Elected public official responds to my Letter to the Editor in the Bemidji Pioneer.

An exchange with an elected public official in response to a recent Letter to the Editor of mine published in the Bemidji Pioneer.

This was my Letter to the Editor...

Letter: We need a full employment act
By Alan L. Maki from Warroad on Nov 27, 2013 at 8:01pm

http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/content/letter-we-need-full-employment-act

The article in the Oct. 25 Bemidji Pioneer headlined “Minimum wage discussion draws full house at City Hall” left out a very important aspect of what a living minimum wage should be based on.

Fact: Working people without jobs are going to be poor.

Fact: Working people paid poverty wages are going to be poor.

Seems to me a real living minimum wage tied to real cost of living factors is a basic and minimal requirement toward ending poverty with government assuming full responsibility for attaining and maintaining full employment which is so basic to ending poverty that it would seem that any politician talking about “jobs, jobs, jobs” when campaigning for election would be the very first, upon being elected, to introduce legislation requiring that the president and members of Congress mandate the responsibility for full employment to themselves lest they be viewed as hypocrites.

Instead of voting to fund militarism and wars which kill jobs the same way they kill people, we need to elect people to public office who will enact a “21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity.”

Alan L. Maki
Warroad, Minnesota


Response from Steve Pemble an elected public official...

Letter: Some issues are easy to resolve, if you don’t use your head
Posted on Dec 2, 2013 at 4:15pm


http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/content/letter-some-issues-are-easy-resolve-if-you-dont-use-your-head


I just finished reading the letter from Alan Maki (Nov. 28) wanting to put an end to poverty. I thought, “yeah, I’m for that’! Mr. Maki is suggesting that politicians run on a platform of introducing a “21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity”, where government would “assume full responsibility for attaining and maintaining full employment”.

I’m not sure if he is naïve, or just uniformed (or both). Does he honestly believe government can solve the unemployment issue by simply “mandating full employment”? Why didn’t I think of that. Some issues are so easy to resolve, if you don’t use your head.

A couple of quick notes for you Alan: 1. The government does not have any money. It gets its money from the producers in this country (through taxation). 2. If you haven’t been up on the news or your reading lately, this government has been currently spending about a $1 trillion more than it takes in with taxes each year (that $1T is created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve and passed on to us, the taxpayers, in the form of debt).

We are currently printing money to pay the interest on that debt (while adding more debt). So with that said, how do you expect to pay all the salaries in your “full employment” fantasyland? (remember, the government has no money of its own). I’m only to assume you would have the government “mandate all private businesses hire more people” since we now know the government can’t pay them (it is impossible to tax enough to make your fantasyland work). Are you a business owner? How would you handle that mandate? Please explain how that will work?

I know how it would end. My advice, Mr. Maki: Please don’t ever run for any political office; you’ll give politicians a bad name (wait, that was funny). I would also suggest brushing up on your economics just a tad.

Steve Pemble
Bemidji


My response to Steve Pemble, an elected public official...

I am responding to a letter written in response by Mr.Steve Pemble on December 2, 2013. Mr. Pemble made the claim that his letter was a response to what I wrote about the need for a "21st Century Full Employment Act."

First of all, Mr. Pemble's letter was needlessly mean spirited; a personal attack.

Second, Mr. Pemble created an entire argument in response to what I wrote based on his own mis-characterization of what I wrote.

What I wrote was very clear.

I stated I believed a full employment act was needed which mandated the president and the Congress to work together to attain and maintain full employment.

Mr. Pemble claims I wrote that these politicians should mandate full employment; something quite different.

Mr. Pemble then went on to suggest that I should never run for political office because I lack the intelligence.

I would suggest that Mr. Pemble is either an example of the deceitful politicians holding public office in our country today or he has never learned to read. Reading implies being able to comprehend what it written.

The majority of the United States Senate voted for the "Full Employment Act of 1945" which used the same language I used. The majority of the U.S. House voted against the "Full Employment Act of 1945" after its primary author, Texas Congressman Wright Patman, was viciously attacked by those like Mr. Pemble who claimed the Act was something other than what it really was. Congressman Patman was accused of being a Communist and this was the beginning of the nightmare known as the "Red Scare" launched by Joe McCarthy.

I expect an apology from Mr. Pemble. An elected public official. I also expect him to state his opinion based on what I wrote in my letter of November 28, 2013--- "We need a full employment act" and not what he made up about my letter.

It is no wonder people don't want to bring their views forward when a public elected official like Mr. Pemble, would so viciously attack an individual based on his own fabricated misinformation.

While I have no intent of running for public office, it is because I don't want to associate with dishonest people like Mr. Pemble not Mr. Pemble's mean-spirited insinuation that I am too stupid to hold an elected public position--- after all, how intelligent does one have to be to hold public office if Mr. Pemble is an example of such qualification. It might be wise for the voters to send Mr. Pemble packing given his dishonesty or inability to read. No doubt Mr. Pemble has both a reading problem and lacks basic ethical integrity required to hold public elective office.

As for me giving politicians a bad name, Mr. Pemble; you have done this quite well all on your own without any help from me.

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Letter: We need a full employment act

www.bemidjipioneer.com

The article in the Oct. 25 Bemidji Pioneer headlined “Minimum wage discussion draws full house at City Hall” left out a very important aspect of what a living minimum wage should be based on. Fact: Working

The great pension fund and Social Security Trust Fund swindles and robberies--- from Detroit to Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range.

Thanks for getting this out about the Detroit pensions.

In fact, workers' pensions are under attack all over the country in both the public and private sectors.

Here in Minnesota on the Mesabi Iron Range, a rank-and-file miners' organization--- Hard Rock Miners--- has been organized to defend the pensions at National Steel, a major player in the taconite industry where workers are members of the United Steel Workers Union but corrupt union officials are working in cahoots with corporate executives and corrupt Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party politicians and pension fund "managers" (read swindlers) to cover up this enormous swindle of pension fund monies paid in by workers and as part of the contract agreements between the USW and National Steel and other companies over the years.

We saw what happened with billions of dollars of pension funds at LTV, before.

We have seen how these crooks in the unions have collaborated with these pension fund swindlers as they get paid huge salaries for sitting on these pension fund boards supposedly looking after the interests of the workers they are supposed to represent but knowing that they derive these huge pension fund salaries only as long as the close their eyes and keep their mouths shut as these swindles take place on their "watch."

For those who want to learn more about how these pension fund swindles take place and what can be done to fight back, I would suggest reading "Always Bring A Crowd, the story of Frank Lumpkin, steelworker" about the struggle of Wisconsin Steel Workers to recover their pension benefits.

We must remember that when these pension funds "disappear," they don't "disappear into thin air. What is actually happening is someone else ends up in possession of this tremendous wealth that has been created by workers and invested in these funds for their retirement years. 

It is the Wall Street shysters, often called "investors" and "bankers," who end up with this tremendous stolen wealth. 

It is ironic that when workers begin to inquire as to what is going on with their pension funds by asking very legitimate questions, they are treated as if they are trouble-makers. 

And when they ask politicians who have been elected largely with their support, they are brushed off by being told, "We are looking into this for you and will get back to you with what we find out;" only to never hear from these politicians ever again.

The politicians continue to hold out one hand in front of them begging for campaign contributions and votes from from workers and their unions, while with one hand in back and out of sight they are taking campaign contributions and bribes from these Wall Street shysters robbing these pension funds blind as their greed is no longer satisfied with just the exorbitant "management fees the derive from supposedly taking care of these pension funds.

We have experienced the same kind of swindles in the Indian Gaming Industry where these politicians and the United States Department of Justice have not only allowed, but enabled, crooked and corrupt outfits like Alerus who work in conjunction with the mobsters who own the slot machines to rob workers of their hard-earned poverty wages invested in these "pension" scams and schemes.

In fact, workers would be better off fighting to expand Social Security and prevent the politicians from dipping their dirty, corrupt fingers into the Social Security Trust Fund so all workers would receive decent retirement benefits they could actually live on rather than the meager and miserly payouts leaving so many retired workers mired in poverty in their later years.

Just think what kind of pensions all workers could be receiving today had all these pension fund monies been placed in the Social Security Trust Fund with all these funds protected from the clutches of these Wall Street politicians who have robbed the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for their dirty imperialist wars from which Wall Street derives the greatest profits of all as people suffer and die.

One has to wonder why the media is covering up how this swindle of the pension funds is taking place.

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council