Democracy and the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party

The middle-class professional and small-business class together with well-heeled and wealthy members of the "Summit Hill Club" who control and manipulate the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party as if politics is a sport and for whom politics is a method to maintain control of the system from which they reap their profits; these people who are represented by corporate attorneys like Brian Melendez, are seeking to eliminate "Precinct Caucus Night in Minnesota" because it has become to cumbersome for them to control and manipulate to their ends, the Precinct Caucuses; too many working people, people of color, women and youth bringing forward resolutions concerning their problems and concerns requiring real solutions.

Three such concerns the well-heeled and wealthy would like to forget about in the democratic process are:

Here in Roseau County the way these people operate has been demonstrated time and time again.

Peace.
Healthcare.
Jobs.

What do they do to exclude working people?

They tell their buddies about meetings while excluding others whose ideas and opinions they don't like.

They announce times, dates and places for required meetings then move the meetings, telling only those they can count on to vote their way--- a great way to get "unanimity."

They hold conventions where they refuse to allow issues of importance to working people to be discussed; then they require exhorbitant fees for "banquets" where they put forward their real agenda aimed at "giving working people the shaft."

They use the "nominating process" to assure only the candidates they want to run get in office while claiming the candidates of this rigged nominating process are the only "real" candidates of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party and candidates that run in "nominating primary elections" where voters have the chance to select candidates are some-how rogue candidates unworthy of support.

Many people come to the Precinct Cacuses and once there see, find out and experience just how they are being manipulated out of the decision-making process when it comes to solving their addressing their concerns and their problems.

By the time most people get done with being jerked around by these manipulators and control freaks like Brian Melendez and those like him who have vested interests in maintaining the profit flow of those they represent but never declare their conflicts of interest--- for Melendez, the law firm he is employed by, Faeger & Benson, where Melendez makes a six-fugure salary plus bonuses working for major corporations and for the Indian Gaming Industry--- this conflict of interest becomes apparent when ever improved wages and working conditions are discussed or when the rights of people of color and entire communities of people of color who have been victimized by gencuries of genocide and now "benevolent neglect" like Native American Indian people who, like all working people are completely frozen out of the political decision-making process.

Well, by the time people see what happens at the precinct caucus level most people are too discouraged to go on in the political process any further--- in fact, so many Minnesotans have seen for themselves, with their own eyes the manipulation and control over time--- they have no respect for the candidates whose names appear on the primary ballots so they don't even make the trip to the primaries any more unless they see the appearance of a "rogue" or "maverick" candidate appear on the ballot.

Those people still bothering to vote in General Elections anymore, are for the most part, people who have never seen how undemocratic the entire political process is and their ideas have been influenced by the slick advertising agencies hired to "sell" candidates to voters portraying them as the greatest thing since pre-sliced bread.

In fact, it is the present "nominating conventions" which are instruments befitting an old Finnish feudal lord with a vested interest in keeping his serfs in their place that should be abolished in favor of the more democratic primary elections where all voters are eligible to vote to nominate the candidate of their choice.

All restrictive "petitions" and filing fees to run for political office should be eliminated. Collecting  25 signatures should be all that is required for anything less than a statewide race, while one-hundred signatures should be plenty for a state-wide race.

Why should independent candidates going into a primary election be forced to compete unfairly with a well-oiled (read fully funded) political machine which turns out maybe 30 to 70 of their crooked and corrupt friends with a vested interest in maintaining profits to choose candidates of their liking while independents are forced to file rediculous nubers of signatures on petitions and pay filing fees?

A pefect example of the way this manipulation takes place can be seen by the way the extremely wealthy John McCarthy of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association maintains control of the Beltrami County DFL with his hirelings befitting all the methods employed by any organized crime family in America... and this is what passes in Minnesota for democracy these days.

One only need meet the candidates selected through this corrupt and undemocratic process; people like John Persell who once you talk to the guy wonder if he knows any better than to tie his shoe laces together--- from shoe-to-shoe, or if his wife has to lace and tie his shoes in the morning and double knot them to make sure they don't come untied... such are the utter fools this undemocratic process of these rigged "nominating conventions" produce together with thoroughly racist and corrupt individuals like State Senator Mary Olson whose most loyal friends are John McCarthy and racist "community planners" like Brita Albrecht whose concerns for the creation of the concept for the Bemidji Regional Event Center included evey single thing from will the walkways be close enough to the lake to whether these walk-ways will be ashphalt or concrete to what kind of shrubbery will line these walk-ways to the artwork at the entrance-way to the decor inside the BREC to what kind of vendors will be allowed to profit from public tax-dollars to what color the seats will be to how people will be shuttled between the BREC to local smoke-filled casinos employing workers at povery wages without any rights--- but, Rita Albrecht and the Bemidji City Council who hired her, then fired her (when she was exposed as a racist) after it became apparent she had intentionally omitted an affirmative action policy required by law for hiring the people to plan, build, manage, staff and maintain the BREC--- thus assuring, once again, that Native American Indians would be excluded from the process and left without the jobs to which they are entitled by law, affirmative action law: Executive Order #112246.

One has to wonder how these politicians and their string pullers like John McCarthy and the corrupt Michael Meuers whose racist wife also sits on the racist white Bemidji City Council then have the audacity to go to Native American Indians for votes--- and money--- for candidates like stupid fools like John Persell whose claim to fame is that he managed to stumble through a hitch in the military and racists like Mary Olson and Brita Sailer who make a pilgramage into in Indian Country to get their campaign contributions and stump for the votes they need to win in this "swing vote district" at election time while ignoring the racist unemployment and poverty.

For a while here and there working people and the racially oppressed could make a break through and bust through a door here or there in the Minnesota DFL; but, not anymore.

Now it is only a question of time and organization before working people of all races come together in Minnesota to bolt the MNDFL which fails and refuses to respond to the concerns, needs and problems of the people who have no choice but to create a political party which will stand for peace, healthcare and jobs which no working woman or man can live a decent life without.

Until such a political formation takes shape we should encourage as many challenges inside the DFL and outside of it through independent campaigns based around the concerns and needs of working people and solving the problems of the working class.

If a candidate can not stand for peace; they should not receive our money or our help in any way; let them do their own phone-banking and walk the neigborhoods.

No peace; no votes.
No real healthcare reform; no votes.
No jobs with enforcement of affirmative action; no votes.

The time has come to tell the likes of Brian Melendez and John McCarthy to take their warmongering, racist candidates and go to hell.

End the machine manipulated "Nominating Conventions;" not Precinct Night in Minnesota.

Minnesota Democrats peddle racism in the guise of benevolence

Minnesota DFL State Senator Mary Olson, DFL'er Representative John Persell and DFL'er Brita Sailer are among Minnesota Democrats boasting that they look after the needs of Native American Indians because they secured funding for the promotion of Native languages and cultures.

But, what are the real facts?

First, the funding they have secured is a mere pittance compared to the amount of state and federal funds that have been spent over the last one-hundred years and more to rob and deny Native American Indians of their language and culture.

Second, these same legislators have refused to adequately fund public schools on the Indian Reservations and in predominantly Native American Indian communities.

Third, none of these legislators have raised their voices to insist on the enforcement of affirmative action in hiring.

Fourth, how can children living in poverty expect to learn anything be it reading English or learning the very language their grandparents were beaten in school for speaking.

It is a disgrace to the human race that such vile politicians like Olson, Persell and Sailer have the unmitigated gall to go around boasting that one of the reasons they are entitled to the Native American Indian vote is because they have helped Native American Indian people secure wholly inadequate funding to re-teach Native American Indians their own language and culture that was beaten out of them by public school teachers and in boarding schools where the documented racist abuse was horrific.

In fact, what we have going here is the worst kind of racism because many times more money is going to be dished out to other communities and when we see how much more these racist politicians like Olson, Persell and Sailer are going to tell Native American Indians--- "Don't complain; you got yours." This is how this dirty racist political system has played people for years.

What DFL'ers Olson, Persell and Sailer refuse to address is the fact that it is much cheaper for the government and more lucrative for business profits to pay for language and culture, especially when part of the promotion is to promote Native American language and culture as part of the tourist and hospitality industries than for the government to put an end to racist unemployment and poverty and providing decent homes, quality educations and adequate healthcare.

Native American Indian language and culture is very important to restore; but, as part of a human rights agenda designed to bring full equality in employment, education, housing and healthcare.

Some people may view this token and completely inadequate tossing of money at a problem as "don't look a gift horse in the mouth." This is a shortsighted approach designed to prevent the kind of all-peoples unity needed to turn this country around.

Any country that can spend trillions of dollars on wars and militarization certainly can find the resources to provide Native American Indian peoples the lives with the dignity and human decency that comes with a real living wage job working in a healthy and rewarding working environment; after all, this entire system was built on the land and resources stolen from First Nation's peoples in the exact same violent manner their language and culture was stolen from them.

Mary Olson, John Persell and Brita Sailer have a lot of nerve waving around these inadequate funds for language and culture when they never lifted one finger or their voices to demand the development, implementation and enforcement of affirmative action on the Bemidji Regional Event Center when everyone knows that children living in poverty have a hard time learning anything and without a real living wage job, working people are destined to be poor.

I never saw a kid yet who could fill his or her belly on language and culture.

The Red Lake Nation pays Michael Meuers tens of thousands of dollars to advocate for the Red Lake Nation and what have the people received in return?

Check it out... Native language on the doors of Bemidji businesses for the tourists to look at while inside the owners have an unwritten sign:

No Native American Indians need apply for jobs here---

While below this same racist parasite living off the poverty of the Native American Indian people is scheming at a Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Precinct Caucus Meeting trying to prevent a resolution in support of affirmative action from being approved, and is pulling strings to undermine the candidacies of Native American candidates for public office...

How come we don't see Michael Meuers standing with a group of Native American workers going to work on the construction of the Bemidji Regional Event Center holding a copy of affirmative action policies as mandated by President Lyndon B. Johnson's Executive Order #11246?

Check it out; anyone see any affirmative action policies anyplace as part of the planning process to develop this racist boon-doggle known so affectionately as THE BREC?

http://www.bemidjievents.com/plans.html


No one can say that Michael Meuers doesn't have any "pull" because the the Red Lake Nation Tribal Council hires him because of his "pull" in the Minnesota DFL...

PLUS...

Michael Meuers' wife sits on this racist, all white Bemidji City Council:

While Michael Meuers feeds his face, Native American Indian children go to school hungry and sick because their parents are victims of racist hiring practices enforced by the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party:

Hopefully the Minnesota DFL will choke on its own racism in the November Election.

Not one single Native American Indian sitting on the Bemidji City Council in spite of Bemidji's large Native American Indian population.


Not one single Native American Indian sitting in the Minnesota State Legislature in spite of Minnesota having one of the largest Native American Indian populations in the Nation--- a Nation, and its resources, stolen from First Nations peoples...

And, a government that won't obey its own laws and enforce affirmative action.


Welcome to Bemidji where Native Americans are disenfranchised from the political process and denied the jobs they are entitled to...


Welcome to Bemidji the most racist community in America.

Many people wonder how such systemic and institutionalized racism can exist in Bemidji, Minnesota.


The fact of the matter is that people are not learning the real history of this area.


This collection of post cards is a reflection of what students in schools are learning... of Bemidji, a resort and tourist community.


What is not being displayed for the present generation and the tourists to see is Lake Bemidji as it was inhabited by Native American Indians who were driven from their homes to make way for this tourist and resort community to be established... are there no pictures appropriate for display at the tourist center or on post cards depicting how the removal of an entire people from their homes and deprived of their livelihoods based upon what Nature had provided was accomplished?


People like Mary Olson, John Persell and Brita Sailer now want to make people think they have done some great deed for Native American Indians in securing this pittance of funding to help restore the language and culture destroyed by another "culture."

I'm wondering if some funding shouldn't be allocated to teach us all about the real "hidden" and "dark" history of how systemic and institutionalized racism created Bemidji, Minnesota--- the most racist city in the United States of America where the politicians really believe they can flagrantly violate the laws of the land in depriving Native American Indians of the jobs they are entitled to.


On the very land at the shores of Lake Bemidji where the Bemidji Regional Event Center is nearing construction, it wasn't that long ago Native American Indians were forced to leave their homes as this land was stolen out from under them... now, again, another form of racism is being carried out in depriving Native American Indians of their rights and livelihoods.


Shouldn't we have a series of post cards depicting the racist history and present of the City of Bemidji? Maybe then affirmative action would be enforced as required by law.

Irene Folstrom arrested for drunk driving; Did John McCarthy of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association pull political strings to get Folstrom off light?

Published March 31 2010

Irene Folstrom, former Bemidji candidate, pleads guilty to with DWI refusal to test
The day after she was scheduled to appear on Sunday’s CBS Early Show for yet another media interview on her college years relationship with pro golfer Tiger Woods, Irene Folstrom Masayesva was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.
By: Molly Miron, Bemidji Pioneer

The day after she was scheduled to appear on Sunday’s CBS Early Show for yet another media interview on her college years relationship with pro golfer Tiger Woods, Irene Folstrom Masayesva was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.

Folstrom, 35, of Bemidji, pleaded guilty Wednesday, March 31, in Beltrami County District Court before Judge John Melbye to gross misdemeanor third-degree DWI – refusal to submit to chemical test.

In an interview last week concerning the upcoming publication of her book, “Phoenix,” in which she recounts her battles with depression and other life challenges, Folstrom said “even though I rose from the ashes, I definitely had a dark period in my life, about two years ago.”

Folstrom said some of her problems arose after she ran unsuccessfully for state Senate in 2006 and mayor of Bemidji in 2008.

As it happens, Folstrom said Wednesday, she did not participate on the CBS Early Show as announced.

“They wanted pictures of me and Tiger together,” she said.

She said she drew the line on that request because it’s part of her private life.

Woods’ Thanksgiving night crash and ensuing discovery of many extramarital affairs demanded that someone who knew him step forward in his defense, Folstrom said last week in an interview. She spoke supportively on his behalf from her relationship with Woods when they were boyfriend and girlfriend during their college years at Stanford University.

“No one was speaking out, and I guess I became the sacrificial lamb because I probably knew him the best,” she said during last week’s interview.

According to the criminal complaint against Folstrom:

At 12:30 p.m. Monday, March 29, the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office received a call about a vehicle that was being driven in a dangerous manner on Roosevelt Road, nearly hitting an oncoming vehicle and nearly running into the ditch. A witness described the vehicle and reported the license number.

A Beltrami County deputy made a traffic stop at the intersection of Little Norway Avenue and Roosevelt Road Southeast. The deputy identified the driver and sole occupant of the vehicle as Folstrom. She provided a driver’s license, which was expired. The deputy observed the strong odor of alcohol from Folstrom, watery eyes and slurred speech. She said she had drunk alcohol the night before in Cass Lake.

Folstrom failed field sobriety tests and was taken to the Beltrami County Law Enforcement Center. The deputy administered the Implied Consent Advisory, and Folstrom was given the opportunity to consult with an attorney. The deputy took her to the Intoxilyzer Room where she failed to comply with instructions and provided “deficient samples” of her breath. The deputy offered her the opportunity to provide a blood or urine test. Folstrom said she understood but refused further testing.

Although her license was expired, a check showed that Folstrom has no prior convictions or alcohol-related loss of license.

The maximum sentence for third-degree DWI – refusal to test is one year in jail and a $3,000 fine.

Folstom’s attorney, Jason Pederson of Bemidji, said his client was sentenced to the three days she served in the Beltrami County Jail with no additional time imposed. She must serve three years of unsupervised probation, pay a fine of $500 with $500 stayed, undergo chemical dependency evaluation and follow recommendations and complete other standard probation conditions.

Pederson said Folstrom is going through a extremely taxing time in her life, but she takes full responsibility for her offense.

“She accepted responsibility from the day it happened and from her first court appearance was very forthcoming about her guilt,” he said.

mmiron@bemidjipioneer.com

A level playing field... from genocide and slavery to justice

A great story about a family's visit to Cuba that might have some relevancy to northern Minnesota when it comes to affirmative action and "level playing fields"

Brad (Editor Bemidji Pioneer);

This story below provides a little different take on affirmative action than what Irene Folstrom alluded to in conversation with you. I thought you might be interested in this.

Maybe it’s time for the Bemidji Pioneer to do a similar story about a family or two on the Indian Reservations to find out if affirmative action has a role to play in the Bemidji area. You obviously let Irene Folstrom be the voice in opposition to affirmative action; now let’s hear from some families living in poverty whose people had their land and resources stolen out from under them through a campaign of murderous genocide that included hanging and shooting people and burning them out of their homes as the remaining survivors were encircled with guns and canons pointing at them while members of their families dangled from the hangman’s noose as all the good Christian people gathered for a picnic to watch as the treaties were “read,” “negotiated” and “signed.”

In my opinion you did a great disservice in publishing your interviews with Irene Folstrom as if her having screwed Tiger Woods now qualifies her to speak on these topics like affirmative action; after all, had she not screwed Tiger Woods you would never have sought out her opinion about anything and even when you sought out her opinion you allowed her to write the story since you never pressed her for any facts or explanations.

Why don’t you go take a ride around the reservations asking people if they think they are ENTITLED to jobs where they spend their money and what they pay their taxes to support--- jobs at the Bemidji Regional Event Center come to mind.

I’m really wondering why the Bemidji Pioneer has never editorialized in support of the need and necessity for the City of Bemidji to have had an affirmative action policy developed, implemented and enforced for the BREC since anyone who even takes the time to read Executive Order #11246 understands that it was created for just such public works projects as the BREC. Maybe the question should be asked another way: If not for projects like the BREC why was Executive Order #11246 ever signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson?

It is just mind-boggling, that instead of writing a Bemidji Pioneer editorial against affirmative action, yourself; you used Irene Folstrom to carry your message in opposition to affirmative action for you.

Come on, Brad; have the courage to place the views on affirmative action of the Bemidji Pioneer in writing right on the Editorial Page for all to see.

Does the Bemidji Pioneer really believe that a bunch of racist and bigoted politicians should be allowed to pick and choose upon their whim when the law of the land should be enforced or not enforced? Or don’t you think Executive Order #11246 is the law of the land… here we have Judge John G. Melbye having asked the Plaintiff suing over lack of enforcement of affirmative action what law there was making it mandatory to require an affirmative action program to be created, administered, monitored and enforced when he is looking right at Executive Order #11246.

If there has ever been a time that Executive Order #11246 should be enforced on any project in Bemidji, Minnesota, certainly, any person with an ounce of common sense would have to conclude that affirmative action should be enforced on this massive public works project because if it isn’t required to be enforced on the BREC, we know its enforcement will never be required on any project in Bemidji or Beltrami or surrounding counties.

Maybe you should ask Irene Folstrom to tour the Bemidji Regional Event Center with you and have her explain what she thinks of no Native American workers (and 95% of the Native American Indian population is working class even though 65% to 80% are presently without jobs.

Come on Brad; Irene Folstrom has announced her candidacy using her claim to fame that she screwed Tiger Woods just like a lot of his other satisfied girlfriends and you don’t even question her about her statements in opposition to affirmative action? Here you have this 2012 candidate before you and you don’t ask her opinion as to how she thinks the playing field should be leveled without affirmative action? If you don’t want to put these questions to Irene Folstrom, maybe you should put these questions to her good friend the sitting state senator, Mary Olson or representative John Persell.

By-the-way; how does it come to be that the Bemidji Pioneer has its top reporter available to go out to interview Irene Folstrom who voices her opinion about affirmative action, but a reporter isn’t available to cover what is very likely the biggest and most important civil rights and human rights case that will ever be heard in Beltrami County Courts and that case involves affirmative action--- the very issue you allowed a person to comment on who claims she will be running for public office in 2012. Come on Brad, how damn stupid do you think the readers of your newspaper are that they do not wonder why they are not hearing about the most important civil action to be brought before a Beltrami County District Court Judge because the reporter is covering the story of a woman who thinks her having been satisfactorily screwed by Tiger Woods is more important news to print than this court case that will determine whether or not an entire race of people who have been discriminated against for hundreds of years is now entitled to jobs at the Bemidji Regional Event Center their taxes and purchasing power have created?

Brad, check out the story below which concludes with this: “The early U.S. economy so relied on slavery that it fueled a boom, making America an attractive destination for immigrants, they maintain.” I sometimes wonder if this economy would ever have developed at all had not the land and resources been stolen out from under First Nation’s Peoples. Slavery was one of the crimes against humanity that enabled this country to become the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth--- but, we both know there was and continues to be an even greater crime against humanity and there you sit in a newspaper office right on top of this greatest crime story of all and you are out interviewing Irene Folstrom who intends to run a political campaign based upon her “tell all experiences” with Tiger Woods who just happens to be one of the most lucrative investments of the Indian Gaming Industry whose clients continue to profit from this horrendous crime against humanity--- it wasn’t John McCarthy that encouraged you to cover the Irene Folstrom/Tiger Woods story instead of the real story playing out in Judge John Melbye’s Beltrami County Courtroom, was it?

Irene Folstrom was happily screwed, so we hear from you; what you aren’t telling us about is all the carnal details about who is getting f&^*#@.

Alan L. Maki


By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer March 31, 2010

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100331/ap_on_bi_ge/cb_cuba_slave_trading_family


LA MADRUGA, Cuba - James DeWolf Perry VI's great-great-great-great-great-grandfather used African slaves to grow coffee on this rocky hillside outside Havana, and to him its thorny weeds and small sugar plots feel haunted.

"Do you feel the ghost of James DeWolf out here?" asks Katrina Browne, Perry's distant cousin.

"Yes," he replies, drawing out the word in a long, awkward breath.

Both are descendants of the DeWolfs of Bristol, Rhode Island, who became the biggest slave-trading family in U.S. history, shipping well over 11,000 Africans to the Americas between 1769 and 1820. It was a business that made the family patriarch, James DeWolf, America's second-wealthiest man.

The cousins came to Cuba this week as part of a visit by the U.S. replica of the 19th-century slave ship Amistad - which on Wednesday wrapped up a 10-day educational mission to the island.

For Perry and Browne it's been a journey into their family's troubling past that is far more personal than scouring genealogy records or government archives.

Between 1790 and 1821, more than 240,000 enslaved Africans were brought to Havana, according to customs data, including the 53 captives who rebelled aboard the original Amistad in 1839, seizing the ship and sailing up the U.S. East Coast. The Supreme Court eventually granted them freedom - an inspiring end to a shameful chapter in America and Cuba's shared history.

Perry and Browne visited the sugar-growing, cattle-raising town of La Madruga, 30 miles southeast of the capital, hoping to find vestiges of what was once a family plantation called "Mount Hope."

"To gaze at these hills, to be in his fields, on the land that was his holdings, it's another way to make a tangible connection," Perry, a Harvard University Ph.D. candidate concentrating on the Rhode Island slave trade, said of James DeWolf.

"There's no hiding the reality when you see the land."

Browne, who made a documentary of her ancestors' rum-for-slaves business, noted how the royal palm trees swaying in the hot breeze matched drawings in the diary of one of the family's overseers.

"It's sheer evil," she said.

Some of what likely encompassed Mount Hope is now land controlled by Cuba's armed forces. But a dusty back road, deeply rutted by tractors and horse-drawn carts, leads to stony highlands described in family records.

There isn't much there now, apart from scarecrows guarding cane fields and banana trees, and an occasional cow. A nearby village is known today as "La Esperanza," or "Hope," though locals are unsure whether the name has anything to do with the DeWolfs.

James DeWolf owned Mount Hope until his death in 1837. He represented Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate, and though the state outlawed the slave trade in 1787, it continued to profit enormously for decades afterward - belying the popularly held belief that slavery was strictly a southern phenomenon.

Most of the DeWolfs' African captives were sold at auction in South Carolina or Havana. If prices in the U.S. fell, the family would work the slaves on at least five Cuban plantations producing coffee, sugar and molasses until they could fetch higher prices.

Perry said the Cuban operations were a key source of income, but mostly served as a side business to stoke the DeWolfs' U.S. slave trade operation.

The U.S. banned the slave trade in 1808, but Browne said family letters indicate the DeWolfs continued dealing in African captives until the 1840s by going through Cuba. They also got help from a DeWolf brother-in-law, who served as a customs inspector in Bristol - thus ensuring family slave ships continued to come and go.

Browne wrote, co-directed and co-produced "Traces of the Trade," a 2008 documentary detailing how her ancestors used a Bristol distillery to make rum, which they traded for African captives.

She learned of the DeWolf past 14 years ago, when her 88-year-old grandmother compiled a family history. Browne began digging and found she had been exposed to her family's ugly secrets as a child. A favorite family nursery rhyme "Adjua and Pauledore," she discovered, was really about child slaves James DeWolf gave his wife for Christmas one year.

"Everything I learned just got worse and worse," she said, "and flew in the face of my image of my family as good, sensible northerners."

For her documentary, Browne contacted 200 DeWolf descendants. In 2001, she, Perry and eight other cousins retraced the so-called "Slave Triangle,"
traveling from Rhode Island to the coast of Ghana and then to Cuba.

While on the island, they used machetes to hack through jungle south of Havana, reaching ruined walls and other relics of another family plantation called "Noah's Ark."

For that trip, Browne hired a Cuban producer who put together a film crew, obtained necessary government permits and scouted locations.

This time, the communist government was even more cooperative - as it often is on U.S. historical projects, especially those exploring unsavory aspects of America's past.

Authorities granted Browne and Perry special access to archives, and the pair was featured on state television. That support helped them search customs books for records of Bristol-registered vessels at Cuba's National Archives and to screen her documentary. When shown the film, some Afro-Cubans choked back sobs.

Perry and Browne, both 42, say they did not inherit proceeds from the slave trade because family records indicate James DeWolf's immediate descendants squandered the fortune within two generations.

"To that, I say, 'Thank goodness.' I would not want to find out that I grew up wealthy because of that," Perry said.

Still, he said there is no doubt his family name and roots opened educational and professional doors. Other branches of the family did receive large inheritances, and establishing whether any of DeWolf's thousands of descendants got slave proceeds is difficult.

Browne said 140 of the 200 relatives she contacted for the documentary didn't respond. Many who did expressed concerns, including worries activists might demand reparations.

Browne supports payments to Americans of African descent to "level the playing field," not "out of guilt, but grief," though she is not in favor of cutting personal checks to individuals.

"The idea is 'repair'," she said. "And that is best done through more systemic efforts - public and private - to help people access the American dream."

While both she and Perry have worked to uncover their family's role, they say no Americans - even those whose descendants came to the U.S. after slavery was abolished - should feel unaffected. The early U.S. economy so relied on slavery that it fueled a boom, making America an attractive destination for immigrants, they maintain.

"None of us," Perry said, "are untouched by the legacy of slavery today."


Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Please check out my blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Letter to the Editor; Bemidji Pioneer

Like many people in northern Minnesota, I found the article in the Bemidji Pioneer about the life of Irene Folstrom very interesting and informative. Just the kind of information we need from a local newspaper to help us be informed about problems of unemployment, poverty, racism and lack of access to healthcare.

I wonder if Tiger Woods will return the favor and come help Irene Folstrom campaign for public office?

I noticed Irene Folstrom was not as specific about these problems plaguing northern Minnesota as she has been about explaining her very satisfactory love life with Tiger Woods; what an interesting and innovative way of announcing ones candidacy for public office in 2012.

It is good to know that State Senator Mary Olson has such a good friend as Irene Folstrom... it looks like Mary Olson is facing a very significant challenge in the upcoming primary--- maybe Irene and Tiger will help her campaign... in fact, maybe Tiger could bring along his entire "team," including his wife and children.

I should probably be charging John McCarthy and his Minnesota Indian Gaming Association which funds Mary Olson's campaign for this advice... in lieu of payment for my consulting services for which I charge $40.00 an hour just like Michael Meuers who manages DFL activity for the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association... the fee can be divided and sent as my yearly contributions to the AIDS Foundation and Planned Parenthood.

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
218-386-2432

Health Insurance Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010

The “Health Insurance Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010” is tantamount to the doctor killing the patient. The American people are entitled to more.

Dear friends,

I am sorry I have to send out this mass response to everyone writing me about the Open Letter I sent to Dr. Quentin Young of PNHP but it will be impossible to answer everyone personally in an appropriate manner. I will answer all the letters I have received so far--- about two-thousand.

Thank you for responding with your thoughts and ideas to the “open letter” to Dr. Quentin Young of PNHP I sent out.

Some people thought I was too hard on Dr. Young… one letter writer said I was “brutal.”

I did not write my letter to attack Dr. Young; but, rather, to raise some questions and concerns about this entire healthcare fiasco. Everyone can judge for themselves how successfully I did this.

The letter went to about 12,000 people, mostly in the great lakes region… please feel free to circulate it widely since this letter is serving a dual purpose: 1.) Acknowledging I received your e-mail/phone, and 2.) Providing a copy of the letter to those who have not received it.

I understand some of the views I am expressing are somewhat controversial and contentious but I am not trying to impose these views on anyone--- I offer them in the interest of discussion and dialog.

Many of the letters I have had a chance to look at so far are full of ideas ranging from all kinds of protests actions like refusing to participate in the mandatory aspects of this legislation to voting all these people out of office--- some have expressed a “ready for revolution” theme; others, “Let’s take over the Democratic Party.”

I have a couple added thoughts and questions:

--- Do you think it is possible to begin to organize some kind of national alternative to the Democratic Party?

--- Is single-payer being the best solution or is it a step towards the very best solution: socialized healthcare?

--- Many people are suggesting we should just go all out for socialized healthcare; thoughts?

--- I doubt HR 676 is going to be revived by Conyers; so, shouldn’t a new movement emerge out of this with the intent of strengthening HR 676? It’s “premiums” are way too--- far higher than what people pay in Canada. For another, HR 676 doesn’t seek an expansion of public healthcare in this country… the movement is going to have to get away from this support for “private delivery” of healthcare if we are going to expand the healthcare reform movement to its limits. Your thoughts on this?

Also, you probably noticed that this “coalition” pulled together by the Campaign for America’s Future at the instruction and behest of the AFL-CIO for the explicit purpose of undermining and subverting the single-payer movement brought together all the leaders of organizations whose very members were on record supporting single-payer;  is it time to try to bring all these people--- the members of these organizations--- into some kind of very broad coalition on a grassroots and rank-and-file basis? I kind of think the days of getting a bunch of “leaders” to put their names on a statement has run its course and we need to be looking to build an organization from the ground up where the name of the “average Joe/Jane” means more than a Rich Trumka. Your thoughts?

I have told Margaret Flowers, Cindy Sheehan and Cynthia McKinney they should go away together for a weekend and see if they can’t come out with plans to head up a real campaign of grassroots and rank-and-file activists speaking specifically to what the American people voted for in the last election:

Peace, Healthcare, Jobs with enforcement of affirmative action enforcement.

Quite frankly, I doubt any of these issues standing alone is sufficient for any kind of movement capable of winning change; but, liberals and left at a grassroots/rank-and-file level united around these issues creates a very powerful progressive force and movement that can engage in the kind of activities you suggest, take the struggles into the streets and into places of work and the schools, and into the voting booth. Your thoughts on this?

I think there are some people who do not understand just how powerful liberals and the left at a grassroots/rank-and-file level working in unity around this kind of progressive agenda can be.

The word “progressive” is tossed around quite freely these days and I hate to even use it anymore because of the misunderstandings around the word; but, when liberals and the left come together into a working relationship a progressive agenda is developed where liberals don’t always agree with those on the left who think in terms of getting rid of capitalism while liberals generally think some reforms will be good enough. It looks to me like there is now enough of a consensus on the part of the American people who want peace, healthcare and jobs with the understanding affirmative action is going to have to be enforced if discrimination I employment is going to be eradicated.

Voting green is one point I disagree with many of you on although I often vote green and support individual green candidates. But, it has been my experience that the Green Party has really mired itself in the world of the middle class, as opposed to the working class. Some greens refer to themselves as “watermelons: green on the outside and red on the inside;” I kind of think that kind of thinking should be the basis for a broad-based progressive political party that focuses on the problems of working people because in general, when we solve the problems of working people we are making life better for everyone since it is mostly “universal” programs which would not be denied to anyone that solves problems of working people.

Quite frankly; personally, my idea of what is required in electoral politics is along the lines of the old Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party which was preparing to go national at the time of Minnesota’s socialist governor Floyd Olson’s untimely death… I would encourage you to check out this movement--- quite a bit comes up in a google search… besides Olson, there was Elmer Benson (U.S. Senator and Minnesota Governor) and John Bernard (U.S. Congressman) to name a few. For too long the history of this powerful movement has been suppressed and those who won’t take the time to look into this history are probably short-changing themselves in the long run.

Finally, I want to call your attention to the best book I have ever read about the most powerful movement in this country that was ever developed and spun off union organizing and the civil rights movement and created the basis for the modern peace movement… you can obtain this book at various prices ranging from a few dollars to $85.00 or get it free through you public library’s inter-library loan system. The book is, “The People’s Front” by Earl Browder, recognized as the architect of the movement which won the New Deal reforms. The “people’s front” is what you get as a progressive coalition when liberals and leftists agree to work together for social change… this has proven itself time and time again to be the only way working people achieve real, meaningful change.

Again, I am sorry I had to respond for the time-being with a general letter like this; I will respond to each and every letter I have received as I get time.

Feel free to express whatever views/suggestions/criticism you have about this.

Again, I place the open letter to Dr. Quentin Young--- along with his original letter I responded to--- below for those who called or e-mailed who had not received it.

I will be placing all of this on my blog with a link on my facebook page and you are welcome to comment. If you are not on my “friends list” just search “Alan Maki” and look for my picture with a Chocolate Lab.

Thanks, also, for telling me about all of my spelling and grammar errors--- and, no, I don’t make these mistakes to find out if people are reading what I write.

The American people are talking; let’s keep people talking about healthcare; it’s a prerequisite for action.

Thanks for your responses,

Alan

An Open Letter to Dr. Quentin Young and PNHP---

From Alan L. Maki--- Founder, Minnesotans for Peace and Social Justice

Dr. Quentin Young, Physicians for a National Health Program ;

Please let me begin by stating that those of us in Minnesota (liberal and left grassroots and rank-and-file activists inside and outside the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party who come together as progressives for real healthcare reform along what was advocated by the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party of Floyd B. Olson, Elmer Benson and John Bernard which was torn asunder by the anti-communism initiated by Hubert H. Humphrey wielding the Communist Control Act of 1954) who have supported single-payer universal healthcare as a first step towards socialized healthcare, are at one and the same time: supportive, disappointed and dismayed with you and your organization--- PNHP; and, the position you have taken regarding healthcare that has both awakened the American people for the need for healthcare reform and pointed the general way we need to be moving towards a single-payer universal healthcare system best reflected by the Canadian example which was the compromise reached with a reactionary Canadian government then dominated by the reactionary Liberal and Conservative parties after the great Socialist leader Tommy Douglas and the Communist Dr. Norman Bethune launched the movement for socialized healthcare in Canada--- or, as the great working class leader Tim Buck, and head of the Communist Party of Canada, used to say, National Public Healthcare.

We think it is wrong that PNHP has continued to push single-payer universal healthcare as the main solution since single-payer is only one very small initial step on the road to socialized healthcare.

You and your organization continue to peddle the myth that the American people insist of “freedom of choice” and “private delivery of healthcare” which weakens the movement for real healthcare reform in this country because most people are satisfied just to have access to qualified doctors and other healthcare specialists to keep them healthy and get them well when sick.

Healthcare is a human right; not a “civil right” as some associated with PNHP are now claiming.

As a “human right” people are entitled to healthcare without any attached prerequisites of “affordability;” you need health services, you walk in and get those services required--- no questions, no fees.

Here in Roseau County, Minnesota we have articulated very simply what people living here in the wealthiest country in the world are entitled to by birth in the way of healthcare:

“No-fee/no-premium, comprehensive, all-inclusive, pre-natal to grave universal healthcare; publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered.”

 PNHP makes the claim that only single-payer universal healthcare has been “kept off the table;” when, in fact, socialized healthcare has been left off the table, too.

Now is the time to kill this reactionary and regressive piece of legislation being put forward by Barack Obama and the Democrats. Let me remind you that you were a part of these “progressives for Obama” who helped dupe the people of this country into believing that Obama was something that he is not--- a friend of the people. You used your prestige as an advocate for single-payer universal healthcare to do this. We aren’t going to belabor this point at this late hour; sufficient is it to note this fact. True, you didn’t bully and badger as your buddies Carl Davidson and Tom Hayden did; but, still you helped create the “myth” of Obama being liberal or progressive in the eyes of many people. Well, now we all know just what Barack Obama is: a worthless warmonger who would rather dole out our tax-dollars to the military-financial-industrial complex fighting dirty wars in three countries while funding over 800 U.S. foreign military bases dotting the globe and keeping the Israeli killing machine rolling in carrying out its pogroms against the Palestinian people instead of creating a public healthcare system comprising 800 healthcare centers which would serve as the beginning of a public healthcare system which would eventually include the more than 30,000 community-based community and neighborhood healthcare centers that are required to provide for the healthcare needs of the American people the same way our public school system provides everyone the opportunity to learn to read and write.  

Dr. Young, what makes you believe that if we can’t teach people to read and write without this vast public institution known as our public schools, we can continue to rely on private delivery of healthcare services--- how many of us have had: “choice of teacher;” parents and students alike are satisfied with QUALIFIED teachers, just as everyone will be satisfied with qualified doctors and healthcare professionals and workers employed by a public healthcare system just like teachers receiving the same kind of pay.

You and the PNHP owe it to the American people to properly frame the debate over healthcare reform because you bungled movement building by tossing in “private delivery” of healthcare when public delivery is what is required; you then compounded your bungling by supporting Barack Obama in the manner you did that helped create a mythical figure with no association with reality.

With you being a physician, I am sure you always have found a way to tell your patients the truth about their illness; well, healthcare reform requires telling the entire truth if we are going to have a chance of solving the problem we need to understand the “cure” for what is causing the ailment: a private for profit healthcare system where everyone involved in healthcare delivery has had their greedy, corrupt fingers in the public till and in our pockets--- everyone, beginning with the profit-gouging insurance companies, HMO’s, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and, yes, even the doctors.

In the midst of this greed driven frenzy and profit orgy, we have seen socialized healthcare systems in the form of VA and the Indian Health Service, not to mention the National Public Health Service, serve the healthcare needs of people well in spite of severe underfunding by both Democrats and Republicans with these worthless bribed politicians more often than not working together to deprive these fine public institutions of funding required to serve the healthcare needs of people rather being in operation to reap maximum profits and wealth.

Public and socialized institutions in our country are many and often so taken for granted we do not even consider they are public institutions in a country where we are bombarded day-in and day-out with the fallacy that “free enterprise capitalism” is the only road to take where “capitalist markets” regulate everything successfully--- well, we have plenty of socialized public institutions operating just fine which proves these musings concocted by  high-paid Wall Street apologists to be the lies that they are just like the insurance companies that are now bombarding the airwaves with advertisements in a manner of the snake-oil salesman hawking his “cure-all” claiming that if you don’t buy it now you will be shit-out-of-luck as this most reactionary and regressive piece of legislation that has ever come down the pike out of the U.S. Congress--- and there have been some real doozies in the last 100 years--- is about to be voted on by the most well-bribed gathering of politicians beholden to the profiteers in the healthcare industry.

Here is a partial listing of our public and socialized institutions---

Every single American benefits from many socialized/public programs in this country without any complaints every single day of their lives:

·       Public schools.

·       United States Post Office.

·       Police.

·       Fire.

·       Libraries.

·       Parks and recreation.

·        Water and sewer.

·       Public transit.

·       Courts.

·       Roads, highways and bridges.

·        Power lines.

·       Sidewalks.

·       Public forests and lands.

·       Public fishing accesses. (These are very important to people here in Minnesota)

Dr. Young, I encourage you to have the courage of Frances Perkins to stand up and help initiate the struggle for real healthcare reform this country requires--- single-payer universal healthcare with a vastly expanded public healthcare system.

This fiasco is the: "Health Insurance Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010"

No one but the profiteers and those who have been scared and frightened are for this; everyone else is opposed to it.

Dr. Young, in the interest of unity I am requesting that you and PNHP reconsider this idea that “private delivery” of healthcare services is wanted and a requirement for healthcare because it is simply not true and it is an impediment to building the kind of movements that have so successfully won reforms of many kinds over the years. The majority of the people in this country are liberal-minded or left-wing thinking, especially among working people.

The great reforms have come as a result of liberal-minded and left-wing thinking people coming together in unity forging massive progressive coalitions to accomplish specific goals and objectives…

The American people desperately want three things more than anything:

1. An end to these dirty wars.
2. Real healthcare reform heading us towards a national public healthcare system.
3. Jobs, jobs, jobs with the enforcement of affirmative action.

We need to pull together in this country a massive progressive coalition that will fight to end these wars which will provide the money and resources to build this national public healthcare system and this will create up to ten-million new, good-paying jobs,

Peace = Healthcare reform + jobs

The “Health Insurance Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010” is tantamount to the doctor killing the patient. The American people are entitled to more.

We agree with you completely when you state:

The House bill, contrary to many who believe otherwise, is disastrous. And if such a thing is possible, its Senate counterpart is even worse. Both would shovel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the private health insurance industry. Both would make it a federal offense, with fines, for a person to fail to buy the insurers' shoddy products.

Even so, at least 23 million people would remain uninsured under the new law. And those who have insurance would remain vulnerable to extort premium increases, not unlike Anthem Blue Cross' recently announced premium hikes of up to 39 percent in California.

While one could imagine the enactment of certain piecemeal measures that might ameliorate our condition -- e.g., a simple prohibition of insurance company denials of coverage because of pre-existing conditions -- these are precisely the stand-alone measures most stubbornly opposed by Republicans, conservative Democrats and their corporate patrons. Such concessions, in their eyes, must be linked to shoring up the very culprits who are most responsible for our health care mess.
 

The presence of the for-profit health industry -- the private health insurance conglomerate and the Big Pharma drug companies in the first place -- in the legislative process has certainly been "transparent" from the get go. Through their lobbyists and campaign contributions, they shaped a bill that would enhance their domination of our health system. They are at the root of the catastrophe that passes for health care financing in the United States today.

Hoping you will consider what I have said on behalf of Minnesotans for Peace and Social Justice--- the organization that fought for six years to win passage of a resolution supporting single-payer universal healthcare as part of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party’s “Action Agenda” because we see single-payer universal healthcare as the needed intermediary and baby step on the way to socialized healthcare.

Let’s not fear this word “socialized” healthcare; we see how Claude “Red” Pepper, the architect of modern Medicare/Medicaid, was driven from public office for so many years which held back healthcare reform in this country for decades. Of course, let us not forget, that it was Earl Browder who was the architect of the great progressive coalitions which brought liberals and the left together in these mighty winning coalitions which brought real change for the better to the lives of so many Americans.

There isn’t one single Democrat or Republican who should go unchallenged at the polls--- these enemies of the American people who have so loyally served Wall Street should be punished at the polls.

No peace; no votes.

No real healthcare reform; no votes.

No jobs without the enforcement of affirmative action; no votes.

In a democracy this is called “accountability.”

People listened to your advice about the “choice of doctor” they should choose to solve what ails this country; on the basis of your opinion they chose Barack Obama. Quite frankly, your suggestion for a doctor turned out to be nothing more than a slick health insurance salesman practicing medicine without a license and running a scam.

Dr. Young, you really did make a bad referral. You relied on a crooked and corrupt Congressman like John Conyers to carry your diagnosis to the “doctor” and you allowed a gutless little twerp like Dennis Kucinich who sees flying saucers and faints at the slightest smell of gas or the sight of blood to assist the unlicensed “doctor” you chose.

Alan L. Maki

Founder,

Minnesotans for Peace and Social Justice

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Please check out my blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Subject: Put Single Payer Back on the Table -- By Dr. Quentin Young (Huffington Post, Feb. 22, 2010) Date: Saturday, March 20, 2010, 1:53 PM Put Single Payer Back on the Table By Dr. Quentin Young The Huffington Post February 22, 2010 One year after its much-ballyhooed launch, the Obama administration's approach to health reform is now in serious disarray. The president's health care summit on Feb. 25 is being portrayed as a last ditch bid to find some common ground with his "just say no" Republican opposition. He also faces an increasingly wary group of disgruntled Democrats, whose memory of the Massachusetts massacre -- the election of a Republican to Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat -- remains fresh. The summit proceedings, which will be televised in the name of "transparency," will no doubt be laden with a formidable amount of stagecraft. They will be preceded by the unveiling of the president's own legislative proposal -- presumably the odious Senate bill with some tweaks -- a few days before. But it's almost certain that this latest White House initiative, undertaken with the stated goal of salvaging and passing at least some elements of the stalled congressional bills, is foredoomed.   The House bill, contrary to many who believe otherwise, is disastrous. And if such a thing is possible, its Senate counterpart is even worse. Both would shovel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the private health insurance industry. Both would make it a federal offense, with fines, for a person to fail to buy the insurers' shoddy products. Even so, at least 23 million people would remain uninsured under the new law. And those who have insurance would remain vulnerable to extort premium increases, not unlike Anthem Blue Cross' recently announced premium hikes of up to 39 percent in California. While one could imagine the enactment of certain piecemeal measures that might ameliorate our condition -- e.g., a simple prohibition of insurance company denials of coverage because of pre-existing conditions -- these are precisely the stand-alone measures most stubbornly opposed by Republicans, conservative Democrats and their corporate patrons. Such concessions, in their eyes, must be linked to shoring up the very culprits who are most responsible for our health care mess.   The presence of the for-profit health industry -- the private health insurance conglomerate and the Big Pharma drug companies in the first place -- in the legislative process has certainly been "transparent" from the get go. Through their lobbyists and campaign contributions, they shaped a bill that would enhance their domination of our health system. They are at the root of the catastrophe that passes for health care financing in the United States today. Of course, the conspicuous omission in the debate has been single-payer national health insurance proposal, an improved Medicare for All. This was assured on the Senate side when the powerful chairman of its Finance Committee, Max Baucus, D-Mont., informed the world that everything was on the table but single payer. How the chairman of a congressional committee, however powerful, can set the terms of debate in a democratic society by excluding such a popular and well-substantiated solution is hard to rationalize. Baucus did, of course, prevail, and what came out of the Senate was execrable. Like the House bill, it fails the three tests of genuine reform: universal coverage, quality improvement and cost control. One can reasonably suspect that President Obama now wants something -- anything -- to pass in Congress as evidence of the fulfillment of his campaign pledge to accomplish health care reform. But if he looks to the House and Senate bills as the starting point, his efforts will be in vain. It's not too late for the president to re-embrace his earlier support for single-payer national health insurance and set the nation on the right path. Were he to lay out the facts to the American people and provide energetic leadership for this eminently rational proposal, he would get strong, grassroots support from the public. We're now spending $8,000 per capita annually on health care, $2.5 trillion in total. That's nearly one-fifth of our GDP. Yet our health outcomes rank among the lowest in the industrialized world. Some 45,000 people die each year chiefly because they have no health insurance, and medical bills and illness are now linked to nearly two-thirds of personal bankruptcies. This reality in the richest country in the world is unnecessary and intolerable. I suggest the president look to an improved and expanded Medicare program as the solution. Medicare, which was enacted in 1965 and which has served our elderly and the totally disabled so well, is a solid foundation to build upon. Enactment of an improved Medicare for All would save our nation $400 billion annually by eliminating the bureaucracy and paperwork inflicted on our system by the private insurers. That's more than enough to provide universal, comprehensive care to everyone and to eliminate all co-pays and deductibles. A single-payer system would also allow us to rein in costs and better allocate resources. We have a talented health care workforce. But to fully unlock their potential, we need to get out from under the greedy dictates of the health industry. Mr. President, it's time to put single payer back on the table. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-quentin-young/put-single-payer-back-on_b_471811.html Physicians for a National Health Program 29 E Madison Suite 602, Chicago, IL 60602 Phone (312) 782-6006 | Fax: (312) 782-6007 www.pnhp.org | info@pnhp.org © PNHP 2010

Alan L. Maki

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Please check out my blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Olson, Persell, Bye endorsed by Senate 4 DFL

Former United States Senator Mark Dayton, now running for Minnesota governor, has refused to participate in the Minnesota DFL's nominating process... calling the process "rigged."

Nicole Beaulieu and Gregory Paquin found out for themselves just how rigged and racist the process is.

Everyone is wondering if they will now do like Mark Dayton has already said he will do and move on into the primary election where voters will choose the candidates which is the only democratic and fair method as former United States Senator Mark Dayton has pointed out.

All of Minnesota is looking to see how this election plays out in Senate District 4 and House District 4-A because Minnesota voters have had it with the mainstream Democrats and Republicans who they view, rightfully so, as nothing but a bunch of politicians bought off by the insurance, banking, mining, forestry and gaming industries without one iota of concern for solving the problems people are experiencing. Let's hope Nicole Beaulieu and Greg Paquin follow the lead of Mark Dayton and force these corporate bribed politicians like Olson and Persell out of the race... let the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association organize their own political party and see how many votes their candidates receive from Minnesota voters. Democracy has been perverted to no end with the entrance of the money from these corporate lobbyists.

The political process is so corrupt, John McCarthy, the white man who heads up the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and has become fabulously wealthy off the poverty of Native American Indians who are being used as a pool of cheap labor for this highly profitable casino industry had to personally take charge of his hand-picked candidates along with those who nominated Persell and Olson.

Who nominated Persell and Olson? None other then Skip Finn is widely viewed as the most crooked and corrupt politician in recent Minnesota history! Finn was kicked out of the Minnesota State legislature for his dirty, corrupt underhanded dealings--- an outright crook nominated John Persell and Mary Olson... this is how pathetically crooked and corrupt the Minnesota DFL nominating process has become... Skip Finn is the embodiment of this thoroughly racist and corrupt political process.

When an apple is rotten to the core, you chuck it without taking another bite... just like Mark Dayton has done.

Alan L. Maki


Highlights from the article below:

From Nicole Beaulieu:

Beaulieu said she sees certain needs of American Indians that aren’t being addressed by current politicians or tribal leaders. Coming from a “struggling family” of seven, she said she took a part-time job to help pay the bills.

“There are many needs that need to be met, and that is one reason I want to be your representative,” she said.



From Greg Paquin:

“Our people are … left out of it,” he said, adding that there is no interest in enforcing affirmative action laws. “We have tribal leaders today, but I never see them get out there and say, ‘Hey, Minnesota. Hey, Mr. Persell, Ms. Olson — we want jobs for our people, and not just behind the fence. When a legislator gets a vote from an Indian behind the fence, he thinks it’s a sovereign nation and it’s the tribal government’s responsibility to provide economic development.

“No,” he continued. “When they take a vote from an Indian on a reservation, they owe us all to be treated equally and that’s what this is about – equality.”

Olson, Persell, Bye endorsed by Senate 4 DFL

Published March 21 2010 Bemidji Pioneer

http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/event/article/id/100017081/group/News/

Olson, Persell, Bye endorsed by Senate 4 DFL

WALKER — Two incumbents and a second-time candidate were endorsed here Saturday morning by Senate District 4 Democrats.

By: Brad Swenson, Bemidji Pioneer



WALKER — Two incumbents and a second-time candidate were endorsed here Saturday morning by Senate District 4 Democrats.

Sen. Mary Olson, DFL-Bemidji, and Rep. John Persell, DFL-Bemidji, were both overwhelming endorsed for second terms, despite being challenged on American Indian issues.

Meg Bye of rural Pequot Lakes was unopposed for endorsement for a second run against Rep. Larry Howes, R-Walker, who will be seeking his seventh term for House 4B.

Olson was challenged by Greg Paquin of Bemidji, a Red Lake Band member, who said both Olson and Persell aren’t doing enough to ensure that American Indian tradesmen get jobs. Olson, however, won the endorsement with a 68-3 vote of Senate 4 delegates.

Nicole Beaulieu of Bemidji, a Leech Lake Band member, sought to wrest the House 4A endorsement from Persell, saying it’s time for American Indians to become politically active and take legislative seats to represent native communities. Persell won the endorsement for a second term with a 42-4 vote of 4A delegates.

“I think we saw democracy in action, as we do at the Capitol when people come down with strong views, wanting to make sure their voices are heard,” Olson said after the endorsements.

“That’s something we encourage in the DFL, and we encourage in democracy,” she said. “And I think we heard some concerns raised that are valid concerns, and I think that’s always a good thing for the process.”

Neither Paquin nor Beaulieu said if they would challenge the endorsements in the Aug. 10 DFL primary.
Bye was unopposed for endorsement, and was unanimously endorsed by 25 House 4B delegates at the convention held in the Walker-Akeley-Hackensack High School.

“This is going to be a very, very important election,” said Olson, who will be seeking a two-year term because of pending reapportionment. “This is really going to make a difference and an opportunity for Minnesota to decide whether we affirm our traditional values, whether we affirm three separate branches of government acting as three separate branches of government, whether we affirm the importance that we place on having equal opportunity for all of our citizens, whether they’re native American citizens, whether they’re rural Minnesota citizens, or whomever they may be.”

Olson also includes having equal access to a quality education across the state, not just in property-wealthy areas of the suburban metro area; equality in funding for health care so all Minnesotans have access to quality and affordable health care; and whether to deregulate everything and let consumers fend for themselves.

“All of these issues are going to be on the ballot in Minnesota this year,” Olson said. “Which direction we go on those issues is going to depend on how involved we get in this process.”

Persell, seeking his second term, said the rest of this session will be tough and one where not much is expected to get done with a Republican governor who won’t raise taxes. The office is open on the November ballot, as Gov. Tim Pawlenty isn’t seeking a third term.

“Things are very trying down there,” Persell said of the session in St. Paul. “The anger … is on the surface. If you read the papers, it probably came out of me a couple of times. I try very hard not to show my anger.”

The Bemidji Democrat was referring to remarks he made at a town hall meeting that he had looked into how to impeach Pawlenty, and also for those who think the business climate is better in South Dakota, he’d pay them $10 toward a ticket to that state.

“But these are really tough times,” he said. “God, I wish we had a veto-proof majority. I’m not going to say some of the things that are on the tip of my tongue about that, but I did talk to some of my colleagues the other day and said in all seriousness I was going to get a peach tree and plant it outside the governor’s office.

“I welcome this endorsement, and I trust that you will find it in your hearts to send me back,” he added. “I’m excited to go back again; I hope I’m fortunate to go back in 2011 and sit in the House of Representatives with a Democrat governor, a majority in each of the houses … so we can start to rebuild Minnesota.”

The rest of the session won’t be pretty, Persell said. “Those who really need help out here are hurting, and we know that, but we can’t come up with any new revenue with the governor, the way it is right now. We’re just going to have to commit ourselves … to rebuilding Minnesota, getting education back to the 15 to 20 pupils range (in the classroom) instead of 30-plus.”

Beaulieu said she sees certain needs of American Indians that aren’t being addressed by current politicians or tribal leaders. Coming from a “struggling family” of seven, she said she took a part-time job to help pay the bills.

“There are many needs that need to be met, and that is one reason I want to be your representative,” she said. “I want to commend John Persell for his dedication … I see some of the things he does for my people, although being a native American myself and growing up with these struggles and things that are not met in this community.”

A main reason to campaign, Beaulieu said, is to break the influence of gangs in Cass Lake and Bemidji. “The gang culture in our communities is so strong, and is one of the many struggles we deal with on the reservation.”

Beaulieu says she wants change for her people. “I think it’s about time that a native American gets involved in this political process — it’s long overdue.”

Olson and Persell have done wonderful things for the native people, Beaulieu said, “but they are not native. I don’t know what it’s like to be a non-native, but I’m sure it’s much easier than being a native American.”

Beaulieu said it was not her goal to just represent American Indians but to represent Democrats.
The political process is open to everybody, said Paquin, who sought the Senate 4 endorsement. But not much has changed for American Indian communities, he added.

Last year, he formed a native American labor union to try to increase job opportunities, but said he found a brick wall with the Bemidji Regional Event Center and U.S. Pipeline working the Enbridge pipeline as contractors wouldn’t hire his referrals. In another case, there was a refusal to recognize Paquin’s union.

“Our people are … left out of it,” he said, adding that there is no interest in enforcing affirmative action laws. “We have tribal leaders today, but I never see them get out there and say, ‘Hey, Minnesota. Hey, Mr. Persell, Ms. Olson — we want jobs for our people, and not just behind the fence. When a legislator gets a vote from an Indian behind the fence, he thinks it’s a sovereign nation and it’s the tribal government’s responsibility to provide economic development.

“No,” he continued. “When they take a vote from an Indian on a reservation, they owe us all to be treated equally and that’s what this is about – equality.”

He said that despite a billion-dollar American Indian casino industry in Minnesota, taxpayers still have to pay huge sums for welfare programs to American Indians. “Something’s wrong,” Paquin said.

One of Olson’s seconders was Eugene “Ribs” Whitebird, a Leech Lake Tribal Council member, who laid out numerous bills that Olson carried for Indian people, and that she is a member of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council.

Harold “Skip” Finn, a former state senator and a Leech Lake Band member, seconded Persell’s nomination. Finn said Persell “has demonstrated an unwavered commitment to those less powerful, to those who have no other voice in the process — the children, the elderly and the poor.”

Working his career with American Indian tribes in environmental consulting, Persell has “also demonstrated an unwavering allegiance to the goal of one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” Finn said.

Bye, unopposed for endorsement for 4B, said more people than ever have no access to health care. More and more of Minnesota’s lakes and streams have been listed as impaired. And the state’s budget continues to spiral.

“Anger and disappointment is widespread among us,” said the former Duluth City Council member who retired to rural Pequot Lakes. ‘It has brought out the worst in many of us., as we throw verbal fire bombs at one another.”

It’s time for Minnesotans to get back into the game and do better, she said. “We still care; you still care. We still care about the state of our state and our nation. We still care about the future of our children and their children.”

Minnesotans still care to provide an education system with access to all and health care system with affordable access to all, she said.

“Democrats do not believe that transferring more wealth to the already wealthy is the way toward a healthy economy,” Bye said. “The experiences of the last two years has proven us right.”