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, December 17, 2014

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.