Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Please note I have a new phone number...

512-517-2708

Alan Maki

Alan Maki
Doing research at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

A program for real change...

http://peaceandsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-progressive-program-for-real-change.html


What we need is a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would make it a mandatory requirement that the president and Congress attain and maintain full employment.


"Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens"

- Ben Franklin

Let's talk...

Let's talk...

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Are you satisfied with getting your problems solved on the "lay away plan?"

My answer to a FaceBook friend who claims the time is not right to solve the problems of working people and is tired of hearing about working people and then claims there is too much confusion to find solutions to problems:

There are many solutions to the problems working people are experiencing and every single one of the solutions can be put in place just as quickly as the government moved to bail out Wall Street.

Working people, the working class, is the largest and only productive class in society and includes most seniors, most refugees and starving children. We have a right, as workers, to have a say and participate in the decision-making process in a way intended to resolve and solve our problems--- today, not later. We have created the tremendous wealth now being horded by the selfish and greedy wealthy few and we are entitled to have that wealth put to work solving our problems.

The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights was brought forward in 1948 and the vast majority of working people in this country and around the world do not have these rights beyond the piece of paper they are printed on.

You may be "waiting" for this election to be over but your fellow human beings, mostly workers, need to eat every day, need medical care when they are sick and not according to your "formula" of "baby steps" and "incremental change," workers need jobs at real living wages to survive and can't wait decades to get a real living wage job.

Tell me how long should a hungry child have to wait to eat? Until "after the election?" How long should an unemployed worker have to wait for a job? How long must someone go with a toothache before they get dental care?

For the working class and all working people there is only one formula that determines when working people have ever had their problems solved and it is spelled: S-T-R-U-G-G-L-E.

Working people will only get in the here and now what we demand and fight today.

We are not talking about luxuries like the latest style clothes and designer jewelry, vacations at luxury resorts in the Caribbean (although a week or two in Cuba would be nice), going to Disneyland every year.

Read the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and you will understand what working people want and expect, right now, from government and an economic system that truly works for the people, all the people--- including working people who create ALL the wealth along with quite a little help from Mother Nature.

This is all we want and expect and struggle for right now--- not in "baby steps," not "incrementally," not on the "lay-away plan" promised by a bunch of crooked, corrupt, lying Wall Street bribed politicians looking for votes in order to try to put a shine to a "democracy" that is in rapid decay and only works for the parasitical wealthy few: http://unudhr.blogspot.com/

There are solutions today and among finding those solutions in many other places, I bring forward these solutions every single day.

The solution to a child being hungry is to feed them.

The solution to poverty wage jobs is to pay a real living wage based upon the real and actual cost--of-living.

The solution to a toothache is providing access to dental care.

Let us not play games here; there isn't one single reason the problems of working people are not being solved and that is because solving all these problems would cut into the profits of the Wall Street exploiters and the entire business (capitalist) class.

Every single day in the United States more food is thrown away than what it would take to feed every single hungry child in the world yet you don't want to get specific about who is dumping this food.

Every single day some worker suffers a toothache while a dentist refuses care because he/she is on strike against the "low" fees the State of Minnesota will pay but chooses instead of helping someone to be out playing golf.

You might buy diamond and gold jewelry on "the lay-away plan" but working people can not continue to accept a kind of politics that puts our problems on the "lay-away plan;" especially when this "lay-away plan" is only phony campaign promises never intended to become reality as the wealth of our Nation is either horded by the rich or squandered on dirty imperialist wars while you await some kind of special time to beat swords into plowshares--- again, the peace dividend promised decades ago by the Democrats, has never materialized for working people.

And you might not want to hear about working people or the working class--- but might I suggest you wouldn't be able to survive one single day without this class.

There is a great deal of confusion but that confusion is intentionally being sown in order to try to disorient the working class and prevent the solidarity and unity in struggle required to take on our Wall Street enemies.

Friday, August 5, 2016

Conditions getting so bad for working class families has never been a catalyst for action.

I don't think the so-called liberals, phony progressives or the fake leftists supporting Hillary Clinton will be any more likely to struggle against Trump than they have been with Obama or would be with Hillary Clinton.

To back this up, I would point to their failure to participate in struggles to end the dirty war in Vietnam, they ducked out the movement to impeach Nixon, failure to participate in the struggle to prevent the war in Iraq, they abandoned the struggle to impeach Bush and Cheney and their failure to participate in struggles to try to stop plant closings back in the 1970's or during the present time; or their undermining the rank-and-file initiated struggles in Wisconsin against Scott Walker and Snyder in Michigan or their attitude towards police killings in which they call for "letting justice take its course" in place of militant mass mobilizations of the people.

I would also point out they cheered when John Conyers had Cindy Sheehan arrested just because she went to John Conyers' office insisting he come through with his promise to push for the impeachment and arrest of Bush and Cheney.

Just look at what Bernie Sanders' campaign consisted of; mostly phone-banking with mass support in the form of demonstrations against injustice being undermined and actively discouraged except to demonstrate against Trump.

I don't think we should plan on things getting so bad that it will move people into action because moving masses of people into united action always entails grassroots and rank-and-file activities including:

Education.

Organization.

Leading to united mass action in the streets, in the workplaces and at the ballot box.

Now, if you see anyone from among this grouping now supporting Obama and Hillary Clinton who will help initiate these kinds of struggles, even if Trump is elected, lets identify these people right now and ask them to participate in a campaign for a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would make it legislatively mandatory that the president and Congress attain and maintain full employment... after all, they are campaigning on the promise of "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.;" certainly this isn't an extreme position to ask of anyone campaigning on the promises of, "Jobs. Jobs. Jobs."

Let's not shirk our own immediate responsibility to organize a vast national effort in establishing a network that will be a catalyst for action.

We can only rely so much on masses of people moving spontaneously into action no matter how bad conditions get.

We need to vigorously participate with real left wing and socialist ideas in order to try to prevent further mass confusion intentionally disseminated in order to prevent working class unity.

We have allowed Bernie Sanders and his gaggle of Democratic Party hacks to set the terms of debate for way too long and we shouldn't tolerate their passing off ambiguities for solutions to the problems being experienced by the working class.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

We need to concern ourselves with building a campaign for a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" not wasting our time supporting the campaigns of corrupt Wall Street warmongers like Hillary Clinton.

I have heard the excuse over and over again from the liberals, progressives and leftists supporting the corrupt Wall Street Warmonger Hillary Clinton that we need to withhold our thoughts about what constitutes real reforms when it comes to health care, child care, the Minimum Wage and Social Security because talking about the specific real reforms required would divide Democrats leading to the election of the evil Donald Trump.

And, of course, once again we hear, as we did with Obama, how these people intend to "hold Hillary Clinton's feet to the fire." This is all part of the Big Lie.

My position is this:

We need to initiate a national dialog about the need for:

* Peace and disarmament; conversion--- beating swords into plowshares.

* A National Public Health Care System.

* A National Public Child Care System.

* Adequate Social Security for all retirees based on what a real living income in line with the actual cost-of-living is.

* Elimination of all student debt; not renegotiating the terms of this debt.

* A real living Minimum Wage based on the actual cost-of-living scientifically arrived at and not some figure pulled from a hat that these morons find acceptable even when it won't be implemented for many years to come.

We should not accept any talk of piecemeal reforms when living a decent life with a decent standard of living requires implementation now.

In my opinion, all of this should be brought together as a package of legislation called the "21st Century Full Employment Act For Peace and Prosperity" that would make the president and Congress legislatively responsible for attaining and maintaining full employment--- anyone who wants a job gets a job at real living wages.

We need to organize and fight for such an agenda in our neighborhoods and at work.

Educating through "Letters to the Editor;" FaceBook posts, leafleting in our communities, teach-ins, forums, discussions, picket lines and massive demonstrations all bringing people together in a huge electoral coalition to get our country on track--- not "back on track" because it has never been on track.

This is what will make America great because we will be living at peace with the rest of the world and have a network of public health care centers dotting our country providing the American people with free health care instead of having over 850 U.S. military bases dotting the globe protecting Wall Street's interests and since Wall Street's Military-Industrial Complex is the number one contributor to global warming and climate change we "kill two dirty birds--- war and unemployment--- with one stone."

Twelve-million new jobs will result from a National Public Health Care System--- publicly financed, publicly administered, and most importantly, publicly delivered--- no more controversial than the concept of public education. The same applies to a National Public Child Care System.

We need to stop getting trapped in the conversations about "affordable" health care and "affordable" child care. "Affordable" is just a code word for "profits" that has been conveniently inserted into the conversation by slick Democratic Party hacks looking out for the interests of their Wall Street bosses.

As we have seen from Obama's "Affordable Care Act" it has turned out to be nothing hut the "Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010" and has taken us far away from the needed reform which is a National Public Health Care System: no fees; pre-natal through burial; everything covered from general medical to dental, eyes, ears and mental; everyone in, nobody out. The cost would be far less than all this insane militarism and these dirty wars.

The Wall Street bankers got what they wanted when they wanted it and we are entitled to these most basic and required reforms fully implemented now not in "baby steps" or "incrementally" on the "lay-away-plan."

The next time you hear someone talk about how advancing these ideas and reforms is going to hurt Hillary Clinton's chances to be elected president of the United States ask them about your right to a decent life and livelihood in the here and now.

We need to concern ourselves with building a campaign for a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" not wasting our time supporting the campaigns of corrupt Wall Street warmongers like Hillary Clinton who can't distinguish a lie from the truth.

When truth is trouble and lies get votes...

The number one national disgrace is not even talked about at election time (actually it is never talked about):


Statistics for Indian Reservations are not even included when poverty and unemployment are talked about because the intentional, vile and pernicious nature of the racism involved would be seen for the national disgrace that it is and universally condemned by the international community.


It is only by intentional racist neglect and the corruption spun by local, state and federal governments that such widespread poverty could continue to exist on the Indian Reservations.


Corrupt local, state and national politicians have corrupted tribal politics to the extent that even when millions upon millions of dollars are allocated towards what is supposed to be the elimination of poverty these funds never get used for their intended purposes but end up in the hands of corrupt tribal politicians with a bunch of wealthy white mobsters bleeding the Indian Reservations to death through casino gaming enterprises which force Native Americans into poverty wage jobs without any rights in unhealthy smoke-filled casinos... of course, for the politicians all this money accumulated by the corrupt few makes a very lucrative stash of campaign contributions.


So much poverty causing misery side by side with so much wealth... and so it goes... on and on, with the only end in sight being when people take power away from the greedy few.


Does any "economist" dare to say that there is near full employment on any of the Indian Reservations?


What are the current unemployment and poverty figures for large Indian Reservations in Northern Minnesota right now while the "economists" are making the political boast that the Nation is "near full employment" right now? Reservations like White Earth, Red Lake, Leech Lake.


I called my Congressman (really American Crystal Sugar's and big agribusinesses' Congressman) Democrat Collin Peterson's office to ask this question this morning and his assistant responded: "You are just trying to cause trouble; I'm not discussing this with you."


So, getting to the truth is "causing trouble."

Monday, August 1, 2016


There is no business quite like the arms business from which the Wall Street merchants of death and destruction reap tremendous super-profits at the expense of social and human needs and yet this doesn't merit a national discussion, dialog and debate as part of the political process? This silence, like this squandering of our Nation's wealth on militarism and these dirty wars so very few profit from, is complete insanity and detrimental to democracy. Any real program for change should be formulated around the struggle and fight for peace.