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...

Sunday, March 10, 2019

What's new? Another day another scandal; another reason to impeach Trump.

Now there is a new scandal brewing around Trump with a madame who used to manage a brothel claiming she has been selling Chinese investors access to Trump.


Another reason to impeach.

A discussion were Bernie Sanders' supporters

A Sunday morning thought...


I will vote for Bernie Sanders when he is actually running for president but the Democrats will never allow him to get the nomination... that’s one reason so many Democrats each with their own constituencies are running... as they drop out they will endorse who the corporate Democrats have probably already chosen for us.


So, if Bernie Sanders really wants to run for president he will have to help start a new working class based people’s party.


But, I think it’s good people get involved in supporting Bernie Sanders because it will be an educational experience in how the Democratic Party is just another Wall Street party... the educational experience is good for people, especially for those who are slow learners.
I believe Bernie Sanders has entered this race to keep people trapped in the Democratic Party.
We are headed for Trump getting a second term and this is why he needs to be impeached and removed from office now; before he can do more harm.


Bernie Sanders isn’t very honest, either. He is pushing this scam of Medicare for All without telling people that it will come with its own huge monthly premium for most people... it will be publicly funded only to the extent everyone’s premiums are placed in a pool controlled by the government and paid out through a joint government-private administrator and the delivery will remain free-market for-profit.


Of course, none of his supporters will ask him this specifically just like they don’t ask him why he voted to fund a new generation of nuclear weapons and modernizing a military committed to imperialist interventions and wars.

I could go on and on and explain how his stands on other reforms are less than worthy of our support although they are packaged in a way they sound liberal, progressive and even left.


But, then again, Bernie Sanders has never initiated any kind of legitimate round-table discussions seeking input before bringing his schemes forward, has he?


If he did, he would get an earful; he would hear what he doesn’t want to hear... an honest discussion from grassroots and rank-and-file working class activists.


For instance; on health care he would hear about the need for a National Public Health Care System- publicly funded with a huge peace dividend together with a great big tax on corporate profits and a very small payroll tax, about one-tenth of the present Social Security tax, publicly administered without any corporations or banks profiting from the administration of the health care program... and publicly delivered by doctors, nurses and other health care professionals on the public payroll just like public school teachers- a system based on the model of public education but more progressively financed and with administrators committed to the National Public Health Care System not those constantly trying to undermine it. In fact, this is what any kind of socialist would be advocating and it would gain the support of the overwhelming majority of the people in this country and advocating such a health Care System would rebuild the historic coalition of liberals, progressives and leftists which would carry us forward to really solve many other problems and get us off this capitalist road to our demise and on the path to peace and socialism.


It is very telling that Bernie Sanders is so dishonest he doesn’t provide the particulars of funding for his so-called Medicare for All... and, besides, Bernie Sanders has been part of the Democratic Party caucus in Congress that has whittled away at Medicare with higher co-pays and allowing the doctors to establish their own fees... something Bernie Sanders has never so much as mentioned. Instead of improving on Medicare for All over the years the Democrats have made it more expensive for working people in their retirement years.


As far as Bernie Sanders and his stance on the Minimum Wage... he refuses to support making the Minimum Wage legislatively adjusted to the actual cost-of-living. This is the only fair solution.


On jobs, he is just like the other politicians... he talks about “jobs, jobs, jobs” but refuses to bring forward legislation that would make the President and Congress legislatively responsible for attaining and maintaining real full employment at real living wages... something Henry Wallace was advocating way back in the 1940’s when he broke free from the Democratic Party and ran for president as the candidate of the Progressive Party which brought together liberals, progressives and leftists.


Bernie Sanders has no solution to the crisis robotics, automation and now the merger of these with digitalization and artificial intelligence is about to have... how will worker’s losing their jobs live, what will be our quality of life and standard-of-living if we don’t nationalize the major corporations and bring them under public ownership and democratic control... which Bernie Sanders has adamantly stated he is opposed to doing?


We need real socialism not nice-sounding phony schemes if we are going to survive and live in a world at peace based on mutual respect and cooperation.


Bernie Sanders is playing a divisive role as he tries to separate socialists rather than bring us all together. There is a model in this regard and it was the very successful cooperation between socialists and Communists who built the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party into a united working class based people’s party that took in liberals, progressives and leftists as it elected two governors and all kinds of other politicians from township supervisors to members of Congress... only the most sectarian leftists stayed aloof from this party and refused to participate... this is the way forward.


Bernie Sanders and his supporters, and grassroots Democrats seeking honest politics, should be encouraged and welcomed into such a movement... but this won’t happen on its own... it needs to be talked about, discussed and debated in public forums... we need to bring this discussion into the public square very forthrightly because it is in the public square where this discussion belongs.


Honest people will welcome this kind of discussion not try to shut it down.