Health Care and the Circus in the Cities

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

To understand the quote from the New York Times above, read on---


Many people look at the Circus in the Cities which tries to package itself as an expression of democracy and they wonder why, and how it is, that these clowns making a pretense of being democratically elected politicians can spend so much time on seemingly petty issues and they can't manage the time of day to resolve our problems of everyday living over which they have control.

Things like health care and the minimum wage never surface and we are told, "Wait until after Election Day and we will take care of you"...

Well, in the case of single-payer universal health care only thirty Election Days--- 60 years--- have come and gone.

And what do we have? One big expensive mess where we can't afford to stay well and we can't afford to die.

Lot's of progressives are enamored with John Conyers and his House Resolution 676... Conyers and his mesmerized progressive friends are telling us, "Wait until after Election Day."

What is there to wait for? H.R. 676 isn't going to be brought forward by Conyers anymore than his promises of impeachment proceedings against the most corrupt President and Administration in U.S. history.

Supporters of H.R. 676 point to a pile of resolutions in support of H.R. 676 by labor unions which mean absolutely nothing because the labor bureaucracy providing the endless trail of resolutions supporting H.R. 676 state before the resolutions are even passed that they will be looking at other health care reforms.

The American people, and especially Minnesotans, when asked what kind of health care system they want point north across the border towards Canada and say, "We want the same thing the Canadians have."

The Canadians do not have anything like the phony health care proposal Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Senator John Marty is proposing with huge, un-affordable premiums... and people know H.R. 676 isn't going to fly any better than the flying saucers Dennis Kucinich has seen.

Minnesotans have good reason to say they want what the Canadians have because Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson came up with the idea in the first place and Tommy Douglas and Dr. Norman Bethune put single-payer universal health care on the agenda in Canada as a first step towards socialized health care where all the for-profit motives are finally removed from the health care system and keeping people well and treating their illnesses when sick is the only concern... not how much some Wall Street coupon clipper is going to be making off his pharmaceutical, health management, insurance or hospital stocks.

So, why is it we can't even get a hearing on the issues involving health care when everyone in this country knows that there is a serious problem here needing immediate attention?

It is all about lobbying and the money associated with lobbying.

Politicians, including that darling of the limousine liberal crowd--- John Conyers, all they care about are issues that have well-heeled lobbyists on both sides of the issues.

The Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition can't afford to pay for office space, let alone to purchase the services of high-end lobbyists.

If we had big-money lobbyists willing to bribe their way through the capitol building and house office building we would see action real fast.

Don't believe me?

Well, consider this article from the New York Times and note what I have put in bold type:

Any antitrust inquiry in an acquisition of Yahoo is likely to be complex and last months, at least.




By STEPHEN LABATON and MIGUEL HELFT
Published: February 5, 2008
WASHINGTON — It could be payback time.


Related stories:

Google Works to Torpedo Microsoft Bid for Yahoo (February 4, 2008)

Google Assails Microsoft’s Bid for Yahoo (February 3, 2008)

Yahoo Offer Is Strategy Shift for Microsoft (February 2, 2008)

Eyes on Google, Microsoft Bids $44 Billion for Yahoo (February 2, 2008)

Microsoft's Yahoo Bid
Full coverage of Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo, who is advising, who else might be in play and where the bid goes from here.



Dennis Brack/Bloomberg News

Senator Herb Kohl and Representative John Conyers indicated willingness to hold hearings on the proposed deal.


An expensive legal and political campaign last year by Microsoft helped delay completion of Google’s $3.1 billion bid for the online advertising company DoubleClick. Microsoft filed briefs against the deal in the United States and abroad, testified against it in Congress, and worked with a public relations firm to generate opposition.

Now Google is preparing to strike back.

With Microsoft bidding nearly $45 billion to buy Yahoo, Google has begun to lay the groundwork to try to delay, and possibly derail, any deal. Google executives have asked company lobbyists to develop a political strategy to challenge the acquisition, which could threaten Google’s dominance of Internet advertising. Google’s top legal officer posted a statement Sunday that criticized the proposed deal.

Spokesmen for the two companies in Washington declined to comment Monday about a looming legal and political battle, which has yet to fully emerge and is likely to stay below the radar at least until the control of Yahoo seems clear.

Moreover, some antitrust specialists and government officials said Google might tread carefully in opposing any deal since it could backfire.

Google dominates the market for Internet advertising, and to the extent it portrays the deal as encroaching on that dominance, it could help make Microsoft’s case that its acquisition of Yahoo would create a more competitive marketplace.

Lawmakers are responding to the takeover attempt. Representative John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he would hold hearings to examine any proposed deal.

And Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, who leads an important antitrust subcommittee, said he was interested in the proposed acquisition. “Should Yahoo accept Microsoft’s offer,” he said, “the subcommittee expects to hold hearings to explore the competitive and privacy implications of the deal.”

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

Microsoft enlarged its Washington staff in the late 1990s after it came under antitrust assault in the Clinton administration. Its lobbying shop is considered among the most effective in the capital, and it has retained more than 20 law firms, lobbying companies and press relations operations for an array of political and regulatory issues.

Google’s Washington office is less than three years old and has been steadily growing. In fall 2006, it established a political action committee and has since used Democrats from the Podesta Group lobbyists, two former Republican senators — Connie Mack and Dan Coats at the law firm of King & Spalding, and the law firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

Google recently moved to larger quarters, with 27,000 square feet of space including a game room, open work areas, free lunches and environmentally friendly features like recycled rainwater — a smaller version of its Silicon Valley headquarters.

While Microsoft and Google have been occasional allies in Washington — they have worked together on intellectual property legislation and issues of open access — they clashed last year on legal and regulatory fronts.

In addition to the fight over DoubleClick, Google lodged a complaint in antitrust proceedings against plans for Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system. Google said these were anticompetitive because they unfairly discouraged the use of Google’s desktop search program. By lobbying in state capitals, Google persuaded prosecutors to intervene on its behalf. Ultimately, Microsoft agreed to modify the operating system to make it easier for users to decide which search application they wanted.

As they are gearing up now, a legal fight, if at all, is months away. Federal regulators will not begin to consider any deal until it is completed and formally presented. It is not certain whether the deal would be considered by the Justice Department, which has overseen previous antitrust proceedings against Microsoft, or the Federal Trade Commission, which reviewed and approved Google’s purchase of DoubleClick. (That transaction has not closed as European regulators continue to review it.)

Moreover, the size and complexity of a Microsoft-Yahoo deal is such that a government review is unlikely to be completed quickly, particularly in an election year, and may not be final before a new administration takes office in 2009.

Should Yahoo finally agree to be acquired by Microsoft, a focus of the political and legal debate will be the products and markets that could be affected. Microsoft has said the acquisition would increase competition in two related and large markets: Internet search and online advertising. Many ad industry executives, who have watched Google’s rise with some trepidation, agree.

But Google wants the focus of any antitrust debate to shift to issues other than search and advertising. In a statement posted on his company’s blog Sunday, David Drummond, Google’s general counsel, noted that a combined Microsoft and Yahoo would have an “overwhelming share” of the instant messaging and Web e-mail markets, and that the two companies run some of the most trafficked portals on the Web.

“Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ e-mail, I.M., and Web-based services?” Mr. Drummond asked.

It is not hard to see why Google wants to shift the focus. In the search market, a combined Microsoft-Yahoo would have about 33 percent of the market, still trailing Google’s 58 percent, according to comScore.

But in Web-based e-mail, comScore ranks Yahoo, with 256 million visitors worldwide in December, and Microsoft, with 255 million, as the top two providers. While there is bound to be overlap among users of the companies’ e-mail services, a combined Microsoft-Yahoo would command a much larger share than Google, which comScore ranks in third place with 90 million visitors in December.

Yahoo and Microsoft also rank No. 1 and 2 in financial news, and No. 2 and No. 1 in instant messaging, according to comScore.


Stephen Labaton reported from Washington and Miguel Helft from San Francisco.

You see, we have a Circus in the Cities and an even more fabulous and spectacular show under-the-big-top in Washington D.C. because of this:

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

Until working people can move beyond being manipulated and played for suckers and fools by politicians who always have their hands open behind their backs we aren't going to see a resolution to this health care mess it is as simple as that.

Organizations like the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition and others seeking real health care reform are going to have to understand that without the big money to turn over to the lobbyists to put into the pockets of politicians there just isn't going to be any legislative action in the form of H.R. 676 or the Marty proposal here in Minnesota and John Conyers and John Marty know that all too well as this one little paragraph of truth from the New York Times points out:

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

You know, I have been searching for one little kernel of truth from the New York Times for years... and this is the first time I ever found it... now, to get the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition to believe it, this is another matter.

Without having the money to turn over to the lobbyists to bribe politicians just to start the debate, we need to consider what we do have and how to use what we have to generate the real debate to win the change we need--- single-payer universal health care as a step towards socialized health care.

What do we have? We have ourselves. Alone we don't amount to anything as far as getting anything from politicians in the way of health care reform... what the heck, our annual pay-checks wouldn't cover walking into one legislators office with a decent bribe.

So, we have to educate our friends, neighbors and fellow workers; we have to organize; we have to begin sending a message to the clowns in the Cities and in Washington D.C. that we aren't buying their line of, "wait until after Election Day" because we now understand the game.

Besides, with the price of gas we probably won't be able to afford the trip to the polls on Election Day... Barack Obama might want to think on that.

I certainly won't waste a penny on gas to drive five miles to vote for a guy who lacks the political and moral courage to turn to the north... smile... point his finger towards Canada... and say: That is what you will get when I enter the White House if you vote for me on Election Day.

We don't need this crap, "But, look at what we will get if we don't vote for Obama." We certainly don't need "Vote Democrat, impeach Bush" John Conyers lecturing us, "We are going to look after you if you put a Democrat in the White House.

This Election kind of reminds me of a friend who recently got a new job. The employer made all these promises that she was going to get this and going to get that if she would agree to work for substantially less than what she thought the job should pay. The other day I asked her how the new job was going, and she said to me, "Well, I should have got all those promises my boss made to me in writing; I am getting the lower pay, but none of the promises."

Something to think about as you are sitting around the kitchen table.

You might want to take a walk to your local library for the book "Livin' the Blues" by Frank Marshall Davis who is sure to become more controversial than Reverend Wright in this election campaign. Barack Obama in his book called Frank Marshall Davis his "mentor." We might be able to learn something from Frank Marshall Davis about how to go about winning real health care reform... but, don't let anyone kid you, there is only ONE WAY >>>>> to real health care reform and that solution is what our neighbors to the north have... don't settle for giving up your vote for anything less.

Some thoughts on Obama and Change

I have been active in the Minnesota DFL and the Democratic Party most of my life.

Lately people have a lot of questions about Obama using the phrase, “Unite For Change.” People want to know what Obama means by “Unite for Change.”

People come up to me and ask, “What kind of “change” is Obama talking about?

Quite frankly, I don’t know what kind of change Obama is after since he doesn’t spell it out and articulate any specifics.

But, what kind of change is needed really isn’t up to Obama anyways, is it?

We know the social fabric of our country will continue to be torn asunder should we get another four more years of Republican rule. Quite frankly, and I am ashamed to say this, given the way the Democrats have acquiesced and gone along with Bush the last eight years I’m not all that confident Democrats will do any better controlling the Presidency, the House and the Senate. Part of the reason I feel this way is because the Democrats have had ample opportunity to stop Bush in his tracks; they didn’t.

Working people have been pushed out of the decision-making loop for quite some time in our country and we have to figure out a way to get back in the mix.

It is up to working people to clearly chart the course for progressive change and to unite for change behind the agenda we articulate. We need to make politicians understand that they work for us, not the other way around.

Several very basic changes come to mind that I think about:

1.)In the area of health care we need single-payer universal health care which will be a stepping stone to get us to socialized health care. Obama’s idea of health care “reform” leaves much to be desired; he wants to leave the profit gouging insurance companies, HMO’s, doctors and the pharmaceutical industry in control when most of us know this is what is wrong with the system--- profits come before people; and, it should be the other way around.

2.)We need a minimum wage that is a real living wage. Any job that an employer needs done should provide the worker doing that job a real living wage. The way to arrive at what the minimum wage should be is to use the statistics and calculations of the United States Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics based on real cost of living factors rather than having some politicians pull a miserly figure out of their hat at election time. If employers don’t like this let them do the work themselves; with the robbery at the pumps it won’t be long before it won’t pay to go to work anyways. What’s Obama’s stand on the minimum wage? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. We need to seize the initiative and make it clear to him the change we want.

3.)We need to end this dirty war for oil in Iraq; it’s a war that was based upon lies and deceit right from the beginning and it has taken a terrible toll, not only on the people in Iraq, but on us here, too--- to the point where we can say that every bomb dropped and every bullet fired is destroying our society, too. We can’t have a foreign policy which sees wars as solutions to complex problems. As far as I can see Obama doesn’t really offer much change in this area either so we are going to have to take the initiative in charting a course for change as we expect things to be and make our voices heard.

4.)We need to make it clear that in any program aimed at “greening” America through massive government subsidies to business and industry, that what taxpayers finance, taxpayers should own--- including the profits.

5.)Public ownership of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant needs to be considered. Saving two-thousand jobs is a major priority for Minnesotans in this election.

In the end, we should see ourselves and our unity as the surge for change, and stop waiting for Obama or any other politicians to explain what kind of change they are for.

Change should be about solving real problems. The people experiencing these problems, you and me, should be able to articulate the solutions… this is what real change is about.

In a democracy people are supposed to be active participants in movements for social change, not mere cheerleaders clapping and waving placards for politicians mouthing hollow, meaningless platitudes about “change.”

“Yes we can” bring about “change” if we get together where we work and in our communities.

In reading Barack Obama’s book I learned about his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. I then got interested in finding out more about who this “mentor” was. I think Frank Marshall Davis would be somewhat disappointed in Obama today because Frank Marshall Davis didn’t mince any words when it came to articulating the problems of working people and bringing forward real solutions to the problems. Frank Marshall Davis understood that working people once educated, organized and united are a powerful force for “change.” Frank Marshall Davis understood something Barack Obama doesn’t seem to have learned from his “mentor;” that in order to get “change,” you need to articulate and clearly define and spell out what kind of “change” is being talked about. Of course, as we all know, Frank Marshall Davis was a Communist and he had a very good understanding of the underlying source of problems which all too often goes unstated and unchallenged and remains hidden because of the high fear-factor level in this country; I am referring to capitalism--- a thoroughly rotten system. Frank Marshall Davis also understood through his thorough studies of the situation that socialism provided the only workable alternative to capitalism.

Education starts in our homes, gathered around the kitchen table discussing our problems with family and friends. From there these discussions need to find their way into our places of employment and into the larger community.

There really isn’t much for us to learn about “change” from Obama, but there is quite a bit to be gleaned from the writings of Frank Marshall Davis and I thank Barack Obama for bringing him to my attention… now I can say that Frank Marshall Davis is in many ways my mentor, too.

Obama has called on all of us who want change, irrespective of our differences, to come together on June 28, 2008 under the auspices of “Unite For Change;” I think this is a good idea. We can use this opportunity to discuss what kind of change we need in our communities and in our country.

I would encourage people to exchange contact information, e-mail addresses and phone numbers so we can start networking and organizing around our problems and their solutions.

Mystic Lake Casino

The management of SMSC Gaming Enterprise and SMSC, owners of the Mystic Lake Casino and Little Six Casino, are engaged in a rash of firings of workers and management personnel as they are trying to cover up massive high-level theft and stealing.

Speculation is growing that heads are about to roll in the Tribal Government of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community as rumors of slot-machine fixing and table game rigging persist.

Stay tuned.

Something to think about... the Crooks are in control.

Ford may review truck plant closure plans, Coleman says

Two news stories, two approaches towards plant closings:

One headline reads:

Ford may review truck plant closure plans, Coleman says

Another headline blazes:

CAW boss disappointed after meeting with GM on plant closure, considers strike, other options

Obviously this closing of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is far from the “done deal” that many, including the Minnesota AFL-CIO, Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, the UAW leadership and others have proclaimed as an excuse for not uniting working people in a struggle to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and hundreds of jobs.

The time has come for Minnesota DFL State Senator James Metzen to boldly step forward pushing to pass S.F. 607 now!

It is time for the leaders of UAW Local 879 to fully mobilize the retired and active workers, flex their political muscle, and demand pay-back from the MN DFL for many years of loyal support.

The MN DFL has slavishly and shamefully been manipulated by the architects, contractors, bankers and real-estate speculators along with reactionary leaders of the building trades unions who have piggishly put a few jobs for their own members before the rights of autoworkers to continued employment and the welfare of the local community and the economy of our state.

Republican Norm Coleman opportunistically got involved in this issue to try to take the wind out of the sails from the huge Obama rally. However, what Coleman has done is reignite what we all know are the feelings of the vast majority of the people who want to see this plant kept opened.

If Ford won’t keep the plant open now; then, as we have been saying, public ownership is the only solution to saving this plant.

Working people should not be relying on Norm Coleman and the Ford Motor Company to keep this plant operating… this plant can easily and cheaply be re-tooled to produce many other socially necessary and useful products--- from the components for rail to electric or solar or wind generating equipment to making a product making hydro-electric generating plants more productive and efficient or even manufacturing hi-technology systems to bring fresh water to millions of people languishing from drought around the world to pollution control equipment to retrofit a vast assortment of polluting industries... what can be produced in the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is only limited by our imaginations to turn production in this country towards meeting the needs of people and our living environment rather then seeing production which now takes place with the sole motivation of expanding the bottom line of the Wall Street coupon clippers.

The time has come to take the concept of "people before corporate profits" from mere rhetoric to reality in a way that creates a better life for working people and all of humanity.

Look, let’s be frank; a factory is a factory--- only a fool would destroy this kind of wealth embodied in the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant by taking a wrecking ball to it; workers don’t care what they produce, just so they continue getting a pay-check. Obviously, there are products which could be produced that are more socially useful and beneficial than others--- but, right now, our goal is to save hundreds of union jobs by saving this plant. If Ford doesn’t want to continue production, that is their problem--- our problem is to see that workers continue producing in this plant.

It is time for those like Norm Coleman who talk about “democracy” to bring Ford workers and Minnesotans who have subsidized this operation for over eighty-years into the decision making process. Up until now, politicians like Norm Coleman and Mayor Coleman have maneuvered to prevent working people and tax-payers from having a say in the decision-making process so fundamental to democracy.

It is shameful that Norm Coleman would opportunistically raise expectations about keeping this plant open for his own self-serving political reasons while leaving the final decision on the future of this plant to a bunch of greedy, exploiting parasites and Wall Street coupon clippers operating behind closed doors in Ford’s Detroit corporate boardroom.

It is time to bring the decision-making process over the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant to Minnesota--- where it belongs: with Ford workers and tax-payers having the final say.

The response from United States DFL Congresswoman Betty McCollum is equally as shameful as Norm Coleman’s self-serving attempt to use this issue as she belittled Coleman’s efforts instead of offering to join him and by bringing pressure to bear on State Senator Jim Metzen to get S.F. 607 through his Senate Committee on Business, Industry and Jobs which is dominated by the DFL over Republicans--- eleven to seven.

Which brings me to wonder if Coleman is really sincere; why doesn’t he pressure the seven Republicans on this Committee to get behind passing this very straight-forward piece of legislation which brings the decision–making process into Minnesota?

Why DFL Congressman James Oberstar and his staff of displaced iron ore miners has been in hiding every time this issue is brought forward needs to be explained, also; perhaps Peter Makowski would like to explain?

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar’s Iron Range staff member, Jerry Fallos, has been shamefully silent, too.

The Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party state convention is underway in Rochester this weekend… what will we hear from the Minnesota DFL on where it stands on the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities assembly Plant?

In the past, James Oberstar has mesmerized convention delegates with his outstanding oratory of “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs;” will Congressman Oberstar have the moral and political courage to open his big mouth in defense of the jobs of Ford workers… which is also a defense of his constituents in the iron ore mines and taconite industry.

It is also time for Canadian and U.S. autoworkers to join hands in searching for solutions to the issues involved in these plant closures... combining the militancy and left-wing thinking of Canadian auto workers with cross-border calls for public ownership of these auto plants and/or nationalizations of the entire industry could prove to be a very powerful force for real change, which someone might want to talk to Barack Obama about; Canadian NDP leader Jack Layton should be up for this discussion.

Let's get former Manitoba NDP Premier Ed Schreyer involved in helping us in finding a solution to saving these auto plants... he managed to save a huge bus plant and hundreds of jobs in Manitoba... we could use his help here in Minnesota. Is anyone curious about how Premier Ed Schreyer, with help from the Communist Party of Canada-Manitoba, saved the bus plant in Winnipeg?

CAW leader Buzz Hargrove might want to consult with Ed Schreyer and the leaders of the CAW in Manitoba, too, in looking for a solution to keeping auto plants open. His sleazy affair with Liberalism hasn't seemed to pay off in saving a single job.

Ford may review truck plant closure plans, Coleman says

By KEVIN DIAZ, Star Tribune

June 6, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. Norm Coleman left a meeting with Ford Motor Co. officials Friday expressing optimism that the automaker will review its decision to close the plant in St. Paul that makes the Ranger pickup.

"I'm not raising any false expectations; all I've done is raise the curtain," Coleman told reporters during a conference call from Detroit.

"We'll see if it's fruitful or not."

The Minnesota Republican said he was given no time frame for the review. Ford plans to shutter the plant in September 2009, and Coleman acknowledged that "nothing's been changed, as of right now."

But he said that Ford officials told him that the changing vehicle market responding to $4-a-gallon gasoline is prompting sweeping reviews of operations, including the future of the Ranger, a medium-size pickup that is made exclusively at the plant in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood.

"It was clearly expressed to me that Ford is looking at all aspects of their operations," including the company's plans to close the plant, Coleman said. "That decision is being looked at. It is being reviewed."

Ford spokeswoman Angie Kozleski said Friday that the plan to close the plant has not changed, but that all operations are under review. "We are aggressive in lining up our capacity with demand, and are examining all areas of our business," she said.

Coleman flew to Detroit on Thursday, a day after he wrote Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally, asking that the company review its decision about the truck plant. Coleman noted that Ranger sales have increased this year, as car buyers move away from bigger and heavier sport-utility vehicles and pickups.

Coleman met Friday with Joseph Hinrichs, Ford's vice president for global manufacturing, and Curt Magleby, the company's director of government relations. He said the meeting came at "an opportune time," in light of two recent industry reports praising the Ranger and the plant where it is built.

On Wednesday, a J.D. Power survey ranked the Ranger second in its market segment for quality. On Thursday, a Harbour report ranked the St. Paul plant first in productivity.

"The [1,000] workers of the Ford plant should feel very proud of what they're doing," Coleman said.

Coleman, who has been criticized for not including other Minnesota politicians in his overtures to Ford, said he would talk Friday with Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a fellow Republican. He also said that he plans to talk with some Democrats.

"There are internal things that Ford has to do," Coleman said. "The good news is that all options are on the table."

CAW boss disappointed after meeting with GM on plant closure, considers strike, other options

By TOM KRISHER , Associated Press

June 6, 2008

DETROIT - The Canadian Auto Workers could strike or take other action against General Motors Corp. because the company won't budge on plans to close an Ontario pickup truck factory, the union's president said Friday.

Buzz Hargrove said the automaker committed to keeping the Oshawa plant open in a contract agreement on May 15. But earlier this week, GM said it would close the plant in 2009. It employs 2,600 hourly and 300 salaried workers.

After meeting with GM CEO Rick Wagoner on Friday in Detroit, Hargrove said the company wouldn't change its latest stance.

"We're walking away incredibly disappointed," he said. "We still feel betrayed."

GM said it can idle factories if market conditions warrant. In May, U.S. pickup sales fell more than 38 percent, and the company has said the market declined more rapidly than expected last month.

Detroit-based GM announced Tuesday it was closing Oshawa and three other pickup truck and sport utility vehicle factories as $4 per gallon gas has caused sales to tumble.

Union officials described the 90-minute meeting as tense. Hargrove said the CAW would decide its next move after its national convention later this month. Other moves could include arbitration, legal action or filing a complaint with Canada's labor board, he said.

A union blockade of GM's Oshawa offices will continue, union officials said.

Hargrove said market conditions haven't changed in the 2 1/2 weeks since GM agreed to the new three-year deal with the CAW.

"We haven't seen any evidence of that whatsoever," he said, adding that gasoline prices haven't changed since then.

Hargrove said the union has time to decide its next move because the plant isn't scheduled to close until 2009.

"They made a clear-cut commitment on the truck plant" to keep it open and invest in it, he said.

Wagoner told Hargrove and other union officials there was some promise of new products for the Oshawa car plant, Hargrove said. But the CAW president said that wasn't good enough.

Chris Buckley, president of the union local at the truck plant, said GM wrecked any trust it had with the union.

"They fractured the relationship severely," he said.

GM spokesman Stew Low said the factory commitments in the CAW contract are contingent upon board approval, market conditions and making a viable business case.

At the time of negotiations, GM still believed that the slumping pickup market could recover, Low said. Since then, the the trend away from trucks to cars has accelerated, he said.

"We're not in a situation where this is a cyclical type of economic condition where we can wait it out," he said. "We think it's a fundamental shift."

The decision to cease production at the four plants, including Oshawa truck, was made just a few days before Tuesday's announcement and after the bargaining was concluded, he said.

"We absolutely bargained in good faith," Low said.

Oshawa truck was picked for idling because it makes high-end pickups with more expensive options, a segment of the market affected severely by the sales decline, Low said.

Low said GM committed during contract talks to build a second car at the Oshawa car plant, and is looking at a third because the plant is flexible enough to build several models. He would not say what models.

The union's office blockade has forced GM employees to work from their homes, Low said.

GM shares fell 83 cents, or 4.9 percent, to $16.22 Friday after sinking to a 52-week low of $16.20 earlier in the session.

St. Paul police to apologize for detaining antiwar activist

-----Original Message-----

From: Alan Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]

Sent: Friday, June 06, 2008 8:36 AM

To: 'ppheifer@startribune.com'; 'rfurst@startribune.com'

Cc: 'Eric Lee'

Subject: Re: Democracy and the anti-democratic Policy of the St. Paul Police Department and City of St. Paul

Like the guy in your story, the St. Paul police detained me on Election Day for “taking pictures of the Ford Plant” and handing out leaflets advocating public ownership as the solution to saving the Plant, hydro dam and two-thousand jobs--- an alternative Senator Norman Coleman and other politicians refuse to consider in spite of all their empty rhetoric around election time on this issue. The police came out of nowhere and blocked off half of Ford Parkway claiming they “had a complaint of a stranger taking unauthorized photographs.” Several officers held me while another took my wallet out of my pocket and searched it for identification. After I complained to the Mayor, the police later--- about three months later--- “apologized” in a telephone call, saying they were “sorry for the inconvenience.” This is very typical behavior on the part of the St. Paul Police Department from what I understand in talking to others. One has to wonder if such anti-democratic conduct is not part of the training process of the St. Paul police department. I have photographs of the police detaining me and blocking off Ford Parkway as if I was some kind of bank robber or terrorist. In fact, the Sergeant on the scene who physically assaulted me by twisting my arm behind my back as another pulled my hair stated so another officer could grab my wallet stated, “In this day and age of terrorism we have a right to be concerned about a stranger taking unauthorized photographs.”

Police, concerned about the “crimes” of leafleting and photographing! Aren’t there some lights turning on upstairs in the dead-heads passing themselves off as elected officials?

The St. Paul Police and Ford Security routinely prohibit, under threat of arrest, the distribution of leaflets concerning the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant outside the doors of the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center even though there are newspaper stands at these same doors and tax-payer dollars have financed this “public” institution.

The time has come for a real in-depth story on the state of democracy in St. Paul.

The real question is: Why hasn’t the American Civil Liberties Union sued the St. Paul Police Department and the City of St. Paul already?

I had been intending to participate with a group of people leafleting the Obama event at the Xcel Center concerning saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant but I knew, from my past experience and run-in with the St. Paul police department that they would be out to harass people for exercising their First Amendment Rights and I figured it wasn’t worth the hassle… I wonder how many other people have been intimidated from participating “in the democratic process” in the same way? And then these same cops and politicians boast about the United States being the worlds’ greatest democracy.

While all of this police repression of our democratic rights goes on and continues unabated the circus in the Cities continues with politicians hypocritically calling for “citizen participation;” yes, come participate; get slapped around by the police; have your picture put in a police “red-squad” file, get detained; get arrested… get ticketed and tossed into a police car and driven ten blocks away and left off… what comes next? The Gestapo?

I am told by a St. Paul elected public official that the St. Paul Police Department together with the FBI and Homeland Security have been monitoring my postings on the “Labour Start” Facebook page. What the heck is going on in this country?

Alan L. Maki


St. Paul police to apologize for detaining antiwar activist

By PAT PHEIFER and RANDY FURST, Star Tribune

June 5, 2008

St. Paul police said Thursday that they will apologize to an antiwar organizer who was detained Tuesday outside the Obama campaign rally at the Xcel Energy Center for handing out leaflets promoting a Sept. 1 march on the Republican National Convention.
The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota said the arrest of Mick Kelly, 50, of Minneapolis, does not augur well for the way authorities will treat protesters during the convention.

"We're concerned the police so quickly violated Mick Kelly's First Amendment rights," Charles Samuelson said.

Mayor Chris Coleman said Thursday that he did not think the arrest presages anything about how convention protests will go. "It just says we need to educate our officers," he said. "The First Amendment is a core value of me as mayor and [John] Harrington as [police] chief.

Coleman praised police for moving quickly "to correct what was a mistake." He added, "We are going to move quickly to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Tom Walsh, a St. Paul police spokesman, said police initially believed that Kelly's leaflet distribution was in violation of an ordinance that prohibits peddling within a certain distance of the Xcel Center.

"But it's not," he said. "It's a free speech issue. He wasn't selling or vending, so in this case he was within his rights."

The citation will be dismissed, Walsh said, and the event commander, Cmdr. Joe Neuberger, will apologize to Kelly. Walsh said free speech issues will be part of the training officers receive for the convention. That training has begun but has not been completed, he said.

Walsh said there were no other arrests at the event. Peddlers (who had been selling campaign souvenirs) who were within the radius of the ordinance were asked to move and did, he said.

"It was an impromptu event," Walsh said. "A limited amount of resources were available. ... The safety and security of people attending the event was our priority."

Jack Larson, vice president and general manager of the Xcel Center, said he thought the ordinance barred leafleting on the Xcel sidewalks, but learned Thursday that it referred only to peddling.

If it happens again, he said, he might ask police to check to make sure the leafleteers were not peddling.

Coordinating activists Kelly, a member of the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, was coordinating five activists who handed out 3,000 fliers to supporters of Barack Obama. Xcel security told him that he could not leaflet in front of the Xcel, and when he continued, police were called.

Kelly said police officers told him to leave. "I said, 'That's not right. I don't have to leave. I'll continue leafleting.'"

He said he was put in a police car, driven about 10 blocks, issued a citation and released. He said he hurried back to the Xcel to hand out more fliers.

Kelly's arrest was witnessed by Teresa Nelson, an ACLU attorney who fired off an e-mail to the St. Paul city attorney's office, protesting the arrest.

The city attorney's office referred a reporter's questions about the ordinance Thursday to Bob Kessler, St. Paul's director of safety and inspections. Kessler said the ordinance was designed to stop ticket scalpers who were creating congestion.

Kelly is part of a group that objects to the route the police gave for the Sept. 1 antiwar march to the Xcel.

"I'm angry because we have the right to speak out against the war," he said. "The city's talk about all of St. Paul being a free speech zone is a joke."

ppheifer@startribune.com • 651-298-1551 rfurst@startribune.com • 612-673-7382

A comment: Mr. Kelly has a right to be angry.

A question: Why haven't we heard similar anger coming from Obama, the Democratic Party and the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party?

Is this kind of police behavior part of what we can expect from an Obama Presidency?

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Coleman to make case for Ford plant in St. Paul

Comment by Alan Maki on article below as posted on Pioneer Press web site:

Norm Coleman should be applauded for trying to keep the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant open even if it is only a cheap campaign gimmick on his part.


What is really unfortunate is that the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party has betrayed the trust of working people and completely abandoned all efforts to save this important plant which creates so many jobs; a plant powered for free by clean, green hydro-electricity.


Tax-payers have subsidized this entire operation to the hilt and if Ford refuses to keep the plant open the whole works should be placed under public ownership with the plant being re-tooled as part of the plan to "green America" as proposed by Obama.


Strange Obama didn't find the ingenuity to mention the need to save this Plant as part of his "green" scheme.


I'm sure the Obama Campaign is just thrilled that Norm Coleman took the wind out of their sails after spending millions turning out a huge crowd at the Excel Center... only to be done in by Republican Norm Coleman's call to keep the Plant open and save the jobs.


Perhaps Norm Coleman should consider adding his weight towards ending this dirty war in Iraq and that money saved could finally be used for the real peace dividends to finance retooling this plant after it is brought under public ownership.

amaki000@centurytel.net

http://capitalistglobalization.blogspot.com/




Coleman to make case for Ford plant in St. Paul

http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_9479807

By Frederic J. Frommer
Associated Press Writer

Article Last Updated: 06/04/2008 06:09:49 PM CDT



Senator Norm Coleman addresses the Republican Convention after receiving their endorsement Friday afternoon May 30, 2008 at Mayo Civic Center in Rochester, MN.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Norm Coleman announced plans today to travel to Detroit to urge Ford Motor Co. to scrap plans to close the company's St. Paul plant.

The Minnesota Republican also made the appeal in a letter he sent today to Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally. The plant is scheduled to close next year when production of the U.S. version of the Ford Ranger is expected to end.

"The Twin Cities assembly plant has a strong history of producing light, fuel-efficient vehicles that are now in high demand due to the escalating price of gasoline," Coleman wrote, "and I encourage you to consider a long-term mission for this plant that utilizes its contributions to the international automobile market."

Coleman, a former St. Paul mayor, noted that sales of Ranger have increased this year over the same period last year. And he argued that Minnesota is "the perfect environment for the manufacture of light trucks and flex-fuel automobiles," given the ethanol plants and E-85 pumps located in the state.

Ford spokeswoman Angie Kozleski said that the company "welcomes the interest of government officials. We will review the letter when we receive it."

But she noted that company's current plans are to close the plant in the third quarter of next year.

Coleman plans to travel to Detroit for the meeting in the next couple of weeks, said his spokesman, LeRoy Coleman.

Conference on Disinvestment canceled for "lack of interest"

What was being promoted in the Twin Cities labor community as a big trade union "Conference on Disinvestment" was abruptly canceled last week by the initiators and organizers; supposedly because of "lack of interest."

A conference of this nature is desperately needed here in Minnesota.

One has to ask how there possibly could have been a "lack of interest." If there was this "lack of interest" we need to get to the bottom of why there would be a "lack of interest" on such an important topic.

Given that this "Conference on Disinvestment" was "initiated and organized" (organized about as well as the trade union bureaucracy undertakes organizing of the unorganized or the attempt to save closing plants and thousands of jobs) by the "leadership" of the trade union movement and the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota.

It is fair to ask why the Minnesota AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations and their affiliated state and local unions and labor councils could not pull off a successful conference of this nature.

In fact, the conference was doomed from the start as the leaders of the Minnesota AFL-CIO and Change to Win refused to allow the question of saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant to be the focus for this "Conference on Disinvestment."

In fact, the regional and local "leadership" of the UAW did not even push forward the need to focus on saving this important Ford Plant, some two thousand jobs and the hydro-electric generating dam which powers the Plant with electricity to spare.

In fact, the organizers of this "Conference" wanted to have a conference which would make them look good but lead to no action locally... all talk, no action.

The United Steel workers were among the endorsers as were the building trades unions and even AFSCME and SEIU. Even the Teamster's Union was involved.

So, how could there have been a "lack of interest?"

One would think so many unions with high paid staffs who made a commitment to organizing this conference would have had no problem getting interest in this conference.

The initiators and organizers of this conference need to explain why this conference did not come off.

There was a very good article by Carl Bloice (a former editor of the Daily World--- formerly "The Daily Worker")who writes "Left Margin" and publishes on "Black Commentator." One of Bloice's essays is on the "reinvestnow.org" website:

Taking the Train to a Clean Environment, a Sustainable
Economy & Jobs

There was once a train that ran straight from downtown
Los Angeles to Santa Monica on the coast. I think it
was painted red - memory being what it is and being
that is was when I was a kid. My family would leave
home in South Central and be at the amusement pier or
the beach in about an hour. It was part of the Pacific
Electric Railway, at the time the largest trolley
system in the world, running 1,100 miles around
Southern California. Unfortunately, it went the way of
so many rail lines in the country as LA yielded to the
oil industry and the auto companies in their desire to
put everybody into a car (or cars; there are two and a
half cars for every family in the state.) or an
exhaust-spewing bus. Now the only way to traverse that
distance is on a thick maze of congested freeways.

I got to thinking about the red train the other day
when I came across Paul Krugman's May 19 column,
"Stranded in Suburbia," in the New York Times. Noting
that oil prices continue to soar, and the idea that oil
production will soon peak and go no higher is being
widely assumed, Krugman noted that Europeans "who have
achieved a high standard of living in spite of very
high energy prices - gas in Germany costs more than $8
a gallon - have a lot to teach us about how to deal
with that world." He was writing from Berlin.

"If Europe's example is any guide, here are the two
secrets of coping with expensive oil: own
fuel-efficient cars, and don't drive them too much."

"I have seen the future, and it works," Krugman wrote.
Those words immediately recalled to mind the feeling I
had in making my way around Berlin last summer. My
feeling was not so much that I had seen the future but
rather that I was experiencing the present and my
homeland was so far in the past.

Krugman might have also mentioned Berlin's advances in
environmentally-friendly building construction methods
or the provision of other alternative transportation
means such as widespread safe bike lanes and provisions
for the physically challenged to get around.

The day after the Times column appeared, columnist
Derrick Jackson took up the subject in the Boston
Globe. He noted that over lunch with an Amtrak
machinist, Presidential candidate Barack Obama
commented, "The irony is, with the gas prices what they
are, we should be expanding rail service." The previous
week in Michigan, Obama had raised the question of fuel
efficiency standards, concluding "We are taking steps
in the right direction. American automakers are on the
move. But we have to do more."

We can expect a lot of pandering to the auto industry
between now and November, wrote Jackson. "Everyone
knows that whatever Obama says about the US auto
industry is subject to the obvious. American automakers
are on the move all right, but to Washington, to lobby
against higher fuel efficiency. Any steps in the right
direction have been baby steps. High-speed rail could
use some of this pampering and pandering."

Higher fuel efficiency standards are a given. The
European Parliament is right now taking up a proposal
to have every car sold on the continent in 2020 use
less fuel than nearly all autos sold there today. And
Jackson is quite right that right now in Washington
fuel efficiency is the political battlefield. But
that's a far cry from sane and sensible national
transportation and environmental policies that will
bring Americans even close to the Europeans. That's
where his comments on Amtrak come in.

"It is obvious that the pressure will mount on Obama,
the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for
president, to bow to the interests of the auto and
airline industries," wrote Jackson. "In 2000 and 2004,
two-thirds of campaign contributions from both those
industries went to Republican causes, according to the
Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2008 cycle, the
Democrats are getting about half of the money from both
industries."

"It is one thing to meet with an Amtrak worker for a
photo-op," wrote Jackson. "It is another to get on
board for the rail service America needs for a green
economy, less urban congestion, and a more civilized
future. Obama says, 'Detroit won't find a better
partner than me in the White House.' In the past, that
has also meant making a pariah out of Amtrak. Nothing
would symbolize a break from this past more than a
whistle-stop tour in the presidential campaign, to
promote trains themselves."

Both Krugman and Jackson cite some reasons for
optimism. Jackson notes that rail travel is sharply on
the rise in response to soaring gas prices. The problem
is that it is a drop in the bucket. And Amtrak doesn't
go everywhere people want - or sometimes need - to go.
And it's expensive. It still cost more to go from one
region of the country to another on the train than it
does by air - even with the extra $15 a bag.

"There have been many news stories in recent weeks
about Americans who are changing their behavior in
response to expensive gasoline - they're trying to shop
locally, they're canceling vacations that involve a lot
of driving, and they're switching to public transit,"
says Krugman. "But none of it amounts to much. For
example, some major public transit systems are excited
about ridership gains of 5 or 10 percent. But fewer
than 5 percent of Americans take public transit to
work, so this surge of riders takes only a relative
handful of drivers off the road."

It was reported last week that many working people in
the country are deciding to give up on trying to meet
their mortgage payments in order to be able to pay off
their car loans - having no other way to get to their
jobs.

Krugman speaks of the need to retreat from suburbia and
learn to live in more compact areas, saying "Any
serious reduction in American driving will require more
than this - it will mean changing how and where many of
us live." While that's not exactly utopian it's not
likely to happen soon.

Jackson is quite right that the country needs greatly
expanded rail service "for a green economy, less urban
congestion, and a more civilized future."

However, there is one thing glaringly left out of these
recent commentaries on the cost of fuel and the need
for an improved public transportation system at all
levels.

Jackson suggests that Obama and others are pandering
not just to the auto industry as such but to auto
workers as well. There's a reason for that.
Unemployment rates are increasing and the ability to
secure good, adequately remunerated jobs has to be one
of the principle challenges before the nation.

There's been a lot of talk recently about the need to
do something about repairing and upgrading the
country's infrastructure, including roads, bridges and
levees (another area where the Europeans and Asians are
way out ahead). But mostly it's lip service. What we
need is a massive public works program to create a
physical environment suitable for the rest of the 21st
Century. Any program to create a "green" economy or
reducing dependency on petroleum must include the
project of getting us out of the present cul-de-sac of
over dependence on the automobile. There are new rail
cars to be built, tracks to be laid, computer networks
to be constructed and power lines to be erected. What
better way to create meaningful work for those who can
no longer depend on machinery production to fully meet
the need and the urban youth increasingly faced with a
dismal economic future?

Given the dismal depths to which the current electoral
campaign has fallen, it would be hard to generate a
sensible, comprehensive discussion of the country's
future transportation policies. But it would be a good
thing if it were somehow injected into the debate. It's
a tall order but one that has to be faced up to if we
are to avoid falling further behind. The future of
train travel would be a good place to start.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice
is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National
Coordinating Committee of the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly
worked for a healthcare union.

For some reason, Carl Bloice has not written about public ownership of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and this is unfortunate.

Had the initiators and organizers of the Twin Cities "Conference on Disinvestment" made saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant the centerpiece of their conference, the conference would have been a great success. A previous "Labor and Sustainability Conference" held at the UAW Local union hall and at the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center drew hundreds of labor activists.

The crux of the problem in mobilizing the working class to take united action to defend their own interests was recently pointed out by Lynn Williams--- the former International President of the United Steelworkers who said that labor leaders look negatively upon rank and file activism when they should be encouraging such activities even if it means rank and file activity makes going a little uncomfortable for the union leaderships once in awhile.

Perhaps the Conference initiators and organizers made a mistake in not inviting Lynn Williams and former Manitoba Premier and Manitoba New Democratic Party member Ed Schreyer, who initiated the public takeover of the bus plant in Winnipeg, Manitoba which saved the plant and hundreds of jobs, as participants in the "Conference on Disinvestment."

The cancellation of this "Conference on Disinvestment" for "lack of interest" is not the kind of message we want our class adversaries to be getting during this important election year. First of all, the signal sent is that education of the working class is not taking place. Second, the message this sends to our class adversaries is that working people don't care. Third, the message sent is that working people are not capable of thinking through their problems and formulating alternatives to the "crisis of everyday living" working people are experiencing because capitalism is on the skids to oblivion and is going to take us all down with this rotten system based upon the exploitation of workers where the capitalist class takes all the wealth created by workers and lives high on the hog while so many working people are forced to go without decent jobs, housing, health care and even the basic requirement of food and clothing not to mention clean air to breath and good water to drink.

The signal this cancellation sends to the Republicans and those in the "Summit Hill Club" and the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce who dominate the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party is that working people don't have the means to stand up to them in bringing forward a progressive, working class agenda with solutions to the problems which have been created by the neo-liberal agenda promoting capitalist globalization of which United States imperialism is the pillar.

I find it strange that I find the highly paid staff members of these unions very interested in the free booze and all the "goodies" at the Minnesota AFL-CIO conventions and the keggers at the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party conventions yet there is no enthusiasm to conduct outreach to the rank-and-file to stimulate interest in a "Conference on Disinvestment."

The Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota, the prime "mover and shaker" behind this "Conference on Disinvestment," could use a little reorganizing itself to bring it into line with the reality that there really is a class struggle and capitalism is the source of our problems with socialism the solution. Breaking from the grip of the cowardly business-dominated Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party might also be of some help to the Labor Education Service in pulling off a successful conference of this nature which is sorely needed if we are going to bring forward real solutions to the problems confronting the working class.

We all know this "Conference on Disinvestment" wasn't canceled for "lack of interest; this "Conference on Disinvestment" was canceled because the initiators, organizers and conveners ran away from the real issues just like the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Convention later this week will run from the issues of importance to working people... from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to single-payer universal health care to the myriad of problems plaguing the working class here in Minnesota ranging from the "Casino Compacts" intentionally created with an anti-worker bias to the problem of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development being biased against working people to bringing forward solutions to global warming in a way which will create jobs and livable communities.

In general, there remains a big fear in talking about the politics and economics of livelihood... working class, socialist politics which have deep red roots here in Minnesota; the time has come to do a little cultivating to assist fresh shoots of rank and file activism in breaking through the hard, crusty soil of class collaboration and capitalist apologetics.

The Labor Education Service and the Carlson School of Management : The Neoliberal Agenda

I received this e-mail from someone called "twisted nelly" in response to my blog (see link below)

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/crisis-of-disinvestment-organizing-to.html

-----Original Message-----
From: twistednelly@aim.com [mailto:twistednelly@aim.com]
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 12:10 PM
To: amaki000@centurytel.net
Subject: You really don't get it do you?

The Crisis of Disinvestment conference is about public infrastructure not the bailout of a private entity. Maybe if the UAW was more powerful than they were they could save themselves. Maybe if they had followed the work 30 years ago, we would still have a strong home based manufacturing industry. Maybe if they had organized the foreign companies there would not have been the incentive to bring them here. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe. Maybe it is easier to sit up in northern Minnesota and watch from afar spewing out rhetoric than it is to work in the real world.

Note: This is my response to "twisted nelly" (above) who responded the blog on the “Conference on Dis-investment” being sponsored and initiated by the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota Carlton School

First, who are you? I assume by what you write, the name “twisted nelly” is an appropriate description of you… but, come on, is this really your name?

Second, it is you who “does not get it.”

In fact, the tax-payers of Minnesota have a tremendous investment in the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant… more so than in many infrastructure projects.

The UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center certainly qualifies as “infrastructure.” I am glad you take such a cavalier attitude of having to continue paying some thirty-million dollars plus interest for a brand new training center which will be relegated to a pile of debris.

Furthermore, the hydro dam powering the Ford Plant since the day it opened providing free electricity for Ford’s manufacturing operation is “public infrastructure” by any definition of the word no matter what dictionary you use.

I resent receiving an e-mail like this which is unsigned. You certainly are not only a “twisted nelly,” you are also very ignorant.

I work in the very real world… a world presently dominated by a capitalist system which is rotten to the core just like its “infrastructure.”

I will tell you what is really “twisted;” spending trillions of dollars bombing bridges in Iraq as the I-35W Bridge collapses and a bunch of worthless politicians don’t even want to compensate the victims even though it is quite apparent everyone in government knew it was a tragedy waiting to happen and then proceeded to cover up the problem. The same politicians, by the way, who have refused to pass S.F. 607 which would save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant… and two-thousand UNION jobs along with the hydro dam.

If you would have read what I sent out, I am suggesting the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant become a “public entity” and taken out of the hands of private capital so we can save it… all else has failed according to the Governor and both Mayors of the Twin Cities and the State Legislators.

Is there something that makes a Plant so special that it cannot become a “public entity” just like a bridge or school or library or the Green Bay Packers or the Bank of North Dakota or operated on the basis of a cooperative like any of the many cooperatives in the Twin Cities? Tax-payers already own the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center connected to the Plant… why didn’t this “private entity,” the Ford Motor Company, pay for its own Training Center rather than come crying to tax-payers to fund it?

Tax-payers have been footing the bill to construct and maintain the hydro dam to power this “private entity” for free for over eighty years. You take a look at the hydro dam and how it is situated as part of the locks and tell me this hydro dam is not public infrastructure.

Tax-payers have even paid a substantial share of the wages of Ford employees at this Plant, and tax-payers have paid higher taxes because the politicians let the Ford Motor Company pay less than their fair share of taxes.

None of what I have “spewed out” is “rhetoric,” it is all facts… if you don’t believe me go ask the Governor or Mayor Coleman or R.T. or any state legislator. While you are at it, ask them to see the complete figures for what tax-payers have sunk into this “private entity,” the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

It is the Ford Motor Company and the Wall Street coupon clippers and the Summit Hill Club of real estate speculators along with the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce spewing out dirty lies in order to try to hoodwink everyone into having the tax-payers now pay for the demolition of this very usable Plant and then they will expect tax-payers to pay for the “infrastructure” required for the new “green” yuppie community of high rent segregated housing and cute little boutiques they want to create on the ruins of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

Mayor Coleman wants to create this quaint little “green” yuppie community on the Ford Site and he can’t even afford to take care of the parks in the City as it is; not to mention fill the potholes in the roads.

Did you ever consider how much tax-payers have subsidized “infrastructure” as far as the roads, bridges, highways and rail lines the Ford Motor Company has been using as part of their “private entity” manufacturing operation for the last eighty years? Consider the barge operation and the locks the Ford Motor Company has used, too. Consider the mining operation for manufacturing glass. Ford has used and abused the natural resources--- including the waters of the Mighty Mississippi together with an entire network of public “infrastructure” for over eighty years.

Or, did you ever consider that the Ford Motor Company helped to destroy public transportation system in this country, including in the Twin Cities? These street cars were “public infrastructure,” eh?

I find it amazing that the university community would see “disinvestment” in such a narrow way. I find it even more amazing that the university community has sat on its hands as the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is relegated to a pile of rubble.

I do think it is just as relevant to talk about the future of the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center as it is to talk about the future of public education in New Orleans… in fact, I, unlike you, see a direct relationship between what happened in New Orleans and what is going on with the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

Hey, here is an idea… why not just do away with all “public infrastructure” and privatize everything from our roads to our schools and universities to our libraries and public parks and let the Wall Street coupon clippers manage it all by charging us “user fees”… then you wouldn’t have to have a conference on “disinvestment” at a tax-payer supported university.

By the way… the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant could play a major role in developing the kind of equipment needed to create the kind of “infrastructure” required for “greening” our world.

Wait until you don’t have two-thousand Ford workers paying taxes to fund your “infrastructure” projects… then you will see another aspect of how important this Plant is to life here in Minnesota.

As far as my living up here in northern Minnesota and commenting on what goes on down there in the Cities… have you ever asked your legislators where the contractors doing all this work on “our public infrastructure” are coming from and where they carry the profits off to? In your twisted way of thinking it is okay for these contractors to come into our state looking to profit off rebuilding a bridge that was allowed to collapse and wasn’t built right to start with, but I am supposed to keep my mouth shut… perhaps you should offer the same advice to the Ford Motor Company running things from Detroit and suggest the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant should be left to the decision making of the Ford workers and the people residing in the local community.

Maybe you should also offer the same advice to 90% of the State Legislators.

Hey, why take kids from up here in northern Minnesota to fight your dirty wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

As far as what I do for a living which you seem to be so concerned about--- I travel around talking to people about how unjust it is that thirty-thousand Minnesotans go to work in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws as public “infrastructure” is maintained by tax-payers to get the suckers into these casinos.

Hey, why don’t you keep your mouth shut when I say we need to renegotiate the “Compacts” which created all these casinos to include protecting the rights of workers? Better yet, why don’t you open your mouth and speak out against these injustices?

Alan L. Maki

Then as a result of my letter to "twisted nelly," I received this e-mail:

-----Original Message-----
From: Connie Wanberg [mailto:wanbe001@umn.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 8:01 AM
To: Alan Maki
Subject: Re: You really don't get it do you?


Hi Alan, please take me off your email list. Thanks, Connie Wanberg








I responded:

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 9:31 AM
To: 'Connie Wanberg'
Cc: 'Robert Killeen'; 'rgettel@uaw.net'; 'gdubovich@usw.org'
Subject: RE: You really don't get it do you? A response to Professor

Dear Professor Connie Wanberg, Chair and Departmental Director of the Labor Education Service of the University Of Minnesota;

I am complying with your request to be taken off my list in voicing my concerns about your upcoming “Conference on Dis-investment.”

However, I find it very strange that I would receive notice of this Conference inviting my attendance and participation, and then when I voice my concerns that the university community in the Twin Cities has failed to become involved in the struggle to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, two-thousand jobs AND a very important component of the Twin Cities and our State’s infrastructure, the hydro dam which tax-payers financed, built and provided for Henry Ford to power--- for free--- this very profitable manufacturing operation for so many years including profiting from this operation from war production during World War II even while he threw his political support behind the fascist Adolf Hitler and Italy’s Mussolini and Spain’s fascist Franco as my father, my aunts and uncles and most of humanity was engaged in the struggle to defeat these fascists, the Ford Motor Company raked in fabulous profits off the war including from the manufacture of armaments at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

Even now, the Ford Motor Company sells its Rangers to the Blackwater Agency and the other “contractors” in Iraq who are trying to put down the Iraqi resistance to having their oil stolen from them.

Now the Labor Education Service organizes a conference on “Dis-investment” and you invite the participation of all working people to pay an unusually high fee to attend your conference which uses the problems workers at the other end of the Mighty Mississippi River are experiencing to intentionally take the focus away from the issues surrounding the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, two-thousand jobs and two very important components of Minnesota’s infrastructure: the hydro dam and the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center. When, what you should be doing is explaining how the problems in New Orleans and what is taking place with the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, the loss of two-thousand jobs, the hydro dam and the Training Center are all related problems.

As is very apparent from the e-mail I received below, there is tremendous ignorance concerning how what is going on in New Orleans and here in Minnesota is related… in fact, this e-mail clearly demonstrates the complete failure of educational institutions including the Labor Education Service when it comes to issues like this.

In fact, for many decades the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota has been intentionally mis-educating working people when it comes to providing the real history of the labor movement, the facts about this rotten capitalist system being the source of the problems working people are experiencing, and the need for a socialist solution as articulated by our State's late great socialist governors, Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson.

If in fact the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota was doing a legitimate job of education working people, rank-and-file activists, elected labor leaders and union staff, organized labor would have come out swinging in response to Ford’s intent to close, then demolish, the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

Obviously, the members of UAW Local 879 and their Local leadership did not even know how to effectively lobby for passage of S.F. 607. Why not? Because your Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota which is part of the Carlson School of Management has not taught these strategies, tactics and techniques that workers need to fight back in this very mean, dirty and nasty period of “neoliberalism;” or, more appropriately, in the era of US imperialist domination of the world which has the military-financial-industrial complex of U.S. state monopoly capitalism trying to run the entire world in quest of squeezing greater profits from working people.

Professor Wanberg, your Labor Education Service is not teaching working people what they need to know to participate in the class struggle… in fact, your Labor Education Service still sees labor as “the middle class,” because talking about the “working class” implies that there is something inherently wrong with a social and economic system which has a working class creating all the wealth while the capitalist class is stealing all the wealth the working class creates through a very simple to explain system of exploitation of labor; a very simple concept that the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota intentionally chooses not to explain to working people.

Professor Wanberg, I always thought the objective of education was to teach the truth.

By failing to link the situation surrounding the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, the lives of two-thousand workers and the future of infrastructure like the hydro dam and the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center to the problems in New Orleans and collapsing bridges and the attempts being made to privatize public education you are doing a great “dis-service” to the discussion needed on “dis-investment” and the “neoliberal agenda.”

Quite frankly, I think it is by intent that the Labor Education Service has refused to acknowledge the problems surrounding the declared closing of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant because the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota is afraid to acknowledge what Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson, John Bernard and the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and its coalition partner the Communist Party USA pointed out long ago: capitalism has failed.

The Labor Education Service fears acknowledging that it is only through public ownership that the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, the hydro dam, the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training center AND the livelihoods of two-thousand workers will be saved.

Professor Wanberg, your pay-check comes from a public institution… why shouldn’t the workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant draw their pay-checks from a publicly owned enterprise, too?

In closing, I will just note that thirty-thousand Minnesotans are going to their jobs in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws because the staff and faculty of the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota refused to warn State Legislators that they were approving “Compacts” that specifically were drafted to place Minnesota workers into a Draconian situation at the hands of very mean, ruthless and violent managements. The Labor Program Service refused to educate the labor movement here in Minnesota that creating a network of “right-to-work-for-less without-any-rights” colonies strung out across this state would be used as a club over the heads of all workers and wielded as viciously as any policeman’s billy-club by the capitalist class.

As you know, many miners, forestry workers, and auto workers are now employed in the Indian Gaming Industry under these atrocious conditions… if you don’t believe me perhaps you would like me to take your staff and faculty on a tour of each of the casinos operating in Minnesota.

I find it ironic the infrastructure in our state--- the roads and bridges of our state, when they are not collapsing, buckling and filling with potholes--- can carry workers to poverty wage jobs employed under the most disgraceful Draconian conditions in casinos, but will not be carrying workers to good paying union jobs at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant largely because you and your Labor Program Service arrogantly try to saddle working people with the outmoded way of thinking that ownership of the manufacturing industry is some how the exclusive right of the corrupt, completely incompetent and parasitic class of Wall Street coupon clippers, real estate vultures and the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce representing them all through their control of both the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party and the Republican Party.

Please don’t think I am just picking on the Labor Education Service… I attended several functions at McAllister College including the national conference of the Labor Educators and a play by Howard Zinn brilliantly performed by the actor about the life of Karl Marx in which he presented, in general terms, every issue under the sun confronting working people but refused to address the issue of the closing of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. This may not be a “conspiracy” among academia to ignore the plight of two-thousand workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, but academia certainly seems to understand the “limits” imposed by that “class in control.”

By the way, I am still wondering who this cowardly “twisted nelly” is… you wouldn’t happen to know, would you?

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

I would be remiss not to point out that the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota is part of its Carlson School of Management.

This is a very important point because the purpose of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management is to teach neoliberalism.

Needless to say, the Carlson School of Management's Labor Education Service has as its primary purpose to indoctrinate labor officials and union activists with capitalist ideas not in the working class' interest.

In effect, the role of the Labor Education Service is to "lead the cattle to slaughter," so-to-speak. To make workers putty in the hands of the bosses; to convince workers that it is best if they let their bosses do all the major thinking for them.

Working people need to create their own "think-tanks" and "action centers" based on their own class' interest--- the working class. Working people need to have a full voice in all decision-making, from deciding when, and if, a plant will close to what is produced and how production is carried on. Working class communities need a full voice in the decision-making process, too... this is what democracy is supposed to be all about.

What the heck is "neoliberalism" anyways? The topic of a future blog.

A twisted pretzel to "twisted nelly" and Professor Wanberg for their illuminating responses.

Three important working class concepts:

Education

Organization

United Working Class Action

Three important books to go with these concepts:

"Super Profits and Crisis" by Victor Perlo... Education

"Working Class USA; the power and the movement" by Gus Hall...Organization

"Always Bring A Crowd; the story of Frank Lumpkin, steelworker" by Beatrice Lumpkin... United Working Class Action






A legacy of progressive struggle... yesterday and today---

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day... well, Mother's Day may not be such a happy occasion for 300,000 working class mothers in the United States---

This Mother’s Day finds many working class mothers--- well over 300,000--- working in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages and without any rights under state or federal labor laws in over four-hundred casinos spread out across the United States--- part of the Indian Gaming Industry, which is a front for mobsters and organized crime.

I would remind you that right now before the Michigan Legislature--- having been shamefully approved by Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm and the Michigan House--- with a Democratic majority; and presently awaiting action by the Michigan Senate, is the “Gun Lake Casino Compact.”

For the first time, a “Compact” is now under such close scrutiny politicians are embarrassed to give their final consent to a “Compact.”

I would urge you to write to President Ron Gettelfinger of the United Auto Workers union asking that the UAW flex its considerable political muscle in the State of Michigan and insist the Michigan Senate turn down this “Gun Lake Casino Compact” until the full rights of working people under all state and federal labor laws are written into this “Compact.”

President Ron Gettelfinger can be contacted by e-mail at: rgettel@uaw.net

The UAW’s lead lobbyist in Michigan is Nadine Nosal. Nadine can be contacted at: nnosal@uaw.net

The Gun Lake Casino will be managed by the notorious Station Casinos and the Fertitta family so well known as the “sleaze of sleaze.”

Would you want your Mother working in a smoke-filled casino without any rights for a scum-bag like Frank Fertitta and his “family?”

I would note that of all the legislators in Michigan, one lone Republican woman, has had the moral and political courage to challenge this disgraceful and shameful “Gun Lake Casino Compact” which will send another 1,800 workers into one more smoke-filled casino without any rights… no rights at all, none, zilch. This in spite of everything we know about the very harmful effects of second-hand smoke…

Here in Minnesota, State Legislators passed “Freedom to Breath” legislation banning smoking in all places of employment… except the state’s casinos which employ over thirty-thousand Minnesotans. Minnesota legislators claim they had no jurisdiction to enforce this ban at the Indian Casinos. Well, here is an opportunity for anyone who believes in working people having the right to be employed in a healthy working environment fully protected by the rights extended to all other workers to take a stand. I would expect the Democrats in Minnesota who used for their excuse, after they previously approved almost twenty such Draconian “Compacts,” that they will now call upon their colleagues in Michigan to finally set an example which will lead to the re-negotiation of all “Compacts” in the United States setting forth smoke-free working environments and casino workers having the same rights as all other workers under state and federal labor laws.

Perhaps Minnesota State Representative Alice Hausman would like to lead the effort… she knows first hand what suffering cancer causes; and she is a big booster of the American Cancer Society and the Heart and Lung Foundation putting up all these bill-boards warning of the dangers of second-hand smoke.

Again, I ask: Would you want your Mother working under these shameful conditions under the management of Frank Fertitta and Station Casinos? If not, please contact UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Nadine Nosal and tell the UAW to use its influence, and flex its political muscle, for a change.

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/