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, 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.