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...

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Uniting People for Progressive Power Forum in Minneapolis

Really great videos of the Minneapolis Uniting People for Progressive Power Forum held on Saturday, February 15, 2014:

Part #1:

http://vimeo.com/album/2739033/video/86897833

Part #2:

http://vimeo.com/album/2739033/video/86897834

Part #3:

http://vimeo.com/album/2739033/video/87011603

Part #4:

http://vimeo.com/album/2739033/video/87011606

Part #5:

http://vimeo.com/album/2739033/video/87011605

Part #6:
http://vimeo.com/album/2739033/video/87026372



The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Wall Street greed.

Get ready for the same contingent of phony "liberals," "progressives" and "leftists" who sold Obama as something other than the neo-liberal Wall Street imperialist warmonger that he is to get him elected--- all of whom went on to betray us on health care and the Minimum Wage becoming a real living wage--- now going against us on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

I would suggest that you take the time to read this article from The Hill:

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/trade/198665-froman-makes-the-case-for-white-house-trade-agenda

and then Froman's speech itself:

http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2014/February/A-Values-Driven-Trade-Policy_Remarks-by-USTR-Froman-at-Center-for-American-P

If you only read the news reports about this speech and not the speech itself you will be sorry.

Obama continues to wage Wall Street's war on the working class, not only in our our country, but across the globe, by advancing the TPP.

Those who fear discussing "imperialism" and the socialist alternative to capitalism in its most decadent and barbaric stage of imperialism because doing so is some kind of "infantile leftism" are doing working people a great disservice.

Now, more than ever, we need to be providing the American people with and anti-imperialist education in building an anti-imperialist movement to fight against the TPP.

Those who "liberals," "progressives" and "leftists" who promote this idea are dividing our movements which would be capable of winning peace, real reforms, real change and most importantly challenging Wall Street for political and economic power:

"The emergence of an extreme far-right accelerated sharply in reaction to the overturning of the eight-year rule of the right wing with the 2008 election of Barack Obama, an African American and a liberal with a grassroots base and generally progressive agenda."

Obama has a right-wing agenda because he is carrying out Wall Street's agenda of wars abroad paid for through austerity measures here at home.

To suggest that Obama, the drone President carrying out Wall Street's thoroughly reactionary right-wing neo-liberal agenda, is a "liberal" with a "progressive agenda" is adding to the confusion that already exists in this country.

Such "analysis" is inconsistent with anti-imperialist education and building an anti-imperialist movement.

No matter what "spin" Ambassador Froman attaches to the TPP it is part and parcel of Obama's reactionary Wall Street imperialist agenda and this can never be "liberal," "progressive" or "left" by any stretch of anyone's imagination nor using linguistics to creatively twists and bastardize language to make Obama appear as something that he is not.

The logical conclusion one would have to draw from calling Obama a "liberal" with a "progressive agenda" is that imperialism is liberal and progressive.

Is there anyone prepared to make this assumption?

Would anyone believe this?

What "values" drive U.S. trade policy?

Isn't U.S. trade policy driven by Wall Street's insatiable greed?

Isn't this what the TPP is all about? Wall Street greed?