There have been serious fractures among
what we call the “progressive movement.”
These fractures--- and, quite frankly,
some very huge chasms--- are the result of a myriad of problems; and,
while we should attempt to isolate and articulate all of these
problems for the sake of unity if we are going to make any headway as
far as peace, racial and economic equality and improving the lives,
livelihoods and standard of living of working people as well as
defending and protecting our living environment--- Mother Earth...
realizing that the environment in our workplaces should be as safe
and healthy as the world we want to live in.
As goes the working class, so goes the
fate of the American people as a whole. Only the most muddle-headed
and selfish among us doesn't understand this.
In my opinion, for whatever it is
worth, I think the main reason we as progressives are stuck in the
cracks and crevices of these fractures preventing maximum unity of
what has historically been the one and only coalition that has won
real reforms is that of liberals, progressives and leftists coming
together for clear and well-defined purposes with a clear vision of
goals and objectives.
Not just idle talk using properly
framed progressive policy directives but with very real and specific
solutions to people's problems and the problems confronting our
society as a whole.
We obviously have very real enemies.
Wall Street and big-business, the
multi-national and transnational corporations are our primary
enemies. Their lobbyists, working out of sight behind closed doors in
a way we can not see until we put their activities under close
examination bribe politicians in ways we can not see but in the most
vile and evil ways it is hard to imagine, let alone understand.
But not all of our problems when it
comes to forging maximum unity of this historic progressive coalition
can be laid at the feet of these parasitical, crooked and corrupt
Wall Street corporations although the foundations these
“philanthropists” fund which in turn are financing numerous
organizations--- many of which hire progressives in order to control
them and use them to divide our movements which should be united most
definitely are a big part of the problem.
We have an entire
group of people posing as progressives who have figured out that they
can make good livings selling themselves and their services to these
foundation-funded outfits.
These foundation-funded
prostitutes and whores have figured out just how far they can push
progressive thinking to the point where their services become
valuable assets in keeping the grassroots and rank-and-file movements
from becoming effective.
Many of these foundation-funded
prostitutes and whores are former activists from the 1960's and
1970's who acquired legitimacy by participating in, and even having
led entire movements.
These people come from the labor, civil
rights and environmental movements. They are now willing to sell
their bodies, souls and their ideas to the highest bidders in this
foundation-funded industry based on selling out movements.
This has left the rest of us
unorganized and ineffective... instead of being able to deliver
knock-out punches with a closed fist to our Wall Street enemies we
are merely slapping them with an open hand.
There is a reason the clenched fist has
become the symbol of militant working class resistance, struggle and
working class people's power.
How can we begin to repair the
fractures and build bridges across these chasms preventing maximum
all-people's unity which brings our progressive movements together?
We need organized forums bringing us
together to formulate tactics, strategy and demands that are specific
to the required solutions to our problems.
All too often our movements are victims
to organizations that always want to be first--- first to get the
permits for demonstrations so they can manipulate and control who
participates, who can speak and what is said. Often these groups will
make promises to do something and while others are holding up their
end of the agreement they don't hold up their end because they want
to be able to point fingers claiming they are right.
This is no way to build unity.
Crooked and corrupt union leaders along
with these foundation-funded whores have learned to step forward with
just enough money and resources to make it appear that without their
money struggles can not be won. There are always strings attached to
this money--- if you don't attach yourself to the strings and agree
to be their puppet the strings are cut... and by the time the strings
are cut the opportunity to build movements is lost.
We need to learn to “strike when the
iron is hot” if we are going to forge powerful progressive
movements capable of winning real change and reforms as we seek a
socialist alternative to this rotten capitalist system that is
crumbling and falling apart before our very eyes--- with such dire
consequences: wars, racism, poverty, destruction of our most basic
and needed public services from our public schools to the U.S. Postal
Service to Social Security. We are denied funds for creating new
social programs and public institutions desperately needed--- from
child care to health care.
We now see in this struggle for making
the Minimum Wage a real living wage how all of this unfolds and how
the employers, the Wall Street crowd, has been able to worm and
muscle their way into this movement in a way that serves to divide.
Everyone is entitled to a real living
wage based on the actual cost of living not poverty wage figures
pulled from a hat by self-serving politicians who we know have been
bribed by the employers--- our enemies.
Make no mistake, these
employers are our enemies. They are not some kind of benevolent job
creators Obama, the Democrats and Republicans make them out to
be.
These employers are motivated by one thing, and one thing
only: PROFITS.
Profits they derive from our our labor.
This is the richest country in the
world. Working people, collectively, have created this wealth.
If there are employers--- big or
small--- who can not afford to pay their employees real living wages,
then let them open their books and prove it.
If it is found they can not afford to
pay their employees real living wages then all these corporations
with huge profits will have to be taxed to whatever levels necessary
to provide a Basic Guaranteed Income to the employees working for
their fellow employers.
Shouldn't we expect big-business to
bailout their small-business friends instead of forcing working class
families to suffer in poverty?
If private industry can't handle the
cost of basic, fundamental human justice on its own, government has
to step in and make these decisions for them. This is the reason why
there is a Minimum Wage in the first place. Employers are too
narrowly focused on profits and that focus will never change. We will
hear the same song-and-dance from the employers forever about how
raising the Minimum Wage to a real living wage will kill small
business. But, what is preventing very profitable big-business from
paying employees real living wages?
How many big-businesses
voluntarily pay their employees real living wages based on actual
cost-of-living factors? Obama has tried to foster the illusion that
this happens... what planet he lives on is questionable. What he is
smoking that he doesn't want his daughters to smoke might be the
problem. But, most likely, Obama is just mouthing the words his Wall
Street backers like to hear.
We are facing the exact same
players in this living wage struggle that we faced with the
single-payer universal health care struggle.
Only in the living wage struggle these
same people who said they were for single-payer and then betrayed us
and stuck us with Obamacare are now saying they are for living wages
as they put placards calling for a poverty $9.50 Minimum Wage in the
hands of people in marches commemorating the life of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.
Who are these betrayers?
They are the Democrats, they are the
millionaire labor “leaders,” they are the overpaid pundits, they
are the foundation whores.
On top of this; we, as progressives,
have never reached a consensus on what constitutes a living wage.
We have never discussed wages in
relation to “cost-of-living.”
Someone has shouted, “$15.00 or
fight.” Some of the crowd follows. Some don't.
Have those who shouted “$15.00 or
fight” substantiated with any facts this is a living wage in
relation to cost of living? Have they fully explained the nature of
the “inflation” they want to index and tie this $15.00 to?
These
are honest and very legitimate questions.
Right now, in my opinion, if we want to
win this struggle to increase the Minimum Wage to a real living wage,
we need to be insisting that everyone tossing figures into the ring
needs to explain how those figures jibe with actual “cost-of-living”
and what inflation really is from the perspective of working class
spending. And make no mistake, when we examine the eight categories
and 200 sub-categories tracked as the Consumer Price Index, there is
a distinct difference between how most working people spend their
income and in how the well-heeled upper middle class and the 1% spend
their incomes.
If working-class families are forced to
buy hamburger instead of steak because they can't afford the steak
inflation and price increases mean two different things.
If
you have enough money so you can dine on $12.00 a pound steak that
used to be $4.00 a pound this price increase really doesn't mean
anything to you.
If you are a working-class family
forced to live on hamburger helper then the price of hamburger going
from $2.00 a pound to $4.00 a pound means something else.
Does
it make any difference to you if you pay $1.35 a gallon for propane
to heat your home or if you pay $2.35 cents a gallon? If it makes a
difference to you, chances are you are working class.
Does it
make any difference to you if the price of gas for your car is $2.50
a gallon or $4.00 a gallon? If it makes a difference to you, you are
most likely working class?
Does it make any difference to you
whether your child has to pay $30,000.00 a year to go to college or
if your child was to get a free education--- pre-school through
university? If it makes a difference to you, most likely you are not
the billionaire living in the Governor's Mansion.
When a
billionaire governor walks around talking about a “living wage”
and then has the unmitigated gall to try to legislate a poverty wage
of $9.50 or $8.00 an hour and then tries to make us feel good that he
is going to index this poverty wage to HIS inflation we working
people should all be bitter and very angry. We should fight for what
is right, not cower.
What should be our response to a shit-ass
like Minnesota Democratic State Senator Tom Bakk who boasts that he
is a labor leader and then tries to shove an $8.00 Minimum Wage down
our throats because we should feel sorry for the small businesses?
What should be our response to a guy
like Minnesota Democratic State Representative Ryan Winkler who
Chairs the Minnesota Select Committee on Living Wage Jobs when he
stands before “the people” in a hearing held out in the boonies
that no one can find and tells the few in attendance, “A living
wage is $24.00 to $28.00 an hour that's why I'm behind behind the
Governor's $9.50,” even though he knows Governor Dayton has entered
into a secret deal with the Chamber of Commerce on a “compromised”
Minimum Wage of just under $8.00 ?
Unless we insist on knowing where these
numbers are coming from and their relation to the actual
“cost-of-living” and the real inflation rate for working class
families, we are going to be saddled with a Minimum Wage that remains
a poverty wage.
As progressives, we need some kind of
forum or roundtable discussion with everyone welcome to
participate.
I would further point out that the very concept
of a Minimum Wage was first advanced by Karl Marx. And the demand for
a living Minimum Wage was advanced by socialists and Communists---
supported by liberals and progressives.
And it was none other than American
revolutionary Tom Paine who first advanced the need for a Basic
Income Guarantee.
Perhaps President Obama is going to ask
the big Wall Street corporations if they are going to chip into a
fund providing a Basic Income Guarantee so big-business can help its
small-business partners over the hurdle of having to pay real living
wages?
I have a final question for
Representative Winkler and Governor Dayton:
Why are you paying
so many state employees poverty wages?
I have a question for
Eliot Seide who heads up the largest union representing State, County
and Municipal employees:
Why are you poking your nose into the
Minimum Wage issue trying to shove one more poverty wage of $9.50
down our throats when the paper union you preside over like an old
Finnish feudal lord can't even negotiate living wages for all of your
dues paying members?
The basis for uniting progressives around fighting for a real living Minimum Wage, seems to me, to revolve around coming to an agreement that there is this relationship between wages and cost-of-living.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
These are just my personal thoughts on
these issues.
If you agree, okay.
If you disagree, okay.
I hope I have at least provided some
legitimate reasons for further discussion.
Yours in the struggle,
Alan L. Maki
