Leave a twig for the birds to perch on... don't let the capitalists do your thinking for you... if you are in the neighborhood, stop on in; the coffee is always hot and the cookie jar is full... looking forward to the day when the real decisions in America are made by working class families gathered around the kitchen table... new postings daily...Yours in the struggle...Alan L. Maki
Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets
Please note I have a new phone number...
512-517-2708
Alan Maki
Doing research at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas
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"
I am sure most people will not believe what I am about to write about the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party 7th Congressional District Nominating Convention.
One almost would have had to have been present at the Best Western Motel's "Bigwood Event Center" in Fergus Falls, Minnesota on Saturday, April 10, 2010 from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. to understand just how racist, rotten and corrupt the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party has become since 1948... but, for anyone in attendance at this so-called nominating convention the stench of the anti-democratic and racist corruption will fill their nostrils for years to come... for anyone who sees politics as a way to achieve better lives and livelihoods this 7th Congressional DFL Nominating Convention is sure to be the beginning of the end of their association, affiliation and even voting for DFL candidates.
A "nominating convention" is supposed to be just what the word implies; delegates coming together to "nominate" candidates... in this case, a "convention" to "nominate" a "candidate for the United States Congress" from the "Seventh Congressional District" from the "Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party."
For many years, Collin Peterson has been the Congressman from the 7th District.
Other 7th District Nominating Conventions have been very corrupt and anti-democratic; like the one where the Vice-president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO--- Mark Froemke--- who was registered to vote in Grand Forks, North Dakota actually "nominated" Collin Peterson to run because Minnesotans had already been thoroughly fed up with Peterson who it is well-known, is a Republican who chooses to run on the MNDFL ticket even though he does not support any part of the DFL's "Action Agenda."
Collin Peterson is a vile racist who is opposed to affirmative action when it comes to people of color and he is equally bigoted when it comes to the rights of women and the handicapped.
Peterson has been a gung-ho supporter of these dirty wars under both Bush and Obama.
Amy "Republican Lite" Klobuchar thinks Collin Peterson is the cat's meow--- better than sliced bread. For Klobuchar, Peterson's thoroughly reactionary positions are a sign of "independence," which she claims the people of the 7th Congressional District want--- which would lead any thinking person to conclude, if Klobuchar is correct, that 7th District voters have no use for the MNDFL... and, this just might be the case more than Amy "Republican Lite" Klobuchar and the DFL hierarchy understand--- not only for the 7th Congressional District; but, for most of Minnesota--- so, why would anyone even bother to vote for the DFL unless they support racism and anti-labor corruption?
Ostensibly the 7th Congressional District Nominating Convention was run according to Robert's Rules of Order. But, isn't the purpose of Robert's Rules of Order supposed to be to assure the most democratic process possible and open a nominating convention up for greatest participation of all in order to assure the protection of the democratic process? Of course, anyone with the least little respect for democracy understands that Robert's Rules of Order is not a process that is intended to be perverted to thwart and stymie democracy--- yet, at the 7th Congressional District Nominating Convention this was precisely the way Robert's Rules of Order was used--- or, more properly abused--- to prevent the democratic participation in the political process... nothing really new to the MNDFL; but, for the first time displayed so publicly as hundreds of racists and bigots of every stripe and persuasion who managed to get themselves elected as delegates through a similar corrupt process participated in a completely rigged convention that didn't even have a pretense of being democratic.
Robert's Rules of Order was abused in the most undemocratic fashion to allow and enable Collin Peterson to be nominated be racists and bigots equal to himself as a sea of white faces raised their delegate cards in approval knowing a number of people had come to the convention to nominate alternative candidates--- one of whom was a Native American Indian and an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Reservation.
Brian Melendez, the Zionist warmonger, stood at the sidelines providing hand signals to Paul Wright the racist Chair of the MNDFL 7trh Congressional District--- Wright is known for his undemocratic behavior as is Melendez, who recently tried to derail precinct caucus resolutions in support of affirmative action and for divesting from the murderous Israeli killing machine.
Saturday Wright displayed his racist arrogance as he tolerated a racist white man to step up to the microphone as Native American Indian, Greg Paquin, was about to speak. Wright admonished Paquin that the Convention "will get to your issue."
The racist who so disgracefully stepped in front of Paquin who was next in line to speak; was then allowed to bring forward the use of Robert's Rules of Order for the purpose of closing all nominations for the 7th Congressional District seat before any nominations had even been called for! Thus creating a nominating convention where only one nomination was allowed even though it was widely known there were other nominations to come in addition to Peterson--- specifically the nomination of Curtis Buckanaga. I have the photos of the vote on this most disgraceful motion commenced under Robert's Rules of Order... the racist Chair of the Rules Committee just shrugged the entire thing off as one group of people having a better grasp of how to use Robert's Rules of Order than others.
But, has it ever been the intent of Robert's Rules of Order to be used to stifle democracy or prevent the nomination of all but one candidate at a "Nominating Convention?" Of course not. But, to a Zionist supporter of the Israeli killing machine like Brian Melendez who finds it completely appropriate to mistreat Palestinian people in the exact same racist manner as Native American Indians have been mistreated through centuries of racist abuse including most recently being denied jobs at the Bemidji Regional Event Center where United States Congressman Collin Peterson and his racist coterie of DFL'ers including Belrami County DFL Chair Nelson and his racist colleagues like Mike Simkins, John McCarthy, Rita Albrecht, Brita Sailer, Mary Olson, John Persell who worked in collusion to deny jobs to Native American Indians--- these are the very same people who perverted Robert's Rules of Order to assure ten-term Congressman with a racist, anti-labor, pro-corporate agenda would once again be nominated without any discussion of his thoroughly reactionary policies that United States Senator Amy "Republican Lite" Klobuchar calls "independent;" about as "independent" as the racist anti-labor Tea Baggers trying to similarly smother democracy.
In fact, the greater part of the delegates to the 7th Congressional District Nominating Convention had the exact same racist and anti-democratic attitudes and behaviors as Tea Baggers... is it any wonder the racist, fascist Tea Baggers support Collin Peterson?
Fergus Falls is as much the burial grounds for democracy as Minnesota has been a burial grounds for generations of Native American Indians targeted for centuries of a racist campaign of genocide and it is no coincidence that these disgusting racists who dominated the 7th District DFL Nominating Convention were active participants in this ugly dirty campaign of genocide part of which is denying Native American Indians the right of representation in Minnesota's State House and among its Congressional delegation--- every DFL politician and voter should be hanging their heads in shame after sitting in silence with what has taken place is Fergus Falls, Minnesota this past Saturday.
Fergus Falls, Minnesota... the burial grounds for democracy.
I would note that the Management of the Best Western Motel... well known for its own racist hiring practices, was engaged in supporting Brian Melendez and Paul Wright and the majority of the white racist delegates who had assembled for the 7th Congressional District Nominating Convention where they once again saddle voters with the choice of "Republican heavy" Peterson versus the nominee of the Republican Party who is, like Amy Klobuchar, "Republican Lite."
My answer would be: Whenever the Democrats no longer serve their purpose and they cannot win anything through the Democratic Party.
When should people break away from the Democratic Party? How do we know when to break away from the Democrats?
Look, let's be frank; politics for working people is not about this or that candidate winning as if scoring points in a basketball game.
For working people, politics is about livelihoods and rights.
We, as working people, should never fall for this load of donkey dung that we must support the candidates nominated in this corrupt political process known as "nominating conventions;" nor should we be bound by who wins elections because they buy their way or someone like the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association buys their way.
Each and everyone of our votes is very precious because it is a key to a better life, for peace, for social and economic justice and we should protect our votes--- and ourselves--- by casting our votes only for candidates who will, once elected, struggle alongside of us as we struggle in our communities and places of employment for what is right.
What sense does it make for us to just hand over our votes to candidates who tell us one thing in order to get elected then turn around and ignore us or vote against our interests once elected.
We need to et somethng straight; we don't OWE any political party or any politician anything--- they are supposed to work for us not the other way around.
For working people, it makes no sense not to use the Democratic Party to the extent possible to avance our agenda for peace, healthcare, jobs, justice and an end to racism and discrimination in all its ugly forms.
On the other hand, it makes no sense for anyone to remain in the Democratic Party once they can no longer accomplish their objectives.
But, beginning to work outside of the Democratic Party should not translate into not working with our fellow workers who don't yet see the need to leave the Democratic Party because at the grassroots level of people who continue to vote for Democrats there are many people who understand it when people need to move outside of the Democratic Party to achieve their goals and objectives--- with such people we should work in alliance towards our goals and objectives.
We are already seeing many people either rejecting the warmongering, corruption and racism of the Democratic Party be leaving it or remaining to struggle inside within the frame-work.
As working people, I think we need to remain flexible enough that we support ANY initiatives inside or outside of the Democratic Party which are focussed on making life better for people.
As working people, we should appreciate struggles of others working towards our common objectives and not buy into this phony concept that we need to vote for Democrats because otherwise Republicans are going to win.
If Republicans win it is not because people are moving outside of the Democratic Party and drawing votes away from the Democrats--- the Democrats have no one to blame but themselves because the corporate, corrupt elements who manipulate and control the Democratic Party are not being responsive to the needs and desires of most of the American people who want nothing more than peace, good healthcare through some kind of public healthcare program, jobs at real living wages with everyone assured the right to access to jobs through the enforcement of affirmative action programs.
The Democrats have betrayed the American voters who went to the polls in 2008 and voted in a very solid majority that they wanted peace--- NO MORE WARS.
The Americam people don't want these dirty wars because they don't want death and suffering delivered upon other peoples in foreign countries in their name and as a people we understand that every single dime spent on this death and destruction robs us of a decent quality of life here at home; depriving us of healthcare, jobs, quality public education, decent housing, school lunch programs and this insanity of militarism is blocking our way in eliminating the scourge of poverty and the misery it entails.
I would encourage anyone and everyone to become engaged in some way in exploring politics outside of the Democratic Party--- let's just call it a new kind of politics of the people who aspire to a better world; not just in fancy sounding words aimed at getting elected and then doing the opposite; but in creating new kinds of people's politicians who will advance pro-people, rather than pro-corporate, anti-people, agendas.
It truly is a crime against democracy, a racist crime at that, that not one single Native American Indian is sitting in the Minnesota State Legislature because the same old dirty corrupt nominating process that politicians like former United States Senator Mark Dayton has complained about has been used for over 150 years to prevent the original inhabitants of this continent from having a right to participate in what is hypocritically called "the democratic process."
One must ask the question: What kind of dirty and corrupt hypocrites would have the unmitigated gall to do as DFL State Senator Mary Olson has done while backed to the hilt by John McCarthy and the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association with all the money she needs, to then, upon the nominating process that racists like herslf and her friends like John McCarthy, the racist Bemidji City Planner who planned Native American Indians right out of the jobs to which they are entitled by law, Rita Albrecht and long-time DFL wheeler-dealer Michael Meuers... after knowing the manipulation, finagling and shenanigans that take place largely with her own doing... to then announce "the democratic process has worked."
For a worthless, racist politician like DFL State Senator Mary Olson, there is perhaps no difference between "Democratic process" and "democratic process;" however, any halfway intelligent person who takes the time to see just how the nominating process took place for Minnesota State Senate District 4 can see that the process is anything but "democratic."
Tomorrow will see the "Democratic process" at work once again as the sugar beat industry along with the union "leaders" the industry has bought off like Mark Froemke who has forced less-than-living-wage contracts down workers' throats and left workers in the sugar beat refineries not much better off than what workers were subjected to over 100 years ago and enter into coalition with the sugar beat industry and the corrupt union bosses teaming up with the likes of JohnMcCarthy the racist rich white man who heads up the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association--- once again, Collin Peterson, who admits he is more conservative than his Republican opponents will, again, be seeking the DFL nomination for 7th Congressional District Congressman. Of course, the union bosses from the building and construction trades who have lamented affirmative action for decades will be supporting Peterson, as will the representatives of the teacher unions whose pension funds controlled by Las Vegas "investors" and those like the charming John Edwards whose campaign against poverty ended when he was caught with his pants down, are now the primary investors of funds building casinos in the Indian Gaming Industry.
In the labor movement we have a name for these kinds of sweet little deals--- "sweetheart agreements."
And that is what the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party has become--- nothing but an unbroken chain of "sweetheart deals" between corrupt politicians and those who will hand them the most money while wars and poverty rage on with the needs, problems and concerns of the people nothing more than a footnote needed to be mentioned in order to trick people into voting for them one more time.
Anyone can look to see the players who will dominate the nominating process for the 7th Congressional seat in Congress--- aren't these all the same players who rigged the Roseau County DFL Convention? The same players who rigged the nominating process in Beltrami County? Just take a look... it is one more rigged nominating process--- is it any wonder that former State Senator Mark Dayton has bolted from this corrupt and rigged process in his attempt to become governor being the one and only candidate proclaiming his allegiance to affirmative action--- the law of the land?
Just imagine, here are these "nominating conventions" taking place where the nominees are no better than the racist George Wallace yet these same racist candidates are receiving the money from the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association.
How is DFL State Senator Mary Olson any better that any Republican who states they do not believe in affirmative action?
In fact, George Bush was politically and ideologically opposed to affirmative action but even this neanderthal ENFORCED affirmative action... while at present, the Democrats refuse tio enforce affirmative action or demand that it be enforced--- why no enforcement of affirmative action in Minnesota? Because Brian Melendez the racist warmonger who heads up the Minnesota DFL and his elite little "Summit Hill Club" are taking the votes of African-Americans, Hispanics and Native American Indians, women and the handicapped for granted as they seek out the racist suburban, profressional, upper middle class, well-heeled and wealthy votes which bring in not only votes but tons of money to the MN DFL.
Politics--- Democratic Party politics is all about big money; no different from the Republicans... democratic politics, the politics of the people is a completely different matter--- this is a politics and economics of livelihood. There really is a big and fundamental difference. More and more people will be seeking the democratic politics outside of the Democratic Party as liberals and leftists come together in a progressive coalition seeking change. Many of these progressive coalitions will result in new political parties which should find a way to work together with the many people who will be running as independents.
At every opportunity, liberals, progressives and those on the left should be challenging what everyone knows is "the good old boys club."
Racism, bigotry, war, poverty, healthcare for profit and injustice---
Or, peace, equality, a decent standard of living for all, healthcare for people not-for-profit and working towards an end to injustices...
We really do have a choice... that choice is to accept what racist, warmongering, pro-corporate and corrupt politicians like John Persell, Brita Sailer and Collin Peterson toss our way like a few meatless bones they might be generous to toss out to a barking dog who wouldn't know enough to look a gift horse in the mouth--- or standing up and fighting back instead of following along after these Dumb Donkeys fighting each other for what the sparrows leave behind.
I'll re-publish this same blog posting the evening before the State DFL Convention takes place in Duluth on April 23,24, 25... I don't know why they don't hold this Convention on April Fool's Day.
With the way the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party has played people for fools these past two years one would think delegates to the state convention would have to walk through a gauntlet of peace and social activists at the Convention Center in Duluth.
Something to think about around the dinner table tonight.
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;" notPrecinct Night in Minnesota.
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?
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.
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, 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.
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
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/
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
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:
An end to these dirty wars.
Real healthcare reform heading us towards a national public healthcare system.
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.
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.
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
A number of people have asked me to expand my thoughts about "Letters to the Editor" and how to use them more effectively... do you have additional ideas?
Write, and write often.
Be sure to include your name, address and phone number where you can be reached for verification that you wrote the letter.
If one newspaper won't publish your letter send it on to the next newspaper.
At a recent forum in Thief River Falls, Minnesota where I was on a panel discussing Minnesota's financial woes, I was asked what I would do if I was governor.
This is a fair question.
This was my answer:
Please keep in mind as I proceed with my thoughts that there is a "fare" and a "fair." One is spelled "f-a-r-e" and means something completely different from "fair" spelled "f-a-i-r."
If I were elected governor of Minnesota the very first reforms I would implement to solve the state's budget problems would be:
1. A hefty tax on the rich like Mark Dayton promised as he campaigned for election but reneged on once elected.
2. Substantially increase the taconite tax; the mining companies are robbing us blind leaving us with poverty and pits filled with pollution while they abscond with the profits. This has to end.
3. Place a really hefty tax on the forestry industry in the form of stumpage fees; cut down any tree and you pay what the tree is really worth.
4. I would place toll booths at the entrances to each and every casino in Minnesota charging the exact same fee Minnesotans are charged to enter our State Parks. Anyone who can afford to gamble can afford such a fee. I would also initiate a "gambling license" on all gamblers. Just like a fishing license
Like most of you, I am fed up with this "circus in the Cities." Democrats and Republicans don't know the difference between the words "f-a-r-e" and "f-a-i-r;" we should give them all a dictionary not our votes.
I think most Minnesotans would agree with these four solutions. So, what kind of democracy do we have where politicians won't do what people want and expect?
It's just like the priorities at the national level... like they say in the Navy--- it's a SNAFU. If you don't know what a S-N-A-F-U stands for, look it up in the Urban Dictionary on your computer when you get home.
If the United States government would stop spending our tax dollars on this insane militarism and all these dirty imperialist wars we would have the money to put people to work solving the problems of the people.
I recently read this little book by former Democratic Vice-president under FDR, Henry Wallace, "Sixty Million Jobs." I would encourage everyone to read this book because it was in 1945 when this book was published to support the Full Employment Act of 1945 when Democrats and Republicans--- at Wall Street's insistence--- decided not to take Henry Wallace's advice provided in this book that our country began going way off track.
Henry Wallace pointed out that Peace will put everyone to work which will solve just about every major problem we have in this country.
Who gave their consent to make this a "two-party system" where only one class gets representation?
How capitalism works...
How capitalism works explained from a worker's perspective...
Abba Ramos, a veteran organizer in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union:
"If they can get a trained monkey to unload that boxcar tomorrow morning, rest assured, they'll have them over there and they'll have some bananas for lunch, and you'll be out on the street looking for work. Simple as that. You've got to remember, they follow only one rule of economic law, and that's that maximum production-minimum cost yields the greatest amount of profit. They don't deviate from that."
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A new banner to promote my blog
My computer; a billboard for peace that travels with me
Howard managed a nice big fake smile after I asked him: As you travel around the country are you asking people how Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy is working out for them?
Keep True, a life in politics by Howard Pawley
A most important book for progressives
Check out what others are saying about "Keep True"
* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.
* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.
* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.
* WPA - three million new jobs.
* CCC - two million new jobs.
* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.
* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.
* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage
* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.
* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.
* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.
* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.
* Wall Street is our enemy.
Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.
Search This Blog
Follow and support the important working class' victory at the polls in Canada
Canadian workers and their New Democratic Party are blazing the path of independence from the big-business controlled political parties. Manitoba will be having elections in the fall. Workers here in the United States should be paying attention to Canadian politics as there is a lot to learn. Ask your union to link its websites to the Canadian Labour Congress, New Democratic Party and Manitoba NDP.
Also, I would encourage you to paste this into your own personal blogs, web sites and FaceBook and other social netwoking sites.
I have been involved in the peace, labor, civil rights, and environmental movements for over 30 years, and I am a socialist. I would encourage everyone to get involved in promoting the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which came into existence on December 10, 1948; we should strive to use the yearly anniversary of this document to popularize it. We need to struggle to create a more progressive, socially just society where all working people receive real living wages and have a voice at work, and in their communities. I have worked with casino workers across Minnesota who are trying to organize a union. I have worked with people in northern Minnesota struggling to save the Big Bog, the primary freshwater aquifer--- this bog is being mined for peat. In my spare time during the spring and fall you can find me fly fishing on the Dark River, a pristine designated trout stream;in the winter ice fishing on Lake-of-the-Woods.
I look forward to hearing from you. Nothing human is alien to me.
Any lessons from this picture for liberals, progressives and leftists today?
My dog Fred...
My dog Fred understands the way the system works better than labor "leaders" like Leo Gerard or Richard Trumka... at least my dog knows to keep barking UNTIL he gets his bone.
Vote for Mark Dayton to "tax the rich" and enforce affirmative action
Unfortunately, Mark Dayton as Governor has renegged on both of these promises even though he has a Democratic super-majority here in Minnesota. So much for being able to trust the Democrats.
General McCrystal... please don't leave me alone like a Rolling Stone with no way home...
Good articles to read about the healthcare legislation
Barack Obama and the greedy Wall Street pigs he represents
A note from Governor Pawlenty
"Alan, ...active and thoughtful citizens like you make Minnesota a great state in which to live."
This blog is proud to be a part of the ever growing and expanding People Before Profit network.
Question...
Could Minnesota's debt be eliminated by modestly taxing the Indian Gaming Industry in Minnesota?
If, so, why haven't any of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party candidates for governor brought this idea forward as part of their campaigns?
Other businesses and industries are faced with a myriad of taxes... shouldn't there be a level playing field in taxation?
Wouldn't such a tax on gaming revenues amounting to tens of billions of dollars provide working people and small business owners and the middle class with a little much needed tax relief?
Suggestion:
Ask this question at a "meet the candidates forum;" no one else will ask this question if you don't.
Comment:
We have toll booths at the entrances to all Minnesota State Parks; put up toll booths on the public roads going into all casinos--- budget problems solved.
Real health care reform creates jobs
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Our organization is distributing this in union circles and beyond in
preparation for the AFL-CIO's National Convention in September:
Sisters and Brothers, ...
Due to recent budget cuts and the cost of electricity, gas and oil, as well as current market conditions and the continued decline of the economy, The Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off.
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Two views. Which way for organized labor and the working class.
Listen to this. Richard Trumka's main speech to the AFL-CIO's National
Convention: http://ww...
The United States has 800 military bases on foreign soil...What we need--- instead--- is 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States where people can universally access, for free, all their health care needs from pre-natal care, to general health care to eye, dental and mental care right through to burial.
Instead of moving in this progressive direction, President Barack Obama and the United States Congress are moving in a most reactionary direction towards establishing military bases in outer space as they seek to insure the profits of both the merchants of death and destruction and the profit-driven health care industries... talk about skewed priorities and your wacky ideas which will execerbate the problems surrounding the failing capitalist economy, and ideas devoid of common sense.
In addition to these 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil, Barack Obama and the United States Congress continue funding--- with our tax-dollars--- the Israeli killing machine to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. Where is the "change?"
This is the change Americans want, and the change we need:
A network of 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States would create over four-million good-paying, decent jobs--- talk about your "economic stimulus" package!
We would be redistributing the wealth as we are planting the seeds of socialism while helping to eradicate poverty by keeping people healthy and getting them well when sick.
Think about this kind of solution in relation to what Barack Obama, the U.S. Congress and the Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers are offering the American people, and the peoples of the world... just what is the reason for bailing out the banks and AIG and maintaining more than 800 expensive U.S. military bases of foreign soil?
The Mt. Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada offers us a glimpse at what militarization and wars continue to rob us of.
The problems created by Wall Street will not be solved as long as the military-financial-industrial complex is allowed to squander human and natural resources on militarism and wars... we might just as well be dumping these resources out into the ocean... at least no one would die in wars.
These merchants of death and destruction must be stopped if humanity is to survive in a livable world.
The time has come to talk about working class Marxist politics and the economics of livelihood... capitalism has failed humanity miserably and left us a real mess to clean up.
Capitalism is on the skids to oblivion and unless we take a "left turn" we will continue down this road to perdition.
Something for working people to think about and discuss around the dinner table... the capitalist sooth-Sayers certainly are not going to broach such solutions to the problems of working people as they hide behind the skirt of Rosy Scenario as this global capitalist economic depression intensifies while wars rage on.
The times and conditions call for "building a new era of justice and peace;" this is one step in that direction; this is the change the American people voted for.
Alan L. Maki
Founder,
Frank Marshall Davis Roundtable for Change
A gift returned...
Dear Mr. Ambassador,
Thank you for the 3 bottles of wine that you sent me as season’s greetings. I wish to you, your family and everybody in the Embassy a happy new year. Good health and progress to you all.
Unhappily, I noticed that the wine you have sent me has been produced in the Golan Heights. I have been taught since I was very young not to steal and not to accept products of theft. So I cannot possibly accept this gift and I must return it back to you.
As you know, your country occupies illegally the Golan Heights which belongs to Syria, according to the International Law and numerous decisions of the International Community.
I take the opportunity to express my hope that Israel will find security within its internationally recognized borders and the terrorist activities against Israel territory by Hamas or anybody else will be contained and made impossible, but I also hope that your government will cease practicing the policy of collective punishment which was applied on a mass scale by Hitler and his armies.
Actions such as those of these days of the Israel military in Gaza remind the Greek people of holocausts such as in Kalavrita or Doxato or Distomo and certainly in the ghetto of Warsaw.
With these thoughts allow me to express to you my best wishes for you, the Israeli people and all the people of our region of the world.
Athens, 30/12/2008
Theodoros Pangalos, Member of Parliament (Greece)
Auto workers fight for union recognition 1930's
This demonstration was organized by the Trade Union Unity League under the leadership of Phil Raymond who was an organizer of the auto workers
Coleman Young... a politician who brought forward real solutions to the problems of working people
Union organizer, civil rights activist, peace activist, working class politician, victim of "red squads" & McCarthyite political repression
Coleman Young testifies before House Un-American Activities Committee
1952: Coleman Young, center, testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee. A future House member, George Crockett Jr., right, accompanied him.
A great YouTube video from Virginia Beach... Karl Rove on Trial
Everybody knows the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain lied.... Everybody knows the plague is coming. Everybody knows it’s moving fast. Everybody knows ...
— Leonard Cohen
Historic victory
Communist Elected President of Cyprus
AKEL anti-fascist, anti-imperialist elected
Congratulations to AKEL and Dimitris Christofias.... GC of AKEL and President of the House of Representatives comrade Dimitris Christofias and GC of KKE (Communist Party Of Greece) comrade Aleca Papariga at the rally against the war in Iraq a few hundred meters towards the USA Embassy in Nicosia
Michigan poet--- The poetry of Ann Holdreith merges the mystical with the everyday. A chapter of her work is included in "Beyond the Lines", an anthology of Michigan authors published by Plainview Press. Her publishing credits also include: Wayne State University, Gravity Presses, Dixie Phoenix, Poetry Motel, Free Fall, Snakeskin, Gravity Webzine, Stirring (Best Love Poems), Aether, Friction Magazine and a Pushcart Prize nomination. Ann has taught for the Detroit Writer's Voice and is a Magna Cum Laude graduate in Fine Art and Literature from the University of Detroit. She has featured at the Michigan Opera Theatre, The Detroit Festival for the Arts and Spring Fed Arts of Detroit. Her riveting performance style synthesizes her background as an actress, vocalist, dancer and performance artist. Ann has been teaching her Fire Seed workshop, designed to free the authentic self, since 1987. Her work is dedicated to the full expression and elevation of the human spirit.
Autumn Sky
By: Ann Holdreith
On the ride home from Toledo, from a worn out school resurrected for good honest men, for men with kids and grandkids, guys who eat sugar doughnuts and wink while they hammer-out fenders and hurl the carcasses of metal beasts, against autumn’s haunted sky, I wonder if they remember the grip of thighs around engine-less muscle and sweat, ragged dirty hair assaulting the wind, buttocks and back pounding with hooves that know exactly where they belong on this earth.
On the way from Toledo, a pulsing cloud of blackbirds hurls its wings against the dying blue; dark umbrellas opening to summer’s last ride.
Carlton, Minnesota
Help Stop Sulfide Mining in Michigan's Upper Peninsula... urgent action needed
Democratic majority in the Michigan House abandons casino workers...
Wednesday, August 8, 2007--- Lansing, Michigan. By a shameful vote of 63 to 41... not a single Michigan Legislator--- with the exception of one lone Republican--- would take a stand in defense of the rights of casino workers to be employed in a workplace free of second-hand smoke. Not one single Michigan Legislator would take a stand for casino workers being paid real living wages protected by state and federal labor laws along with the right to organize for collective bargaining. House Democratic Floor Leader Steve Tobacman and Democratic Representative Barbara Farrah did this dirty work for the Fertitta Family and the Kansas City mob which will "skim" the profits from the Gun Lake Casino like they have done in all the other casinos managed by the Fertitta Family. The United Auto Workers union leadership, fearing estrangement and being shunned by the Democratic Party, dropped its feeble opposition to this legislation giving a hint as to how they intend to abandon autoworkers in the present contract negotiations with the "Big Three."
Minnesotans give Bush a piece of their mind...
Lake Michigan
Northern shore in the Upper Peninsula
Michigan: Gun Lake Casino venture... workers' rights and health are the issues
Communist singers and songwriters in the struggle for peace and socialism
This Land Is Your Land
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie, one of America's outstanding working class Communists
Chorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land From California, to the New York Island From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters This land was made for you and me
As I was walking a ribbon of highway I saw above me an endless skyway I saw below me a golden valley This land was made for you and me
Chorus
I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts And all around me a voice was sounding This land was made for you and me
Chorus
The sun comes shining as I was strolling The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling The fog was lifting a voice come chanting This land was made for you and me
Chorus
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there And that sign said - no tress passin' But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin! Now that side was made for you and me!
Chorus
In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple Near the relief office - I see my people And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin' If this land's still made for you and me.
Mitch Berg interviews Alan Maki, union organizer and socialist.
Length: 00:48:55
AM 1280 The Patriot; Right-wing talk radio with Mitch Berg
Maki calls for:
* health care not warfare
* smoke-free casinos to protect worker health
Super Profits and Crises; Modern U.S. Capitalism by Victor Perlo
This is a must read book for anyone wanting to fully understand the present economic crisis.
Victor Perlo was a noted researcher and economist in the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Truman Administrations.
Perlo has made economics easy to understand for everyone.
Did anyone notice former President Jimmy Carter did not address the Democratic National Convention?
Former President Jimmy Carter speaks about his controversial book 'Palestine Peace Not Apartheid' at Jewish-founded Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts January 23, 2007. [Reuters]
Owl on cold winter day
near Jacobson, Minnesota
Minnesotans give United States Senator Norm Coleman a piece of their mind about the Iraq War...
The protest was organized by the Twin Cities Peace Campaign--Focus on Iraq and WAMM (Women Against Military Madness)
As these Minnesotans protested outside Coleman's office...
Others went inside to write their statements calling for an end to this dirty war in Iraq
These protests at Coleman's local office will continue as long as he continues to support the war
Among the concerned citizens opposed to the war in Iraq were members of many church groups, the Iraq Peace Action Coalition, Veterans for Peace, the Minneapolis Club of the Communist Party USA and members of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, Military Families Speak Out... the diversity of the demonstrators reflected a broad cross-section of the Minnesota public.
He could get it fixed on Wall St. create real jobs on Main St. and select a better crew, He'd end blank checks to Israel and bring some peace to that hell -- if he only had a clue
He could make the Congress line up if he pressed them all to sign on but instead he tries to woo the right-wing crooks who hate him and will still block and berate him -- if he only had a clue
He could deal with all the Repugs imprisoning the worst thugs and save the constitution too but instead he will continue their imperialist venue, -- if he only had a clue
He could close down all our gulags and end so-called "renditions" but this he will not do-- He could bring the world together and address the changing weather -- if he only had a clue
posted by Jaded Prole
Destroying a people, their homeland, their right to survive...
I offer guided tours of Northern Minnesota that include visits to historic Mesaba Co-op Park, historic buildings and cemetaries on the Iron Range, the Wellstone Memorial, "Mine View," United States Steel's Minntac operation, the Big Bog, Red Lake.
A great opportunity for photographers.
Individual, family, small or large groups. Meals and overnight accomodations can be arranged.
Let's really explore Northern Minnesota.
Drive Easy... Conserve
For stickers and more info, contact: Fulton Hanson 320-384-9967; e-mail: fultonhanson@yahoo.com
