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...

Monday, February 23, 2015

Who are the "phony leftists" I refer to?

Sam Webb, is one of these phony leftists.

Below you will find an article he wrote.

Obama and the Wall Street Democrats can always count on Sam Webb to defend them and make up excuses for them from a "left" point of view.

Note some things when reading Webb's article attacking grassroots and rank-and-file activists who have become impatient with corrupt and incompetent union leaders--- most of whom have never been democratically elected to their offices by the rank-and-file:

First; Gus Hall, the former head of the Communist Party U.S.A., called Sam Webb and his band "a bunch of traitors."

Second; Webb spent over one-million dollars remodeling the CPUSA's offices while refusing to spend one single penny to develop an alternative to Obama's Wall Street agenda. In fact, in this article below, Webb fails to even mention that Obama is Wall Street's president.

Third; Webb declares the corrupt, incompetent millionaire union leaders and their foundation-funded associates backing Obama to be the leaders of the democratic movements. These "leaders" Webb refers to from the labor unions spend more time making up excuses for Obama and the Democrats then they spend time or allotting resources to solving the problems of workers in their places of employment.

In fact, Webb identifies with these corrupt labor leaders because, like them, he is corrupt. Webb has become a millionaire himself through pilfering the funds of the Communist Party. For over 40 years, Webb has been on the CPUSA payroll and what is there to show for this? A Communist Party USA that has dwindled from thousands to less than 200 members nation-wide with many of these "members" still members only because Webb has them on the payroll for being his loyal kiss-asses.

Webb refuses to recognize that Obama is Wall Street's president but then goes on--- with his silence--- to defend Obama's criminal acts and dirty deeds in service to imperialism with his bloated increased military budgets simultaneously cutting social programs as he increases spending for nuclear weapons and continues to expand the dirty imperialist wars begun by Bush. Obama has started new wars of his own.

No mention of drones. Hit lists. Killing, murder and mayhem. Barbarity defying everything humanity and civilization is supposed to be supposed to.

For Webb, Obama's Wall Street agenda, a big part of which is militarism and wars, amounts to victory after victory for working people and he urges us to be patient in inching our way forward when, in fact, Obama is responsible for massive attacks on our rights and our standard of living.

Where are the progressive victories Webb alludes to? He doesn't provide a single detail out of fear his words might be subject to debate. This is sheer intellectual cowardice on Webb's part; it is nothing short of working class betrayal.

Webb is to the Communist movement what Richard Trumka is to the trade unions--- he splits and divides the working class with his words of praise for Wall Street's President, Barack Obama.

It must be noted that Webb joined with these crooked and corrupt millionaire labor leaders to shove Obama down our throats as some kind of "progressive" and a "leader of the people's movements" of which none is true.

Obama promised single-payer universal health care to get the nomination and once elected silenced the voices of the proponents of single-payer--- going so far as to have some of these proponents of single-payer arrested; many of whom were stupid enough to support Obama in the first place--- and some are even still so stupid they still do support Obama and now voice their support for Hillary Clinton.

Isn't it interesting Sam Webb has made no observations concerning Hillary Clinton's drive to become president? Come on Sam, tell us what you think about Hillary Clinton--- should she be supported for president, too, because the Republicans will be so much worse?

Isn't it interesting that Sam Webb has never joined us in voicing OUTRAGE when it comes to Obama's dirty Wall Street imperialist wars that are making us all poor?

If Sam Webb didn't steal the Communist Party's funds, where did the millions of dollars go?

Notice, also, Webb has never written in defense of what working people require in the way of reforms in order to live more decent lives free from poverty.

Notice, also, Webb has never supported one single resolution articulating any needed reform to be brought before the Democratic Party which he supports.

The American people are outraged and angered with Obama's dirty wars and the austerity measures being shoved down our throats to pay for these dirty imperialist wars.

The American people are outraged and angered about this "cost-of-living crisis" we are being forced to endure.

Perhaps Webb, the recently new millionaire, doesn't understand why the American people, rank-and-file workers in the first place, are outraged and angered because he has no need nor inclination towards urgency in solving the many pressing problems working class families are being forced to endure?

Webb is one more millionaire urging us to be patient in "inching" our way to reforms as they laugh all the way to their banks.

Isn't it just a bit strange this moron, Sam Webb, who claims to be the leader of the Communist Party U.S.A.--- a position he wasn't even elected to by the membership--- writes more about the need to defend Obama from attacks by the left than explaining the problems of working people and becoming involved in searching for solutions?

If Sam Webb would like to answer the questions and comments I have posed I will post his response.

By the way, just like the Dumb Donkeys, including Obama, who Webb supports--- not once has Sam Webb ever mentioned the fact that working class families are caught up in a crisis of everyday living at which the "cost-of-living crisis" is smack dab in the center of--- spun by increased spending on militarism and these dirty imperialist wars defending Wall Street's investments, holdings and profits and Wall Street's monopoly price-fixing.

And Webb never so much as mentions state-monopoly capitalism because he might have to explain Obama's role in all of this.

Is Obama the people's President looking after "We The People;" or, is Obama Wall Street's President looking out for Wall Street's interests which stand in complete contradiction to the people's interests.

No doubt Webb finds such a question to be insulting.

In fact, Obama is not inching us towards reforms. What Obama is doing is pushing us relentlessly into World War III with his support for a bunch of Nazi lovers in the Ukraine.

Not one single Communist leader from anyplace in the world can be found who will publicly defend and support Sam Webb's very dishonest and confusing views.

Sam Webb is a deceitful, dishonest coward who refuses to debate his views side-by-side with a leftist who will refute his views. in fact, Webb will not even allow those who oppose his views to state their views along with his; what kind of leftists engages in this kind of anti-democratic activity.

Instead of pushing an agenda which would include rank-and-file trade unionists fighting for action and democracy in the unions which would get rid of these corrupt, class collaborationist, millionaire labor leaders supporting war mongers like Obama who are attacking working class families, Webb is defending the status quo.

One can conclude from Webb's previous statements proclaiming Obama to be the leader of the democratic people's movements and now his pronouncement that a bunch of crooked and corrupt millionaire union leaders and wealthy foundation-funded outfit directors to be leaders of the democratic people's movement that Webb doesn't even know what constitutes a democratic people's movement.

Webb's criticism of outraged leftists reminds me of the dogs barking as the caravan passes... of course, it is writings like this from Webb which places him on the sidelines like a toothless barking dog.


Read what this phony leftist Sam Webb has to say in his defense of Obama:


Obama and the politics of outrage

obamaaddress520x320


Some of the commentary from the left on President's Obama's recent State of the Union address struck me as too negative, even cynical in a few instances. It's said that the speech was at once too little, too late, and too celebratory. Some left critics went further, claiming that it was nothing but idle, and even deceptive, chatter since the president knew that any progressive initiatives in his speech are dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled 93rd Congress.


This contrasts with the reaction of the larger movement. Labor's take on the speech was very positive.


Much the same can be said about the African American community and other communities of color (for example, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and NAACP). The movements for women's and gay rights found stuff in the speech that they liked, as did many fighting for policing and sentencing reforms. Ditto the immigrant rights movement and the organizations and people fighting for livable wages and union rights. And progressives in Congress said they were buoyed by the president's speech. Photos showed them leading the cheers to the speech, while congressional Republicans, looking dour and sitting silent, inwardly burned with rage at Obama's every word and his mere presence at the podium.

In other words, the major democratic forces and movements got a lift from the speech, while understanding full well that the terrain of struggle is still uphill. They saw openings and opportunities in Obama's words, though not agreeing with his every word.

They liked how he framed many questions and the spirit and oratorical power that he exhibited to spotlight the deeply reactionary role of the Republican Party, even if they thought his counter-proposals should have gone further.

And they were encouraged by the fact that the speech signaled a refusal on the president's part to cede initiative and ground to the Republicans and their reactionary agenda over the next two years, despite enormous pressure on him to do so coming from many directions.

How do we explain this contrast, this differing take on this State of the Union address?

Speaking generally, the leaders of the democratic movements don't pigeonhole the president as simply an unreconstructed neoliberal. They don't peg him as nothing more than a centrist in the mold of Bill Clinton. Nor do they believe that he cynically "plays" the American people with his "fancy" rhetoric and oratory, while paying obeisance to his first and abiding focus group - Wall Street (and its deep pockets.) They also don't subscribe to the notion that Obama's presidency is summed up as "the triumph of identity as content" (Adolph Reed writing in Harper's). Finally, they are particularly aware of the toxic, crude, and unremitting racist invective directed at the president.

In other words, these mass movement leaders don't hollow Obama out to the point where he is nothing but an abstract and frozen political category with absolutely no progressive instincts, potential, or record of achievement. In fact, they note that the president has a genuine democratic sensibility and a list of political and legislative successes that have made a difference, large and small, in the lives of millions of working class people.

Moreover, in sharp contrast to some on the left, leaders of the main mass organizations want him on their side. Victories, they know from experience, are much more difficult to secure with a president opposing them or assuming a position of neutrality. They have no truck with a one-sided Howard Zinn view of historical progress and radical social change, in which political compromises, unreliable allies, tactical and strategic retreats, stages of struggle, participation in electoral politics, and so on are to be studiously avoided. Based on their real movement experience, they conclude that such a hopelessly uncomplicated reading of the past and what it will take to make a more livable future for the vast majority is politically wrong-headed and counterproductive.

Finally - and maybe above all - the leaders of the broader democratic movement are aware that the president governs in a concrete political context in which the singular mission of the opposition party, dominated by right-wing extremists, isn't simply to wreck the Obama presidency. It extends far beyond the occupant of the White House to every political, economic, and social right and gain secured over the past century - not to mention the institutional bases of the broad democratic movements, labor in the first place. The wholesale decimation of democratic rights, organizations, and institutions may seem an unlikely possibility to some, but leaders as well as activists of the broader movement are keenly aware that right-wing extremists, who are in the driver's seat in half the states and show no hesitation to use power in ruthless ways when given the opportunity, are only one election away from gaining control of the one remaining branch of the federal government not now in their reckless, authoritarian hands.

None of this makes the president above criticism in the view of progressive movement leaders, but when they offer criticism it is contextualized and carefully calibrated. Its purpose isn't to show up the president or bring him down. Or simply to be right without a thought as to how words and the way they are expressed educate or miseducate and mobilize or demobilize people. Its intent is to nudge, prod, and move President Obama, inch by inch if necessary, in a progressive direction. And we should never forget, as an astute trade union leader once reminded me, that a lot of people live on those inches.

Perhaps there is something that the left can learn from here.

Shouldn't our political categories and analysis - not only as it applies to the president, but to political phenomena generally - be more open-ended and elastic to allow for contradictions, inconsistencies, indeterminacy,new experience, and, not least, human agency?

Shouldn't we complicate our understanding of the process of social change and bid farewell to cut and dried schemes, pure forms, and pat answers?

Shouldn't we - much like the broader democratic movement does - make the actual balance of class and social forces, the depth of political understanding and unity of millions, and what people (not just the left) are "ready to do" an indispensable frame for our politics and practice?

Shouldn't we attach as much significance to the electoral and legislative arena as a major locus of power and necessary gateway to social change as the broader democratic movement (and perhaps even more so the right wing) does, even at this stage of struggle and level of political independence?
The point of this isn't to water down the critical-analytical, organizing, or visionary-programmatic role of the left, but to develop a politics - strategy, tactics, demands, message, language, etc. - that can break the current political impasse (now more than 30 years long), unite broad cross-sections of people, and lift the country to higher ground where freedom and justice penetrate every aspect of life - probably not all at once, but in the course of a protracted mass, nonviolent struggle that draws strength from the formerly passive and backward sections of the American people.

Without such a reset, I suspect that too many on the left will continue to spend too much time bellyaching, talking only to each other, living in their own cocoon of struggle, and missing opportunities to join with others in broader campaigns for justice, equality, and freedom.

The politics of "opposition and outrage," which too large a section of the left has turned into a refined art form over the past half century, is like a drug. It brings a momentary high, but later on leaves its practitioner feeling washed out and utterly frustrated. It may register some victories here and there, but it has no transforming potential.

What is to be done, someone, once asked long ago and then answered: Put an end to the past period. The left would do well to do the same, but that will only happen if we get rid of narrow, simplistic, schematic, and small-universe ideas - some of which have become nearly second nature to too many of us. And that can be easily done without sacrificing a morsel of our anti-capitalist perspective and goals - our freedom dreams.

Photo: President Obama delivers the State of the Union address in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2015. White House photo/Pete Souza

No authorization for more war. "AUMF"... No New "Authorization to Use Military Force"

I would encourage you to sign and pass this petition along to your friends and fellow workers.

This page may not be viewable on your browser. If such is the case, simply click on the link "Click here to oppose any new AUMF" and you will be able to view the entire page.

Sorry about the formatting problems but this is an important issue so I did the best I could.



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US Labor Against the War
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The U.S. Congress is considering another "Authorization for the Use of Military Force" -- a broad approval for more war.
This is the last thing we need. These wars are not making us safer but are generating enemies. They are not surgical operations, but mass killings, as well as assaults on the natural environment and the public budget -- not to mention excuses for curtailing civil liberties.

Please click here to sign the following statement for delivery to the media and Congress:

We oppose any new authorization for the use of military force and call for the immediate repeal of the authorizations passed by Congress in 2001 and 2002.
P.S. This petition is jointly promoted by U.S. Labor Against the Warin partnership with Conference of Major Superiors of Men, Iraq Veterans Against the War, KnowDrones.com, Military Families Speak Out, Peace Action, Peace Action Montgomery, RootsAction.org, United National Antiwar Coalition, Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones,  and World Beyond War.
In general, I don't waste my time with these on-line petitions any more but this is one I support. It certainly can't do any harm to sign it. Add your own comment, too; I did.

What is really needed, though, is organized, united and militant action action in the streets and at the ballot box.

Voting for the Democrats is useless as the election of Obama has proven. Never again will Wall Street allow or tolerate its Democratic Party to be used as a voice for peace as progressive George McGovern did.

We need a new working class based anti-monopoly progressive people's party for peace, social and economic justice which will make as its main priority challenging Wall Street for political and economic power... This is something that can't be put off any longer as the phony liberals, progressives and leftists tell us this must not be done now and we should put off doing this until later. They always tell us, "Wait for the next election" but when the next election comes they play the same tune. The time is now. The struggles for real reforms required to meet the needs of the people for jobs, real health care reform and peace must be merged with challenging Wall Street for political and economic power. Real system change is what is required.

Capitalism is Wall Street's system, a system breeding endless wars; socialism is the system of the working class, a system for peace--- socialism is what we need to be building towards as we fight for reforms while challenging Wall Street for political and economic power. What we need is a socialist cooperative commonwealth which finally puts the needs of people and our living environment before Wall Street's profits.

We must not be afraid to state all of this--- not at some distant point down the road as the apologists for the sleazy, warmongering Democrats say we need to do; but today, here and now.

These Democratic apologists are trying to set us up to support Hillary Clinton; one more worthless warmonger supporting the Israeli killing machine (and every single reactionary government in the world propped up with our tax dollars) who will try to hide her support for Wall Street and its dirty imperialist wars behind a phony "economic populism" from which she and her supporters would have us believe financing all this militarism and these dirty wars is of little consequence to the economy when just the opposite is true. Don't buy into this crap of "economic populism" being peddled and pushed by the Democrats and their over-payed party hacks and these millionaire labor leaders who have no sense of urgency in solving the problems of working people.

These millionaire labor leaders waste our resources electing these Dumb Donkeys to make wars but won't take the time to file a grievance or fight for justice and a voice at work.

Feel free to forward this e-mail on to your friends and post it anywhere. Add your own thoughts, too.

Just a note to inform you since many have been asking why I am no longer on FaceBook. FaceBook shut me down... So much for democracy; just more hypocrisy.

I invite you to share your thoughts and ideas.

One last thing. A very few Democrats have said they are not for giving authorization for this war against ISIS... Don't be surprised when most of these Democrats change their tunes and go with the flow of Wall Street bribes. Militarism and wars are among Wall Street's most profitable ventures--- hence there is this massive Military-Industrial Complex presided over by these Wall Street masters of war.

We have a capitalist system that is in the "advanced stage" of decay--- this advanced stage of capitalism is called imperialism.  Imperialism is when these huge monopolies have merged with the government and their one and only concern is for Wall Street's profits, the "bottom line," which never takes into consideration the lives, livelihoods and problems of working people.

We, the people, are paying for these dirty wars in many ways. We are living with a run-away "cost-living-crisis" eroding our standard of living and dragging us all into poverty--- all fueled by militarism and wars along with monopoly price fixing---- all maintained through a thoroughly corrupt political process as rotten to the core as is the capitalist economic system itself.

Another way we pay for this mess Wall Street has us entangled in is the loss of democracy and loss jobs in spite of endless talk by these hypocrites about how the United States is the world's greatest bastion of democracy and all the talk about "jobs, jobs, jobs" at election time but as these very same politicians go goose-stepping backwards in the footprints of Joe McCarthy and his accomplice Hubert H. Humphrey (who was the primary author of the Communist Control Act of 1954) in trampling our democratic rights they fail to assign themselves the task of attaining and maintaining full employment.

The jobs being created are a bunch of poverty wage jobs no one can raise a family on.

We need jobs paying real living wages.

We need Minimum Wage legislation legislating real living wages based on all "cost-of-living" factors not this Minimum Wage legislation which assures business of being able to hire workers at low wages.

Low wages mean higher profits for employers.

It isn't the job of government to assure employers have a huge pool of cheap labor.

Rather, it is the job of government to provide legislation to improve the lives of the majority of the people who are working people.

Wall Street employers can fend for themselves; these greedy bastards don't need government intervention looking out for their bottom line.

Some suggestions for action you can take in addition to signing this petition:

* Start a peace committee in your neighborhood, where you work or go to school.

* Set up a table where there are lots of people and circulate this petition.

* Write a "letter to the editor" of your local newspaper, union newsletter, or student newspaper supporting this petition.

* Send your letter to the editor to public officials, circulate your letter among family, friends, neighbors.

* Consider running for public office or help support a real peace candidate breaking free from this two-party trap.

Again, I look forward to sharing ideas with you.

Please sign the petition not to authorize any more wars and check out and share my blog posts from time-to-time.

Yours in the struggle,

Alan L. Maki




No New Authorization for the Use of Military Force

The U.S. Congress is considering another "Authorization for the Use of Military Force" -- a broad approval for more war.
This is the last thing we need. These wars are not making us safer but generating enemies. They are not surgical operations, but mass killings, as well as assaults on the natural environment and the public budget -- not to mention excuses for curtailing civil liberties.
Please sign this statement for delivery to the media and Congress:
We oppose any new authorization for the use of military force and call for the immediate repeal of the authorizations passed by Congress in 2001 and 2002.
By taking action you agree that you may be contacted by one or more of the participating organizations. This petition is a joint project of:Conference of Major Superiors of Men, Iraq Veterans Against the War, KnowDrones.com, Military Families Speak Out, Peace Action, Peace Action Montgomery, RootsAction.org, United National Antiwar Coalition, Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones, U.S. Labor Against the War, World Beyond War.

"Crack down" on Wall Street or challenge Wall Street for political and economic power?

We need to remove Wall Street from power.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Health care for the Wall Street crowd and the politicians they bribe is a divide and profit proposition.

Democrats and Republicans, working under the guise of bi-partisan unity, have successfully used the divide and profit method for decades.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/opinion/hillary-clinton-and-bill-frist-on-health-care-for-americas-kids.html?_r=0

Here comes Hillary Clinton after never having supported single-payer universal health care or the better national public health care system now touting what is purported to be health care for children... a health care program that doesn't even universally cover all children--- division upon division all to secure greater profits for doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies at the expense of health care for children and everyone else.

All the foundation-funded outfits just love this piecemeal approach to health care because it assures them job security employed at very lucrative paying jobs.

The real solution to this health care mess is a National Public Health Care System--- everyone in, nobody out; publicly financed, publicly administered and publicly delivered... just like public education. And put the doctors and all health care professionals on the public payroll, too, just like teachers.

No money Clinton and her Republican friends will say.

Well, just end militarization and these goddamn dirty imperialist wars and use the wealth of our Nation to finance the creation of a National Public Health Care System instead of wars... beating swords into plowshares is the only way to go.

Take the profit motive out of health care completely; health care for All the people not profits for the few.

In the process of creating a National Public Health Care System we create over twelve-million new decent and good-paying jobs.

No other program offers the American people so much... free health care, decent jobs and improved lives for less than the cost of this insane militarism and Wall Street's dirty wars.

Health care, according to the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is a human right.

Stop falling for this "divide and profit" crap being dished out and shoved down our throats by both Democrats and Republicans when it comes to health care.

No wonder Albert Einstein advocated socialism; capitalism is the epitome of insanity--- especially when it comes to health care.

Didn't know the great scientist Albert Einstein was for socialism with one of his reasons being the need to end the capitalist health care system? Well, read on:

http://socialismtheoryandpractice.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-socialism.html

And Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. obviously had no use for Wall Street's capitalist system and the for-profit capitalist approach to heath care either:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBodqhUGoq0

This from another blogger:

Martin Luther King and Health Care

As I remember his fight for human rights this weekend, I came across this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I could not have said it better myself:

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhuman” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Health is a human right.



Thursday, February 12, 2015

House Resolution 49 recogonizing and memorializing the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army deserves widespread support... but, what Auschwitz really represented requires much more investigation.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-114hres49ih/pdf/BILLS-114hres49ih.pdf


For some reason this resolution is going pretty much unnoticed.


In a joint press release the bi-partisan sponsors of this House Resolution 49 state, in part:


“More than 1.1 million men, women, and children, the vast majority of them Jewish, perished within the walls of the Auschwitz death camps before it was liberated by Soviet troops 70 years ago today. The horrific methods for systematic murder employed at Auschwitz, including mass executions, gas chambers, starvation, and torture, encapsulated the brutality of the Nazi regime that claimed the lives of over 11 million people and successfully exterminated more than 60 percent of the pre-war Jewish population in Europe.


“We offer this resolution today out of our shared responsibility to ensure the world knows what evil is possible when hatred and intolerance go unchecked and basic human dignity is denied..."


The reporting on this Resolution in one publication stated on January 29, 2015:


U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch (FL-21) announced the introduction of a bipartisan congressional resolution with Reps. Chris Smith (NJ-04), Eliot Engel (NY-16), Nita Lowey (NY-17), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27), Steve Israel (NY-03), and Peter Roskam (IL-06) recognizing the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz that took place on January 27, 1945. More than 1.1 million people lost their lives in the Auschwitz concentration camps, making it one of the deadliest manifestations of the Nazi’s Final Solution plan to commit genocide against the Jewish people. Today, millions of people around the world remember those who lost their lives in the Holocaust through the United Nations’ designation of January 27th as International Day of Commemoration.


Ironically, the U.S. Senate version (Resolution 35) omits the fact that it was the Red Army which liberated Auschwitz.


Not noted in either version is the fact that the final part of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, an IG Farben factory, was built by concentration camp inmates (some 7,000 that expanded to 35,000 as these concentration camp inmates and slave laborers from across Europe died).  The IG Farben factory was intended to produce a synthetic rubber to be used by Hitler in his war efforts. The construction of the plant ended up "employing" over 35,000 concentration camp inmates and slave labor from all over Europe, most of whose lives ended after approximately three months. IG Farben was a huge conglomerate corporation profiting from Hitler's wars. Perhaps this omission is made because someone might draw a comparison to the U.S. Prison-Industrial Complex? Another embarrassment not mentioned is the fact that the Rockefellers and DuPonts collaborated with IG Farben, a major financial backer of Hitler and his Nazis, in business ventures--- including various international monopoly price-fixing scams and collaborating with Hitler in ways that hindered efforts of the anti-fascists to stop Hitler.


It should also be noted that some Americans and their companies that were involved with the fascist Hitler backed regimes of Europe who worked in cahoots, politically and economically, with IG Farben were: William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Kennedy (JFK's father), Charles Lindbergh, John Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon (head of Alcoa, banker, and Secretary of Treasury), DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil (now Exxon), Ford, ITT, Allen Dulles (later head of the CIA), Prescott Bush, National City Bank, and General Electric. These wealthy Americans and their corporations working with Hitler and Mussolini helped bring Franco to power in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.


However, in many ways, the Senate version, also bi-partisan in nature, is better; and if the historical fact regarding that it was the Red Army which liberated Auschwitz were included in it, this Senate Resolution would become the better of the two since it emphasizes peace.


Both Resolutions have the short-coming of failing to point out the United States should withdraw from its involvement with the fascists now in power in the Ukraine before this counter-productive relationship and activity starts World War III. These "new age fascists" openly state their support for the Ukrainian collaborators with Hitler. In fact, many Ukranians, resistance fighters against the fascist occupation who fought alongside the Red Army, perished in Auschwitz and were used as slave labor in building Auschwitz. Anti-fascist Ukranians, like those now opposed to the present Ukranian regime, were among the Red Army soldiers which liberated Auschwitz.


In fact, Auschwitz was much more than an extermination camp; a fact all these Wall Street bribed politicians would probably rather evade.


Auschwitz stands as a monument to everything evil that is bred by the merging of state-monopoly capitalism where the corporations come to dominate the economic and political life of the country with democracy becoming a hindrance to their greedy drive for maximum corporate profits.


In Auschwitz we find big finance capital merged with industrialists and banking interests all managed by the government to carry out the "final solution" in the process of building an imperialist empire to dominate the world through building up a huge military-industrial complex intended to enable Nazi Germany to dominate the world.


Really, is it any coincidence that Wall Street was Hitler's biggest backer and these Wall Street politicians would rather not discuss what Auschwitz really was?


For some strange reason, it appears no one in Washington wants to talk about just how long Wall Street investors were profiting from their investments and activities, which included powers of decision-making, in IG Farben.


Also omitted from both the House and Senate Resolutions is the need to defend and implement the intent of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights which would further mobilize public opinion and sentiment against the re-occurrence fascism.


Here is Senate Resolution 35:

http://www.kirk.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1311


The text of the resolution is available below:


S. Res. 35
Whereas on January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland was liberated by Allied Forces during World War II after almost 5 years of murder, rape, and torture at the camp;
Whereas 1,100,000 innocent civilians were murdered at the Auschwitz extermination camp;
Whereas nearly 1,300,000 innocent civilians were deported to Auschwitz from their homes across Eastern and Western Europe, particularly from Hungary, Poland, and France;
Whereas 1,000,000 of the civilians who perished at the camp were Jews, along with 100,000 non-Jewish Poles, Roma and Sinti individuals, Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah's Witnesses, gay men and women, and other ethnic minorities;
Whereas these civilians included farmers, tailors, seamstresses, factory hands, accountants, doctors, teachers, small-business owners, clergy, intellectuals, government officials, and political activists;
Whereas these civilians were subjected to torture, forced labor, starvation, rape, medical experiments, and being separated from loved ones;
Whereas the names of many of these civilians who perished have been lost forever;
Whereas the Auschwitz extermination camp symbolizes the extraordinary brutality of the Holocaust;
Whereas the people of the United States must never forget the terrible crimes against humanity committed at the Auschwitz extermination camp;
Whereas the people of the United States must educate future generations to promote understanding of the dangers of intolerance in order to prevent similar injustices from happening again; and
Whereas commemoration of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp will instill in all people of the United States a greater awareness of the Holocaust: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate—
(1) commemorates January 27, 2015, as the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp by Allied Forces during World War II;
(2) calls on all people of the United States to remember the 1,100,000 innocent victims murdered at the Auschwitz extermination camp as part of the Holocaust;
(3) honors the legacy of the survivors of the Holocaust and of the Auschwitz extermination camp; and
(4) calls on the people of the United States to continue to work toward tolerance, peace, and justice and to end all genocide and persecution.
###





Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Obama hypocritically preaches to the world about democracy...

...when everyone knows big money controls all decision-making in this country.

Working people who voice their opinions are routinely silenced in all kinds of ways--- from being fired from their jobs to being banned from "social media" which is proclaimed to be the epitome of democracy.

This Wall Street dominated government can't tolerate democracy because if the people had any voice at all this entire rotten system would be brought down.

These people who own and control the media and the Internet can't even tolerate critical views and opinions of their corrupt system which is crumbling before our very eyes creating misery for so many people from which so few profit.

We don't live in a democracy; we constantly live on the edge of this country becoming a fascist dictatorship.

Corruption in government is all pervasive. Most politicians in this country are so thoroughly corrupt they belong in prison not at the helm of government making decisions affecting our lives and livelihoods and whether or not we have wars or live in peace..

http://nypost.com/2015/02/10/preet-bharara-promises-more-corruption-probes/





So, what's new?


Corruption is part and parcel of U.S. politics and the corruption begins with Wall Street's domination of the economy and politics.


Only a complete fool would deny the corruption that is American politics then passed off as the world's greatest bastion of democracy.


Anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that the political process is thoroughly corrupt and unethical from township boards to city, county, state and federal government.


The news media picks up on a "scandal" here and there to sensationalize rather than examining the entire political process dominated by Wall Street lobbyists whose only reason for being involved in the political process is to assure big money buys corporations and business the government wanted no matter the harm caused to people and the environment.


If not for this corruption we would have no wars, no poverty and racism and discrimination would be well on their way to becoming things of the past.


Working people have no say in government.


The two-party system is a trap intended to make sure this corruption rules Wall Street's roost.


Democrats are every bit as corrupt and unethical as the Republicans.


There is no use struggling for reforms without simultaneously challenging Wall Street for political and economic power.


Capitalism is Wall Street's dirty, corrupt system which thrives on exploitation of workers; this is the very foundation and basis for the corruption and unethical behavior and conduct of these politicians and the corporate lobbyists whose job it is to bribe them.


Only a socialist cooperative commonwealth putting the needs of people first in a way in which production is carried on for the benefit of the entire society, instead of the profits of the few, will solve our problems.


What we need is a "clean sweep movement" that will clear all of these corrupt bastards out of the township halls, city and county councils, state and federal governments.


This will require massive militant struggles in the streets along with building a new working class based progressive people's party for peace, social and economic justice which brings forward open, honest, democratic government with the full participation of the American people... just like the Declaration of Independence, United States Constitution and Bill of Rights proclaims we are entitled to with the levers of power being used to make the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights a living reality for everyone.


Preet Bharara promises more corruption probes


Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara on Tuesday promised that more state corruption cases are in the offing after mocking Albany’s “three men in the room” decision-making and noting that Sheldon Silver has been deposed as Assembly speaker.


Bharara sidestepped a question on whether the other two men in the room — Gov. Cuomo and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos — would also be knocked out by scandal.


The feds are investigating Cuomo’s abrupt closing of his own Moreland Commission to Combat Public Corruption and Skelos’ dealings with a law firm that paid him between $150,000 to $250,000 last year.
“Membership of the room seems to be changing. It changed last week when a new Assembly speaker was put into power,” Bharara said in an interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber.


Bharara filed a criminal complaint alleging Silver used his powerful position to amass millions of dollars in kickbacks through two law firms.


“We have a number of investigations going on. And we’ve had them for a long time,” Bharara added.
“It doesn’t seem like business will be abating any time soon in the public-corruption department.”
Speaking more broadly about the culture of Albany, Bharara said that the number of legislators who’ve been arrested recently for corruption should serve as a wake-up call.


“There are a lot of people who go into public service and are in for the right reasons and to do the right thing,” Bharara said.


At the same time, he noted that lawmakers “are more likely to be arrested as a state senator in New York than you are to be turned out at the polls.


And when you have a degree of corruption that is that deep and pervasive and frequent, that’s a big problem.”


In the past decade, more than 30 state officeholders have been convicted of crimes, sanctioned or accused of wrongdoing.


In the MSNBC interview, Bharara also took a jab at Cuomo’s claim last year he couldn’t discuss the Moreland Commission on advice of the US Attorney’s office.


“As I believe the US attorney has made it clear that ongoing public dialogue is not helpful to this investigation, we will have no additional comment on the matter,” Cuomo said in July.


He has commented since then.


But Bharara said the governor had no reason to zip it up last year.


“I don’t think that’s true because I’ve heard comments attributed to the governor,” he said.


“People shouldn’t be talking to potential federal witnesses in a case when the prosecutor and the FBI and other investigators are looking at something. But I don’t think I, or anyone else, ever said any particular person shouldn’t be talking about how he or she made decisions publicly.”

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Thousands in California march and rally against fracking and global warming

Check out these articles and the videos accompanying the articles:



http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_27482290/thousands-march-and-rally-oakland-call-ban-fracking?source=rss



http://photos.mercurynews.com/2015/02/07/photos-march-for-real-climate-leadership-against-hydrofracking/#1


YouTube video of entire march and rally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8WLWI3XeBY



For more info, contact U.S. Labor Against the War:

http://uslaboragainstwar.org/



The streets of downtown Oakland were filled Saturday, Feb. 7, by an 8,000-strong crowd marching for Real Climate Leadership, the largest march against fracking in U.S. history.


A contingent of union members and labor organizers gathered around the fountain under the banner of "Labor Against Fracking," with representatives from three ASFCME locals, UNITE HERE, United Educators of San Francisco, U.S. Labor Against the War, Jobs With Justice, East Bay Up the Pay, OURWalmart, and EBASE (East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy).


"The planet is our workplace," stated Michael Eisenscher, the representative from U.S. Labor Against the War, setting the tone.


"There are no jobs on a dead planet," said Brooke Anderson of Climate Workers.








FaceBook

FaceBook shut down my page under the guise that I violated their policies without any explanation of the policies I supposedly violated.

So much for democracy.

Well-heeled Democrats have been complaining about my FaceBook page and this blog for years--- trying to shut them down.

No one should find this behavior by Democrats to be strange since it was Hubert H. Humphrey who was the primary author of the most repressive legislation in this country: the Communist Control Act of 1954 which is intended to repress freedom of thought, expression and association which the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights was intended to protect.

I was banned from posting or commenting on FireDogLake.

I have been banned from posting or commenting on Huffington Post, too.

Now I have been banned from FaceBook which has "deactivated" my FaceBook page.

In spite of all the talk about the great "free media," there is only freedom for those who own and control the media.

Whether it is FaceBook, FireDogLake or the Huffington Post posing as alternative media or social media, there is little room for working people to challenge the capitalist system while bringing forward the socialist alternative.

The upper-middle class intellectuals think they have the right to think for working people as they lay claim to being the voices for the "middle class."

I have always tried to merge my activism with tools available on the Internet but it seems that the powers that be will not tolerate this... this kind of activism is more than the phony proponents of democracy can handle as they choose censorship, blocking and banning over real democracy which provides a voice for working people.

In my opinion, person to person, face to face contact remains the best way to reach out to people.

Leafleting remains one of the most important ways to convey alternatives to capitalism to people.

I also think "Letters To The Editors" is a good way to share ideas and opinions... but, here again, one is at the mercy of those who own and control the media. The Duluth News Tribune and several other newspapers including the Minneapolis Star Tribune refuse to publish my "Letters To The Editor" as they hypocritically advertise that their pages are opinion to alternative views... so long as those views are not Marxist.

Isn't capitalist freedom great?

Sunday, February 8, 2015

This is what we get when the dots don't get connected properly... a false solution no better than the original problem

http://idlenomorewisconsin.tumblr.com/post/110174013126/for-immediate-release-2-5-15-contact-reyna-crow


The problem with this is that Bob Shimek is a shill for the Indian Gaming Industry and refused to raise his voice in opposition to the building of the new Red Lake Casino Lake-of-the-Woods which was just recently built on one of the most pristine wetlands which was used by wolves over the centuries to cross Lake-of-the-Woods between Canada and the United States to hunt and breed.


How can the tribes whose Tribal Councils are controlled and manipulated by a bunch of mobsters who own the Indian Gaming Industry willing to destroy pristine wetlands (and forests--- just look how the Red Lake and Leech Lake forests [all wold habitat]) have been decimated to pay for casinos without one peep of protest from Robert Shimek or those foundation-funded outfits he has worked for.


The Northern Tribes can't be trusted any more than the State of Minnesota, the pulp and paper, mining or power generating industries to manage timber wolves or their habitat any more than they can be trusted to look after the health and welfare of the human beings they employ at poverty wages and without any rights to work in these smoke-filled casinos.


Robert Shimek has refused, over and over again, to connect the dots which when connected properly clearly demonstrate that those who seek corporate profits can't be trusted to manage anything where our living environment, human health and the welfare of plants, animals, wetlands, air or water are concerned.


Ask anyone living on a Reservation if any of these Tribal Councils can be trusted to work for the betterment of people, habitat or timber wolves--- the majority will say they can't be trusted.


In fact, capitalism isn't green... and these Tribal Councils are manipulated by the wealthy--- the exact same corporate money interests as state governments.

Surprise, surprise... the United States is no longer a democracy

Don't forget to read the full report at the end of the article:


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/princeton-scholar-demise-of-democracy-america-tpm-interview



As if most of us have not known this... these people play us for fools when in fact they know full well all of this is maintained through the use of repression. After all, isn't this why "At-Will Employment," the "Communist Control Act of 1954," "Taft-Hartley," "Citizens United" and a "Minimum Wage" that enforces very profitable poverty wages along with a Military-Industrial Complex and never-ending imperialist wars exist in order to control the only class, the working class, capable of changing any of this by taking political and economic power away from Wall Street and putting us on the road to socialism?



The capitalist system which has morphed into monopoly control and domination during this epoch of imperialism is rigged against workers who produce all wealth and enables the wealthiest to exercise complete control over politics and the economy.



We can't win the struggle to defend, advance and expand democracy through voting for the Democrats or Republicans... we need massive struggles in our working class communities, in our places of employment, in the streets combined with building a new working class based progressive people's party for peace, social and economic justice in line with making the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights a living reality for everyone everywhere.

David Petraeus explains and states Wall Street's dirty, barbaric, cannibalistic, profit-driven imperialist agenda

Petraeus: The next American century

First Published Feb 02 2015 06:21AM    •    Last Updated Feb 03 2015 09:09 am
Short-term economic trends in the United States are encouraging. Unemployment is down, growth is up, deficits are less than half what they were during the "Great Recession," gas prices have plummeted, citizens have "deleveraged" their debt considerably and consumer sentiment is very positive.

For many, however, these realities are merely a soothing veneer over a troubled picture. They see America in decline, the middle class adrift, the world in shambles and political acrimony more entrenched than ever over issues ranging from immigration and U.S. policy on Iran and Cuba to taxes and health care. This pessimism is not limited to the home front. With major U.S. allies in Europe and East Asia enduring sustained economic malaise, worrisome demographics and declining power, many believe the Western world is in retreat.

Those sentiments are generally unfounded, however, when it comes to the United States and North America. Recent positive headlines have not masked deeper problems so much as they have heralded the kind of future this nation can enjoy - especially if political leaders can make a few sensible, non-Herculean compromises on issues that beg attention.

The United States is, in fact, better positioned than any other country for the next 20 to 30 years - and, very likely, beyond. Together with Canada and Mexico, the United States also enjoys mutually reinforcing sources of competitive advantages in geopolitics, demographics, energy and natural resources, manufacturing and industrial competitiveness and, above all, innovation and technology. If the 20th century was the American Century, the 21st is poised to be the North American Century.
Since we first offered this view some two years ago in The Post, a number of favorable trends have solidified or even accelerated:

• The United States is now the world's largest producer of both oil liquids and natural gas, with Canada and Mexico important players in the energy arena, as well.

• U.S. manufacturing, while still far from its heyday, has added hundreds of thousands of jobs over the past two years, and Mexico is now fully competitive with China and other Asian manufacturing hubs in a variety of industries.

• The United States leads the world in high-tech sectors such as aerospace and pharmaceuticals.

• The U.S. federal budget deficit, while still too high, is below 3 percent of gross domestic product, and publicly held debt as a fraction of the GDP has stabilized at around 75 percent.

• Relative to GDP, U.S. household debt is down significantly from pre-Great Recession levels.

• U.S. small business confidence is the highest it has been in nine years, and consumer confidence is at its highest in 11 years.

• Crime rates in America are the lowest in a generation.

• America's demographics are far and away the healthiest among the developed economies, as well as Russia, China and India, with a nice and steady 1 percent annual population growth rate.

• The U.S. military, while under budgetary strain and still in harm's way, has weathered not only the brunt of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but also the ax of "sequestration" and downward pressure on budgets for half a decade.

• The United States and Germany are, according to the World Economic Forum, neck and neck in respective claims to be the world's most competitive major economy. U.S. strengths in market size, entrepreneurial culture and financial networks roughly equal Germany's strengths in modern manufacturing and social cohesion.

• U.S. GDP growth is now exceeding 3 percent. Indeed, at present it appears that the U.S. economy may, for the first time in some nine years, grow more in absolute dollar terms than China's does. (China's growth rate, though declining, is likely to be nearly twice as fast; however, as measured in classic terms, its GDP is still only a bit over half as large as our own.)

This last point is crucial. China has recorded historic achievements, but its ascent to superpowerdom is not a given. Leaving aside the limited appeal of China's political and economic model, it faces the imperatives of transitioning from a low-cost labor provider to a value-added and services economy, reducing the world's largest debt-to-GDP ratio, cutting pollution and corruption, dealing with insufficiently competitive state-owned enterprises and addressing numerous other domestic challenges.


In fact, Brookings Institution scholar David Dollar has argued that, even if China overtakes the United States in absolute GDP within a couple of decades, the United States may regain the top spot later in the century, especially if China's political model remains autocratic.

There is, of course, much that the United States needs to do. We need comprehensive immigration reform. Our education system is highly uneven in quality and requires an overhaul to prepare students for the economy of the future. Our lower and middle economic classes have seen minimal real wage growth since the Great Recession. Crime is still high by Western standards. And the U.S. deficit will get worse again within a half-decade or so if nothing is done on entitlement spending and tax reform.


Beyond that, our infrastructure - which is central to future productivity gains - needs major improvement. And, of course, climate changes remain a threat, as do Islamic extremist groups and Iran, as well as Russia.

Regardless, more than any nation on Earth, and arguably more than any in history, the United States has the assets needed to confront its problems head-on. Indeed, however our nation's political parties differ on a variety of issues, Democrats and Republicans should agree on one proposition: This is another American century, and the future has seldom looked brighter. Washington policymakers do not need to rescue the nation from the precipice so much as to make reasonable, mid-size compromises on a number of policies and otherwise get out of the way.

David H. Petraeus is a retired U.S. Army general and chairman of the KKR Global Institute.
http://www.kkr.com/our-firm/kkr-global-institute

Michael E. O'Hanlon
is senior fellow and director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.
http://www.brookings.edu/



Previously in 2007, Obama stated similar views in an article he wrote, exclusively, for Foreign Affairs Magazine:
http://wallstreetsfriend.blogspot.com/2011/04/renewing-american-leadership-by-barack.html