polls is 2010.

Rita Albrecht in her blog boasts of being a listener and supporter of Minnesota Public Radio... is it any wonder that the major "advertisers" on Minnesota Public Radio are the members of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and so conveniently none of these topics or subjects are ever broached by Minnesota Public Radio?

It is interesting that "reporters" like Tom Robertson always manage to cover the events sponsored by the members of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association but have not once since this casino industry has existed for well over twenty years in Minnesota, have Robertson and his "newshounds" at Minnesota Public Radio ever deemed it appropriate to explain to Minnesotans the fact that more than 40,000 Minnesotans are employed in these smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws.

For anyone seeking an answer as to why tribal officials who are so quick to point out the many violations of human rights under the the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights one has to wonder why Tom Robertson and his "newshound" colleagues of Minnesota Public Radio have never ventured to ask those like Leech Lake Band Tribal Attorney--- Frank Bibeau--- why these Draconian conditions in employment exist in the Indian Gaming Industry.

For that matter, one has to wonder why local public radio station KAXE, funded principally by the members of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and the racist, anti-labor Blandin Foundation has never dared to touch any of these issues? Now, there is some grist for State Senator Tom Bakk and Minnesota Governor wannabe to choke on.

A point of interest:


No one can argue that Bemidji City officials, including Rita Albrecht or the Mayor, that they are unaware of the racist poverty afflicting their community because the Bemidji Food Shelf is directly across the street from the Bemidji City Hall and the offices of the Headwaters Regional Planning Commission.  

Note, Albrecht says in her blog post:

"The City will pay me about $585 a week to stay home until I find a new job (or for 72 weeks, whichever comes first)."

What an interesting figure... most casino workers are lucky if they get paid this much working 50 hour weeks six days a week in smoke-filled casinos--- apparently heart, lung and cancer are their bonuses for working long hours.

Stanley Crooks forces all of his 5,000-plus employees at the majestic money-making Mystic Lakes Casino to sign a statement as condition of employment, declaring they know they will be fired for participating in union organizing activities which is in complete violation of the National Labor Relations Act... and, when fired for union organizing, the State of Minnesota refuses to pay casino workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry unemployment benefits to which they are legally entitled by statute. Rita Albrecht gets paid $585.00 sitting home doing nothing as part of her act of revenge while casino workers get heart and lung diseases and cancers along with a life of poverty---

America!

America! Land where the Indians died on every hill and mountain side... my country 'tis of thee...

America! Ain't it great!

This is all part of what the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party and its partners, the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and the National Indian Gaming Association, refer to as "economic opportunity" and "community development."

Most people with a sense of justice just call it exploitation, racism and poverty.

.