Bailout workers, not Wall Street.

 I’m a retired member of Unite-HERE Local 17 in Minneapolis. I am a long-time rank-and-file working class activist involved in the struggles for worker’s rights, for civil rights, for peace and for socialism.

I think AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka could have done much better in articulating and defending the rights and livelihoods of workers in his recent interview with Bloomberg News; his failure to articulate and adequately defend the rights and livelihoods of workers and working class families shows us just how out of touch this millionaire labor leader is with the working class.

Trumka is wasting precious time defending Democrats who have more in common with Republicans and their Wall Street agenda than in defending the rights and livelihoods of working people.

I hope other workers will share my post and sign our petition to Bailout Workers, Not Wall Street, here:

https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q

I look forward to Trumka’s response to my comment.

Long ago, as World War II was ending and the United States government initiated political repression targeting the labor movement here at home while simultaneously developing a thoroughly reactionary aggressive imperialist foreign policy enforced through the threat of nuclear war at Wall Street’s behest in relation to the Soviet Union, the emerging new socialist China and those peoples struggling to free themselves from colonialism and imperialism, far-sighted thinkers and politicians like the progressives Elmer Benson- the former progressive Governor of Minnesota, Henry Wallace and his liberal friend Democratic Senator Claude Pepper who was a ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee along with the distinguished peace and civil rights activists W.E.B. Du Bois and Shirley Graham Du Bois together with working class leaders including Harry Bridges, Wyndham Mortimer, Coleman Young, Claudia Jones and Ernest DeMaio put their heads together. 

They formulated and proposed an alternative “Jobs Not War” agenda to counter Wall Street’s imperialist agenda.

Their thinking was that if the United States government would focus on creating a better life for our own people the increasingly aggressive and war prone government would not have the will, nor the capacity, to wage wars and meddle and intervene in the affairs of other countries... thus, the United States would become a voice for peace, friendship, mutual respect and cooperation with the rest of the world.

The shameful undemocratic smothering through political repression of progressive voices for peace- in and out of the United States government- towards the emerging socialist revolution in China at its early stages of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s has been all but forgotten; intentionally covered up and hidden from public view today… the case of “the China Hands” should become common knowledge if we are going to right the wrong foreign policy course of our government lest we become entangled in a disastrous new world war which could lead to a nuclear conflagration resulting in a horribly destructive nuclear winter.   

These voices of sanity and reason in the past were smothered with anti-Communist repression. 

Anti-Communism is, once again, raising its ugly head and is being used in a very sinister and undemocratic way by both Democrats and Republicans to smother progressive voices of reason for peace through dialog and cooperation among nations; this thwarts and stymies any discussion about social and economic justice, too.

In the past, common people from all walks of life, around the world and here in the United States, made their voices for peace known in all kinds of international peace movements including the “Ban the Bomb” movement. 

Such movements are needed today more than ever before. 

People wrote letters to the editor and to politicians, they petitioned governments and they marched through the streets to make their voices heard. 

Again, forcing our government to focus on human needs and the health of the planet will help to prevent wars and contribute to putting an end to this insane militarism which is robbing us of our jobs and the basic necessities of life ranging from education to housing and health care. 

We must focus on putting people to work at real living wage jobs solving the problems of the people. This is the way forward.

The voices for peace embodying sanity and reason provided good advice back then and such thinking is what we need in this country now more than ever before.

There is a universal world-wide consensus that for the common good of all people and for the health of the planet: all wars must end; that people’s needs and the health of the planet must come before corporate profits.

As a life-long activist, it is with this in mind, that I have joined with others in bringing forward this very minimal and basic set of four urgently required demands intended to help working class families through this capitalist economic collapse exacerbated by this coronavirus pandemic. These miserly “stimulus checks” amount to next to nothing in comparison to people’s problems resulting in untold misery and suffering.

Of course, something is always better than nothing but we need much more significant reforms as our petition calls for.

Members of the Socialist Connection Action Network (Socialist C.A.N.), of which I am a member, propose an emergency action agenda for all people’s unity around these very minimal and basic demands; we seek to work with all individuals and organizations to attain these goals:

1. A Basic Income Guarantee of $2000.00 a month for every adult over 18 and $200.00 for each child in the family.

2. A $650.00 increase for everyone receiving Social Security.

3. Cancel ALL student debt.

4. Increase the Federal Minimum Wage to $16.00 an hour.

The money can come from a hefty tax on the rich, a tax on Wall Street transactions and profits, Federal Stimulus Funds for public needs along with a Peace Dividend.

We have launched a campaign involving petitioning and letter writing to get this movement underway and to put pressure on Congress and the President to enact this as legislation.

We need your help.

Please copy, post and distribute this as widely as possible.

Contact:

Alan Maki

512-517-2708

red_finn@live.com

For twelve years Democrats and Republicans have been using the financial resources and levers of government to assist and bailout Wall Street from this mess we as working people have had no voice in nor part in creating.

Now it’s time to bailout working class families.

We are not asking for a handout since we create all the wealth with no little amount of help from Mother Nature.

Every campaign of this nature requires many people helping to educate people.

Every campaign of this nature requires “all hands on deck.”

Every campaign of this nature requires the broadest possible unity in activity and action with as many people and organizations possible involved.

It will require building some kind of huge “people’s lobby” to win these reforms.

Will you sign our petition?

The main reason there is no solution forthcoming for working people as far as a stimulus package from Congress is that no mass pressure has been applied by the working class to force these Wall Street bribed politicians to do what is right.

The situation is urgent for tens of millions of working class families and you can sign our petition and then ask others to sign so we begin to bring some pressure to bear on these politicians.

Yes; the situation really is urgent.

Please sign our petition.

Millions of people are suffering.

Action is required now.

Politicians will not respond unless pressured to do what is right.

You can help by signing and then circulating this petition.

Feel free to copy and print this petition, collect signatures and return the petitions to us. 

We are organizing a campaign that with broad support will become a powerful movement.

There are many discussions here on FaceBook, on Twitter and other social media where you can just copy and paste this post as a comment.

Copy and paste this post to your notes so you have it at hand and easy to post.

Copy and paste this post to your FaceBook page or blog.

https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q

Can we win these very minimal and basic demands?

Speaking from experience, as the leader of the national effort that led to unemployment compensation being extended during times of high unemployment- the Unemployment Extension Act of 1971 signed into law by Richard Nixon- I believe we can prevail. 

We started with a similar petition campaign that led to meetings with members of Congress. 

We held demonstrations in front of unemployment offices and on busy street corners. 

We passed out leaflets everyplace while asking people to sign our petition. 

We invited all organizations and unions to join our effort.

We initiated forums and debates.

The mainstream media along with the billionaire owners of social media have conducted misinformation campaigns intended to thwart efforts to win real reforms. Much of what they do is targeted at dividing working people so we can’t effectively mobilize.

We must respond to this crisis with:

Education.

Organization.

Unity.

Working class action.

Together, we can win.

Some AFL-CIO unions threatened a general strike to defend Biden’s win should Trump try to hold on to the presidency. So, we know these union leaders know what a powerful weapon labor has in the general strike. This begs the question: Why haven’t these unions used the general strike to advance working class demands for our rights and to improve or livelihoods?

“Together” is the key word we need to focus on.

Educating the working class is important and fundamental to building a powerful working class movement. Unions are way behind what is required in this area. 

A couple suggestions: Working people should read books like “Labor’s Untold Story” published by the United Electrical Workers and “Organize” written by Wyndham Mortimer who led auto workers in the great Flint Sit-down Strike. The book, “Madam Secretary, Frances Perkins” by George Martin.

We need to be concerned with the working class- the power and the movement.

One would think Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, would be more concerned with the politics and economics of livelihood concerning the working and living conditions of working people rather than holding up the tails of these Dumb Donkeys like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris trying to pick up what the sparrows leave behind.

Tell Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to seek justice for Rodney Reed.

Will Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do what is right in the case of Rodney Reed?

The Federal government has a very special role to carry out in the case of Rodney Reed. For over two decades the Federal government has shirked its role of investigating one of the worst crimes involving a person’s violation of their civil rights... and human rights, a role for the United States Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

Let us not have to wait for an investigation like the United States government usually is accustomed to doing... investigating once someone is dead.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris should immediately dispatch federal attorneys and investigators with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to Texas to see who is responsible for the racist frame-up of Rodney Reed. 

All those found to be responsible and complicit in this crime must be arrested and prosecuted.

Rodney Reed must be exonerated, set free and he and his family must be adequately compensated for this grave injustice perpetrated against them.

The real murderer of Stacey Stites, Jimmy Fennell, must be arrested, and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Contrary to all excuses made to the present time, the federal government has a very special, important and primary role to play in seeing to it that Rodney Reed is set free and all those who orchestrated this frame-up prosecuted to the full extent of the federal laws.

Texas authorities can not be relied on to deliver justice in this case because those who would be required to free Rodney Reed have all been complicit in knowingly and intentionally framing Rodney Reed in the first place.

How Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will  respond to this injustice once they are sworn into office will tell us everything we need to know about them.

The Nation’s sense of morality must be focused on Texas in the same way moral outrage focused the Nation’s attention on the murder of George Floyd.

In the case of George Floyd, he was murdered; no amount of justified outrage could ever bring him back. 

In this case of Rodney Reed, we can stop the racist criminals occupying the seats of power here in Texas who are intent on executing an innocent man in order to cover up their own most horrible and horrendous racist crimes maliciously carried out in a very vindictive frame-up that has placed Rodney Reed on death row.

Executing Rodney Reed, an innocent victim of a racist frame-up, would be murder.

Tell Joe Biden and Kamala Harris justice in the Rodney Reed case requires:

Exoneration.

Freedom.

Just compensation to Rodney Reed and the Reed family.

Prosecution of all the real criminals.

We must remember the present day criminal justice system in Texas is predicated and created on the cultural, systemic and institutionalized racism originally established by those who violently ended Reconstruction through terror, mayhem and murder who then claimed, in order to cover up their criminal deeds, they were never informed that slavery had ended... and only under pressure from the Federal government did those in power finally abolish slavery in Texas some two years after Lincoln had abolished it... the claim of these racist defenders of slavery was that they had not received word that slavery had been abolished throughout the land... and the present day governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, who was personally involved in orchestrating and carrying out this racist frame-up of Rodney Reed still clings to this as being “historical fact.”

Does any thinking person believe Texas politicians were unaware-for two long years- slavery had been abolished after their beloved Confederacy had been defeated in a bloody Civil War?

It is up to Joe Biden to see to it that Texas Governor Greg Abbott is escorted from the Governor’s Mansion to a prison cell.

As the New York Times’ “1619 Project” has pointed out, the racist injustices in the Southern criminal justice system are directly linked and tied to the institutions of slavery and no place is this more apparent then in the case of Rodney Reed here in Texas.

One wonders how it is that ABC News in its “20/20” special broadcast, “Stacey Stites: The Girl in the Pines” could have over-looked all of this... along with so much scientific and medical evidence?

Was this ABC episode, devoid of most of the pertinent facts of the case, intended to provide Biden and Harris an opportunity for an out to do nothing?

The Innocence Project has laid bare all the facts, and all the concocted lies, in the Rodney Reed case... it is all a matter of public record for all to see. 

We must not allow this racist injustice to be chalked up to the incompetence of bungling cops, prosecutors, judges and public officials, either. It’s clearly a racist frame-up with the real murdering rapist monster still free... something anyone with a daughter, sister or mother might want to think about. 

Bill de Blasio stirs controversy every time he talks about "redistribution of wealth;" what's the controversy about?

 Every time New York Mayor Bill de Blasio talks about the need to redistribute wealth the Wall Street millionaires and billionaires have conniption fits.

De Blasio correctly points out the way to eliminate racist inequality and poverty is to adequately fund universal social programs.

We Marxists support such initiatives.

De Blasio faces as much opposition from his fellow Democrats as he gets from Republicans.

De Blasio seeks action while his fellow Democrats seek to undermine him with platitudes they refuse to act on.

Democrats have a legacy that is easily substantiated of doing too little too late as millions suffer... the Biden-Harris Administration is obviously intending on following this legacy; if this were not the case, they would be filling their Administration with people like Bill de Blasio instead of a bunch of worthless hacks chosen for them by Wall Street committed to a reactionary neoliberal agenda of carrying out wars abroad paid for by shoving austerity measures down the throats of working people both of which further enrich the filthy rich few while creating greater poverty.

We need many big universal social programs paid for by taxing the hell out of the wealthy few who have been exploiting our labor and a huge peace dividend if we are going to contend with the very serious problems now confronting us.

Capitalism is in serious crisis on the skids to oblivion and these Wall Street parasites think the way out of the crisis is to intensify the exploitation of the working class.

De Blasio obviously has much in common with Marxists while Biden and Harris are opponents of socialism and oppose the thinking that we need the redistribution of wealth.

Redistribution of wealth is what the struggles for reforms are all about and we should welcome Bill de Blasio in joining our call for wealth redistribution.

It’s rather ironic those on the “left” who attack de Blasio are too cowardly to talk about the need for wealth redistribution as Bill de Blasio does.

The racist fallacy of a "white working class." Unite our multi-racial working class in the struggles against racism and for peace, reforms and socialism.

 Why do so many so-called “leftists” continue falling into, and putting up with, the racist trap of referring to “the white working class?”

We don’t have a “white working class” in this country... we never have and never will.

There is one working class in this country and our working class is multi-racial.

The Nation Magazine and other such publications which restrict the views they publish to well-heeled upper middle class intellectuals while censoring the voices of rank-and-file working class activists  routinely buys into this racist fallacy of there being a “white working class.”

In a recent “debate” over whether or not we need a new party in this country, The Nation allowed this racist phrase of “white working class” to be used by the proponent of the Democratic Party serving us well.

I don’t know of one single worker who would use the phrase “white working class.”

The phrase is a racist concoction used by those who are consciously trying to divide our multi-racial working class and we shouldn’t tolerate this racism.

The Nation Magazines “debate” was headlined, “Should the Left Launch an American Labor Party?”

In fact, it will take many more people than a little left to launch a new party.

And the new party will have to be a working class based people’s party that is both anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist not afraid to challenge Wall Street for political and economic power.

The same writer who thinks the Democratic Party serves us well, in addition to using this racist “white working class” bullshit declared as if it was fact that no alternative part, except the Republican Party, has ever been successful in this country... intentionally not mentioning the fact that the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party had a very high degree of success.

The Nation Magazine won’t even tolerate rebuttal in a letter to the editor.

Rank-and-file working class activists have no voice through any media in this country.

For a National Public Health Care System

 Tommy Douglas warned the Canadian people that its single-payer health care system should only be seen as a very short-term solution and a not-for-profit socialized health care system would be required for the long haul.

The Canadian people procrastinated in heeding Tommy Douglas’ advice and now the pandemic is becoming over-bearing as this article explains.

This should be a lesson to us here as we contemplate health care reform.

Obviously Obamacare has failed under the burden of this catastrophic coronavirus pandemic.

Medicare for All will fare no better.

The profit motive for health care must be completely eliminated at all levels... including the delivery stage.

Only a fully socialized National Public Health Care System can provide the kind of quality health care required...

Publicly funded.

Publicly administered.

Publicly delivered.

Nothing at all controversial in spite of being socialized health care... public education serves as the model. Is anyone afraid of public education? No. So, why should anyone oppose a National Public Health Care System which would provide us all free world-class health care? The cost would be phenomenally cheap... it could all be financed from the current pay-roll tax which funds Medicare... far cheaper than what passes for health care now and a lot cheaper than Medicare for All.

Those from insurance companies to hospitals and nursing homes and doctors will all decry socialized health care... 

But their free-market for-profit health care systems are killing us.

We need a national network of community-based health centers in every community providing general health care and this health care must include pharmaceutical prescriptions, vision, dental and hearing along with family planning, pre-natal and abortion as well as mental health care... free health care through burial.

A National Public Health Care System would create over twelve-million new jobs... there is no better job creating program that would do much good.

We must struggle for the health care required not waste our time with what is politically expedient for selfish, self-serving Wall Street bribed politicians.

We need a new working class based people’s party with the integrity and courage to fight for a National Public Health Care System.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/01/12/americas/ontario-lockdown-canada-stay-at-home-order/index.htmlpp

An interesting article by Walden Bello

 This is an interesting article written by the Philippine anti-globalization activist Walden Bello who was a long-time member of the ultra-leftist Philippine Communist Party.

There are two Communist parties in the Philippines... I support the PKP - 1930: http://www.pkp-1930.com

Bello has provided some important insight into what is going on right now concerning attacks on democracy here in the United States; this is a worthwhile read considering, in my opinion, that Bello continues to fall into the anti-working class trap of the New Left with his references to there being a “white working class” when in fact there is one multi-racial working class and his description of China being “authoritarian.” 

Bello has had many twists and turns in his own thinking but seems often not to appreciate the twists and turns involved as the Chinese people have struggled to build socialism in a very complex world in a very hostile environment dominated by Wall Street imperialist dictate.

Bello also misses the fact that Xi Jinping is leading the country in a study of “The Communist Manifesto” as a major part of the effort to get China on a firm socialist footing. 

Nor does Bello mention the importance of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) contributing to world peace and ending some of the worst poverty in the world.

But, for a non-Marxist left wing scholarly intellectual lacking ties to the working class, Bello does a pretty good job here:

https://fpif.org/america-has-entered-the-weimar-era/

I would encourage using this article for discussion in developing our strategy in defense of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and democracy.

Voter fraud or a corrupt and anti-democratic electoral system?

 An evaluation or investigation into electoral fraud needs to begin with a class analysis of our electoral system which is passed off as being superior to socialist countries where the working class rules through its one Communist Party or other parties friendly to the working class.

Now, here in this country one class rules, too. 

This Wall Street ruling class uses two parties to maintain its dominance and rule over the working class to assure the capitalist system, a system based on exploitation of working people through capitalist ownership of the mines, mills, factories, banks (yes, the Internet and all media, too) along with the transportation and energy sectors.

How do you have “fair elections” when big money interests dominate the politics of the country?

That big money comes from very wealthy capitalists... we create their wealth and they use a lot of this wealth to dominate us working people who create this wealth for them.

And their two parties make the rules preventing a working class party from participating in this scheme of things passed off to us, and the rest of the world, as the world’s greatest bastion of democracy.

There is no voter fraud.

The corruption that does take place is capitalists cheating one another in the electoral process the same way they cheat one another in the market-place (yes, these capitalists love to talk about their “free-market” and “free elections,” don’t they...but, the problem is, huge powerful monopolies don’t really tolerate much freedom when it comes to either, do they?).

Both Wall Street parties hire “hacks” to run their parties just like they hire the management class to hire and fire and extract the greatest profits from our labor.

More often than not, we see the same management people we see at work manipulating both parties, too.

And, the party hacks and labor management people use the same methods employing racism and anti-Communism in the workplace and in the electoral arena to keep us divided so we are easier to rule as we are being exploited.

Anyone who delves into the way this rotten system works can easily see how three things comprise the formula for the glue that holds this system together:

Corruption.

Racism.

Anti-Communism.

Remove any one of these components integral to the capitalist system and the entire system collapses...

If it doesn’t collapse from its own boom and bust cycle first like the cars on a roller coaster ride leaving the track... as the stock market is about to do.

And then when one begins to analyze the highest stage of capitalism we are in, imperialism with its militarism and wars...

Well, you get the idea...

The Wall Street ruling class doesn’t want us to examine its system... 

And that is why Wall Street defends its two-party trap as the next best thing to sliced white bread.

The Wall Street ruling class would like it best if we not discuss capitalist class power versus working class power...

These Wall Street monopolists will not tolerate such discussion in the workplace or in the electoral arena.

This should give us a good idea what our employers mean by “democracy.” 

It’s really democracy for the few.

Arrest all the fascist conspirators and thugs.

 Let’s say we agree (and I don’t agree) that the President can’t be arrested for inciting this riot and insurrection in our Nation’s Capitol...

Okay...

But why haven’t Donald Trump, Jr. and Rudy Giuliani been arrested for their role in inciting this fascist riot and insurrection?

Why has no one been arrested for plotting this fascist riot and insurrection?

Does anyone believe this was spontaneity we witnessed? Of course not. It was all carefully organized and plotted.

And the real irony is that the FBI admits they know all fifty states are being targeted... 

Well, the question just begging to be asked is that: if they know, why haven’t the culprits planning this been arrested?

National Security

 The “security of our country” is in the hands of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies who haven’t even been able to find and arrest the guy carrying a huge Confederate flag into our Nation’s Capitol leading the charge of these fascist thugs.

How secure do you feel?

Come on, really; how is it these law enforcement agencies are taking so long to apprehend and arrest this guy?

Trillions of dollars and the enactment of the most undemocratic and Draconian laws we are told will protect us and these law enforcement agencies can’t protect us from fascist thugs in our midst?

Does anyone really believe the FBI needs our help identifying these fascist thugs after all the time and money they have wasted watching people like me and you whose major “crime” is that we write letters to the editors for peace, against racism and for social and economic justice- this police spying and harassment has been going on over many decades?

How is it that out of the thousands of fascist thugs responsible for murder and mayhem inside our Nation’s Capitol, so few have been arrested?

How is it Trump, his son, Ted Cruz and Rudy Giuliani have managed to escape being arrested for inciting this fascist rioting and insurrection?