Politicians have invented a lot of new definitions for old words lately:
A “concentration camp” holding children is now a “facility.”
“Camping” is what the homeless do.
Trump helped defend the Saudi sheiks from being charged with murder and now Biden is doing the same thing.
Trump recognized Guaido as president of Venezuela and so does Biden.
What has changed other than the faces of those making excuses for these imperialist creeps?
One thing that really gets me is when these well-heeled muddle-headed upper middle class intellectuals who have never worked a day in their lives lecture workers about “effective policies for workers” and these policies always end up being “progressive policy directives” never real solutions that amount to anything except when the “solutions” are limited to a very small section of the population with the rest of working people being told they must patiently wait for their problems to be resolved.
This is the case with those phony liberals, progressives and leftists doing the bidding for the Democrats in continuing to pretend they are for “Medicare for All.”
Do you know how many working people have gone without health care and/or faced medical poverty and/or bankruptcy since the Democrats first started promising “Medicare for All” as a campaign gimmick in 1948... over seventy years ago?
At the time, “Medicare for All” was a ploy used to distract people from the huge movement for a National Public Health Care System and posed as a promise in order to stop the developing Progressive Party from gaining momentum.
Democrats, and their most loyal hacks (like Bernie Sanders) have used “Medicare for All” as such a dishonest ploy ever since.
Effective policies for workers need to be formulated by workers around real solutions to our problems... there is no reason why in the richest country in the world all the pressing problems causing so much misery for working class families can’t be solved immediately like the urgency requires.
Why must working people “patiently wait” for decades to have their problems solved when trillions of dollars are allocated continually and repeatedly to bail out banks and big-business while funding militarism and these dirty imperialist interventions and wars get immediate attention?
I find it interesting those who counsel workers to “patiently wait” for a redress of their grievances and for solutions to their problems never provide such counsel to the Wall Street millionaires and billionaires and are always quick to hand over the resources of government to these capitalist oligarchs without questions... and without delay.
The Rasmussen polling agency recently asked people this question:
“Who’s setting the agenda in Washington, DC these days – President Biden, the Republican opposition, Congress or the national media?”
Then the results get picked up by subscribers who include the media and their “talking heads,” the pundits; and this big discussion begins with those who really set the agenda missing from the conversation.
Why didn’t Rasmussen include in the question a fifth option?
What would that fifth option be?
Wall Street.
Wall Street sets the agenda in Washington with its lobbyists bribing every single politician.
Workers have no say in setting the agenda in Washington.
I wonder why no polling agency has ever asked the question:
Do Wall Street employers or the workers they employ set the agenda in Washington?
Doesn’t democracy require this kind of discussion?
Who is afraid to hear what people think should a question like this be posed to the American people?
Those wealthy Wall Street oligarchs who are our employers are afraid of how this kind of question would be discussed and answered in the public square because their stranglehold on power would face a challenge from the working class... a power they fear more than anything... this is why they spend so much money making sure a question like this never gets asked, let alone answered.
Some of us may die as a result of Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s thoroughly reactionary and outright stupid announced corona virus policies but that is a chance Abbott is willing to take (with our health and our lives) for his own political expediency as he brings forward this outrageous health policy in order to get attention off of his being in the hip pocket of the oil, gas and energy industry... which includes the Saudi Royal Family, which is part of the Texas energy complex, that Abbott takes bribes from with the end result being the huge fiasco leaving so many Texans in dire straits from as a result of the recent winter storm.
Abbott thinks he can cover his bad policies in one area by bringing forward such outrageously bad decisions in another area.
Playing politics with the health and well-being all the way around...
About what one would expect from a loyal servant to the Saudi oil sheiks who, with Abbott’s help, now dominate so much of the Texas economy and politics in general.
And this guy Abbott is making preparations to run to become president of the United States as he sacrifices our health in order to cover-up his bungling of the winter storm while his Republican Party is pushing legislation in line with the objectives of the Confederacy: secession from the Union... more theater to create a diversion which is simultaneously sowing much division and hate.
This is the same Governor who has been playing to his racist base for years in trying to carry out the execution of an innocent black man he played a primary role in helping to frame: Rodney Reed.
Of course the mainstream media, just like with Trump, just salivates in giving this idiot all kinds of coverage as they build his political career without challenging any of this.
For all intents and purposes, the majority of the American people are seeing no opposition to Biden’s Wall Street imperialist war agenda while his so-called liberal, progressive and left supporters claim he has some kind of progressive domestic economic agenda with a few saying behind closed doors they don’t support his imperialist foreign policy.
Opposition to war has to be out in the public square for it to be effective; not whispered in back rooms or published on websites most people will never read.
This is the most disgraceful and absurd characterization of Biden’s agenda; these people pretend Biden’s “properly framed progressive sounding policy objectives” reflect actual policy and legislation when nothing could be further from the truth...
Here is the way one outfit headlined an article:
“Mismatch: Biden bombs Syria while pushing progressive economic bill at home
February 26, 2021 2:02 PM CST BY C.J. ATKINS”
There is no “mismatch” between Biden’s foreign and domestic policies and legislation... both are part of Wall Street’s agenda which can be described as imperialist wars abroad financed with austerity measures shoved down the throats of working people and the working class here at home.
Only a very stupid person or a very dishonest person could have written such an article and then very selectively chosen quotes to fit the headline... which the article does.
No wonder people in this country are so confused when a publication claiming to be a left wing working class voice publishes an article like this.
In fact, Biden’s foreign and domestic policies are perfectly matched, not mismatched, to serve Wall Street’s foreign and domestic agenda.
It is impossible for any politician or political party to simultaneously serve Wall Street’s imperialist agenda abroad while meeting the needs of the working class domestically- this is an impossible task... it has never been done because it can’t be done as economists from Karl Marx to the liberal Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith pointed out; Galbraith declared what every single honest economist knows: “you can’t have guns and butter.”
Lyndon Johnson found this out but only understood it towards the end of his life even though his dear progressive friend Alice Glass constantly tried to point out to him that his war in Vietnam sabotaged his “Great Society” goals and objectives... Johnson ended up disowning his entire foreign policy agenda when he endorsed George McGovern for president. That’s why this cartoon hangs so prominently on the wall in the Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas... and his daughter in a audio tribute to her father in the main display says that her father searched for ways to end the war although she doesn’t explain how he sent a dishonest creep like Henry Kissinger to negotiate the peace when Kissinger was really working behind Johnson’s back to support Wall Street’s war machine to keep the war going.
How is it any newspaper claiming to be a working class voice could be so confused as to call Biden’s foreign and domestic policies a “mismatch?”
No president can muster support for a progressive domestic agenda while pushing a reactionary foreign policy agenda if for no other reason no politician can be found who supports a reactionary foreign policy will then turn around and support a progressive economic domestic policy... there is no such political creature so why this pretense that Biden is such a political creature?
And just as the mainstream media has to create big fat lies to muster public support for Wall Street’s imperialist agenda ( a reactionary foreign and domestic agenda ), these phony leftists backing Biden now make the most outrageous claim as the writer cited in the article above that Biden has brought forward legislation, “Widely hailed as one of most progressive economic bills ever considered by Congress...” another great big fat lie used to justify this publication’s previous support for electing Biden.
This is a pretty good article by Glen Greenwald but he misses the important point that the Saudis own the largest oil refinery (Aramco) in Texas, which is still part of the United States; and these same Saudi Sheiks own one of the largest chemical plants in the world, here in Texas, also.
And these Saudi oil sheiks contribute billions of dollars to the coffers of both the Democratic and Republican parties just like our own Wall Street millionaire and billionaire oligarchs like Bezos, Buffett and Gates.
The Saudi oil Sheiks also own and operate one of the largest, if not the largest oil, gas and chemical distribution networks in the United States... not to mention they are among the largest owners of agricultural land and real estate development in the United States.
None of this bodes well for democracy as these Saudi oil Sheiks demand Democrats and Republicans curb democracy here just the way they do in their own country.
By the way, I don’t see one single person disputing one single thing in this article by Greenwald.
It will take much more than good articles to create a peace-centered U.S. foreign policy... it will take a powerful grassroots citizen’s initiative constituting a powerful anti-imperialist movement of dedicated citizen-activists comprising people from all walks- people who hold a variety of world outlooks committed to working together. It will also take an understanding of how U.S. foreign policy became the property of Wall Street at the conclusion of World War II.
Perhaps if Greenwald continues on the path he is on he will become a real anti-imperialist some day... for now he provides us with a lot of very timely and important information we should be able to use to educate people in building an effective anti-imperialist movement capable of establishing a sane and sensible U.S. foreign policy based on mutual respect and cooperation which will contribute to world peace.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/bidens-protection-of-murderous-saudi-a9c?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxODgzMjA0MiwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzMxNzY2NTgsIl8iOiJqTnd5MiIsImlhdCI6MTYxNDc4NTk5MywiZXhwIjoxNjE0Nzg5NTkzLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTI4NjYyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.DShARWZ2NqD7PNcwW6eycrSqKv9OPL7j_4qiSpfwa7M&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&fbclid=IwAR2hBoOKmPW-jChMjSd0Sy9xhQwviNGN8ckxink6TvVOIgt2Fa1P91QyJB8
Real working class leaders have always provided this good advice:
Be strong together.
Together defend your health, your livelihoods, your rights and demand a voice at work which gives you a voice in the community where you live.
This is universally good advice for working people everywhere.
If you have no rights at work you will have no rights in your community.
The Democratic Party hacks try to hoodwink us into thinking, and accepting, their version of what they expect us to consider to be “movement building.”
Movement building is very important because it is through big rank-and-file and grassroots working class movements we win the kind of reforms required to solve our problems and get us onto a path leading to better and improved lives and livelihoods... creating the kind of socially just society we envision.
This false notion of what movement building consists of amounts to building support for this or that politician who adheres to the idea that political campaigns revolve around promoting “properly framed progressive sounding policy directives” with the intent of tricking us out of our votes while not having to advance real solutions to our problems based on what we consider solutions... all the while leading us to believe they know what is best for us... and, more often than not, these charlatans are willing to endure us suffering while advising we must “give their favorite politician a chance” while we must accept “baby steps” and “incremental reforms” enduring hardships and suffering they would never consider enduring for themselves and their families and their class.
Those who are willing to play this con game on us can quickly find themselves going, quite literally, from rags to riches if they have the gift for gab and are good at pretending they are our friends when they are really our class adversaries.
And, as you work your way up the ladder, you might even land yourself a plum position with a very nice salary as a “talking head” on one of the mainstream media networks... pretending to represent us.
You might even be able to carve out a niche for yourself doing a popular “podcast” that brings in thousands of dollars sparing you the life of having to work for a living.
For the users, and this is what these selfish people are, this system seems to work out well.
For the rest of us there is real movement building...
We define and articulate our problems...
While working together with those we share these problems in common...
We build organizations which will enable us to become powerful advocates for real solutions to our problems rather than merely accepting nice sounding campaign promises from a bunch of Dumb Donkeys who have no intent to deliver after the votes are counted... even when they win.
If you are looking for a life on easy street you will join the chorus of those calling on us to “give Biden a chance.”
If you are content with a life of work but expect this to be a decent life provided by the wealth our working class creates, together, then come participate in the kind of real movement building that will improve the lives of our entire class while recognizing that an injury to one is an injury to all and we achieve victories through our solidarity derived from movement building campaigns using:
Education which empowers working people to take the kind of united militant action which results in victories which are defined as real solutions to our problems.
One of the first things we must understand is that in Wall Street we have a common enemy... working people have no friends among the Wall Street employers, industrialists, bankers and financiers; these are the parasites who live off of our labor.
Society needs these parasites about as much as our cats and dogs need ticks and fleas.
It’s time to flex some working class muscle; worker’s power... the united power of our working class in coalition with all people seeking peace and an economically and socially just society... these are the primary points of unity that should guide us in coming together in movement building.
Join us...
Read over our petition.
If you agree add your signature to give you a stronger voice at work and in your community.
Ask your friends, neighbors and fellow workers to sign our petition.
Ask those who sign to share this petition with others.
In this way we begin to build a real movement for the kind of real change we seek... one by one our movement grows. Like one little raindrop we don’t amount to much... but, let it pour!
Urgent!
Please sign our petition.
Millions of people are suffering.
Action is required now.
Politicians will not respond unless pressured to do what is right.
You can help by signing and then circulating this petition.
Feel free to copy and print this petition, collect signatures and return the petitions to us.
We are organizing a campaign that with broad support will become a powerful movement.
There are many discussions here on FaceBook, on Twitter and other social media where you can just copy and paste this post as a comment.
Copy and paste this post to your notes so you have it at hand and easy to post.
Copy and paste this post to your blog:
https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q
Our Social Justice Book Club at the Lake Travis Community Public Library will be discussing this book this month...
“Supreme Inequality” by Adam Cohen.
The book has a lot of useful information about how the U.S. Supreme Court serves the rich and powerful to maintain dominance over society.
It is written from a liberal point of view; such, it omits many of the most important cases the United States Supreme Court has dealt with which has taken up more than a little bit of its time... the rights of Communists.
This is an important shortcoming of the book.
But, the author does point out to what lengths those in power who represent the wealthy few will go in order to assure the Supreme Court does not deviate from its originally intended purpose to maintain the wealthy employer class in power even though the author does not use such class language.
It’s unfortunate the author, Adam Cohen, left out any references to the cases against the Communists because he claims to advance the idea that the Court is biased against the poor and workers, which is true, but without including any reference to the myriad of cases involving the denial of rights of Communists to participate in the political life of the country the author presents a weak case for his arguments.
One has to wonder how it is any author could have written a book making the case that the United States Supreme Court is biased against workers, the poor, the racially oppressed, women and against a progressive agenda without citing these cases involving Communists.
Obviously anyone, such as Cohen, who claims to be an authority on the Supreme Court when it comes to such decisions, could not have inadvertently missed the very important cases involving Communists in all of these struggles so one must assume the author is intellectually dishonest in not citing Supreme Court cases involving government and corporate and government repression of Communists which came before the Court.
With this important shortcoming in mind, the book is still a very important read; but, like with any writer associated with the New York Times, one must not only read between the lines but be willing to do a lot of independent research with an open mind.
The author does prove his point that the U.S. Supreme Court has been the enforcer for a more unjust America for many decades... if not for most of the history of this country.
The author does not even do much as touch the many Supreme Court cases involving the hideously fascist-like Communist Control Act even though mentioning the devious and abhorrent attacks by the FBI, other government agencies and politicians on the greatest of all defenders of democracy and worker’s rights to ever sit on the United States Supreme Court, William O. Douglas.
Nor does Cohen delve into the despicable deportations of Communists from the United States like the noted Abd distinguished scientist Nadia Barkman who was deported from the United States to Israel based on her activism as a youth member of the the Young Communist League who played such an important role working with the leader of auto workers, Phil Raymond, in laying the groundwork for organizing auto workers.
Apparently New York Times journalists like Adam Cohen have a very difficult time overcoming their anti-Communist biases even when truth, objectivity and intellectual honesty require such.
United States District Court Judge Noel P. Fox asked me while Zibwas defending my rights in his Court why I was relying on so many minority opinions written by William O. Douglas to make my case? My response was, “Because Douglas was right.”
Judge Fox responded by saying, “I agree with you about Douglas having been right; but my decisions in this court have to be based on the U.S. Supreme Court decisions which have been on the wrong side of justice.”
Cohen, really doesn’t get into what it is going to take to create a U.S. Supreme Court majority on the side of workers, the poor, the racially oppressed because he, himself, like so many faux liberals, has a class bias based on anti-Communism, restricting his vision.
To Cohen’s credit he does not indulge in outright red-baiting although his lack of attention to any of the most important U.S. Supreme Court cases which involved Communists involved in the struggles of workers, the poor, the racially oppressed and women are never so much as mentioned.
The closest Cohen comes to citing the cases of Communists, is the case of Lillian Hellman- the friend and fellow traveler of many Communists (although Cohen does not cite her work with Communists) being hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee with Abe Fortas, later to become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice assisting her.
Cohen’s book should be seen, as limi TV ted as it is, as part of the struggle to defend and advance democracy... just understand Cohen leaves many important matters covered- out of sight and out of mind.
“Medical poverty,” “student debt poverty,” “home mortgage poverty,” “credit card poverty.”
Go to the grocery store and pay for your food with a credit card... more debt.
Debt is a poverty trap for the working class.
Workers need a raise to a real living wage, not credit cards and more debt.
Whose bright idea was it to give workers credit cards instead of the working class fighting for real living wages derived from the wealth we create?
Now we have millionaire labor leaders pushing credit cards on workers... credit cards emblazoned with union logos... what a farce.
Credit is a trap...
It is intended to make workers believe they have a higher standard of living than what they really do...
Plus, with large amounts of debt hanging over their heads...
Guess what?
Workers are afraid to fight for what they are entitled to out of fear of losing their jobs because they won’t be able to pay the debt collectors.
The solution?
America needs a real raise... a real big raise.
Now is the time to fight for this raise and to organize the unorganized during this profit orgy with the stock market going out of sight.
The money is there; it’s the wealth the working class has created... we are entitled to big raises... real living wage raises in line with the actual cost-of-living.
Real pay; no more credit cards and debt.
What is organized labor waiting for?
The Atlantic Council, a reactionary Wall Street imperialist think-tank, just released an anonymously authored long belligerent anti-Communist diatribe about how to force regime change in China.
This should cause concern for every single person seeking a more peaceful world through developing good relations with China in all spheres of human endeavor because Biden has placed members of the Atlantic Council who adhere to the thinking in this bellicose “paper” in very key government positions relating to defense and foreign policy.
It’s time for the American people to have a voice in foreign policy decision-making... we can not continue to allow these Wall Street warmongers who profit from regime change, militarism and wars to make these important decisions.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/news/press-releases/atlantic-council-congratulates-members-of-its-community-appointed-to-biden-harris-administration/
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/atlantic-council-strategy-paper-series/the-longer-telegram/
We need to understand the history behind these vile reactionary anti-Communist anti-Chinese views in our foreign policy if we are going to have the kind of say which establishes a sane foreign policy towards China and the rest of the world... this book is a must read if we are going to understand how U.S. foreign policy towards China got so out of whack.
Maybe it’s time we start foreign policy discussion/study groups all over this country with teach-ins taking place in our schools and colleges?
This insanity must end.
The real not so secret secret that is not mentioned in this article is how the Bush family worked behind the scenes to manipulate all of these people and organizations... one has to wonder how the writers could have missed the role of the Bush political/Wall Street dynasty... maybe this was by intent?
We were all had... these people played us for suckers and fools.
Everything I said was happening that was being denied by Democratic Party hacks is almost all exposed here.
No doubt these same players are working behind our backs buying people off in order to make sure no huge movements develop in the streets that would pressure Biden and the Democrats to deliver the kind of solutions to our problems we really need.
This “coalition” of labor and big business is making sure real left wing working class ideas never enter the public square.
Is it any wonder Zuckerberg used FaceBook to censor left wing working class activists after he gave over $300 million dollars to this “secret” grouping seeking to manipulate the Election?
Think about this:
This “coalition” could easily force the Biden-Harris Administration to do what is right by the American people and the working class but they choose not to empower people to take the action required.
Question:
Why not?
My comment:
This “coalition” is more interested in neutering and undermining working class action and power.
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-share-article&utm-term=politics_2020-election&fbclid=IwAR2uVh_O-GMElRCXPtmsQD3KlTf4PJBn426zp-XCp128zoXnhcJMMgJOVOY
I was listening to the radio and heard some talking heads talking about how Trump elevated the art of the lie to new levels posing a threat to American politics... as if lying is something new to politics in this country.
Listening to these talking heads one would conclude that lies are the sole property of Republicans.
However, lies are the foundation of capitalist politics in this country.
The biggest lies of all have been embedded around racism and anti-Communism.
Racism could not exist if the politicians from both parties would not concoct all kinds of lies to justify it and then use it to incite the kind of hate which is intended to sow divisions in order to keep people from banding together to improve their lives and livelihoods.
Anti-Communism, like racism, is embodied in very sophisticated lies which create another poison capitalist politicians from both parties have used to support imperialist militarism and the dirtiest wars waged to protect Wall Street’s interests.
Consider this:
There are no truths or facts to justify or support either racism or anti-Communism; so, how could American politics be based on anything but lies since these are the foundation of American politics?
Anyone who pushes the reactionary ideas, legislation and who campaigns using racism or anti-Communism is a liar.
There is no honesty in American politics except when anti-racists and those opposing anti-Communism bring truth forward.
Obviously we need a new party if we are going to create honesty in politics and government.
On top of the outright lies, we have a politics based on “bait and switch;” tell people one thing to get elected and do the opposite once elected... if this isn’t about lying and dishonesty in politics what would you call it? Look at each and every elected official in this country- chances are pretty darn good you are looking at a liar.
Bill Gates wrote a book about climate change but this billionaire doesn’t view socialism as a solution nor does he view peace and disarmament along with a sane and peaceful foreign policy as part of the solution to climate change just like he doesn’t recommend free public transportation as a primary solution to global warming.
What Bill Gates does suggest is that capitalists should be given the freedom to profit from advancing "solutions"to global warming and climate change but capitalism created the mess we are in in the first place.
Bill Gates suggests as a solution to global warming that we should all stop eating meat.
Another of his hare-brained schemes is that some kind of particles should be spread across the skies to stop the sun's heat from coming through.
One-hundred and fifty years of capitalist industrialization and “development” (read exploitation of labor used to rape, plunder and destroy Mother Earth) in quest of maximum profits for the few... this is what got us to where we are today and the only solution offered by Bill Gates is to continue on this path to oblivion so he and his fellow billionaire Wall Street oligarchs can amass more profits as he lectures us that we must learn to live with a warming earth.
There is a better way forward that doesn’t fit with the ideas advanced by Bill Gates...
And it is called socialism.
We heard this bit about how movements are needed before.
But the movements required to push these Democrats to make good on their promises has never materialized.
What we get is a bunch of little organizations headed up by people getting paid and all they are interested in is competing with other little organizations for funding so they can maintain their salaried positions.
This is from David Swanson; his article supporting Bernie Sanders:
“That’s the difference in this election. Bernie Sanders is a million miles from perfect. But he is radically superior to who he was four years ago, to the other Democratic candidates, and to the past 45 presidents. A greatly enlarged movement will need to move him and the Congress and the whole society in the right direction, but such a movement will be in a far better place with him than with any of the other candidates. If we must be tokenists, let’s just declare it time to elect a Jew. But if we care about the earth, let’s declare it time to stop being morons.”
When does this movement building begin?
Everything these people write always comes with a pitch for money... just like the politicians.
What’s happened to grassroots activism with people coming together around kitchen tables, in church basements and community centers organizing movements in their own neighborhoods, communities and after work?
We can’t be relying on people who bail out when their paycheck stops... we need to rely on ourselves to educate, organize and build movements with our family, friends, neighbors and the people we work with.
I can vote for Bernie Sanders as a way to get rid of Trump but I’m not going to waste my time working for any of these Democrats who lack a commitment to building movements... they take money from the people but don’t allocate a penny to movement building because all the money goes to over-paid staff who lack any commitment to anything other than themselves... when the money goes, they go.
We need movements of the people; movements that continue to struggle for peace, social and economic justice.
We need these movements more than we need any politician... real people’s politicians will come out of such movements.
150 years of capitalist industrialization and rape of Mother Nature caused global warming and climate change.
I doubt a bunch of greedy profit driven capitalists have a clue about how to solve the problem.
Without considering socialist oriented solutions like public ownership and control of basic industries and the energy industry it is doubtful these problems can be solved.
The Artic freeze and loss of power and heat...
Should give us all something to ponder...
This presents the case for nationalization through public ownership and democratic control of the entire energy sector and the power grid.
Leland Olds was pushing forward this approach when his old friend Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson decided to launch into a vicious attack on his old friend from the New Deal days in return for support from the oil and gas industry.
The day LBJ launched this anti-Communist smear attack on Leland Olds in the U.S. Senate was one of the saddest days in U.S. politics... and American history... an untold and covered up story smothered by the mainstream media owned by Wall Street interests with teachers in our public schools still fearful of teaching.
And we are paying dearly for this attack today.
Something Democrats may want to ponder as two-million Texans are left without power shivering in the cold in a state with one of the biggest electric generating capacity all subsidized by state and federal tax-payers and those who are paying high priced electric bills from which the billionaires and millionaires reap huge profits.
Leland Olds was an American socialist economist interested in labor, development of public electric power, and ecology who President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed as a Federal Power Commissioner (1939 to 1947).
Like other prominent New Dealers such as Frances Perkins, most people in this country know little about these people.
Olds was supported by the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party (political alliance of the Socialist and Communist parties together with organized labor and progressive farm groups) which pushed the idea of a cooperative socialist commonwealth... an idea advanced by Leland Olds who saw cooperatives playing a leading role in developing a socialist alternative to capitalism.
Shivering in the cold is one price, among many horrendous prices, we pay for the politics of opportunism of which anti-Communism is a primary defining feature of the two-party trap... the shivering truth; figure out if the pun is intended and appropriate as you shiver beneath the blankets tonite.
One of the most pertinent comments I have read on the situation in Texas:
🇺🇸 Freedom from government regulations. Libertarian paradise. Too bad they can’t use gaslighting to heat their homes.
Thanks to Carol Cook for this very pertinent and insightful comment on the situation.
The discussion about socialism needs to take place now, not later.
This becomes more relevant by the day as we go from crises to crises which has become the way of life as this capitalist system crumbles creating misery for millions of people here in this country and around the world while Mother Nature rebels in her own way to mistreatment and abuse through climate change.
The working class creates all wealth but has no say in the decision-making process at any level in our country.
There are only two sources of wealth: Labor and Mother Nature.
Any society which systematically exploits labor and rapes Mother Nature can only be a very troubled society.
We need to get away from this idea that socialism is about what this or that politician thinks it is in order to promote their own selfish agenda and begin to bring into the public square the kind of discussions which will contribute to building massive militant united people’s movements determined to solve our problems... and this includes building a new working class based people’s party that is both anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist with the goal and objective of beating swords into plowshare so we can use the resulting peace dividend to finance real solutions to our problems while challenging Wall Street for both political and economic power while advancing the socialist alternative to capitalism.
We aren’t talking about real socialism unless we are addressing the “ownership question” as I previously described below...
In my conversations with the “socialist”Bernie Sanders, he says he does not advocate nationalization through public takeover and public ownership of the mines, mills, factories, banks and the energy complex.
Wouldn't movements like Standing Rock gain more strength if we were to advocate for the nationalization of the energy complex?
As a longtime socialist I don't see how we can escape this "ownership question" unless we are going to have to keep fighting these battles over and over again.
We don't need all of these pipelines; but decisions on whether or not to build these pipelines are not based on need as determined through public planning. Rather, these decisions are based solely on corporate bottom lines.
Socialist solutions to our problems must be advanced... if we as socialists do not get our views out the all important "ownership" question (private versus public) will never be mentioned because there are no foundation-funded outfits who will take up this struggle.
People often ask me what socialists want to bring under public ownership. I tell them to pick up the Wall Street Journal and look at the corporations listed in the stock exchanges... nationalize them all under public ownership with democratic decision-making and control.
I previously contributed these thoughts about global warming and climate change which have never been answered by Noam Chomsky or any of the foundation-funded outfits fronting for the Democratic Party which serve to prevent grassroots activism and movements from maturing to their full potential:
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/climate-change-and-the-military-industrial-complex1
I’m a retired member of Unite-HERE Local 17 in Minneapolis. I am a long-time rank-and-file working class activist involved in the struggles for worker’s rights, for civil rights, for peace and for socialism.
I think AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka could have done much better in articulating and defending the rights and livelihoods of workers in his recent interview with Bloomberg News; his failure to articulate and adequately defend the rights and livelihoods of workers and working class families shows us just how out of touch this millionaire labor leader is with the working class.
Trumka is wasting precious time defending Democrats who have more in common with Republicans and their Wall Street agenda than in defending the rights and livelihoods of working people.
I hope other workers will share my post and sign our petition to Bailout Workers, Not Wall Street, here:
https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q
I look forward to Trumka’s response to my comment.
Long ago, as World War II was ending and the United States government initiated political repression targeting the labor movement here at home while simultaneously developing a thoroughly reactionary aggressive imperialist foreign policy enforced through the threat of nuclear war at Wall Street’s behest in relation to the Soviet Union, the emerging new socialist China and those peoples struggling to free themselves from colonialism and imperialism, far-sighted thinkers and politicians like the progressives Elmer Benson- the former progressive Governor of Minnesota, Henry Wallace and his liberal friend Democratic Senator Claude Pepper who was a ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee along with the distinguished peace and civil rights activists W.E.B. Du Bois and Shirley Graham Du Bois together with working class leaders including Harry Bridges, Wyndham Mortimer, Coleman Young, Claudia Jones and Ernest DeMaio put their heads together.
They formulated and proposed an alternative “Jobs Not War” agenda to counter Wall Street’s imperialist agenda.
Their thinking was that if the United States government would focus on creating a better life for our own people the increasingly aggressive and war prone government would not have the will, nor the capacity, to wage wars and meddle and intervene in the affairs of other countries... thus, the United States would become a voice for peace, friendship, mutual respect and cooperation with the rest of the world.
The shameful undemocratic smothering through political repression of progressive voices for peace- in and out of the United States government- towards the emerging socialist revolution in China at its early stages of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s has been all but forgotten; intentionally covered up and hidden from public view today… the case of “the China Hands” should become common knowledge if we are going to right the wrong foreign policy course of our government lest we become entangled in a disastrous new world war which could lead to a nuclear conflagration resulting in a horribly destructive nuclear winter.
These voices of sanity and reason in the past were smothered with anti-Communist repression.
Anti-Communism is, once again, raising its ugly head and is being used in a very sinister and undemocratic way by both Democrats and Republicans to smother progressive voices of reason for peace through dialog and cooperation among nations; this thwarts and stymies any discussion about social and economic justice, too.
In the past, common people from all walks of life, around the world and here in the United States, made their voices for peace known in all kinds of international peace movements including the “Ban the Bomb” movement.
Such movements are needed today more than ever before.
People wrote letters to the editor and to politicians, they petitioned governments and they marched through the streets to make their voices heard.
Again, forcing our government to focus on human needs and the health of the planet will help to prevent wars and contribute to putting an end to this insane militarism which is robbing us of our jobs and the basic necessities of life ranging from education to housing and health care.
We must focus on putting people to work at real living wage jobs solving the problems of the people. This is the way forward.
The voices for peace embodying sanity and reason provided good advice back then and such thinking is what we need in this country now more than ever before.
There is a universal world-wide consensus that for the common good of all people and for the health of the planet: all wars must end; that people’s needs and the health of the planet must come before corporate profits.
As a life-long activist, it is with this in mind, that I have joined with others in bringing forward this very minimal and basic set of four urgently required demands intended to help working class families through this capitalist economic collapse exacerbated by this coronavirus pandemic. These miserly “stimulus checks” amount to next to nothing in comparison to people’s problems resulting in untold misery and suffering.
Of course, something is always better than nothing but we need much more significant reforms as our petition calls for.
Members of the Socialist Connection Action Network (Socialist C.A.N.), of which I am a member, propose an emergency action agenda for all people’s unity around these very minimal and basic demands; we seek to work with all individuals and organizations to attain these goals:
1. A Basic Income Guarantee of $2000.00 a month for every adult over 18 and $200.00 for each child in the family.
2. A $650.00 increase for everyone receiving Social Security.
3. Cancel ALL student debt.
4. Increase the Federal Minimum Wage to $16.00 an hour.
The money can come from a hefty tax on the rich, a tax on Wall Street transactions and profits, Federal Stimulus Funds for public needs along with a Peace Dividend.
We have launched a campaign involving petitioning and letter writing to get this movement underway and to put pressure on Congress and the President to enact this as legislation.
We need your help.
Please copy, post and distribute this as widely as possible.
Contact:
Alan Maki
512-517-2708
red_finn@live.com
For twelve years Democrats and Republicans have been using the financial resources and levers of government to assist and bailout Wall Street from this mess we as working people have had no voice in nor part in creating.
Now it’s time to bailout working class families.
We are not asking for a handout since we create all the wealth with no little amount of help from Mother Nature.
Every campaign of this nature requires many people helping to educate people.
Every campaign of this nature requires “all hands on deck.”
Every campaign of this nature requires the broadest possible unity in activity and action with as many people and organizations possible involved.
It will require building some kind of huge “people’s lobby” to win these reforms.
Will you sign our petition?
The main reason there is no solution forthcoming for working people as far as a stimulus package from Congress is that no mass pressure has been applied by the working class to force these Wall Street bribed politicians to do what is right.
The situation is urgent for tens of millions of working class families and you can sign our petition and then ask others to sign so we begin to bring some pressure to bear on these politicians.
Yes; the situation really is urgent.
Please sign our petition.
Millions of people are suffering.
Action is required now.
Politicians will not respond unless pressured to do what is right.
You can help by signing and then circulating this petition.
Feel free to copy and print this petition, collect signatures and return the petitions to us.
We are organizing a campaign that with broad support will become a powerful movement.
There are many discussions here on FaceBook, on Twitter and other social media where you can just copy and paste this post as a comment.
Copy and paste this post to your notes so you have it at hand and easy to post.
Copy and paste this post to your FaceBook page or blog.
Can we win these very minimal and basic demands?
Speaking from experience, as the leader of the national effort that led to unemployment compensation being extended during times of high unemployment- the Unemployment Extension Act of 1971 signed into law by Richard Nixon- I believe we can prevail.
We started with a similar petition campaign that led to meetings with members of Congress.
We held demonstrations in front of unemployment offices and on busy street corners.
We passed out leaflets everyplace while asking people to sign our petition.
We invited all organizations and unions to join our effort.
We initiated forums and debates.
The mainstream media along with the billionaire owners of social media have conducted misinformation campaigns intended to thwart efforts to win real reforms. Much of what they do is targeted at dividing working people so we can’t effectively mobilize.
We must respond to this crisis with:
Education.
Organization.
Unity.
Working class action.
Together, we can win.
Some AFL-CIO unions threatened a general strike to defend Biden’s win should Trump try to hold on to the presidency. So, we know these union leaders know what a powerful weapon labor has in the general strike. This begs the question: Why haven’t these unions used the general strike to advance working class demands for our rights and to improve or livelihoods?
“Together” is the key word we need to focus on.
Educating the working class is important and fundamental to building a powerful working class movement. Unions are way behind what is required in this area.
A couple suggestions: Working people should read books like “Labor’s Untold Story” published by the United Electrical Workers and “Organize” written by Wyndham Mortimer who led auto workers in the great Flint Sit-down Strike. The book, “Madam Secretary, Frances Perkins” by George Martin.
We need to be concerned with the working class- the power and the movement.
One would think Richard Trumka, the head of the AFL-CIO, would be more concerned with the politics and economics of livelihood concerning the working and living conditions of working people rather than holding up the tails of these Dumb Donkeys like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris trying to pick up what the sparrows leave behind.
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