What lies ahead for U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The headline in today's newspaper asks:

What lies ahead for U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Of course, the question as asked, is only of concern to the Wall Street imperialists and its merchants of death and destruction who profit from the massive human misery caused--- and while our National wealth is squandered on these dirty wars with this great wealth conveniently finding its way into the pockets of these disgusting Wall Street profiteers, more people will continue to die.

As our Nation's wealth is squandered on these dirty wars, funding for health care, education, housing and food stamps will be cut, potholes will increase in number and size in our streets, roads and highways.


All this senseless military spending will push up the prices we pay for goods and services.

A government hell-bent on continuing these dirty wars will never care about the concerns and needs of its own people.

Our problems, caused by the Wall Street crowd, are now so deep-seated it will be impossible to win the smallest of reforms without simultaneously challenging Wall Street for political and economic power.

Any attempt made by the Democrats--- or anyone else--- to rally the American people around support for some kind of "populist economic agenda" which refuses to address the high price we pay for militarism and war is sheer demagogy and just plain mean.

No concern or even a pretense of concern for what happens to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan as these imperialist wars drag on... this is the epitome of great power chauvinism and the worst kind of jingoism.

The Wall Street Journal tries to stifle the movement against racist police murdering people of color and police brutality. The WSJ cries "mayhem."

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in big, bold headlines sends a message to its bribed politicians that it will only tolerate "progressivism" just so far--- and the WSJ draws the line at criticizing these viciously violent and brutal racist cops; for who else but these cops is going to protect these Wall Street parasites here at home like the U.S. military does abroad?

Apparently Wall Street is afraid the American people are going to challenge it for political and economic power... hence the use of the word "mayhem."

Here are the headlines from the WSJ...


Progressives and the Police
Politicians who campaign against cops are inviting mayhem.

The hypocrisy of a Minimum Wage "increase"

The big, bold headlines in newspapers across the country told us yesterday that the Minimum Wage is "going up" in some twenty states.


We are supposed to cheer.


The problem is, no one except a bunch of worthless politicians and Democratic Party hacks along with a few millionaire labor leaders are doing any cheering even though everyone appreciates a raise.

So; why aren't U.S. workers cheering?


Millions are still unemployed.


Millions are still under-employed as part-time workers.


And millions more receiving the Minimum Wage are fully aware their wages will remain poverty wages when compared to actual cost-of-living which no one seems to want to talk about.


And; oh, yes; the employers are cheering because these poverty wages will assure them of huge super-profits for many years to come.


http://fortune.com/2014/12/19/minimum-wage-raise-states/


Check it out; not one state in this country provides a Minimum Wage that is a real living wage when compared to actual cost-of-living figures:


http://investorplace.com/2014/…/minimum-wage-increase-2015/…


Democrats across the country promised "living wages, non-poverty wages" when running for office. Once elected they delivered Minimum Wage "increases" which remain poverty wages.


Not one single newspaper so much as mentioned the promises made versus what was delivered. Wouldn't it be terrible if the mainstream media's over-paid pundits passing themselves off as journalists were to actually ask these politicians why they failed to deliver on their campaign promises of real living, non-poverty Minimum Wages?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/twenty-states-will-raise-t…/


I find it amazingly hypocritical that these mainstream media pundits would be paid so well for peddling lies and half-truths in the name of covering this struggle for living wages while people working their butts off trying to survive are paid such miserly poverty wages.


And the hypocrisy of these Wall Street bribed politicians who give themselves raise after raise for squandering the wealth of the Nation on militarism and wars goes unchecked.


This capitalist system is so rotten to the core with corruption that it stinks.


Something to think about:


The same government which uses the levers of power to minimize wages has never used its governmental levers to restrict profits.

Something to think about...

Are you willing to pay the price to protect Wall Street's interests in Africa?

What is the price we pay?

Do we forgo health care and child care and jobs along with decent pay and a just Minimum Wage in line with the actual cost-of-living?

Are we prepared to pay for Wall Street's imperialism with the blood and lives of our children and grandchildren who are used as cannon fodder to fight these dirty wars?

We pay for this insanity and the Wall Street parasites profit.

Something to think about... it seems the imperialist countries, notably the G-20 led by Wall Street (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States—along with the European Union) have set their sights on Africa. Cheap resources obtained using cheap labor. War after war will be the result as the people resist theses greedy imperialist beasts:


V.I. Lenin explained it all in this pamphlet available for free here:



http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/


U.S. trade union leader and Communist, William Z. Foster, explained the nature of imperialism even further in this book available for order on the internet:

Gus Hall, the longtime Chair of the Communist Party USA, provides more insight in this book also available from Internet book sellers:







Mark Twain became a fervent anti-imperialist; here are a few excerpts from his writings:

Although born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, he adopted what is one of the most famous pen names in literature, Mark Twain, from a Mississippi river slang phrase. Twain is famous as an author, satirist, essayist, newspaper contributor, and lecturer. He wrote about a myriad of topics, ranging from life along the Mississippi River, detailed in famous works such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1872) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), to a collection of essays written while abroad, to political essays. Twain was an influential writer of his time and remains so today. During the Spanish-American War, Twain became a fervent anti-imperialist, even joining the Anti-Imperialist League. His sentiments about the war and the war in the Philippines were published nationwide.

Works of related interest

• Twain, Mark. Mark Twain's Autobiography.
• Paine, Albert Bigelow (ed). Mark Twain's Letters. New York: Harper & Bros., 1917. LCCN: 17-30756 r94.
• Zwick, Jim (ed). Mark Twain's weapons of satire: anti-imperialist writings on the Philippine-American War. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1992.

Excerpts

From the New York Herald, October 15, 1900:
I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with he Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Phillippines, I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do
I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which had addressed ourselves.

But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Phillippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. . .

It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.



A Boston Herald transcript of a speech he gave in 1900 began thus:
Oh, you have been doing many things in this time that I have been absent; you have done lots of things, some that are well worth remembering, too. Now, we have fought a righteous war since I have been gone, and that is rare in history--a righteous war is so rare that it is almost unknown in history; but by the grace of that war we set Cuba free, and we joined her to those three or four free nations that exist on this earth; and we started out to set those poor Filipinos free too, and why, why, why that most righteous purpose of ours has apparently miscarried I suppose I never shall know.

In a 1906 essay about the Moro massacre in the Phillippines, which was not published until after his death, Twain criticized the military:

General Wood was present and looking on. His order had been, "Kill or capture those savages." Apparently our little army considered that the "or" left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it had been for eight years in our army out there--the taste of Christian butchers.



In a February 1901 article titled, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness," he continued to criticize the U.S.:
There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land. . .

True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn't it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit's work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world. . .

And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one--our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.



And another essay on the American flag, also from 1901:
I am not finding fault with this use of our flag; for in order not to seem eccentric I have swung around, now, and joined the nation in the conviction that nothing can sully a flag. I was not properly reared, and the illusion that a flag was a thing which must be sacredly guarded against shameful uses and unclean contacts, lest it suffer pollution; and so when it was sent out to the Philippines to float over a wanton war and a robbing expedition I supposed it was polluted, and in an ignorant moment I said so. But I stand corrected. I conceded and acknowledge that it was only the government that sent it on such an errand that was polluted. Let us compromise on that. I am glad to have it that way. For our flag could not well stand pollution, never having been used to it, but it is different with the administration.



Nelson Mandela, like Lenin, Mark Twain, William Z. Foster, W.E.B. DuBois, and Gus Hall was, too, a fervent anti-imperialist.



The age of imperialism:

http://www.smplanet.com/teaching/imperialism/

Stop the deportation of U.S. war resister Joshua Key from Canada

Can we help?

http://www.communitynewscommons.org/…/former-ndp-mla-fight…/
It would seem to me every single person reading this should be willing to help.

My suggestion would be that we each:

1. Sign on to a common letter to both the U.S. and Canadian governments calling for an end to deportation proceedings;

2. Contribute at least $25.00 to help Joshua Key and his family, which includes small children, get through this mess.

Concrete acts of solidarity are needed now; isn't this what we are supposed to be all about?

Please listen to the radio program at the link above.

A "few bad apples" or a massive network of brutal police repression?

These police are becoming even more brutal as they attempt to cover up their crimes now being publicly exposed from one end of the country to the other. Their declared hatred of people protesting their crimes is proof these cops fear being publicly exposed for the brutal bullies they are.

People like to say all the cops are not bad but all the cops are involved because they help cover up the brutal crimes being carried out by the "few bad apples."

In addition, the more people one talks to the more we find out just how widespread this police brutality is.

So far, the focus has been mostly on the police killings of people of color; these police murders now surpass in number those hanged during the dark period of Jim Crow. But how many people have been subjected to police beatings and how many more people have been subjected to racist name-calling by the police.

And the discussion hasn't even begun about the nature of these politically repressive "Red Squads," special units organized by the FBI consisting of the FBI, state, county and local police and a bunch of citizen vigilantes, intended to silence anyone and everyone who participates in these demonstrations against police brutality and any other progressive cause from protesting these dirty wars to demanding raising the Minimum Wage.

The United States is hailed, by those in power who hire the police to do these dirty deeds, as the world's greatest bastion of democracy. A bunch of hypocrites all.

While traveling through the Midwest these past few weeks, I was told by a group of people in Oklahoma that when they were putting up signs alongside garage sale signs they were threatened with arrest by police when they refused to take the signs down... if this isn't a clear attempt to restrict the First Amendment I don't know what is.

I was also told that in order to hold a march for justice for the victims of police killings in San Antonio, Texas the organizers were forced to pay for a permit... once, again, it is "pay to play" in what Wall Street holds as its exclusive right to determine public policy.

Here in Minneapolis, people are being arrested for standing up and protesting organized police violence against the people.

How many people in Ferguson, Missouri have been arrested simply for demanding justice as a racist killer cop goes free?

We are living in an era where those wealthy people in power and their loyal servants and protectors only consider their own lives as having any worth or value... this is not what democracy is supposed to be about.

Wall Street owns Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton

A variety of different articles have painted the Democratic Party as "Wall Street leaning." The Democratic Party is much more than "Wall Street leaning;" the Democratic Party is owned outright by Wall Street every bit as much as the Republican Party and both are an integral component of Wall Street's "two-party trap" set for the working class.

Anyone who doesn't believe this should read their daily newspaper... "hot off the press" today is the article:

"Jeb Bush unwinding some financial affairs; Considering run for president, he quits firm that profited from Obamacare:"

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-jeb-bush-money-20141225-story.html#page=1

"In 2007, Bush joined InnoVida, a Miami manufacturer of composite building materials, winning a seat on the board and a $15,000-a-month consulting contract. At the time, company president Claudio Osorio was a big player in Miami’s glitzy social and political world, hosting fundraisers at his Star Island mansion for Democratic politicians like Hillary Rodham Clinton and, in 2008, for then-Sen. Barack Obama.

In March 2010, InnoVida obtained a $10-million federal loan to build homes and a factory in earthquake-wrecked Haiti. But Osorio scammed millions from that loan and from investors, according to a federal indictment filed in Miami.

"A Securities and Exchange Commission complaint in 2012 said Osorio had recruited Bush and other high-profile figures to lend “an air of legitimacy” to InnoVida and help him raise money. In 2013, Osorio pleaded guilty to fraud charges and was sentenced to 121/2 years in prison.

Bush was paid a total of $468,901 before leaving InnoVida in September 2010.
A court-approved settlement agreement in the company’s bankruptcy case says he provided “substantial assistance” to investigations into the company’s finances, and he agreed to pay back $270,000 to the bankruptcy court."

I do wonder why we haven't heard about the Obama and Hillary Clinton connections to the same dirty corporate money long before this.

And remember all these people who said, "Obama is the last Democrat I am backing; in 2016 I will support building a new working class based progressive people's party for peace, social and economic justice?" Well, these people are running the same line on us again as they support Hillary Clinton... although this time they are clamoring for Warren to run in the primary even though Warren has already proclaimed her support for Hillary.

Wall Street owns Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush... and Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton both own a part of Wall Street--- ditto for Obama; is this what democracy is all about?

And like with Obama's bailout of the Wall Street bankers, Obamacare is all about Wall Street's profits with the Republicans demagogically railing against Obamacare as they laugh all the way to the bank.

In typical Obama style, he partially normailzes relations with Cuba and then places restrictions on Venezuela

So, Obama partially normalizes relations with Cuba and a day later takes reactionary measures against Venezuela.

It will be interesting to see what kind of "financial restrictions" Obama can place on the socialist bus driver who leads the Venezuelan government or any other members of the Venezuelan government.

I doubt we can expect Obama to twist the arms of any members of Congress to end the economic embargo and tourist restrictions on Cuba when he works with Congress to implement these undemocratic restrictions on Venezuela.

Like with everything Obama has done, this normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba is sure to come with other imperialist intrigues, not only against other nations, but most likely even more sinister and aggressive actions against Cuba.

It is Obama's dirty work going on behind closed doors which needs to be examined.

It is time for the American people to have a say in foreign relations. Foreign relations has been the exclusive arena of the Wall Street crowd and this needs to end once and for all.

Police violence against the people... especially the severe racist edge of this police violence must come to an end

There is a lot of talk coming from those in power--- from Obama on down--- about how to reform the police departments in this country but their response evades the fact that none of those in power are insisting on what justice requires.

In response to the steady stream of racist police killings across this country which have resulted in massive demonstrations--- especially in Ferguson, Missouri--- we here talk about how these police need to be better trained, receive diversity training, providing police with personal cameras, de-militarizing police departments, etc.

But, why no demand from those in power to prosecute these black-booted criminals in blue uniforms committing these racist, cold-blooded murders?

Once again we see those in power evading what justice requires--- criminal prosecution.

There is no doubt real reforms require community control over police departments with the police living in the neighborhoods they patrol.

The police departments never should have been armed to the hilt with weapons of war.

Police should be properly trained--- not after they put on police uniforms and a badge, but before.

Cameras on cops would be good, too.

But, all these needed reforms do not replace the need for prosecution of these criminal police.

Darren Wilson should have to stand trial for the murder of Michael Brown and if convicted Wilson should be placed on Missouri's death row in cells beside others convicted of murder.

These politicians who have funded the militarization of the police departments and put in positions of power those appointed public officials responsible for hiring and training police have made sure police were hired who do not respect human rights let alone the Constitution of the United States and Bill of Rights.

Now these politicians act as if their own hands are clean when their hands are as dirty as the racist cops pulling the triggers.

We see these same cops busting up Occupy Wall Street, harassing and hounding those who demand peace instead of war. These same cops bust up protests against poverty wages and these same cops don't hesitate to beat heads using their billy clubs when workers walk peaceful picket lines.

We need to understand that ending this racist police violence in this country is an integral part of the struggles for peace, social and economic justice because when there is no justice there can be no peace.

Justice requires not just reforms of police departments but the full and complete prosecution of these murdering, violent--- and extremely racist--- criminal cops.

Prosecuting these criminal cops is the best education and training the other cops can receive.

Why haven't we learned lessons from LBJ and his disastorous escalation and continuation of the Vietnam War?

Yesterday I visited the President Lyndon B. Johnson museum in Johnson City, Texas.

The tour guide explained how Johnson got his "left economic populism" from his father.

This is one of the most honest displays of a politician's life I have ever seen.

It is explained to people how the Vietnam War caused havoc with all of Johnson's important social and civil rights programs and people learn how the massive protests against the Vietnam War, which Johnson expanded instead of stopping, led to him not running for re-election. This connection between war and poverty is something politicians have not learned.

A few of the displays on civil rights and poverty allow for citizen interaction with people being allowed to post their thoughts on index cards which are posted for everyone to see.

The real lesson to be learned from visiting the Johnson Museum and History center none of these pundits and "populist" economists like Paul Krugman, Robert Reich or even Bernie Sanders seem to understand is that wars create poverty, along with great human misery, and make it impossible to end poverty or even improve the lives and livelihoods of all the people.

Lyndon Johnson lamented the fact that "capitalism created vast wealth" but "a way had not been found to bring the millions in poverty better lives...;" another lesson we need to learn and force these politicians and over-paid pundits to confront.

Lyndon B. Johnson's political career began by fighting the banks, big-agriculture and the oil men and fighting for the New Deal Reforms.

Just imagine what kind of health care, education and jobs programs we could have had in this country had as much effort and resources been expended on building Lyndon B. Johnson's vision of a "Great Society" if so much of our national wealth had not been squandered on war after war the last 50 years... something to think about.

Looking across the "hill country of Texas," which Johnson called "home" one can see the massive poverty.

The facts of what wars are doing to us was made very clear in the graph at the Johnson museum which showed a very brief period of time when real headway was made in the fight against poverty through Johnson's many social and economic reforms and these graphs very lucidly depict how the fight against poverty came to an abrupt end with the rapid, costly escalation of the Vietnam War.

The other thing that is very clear from the Johnson exhibits is that organized, militant and massive public intervention on issues ranging from war and peace to wealth and poverty and in defense of public education and equality for all can really influence the direction of the country in very tangible ways that improve the lives of the majority of the people... one can easily imagine just what kind of country we could be living in if we were to be successful in coming together to take power out of the hands of the greedy Wall Street parasites which include the merchants of death and destruction.

Johnson made a horrible blunder in allowing Wall Street's Military-Industrial Complex to lead him into escalating the Vietnam War... one has to wonder if Johnson's conscience didn't bother him since he died of a massive heart attack at the young age of 64 shortly after deciding not to seek a second term.

Upon Johnson's invitation, he met with George McGovern at his very modest Texas ranch, the Texas White House, shortly before his death and no one seems to know exactly what they discussed. No doubt McGovern, another "left economic populist," but one who understood that war and solving the problems of the people are mutually exclusive, attempted to explain to Johnson that this is where he screwed up.

Hillary Clinton will now attempt a shot at the presidency using this failed "left economic populist" rhetoric devoid of any mention of how these dirty wars are making us all poor and all these Obama supporters will attempt to tell us we need to vote for Hillary because she is the lesser of two evils as compared to Jeb Bush or Scott Walker but history, and economics, prove that any talk based on "economic populism" that is devoid of integrating the need to end war with a just transition to a peace based economy where we beat swords into plowshares is as sure to end up in expanded misery for the majority of the people.

I do find it of interest that all these Democratic Party politicians run from acknowledging Lyndon B. Johnson's victories--- and defeats; especially when there are such important lessons to be learned.

I would also point out that Lyndon B. Johnson supported George McGovern for president from which one can draw the conclusion that Johnson understood, at least in his own mind and in his heart, that he had been wrong in expanding the war in Vietnam... perhaps had Johnson had the courage to take on the Wall Street crowd as he did with the oil barons, big agri-business, the bankers and in his defense of the New Deal we would be living in a much different country today where people come before profits.

I remember many on the left calling for going "part of the way with LBJ;" but life has proven we can not have jobs and a decent standard of living alongside wars... something present day so-called "economic populist" pundits and economists alike do not understand or, more than likely, don't want to understand because they fear offending the Wall Street hand which feeds them.

Isn't it time to begin talking about the politics and economics of livelihood? Ending poverty and wars.

Finally the Cuban Five are free!!!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/obama-us-re-establishing-relations-with-cuba/ar-BBgUJV0?ocid=mailsignout

Some good news...

Now is the time for the American people to push for ending this barbaric U.S. economic embargo against Cuba and exert pressure on Congress to open up U.S. tourism to Cuba without limitations.

This is the first half-way decent thing Obama has done during his presidency... but still far too little and far too late; but, better late than never even if only a half-measure.

No doubt this will be center-pieced by the Obama Administration to cover up its dirty deeds in bringing us closer to World War III as Obama sends arms to the fascists who have illegally seized power in the Ukraine.

I look forward to being able to get on a boat or plane from the United States with my destination Cuba as I am sure many other Americans do just as our Canadian neighbors to the north have been able to do for so many years.

Two choices: bust up the big banks or take them over?

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is calling for "busting up" and "breaking up" the big banks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJpTxONxvoo#t=458

BUT--- busting up the big banks is no solution to anything.

Busting up these big banks isn't even any kind of progressive reform.

What is required is bringing these big banks, and the entire banking and financial industry, under public ownership and democratic control.

We should have learned from the government ordered, overseen and directed break-up of Ma Bell that busting up these huge monopoly corporations is no solution at all... and only makes it more difficult to regulate and control these industries which government ordered the "break-ups" of to reach greater profits through more severe exploitation of the industries' employees (and outright union busting as in cases like Verizon and CenturyLink) while expanding into new heights in ripping off consumers.

Workers and consumers will fair no better with the break-up of big banks like Citibank than they did with the government busting up Ma Bell.

I find it interesting Senator Elizabeth Warren fails to examine what happened after the government busted up Ma Bell before she starts talking about doing the same thing with the big banks like Citibank.

The real progressive solution in both situations--- be it communications or banking--- is nationalization: public ownership of these industries under the democratic control of the people.

Elizabeth Warren sounds like she is attacking Wall Street when Wall Street investors are drooling at the mouth just waiting for the government to bust up these big banks so their fortunes will increase as the misery created for most people deepens.

Just ask any worker who had been employed by Ma Bell if their union is stronger today than before Ma Bell was busted up and if their livelihoods in comparison to actual cost-of-living are better today than before the break-up. And don't forget to ask them about health care costs.

Real reformers of the banking industry talk about public banking and public take-over of the banking industry and they aren't afraid of the red-baiting that they are sure to endure.

Many are saying that this recent speech in the U.S. Senate by Elizabeth Warren has assured her a shot at the presidency; but, does her anti-Wall Street rhetoric match up with the real reforms required which would really challenge Wall Street's strangle-hold on political and economic power?

In fact, in spite of her anti-Wall Street rhetoric, Warren proposes the Wall Street solution... public banking is the working class solution.

Senator Elizabeth Warren should be calling for the establishment of a national bank along the lines of the State Bank of North Dakota... then she would be talking about a real progressive solution.

The KKK not past history in Texas

I am visiting Texas.

Yesterday I went to the Bob Bullock Museum in Austin, Texas.

At this museum a few blocks from the Texas State Capitol building, they have an important exhibit about the Ku Klux Klan in the history of Texas which points out its long, sordid, criminal history of racism and dirty racist deeds.

One fact I found quite surprising, and alarming, since Texas is always puffed up as one of the more modern and forward thinking of the southern states is that Texas has, at present, the largest number of KKK chapters in the United States.

Ethics and morality

Ethics and morality under capitalism.

Some people push the idea that some kind of new ethics and morality beyond greed can be created under capitalism if people will just purchase in an informed manner the products produced by corporations bound by some kind of code of ethics and morality.

Missing from this thinking is the fact that under capitalism all production by these corporations begins with unethical and immoral conduct from which they can't escape; namely, the exploitation of workers by these capitalists and only the public ownership of the mines, mills and factories along with other enterprises can change this.

For working people, capitalism will always be an unethical and immoral system with only socialism being an ethical and moral alternative because socialism puts an end to the exploitation of man by man.

One simply can not wisely purchase products manufactured by workers employed by capitalists believing they are changing corporate ethics and morality because these capitalist corporations and those who own and run them only understand greed: profits.

Do you need a bunch of overpaid party hacks to do your thinking for you?

Trust yourself based on what you see happening in the world around you and your real life experiences; chances are good you know more than you think you do.

Ferguson--- A travesty of justice.

Ferguson--- A travesty of justice. Blame Obama and Holder for not going after this racist cop and the racist Ferguson Police Department for civil rights violations which prepared this grand jury to think that they could come to this decision and get away with it.

Racism and all forms of hate are like a snowball going down a long steep hill on a warm spring day--- the snowball just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
If you let these racist bigots who are cops in this case get away with murder and violence it will encourage other bigots to act in the same way thinking they can get away with murder.

The fact is, it was either convict this racist cop, Darren Wilson, for murdering an innocent Michael Brown or let him go free because if convicted of this racist, cold blooded murder Wilson would have been placed on Missouri's death row and this would have sent a completely different message to all racist bigots that they would be prosecuted for their crimes to the full extent of the law.

This racist cop pumped six or seven bullets into Michael Brown. Could you just imagine what the talk would be had Michael Brown pumped six bullets into Darren Wilson? All these racist bigots would be calling for Michael Brown's execution.

We have gone through this up here in Northern Minnesota with racist cops who kill and commit acts of violence and all kinds of dirty racist acts against Native Americans...

The same United States Department of Justice comes in and says the solution to this racism is "educating" these racist cops with "diversity training."

So, these racist cops get off with an education and people of color go to prison or sit on death row.

What does all of this tell us about justice being blind in America?

And will we find out years from now that the role of the FBI going into Ferguson was to incite the violence we are seeing now in order to cover up the crimes involved in this grand jury decision.

Note how the grand jury was used to shield this racist killer cop from prosecution.

What is the condition of the working class today?

"The condition of the working-class is the real basis and point of departure of all social movements of the present because it is the highest and most unconcealed pinnacle of the social misery existing in our day." Friedrich Engels writing in 1845; as true today as when Engels wrote it.


The AD NAUSEUM support for Obama and the Democrats coming from people who haven't even attended a Democratic Party meeting to push an anti-imperialist working class agenda is sickening. In fact, they don't even attend Democratic Party precinct caucuses, county, state or national conventions because they know if they bring forward peace, social and economic justice issues that would remedy the problems working class families are experiencing they would be red-baited, called names, silenced and chased away by the corporate lawyers placed in charge by the Wall Street firms they are employed by.

Read what former socialist governor of Minnesota elected on the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party ticket had to say:


http://collections.mnhs.org/…/articles/47/v47i04p154-161.pdf

An interesting article about the Minimum Wage/Living Wage Movements by Steven Greenhouse in today's New York Times... BUT---

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/business/how-a-coalition-pushed-for-a-hotel-workers-minimum-wage.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

But, are these real living wages?

More to the point: Will these be real living wages at the time they go into effect?

This is the trap we are led into by the "$15.00 NOW!" movement. Instead of demanding that these wages be tied to actual cost of living, the "$15.00 NOW!" movement assures employers of poverty wages and rising profits.

Workers are always thrilled with any wage increase; nut, being thrilled is not the issue.

The issue is eliminating poverty wages which eliminates poverty.

Furthermore, all of these schemes are attached to leaving thousands of workers without the wages being held up as advances.

We need universal Minimum Wage legislation which assures non-poverty, real living wages tied to actual cost of living factors... and we need a powerful coalition to accomplish this but as a first step we need to widely promote the idea of wages being linked to cost-of-living.

Most unions are opposed to making this link simply because most of the contracts that have been shoved down workers throats since the late 1940's have been poverty wage--- or near poverty wage--- contracts with COLA not being anywhere near the actual rise in cost-of-living.

As Mark Froemke, a leader of the Minnesota/Dakotas AFL-CIO blatantly stated: "We aren't going to advocate anything higher (higher than $10.10) because we aren't getting any dues from these workers." This is the way millionaire labor leaders and their flunkies in the labor movement think.

I was recently thrilled to get a forty-cent an hour increase in my pay... but I'm still getting a poverty wage under a union contract! And I make far less than the pay in this NYT's article.

I would point out that the intent of the Minimum Wage is to get workers to a real living wage in line with actual cost-of-living and not to provide employers with low wages from which they reap huge super-profits.

Steven Greenhouse obviously understand "the big squeeze" workers in this country are being subjected to but does he understand every single working class family is trapped in a COST-OF-LIVING CRISIS and the only way out is through full employment and a real living Minimum Wage based on actual cost-of-living?

What we need is a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" where swords will be beat into plowshares and instead of manufacturing multi-billion dollar Gerald R. Ford Aircraft Carriers with massive cost overruns (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_R._Ford-class_aircraft_carrier) we need to invest our resources in National Public Health Care and Child Care Systems which will create meaningful jobs providing the American people with the requirements for decent lives and livelihoods.

An argument is made that these adjustments in the Minimum Wage will eventually get us to real living wages. This simply is not true. Nor will the advocacy piecemeal reforms result in the reforms required.

The Full Employment Act of 1947 was defeated by a vicious red-baiting assault launched by Wall Street. It is time for rank-and-file workers, organized and unorganized to unite and fight for what is needed:a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity."

We should be asking what happened to the AFL-CIO's Committee on Conversion that was brought into existence as a result of the work done by the IAM's William Winpisinger.

Also see:
http://uslaboragainstwar.org/Article/60/uss-gerald-r-ford-check-out-the-construction-of-the-most-expensive-ship-ever/tab/4458

I find it interesting that the Wall Street merchants of death and destruction are always allowed by the government to implement whatever cost overruns they want to claiming rising prices and costs but when it comes to workers needing wage increases to meet their rising cost-of-living requirements the employers and the politicians they elect cry.

More money for militarism and wars

What could we do to improve the lives of people with this kind of money and resources?

Bloomberg.com
November 21, 2014
U.S. Aircraft Carrier’s Cost Likely to Rise Again, GAO Says
By David Lerman and Tony Capaccio

The cost of the U.S. Navy’s new aircraft carrier is likely to keep rising from the $12.9 billion now estimated, with the final price masked by deferring some work until after the ship is delivered, the Government Accountability Office said.

In the latest in a series of reports offering political ammunition to critics of the Navy’s most expensive warship, the GAO yesterday reaffirmed its earlier concerns that the Ford-class carrier being built by Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. (HII) will cost more and take longer to complete than advertised.

“With the shipbuilder embarking on one of the most complex phases of construction with the greatest likelihood for cost growth, cost increases beyond the current $12.9 billion cost cap appear likely,” the watchdog agency said.

To stay within the cost cap, the Navy is deferring some work, including installing satellite communications equipment and correcting defects, until after the ship is delivered, to create a funding reserve, according to the report.

“This approach obscures visibility into the true cost of the ship and results in delivering a ship that is less complete than initially planned,” the GAO said.

The report may serve as fodder for renewed attacks on the Navy’s construction plans from the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican poised to become chairman of the panel in January, has been a persistent critic of the carrier.
McCain Criticism
McCain said in a statement that “after $2.4 billion in cost overruns on this ship already, the Navy is now trying to artificially shift more cost overruns until after the Ford’s delivery.”

“The Armed Services Committee will be seeking further explanation from the Navy on this troubling report and will work to hold those responsible for these cost overruns accountable,” McCain said.

Huntington, the only U.S. builder of aircraft carriers, defended the progress of the Gerald R. Ford, which is the first major redesign of a carrier since the 1960’s-era Nimitz class.

The Ford is 83 percent complete and “we continue to see improvements on our performance on Ford and we continue to further increase efficiencies and to retire risk,” said Beci Brenton, a spokeswoman for the Newport News, Virginia-based shipbuilder.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, urged lawmakers to consider revising legislation that set the cost cap on the ship “to improve accountability of Ford-class construction costs.”
‘Operational Capabilities’
The Pentagon rejected that advice, saying all needed funding is already included, according to a written response to the report by Katrina McFarland, assistant secretary of defense for acquisition.

The GAO also found that Ford will deploy “without demonstrating full operational capabilities” because some requirements, such as increasing aircraft launch rates, won’t be met in time and will limit the carrier’s operations.

The Navy is confident that a ship will be delivered under the cost cap, said Commander Thurraya Kent, a Navy spokesman.

Deferring “some non-critical work, such as air wing berthing spaces, that are not required at delivery was done to allow the shipbuilder to focus his resources on the most critical activities to deliver the ship,” Kent said.

To contact the reporters on this story: David Lerman in Washington at dlerman1@bloomberg.net; Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net; Larry Liebert, Michael Shepard

Is there a link between problems with foster care in this country and incarceration?

Recently a group of reform minded people were granted a meeting with the head of the Michigan Department of Corrections.

During this meeting a very important fact came out which I was never aware of and probably most people in this country are not aware of this important fact:

Over 80% of the people locked up in local, state and federal prisons come out of foster homes.

This has apparently been well known by politicians and bureaucrats for a very long period of time.

Common sense would seem to dictate that the foster care system in this country should have come under very close public scrutiny since so much money--- public and private--- is spent on foster care.

I am sure there are some very good foster families because I know some; I also know some who just do foster care for the money.

Much of this foster care is related to the churches and given all the corruption, unethical and criminal behavior of so much of the clergy it would only be logical to conclude many people are in jails and prisons because of the failures of the foster care system in this country.

is there or isn't there a direct correlation between foster care and people being imprisoned?

Seeing as how the government has failed to investigate this I think we have to consider that there is a direct link between foster care and the high rate of incarceration in this country.

I would also note that many of these priests being found guilty of molesting young children have been deeply involved with foster care programs.

I am sure there will be some people who come forward telling me that I have no right to draw these kinds of conclusions based on the fact that 80% of the people incarcerated have been in foster care; however, I ask:

Why has the government failed to investigate this connection?

What will politicians in Michigan now do with this information?

And why aren't the reformers like activist Angela Davis who are so concerned about the prison-industrial complex bringing forward this fact?

The time has come to break free from the two-party trap.

Haven't we heard this talk of "fighting back" from these same millionaire labor leaders over-and-over again with no attempt made to mobilize the working class for fighting back?

What a crock of bullshit.

After tough election, labor leaders say unions are here to stay

by: John Wojcik

November 17 2014

tags: elections, labor, workers, unions, national

CHICAGO - Just weeks after many Republicans were swept into office three of the nation's top labor leaders declared at a public forum here Nov. 13 that unions are ready to fight what they expect will be a renewed nationwide assault on workers' rights.

"What happened in this election," Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO declared, "is that the vast majority of the voters stayed home." He attributed the massive stay-away to widespread disgust with falling wages, fear of the uncertain in both foreign and domestic affairs, a flat or declining standard of living and serious problems in the messaging that came form both major political parties. "The Republicans blamed everything on President Obama and there was no real message coming from the Democrats either," Trumka said.

He warned that the GOP should not interpret the results as "any kind of mandate for their policies," pointing out that when given the chance to vote on specific issues, "people voted overwhelmingly for hikes in the minimum wage. When polled they were overwhelmingly against any cuts in Medicare and Social Security."

Trumka was joined by Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers and by Eliseo Medina, former SEIU secretary-tresurer and currently a leader in the national fight for comprehensive immigration reform. The event was a forum sponsored here by the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics.

Gerard said the election results should also be blamed on "the record amount of dark money poured into the Republican campaigns. They, the Koch brothers and their like spent four and a half billion buying this election," Gerard said. "That's a record."

Trumka said the labor movement "can usually be counted upon for 25 percent of the vote. That usual 25 percent went down to 18 percent. Still," he noted, "the fact that 18 percent of the voters were union members puts our participation in the election ahead of our percentage in the overall population."

Nationally, only 11 percent of the workforce is unionized.

Trumka noted that because of the small size of the labor movement, unions cannot alone carry on the fight to defend workers rights and turn the country around. "This is why we are fully engaging with our allies in the community," he said. "Our values and what we stand for are in sync with the majority of Americans. We want to build a permanent coalition on as many issues as possible together with other groups," he added. Trumka noted that current efforts to build lasting coalitions with allies differ from past efforts by unions "which were directed at forming temporary alliances on single issues rather than ongoing coalitions around a number of concerns we all have."

Some in the crowd at the University of Chicago last Thursday questioned the enormous amount of effort unions have been putting into the fight for immigration reform. "Wouldn't it be better if we just froze all immigration for the time being, until the job situation improves?," one participant asked.

"That is not the way to deal with the problem we have," Medina said. "There are millions who are now here with their families. Their immigration status is being used to deny them their rights and this brings down conditions for all workers in the country."

"As long as I am president of the AFL-CIO," Trumka said, "our fight is going to be for full rights for immigrants. That is the only way unscrupulous employers can be prevented from playing immigrant workers against native born. It's the only way to resolve the problem."

Gerard said that when President Obama acts soon by executive order, to provide relief for perhaps millions of undocumented workers, "we [the labor movement] are going to have to get behind him and support him; the Republican attacks on him will be unrelenting," Gerard warned.

Trumka vowed that unions will continue their battle for civil rights on every front.

"We were down in Ferguson right away," he said. "During the last pesidential elections we made it clear that the one totally unacceptable reason for not voting for Barack Obama was that he was black. Equally, it would be unacceptable not to vote for Hillary Clinton because she is a woman."

Gerard said that there is work to be done yet in the area of increasing workers' understanding of major economic issues.
"People need to know, for example," that when the Republicans talk about the 'free market' they are talking about something that doesn't exist. No markets are free. They all have rules, it's only a question of who makes the rules for whom."

Trumka followed up on that theme: "People need to know, for example, that it was Milton Friedman from this university who first developed the extreme free market shock capitalism model and that it was no accident where he applied it first - in Chile where it resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and economic disaster that continues on some levels today."
He was referring to the right-wing economic policies instituted under the Washington-backed military coup that resulted in the death of elected socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973.

Come on; does anyone really believe this bullshit?

We have all heard this same talk from these big blowhard millionaire labor leaders before with nothing ever being done. They will do nothing now except what Trumka has more than hinted at--- helping to elect Hillary Clinton who is just one more puppet being worked on strings controlled from corporate boardrooms by the parasitical crowd of Wall Street warmongers.

As for what happened in Chile, the barbaric carnage and brutal repression orchestrated by a bunch of murderous fascist bastards working at Wall Street's behest, the AFL-CIO was working side-by-side with Wall Street bosses and hand-in-hand with the U.S. CIA; apparently a story Trumka and Gerard do not want to  fully tell and explain.

These never-ending dirty imperialist wars are making us all poor. There is always enough money for another war but never enough to fund the requirements of working class families for more decent lives. Trumka and Gerard are eating up this crap about a "populist economics" spewed by the likes of NAFTA supporter Robert Reich without any mention of how militarism and wars are robbing our Nation of the wealth created by workers which should be used to fund people's needs like health care and child care through National Public Health Care and National Public Child Care systems which are publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered just like public education.

The Democrats, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, are no better than the Republicans.

It's time for working people to break free from Wall Street's two-party trap otherwise we are not going to improve our lives and livelihoods; we will not have peace and our living environment will be unable to support healthy populations with clean air, water and land.

As for Obama and "immigration reform;" Obama has deported more workers than any other president and he has not ended these maliciously racist deportations where the only "crime" committed by these working class families has been seeking a better life through hard work.

Compare the way these "undocumented workers" have been treated like criminals to how this rotten Wall Street government has coddled Nazi war criminals who should have been dangling from the hangman's noose, but, instead, were provided with the highest Social Security payments as their dirty deeds were covered up.

 In fact, thousands of workers who have been deported by Obama were paying union dues--- and how have their unions defended them? Listening to Trumka and Gerard talk as if they are actually doing something to defend the rights of "undocumented workers" who are no different from any other workers and entitled to their rights under the United States Constitution, Bill of Rights and the words proclaimed in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights is enough to make one vomit. Mere words; no action.

The cause of workers leaving their homelands is Wall Street's exploitation of workers and the rape of their lands and resources and now these innocent workers are being used as scapegoats for Wall Street to hide its criminal dirty deeds behind. Just leave these "undocumented workers" alone and let them live here in the United States in the peace and dignity they are entitled to; they have had enough punishment for several lifetimes. If anyone should be locked up it is the Wall Street warmongers and the crooked, corrupt and unethical bankers robbing this country blind while creating havoc and misery all over the world--- not to mention these politicians being bribed by Wall Street.

Unions should be using their resources to organize the unorganized and to build a progressive working class-based people's party that has as its intent deep-seated reforms while challenging Wall Street for political and economic power.

To go along with a new people's party we need an anti-imperialist movement and working-class think-tanks all over this country in every place of employment and in every working class community.

As far as all this talk coming from Trumka and these other millionaire labor leaders about how we need a "new economy;" they are definitely correct about this--- but, what are they seeking? A more human capitalism and there is no such thing; never has been and never will be. What we need is what millions of Americans are supporting: socialism, a cooperative socialist commonwealth.


All these people who claim we have such a great democracy, let's find out what they think about giving the American people the right to vote on whether or not they want to continue down this dangerous capitalist road or get on the road to socialism. Capitalism is Wall Street's system; socialism is the workers' system. Capitalism is evil. Socialism provides peace and harmony.

Capitalism was evil at its birth and is even more evil today as it has grown into a barbaric monster of state monopoly capitalism with Wall Street the head of this most cannibalistic imperialist system that capitalism has become. Life for working people under this rotten Wall Street imposed capitalist system will never get any better; life can only get worse--- this is the nature of the beast. The rich get richer; the poor get poorer. This is the way the system works.

That what is supposed to be a revolutionary working class newspaper like the People's World would actually publish a story like this without comment and analysis that is so full of lies, excuses and misinformation is shameful and disgusting. No mention of the need to build working class Communist Party Clubs and united, militant rank-and-file committees and organizations capable of taking to task these millionaire labor leaders living the "life of Riley" off the dues they take in from workers who in return are only getting one bankrupt message from them: Elect more Democrats... when everyone knows that if there was a Democratic super-majority--- a Democratic president, all Democrats in the House and Senate, working class families would fare no better than they do now because the Democrats, just like their Republican counter parts, are part of Wall Street's two-party trap. The two-party trap is intended to trap workers and the working class. Millionaire labor "leaders" like Trumka and Gerard are part of this trap as they use their persuasive powers to push workers out of the streets and into the arms of the Democrats who work for the bosses.

And as for racism, every single community in this country is a "Ferguson, Missouri" with racist killer cops acting just like the black-booted fascists who trampled democracy and murdered a sickly Pablo Neruda in Allende's Chile; fascists who were being being defended in the same way as racist murdering cops by the AFL-CIO.

Has anyone heard Richard Trumka or Leo Gerard call for the arrest of this murdering cop in Ferguson, Missouri which justice requires?

The same military equipment being brought out against the people of Ferguson, Missouri who are demanding justice will be used against workers fighting for justice against the Wall Street bosses.

Workers paying union dues are not being properly represented by these millionaire labor leaders who don't have a clue as to what is meant by "the duty and responsibility" to represent workers when it comes to the most basic and fundamental grievances. How many grievances are just allowed to pile up waiting for filing in "the circular file cabinet"--- the trash can?

Trumka and his coterie of millionaire labor leaders refuse to stand up for the workers whose dues are paying their big fat salaries--- does anyone really believe these millionaire labor leaders have the moral and ethical integrity to defend the interests of the entire working class? They will continue to piss away the dues of hard working Americans supporting Democrats who are owned by Wall Street.

People aren't voting because there is no organized alternative to vote for.

Workers in Canada have their own political party--- the socialist New Democratic Party now challenging Wall Street and its junior partner, Bay Street, for political power. We should be looking north of our border to find out what Canadian workers are doing--- workers who recently elected a class struggle trade unionists to lead the Canadian Labour Congress; why is Trumka getting a free pass?

Robert Reich offers Hillary Clinton advice...

I told this to Robert Reich who is backing Hillary Clinton for President with the advice that she should mouth his "economic populism:"

Hillary Clinton intends to "ride your phoney populist wave" which is based on an "economic populism" that doesn't even take into consideration the adverse impact of Wall Street's militarism and wars on the economy.

Hillary Clinton will take your advice and talk a good line about an "economic populism" which is nothing but nice sounding bullshit who, like your friend Obama, she will forget about her "economic populism" if elected.

I wouldn't lift a finger to support Hillary Clinton who is nothing but a Wall Street warmonger and it is these dirty imperialist wars that belong to her as much as to Bush and Obama which are making us all poor.

Any economist with an once of common sense understands that when a nation pumps its wealth into militarism and never-ending dirty imperialist wars that wealth, which has been created by the very workers you claim so piously to love even though you sat in silence through Bill Clinton's welfare "reform" as you were a primary advocate of NAFTA which killed millions of jobs, end up poor as their labor is squandered on this senseless militarism and wars.

We might better ask the people of this country just to toss their pay-checks into the ocean rather than fund war after war.

Just what is Richard Trumka's idea of a "new economy?"

Richard Trumka held another one of his press conferences claiming he was expressing the anger of the American people over the direction of the economy but he failed to articulate that this is Wall Street's capitalist economy and imperialist system.

Trumka also failed to articulate an alternative economy that would best serve the interests of the working class--- which would be socialism.

Not only did Trumka fail to articulate the need for socialism, he failed to spell out and articulate the kind of real reforms required that would improve the lives of working class families because Trumka knows full well that this would require the working class to become engaged in the class struggle.

Is there really anyone who believes that what is good for Wall Street will be good for the working class when Wall Street's greatest profits are derived from what makes working class families suffer?

Are we fed-up yet?

I find it interesting so many of the people associated with the Citizens United movement claiming they are for getting big money out of politics were so heavily involved in supporting millionaire and billionaire Democrats as if these wealthy Democrats have interests in opposition to the Wall Street interests of Republicans when nothing could be further from the truth.


There is now plenty of time for these people to become active in 2016 campaigns providing alternatives to the two-party trap but do you think they will join us even though they piously and hypocritically claim they are "with us?"


Heck no; what we will be hearing from them, again, is that big-money Democrats exploiting labor and raping Mother Nature to amass even greater wealth for themselves is somehow better than voting for wealthy Republicans.


And they continue to ignore the plight of working class families suffering from poverty and unemployment while touting figures "proving" that this crumbling capitalist economy is somehow miraculously "recovering."


Isn't anyone else besides me fed-up with this bullshit being dished out over and over again playing us all for fools?


It's the same scratched record being played over and over again as millions of working class families continue to suffer with no relief in sight.


Perhaps the people of Ferguson, Missouri will be teaching us how to revolt to get results.


Are we fed-up yet?

Did Obama's supporters vote for him so he could work with the Republicans?

I think this is a question his supporters are going to have to answer.

Congratulations to the Green Party of Minnesota; their candidates did very well.

The Green Party in Minnesota did really well in the 2014 elections which should put them in a position to start winning.

Blame Obama and the Democrats.

Obama's and the Democrats' dirty imperialist wars, combined with the austerity measures being shoved down our throats to pay for these dirty wars, is what set the stage for this Republican comeback.



Those who speak of Obamacare being some kind of progressive reform have most likely never had to use it because most of the people I talk to who have used it have incurred horribly high deductibles shoving them into medical bankruptcies.



As for "saving the economy," again, ask someone who is unemployed or trying to scrape by from pay-check to pay-check and I doubt these people feel the economy has been saved.



People turn out to vote mostly for one simple reason: because they know, or think, their lives will be improved.



By putting twenty million unemployed people to work and ending these dirty wars, the Democrats could have won a landslide but, they, like the Republicans, are committed to Wall Street's thoroughly reactionary agenda.



People are just plain fed up and the only reason the Democrats got as many votes as they did was because the votes were anti-Republican.



If we started spending as much time working to build a new progressive working class based people's party for peace, social and economic justice which declares its intent to challenge Wall Street for political and economic power we would see big changes for the better with improved lives for working class families--- but, we won't be seeing any kind of even the most basic progressive reforms until then.



If we think about all of this, isn't this the reason people turned out in droves to vote for Obama the first time around thinking he would take the path of anti-Wall Street, pro-peace progressive reforms?



Obama lied. the Democrats lie. And this is what has people fed up. Thank Obama and the Democrats for a Republican controlled U.S. Senate and Republicans retaining and winning new seats all over this country.



But the Democrats will not be blaming their Wall Street agenda on their losses; they will be blaming the voters who refused to show up to vote for them because they felt betrayed between what these Dumb Donkeys say to get their votes and what they do once elected.


Already some mean-spirited and vindictive Democrats are starting to blame the very people they claim they are for helping by saying things like, "I hope all these people who didn't vote or voted for Republicans like losing their Social Security benefits and pensions."


Well, the fact is, working people have lost plenty while Obama has been at the helm of government and Democrats had a solid majority in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate when Obama first came into office and what did they do? They squandered their majority along with the wealth of our Nation on more of these dirty wars which are making us all poor while implementing Wall Street's thorougly reactionary agenda and bailing these parasites out to boot.

The hypocrites bandy about "facts" and "figures" as millions of children go to bed hungry.

Have you ever noticed how politicians, the pundits and the media always toss around "facts" and "figures" based on very ambiguous research but with all of their support for "individual liberty" and the "protection of individual rights" they aren't willing to talk about the misery of individual, living, breathing human beings who suffer the consequences of the wars they start, the poverty their policies create as they choose to campaign behind slogans of an improving economy?

We have a good example of this when it comes to unemployment.

We here the numbers about "job growth" and "economic recovery" as if we should just ignore the plight of more than 20 million workers and their families still living in poverty.

What about the right of each and everyone of these workers and their families rights to live free from poverty?

Please distribute widely...

PRESS RELEASE

PNN - NOV. 2nd 7pm - PROGRESSIVE JOURNALIST ROUNDUP

with special Guest Candidate for Lee County Commission Debbie Jordan

Join News Director Rick Spisak and his guests

from the Progressive Roundtable with Luis Cuevas Progressive Push, Alan Maki Union Organizer, Walter Barash Journalist, Ruthann Amariefio Progressive Journalist , Gwen Holden Barry of Here Be Monsters

and ...

Join us Sunday evening, November 2, 2014 at 7pm (Eastern) or any time

Solidarity & Peace

Rick Spisak, News DIrector, PNN

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/newmercurymedia/2014/11/03/pnn--progressive-journalist-roundtable

 

Rick Spisak

www.NewMercuryMedia.com/pnn.html

You won't find any Democrats or Republicans claiming credit for child poverty in their campaign literature

In newspapers across the country today there was a "little" tid-bit of information we won't see Democrats and Republicans boasting about even though the problem of child poverty is of their making:

"U.S. child poverty highest in 20 years"

Only a few weeks ago the front pages of these same newspapers blazed headlines about how the country has pulled out of the worst recession since the "dirty thirties."

Obama owns this child poverty as he has been in the lead squandering our Nation's wealth created by the very workers whose children are now living in poverty on more militarism and war after dirty imperialist Wall Street war.


http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-child-poverty-20141021-story.html


There is a very good reason why the greatest labor leader of the 20th Century, William Z. Foster whose base of support was with the rank-and-file, said the U.S. working class needed "a good strong dose of anti-imperialist education."


Our kids are going to bed hungry and leaving for school hungry as Obama spends millions bombing grain silos in Syria.


How much sicker can capitalism get?


From the L.A. Times:



"As the U.S. emerges from the worst recession since the Great Depression, 25% of children don’t have enough food to eat and 7 million kids still don’t have health insurance..."


If this is the best capitalism can do in the wealthiest country in the world how can the poor nations of the world be expected to end poverty?


Of course, no one wants to ask why these other nations are so poor. They are poor because Wall Street is stealing their resources using cheap labor and shipping our jobs to these impoverished countries.



Why has there been no examination of the child poverty on Indian Reservations?



Why are politicians allowed to "set goals" for eliminating child poverty without providing the framework with specific programs capable of ending child poverty?

U.S. Destroys $500M Planes, Sells for 6 Cent Scrap

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2787460/U-S-Air-Force-probed-scrapping-costly-planes-bought-Afghans.html


The United States purchased a bunch of planes for the Afghan Air Force.

They purchased the planes from Italy...

for $485 million dollars and the planes didn't work so the U.S. Defense Department sold them for scrap and got $32 thousand dollars.

Who paid for this?

Who made big profits?

U.S. Destroys $500M Planes, Sells for 6 Cent Scrap

Will voting for Democrats bring the change we need?

All kinds of Democratic Party front groups are sending out e-mails like this in the name of "fighting back."

But are "blame the Republican" statements like this really true?

"Need more motivation?  There is important legislation waiting to be passed on behalf of youth and students.  Republicans have been holding these bills hostage.

* In response to Ferguson and mass unemployment among African American youth, Sen Bernie Standers is introducing a bill to provide $5.5 billion to states and municipalities to employ one million youth ages 16 to 24.

* Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act cuts interest rates on student loans.  It was two votes short of stopping the Republican filibuster.

* Sens Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy are leading support to restore the fundamental protections of the Voting Rights Act and oppose voter ID and other laws that limit turnout of youth, African American, Latino, Native American and Asian Pacific voters."

If there was a solid Democratic House and Senate with Obama as President without any Republican opposition at all, would any of this proposed legislation pass?

The answer is obvious: NO.

This is another old election eve gimmick the Democrats have been using for over 70 years... bring forward legislation at a time to make it appear the Republicans are the only road-block to progress when they know full well Democratic Party super-majorities would not even pass the legislation because Wall Street controls them just like they control the Republicans.

Same old shit; different day.

All these organizations fronting for the Democrats with millions of dollars in resources and tremendous organizational strength in numbers have had plenty of time to build up united, militant rank-and-file and grassroots movements capable of forcing the Democrats to pass this legislation and they haven't lifted a finger to do this and now they call on us to use our precious votes to keep--- and put more--- of these worthless Democrats in office who they know full well would never pass such legislation.

We will never get people centered legislation in this country until we have a working class based progressive people's party for peace, social and economic justice bringing forward real solutions to our problems with the stated goal and objective of challenging Wall Street for political and economic power.

In other words, we need a massive anti-monopoly coalition uniting the American people against Wall Street's thoroughly reactionary agenda of dirty imperialist wars abroad paid for with austerity measures shoved down our throats here at home and a working class based progressive people's party capable of electing politicians who can be relied on to bring forward legislation in line with what the American people need and want--- jobs at real living wages not wars.

We need a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity;" is there anyone who believes Democrats will deliver?

Tribal government needs investigation and reform

Grand Forks Herald publishes Letter to the Editor by Curtis Buckanaga. Please read and circulate:

http://www.grandforksherald.com/content/letter-tribal-government-needs-investigation-and-reform

LETTER: Tribal government needs investigation and reform
By Curtis Buckanaga from Bemidji Today

Leech Lake is a $200 million-a-year corporation funded by taxpayers to provide services to uplift and empower its underserved and socio-economically challenged band members, who are historically disenfranchised.

Our tribal government operates under the Indian Reorganization Act, which Congress enacted in 1934 in hopes of encouraging tribes to become more self-determined -- even though our traditional governmental practices already had been proven effective.

Eighty years later, we learn that this is a detriment to many Native Nations, including Leech Lake.

For under this form of governance, there are no checks and balances to maintain order, accountability and transparency against the tribal council, whose members are the handlers of the annual $200 million revenue stream.

Across America, efforts are taking place to reform tribes out of Indian Reorganization Act standards. Most are being spearheaded by indigenous academic organizations, which research best practices to help tribes transition to culturally matched governments that let tribes reach their full potential.

At Leech Lake, those efforts have been discouraged and sabotaged by tribal officials, who mishandle taxpayer dollars to maintain dysfunction. These officials work with state and federal officials to create this dysfunction against the tribal members, who are misrepresented because most of the time, only 10 percent or fewer of tribal members vote in tribal elections.

As taxpayers, we are funding these ineffective tribal officials, who are not only abusing resources allocated to them by the federal government, but also oppressing the tribal members.

Yes, we have casinos to help us be less reliant on federal dollars, but the casino revenue is mishandled at the council’s discretion.

I am a citizen of Leech Lake as well as the United States. As taxpayers, don’t we deserve accountability from these individuals to whom we hand our money? Shouldn’t we call for the Indian Reorganization Act to be repealed to encourage reform and prevent the abuse of tribal people and their tax dollars?

Shouldn’t we demand an annual audit and report?

I’m not trying to open the door for bigoted criticism. I’m trying to raise some valid points about wasteful and wrongful spending of taxpayers’ money.

Curtis Buckanaga

Bemidji

Buckanaga is a former executive assistant for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.

Economic Recovery

With all the talk about "economic recovery" being an unemployment rate of around 6%, have you ever noticed no attempt is being made to ask unemployed people how they feel about being one of the "normal" unemployed people who are part of what politicians and "economists" are willing to accept as "normal unemployment" of around 6%?


And have you ever noticed no attempt is made to ask unemployed people who are unemployed yet not counted because of government requirements for statistics as unemployed how they feel about that?


Is the economy in a stage of "recovery" for people who remain unemployed?


Is the economy in a "recovery" for working class families trapped in a "cost-of-living crisis" unable to make ends meet?


Have you noticed politicians, pundits and these so-called economists never so much as mention this "cost-of-living crisis" all working class families are experiencing?


What we need to be asking is: "Economic Recovery" for who?


Let's not let any politician off the hook without addressing fully and honestly unemployment and the "cost-of-living crisis" both spun by reactionary Wall Street interests aimed at boosting profits by hurting working class families.


Isn't the right to address economic issues in an honest way part of a democratic electoral process?

Nothing but a bunch of morons running this country and industry at every level...

You know, the complete stupidity and arrogance of these Democratic Party hacks never fails to amaze me.

A few minutes ago I got a call from a Democratic Party hack in Roseau County who told me that "you should thank the Democrats for the Roseau Electric Co-Op and the network of rural electric cooperatives in rural Minnesota."

The fact is, these so-called cooperatives are nothing but bill collectors for the fossil fuel industry.
Anyone can read the musings of these morons and idiots they have managing these "cooperatives" to see this.

Just read the stupid things this moron, Tracy Stoll, managing the Roseau Electric Co-Op writes questioning the science involved with global warming and climate change.

Tracy Stoll made sure the members of the Roseau Electric Cooperative continue to get big fat bills compliments of the coal industry because he refuses to negotiate a long-term deal with Manitoba Hydro which creates its electricity through green, clean hydro cheaper than of the cost of coal.

Yes; thank a Democrat for your sky high and rapidly increasing electric bills because overpaid morons like Tracy Stoll peddle the corporate lies challenging global warming/climate change for the fossil fuel industry.


Tracy Stoll even lobbied Minnesota legislators "on our behalf" to penalize people who install their own solar and wind generators... could Republicans do us any worse?