Maki says, "DEBT IS POVERTY!" and we agree

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008114616/prepare-great-battle-2009#comment-9452

Before I go any further, I want to say something to my progressive friends on the left, and those more liberal than left, who were so adamant that we should all fall in line and give our uncritical support to Obama; and then go on to say in the face of Obama lining up what is obviously a pro-war, anti-democratic, anti-labor cabinet completely complicit in the repressive measures we have seen ranging from taking away signs from those attending Obama campaign rallies saying, “End the wars now!” to “We want health care not war fare; single-payer universal health care now” to remaining silent as black-suited police riot squads attacked people peacefully demonstrating their concerns during both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions:

Where are you now when things like this are being published? What has happened to your voices now that you know the economic facts were intentionally skewed and hidden from the American people and we were lied to about the economy by Obama and the Democrats the same way Bush lied about the wars? You must take us all for complete fools when you sing “Give Obama a chance.” What has happened to the great progressive sea-change of epic historical proportions? Where is that fight-back you promised? What has happened to the struggle for peace and social and economic justice you promised to participate in “after Obama gets elected?”

Where are your voices in response to these kinds of things being dished out not by the day, but by the minute from those who will do and say anything to save the Democratic Party from a real working class led challenge.

In not responding to these pieces you obviously have given up any hope for real progressive reforms like single-payer universal health care.

You wrote so eloquently and passionately condemning those of us who wanted no part of your Obama campaign; now you remain silent as these capitalist sooth-Sayers ply their trade, again, under the guise of “liberalism,” “progressivism” and even “socialism.”

Where are the Tom Hayden’s, the Carl Davidson’s the Eric Mann’s now that their voices are really needed in defense of working class interests. Where is that big-mouth labor leader Leo Gerard who boasted that he got ten-thousand steel workers out for Obama.

We know where Ron Gettelfinger is, holding up the dumb donkey’s tail begging for the sparrows to leave something behind for auto workers.

Just like these people always do, talk big and run for cover when their voices are needed.

Just a few days ago Leo Gerard wrote to Obama, “We are with you.” What did Leo Gerard mean, that he was with Obama in driving down the standard of living for the entire working class because if Obama gets away with these trillion dollar schemes, working people in the United States will be no better off than any poverty wracked country in Asia, Africa or Latin America.

DEBT IS POVERTY!

After I posted the response to this guy (see very bottom), I started thinking and I couldn’t help but add this:

I can't help but add this...

By Alan Maki | November 17th, 2008 - 1:25pm GMT



You know, you people who boosted Obama act like you didn't know how bad the economy was or where it was headed.



If you really didn't know, why should anyone take your advice now?



The capitalists have become rich by creating all these problems as a result of stealing the wealth created by the working class… leaving working people with nothing but poverty and a mess to clean up.



And now you have the unmitigated gall to suggest that we should give up our future, the future's of our children and probably our great grand children to save this rotten capitalist system.



Barack Obama should have considered being more honest with the American people with where this economy was at while campaigning.



On numerous occasions he was asked how he was going to pay for that pitiful little social programs he advocated with the economy going belly-up.



At no time did Obama nor any of you who so enthusiastically supported him bother to inform the American people how bad the economy was... instead, you chose to plug along talking about what a great progressive "sea-change" was at hand.



And now we find that the only thing Obama is going to do is try to save this rotten capitalist system.



It looks to me like you and Obama have used up whatever goodwill and trust you gained by deceiving the American people as you have.



If Obama did not know the seriousness of the problems he should resign right now because he obviously isn't going to know what to do as far as solving the problems in the interest of working people he claimed to represent.


The Great Battle of 2009


Campaign for America’s Future STAFF

By Bernie Horn

November 16th, 2008 - 11:13pm ET



What will be the top priority for the Obama administration at the beginning of 2009? Enacting health care for all? Pursuing energy independence? Rewriting NAFTA?

None of those (I’m sorry to report).



The great opening battle—the one we absolutely have to win—is enactment of an economic recovery program of unprecedented size and scope. Without this, our economy will fall into a deep recession, putting all of our progressive goals in serious jeopardy.



This week's lame-duck Congress will do little or nothing to address the problem. January will find us facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Unemployment, foreclosures and bank failures are already going through the roof. The stock market, home values and consumer confidence are already going through the floor. And things will get worse.



Here’s the politically painful truth: The only way to save our economy is to commence a massive increase in federal spending—requiring as much as $1 trillion in deficit spending over the next two years.



Leading economists like Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Dean Baker—and even the great majority of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal—know that economic recovery will be expensive. But Americans don’t even know this issue is coming because it went unmentioned during the election campaign. That’s a political problem because deficit spending is widely unpopular.



Americans assume that deficits are bad and balanced budgets are good. One post-election poll found that 61 percent say “reducing the federal budget deficit” should be a “top priority” for the new president, and another 31 percent say it should be “important.” But in a severe recession, that’s bad economic policy. In fact, trying to balance the budget during a recession is the recipe for depression—it was Herbert Hoover’s recipe, to be precise.



Put in the context of economic recovery, Americans remain sharply divided about federal spending. A post-election poll sponsored by Campaign for America’s Future asked voters if they were “more worried that we will fail to make the investments we need to create jobs and strengthen the economy” or “more worried that we will go too far in increasing government spending and will end up raising taxes to pay for it.” The first statement won agreement from 49 percent; 48 percent agreed with the second. So progressives have work to do.



How do we begin to prepare Americans to support us in the coming battle?



First, keep up a steady drumbeat for an Obama “economic recovery program.” The same CAF poll found that most voters support the general idea.



Second, explain that the recovery program will help “make health insurance affordable and accessible to all Americans,” “end dependence on foreign oil,” and “make job-creating investments in America’s aging roads and transportation systems”—specific goals that are widely popular.



Third, don’t accept the argument that our economic recovery plan is too costly. Even if we spend $500 billion per year, it will still be far less than the cost of letting the U.S. economy plummet into a years-long, severe recession.



Finally, explain to people worried about the politics that while “deficit spending” is unpopular, it’s not a make-or-break voting issue. Voters didn’t punish Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush for their massive deficit spending, and voters didn’t reward Al Gore for the Clinton-Gore Administration’s success in balancing the federal budget.



Bottom line: Barack Obama needs your help. If progressives spend the next nine weeks building support for a robust economic recovery plan, the next president will have a much easier time enacting his top priority legislation.



Tomorrow, the Campaign for America's Future will kick off the conversation with a conference on "Real Investment in America" at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. For more about economic recovery and public investments, see our new Institute for America's Future economy webpage.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The writer is a Senior Fellow at Campaign for America’s Future and author of the recent book, Framing the Future: How Progressive Values Can Win Elections and Influence People.





Get real...

By Alan Maki | November 17th, 2008 - 12:46pm GMT



You write:



"Here’s the politically painful truth: The only way to save our economy is to commence a massive increase in federal spending—requiring as much as $1 trillion in deficit spending over the next two years."



First of all federal spending on "bailouts" to Wall Street bankers, coupon clippers and the Big Three is only going to make matters worse.



Who do you propose giving this government dole to?



Do you read the newspapers?



Today the headlines blare out at us:



"This is not your 'garden variety' downturn."



We are in the throes of a classic capitalist depression and "overproduction" is the culprit. This means economic depression has struck because workers cannot purchase back what they have produced because they have no purchasing power.



If you deny this is the case, then prove it.



Where are your proposed trillions of dollars going to come from?



Where are those trillions of dollars going to go?



You are assuming, like Barack Obama, that an economic philosophy has failed when it is the capitalist economic system that has failed.



Getting a trillion dollars (your figure) into the hands of working people to spend will require tax-payers putting up well over 6 trillion dollars because Wall Street coupon clippers skim the cream right off the top everytime this is tried.



Spending in this senseless way pushed the U.S. economy to the verge of a never-ending depression just before World War Two began. If not for the buildup to war we would still be mired in an economic depression and poverty just like most of the rest of the world.



And now you are proposing the exact same failed policy, eighty years later.



We need massive redistribution of wealth in this country and we need it fast. This is the only thing that is going to prevent massive human misery.



Rather than spending enormous sums as you propose... Obama should be looking at doing just the opposite of your "maximum deficit spending."



The first thing should be a drastic increase in the minimum wage to a real living wage. Raise the minimum wage so high it makes these Wall Street pigs squeal.



Raise Social Security three-fold to where it should be... we can pay this fund back as we reclaim our stolen wealth that has found its way into bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.



Implement socialized health care; forget about all other health care reforms... this puts trillions of dollars into the hands of working people almost overnite... real purchasing power.



Tax the hell out of business and let them cry.



In combination, begin the most massive infrastructure maintainance and rebuilding in world history... do it through the federal government public works program by-passing the private contractors who have been feeding at the public trough just like the Wall Street bankers and the greedy military-financial-industrial complex.

This is where the remaining "bailout" funds should be invested, in your proposed public works projects.



An emergency measure: Forgive all student debt... again, this frees up billions without having to go to the tax-payers.



We need to do everything possible to undermine the capitalist economy including letting the banks fail and pave the way for socialism so that we never again end up with this kind of mess.



Two massive capitalist depressions in the 1800's; one big one in the 1900's; now the grand-daddy of them all and you want to shore up a system that has been breeding this kind of massive human misery? And we haven't even considered the long-term, never-ending poverty of most of the rest of the world!



Stop these senseless wars for oil and dope and invest those funds in the kinds of social programs required to provide working people with the kind of decent life they are entitled to for having created such tremendous wealth now being squandered by a bunch of dumb clucks and being turned over to another bunch of dumb donkeys.



Forget about capitalist economics, forget about "free enterprise;" just do what is required for working people to live decent lives free from poverty for a change.



Give socialism the chance to see what it can do; capitalism has failed.







Alan L. Maki

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net



Check out my blog:



Thoughts From Podunk



http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

U.S. Chamber of Commerce vows to work with Obama

No doubt profits are the one and only concern:


Chamber vows to work with Obama
Published: Nov. 4, 2008 at 11:53


WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced quickly Tuesday night it would work with President-elect Barack Obama on the economy.

The chamber also pledged to work with the new Congress, where Democrats scored big majorities in the House and Senate.

The pledges of cooperation were a quick turnaround from the chamber's activities during the campaign. The chamber raised money to oppose Democratic candidates and reported deploying nearly 600 staffers to key states, spending millions of dollars on ads, sending 15 million e-mails and 6.5 million pieces of mail, and making more than 6 million phone calls.

"Restoring the nation's economic health must be our top priority," U.S. Chamber President Thomas J. Donohue said in a statement. "Any successful and sustainable recovery will involve the business sector, which creates the jobs, the growth and the revenues on which all Americans and our government depend. The U.S. Chamber stands ready to work with the new administration and Congress on measures to spur growth and jobs by restoring credit and confidence throughout the economy, producing more American energy, rebuilding our infrastructure, and reforming our schools."

Donohue said the chamber wants to play a helpful role in the transition process.

"We will offer our policy ideas, access to our many domestic and international experts, and views on key appointees," he said.

Middle-Class Muddle

My response to this is at the bottom.

You know, there is so much gushing going on over Obama it makes me sick. I can understand people not wanting to see John McCain get elected. But, for those proclaiming themselves to be liberal and progressive to so thoroughly distort--- and convincingly, continuingly, and intentionally distort--- where Obama stands on the issues is nothing short of dishonest. To me it is just as deceitful as the reasons George Bush provided in going to war in Iraq.

This anything goes just to get Obama elected is the absolute bottom of the garbage can down among the maggots as far as I am concerned especially when it comes from outfits like the Campaign for America’s Future and the AFL-CIO who, together with about thirty of their “coalition partners” put forward a “program” in opposition to the bailout but then kept on spending and spending on Obama’s campaign to the tune of some 160 million dollars while not providing one single penny for implementing a grassroots and rank and file fight-back around their program which now just sits there hidden away in some archives on the Internet except for when one of these groups or their “coalition partners” drag it out to say, “Look we have a response to Bush.” Well, why haven’t they asked Obama to respond since he, not Bush, is going to be the next President?

In fact, the reason for this complete dishonesty is that the Democratic Party hacks have seen up close what is taking place in this country--- millions of working people no longer are buying what Obama and the Democrats are selling in their infomercials.

I also hope you will check out another discussion taking place on the Campaign for America’s Future web site… the one on health care I have highlighted; just click on the topic: How Universal Health Care Changes Everything
Alan Maki


Joel Kotkin's Middle-Class Muddle


By Amy Traub

October 29th, 2008 - 11:48am ET



October 28, 2008



by OurFuture.org Staff

October 30, 2008

When Alan Greenspan admits free market ideology is flawed, you know conservative thought is up a creek.

But never fear: if conservative economic ideas have been discredited, the Right can still distort progressive ones.

Joel Kotkin’s recent article in Politico is a prime example of such misinformation. Kotkin recognizes that economic polarization has put the future of the nation’s middle class at risk. He doesn’t appear impressed by McCain’s warmed-over tax-cuts-cure-all dogma. But he isn’t willing to honestly assess Obama’s plans. Instead, Kotkin chooses to focus exclusively on Obama’s agenda for short-term economic rescue, which he discovers doesn’t adequately address the long-term problems of inequality and a faltering middle class. This disingenuous look at “recent proposals” conveniently overlooks the candidate’s larger agenda – including policies with real potential to strengthen and expand America’s middle class over time. But since Obama didn’t discover the middle-class squeeze just last week, his plans to address it aren’t part of Kotkin’s roundup of what’s been happening lately.

Kotkin’s instance on manufacturing political fault lines in absurd places (Al Gore is against infrastructure?) and implying cynical political payoffs behind every policy initiative suggest that he is not genuinely interested in Obama’s long-term plans to bolster the middle class. But the rest of us should be. And there’s plenty there.

Kotkin’s refusal to look at the big picture blinds him to Obama’s health care plan, for example, which would extend coverage to 34 million Americans while lowering costs for millions more. While the Obama health care plan is far from perfect, his proposed reforms would nevertheless reduce a major cause of strain and instability for middle-class families struggling to afford sky-high premiums, deductibles, and co-pays, or even purchase coverage at all. In short, they’d be a major step toward strengthening the middle class.

Creating middle-class is jobs is critical, Kotkin agrees. But he proceeds to overlook both Obama’s short-term Jobs and Growth Fund that would put Americans to work immediately building needed infrastructure projects and the candidate’s longer term plan to invest in green jobs that would help to foster an entirely new sector of the U.S. economy.

Kotkin complains that Obama’s tax cuts don’t create upward mobility, and when it comes to many of the tax plans, he’s right. But Kotkin must have missed the memo about the overwhelming bipartisan, cross-ideological consensus that the Earned Income Tax Credit lifts millions of working Americans out of poverty. And it leaves us with the question: what does create upward mobility? After all, Kotkin denounces Obama’s support for education as nothing more than a sop to the liberal professoriate. And Kotkin neglects to even mention the Employee Free Choice Act which would make it easier for working people to join unions – another proven route to earning middle-class wages and benefits. While our critic would no doubt find it easy to uncover a political payoff in Obama’s support for this measure, the truth is it has tremendous potential to grow the middle class by enabling working Americans to improve their own jobs.

Obama has endorsed policies to help middle-class families cope with income and job loss when they take time off to care for a new baby or a sick relative. He has crafted plans to help middle-class families hold on to their single greatest asset – their homes. And he has thought out proposals to improve middle-class retirement security. Kotkin’s cheap shots do justice to none of this and prevent us from evaluating policies that could genuinely address the future of the American middle class.




The middle class squeeze...

By Alan Maki | October 30th, 2008 - 9:50am GMT

I can appreciate that the middle class is being squeezed; but, what about the working class being squished?

Obama talks, "middle class, middle class, middle class" as if there is no working class.

This is an important distinction because when Obama talks about "tax-cuts for the middle class," this leaves out millions of working class people who are so poor they don't even have to pay taxes. I hope you will give this some thought because in just the one industry where I represent workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry, most of these workers are so poor because they receive such miserly wages they don't pay any taxes as it is and no matter how big of a "tax cut" Obama provides for education or health care or anything else it is not going to do these working class people any good.

This is why our Organizing Committees working through the Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council are supporting "universal" reforms which provide social programs for EVERYONE.

Health care: we are for single-payer universal health care as a step towards socialized health care.

The minimum wage: we are for a universal minimum wage legislatively established to correspond to cost of living factors--- ALL COST OF LIVING FACTORS--- including the cost of higher education.

It is the epitome of arrogance to continue talking about "middle class tax-cuts here and protecting middle class incomes there" when everyone knows that a huge segment of the working class is living in poverty with all the personal and social ills that accompany this poverty.

We all know why Barack Obama has chosen to harp on the "middle class;" he is already being attacked by McCain and Palin for being a socialist and an advocate of income distribution. Others on the right are attacking Obama as a Marxist and a Communist.

Obama has turned these attacks into a joke when it is not the viciousness of the attacks that need to be responded to but a defense of working people to live in dignity free from poverty.

And I couldn't care less what the right-wing has to say or what the right-wing calls what needs to be done.

We need to implement those social programs that will enable all working people to live lives free from poverty. Now if this means a real living minimum wage, so be it... the employers are going to have to shell out or do the work themselves. If this means funding social programs to compensate for a lack of an adequate minimum wage, so be it.

The wealth of this country has been created by working people and in the wealthiest country in the world, workers should at least be able to live free of poverty with access to everything from adequate housing to food to health care and a higher education.

The middle class is already doing fairly well I would say--- as far as having achieved more than adequate incomes; not that I begrudge them the right to do even better so they can own a million dollar home rather than a 650-thousand dollar home, take two trips to the Caribbean Islands every year--- one to deposit their money in off-shore bank accounts and one to soak up the sun, go to Las Vegas three times a year instead of twice and spend three days at the golf course instead of two. No doubt Obama's program offers the middle class a great deal.

However, in offering the middle class something in return for their votes, Obama is ignoring the plight of the working class, and most shamefully, is ignoring the plight of the poorest of the poor whose poverty will increase with every middle class tax break.

I say first things first and the middle class has a responsibility to join with the working class in raising the standard of living of working people first.

Yes, it is true that some "middle income" working class people might find some benefit in Obama's programs; but, given the closings of mines, mills and factories in this country coupled with the cuts in public services "middle income" wage earners are fast disappearing in our country and Obama has not put forward one single solution for the problem of mines, mills and plant closings.

His "green economy" will offer many workers previously employed in "middle income" paying jobs... poverty jobs. The proof is in the pudding as they say.

We see previously employed workers from the steel mills who were making upwards of fifty-thousand dollars a year now working in the wind generating industry for eleven, twelve, thirteen dollars an hour while those previously employed on the Iron Range in the taconite industry going to work in casinos for seven and eight dollars an hour... you do the math... millions of workers have gone from "middle income" wage earners to living in poverty.

The intent to create poverty wage jobs is nothing to be boasting about.

Barack Obama jokes about McCain calling him a socialist and ridicules those calling him a communist as he clings to defending the "middle class" while failing to advocate for the kind of universal solutions to the problems being experienced by the working class.

And let me tell you a little something that you obviously do not know about this "Employee Free Choice Act," which Democrats are touting. John Edwards was the great protagonist of the "Employee Free Choice Act" until he was caught with his pants down and his heroic defense of working America came to an abrupt end. But, this "Employee Free Choice Act" isn't what it is cracked up to be simply because in the twenty-eight states have "at-will hiring; at-will firing" legislation, for working people trying to organize, the "Employee Free Choice Act" will mean absolutely nothing. But then again, this is something those making appeals to the "middle class" do not understand. But, understand this: As long as "at-will hiring; at-will firing" legislation remains on the books in twenty-eight states--- including states like Minnesota and Michigan--- your argument that the "Employee Free Choice Act" will in any way contribute towards eliminating poverty among the working class is shot right to hell.

My conclusion is this, which is--- obviously--- at odds with yours, is that too many middle class people are sticking their noses into this campaign who know nothing about working class problems and the shame of it is, you have turned even politics into no more than a middle class game where the only object is to win... when the power to do what is right is conceded to big business and the Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers and in the process of ignoring the plight of the working class, the middle class will suffer, too--- just look at your 401k's.

I had $289.00 in my 401k; now I have $202.00... how is your middle class 401k doing?

One final comment about Alan Greenspan's "free market ideology" being flawed. This is also a nice middle class perspective that if we just change the thinking, provide a regulation here and some oversight there the system--- capitalism--- will work just fine--- maybe capitalism will work just fine for the middle class with a little tweak here and a little tweak there. But, most working class people think the entire system is rotten to the core. If you don't believe me just ask any of the millions out of work, the millions "living" on poverty wages or the millions being foreclosed on and evicted from their homes or the millions more without health care whose children will have about as much opportunity to get a college education as they will have to get heart surgery when their arteries clog up from working in smoke-filled casinos without any rights.

I know all of this is too much for you and Barack Obama to understand; this is why I voted early for Cynthia McKinney... at least when she visited the Twin Cities here in Minnesota, one of the first stops she made was to talk with workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant slated to close and put another two-thousand workers out on the streets. Obama has come to Minnesota and never had the decency to mention the Ford Plant closing out of fear someone might have asked him what he would do to keep the plant open. Cynthia McKinney came with an idea--- bring the plant under public ownership with worker and community control.

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

Detroit labor legend reflects on possibly electing first Black president

Author: Pepe Lozano

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 10/24/08 16:51


Dave Moore DETROIT, Mich. — These days, as millions nationwide work to elect the first African American president, 96-year-old Dave Moore, longtime labor and community leader, wonders if it’s all just a dream.

“I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I’ve been Black all my life, and sometimes I don’t know if I’m dreaming,” Moore told the World. He said he was “blown away” at how many white votes Barack Obama won during the primaries and the impressive display of thousands of white voters at Obama rallies across the country.

“When I wake up the next day after the election and Obama wins, then I will know that this country has begun to take a turn for the better,” said Moore.

Born April 6, 1912, as a teenager Moore left what he calls the “slave state of South Carolina” with his family and moved to Detroit. New to the big city, he says he had never seen so many people before hustling and bustling about.

Moore recalls joining a community water polo team as a youth on the city’s East Side, at a time when “colored” and “white” signs were common. His team made it to the finals and traveled across town to a park in a predominantly white area to face an all-white team. Although the park required segregated seating, Moore said the players ignored the rule and sat where they wanted because the mayor of Detroit had declared the city’s public areas open to all. “And we won the city championship,” Moore said proudly.

Moore remembers the Great Depression of the 1930s when people had little food and ate rotten vegetables and fruits to get by. “And we didn’t have heat in the winter so we would use wood from the porch out front to stay warm,” he said. People at that time lived through “hardships, suffering, pain and agony while the fat cats gobbled up all the money.” His parents lost $500 when banks closed. That was a lot of money back then, said Moore. “All of us were suffering like hell.”

Moore became active with the Unemployed Councils, which mobilized people to fight against mass hunger and home evictions. Those experiences taught Moore the importance of unity among Black, white and Latino workers. People came together and rallied for their basic rights against rich employers who left millions out in the cold.

Moore’s most memorable and proudest moment came in 1941 when he was instrumental in organizing workers into the United Auto Workers union at the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Mich. At the time Ford was the third largest industrial giant in the world and 75 percent of the workforce there had been laid off with no public relief. People were dying from cold and hunger.

In 1932 Moore helped lead a hunger march where five union members fell victim to machine guns fired by thugs hired by anti-union Henry Ford. It was the multiracial unity among the workers that overcame the divisions that Ford tried to provoke. That struggle eventually opened the door to the organization of the nation’s auto industry and the founding of the UAW.

Moore was eventually elected to leadership positions at UAW Local 600, the powerful Ford local. Like many others, however, Moore fell victim to McCarthyism and was dismissed from his elected position in 1951. But as McCarthyism waned, he was reinstated in 1963 and was assigned as a national UAW representative. Moore was a founding member of the National Negro Labor Council and served as a legislative assistant to legendary Rep. George Crockett. Later Detroit Mayor Coleman Young appointed Moore the city’s senior citizens director.

Reflecting on the history he has lived and battled through, Moore said the Black community has been hit the hardest with the current economic crisis. “We got a lot of people unemployed today,” he said, adding that many of his neighbors have been laid off from the once booming auto industry. Moore believes the economic meltdown is going to propel Obama to become the first Black president, but “it’s not going to be easy for him.”

During the Depression of the 1930s, President Roosevelt had the people behind him, said Moore. “And that is what Obama needs to do — have the people behind him. I believe the key to Obama’s campaign lies with the working people.”

“I think Obama has the best program, but no matter what happens the fat cats of Wall Street and tycoons of big industry are the ones who control the finances of this country,” he said. “They don’t want to see a movement for unity of all people coming together.”

“It’s a long, long road that working and poor people have to travel but we have to remember this is a capitalist country and the fat cats on Wall Street will do whatever they can to keep it that way. Take a look at this country’s history — big business has always called the shots. I hope Obama goes all the way when he says he’s for change.”

When it comes to fighting for unions, multiracial unity, civil rights and peace, Moore has seen it all, he said — he knows what it means to struggle for a working people’s agenda in victory and defeat. Today, he sees great hope for the future.

“I’d like to see unity of all people one day where racism in this country is behind us,” he said. “I’d like to see a world where people don’t have to worry about starvation or unemployment. Where youngsters can get an education and become contributors to the betterment of society. Where our country’s government truly plays a role to help educate our children in a world based on peace, understanding and brotherhood regardless of race, creed, religion or color.”

Moore is looking forward to seeing a step in that direction with the election of Obama on Nov. 4

plozano@pww.org

General strike brings Greece to halt in protest over government policies

Anyone see anything about this in our local newspapers on the Range?


http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5ibtUiBczDhWBa5O9OtszQkLmAZmA



General strike brings Greece to halt in protest over government policies
2 days ago

ATHENS, Greece — Air, rail and ferry traffic have ground to a halt across Greece and many offices have shut down in a general strike.

The country's largest labour union has called the strike to protest the conservative government's economic policies. Riot police fired tear gas to disperse a small group of rock-throwing hooded youths as thousands of demonstrators marched through central Athens.

Many shops along the demonstration route rolled down their shutters, and only minor damage was reported.

Across the country, state hospitals functioned with emergency staff while state schools, universities, post offices and tax offices were closed, as were many banks.

Some 200 domestic and international flights were cancelled while all ferries were confined to port. The state railway company cancelled most train services. Lawyers, journalists and civil engineers were also on strike.





http://www.gmanews.tv/story/128467/General-strike-brings-Greece-to-standstill


General strike brings Greece to standstill
10/21/2008 | 09:07 PM


ATHENS, Greece - Air, rail and ferry traffic ground to a halt across Greece on Tuesday and public offices shut down as workers walked off the job in a general strike to protest the conservative government's economic policies.

Riot police fired tear gas to disperse a small group of rock-throwing hooded youths as thousands of demonstrators marched through central Athens. Many shops along the demonstration route rolled down their shutters, and only minor damage was reported.

Across the country, state hospitals functioned with emergency staff while state schools, universities, post offices and tax offices were closed, as were many banks. Some 200 domestic and international flights were canceled while all ferries were confined to port and the state railway company canceled most train services. Lawyers, journalists and civil engineers were also on strike.

Greece's largest umbrella union, GSEE, claimed hundreds of thousands of workers participated in the 24-hour strike.

"The country has effectively come to a halt," said union spokesman Efstathios Anestis. "Participation is very high, in many sectors it exceeds 90 percent of the work force."

Demonstrators held banners calling for the minimum salary to be raised to €1,400 (about US$1,880) from its current level of €701 (about US$940) and for the government to cancel unpopular reforms to the country's pension system.

Some also protested a recent rescue package under which the government pledged up to €28 billion (US$38.5 billion) to help Greece's banking sector weather the international financial crisis.

"Not one euro to support the capitalists," read one banner.

GSEE, which covers the private sector, and civil service umbrella union ADEDY called the strike to protest recent legislation reforming the country's fragmented pension system. The new law, passed in March, cuts back early retirement rights and merges lucrative pension funds with financially troubled ones.

"We're expressing anger, despair and rage about the policies which give to the few," said GSEE leader Yiannis Panagopoulos.

The two umbrella unions represent some 2.5 million workers between them, or about half of Greece's total work force.

Unions also demand more state social spending, as well as salary and pension increases, and oppose the government's privatization plans, including for state carrier Olympic Airlines.

"Workers face many accumulated problems, mainly financial," Anestis said.

Air traffic controllers walked off the job for four hours from noon, leading Olympic to cancel 150 flights — mostly domestic but including routes to London, Brussels, Rome, Frankfurt and Paris, and private Aegean Airlines to cancel 46 domestic flights.

Athens public bus and metro networks were disrupted by work stoppages, while the capital's tram service was suspended for the whole day.

Commercial stores were to follow suit with their own strike on Wednesday to protest tax laws, vowing to shut down stores across the country for the day. - AP









http://www.winnipegsun.com/News/World/2008/10/21/7153466.html





From the Winnipeg Sun:



Tue, October 21, 2008

General strike brings Greece to halt
Protest over government policies


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS



ATHENS, Greece — Air, rail and ferry traffic have ground to a halt across Greece and many offices have shut down in a general strike.

The country’s largest labour union has called the strike to protest the conservative government’s economic policies.

Riot police fired tear gas to disperse a small group of rock-throwing hooded youths as thousands of demonstrators marched through central Athens.

Many shops along the demonstration route rolled down their shutters, and only minor damage was reported.

Across the country, state hospitals functioned with emergency staff while state schools, universities, post offices and tax offices were closed, as were many banks.

Some 200 domestic and international flights were cancelled while all ferries were confined to port. The state railway company cancelled most train services. Lawyers, journalists and civil engineers were also on strike.







http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/World/Story/STIStory_293189.html



Oct 21, 2008

Greece sees general strike



ATHENS (Greece) - AIR, rail and ferry traffic ground to a halt across Greece on Tuesday and public offices shut down as workers walked off the job in a general strike to protest the conservative government's economic policies.

Riot police fired tear gas to disperse a small group of rock-throwing hooded youths as thousands of demonstrators marched through central Athens. Many shops along the demonstration route rolled down their shutters, and only minor damage was reported.

Across the country, state hospitals functioned with emergency staff while state schools, universities, post offices and tax offices were closed, as were many banks. Some 200 domestic and international flights were canceled while all ferries were confined to port and the state railway company canceled most train services.

Lawyers, journalists and civil engineers were also on strike.

Greece's largest umbrella union, GSEE, claimed hundreds of thousands of workers participated in the 24-hour strike.

'The country has effectively come to a halt,' said union spokesman Efstathios Anestis. 'Participation is very high, in many sectors it exceeds 90 per cent of the work force.'

Demonstrators held banners calling for the minimum salary to be raised to euro1,400 (about S$2,784) from its current level of euro701 and for the government to cancel unpopular reforms to the country's pension system.

Some also protested a recent rescue package under which the government pledged up to euro28 billion to help Greece's banking sector weather the international financial crisis.

'Not one euro to support the capitalists,' read one banner.

GSEE, which covers the private sector, and civil service umbrella union ADEDY called the strike to protest recent legislation reforming the country's fragmented pension system.

The new law, passed in March, cuts back early retirement rights and merges lucrative pension funds with financially troubled ones.

'We're expressing anger, despair and rage about the policies which give to the few,' said GSEE leader Yiannis Panagopoulos.

The two umbrella unions represent some 2.5 million workers between them, or about half of Greece's total work force.

Unions also demand more state social spending, as well as salary and pension increases, and oppose the government's privatisation plans, including for state carrier Olympic Airlines.

'Workers face many accumulated problems, mainly financial,' Mr Anestis said.

Air traffic controllers walked off the job for four hours from noon, leading Olympic to cancel 150 flights - mostly domestic but including routes to London, Brussels, Rome, Frankfurt and Paris, and private Aegean Airlines to cancel 46 domestic flights.

Athens public bus and metro networks were disrupted by work stoppages, while the capital's tram service was suspended for the whole day.

Commercial stores were to follow suit with their own strike on Wednesday to protest tax laws, vowing to shut down stores across the country for the day. -- AP

Alan Maki...Working class activist to run for Minnesota Governor

Make way for the working class to have a say…

This enormous economic mess we are now experiencing, along with the heavy debt the bankers and the politicians of both major political parties have saddled us with, can be summed up very simply: The capitalists have taken all the profits and left the working class with all the problems.

There are only two sources of wealth: Labor and Mother Nature.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that if you allow labor to be continually exploited and Mother Nature to be repeatedly abused and raped there will be severe consequences.

We are now reaping the consequences for allowing this parasitical monster of state-monopoly capitalism to have spun its web of corruption in the form of a cannibalistic military-financial-industrial complex which now threatens to consume and destroy our families, our communities, our State and our Nation while wreaking havoc in other lands.

Enough!

The time has come to put the needs of people before corporate profits.

There is only one alternative; for working people to come together to build a new society on the foundation created by the socialists of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party.

We need to fight and struggle to re-establish the liberal, democratic and progressive socialist traditions for which Minnesota is known around the world.

We have complex problems before us… but, any country which can spend trillions of dollars on wars to steal the oil of other nations, and trillions of dollars bailing out corporations and bankers looking for using socialism to solve the problems of their own creation as they have sought to prop up their rotten capitalist system--- which they have touted to the world as being the best--- at our expense… This Nation can now come up with the resources to use socialism to solve the problems for the rest of us, too.

What is good for the goose is, in this case, is even better for the gander.

Let Barack Obama and John McCain volunteer to go off exploring the caves of Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for Osama Bin Laden; we have better things to do.

Our first priority is to end these dirty wars for oil and redeploy those funds--- as we bring home the troops--- to creating a world class socialized health care system which will create millions of new jobs; five messes the money-grubbing Wall Street coupon clippers and their bought and paid for politicians created, all solved at the same time by ending these dirty imperialist wars for oil and regional domination--- we get health care not warfare, and we begin to solve the problem of unemployment--- and when we put people to work in this way we begin to create a new--- functioning--- people oriented, cooperative, socialist economy where democracy will flourish because it will require the full participation and involvement of all people working together in order to succeed.

Second, without further delay, we need to establish the State Bank of Minnesota to accomplish for our State what the State Bank of North Dakota was set up, by workers and farmers, to do--- fund enterprises to keep people working.

Third, we need a minimum wage which is a real living wage arrived at by the calculations of the United States Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics in cooperation with the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development--- based upon the real figures relating to the real cost of living and this minimum wage should be required by legislation to be updated quarterly right along with the release of all economic indicators to assure a quality life and decent standard of living for all working people and their families.

We have finally come to the point where even the parasitic bankers and the exploiting industrialists now concede that only socialism can bail them out of this horrible mess and solve their problems... capitalism has reached the end of the line and the only thing now to be had from the system is unending human misery.

At the point where society has to pay to clean up the corrupt mess these parasitic predatory lenders and financial institutions have created, this is the time to say:

Enough!

What tax-payers finance, tax-payers must own.

If Warren Buffett and Goldman Sachs do not like these terms, these greedy pigs should make the trip to their off-shore banks in the Cayman Islands and make withdrawals from their accounts to pay to solve their own problems.

The time has come to roll up our sleeves, come together, and get to work quickly before this entire rotten system collapses---like the I35-W Bridge--- and crushes us all while leaving our children and grandchildren with the clean-up and the bills.

I firmly believe working people can run our country and our state better than any of the big-business politicians being funded by the corporate lobbyists.

Effectively using the tools of public ownership and nationalization combined with modern, scientific planning for the common good, we can put people to work in decent jobs at real living wages... we hear it all the time just before Election Day: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs... but we never see the jobs, and if we do, these jobs are poverty wage jobs no one can live on.

I intend to run for Governor of Minnesota in 2010.

I invite all working people who think that it is possible to create something better than the mess we are now in, to come together and work from where socialist Governors Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson left off in trying to create a just and decent society where people live and work in harmony with Mother Nature, to join with me, in establishing the Minnesota Party to give the bankers, the mining, forestry and power generating industries along with the industrialists and big-agribusiness a real run for their money.

Let’s run these parasites that have been living off of our labor and destroying Mother Nature right out of our state. We can get along just fine--- even better--- without them.

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

and

Candidate for Governor of Minnesota

Former member: Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Central Committee

An Open Letter to Barack Obama

The Iron Range Club of the Communist Party USA, with a quorum present, voted at its regular Club meeting on Sunday, October 13, 2008 to support this Open Letter to Barack Obama We encourage widespread circulation among working people in Range Communities.

Jeff Sippila, Chair
Sally Stone, Secretary


An Open Letter to Barack Obama…


From:

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

and Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party activist



October 12, 2008



"The vision of working class Minnesotans for the change we need"



Barack, speaking for casino workers who are forced to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights, some of us have already decided to vote for you, others among us could possibly be persuaded, while others among us--- including myself--- we may be voting for other candidates like Cynthia McKinney; and some people who feel completely disenfranchised by the present state of politics in our country where government is not responsive to their concerns and problems, very unfortunately--- but understandably so--- sadly, may not vote at all… however, we all share a common vision for the kind of change we need; and, that vision is one where the problems of working people need to be solved before the interests of bankers and the Wall Street crowd…


Barack, you began your political career as a member of, and with support from, the socialist New Party in Chicago. We expect that as President you will adhere to this vision of people before corporate profits. You are campaigning in Minnesota where socialist politicians Governor Floyd B. Olson, U.S. Senator and Governor Elmer A. Benson and United States Congressman John Bernard are held in very high esteem… when campaigning in Minnesota, we expect you to address the concerns of working people:


1. Single-payer universal health care as a step towards socialized health care.

2. Public ownership of the Ford Plant and hydro dam to save two-thousand jobs.

3. End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now; no war in Pakistan---redirect money to things people need.

4. Moratorium on all home foreclosures and evictions; renegotiate the mortgages.

5. For an end to the robbery at the pumps.



Barack, we expect you to open up the "Compacts" which have created the Indian Gaming Industry to include provisions for the protection of the rights of casino workers--- we are talking about basic human rights and dignity, the right to decent jobs at living wages in a fabulously profitable multi-billion dollar industry.


Barack, we expect you to work for an end to poverty as called for in the United Nations' Millennium Statement, and we expect an Obama Administration to work towards the full implementation of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights which will observe its Sixtieth Anniversary on December 10, 2008; here in the United States we have a very long way to go in fulfilling its goals and objectives.


Barack, socialism isn't just for solving the problems of the bankers, investors, financiers and the Wall Street crowd… in the case of socialism solving problems, what is good for the goose is even better for the gander.


Barack, I have been involved in the Democratic Party in one way or another for over thirty years… I have petitioned, I have chaired campaigns and raised funds; I have served in various capacities in Democratic Party organizations over the years in three states; from trustee to local precinct chair to being a member of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Central Committee--- I have supported Democratic Party politicians--- and those of other parties, also--- for every office when they advanced the cause of peace, civil rights, the protection of our environment and rights of working people… and, quite honestly, in the case of others like Valerie Solem, Matt Entenza, Mike Hatch, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, when they sought to restrict the rights of working people and encouraged war--- I opposed them.


Barack, in your case, I probably am not going to be voting for you, but, I wish you well in your pursuit of the Presidency… In saying this, I speak for the Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council and our Organizing Committees at casinos in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa. I believe--- based upon my travels and discussions with many people from all walks of life--- I also speak for many other voters in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa.


Barack, you continue to speak to the concerns of the "middle class;" we are concerned with the problems of the working class.


Barack, let me be perfectly frank and up front with you. There is a short time left until Election Day. What we want is something in return for our votes. Please think about this.


Barack, you write me often and I appreciate the opportunity to stay in touch; you can expect that I will be keeping in touch with you, too, as you have requested, and I appreciate that you indicate you are very open to communication and I trust that you are sincere in wanting change; so we have a great deal to discuss.


I have always believed in building bridges because I seldom find that burning bridges solves problems.


Sometimes building bridges is tough work because of the swift, turbulent and murky waters.


Good luck and best wishes.


Yours in the struggle,


Alan L. Maki




In addition to this letter, I would ask you to note what has come from the Associated Press as I am sure the same thinking will be forthcoming on every issue of concern to all of us as liberals and progressives… so much for anything coming from an Obama Administration without very huge battles:


Link: http://apnews.myway.com//article/20081012/D93P0I680.html


Efforts on global warming chilled by economic woes


Oct 12, 10:22 AM (ET)

By DINA CAPPIELLO


WASHINGTON (AP) - The economic free fall gripping the nation may bring down one of the main environmental objectives: capping the greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming.

Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate, and both presidential candidates, continue to rank tackling global warming as a chief goal next year. But the focus on stabilizing the economy probably will make it more difficult to pass a law to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. At the very least, it will push back when the reductions would have to start.

As one Republican senator put it, the green bubble has burst.

"Clearly it is somewhere down the totem pole given the economic realities we are facing," said Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy Corp., an electricity producer that has supported federal mandates on greenhouse gases. Duke is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an association of businesses and nonprofit groups that has lobbied Congress to act.

Just months ago, chances for legislation passing in the next Congress and becoming law looked promising. The presidential candidates support mandatory cuts and a Democratic majority is ready to act on the problem after years of the Bush administration's resisting federal controls.

But the most popular remedy for slowing global warming, a mechanism know as cap-and-trade, could put further stress on a teetering economy.

Under such a system, the government would establish a market for carbon dioxide by giving or selling credits to companies with operations that emit greenhouse gases. The companies can then choose whether to invest in technologies to reduce emissions to meet targets or instead buy credits from other companies who have already met them.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said that in light of the economic downturn, a bill that would give polluters permits free of charge would be preferable.

"The first way we can control program costs is by not charging industrial emitters," said Boucher, who released a first draft of a bill this past week with the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. Giving away right-to-pollute permits was one of the options.

Other Democrats, however, see a cap-and-trade bill - and the government revenues it would generate from selling permits - as an engine for economic growth. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama supports auctioning off all permits, using the money to help fund alternative energy.

"If you see this as a job creation opportunity for the U.S. to develop the products that are then sold around the world, then you should be optimistic about what the impact of passage would mean for the American economy," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

Conservative Republicans who were never fans of a law to curb greenhouse gases have used the economic downturn as a rallying cry.

Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, the senior Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in a blog entry this month criticized 152 House members for releasing a set of principles to tackle global warming in the midst of the economic turmoil.

"The current economic crisis only reinforces the public's wariness about any climate bill that attempts to increase the costs of energy and jeopardizes jobs," Inhofe said.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, took the argument a step further when he said the Boucher-Dingell bill could lead the country "off the economic cliff."

But even supporters of federal regulation of greenhouse gases acknowledge that something has to give given the state of the economy.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., a lead sponsor of a Senate bill to curb greenhouse gases that failed this year, acknowledged that the economy could delay when reductions in carbon dioxide would start.

Warner told the AP that any bill should allow the president to decide.

"We must continue to think and devise a piece of legislation that will enable the president of the United States to control timing ... dependent on the president's analysis for the ability of the economy to assume the financial burdens," he said.

The U.S. is not alone. As the economic crisis has spread to markets across the globe, work to curb greenhouse gases elsewhere has stalled.

Earlier this past week, Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. climate panel, said discussions about global warming solutions were "on the back burner." Pachauri shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore for their work on climate change.

"I'm absolutely sure that climate change will be the last thing people will think about at this point in time," he said. "Sooner or later, they will come back to it."

The upside is that in hard economic times, and with high energy prices, the amount of pollution in the air tends to decline.

That will slow global warming somewhat, but there are already enough heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere to cause the temperature to rise.

"I really wish that the science of global warming would look at the newspaper, and say we have an economic crisis so the Earth will stop warming," said Dave Hamilton, director of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program. "But that is not going to happen."




Alan L. Maki

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net



Check out my blog:


Thoughts From Podunk


http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

PRISONERS OF WAR

Below is an interesting discussion taking place on the web site of the Campaign for America's Future.


PRISONERS OF WAR

Campaign for America’s Future

STAFF
By Robert Borosage
September 30th, 2008 - 10:27am ET

OurFuture.org Staff

September 30, 2008

On September 29, Congress revolted against the $700 billion price tag of the proposed bailout of Wall Street. The day before, that same Congress passed without murmur—unanimously in the Senate—a $700 billion budget for the Pentagon in 2009. The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression has shattered the conservative illusions about deregulation and market fundamentalism. But the equally costly illusions about America’s role as an “indispensable nation” policing the globe go without challenge. We remain prisoners of war.

Most Americans have no sense of the cost and scope of America’s role as globocop. We sustain what Chalmers Johnson calls an “empire of bases” across the globe – over 700 active bases in more than 30 countries. Our navy polices the world’s oceans. We task our military to maintain “dominance” not only in our own hemisphere, but in Europe, the Persian Gulf and Asia. Our intelligence “plumbing in place” engages in covert activities throughout the globe. We are the only nation with the capacity to airlift expeditionary forces rapidly and in large numbers across the globe. We are now devoting some $12 billion a month to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Bush has declared a “Global War on Terror,” a so-called “long war,” without limits or exits. Our Defense Secretary complains that the military is displacing the desiccated State Department as America’s representatives across the world.

The cost of sustaining this commitment is staggering. The Pentagon’s budget itself represents more than half of all discretionary spending—everything the government does, outside of entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, and interest on the national debt. At $700 billion, it is about equal to that spent by the rest of the world combined on the military. But the actual cost of our military is strewn throughout the budget. Add in the cost of our veterans, the arms aid in the State Department budget, Homeland Security, and more—and actual spending climbs over $1 trillion a year.

Our military has no rival, but we grow ever less secure. There are three fundamental reasons for this.

As carpenters know, if you only carry a hammer, lots of things start looking like a nail. Maintain a global military constantly engaged across the world, and it will find things to do. As one conservative Southern Senator once said, “the greater ability we have to go places and do things, the more likely we are to go there and do them.” Neo-conservatives dream of the military remaking the Middle East. Humanitarians demand that it act to stop genocide or atrocities from Rwanda to Darfur. Global corporations insist that it challenge pirates and rogue states that are posing an increasing nuisance to shipping.

Thus, the fanatics that launched the airplanes against the World Trade Towers are turned into warriors; the very real threat they pose transformed into a Global War on Terror. This not only helps justify the “war of choice” against Iraq, surely the most costly national security debacle since Vietnam. It also distracts us from a sensible strategy against al Qaeda and its allies. As http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2007/RAND_OP168.pdf “>the Pentagon’s own think tank, the Rand Corporation concluded in a recent study, the very concept of a “war on terror” isn’t only a distraction; it is detraction from a sensible strategy. By elevating al Qaeda into global warriors, it inflates their importance, and aids their ability to recruit. At the same time, it scorns the real measures needed to counter al Qaeda—intelligence cooperation, financial constraints, and alert and aggressive policing. Worse, it undermines the broad challenge that must be made to engage Islam, to rally the forces of moderation, and to isolate the extremists.

The second problem is the obverse: things that don’t look like nails get ignored. America’s priorities are badly distorted. Abroad, as Defense Secretary Gates acknowledged, generals and admirals displace our diplomats. Arms sales dominate our foreign assistance programs. At home, our country is literally falling apart from lack of investment in a modern, energy efficient infrastructure. We spend tens of billions each year to project our military power into the Persian Gulf, but fail to invest in the renewable energy and conservation at home that could reduce our dependence on foreign oil, generate jobs here in the U.S., and help capture the green markets that will be the growth markets of the future. We are a wealthy country, so in fact, we probably could afford to sustain military spending at current levels. But we can’t do so, and slash taxes on the wealthy and the corporations, without starving basic investments here at home, even as we rack up record deficits.

Worse, the military has no answer to the major threats to our security: a growing global indebtedness that can’t be sustained, the rise of India and China as economic powerhouses, catastrophic climate change and the growing resource struggles that will be far more destabilizing than Islamic terrorists, an integrated global economy of ever greater instability. Worse, the attention devoted to military misadventures like Iraq gets in the way of addressing these looming threats.

The third problem is the contrast between the Republic we are trying to secure and the national security state that has been built to police the globe. War augments the power of the executive. War and military threat justify secrecy, covert operations, disdain for constitutional limits and checks and balances. President Bush claims the right to launch preventive war on any nation in the world, to wiretap Americans without warrant, to designate them an enemy combatant and arrest them without reasonable cause, to hold them without review. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, rendition and torture have shamed America during the Bush years. But the lawlessness of the national security state – and the trampling of our own liberties in the name of security – did not begin in 2000. Bush has merely taken to the extreme prerogatives claimed by presidents over the last decades.

But the myths that sustain our military—and the lobbies that promote military spending—are politically unassailable. Both major party presidential candidates pledge to increase the size of the military and project higher military spending in the future. Both support an increased military occupation in Afghanistan, ignoring the history of fierce Afghani resistance to foreign occupation that confounded Britain at the height of its empire, and the Soviet Union right off its borders. The financial crisis and coming recession is forcing a great reckoning in America. But to date, there is no serious challenge to our priorities, or to America’s commitment to policing the globe. The presidential debate on foreign policy featured disputes about Iraq, about Georgia, about Afghanistan, about the economic crisis. But our basic global strategy, our spending priorities went without question or comment.

Economic crisis, like hanging, has a way of concentrating the mind. The financial crisis and the harsh recession likely to follow will spark a fundamental debate about America’s economy. But the debacle in Iraq has not had the same effect on the foreign policy debate. A challenge to America’s global strategy will not come from Washington. It won’t come from the national security managers of either party. It can only come if citizens build a democratic movement willing and able to demand the debate that we need.



Join the discussion below





Militarism and the economy

By Alan Maki | September 30th, 2008 - 2:54pm GMT

The presidential "race" is a one-sided fiasco... Barack Obama is the "chosen one" by the military-financial-industrial complex of Wall Street coupon clippers.

Obama has of late been showing his true allegiances to Wall Street--- even disregarding the fact that Warren Buffett and Goldman-Sachs are his best "bundlers"--- Obama simultaneously calls for increasing military expenditures and "belt-tightening." Obama has done all but call for reinstatement of the draft which won't endear him to his young constituency who will be marching off to war rather than going to college.

You talk about a recession. Capitalism is going to fall, and this baby is going to fall hard. It is going to come crashing down in the worst economic depression in human history... the writing is clearly on the wall.

You seem eager to offer advice on saving this rotten system which has brought humanity so much misery.

Rather than worrying about saving this system we should only be worried about bringing about the needed reforms to help working people sustain and main their livelihoods and the best standard of living as capitalism leaves the stage.

There is no way to have "guns and butter" as they say.

You and John Sweeney along with other progressives signed a statement concerning this crisis... now, what resources are you going to make available for working people to launch the necessary struggles where they work and in the communities where they live to fight for the reforms you outline?

John Sweeney has stated on numerous occasions his intent is to save capitalism... it makes little sense to try to save a system in which these kinds of economic crisis are an inherent and inseparable part of the system where these kinds of problems, and worse, are only going to be replicated time and time again.

Our message to the Wall Street coupon clippers should be: Take care of your own mess, it is your system not ours; you and the generals should go hold baked-good sales to finance the solution to problems of your own making.

The centers of finance want to use socialism to bail them out of their problems; well, what is good for the goose, is good for the gander. As long as it is now widely recognized that socialism is the only solution to problems, it is time to demand socialized health care as an immediate reform--- this will be good for the health of all people and it will free up trillions of dollars to begin building a people centered green, peaceful, cooperative socialist economy as an alternative to this profit driven, dog-eat-dog, war and poverty economy of capitalism.

I would suggest that you add socialism to your otherwise very good list of needed reforms which will help working people through this mess.

Add in socialized heath care together with your call for moratoriums on foreclosures/evictions and restructuring the mortgages and this will free up enormous resources and funds for all the social programs we need.

I like your idea about insisting on tax-payers getting equity in any bailout too--- what tax-payers finance, tax-payers should own. Getting equity and ownership in industries and mines, mills and factories should be seen as part of the process of socialization which needs to take place... this is a good place to start.

People can get along just fine without Wall Street.

My question remains, what resources is the Campaign for America's Future, the AFL-CIO, Change To Win and these other organizations willing to make available to create the kind of organized rank and file/grassroots upsurge that it will take to win these kinds of reforms? Certainly your organizations should be able to pony up at least as much as is being pumped into supporting Barack Obama... let Warren Buffett and Goldman Sachs take care of funding their own candidate... we need to prepare to do battle with the Obama Administration.

If I were you, I would put a lot more emphasis on ending these dirty oil wars and the need to cut military spending while transferring this wealth towards social programs.

Pumping all this money into war and militarism is like taking money from your billfold and tossing it into the ocean. Those bankers, financiers and Wall Street coupon clippers reaped massive profits from militarism are the same ones who now cry to tax-payers for help; they ironically created a big part of their own mess largely because they fed like pigs at the trough of militarization.

You might want to consider forgiveness of all student loans, too... this would have the effect of getting billions of dollars back into the economy. Maybe suggest that these student loans be paid back at fifty-cents on the dollar without interest into some kind of "green economic development fund."

Here is what you called for. These aren't the kind of demands a group of thirty-five people just sign their names to and mail to Congress expecting a bunch of millionaires working for billionaires to implement; these are fighting words requiring a real struggle if you are serious about winning such reforms:

We urge the Congress to insist on some basic conditions
for any bailout.

1. Public Oversight. This kind of power can never be
centralized in a single individual - much less one who
did not even stand for election. Any funds must be
controlled by an independent entity, with consumers and
workers given seats on its board. Congress should be
empowered to name independent monitors and to approve
all board members.

2. Protect the Taxpayer. The Treasury bill would have
taxpayers buying paper that nobody else wants at prices
far above its current value. If a firm wants to auction
off its toxic paper to the US Government, taxpayers
should get equity in that firm equal to any amount paid
in excess of the paper's value. This will deter
profitable firms from using the government as a dumpster
for their toxic paper. And it will insure that if the
bailout works and the firms become profitable,
taxpayers, not simply bankers, benefit from the upside.

3. Curb the casino. This crisis was caused because
sensible regulations of the banking system that worked
for dozens of years were dismantled or went unenforced.
No bailout can go forward without requiring the
necessary regulation to insure this does not happen
again. Any institution, which receives assistance,
should agree to come under a microscope going forward in
terms of disclosure requirements, and it should have
stringent capital requirement imposed upon it.

4. Invest in the real economy. Ending the bankers strike
is not sufficient enough to avoid the recession into
which we have been driven. Major public investment in
new energy and conservation, rebuilding schools and
infrastructure, extending unemployment and food stamps,
helping states avoid crippling cuts in police and health
services - is vital to get the real economy moving and
put people back to work. No bailout should proceed
without being linked to support for a major public
investment plan to get the economy going.

5. Hold CEOs and Boards of Directors Accountable. Wall
Street CEOs shouldn't be pocketing millions while
taxpayers are forced to bail them out. Any firm that
applies for relief must agree to cancel all stock option
programs and CEOs should have stringent limits placed on
their compensation until the Company has repaid all
taxpayer assistance.

6. Aid the victims, not just the predators. Both bankers
and home owners made foolish bets that home prices would
keep rising. Many homeowners, however, were misled by
predatory lenders into taking mortgages that they didn't
understand and couldn't afford. It would be simply
obscene to help the predators and not those that they
preyed upon. No bail out of the banks should take place
without measures to help people in trouble stay in their
homes. Explicit provisions should ensure use of the full
array of financial and legal tools available to the
government to stop foreclosures and restructure home
mortgage loans for ordinary Americans, including
amending the bankruptcy code to allow judges to modify
mortgages. Where workouts are not feasible, people
should be allowed to stay in their homes as renters.

 Robert Borosage, co-director, Campaign for America's Future

 John Sweeney, president, AFL-CIO


 Andy Stern, president, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

 Gerald McEntee, president, Am. Fed. of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)

 Randi Weingarten, president, American Federation of Teachers (AFT)

 Larry Cohen, president, Communications Workers of America (CWA)

 Dennis Van Roekel, president, National Education Association (NEA)

 Leo Gerard, president, United Steelworkers (USW)

 Maude Hurd, national president, ACORN

 Nan Aron, president, Alliance for Justice

 Amy Issacs, national director, Americans for Democratic Action

 Kevin Zeese, executive director, Campaign for Fresh Air & Clean Politics

 John Podesta, president, Center for American Progress Action Fund

 Deepak Bhargava, president, Center for Community Change

 Deborah Weinstein, executive director, Coalition for Human Needs

 Donald Mathis, president, Community Action Partnership

 Jane Hamsher, firedoglake.com

 James D. Weill, president, Food Research & Action Center (FRAC)

 Brent Blackwelder, president, Friends of the Earth

 John Cavanagh, director, Institute for Policy Studies

 Sarita Gupta, executive director, Jobs with Justice

 Wade Henderson, president, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

 Carissa Picard, esq., president, Military Spouses for Change

 Sally Greenberg, executive director, National Consumers League

 Christine L. Owens, executive director, National Employment Law Project

 Gary Bass, executive director, OMB Watch

 Adam Lioz, program director, Progressive Future

 Joanne Carter, executive director, RESULTS

 William McNary, president, USAction

 Paula Brantner, executive director, Workplace Fairness

 Dan Cantor, executive director, Working Families Party

 Mark Lotwis, executive director, 21st Century Democrats


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

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Phone: 218-386-2432

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net


P.S.--- I have written my Blue Dog Congressman Collin Petersen and my Senator, Amy "Republican Lite" Klobuchar telling them I have added my name to this impressive list of endorsers along with the demand for socialized health care and raising the minimum wage to a real living wage and raising Social Security payments because the more wealth we can pry away from the bankers and Wall Street coupon clippers and put into the pockets of working people who will spend, spend, spend, the better things will be all the way around... the quicker this can be done the better; plus the less money Democrats will have to spend trying to fix this mess :)


Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell phone: 651-587-5541
E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Support the Windsor University Faculty Association

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Support the Windsor University Faculty Association

We support the Windsor University Faculty Association in their quest for justice and human dignity as they struggle, not only to defend the own rights and livelihood, but workers everywhere who struggle for justice and dignity.

Just across the border in Michigan, adjuncts employed by Northern Michigan University have no rights, are paid sub-poverty salaries, have no health care, no child care and have not had a raise in years in spite of escalating food and gas prices and huge debts incurred in obtaining their own educations with pitifully little in the way of receiving upgrading in their teaching skills. The WUFA, in struggling for their own rights against a very anti-labour Administration/Management sets an example for those employed in universities like Northern Michigan University and universities everywhere.

As workers employed in the Indian Gaming Industry who are forced to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without ANY rights under state or federal labor laws--- where these corrupt managements completely ignore even the most basic international labor laws--- we are especially appreciative of the WUFA setting a stellar and exemplary example of how to struggle for the rights of labour.

We support a quick negotiated settlement with the Windsor University Faculty Association [WUFA] and we urge you to get back to the negotiation table. The University of Windsor works because WUFA does; we teach, research and counsel. Faculty, sessionals, and librarians are the hearts and minds of the University of Windsor.

We urge you to drop your demands for concessions on wages, benefits, working conditions, and promotion, tenure, and renewal, and offer WUFA members a fair and equitable contract that embodies the principal of sector parity, that embraces employment equity, and that preserves the quality of education at the university. we urge you to end this strike, which hurts your students, your members, and the reputation of the University of Windsor.

We urge working people everywhere to support the struggle for justice and dignity being waged by the Windsor University Faculty Association by clicking onto the CUPE web site and signing on to a statement of solidarity condemning the shameful actions of the Administration of the University of Windsor in trying to weaken the Windsor University Faculty Association.

Click on to the CUPE web site to show your support for the Windsor University Faculty Association in their struggle for justice:

http://cupe.ca/action/cupe-supports-wufa

In addition to the struggle of the WUFA, we appreciate the Canadian Union of Public Employees bringing this struggle to our attention with a request for solidarity,

Yours in the struggle,

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

58891 CR 13
Warroad, Minnesota USA 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell Phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

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

CUPE supports Windsor faculty

The Faculty at the University of Windsor is now entering its second week of strike.

In the hope of helping WUFA get a fair deal, Paul Moist offered CUPE’s support to WUFA’s bargaining team. “We offered them our support dealing with their strike campaign and we had a very positive relation with the committee, said Moist. I hope they can benefit from CUPE’s vast experience in the post-secondary sector. This is a perfect example of public sector workers who need our support in these crucial times.”

On campus, CUPE locals 1001, 1393, 4580 and 1281 are coalition partners, working closely with WUFA.

WUFA president, Professor Brian E. Brown said “Too much misinformation has been released by the university giving an entirely unjust view of the situation. The truth is that 47% of our Faculty are part time staff. They are underpaid, overworked and increasingly treated as casual labour. We can’t attract and keep the best new faculty with uncompetitive salaries and poor working conditions. Pay equity and employment equity imbalances are important issues that have to be addressed.”

Brown also noted both the Graduate Student Society and the University of Windsor Students' Alliance have voted to support WUFA. "Too much is at risk at this institution. Students and faculty have united to preserve quality education at the University of Windsor."

Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall

This opinion piece needs no introduction. The Iron Range Club of the Communist Party USA believes this opinion piece by Alan Maki is written in the best traditions of the "red" Finns of the Iron Range and working class journalism in advocating for a better world.

The Iron Range Club of the Communist Party USA urges Communist Party Clubs everywhere to discuss and circulate this opinion piece far and wide.


Saturday, September 13, 2008

Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall

Does anyone really believe, that the "market economy" and capitalist thinking introduced and pushed by deviant and corrupt Chinese leaders whose perverted world outlook has been shaped by backroom payoffs in the same manner as received by any American politicians from the Wall Street coupon clippers working in league with the likes of capitalist sooth-sayers such as Alan Greenspan in the name of the wonderfully sounding "harmonious development," which is said to be part of "Chinese culture," as the right-wing, reactionary Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation "educate" a "new generation" of Chinese youth in "business administration," rather than, the Communist Party of China doing its job in educating the working people and peasants in Marxism where socialist humanism is elevated to the highest level, can escape these kinds of atrocious, uncaring and anti-human aspects of a "free market economy" as working people are told, for some unstated reason--- and without any basis or substance to back it up--- that working people will have to wait for twenty to one-hundred years to attain their very basic and fundamental human rights?

It is because the "leaders" of China have pushed down, rather than raised up, the working class and peasantry to suit the interests of the profit gouging capitalist corporations of the West, that China now finds itself entangled in the same web of corruption and working class repression as any capitalist country... including the most corrupt and repressive of them all--- the United States of America.

This problem of contaminated milk powder went on for weeks making hundreds of babies sick simply because working people and peasants in China have been removed from the decision making process and no longer feel free to bring forward and report this kind of wrong-doing... no different than the more than two-million casino workers employed here in the United States in the Indian Gaming Industry who--- working without ANY rights--- have even less rights than Chinese workers and peasants; who, too, like Chinese workers, are now too intimidated and bullied to tell law enforcement agencies about prostitution, drug dealing, loan-sharking, and the illegal gambling operations that are now bringing corruption even to the youth in American high schools as these illegal betting rings operating out of the casinos make pay-offs to high school quarterbacks and pitchers to throw the games and manipulate point spreads for these bookies to make profits.

As both socialist Minnesota Governors, Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson, repeatedly pointed out, it is the epitome of naivete, to think or suggest, that the corruption which permeates every facet of our lives--- from the church to the schoolroom to the corporate boardrooms to the offices of mayors and the Sate Houses and Halls of Congress--- can be eliminated as long as capitalist greed is the dominant force and motivator of any society.

Both Floyd B. Olson and Elmer A. Benson were very clear on this point: For humanity to rise above the corruption and decadence of capitalist society, a new system of cooperative socialism would have to be brought into existence by working people and farmers, united, who were sincere in desiring real change... the Minnesota Farmer Labor Party, like the Chinese Communist Party tried to make the needed change--- both met stiff opposition from the same very powerful capitalist class of Wall Street coupon clippers.

One would think that working class Communists and peasants in China would have come forward already and said the same thing Barack Obama is saying about the situation here regarding eight long years of the Bush-Cheney Administration--- the most corrupt in American history: ENOUGH.

Simply taking these crooked and corrupt culprits in the management of this Chinese dairy enterprise out in a cow pasture and putting a bullet in their heads is not enough... because those who do the bribing and foster the corruption are being placed on a pedestal and elevated to positions of high power and influence.

Chinese workers--- like workers, peasants and farmers everywhere--- need to get rid of capitalism rather than give in to the perversions of "market socialism" and "new thinking," which are nothing more than code-words for allowing capitalism and all forms of exploitation and corruption to thrive.

Again, as Barack Obama has pointed out, "You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough."

The same thing can be said of "harmonious development" and "market socialism" which is nothing more than putting lipstick on someone like Sarah Palin... call it what you will, capitalism is still capitalism... capitalism is the same corrupt, rotten system no matter what pretty words are used to try to disguise it... no different than a pretty face with lipstick intended to hide what comes out of the mouth as the most backward and reactionary ideas of warmongers and the Wall Street coupon clippers of the military-financial-industrial complex who have built state-monopoly capitalism into a vast web of imperialism now infecting even socialist China with its poisonous corruption.

Certainly, if the American people "have had enough," the Chinese people don't want more of what we want to get rid of.

Alan L. Maki


Chinese dairy knew milk fault weeks before recall


Sep 13, 7:22 AM (ET)

By JOE McDONALD


BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese dairy that sold milk powder linked to kidney stones in infants and one death knew weeks before it ordered a recall that the product contained a banned chemical, the Health Ministry said Saturday.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday that the dairy, Sanlu Group Col, was ordered to stop production as the number of sick babies rose to 432.

A Health Ministry statement gave no indication why Sanlu Group Co., China's biggest milk powder producer, failed to warn consumers immediately. Employees who answered the phone Saturday at the ministry's news office and at China's product safety agency said they had no more information.

In August, Sanlu's testing revealed melamine in the milk powder, a ministry statement said. Melamine is a toxic chemical used in plastics that contaminated pet food last year.

The ministry did not say when Sanlu alerted authorities about its findings but the dairy ordered a recall Thursday of 700 tons of formula made before Aug. 6.

A New Zealand dairy cooperative that owns part of Sanlu said Friday it believed none of the tainted powder was exported.

Kidney problems in infants were reported as early as mid-July but authorities failed to launch a food safety investigation, Xinhua said in a separate report. Another news report said the dairy received complaints as early as March.

Investigators are questioning 78 people about the contamination, which occurred when dairy farmers added melamine to the milk, possibly to make its protein content appear higher, Xinhua said. Melamine is rich in nitrogen and standard tests for protein in bulk food ingredients measure nitrogen levels.

The incident reflects China's enduring problems with product safety despite a shake up of its regulatory system following a spate of warnings and recalls about tainted toothpaste, faulty tires and other goods.

The biggest group of victims is in China itself, where shoddy or counterfeit products are common. Infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or injured by tainted or fake milk, medicines, liquor and other products.

The number of infants suffering kidney stones after being fed Sanlu formula has risen to 432, Xinhua said. It did not give a breakdown of where in China the cases were.

Xinhua cited a Gansu provincial health department spokesman as saying he received reports on July 16 that 16 infants under a year old, all of whom drank Sanlu milk, were suffering a rare kidney ailment. He said the Health Ministry launched an epidemic survey.

"However, there seemed no food and safety survey had been done. Otherwise, the health, and even lives, of many infants could have been saved," Xinhua said.

A Sanlu manager quoted by the newspaper Beijing News said the dairy received complaints in March and June but could not track down the problem.

Another Sanlu manager quoted Friday on the Web site of a leading Chinese business magazine, Caijing, said it refrained from making an announcement because some grocers refused to return tainted powder. The report did not say why that prevented a warning.

Sanlu buys milk from a nationwide network of suppliers that includes 60,000 family farms, according to the company's Web site.

In Taiwan, officials said they had seized thousands of pounds of milk powder produced by Sanlu after Beijing authorities notified them the product was tainted.

Liu Fang-ming of the Taoyuan county government said the shipment, which arrived in June, contained 55,115 pounds of milk powder, but only 21,660 pounds have been recovered so far.

Officials did not say whether any of the milk powder, which is used in baby milk formula and baked goods, had been consumed in Taiwan.

Taiwan has not reported any illnesses from the powder.

It was China's second high-profile case in four years involving harmful baby formula.

In 2004, more than 200 infants suffered malnutrition and at least 12 died after being fed phony formula that contained no nutrients. Some 40 companies were found to be making phony formula and 47 people were arrested.

---

Associated Press researcher Bonnie Cao in Beijing contributed to this report.
Posted by The creators of China and Socialism Blog.