Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Please note I have a new phone number...

512-517-2708

Alan Maki

Alan Maki
Doing research at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

A program for real change...

http://peaceandsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-progressive-program-for-real-change.html


What we need is a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would make it a mandatory requirement that the president and Congress attain and maintain full employment.


"Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens"

- Ben Franklin

Let's talk...

Let's talk...

Friday, January 24, 2014

About government debt and deficits.

All the Wall Street pundits and economists want us to think that debts and deficits aren't a bad thing; however, they never point out that the ONLY reason we have debts and deficits is because for over one-hundred years the U.S. government has sought a way to fund war after war.

No one is supposed to ask what we are buying with these debts and deficits.

Why not?

Because to admit that the only thing we are purchasing is preparation for wars and wars would be unacceptable to most people in this country so these politicians keep talking about debts and deficits as if they are not related to anything although we are told the government couldn't get along without either.

Of course they never point out, either, that we pay the interest on these debts and deficits from which Wall Street bankers make a hefty profit.

This "new" industry is gearing up to take advantage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership... how do you figure in their plans?

An entire industry of consultants has sprung up to advise companies considering plant closings. No doubt the Trans-Pacific Partnership will give a big boost to the bottom line of this industry which got off the ground with NAFTA.

Some of the things they advise their clients on are:

Plant closing objectives
Pre-closing considerations
Schedule considerations
Budget considerations
Who knows what and when about the planned plant closure
Staffing considerations
Environmental considerations
Asset disposal considerations (the most detailed section)
Legal issues
Document retention
Raw materials, finished products, work in process
Relocation considerations
Engineering issues
Demolition considerations
Safety and risk management issues
Hidden values
Real estate issues
Bankruptcy: a special kind of plant closure
Suggestions

Do you think your future is part of their consideration?

How green are the peace and environmental movements?

Canadian Dimension which is produced in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in my opinion, is one of the best non-sectarian left-wing magazines around.

They just released an interview they did with Noam Chomsky concerning global warming and climate change:

http://canadiandimension.com/articles/5874/

Below is the comment I made in response to the interview:

The one important aspect of climate change the left keeps missing is the fact that Wall Street's very lucrative Military-Industrial Complex leaves the largest carbon footprint of any industry.

So, why have the peace and environmental movements, along with most of the left, failed to make this important connection?

I'm surprised neither Chomsky nor Canadian Dimension brought this important connection forward in this interview.

How much of what is produced from the Tar Sands will be consumed by the Military-Industrial Complex?

One aircraft carrier of the Nimitz class carries THREE MILLION gallons of aircraft fuel. Fuel for just 80 aircraft. The U.S. typically deploys six of these aircraft carriers during maneuvers, conflicts and wars. This alone is one heck of a carbon footprint and we still have to figure out what kind of carbon footprint is created manufacturing these aircraft carriers and planes...

And this example is just the tip of the melting iceberg.

Consider all the mining and manufacturing which goes into producing for militarism and wars--- what kind of carbon footprint is created in preparation for wars, by wars and rebuilding in the aftermath of wars?

There is a point to be made about global warming and militarism and wars which leads me to conclude that the most effective way to fight global warming and climate change is to fight for peace by "beating swords into plowshares."

For some reason all these foundation-funded peace organizations and environmental organizations don't want to acknowledge that the Military-Industrial Complex bears primary responsibility for global warming and climate change. Perhaps because the "great philanthropists" funding the foundations profit so handsomely from militarism and wars? 

If changing out light bulbs contributes to ending global warming and climate change, can you imagine the contribution peace would make towards this effort?

It seems our environmental and peace movements could use what the great labor leader and working class revolutionary, William Z. Foster, advised--- "...a good strong dose of anti-imperialist education..." connecting all the dots.

Obama is still trying to get us entangled in a war with Syria.

Here we are; five months later after a massive outcry of the world's peoples stopped Obama's reckless intent to wage war on Syria and Obama is still trying to get us into another one of his dirty wars... this time, again, against Syria but guess what? No one has been able to verify who was responsible for the "gas attack" we heard so much about. Why is this?

Vietnam had its phony "Golf of Tonkin" provided as the excuse for that war; Iraq had the phony "weapons of mass destruction" which provided the excuse for that horrendous war. "Communist insurgents" provided the excuse for dozens of savage and barbaric U.S. "police actions" around the world and here we are with Obama and his heinous, murderous drone attacks killing and maiming who knows how many people--- and for what?

And Obama is still tying to create yet another excuse for waging war against Syria.

Except for the imperialist pattern of Wall Street's agenda for world domination, this is all complete insanity--- with the American people so heavily in debt for all this murder and mayhem required to protect Wall Street's assets and profits that our standard of living is now plummeting.

Where this will all end if we fail to successfully challenge Wall Street's domination over us is anyone's guess... but, it ain't going to be good for most of us.

We are learning the lesson of what imperialism is in a very hard way because so many people refuse to study and learn the lessons of the past.

Mark Twain in leading the anti-imperialist opposition to the first U.S. imperialist war in 1898--- the Spanish-American War for which we are still paying (and still occupying in one way or another the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico) correctly called this a "dirty imperialist war."

The great labor leader and working class revolutionary, William Z. Foster, often said that the U.S. working class was going to continually need a "good strong dose of anti-imperialist education" unless all struggles to achieve better working conditions and improved livelihoods would result in failure.

Mark Twain and William Z. Foster have been proven correct in diagnosing the main problem of our modern era as Wall Street's imperialist agenda of wars abroad paid for with poverty shoved down our throats.

Beware of these dirty imperialist wars--- they are going to bleed us to death making us all poor as our very living environment is literally being destroyed by this huge Military-Industrial Complex so profitable to the parasitical Wall Street crowd.

This Military-Industrial Complex leaves in its wake the largest carbon footprint of any industry--- bar none; destroying the very air we need to breath and the clean water required for our survival while contaminating the ground we grow our food on.

Wall Street's imperialist agenda has spun a deadly web trapping us all.

Unless we quickly learn the nature of imperialism these Wall Street parasites will put an end to humanity as we know it.

The Wall Street capitalists--- full-blown imperialists--- like to boast of the benefits "industry" has brought to us... but, their boasts never seem to include this vast Military-Industrial Complex which is their most profitable (and deadly) industry of all.

Of course it doesn't help that a spin-off from this insane imperialist militarism and wars is another very profitable industry now completely plugged into the Military-Industrial Complex sowing lies, deceit and deception is this MainStream Media... but people have the responsibility, an anti-imperialist responsibility to help educate one another with the knowledge required to stand up to these greedy Wall Street monsters.

This Wall Street crowd needs to be challenged for power just as the British were challenged for power in 1776 and the slave-holders were challenged in 1861 and the auto barons were challenged in Flint, Michigan in 1936 and the racists were challenged with the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and these same warmongers were challenged as they waged that other dirty imperialist war in Vietnam.

The time has come to say "enough" of Wall Street's wars, racism and poverty.

"Enough!" of Wall Street's domination and control over us and every aspect of our lives and our society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGm74_KjBpc