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...

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Van Jones is on his way to Minnesota thanks to the foundations.


Van Jones is coming to Minnesota--- a former protester converted to the politics of pragmatism touted by Barack Obama and his Wall Street circle of friends

Van Jones is coming to Minnesota.

In the publicity building up his talk it is stated by the foundation-funded outfit bringing him that Van Jones has turned from being a protester to a political pragmatist.

Is Van Jones going to be suggesting to Minnesotans that protesting is no longer needed if one becomes a pragmatic politician?

Or, is it the case that if one turns away from protesting making the claim to being a pragmatic politician that the foundation funds will come pouring in in return for leading people away from protesting?

More than ever we need large numbers of people out in the street's protesting and more than ever we need a new political party which joins protests in the streets with the struggle to take political and economic power away from Wall Street to make government serve the requirements and needs of working people.

I wonder; will Van Jones be supporting Governor Mark Dayton's call to raise the salaries of Minnesota Legislators for their part-time jobs to $54,000.00 a year as the poor are handed a "ladder out of poverty" from which all the lower rungs are missing or broken?

Does Van Jones' new found "pragmatism" allow him to make these kinds of observations? If so, does Van Jones' "pragmatism" extend to calling for a new political party like the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party or Canada's socialist New Democratic Party?

Does Van Jones' new found "pragmatism" include being able to state that he is fed up with capitalism and these dirty imperialist wars killing our jobs and living standards while preventing solving the problem of poverty lest he loses his foundation funding?

Van Jones is coming to Minnesota--- a former protester converted to the politics of pragmatism touted by Barack Obama and his Wall Street circle of friends--- the very same "philanthropists" from whom Van Jones is receiving his foundation funding.

Obama's advice to students...

Obama advises students to patiently work in silence as Wall Street profits from wars and the rest of our problems...

President Barack Obama gave the commencement address to the graduating class of the Ohio State University at Ohio Stadium on May 5, 2013 in Columbus, Ohio.

"I dare you, Class of 2013, to do better. I dare you to do better," Obama said.

Obama also urged the students to "reject these voices" that warn of the evils of government, saying:

"Still, you'll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can't be trusted.

"We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems, nor do we want it to. But we don't think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It's about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government...

The cynics may be the loudest voices—but they accomplish the least. It's the silent disruptors—those who do the long, hard, committed work of change—that gradually push this country in the right direction, and make the most lasting difference."

Yes; those in power like Obama want everything to be out of sight and out of mind.

Obama and these politicians just love those foundation-funded flowers who pull people into thinking the process of change must take a long, long time.

Wall Street gets what it wants when it wants it but the rest of us must be patient and work in silence for change that will come in some distant future.

Just follow Obama's lead and everything will be okay--- ya; sure, you betcha. War after war; hit lists for drone attacks; growing joblessness and rising poverty; the fiasco of Obamacare instead of real health care reform; rising food prices; soaring gas prices; heating bills you need to put on your credit card; electric rates increase by leaps and bounds as you cut your usage; immigrant workers from Mexico treated as criminals by a bunch of anti-Latino racists and bigots which include members of the U.S. Congress...

And all of this calls for working in silence?

What kind of "community organizer" was Barack Obama?

Really? People are just supposed to "bite the bullet" and put up with all this crap no matter how much they are hurting in spite of the fact we working people who create all wealth?

Tell Barack Obama to tell his Wall Street merchants of death and destruction who profit from wars to patiently wait for their next war because the needs of the people for jobs, a quality public education, decent housing, an end to racist discrimination and inequality, the right to breath fresh air and drink clean water are more pressing than any of these dirty imperialist wars.

We have seen how Barack Obama works by the way he has pushed forward with this Trans-Pacific Partnership--- Wall Street works quickly in secrecy and silence behind our backs and without any participation from the American people and Obama thinks we are so stupid to believe that we will not rise up and loudly resist this corporate corruption of our government and Wall Street's arrogance in hogging the wealth like a bunch of greedy pigs feeding at the public trough with their bribed politicians like Obama and the rest of these Democrats and Republicans who never object to spending for wars but ALWAYS object to spending for human needs.

The entire scenario makes me sick and it's time to tell these Wall Street politicians, "We are fed up!"

And we need to tell them "we are fed up" in a loud, boisterous, militant and united way in which political and economic power is taken away from Wall Street and placed in the hands of "we the people."

Obama would just love it if all of us would sit in silence as he works from his "hit list" on the desk in the Oval Office murdering innocent people--- most of whom are children and their mothers.

Obama's advice to these graduating university students is worth about as the high-priced diplomas they received for which they will end up never paying off their student loans for the rest of their lives as they find jobs at poverty wages at Wal-mart, Target, Burger King or some loud, noisy, smoke-filled casino of the Indian Gaming Industry at poverty wages and without any rights under state or federal labor laws.

Just keep your mouth shut and endure the pain and suffering--- just the kind of advice one would expect from anyone carrying out Wall Street's reactionary imperialist agenda.