Friday, September 17, 2010
Unite for peace to win jobs and end poverty
Alan L. Maki
So far I haven't seen where there has been a focus on how Obama's wars kill jobs just like they kill people. To build a movement concerned with getting America back to work requires explaining all the reasons why the jobs are disappearing... I won't repeat what I have written elsewhere on this site... anyone interested can check out the discussion:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/OneNationWorkingTogether?v=wall&story_fbid=146419565395492
and here:
http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages#!/OneNationWorkingTogether?v=wall&story_fbid=159898937360567&ref=notif¬if_t=like
It makes no sense to me to rally behind supporting a President and a Democratic Party whose very policies are killing jobs.
Starbucks is now a "partner" in promoting this October 2 march and rally... Is it a goal to get everyone a job like people have at Starbucks where people get fired for union organizing to free themselves from poverty wages and poor working conditions?
Yesterday the big news was that there has been a sharp increase in poverty in this country... what is not being said is that most of the people living in poverty are EMPLOYED people with poverty wage jobs... like those people working at Starbucks--- people who get fired for trying to organize for real living wage jobs.
Any school child understands that if people are paid poverty wages these workers will be living in poverty.
The Democrats, through clever "Compacts," created over two-million jobs for people in the Indian Gaming Industry at loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos where poverty wages are enforced because none of these two-million workers have any rights under state or federal labor laws or the NLRA... and even the Employee Free Choice Act will not protect us.
Is the enforcement of affirmative action part of the "jobs" agenda agreed to by organizations endorsing this march and rally... I don't see the enforcement of Executive Order #11246 mentioned anywhere in any of your materials.
People have been trying to get these questions and concerns answered for months with NO responses from anyone; now the excuse for not answering these questions is "we have to go all out to mobilize we don't have time for these kinds of discussions--- interestingly enough, the same logic being shoved at us about the elections coming up on November 2.
Now this march is apparently turning out to be a mobilization to "get out the vote for Obama and the Democrats" rather than a march to serve notice on Obama and the Democrats, that in return for our votes, we expect: jobs at real living wages created from funds obtained by ending these dirty wars and taxing the rich--- not merely ending the tax-cuts on the rich... there is going to have to be a very hefty tax increase on the rich to pay to put America back to work.
I am not bringing forward any kind of "side issues" to the jobs issue central to the October 2 march and rally; these are issues very important to the jobs issue. It is these kinds of very issues involved in the jobs issue that make it possible for all these organizations to really unite.