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...

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Bail out workers, this time; not Wall Street, again. Sign and circulate our petition.

Check out and sign our on-line petition:

Bail out workers, not Wall Street:

https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q


Without a concerted militant struggle by the working class for a Basic Income Guarantee, a Minimum Wage more in line with the actual cost of living, a needed increase in monthly Social Security checks and eliminating student debt- how will working class families get the things they are entitled to from the Biden-Harris Administration in order to get through, and survive, this mess we are in? 

Judging from the looks of the choices Biden and Harris are making in choosing personnel for their coming Administration, this is turning out to be another Administration with little to no sympathy or empathy for working class families who are suffering more than anyone else. 


As a class, the working class, we, along with our friends and allies who will also benefit from these very modest reforms, we propose, need to gear up to fight for what we are entitled to; or, once again, Wall Street billionaires are going to prevail as they get bailed out first while we suffer only to be told after the Wall Street billionaires are bailed out that there is no money to resolve our problems. 


Make no mistake, we are entitled to this relief because we have created the wealth.


This is not unfounded speculation... Joe Biden has a clear track record of putting corporate interests before the needs of working class families in spite of his opportunist campaign rhetoric to the contrary.


We need to speak out forcefully:


People before profits!


We can’t dilly-dally and procrastinate in organizing thinking the Biden-Harris Administration- given time- is going to do anything for us after the way they are quickly, without consulting working people, bringing in a bunch of crooked and corrupt Wall Street merchants of death and destruction loyal only to the Military-Financial-Industrial Complex to run the country in cahoots with the politicians in Congress who have also proven their loyalty, time and again, to Wall Street.


We obviously will not get a seat at the table where decisions are made unless we vigorously demand a voice in the decision-making process.


Democracy requires the working class to have a voice in the decision-making process.


We have suffered four long years without any voice or input in the Trump Administration which enabled Wall Street to gorge itself feeding like a bunch of gluttonous pigs at the public trough all the while claiming “big government” should not intervene to help working class families through this economic crisis exacerbated by the corona virus pandemic; we can’t endure four more years of being beat down during this economic collapse and continued coronavirus pandemic by another Administration which campaigned for our votes claiming to be on the side of working people.


Working people need this immediate relief right now without delay... any delay will result in more needless suffering and misery.


Bail out workers, not Wall Street:


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 stock market transactions, Federal Stimulus Funds for public needs and a Peace Dividend.


We need to make our voices heard through concerted and organized action.


Sign and circulate our petition at the link below and don’t forget to validate your signature as requested in the e-mail you will receive to complete the signature process:


https://www.petitions.net/bailout_workers_not_wall_street?fbclid=IwAR3rXaTdXIhaT9iYhFHHfFJZDO7jDkApPMFBU3ZvaVaJswyvq4GDznVYn_Q


To those who say much more is needed in the way of reforms, we agree. We will work together with everyone struggling for peace, to defend public education, for real health care reform in the way of a National Public Health Care System, to stop foreclosures and evictions, for full employment legislation which requires the President and Congress to be responsible for attaining and maintaining full employment with real living wage jobs.


We will either have a country bent on an imperialist policy of militarism and wars or we will have a country dedicated to taking care of the needs of the people; we can’t have both.


Let’s pool our efforts and strengthen the working class in this struggle to get our families through this mess.


Together we will win.



I present this for discussion and your consideration:


Long ago, as World War II was ending and the United States government began 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 who formulated and proposed an alternative agenda with the thinking 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 and mutual respect and cooperation with the rest of the world.


The shameful undemocratic smothering and repression of progressive voices- 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 disastorous 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, being used in a very sinister and undemocratic way to smother progressive voices of reason for peace and cooperation among nations.


In the past, common people from all walks of life 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 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, 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:


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 Funding for human needs along with a Peace Dividend.


These reforms will stimulate the economy by putting money in the pockets of working people who will spend this money for the things they need which will restart manufacturing thus putting people back to work.


These reforms should be universal... for everyone; the wealthy who don't need such help would pay back the money and benefits they receive through taxation so those who need the help would get it and those who don't require such help would not get it.


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 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 of as many people and organizations possible.


Together, we can win.