Verizon workers battle the company while both Verizon management and the union leadership support Barack Obama

I received an e-mail from Tim Carpenter who heads up the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) which was brought into existance and financed specifically as an Obama front group. This letter from Tim Carpenter touting solidarity needs to be placed in perspective because the call for solidarity rings as hollow as all of Carpenter's idle, self-serving talk about "holding Obama's feet to the fire." The letter is included in full below.

This e-mail like all kinds of other "solidarity" with Verizon workers are making the rounds.

BUT--- why is no one asking how it is that a union, in this case the Communications Workers of America, can support Obama along with Verizon? 

We see the same pattern with the present lock-out in the Red River Valley with American Crystal Sugar locking out 1,300 workers.

We saw this same thing with the lockout of United Steel Worker union members who were locked out at Honeywell which ended with workers losing the shirts off their backs and the USW leadership calling it a "victory"--- again, union and management both supporting the same Barack Obama.

I have a question:

How can workers and management who have such sharp differences over wages, benefits and working conditions agree when it comes to supporting Barack Obama?

Obama comes to Cannon Falls, Minnesota. He goes to talk to the Chamber of Commerce not locked out American Crystal Sugar workers in the Red River Valley who are members of the BCTGM union which backed Obama to the hilt in a cooperative and working alliance and partnership with American Crystal Sugar's management along with working together supporting the Republican running as a Democrat, Congressman Collin Peterson.

Obama encourages high levels of unemployment making it easy for corporations to recruit scabs. Obama doesn't advance EFCA nor does he table anti-scab legislation. What exactly and specifically is the working class getting from Obama? Nothing but his wars and forced austerity measures to pay for his wars.

The UAW backs Obama along with the Big Three and Obama comes to Minnesota avoiding so much as even speaking in defense of locked out American Crystal Sugar workers and he also refuses to discuss the thousands of jobs that will be lost when the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is closed and bulldozed over in September. 

Tim Carpenter who is an apologist for everything the Democrats do now declares in his letter below:

"Verizon has joined the pack of corporatists that are taking the race-to-the-bottom approach that is devastating the lives of public and private workers around the country."

Well, what politician is siding with these views of Verizon and this "pack of corporatists?" Barack Obama.

Doesn't it seem strange to anyone besides me that both union leaders and corporate management would be enthusiastically supporting the same president?

How can the same president serve both workers and management?

With Honeywell, American Crystal Sugar and Verizon managements being in the dominant position over workers by their sheer wealth (of course the wealth was created by the workers and stolen by management through a scheme we Marxists call exploitation); who is best served by Obama remaining silent during these strikes and lock-outs? 

Who is getting the best value for their investments in supporting Barack Obama: workers or management?

Tim Carpenter travels all over the country talking about how PDA has been "holding Barack Obama's feet to the fire" as have his "coalition partners," including union leaders; but, how come Tim Carpenter in his letter here doesn't call on Barack Obama to take the side of striking and locked out workers? 

Why doesn't Tim Carpenter call on Obama and the Democrats to table anti-scab legislation?

Obama has called for "putting America first;" but, why isn't Obama calling for placing the plight of the working class before Wall Street's greedy drive for unlimited profits derived from the exloitation of working people and maximized through austerity measures being used to force working people to pick up the tab for Wall Street's imperialist wars?

CWA President Cohen calls for the re-election of Barack Obama; so does Verizon management.

Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Miller union leader Mark Froemke calls for the re-election of Barack Obama; so does the management of American Crystal Sugar.

Leo Gerard, President of the United Steel Workers calls for the re-election of Barack Obama; so does Honeywell management.

Unions and management fight like hell over wages, benefits and working conditions but become best buds in supporting Obama? How can two groups (classes) agree to support the same Barack Obama?

The answer lies in what we Marxists call "class collaboration;" or sell-out and betrayal of the working class by union leaders.

Oh, yes--- what about Wisconsin? Union leaders there continue their support for Obama but what has Obama delivered in return to their struggle?

And then we have the National Education Association rushing to be the first union to back Obama's re-election efforts; and public school teachers have gotten what from Obama that would explain their enthusiasm for him? Maybe it's just the pension fund managers pulling the strings connected to NEA leaders?

Come on, really; how are working people ever going to win anything fighting for better wages, benefits and working conditions when there stand Obama and the Democrats, just like the Republicans, waiting to take everything away won through struggle as with Verizon workers--- or, in the case of Honeywell and American Crystal Sugar, workers just turn, upon advice from union leaders to complacency and acquiescence without struggle.

I wonder what Barack Obama would have had to say if American Crystal Sugar workers would have occupied the plants knowing management stated in advance they were going to lock workers out and bring in scabs to do their jobs anmd take away their livelihoods?

Doesn't anyone see that Obama is not supporting working people in return for their support?

And then we have the thoroughly scabby bastards heading up the United Food and Commercial Workers union that continues it support for Obama and renting the non-union facilities of the Grand Portage Casino/Resort in Grand Portage, Minnesota for their so-called "Hands Across the Border" conference and rally which was nothing more than a CIA instigated confab organized at the behest of the rabid anti-communist ITUC trying to figure out how to "lead" Canadian workers away from class struggle trade unionism and rejection of advocacy of socialism through their New Democratic Party in exchange for "Obama style" politics.

Find union leaders supporting Obama and if you look closely you find those more closely associated with pork chop trade unionism, sweetheart contracts, poverty wage contracts (like UFCW) and outright sellouts and betrayers of working people in favor of employers' interests... just like Obama who is Wall Street all the way from wars to economics and none of these union "leaders" or Tim Carpenter are asking working people:

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

These class collaborationist union "leaders" can't ask this question because they, like Obama, (but in a different way) do Wall street's dirty work and in doing Wall Street's dirty work in misleading workers, this is where these union "leaders" and management find "common ground" in supporting Obama and undermining the struggles of the very workers whose dues pay the big, fat salaries of these Obama supporting union "leaders." 

Is it any wonder the current crop of worthless union "leaders" would rather we not learn about the real union leaders who built the unions in the mines, mills and factories and the politicians who supported them: Big Bill Haywood, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, William Z. Foster, Phil Raymond, Wyndham Mortimer, Nadia Barkan, Jim Tester, Ray Stevenson, John Bernard, Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson, Frances Perkins, Harry Bridges, Tim Buck and Gus Hall?

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Here is Tim Carpenter's pathetic "solidarity statement" with Verizon workers with not a mention of Barack Obama and the need for Obama to take the side of workers who supported him with campaign contributions, phone banking, walking the neighborhoods---

Who the hell does Tim Carpenter think took single-payer universal health care off the table just when the movement supporting it was peaking? Was it not Barack Obama and that sleazy bastard Max Baucus who Obama has now brought into his "Super Congress?"

And here we go again with the "tax-the-rich" rhetoric when we all know that Obama and the Democrats have no more intent to actually "tax-the-rich" than their intent to really end the wars--- all demogagic campaign rhetoric that could have been mouthed by Mussolini to hoodwink the people.

The only way working people are going to get anything out of this Wall Street government is through more militant strikes utilizing occupations to combat lock-outs and a nation-wide General Strike. Wall Street is not going to listen to the voices of working people until the profits come to a stop.

Alan L. Maki

An injury to all

Dear Alan,

Collective bargaining is under siege around the world, especially in "free trade" countries. From Wisconsin forward, 14 states have passed and 19 states have introduced legislation undermining collective bargaining.

Right now, 45,000 Verizon workers are on strike, because Verizon is trying again—despite Verizon's record profits—to eliminate the healthcare coverage putting these workers in the one percent of all American workers who receive company-paid medical benefits. They earned this through collective bargaining.

If these workers were in Canada or the UK, healthcare wouldn't even be an issue up for negotiation. In those countries, everyone is provided healthcare coverage by their governments.

Trying to justify themselves citing "Obamacare's" so-called "Cadillac Provision," Verizon argues that the CWA and IBEW members striking to maintain their contracts should lose their hard-fought and hard-won healthcare benefits.

The Verizon workers, PDA, and our coalition partners know that our government and Verizon's management have it all backwards: We all need to have full medical benefits—through expanded and improved Medicare for all. Verizon has joined the pack of corporatists that are taking the race-to-the-bottom approach that is devastating the lives of public and private workers around the country.

Show your solidarity with Verizon's workers, picketing at Verizon stores and offices in the eastern US. Tell Verizon's CEO that you stand with Verizon's workers against corporate greed.

And make sure you're part of the more than 60 September 1 actions across the country in support of National Nurses United's Main Street Campaign to make Wall Street pay their fair share. Watch the campaign's inspiring video.

An injury to one is an injury to all!

In solidarity,

Tim Carpenter, national director

Fake Political Crisis and Real Economic Crises - A Call for Leadership and for Action

Fake Political Crises and Real Economic Crises - A Call for Leadership and for Action

by Alan L. Maki on Saturday, August 13, 2011 at 3:13pm

"There is no way to fund what we must do as a nation without bringing our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The militarization of our foreign policy has proven to be a costly mistake. It is time to invest at home."

Fake Political Crises and Real Economic Crises - A Call for Leadership and for Action

August 03, 2011

AFL-CIO Executive Council Statement

Washington, DC

The United States is in a continuing and severe jobs crisis. Our economy is growing at less than 2 percent per year, and growth is slowing. Official unemployment is 9.2 percent and rising-driven now by mass layoffs of teachers, first

responders and other public employees. The real unemployment rate is almost twice as high-once labor market dropouts and involuntary part-time work are taken into account.

It doesn't have to be this way. There are real solutions to the jobs crisis, but real solutions require government action.

Yet Washington is inexplicably focused on measures that will make the situation worse-both in the short and long run. Our nation's leaders are offering working people the choice between bad and worse policies. Instead of addressing our profound economic crisis, they are adding to it an unending series of fake political crises.

Real wages have been stagnant for three decades and are now falling. The housing market, the largest market of any kind in our country, continues its downward slide, driven by the collapse of an enormous bubble. Millions of American families have been or will be thrown out of their homes by banks, guaranteeing that this drag on our economy will continue for the foreseeable future. Our trade deficit keeps growing. We invest less and less in our nation's infrastructure while unemployment in construction is nearly double the national average. Veterans return home and struggle to find work. Our education budgets at every level are shrinking, and fewer and fewer of us have adequate health insurance or a pension.

Republican congressional leaders have made their agenda crystal clear-paralyze the government and hold our economy hostage until a multitrillion-dollar ransom is paid to their contributors in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy and for multinational corporations. They will not rest until they have succeeded in dismantling the American government and the American Dream-so their wealthy contributors can be sure that their taxes will remain the lowest in the developed world for the remainder of their days.

Unfortunately, far too many Democrats have been either silent or complicit in the Republicans' scheme. We expect Democrats at every level of government to stand tall for progressive principles, working families and the American labor movement. We need their leadership-not their excuses or apologies.

But this agenda has been clear for years. The congressional Republicans are doing nothing more than escalating the Bush agenda-using the disingenuous rhetoric of fiscal responsibility to transfer wealth to the rich, dismantle the social safety net and increase the deficit. If our country is going to have a bright and fair future, we need a completely different direction-toward a high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy, driven by investment in our workforce and our infrastructure, and our public services.

There is no way to fund what we must do as a nation without bringing our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The militarization of our foreign policy has proven to be a costly mistake. It is time to invest at home.

Our unfair and inadequate tax system is at the heart of what is wrong with our economy and our society. Our government gives away tax breaks to billionaires and corporations while letting our infrastructure deteriorate and cutting aid for heating oil for the poor. We cannot build a competitive economy, pay our bills as a nation or address out-of-control economic inequality until we adopt a fair system of taxation.

Instead, policymakers are obsessed with cutting government spending with a meat ax-heedless of the consequences for our economy or our compassion.

In an economy beset by mass unemployment, inadequate demand, tight credit and asset deflation, massive cuts in government spending will be disastrous-particularly cuts that cause layoffs or reduce Americans' incomes, such as cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These deep cuts could easily catapult our economy straight into a double-dip recession, if not a Great Depression. And we run the risk of dragging the rest of the global economy down with us.

In an economy that runs chronic trade deficits of more than a half-trillion dollars a year and that has lost more than 50,000 manufacturing plants in the last 10 years, the last thing we should do is rush to pass more trade agreements built on the model that led to the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing-like the Korea, Colombia and Panama agreements. And we need to reform our tax code to end the incentives and rewards for offshoring jobs-not lock in a corporate tax code that only taxes U.S. earnings, essentially inviting companies to move operations offshore and placing responsible employers at a disadvantage.

In an economy where tax revenues have hit a modern low of 14.9 percent of GDP and where the wealthy have seen the greatest income gains and the lowest tax rates since the Great Depression, there is absolutely no economic rationale for cutting tax rates or continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. In an economy where real wages have been falling for a generation, why would we go all out to silence workers, deprive them of basic workplace protections, defund the agencies that protect us, interfere with those who seek to enforce the laws and cozy up to foreign governments where workers are murdered with impunity when they try to organize?

Working people do not want a kinder, gentler or more reasonable version of the policies that caused the economic crisis, that dismantled the American Dream and that have undermined our democracy for a generation. We demand a completely different approach-we want jobs, prosperity, fairness and, most of all, a future for all of us.

Today, we must fight against the destructive ideas in play in Washington and in our state capitals. That is why the labor movement's voice is clear-we oppose any cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits-no matter where they come from and that includes the Oval Office. We need a tax code that asks the rich to pay their fair share. We oppose corporate tax reform that is merely "revenue neutral" amid calls for "shared sacrifice." We oppose the Korea, Panama and the Colombia free trade agreements. And we will fight with every means we have against those who would take away the right to vote through a new generation of poll taxes and literacy tests.

But we cannot build a future by watering down bad ideas-or even by stopping them. Working people demand a politics of real solutions. Of good jobs-on the scale needed to make a difference. Of investment in our future-in our infrastructure, our health, our schools, our people. Of fair taxes and fair trade. And, most of all, a future where working people have a voice in our republic, in the workplace and the voting booth. 

America wants to work, and we need a political system that will deliver on that urgent imperative. Today, real solutions are at hand, and in the months ahead, we are going to fight for them. 

We will unite not only workers and our unions but a broad base of allies behind a comprehensive initiative that will invest in America, provide opportunity for all, ensure dignity through work and save our social safety net. We must build on and expand vital partnerships with women's, civil rights and minority organizations, and environmental, immigration, low-income, senior and faith groups. We also will strive to build alliances with business where possible, such as the work we have done together with a wide range of business groups to support investment in our nation's infrastructure.

We will promote a job creation agenda that will include direct federal investment as an alternative to tax cuts. A jobs agenda that will respond to the continuing high unemployment rates suffered by workers in the construction industry, the bleeding of jobs in the manufacturing sector, and the hemorrhaging of employment in the state and local government sectors. We will fight for:

- Maintaining income support and consumer spending, including extending the current federal extended benefits program for the unemployed, which expires in December;  

- Rebuilding and modernizing critical national infrastructure to promote strong economic activity, including a robustly funded, multiyear Surface Transportation Act that expands our highway and bridge system and addresses the transit jobs crisis, and by creating an infrastructure bank that funds good jobs and helps rebuild our manufacturing base through standards and tools that will enhance the domestic supply chain; 

- Enforcing our trade laws, fighting against China's currency manipulation to help our manufacturing base recover, and renewing a robust, long-term Trade Adjustment Assistance Act ;  

- Establishing a program of countercyclical assistance to create and stabilize jobs in state and local governments, including adequate federal aid and permanent programs of direct local job creation and federal Medicaid matching rates that reflect fluctuations in unemployment rates; 

-Helping the unemployed and families threatened with the loss of their homes; 

-Adopting a fair tax system, including an end to tax breaks for companies going offshore and a financial transaction tax that asks those who caused the financial crisis to help pay for its consequences; 

-And for every good idea that creates jobs and helps us take on the great challenge of rebuilding the American Dream.

Most of all, this is a time when everyone who cares about our future must stand together. We must organize, and we must have vision. The labor movement calls upon all who see a future for America that is better than our past to join us. It is time not for compromise but for vision, not for downsizing our dreams, but for seizing our future.

Contact: Amaya Tune (202) 637-5018

I am providing some background on what used to be the AFL-CIO position on conversion; we need to know why this work has not continued (please share this information widely):

Breaking Ranks: On Military Spending, Unions

Hear a Different Drumme:

http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1352&context=articles&sei-redir=1#search=%22afl-cio%20conversion%20committee%20winpisinger%22




Newspaper article:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-02-20/business/9001150187_1_afl-cio-president-lane-kirkland-president-bush-vetoed-legislation-converting 

Winpisinger Speaks Out

An Interview with the President of the 

International Association of Machinists 

and Aerospace Workers

"Any conservative who thinks that this country is going to continue on the armament binge we've been on now for several years, better have another thought. The country can't afford it, we're bankrupting ourselves in every other area of our activity by these insane deficits that are generated by that kind of obscene military spending."

http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1989/03/interview-winpisinger.html

AFL-CIO industrial unions

call for rebuilding America

"They are restructuring our

jobs, our workplaces and our

lives. We want  to construct the

framework on which to build

a political economy founded

on the values of peace and

prosperity, not war and poverty."
  William Winpinsinger

See page #3:

http://www.library.gsu.edu/dlib/iam/getBrandedPDF.asp?issue_id=1951&year=1983

These should be companion volumes for this discussion:

Let's all be asking this important question:

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you? 

Elmer Benson; socialist Governor of Minnesota elected on the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party ticket. The working class can break free from the "two-party trap." 

Workers at American Crystal Sugar have been locked out; as long as scabs are working the members of BCTGM are doomed.

What I don’t understand is WHY the BCTGM leadership would put its own members through such misery like the American Crystal Sugar lockout without have given the membership the opportunity to decide if they wanted to occupy the plants when there is no point to be made with turning down management's "final offer" knowing there would be a lockout with scabs brought in?


The BCTGM leadership is aware there is nothing to be gained by workers refusing "the final offer" as wages are lost, many workers are not eligible for unemployment benefits as homes will be lost with families completely disrupted.


If BCTGM leaders are going to keep putting their members through these lockouts why haven't they insisted that the Democrats they support table anti-scab legislation?


Already deep frustrations and hopelessness has set in with BCTGM members as few members even turned out for what was billed by the union as a major demonstration: http://www.bctgm.org/ACS_news.html

All workers should be following developments in this lockout while asking why the BCTMG leadership did not allow the workers at American Crystal Sugar to once turning down management's "final offer" to go on strike by occupying the plants since long in advance American Crystal Sugar announced they would lockout union workers and bring in scabs to do their jobs at one-third the wages. The union leaders actually told workers they had to train the scabs over many weeks!

I feel sorry for American Crystal Sugar workers and their families as these union leaders have some kind of hidden agenda and are obviously using them.

Follow developments at American Crystal Sugar to see if you want to be placed in similar circumstances because lockouts have become a favorite method being used by employers knowing they can get scabs to work so cheap because unemployment is so high.

Here is the union's web site: http://www.bctgm.org/ACS_Lockout.html

What is interesting is that union leaders and management both support the same politicians.

Notice: In spite of all the tough and militant talk now coming from union leaders, no one is making any attempt to stop the scabs.

BCTMG leaders should have to explain their strategy and what they hope to achieve through this kind of non-struggle response.

Hopefully their will be a group of sensible rank-and-file activists who understand the workers are being misled and are doomed because unless the scabs are stopped this is a "done deal" because the scabs are the sons and daughters and family members of the Republican beet farmers who stand to profit from this fiasco since they are the owners of this American Chrystal Sugar "cooperative."

There are rumors circulating in the Red River Valley that BCTMG "leader" and AFL-CIO official Mark Froemke was paid by the beet growers to lead workers into this lockout.

What kind of union leaders agree to a seven year contract to begin with?

On August 1, 1,300 BCTGM members were locked out by American Crystal Sugar at facilities in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa.

The company has processing plants in East Grand Forks, Crookston, and Moorhead, Minn.; Hillsboro and Drayton, N.D.; and packaging and transportation sites in Chaska, Minn. and Mason City, Iowa. Workers at these facilities are represented by BCTGM Locals 167G (Grand Forks, N.D.), 265G (Chaska), 267G (Crookston), 269G (Mason City) and 372G (Hillsboro, N.D.).

Contract negotiations to replace the seven-year collective bargaining agreement began in May. On Saturday, July 31 union members overwhelmingly rejected the company’s final offer – which included significant increases to workers’ health care costs and major changes to job security, including the right to outsource work, and seniority language. When workers reported to work on Monday, August 1, they were locked out. Their union contract expired at midnight Sunday.

Union members and supporters are maintaining informational pickets outside each location and are receiving tremendous community support.

This site is designed to provide information and solidarity to the locked out BCTGM members. Please visit regularly for updates, photos and other new information.

Would you want the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union,AFL-CIO representing you? 


The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union,AFL-CIO "led" workers another such  lockout in Iowa where workers lost their shirts and were forced back to work after ten-months asking passerby's to support them by honking their horns and voting for Democrats.


All the speeches we are hearing from the big-shots in the labor movement blame this lockout on Republicans even though American Crystal Sugar and these union locals have been supporting the same Democrats AND Republicans. 


Mark Froemke, acting in his capacity as an official with the AFL-CIO, according to Dean Gunderson a leader of MAPE, advised workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant to accept the closing and the demolition of their plant as a "done deal" before a fight was even considered. Now this same union leader pretends that he is leading a militant struggle after leading them to be locked out. Froemke also led a vicious attack on people trying to unseat Congressman Collin Peterson the Republican pretending to be a Democrat which makes one wonder why Mark Froemke doesn't demonstrate the same enthusiasm towards stopping scabs from taking the jobs of his members. Froemke has promised the Democrats he has wasted the resources of the union on in getting them elected that no action would be taken to stop the scabs because the image that would be generated would not be conducive to Democrats being elected. Froemke is more concerned about the "jobs" of these worthless politicians who don't even have the courage to raise the need for anti-scab legislation than he is for the livelihoods of his own members.


All of this goes to demonstrate what happens when union "leaders" stepping into Wall Street's two-party trap with one foot; with the other foot they step into the employer set traps of "lockouts."


The road of class collaboration always leads to perdition.


Mark Froemke was one of the first labor leaders to warn workers in Wisconsin against a General Strike. Coincidence? Not likely.

Finally!

Gravel names his price: $1 million to challenge Obama

7:37 PM 08/09/2011

Despite speculation that President Barack Obama will face a primary challenge from disaffected liberals in 2012, no candidate has emerged. That may be about to change.

“Somebody should challenge Obama, there’s no question about it. He is what he is, and it’s not what we want,” former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel said in an interview with The Daily Caller. “I’d be happy to do it, but it takes money. Without enough money to be heard, you come off as somewhat foolish.”

Gravel said he will challenge Obama if there is sufficient financial backing.

“If [supporters] would put up $1 million, I probably would run. And that would at least fund enough activity to get a message out,” Gravel said.

Gravel contends that when he sought the 2008 Democratic nomination he learned that “without at least enough money to make some noise and to go out and raise money, it just won’t go anywhere.”

One million dollars would be more than double what he spent in 2008, Gravel noted. “If there’s enough money to be able to get a message across, whether I get elected or not is incidental. But who knows, who knows if somebody really wanted to engage this,” he said.

The former senator, most famous for entering the leaked Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record, disapproves of Obama’s performance and would not vote to re-elect the president.

“We have never been in a worse situation with respect to leadership,” Gravel argued. “We’ve been in a lot of bad ones, but what we have today equals many of the bad ones of the past.” 

Gravel said Obama was elected with a scant record, allowing voters to assume that his opposition to the Bush administration’s policies was based on more than mere politics.

“He presented himself not as what he is; he presented himself as you would want him to be,” Gravel said. “And then, of course, when he gets power he turns out to be what he is: a tool of the military-industrial complex and Wall Street.”

One of the former senator’s most significant grievances with Obama is an increase in prosecutions of whistleblowers. “He campaigned on transparency and he’s doing more than anyone else to stop transparency in government,” Gravel lamented.

He continued: “We still have renditions, we have secret prisons around the world, we have Guantanamo still open, obviously in these secret prisons we still engage in torture — what else do you think you’re doing in these secret prisons? — and then either our involvement or we condone Israeli assassination activities in Iran and try to change government in Iran through sabotage.”

“That’s what we’re doing. And that’s all on Obama’s watch, which is essentially worse than Bush’s watch in certain degrees.”

Gravel was hard-pressed to name others who he would like to see challenge Obama, saying that Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader appear unlikely to run.

“Ron Paul is just too far over there for my tastes,” Gravel said. “He is a strict constructionist, not believing in the people.” Gravel said that former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney would make an excellent candidate.

Unlike some disappointed Democrats, Gravel doesn’t believe that Hillary Clinton would have been any better than Obama. “Oh God no!” Gravel said, adding that Clinton “would have been a tool of Wall Street and the military-industrial complex. And she’s that right now.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/09/gravel-says-a-million-dollars-to-challenge-the-president/#ixzz1Uq1oeaDy

A Midsummer Night's Dream Obama has sold out the working class

Letter to the Editor submitted for publication to Morning Star Online;

In the article "A Midsummer Night's Dream Obama has sold out the working class" there are several conclusions needing to be addressed.

First of all, Obama was never an advocate for the working class. Obama has always been an advocate for Wall Street's agenda. So, to suggest he has "sold out" the working class is not correct. Wall Street put Obama in office to attack the working class and it is obvious the writer, Phil Amadon, does not understand this; Amadon started this article on a false premise.

Second; completely ignored is the fact that Obama still has to contend with a Primary challenge before there is any discussion of his re-election in 2012. It is not cut-and-dried that Obama will be the Democratic Party's candidate in 2012 because more and more people are coming to the realization that Obama has no chance of being re-elected considering he presides over: three wars; soaring food, gas, electricity and home heating fuel prices; massive unemployment and rising home foreclosures and evictions. Any worker voting for Obama under these circumstances would have to have their head examined.  

Amadon then goes on without explaining the reason for this controversy swirling around raising the debt ceiling.

Obama joining with Republicans to shove this debt ceiling legislation down our throats is part of the austerity measures being used to force the working class to pay for imperialist wars. These austerity measures include depriving working people of their most basic and fundamental rights in an attempt to prevent working people from fighting back against these austerity measures ordered by Wall Street and imposed by Obama together with the Democrats and Republicans.

While it is true there are divisions in the capitalist class, these divisions are not around "left" and "right." There is nothing to suggest that Wall Street has anything other than an ultra-right agenda of which Barack Obama is their main voice in pushing wars abroad and austerity measures at home to pay for these dirty imperialist wars. Isn't this an "ultra-right" agenda?

The Social Security Trust Fund has been looted by the politicians to pay for wars and now they don't want to make good on the "IOU's" they left behind, and this is why Social Security has been placed on the budget cutting table.

Amadon does not mention that the majority of the working class is opposed to these wars; in fact, for some reason, Amadon doesn't even mention these imperialist wars that are wasting valuable resources that could be used for job-creating programs like health care, child care and fighting global warming.

As an example: For much less than militarism and wars are costing us we could build a world-class National Public Health Care System creating over ten-million new jobs providing the American people with free health care through over 30,000 primary health care facilities spread out in all the communities and neighborhoods across the United States instead of having U.S. military bases dotting the globe protecting Wall Street's interests.

Apparently Amadon does not understand the "two-party trap" consisting of both the Democrats and Republicans that has been set by Wall Street for the working class.

Amadon must move in a very small circle since I have found few working people and rank-and-file activists still supporting, or willing to vote for, Obama. Those in the upper echelons of organized labor who live more like Wall Street coupon clippers than workers do continue their support for Obama but this support for Obama has caused them to lose credibility with rank-and-file workers and local union leaders. There are many people in the United States considering building a working class based people's party with efforts underway. The Morning Star should consider providing coverage of these efforts.

Capitalism is on the skids to oblivion and the thoroughly reactionary Barack Obama working at Wall Street's behest is dragging us down the road to perdition with wars paid for through austerity measures from which Wall Street profits in many ways as a direct result of the lowering of the standard of living of the working class.

I would suggest, sometimes before Election Day, Phil Amadon should ask his rank-and-file activist friends:

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

End the wars. Tax the rich. Create jobs through government programs designed to solve the problems of the people.

The left has a right to expect much better analysis from a feature article in the Morning Star.

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

(full contact information at the bottom)

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/108122

A Midsummer Night's Dream Obama has sold out the working class

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Phil Amadon

The passage of the debt ceiling Bill marks a dangerous moment for the workers' movement in the US.

As Vermont's Independent Senator Bernie Sanders has so clearly pointed out, this "debt ceiling compromise" is in fact a sweeping victory for the wealthy, the largest corporations and banks and the ultra-right.

There is nothing in it for working people that is worth the terrible price being paid. It locks the US into austerity, cuts and no new revenue.

It allegedly preserves social security, which the Democratic leadership and the White House should never have even allowed on the table, as it does not contribute to the deficit in a real way.

Whatever issue there is with social security could easily be fixed by raising social security taxes on higher incomes.

Medicare is allegedly secure from cuts but only if the "Debt Ceiling Committee of 12" - the special bipartisan joint committee of Congress - can find enough extra cuts to prevent the automatic, across-the-board cuts to everything provided for in the debt ceiling Bill.

If this were a union-negotiated deal, it would clearly be a "sell-out" of the rank-and-file workers.

If this were a union struggle it would be time to organise a rank-and-file committee to wrest leadership of the struggle from those who sold us out, without undermining the union.

It is true that the right wing of the capitalist class is the originator and big winner in this struggle.

What is also true and crucial is that in the class war the US is locked into now, this loss is even more important than all the individual union struggles put together and so betrayal of the rank and file in this debt ceiling struggle is more serious than in any single unsavoury contract negotiation.

Most rank-and-file activists I know see no alternative to the president and his party in 2012 to defeat their howling enemies of the ultra-right and the Republicans - the "vanguard party of the capitalist class."

In the winner-take-all arena of US politics it is true that the president and his party are the only ones capable of defeating the ultra-right and the Republicans so they are the only realistic choice in the voting booth in 2012.

It is also true that the president and his party are governing in a way that is discouraging and angering multitudes of his working-class supporters.

The sense of betrayal is strong in many quarters.

The possibility of defeat at the hands of the "stay-at-home voter" is stronger now than before. When it comes to voting, people are more inspired by hope for change than disgust with Tea Party lunacy.

The president and his party allowed the debt conversation to dominate the political conversation rather than a job-creating stimulus.

They essentially took the struggle for stimulus off the table in a serious way and so locked the US into a low growth, jobless austerity.

The US working class can no longer allow the Democratic Party and its leaders to set the agenda for the struggle against the ultra-right.

Conciliation, compromise, bipartisanship with these ruthless Republicans is absolutely senseless. The workers' movement needs to stir up street heat, "Wisconsin-style" times 10.

In the realm of the political discourse the attitude of meeting the Republicans head on must be intensified, focussing on defeating them rather than conciliating them, both politically and ideologically. US workers can trust no-one outside the labour movement to do this for them.

--

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

 

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell: 651-587-5541

Primary E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

E-mail: alan.maki1951mn@gmail.com

Blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

We must say "NO" to the unconstitutional "Super Congress"

Please help me distribute this by turning it into a "digital leaflet" forwarding it to family, friends, neighbors and co-workers.


First of all, I notice that Ron Paul is using the very legitimate unconstitutional aspect of this legislation created by Obama--- this bill creating this "Super Congress"--- very demagogically like a little Mussolini as he refuses to defend Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Community Action Program, funding to enforce Affirmative Action along with public housing, public education, Food Stamps, many other social programs to be cut which is a huge cut to the standard of living of the working class which is the primary target in cutting all of this as military spending is drastically increased even though Obama and these lying politicians are claiming cuts in defense spending which is an outright lie because the only thing they are doing is slightly cutting back on their intended increases in the military budget where as the existing budgets of the social programs are actually being cut.

My suggestion is that Bernie Sanders, while often weak in many areas, should be quoted over Ron Paul. 


There is a move underway by a very shrewd group of Obama supporters calling for Bernie Sanders to be appointed to this new unconstitutional "Super Congress" that is charged with but one objective: enforcing austerity measures as a way to pay for these dirty wars.

They want Bernie Sanders as part of this "Super Congress" in order to try to give it the legitimacy it does not deserve. Bernie Sanders must be encouraged to join the battle against this "Super Congress" not to become part of it.

Second, thinking by some that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will step in here is very naive since the ACLU is nothing but a rubber-stamp front for the Democratic Party.

The ACLU did not act to challenge Obama's health care legislation which is patently unconstitutional on its very face according to the United States Supreme Court rulings upholding the New Deal legislation--- in particular Social Security. 

Should Obama's health care legislation now be approved as "constitutional" by the United States Supreme Court beholden to Wall Street's interests, this will be the end of Social Security as the government will then be able to coerce people to pay into individual retirement accounts as they claim the Social Security fund they looted leaving behind a stack of IOU's lacks sufficient funds to maintain the Social Security program.

We cannot wage the kind of multi-pronged struggle required that involves ending the wars and taxing the rich to fund social programs behind simple calls only attacking this "Super Congress" as unconstitutional. There is simply much more to this than that.

We need to explain to the American people that the very reason for establishing this "Super Congress" is to fund militarism and wars through austerity measures attacking the living standard of the working class while evading the need to tax-the-rich and the corporations. This is the one and only reason for this unconstitutional "Super Congress." 

Our response should be to challenge this "Super Congress concocted by the Wall Street coupon clippers to escape the hindrances imposed on their rule by the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights by not only challenging this in the courts but in the streets and at the ballot box. This requires a very high level of organization uniting people behind an alternative to Wall Street's agenda of expanding imperialist wars abroad financed as a direct result of growing poverty while killing jobs at home.

Obama has now delivered us one more terrible piece of Draconian, very reactionary and regressive piece of legislation which includes this abomination and perverted view of democracy that is an attack on our Constitutional rights and our standard of living not to mention the rights of peoples in other nations to be free from his dirty murderous, barbaric and cannibalistic imperialist wars and we must mention, the solid support the Israeli killing machine continues to receive from Obama and Congress compliments of U.S. tax-payers being forced to endure austerity measures that come with soaring prices for food, gas, electricity and home heating fuels, continuing foreclosures and growing unemployment.

The time has come to convene a "people's congress" with the intent of challenging Wall Street for power.

There is a clear alternative to unite the American people around:

A program for real change...

* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.

* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.

* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.

* Works Progress Administration - three million new jobs.

* Civilian Conservation Corps - two million new jobs.

* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.

* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.

* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage

* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from. 

* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions. 

* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people. 

* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.

* Wall Street is our enemy.

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change. 

We must not allow the Democrats to get away with evading the need to tax the rich like they have evaded ending these wars. What we need is a huge united movement to turn the demagogic campaign rhetoric of the Democrats into real legislation.

This requires the American people create a "people's lobby" and elect a truly "people's congress" based on the ideas of "We the people."

Yours in the struggle,

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

 

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell: 651-587-5541

Primary E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

E-mail: alan.maki1951mn@gmail.com

Blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

1,300 American Crystal Sugar workers are locked-out without pay or health insurance while AFL-CIO union official, Mark Froemke, who led these workers to doom continues to get paid with his health insurance

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/11794/10-month_iowa_lockout_ends_with_new_contract_and_disappointment/


I guess this should tell us something about the quality of union leaders who led 1,300 American Crystal Sugar workers (same union) into a lock-out in the sugar beet industry in the Red River Valley just this past Monday.

Why would these union "leaders" not have provided these workers with the option of occupying these plants instead of voluntarily leaving the plant upon management's orders knowing that once they left the plants they would be locked-out?

We all know once these workers left these plants after management clearly declared--- over and over again--- that "replacement workers" (scabs)--- would be brought in if workers turned down management's "final offer" that this is now a "done deal."

Because these shortsighted and cowardly union leaders who spend all their time pushing down the throats of workers worthless Wall Street politicians like Barack Obama and this wimpy liberal Mark Dayton and Republicans like Collin Peterson posing as Democrats instead of teaching workers about the class struggle and real working class tactics and strategies like going on strike taking control of plants after managements openly state their intent to lock out workers and bring in scabs.

Another 1,300 workers and THEIR FAMILIES are now going to suffer because of the mis-leadership from the same union mentioned in this article.

I don't see Barack Obama putting on his "marching shoes" to join these workers who will now be forced into taking a worse deal--- in addition to wages lost not to mention going without health insurance--- than managements "final offer."

If these union leaders had any integrity at all they would now advise these 1,300 workers to accept the "final offer" and go back to work.

As they say, this is now a "done deal" unless the baseball bats are brought out to stop the scabs; but, I doubt union leaders who wouldn't consider the non-violent occupation of the plants will now take the only other option in stopping the scabs.

I bet Richard Trumka and other union "leaders" will show up to give their militant sounding speeches about how "all labor is with you in this struggle" as they give their worthless spiel never to be seen again.

And I notice not one single politician this union has supported has the courage to bring forward anti-scab legislation.

Talk about workers being doomed.

Thanks for the article that should serve as an alert for the 1,300 American Crystal Sugar workers now wasting their time carrying around picket signs saying, "No Lock-out" when the signs displayed should be saying, "On strike--- support our plant occupations."