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...

Monday, October 23, 2017

Are you considering voting “YES” on any bond proposals?


Are you considering voting “YES” on any bond proposals?

If so, you might want to check this out before you vote:

https://www.facebook.com/statesman/videos/10156039452884208/


It’s amazing how they are always telling us how small the increase will be in our property taxes but for some reason our property taxes keep going up and up. I don’t think these politicians know the difference between “fare” and “fair.” Vote “NO” on all of these bond proposals and when these politicians come up for re-election give them a dictionary and not your vote. As fewer and fewer of our federal tax dollars go for education and other human needs while these never-ending dirty wars cost more and more the burden of higher taxes is shifted to the state and local level... let the politicians get their priorities in order. It is costing us trillions of dollars to bomb schools and level a city like Raqqa, Syria with bombs when we should be funding education here in our own country. Maybe instead of sending school children out door-to-door selling candy and coupon books the generals should try selling candy bars to finance their stupid wars? How come we never get to vote on if our country should go to war? All politics ends up being local especially when politicians in Congress have messed up priorities.

Drone base in Niger gives U.S. a strategic foothold in West Africa







Not one single member of Congress knows how many U.S. troops are in Niger although these same politicians are making the ridiculous and unsubstantiated claim that these soldiers are "defending America" in Niger... how are these soldiers defending us in Niger? They are defending Wall Street's interests in using cheap labor to extract and steal natural resources--- oil, gold and uranium.





Why do we, as a people, need a "strategic foothold in West Africa?" We don't; Wall Street does.
It is not worth one single American life defending Wall Street's drive for maximum profits in Niger or any other country in Africa or any other place in the world:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drone-base-in-niger-gives-us-a-strategic-foothold-in-west-africa/2013/03/21/700ee8d0-9170-11e2-9c4d-798c073d7ec8_story.html?utm_term=.2b9d7bf94efe


Let us heed General Smedley Butler's advice:


Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC who became a fervent anti-imperialist.


War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.


I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.


I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.


There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.


It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.


I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.


I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.


During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.