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...

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Barack Obama deserves to be defeated at the polls; Mitt Romney does not deserve to be elected.

George Lakoff, the well-heeled, muddle-headed, middle class intellectual has provided a "guide" for tonight's debate.

Here's the link to Lakoff's shallow thoughts masquerading as "progressive thinking" on what to watch for in the Presiden

tial Debates starting this Wed evening:

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/13764-what-to-watch-for-in-the-presidential-debates

Re: George Lakoff

Lakoff is NOT a progressive; he supports the warmonger Obama.

In his book "Don't Think Of An Elephant" Lakoff declares that progressives should offer "progressive policy directives" but never bring forward specific progressive solutions to problems.

His current book links being progressive to supporting Democrats: "The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic."

What Lakoff has taught these neo-liberal thoroughly reactionary Democrats is how to peddle their reactionary neo-liberal Wall Street agenda as "progressive;" thereby tricking the American people to continue getting caught in this "two-party trap."

Lakoff is responsible for "packaging" Barack Obama to be acceptable to liberals, progressives and the left by confusing them that rhetoric is the same as policies, legislation and solutions.

After all, Lakoff is a master LINGUIST, a trickster with words; it is his job to suck people into supporting candidates who sound like they will do what is right while knowing full well they are going to do Wall Street's dirty work and give us the shaft.

Obama is carrying out Wall Street's agenda of dirty imperialist wars abroad paid for with austerity measures forced down our throats here at home; and it is George Lakoff's job for which he is paid extremely well to make this sound good.

I notice in this article by George Lakoff, there is no mention of the fact that alternative REAL progressive candidates like Rocky Anderson--- Justice Party, Jill Stein--- Green Party and Stewart Alexander--- Socialist Party will not be allowed in the debates although people can see and listen to candidates Anderson and Stein as part of tonight's debate here on Democracy Now!:

http://www.democracynow.org/events/2012/10/third_party_candidates_to_join_in_real_time_on_democracy_now’s_live_coverage_of_first_pres_debate__1121

And for what real progressive politics is all about; check out the New Progressive Alliance:

http://newprogs.org/

The New Progressive Alliance is on FaceBook, too; just search "New Progressive Alliance" and join real progressives in discussion, dialog and debate.

All this crap about "safe states" has to go; no politician ever deserved to be punished at the polls more than this Wall Street warmonger, Barack Obama.

The central question of this entire campaign is one based on class that everyone is afraid to ask:

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

There is no question more important than this question yet it is not being asked of the American people because the very question has to do with a dirty word the corporate serving MainStreamMedia and all the muddle-headed, well-heeled and over-paid capitalist sooth-Sayers like George Lakoff assigned to give all of this a progressive connotation and twist wants to pretend doesn't exist: imperialism, the last and final stage of capitalism now in its most barbaric and cannibalistic form.

Barack Obama has been designated to oversee Wall Street's imperialist interests; capitalism in its twilight and dying days dragging us all down a dark, dangerous bumpy road with hidden curves headed straight to perdition with no stops for a breather in purgatory.

Mark Twain understood the barbaric and cannibalistic nature of U.S. imperialism as he gave considerable thought to the Spanish-American War--- a war still going on in the Philippines--- to which Obama has added more troops and the occupations of the Philippines and Puerto Rico we are still paying for but no one in government can tell us how much we have paid.

Like poverty, independence for Puerto Rico is not an issue in this presidential campaign--- after all, Wall Street reaps huge profits from cheap labor which breeds poverty in Puerto Rico.

And, like Puerto Rico, Indian Reservations mired in racist poverty are not being discussed.

How come George Lakoff is afraid to grapple with this very forthright and accurate question every voter should be asking herself or himself---

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

Poverty, its cause and solution, has yet to be addressed during this campaign even though any school child knows that working people without jobs and working people with jobs paying poverty wages are going to be poor.

And the contribution of squandering our Nation's wealth--- all created by workers--- on these dirty wars is, also, making working people poor as the Wall Street merchants of death and destruction grow richer. We might as well be dumping the wealth of our Nation into the deepest depths of the oceans.

Will there be any discussion of how Obamacare (which is the same as Romneycare) is really the "Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010?" One more question going without asking.

George Lakoff's ideas of what is progressive do not include the need to end these dirty imperialist wars so we can reap "peace dividends" to finance human needs.

George Lakoff's ideas of what is progressive do not include the need for a minimum wage that is a real living wage that is legislatively tied to all cost of living factors and indexed to inflation.

George Lakoff's ideas of what is progressive do not include the need for a National Public Health Care System and a National Public Child Care System which combined would put over 15-million unemployed Americans to work in decent, good-paying jobs while providing the American people with free health care and free child care.

Progressives--- real progressives--- are not afraid to raise these kinds of questions while bringing forward these very specific solutions to our most pressing problems.

Barack Obama deserves to be defeated at the polls; Mitt Romney does not deserve to be elected.

No matter which one wins the American people along with the peoples of the rest of the world--- we all lose.

Democracy is at the crossroads.

We have a real mess that is left up to us, We the People, to resolve through grassroots organizing and united, militant activism.

I find it interesting George Lakoff would have us focus on "patriotism" while leaving out any discussion of peace and poverty.