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...

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Egypt: What about Gamal Abdel Nasser?











When capitalism can't... Wall Street won't... the working class can.

Why does this left wing Obama supporter find it so difficult to link the struggle for jobs with the struggle for peace since anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that without a peace dividend derived from ending militarism and these dirty wars from which the Wall Street merchants of death and destruction profit so handsomely as militarism and wars kill jobs just like they kill people that there will be no jobs without peace?

Also, note that this Obama supporter fails to mention that if the United States government was financing the creation of two very much needed universal social programs--- a National Public Health Care System and a National Public Child Care System providing the American people with free health care and free child care--- over 18-million jobs would be created for a fraction of what these wars are costing us while robbing us of the universal social programs the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares we are entitled to by birth.

This writer tries to pull the same crap the Democrats are doing: Trying to make us believe there is no connection between:

1. Militarism and wars and job loss and job creation;

2. There is no connection between people's needs and job creation.

Not one single word is mentioned by this writer about the need for legislation which would make it mandatory for the President and Congress to work together to attain and maintain full employment with real living wage jobs.

It is rather strange we find this "leader" of the Communist Party USA who slobbers over Obama articulating the Democratic Party line bringing forward a call for jobs without so much as mentioning the need to wage a full-fledged struggle for both National Public Health Care and National Public Child Care since these used to be part of the Communist Party USA's main anti-monopoly platform which viewed Wall Street as our primary enemy because these Wall Street parasites and their bribed politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties advanced an imperialist agenda with its never-ending wars which were viewed as job killers just like these wars kill people.

Obviously, the reforms he suggests are needed. But, let's get real here. Such reforms will do very little to put people to work with the capitalist system collapsing on a world scale--- not a stagnating economy as the over-paid pundits would have us believe--- but, a collapsing capitalist economy where austerity measures are being shoved down our throats to pay for these dirty Wall Street imperialist wars killing our jobs just like they kill people.

The writer here hides his refusal to get specific about what it will take to get unemployed and under-employed workers to work with left wing rhetoric--- some true and some nothing but capitulation to the do-nothing Democrats. This certainly is no way to lead the working class in struggle by failing to explain the nature of imperialism which is the highest and most "advanced" stage of capitalism of which massive unemployment is but one major aspect of this rotten capitalist system which has become barbaric and cannibalistic.

i invite Mr. Barile to respond since he reads my postings religiously and has quite a lot to say to others about what I write but like a coward runs from an exchange of views.

We know "capitalism can't" but what it will take to get us on the road to socialism is another matter and Mr. Barile doesn't seem to want to talk about this because it means understanding that his favorite politician, Barack Obama, is part of the problem--- not part of the solution... going on five years and no jobs program. None.

Needless to say, only a complete fool would take Sam Webb's advice about anything as Pat Barile suggests in conclusion. Webb couldn't figure out how to get a flimsy brown paper bag off his own head.

Like I say; some good points have been made. But the important points are completely missed. Specifics required to get 25-million Americans to work at living wage jobs solving the most pressing problems of the American people is completely missed.

Anyways, here is what this Obama-lover wrote recently:

When capitalism can’t

by: Pat Barile
July 3 2013

Today science stands on the cusp of developing new productive methods and capacities that will increase many fold the quantity of surplus value [privately-owned profit]. Today, there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who are and remain permanently in the "reserve army of the unemployed." Twenty-two million of these unemployed workers are in the United States alone.

The new productive capacities stemming from the developing sciences not only will increase surplus value at blinding speeds but threaten the need for and existence of human beings in the production process to create that surplus value. The reserve army of the unemployed will grow with the same intensity, and will have to organize its struggle for survival within every country and jointly, around the world.

The responsibility for the world's unemployed rests on the shoulders of the capitalist system in each country and the government and laws under which they operate.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, "When capitalism cannot provide jobs for the unemployed, then the government(s) must act before it loses the power to do so."

Capitalism cannot provide jobs for the hundreds of millions of unemployed, nor does it have any interest in doing so. Capitalism is in business to make profits, not jobs. When it needs workers, it will hire them; when it no longer needs them, it will fire them. As the new production technologies develop and the rate of production is intensified, workers will be needed for shorter and shorter periods of time.

Although capitalism cannot provide jobs for everyone who is willing, ready and able to work, we must wring out every job possible. Under the new lightening speed commodity production, fundamental changes in the economy are necessary. The old rules and relations which produce mass unemployment have to be sharply amended or replaced. Governmental processes which have always been in the control of capitalism must be redirected to meet the new production situation.

It is time for the labor movement, the unemployed, African Americans, Latinos, economists, progressives, liberals, in short, the "99 percent", to enter into a dialogue; to probe what it will take to win permanent, ongoing job-creating programs. Everyone's ideas for solutions should be discussed.

In order to change direction, it is necessary to examine and challenge the fundamentals of capitalism and make changes as they become necessary, to ensure the implementation of such job creation programs.

For example, capitalist propaganda makes the claim that it is the superior economic system. Why then, does the number of permanently unemployed continue to mount like snowflakes in a blizzard; why is it necessary for the government to continue to pump trillions of dollars into the Wall Street banking system while ever greater numbers of the "47 percent" fall into poverty. Why is it necessary for government to suppress democratic participation (example, voter suppression).

Another example is the granting of patents. Patents that cover inventions which receive public financing should be granted on the condition that the production for use and profit shall be shared with the government, and that the production takes place in the United States.

The U.S. government's budget provides billions of dollars to universities, laboratories and private industry for research and development. How long can we tolerate these jobs being sent abroad?

A good jobs creation program must contain vast reconstruction and reclamation projects. It should lay the basis for the progressive shortening of the work day and work week with higher wages. It should provide for substantial leisure time for workers and public facilities for the enjoyment of that time.

There are countless ways to discuss and develop a "new people's normal." A good place to start is by read the speech given last February at the University of Georgia by Communist Party Chair Sam Webb, entitled, "Is full employment possible under capitalism?" Webb argues, "It's hard to see where the economic dynamism and jobs are going to come from without action by the federal government, and the restructuring of the economy on a scale that only a few in Washington are ready to embrace."

It is the people's movement that will change this so that we can move forward towards full employment and a more just society.