Form the "New Deal" to the "Great Society"... now is the time for socialism.

We have had “The New Deal” with Franklin Roosevelt. Most Democrats and Republicans opposed the New Deal reforms... it took huge coalitions led by working people and their organizations militantly fighting to force this package of reforms through Congress.



Then we had “The Great Society” with LBJ. Again, huge coalitions; this time of the working class and the racially and nationally oppressed people, forced Congress to implement reforms when Democrats and Republicans balked.



Now it’s time for “Socialism.”



Only a massive anti-monopoly/anti-imperialist movement led by a militant united working class can achieve socialism which is all about taking political and economic power out of the hands of the Wall Street exploiters who are the warmongering merchants of death and destruction keeping us on the path squandering the wealth worker’s create on militarism and wars instead of providing the kinds of socially useful and necessary universal social programs which will enable us to live in peace with the rest of the world in a society without poverty- in a society which provides us all with a decent high quality life with a good public education (pre-school through university), a National Public Health Care System based on the model of public education (publicly financed, publicly administered and publicly delivered), a National Public Child Care System, affordable housing and mass transit and real living wage jobs for all with the mines, mills, factories and the banking and energy complexes along with transportation coming under public ownership and democratic control.



We need our own working class based people’s party and a vast network of working class and community based socialist organizations in every workplace, neighborhood and community colleges and universities to win socialism which is working class power.



What you can do:



Start a socialist club where you live or where you work or go to school.



Begin a monthly book club taking up these issues. There are many good books to use like “Madam Secretary, Frances Perkins” by George Martin or a new book by Robert Caro, “Working.” These book clubs can be held in a home, church, library, union hall or community center or even at a picnic table in a public park.



Initiate public forums and round-table discussions around these questions.



Write a letter to the editor.



Circulate leaflets; ask relatives, friends, neighbors and fellow workers to sign petitions advocating for these universal social programs... don’t settle for the campaign gimmicks brought forward by the Democrats to hoodwink us out of our votes.



We must get people thinking beyond war and focused on peace. Put people to work solving the problems of people and society.



We need to get people thinking in terms of a National Public Health Care System not this phony Medicare for All which leaves the for-profit health Care System intact.



We need to get people to understand that the Minimum Wage must be based on the real and actual cost-of-living and legislatively tied to the changing cost-of-living factors and not some figure pulled out of a hat by opportunist politicians at election time- politicians who have no idea about the daily struggles of working people trying to make ends meet from pay check to pay check or worse yet, trying to live without a job, without a pay check.

We need to advance the idea that Social Security must become not a miserly monthly check but a real living income providing people a decent quality life in retirement and old age.




We must insist that there be a moratorium on all student debt collections while a solution to this problem is found and all student debt collections must immediately be taken out of the hands of the banks and private debt collectors who are acting like mobsters employed by loan sharks.



The defense of democracy is an important and integral part of the struggle for socialism. As such, Trump must be impeached and removed from office--- lie after lie, sanctions and tariffs instigating wars, an administration embroiled in corruption.



Democracy requires the full participation of working people in all decision making processes--- political and economic.



What happened to Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society"?







Forty-seven percent of the American people now tell the pollsters they are willing to consider voting for socialists for public office... these are your relatives, your friends, your neighbors and your fellow workers; these are the people we must bring into active struggle for socialism. Give these people something to think about by printing off these three articles on your printer and putting them in their hands for consideration... invite them for a discussion:



https://socialismtheoryandpractice.blogspot.com/2007/07/why-socialism-byalbert-einstein.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR2_VQ3KMBjRTNgzWZUqRE-qUhlf-OsdYF5F6Olq4zN64-yhnj17TQsu2nU


http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/47/v47i04p154-161.pdf?fbclid=IwAR10WtUWnkboVmYQ7is5l3sm2uNppjXM-OqcBgGUlg7fUy4qktNgYjt5ZgI


https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/climate-change-and-the-military-industrial-complex1?fbclid=IwAR1Mna2MojMxLCmqO1yp1E4W525-QNjLRZqv6z-_idt79YFehyCpz1zXsHM


Pass on the link to my blog where they will read things like this:



https://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/2017/11/one-of-my-blog-posts-hits-all-time-high.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR3S33wcNLBVhoTh9rkrJQmmU6slKHLOFlQfaTelpct263DCzf0ORzlJKdc


No one is going to build a movement for socialism for us; as working people we must do this together.



Each one of us is like a tiny little raindrop, we don't amount to much... but, let it pour!



Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood... the working class socialist politics of peace, equality and prosperity for all of us who create the great wealth of this country.



Capitalism is the system of exploitation, wars, racism and poverty through which the Wall Street bankers and employers get rich.



Socialism is a cooperative system based on peace, full equality and prosperity for all.



People before profits!

"Why Socialism?" by Albert Einstein... check it out.

Einstein wrote in this important essay in defense of socialism:

"...we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions.."

A thought about democracy from Canada

Glen Wreggitt from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada wrote this comment on Facebook which I think we need to discuss very widely. I would encourage you to share this thought widely:


Democracy doesn't mean the same thing to them as it does to us. To them, a democracy is a country that is 'open for business', which means 'open for exploitation'. A 'dictator' to them is someone who was democratically elected and makes policies that raise the standard of living for their people instead of 'opening the country for business', the business of enriching American corporations at the expense of the people.

Tolkien

We just saw the movie “Tolkien.”


It was a good, but slow moving and often boring, love story and anti-war movie.


There was only a very slight hint that Tolkien built his own stories around the Finnish Kalevala... the epic rune of the Finnish people’s Long enduring struggle of good versus evil around which the Finns created their powerful Communist Party and revolution that was drenched in blood.

But, I guess we can’t expect the Hollywood crowd to provide reality and truth... especially when it comes to war and the people’s struggles against the evils of exploitation, war, the destruction of our living environment and oppression resulting from slavery, feudalism, capitalism and imperialism.


I would recommend, in addition to reading Tolkien people check out the Finnish “Kalevala” and the “Communist Manifesto.”

Will jobs ever "return?"

Trump has lied about “bringing factories back from China.”


In fact, the Chinese own at least 51% of these factories.


So, what this means is that American corporations can leave China but they can’t take the factories and machinery or technology with them.

The factories will continue producing the same products and these products would have a competitive edge against any similar products produced here... good luck with that.


In addition, these manufacturing facilities set up here will not require many workers as we can seen from the new Stanley plant which intends to produce Craftsman tools in Dallas, Texas... this plant will employ few workers while using a very automated production process based on Artificial Intelligence where automation, robotics, computers are brought together by Artificial Intelligence.


And China is light years ahead of the United States with Artificial Intelligence.


For our own good... We had better learn to get along with China.


Jobs aren't going to "come back."


New jobs may be created but if they are, workers are going to have to militantly assert their rights in the workplace... fewer hours, more pay; decent working conditions, etc.

Steve Bannon

Steve Bannon continues to speak for the Trump Administration when it comes to trade with China and the guy has a few loose screws upstairs.

The Hollywood scene

Since Weinstein stopped producing movies it seems the quality of movies regarding any social content has severely deteriorated.



Hollywood has had a very weird culture for years yet no one ever took to prosecuting any of the other culprits.


I’m wondering if censorship isn’t behind the attacks on Weinstein?

This is not to suggest anything Weinstein may have done is okay.


But what is with all this crap coming out of Hollywood? Are there no screenwriters capable of depicting how rotten this system is? Or, is Hollywood involved in a massive campaign to divert people’s attention from their real problems?

Something all socialist working class activists might want to think about...

People are wasting a lot of time with the Democrats.

We should be putting some efforts and our limited resources into building socialist clubs in our communities, neighborhoods and where we work.

These kinds of clubs composed of a few friends meeting once a week, every couple weeks or once a month working together in an organized way can accomplish quite a lot.

But let's not get sucked into building the party of our employers, the Democratic Party... let these Democrats fend for themselves the same way they let us workers fend for ourselves.