Are
you fed up?
Is
there a better way of doing things?
We are in one heck of a mess...
Never-ending wars...
Nearing climate catastrophe...
Every working class family is caught up
in a Cost-of-Living Crisis...
Anyone who doesn't believe there is a
“Cost-of-Living Crisis” obviously hasn't gone grocery
shopping, filled up their car with gas or paid an insurance premium,
rent or an electric or utility bill recently or looked at the
interest charged on their credit cards.
Poverty amid such great known wealth
with soaring prices for goods and services resulting from monopoly
price-fixing coupled with inflation fueled by militarism and wars and
attacks on our public institutions...
Racism and discrimination...
The problems are endless.
Are you fed up?
Are you thinking: There
must be a better way?
Do you feel like Wall Street has spun a
powerful web in which you are trapped with no possibility of escape
as these Wall Street parasites suck the life out of you?
What holds this deadly Wall Street spun
web together? The ingredients forming the powerful glue holding this
web together consist of racism, corruption and
anti-communism--- each on their own dangerous poisons causing
pernicious societal diseases.
Human society needs these Wall Street
parasites about as much as dogs need ticks and fleas.
As capitalism collapses around us---
and on top of us like an old, weathered barn on a foreclosed
abandoned homestead--- the human misery is never-ending just like the
very costly dirty imperialist wars which now come with tremendous
death and destruction one right on top of another even though most of
us want peace.
The corporate bribed and corrupted
politicians use the Minimum Wage as a lever of government to keep
wages down as a means to enforce poverty. By keeping wages down they
are doing a favor in return for the bribes they receive from
business--- large businesses and small businesses. Businesses, large
and small, reap huge super-profits from these low poverty wages.
Let's be clear about this: Any wage
that doesn't enable a working class family to purchase the goods and
services required for a decent life is a poverty wage. Working people
have a right to expect a decent life and standard-of-living in return
for their labor.
These politicians always claim a small
“increase in the Minimum Wage is better than nothing” as they
substantially increase their own pay while ignoring, and doing
nothing about, rising prices in the grocery store, the robbery at the
gas pumps, the rip-off of steadily increasing electric and heating
bills, college tuition out of sight, increased rents and bus fares,
unaffordable health/home/automobile insurance costs.
Any government which can control wages
through enforcing a poverty Minimum Wage could just as easily control
prices at affordable levels. The corporate bribed politicians choose
not to control prices of goods and services claiming they are for
allowing the “free market” to determine all costs except labor
costs. Very conveniently, these politicians always claim their “hands
are tied” when it comes to legislating for the common good.
How come these politicians can keep
wages down but they can't roll-back and control the prices of any
goods or services, the basic necessities of life, we have to purchase
in order to live? Can you live on a part-time job paying $9.50
an hour?
It is the epitome of hypocrisy--- not
to mention sickening--- for a billionaire Minnesota Governor like
Mark Dayton to tout $9.50 an hour as a wage that will lift working
class families out of poverty when his wealth has been derived almost
exclusively from paying workers poverty wages.
Politicians like Obama and Dayton talk
about, “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs,” yet unemployment continues with no end
in sight. Where are the jobs these politicians talk about?
The climate crisis continues; putting
us on a collision course with Mother Nature. Again, like with wages,
these politicians legislate ever bigger carbon footprints not to
mention that the industry with the largest carbon footprint in the
entire world is the U.S military-industrial complex.
We working people and the environment
suffer as Wall Street profits. It just isn't right.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out
something is wrong. It doesn't have to be this way.
Minnesota's two socialist governors,
Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson, sought to bring people together
to pull for reforms as they simultaneously sought to build the
socialist Cooperative Commonwealth here in Minnesota--- this was a
good idea back then in the 1930's... and its an even better idea now.
In one of his last interviews before he
died, Elmer Benson said his worst political mistake was to support
the merger of the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party with the
corrupt and racist Democratic Party thinking the influx of socialist
thinking would create a Democratic Party that would become a huge
people's party. Things didn't turn out this way and working class
socialist thinking was driven out of the Democratic Party.
Benson advocated re-establishing a
working class based progressive socialist party for peace, social and
economic justice and he advocated re-establishing the “People's
Lobby” which he founded to overcome the interests of big-business
in Minnesota politics.
As Benson noted: Working people have
been abandoned by the Democratic Party, millionaire labor “leaders”
and these foundation-funded outfits who hide their Wall Street
agendas behind cleverly conceived schemes concocted to hoodwink us
into thinking capitalism is alright, it just needs to be tweaked with
reforms. As Benson said, “This is pure bullshit; the capitalist
system is the source of our problems.”
Well, guess what?
These self-serving, selfish and corrupt
politicians bribed by Wall Street won't even provide us with the kind
of real reform that would raise the Minimum Wage to a real living
wage in line with the actual cost-of-living factors.
How the heck can we expect these
over-paid politicians and millionaire union “leaders” who have no
concept of the “Cost-of-Living Crisis” working class
families are experiencing to address this problem?
Then there
are the well-heeled, muddle-headed, upper-middle class
“intellectuals” sitting in the ivory towers of the universities
where they are shielded from the problems of everyday living working
class families are experiencing. They speak for this or that “think
tank” serving as media “pundits” to explain our problems to us.
All they do is create more confusion, instead of providing clarity.
Their intent is to undermine common sense and clear thinking.
We live in the richest country in the
world where labor has created all the wealth which Wall Street
hordes.
Working people who horde a few canned
goods are diagnosed as being mentally ill; but greedy Wall Street
“investors” can horde the entire wealth of the Nation and they
are running the show.
Much of the wealth labor has created is
being squandered on war after war; the rest is controlled by Wall
Street which refuses to relinquish its hold. This wealth is required
to finance real reforms needed to improve our lives, our quality of
life and our standard-of-living.
Instead of investing in reforms which
would create jobs, Wall Street invests this money in low-wage areas
of the world which destroys our jobs.
We witnessed how this works.
The St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly
Plant once employing over two-thousand lays in rubble; a new Ranger
assembly plant was built in Thailand. The Trans-Pacific Partnership
will enable Ford to import these Ranger pick-up trucks back into the
United States. Quite the racket. Wall Street profits; workers suffer.
When workers in Thailand kick about the
poverty wages paid by Ford the U.S. Marines will be sent in.
There is never enough money for needed
reforms; the wealth Wall Street doesn't horde goes for wars
protecting Wall Street's interests, investments and profits. For Wall
Street, nothing is more profitable than wars.
We need to challenge Wall Street for
political and economic power if we are ever going to straighten out
this mess we are in. As Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson noted: Wall
Street is our enemy.
Anyone who thinks Wall Street and its
politicians can be appealed to for justice is living in La-La Land.
Justice, whether for jobs at living
wages or real health care reform, requires a united struggle.
We need to fight to defend our
livelihoods and our rights.
The working class needs genuine
grassroots and rank-and-file think tanks and action centers in every
neighborhood and every place of employment geared to solving our
problems through reforms and socialist revolution...
What can't be won at the bargaining
table we should be looking to win through legislation.
Let's not kid ourselves... it takes a
fight to win.
We need a new kind of politics based on
the thinking of the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party---
Let's talk about the politics and
economics of livelihood for a change.
Working class families have to scrape
and scrounge just to get by; it shouldn't be this way. This has a
name: Cost-of-Living Crisis. You won't find any Democrats or
Republicans talking about this crisis.
Politicians pretend the causes of
poverty are complex. Why is it so difficult to figure out that
workers without jobs are going to be poor?
Why is it so difficult to figure out
that workers paid poverty wages are going to be poor?
Why is it so difficult to figure out
that workers employed in part-time jobs paying poverty wages are
going to be poor?
There is a better way.
We don't have to live this way.
We don't have to take this crap from
Wall Street and their crooked and corrupt politicians.
Like Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson said,
“The mines, mills, factories, banking, the forestry and energy
industries should be brought under public ownership.” This was the
intent of establishing the socialist Cooperative Commonwealth here in
Minnesota. A good idea then; a better idea now.
Many of the solutions are very simple;
just plain old common sense:
- Pay people real living wages. Raise
the Minimum Wage to a real living wage tied to all cost-of-living
factors.
- Make the president and Congress
responsible for attaining and maintaining full employment--- this
isn't too much to expect from politicians who talk about “jobs,
jobs, jobs.”
- Provide everyone with a Basic Income
Guarantee.
- Put an end to this undemocratic
“At-Will Employment” so workers have a voice at work and in the
communities where they live without the fear of employer retaliation.
- Put an end to militarism and these
dirty wars; use the wealth of our Nation created by labor to create a
national public health care system and a national public child care
system which would create millions of new jobs at real living wages
providing people with the services they need and to which they are
entitled.
Instead of 800 U.S. Military bases
spread out across the globe protecting Wall Street's investments,
assets and profits we need community and neighborhood health care and
child care centers in every community and neighborhood.
This isn't a radical idea. These
universal social programs would be publicly funded, publicly
administered with the services publicly delivered--- just like public
education.
Join with us.
Add your voice in support of common
sense solutions to our problems.
Minnesotans for a
Better Way
If you are fed up, join with us
in seeking real solutions to our problems... there is a better way;
we all know it.
What we need are citizen
activists popping up like dandelions after a warm spring rain.
We need to be thinking in terms
of people and Mother Nature before Wall Street profits.
The two-party system is part of
Wall Street's web; part of the web spun to keep us trapped--- the
two-party trap. Both the Democrats and Republicans serve Wall
Street's greedy profit-driven interests.
We would like to convene a
state-wide conference of Minnesotans for a Better Way...
To help cover the costs of
pulling together this conference, stick one dollar (more if you can
afford it) in an envelope and send it to:
Minnesotans for a Better Way
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
For further information, call:
651-587-5541
Gather a few friends around your kitchen table... invite a speaker...
get involved as a citizen activist.
Canadian workers have their own political party; the socialist New
Democratic Party which is pretty much like our old socialist
Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party which was led by Minnesota governors
Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson. Even though Canadians working
through their New Democratic Party are on the verge of taking
national political power away from Bay Street, their counterpart to
Wall Street, we aren't hearing much about this from our so-called
“free” media.
For years, the New Democratic Party has been the party in power in
Manitoba, our neighbor to the north and working class families are
the better off for it.
Like each little individual raindrop we don't amount to much trying
to stand up alone to the evil powers that be; but, together, united,
we are like Old Man River, the Mighty Mississippi--- we can't be
stopped... we will just keep rolling along.
Our first project will be to work up a plan to develop support for a
comprehensive legislative initiative for peace, jobs and workers'
rights:
“A 21st Century Full Employment
Act for Peace and Prosperity.”
A couple closing comments and
observations:
Barack Obama's presidency has caused a great deal of confusion with
some people still holding out hope that he will prevail in doing
good. Had Obama had any decency about him he would have ended these
wars, halted the executions by drones and put an immediate stop to
home foreclosures and evictions.
And here in Minnesota, this billionaire governor who promised a
Minimum Wage that would be a real living wage while declaring no one
who works for a living should have to live in poverty would have made
good on his campaign promise--- no one can live on $9.50 an hour; it
is one more poverty wage... and it won't go into effect until 2016
when any “gain” will have been more than eaten up by price
increases and inflation.
Most people have already noted that each succeeding president and the
rest of the politicians are worse than the other. This is because
their mandate which comes from Wall Street, instead of “we, the
people,” places them in positions of trying to save a capitalist
system in a serious state of decay which has reached its highest and
most moribund stage of imperialism in which huge Wall Street
monopolies order the politicians to provide the “technicians,”
government bureaucrats, who are placed in positions of authority to
run the government as they see fit, irrespective of any human misery
they cause--- “collateral damage,” who are trying to save
capitalism from complete collapse.
One of the major problems we are experiencing is too many people have
bought into the idea that there is no class struggle any longer which
has led people to conclude the Democratic Party and the Democrats and
their “partners,” the foundation funded outfits and millionaire
labor “leaders” who buy into this idea that other countries are
our enemies instead of business, multinational corporations and the
Wall Street backed political parties.
It is true there are some working class activists, progressives and
honest liberals still active in the Democratic Party we must not beak
our connections off with but these people are becoming fewer and
further between as so many people in this country now recognize the
two-party system is a trap established by Wall Street.
This problem was recently brought into full view at a rally on
Minnesota's Iron Range where Minnesota's billionaire Democratic
Governor was the featured speaker “defining” the problems
confronting the taconite industry and members of the United
Steelworkers in particular.
Here is what Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton said in his widely
publicized speech widely viewed as the opening of his re-election
campaign...
““The
story of the Iron Range is one of standing strong against
exploitation and oppression, and too often of a government that will
not stand with them,” Dayton said to a cheering crowd of 1,500 iron
miners. “Today’s
enemies are not the companies, but the countries
that dump their steel in the U.S. market, depress the prices and take
away your jobs.”
Regional
leaders of the United Steelworkers and leaders of the Democratic
Party helped Dayton write this speech and it has been confirmed that
USW President Leo Girard had his hand in this speech.
Does any thinking person really believe that foreign countries should
be viewed as our enemies for “dumping steel” in this country when
all these “foreign” companies are more often than not owned in
whole or in part by Wall Street investors and the parasites on
Canada's Bay Street along with those parasitic vultures hiding behind
the monikers as investors and even “philanthropists?”
In fact, Dayton and his family have huge financial holdings in these
“foreign” steel companies and his major funding has come from
none other than the Rockefeller family which has huge holdings in
foreign mining and steel manufacturing all over the world who are
directly profiting from this “dumping” and it is the U.S.
construction companies who are happy to be able to purchase this
“foreign” steel from which they make super-profits--- often
selling this steel to our government at sharply inflated rates for
bridge work, pipe projects, etc.
And consider this:
If these countries are engaged in “criminal” activity as the USW
and these Democrats are claiming, how should we be characterizing the
brutal exploitation of workers be used to rape Mother Nature in the
process of mining, milling and manufacturing this steel in the first
place--- are we not talking about what is the very nature of U.S.
Imperialism?
Don't we need an anti-imperialist movement in solidarity with the
workers and people's of these other countries whom Minnesota's
Governor, the Democratic Party hacks and millionaire labor “leaders”
want us to view as our enemies as they let the Daytons and
Rockefellers--- Wall Street and Bay Street--- off the hook?
Is there any truth to Dayton's words that these companies like U.S.
Steel and Cliff's Natural Resources (Cleveland Cliff) no longer are
oppressing and exploiting workers on the Iron Range? How soon we
forget that these companies were prepared to bring in an army of
scabs just a few short years ago to work the mines and process the
taconite had the USW gone on strike for what workers were
legitimately entitled to rather than having had concessions shoved
down their throats by these same Democrats and millionaire labor
“leaders” working hand-in-hand with these Wall Street companies.
And never mentioned by Dayton or these millionaire labor “leaders”
is the fact that these mining companies on Minnesota's Iron Range
have swindled thousands of workers in the mining industry out of
their pensions. It is not China, Brazil or any other country which
has swindled these miners out of their pensions it is the very
companies on the Iron Range who Dayton now makes the outrageous claim
these companies no longer exploit or oppress.
One can not help but wonder what kind of speech Minnesota's socialist
governors, Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson, would have delivered at such
a rally on Minnesota's Iron Range from which Communist U.S.
Congressman John Bernard from Eveleth, Minnesota and the Iron Range
organizer for the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party.
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton's speech, in spite of his claim to
being a big “liberal,” was just one more neo-liberal imperialist
speech from one more Wall Street profiteer.
Do we simply ignore all of this because to talk about these facts
will give the Republicans a lift up as the Democratic Party hacks
claim?
Working people need to analyze what is going on in this country and
around the world from a working class anti-imperialist perspective
lest the sons and daughters of the working class continue to serve as
fodder in these dirty imperialist wars and our Nation's wealth
continues to be squandered on militarism and war after war.
It is also noteworthy to mention that over 40% of all the ore mined
and processed and manufactured into steel and then fabricated has
gone into militarism and wars--- this has left one hell of a carbon
footprint contributing to global warming.
Nor did Governor Dayton talk about the need to reduce the work week
with forty hours pay, shorten retirement and extend vacations in this
taconite industry on Minnesota's Iron Range so that more jobs could
be created in this very economically depressed region now being
called Appalachia North.
Nor was the need to reorder the priorities of this country away from
war and military spending to meet human needs broached in Governor
Dayton's speech. Why not? This would create thousands of good paying
decent jobs on the Iron Range.
And how is it that Governor
Dayton didn't mention the need to organize the big-box industries on
the Iron Range--- Wal-mart, Menard's, Target, McDonald's, Burger
King? Are not these companies employing thousands of Iron Rangers at
part-time jobs paying poverty wages “exploiting” and “oppressing”
workers on the Iron Range?
And why no mention of Minnesota
remaining an “At-Will Employment State in spite of Governor Dayton
presiding over a Democratic super-majority state government?
Dayton did not so much as mention his role in putting over 40,000
Minnesotans to work in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty
wages in places of employment where workers have no voice and no
rights--- workers without rights at work have no rights in the
communities where they live, either. Apparently this Democratic
governor loathes speaking about U.S. democracy and the state of
democracy here in Minnesota where employers are allowed to lock out
workers and bring in scabs.
Again, no one is suggesting we sever ties with working class
activists, progressives and real liberals still active in the
Democratic Party but remaining silent in the face of this kind of
Wall Street imperialist chauvinism and jingoism of blaming other
countries for the problems working people here are experiencing when
these Wall Street corporations are our common enemy because they
exploit and oppress here and abroad is definitely not acceptable.
Governor Dayton's speech on the Iron Range is a far cry from the
speeches workers used to hear at Mesaba Cooperative Park where fiery
anti-imperialist speeches advocating for building Minnesota's
socialist Cooperative Commonwealth were once delivered.
We can do better.
We must do better.
I think of these things often as I visit the graves of my Grandpa and
Grandma and the other working class activists buried in that little
cemetery in Gilbert, Minnesota who understood that these Wall Street
mining companies are our enemies--- our forever enemies.
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton didn't deliver the class struggle kind of speech required for an Iron Range audience where socialists and Communists still out-number Republicans--- who will say what needs to be said?
Of course, we need to consider that the speech Mark Dayton delivered comes from a billionaire whose fortune is derived from poverty wages and who has the unmitigated gall to suggest working class families should be forced to survive on the miserly $9.50 an hour Minimum Wage being delivered incrementally on an installment plan as working class families are forced to endure a Cost-of-Living Crisis he and the Democrats refuse to address as they launch into one more campaign using the rhetoric of "jobs, jobs, jobs"--- more poverty wage jobs from which these companies who no longer exploit and oppress will reap super-profits.
Alan L. Maki
A proud “Red” Finn
