Richard Trumka heaps praise on Wall Street's President

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Trumka-Obama-Forcefully-Advocated-for-Working-Families-in-State-of-Union

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka heaps praise on Wall Street's president, Barack Obama...

"President Obama eloquently and forcefully advocated for working families throughout his State of the Union Address," last night.


Trumka also said:

The  president’s focus on raising wages through collective bargaining, better paying jobs, a fairer tax code, fair overtime rules, and expanded access to education and earned leave sent the right message at the right time..."


Is there anyone who actually believes this crap?

While Richard Trumka continues to hold up this Dumb Donkey's tail, the only thing left for workers to fight over is what the sparrows leave behind.

For the hundreds of millions of dollars and energy labor is wasting supporting the Democratic Party and its worthless politicians, the working class could have its own political party--- a party similar to Canada's socialist New Democratic Party which is organized labor's party.

Larry Cohen, President of the Communications Workers of America announces he will be leaving the position

http://www.cwa-union.org/news/entry/a_message_from_cwa_president_larry_cohen#.VMJPvC7rV01

A Message from CWA President Larry Cohen

September 25, 2014

Dear Sisters and Brothers:


After much thought, I have decided not to seek reelection next June as President of our union.


I informed the Executive Board at our meeting September 18. I am confident that our Executive Board can support a strong candidate but this is not a campaign note and that decision is up to you.


I appreciate those of you who take the time to read this note, it could and maybe should have ended here, but I want to share some thinking and feelings on what is, for me, a difficult moment. Too often in labor we make everything seem or sound simple, robbing ourselves of our ability to move each other in much deeper ways.


I am hoping my decision can be as much a signal of what we must do and the state of our movement as it is a notice about my own personal journey. This is the tenth year I have been honored every day to serve as President of our union. I am proud to work with an Executive Board that understands the critical times that face so many of our members. I am proud to work with amazing staff in Washington and across our union.


But mostly, I am proud of all of you and the work we have done together for decades. Obviously, all that we do rests with active members, shop stewards who stand up and fight back, and local officers, mostly volunteers, who defend our values and past accomplishments and in these brutal days of domination by financial capital, still dream and work for real change.

At the end of the day, we each have responsibility for only our own journeys. Just as the earth orbits the sun at 65,000 miles per hour, each of us, as one of 7 billion, finds our way on this earth for our lifetime, living, loving, seeking meaningful work, having fun when possible, but most of all, making a difference. It has long seemed to me that my own journey has meaning for me for the same reasons we all share—faith in basic values, love between family and friends, and shared commitments.


Jumping to our beloved CWA, we do amazing work together in these times. We push out of the shrinking box of traditional unionism, while cherishing the rights on the job we still enjoy. We realize that our traditional and historic union role by itself is much like a death march as our numbers across the USA and even Canada shrink under brutal attacks by the financial elite whose greed has reached historic proportions and whose power is nearly complete.


After Wisconsin, and so many other attacks, public and private sector, together, we developed our movement building strategy and our focus on linking economic justice and democracy. We realized that waiting for labor to unite around a common strategy would lead us to the dustbin of history. Unions have different strategies—some at least for now are faring better, some avoid the grasp of Wall Street greed. Some unions, whether local or national, have a different view based on a simpler agenda or a more traditional collective bargaining approach. This is true within CWA as well, differences are part of democracy as long as we stay tolerant and are not frozen by a lack of unanimity.


So we work with those who are willing, starting in our workplace, our local, our district or sector, then in labor councils or unions in our communities. But we don’t stop there. Our strategy is rooted in the need for national change, even if our own goals are local or just at our own employers. More than ever in our history we must build deeper partnerships beyond labor with groups that are willing to develop a common strategy for economic justice. With six percent of the private sector organized, unions must be ready to partner and not just expect to lead.

Collective bargaining and organizing rights are falling in the private sector and half the states in the public sector, and are far below the rest of the world’s democracies, and we can’t change that one employer at a time. That kind of national change, as we learned after the elections of 2009, is blocked by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, the right wing, yes, a giant national conspiracy of wealth and privilege, linked to a conservative social agenda that blocks us even when we demonstrate strong majority support.


So after decades of organizing, bargaining and movement building work, it seems time for me to pass the torch as CWA President next June, but I will double down on building the mass movement for democracy and economic justice. Our union has more activists and a better commitment to what must be done than ever. As we battle for fair trade or to get big money out of politics, we demonstrate that we can build amazing new alliances and deeper than ever. And by your convention action over the last ten years, we have millions of dollars each year to commit to those fights, as well as the best activists in the movement and the resources to train thousands more.


I am not leaving for another job or personal benefit. I am not leaving because of the growing anger I feel from the attacks on our members every day. Using last week as an example, first GE announced the sale of its Appliance Division to Electrolux with thousands of our members’ jobs on the line. Then at Cablevision, two weeks after firing one of our best leaders, the billionaire CEO compels the 300 techs to attend a captive meeting where he makes all kinds of promises, and tells them that he is paying for a private election the next day so they can vote out the union. Illegal, yes, but it is already six months since the trial ended on earlier equally outrageous NLRB charges.


It’s true that we also have great days like this past Monday, receiving an NLRB decision that CNN must rehire more than 100 technicians and bargain with our union 11 years after they were fired. Or Tuesday, winning the representation election at American Airlines where so many have struggled 18 years through election defeats and vicious attacks and now 15,000 have a union.

In the Grapes of Wrath, the main character Tom Joad is asked near the end by his mother, “Where will you go?” I am not Tom Joad and my journey is just my journey. But as Tom said, “wherever there’s a fight…I’ll be there.”


For the next nine months, I’ll be right here. Working harder than ever, every chance I get to support our bargaining, our organizing and our movement building work. Fighting the TPP, the worst trade deal in a 20-year string. Fighting to change the Senate rules so they actually debate the issues of the day. Fighting for organizing rights at T-Mobile and Cablevision so one day the sacrifices of so many will make a difference.


After that I’ll be working just as hard to build the movement of 50 million, knowing that CWA will keep leading and I can work with others to help convince them that our work together cannot just be about the next election. Economic change in America will not happen without a broad movement that includes bargaining and organizing rights as a key part of that change. More than ever, I am committed to that effort.


One day longer, each day stronger!


Solidarity forever!


Larry

IT IS 3 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

Please consider sharing this blog post.

IT IS 3 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

CLIMATE CHANGE AND NUCLEAR TENSIONS PUSH DOOMSDAY CLOCK HANDS FORWARD
“Extraordinary and Undeniable” Climate, Weapons Threats Cited for Movement;
Doomsday Clock Adjustment is 1st in 3 Years and is Accompanied by Urgent Call for Action.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 22, 2015 – Warning that “the probability of global catastrophe is very high” unless quick action is taken, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board today cited unchecked climate change and global nuclear weapons modernization as the basis for their decision to move the minute hand of the historic Doomsday Clock forward two minutes. The shift of the Doomsday Clock hands to three minutes to midnight is the first such adjustment to be made in three years. The Board also outlined action steps that will need to be taken “very soon” in order to avert catastrophe.

The full statement from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board -- in consultation with its Board of Sponsors that includes 17 Nobel Prize laureates -- is available online at http://thebulletin.org.

The opening paragraph of the statement from the Board reads as follows: “In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.”

The final paragraph of the statement from the Board warns: “In 2015, with the Clock hand moved forward to three minutes to midnight, the board feels compelled to add, with a sense of great urgency: ‘The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.’”

The last time the Doomsday Clock minute hand moved was in January 2012, when the Clock’s minute hand was pushed ahead one minute from six to five minutes before midnight. Since its creation in 1947, the Doomsday Clock has been adjusted only 18 times, ranging from two minutes before midnight in 1953 to 17 minutes before midnight in 1991. The last time the Doomsday Clock was at three minutes to midnight was 1983, when “U.S.-Soviet relations were at their iciest,” according to the Bulletin.

In unveiling the change to the Doomsday Clock, Kennette Benedict, executive director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said: “Today, unchecked climate change and a nuclear arms race resulting from modernization of huge arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity. And world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of leadership endanger every person on Earth. Based on their observations, the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board find conditions in the world to be so threatening that they are moving the hands of the Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight. It is now 3 minutes to midnight.”

Sivan Kartha, a member of the Science and Security Board, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and senior scientist, Stockholm Environment Institute, said: “Steps seen as bold in light of today’s extremely daunting political opposition to climate action do not even match the expectations of five years ago, to say nothing of the scientific necessity. The results are unsurprising. Global greenhouse gas emission rates are now 50% higher than they were in 1990. Emission rates have risen since 2000 by more than in the previous three decades combined. Investments have continued to pour into fossil fuel infrastructure at a rate that exceeds $1 trillion per year, with additional hundreds of billions of dollars in continued fossil fuel subsidies. We can and must turn this around.”

Sharon Squassoni, a member of the Science and Security Board, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and director and senior fellow at the Proliferation Prevention Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, said: “Since the end of the Cold War, there has been cautious optimism about the ability of nuclear weapon states to keep the nuclear arms race in check and to walk back slowly from the precipice of nuclear destruction. That optimism has essentially evaporated in the face of two trends: sweeping nuclear weapons modernization programs and a disarmament machinery that has ground to a halt. Although the United States and Russia no longer have the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons they had during the Cold War, the pace of reduction has slowed dramatically in recent years, well before the crisis in Crimea. From 2009 to 2013, the Obama administration cut only 309 warheads from the stockpile.”

Richard Somerville, a member of the Science and Security Board, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and a distinguished professor emeritus and research professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, said: “Efforts at reducing global emissions of heat-trapping gases have so far been entirely insufficient to prevent unacceptable climate disruption. Unless much greater emissions reductions occur very soon, the countries of the world will have emitted enough carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by the end of this century to profoundly transform the Earth's climate. The resulting climate change will harm millions of people and will threaten many key ecological systems on which civilization relies … We call upon world leaders to take coordinated and rapid action to drastically reduce global emissions of heat-trapping gases, especially carbon dioxide. We also urge the citizens of the world to demand action from their leaders. This threat looms over all of humanity. We all need to respond now, while there is still time.”

Progress on climate and nuclear weapons issues has been too limited in recent years, according to the Board statement. And there is concern about the impact that even a “limited” nuclear weapons exchange would have both in terms of large-scale deaths and a further worsening of the climate:

“Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena in the past year, reflecting continued advancement of renewable energy technologies, current efforts are entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of Earth. Absent a dramatic course correction, the countries of the world will have emitted enough carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by the end of this century to profoundly transform Earth's climate, harming millions upon millions of people and threatening many key ecological systems on which civilization relies.”

“At the same time, efforts to reduce world nuclear arsenals have stalled. The disarmament process has ground to a halt, with the United States and Russia embarking on massive programs to modernize their nuclear triads—thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties—and other nuclear weapons holders joining in this expensive and extremely dangerous modernization craze.”

“The science is clear: Insufficient action to slash worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases can produce global climatic catastrophe. Even a so-called “limited” nuclear weapons exchange will produce massive casualties and severe effects on the global environment ... We implore the political leaders of the world to take coordinated, quick action to drastically reduce global emissions of heat-trapping gases, especially carbon dioxide, and shrink nuclear weapons arsenals.”

The statement from the Board includes the following recommended steps:

• Take actions that would cap greenhouse gas emissions at levels sufficient to keep average global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

• Dramatically reduce proposed spending on nuclear weapons modernization programs.

• Re-energize the disarmament process, with a focus on results.

• Deal now with the nuclear waste problem.

ABOUT THE BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS

Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists subsequently created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero), to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The decision to move the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made by the Bulletin's Board of Directors in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 17 Nobel Laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world's vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and emerging technologies in the life sciences.

MEDIA CONTACTS: Patrick Mitchell, (703) 276-3266 or pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com; and Alex Frank, (703) 276-3264 or afrank@hastingsgroup.com.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A streaming audio replay of the Doomsday Clock news event will be available as of 3 p.m. EST/2000 GMT at http://thebulletin.org. High-resolution art of the newly reset Doomsday Clock and headshots of news event speakers are available upon request by contacting Patrick Mitchell, (703) 276-3266 or pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com and Alex Frank, (703) 276-3264 or afrank@hastingsgroup.com.


Note: I got this off the U.S. Labor Against the War website:

http://uslaboragainstwar.org/

U.S. Labor Against the War has taken up the struggle to "beat swords into plowshares" by initiating a discussion about how to transition the U.S. economy away from production for militarism and wars to a green peace economy in a way that protects and creates jobs while improving the standard-of-living for working class families... all workers and trade unionists are invited to participate in this discussion along with presenting ideas for activities and action. There are many excellent articles like the one above on the USLAW website that you can share for discussion with family, friends and fellow workers. Use this information in leaflets, to prepare for forums, debates and media interviews or as sources of information for writing letters to the editor or for union news letters and web sites as well as posting to your own blogs or to share with FaceBook and other social media friends.

What I find interesting is that these scientists continue to overlook the fact that militarization, including expansion and updating of the nuclear arsenals, is a major contributor to global warming in that all the industrial process and production leaves a huge carbon footprint.


The fact is, putting Wall Street's Military-Industrial Complex out of business could reduce global warming more than any other steps.


See the article I wrote below:

https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/climate-change-and-the-military-industrial-complex1

Climate change and the military-industrial complex

Alan Maki   Environment   January 26, 2014

This letter was written in reply to our recently published interview with Noam Chomsky about climate change. You can read the original Chomsky interview HERE.

The one important aspect of climate change the Left keeps missing is the fact that Wall Street’s very lucrative military-industrial complex leaves the largest carbon footprint of any industry.


So, why have the peace and environmental movements, along with most of the Left, failed to make this important connection?


I’m surprised neither Chomsky nor Canadian Dimension brought this important connection forward in this interview.


How much of what is produced from the Tar Sands will be consumed by the Military-Industrial Complex?


One aircraft carrier of the Nimitz class carries three million gallons of aircraft fuel. Fuel for just 80 aircraft. The U.S. typically deploys six of these aircraft carriers during manoeuvres, conflicts and wars. This alone is one heck of a carbon footprint and we still have to figure out what kind of carbon footprint is created manufacturing these aircraft carriers and planes.


And this example is just the tip of the melting iceberg.


Consider all the mining and manufacturing which goes into producing for militarism and wars – what kind of carbon footprint is created in preparation for wars, by wars and rebuilding in the aftermath of wars?


There is a point to be made about global warming and militarism and wars which leads me to conclude that the most effective way to fight global warming and climate change is to fight for peace by “beating swords into plowshares.”


For some reason all these foundation-funded peace organizations and environmental organizations don’t want to acknowledge that the Military-Industrial Complex bears primary responsibility for global warming and climate change. Perhaps because the “great philanthropists” funding the foundations profit so handsomely from militarism and wars?


If changing out light bulbs contributes to ending global warming and climate change, can you imagine the contribution peace would make towards this effort?


It seems our environmental and peace movements could use what the great labour leader and working class revolutionary, William Z. Foster, advised “a good strong dose of anti-imperialist education,” connecting all the dots.


Alan Maki is the Director of Organizing for the Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council; also one of the founders of Minnesotans for Peace and Social Justice.

Are you still in search of the "lesser evil?"

After listening to Obama's "State of the Union Address," I am so glad I didn't get hooked into voting for this creep Obama--- this imperialist Wall Street warmonger; I didn't vote for him either time either time--- nor did I support him as a delegate to the the State Convention of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party.



Obama is neither liberal nor progressive; he is definitely not left.



Like the fascist Mussolini, Obama is nothing but a demagog who knows how to talk in a populist properly "framed" language making all kinds of implications he intends to do what is right by the people without providing or presenting any specific solutions--- and when he does present highly popular specifics like his touting a free community college education he knows damn well it has no chance of passing; just like Obama and all these Democrats with their hypocritical campaign rhetoric saying they don't think anyone working should have to live in poverty knowing that when they get elected they are going to legislate one more Minimum Wage that is nothing but a poverty wage when compared to soaring prices of goods and services which constitute the actual "cost-of-living" which when we combine wages and "cost-of-living" we are able to determine the actual "standard-of-living."



Wages plus government programs plus the real "cost-of-living" determines one's "standard-of-living."



When we use this equation we discover that wages have not only been "flat" for many years but that most working class families are caught in a "cost-of-living trap" with more working class families than ever being pushed further and further into poverty making Obama's talk about "I work for you" when addressing his hand-picked audiences of working people a complete and total farce and fiasco--- worse than this, he is arrogantly mocking us and playing us for chumps and fools; and, then, his supporters have the unmitigated gall to blame the voters because fewer and fewer people are turning out to vote for these Dumb Donkeys with millionaire labor leaders still holding up the tails of these Dumb Donkeys and peddling what the sparrows leave behind as some kind of "prize" we should be thankful for.



When is enough really enough?



It is time for a working class based progressive people's party which will stand firm and fight for peace, social and economic justice; all of which requires putting an end to these goddamn dirty imperialist wars Wall Street merchants of death and destruction profit from murdering people all over the world financed with austerity measures (poverty) shoved down the throats of working people and their families.



Some so-called liberals, progressives and most disgustingly shameful leftists shoved Obama down our throats using lies and deceit while intentionally failing to disclose Obama's Wall Street agenda... don't get suckered again by these worthless charlatans many of whom have enormous incomes based on how well they can snooker people into voting for their Wall Street enemies under the guise of being our "friends."



The time has come--- long overdue, actually--- to tell these Dumb Donkeys to "go to hell."



Republicans and Democrats working in cahoots with pundits from "think-tanks" financed by the Wall Street "philanthropists," together, combined, form the components of Wall Street's "two-party trap" intentionally set in a way to trap workers leaving the working class powerless.



Democrats have the nerve to suggest that we should accept another poverty wage as the Minimum Wage because someplace down the road they claim they will get the Minimum Wage to a real living wage as they piously and hypocritically pretend to emphasize with us as their very actions of using the levers of government enables Wall Street to get bigger and fatter as a direct result of its control and manipulation of these politicians--- it is a vicious circle and even a dog wouldn't chase its tail for so long of a time.



These Wall Street bribed politicians then proceed to try to pass off their reactionary and regressive legislation as "reforms" when the very definition of the word "reform" is to make something better. For doing so much in the way of "reforms" it is amazing how bad things are for the working class and how life just keeps getting worse.



We need to launch grassroots and rank-and-file struggles for real reforms but our struggles must all lead towards the same end--- removing Wall Street from political and economic power which requires not just the important movements for specif reforms intended to alleviate and solve our many problems but these struggles must be part of forming a massive anti-monopoly coalition with its own political party.



Our struggles need to be fought united and militant in the workplace, in the streets and at the ballot box--- education, organization and united action.



Do you have a rank-and-file organization in your place of employment?



Do you have a grassroots organization in your neighborhood?



If not--- organize!



Quite frankly, unless we organize by educating people about the link between wages and "cost-of-living" which determine our "standard-of-living" I doubt our struggles will be winning struggles... the politicians, pundits and their "think tanks" along with the millionaire labor leaders will say and do just about anything to obscure this link between wages and "cost-of-living"... because as far as they are concerned they got theirs'--- at our expense--- and the rest of us can go to hell.



And the wealthier the Wall Street crowd becomes the more all powerful they become in determining how we will live and work and the kind of world we will be forced to live in--- not just their wars, racism and poverty but polluted air and water along with contaminated land not to mention how, for profits, they are killing us with the food they are feeding us.



We won't get any of the good things Obama alluded to like free Community College... what we will get from Obama, the Democrats and their Republican colleagues is the democracy killing, job-killing, poverty-causing TPP--- Trans Pacific Partnership which is NAFTA on steroids which will lead us into more wars people refuse to have their country's wealth stolen out from under them.



And now comes Hillary...



Quite frankly, after saddling us with Obama, I'm surprised Wall Street hasn't thought of running a Hillary Clinton-Jeb Bush ticket--- after all, what we end up with is "bi-partisan unity" to give us a royal shafting anyways.

Martin Luther King on capitalism and socialism.

I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic... [Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive... but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.

(Letter to Coretta Scott, July 18, 1952)

One day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" ... When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy.

(Final speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1967)

Defeat Stephen Harper

Our neighbors to the north are gearing up to defeat Stephen Harper:

There's a Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) election strategy meeting this weekend in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The CLC is making a point of inviting community organizations to work together.

Register! Attend!! Participate!!!

* * * * *
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2015

From: "Cindy Murdoch"

To:

Subject: Register Now - Election Planing Conference!

Greetings,

As you’re aware a Federal election will be held in 2015. The exact dates for the election is another question with some suggesting late spring while others are suggesting Prime Minister Harper will wait until the last possible moment which would put an election in October of 2015.

The Canadian Labour Congress, with support from affiliates, Federations of Labour and Labour Councils, and community partners is holding Election Preparation Conferences in many communities across the country during the first few months of 2015.

In Manitoba this important Conference is being held on Friday January 23rd and Saturday January 24th at the Fairmont Hotel located at 2 Lombard Place in Winnipeg. So please mark your calendars and attend and encourage other members in your local to attend.

It is anticipated that over 100 union will join us to participate in the Winnipeg Conference. Friday evening will see keynote speakers while Saturday will be an opportunity to attend the many workshops scheduled.

As have the desire, passion and strength of our movement and others to come together and make change in the next federal election. The information below will help get you registered.

Election Preparation Conference Winnipeg
January 23 & 24, 2015 at the Fairmont Hotel, 2 Lombard Place

Sign up now. Registration is free! To Register Go to www.canadianlabour.ca

In the upper right hand corner click ‘Member Login’

If you have ever registered for an event with the CLC before you can use your initial info.

If not create a new user log on and REGISTER!

Problems? Call the CLC Prairie Regional Office at: (306) 525-6137

Cindy Murdoch
Regional Representative, Manitoba
Canadian Labour Congress
207-275 Broadway, Winnipeg, R3C 4M6
Office: 204-947-9494
Cell: 204-930-4829
E-mail: cmurdoch@clc-ctc.ca

Human Rights and MLK

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world ... Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere."
— Eleanor Roosevelt (on the 10th Anniversary of the UDHR)

"Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in."
— Martin Luther King, Jr., April 18, 1959,Youth March for Integrated Schools, Washington, D.C.



http://unudhr.blogspot.com/

I would encourage the wide dissemination of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights at all functions commemorating the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We to organize to insist these words become a living reality for people everywhere. This Declaration should become the basis for unity in struggle.


Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois worked relentlessly their entire lives to make this document a living reality for every human being; we should, too. The foundation-funded outfits financed by the great Wall Street "philanthropists" will not be bringing this idea forward nor will their efforts be extended to organizing movements demanding the enforcement of these very basic human rights. Therefore, unless you take the initiative to educate, organize and mobilize in support of enforcing these rights through legislation creating the kinds of universal social programs and an economy based on human needs instead of maximum Wall Street profits these human rights will never become a living reality.


Quite frankly, I doubt capitalism--- no matter how "compassionate," can ever provide all people everywhere with these human rights; quite to the contrary, capitalism deprives the majority of the people of these very basic and fundamental human rights.


Only a cooperative socialist system can insure these very basic human rights become a living reality.


Participate in MLK Day activities and distribute copies of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a link to Dr. Martin Luther King's speech honoring W. E. B. DuBois:


http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/honoring-dr-du-bois-by-mlk.html

Don't allow the foundation-funded outfits and corporate CEO's to distort and define what MLK stood for.


These foundation-funded outfits would like us to forget that W. E. B. DuBois, Paul Robeson and MLK were participants and activists in the global movements to advance human rights.

Will Canada's New Democratic Party take political power away from Wall Street and Bay Street?

Canada's New Democratic Party's progressive social democrat, Thomas Mulcair, talks about the upcoming most important Federal Election; what do you think?


http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/ID/2648143090/


For the very first time, Canada's socialist New Democratic Party has a real chance to deprive Wall Street's junior partner, Bay Street, and Wall Street itself, of political power.


The New Democratic Party is labor's, and the people's, party in Canada.


Canada also has very vibrant and active Communist and Green parties, neither of which has the potential at this point to take power nationally, but whose participation in the upcoming Federal Election can help shape the direction of discussion, dialog and debate in a way which prevents Mulcair from being wishy-washy or opportunistically moving to the right.


Will Mulcair take into consideration what is going on in Manitoba's NDP in order to avoid costly dissension mainly because the Leader, and Premier, reneged on his promise not to raise the regressive and reactionary sales tax? It is good that Mulcair is focusing on raising taxes on corporations but he is kind of quiet about how Canada will go about taxing the multi-national corporations who have been stealing Canada's wealth.


Many left wing working class activists don't appreciate Mulcair's Obama-style politics, and for good reason... but, the NDP is not a corporate party like the Democratic Party; the NDP is labor's party and reflects the various thinking within the working class movement; which, unfortunately, still contains a strong dose of class collaboration which "progressive social democrats" like Tom Mulcair adhere to and this kind of thinking is hard to defeat if rank-and-file leftists don't strenuously bring forward their opinions and ideas--- especially about forming an anti-monopoly electoral coalition that makes it a point to single out the need to take political and economic power away from Wall Street and its junior partner, Bay Street. Make no mistake, both the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau and the Conservative Party of Stephen Harper represent Wall Street's interests in Canada--- even more than they represent the interests of Bay Street.


Mulcair and the NDP have the opportunity to deprive Wall Street and Bay Street of political power which will severely weaken big capital's dictatorial power over the working class--- and this alone is a good enough reason to support and vote for Mulcair while building support towards depriving Wall Street and Bay Street of BOTH political AND economic power while putting the working class in a stronger position for bringing and end to capitalism in Canada which requires weakening the influence and power of big-business, especially the power of multi-national corporations.


U.S. workers have an anti-imperialist obligation to study what is taking place in Canada in a way that brings us into active solidarity with Canadian workers and we can't do this unless we understand the importance of the upcoming Canadian elections and our own stake in these elections from which cross-border solidarity will strengthen our own struggles--- especially if Wall Street ends up battered and crippled and on life support in Canada.


Wall Street is our common enemy and anything we can do to help weaken Wall Street's influence and power any place in the world is in our interests as workers.


I believe this is a revolutionary working class view that Tim Buck or William Z. Foster would have taken towards the upcoming elections in Canada.


No matter what your point of view, it is detrimental to the working class movement for workers here in the United States not to take an interest in what our sisters and brothers north of the border are thinking and doing.


I will be sharing a number of viewpoints on my FaceBook page and on my blog and I welcome the viewpoints of others, including those who disagree.

Tom Mulcair interview

NDP leader talks about the price of oil, controversial new security legislation and why he cleaned house today ahead of the federal election

cbc.ca

 

Honoring Dr. Du Bois by MLK

I would suggest that this speech by Martin Luther King be distributed at every Martin Luther King event:



"We cannot talk of Dr. Du Bois without recognizing that he was a radical all of his life. Some people would like to ignore the fact that he was a Communist in his later years. It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely. In contemporary life the Englishspeaking world has no difficulty with the fact that Sean O’Casey was a literary giant of the twentieth century and a Communist or that Pablo Neruda is generally considered the greatest living poet though he also served in the Chilean Senate as a Communist. It is time to cease muting the fact that Dr. Du Bois was a genius and chose to be a Communist. Our irrational, obsessive anti-communism has led us into too many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific thinking."




Honoring Dr. Du Bois



Martin Luther King, Jr.



Tonight we assemble here to pay tribute to one of the most remarkable men of our time. Dr. Du Bois was not only an intellectual giant exploring the frontiers of knowledge, he was in the first place a teacher. He would have wanted his life to teach us something about our tasks of emancipation. One idea he insistently taught was that black people have been kept in oppression and deprivation by a poisonous fog of lies that depicted them as inferior, born deficient and deservedly doomed to servitude to the grave. So assiduously has this poison been injected into the mind of America that its disease has infected not only whites but many Negroes. So long as the lie was believed the brutality and criminality of conduct toward the Negro was easy for the conscience to bear. The twisted logic ran if the black man was inferior he was not oppressed-his place in society was appropriate to his meager talent and intellect. Dr. Du Bois recognized that the keystone in the arch of oppression was the myth of inferiority and he dedicated his brilliant talents to demolish it. There could scarcely be a more suitable person for such a monumental task. First of all he was himself unsurpassed as an intellect and he was a Negro. But beyond this he was passionately proud to be black and finally he had not only genius and pride but he had the indomitable fighting spirit of the valiant.



To pursue his mission, Dr. Du Bois gave up the substantial privileges a highly educated Negro enjoyed living in the North. Though he held degrees from Harvard and the University of Berlin, though he had more academic credentials than most Americans, black or white, he moved South where a majority of Negroes then lived. He deliberately chose to share their daily abuse and humiliation. He could have offered himself to the white rulers and exacted substantial tribute for selling his genius. There were few like him, Negro or white. He could have amassed riches and honors and lived in material splendor and applause from the powerful and important men of his time. Instead, he lived part of his creative life in the South-most of it in modest means and some of it in poverty, and he died in exile, praised sparingly and in many circles ignored.



But he was an exile only to the land of his birth. He died at home in Africa among his cherished ancestors, and he was ignored by a pathetically ignorant America but not by history.



History cannot ignore W. E. B. Du Bois. Because history has to reflect truth and Dr. Du Bois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people. There were very few scholars who concerned themselves with honest study of the black man and he sought to fill this immense void. The degree to which he succeeded discloses the great dimensions of the man.



Yet he had more than a void to fill. He had to deal with the army of white propagandists – the myth-makers of Negro history. Dr. Du Bois took them all on in battle. It would be impossible to sketch the whole range of his intellectual contributions. Back in the nineteenth century he laid out a program of 100 years of study of problems affecting American Negroes and worked tirelessly to implement it.



Long before sociology was a science he was pioneering in the field of social study of Negro life and completed works on health, education, employment, urban conditions, and religion. This was at a time when scientific inquiry of Negro life was so unbelievably neglected that only a single university in the entire nation had such a program, and it was funded with $5,000 for a year’s work.



Against such odds Dr. Du Bois produced two enduring classics before the twentieth century. His Suppression of the African Slave-Trade, written in 1896, is Volume I in the Harvard Historical Studies. His study The Philadelphia Negro, completed in 1899, is still used today. Illustrating the painstaking quality of his scientific method, to do this work Dr. Du Bois personally visited and interviewed 5,000 people.



He soon realized that studies would never adequately be pursued nor changes realized without the mass involvement of Negroes. The scholar then became an organizer and with others founded the NAACP. At the same time he became aware that the expansion of imperialism was a threat to the emergence of Africa. He recognized the importance of the bonds between American Negroes and the land of their ancestors, and he extended his activities to African affairs. After World War I he called Pan-African Congresses in 1919, 1921, and 1923, alarming imperialists in all countries and disconcerting Negro moderates in America who were afraid of this restless, militant, black genius.



Returning to the United States from abroad, he found his pioneering agitation for Negro studies was bearing fruit and a beginning was made to broaden Negro higher education. He threw himself into the task of raising the intellectual level of this work. Much later, in 1940, he participated in the establishment of the first Negro scholarly publication,Phylon. At the same time he stimulated Negro colleges to collaborate through annual conferences to increase their effectiveness and elevate the quality of their academic studies. But these activities, enough to be the life work for ten men, were far from the sum of his achievements. In the six years between 1935 and 1941 he produced the monumental seven-hundred-page volume on Black Reconstruction in America, at the same time writing many articles and essays. Black Reconstruction was six years in writing but was thirty- three years in preparation. On its publication, one critic said: “It crowns the long, unselfish and brilliant career of Dr. Du Bois. It is comparable in clarity, originality and importance to the Beards’ Rise of American Civilization.” The New York Times said, “It is beyond question the most painstaking and thorough study ever made of the Negroes’ part in Reconstruction,” and the New York Herald Tribune proclaimed it “a solid history of the period, an economic treatise, a philosophical discussion, a poem, a work of art all rolled into one.”



To understand why his study of the Reconstruction was a monumental achievement it is necessary to see it in context. White historians had for a century crudely distorted the Negro’s role in the Reconstruction years. It was a conscious and deliberate manipulation of history, and the stakes were high. The Reconstruction was a period in which black men had a small measure of freedom of action. If, as white historians tell it, Negroes wallowed in corruption, opportunism, displayed spectacular stupidity, were wanton, evil, and ignorant, their case was made. They would have proved that freedom was dangerous in the hands of inferior beings. One generation after another of Americans were assiduously taught these falsehoods, and the collective mind of America became poisoned with racism and stunted with myths.



Dr. Du Bois confronted this powerful structure of historical distortion and dismantled it. He virtually, before anyone else and more than anyone else, demolished the lies about Negroes in their most important and creative period of history. The truths he revealed are not yet the property of all Americans but they have been recorded and arm us for our contemporary battles.



In Black Reconstruction Dr. Du Bois dealt with the almost universally accepted concept that civilization virtually collapsed in the South during Reconstruction because Negroes had a measure of political power. Dr. Du Bois marshalled irrefutable evidence that, far from collapsing, the Southern economy was recovering in these years. Within five years the cotton crop had been restored, and in the succeeding five years had exceeded pre-war levels. At the same time other economic activity had ascended so rapidly the rebirth of the South was almost completed.



Beyond this he restored to light the most luminous achievement of the Reconstruction-it brought free public education into existence not only for the benefit of the Negro, but it opened school doors to the poor whites. He documented the substantial body of legislation that was socially so useful it was retained into the twentieth century even though the Negroes who helped to write it were brutally disenfranchised and driven from political life. He revealed that, far from being the tragic era white historians described, it was the only period in which democracy existed in the South. This stunning fact was the reason the history books had to lie because to tell the truth would have acknowledged the Negroes’ capacity to govern and fitness to build a finer nation in a creative relationship with poor whites.



With the completion of his book Black Reconstruction, despite its towering contributions, despite his advanced age, Dr. Du Bois was still not ready to accept a deserved rest in peaceful retirement. His dedication to freedom drove him on as relentlessly in his seventies as it did in his twenties. He had already encompassed three careers. Beginning as a pioneer sociologist, he had become an activist to further mass organization. The activist had then transformed himself into an historian. By the middle of the twentieth century, when imperialism and war arose once more to imperil humanity, he became a peace leader. He served as chairman of the Peace Information Bureau and, like the Rev. William Sloane Coffin and Dr. Benjamin Spock of today, he found himself indicted by the government and harried by reactionaries. Undaunted by obstacles and repression, with his characteristic fortitude he fought on. Finally in 1961 with Ghana’s independence established, an opportunity opened to begin the writing of an African Encyclopedia, and in his ninety third year he emigrated to Ghana to begin new intellectual labors. In 1963 death finally came to this most remarkable man.



It is axiomatic that he will be remembered for his scholarly contributions and organizational attainments. These monuments are imperishable. But there were human qualities less immediately visible that are no less imperishable.



Dr. Du Bois was a man possessed of priceless dedication to his people. The vast accumulation of achievement and public recognition were not for him pathways to personal affluence and a diffusion of identity. Whatever else he was, with his multitude of careers and professional titles, he was first and always a black man. He used his richness of talent as a trust for his people. He saw that Negroes were robbed of so many things decisive to their existence that the theft of their history seemed only a small part of their losses. But Dr. Du Bois knew that to lose one’s history is to lose one’s self-understanding and with it the roots for pride. This drove him to become a historian of Negro life, and the combination of his unique zeal and intellect rescued for all of us a heritage whose loss would have profoundly impoverished us.



Dr. Du Bois the man needs to be remembered today when despair is all too prevalent. In the years he lived and fought, there was far more justification for frustration and hopelessness, and yet his faith in his people never wavered. His love and faith in Negroes permeate every sentence of his writings and every act of his life. Without these deeply rooted emotions his work would have been arid and abstract. With them his deeds were a passionate storm that swept the filth of falsehood from the pages of established history.



He symbolized in his being his pride in the black man. He did not apologize for being black and, because of it, handicapped. Instead he attacked the oppressor for the crime of stunting black men. He confronted the establishment as a model of militant manhood and integrity. He defied them and, though they heaped venom and scorn on him, his powerful voice was never stilled.



And yet, with all his pride and spirit he did not make a mystique out of blackness. He was proud of his people, not because their color endowed them with some vague greatness but because their concrete achievements in struggle had advanced humanity, and he saw and loved progressive humanity in all its hues, black, white, yellow, red, and brown.



Above all he did not content himself with hurling invectives for emotional release and then to retire into smug, passive satisfaction. History had taught him it is not enough for people to be angry-the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force. It was never possible to know where the scholar Du Bois ended and the organizer Du Bois began. The two qualities in him were a single, unified force. This life style of Dr. Du Bois is the most important quality this generation of Negroes needs to emulate.



The educated Negro who is not really part of us and the angry militant who fails to organize us have nothing in common with Dr. Du Bois. He exemplified black power in achievement and he organized black power in action. It was no abstract slogan to him.



We cannot talk of Dr. Du Bois without recognizing that he was a radical all of his life. Some people would like to ignore the fact that he was a Communist in his later years. It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely. In contemporary life the Englishspeaking world has no difficulty with the fact that Sean O’Casey was a literary giant of the twentieth century and a Communist or that Pablo Neruda is generally considered the greatest living poet though he also served in the Chilean Senate as a Communist. It is time to cease muting the fact that Dr. Du Bois was a genius and chose to be a Communist. Our irrational, obsessive anti-communism has led us into too many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific thinking.



In closing, it would be well to remind white America of its debt to Dr. Du Bois. When they corrupted Negro history they distorted American history, because Negroes are too big a part of the building of this nation to be written out of it without destroying scientific history. White America, drenched with lies about Negroes, has lived too long in a fog of ignorance. Dr. Du Bois gave them a gift of truth for which they should eternally be indebted to him.



Negroes have heavy tasks today. We were partially liberated and then re-enslaved. We have to fight again on old battlefields, but our confidence is greater, our vision is clearer, and our ultimate victory surer because of the contributions a militant, passionate black giant left behind him.



Dr. Du Bois has left us but he has not died. The spirit of freedom is not buried in the grave of the valiant. He will be with us when we go to Washington in April to demand our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.



We have to go to Washington because they have declared an armistice in the war on poverty while squandering billions to expand a senseless, cruel, unjust war in Vietnam. We will go there, we will demand to be heard, and we will stay until the administration responds. If this means forcible repression of our movement, we will confront it, for we have done this before. If this means scorn or ridicule, we will embrace it, for that is what America’s poor now receive. If it means jail, we accept it willingly, for the millions of poor already are imprisoned by exploitation and discrimination.



Dr. Du Bois would be in the front ranks of the peace movement today. He would readily see the parallel between American support of the corrupt and despised Thieu-Ky regime and Northern support to the Southern slave masters in 1876. The CIA scarcely exaggerates, indeed it is surprisingly honest, when it calculates for Congress that the war in Vietnam can persist for one hundred years. People deprived of their freedom do not give up—Negroes have been fighting more than a hundred years, and even if the date of full emancipation is uncertain, what is explicitly certain is that the struggle for it will endure.



In conclusion let me say that Dr. Du Bois’ greatest virtue was his committed empathy with all the oppressed and his divine dissatisfaction with all forms of injustice. Today we are still challenged to be dissatisfied. Let us be dissatisfied until every man can have food and material necessities for his body, culture and education for his mind, freedom and until rat-infested, vermin-filled slums will be a thing of a dark past and every family will have a decent, sanitary house in which to live. Let us be dissatisfied until the empty stomachs of Mississippi are filled and the idle industries of Appalachia are revitalized. Let us be dissatisfied until brotherhood is no longer a meaningless word at the end of a prayer but the first order of business on every legislative agenda. Let us be dissatisfied until our brother of the Third World- Asia, Africa, and Latin America-will no longer be the victim of imperialist exploitation, but will be lifted from the long night of poverty, illiteracy, and disease. Let us be dissatisfied until this pending cosmic elegy will be transformed into a creative psalm of peace and “justice will roll down like waters from a mighty stream.”



The Centennial Address delivered by Nobel Laureate Dr. Martin Luther King at Carnegie Hall in New York City, February 23, 1968. The occasion was the International Cultural Evening sponsored by FREEDOMWAYS Magazine on the 100th birthday of Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois and launching an “International Year” (1968) honoring his life and works.

Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam... Martin Luther King

Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyE4eo_leX8


Full speech.

Martin Luther King

"There is something wrong with capitalism. There are 40 million poor people here and one day we must ask the question, Why are there 40 million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy" - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967

All you can eat buffet and good music...

Armadillo Jump

Hey all you friends in the Armadillo Army - we'll be at Wilebski's Blues Saloon this Friday January 16th from 6:00 to 10:00 pm - come on out for an early party!! Here's the address:


Location:
1638 Rice St Saint Paul, MN 55117

Phone: 651-207-0000


The buffet opens at 5 p.m.


There is a $5.00 cover charge

The Communist Control Act of 1954 rears its ugly head in Minnesota

Why won't Minnesota Democrats acknowledge Hubert H. Humphrey as the primary author of the "Communist Control Act of 1954," the most repressive piece of legislation ever enacted in the United States with the unanimous support in the U.S. Senate from both Democrats and Republicans?


And why is the Humphrey Center at the University of Minnesota so dogged in refusing to place this on display for all to see just what kind of "liberal" Hubert H. Humphrey was?


By the way, this most repressive and undemocratic fascist legislation remains on the books and at this present time the FBI and its Minnesota "Red Squad" which includes the Minnesota Commissioner of Public Safety along with a gaggle of local police and prosecutors is working under the auspices of this legislation searching for the organizers of the huge demonstration at the Mall of America protesting racist police killings, beatings, violence and brutality in solidarity with the people of Ferguson, Missouri and others around the country seeking justice.


Why has this Minnesota "Red Squad" decided to carry out their dirty work under the aegis and auspices of the "Communist Control Act of 1954."


According to the Minnesota Commissioner of Public Safety, who was hand-picked by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, the reason is, "Only Communists would have organized an interracial demonstration."


Here is the complete text of the:


Communist Control Act of 1954

U.S. Statutes at Large, Public Law 637, Chp. 886, p. 775-780

AN ACT

To outlaw the Communist Party, to prohibit members of Communist organizations from serving in certain representative capacities, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the ''Communist Control Act of 1954''.

Findings of Fact

Sec. 2. The Congress hereby finds and declares that the Communist Party of the United States, although purportedly a political party, is in fact an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States. It constitutes an authoritarian dictatorship within a republic, demanding for itself the rights and privileges accorded to political parties, but denying to all others the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. Unlike political parties, which evolve their policies and programs through public means, by the reconciliation of a wide variety of individual views, and submit those policies and programs to the electorate at large for approval or disapproval, the policies and programs of the Communist Party are secretly prescribed for it by the foreign leaders of the world Communist movement. Its members have no part in determining its goals, and are not permitted to voice dissent to party objectives. Unlike members of political parties, members of the Communist Party are recruited for indoctrination with respect to its objectives and methods, and are organized, instructed, and disciplined to carry into action slavishly the assignments given them by their hierarchical chieftains. Unlike political parties, the Communist Party acknowledges no constitutional or statutory limitations upon its conduct or upon that of its members. The Communist Party is relatively small numerically, and gives scant indication of capacity ever to attain its ends by lawful political means. The peril inherent in its operation arises not from its numbers, but from its failure to acknowledge any limitation as to the nature of its activities, and its dedication to the proposition that the present constitutional Government of the United States ultimately must be brought to ruin by any available means, including resort to force and violence. Holding that doctrine, its role as the agency of a hostile foreign power renders its existence a clear present and continuing danger to the security of the United States. It is the means whereby individuals are seduced into the service of the world Communist movement, trained to do its bidding, and directed and controlled in the conspiratorial performance of their revolutionary services. Therefore, the Communist Party should be outlawed.

Proscribed Organizations

Sec. 3. The Communist Party of the United States, or any successors of such party regardless of the assumed name, whose object or purpose is to overthrow the Government of the United States, or the government of any State, Territory, District, or possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein by force and violence, are not entitled to any of the rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof; and whatever rights, privileges, and immunities which have heretofore been granted to said party or any subsidiary organization by reason of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision thereof, are hereby terminated: Provided, however, That nothing in this section shall be construed as amending the Internal Security Act of 1950, as amended.

Sec. 4. Whoever knowingly and willfully becomes or remains a member of (1) the Communist Party, or (2) any other organization having for one of its purposes or objectives the establishment, control conduct, seizure, or overthrow of the Government of the United States, or the government of any State or political subdivision thereof, by the use of force or violence, with knowledge of the purpose or objective of such organization shall be subject to all the provisions and penalties of the Internal Security Act of 1950, as amended, as a member of a ''Communist-action'' organization.
(b) For the purposes of this section, the term ''Communist Party'' means the organization now known as the Communist Party of the United States of America, the Communist Party of any State or subdivision thereof, and any unit or subdivision of any such organization, whether or not any change is hereafter made in the name thereof.

Sec. 5. In determining membership or participation in the Communist Party or any other organization defined in this Act, or knowledge of the purpose or objective of such party or organization, the jury, under instructions from the court, shall consider evidence, if presented, as to whether the accused person:
(1) Has been listed to his knowledge as a member in any book or any of the lists, records, correspondence, or any other document of the organization;
(2) Has made financial contribution to the organization in dues, assessments, loans, or in any other form;
(3) Has made himself subject to the discipline of the organization in any form whatsoever;
(4) Has executed orders, plans, or directives of any kind of the organization;
(5) Has acted as an agent, courier, messenger, correspondent, organizer, or in any other capacity in behalf of the organization;
(6) Has conferred with officers or other members of the organization in behalf of any plan or enterprise of the organization;
(7) Has been accepted to his knowledge as an officer or member of the organization or as one to be called upon for services by other officers or members of the organization;
(8) Has written, spoken or in any other way communicated by signal, semaphore, sign, or in any other form of communication orders, directives, or plans of the organization;
(9) Has prepared documents, pamphlets, leaflets, books, or any other type of publication in behalf of the objectives and purposes of the organization;
(10) Has mailed, shipped, circulated, distributed, delivered, or in any other way sent or delivered to others material or propaganda of any kind in behalf of the organization;
(11) Has advised, counseled or in any other way imparted information, suggestions, recommendations to officers or members of the organization or to anyone else in behalf of the objectives of the organization;
(12) Has indicated by word, action, conduct, writing or in any other way a willingness to carry out in any manner and to any degree the plans, designs, objectives, or purposes of the organization;
(13) Has in any other way participated in the activities, planning, actions, objectives, or purposes of the organization;
(14) The enumeration of the above subjects of evidence on membership or participation in the Communist Party or any other organization as above defined, shall not limit the inquiry into and consideration of any other subject of evidence on membership and participation as herein stated.

Subversive Activities Control Act Amendment

Sec. 6. Subsection 5 (a) (1) of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 (50 U.S.C. 784) is amended by striking out the period at the end thereof and inserting lieu thereof a semicolon and the following: ''or
''(E) to hold office or employment with any labor organization, as that term is defined in section 2 (5) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended (29 U. S. C. 152), or to represent any employer in any matter or proceeding arising or pending under that Act.''

Communist-Infiltrated Organizations

Sec. 7. (a) Section 3 of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 (50 U. S. C. 782) is amended by inserting, immediately after paragraph (4) thereof, the following new paragraph:

''(4A) The term 'Communist-infiltrated organization' means any organization in the United States (other than a Communist-action organization or a Communist-front organization) which (A) is substantially directed, dominated, or controlled by an individual or individuals who are, or who within three years have been actively engaged in, giving aid or support to a Communist- action organization, a Communist foreign government, or the world Communist movement referred to in section 2 of this title, and (B) is serving, or within three years has served, as a means for (i) the giving of aid or support to any such organization, government, or movement, or (ii) the impairment of the military strength of the United States or its industrial capacity to furnish logistical or other material support required by its Armed Forces: Provided, however, That any labor organization which is an affiliate in good standing of a national federation or other labor organization whose policies and activities have been directed to opposing Communist organizations, any Communist foreign government, or the world Communist movement, shall be presumed prima facie not to be a 'Communist-infiltrated organization'.''
(b) Paragraph (5) of such section is amended to read as follows:

''(5) The term 'Communist organization' means any Communist-action organization, Communist-front organization, or Communist-infiltrated organization.''
(c) Subsections 5 (c) and 6 (c) of such Act are repealed.

Sec. 8. (a) Section 10 of such Act (50 U. S. C. 789) is amended by inserting, immediately after the words ''final order of the Board requiring it to register under section 7'', the words ''or determining that it is a Communist-infiltrated organization''.
(b) Subsections (a) and (b) of section 11 of such Act (50 U. S. C. 790) are amended by inserting immediately preceding the period at the end of each such subsection, the following: ''or determining that it is a Communist-infiltrated organization''.

Sec. 9. (a) Subsection 12 (e) of such Act (50 U. S. C. 791) is amended by-

(1) striking out the period at the end thereof and inserting in lieu thereof a semicolon and the word ''and''; and
(2) inserting at the end thereof the following new paragraph:
''(3) upon any application made under subsection (a) or subsection (b) of section 13A of this title, to determine whether any organization is a Communist-infiltrated organization.''
(b) The section caption to section 13 of such Act (50 U. S. C. 792) is amended to read as follows: ''Registration Proceedings before the Board''.

Sec. 10. Such Act is amended by inserting, immediately after section 13 thereof, the following new section:

''Proceedings with Respect to Communist-Infiltrated Organizations

''Sec. 13A. (a) Whenever the Attorney General has reason to believe that any organization is a Communist-infiltrated organization, he may file with the Board and serve upon such organization a petition for a determination that such organization is a Communist-infiltrated organization. In any proceeding so instituted, two or more affiliated organizations may be named as joint respondents. Whenever any such petition is accompanied by a certificate of the Attorney General to the effect that the proceeding so instituted is one of exceptional public importance, such proceeding shall be set for hearing at the earliest possible time and all proceedings therein before the Board or any court shall be expedited to the greatest practicable extent.
''(b) Any organization which has been determined under this section to be a Communist- infiltrated organization may, within six months after such determination, file with the Board and serve upon the Attorney General a petition for a determination that such organization no longer is a Communist- infiltrated organization.
''(c) Each such petition shall be verified under oath, and shall contain a statement of the facts relied upon in support thereof. Upon the filing of any such petition, the Board shall serve upon each party to such proceeding a notice specifying the time and place for hearing upon such petition. No such hearing shall be conducted within twenty days after the service of such notice.
''(d) The provisions of subsections (c) and (d) of section 13 shall apply to hearings conducted under this section, except that upon the failure of any organization named as a party in any petition filed by or duly served upon it pursuant to this section to appear at any hearing upon such petition, the Board may conduct such hearing in the absence of such organization and may enter such order under this section as the Board shall determine to be warranted by evidence presented at such hearing.
''(e) In determining whether any organization is a Communist-infiltrated organization, the Board shall consider-
''(1) to what extent, if any, the effective management of the affairs of such organization is conducted by one or more individuals who are, or within two years have been, (A) members, agents, or representatives of any Communist organization, and Communist foreign government, or the world Communist movement referred to in section 2 of this title, with knowledge of the nature and purpose thereof, or (B) engaged in giving aid or support to any such organization, government, or movement with knowledge of the nature and purpose thereof;
''(2) to what extent, if any, the policies of such organization are, or within three years have been, formulated and carried out pursuant to the direction or advice of any member, agent or representative of any such organization, government, or movement;
''(3) to what extent, if any, the personnel and resources of such organization are, or within three years have been, used to further or promote the objectives of any such Communist organization, government, or movement;
''(4) to what extent, if any, such organization within three years has received from, or furnished to or for the use of, any such Communist organization, government, or movement any funds or other material assistance;
''(5) to what extent, if any, such organization is, or within three years has been, affiliated in any way with any such Communist organization, government, or movement;
''(6) to what extent, if any, the affiliation of such organization, or of any individual or individuals who are members thereof or who manage its affairs, with any such Communist organization, government, or movement is concealed from or is not disclosed to the membership of such organization; and
''(7) to what extent, if any, such organization or any of its members or managers are, or within three years have been, knowingly engaged-
''(A) in any conduct punishable under section 4 or 15 of this Act or under chapter 37, 105, or 115 of title 18 of the United States Code; or
''(B) with intent to impair the military strength of the United States or its industrial capacity to furnish logistical or other support required by its armed forces, in any activity resulting in or contributing to any such impairment.
''(f) After hearing upon any petition filed under this section, the Board shall (1) make a support in writing in which it shall state its findings as to the facts and its conclusions with respect to the issues presented by such petition, (2) enter its order granting or denying the determination sought by such petition, and (3) serve upon each party to the proceeding a copy of such order. Any order granting any determination on the question whether any organization is a Communist-infiltrated organization shall become final as provided in section 14 (b) of this Act.
''(g) When any order has been entered by the Board under this section with respect to any labor organization or employer (as these terms are defined by section 2 of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, and which are organizations within the meaning of section 3 of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950), the Board shall serve a true and correct copy of such order upon the National Labor Relations Board and shall publish in the Federal Register a statement of the substance of such order and its effective date.
''(h) When there is in effect a final order of the Board determining that any such labor organization is a Communist-action organization, a Communist-front organization, or a Communist- infiltrated organization, such labor organization shall be ineligible to-
''(1) act as representative of any employee within the meaning or for the purposes of section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended (29 U.S.C. 157);
''(2) serve as an exclusive representative of employees of any bargaining unit under section 9 of such Act, as amended (29 U.S.C. 159);
''(3) make, or obtain any hearing upon, any charge under section 10 of such Act (29 U.S.C. 160); or
''(4) exercise any other right or privilege, or receive any other benefit, substantive or procedural, provided by such Act for labor organizations.
''(i) When an order of the Board determining that any such labor organization is a Communist-infiltrated organization has become final, and such labor organization theretofore has been certified under the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, as a representative of employees in any bargaining unit-
''(1) a question of representation affecting commerce, within the meaning of section 9 (c) of such Act, shall be deemed to exist with respect to such bargaining unit; and
''(2) the National Labor Relations Board, upon petition of not less than 20 per centum of the employees in such bargaining unit or any person or persons acting in their behalf, shall under section 9 of such Act (notwithstanding any limitation of time contained therein) direct elections in such bargaining unit or any subdivision thereof (A) for the selection of a representative thereof for collective bargaining purposes, and (B) to determine whether the employees thereof desire to rescind any authority previously granted to such labor organization to enter into any agreement with their employer pursuant to section 8 (a) (3) (ii) of such Act.
''(j) When there is in effect a final order of the Board determining that any such employer is a Communist-infiltrated organization, such employer shall be ineligible to-
''(1) file any petition for an election under section 9 of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended (29 U.S.C. 157), or participate in any proceeding under such section; or
''(2) make or obtain any hearing upon any charge under section 10 of such Act (29 U.S.C. 160); or
''(3) exercise any other right or privilege or receive any other benefit, substantive or procedural, provided by such Act for employers.''

Sec. 11. Subsections (a) and (b) of section 14 of such Act (50 U.S.C. 793) are amended by inserting in each such subsection, immediately after the words ''section 13'', a comma and the following: ''or subsection (f) of section 13A,''.

Sec. 12. If any provision of this title or the application thereof to any person or circumstances is held invalid, the remainder of the title, and the application of such provisions to other persons or circumstances, shall not be affected thereby.

Approved August 24, 1954, 9:40 a.m., M.S.T.

60 minutes proclaims Obamacare a "disaster."

60 Minutes has proclaimed Obamacare a "disaster."



Obamacare is a disaster; not even single payer universal health care could correct the problem(s).



Nothing short of a National Public Health Care System can fix the health care mess in this country...



Public Financing; Public Administration and Public Delivery--- a real controversial idea; about as controversial as public education.



Obamacare should be referred to by a name that really reflects just what it is:



The "Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010."

Raising Wages

Check out this speech by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka talking about the Raising Wages campaign coming to four states (Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina) and seven cities (Atlanta, Columbus, District of Columbia (Metro), St. Louis, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and San Diego) in the spring:


http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Economy/AFL-CIO-to-Take-Raising-Wages-Campaign-to-States-and-Cities


With all this talk about "raising wages" there is not a single mention that real living wages means wages in line with actual cost-of-living. These millionaire labor leaders, politicians, appointed bureaucrats and think-tank spokespersons all fear using the term "cost-of-living" in relation to wages. To talk of raising wages without speaking of the relationship between wages and "cost-of-living" which determines "standard-of-living" means nothing.


To speak of workers' rights means nothing unless we begin to talk about putting an end to "At-Will Employment."


Decent jobs mean decent lives--- provided the jobs pay real living wages in relation to cost-of-living.


Once again we get these big blowhards saying working people should not have to receive poverty wages but they refuse to clearly define the line between poverty and living wages. Without comparing wages to "cost-of-living" there is, very conveniently for these big blowhards, no way to define real poverty.


These big blowhards talk about Minimum Wage increases as if these Minimum Wage increases in some twenty states eliminated poverty and provided workers with a decent standard-of-living when just the opposite is true; these Minimum Wage "increases" have assured employers of highly profitable poverty wages for the next decade.


These millionaire labor leaders and politicians talk about "ladders out of poverty" and "staircases to shared prosperity" when there are so many rungs and steps missing that workers can't use the ladders or staircases.


If you live in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina or Atlanta, Columbus, District of Columbia (Metro), St. Louis, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Diego this is our chance to raise these issues by writing letters to the editor, blogging, distributing leaflets in workplaces and working class communities.


We need to raise these issues in these Summits and beyond:


* That the relationship between wages and cost-of-living is what needs to be the issue.
* That "At-Will Employment" laws and legislation needs to be repealed and rescinded.
* That it will take a fight and struggle by the working class with the full participation of rank-and-file workers and their families to win real wage increases in line with cost-of-living.
* We need to explain how these dirty wars result in a reduced standard-of-living because we are being forced through increased prices and austerity measures to pay for these wars.
* We need to insist that the voices of rank-and-file workers are central to the collective bargaining process.
* We need to insist there be an end to concession contracts.
* We need to insist on full employment legislation which includes making the president and Congress are made responsible for attaining and maintaining full employment.
* Richard Trumka and these millionaire labor leaders pay lip service to the struggle against racism but refuse to insist on the enforcement of Affirmative Action.
* Demand the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal be stopped.


Take part in these "Summits to Raise Wages" by bringing forward these important facts.

Cuba beware

Cuba beware

·                                 Written by  Ken Fuller 

·                                 Tuesday, 13 January 2015

·                                 Daily Tribune

The news last month that the remaining three of the imprisoned Cuban Five had been released from their unjust incarceration in the USA was understandably welcomed by people around the world. Also welcome was Obama’s decision to re-establish diplomatic relations with the small Caribbean socialist republic. 

While Obama is able to unwind some of the blockade measures which have been in place for half a century, however, it will fall to the US Congress to dismantle the whole disgraceful apparatus, as it is embedded in legislation.

It would almost certainly be a mistake, though, to interpret this development as marking a fundamental shift in Washington’s strategic designs. This is readily demonstrated by looking first at the global context in which the USA’s new Cuba policy was announced, then taking a closer look at Obama’s public announcement of said policy.

A few days earlier, Obama approved a bill imposing sanctions against Venezuela on the hypocritical basis (for a country which tortures its perceived foes and where police kill unarmed civilians with impunity) that the government of Nicolas Maduro had condoned human rights violations when it responded to anti-government protests earlier last year. Washington’s new measures triggered mass demonstrations in Caracas, while other Latin American nations rallied to Venezuela’s defense. 

Bolivian president Evo Morales charged that Washington, having failed politically in its campaign against Maduro and his late predecessor Hugo Chaves, was now waging “economic aggression” against Venezuela.


Shortly after announcing the new policy on Cuba, Obama issued an executive order banning exports to Crimea and imposing further sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian companies and individuals (the European Union had agreed similar measures a few days earlier). It is probably safe to assume that the Ukraine’s largest private gas producer, which last year appointed US Vice-President Joe Biden’s son to its board of directors, will not be affected.

Let’s just remind ourselves, stating the matter bluntly, just how the situation in Ukraine came about. In late 2013, Ukraine’s president’s Viktor Yanukovych had second thoughts about signing an agreement with the European Union (EU), calculating that this would involve forsaking the undoubted economic benefits of Ukraine’s association with Russia. The EU was upset, and doubtless encouraged the demonstrators who soon began to assemble in Kiev. This would lead to the toppling of Yanukovych in February 2014.


Quite apart from EU involvement, it is now clear that the demonstrators in Kiev (who, it should not be forgotten, were extremely violent) were funded by the USA. Such was acknowledged by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Newland, who stated in a speech in Washington in December 2013 that Washington had provided $5 billion. More recently, George Friedman, founder and CEO of “intelligence” company Stratfor, has said that the USA was behind the coup against Yanukovych, as it was concerned about Russia’s growing influence in the Middle East, and in particular by its pro-Assad position on Syria.

The anti-Yanokovych forces contained neo-fascists, and these now made their way into government. It was in these circumstances that the population in Crimea voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia (it had been transferred to Ukraine in 1954 by Khrushchev). At the same time, people in the eastern Ukraine were equally concerned by the re-emergence of neo-Nazi elements in Kiev and began to agitate for separation (although not, as repeatedly reported in the West, necessarily union with Russia).

It should never be forgotten that the former Soviet Union lost almost 30 million people in World War II; this indelible memory has informed the actions of people in Crimea and eastern Ukraine and has also conditioned Russia’s own position, as it has watched Nato forces, despite agreements to the contrary, move ever-closer to its borders.

We now have a situation, therefore, where Washington and the EU, having interfered in a sovereign nation and caused the overthrow of an elected president (good or bad, honest or corrupt — none of this was their business), now impose sanctions on Russia and Crimea for taking measured and moderate steps to safeguard their interests.

Rightly or wrongly, many suspect that the hand of Washington is behind the recent steep fall in oil-prices which, along with sanctions, is having a major depressant effect on the Russian economy. The fact that Venezuela, another oil-producer, is similarly affected has done nothing to dispel such suspicions.

So, coming as it did in a period when Washington was following up its previous regime-change adventures in Venezuela, Ukraine and now Russia (to say nothing of Libya and Syria), and braying about the right of Hollywood “comedians” to conduct international diplomacy, what must we look out for in the USA’s new tack toward Cuba?

There was, in Obama’s speech, no hint of neighborliness toward Cuba’s regime, no note of apology for past crimes committed in the name of “demarkracy.” 

Alan Gross, the American released from a Cuban jail on humanitarian grounds, was portrayed as an innocent hero, and warmly welcomed home. Gross had been employed by a contractor of US Aid for International Development (USaid) which had been awarded a $6 million government contract for “democracy-promotion” in Cuba, for which Gross himself received over $500,000.

The Cuban Five, on the other hand, were merely referred to as “agents.” Not a word about the fact that they had penetrated terrorist groups run by Cuban exiles in Florida, or that their evidence had been handed to the FBI at a meeting in Havana. 

The all-important question: why? Why now? Was it because Washington had undergone a Damascene conversion and would no longer interfere in the internal affairs of other nations? No, we have seen above that this is certainly not true. Obama himself stated quite flatly that the previous policy of isolation and embargo had simply not worked and thus needed to be discarded.

But what had been the aim of the previous policy? Regime change, and that has not altered, as evidenced by the recent revelation that USaid, the same outfit for which Gross was working, had infiltrated Cuba’s hip-hop fraternity with the notion of recruiting dissidents, leading to a youth revolt.

Thus, the new policy will be directed at achieving that aim by alternative means. Although, if the embargo is lifted, there will be economic opportunities for Cuba, it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that it is entering its most dangerous period yet. Cuba beware!