Progressive Democrats of America makes excuses for Obama's imperialist wars.

Okay, PDA (Progressive Democrats of America) [see letter from PDA below]... So the Ukraine is on your mind, eh?

But here is the problem: Obama and Kerry, both reactionary neo-liberals, are every bit as reactionary as those "neo-cons" you want them to fire.

Obama and Kerry are carrying out Wall Street's thoroughly reactionary agenda in the Ukraine.

Is this article from the Guardian accurate as to Russian and U.S. objectives in the Ukraine?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/06/ukraine-crisis-great-power-oil-gas-rivals-pipelines
PDA members, prior to PDA being organized, supported Obama, not once, not twice, not three times, not four times but not five times before they organized PDA and three more times in running for public office--- twice for president; and, obviously, PDA still supports Obama.

PDA needs to dissolve itself; your "strategy" hasn't worked.

Progressives here in the United States need a new working class based progressive people's party that is anti-monopoly, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist with the objective of challenging Wall Street for political and economic power.

Certainly PDA must be looking at Minnesota with its "bait-and-switch" super-majority which has delivered absolutely nothing for working people.

PDA does not have one single success in convincing Obama to do anything... not while he served as a U.S. Senator, not since Obama has been President.

What does PDA want from Obama when he fires these "neo-cons;" John Kerry neo-liberal clones?

Let's get something straight: "Neo-conservatives" did not "hi-jack" U.S. foreign policy. The United States government's foreign policy has been dominated by Wall Street's imperialist agenda beginning with the Spanish-American War and it has never deviated from this imperialist agenda.

Wars and Occupations are part of this Wall Street imperialist agenda.

Mark Twain was a founder and leader of the American Anti-imperialist League.

Is it too much to expect from members of PDA that you speak in terms of imperialism when it comes to the Ukraine and all of these other dirty imperialist wars?

These wars aren't about Obama and Kerry versus the "neo-conservatives." These wars are about neo-liberals and neo-conservatives carrying out Wall Street's imperialist agenda.

Both the United States and Russia are imperialist countries with capitalist economies where state monopoly capitalism is dominant. One could argue the United States undermined the socialist Soviet government and imposed, through imperialist CIA intrigue, capitalism on Russia and the Ukraine and the rest of what used to be to "Eastern European" countries.

Raisa Gorbachev all but admitted, in her book--- "I Hope"--- that both she and her husband Mikhail Gorbachev were tools of the West as they were flown around by Forbes in their jet, "Capitalist Tool."

Guess what, PDA?

You helped create a seamless transition from one imperialist government headed by Bush to another imperialist government headed up by Barack Obama who has turned out to be as bad or worse than George Bush.

You send me this letter asking me to join you in asking Barack Obama and John Kerry to fire two "neo-cons" but you don't invite me to join a struggle against imperialism... do you, or don't you, understand that we are dealing with Wall Street 's imperialist agenda? And replacing two "neo-con" imperialists with two more neo-liberal imperialists has no impact on Wall Street's imperialist agenda being carried out by Barack Obama?

Is there "Peace!" should these two "neo-cons" be fired?

Was there "Peace!" when Obama shuffled the generals?

Where is the "Peace!" from Obama's murderous drone warfare.

Goddamn! 

Where is the logic in supporting imperialists like Obama for any public office and then insisting he fire a couple imperialist war-mongers that he kept on instead of firing and replacing them with two-more imperialist warmongers to carry out U.S. foreign policy which will remain an imperialist foreign policy of dirty imperialist war after dirty imperialist war just as Wall Street orders?

Shouldn't progressives be insisting no U.S. involvement in the Ukraine because we already did enough damage in restoring capitalism in Russia and the Ukraine?

Shouldn't U.S. progressives be joining with the anti-imperialist movements in Russia and the Ukraine in preventing this situation from erupting into one more dirty imperialist war where working people will fight and die and two countries more than twice ravaged by wars will suffer huge destruction?

Peace! Yes... Peace! through anti-imperialist unity, not shuffling around imperialist warmongers appointed by an imperialist President working for Wall Street--- our enemy. 

We need public ownership of the entire energy industry.

We need a Peace Dividend to create jobs putting people to work delivering free health care and free child care through National Public Health Care and Child Care Systems--- publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered... just like public education. These dirty imperialist wars of Wall Street's Military-Industrial Complex are depriving the American people of these kinds of needed universal social programs while making us all poor as the Military-Industrial Complex is the major contributor to global warming and climate change.

Fund jobs not imperialist wars. We need to bring back the WPA, CCC and C.E.T.A.

See: 

Climate change and the military-industrial complex

http://canadiandimension.com/articles/5890/

Sorry, PDA, I'm not buying into your shuffling of the chairs as any kind of solution to stopping these dirty imperialist wars.

Peace to Power... 

For people and nature before Wall Street's profits.

Yours in the struggle for Peace! through anti-imperialist unity,

Alan L. Maki  

Note: In the interest of dialog, discussion and debate I hope PDA will share this response with its members and I hope others will circulate this among their circles of friends, too.

-- 

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

Primary E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

E-mail: alan.maki1951mn@gmail.com

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

************

After thinking about the implications of the coup in Ukraine for U.S.-Russian diplomacy on Syria, Iran and other vital issues, PDA's End Wars & Occupations team sent this out this afternoon. We hope others will echo it. - Sandy Davies - PDA

Click here to View Online and share on Facebook/Twitter

Tell a Friend

Tell Obama and Kerry: Fire the Neocons - Diplomacy Now!

Dear friend,

After the end of the Cold War, neoconservatives hijacked U.S. foreign policy to engineer the overthrow of independent and left-wing governments across the world, from Yugoslavia to the Middle East to Haiti and Honduras. After the US invasion and destruction of Iraq woke Americans to the danger and horror of these policies, we threw the neocons out at the ballot-box in 2006 and 2008. But guess what? They never left!

       

Remember the Project for the New American Century, which drew up the blueprint for the failed "war on terror" and the invasion of Iraq? PNAC was co-founded by Robert Kagan, who later became an adviser to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and still works at the Brookings Institution.

       

Kagan's wife, Victoria Nuland, was a senior foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. President Obama rewarded her with positions as State Department Spokesperson and now Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.

       

Victoria Nuland plotted with US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt to overthrow Ukraine's elected government and hand power to a group of oligarchs and the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party. They fomented street violence by Svoboda and Right Factor militias, who seized weapons from armories, fired on police and protesters, and executed a Russian journalist. Read transcript of intercepted recording of Nuland and Pyatt here. Now President Obama and Secretary Kerry are standing by Nuland's unelected junta and welcoming its leader to the White House, allowing the neocons to sabotage U.S.-Russian relations at a critical time for peace and diplomacy.

       

Please join PDA as we call for the resignation of Assistant Secretary of State Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt; for no further U.S. action to recognize or support the coup regime in Kiev; and for a diplomatic solution involving all parties to the crisis in the Ukraine. Click here to take action.

       

Thanks for telling the President to ditch his pet neocons before they wreck more countries and more people's lives around the world. Their elusive but relentless quest for unchallenged U.S. global power is not a blueprint for a new American century but a recipe for endless violence and chaos. Tell Obama, "We want peace - not more neocon chaos!"

       

Peace!

Tim Carpenter, PDA National Director
End Wars and Occupation Issue Team (Sandy, Mark, Sally, Rob and Rich)

Update Your PDA Profile

Find out more about Progressive Democrats of America

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---

From the Greaves School in Ireland

Anyone interested in working class struggles will appreciate these videos from Ireland. U.S. trade unionist from New York makes presentation on the 2nd video from the top:
http://www.greavesschool.com/

A message to politicians...

Carri Jones, the thoroughly corrupt Chair of the Leech Lake Indian Nation, claims the Republicans are paying me to attack her.

I always find it so interesting the way these crooked and corrupt politicians without any ethics or morals work...

Governor Mark Dayton after coming begging to me for my support and endorsement is now running around accusing me of "winding the springs too tight" when I insist the Minimum Wage.

Then there is Carri Jones, the thoroughly corrupt Chair of the Leech Lake Indian Nation. She doesn't want to talk about a union contract for casino workers, the hideous "At-will employment practices" or the unjust firings of dozens of casino workers; so, what does she do? She goes around telling everyone the Republicans are paying me to attack her.

What is most interesting is that these politicians go all over the place attacking me but they refuse to sit down and debate or discuss any of these issues in a public venue with me.

All they have to do is set a time, date and place for a discussion or debate on these issues and I will be there.

And if Carri Jones has any proof what-so-ever that the Republicans are paying me to attack her--- she can bring this proof forward for the public to see.

There will be a debate this Saturday in Bemidji, Minnesota with all the people running for tribal office invited to participate... I hope Carri Jones shows up to present any proof she has that I am being paid by the Republicans to attack her.

Letter to the Editor: Minimum wage increase is DFL’s latest example of a ‘bait and switch’

My "Letter to the Editor" gets published in the Crookston Times:

Read more:

http://www.crookstontimes.com/article/20140313/Opinion/140319777#ixzz2vr6HsbQZ

By Alan Maki, Warroad, MN
Posted Mar. 13, 2014 @ 8:41 am

Warroad, Minn.

It was reported in the Crookston Times (February 5, 2014) that the DFL will hold a "multi-county convention in Thief River Falls on April 5, which will include the counties of Polk, Norman, Marshall, Pennington, Kittson, Roseau and Red Lake." 

The reason provided by these DFL party hacks is that this multi-county convention will encourage more participation from "statewide candidates." 

Judging from the much lower than normal citizen participation in the DFL Precinct Caucuses this year, what the DFL needs is more citizen participation and less self-serving rhetoric from these politicians who say one thing to get our votes and do the opposite once elected. 

The minimum wage is a case in point. 

People are getting fed up with the DFL because the DFL has become known as the "bait and switch" political party. 

In order to get votes, the DFL "baits" voters by dangling the idea before them that they will legislate a Minimum Wage that is a real living wage. 

Now that the Minnesota DFL has a super-majority, these politicians pull a "switch" and bring forward another poverty Minimum Wage. 

No wonder DFL Precinct Caucuses experienced an all time low citizen participation this year. 

Grassroots citizen activists through their participation in precinct caucuses over the years are responsible for the DFL's Platform calling for: 

Labor and Employment 

We promote the American labor movement and the rights of all workers. 

We support: 

• A minimum wage that keeps pace with inflation and provides full time workers with an income above the poverty level. 

I will be attending this "multi-county convention" to find out from all these statewide candidates why they kicked workers under the bus when it comes to the Minimum Wage. 

We have heard calls from DFL legislators for a Minimum Wage "increase" ranging from $7.75, $8.00, $9.50 and $10.10. 

We even had a group of DFL legislators try to live for a week on the current federal Minimum Wage of $7.25. Surprise, surprise; they couldn't do it. 

But, the real test would have been for these DFL legislators to have tried living on the Minimum Wage most of them seem to be proposing: $9.50. 

Obviously, these legislators didn't try living on the Minimum Wages they are proposing because, just like with $7.75, no one can live on such miserly poverty wages. 

"Cost-of-living" has been omitted from Minimum Wage discussions by these DFL legislators... could one imagine the Minimum Wage going up like the price of propane? 

Is there anything other than "cost-of-living" wages can be compared to? Wages in relation to "cost-of-living" is what determines what kind of "standard-of-living" working class families will have. 

Any school child understands that a poverty wage can't lift anyone out of poverty. 

And, yet, if the Minimum Wage were to be tripled like the price of propane working people would be getting the real living--- non-poverty--- wages the DFL Platform calls for. 

Of course, poverty waged workers can't bribe politicians like the employers do. 

What we can do is withhold our votes from this "bait and switch" crowd. 

Maki is Director of Organizing for the Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council.

-- 

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

Primary E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

E-mail: alan.maki1951mn@gmail.com

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

More facts about the Minimum Wage.

Dan Lemon; your arguments about the Minimum Wage don't hold water.

First of all, your concern about small business. Here are the facts:

1. Not one single small business has ever gone out of business because they couldn't afford to pay their employees real living wages. Minnesota State Senator Tom Bakk made the exact same argument you are making. I asked him to provide proof... he can't provide such proof.

2. The reasons small businesses don't survive are many but here are the main reasons:

a. They can't compete with monopoly price fixing of the huge corporations.

b. Small business partners cheat and embezzle from one another causing the business to collapse.

c. High rents and mortgages.

d. High utility bills.

e. High legal expenses.

f. High insurance premiums.

I can document all of this based on actual reasons small business people have provided through bankruptcy proceedings and the records of the Small Business administration, the Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the National Association of Manufacturers and other trade groups.

In all of my research on why small businesses fail, I have not found one single documented case where wages are the reason for failure.

If you have such documentation by way of spread sheets or other financial records bring this documentation forward to prove your point.

The bottom line when talking about wages is that each and every worker doing a job the employer requires to be done is ENTITLED to a real living wage which means a wage that is tied to actual "cost-of-living" factors.

I don't understand why you or anyone else would take the position that any worker is entitled to any less in return for her/his labor... be it a casino worker or someone working in a convenience store or at Wal-mart or Target or McDonald's or Burger King?

If politicians or anyone else are sincerely worried that small business will suffer from the government imposing a real living wage on all employers, the solution is really quite simple.

Just exclude small businesses from Minimum Wage legislation--- allow the employer to do the work themselves or hire their spouses, grandmas and grandpas and their children to work for whatever wages they want to pay them.

Now, we have crooked and corrupt tribal politicians like Carri Jones and crooked and corrupt state and federal politicians all being bribed by corporations to keep the Minimum Wage down... paying workers a real living wage will not put any casino out of business nor will it put Wal-mart or McDonalds out of business... what will happen is their profit margins will be slightly less. These businesses are reaping super-profits from paying workers poverty wages.

Leech Lake just raised the Minimum Wage to $10.25 an hour which is now the highest legislated Minimum Wage in the United States. But, what is $10.25 compared to the profits being made by the rich white mobsters who own each and every slot machine on the floors of Leech Lake's three casinos?

Link to Leech Lake increase of Minimum Wage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOJXiX5pE2Y

Carri Jones has the gall to talk about poverty when she is only raising the Minimum Wage to one more pathetic miserly poverty wage.

What causes poverty? Poverty wages. Pay a worker poverty wages and their family is going to live in poverty. Any school child understands this--- the understanding is probably a little better if the child is going to school hungry and dressed in rags.

The energy monopolies raised the price of propane this winter. Now wages have to be increased so people can pay their propane bills. Certainly no one can claim wages are in any way responsible for propane going from $1.45 a gallon last summer to over $4.00 a gallon this winter.

Fact: most wages have been going down.

Go to the grocery store--- everything is going up in price.

Been robbed at the gas pumps lately?

Paid an electric bill lately?

Wages going down--- prices going up; your argument holds no water.

Why does Carri Jones refuse to disclose what the "take" is, the cream being skimmed off the top, by the mobsters who own the slot machines and table games and the interest rates being paid to the "investors" who put up the funds to build these casinos?

How come everyone is entitled to profits but workers are not entitled to real living wages based on what it cost them to live?

Why does Carri Jones refuse to sit down and discuss wages and working conditions and engage in discussion about a union contract?

I would be willing to sit down and discuss all of this with Carri Jones in a public forum at any time and place of her choosing.

And, by the way; what price are casino workers paying for working in these loud, noisy smoke-filled casinos? Does their health amount to anything to these corrupt creeps like Carri Jones or Archie "the come back kid" LaRose?

Casino workers get poverty wages and ill health, lousy, substandard housing--- ever taken a ride out to see how John McCarthy lives? Here is his address. Go out and see how this wealthy, rich white guy who heads up the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association lives as a result of forcing casino workers into poverty:

8925 Cove Dr NE, Bemidji, MN 56601

By the way... if you or anyone else wants to engage me in a public debate on this Minimum Wage issue, just let me know the time and place and I will be there.

By the way, why does Leech Lake gaming fire casino workers for discussing wages and working conditions? This doesn't seem too much like democracy to me.

And why does Leech Lake continue this disgraceful "At-Will Hiring and Firing" practice?

Let's get wages up there where they really should be for all workers everywhere.

You say worker's wages should be tied to profits... I assume this means you support wages for casino workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry being around $80.00 to $90.00 an hour? Come on Carri Jones... bring out the books so everyone can see how much is being made by whom in this gaming industry.

Alan L. Maki, Director of Organizing, Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

Is Bernie Sanders a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton?

Are the same "liberals," "progressives" and "leftists" who sold us Obama under false pretenses now using Bernie Sanders to draw people fed up with Obama back into the Democratic Party?

Bernie Sanders is talking about some kind of "political revolution" when what we need to be talking about is "power."

Taking political and economic power out of Wall Street's hands.

We need some kind of massive anti-monopoly people's coalition to challenge Wall Street for political and economic power.

First things first; power has to be taken away from Wall Street.

Did you read this article about Bernie Sanders and his trying to decide if he wants to run for president?

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/03/10

I got so sick of people sending this article to me I sent this out:

The article says,

Though he acknowledged running outside would be the "more radical" approach, Sanders certainly seemed unconvinced it was the wisest one. Creating a third-party movement, he said, "has been talked about in this country for decades and decades and decades, from Eugene Debs forward—without much success. And I say that as the longest serving independent in the history of the United States Congress."

This is not true: "...without much success..."

In fact, there have been tremendous successes.

We have to use the historical facts to push this falsification of history out of our heads. When people took the initiative to build grassroots/rank-and-file political parties and anti-monopoly movements there has been tremendous success. The most successful, the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. Very sectarian, extremely sectarian leftists--- leftists have to be the catalyst for any kind of working class based progressive people's party--- have prevented an honest assessment because they don't want to acknowledge the truth that at a grassroots and rank-and-file level, Socialists and Communists can--- and have--- worked together even when their national leaderships have been engaged in the most despicable dog-and-cat fights.

Socialists and Communists didn't agree to set aside their differences as they built the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party--- instead, they agreed to have organized public debates about their differences; debates organized by the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Association which drew even more people into the Association and the Farmer-Labor Party.

This crap about "spoiler" is part and parcel of the "lesser evil" theory fabricated to elect the very evil Harry "Atom Bomber" Truman.

Democrats are responsible for their campaigns, not us. Since 1948 they have been running "bait and switch" campaigns... feeding voters a populist message to get elected; serving Wall Street's interests once elected.

For years Hubert H. Humphrey and his side-kick Orville Freeman worked in all kinds of clandestine and dishonest ways to undermine, weaken and finally destroy the Farmer-Labor Party. The destruction of the Farmer-Labor Party didn't come easy; it took massive governmental repression under the auspices of the Communist Control Act authored by Hubert H. Humphrey to silence the Farmer-Labor voices but even despicable acts like this couldn't completely silence Farmer-Labor voices inside the merged Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party as evidenced by my election to the Minnesota DFL State Central Committee in the face of a well organized anti-Communist, red-baiting campaign. These bastards win only when the left retreats. And I would point out that leading members of the Minnesota Green Party have been engaged in this red-baiting, too.

What really makes me sick is when I hear these Democratic Party hacks and the foundation-funded opportunists these hacks so effectively manipulate calling us "spoilers." Humphrey and Freeman worked in cahoots with the Dies Committee headed by the fascist Democrat Martin Dies to destroy the Farmer-Labor Party with anti-Communist governmental repression as they simultaneously worked with the racist, anti-Semitic Republican Harold Stassen to defeat the most honest politician in the history of Minnesota politics--- socialist governor Elmer Benson... talk about your goddamn "spoilers."

Without the Socialist and Communist Parties we never would have had the New Deal; there wouldn't be the State Bank of North Dakota; there wouldn't be Civil Rights legislation; there wouldn't be mass industrial unions--- and I could go on and on. Bernie Sanders talks like a man with a paper asshole when he says things like "without much success" in talking about third party initiatives.

If a third party in the process of running to get elected, but failing to win, did nothing BUT win a Minimum Wage that is a real living wage the campaign would be worth it.

In this long, long article the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party is never mentioned and the only mention of PEACE was a brief mention in relation to the Gene McCarthy campaign--- and, of course, it was Gene McCarthy's own anti-Communism that did him in, too.

Let's be clear here. The Farmer-Labor Party is not being overlooked because these writers don't know about it; it is intentionally not being mentioned because a lot of what passes for "progressive" and "alternative" media is still mired in anti-Communism.

Just where does Bernie Sanders stand on the Israeli-Palestinian question? Where is his voice when it comes to all these dirty imperialist wars?

Bernie Sanders says he wants to hear from progressives; quite frankly, I don't believe he wants to hear from anyone except for Democrats. And, quite frankly, he sounds more and more like a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton with the objective of keeping liberals, progressives and leftists trapped inside of the Democratic Party.

I never heard of a socialist who didn't advocate for a National Public Health Care System; what's the big deal? It isn't even controversial. It is based on the model of public education.

And just where does Bernie Sanders stand on the Minimum Wage? Is "cost-of-living" at all relevant to the issue of the Minimum Wage?

What kind of socialist fails to advocate for a Full Employment Act that would mandate the president and Congress to attain and maintain full employment?

The Wal-mart backed Clintons spoiled our chance for single-payer universal health care.

The Wall Street backed Clintons spoiled our chance to reap a huge Peace Dividend from which we could more than fund every single universal job-creating social program anyone could ever dream of.

The Clintons spoiled the lives and livelihoods with their corporate backed welfare "reform."

How come we have such a difficult time placing this "spoiler" issue in its proper perspective?

How come we fail to note that it is the creeps working under the guise of being "leftists" who shoved Obama down our throats with the lie that "Obama is a liberal with a progressive agenda" who now think it best for Bernie Sanders to run in the Democratic Party primaries?

You know what?

I think Bernie Sanders should run in the Democratic Party Primary, too, because that is where Democrats belong.

I haven't even looked at The Nation and Time Magazine articles referenced for this article, yet.

The word "peace" never comes up in the Time Magazine interview. There is mention of Afghanistan but apparently Bernie Sanders doesn't have any disagreement with Obama or Clinton on Afghanistan.

Doesn't anyone feel uncomfortable supporting someone for whom peace isn't even a major concern?

The struggle for a Peace Dividend has to be a main component of any progressive platform.

Not one word about peace or drones in The Nation article, either.

Come on, really; how can anyone support a guy who is given a lot of ink in both Time Magazine and The Nation and peace is not even worth a mention in either interview.


Usually what happens is people first grapple with the question of how to take political power away from those in power. In our situation this is Wall Street which makes it kind of easy to also talk about the need to take both political and economic power away.

This idea of taking political and economic power away from Wall Street isn't even all that controversial among the general public.

Figuring out "how" to do this is the main problem.

Thanks to Occupy Wall Street everyone has figured out that they hate Wall Street... and pretty much why.
I wrote him and called his office on this single-payer issue asking him to explain his own health care scheme. He wouldn't respond. I was told: "We aren't familiar with the details... the person in charge of that will get back to you. No one ever got back to me. I called three times and no one would answer my questions. I'm glad to hear Vermonters want to keep him in the Senate working for them because anyone who claims to be, not only a progressive but a socialist on top of that who not so much as mentions the need for peace, doesn't speak for me.


What I found interesting about the Time Magazine and The Nation interviews is that The Nation interview didn't mention anything about the wars where at least Time brought up Afghanistan.

There has been this trend among Democratic Party hacks to talk up this "economic populism" while failing to take note that the Military-Industrial Complex, militarization, these wars and the vast network of U.S. military bases on foreign soil--- all part of the same imperialist system which is integral to Wall Street's never-ending greedy drive for maximum profits--- all this squandering of our national wealth is never considered part of the cause of all of our economic problems.

I begin to sense when this isn't brought forward that some kind of Democratic Party hacks of one sort or another are doing the talking and writing.

Winning the peace and a huge PEACE DIVIDEND is central to solving this country's economic problems.

It is mind-boggling that Bernie Sanders would participate in two important interviews with a third major article written about these interviews and the need to "beat swords into plowshares" doesn't even come into the conversation.

How do we explain this?

After all, what has been Obama's and the Democrat's Achilles's Heel which these Democratic Party hacks work overtime to conceal and cover up? Is it not that Obama and Clinton are worthless Wall Street imperialist warmongers? Isn't this their "dirty little secret?"

Are Progressives Ready for 'Political Revolution' with Bernie?

www.commondreams.org

With lots of agreement, some divergence, and plenty of questions still to consider, progressives weigh in on a 'Bernie Sanders for President' campaign. (Photo: DonkeyHotey / cc / Text...

Guest Blog: Polio, continued threat to human health around the world.

Brian McAfee
2838 Mason Blvd.
Muskegon Hts., Michigan USA 49444

(231) 737-8726

brimac6@hotmail.com



                              Polio Continues To Be A Major Threat For Millions Of Children

                                                          by Brian McAfee


       While great strides have been taken in ridding the world of polio there are four countries where the disease continues to endanger the lives of children. The countries where the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF have confirmed the existence of and are now immunizing children from polio are Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Syria.

     Pakistan has had the most reported cases. In 2013 there were 93 reported cases of polio, so far in 2014 there have been 24 new cases. Health workers that have been vaccinating Pakistani children
have been targeted by the Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalists. Over 40 health workers and  police monitoring their safety have been killed since December of 2012. In spite of the risks  health
workers from UNICEF and the WHO and other aid organizations continue to work under potentially
dangerous conditions. Last month Islamic scholars from the Islamic Advisory Group gave an official 
declaration that "Shariah allows polio vaccinations". Despite this proclamation polio workers continue to be attacked.

     Afghanistan reported their first polio patient late last year, a three year old girl. For 2013 Afghanistan  had two reported cases of polio, so far this year there have been three new cases. The WHO believes Afghanistan's polio cases may have originated in cross border contact with Pakistan.

     Nigeria in 2012 had 200 cases of polio, for 2013 there were 53 reported. There are none so far
for 2014. The WHO and UNICEF have been quite active in Nigeria and that is probably why Nigeria has been polio free so far this year. Polio workers have been attacked in Nigeria as well. In February of 2013 nine were killed in attacks on two clinics in northern Nigeria. 

     Until last year the last time any Syrian children had polio was 1999. In November of 2013 the
WHO said it had found 17 cases. In Syria at least 6.5 million people are internally displaced and
another 2.3 million have fled to Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq or Egypt. Given the increasingly 
precarious situation in the region in the region the number of children with polio is probably no longer 17.

     Another country, not generally included among the top few for polio but I believe should be, is 
South Sudan. 70 thousand of South Sudan's children have been vaccinated against polio. There is 
an ongoing civil war now under way in South Sudan. UNICEF and the WHO are active in the region, and continued monitoring of South Sudan as well as the others mentioned is worth encouraging,

     This month the WHO and UNICEF will give polio vaccinations to 10 million children across the  Middle East. I encourage people to donate to UNICEF or other charities of their choice.

   UNICEF's website is  .unicefusa.org or call them at 1-800-367-5437

I welcome your comments.- Brian McAfee   brimac6@hotmail.com

How Is Frederick Douglass Relevant Today? by Stewart Alexander

 

Published on March 7th, 2014 | by Stewart Alexander

http://www.thesocialist.us/how-is-frederick-douglass-relevant-today/

How Is Frederick Douglass Relevant Today?

In his brilliant oratory work, Frederick Douglass asked, “What to the slave is the 4th of July?”For Douglass, that day , more than all other days in the year, revealed the gross injustice and cruelty to which he was the constant victim. Born into slavery nearly 200 years ago, Frederick Douglass was speaking to the grim existence that slaves in America endured on a daily basis. Living in slavery was a life without freedom, human rights or dignity. The slaves were nothing more than property and tools to perform labor. For the slaves, it was a lifetime of poverty, despair and degradation.


Today, 119 years since the death of Fredrick Douglass, his words are still powerful — and still ring true for the working class. What to the working class is the 4th of July? The 4th of July reveals to us, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which we are constant victims. Working people have been the victims of wage slavery for more than 200 years.  Poverty wages continue to create vast wealth and prosperity for the super rich and giant corporations. With the president and Congress talking about raising the minimum wage to $9.00 or $10.00 an hour, it is still far short of a living wage and will only guarantee that millions of working people will be slave laborers.


The United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet, yet five in six Americans will become victims of poverty during their lifetime. More than one in six Americans are dependent on public assistance; these individuals cannot enjoy the “pursuit of happiness.” It is a shame that the vast resources of this nation are being squandered by the super rich, big corporations, Wall Street bankers and the military-industrial-complex while the ranks of the poor and homeless continue to swell.


Today, we talk in terms of the “1%” and the “99%.” But the 1% and 99% have existed since the Declaration of Independence. During the many years of slavery, on the plantations of the Deep South, there was the 1% and the 99%.  In the industries across the United States, there has always been the 1% and the 99%. This is the history of the United States. In practice, The Declaration of Independence was never an instrument to address the wellbeing of slaves or working people. Frederick Douglass said, “There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.” Was Frederick Douglass referring to the 1%, the wealthy elite living in the United States?  Yes. It was the 1% then and it is the 1% now: the wealthy elite.


During the years of slavery in America, slaves had no privacy or rights, and were subject to beatings and death. Today, officers sworn to protect and serve – to protect and to serve the interests of the 1% – continue doing this in neighborhoods and streets across America. During 2011, Kelly Thomas, homeless and mentally ill, was cruelly and violently beaten by police on the streets of Fullerton, California. So what reason is there to celebrate justice?


During the years of slavery in America, slaves were under constant surveillance. In the 21st Century, the entire nation is under total NSA surveillance. We have no privacy in our homes, at work, or on the streets. What did the U.S. Constitution mean to the slaves? What does the U.S. Constitution mean to the current American working class? Nothing more than a piece of paper, a hollow document. We are reminded by members of Congress that Constitutional rights are only privileges; and the Bill of Rights and civil liberties are only fading memories of stolen guarantees.


The slavery that exists in the 21st Century America is not defined by color, it is based upon class — the working class. It is slavery custom designed for the 21st Century. Too many of us live in poverty, work for poverty wages and retire in poverty.  The working class is a vast labor pool only to be exploited to increase the wealth of the super rich — the new masters, the 21st Century plantation owners.


Working people in America are living a lie; there is no cause to celebrate liberty and freedom in America. Frederick Douglass so eloquently stated, “Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.” He was right then and now.

About the Author

STEWART ALEXANDER is a longtime activist and has run several electoral campaigns: Mayor of Los Angeles in 1999, California Lieutenant Governor in 2006, Vice President in 2008 and President in 2011. Stewart is an at-large member of the Socialist Party and lives in Murrieta, California with his wife.