tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70000793415394988982024-03-12T20:19:30.845-05:00thoughts from podunkLeave a twig for the birds to perch on... don't let the capitalists do your thinking for you... if you are in the neighborhood, stop on in; the coffee is always hot and the cookie jar is full... looking forward to the day when the real decisions in America are made by working class families gathered around the kitchen table... new postings daily...Yours in the struggle...Alan L. MakiAlan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comBlogger2095125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-75200884055501437552021-03-04T11:26:00.004-06:002021-03-04T11:26:32.262-06:00About words and definitions<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">Politicians have invented a lot of new definitions for old words lately:</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A “concentration camp” holding children is now a “facility.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Camping” is what the homeless do.</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-39734244528303589432021-03-04T11:25:00.002-06:002021-03-04T11:25:14.609-06:00Has anything changed?<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Trump helped defend the Saudi sheiks from being charged with murder and now Biden is doing the same thing.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Trump recognized Guaido as president of Venezuela and so does Biden.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;">What has changed other than the faces of those making excuses for these imperialist creeps? </p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-44476253886757298142021-03-04T11:24:00.001-06:002021-03-04T11:24:10.573-06:00Who speaks for the working class?<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One thing that really gets me is when these well-heeled muddle-headed upper middle class intellectuals who have never worked a day in their lives lecture workers about “effective policies for workers” and these policies always end up being “progressive policy directives” never real solutions that amount to anything except when the “solutions” are limited to a very small section of the population with the rest of working people being told they must patiently wait for their problems to be resolved.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This is the case with those phony liberals, progressives and leftists doing the bidding for the Democrats in continuing to pretend they are for “Medicare for All.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Do you know how many working people have gone without health care and/or faced medical poverty and/or bankruptcy since the Democrats first started promising “Medicare for All” as a campaign gimmick in 1948... over seventy years ago?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At the time, “Medicare for All” was a ploy used to distract people from the huge movement for a National Public Health Care System and posed as a promise in order to stop the developing Progressive Party from gaining momentum.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Democrats, and their most loyal hacks (like Bernie Sanders) have used “Medicare for All” as such a dishonest ploy ever since.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Effective policies for workers need to be formulated by workers around real solutions to our problems... there is no reason why in the richest country in the world all the pressing problems causing so much misery for working class families can’t be solved immediately like the urgency requires.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Why must working people “patiently wait” for decades to have their problems solved when trillions of dollars are allocated continually and repeatedly to bail out banks and big-business while funding militarism and these dirty imperialist interventions and wars get immediate attention?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">I find it interesting those who counsel workers to “patiently wait” for a redress of their grievances and for solutions to their problems never provide such counsel to the Wall Street millionaires and billionaires and are always quick to hand over the resources of government to these capitalist oligarchs without questions... and without delay.</span> </p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-35330542309639278202021-03-04T11:15:00.001-06:002021-03-04T11:15:23.275-06:00A fundamental question ignored<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">The Rasmussen polling agency recently asked people this question:</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Who’s setting the agenda in Washington, DC these days – President Biden, the Republican opposition, Congress or the national media?”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Then the results get picked up by subscribers who include the media and their “talking heads,” the pundits; and this big discussion begins with those who really set the agenda missing from the conversation.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Why didn’t Rasmussen include in the question a fifth option?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What would that fifth option be?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Wall Street.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Wall Street sets the agenda in Washington with its lobbyists bribing every single politician.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Workers have no say in setting the agenda in Washington.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I wonder why no polling agency has ever asked the question:</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Do Wall Street employers or the workers they employ set the agenda in Washington?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Doesn’t democracy require this kind of discussion?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Who is afraid to hear what people think should a question like this be posed to the American people?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Those wealthy Wall Street oligarchs who are our employers are afraid of how this kind of question would be discussed and answered in the public square because their stranglehold on power would face a challenge from the working class... a power they fear more than anything... this is why they spend so much money making sure a question like this never gets asked, let alone answered.</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-2696691233765618012021-03-04T11:14:00.001-06:002021-03-04T11:14:13.678-06:00Texas Governor Greg Abbott concocts a deadly brew<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">Some of us may die as a result of Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s thoroughly reactionary and outright stupid announced corona virus policies but that is a chance Abbott is willing to take (with our health and our lives) for his own political expediency as he brings forward this outrageous health policy in order to get attention off of his being in the hip pocket of the oil, gas and energy industry... which includes the Saudi Royal Family, which is part of the Texas energy complex, that Abbott takes bribes from with the end result being the huge fiasco leaving so many Texans in dire straits from as a result of the recent winter storm.</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Abbott thinks he can cover his bad policies in one area by bringing forward such outrageously bad decisions in another area.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Playing politics with the health and well-being all the way around...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">About what one would expect from a loyal servant to the Saudi oil sheiks who, with Abbott’s help, now dominate so much of the Texas economy and politics in general.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And this guy Abbott is making preparations to run to become president of the United States as he sacrifices our health in order to cover-up his bungling of the winter storm while his Republican Party is pushing legislation in line with the objectives of the Confederacy: secession from the Union... more theater to create a diversion which is simultaneously sowing much division and hate.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This is the same Governor who has been playing to his racist base for years in trying to carry out the execution of an innocent black man he played a primary role in helping to frame: Rodney Reed.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Of course the mainstream media, just like with Trump, just salivates in giving this idiot all kinds of coverage as they build his political career without challenging any of this.</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-51522722285209614092021-03-04T11:08:00.000-06:002021-03-04T11:08:00.924-06:00Biden's Wall Street agenda determines his foreign and domestic policy and neither is favorable to the working class.<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">For all intents and purposes, the majority of the American people are seeing no opposition to Biden’s Wall Street imperialist war agenda while his so-called liberal, progressive and left supporters claim he has some kind of progressive domestic economic agenda with a few saying behind closed doors they don’t support his imperialist foreign policy.</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Opposition to war has to be out in the public square for it to be effective; not whispered in back rooms or published on websites most people will never read.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This is the most disgraceful and absurd characterization of Biden’s agenda; these people pretend Biden’s “properly framed progressive sounding policy objectives” reflect actual policy and legislation when nothing could be further from the truth...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Here is the way one outfit headlined an article:</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Mismatch: Biden bombs Syria while pushing progressive economic bill at home</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">February 26, 2021 2:02 PM CST BY C.J. ATKINS”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is no “mismatch” between Biden’s foreign and domestic policies and legislation... both are part of Wall Street’s agenda which can be described as imperialist wars abroad financed with austerity measures shoved down the throats of working people and the working class here at home.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Only a very stupid person or a very dishonest person could have written such an article and then very selectively chosen quotes to fit the headline... which the article does.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">No wonder people in this country are so confused when a publication claiming to be a left wing working class voice publishes an article like this.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In fact, Biden’s foreign and domestic policies are perfectly matched, not mismatched, to serve Wall Street’s foreign and domestic agenda.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It is impossible for any politician or political party to simultaneously serve Wall Street’s imperialist agenda abroad while meeting the needs of the working class domestically- this is an impossible task... it has never been done because it can’t be done as economists from Karl Marx to the liberal Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith pointed out; Galbraith declared what every single honest economist knows: “you can’t have guns and butter.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Lyndon Johnson found this out but only understood it towards the end of his life even though his dear progressive friend Alice Glass constantly tried to point out to him that his war in Vietnam sabotaged his “Great Society” goals and objectives... Johnson ended up disowning his entire foreign policy agenda when he endorsed George McGovern for president. That’s why this cartoon hangs so prominently on the wall in the Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas... and his daughter in a audio tribute to her father in the main display says that her father searched for ways to end the war although she doesn’t explain how he sent a dishonest creep like Henry Kissinger to negotiate the peace when Kissinger was really working behind Johnson’s back to support Wall Street’s war machine to keep the war going.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">How is it any newspaper claiming to be a working class voice could be so confused as to call Biden’s foreign and domestic policies a “mismatch?”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">No president can muster support for a progressive domestic agenda while pushing a reactionary foreign policy agenda if for no other reason no politician can be found who supports a reactionary foreign policy will then turn around and support a progressive economic domestic policy... there is no such political creature so why this pretense that Biden is such a political creature?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And just as the mainstream media has to create big fat lies to muster public support for Wall Street’s imperialist agenda ( a reactionary foreign and domestic agenda ), these phony leftists backing Biden now make the most outrageous claim as the writer cited in the article above that Biden has brought forward legislation, “Widely hailed as one of most progressive economic bills ever considered by Congress...” another great big fat lie used to justify this publication’s previous support for electing Biden.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 8px 0px;"><img alt="Image.jpeg" height="400" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/95d4758c-afb7-4a93-98a3-6f981013bfec" width="300" /></p><div><br /></div>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-56898570590678198672021-03-04T11:03:00.002-06:002021-03-04T11:03:38.407-06:00We need an anti-imperialist movement<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This is a pretty good article by Glen Greenwald but he misses the important point that the Saudis own the largest oil refinery (Aramco) in Texas, which is still part of the United States; and these same Saudi Sheiks own one of the largest chemical plants in the world, here in Texas, also.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And these Saudi oil sheiks contribute billions of dollars to the coffers of both the Democratic and Republican parties just like our own Wall Street millionaire and billionaire oligarchs like Bezos, Buffett and Gates.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Saudi oil Sheiks also own and operate one of the largest, if not the largest oil, gas and chemical distribution networks in the United States... not to mention they are among the largest owners of agricultural land and real estate development in the United States.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">None of this bodes well for democracy as these Saudi oil Sheiks demand Democrats and Republicans curb democracy here just the way they do in their own country. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">By the way, I don’t see one single person disputing one single thing in this article by Greenwald.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It will take much more than good articles to create a peace-centered U.S. foreign policy... it will take a powerful grassroots citizen’s initiative constituting a powerful anti-imperialist movement of dedicated citizen-activists comprising people from all walks- people who hold a variety of world outlooks committed to working together. It will also take an understanding of how U.S. foreign policy became the property of Wall Street at the conclusion of World War II.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Perhaps if Greenwald continues on the path he is on he will become a real anti-imperialist some day... for now he provides us with a lot of very timely and important information we should be able to use to educate people in building an effective anti-imperialist movement capable of establishing a sane and sensible U.S. foreign policy based on mutual respect and cooperation which will contribute to world peace.</p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">https://greenwald.substack.com/p/bidens-protection-of-murderous-saudi-a9c?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxODgzMjA0MiwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzMxNzY2NTgsIl8iOiJqTnd5MiIsImlhdCI6MTYxNDc4NTk5MywiZXhwIjoxNjE0Nzg5NTkzLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTI4NjYyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.DShARWZ2NqD7PNcwW6eycrSqKv9OPL7j_4qiSpfwa7M&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&fbclid=IwAR2hBoOKmPW-jChMjSd0Sy9xhQwviNGN8ckxink6TvVOIgt2Fa1P91QyJB8</span> </p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-10551521476566837052021-02-24T17:36:00.001-06:002021-02-24T17:36:13.663-06:00words of advice<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">Real working class leaders have always provided this good advice:</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Be strong together.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Together defend your health, your livelihoods, your rights and demand a voice at work which gives you a voice in the community where you live.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This is universally good advice for working people everywhere.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If you have no rights at work you will have no rights in your community.</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-13768547302877586322021-02-24T17:33:00.001-06:002021-02-24T17:33:20.505-06:00Let's build a movement<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Democratic Party hacks try to hoodwink us into thinking, and accepting, their version of what they expect us to consider to be “movement building.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Movement building is very important because it is through big rank-and-file and grassroots working class movements we win the kind of reforms required to solve our problems and get us onto a path leading to better and improved lives and livelihoods... creating the kind of socially just society we envision.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This false notion of what movement building consists of amounts to building support for this or that politician who adheres to the idea that political campaigns revolve around promoting “properly framed progressive sounding policy directives” with the intent of tricking us out of our votes while not having to advance real solutions to our problems based on what we consider solutions... all the while leading us to believe they know what is best for us... and, more often than not, these charlatans are willing to endure us suffering while advising we must “give their favorite politician a chance” while we must accept “baby steps” and “incremental reforms” enduring hardships and suffering they would never consider enduring for themselves and their families and their class.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Those who are willing to play this con game on us can quickly find themselves going, quite literally, from rags to riches if they have the gift for gab and are good at pretending they are our friends when they are really our class adversaries.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And, as you work your way up the ladder, you might even land yourself a plum position with a very nice salary as a “talking head” on one of the mainstream media networks... pretending to represent us.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You might even be able to carve out a niche for yourself doing a popular “podcast” that brings in thousands of dollars sparing you the life of having to work for a living.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For the users, and this is what these selfish people are, this system seems to work out well.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For the rest of us there is real movement building...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We define and articulate our problems...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">While working together with those we share these problems in common...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We build organizations which will enable us to become powerful advocates for real solutions to our problems rather than merely accepting nice sounding campaign promises from a bunch of Dumb Donkeys who have no intent to deliver after the votes are counted... even when they win.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If you are looking for a life on easy street you will join the chorus of those calling on us to “give Biden a chance.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If you are content with a life of work but expect this to be a decent life provided by the wealth our working class creates, together, then come participate in the kind of real movement building that will improve the lives of our entire class while recognizing that an injury to one is an injury to all and we achieve victories through our solidarity derived from movement building campaigns using:</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Education which empowers working people to take the kind of united militant action which results in victories which are defined as real solutions to our problems.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One of the first things we must understand is that in Wall Street we have a common enemy... working people have no friends among the Wall Street employers, industrialists, bankers and financiers; these are the parasites who live off of our labor.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Society needs these parasites about as much as our cats and dogs need ticks and fleas.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s time to flex some working class muscle; worker’s power... the united power of our working class in coalition with all people seeking peace and an economically and socially just society... these are the primary points of unity that should guide us in coming together in movement building.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Join us...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Read over our petition.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If you agree add your signature to give you a stronger voice at work and in your community.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Ask your friends, neighbors and fellow workers to sign our petition.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Ask those who sign to share this petition with others.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In this way we begin to build a real movement for the kind of real change we seek... one by one our movement grows. Like one little raindrop we don’t amount to much... but, let it pour!</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Urgent!</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Please sign our petition.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Millions of people are suffering.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Action is required now.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Politicians will not respond unless pressured to do what is right.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You can help by signing and then circulating this petition.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Feel free to copy and print this petition, collect signatures and return the petitions to us. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We are organizing a campaign that with broad support will become a powerful movement.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Copy and paste this post to your notes so you have it at hand and easy to post.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Copy and paste this post to your blog:</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;">https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q </p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-12594323933244111922021-02-24T17:27:00.003-06:002021-02-24T17:27:55.874-06:00The liberal lament...Where are the solutions?<div><br /></div><div>Solutions to the problems created by capitalism will only come from the real left... </div><div><br /></div><div>Socialists and Communists.</div>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-52996887402222589052021-02-24T17:25:00.001-06:002021-02-24T17:25:17.526-06:00Supreme Inequality<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">Our Social Justice Book Club at the Lake Travis Community Public Library will be discussing this book this month...</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Supreme Inequality” by Adam Cohen.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The book has a lot of useful information about how the U.S. Supreme Court serves the rich and powerful to maintain dominance over society.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It is written from a liberal point of view; such, it omits many of the most important cases the United States Supreme Court has dealt with which has taken up more than a little bit of its time... the rights of Communists.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This is an important shortcoming of the book.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But, the author does point out to what lengths those in power who represent the wealthy few will go in order to assure the Supreme Court does not deviate from its originally intended purpose to maintain the wealthy employer class in power even though the author does not use such class language.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s unfortunate the author, Adam Cohen, left out any references to the cases against the Communists because he claims to advance the idea that the Court is biased against the poor and workers, which is true, but without including any reference to the myriad of cases involving the denial of rights of Communists to participate in the political life of the country the author presents a weak case for his arguments.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One has to wonder how it is any author could have written a book making the case that the United States Supreme Court is biased against workers, the poor, the racially oppressed, women and against a progressive agenda without citing these cases involving Communists. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Obviously anyone, such as Cohen, who claims to be an authority on the Supreme Court when it comes to such decisions, could not have inadvertently missed the very important cases involving Communists in all of these struggles so one must assume the author is intellectually dishonest in not citing Supreme Court cases involving government and corporate and government repression of Communists which came before the Court.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">With this important shortcoming in mind, the book is still a very important read; but, like with any writer associated with the New York Times, one must not only read between the lines but be willing to do a lot of independent research with an open mind.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The author does prove his point that the U.S. Supreme Court has been the enforcer for a more unjust America for many decades... if not for most of the history of this country.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The author does not even do much as touch the many Supreme Court cases involving the hideously fascist-like Communist Control Act even though mentioning the devious and abhorrent attacks by the FBI, other government agencies and politicians on the greatest of all defenders of democracy and worker’s rights to ever sit on the United States Supreme Court, William O. Douglas.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Nor does Cohen delve into the despicable deportations of Communists from the United States like the noted Abd distinguished scientist Nadia Barkman who was deported from the United States to Israel based on her activism as a youth member of the the Young Communist League who played such an important role working with the leader of auto workers, Phil Raymond, in laying the groundwork for organizing auto workers.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Apparently New York Times journalists like Adam Cohen have a very difficult time overcoming their anti-Communist biases even when truth, objectivity and intellectual honesty require such. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">United States District Court Judge Noel P. Fox asked me while Zibwas defending my rights in his Court why I was relying on so many minority opinions written by William O. Douglas to make my case? My response was, “Because Douglas was right.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Judge Fox responded by saying, “I agree with you about Douglas having been right; but my decisions in this court have to be based on the U.S. Supreme Court decisions which have been on the wrong side of justice.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Cohen, really doesn’t get into what it is going to take to create a U.S. Supreme Court majority on the side of workers, the poor, the racially oppressed because he, himself, like so many faux liberals, has a class bias based on anti-Communism, restricting his vision.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">To Cohen’s credit he does not indulge in outright red-baiting although his lack of attention to any of the most important U.S. Supreme Court cases which involved Communists involved in the struggles of workers, the poor, the racially oppressed and women are never so much as mentioned.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The closest Cohen comes to citing the cases of Communists, is the case of Lillian Hellman- the friend and fellow traveler of many Communists (although Cohen does not cite her work with Communists) being hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee with Abe Fortas, later to become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice assisting her.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Cohen’s book should be seen, as limi TV ted as it is, as part of the struggle to defend and advance democracy... just understand Cohen leaves many important matters covered- out of sight and out of mind.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></li>
</ul>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-25492987372816323882021-02-24T17:23:00.002-06:002021-02-24T17:23:44.669-06:00Debt is poverty<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Medical poverty,” “student debt poverty,” “home mortgage poverty,” “credit card poverty.”</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Go to the grocery store and pay for your food with a credit card... more debt.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Debt is a poverty trap for the working class.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Workers need a raise to a real living wage, not credit cards and more debt.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Whose bright idea was it to give workers credit cards instead of the working class fighting for real living wages derived from the wealth we create?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Now we have millionaire labor leaders pushing credit cards on workers... credit cards emblazoned with union logos... what a farce.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Credit is a trap...</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It is intended to make workers believe they have a higher standard of living than what they really do...</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Plus, with large amounts of debt hanging over their heads...</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Guess what?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Workers are afraid to fight for what they are entitled to out of fear of losing their jobs because they won’t be able to pay the debt collectors.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The solution?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">America needs a real raise... a real big raise.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Now is the time to fight for this raise and to organize the unorganized during this profit orgy with the stock market going out of sight.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The money is there; it’s the wealth the working class has created... we are entitled to big raises... real living wage raises in line with the actual cost-of-living.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Real pay; no more credit cards and debt.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">What is organized labor waiting for?</span> </p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-83978132795457556602021-02-24T17:22:00.003-06:002021-02-24T17:22:29.768-06:00More lies about China from a Washington imperialist think-tank which specializes in promulgating the ideas that feed the war machine<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Atlantic Council, a reactionary Wall Street imperialist think-tank, just released an anonymously authored long belligerent anti-Communist diatribe about how to force regime change in China.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This should cause concern for every single person seeking a more peaceful world through developing good relations with China in all spheres of human endeavor because Biden has placed members of the Atlantic Council who adhere to the thinking in this bellicose “paper” in very key government positions relating to defense and foreign policy.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s time for the American people to have a voice in foreign policy decision-making... we can not continue to allow these Wall Street warmongers who profit from regime change, militarism and wars to make these important decisions.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/news/press-releases/atlantic-council-congratulates-members-of-its-community-appointed-to-biden-harris-administration/</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/atlantic-council-strategy-paper-series/the-longer-telegram/</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We need to understand the history behind these vile reactionary anti-Communist anti-Chinese views in our foreign policy if we are going to have the kind of say which establishes a sane foreign policy towards China and the rest of the world... this book is a must read if we are going to understand how U.S. foreign policy towards China got so out of whack.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Maybe it’s time we start foreign policy discussion/study groups all over this country with teach-ins taking place in our schools and colleges?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;">This insanity must end. </p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-353524830422462232021-02-24T17:18:00.001-06:002021-02-24T17:18:21.227-06:00Why is the role of the Bush political dynasty missing from all the analysis about how Biden got elected?<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">The real not so secret secret that is not mentioned in this article is how the Bush family worked behind the scenes to manipulate all of these people and organizations... one has to wonder how the writers could have missed the role of the Bush political/Wall Street dynasty... maybe this was by intent?</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We were all had... these people played us for suckers and fools.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Everything I said was happening that was being denied by Democratic Party hacks is almost all exposed here.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">No doubt these same players are working behind our backs buying people off in order to make sure no huge movements develop in the streets that would pressure Biden and the Democrats to deliver the kind of solutions to our problems we really need.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This “coalition” of labor and big business is making sure real left wing working class ideas never enter the public square.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Is it any wonder Zuckerberg used FaceBook to censor left wing working class activists after he gave over $300 million dollars to this “secret” grouping seeking to manipulate the Election?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Think about this:</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This “coalition” could easily force the Biden-Harris Administration to do what is right by the American people and the working class but they choose not to empower people to take the action required.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Question:</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Why not?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My comment:</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This “coalition” is more interested in neutering and undermining working class action and power.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-share-article&utm-term=politics_2020-election&fbclid=IwAR2uVh_O-GMElRCXPtmsQD3KlTf4PJBn426zp-XCp128zoXnhcJMMgJOVOY</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-72033062919717942022021-02-24T17:15:00.001-06:002021-02-24T17:15:12.181-06:00Lies and big lies make for a dishonest government<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">I was listening to the radio and heard some talking heads talking about how Trump elevated the art of the lie to new levels posing a threat to American politics... as if lying is something new to politics in this country.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Listening to these talking heads one would conclude that lies are the sole property of Republicans.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">However, lies are the foundation of capitalist politics in this country.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The biggest lies of all have been embedded around racism and anti-Communism.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Racism could not exist if the politicians from both parties would not concoct all kinds of lies to justify it and then use it to incite the kind of hate which is intended to sow divisions in order to keep people from banding together to improve their lives and livelihoods.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Anti-Communism, like racism, is embodied in very sophisticated lies which create another poison capitalist politicians from both parties have used to support imperialist militarism and the dirtiest wars waged to protect Wall Street’s interests.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Consider this:</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There are no truths or facts to justify or support either racism or anti-Communism; so, how could American politics be based on anything but lies since these are the foundation of American politics?</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Anyone who pushes the reactionary ideas, legislation and who campaigns using racism or anti-Communism is a liar.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is no honesty in American politics except when anti-racists and those opposing anti-Communism bring truth forward.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Obviously we need a new party if we are going to create honesty in politics and government.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">On top of the outright lies, we have a politics based on “bait and switch;” tell people one thing to get elected and do the opposite once elected... if this isn’t about lying and dishonesty in politics what would you call it? Look at each and every elected official in this country- chances are pretty darn good you are looking at a liar.</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-59824259107870608382021-02-24T17:12:00.002-06:002021-02-24T17:12:36.448-06:00Bill Gates... climate change hypocrite<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">Bill Gates wrote a book about climate change but this billionaire doesn’t view socialism as a solution nor does he view peace and disarmament along with a sane and peaceful foreign policy as part of the solution to climate change just like he doesn’t recommend free public transportation as a primary solution to global warming.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What Bill Gates does suggest is that capitalists should be given the freedom to profit from advancing "solutions"to global warming and climate change but capitalism created the mess we are in in the first place.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Bill Gates suggests as a solution to global warming that we should all stop eating meat.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Another of his hare-brained schemes is that some kind of particles should be spread across the skies to stop the sun's heat from coming through.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One-hundred and fifty years of capitalist industrialization and “development” (read exploitation of labor used to rape, plunder and destroy Mother Earth) in quest of maximum profits for the few... this is what got us to where we are today and the only solution offered by Bill Gates is to continue on this path to oblivion so he and his fellow billionaire Wall Street oligarchs can amass more profits as he lectures us that we must learn to live with a warming earth.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is a better way forward that doesn’t fit with the ideas advanced by Bill Gates...</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And it is called socialism.</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-83571806055575093442021-02-24T17:05:00.002-06:002021-02-24T17:05:17.734-06:00On movements<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We heard this bit about how movements are needed before.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But the movements required to push these Democrats to make good on their promises has never materialized.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What we get is a bunch of little organizations headed up by people getting paid and all they are interested in is competing with other little organizations for funding so they can maintain their salaried positions.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This is from David Swanson; his article supporting Bernie Sanders:</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“That’s the difference in this election. Bernie Sanders is a million miles from perfect. But he is radically superior to who he was four years ago, to the other Democratic candidates, and to the past 45 presidents. A greatly enlarged movement will need to move him and the Congress and the whole society in the right direction, but such a movement will be in a far better place with him than with any of the other candidates. If we must be tokenists, let’s just declare it time to elect a Jew. But if we care about the earth, let’s declare it time to stop being morons.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When does this movement building begin?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Everything these people write always comes with a pitch for money... just like the politicians.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What’s happened to grassroots activism with people coming together around kitchen tables, in church basements and community centers organizing movements in their own neighborhoods, communities and after work?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We can’t be relying on people who bail out when their paycheck stops... we need to rely on ourselves to educate, organize and build movements with our family, friends, neighbors and the people we work with.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I can vote for Bernie Sanders as a way to get rid of Trump but I’m not going to waste my time working for any of these Democrats who lack a commitment to building movements... they take money from the people but don’t allocate a penny to movement building because all the money goes to over-paid staff who lack any commitment to anything other than themselves... when the money goes, they go.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We need movements of the people; movements that continue to struggle for peace, social and economic justice.</p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">We need these movements more than we need any politician... real people’s politicians will come out of such movements.</span> </p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-60511844913592676182021-02-24T17:02:00.003-06:002021-02-24T17:02:55.123-06:00The day United States Senator Lyndon B. Johnson opportunistically joined the red-baiting and what the result meant for us<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">150 years of capitalist industrialization and rape of Mother Nature caused global warming and climate change.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I doubt a bunch of greedy profit driven capitalists have a clue about how to solve the problem.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Without considering socialist oriented solutions like public ownership and control of basic industries and the energy industry it is doubtful these problems can be solved.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Artic freeze and loss of power and heat...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Should give us all something to ponder...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This presents the case for nationalization through public ownership and democratic control of the entire energy sector and the power grid.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Leland Olds was pushing forward this approach when his old friend Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson decided to launch into a vicious attack on his old friend from the New Deal days in return for support from the oil and gas industry.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The day LBJ launched this anti-Communist smear attack on Leland Olds in the U.S. Senate was one of the saddest days in U.S. politics... and American history... an untold and covered up story smothered by the mainstream media owned by Wall Street interests with teachers in our public schools still fearful of teaching.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And we are paying dearly for this attack today.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Something Democrats may want to ponder as two-million Texans are left without power shivering in the cold in a state with one of the biggest electric generating capacity all subsidized by state and federal tax-payers and those who are paying high priced electric bills from which the billionaires and millionaires reap huge profits.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Leland Olds was an American socialist economist interested in labor, development of public electric power, and ecology who President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed as a Federal Power Commissioner (1939 to 1947).</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Like other prominent New Dealers such as Frances Perkins, most people in this country know little about these people.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Olds was supported by the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party (political alliance of the Socialist and Communist parties together with organized labor and progressive farm groups) which pushed the idea of a cooperative socialist commonwealth... an idea advanced by Leland Olds who saw cooperatives playing a leading role in developing a socialist alternative to capitalism.</p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">Shivering in the cold is one price, among many horrendous prices, we pay for the politics of opportunism of which anti-Communism is a primary defining feature of the two-party trap... the shivering truth; figure out if the pun is intended and appropriate as you shiver beneath the blankets tonite.</span> </p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-28011524136263829372021-02-24T16:59:00.003-06:002021-02-24T16:59:58.716-06:00Texas... the problem is bigger than climate change<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One of the most pertinent comments I have read on the situation in Texas:</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> 🇺🇸 Freedom from government regulations. Libertarian paradise. Too bad they can’t use gaslighting to heat their homes.</p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">Thanks to Carol Cook for this very pertinent and insightful comment on the situation.</span> </p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-81651229793565961972021-02-24T16:57:00.001-06:002021-02-24T16:57:43.175-06:00Socialism and the "ownership" question<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">The discussion about socialism needs to take place now, not later.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This becomes more relevant by the day as we go from crises to crises which has become the way of life as this capitalist system crumbles creating misery for millions of people here in this country and around the world while Mother Nature rebels in her own way to mistreatment and abuse through climate change.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The working class creates all wealth but has no say in the decision-making process at any level in our country.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There are only two sources of wealth: Labor and Mother Nature.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Any society which systematically exploits labor and rapes Mother Nature can only be a very troubled society.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We need to get away from this idea that socialism is about what this or that politician thinks it is in order to promote their own selfish agenda and begin to bring into the public square the kind of discussions which will contribute to building massive militant united people’s movements determined to solve our problems... and this includes building a new working class based people’s party that is both anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist with the goal and objective of beating swords into plowshare so we can use the resulting peace dividend to finance real solutions to our problems while challenging Wall Street for both political and economic power while advancing the socialist alternative to capitalism.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We aren’t talking about real socialism unless we are addressing the “ownership question” as I previously described below...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In my conversations with the “socialist”Bernie Sanders, he says he does not advocate nationalization through public takeover and public ownership of the mines, mills, factories, banks and the energy complex. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Wouldn't movements like Standing Rock gain more strength if we were to advocate for the nationalization of the energy complex? </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As a longtime socialist I don't see how we can escape this "ownership question" unless we are going to have to keep fighting these battles over and over again.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We don't need all of these pipelines; but decisions on whether or not to build these pipelines are not based on need as determined through public planning. Rather, these decisions are based solely on corporate bottom lines.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Socialist solutions to our problems must be advanced... if we as socialists do not get our views out the all important "ownership" question (private versus public) will never be mentioned because there are no foundation-funded outfits who will take up this struggle.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">People often ask me what socialists want to bring under public ownership. I tell them to pick up the Wall Street Journal and look at the corporations listed in the stock exchanges... nationalize them all under public ownership with democratic decision-making and control.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I previously contributed these thoughts about global warming and climate change which have never been answered by Noam Chomsky or any of the foundation-funded outfits fronting for the Democratic Party which serve to prevent grassroots activism and movements from maturing to their full potential:</p>
<p style="color: #dca10d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><a href="https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/climate-change-and-the-military-industrial-complex1"></a><br /></p>
<p style="color: #dca10d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/climate-change-and-the-military-industrial-complex1">https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/climate-change-and-the-military-industrial-complex1</a></p><p style="color: #dca10d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="color: #dca10d; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-55031887830849383892021-01-13T16:48:00.000-06:002021-01-13T16:48:47.347-06:00Bailout workers, not Wall Street.<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">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.</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I hope other workers will share my post and sign our petition to Bailout Workers, Not Wall Street, here:<br />
<br /><a href="https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q">
https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q</a></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I look forward to Trumka’s response to my comment.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">They formulated and proposed an alternative “Jobs Not War” agenda to counter Wall Street’s imperialist agenda.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">These voices of sanity and reason in the past were smothered with anti-Communist repression. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Such movements are needed today more than ever before. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">People wrote letters to the editor and to politicians, they petitioned governments and they marched through the streets to make their voices heard. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We must focus on putting people to work at real living wage jobs solving the problems of the people. This is the way forward.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Of course, something is always better than nothing but we need much more significant reforms as our petition calls for.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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:</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">1. A Basic Income Guarantee of $2000.00 a month for every adult over 18 and $200.00 for each child in the family.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">2. A $650.00 increase for everyone receiving Social Security.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">3. Cancel ALL student debt.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">4. Increase the Federal Minimum Wage to $16.00 an hour.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We need your help.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Please copy, post and distribute this as widely as possible.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Contact:</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Alan Maki</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">512-517-2708</p>
<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">red_finn@live.com</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Now it’s time to bailout working class families.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We are not asking for a handout since we create all the wealth with no little amount of help from Mother Nature.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Every campaign of this nature requires many people helping to educate people.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Every campaign of this nature requires “all hands on deck.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Every campaign of this nature requires the broadest possible unity in activity and action with as many people and organizations possible involved.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It will require building some kind of huge “people’s lobby” to win these reforms.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Will you sign our petition?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Yes; the situation really is urgent.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Please sign our petition.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Millions of people are suffering.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Action is required now.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Politicians will not respond unless pressured to do what is right.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You can help by signing and then circulating this petition.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Feel free to copy and print this petition, collect signatures and return the petitions to us. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We are organizing a campaign that with broad support will become a powerful movement.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Copy and paste this post to your notes so you have it at hand and easy to post.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Copy and paste this post to your FaceBook page or blog.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q">https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q</a></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Can we win these very minimal and basic demands?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We started with a similar petition campaign that led to meetings with members of Congress. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We held demonstrations in front of unemployment offices and on busy street corners. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We passed out leaflets everyplace while asking people to sign our petition. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We invited all organizations and unions to join our effort.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We initiated forums and debates.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We must respond to this crisis with:</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Education.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Organization.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Unity.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Working class action.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Together, we can win.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“Together” is the key word we need to focus on.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We need to be concerned with the working class- the power and the movement.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-9520194442270365012021-01-13T16:32:00.003-06:002021-01-13T16:32:46.023-06:00Tell Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to seek justice for Rodney Reed.<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Will Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do what is right in the case of Rodney Reed?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Let us not have to wait for an investigation like the United States government usually is accustomed to doing... investigating once someone is dead.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All those found to be responsible and complicit in this crime must be arrested and prosecuted.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Rodney Reed must be exonerated, set free and he and his family must be adequately compensated for this grave injustice perpetrated against them.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The real murderer of Stacey Stites, Jimmy Fennell, must be arrested, and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In the case of George Floyd, he was murdered; no amount of justified outrage could ever bring him back. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Executing Rodney Reed, an innocent victim of a racist frame-up, would be murder.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Tell Joe Biden and Kamala Harris justice in the Rodney Reed case requires:</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Exoneration.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Freedom.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Just compensation to Rodney Reed and the Reed family.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Prosecution of all the real criminals.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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?</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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. </p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">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.</span> </p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-82392806455801172002021-01-13T16:30:00.000-06:002021-01-13T16:30:02.132-06:00Bill de Blasio stirs controversy every time he talks about "redistribution of wealth;" what's the controversy about?<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">Every time New York Mayor Bill de Blasio talks about the need to redistribute wealth the Wall Street millionaires and billionaires have conniption fits.</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">De Blasio correctly points out the way to eliminate racist inequality and poverty is to adequately fund universal social programs.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We Marxists support such initiatives.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">De Blasio faces as much opposition from his fellow Democrats as he gets from Republicans.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">De Blasio seeks action while his fellow Democrats seek to undermine him with platitudes they refuse to act on.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-40093113909343793102021-01-13T16:27:00.003-06:002021-01-13T16:27:32.426-06:00The racist fallacy of a "white working class." Unite our multi-racial working class in the struggles against racism and for peace, reforms and socialism.<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">Why do so many so-called “leftists” continue falling into, and putting up with, the racist trap of referring to “the white working class?”</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We don’t have a “white working class” in this country... we never have and never will.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There is one working class in this country and our working class is multi-racial.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I don’t know of one single worker who would use the phrase “white working class.”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Nation Magazines “debate” was headlined, “Should the Left Launch an American Labor Party?”</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In fact, it will take many more people than a little left to launch a new party.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Nation Magazine won’t even tolerate rebuttal in a letter to the editor.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Rank-and-file working class activists have no voice through any media in this country.</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000079341539498898.post-50093345976593913642021-01-13T16:23:00.002-06:002021-01-13T16:23:57.266-06:00For a National Public Health Care System<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px;">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.</span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Canadian people procrastinated in heeding Tommy Douglas’ advice and now the pandemic is becoming over-bearing as this article explains.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This should be a lesson to us here as we contemplate health care reform.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Obviously Obamacare has failed under the burden of this catastrophic coronavirus pandemic.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Medicare for All will fare no better.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The profit motive for health care must be completely eliminated at all levels... including the delivery stage.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Only a fully socialized National Public Health Care System can provide the kind of quality health care required...</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Publicly funded.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Publicly administered.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Publicly delivered.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Those from insurance companies to hospitals and nursing homes and doctors will all decry socialized health care... </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But their free-market for-profit health care systems are killing us.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">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.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">We need a new working class based people’s party with the integrity and courage to fight for a National Public Health Care System.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/01/12/americas/ontario-lockdown-canada-stay-at-home-order/index.htmlpp</p>Alan Makihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08567949617963833763noreply@blogger.com