Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Biden, Trump and the media that gives us these fools.

We are seeing the exact same patterns from the media with Joe Biden we saw with Hillary Clinton...


They never exposed her lies as they presented Hillary Clinton as the candidate best able to defeat Trump.


Then they allowed Trump to tear her apart.


They are now doing the same thing with Joe Biden...


They are setting Biden up to be torn apart by Trump.

Trump's stimulus package

Trump’s “stimulus package” is based on a real cold calculation his number crunchers came up with.


He intends to pay for this by intentionally letting our elderly population die from the coronavirus.


What will be saved over time in Medicare and Social Security payments will pay for his Wall Street bailout while he thinks working people will settle for a miserly check or two.


This is the way these fascist bastards think and do things

Just put it on your credit card.

The advice to working people from a real capitalist politician:


Don’t worry about the bills, just use your credit card.

The face of corruption in the U.S. Senate

Two things about this story:


One: How did he know to sell?


Two: Did he use insider information.


Oh; there is a third question, isn’t there:


Being on the Intelligence Committee did he know that the United States government labs are responsible for creating this deadly virus?


Why didn’t this wealthy Republican Senator share the information he had with the public so everyone could have bailed out of the stock market like he did... so much for being concerned about the welfare of the people and the economy...


Oh... the economy:


Since these politicians knew what was coming why didn’t they take measures to defend the economy instead of just worrying about their own stock portfolios?


Lots of criminal activity requiring a Congressional investigation here...


But!


Did a bunch of members of Congress look out for their own personal fortunes before considering the well-being of the country?


And is that why there hasn’t been one peep about the need for an investigation into all of this blatant corruption?



Richard Burr belongs in prison and so do those others who committed the same crime. This is one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history.

Are you sick of the corruption?

The other day I said most people in this country don’t even know what they just witnessed.


Heck, what I should have said is most people in this country don’t even know they just got fucked over by their own government.

Jail the Senate insider traders

Why does it take the truth so goddamn long to leak out in our great bastion of freedom and democracy?


This is sheer treason in the full sense of the word. These Senators put their financial interests before the health of our entire Nation.


If this isn’t treason; what is treason?


This is the betrayal of our country and the American people.


“The Criminal Justice Act 1990 abolished the death penalty, setting the punishment for treason at life imprisonment, with parole in not less than forty years.”


Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) each sold millions of dollars in stocks within days of the Senate holding a classified briefing on Jan. 24 with Trump administration officials on the threat of the coronavirus outbreak.


Criminal Penalties for Insider Trading:


“The maximum prison sentence for an insider trading violation is now 20 years. The maximum criminal fine for individuals is now $5,000,000, and the maximum fine for non-natural persons (such as an entity whose securities are publicly traded) is now $25,000,000.”


Martha Stewart went to prison for much less of a crime; what makes these wealthy public officials who violated the public trust immune from prosecution?

Insider trading in the U.S. Senate... looking after their own stock portfolios instead of protecting pensions.

At least four U.S. Senators used insider trading to protect their own personal fortunes.


These United States Senators never lifted a finger to protect the pensions and 401k’s of tens of millions of working people as their hard earned savings were stolen out from under them by the Wall Street swindlers.


And you are going to keep voting for these politicians?

Trump and his "honorable" people

Trump says he finds the Senators who engaged in the treasonous insider trading scandal to be “honorable people.”


This says everything we need to know about Trump.

Corruption in the U.S. Senate

Diane Feinstein accused China of delaying getting out information about the coronavirus yet she withheld critical information from the American people while she was protecting her own stock portfolio.

Forgivable loans for business... bill collectors for students

Why is Trump giving “forgivable loans” to businesses?


Should students have been given “forgivable loans?”

A new party needed along with mass struggle

If we are going to win against these sleazy, crooked and corrupt politicians we must understand the organization has to be built outside of the Democratic Party with the understanding any honest Democrats will join us in our struggles and on our terms... not their phony “Resistance” which is as phony as the Democratic Party itself.


We need a new party.


We need to build organizations capable of building mass movements.


And these mass organizations will have to fight for real solutions to our problems not fall for these slick campaign gimmicks intended to suck us in to the Democratic Party which is part of Wall Street’s two-party trap.

Something to think about... as Trump prepares to suspend the Constitution and Bill of Rights

Here is something everyone is going to have to think about...


Why are all these politicians making plans in secrecy concerning our health and well-being rather than making plans and decisions openly and in full view with the involvement of the citizenry?


And now we learn secret plans have been made to “suspend the Constitution.”


In many places like Lake Worth Beach, Florida which has a huge population living in poverty with much of the population people of color, during this time of crisis and government restrictions being imposed, the government shut off water and the people had other services like electricity turned off for failure to pay their bills on time and then they are ordered to stay in their homes.


Now, Trump says one thing pretending to be all compassionate with this hypocritical feigning of empathy, while on the other hand all of these heavy-handed measures are being used against the people.


And we are led to believe the National Guard and the military is being mobilized to help people when there is another totally different scenario unraveling...


Trump and these politicians know people will not tolerate being treated in this way and the government is preparing to wage war against the people.


This government is intent on making the American people pay for an economic crisis that was already in the making using the coronavirus as a pretext to bailout the Wall Street banks and corporations...


Crisis capitalism... any crisis is used to erode and subvert the Constitution and Bill of Rights as the banks and corporations get bailed out of the mess they created in the first place.


And we must take seriously the accusation being made by the Chinese that this coronavirus has its origin in a U.S. bio-warfare lab... if this all wasn’t by intent and design, Trump and these sleazy corrupt politicians sure are taking advantage of this pandemic to the hilt to carry out their reactionary agenda.


The way they are intentionally mismanaging this health care crisis can’t possibly be by accident or even attributed to sheer stupidity or lunacy- Trump’s two better traits.


Trump’s continued intentional racist characterization of the coronavirus as a “Chinese virus” is a sure sign that he had a hand in making the decision to start this deadly pandemic; it’s characteristic of the bully who starts a fight and then blames the violence on the victim... Trump has done this incessantly, always using racism and bigotry, when it comes to every problem... he creates the problem then blames the victim and then he gives himself credit for solving the problem even though the problem he created hasn’t even been resolved... so why wouldn’t we think Trump has had a hand in setting this coronavirus free against humanity?


Remember, the economy was already collapsing well before the coronavirus ever entered the scene and Trump was claiming the economy was sound... not just sound, but he used all of his stupid adjectives he always attaches to each of his lies.


Keep in mind, the Trump Administration has plans to suspend the Constitution and Bill of Rights for the states purpose, not for the health of the Nation, but for the stated purpose of arresting and indefinitely detaining people without trial.


If anyone should be arrested and indefinitely detained it should be Trump and all of these sleazy crooked and corrupt politicians.


How can we trust politicians to do what is right by us after they intentionally delayed action that would have protected the health of tens of thousands of people from this deadly virus and the pensions and 401k’s of tens of millions of people they take an oath to protect and defend and used what they learned in secret meetings and hearings to protect their own financial interests and make a fortune off this crisis to boot?

Mass struggle is needed to win a better life

It’s easy to become frustrated and pessimistic about life in these very troubled times thinking people are not going to act in a way to make things right as these sleazy, crooked, corrupt, lying and Wall Street bribed politicians try to drag us down the road to hell.


But, we have to remember there is an equation that must be followed if we are going to be successful in turning things around:


Education plus Organization plus Unity in Action equals Victory.


We will will all have to pitch in and do what we can... we must articulate our problems and we must articulate the solutions we are seeking and not allow these politicians who are never in our side but always end up siding with the Wall Street parasites and vultures but only after they have tricked us into believing they are working for us... they turn out a good spiel of campaign gimmickry, just enough to make us think they are working for us and taking care of our problems so we don’t organize and then then stick a knife in our back before we can figure out what is going on. Then we wonder how the heck did this happen?


We should know by now since Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have led the Democrats in doing this to us over and over again for many decades. And they are doing it again right now.


We, as working people, we need our own organizations and a new political party... let the honest Democrats join with us rather than us getting sucked into the treachery and betrayal that is our lot when we allow and enable a bunch of opportunist politicians to manipulate us.


The Democrats will never advance a working class agenda for peace, social and economic justice in defense of democracy and the Constitution and Bill of Rights... we need our own organizations and our own party to advance our own working class agenda... why would we think any politician accepting bribes from our Wall Street enemies would ever be on our side?

No one is joking about the coronavirus anymore

Trump and his Republican colleagues made fun of, and cracked jokes, about the coronavirus when it was in China instead of taking the proper measures to educate people and his supporters can still be found who are saying this is all some kind of concoction created by the Democrats and “fake news” to scare people.


So, once, again, we find Trump creating a problem and then claiming he has nothing to do with the problem as he claims everything is under control when nothing could be further from the truth... so far from the truth that he is going to have the police and military enforce measures in response to the problem Trump created in the first place by not taking this deadly disease seriously... using it instead to spread his racist poison and bigotry.

Money vs human lives

China risked its socialist economy combating the coronavirus- people first; the only thing Trump thinks about is saving the capitalist economy and “The Market” with people being a second thought if even that... money, money, money this is the only thing that concerns this billionaire moron Trump.


What a contrast between two systems.

Say "no" to Trump's anti-Chinese racism

Trump continues his racist use of “Chinese virus.” Isn’t it time he be challenged? It shouldn’t be up to the Chinese people alone to condemn this racist attack.

Everything is skyrocketting according to Trump

Trump talks about a “skyrocketing economy;” the only thing skyrocketing are deaths from the coronavirus.

Trump's anti-Chinese racism

(CNN) The chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American caucus on Saturday said it is "dangerous" for President Donald Trump to continue referring to Covid-19 as the "Chinese virus" at a time when misinformation has led to racist and xenophobic attacks against Asian Americans or anyone in the US who looks East Asian.


"It is dangerous for him to continue calling it the Chinese coronavirus," Rep. Judy Chu, a California Democrat and the first Chinese American woman elected to Congress, told CNN's Victor Blackwell on Saturday. "He is creating more xenophobia every single time he does that. And we can see the results in what's happening to Asian Americans across this country."

When the government bails out a company the government should own the company or at least get equity in the company

Trump wants to bail out Carnival Cruise... why not simply nationalize the company?


In 2002 the Carnival Corporation pleaded guilty in United States District Court in Miami to criminal charges related to falsifying records of the oil-contaminated bilge water that six of its ships dumped into the sea from 1996 through 2001. The Carnival Corporation was ordered to pay $18 million in fines and perform community service, received five years' probation and must submit to a court-supervised worldwide environmental-compliance program for each of its cruise ships.[38]


For dumping oiled waste into the seas and lying to cover it up, Princess Cruise Lines was fined $40 million in 2016. According to federal authorities, it was the "largest-ever criminal penalty" for intentional vessel pollution. Officials said that these practices began in 2005 and persisted until August 2013, when a newly hired engineer blew the whistle. As part of its plea agreement, ships of the parent company Carnival Cruise lines were subjected to a court supervised environmental compliance plan for five years.[39]


For violation of the probation terms of 2016 Carnival and its Princess line were ordered to pay an additional $20 million penalty in 2019. The new violations included discharging plastic into waters in the Bahamas, falsifying records, and interfering with court supervision.[40]

Do you want to send me to Washington to lobby on behalf of the working class?

Are you fed up yet?


Do you want to send me to Washington to lobby on behalf of the working class?


All the politicians in Washington claim they are doing what they do for the workers in this country yet those of us workers who produce the wealth of this Nation now being squandered on militarism and wars along with bailing out the Wall Street banks and corporations have no voice nor seat at the table in the decision-making process... this is not democracy.


Make no mistake about this: labor with no small amount of help from Mother Nature creates all wealth.


Unemployment is headed for a forty-year high with many economists predicting unemployment levels could far surpass those levels of the Great Depression of the 1930’s as Trump tells states they should not release the data on unemployment.


On top of this, we learn this coronavirus is being used by Trump’s Attorney General as an excuse and pretense to “suspend the Constitution and Bill of Rights;” another move towards fascism rather than citizen participation in the democratic process.


Emergency measures are needed now.


Our entire health care system should be nationalized and place under public control so we can bring an end to this pandemic with the intent to create a National Public Health Care System as the final outcome... a system based on the model of public education which has served us so well: Publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered.


A basic income guarantee: $2,000.00 a month for every adult and $100.00 a month for every child in the family.


Fund these emergency measures by ending these dirty imperialist wars and taxing the super-rich millionaires and billionaires.


The Wall Street banks and companies we bail out we must get equity in, and a seat at the decision-making table; or, in the alternative, these banks and monopolies must be nationalized and brought under public control.


We need a “Twenty-First Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity for All”... the president and Congress must be made legislatively responsible for attaining and maintaining full employment with real living wage jobs... a National Public Health Care System providing the American people with free health care through community and neighborhood health care centers would cost far less than what it is now costing to maintain over 850 U.S. military based on foreign soil protecting Wall Street’s investments... and, this would create over twelve-million jobs paying real living wages.


It’s time we once again begin talking about real living wages based on the actual cost-of-living so everyone in this country has a decent standard-of-living.


Had we been investing in education, science and health care (all of which create jobs) instead of militarism and these dirty imperialist wars we would not be in the mess we are in today with this corona virus pandemic and an economy on the verge of total collapse.


Working people must speak up; we must assert ourselves in defense of our health, our livelihoods and our rights.


We must insist we have a voice in the decision-making process because these Wall Street bribed politicians are never going to do what is right by us or the Nation.


We must not continue to surrender our votes getting nothing in return and we must learn to use mass struggle, in addition to our votes, to get what we want and what we are entitled to because our labor creates the wealth of the Nation... the millionaires and billionaires who have been hoarding this wealth we have created and use that wealth to control the political life of this country create diddly-squat.

Everyone has a voice in Washington... except for the working class

Something to think about:


The working class of this country has no voice to lobby for us in Washington.


Hint:


Maybe this is a big part of the reason we always end up holding the shitty end of the stick even though we create all the wealth?

Shopping and the coronavirus... a new experience

I just went shopping today for the first time in Trump’s new America at H.E.B. and I don’t think things are going to be alright based on my experience.


Waiting in line to get into the store two men cut in front of me. When I said something they just pretended I wasn’t there and the monitor responsible for preventing such rudeness just shrugged his shoulders.


Many prices were raised on staples, especially meats; capitalist price-gouging taking advantage of us during these circumstances.


Many items had strict limits posted.


Many people wore masks or gloves often both.


At the checkouts there were little red signs on the floor to assure six foot spacing.


By the time I got out of the store there was a long, long line of people waiting to get in.


Welcome to Trump’s new America.

The line cutters

I have been to two places today and experienced people cutting in front of me.


I just left the Lakeway UPS store. I was waiting in line with four people behind me and a woman comes walking up right in front of me.


When I ask her what she is doing she says, “I’m in a hurry.”


I told her, “Yes, you are the only person in such a hurry you have to just cut in front of everyone.”


She didn’t respond nor did she go to the back of the line.


Must have been a Trumper.

Health insurance costs skyrocketing instead of the economy

Just received notice that my Medicare Supplemental insurance went up over 20%.


So much for Trump’s great for-profit driven free-market health care scam.

Which came first... a collapsing capitalist economy or coronavirus

Can any thinking person still argue that the capitalist economy is not in the process of collapsing?


But, the source of the problem is a crisis of overproduction- in other words, workers are so underpaid they can not afford to buy back what they have produced.


The coronavirus did not cause this economic collapse but was a factor in making the crash come faster and harder.


It’s going to be a long, long time before the capitalist economy “rebounds.” Many people will now suffer as Wall Street tries to place the burden of this economic crisis on the backs of the working class... but the richest of the rich will make huge profits from the misery they have created by being so greedy.


Like with the coronavirus, many of the filthy rich will suffer the consequences of the monopoly capitalist economic crisis, too; but they will not suffer like working class families even though they will cry the loudest.

NPR = Neo-liberal Public Relations.

Listened to NPR (National Public Radio) take up Steve Bannon’s line that included a racist, anti-Communist diatribe of outright lies and slander against China.


Shameful.


Disgusting.


NPR = Neo-liberal Public Relations.

Trump and unemployment

Over two-million workers have signed up for unemployment benefits in the past week.


Trump has stopped talking about the great employment figures.

Trump and health insurance

Trump is allowing the health insurance industry to rip-off the American people during this health care crisis.

U.S. foreign policy and China... should workers join the China bashing?

I have been listening to different Democratic Party groups and politicians...


They have joined Trump-Pompeo-Bannon-Bolton in a viciously racist anti-Communist red-baiting attack on China and the Chinese people.


This China bashing has grown to a level more severe and pernicious than that of the McCarthy era when liberal-minded, and progressive-minded, public officials employed to carry out U.S. foreign policy regarding China were hounded out of the State Department and other government posts because they told the truth that Mao’s Communist Party had the overwhelming support of the Chinese people after first helping the United States drive the Japanese imperialists from Chinese soil and then driving out the reactionary Chinese nationalists.


No country, in spite of many twists and turns and setbacks- and such massive opposition and pressure from the imperialist countries- has ever lifted so many people out of poverty and developed an advanced economy so quickly.


This scandal of driving these far-sighted public officials from government and public life involved those known as “the China Hands.”


And U.S. foreign policy towards China has been mired in a reactionary agenda ever since for over 70 years which has been detrimental to both our own people and the Chinese people and the rest of the world which is now detrimental in fighting the coronavirus as we can all see.


It is up to working people to assert our voices for developing good relations with China and the Chinese people.


We will need this friendship with China to extract ourselves from this collapsing capitalist economy.


It’s probably too late to do anything together in way of fighting this coronavirus and we are going to pay dearly for this anti-China policy.

Are you willing to suffer so the billionaires can profit?

Are you willing to suffer, and see your family and friends suffer, so these billionaire Wall Street oligarchs can try to save their rotten capitalist system?


As you can see, Republicans and Democrats have no problem agreeing to bailout the Wall Street banks and huge monopolies even though they can get their own loans almost at no interest now...


these same politicians who are bailing out Wall Street, again, turn around and tell us to use our own credit cards to survive- with loan-shark interest rates of over 20% as they pretend they are going to make miserly payouts to us which only end up going into the coffers of big-business, too.

"The China Hands" and Trump's hatred of China

At this time it is very important to understand the historical roots of the very chauvinistic, jingoistic, racist, right wing reactionary ideology towards China being embraced by this thoroughly corrupt Trump Administration and its Nazi-like ideologues including Steve Bannon, John Bolton and Stephen Miller.


This book is a must read for anyone who wants to really understand where this insane hatred of China, the Chinese people and their Communist Party is coming from 1948 to today.


And this very pernicious campaign of hate towards China, its people and their heroic socialist revolution must be understood if we are going to get our country off the path to war.


I can’t stress enough the importance of this book towards understanding and grasping what is going on and why it is going on.


The Chinese Communist Party, in spite of many problems and zigs and zags that come along with creating a new socially and economically just society after decades of brutal imperialist occupation and exploitation, has never deviated from its peaceful pursuits and good relations with everyone...
obviously the same can not be said for U.S. imperialism and the other centers of imperialism...


Read this book and learn about our own country’s sordid history towards China before joining our Wall Street enemies in condemning a heroic people and their accomplishments...


Is it time to tell the millionaire and billionaire employers to take their jobs and shove it?

Maybe everyone should just stop risking their lives working and let these fucking millionaires and billionaires do the work themselves?

Censorship and democracy

There is widespread censorship taking place in this country right now.


Trump is setting the tone for this; you may have noticed the way he picks certain reporters to viciously attack and demean?


This is the signal he is giving for wider censorship.

Trump vs Fauci

On Monday, (March 23, 2020) The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump is “losing his patience” with virologist and coronavirus task force official Dr. Anthony Fauci — who has frequently contradicted him when he has made false medical claims about the spread or prevention of the disease.

Bernie Sanders and his infatuation with social democracy in Denmark...

Bernie Sanders is big on the Danish model of social democracy, or so he says, so I wonder why he isn’t proposing the Danish scheme for paying unemployed workers here in the United States?

A message to Democrats and Republicans...

Close the gaps... $2,000.00 a month for every adult and $100.00 a month for every child in the family... argue about the rest later.

My Tweet to Chuck Schumer

My Tweet to Chuck Schumer:


‪All you are doing is holding up payments to working class families playing your stupid games. You Democrats bailed out Wall Street and did nothing for working people before. Stop the hypocrisy.‬

Bare shelves... no toilet paper

The capitalists left the shelves bare in the supermarkets to punish the Venezuelan workers and peasants for taking the road to socialism.


What is the reason for all the bare shelves in our supermarkets across this country today... where people fight over toilet paper and paper towels and eggs and milk and even hotdogs?


Remember how all of these politicians and pundits mocked the bare shelves in Venezuela?

More on long lines

Remember when they told us socialism resulted in long lines waiting to purchase bread?


How long of a line do you have to stand in now to get a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs and a gallon of milk?


Lines, lines, lines... do we judge a society by the length of lines at the grocery store?


How long did you have to wait in line to pay for your bread, eggs and milk... in this great America?

American exceptionalism

Once again we see “American exceptionalism” being brought forward as Trump and the politicians demand we must put up with scarcity and capitalists looking to make a quick buck from our problems.


We are being told we must put up with scarcity, empty shelves and long lines because these are “unusual and unprecedented times.”


Well, stop and think and consider this:


U.S. imperialism intentionally imposes “unprecedented and unusual times” on people in other countries through all kinds of embargoes, tariffs and sanctions because they dare to challenge Wall Street’s imposed social order.


Think about all of this while you are waiting in line to purchase the Wall Street monopolies’ over-priced bread, eggs and milk now being... yikes! RATIONED?

Long lines and toilet paper... capialism and socialism.

I remember when the over-paid capitalist pundits used to mock the socialist Soviet Union because they had a shortage of toilet paper...


Now look who is rationing toilet paper...


And we don’t even get free health care, free public education through university, a guaranteed job, a living Social Security income, affordable housing and dirt-cheap public transportation along with free child-care and long fully paid vacations at the finest resorts.

Monday, March 9, 2020

Besides Marxism, there is something very fundamental the working class in this country has yet to grasp...

There is something in this country the working class has never really grasped like workers in other countries such as in the Scandinavian countries have... especially like in Finland:


Once reforms have been won these reforms must be constantly and forever defended and the movements to defend these reforms must constantly push to broaden and improve the reforms.


But, workers in these Scandinavian countries also have their own political parties ranging from the social democratic parties to the Communist parties.


Bernie Sanders likes to point to the Scandinavian countries as examples of his “democratic socialism” but he doesn’t want to talk about how these reforms have been won through difficult struggles because the workers have parties that take up their struggles with employers at the ballot box, too.


To think that workers can make any headway in a party like the Democratic Party that is being controlled and manipulated by the very bosses who exploit us on a daily basis is just sheer nonsense and the Scandinavian example proves this.


It becomes dishonest to use the reforms of the Scandinavian countries as examples without explaining that these reforms exist mostly because the working class continues its struggles at the ballot box through its own parties.


And it is time for Bernie Sanders’ supporters to help get this message through to him: help start a new working class based people’s party... this is what one would expect any kind of socialist to do.


And we need not look to the Scandinavian countries for examples of working class parties that work; we have a perfectly good example of such a Party right here in the United States that was extremely successful in the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party because in this party we had a working relationship between liberals, progressives and leftists with both the Socialist Party and the Communist Party fully cooperating for the common good of all who labor for a living.


Of course, if one is going to engage in the bosses’ game of anti-Communist red-baiting you can’t build such a successful working class based people’s party.


And the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party understood differences of opinion would arise between its various constituencies who had a little different point of view because of people’s positions in life so they had this very unique Farmer-Labor Association which handled debates to iron out problems in a civil way.


There are those on the left (most of the left in this country who are content to remain in their own little sects) who are too sectarian to handle being involved in such a party so as a result this history is ignored so the working class does not learn. This is unfortunate.


I urged Bernie Sanders to come into Minnesota to bring forward the example of the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party... he refused to entertain such thinking. This is unfortunate...
unfortunate for him and unfortunate for the working class. And it is unfortunate most of the left in this country, all of whom claim to be the voices of the working class, are so dishonest in their narrow sectarian views that they will refuse to bring forward the history of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party... the most successful third party movement ever in this country.


But if Bernie Sanders wants to continue to be infatuated solely with the advances made in the Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Finland he should at least be forced to acknowledge their reforms are the result of vigorous class struggle with the working class having its own political parties albeit not as united as the the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party was.


In fact, had Bernie Sanders taken my advice and come into Minnesota declaring himself to be working towards the goals and objectives that were brought forward by Minnesota’s two socialist governors still held in the highest esteem, Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson, he would have walked away with a victory over Joe Biden.


There is no escaping the fact that the working class in this country will not advance without its own political party to do battle with our Wall Street enemy.

Is the anti-monopoly struggle the basis for all-people's unity at the ballot box?

Bernie Sanders says he is a “democratic socialist” and as such he says he isn’t opposed to capitalism except in its monopoly form.


Elizabeth Warren says she is for capitalism but not in its present monopoly form.


Most Americans are opposed to Wall Street monopolies.


Okay, so we can’t all agree to get rid of capitalism and replace it with socialism...


Let’s at least take a step to curb the power of the Wall Street monopolies and their domination over our lives, our society and the economy.


A Sanders-Warren ticket against the Wall Street monopolists would be acceptable to most people in this country; and, within this anti-monopoly electoral coalition we can continue to have a civil discussion about capitalism versus socialism.


Make monopoly the issue in this election and make the socialist alternative to capitalism the issue in the next election.


How is that for a compromise?


Create an anti-monopoly party now and then let the people decide democratically if they want to transition the party into an anti-capitalist party for socialism.


After all, half the people in this country say they are willing to consider the socialist alternative to capitalism... aren’t we entitled to have a voice and a vote?


We really can’t skip the anti-monopoly stage in the struggle for socialism anyways.


Take this idea and spread it around to find out what others think and if this kind of discussion goes viral it just might force Sanders and Warren to realize their responsibility to the American people if they are sincere in wanting to get rid of Trump in a way that leaves us in the strongest position to fight for the kind of reforms we require to solve our many pressing problems.


Maybe we could all sign an open letter to Sanders and Warren telling them we want them working together on this?

People wait in long lines for hours to vote... and they find out their vote wasn't counted.

Come to find out, some of the people who waited the longest in lines to vote in Texas, their votes didn’t even get counted because the votes from over forty of these precincts in Dallas County alone were not counted because the jump drives the votes were on were “misplaced” and never counted.


The Dallas County Clerk should be forced to resign for malfeasance and misfeasance.


This is a County Clerk who is always talking about how voters need to educate themselves.
All of this corruption is just discouraging people from voting...
So much for “every vote counts.”

Are you getting anything for your vote?

In my opinion people are making a big mistake getting caught up in supporting these capitalist candidates to the extent they get angry with people who differ with them.


As working people we need to be more focused on coming together in movements supporting solutions to our problems.


Something is real out of kilter in politics today where politicians think they have the right to trick us out of our votes using nice sounding properly framed progressive policy directives created by over-paid party hacks with the intent of making fools out of us by tricking us out of our votes when they have no intent of giving us anything in return for our votes.


This is all a part of the rigged corrupt political process being passed off as democracy.
Do these politicians work for us or do we work for these politicians...


Look at your paycheck and see how much is being deducted and then consider what you are getting in return and you will figure out that we are being played for fools.

A thought about politics today.

I think one of the real problems with the way capitalist politics has developed is that none of these politicians are willing to sit down and carry on a conversation with anyone unless you come bearing large campaign contributions.


You used to be able to sit down and discuss things with politicians; even those with whom there were disagreements.


I could sit with politicians like Jerry Ford, George McGovern, George Romney, Coleman Young and even George Bush Sr. and have a conversation... now even a lowly member of city council won’t give you the time of day unless you come bearing a big campaign contribution.


Even Tim Pawlenty would welcome a discussion.


All of this openness is gone from politics. Even the recipients of the philanthropists’ donations who head up the foundations have taken to this same approach of shutting out the people.

Is fascism in our future?

One trait of fascism often not talked about is unfettered corruption in every area of life.

The economy... on verge of collapse?

Trump’s great economy... has the economic collapse begun or is this just part of the instability that will lead to the next crash?


“U.S. stock market trading was temporarily halted after a 7% fall triggered a “circuit breaker.” If the brutal selling in the Dow and broader market continues, trading may be briefly halted again after a 13% drop. If the market falls 20%, all trading will be closed for the rest of the day.”

Monday, March 2, 2020

A working class socialist viewpoint.


A working class socialist viewpoint by… 


Alan Maki, a union, peace, environmental and civil rights activist;  retired member of UNITE-HERE Local 17 (Minneapolis, MN).

I offer this for discussion about Peace, Equality, Full Employment, Universal Health Care and Protection of our Living Environment.

This is my response to the invitation extended by the AFL-CIO to all people and organizations to comment on its White Paper, “Prosperity Economics, Building An Economy For All” by Jacob S. Hacker and Nate Loewentheil, intended to create discussion about the direction of organized labor and the kind of country we all want to live in where peace, social and economic justice for working people prevails.
Democracy--- as well as social, economic and environmental justice--- requires no less than a full and broad discussion of these important concerns and issues.

I agree with the concept of “prosperity economics” by “building an economy that works for everyone.” There are several very basic facts left out of this “White Paper” and it is very hazy, vague and nebulous as to what our concrete and specific goals and objectives are to be and what kind of movement and struggle it will take for the working class--- organized and unorganized together--- to create a prosperity economics for us all.

The “White Paper” does not clearly articulate our main enemy: Wall Street. The “White Paper” doesn’t reflect the fact that we, as working people, are engaged in a social, political and economic struggle for power with the intent to replace Wall Street’s dominance over every aspect of our lives--- in our schools, at work and in our communities.

Let’s state right up front that workers create all wealth but workers have had no say in how this wealth is distributed and used. This needs to change. Democracy requires no less if we are going to end poverty.

Let’s also put it right out there before the American people that militarism and wars are squandering the wealth of our Nation to such a large extent we don’t have the resources to solve our many domestic problems. These dirty imperialist wars are killing our jobs and our standard of living just like they kill people.

Militarism and wars are a major contributing factor to the world-wide collapsing capitalist economy. No nation can continue to endlessly use the wealth of its nation to prepare for wars and to fight wars. This is sheer social and economic insanity.
Wall Street’s greedy drive for profits results in wars which exacerbates our problems. We pay; the Wall Street merchants of death and destruction profit.

Detroit goes broke; the rest of our cities are sure to follow as Wall Street wallows in profits; a bunch of greedy pigs feeding at the public trough who tell us there is no money for health care, housing, and education.

Working people go without adequate health care; insurance and pharmaceutical companies get fabulously wealthy. Earlier retirement and shorter work-weeks/longer vacations with no cut in pay would create jobs and would keep us healthier, too.
Our public institutions like public education fall apart, crumble and collapse just like our roads, highways and bridges because we are constantly feeding a war machine intended to fight never-ending wars waged to protect Wall Street’s assets and profits.


We don’t need, and can’t afford, over 800 foreign military bases dotting the globe.
Prosperity for all begins with the recognition peace is required to achieve full employment.


Full employment is about the government seeing to it that jobs are created for all at real living wages. How can it be forty-million people are living in poverty with so many people working? Any school child can figure out if you pay people poverty wages they are going to be poor. It is about putting people to work by creating massive universal social programs like National Public Health Care, not job destroying fake health care reforms offered by Democrats and Republicans as detrimental to our health and jobs as wars without providing real health care reform while pushing the price of health care up instead of its stated intent to push prices down.

Eliminating militarism and wars eliminates the largest carbon footprint contributing to global warming and climate change as the Military Industrial Complex wastes our precious resources in a huge, monstrous complex that ruins our environment--- power generation, mining, manufacturing, the resources like oil and gas required to fight wars. Preparation for war, and war itself, creates a mammoth sized carbon footprint destroying our living environment while creating massive joblessness and poverty and ill health for our people as our air, water and land gets polluted.

The Wall Street selected politicians talk about “jobs, jobs, jobs” when their hidden agenda is really “profits, profits, profits” and “war, war, and more war.”

The time has come to make politicians legislatively responsible for full employment and peace because prosperity economics requires: peace and full employment--- a healthy people and a healthy environment.

Therefore, I propose that a central goal of the American labor and working class movement needs to be the building of an economy for all that is inseparably linked to peace and full employment which must include:

A Minimum Wage tied to all cost of living factors indexed to inflation. Jobs or a living income for all.

National Public Health Care. Protect, defend and expand Social Security programs.

Legislation prohibiting lockouts and scabbing. Repeal of “At-Will Employment” legislation--- the primary obstacle to worker empowerment and union organizing. End racism... Enforcement of Affirmative Action.

Price controls are needed for food, housing, gas, home heating fuels and electricity.
A healthy economy means a healthy living environment and a healthy planet. We need a quality of life index.

Peace and disarmament along with fare-free public transportation will go a long way in ending global warning and climate change.

We need a “people’s lobby” bringing together everyone to fight for peace, for needed reforms and to defend democracy.

Red-baiting and anti-Communism are pernicious poisons to our democracy.

The two-party system is a trap for working people. We must free ourselves from the Democrats and Republicans. A working class based people’s party is required if we are going to have a prosperity economics that works for all of us. We can learn a thing or two about health care and politics from our Canadian Brothers and Sisters.

We are now at a crossroads.

We will have a capitalist economy that serves Wall Street or we will have a socialist  economy that works for the rest of us--- we can’t have both just like we can’t have both war and full employment.

I encourage the use of the proposed Full Employment Act of 1945 pushed by the CIO unions and authored by liberal Texas Congressman Wright Patman and the associated hearing testimonies to broaden this discussion:


I also call to your attention the excellent Op-Ed piece by Bob Herbert, “LosingOur Way,” his last piece in the New York Times (March 25, 2011), which declares:

“The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.”

I ask: What ever happened to William Winpisinger’s “Rebuild America Act” and the “peace dividend?” The AFL-CIO should bring back to life its Committee on Conversion--- from military production to producing for human needs; swords into plowshares is what was advocated by the late International Association of Machinist’s President, William Winpisinger. Where is this advocacy for peace and reordering our Nation’s priorities now?
Our livelihoods and our survival require we explore the socialist alternative to capitalism. Thank you for allowing me to share with you my critique of the AFL-CIO’s “White Paper.”

We must approach reforms from a class conscious working class perspective. For example, real health care reform must entail struggling for a National Public Health Care System:

Publicly funded.
Publicly administered.
Publicly delivered.

Just like public education.

Instead of over 800 U.S. military bases scattered across the globe we should be funding neighborhood and community health care centers providing free health care for everyone all over our own country.

Trump must be defeated and it will take a massive anti-monopoly electoral coalition to accomplish this. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard along with their supporters and others working outside of the two Wall Street parties must find a way to work together for the betterment of our society. The Democratic Party is corrupt with its party hacks intent on preventing working people from having a say in the decision-making process… it will take a new party for the name of Sanders, Warren or Gabbard to appear on the General Election ballot in 2020.

What we need is some kind of anti-monopoly electoral coalition... something like "The New Broom Coalition to sweep Washington clean." 


Pay for all the reforms we need with a Peace Dividend and taxes on the wealthy and their corporations.

In addition to real health care reform through a National Public Health Care System, we need…

Real Social Security reform… a real living income for all Social Security recipients- $2,700.00 a month for everyone paid for with an increased payroll tax on employers.

A National Public Child Care System free for all just like public education.

Real living wages for all workers based on the actual cost-of-living will provide a decent standard-of-living for all workers.

A moratorium on all student debt and call off the private collection agencies as we find a way to cancel all student debt.

Let’s bring the struggle for a new kind of politics into our communities, our workplaces and the public square,,, the politics and economics of livelihood.

The working class, with no small amount of help from Mother Nature, creates ALL wealth… the exploitation of labor and the rape of Mother Nature must end if we want a socially and economically just society.

We are going to have to explore the socialist alternative to capitalism… the choice is socialism or extinction.

Capitalism is Wall Street’s system; socialism is the worker’s system.

In solidarity and struggle… For peace, equality, full employment, universal health care, ending racism and protection of the environment.

Alan L. Maki

Check out my blog: Thoughts From Podunk http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

E-mail: red_finn@live.com
Phone: 512-517-2708

Education. 

Organization.

Unity. 

Action.


We need working class study clubs and political action committees all across this country.


Something to think about: 


If all these politicians who admonish us to be satisfied with “incremental reforms” coming in “baby steps” had been actively implementing such reforms over the years we would not be faced with the need for the kind of big reforms now required to solve our massive problems.


Socialism is about the working class struggle for peace, social and economic justice which includes the public ownership of the mines, mills and factories along with the banking, energy, transportation and communication industries. People before profits!


Suggested reading:


Why Socialism?” by Albert Einstein:



Politics In My Lifetime” by Elmer Benson:



"Climate Change and the Military-Industrial Complex" by Alan Maki