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...

Monday, February 6, 2012

The "Dream Act" is another Obama nightmare

I am opposed to the Dream Act because I consider it more like the Nightmare Act since it pushes our youth into the military to fight these dirty imperialist wars in order to get the benefits of this so-called Dream Act.

I am sure many FireDogLake participants remember the C.E.T.A. Program (Concentrated Employment and Training Act) President Richard M. Nixon started just as the Vietnam War ended.

C.E.T.A. was kind of like a combination of Roosevelt's WPA and CCC. 

C.E.T.A. was a great program--- although, like WPA and CCC, it didn't pay much; unlike the training program being put forward by our "good liberal" Governor Dayton here in Minnesota, it did pay wages and it didn't require people own a car to get trained (actually, many people had their bus fares paid)  --- but a lot of people (from youth to elderly people) sure appreciated it and C.E.T.A. trainee/workers provided a myriad of useful services. And it didn't require any association with the military to qualify.
Plus many C.E.T.A. trainees/workers went on to find full-time good paying jobs for which they were trained---  often community service type jobs that continued helping people--- jobs in the public and private sector.

There was a downside to C.E.T.A. that Nixon used to the hilt; Nixon being a life-long enemy of organized labor used C.E.T.A. to compete with unionized public employees in a way that helped depress the wages of public employees but George McGovern had actually advocated the concept of the program.

I think it is pathetic we can't get out of Obama programs at least as good as what we got out of that rotten piece of crap Richard Nixon.

As far as how much those who would attain jobs through training derived from the Dream Act; should they come home in some way other than wrapped in a body-bag, I am guessing the taxes they pay would pale in comparison to the cost of the wars for Wall Street they will be fighting.

I don't think our youth should have to serve as canon fodder and carry out the most heinous crimes against humanity in the process in order to receive training for jobs.

Is there a reason why liberals, progressives and the left aren't demanding from Obama and the Democrats legislation on jobs in line with WPA, CCC and C.E.T.A.

There are at least two candidates that I know of supporting jobs programs like George McGovern did--- JOBS INSTEAD OF MILITARIZATION AND WARS. Jill Stein < http://www.jillstein.org/ > and Rocky Anderson < http://www.voterocky.org/ >.

As I recall, it was the president Barack Obama admired so much, Ronald Reagan, who axed the C.E.T.A. program. 

The same phony liberals, progressives and leftists who dishonestly and deceitfully sold Obama as something that he is not, are now trying to sell us Obama's nightmare as The Dream Act.

Bring back the WPA, CCC and CETA.

Pay for these job creation programs by ending these wars and the occupations and by taxing the hell out of the rich.