Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Please note I have a new phone number...

512-517-2708

Alan Maki

Alan Maki
Doing research at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

A program for real change...

http://peaceandsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-progressive-program-for-real-change.html


What we need is a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would make it a mandatory requirement that the president and Congress attain and maintain full employment.


"Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens"

- Ben Franklin

Let's talk...

Let's talk...

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

A facebook discussion on the environment. Why the envirinmental movement can't win any struggles.

Sally Lacy



Citizen Voices Matter - Sustainable Economic Alternatives to Open-Pit Mining
youtube.com
People in northern Wisconsin have worked to create a sustainable economy in the state's iconic Northwoods. But their livelihoods could be threatened by envir...
Like · · · 12 hours ago

  • John Schneider and 10 others like this.
  • Steve Sohn I like that a lot><^+++
    12 hours ago · Like · 1
  • Jayne Hogfeldt Well done. I like this very much.
    12 hours ago · Like
  • Sally Lacy Someone shared it on the Washington County Dem Party page; I just shared it. I think it is excellent.
    12 hours ago · Like
  • Laura Priebe So very true.
    10 hours ago · Like
  • Alan Maki How much do you pay the people you employ?
    4 hours ago · Like
  • Alan Maki What kind of alternatives? Loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos paying poverty wages where workers have no rights under state or federal labor laws and a bunch of wealthy white mobsters who own the slot machines run off with all the profits they can skim off the top?

    Let's talk about the facts.

    Let's talk about what it will take to make every non-mining job a good paying job.

    Let's talk about what it will take to create a full employment economy with all jobs turned into good jobs paying real living wages with safe and healthy working conditions.

    Tell Mike Wiggins and the Bad River Tribal Council to provide his casino workers with a smoke-free workplace and real living wages comparable to what workers make in the mining industry... then people will believe there are real alternatives to mining; until then, you are fighting a losing battle.
    4 hours ago · Like · 1
  • Wendy Thiede Right now this area has job openings for doctors, lawyers, accountants, nurses and the whole gamut of industries that support the increasing (yes, increasing) number of retirees moving into the area. These professionals would come with families and the jobs would be clean and lucrative. And for those who don't want to spend that much time and money on education, there are a gazillion service jobs--landscaping, tree management, cleaning. Many of these retirees have money and a need for people to help them do the things they are no longer capable of. But we're missing the boat by not encouraging our kids to go into these fields. http://woodsperson.blogspot.com/.../alternative-to-mining...
    2 hours ago · Like · 3
  • Wendy Thiede However, a University of Alabama Extension study found that “population and employment growth in rural areas with strong tourism and retirement industries has outdistanced the growth in those rural areas that depend on manufacturing, mining, and agriculture.”
    2 hours ago · Like · 1
  • Alan Maki I don't see the jobs in the hospitality and tourism industries proving real living wage jobs in northern Wisconsin. To achieve this would require union organizing. Every single job should be a good job paying real living wages providing decent benefits like paid vacations, paid sick days, etc.

    The politicians and mining companies have two main things going for them that opposition to this hideous mining project will never be able to over come:

    1. Poverty wage jobs.

    2. Massive unemployment.

    Thousands of people are eagerly awaiting the opening up of these mining jobs--- do you blame them?
    about an hour ago · Like
  • Wendy Thiede Alan, you didn't read my post. I'm not talking about hospitality jobs; I'm talking about professional careers that pay better than mining jobs and they don't wreck the environment. At this very moment Marshfield Clinic is trying to find a dr. for Mercer to replace the one retiring. Lawyers specializing in elder law are needed. Financial planners, etc. And yes, there is also a need for menial jobs, opportunities for people to go into business for themselves doing home maintenance, tree service, etc. And you can't tell me that every mining job is going to pay a high wage or that everybody in the area is qualified for those jobs. See my research on that topic: http://woodsperson.blogspot.com/.../08/the-jobs-promise.html
    58 minutes ago · Like · 1
  • Maureen Matusewic Well, that's quite sad because there won't be thousands of good paying jobs. Some of the people complaining here are luckier than people in other parts of the state with higher paying jobs because they have affordable housing and a much higher percentage of people in Iron County have acreage. Know many young families in the cities that can afford a home and cabin in the woods making $35-$40k a year?
    55 minutes ago · Like · 1
  • Wendy Thiede And these "thousands of people waiting for mining jobs" has that been since 1960 when the mines left? Have any of them thought about getting educated in a field that is needed? Or are we putting all our eggs in one basket here? I am really tired of the "wait for the mine to come" attitude. There's no guarantee that it will come and even IF it does, it won't be for a long time.
    51 minutes ago · Like · 1
  • Maureen Matusewic Most of the people I see and hear complaining, are businessmen or government/educators who seem to be in great financial shape. We have great forests, great waters, lots of land that could be made into small organic farms with help from local government.
    41 minutes ago · Like
  • Rob Ganson Alan Maki, GTac has made it clear that they would bus people up for construction labor, that they would be non union employers, that they would not train locals, but hire out of work qualified operators at scab wages. They are a fly by night limited liability corporation, designed to go bankrupt after they get what they want, so you can forget retirement, ongoing benefits, etc. Sustainable industry could employ many more with forest products, value added products being manufactured, etc. Long term jobs...
    40 minutes ago · Like · 1
  • Maureen Matusewic Minnesota drilling company back again, fyi.
    39 minutes ago · Like
  • Alan Maki You all have missed my point. I guess I didn't make myself clear, eh?

    Well, let me try again.

    Anyone can see that there are thousands of people employed in northern Wisconsin doing all kinds of jobs. Most of these jobs are rotten jobs only because they don't pay real living wages and provide decent benefits.

    My position is this: If you expect people to oppose this hideous mining project you need to help make sure that all these people presently employed are paid real living wages. Then they will join with you in actions to protect the living environment.

    Why is this so difficult for so many of you environmentalists to understand?

    Why aren't you insisting that Mike Wiggins provides casino workers with a smoke-free healthy workplace environment and real living wages?

    If you are going to suggest jobs in "sustainable" forestry; then you are going to have to insist that such industries and companies provide real living wage jobs in healthy and safe workplaces.

    You sat in silence as Red Cliff put up a brand new casino forcing more workers into an unhealthy working environment filled with smoke. Paying these workers poverty wages. And you sit in absolute and utter silence as these workers are forced to work without any rights under state or federal labor laws.

    From a working class perspective, how is a mining operation any worse than these casino operations.

    You say the mining operation will be non-union.

    Well, when will your buddy Mike Wiggins sit down and negotiate a contract with the Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council--- he doesn't like us; well pick another union; maybe an AFL-CIO union or Change To Win union... all supporting this hideous mining project.

    I have an idea; lets all agree to convene a huge meeting bringing together progressives to thoroughly hash out how we are going to solve these problems.

    You see, I don't understand how environmentalist can kiss the rear end of Mike Wiggins who is killing workers in a smoke-filled casino while remaining silent and then expect people to support a struggle against mining.

    How difficult can it be to get Mike Wiggins to put up "No Smoking" signs?

    I would suggest that if you can't convince Mike Wiggins to put up "No Smoking" signs it is going to be a lot more difficult to stop a mining operation... something you might want to think about.

    • Bret Deutscher Are there any smoke free casinos in Wisconsin?
      3 minutes ago · Like
    • Alan Maki No there are not because the Democrats enabled the casinos to allow smoking because Mike Wiggins and the regional and National Indian Gaming pumped millions of dollars bribing these politicians to allow smoking to continue.

      What is your point?

      All the other casinos can force employees to work in these unhealthy conditions so Mike Wiggins and company can be tolerated doing the same thing?

      Same applies to mining, to, eh?

      • Rob Ganson Trolls are but temporary visitors.
        about a minute ago · Like
      • Jim Limbach You know, I can't remember one snowmobile at Bad River.
        about a minute ago · Like
      • Alan Maki What do snowmobiles have to do with smoke-filled casinos?

        • Rob Ganson Mr Maki, do you have an agenda here? Are you representing some entity when you make your attacks?
          9 minutes ago · Like
        • Jim Limbach Alan, I would have thought a Marxist materialist would have understood the economies of sustainability.
          6 minutes ago · Like · 2
        • Alan Maki Mr. Ganson. You keep calling my comments "attacks." I am merely stating the facts.

          I do in fact represent casino workers as the Director of Organizing for the Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council. I also represent a number of people who are opposed to this mining operation.
          3 minutes ago · Like
        • Alan Maki Jim, I don't support any "economies of sustainability" which do not include living wages and rights for workers. To me, to discuss "economies of sustainability" without discussing the rights and livelihoods of workers is a perversion of the very concept.
          about a minute ago · Like
        • Alan Maki



          • Rob Ganson You made personal charges that were unsubstantiated and uncalled for, which I promptly removed. If you are actually against the proposed mine, I ask you to consider not being counter productive in that regard. Note the name of the group. It is not called citizens forum for grinding personal axes.
            3 minutes ago · Like · 1
          • Alan Maki I have noted your lack of respect for democracy, Mr. Ganson. I am sure people really appreciate you removing the comments you disagree with.

            You start with my comments; who will be your next victim?


            • Rob Ganson For the record, he did.
              a few seconds ago · Like
            • Alan Maki Calling me a "troll" is nothing but slander. I am glad you acknowledge that democracy is for other venues but not for the FaceBook page you are the administrator of. I would request that you re-instate my comments and bring this matter up for discussion with others who support this FaceBook page for them to determine if working class environmental views such as mine will be tolerated.

              I wonder how you ever expect to get the support of working people. Perhaps you don't care.
              Unable to post comment. Try Again

              I was subsequently banned from making further posts to this FaceBook page.

              And then the "discussion" continued with attacks on me without my right to respond...



Posted by at

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Pete Seeger, lifelong communist dead at 94.

Pete Seeger's enduring impact on American culture
The legendary folk singer and activist for labor rights is dead at 94
 
Pete Seeger, arguably the face of American folk music, died Monday. His life spanned 94 years, but it’s hard to believe he put so much living into so short a time.

Seeger wrote indelible songs (“Turn, Turn, Turn!” “If I Had A Hammer,” “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?”); joined the Communist Party; left the Communist Party; performed with Woody Guthrie; worked with musical folklorist Alan Lomax; tried to unplug an early electric performance by Bob Dylan — a musician whose career he helped foment — hosted an extraordinary and little-seen television show about music in television’s infancy; put the word “shall” in “We Shall Overcome” and thus popularized the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement; refused to name names to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (invoking the First Amendment rather than the Fifth, because of the right to freedom of association); led an impromptu Occupy Wall Street march toward the end of his life of tireless political activism; gardened; wrote books; performed and invented the “pull-off” technique on his banjo, upon which he inscribed in multi-colored ink, “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.”


Each aspect of Pete Seeger's life — and his many ardent pursuits — shaped the mark he left on America. Pete Seeger played five strings, but only one banjo.


One could view Seeger’s leftist politics as disruptive of his career. Chart success in the early 1950s with his group The Weavers foundered on questions of Seeger’s political affiliations. “I love my country very dearly,” he said, “and I greatly resent this implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, or I might be a vegetarian, make me any less of an American.”


He was indicted for contempt of Congress and given jail time, a sentence that was later overturned. But his blacklisting derailed The Weavers. Despite achieving chart success and popularizing the old Gullah spiritual “Kumbaya,” The Weavers disappeared from the radio waves and concert halls. Seeger, though he faced a travel ban and was barred from television, was undaunted. He performed at summer camps and on the college circuit. (He left The Weavers when the group’s other three members agreed to perform a jingle for a cigarette commercial.) A dozen or so years later, Seeger wrote “Waist Deep In Big Muddy,” a Vietnam War protest song. CBS censored it from a 1967 performance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, but Seeger was allowed to return and play the song the following year. “I like to say I'm more conservative than Goldwater,” he pronounced in the early 1960s. “He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax. I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.”

As a child, Seeger had a conversion experience near Asheville, N.C., when he heard the five-string banjo for the first time. He was taught the basic strumming technique and dedicated years to mastering the instrument. He later claimed that a little book he wrote, “How To Play the 5-String Banjo,” was one of his life’s great achievements. He also took credit for inventing the pull-off technique, where a ghost note is made in between strums by pulling the finger off the string’s fret. As with so many of Seeger’s other contributions to our culture, it’s hard to believe it didn’t always exist.

In the Hudson Valley region of New York, Seeger and his wife built the cabin where they lived. He was a committed environmentalist, forming his own nonprofit to agitate for cleaning the Hudson River. "I feel most spiritual when I’m out in the woods,” he said when asked about his religious beliefs. “I feel part of nature. Or looking up at the stars. (I used to say) I was an atheist. Now I say, it’s all according to your definition of God. According to my definition of God, I’m not an atheist. Because I think God is everything.” According to his grandson, Seeger was chopping wood 10 days before his death.


Starting with his work for Alan Lomax, the great compiler of American vernacular music, Seeger became a tireless musical promoter. His television show, “Rainbow Quest,” was the best exemplar of the man’s unerring musical taste. The hour-long broadcast, which ran only on a low-power UHF channel between 1965 and 1966, featured an extraordinarily diverse range of acoustic musical expression. A sample set includes ragtime blues legends Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten and Reverend Gary Davis, country greats Johnny Cash and June Carter, old-time picker and high lonesome singer Roscoe Holcomb, and contemporary artists like Donovan and Buffy St. Marie. Seeger, never one to resist inclusion, would often accompany his guests on banjo or guitar, when he wasn’t fixing them with his intense and admiring gaze.


In the still, small center of this spinning wheel of activity, Pete Seeger maintained a persistent belief in people and community. "The key to the future of the world,” he said, “is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known.” If you watch a video of Pete Seeger in the coming days, it will probably show him performing to school children, or leading a sing-along, as he did in lieu of making a speech when inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In this sense — this participatory sense — he was more collectivist than his socialist politics might suggest. “Be wary of great leaders,” he said after marching with members of the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. “Hope that there are many, many small leaders.” He had an ear, maybe the ear, for a simple, sturdy melody and socially potent lyric. He brought that to the people and they returned it to him, as during the hundreds of times Seeger’s crowd sang along to “Goodnight Irene.” Now we must continue to sing along with each other.


Pete Seeger’s banjo had five strings, all tuned to a certain tension and expressing a different tone, all plucked or strummed with the right amount of attack and release. They conveyed a message of gentle political activism, a marrow-deep love of playing an instrument, a sense of place and spirituality in nature, a knowledge and embrace of others’ musical expression and an abiding faith in people and progress. If that banjo — that machine that surrounded hate and forced it to surrender — is silent now, it will still be resonant for generations.

Posted by at

Obama talks a lot but does nothing for working people; just like the rest of the Democrats.

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A group of Vermont lawmakers called Tuesday for a new ‘‘bill of economic rights,’’ including a significantly higher minimum wage, guaranteed paid sick days and a requirement that employers have just cause before firing anyone.

Check out what is going on in Vermont:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/2014/01/28/lawmakers-call-for-economic-rights/an7HaG57vEf0wX027WAf9N/story.html


http://www.wcax.com/story/24563973/vt-lawmakers-call-for-economic-rights


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/28/vt-lawmakers-call-for-economic-rights/ 


‘‘bill of economic rights’’ 

higher minimum wage 

guaranteed paid sick days 

employers have just cause before firing anyone


The Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party with its super-majority could, and should:

1. Rescind and repeal "At-will hiring and At-will firing;" replacing it with "just cause" legislation.

2. Raise the Minimum Wage to a real living wage tied to all cost-of-living factors; indexed to inflation with periodic increases to provide improved living standards.

3. Pass legislation prohibiting employer lockouts and scabbing.

4. Guaranteed paid sick days for all workers.

These are very minimal, basic and fundamental reforms workers have a right to expect from the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party in return for the votes workers provided them.

On a national level workers are entitled to:

1. A real living--- non-poverty--- Minimum Wage.

2. Full employment legislation; jobs at real living wages for everyone who wants to work.

3. The Basic Income Guarantee providing a non-poverty real living income as recommended by Tom Paine in 1798... this is long past due.

4. Four week paid vacation for all workers.

5. A 36 hour work week with 40 hours pay. 

Workers are entitled to these reforms in return for their votes.

All of this should be included in a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would include government funded job creating programs to put all unemployed people to work... WPA, CCC, CETA, a National Public Health Care System, a National Public Child Care System.

Create jobs putting people to work solving the problems of the people.

Putting the needs of the people first should be easier than getting into war after war. 

These dirty imperialist wars are killing our jobs the same way they are killing people.

These wars are making us all poor.

What Obama and these Democrats say mean absolutely nothing. They have played us for suckers and fools using "bait and switch." They promise one thing to get elected and they legislate depending how the corporate lobbyists bribe 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

Posted by at

Monday, January 27, 2014

Minnesota Minimum-Wage Report, 2013

The State of Minnesota actually pays people over $40.00 an hour to tell us things like this in reports:

"Workers paid the minimum wage or less are
more prevalent among those in poverty than
among other hourly workers."

How is that we fund a report like this:

https://www.dli.mn.gov/RS/PDF/13minwage.pdf

which doesn't tell us what a living Minimum Wage should be?

How is it that a report like this which cost tax-payers over $300,000.00 to produce, doesn't explain the relationship between wages, cost-of-living and poverty?

In fact, the term "cost-of-living" does not even appear in this report.

Why would a government agency or department like the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry be allowed to provide a report centered around comparing the Minimum Wage to inflation when inflation is only relevant if one begins with an actual living--- non-poverty--- Minimum Wage to begin with?

It makes not one iota of sense to argue that a poverty Minimum Wage should now be "increased" to compensate for inflation.

The government not only does things backwards, it employs people, paid with our tax-dollars, to think backwards.

It is ironic that we had dozens of politicians and many more labor "leaders" marching behind a banner of Martin Luther King, Jr. while calling for a Minimum Wage of $9.50 an hour knowing full well this is a poverty wage in relation to actual "cost-of-living."

Notice that this report while discusses sex and age, it is "color blind."

The reason given for this is that it protects the "scientific integrity" of the report.

So, in addition to all the other problems with this report we have the racist aspect of the report--- people of color are more often than not the victims of poverty wages which is never mentioned.

How convenient for a governor who believes in "voluntary quotas" instead of Affirmative Action plans and programs intended to create a "level playing field" that this racist aspect of poverty wages isn't mentioned.

With all the problems in this report which is obviously flawed, we have politicians, labor "leaders" and the media citing this report regarding the Minimum Wage.

One has to wonder why a report like this would not have undertaken the figures--- $7.75, $8.00, $9.00, $9.50 and $10.10--- that have been magically pulled from a hat for self-serving political expediency (and to maintain super-profits) was not examined in this report since the author was well aware of these figures being tossed about.

Where is the "scientific integrity" in failing to reveal what impact such poverty wages have on alleviating and eradicating poverty?

Would not this statement of fact:

"Workers paid the minimum wage or less are
more prevalent among those in poverty than
among other hourly workers."

apply to workers being paid:

$7.75, $8.00, $9.00, $9.50 or $10.10 an hour?

Of all the conclusions drawn in this report; this is the one and only conclusion that holds water:

"Workers paid the minimum wage or less are
more prevalent among those in poverty than
among other hourly workers."

This should have been the banner all these politicians and labor "leaders" marched behind.

Posted by at

Why There’s no Outcry

Why There’s no Outcry

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog VIA Steve Weiss

26 January 14

Robert Reich posted this yesterday (see below).

There is one problem he didn't take up in attempting to explain why we don't have a revolution or a major wave of reform. The problem is that he and others like him sold Obama to us based on false and deceitful information claiming Obama is something other (a progressive) than what he really is (a thoroughly reactionary Wall Street neo-liberal).

Once people are convinced to throw themselves behind a candidate it is almost impossible to convince them that the politician they supported stands for something other then they were led to believe. Reich knows this.

People are confused and befuddled waiting for Obama to carry out an agenda of reforms which they were led to believe Obama stood for.

People would have to fight against the very politician/s (Obama and company--- the Democrats) they supported in order to achieve meaningful reforms, never mind revolution.

This isn't likely to happen.

And if people turn out in droves to support more Democrats in 2014, these people aren't likely to challenge them, either.

A movement for reforms can't be based simply on fighting these dirty Republicans when the Democrats turn out to be no better.

In order to win the battle for any reforms the people must be able to articulate the real solutions to their problems and fight anyone, Republican or Democrat, standing in the way blocking reforms.

As it stands, Democrats are every bit the obstacle to reforms as the Republicans.

What more proof does one need then to look at what reforms Minnesotans have got from a Democratic super-majority state government where Republicans have no say and certainly are no obstacle standing in the way blocking any reforms?

Robert Reich doesn't stand for any meaningful reforms; he never has, doesn't now and he never will; he is a Democratic Party hack hiding behind nice-sounding progressively framed policy directives with no concrete solutions to match who will seek a high-paying job in a Hillary Clinton Administration.

As Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich supported NAFTA; he remained silent as Clinton carried out the most reactionary reshaping of welfare under the guise of "reform."

Robert Reich helped Obama derail the single-payer universal health care movement.

Reich refuses to push for a real living Minimum Wage.

Robert Reich is no Frances Perkins, Harry Hopkins or Eleanor Roosevelt. They had progressive ideas which included very specific progressive solutions to the problems of working people.

The answer to the question Robert Reich poses is very complex just as he claims--- made more complex by his advocacy of a phony "economic populism" devoid of any solutions.

And, as far as "fear" being a factor? I guess so since the FBI and NSA have been spying on us all and Obama ordered the FBI to send over 500 government agents into Occupy Wall Street to disorient, infiltrate and bust it up.

Anyways; here is what Robert Reich had to say:

Why There’s no Outcry

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog VIA Steve Weiss

26 January 14

People ask me all the time why we don’t have a revolution in America, or at least a major wave of reform similar to that of the Progressive Era or the New Deal or the Great Society.

Middle incomes are sinking, the ranks of the poor are swelling, almost all the economic gains are going to the top, and big money is corrupting our democracy. So why isn’t there more of a ruckus?

The answer is complex, but three reasons stand out.

First, the working class is paralyzed with fear it will lose the jobs and wages it already has.

In earlier decades, the working class fomented reform. The labor movement led the charge for a minimum wage, 40-hour workweek, unemployment insurance, and Social Security.

No longer. Working people don’t dare. The share of working-age Americans holding jobs is now lower than at any time in the last three decades and 76 percent of them are living paycheck to paycheck.

No one has any job security. The last thing they want to do is make a fuss and risk losing the little they have.

Besides, their major means of organizing and protecting themselves — labor unions — have been decimated. Four decades ago more than a third of private-sector workers were unionized. Now, fewer than 7 percent belong to a union.

Second, students don’t dare rock the boat.

In prior decades students were a major force for social change. They played an active role in the Civil Rights movement, the Free Speech movement, and against the Vietnam War.

But today’s students don’t want to make a ruckus. They’re laden with debt. Since 1999, student debt has increased more than 500 percent, yet the average starting salary for graduates has dropped 10 percent, adjusted for inflation. Student debts can’t be cancelled in bankruptcy. A default brings penalties and ruins a credit rating.

To make matters worse, the job market for new graduates remains lousy. Which is why record numbers are still living at home.

Reformers and revolutionaries don’t look forward to living with mom and dad or worrying about credit ratings and job recommendations.

Third and finally, the American public has become so cynical about government that many no longer think reform is possible.

When asked if they believe government will do the right thing most of the time, fewer than 20 percent of Americans agree. Fifty years ago, when that question was first asked on standard surveys, more than 75 percent agreed.

It’s hard to get people worked up to change society or even to change a few laws when they don’t believe government can possibly work.

You’d have to posit a giant conspiracy in order to believe all this was the doing of the forces in America most resistant to positive social change.

It’s possible. of course, that rightwing Republicans, corporate executives, and Wall Street moguls intentionally cut jobs and wages in order to cow average workers, buried students under so much debt they’d never take to the streets, and made most Americans so cynical about government they wouldn’t even try for change.

But it’s more likely they merely allowed all this to unfold, like a giant wet blanket over the outrage and indignation most Americans feel but don’t express.

Change is coming anyway. We cannot abide an ever-greater share of the nation’s income and wealth going to the top while median household incomes continue too drop, one out of five of our children living in dire poverty, and big money taking over our democracy.

At some point, working people, students, and the broad public will have had enough. They will reclaim our economy and our democracy. This has been the central lesson of American history.

Reform is less risky than revolution, but the longer we wait the more likely it will be the latter.
Posted by at

Are Democrats really working for the Republicans?

Once again, the pernicious, malicious, lying, defamatory and libelous attack that I must be working for the Republicans because I insist that the Democrats like Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton actually follow through on their campaign promise to raise the Minimum Wage to a real living wage is leveled against me by one Jeff Smith.

This was my response to Jeff and another fellow who suggested that "going slow" was "better than nothing:"

Jeff; you obviously know you are baiting me with this most malicious accusation insinuating I am expecting Republicans to solve the problems. In my opinion, we need to create an alternative to both the Democrats and Republicans, a working class based progressive people's party--- short of the creation of such a party similar to the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party or something like Canadians have with their New Democratic Party, we need to be running independent candidates, candidates running on the tickets of left-wing parties, the Green Party---- even real liberals, progressives and leftists in the Democratic Party primaries (although this isn't my preference)---etc.

The place to "start," Ken, is with what social and economic justice requires a real living wage to be. You don't start out advocating for a poverty wage and negotiating down from there.

Wisconsin Democrats like Representative Milroy had the unmitigated gall to call for a miserly increase of 30 cents an hour in the Minimum Wage--- well under $8.00 an hour.

At least when people challenged this pathetic suggestion Wisconsin Democrats were forced to increase their challenge to Walker.

But, the fact remains, these Democrats in both Wisconsin and Minnesota declared they were for a living--- non-poverty--- Minimum Wage to get elected and they have reneged on this when it comes to proposed legislation.

They did not campaign on a promise to "increase" the Minimum Wage "slowly."

Nor did they campaign on a promise to leave the Minimum Wage at a poverty wage but improving it somewhat.

This question of the Minimum Wage is the most basic and fundamental "kitchen table" issue.

Why is it working people can't count on you "go slow in incremental steps" people to take the same approach to Wall Street and business?

Mark Dayton organized a full press blitz to shove a tax-payer financed new professional football stadium for the Minnesota Vikings down our throats but he refuses to organize a similar full press blitz to eradicate poverty through legislating a real living wage; why is this?

Where are the priorities of these Democrats?

What is more urgent, the eradication of poverty or a new stadium for the Vikings who already had a beautiful stadium?

Why wasn't there a similar full press blitz to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and two-thousand good union jobs?

Instead of baiting me with the accusation of being pro-Republican, why is it so difficult for you, Jeff, to own up to the fact that it is you who is "Republican lite" as your excuses enable the Democrats to carry out pro-corporate policies as enthusiastically as any Republican?

Quite frankly, I am wondering if Jeff Smith might not be a Republican mole who has wormed his way into the Democratic Party to assure the Democrats deliver on the campaign promises made by the Republicans.

Stranger things have happened... like corporations sending moles into the union movement to make sure that when profits are at an all time high, concession contracts are forced down workers' throats.

And now these same labor "leaders" who are not capable of "negotiating" anything except concessions for their own members are working with Democrats to push for the Minimum Wage remaining a poverty wage.

What more could Republicans ask for?
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