Money did not get Scott Walker re-elected; the Democrats did.

Money did not get Scott Walker re-elected; betrayal by the Democrats did
By: Alan Maki Thursday June 7, 2012 7:42 am	Tweet

I think all this constant dwelling on big money being responsible for this loss is a cop-out. We are living in a society dominated by tremendous wealth.

Wealth is going to dominate politics until people understand that they are more powerful than all this wealth combined— if they get organized.

This wealth in politics is being used as an excuse to evade discussing what kind of people’s movement is required to overcome Wall Street’s dominance.

Working people need their own political party.

If wealth is the reason politicians like Scott Walker (and Obama and Romney and on and on…) win we might as well give up right now.

If wealth is the reason for these people to keep winning how do we explain the success of the old Wisconsin Progressive Party of “fighting Bob La Follette” or the tremendous success of the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party of Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson and John Bernard?

No one in politics has ever raised more money from the Wall Street interests than Barack Obama who promised “hope” and “change.”

Money does not assure “change.”

The fact of the matter is labor “leaders” serving as Democratic Party hacks helped to undermine the struggles of the people in Wisconsin by pushing people out of the streets and into the arms of the Democratic Party whose goals and objectives were the exact same thing— albeit derived from using different methods— to drive down the standard of living of working people as a way to force workers to shoulder the cost of Wisconsin’s budget problems which result from the perverted priorities established by both Democrats and Republicans who are squandering our tax-dollars on these senseless, immoral, illegal, unconstitutional dirty imperialist wars for occupation instead of using the wealth of our Nation to fund human needs now with a collapsing capitalist economy requiring massive government universal social programs.

The Republicans set out to smash the working class in Wisconsin. The Democrats set out to cripple the working class movement… how could a crippled working class movement beat Scott Walker and the Republicans by voting for the very Democratic Party that crippled them?

We can’t win against Wall Street by complaining that they have too much money and wealth unless we confront the fact that we need a political party that isn’t afraid to wage campaigns in which the platform calls for re-ordering priorities away from war and military spending and directing the resulting peace dividends towards meeting the pressing needs of the people combined with a call for redistributing this wealth which working people created in the first place, not only through various schemes of progressive taxation— tax the hell out of the rich; but by placing the mines, mills and factories under public ownership and control. Instead of allowing Wall Street to close and demolish mines, mills and factories we need to be taking over these mines, mills and factories producing based on human needs not maximum profits for Wall Street coupon clippers.

The Democrats, including Kucinich are crying about how they were beat by wealth— and it is very sad to see Jill Stein follow Kucinich’s lead in focusing on wealth as being the determining factor in this Wisconsin election while evading the facts.

The FACT is that unless working people organize their own political party along the lines of the old Wisconsin Progressive Party and the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party which will reflect the goals, objectives AND priorities of people demonstrating in the streets, working people are going to suffer defeat after defeat.

Even if Tom Barrett and the Democrats would have won the day in Wisconsin, working people would have lost had they agreed to negotiate a lower standard of living.

Wall Street measures its victories by counting its money; working people measure their victories with how much their standard of living improves.

Tom Barrett wasn’t defeated by Scott Walker’s Wall Street wealth. Tom Barrett was defeated because he and the Democrats with help from corrupt and conniving labor leaders who often back the same candidates as ALEC crippled the only movement that could have— and eventually will— defeat Scott Walker: the working class movement.

Had Tom Barrett had the courage— and in Barrett’s case I think the issue is having the guts and the courage because he is in fact liberal minded— to speak truth to power by explaining how financing these dirty wars is robbing the states of needed funds and calling for a new set of priorities in this country he would have united the people of Wisconsin around a real progressive agenda for real change and he would have won… instead Tom Barrett caved to Obama and insisted that he would restore bargaining rights for workers so they could bargain away their lives and livelihoods… only the most muddle-headed, bungling booby-head would ever think that this is the way to win an election against Scott Walker and his Wall Street backers.

In fact, the Democrats never intended to win this fight in Wisconsin.

Keep in mind… it is the same worthless labor “leaders” who led working people into this set-back in Wisconsin who are counseling a vote for Obama which will lead to the exact same thing working people are getting in Wisconsin whether Obama wins or loses: a reduction in living standards for the working class as the wealth of this country keeps getting pissed away on wars. Wars that the Wall Street merchants of death and destruction profit from. When Wall Street profits working people suffer.

Some people want us to stay focused on big money in politics while evading the fact that when it comes to elections there are more of US then of THEM. All the money in the world can’t defeat a working class united for peace, social and economic justice.

Money did not get Scott Walker re-elected; the Democrats did.

The foundations, organized labor and Barack Obama and the Democrats have teamed up to hoodwink the American people, again.

Originally published on FireDogLake
By: Alan Maki Monday May 28, 2012 3:35 pm

I think we need a broad discussion that includes articles from all perspectives from the foundation flowers linked with the labor movement like Amy Dean who are trying to hoodwink working people into supporting Obama, again, under the illusion of false hopes to those pushing for alternatives to the two-party trap. We need to be seeking alternatives to the two-party trap and this does not even enter the discussion of the Obama supporters. To get discussion going check out this article by Amy Dean which is intended to convince union leaders and rank-and-file activists and union members to become part of the Obama train to prolonged wars of occupation funded by austerity measures which are decimating and destroying our lives, livelihoods and living standards. Those trying to push Obama on us again would like us to forget that Obama has an imperialist agenda that has nothing at all to do with a progressive people before Wall Street profits agenda.

Obama’s Wall Street agenda is in direct conflict with what is required to turn turn our country around and put us on the road to peace and prosperity.

This was the full length version: http://tcf.org/commentary/2012/rebuilding-the-labor-movement

And Truthout published this pack of lies and misinformation packaged as where workers should be headed:

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9298-what-can-labor-win-if-it-backs-obamas-re-election

The question which needs to asked and answered is: Can labor win anything by backing Barack Obama?

With the follow-up question being: Does labor’s support for Obama undermine and weaken the labor movement?

How can working people expect to be able to win struggles for better lives and livelihoods while supporting a warmonger like Obama who is squandering the wealth of our Nation on militarism and wars?

Are we really supposed to believe the working class can make headway during a second Obama term when we as working people have been dealt set-back after set-back without any fight-back during Obama’s first term?

The Election looks like it will be close; why? Because there is so little difference between Obama and Romney.

Obama is a venture capitalist; Romney is a vulture capitalist. Can anyone explain the difference? Both are mouthpieces for the Wall Street merchants of death and destruction who profit from wars. Both advance Wall Street’s same imperialist agenda. Both derive their campaign contributions from the exact same Wall Street 1 per-centers.

We need Wall Street parasites like Obama and Romney about as much as my dog Fred needs wood-ticks and fleas.

When will Governor Mark Dayton call the "Red Dog" play to sack poverty?

May 22, 2012

Submitted for publication to the Minneapolis Star Tribune as a “Commentary.” 697 words; guidelines allow for up to 700 words.

Governor Dayton, state legislators, the business community, organized labor and the foundation-funded outfits went into a “blitz formation” and scored a touchdown and the billionaire owners of the Vikings got their new stadium.

See: Vikings stadium backers go into blitz formation (Star Tribune article by Rachel E. Stassen-Berger, March 4, 2012)

Link: http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/141313353.html

Apparently the “blitz formation” works as well in politics as on the football field so one has to wonder why after having scored this touchdown for the billionaire owners of the Vikings, Governor Dayton together with his friends in the business community, organized labor and the foundation-funded outfits don’t use the same “blitz formation” to tackle the problem of poverty?

I am assuming the crowds would cheer much louder if the governor and his friends in business and labor sacked poverty.

Governor Dayton was the primary cheerleader for a new Vikings Stadium although he is leading no cheers to alleviate, let alone eliminate, poverty.

Governor Dayton, during his tenure as governor of Minnesota, hasn’t even attempted to articulate an explanation as to why poverty still exists in a state where a billion dollars can be found for a new Vikings Stadium let alone bring forward any legislation to alleviate poverty.

Minnesota legislators have some kind of committee they call “Ladder Out of Poverty.” It seems the ladder must be missing quite a few rungs and constructed from rotting timber because no one can use the “ladder” for its stated purpose.

What does cause poverty?

What can be done to alleviate and eliminate poverty in Minnesota?

Governor Dayton claims to be a “progressive.” The four primary goals and objectives of progressives has been to establish open and honest government responsive to the needs of the people, end dirty imperialist wars, put an end to poverty and establish racial equality.

Progressives want to see governor Dayton head up a “blitz formation” to end poverty which hurts people of all races but is concentrated among people of communities of color because of the racist injustices in our society.

An open and honest government would lead the way in questioning why poverty exists and why there are these racist aspects to poverty.

An open and honest government would pull out no stops in using all levers available in a democratic society to eliminate the scourge of poverty.

Obviously, capitalist society can not provide people with a “ladder out of poverty” while sinking billions of dollars into dirty imperialist wars.

Minnesota had two very progressive governors elected on the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party ticket; socialists Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson. Olson and Benson were of like minds. They believed it was their job to bring into play reforms to alleviate the problems of poverty as working people--- rural and urban--- continued to unite until they were powerful enough to eliminate the source of poverty: capitalism.

Governor Elmer Benson decided after he couldn’t get any help from Democrats or Republicans he needed to organize a blitz of sorts to help him push through reforms to help people cope with the problems of poverty. For this purpose Benson organized the powerful “People’s Lobby.”

Today, once again, the people of Minnesota need to form our own team by reviving the “People’s Lobby” to show Governor Dayton what a real “blitz” can accomplish when it is the people using this “blitz formation.”

For Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton to be a cheerleader for a new Vikings Stadium from which billionaires will get even richer as he sits cowardly, quietly and silently on the sidelines when it comes to the struggle against poverty and its most pernicious racist aspects on Indian Reservations and in the inner cities of Minnesota is completely unacceptable to Minnesotans who cherish our progressive culture and traditions.

Any school child understands people without living wage jobs are going to be poor.

The solution to poverty is very simple: Put people to work solving the problems of the people and society instead of squandering the wealth of our nation on militarism and wars.

Build public health care and public child care centers instead of football stadiums.

Bring back the WPA, CCC and C.E.T.A.

Enforce Affirmative Action.

Tax the rich; don’t subsidize Wall Street’s wars and football stadiums for billionaires.

Government budgets and the actions of public officials are all about priorities.

Why the great sense of urgency in building the Vikings a new stadium when they already have a stadium but these same politicians and their business and labor partners together with the foundation-funded outfits have no sense of urgency when it comes to solving very urgent and pressing problems of human beings mired in poverty? To the poor these politicians and their over-paid hacks counsel "patience" and suggest people be satisfied with baby steps and incremental reforms.

Let’s have a well organized “blitz formation” against poverty: meetings around kitchen tables, in union halls, community centers and church basements; letters to the editors and letters to public officials; personal and mass lobbying; picket-lines and demonstrations; involvement in the electoral process.

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

 

Minnesotans have an opportunity to start breaking free from the two-party trap; help Mike Cavlan get on the ballot.

Mike Cavlan needs our help to get on the ballot as a U.S. Senate candidate of the Open Progressive Party.

Mike needs our help circulating his petitions to get on the ballot.

I have petitions. If you would like to circulate a petition in your county give me a call: 218-386-2432. Leave a message if I am not home and I will get back to you.

Mike is running to represent the 99% of us people who are under attack from Wall Street which controls both the Republican and Democratic parties and most of their candidates including Amy "Republican Lite" Klobuchar.

Mike Cavlan is an ardent supporter of Rocky Anderson, the former Democrat who was the mayor of Salt Lake City, who told the Democratic Party to go to hell and helped get the new Justice Party off the ground.

By helping Mike Cavlan in asking our friends and neighbors to sign his petition to get on the ballot we are giving ourselves a voice in the electoral process for peace, social and economic justice, against racism and for full equality for all people, jobs and real health care reform.

Mike Cavlan has been one of the many participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Check out some of the many videos on YouTube  with Mike Cavlan speaking and you will see that Mike Cavlan has the courage required to speak truth to power.

So; if you are for peace, social and economic justice assure we have a voice in the electoral process by helping make sure Mike Cavlan attains ballot status--- one more needed step as we challenge Wall Street for political and economic power.

The movement to free ourselves from the two-party trap begins with us--- with you and me. No one is going to do this for us; we need to do this ourselves.

“We Need to Make a Ruckus”: Robert Reich on Democracy Now!, today.

Robert Reich appeared on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" this morning promoting his new e-book, "Beyond Outrage."

View the episode here: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/8/we_need_to_make_a_ruckus

Reich has obviously been sent out to try to do the job of once again hoodwinking liberals, progressives and the left into supporting Barack Obama by creating legitimacy for this by sounding like he is calling people out into the streets making people think they can actually influence Obama by pressuring him to do what is right.

Reich brings up the bit about President Franklin D. Roosevelt telling someone, "Make me do it," even though Reich is fully aware that Barack Obama has no ties or links of communication with any representatives of movements for peace, social and economic justice which Roosevelt intentionally cultivated through his cabinet members like Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins and many others including his very progressive wife, Eleanor.

Furthermore, Reich ignores the fact Roosevelt had to oppose his own very conservative Democratic Party to push through the required reforms which were, as good and needed as they were and most welcomes by people in the streets even though the reforms were mostly too little, too late and not anywhere near well-defined enough, not broad enough nor universal enough. But at least Roosevelt set up the lines of communication between his Administration the unions and the broad People's Front which included the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the Communist Party of the United States.

Obama has no such apparatus in place nor does he intend to create such an apparatus; Obama intends to use slick sounding left-wing populist rhetoric just as Robert Reich does in order to ideologically confuse the people.

Obama has no intent to do anything other than beat down the people as they protest his austerity measures to pay for Wall Street's dirty imperialist wars.

Robert Reich wants to hoodwink us into believing that supporting Obama is part of what is required to win reforms when just the opposite is the truth.

In fact, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was already using his Executive Order privileges within days and weeks of being elected to office in implementing real reforms... Obama has done nothing of the kind.

Robert Reich stooped so low to compare the upcoming election with the U.S. election of 1936 snidely and dishonestly insinuating without expressly stating that there is a chance of fascists coming to power in France, Italy, Greece, Germany and Spain when in fact the working classes of these countries are being led in very responsibly militant manners by the Communist Parties in these countries with the KKE in Greece leading the way through its very militant united working class front P.A.M.E. Obviously Robert Reich and his fellow Obama supporters like Occupy Wall Street raising a little bit of a "ruckus" as long as this "ruckus" doesn't take on the character (and working class Communist leadership) being demonstrated in Greece and these other European countries and to some extent in Canada, too, as the Communist Party USA "leadership" falls into line with Robert Reich and these other phony liberals, progressives and leftists supporting Obama as rank-and-file working class Communist activists urge a real "ruckus" along the lines of what those Communist Parties in Europe and Canada advocate--- the kind of "ruckus" this country witnessed during the depression years of the 1930's and 1940's.

I find it of utmost importance to note that Robert Reich does not ever mention the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party as the kind of politics we need to be engaged in but rather turns to trying to undermine the kind of ruckus we need by dragging people into the useless Democratic Party fold.

Robert Reich sat in silence and urged no "ruckus" to halt Clinton's "welfare reforms"--- although he claims otherwise in claiming he did not publicly vocalize his claimed opposition to Clinton's right-wing Wall Street ordered welfare "reform." Why didn't Reich call for a "ruckus" in the streets in opposition to Clinton's welfare "reforms?" For the very reason Reich has never advocated a "ruckus" against Obama's even more reactionary Wall Street agenda.

And one thing I noted about Robert Reich in his appearance on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" is that he loathes any talk of linking a discussion over militarism and war with funding the kinds of social programs we need.

There can be no "ruckus" in the streets that can be effective unless we link militarism and war to robbing society of the kind of massive universal social programs we need to solve our problems; social programs like a National Public Health Care System, National Public Child Care System, WPA, CCC and C.E.T.A.--- all of which will create jobs.

I would note that it was Robert Reich during his tenure as Clinton's Secretary of Labor who advocated and supported all of these "free trade" deals claiming these fiascoes and boon-doggles were going to create jobs here in the United States when the writing was on the wall that millions of good-paying union jobs were going to be destroyed.

I don't think it is coincidental that Robert Reich appeared on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" with his Obama supporting "party line"  shortly after AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka parroted the exact same "party line" that we need to all rally behind Obama as a prelude to having our problems placed on the table for solution.

We have seen the exact same kind of crap being run in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania that the Democrats are going to work with us in solving our problems when in each and every case these Democrats are nothing but bad attempts gone awry to clone this Wall Street serving Obama.

In fact, Richard Trumka and the AFL-CIO are afraid of creating the kind of "ruckus" in the streets required to defeat Walker and the Koch Brothers in Wisconsin because they are afraid the "ruckus" will continue to advance to Obama's door at the White House. Trumka is prepared to see Walker re-elected in order to "cover Obama's back."

We definitely need a "ruckus"--- a "ruckus" before Election Day beginning in Wisconsin; a "ruckus" that continues after the 2012 Election no matter who gets elected.

Greek workers led by P.A.M.E. (All-workers Militant Front) and the KKE (Communist Party of Greece) are creating the kind of "ruckus" we need in the streets and on the electoral front.

People are fed-up and outraged in this country.

What we really need is a public discussion taking us from outrage to massive opposition to Wall Street as we challenge Wall Street, along with its two parties, for power.

We need to get beyond outrage to well-organized militant opposition to Wall Street while embracing a united program for real change.

Obama has replaced his meaningless slogans intended to hoodwink the people "hope" and "change" from his previous deceitful campaign behind the slogan "forward." "Forward" to where? More wars? Greater misery? More poverty and despair? More unemployment?

Neither Obama nor his loyal suck-asses covering his back like Robert Reich, Richard Trumka or Leo Gerard are telling us with any specifics where they want to go "forward" to.

None of these Obama suck-asses dare to ask of the American people:

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

Something to think about:

Robert Reich, Richard Trumka, Leo Gerard could easily get together leading a "ruckus" in the streets demanding Barack Obama uses his Executive Order privilege before Election Day to end the dirty imperialist wars for occupation and use the resulting "peace dividends" to put millions of people back to work solving our problems IN RETURN FOR OUR VOTES.

This would be the perfect time to "hold Obama's feet to the fire" in a "ruckus;" any competent union leader or advocate for working people should be able to comprehend this.

For those who take us for stupid fools and expect us to support Obama without getting anything in return we need to send them a good strong message, too: Stop sitting in front of television cameras and go do your own campaigning for Obama and the Democrats because we aren't giving up our precious votes without getting something of real substance in return: PEACE and JOBS.

How could it be by coincidence that Robert Reich, Richard Trumka and Leo Gerard don't understand that the way to create jobs is by paying people real living wages while solving the problems created by the Wall Street 1% for the majority of working people?

People are fed-up and outraged in this country. Why is it so difficult for those claiming to be advocates for working people to understand we need a "ruckus" in opposition to Wall Street's agenda while advocating an alternative progressive agenda in defense of our lives and livelihoods--- an agenda that any politician deserving of working class votes to deliver.

Obama received working class votes in order to get elected. 

Is it too much to expect Obama deliver on what he led people to believe was his intent before he seeks votes from working people again?

Want to create a real "ruckus?"

Tell Barack Obama and the Democrats they won't be getting your precious vote until they deliver PEACE and JOBS.

The intellectual dishonesty of Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Why did Bill Fletcher omit the fact he is one of the ffive initiators of the Progressives For Obama?

Why did Bill Fletcher, Jr. omit the fact he is supporting Barack 
Obama  for re-election?

Why hasn't Bill Fletcher asked the most basic and fundamental question:

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

 Bill Fletcher, Jr. and his fellow "progressives for Obama" continue to duck the question:

What have these people done "to hold Barack Obama's feet to the fire" as they promised they would do?

Fletcher has created arguments based on his own strawman creations in order to knock down instead of responding to real questions and problems.

Alan L. Maki


Bill: My frustration with the Left when it comes to electoral politics

 Written by  Bill Fletcher  Friday, 06 April 2012 22:30

I was recently asked to participate on a panel regarding the Left and electoral politics.  I declined.  For many people this may seem strange since I have been a very strong proponent of the Left looking at electoral politics strategically.  Well, that is all true but I have encountered a problem and maybe you can help me resolve it.

Most Left “debates” on electoral politics take a very predictable route.  It looks something like this:
Electoral politics will not bring about socialism and freedom.

The Democrats have consistently sold us out. They are the party of the rich.

The Republicans and the Democrats are two wings of the same evil bird of prey.

We need an alternative.

Therefore, either:

Abstain from electoral politics and wait till the masses, in their millions rise up against capitalism, or…
Create a pure, anti-corporate (if not anti-capitalist) third party right now and start running in elections even if we do not have a snow-ball’s chance in hell of winning.

What I have found striking about this line of thought, and the so-called debates that unfold around it, is that they are actually un-political and lack any sort of concrete analysis.

Let’s be clear so that we do not have a needless exchange.  Electoral politics under democratic capitalism will not result in our freedom.  Second, the Democrats are not the party of the working class.  So, now that we have that out of the way, what do we do?

Electoral politics is a field of struggle.  It is an arena.  On that arena, however, we on the Left can do two things:  participate in the struggle for popular power and raise issues that have the possibility of gaining greater attention.  Much of the Left focuses on the latter and ignores the former.  Many who focus on the struggle for power, however, abdicate being Left altogether.  Therein exists the challenge.

Given the undemocratic nature of the US electoral system, a concrete analysis of the USA (rather than other countries) means that we have to grapple with what it means that in most elections independent, third party candidacies fail and are viewed as spoilers.  There are certainly historical exceptions, but those exceptions prove the general rule.  This means that a concrete examination of US electoral politics must focus on the notion that a third party movement on the Left will more than likely result from an “insurrection” within the Democratic Party and a major section of its base (with the character of such an “insurrection” being more of a united front rather than a pure, Left challenge).  This is to be counterposed with the idea that such a party arises out of nothing, or to put it in its best case, out of generalized popular discontent.

So, if we on the Left really want to discuss electoral politics we must examine a concrete question:  what do we do in the USA given the nature of the electoral system?  If your answer is to simply raise the red flag of radicalism to see who salutes, with all due respect, you are not serious about politics; you are stuck in the world of pure ideology.

The larger challenge for the Left in electoral politics is conducting the fight, in and through our mass organizations, for the recognition of the need for an independent, progressive program that represents the interests of the downtrodden and the dispossessed.  We should not start with organization in the abstract, but with program.  We then need to figure out under what conditions we run people within Democratic Party primaries and under what circumstances we run independently.  Always, I should add, recognizing that this is a fight within the context of democratic capitalism for structural reforms, thereby laying the basis for the longer-term struggle for socialism...

…That is, if we are interested in the fight for power rather than just being ‘correct.’  But, alas, it will mean that we will need to get a bit untidy in the alliances we will need to build.

Show me a ‘purist’ revolution and I will show you a bridge that you can buy for almost nothing.

Published in Bill Fletcher
Bill Fletcher


Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a longtime labor, racial justice and international activist. He is an Editorial Board member and columnist for BlackCommentator.com and a Senior Scholar for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He is the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and a founder of the Black Radical Congress.

 Fletcher is the co-author (with Fernando Gapasin) of Solidarity Divided, The Crisis in Organized Labor and A New Path Toward Social Justice (University of California Press). He was formerly the Vice President for International Trade Union Development Programs for the George Meany Center of the AFL-CIO. Prior the George Meany Center, Fletcher served as Education Director and later Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO.

 Fletcher got his start in the labor movement as a rank and file member of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America. Combining labor and community work, he was also involved in ongoing efforts to desegregate the Boston building trades. He later served in leadership and staff positions in District 65-United Auto Workers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

 Fletcher is a graduate of Harvard University and has authored numerous articles and speaks widely on domestic and international topics, racial justice and labor issues.

Hmmmmmmmm... what's on my mind this morning?

What's on my mind this morning... hmmmmmmm.

Like you, I am repeatedly invited to campaign fundraisers, debates and public forums, greets and meets, etc.

Like you, I seldom go because the candidates and their backers refuse to address any meaningful issues or concerns with anything other than meaningless rhetoric.

These politicians refuse to address the issues of casino workers so I just send them a "thanks for inviting me but.

The turnouts for these things keep getting smaller and smaller until now we seldom see the usual "party hacks" at these events making sure anyone who has the nerve to ask a real question get mocked, made fun of or if someone persists in demanding an answer these hacks jostle the previously invited guest out.

The small turnouts seldom make it worthwhile to waste the expense of gas to attend so I send them something like this:

I can't make your event because our resources have to be used fighting for the rights of casino workers.

However, I would like to know why these candidates who have received a tremendous amount of funding from the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association, have been silent on the plight of over 40,000 casino, hotel/motel, restaurant, convenience stores, bars and theme park workers comprising the Indian Gaming Industry here in Minnesota who are forced to work in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos and places of employment at poverty wages and without any rights have remained silent on this issue, and the issues of poverty, unemployment and racism on Indian reservations and in urban centers with large concentrations of Native Americans living?

I put this same question to DFL politician Tarryl Clark at a meeting during the NetRoots Nation National Convention in Minneapolis and she ducked answering my question by claiming she is working on the problem "quietly" and then she tried to explain that this was an issue of "sovereignty" just as most MNDFL politicians try to evade this criminal injustice. The problem is the DFL is responsible for drafting these "Compacts" which intentionally excluded the workers from having any rights in the Indian Gaming Industry as a favor to the casino owners, managements and the owners of the slot machines--- none of whom are Indians, but rather very wealthy white mobsters.

Whoever heard of a "sovereign nation," any sovereign nation, being allowed to deprive working people of their most basic and fundamental human rights--- the right to organize to protect and defend their quality of life and standard of living with a voice at work?

In creating these hideously racist "Compacts" from which everyone except Native Americans benefit, the DFL schemed to make sure it would derive huge campaign contributions for its racist white politicians who then have turned around and excluded Native American Indians from the political process.

How many Native American Indians do we see sitting in the Minnesota State Legislature or among Minnesota's Congressional Delegation or on city councils or county commissions or township boards or school boards even though the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association has flooded DFL coffers with tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions?

Don't people find it strange that the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association would pump so much money into the campaigns of racist white politicians who turn then their backs in racist indifference to the massive racist poverty created by massive racist unemployment and the racist poverty caused from poverty wages which are enforced by these racist "Compacts" which intentionally deny casino workers the right to organize in order to attain a decent standard of living which the Treaties are supposed to assure forever? 

Furthermore, I would like to know the positions of these candidates running for public office on enforcing Affirmative Action in employment in line with Federal Executive Order #11246 since these large pools of unemployed among Native Americans and all people of color are causing severe problems and misery for the victims of racist discrimination while pushing all wages down?

Do any of these candidates support closing the loop-holes permitting Affirmative Action to be evaded here in Minnesota?

Quite frankly, not many Minnesotans bother attending these candidate forums because they know these worthless politicians are just sticking their hands out for campaign contributions and they will evade answering these "tough" questions concerning their lives and living conditions.

Until we are able to free ourselves from this two-party trap set for us by the wealthy, fewer and fewer people will be participating in this corrupt and rotten political process.

Politics in Minnesota has been turned into one big circus as a result of the enormous influence by the monied interests--- especially the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association whose Executive Director is a racist, anti-labor, anti-union white man, John McCarthy, who has grown enormously wealthy directly from the massive poverty of the Indian people.

John McCarthy and his group of high-paid lobbyists dish out campaign contributions to all of these racist politicians with one hand as fast as they can to purchase their loyalty to injustices and then John McCarthy--- the owner of Tony Doom Supply Company which manufactures all kinds of election paraphernalia from yard signs to business cards and pens and pencils and bumper stickers--- takes back as personal profit the campaign contributions his high-paid lobbyists hand out. All of this goes on at the expense of Native American people and by the time McCarthy and all these other greedy bastards get their hands on the revenues from Indian Gaming the only thing left for Indian people is the poverty caused by massive debt as the huge pool of unemployed people on the Indian Reservations assures casino workers will remain mired in poverty. After all, when casino workers are paid poverty wages, they and their families are going to be poor--- any school child can figure this out.

The fact is, the one and only way Native Americans are ever going to get anything of substance out of the Indian Gaming Industry is when all casino workers are paid real living wages.

Corrupt and incompetent elected officials created tribal governments in their own image and now these tribal governments try to pass off the idea that these tribal governments are a part of "sovereign" Indian Nations when in fact these tribal governments are just as thoroughly rotten and corrupt as the Minnesota State Legislature or the Bemidji City Council or the United States Congress.

One can look at any of the tribal governments in Minnesota and all you see is the same kind of creeps and sleeze you see sitting in the Minnesota State Legislature or in the United States Congress.

Check it out, Red Lake has its thoroughly corrupt Floyd Jourdain, Leech Lake has its Archie LaRose, Bois Forte has its Kevin Leecy.

Kevin Leecy is in a league all by himself. He beats the crap out of his wife,  politicians "fix" the charges so he gets off, and then he goes before state legislators telling how money is needed to help counsel for spousal abuse programs and when he gets the money he hires his creepy friends who he knows will support him to run the counseling program. If this isn't the definition of a "racket" I don't know what is.

Kevin Leecy is also the Vice-chair of the National Indian Gaming Association which is nothing but a front for organized crime.

Kevin Leecy is also the Chairman of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council which perverts and distorts--- they call it "education"--- the meaning of the Treaties and "sovereignty" to make them both jibe with enforcing the corruption and racism of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association: http://www.minnesotahumanities.org/Uploads//Why%20Treaties%20Matter,%20Chariman%20Kevin%20Leecy.pdf

Conveniently, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council never tackles the questions concerning the major employment injustices of the Indian Gaming Industry and refuses to take a stand insisting that Affirmative Action be enforced while distorting the main intent of the Treaties which was to assure a decent standard of living for Native American Indians through the right to work.

A wife-beating crooked and corrupt Kevin Leecy is protected by law enforcement and a court system and the politicians elected by campaign funds distributed by the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association.

And, oh yes; Kevin Leecy is also heads up the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association which has as its Executive Director John McCarthy.

And this entire racist and corrupt process is wrapped and packaged in "Indian traditions." Just read this article ghost written by John McCarthy passed off as having been written by the wife-beating Kevin Leecy:

http://www.casinoenterprisemanagement.com/articles/april-2012/bucking-trend-strong-year-weak-economy

Does anyone find it strange that not one single newspaper, not one single radio station nor one single television station will do a news story about the wages and working conditions of workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry forced to work in these loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages and without any rights under state or federal labor laws?

Well, check out how many advertisements for these casino operations you see and hear in the same newspapers, radio and television.

What a racket!

Yes, a racket. A racket that resulted from a brain fart mobster Meyer Lansky had after he was kicked out of Cuba looking for places to put his slot machines where he wouldn't have to pay taxes or be scrutinized by government officials or police agencies other than those he was able to pay-off with bribes.

It is all about "the American way" of free enterprise, eh?

Indian Gaming among the two fastest growing industries here in the United States. Indian Gaming is right up there in expansion among an otherwise suffering economy, right up there with Goodwill Industries.

The Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party promises "jobs, jobs, jobs" but did you ever think your next job was going to be working in a smoke-filled casino without any rights or for another poverty wage paying outfit like Goodwill Industries?

Yesterday we buried our good friend Gregory W. Paquin who was murdered by the FBI and Beltrami County Prosecutor Tim Faver

Yesterday we buried our good friend Greg Paquin who because of his determined struggle to enforce Affirmative Action in the most racist city in America— Bemidji, Minnesota— was targeted and harassed to no end by the racist power structure with the FBI and the Minnesota Public Safety Commission using the racist Beltrami Prosecutor Tim Faver to carry out their racist agenda.

This bunch of racists in the power structure targeted Greg Paquin with a vindictive vendetta and utilized the same government resources it used to enforce discriminatory racist employment practices that should have been used to jail drug dealers; but Tim Faver is known to be personally profiting from the drug dealing in Beltrami County where he has been known to refuse to prosecute these drug dealers and members and leaders of the Native Mob who have been terrorizing people living on Indian Reservations.

The racism of Tim Faver, Beltrami County Sheriff Phil Hodapp and Beltrami County Judges has been well documented by the foundation-funded Minnesota ACLU Racial Justice Task Force headed up by Audrey Thayer and her staff, which in spite of having spent over one-million dollars documenting Tim Faver’s racist policies using these viciously racist vindictive vendettas against civil and human rights activists like Gregory W. Paquin to try to stymie the movements for racial equality in Northern Minnesota.

Tim Faver jumped at the opportunity created by the FBI to maliciously— under color of law— prosecute Greg Paquin based on the most vicious rumors and lies initiated by the FBI itself in, what is fast becoming a pattern of repressive behavior aimed at destroying the most basic freedoms in this country protected by the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.

In fact, these foundation-funded outfits like the Minnesota ACLU’s Racist Justice Task Force are serving as the cover enabling this racist and repressive atmosphere and activity to continue because they lead people to believe something is being done to try to resolve these problems when nothing in fact is being done; they are part of the larger scheme of things to enable this racism in employment.

Audrey Thayer, when recently questioned during a public forum as to what the results have been for all these years of “collecting data” has resulted in, hid behind that old excuse in evading an answer, “I am not at liberty to discuss what actions are being taken,” when everyone knows no action to end this institutionalized racism in northern Minnesota directed at Native American Indians is being taken.

Audrey Thayer sat in the courtroom smiling as Greg Paquin was being maligned and framed by Beltrami County Prosecutor Tim Faver without so much as decrying this perversion of justice and gross act of repression directed towards Greg Paquin that culminated in Greg’s death.

Beltrami County Prosecutor Tim Faver and Beltrami County Sheriff Phil Hodapp should be charged with the murder of Greg Paquin. These racist bigots should be removed from public office. Greg Paquin has not been their first victim and he will not be their last.

Anyone can sit in any Beltrami County courtroom on any day of the week at any time to witness the racism in the Beltrami County Court system as racist repression against Native American Indians is delivered under the guise of justice.

The FBI and Beltrami County Prosecutor Tim Faver spun a campaign of racist hate against Greg Paquin which resulted in his death.

A federal grand jury  investigation should be convened to determine all of the culprits responsible for civil rights and trade union activist Greg Paquin’s death at age 49.

Greg Paquin was a founder of the Native American Labor Union #12 and a determined activist organizing and demanding Affirmative Action in employment be enforced as a way to begin alleviating the disgraceful poverty plaguing Indian Reservations and urban Native American communities.

Greg Paquin became well known for making a very simple, yet very profound observation:

“Working people without jobs are going to be poor.”

Greg went on to point out that the majority of Native American Indians are working class people suffering unemployment on the huge Indian Reservations of northern Minnesota with unemployment rates ranging from 65% to 85%.

Gregory W. Paquin, a member of the Plumber’s and Pipefitter’s Union-AFL-CIO, initiated and led a grassroots effort to enforce Affirmative Action when the largest public works project in Northern Minnesota since the Great Depression, the Bemidji Regional Event Center (now called the Sanford Center), got underway without one single Native American Indian being employed in this sixty-million dollar boondoggle where individual wheelbarrows were rented to the contractors for $60.00 a day and individual  sledgehammers were rented to the same contractors for $10.00 a day for over two years.

Greg continually pointed out that Native American Indians are being used as a pool of cheap labor to push all wages of all workers down. Greg’s research exposed how Native Americans are systematically being denied employment in the public and private sectors in Minnesota.

After reading Stewart Acuff’s book, “Getting America Back To Work,” in which Acuff calls on each and every worker to become a “warrior for justice,” Greg with his friends organized a new political party, “Warriors for Justice.”

For his activities in trying to get Affirmative Action enforced, Gregory W. Paquin, was targeted by the FBI working in cahoots and collusion with the Beltrami County Prosecutor Tim Faver and Beltrami County Sheriff Phil Hodapp for a vicious and vindictive racist vendetta which ended up killing Greg Paquin.

Greg’s best friend, Curtis Buckanaga, a leader of grassroots efforts to improve the lives and living conditions of Native people declared at Greg’s funeral that a powerful movement to end racism and enforce Affirmative Action will continue being built in memory of Greg Paquin.

Greg Paquin’s remains were laid to rest by his family and friends in the Northbird Family Plot located in a peaceful forest setting beside a river on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation as his spirit soared like an eagle.

[Note: A photo journal of pictures taken at Greg's funeral will be forthcoming.]

Greg’s blog can be read at: http://nativeamericanindianlaborunion12.blogspot.com/

I should point out that as a result of the bogus racist conviction on trumped up charges Greg Paquin was framed on resulting in imprisonment that included the intentional denial of health care for treatment of his diabetes which contributed to his death, part of the probation which Greg Paquin was placed on is that he must not blog for a period of ten years. Greg was ordered by a Beltrami County Judge not to continue working on this blog. And the Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union and its Racial Justice Taskforce did not see this as a problem involving Greg being denied his constitutional rights.


Let me be very explicit what has happened here...

Let me state, again:

It is the responsibility of the United States Department of Justice to explain how and why Greg Paquin died.

The FBI initiated a campaign of hate through its “investigation” of Gregory W. Paquin.

The FBI was well aware that its very vindictive racist vendetta against Greg Paquin would spin out of control resulting in Greg’s death.

It is know up to Eric Holder to explain Greg’s death to the American people.

I do find it very interesting that there are those who are going through so much trouble trying to prevent the awareness of this.

Make no mistake, the FBI intentionally set in motion a campaign of hate spiraling out of control like a snowball rolling down a long, steep hill on a warm spring day getting bigger and bigger the faster it rolls until there was no way to stop the racist hatemongers.

Greg Paquin was murdered as a result of this campaign of hate.

Greg Paquin was murdered “under color of law.”

This is exactly what J. Edgar Hoover intended when he set out to “neutralize” those in the movements for peace, social and economic justice.

Greg Paquin pushed the struggle for racial equality in employment to new heights in Minnesota as he creatively engaged people of all races in the struggle to enforce Affirmative Action with very powerful and wealthy forces standing to lose a great deal of the super profits they derived from racism; and, for this the powers that be snuffed out his life.