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, August 14, 2019

The working class needs an education...

What is with all the workers in Beaver County, Pennsylvania employed by Royal Dutch Shell applauding Trump's anti-worker Wall Street agenda and his attacks on their fellow workers?


This shameful behavior lacking any working class unity and solidarity had to be an all time low point for the U.S. working class.


Instead of applauding Trump workers should be protesting against him.


Shame on the six-thousand union workers standing up applauding for their boss' President.

There is a reason we need to talk about public education when we look for solutions to this health care mess

Public education is being undermined with exorbitant charges for everything from books to music and sports and school lunches and after-school programs.


Big business profiteers are undermining public education along with the bankers who keep our public schools in constant debt.


Every year the list of what students and parents need to pay for grows by leaps and bounds; this is unconscionable.


Public education should be free; and free from fees for books or school lunches or anything else.


School boards are dominated by real estate and other business interests who see public programs like education as a threat except when they can scheme and scam to make a profit.


The entire purpose of public education is being undermined by the likes of the John Bircher Betsy De Vos, Trump’s Secretary of Education.


Pre-school through university should be completely free, paid for by general revenue funds.


It will be a great day when the generals have to hold bake-good sales and public education is financed with a Peace Dividend.


The right wing believes it is only necessary to provide a limited amount of education for working people... just enough education to enable workers to be employed at their poverty waged jobs.


The intent of Wall Street is to eliminate public education... in the meantime these Wall Street investors will continue to undermine our system of public education so people lose confidence in public education so people will not defend public education.


The filthy rich are so arrogant they truly believe only their children are worthy of receiving an education.


Wall Street wants to return to private for-profit market-driven public education... their model for education is based on their private for-profit market-driven health care system.


No universal social program works better than public education when it is properly funded and properly administered and delivered by caring and concerned teachers and educational workers with empathy for our youth.


Public education...

Publicly funded.


Publicly administered.


Publicly delivered.

We need to build a National Public Health Care System around the model of public education.


Defend public education...


Advocate for a National Public Health Care System.


Advocate for a National Public Child Care System.


Pay for it all with a Peace Dividend and get the greedy fingers of big business, real estate developers, construction firms, book publishers and the banks out of the public till.

Justice requires freedom for Rodney Reed.

A black working class family of very limited means when compared to the massive resources of the state is fighting to prevent the execution of their innocent father, son and brother- the victim of a racist frame-up orchestrated to cover up for the real murderer, a very racist, crooked and corrupt cop, Jimmy Fennell.


Had there been a legitimate investigation into this heinous crime Rodney Reed never would have been arrested, let alone put on trial before an all white jury. In fact, the "investigators" of this crime were the friends of Jimmy Fennell- his fellow police officers and a racist prosecutor hell bent on a lynching with a judge who was no better than the racist, crooked and corrupt cops.





Please consider joining this struggle to free Rodney Reed...


Rodney Reed is Innocent!


Exonerate, don’t execute!

You can help by sharing and circulating this leaflet

Click on the leaflet below to view it in its entirety...


Free Rodney Reed; exonerate, don't execute.

I sent this to Texas Governor Greg Abbott today:


I would like to make an appointment to speak in person with Governor Abbott about the Rodney Reed case.


While Attorney General Mr. Abbott promised no innocent person would ever be executed in Texas.


Now, Governor Abbott is doing nothing to stop the execution of Rodney Reed.


Had the police and prosecutor conducted the proper kind of investigation into the murder of Miss Stites, Rodney Reed never would have been brought to trial in the first place.


Rodney Reed is the victim of a racist frame-up.


Please let me know when I can come in to speak with Governor Abbott concerning this matter.


Alan L. Maki

Will it be war or human needs... we can't have both.

How often have you heard reactionary politicians who are opposed to universal social programs and even the most modest reforms say, “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” followed by their favorite excuse, “There is no money.”


Anyone with an ounce of common sense understands everything has to be paid for.


However, there is such a thing as a “free lunch;” but, as a society we agree to pay for those free lunches for school children.


As far as there being no money for social programs, this is a matter of the struggle over priorities... why do those who say there is no money never quibble about the cost of militarism and wars?


Anyone capable of logical thinking understands that if you spend trillions of dollars on militarism and wars that money is no longer available to be spent funding “free school lunches,” health care, child care, public education or maintaining the public infrastructure; for much less than is being squandered on militarism and wars we could fully fund all of this.


Whether it’s Republicans with, “There is no such thing as a free lunch” or Wall Street bribed Democrats claiming, when it comes to social programs, “We must pay as we go,” neither party ever subjects spending on militarism and wars to the same scrutiny nor complains about spending on militarism and wars...


In fact, Democrats and Republicans join hands in overwhelming bi-partisan unity to keep increasing the budget for militarism and their never-ending dirty imperialist wars.


We have seen the failure of the Democrats to defend the New Deal reforms while these Democrats often join Republican attacks on these programs. A perfect example is how Obama appointed the reactionary Republican Alan Simpson to oversee the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform where he attacked everything from Social Security to the Food Stamp Program.


Democrats have rejected the “spend on people not on war” views of Henry Wallace, Claude “Red” Pepper, Frances Perkins and George McGovern.


We might as well be dumping the tremendous wealth of our Nation created by the working class into the deepest depths of the oceans for all the good this spending on militarism and wars is doing for us.


The most massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich takes place through military spending which further enriches the Wall Street merchants of death and destruction.


The corporate owned, dominated and controlled mainstream media and the over-paid pundits and professors use every conceivable means to steer us away from having this discussion about our Nation’s priorities.


And this is not going to change until the working class takes the initiative to organize its own political party...


A real people’s party that is both anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist not afraid to challenge Wall Street for both political and economic power.


Immediately we need to launch struggles for:


Ending these wars.


Increasing Social Security; no retiree should get less than $2,700.00 a month.


Cancelling student debt.


Creating a National Public Health Care System.


Creating a National Public Child Care program.


Fully fund public education.


Raise the Minimum Wage to a real living wage based on the actual cost-of-living; let any employer who does not want to pay workers a real living wage do whatever jobs that need to be done do the work themselves.


This discussion begins around our kitchen tables and must continue into our break rooms at work and brought into the public square.


We need to write letters, leaflet, petition, demonstrate.


The key to winning is:


Education.


Organization.


Unity.


Action.


We need to create a new kind of discussion focused on the politics and economics of livelihood.
Working people need to be empowered.


Winning is all about working class power.


Dare to struggle; dare to win.