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...

Thursday, March 23, 2017

The rotten apple didn't fall far from the tree



Anne Gorsuch Burford.
Anne Irene McGill Gorsuch Burford (April 21, 1942 – July 18, 2004), also known as Anne M. Gorsuch (/ˈɡɔːrsətʃ/), was an American attorney and politician. Between 1981 and 1983, while known as Anne M. Gorsuch, she served under President Ronald Reagan as the first female Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Gorsuch based her administration of the EPA on the New Federalism approach of downsizing federal agencies by delegating their functions and services to the individual states. She believed that the EPA was over-regulating business and that the agency was too large and not cost-effective. During her 22 months as agency head, she cut the budget of the EPA by 22%, reduced the number of cases filed against polluters, relaxed Clean Air Act regulations, and facilitated the spraying of restricted-use pesticides. She cut the total number of agency employees, and hired staff from the industries they were supposed to be regulating. Environmentalists contended that her policies were designed to placate polluters, and accused her of trying to dismantle the agency.

What kind of U.S. Supreme Court Justice will her reactionary son make?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Neil_Gorsuch_February_2017.jpg

What kind of health care reform?

People continue to ask me, of all existing forms of health care, including the many varieties we have and those being proposed, do we have a model in existence for the National Public Health Care System you and other socialists are advocating?


Yes; I think we have such a model of socialized health care in the VA (Veterans' Administration).


But, more importantly, most people identify with public education because they have experienced it constantly as student, parent, grandparent.


I think we should be pushing for a National Public Health Care System based on the model of public education--- even those who are trying to undermine public education in order to weaken it to the point where they can destroy it (think Trump and Betsy DeVos) don't dare to come right out and oppose the concept of public education.


A National Public Health Care System would be just as popular, if not more so, than public education which has been under constant attack by the right wing ever since it was brought into existence.


Our public schools are an integral part of our lives and our communities.


We should seek a health care system that will be just as popular because it really works for the benefit of the people.


And even when discussing the problems with public education, people can relate to under-funding, parasitical elements of profiteers who disdain taking their own advice to provide a fair day of work for a fair day's pay and end up feeding like gluttonous pigs at the public trough through which public education is financed, and everyone hates the over-paid public school administrators who view their jobs as keeping students and teachers in line with the backwards Texas Text Book Commission's idea of history and how public education is supposed to create people trained for specific jobs turning out profits for the few and cannon fodder for these dirty imperialist wars biding time until slavery can be re-established and we are free from integrated public schools.


Of course we don't want the problems now plaguing public education for health care. These problems can be solved:


Get rid of the for-profit free-loaders.


Fire the worthless over-paid bureaucrat administrators.


Get rid of the Texas Text Book Commission and the private, for-profit text-book publishers.


Fully integrate our public schools.


Bar and ban military recruiting in our public schools.


Focus on teaching reading, writing, math and science while providing a good solid liberal arts education. And teach history free from ruling class bias.


Most people understand that you can not have proper funding for schools while the government funds militarism and wars. The same goes for health care.


The millionaire labor leaders are content to say they are for single-payer universal health care out of one side of their mouth when their intent is to keep us mired in a health care system run by the insurance industry because they get extra pay for sitting on health insurance boards.


And Congressman Conyers can maintain a posture of being progressive with HR 676 as he and his wife take corporate bribes like the rest. Conyers has no intent to push forward HR 676 or he would be doing so now. Do you see him pushing his HR 676 in response to this Republican scam? No, he is defending Obamacare, the Democrat's own scam.


Like with anything, we all go through learning experiences on the way to real health care reform... Like most of my fellow socialists, I am confident most people will come to understand a National Public Health Care System is the only way to go. And it will make the road to socialism all the more smoother in a bigly way.


If we go forward into socialism with a good solid system of public education and a National Public Health Care System the transition from capitalism to socialism will be all the smoother with people confident socialism really works based on the education and health care they are receiving.



I have never met one single public school teacher willing to give up their tax-payer derived pay-check for a job in one of these private "charter schools." We can educate and train a core of doctors from the ranks of working people who will feel the same way about staffing a National Public Health Care System--- and this can be done quickly. All kinds of young people would rather be providing health care for their communities and neighborhoods instead of working at McDonald's or Wal-mart if we offer them a free education with a good job at real living wages at the end.


A National Public Health Care System would also be the very best job creating program... 800 Public Health Care Centers spread out in neighborhoods and communities across the country with thousands of satellite centers--- twelve-million jobs for far less than what the more than 800 U.S. foreign military bases protecting Wall Street's interests are costing us now.




Campaign for a “21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity”

We are fed up with politicians campaigning on promises of “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs” and then failing to make themselves legislatively responsible for attaining and maintaining full employment.

We are fed up with our tax dollars being squandered on militarism and wars instead of being used to create jobs by solving the problems of the people and defending our living environment… its time to beat swords into plowshares. Put people to work solving the problems of the people.

A National Public Health Care System would create over twelve-million new jobs paying real living wages providing people with free health care---  general medical, eyes, ears, dental, family planning and mental health--- through a network of neighborhood and community health care centers; this is a better use of our tax-dollars than wasting our human and financial resources on a far flung empire of over 800 U.S. military bases around the world. Or, it could be financed the same way Social Security is financed. Or paid for with  a tax on Wall Street transactions. Or financed with a combination of these methods. Public funding. Public administration. Public delivery… nothing controversial; just like public education.

A National Public Child Care System would create over three-million new jobs providing working class families with free child care.

We need to restore the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (C.E.T.A.), Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

“At Will Employment” legislation in states across the country needs to be rescinded and repealed to expand democracy in the workplace and provide workers with the right to freely participate in the communities where they live.

All attacks on immigrant workers, documented and undocumented, need to end.

Planned Parenthood needs to be defended and programs expanded.

We insist Congress and the president enact full employment legislation which makes them legislatively responsible for attaining and maintaining full employment; assure everyone who wants a job employment at real living wages in line with the actual cost-of-living.

Full employment would provide stability for Social Security; everyone paying in; everyone getting something out. A Basic Income for All must be guaranteed. Pensions must be honored and protected. The Wall Street swindle of pension funds must end; restore the Glass-Steagall Act.

Turn Habitat for Humanity into a massive public works project to create jobs and assure everyone has a decent home.

Free education through university; cancel student debt. End military recruitment in the high schools.

Unemployment and lack of a National Public Health Care System is the price we pay for militarism and wars. We are entitled to a Peace Dividend……... Let’s talk about the politics and economics of livelihood.

Where have all the flowers gone?

A lot of activists from the 60's and 70's seem to have become alienated and estranged from the struggles of today even though they remain intellectually connected but their activism ends like that of most liberals in that it doesn't go beyond empathy for those who suffer... and sometimes it doesn't even seem to reach the level of empathy... in fact, some seem to even be against empathy. I think this is too bad because many of these people have been through a lot and would have a lot to offer in helping to build and forge a massive all-people's coalition or some kind of people's front to oppose and stop Trump while re-shaping the priorities of our Nation.


And the once "super left wing revolutionaries" of the "New Left" who so despised those of us whose political home was in the "Old Left," are now supporting the likes of Obama and Hillary Clinton; their extreme far left ideas have morphed into counter-revolutionary ideas backing the very Wall Street imperialism they so despised in the past.


I'm thinking about Trump's proposed budget which is a Wall Street imperialist budget in that it transfers the 54 billion dollars slashed from social programs responding to human needs to militarism and war and will be used to fuel a new nuclear arms "race" even though this race has no opponent.


Obviously the Democrats are deathly afraid of a resurgence of left wing working class activism and they are doing everything possible to thwart the American people--- especially the working class, the youth, the seniors, and people of color--- from getting a good strong dose of anti-imperialist education that goes like:


The price we pay for these dirty imperialist wars is not having a decent National Public Health Care System based on the model of public education befitting the people living in the wealthiest country in the world.


Winning the peace and the reordering of our Nation's priorities is going to take all hands on deck and I sure hope my old friends from the 1960's and 1970's will begin to rethink their withdrawal from the struggle because we are up against a very powerful Wall Street enemy and we need them... but, if need be, I guess we can muddle our way through this without them, or even as adversaries supporting their new found Wall Street imperialist friends like Obama and Clinton and whoever they toss our way next, as they continue to bark and hide as the caravan passes.


Perhaps, from among the former activists, we will see a revival of activism this spring--- kind of the way dandelions pop up after a warm spring rain.

Corruption and scandal will continue to plague Trump and his Administration...

I guess what goes along with Donald Trump being the worst president in U.S. history is that his Administration will be plagued with scandal upon scandal... I wonder how many of Trump's partners in crime will be willing to keep their mouths shut to protect him and do his time?


It's time to give Trump and his cronies a taste of their own jails...


Throw these crooks and liars out.


Impeachment.


Then jail.