Bernie,
Thanks for the invitation to join you on this conference call. I do intend to join you.
Don't you think that it is time that you start to explain how these dirty wars are responsible for so many of our problems?
Don't you think that it is time that you start to explain how these dirty wars are responsible for so many of our problems?
What we need is a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would take up from where the New Deal left off.
The president and Congress need to be made responsible by an Act of Congress for attaining and maintaining full employment.
The Minimum Wage should become a real living wage based on actual "cost-of-living;" then indexed to inflation (it does no good to index a poverty wage to inflation); with periodic increases provided to improve the living standards of working people.
You say you are a socialist and yet you advocate reactionary Keynesian reforms based on the rhetoric of "economic populism" which has no substance; it is part of an arrogant "bait and switch" politics which leads to working class divisions and confusion.
End these "dirty imperialist wars" as Mark Twain correctly called them. End this insane militarism. Choke off support to Wall Street's Military-Industrial Complex which leaves a bigger carbon footprint than any other industry in the world. Tax the hell out of the rich. Tax Wall Street transactions and profits.
This is the way we fund the universal social programs required to improve the lives of the American people which will provide jobs to millions of people.
We need to think in terms of putting people to work solving our social and economic problems--- not on the basis of the pump-priming the "free market" requires.
Socialists think about people, not capitalist markets and profits.
Why has it been so difficult for you, as a socialist, to advocate socialist solutions to our problems?
For instance, the solution to this health care mess is as simple as looking to how public education is structured, financed and delivered:
For instance, the solution to this health care mess is as simple as looking to how public education is structured, financed and delivered:
Publicly funded.
Publicly administered.
Publicly delivered.
Provide the American people with free health care (pre-natal through burial) everyone in, nobody out--- comprehensive, all-inclusive (including eyes, ears, mental).
Health care is a human right.
Health care for people not for profit.
Stop piddling around with Obamacare--- it is nothing except the "Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010."
Free health care delivered through a vast network of neighborhood and community health care centers would create some twelve to fifteen million jobs.
This makes more sense than financing the Israeli killing machine and the more than 800 U.S. military bases around the world protecting Wall Street's assets and profits. Enough of these dirty wars and militarism--- we need health care, child care and "jobs, jobs, jobs."
Child care should be approached in the exact same way--- a National Public Child Care System... another three to five million jobs.
There is only one way to save and secure Social Security--- raise the Minimum Wage to a real living wage; people pay into the system during their working years and they get a real living income out during their retirement years. Retirement should be pushed down to age 55; this would create millions of jobs.
Stop robbing the Social Security Trust Fund.
Stop these Wall Street parasites from swindling workers out of their pensions.
Re-establish the WPA, CCC and CETA programs; we know these programs work; they are job creators and provide socially useful results.
Cut the work week from 40 hours to 36 hours while maintaining 40 hour pay. This creates hundreds of thousands of jobs.
We need a National Bank along the lines of the State Bank of North Dakota. The federal government should use such a bank for everything.
The "free market" has failed. Capitalism is on the skids to oblivion and we are being dragged down a dangerous dark, curvy, bumpy road that ends in hell with no stop in purgatory. It isn't necessary the American people be subjected to continued wars and unemployment. The working class has created the vast wealth now being held in the hands of the greedy few and the time for the redistribution of this wealth is at hand so we can save ourselves from further harm.
Looking forward to discussing all of this with you on January 27.
Let's re-establish and bring together the historic coalition of liberals, progressives, leftists, labor, civil rights, environmentalists, Socialists and Communists. This kind of anti-monopoly coalition is what elected two socialist governors here in Minnesota under the banner of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. It worked then and it will work now.
As Mark Dimondstein of the APWU has pointed out; we need a "grand alliance." We need to bring into existence a powerful "people's front" fighting for reforms needed here and now while simultaneously challenging Wall Street for political and economic power.
Check out the "Letters to the Editors" I have been getting published around Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan which are being well received by working people. This one on "bait and switch" was appropriately published on Christmas Day:
http://www.albertleatribune.
Holiday shoppers and voters should beware of the bait and switch.
Bait and switch is an illegal advertising gimmick in the retail world; but, in politics bait and switch has become the way of life, the new normal.
Albert Lea Tribune publishes my "Letter to the Editor:" Where is the real minimum wage?
Where is the real minimum wage?
Published 9:00am Wednesday, December 25, 2013http://www.albertleatribune.
Holiday shoppers and voters should beware of the bait and switch.
Bait and switch is an illegal advertising gimmick in the retail world; but, in politics bait and switch has become the way of life, the new normal.
For example: Obama campaigned for the Democratic Party’s nomination telling everyone, everywhere he went, he was for a single-payer universal health care system like they have in Canada; this was the bait. Once elected, Obama pulled a switch and delivered Obamacare/Romneycare or as it should be known, the Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010.
Another example: Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Gov. Mark Dayton campaigned for office saying he would raise the minimum wage to a real living wage — this was the bait. Once elected, Dayton, a multibillionaire, is now pushing a miserly increase in the minimum wage which would keep the minimum wage a poverty wage — the switch.
Buyer (voter) beware of bait and switch.
The Minnesota DFL Party has a super-majority. Republicans have no say about anything; all they can do is cry.
We should at least be able to get a real living minimum wage out of these Democrats corresponding to actual cost-of-living factors as tracked and monitored by the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics — the minimum wage should also be indexed to inflation with periodic increases to improve the living standards of working people.
Working people are entitled to this in return for their votes, especially from a political party which makes the claim that it is for labor.
If there are any obstacles the Democrats are encountering that would prevent them from implementing a real living — non-poverty — minimum wage, I would like to hear what the impediment is.
Alan L. Maki
director of organizing
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
Warroad
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working? Not very well.
Alan L. Maki
NOTE: You do have to RSVP to get in on this conference call:
Subject: Join me for an important conference call
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell: 651-587-5541
Primary E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net
E-mail: alan.maki1951mn@gmail.com
