DR Congo's Historic Urgency

Brian McAfee
2838 Mason Blvd
Muskegon Heights
MI 49444 USA
brimac6@hotmail.com

DR Congo's Historic Urgency.

By Brian McAfee

The conditions in the democratic republic of Congo are dire for millions of its people despite the fact that the Congo has more mineral wealth than any other part of the African continent. Over a quarter of a million people are displaced because of the civil war currently raging in the eastern part of the country. Women and children have been primary targets of both sides in the conflict with rape used as a weapon by both sides. The war between the government forces and "the Congress in Defense of the People" has overrun numerous small towns and villages targeting civilians, killing the men, raping the women, and in some cases, forcing the children to become child soldiers.

In the midst of this scenario there are mining encampments extracting cobalt, copper, diamonds, gold, silver, and zinc as well as uranium and timber. None of the massive wealth that the "Democratic" Republic of Congo have been allowed to reach the majority of the Congolese population that live in abject poverty. The outside acquisition of Congolese resources, many would say theft of, began in the Belgium colonial period of the Congo from 1885-1960.

In 1961, the Congo upon holding its first free election chose Patrice Lamumba. Lamumba wanted to use the country's resources to improve the lives of the Congolese people and develop relations with other poor people around the world. Shortly after his election as prime minister, Lamumba said "We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and free and liberated people from every corner of the world will always be found at the side of the Congolese." Within a year, Patrice Lamumba was assassinated and replaced by Mobutu Sese Seko, who acquiesced to U.S. mining and hegemonic interests.

While Mobutu is no longer there, the mining interests are and the humanitarian needs that cry out are not being addressed sufficiently. The U.S. could and should step up to the plate. We owe it to them many times over. The humanitarian organizations such as Oxfam, UNICEF, and DIAKONIE Emergency Aid are having some positive impact, but from the reports coming out of the region, much more is needed and time is a factor.

Why do the majority of people in one of the richest places on earth continue to live in abject poverty?

A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence

In this case Sarah Palin is the target; but, these kinds of people will target anyone in the same way--- to them politics is nothing but a game and sport. The leadership of the Minnesota DFL is great for this kind of crap.

No movements can be built behind anonymity. People simply do not trust the views made by anonymous posters. Where there is no trust you can’t build movements. All ideas need to have someone behind them so the ideas and concepts can be challenged.

Having your ideas challenged is part of movement building… and all challenges coming from named sources need to be answered. Very, very seldom will anyone respond to anonymous postings and writings.

The battle of ideas is a big part of the class struggle.

And the class struggle involves living, breathing human beings.

Those who don’t sign their names and hide behind anonymity and pseudonyms are not reliable partners in the class struggle.

We see groups like “Progressives for Obama” who will only pick and choose what they find convenient to refute… they are not credible with most liberals, progressives and the left.

I have been the target of these anonymous “bloggers” and these people spread lies and deceit to fools and stupid people and people engaged in campaigns of hate… one only needs to look at the way Cliff Kincaid orchestrated his campaign of hate using an entire network of anonymous “bloggers” to spew and spread his anti-communist venom insinuating, knowingly falsely, that Obama was some kind of closet Marxist, socialist or communist and then insinuating that if he was, in some way he wasn’t competent to be president and then going so far to insinuate that if he was a Marxist, socialist or communist he did not have the right to be president.

It is interesting that when I challenged Cliff Kincaid to debate me any time, any place any where as to what he found to be so problematic with Marxism, socialism and communism he chickened out.

Because of articles like the one below is why I put my name to every single thing I write.

Alan L. Maki


A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence


Axel Koester for The New York Times



Dan Mirvish, who with Eitan Gorlin created an elaborate Internet hoax complete with a fake policy institute and a phony adviser to Senator John McCain.

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Published: November 12, 2008

It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Eitan Gorlin as the phony McCain adviser Martin Eisenstadt.

Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Mr. Shuster said.

Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.

And the claim of credit for the Africa anecdote is just the latest ruse by Eisenstadt, who turns out to be a very elaborate hoax that has been going on for months. MSNBC, which quickly corrected the mistake, has plenty of company in being taken in by an Eisenstadt hoax, including The New Republic and The Los Angeles Times.

Now a pair of obscure filmmakers say they created Martin Eisenstadt to help them pitch a TV show based on the character. But under the circumstances, why should anyone believe a word they say?

“That’s a really good question,” one of the two, Eitan Gorlin, said with a laugh.

(For what it’s worth, another reporter for The New York Times is an acquaintance of Mr. Gorlin and vouches for his identity, and Mr. Gorlin is indeed “Mr. Eisenstadt” in those videos. He and his partner in deception, Dan Mirvish, have entries on the Internet Movie Database, imdb.com. But still. ...)

They say the blame lies not with them but with shoddiness in the traditional news media and especially the blogosphere.

“With the 24-hour news cycle they rush into anything they can find,” said Mr. Mirvish, 40.

Mr. Gorlin, 39, argued that Eisenstadt was no more of a joke than half the bloggers or political commentators on the Internet or television.

An MSNBC spokesman, Jeremy Gaines, explained the network’s misstep by saying someone in the newsroom received the Palin item in an e-mail message from a colleague and assumed it had been checked out. “It had not been vetted,” he said. “It should not have made air.”

But most of Eisenstadt’s victims have been bloggers, a reflection of the sloppy speed at which any tidbit, no matter how specious, can bounce around the Internet. And they fell for the fake material despite ample warnings online about Eisenstadt, including the work of one blogger who spent months chasing the illusion around cyberspace, trying to debunk it.

The hoax began a year ago with short videos of a parking valet character, who Mr. Gorlin and Mr. Mirvish said was the original idea for a TV series.

Soon there were videos showing him driving a car while spouting offensive, opinionated nonsense in praise of Rudolph W. Giuliani. Those videos attracted tens of thousands of Internet hits and a bit of news media attention.

When Mr. Giuliani dropped out of the presidential race, the character morphed into Eisenstadt, a parody of a blowhard cable news commentator.

Mr. Gorlin said they chose the name because “all the neocons in the Bush administration had Jewish last names and Christian first names.”

Eisenstadt became an adviser to Senator John McCain and got a blog, updated occasionally with comments claiming insider knowledge, and other bloggers began quoting and linking to it. It mixed weird-but-true items with false ones that were plausible, if just barely.

The inventors fabricated the Harding Institute, named for one of the most scorned presidents, and made Eisenstadt a senior fellow.

It didn’t hurt that a man named Michael Eisenstadt is a real expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and is quoted in the mainstream media. The real Mr. Eisenstadt said in an interview that he was only dimly aware of the fake one, and that his main concern was that people understood that “I had nothing to do with this.”

Before long Mr. Gorlin and Mr. Mirvish had produced a short documentary on Martin Eisenstadt, supposedly for the BBC, posted in several parts on YouTube.

In June they produced what appeared to be an interview with Eisenstadt on Iraqi television promoting construction of a casino in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Then they sent out a news release in which he apologized. Outraged Iraqi bloggers protested the casino idea.

Among the Americans who took that bait was Jonathan Stein, a reporter for Mother Jones. A few hours later Mr. Stein put up a post on the magazine’s political blog, with the title “Hoax Alert: Bizarre ‘McCain Adviser’ Too Good to Be True,” and explained how he had been fooled.

In July, after the McCain campaign compared Senator Barack Obama to Paris Hilton, the Eisenstadt blog said “the phone was burning off the hook” at McCain headquarters, with angry calls from Ms. Hilton’s grandfather and others. A Los Angeles Times political blog, among others, retold the story, citing Eisenstadt by name and linking to his blog.

Last month Eisenstadt blogged that Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, Joe the Plumber, was closely related to Charles Keating, the disgraced former savings and loan chief. It wasn’t true, but other bloggers ran with it.

Among those taken in by Monday’s confession about the Palin Africa report was The New Republic’s political blog. Later the magazine posted this atop the entry: “Oy — this would appear to be a hoax. Apologies.”

But the truth was out for all to see long before the big-name take-downs. For months sourcewatch.org has identified Martin Eisenstadt as a hoax. When Mr. Stein was the victim, he blogged that “there was enough info on the Web that I should have sussed this thing out.”

And then there is William K. Wolfrum, a blogger who has played Javert to Eisenstadt’s Valjean, tracking the hoaxster across cyberspace and repeatedly debunking his claims. Mr. Gorlin and Mr. Mirvish praised his tenacity, adding that the news media could learn something from him.

“As if there isn’t enough misinformation on this election, it was shocking to see so much time wasted on things that didn’t exist,” Mr. Wolfrum said in an interview.

And how can we know that Mr. Wolfrum is real and not part of the hoax?

Long pause. “Yeah, that’s a tough one.”





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/

CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE REAL OBAMA NOW?

This is the very best article I have read about Barack Obama--- several months late; but late is better than never.



I hope this will be circulated very widely in the interest of open dialogue, discussion and debate because we have a very difficult struggle ahead.



This essay deserves widespread distribution and serious discussion and consideration.



I have highlighted some of the things from this essay which I think need to be explored more in-depth.



In my opinion, maybe not to the author, it is very clear who groomed and put Obama where he is today. State-monopoly capitalism needs this flim-flam man, or as Smith calls him, a con-man now that the entire capitalist system and imperialism is falling apart, probably, sending us and the entire world, into many years of economic depression and all the misery this entails for working people--- perhaps over twenty years, if not more--- unless working people take the road to socialism; because capitalism is on a very destructive road to perdition and oblivion.



In my opinion there are only three things missing in this essay:



1. Never mentioned is George Lakoff, the linguist, who has prepped the Democratic for years now on how to achieve victory at the polls under the guise of “progressivism” without providing one single solution to any problem working people are experiencing. Lakoff calls this properly framing issues with progressive policy directives while explicitly stating never, ever put forward a solution to any problem because you will lose support and votes from some constituency group. Lakoff has almost single-handedly made it possible for Democrats to rake in the campaign contributions like never before imagined on the one hand while making these politicians completely lacking in accountability to voters--- especially working class voters. Please, please take the time to read George Lakoff’s little booklet: Don’t Think of An Elephant! I hate to sell his books for him but this one is cheap and it is what the Democratic Party is using to train its politicians and all those they want to keep tethered to this pathetic politics we have become entrapped in as working people. I cannot stress enough the need for you to read this short little book. Please note while reading Lakoff very specifically states Democrats must not bring forward any solutions, rather, the “trick” is to frame issues with a progressive perspective--- and this is why we have been tricked too often by politicians who sound so good.



2. No explanation of the kind of “left” movement required (class struggle is not mentioned), although Sam Smith does use the “left” of the thirties as his example of what will be required (I would encourage the reading of Earl Browder’s: The People’s Front--- no use throwing out the baby with the bath water)… but, this is the topic for another essay which hopefully will be forthcoming from Sam Smith and much discussion by all of us. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt for people to do a little reading of the history of the “left” of the thirties which so succesfully pushed Roosevelt, his Administration and the Congress to come through with the New Deal reform package, from which was omitted socialized health care because there wasn’t quite enough strength from the people’s front. Check out William Z. Foster’s: “Twilight of Imperialism” and Gus Hall’s: "Working Class USA"… concluding with a good read of Victor Perlo’s: “Super Profits and Crisis” and Beatrice Lumpkin’s: “Always Bring A Crowd, the story of Frank Lumpkin, steelworker” about the struggle to save Wisconsin Steel in Chicago. Agree with the perspectives put forward in these books, or not; you will thank me for suggesting that you make them part of your arsenal for struggle ahead. For too long we have all been reading the critiques and criticisms of these ideas without going straight to the source and getting our information “straight from the horse’s mouth” so-to-speak; and really, to continue in this way is very dishonest intellectually and shortchanging yourself from having a slightly different view and perspective on things. All these books are available on the Internet quite cheap. Get them, read them. Study them. Keep them handy. I would also encourage people to read up on Frances Perkins who was the first woman cabinet secretary in U.S history, serving as FDR’s Secretary of Labor… if you are not familiar with the life of Frances Perkins, now is the time to find out about this most important woman in American history… you will find out quickly why our children don’t learn about this very concerned and compassionate woman who was in the forefront in making this world a better place for working people to live. I have never had one single person tell me, after reading these books, that they did not appreciate me suggesting they read these books. We have a very difficult struggle ahead and we might as well all get acquainted and understand each other and how we view the world. I look forward to receiving suggestions from you on what you think I might like to read.



3. The only other thing missing from this essay is this pathetically racist stereotype graphic appearing on the “Progressives for Obama” blog--- the same people calling for building a “new ‘New Left’ ”--- as if the old “New Left” was something to be proud of. But, quite ironically, the old “New Left” kicked off with its own version of racism, too, with a pamphlet called “Student as N----r,” so, as this graphic so amply demonstrates--- and I am sure any anthropologist will agree--- some things never change in the world of muddle-headed, middle class intellectualism even though they are conceived as being “new:”







Who is Sam Smith, the writer of this essay:



http://prorev.com/bio.htm



-----Original Message-----
From: WCS-A@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 9:12 AM
To: WCS-A@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [WCS-A] Can We Talk About the Real Obama Now?



Wednesday, November 5, 2008

CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE REAL OBAMA NOW?
Sam Smith

Over the past few weeks I've been a good boy. I've placed everything
having to do with the real Barack Obama into a futures file and spent
my time on the far grimmer matter of the real John McCain and Sarah
Palin.

Now the party is over and it's time for people to put away their
Barack and Michelle dolls and start dealing with what has truly
happened.

This, I admit, is difficult because the real Obama doesn't exist yet.
He follows in the footsteps of our first postmodern president, Bill
Clinton, who observed the principles outlined by scholar Pauline
Marie Rosenau:

Post-modernists recognize an infinite number of interpretations...of
any text are possible because, for the skeptical post-modernists, one
can never say what one intends with language, [thus] ultimately all
textual meaning, all interpretation is undecipherable.... Many
diverse meanings are possible for any symbol, gesture, word...
Language has no direct relationship to the real world; it is, rather,
only symbolic.

As James Krichick wrote in the New Republic, "Obama is, in his own
words, something of a Rorschach test. In his latest book, The
Audacity of Hope, he writes, 'I am new enough on the national
political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of
vastly different political stripes project their own views.'"

This is remarkably similar to Ted Koppel's description of Vanna White
of TV's Wheel of Fortune: "Vanna leaves an intellectual vacuum, which
can be filled by whatever the predisposition of the viewer happens to
be."

Obama has left the same kind of vacuum. His magic, or con, was that
voters could imagine whatever they wanted and he would do nothing to
spoil their reverie. He was a handsome actor playing the part of the
first black president-to-be and, as in films, he was careful not to
muck up the role with real facts or issues that might harm the
fantasy. Hence the enormous emphasis on meaningless phrases like
hope and change.

Of course, in Obama's postmodern society--one that rises above the
purported false teachings of partisanship--we find ourselves with
little to steer us save the opinions of whatever non-ideologue
happens to be in power. In this case, we may really only have
progressed from the
ideology of the many to the ideology of the one or, some might say,
from democracy to authoritarianism.

The Obama campaign was driven in no small part by a younger
generation trained to accept brands as a substitute for policies. If
the 1960s had happened like this, the activists would have spent all
their time trying to get Martin Luther King or Joan Baez elected
president rather than pursing ancillary issues like ending
segregation and the war in Vietnam.

Obama himself took his vaunted experience in community organizing and
turned its principles on its head. Instead of empowering the many at
the bottom, he used the techniques to empower one at the top:
himself.

It is historic that a black has been elected president, but we should
remember that Obama was not running against Bull Connor, George
Wallace or Strom Thurmond. Putting Obama in the same class as
earlier black activists discredits the honor of those who died,
suffered physical harm or were repeatedly jailed to achieve equality.
Obama is not a catalyst of change, but rather its belated
beneficiary. The delay, to be sure, is striking; after all, the two
white elite sports of tennis and golf were integrated long before
presidential politics, but Washington-as Phil Hart said of
the Senate-has always been a place that always does things twenty
years after it should have.

There is an informative precedent to Obama's rise. Forty-two years
ago Edward Brooke became the first black senator to be elected with a
majority of white votes. Brooke was chosen from Massachusetts as a
Republican in a state that was 97% white.

Jason Sokol, who teaches history at the University of Pennsylvania,
wrote in History News Network:

"On Election Day, Brooke triumphed with nearly 60 percent of the
vote. Newspapers and magazines hummed with approval. The Boston
Globe invoked a legacy that included the Pilgrims, Daniel Webster,
and Charles Sumner, offering the Bay State as the nation's racial and
political pioneer.

Journalist Carl Rowan was among the unconvinced. For whites, voting
for Brooke became "a much easier way to wipe out guilt feelings about
race than letting a Negro family into the neighborhood or shaking up
a Jim Crow school setup." Polling numbers lent credence to Rowan's
unease. They showed that only 23 percent of Massachusetts residents
approved of a statewide school integration law; just 17 percent
supported open housing."

That's the problem with change coming from the top, as Obama might
have heard when he was involved in real community organizing. It
also helps to explain why there have been no more Catholic presidents
since John Kennedy. Symbolism is not the change we need.

Getting at the reality of Obama is difficult. He performs as the
great black liberal, but since he is one half white and one half
conservative, that doesn't leave him a lot of wiggle room.

To be sure, in the Senate he got good ratings from various liberal
groups, but two things need to be remembered:

First, liberals aren't that liberal any more. Thus getting a 90%
score merely means that you went along with the best that an
extremely conservative Democratic Party was willing to risk. This is
not a party that would, in these times, have passed Social Security,
Medicare or minimum wage. In fact, many liberals aren't much
interested in economic issues at all-especially that portion of the
constituency that controls the money, the media and the message.

Second, politicians reflect their constituency. Obama's constituency
is no longer Illinois. He has a whole new set of folks to pander to.

There is one story from Chicago, however, that remains relevant. A
citizen walks into his alderman's office looking for a job. "Who
sent you?" he asks. "Nobody," he replies. Says the staffer: "We
don't want nobody nobody sent."

Who sent Barack Obama remains a mystery. He has risen from an
unknown state senator to president in exactly four years and that
only happens when somebody sends for you.

The black liberal image falters on a number of other scores including
Obama's affection for extreme right wingers like Chuck Hagel and an
obvious indifference to anybody who votes like, say, a state senator
from Hyde Park.

Think back over the campaign and try to recall a single instance when
Obama reached out to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party or
to the better angels of the Congressional Black Caucus. Instead his
ads attacked as 'extreme' the single payer health insurance backed by
many of his own supporters, he dissed ACORN and Colin Powell was as
radical a black as he wanted to be seen palling around with.

The key issue that has driven Obama throughout his career has been
Obama. He has achieved virtually nothing for any other cause. His
politics reflects whatever elite consensus he gathers around himself.
This is why his "post partisanship" needs to be watched so carefully.
If Bernie Sanders and John Conyers don't get to White House meetings
as often as Chuck Hagel, Obama will glide easily to the right, as
every president has done over the past thirty years. If liberals, as
they did with Clinton, watch without a murmur as their president
redesigns their party to fit his personal ambitions, then the whole
country will continue to move to the right as well.

Since the real Obama doesn't exist yet, it is impossible to predict
with any precision what he will do. But here is some of the evidence
gathered over the past months that should serve both as a warning and
as a prod to progressives not to take today's dreams as a reasonable
facsimile of reality:

Business interests

Advisor Cass Sunstein told Jeffrey Rosen of the NY Times: "I would
be stunned to find an anti-business [Supreme Court] appointee from
either [Clinton or Obama]. There's not a strong interest on the part
of Obama or Clinton in demonizing business, and you wouldn't expect
to see that in
their Supreme Court nominees."

Obama supported making it harder to file class action suits in state
courts. David Sirota in the Nation wrote, "Opposed by most major
civil rights and consumer watchdog groups, this big business-backed
legislation was sold to the public as a way to stop 'frivolous'
lawsuits. But everyone in Washington knew the bill's real objective
was to protect corporate abusers."

He voted for a business-friendly "tort reform" bill.

He voted against a 30% interest rate cap on credit cards.

He had the most number of foreign lobbyist contributors in the
primaries.

He was even more popular with Pentagon contractors than McCain.

He was most popular of the candidates with K Street lobbyists.

In 2003, rightwing Democratic Leadership Council named Obama as one
of its "100 to Watch." After he was criticized in the black media,
Obama disassociated himself with the DLC. But his major economic
advisor, Austan Goolsbee, is also chief economist of the conservative
organization. Writes Doug Henwood of the Left Business Observer,
"Goolsbee has written gushingly about Milton Friedman and denounced
the idea of a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures."

Added Henwood, "Top hedge fund honcho Paul Tudor Jones threw a
fundraiser for him at his Greenwich house last spring, 'The whole of
Greenwich is backing Obama,' one source said of the posh headquarters
of the hedge fund industry. They like him because they're socially
liberal, up to a point, and probably eager for a little less war, and
think he's the man to do their work. They're also confident he
wouldn't undertake any renovations to the distribution of wealth."

Civil liberties

He supports the war on drugs.

He supports the crack-cocaine sentence disparity.

He supports Real ID.

He supports the PATRIOT Act.

He supports the death penalty.

He opposes lowering the drinking age to 18.

He supported amnesty for telecoms engaged in illegal spying on
Americans.

Conservatives

He went to Connecticut to support Joe Lieberman in the primary
against Ned Lamont.

Wrote Paul Street in Z Magazine, "Obama has lent his support to the
aptly named Hamilton Project, formed by corporate-neo-liberal
Citigroup chair Robert Rubin and other Wall Street Democrats to
counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the
Democratic Party... Obama was recently hailed as a Hamiltonian
believer in limited government and free trade by Republican New York
Times columnist David Brooks, who praises Obama for having "a
mentality formed by globalization, not the SDS."

Writes the London Times, "Obama is hoping to appoint cross-party
figures to his cabinet such as Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator
for Nebraska and an opponent of the Iraq war, and Richard Lugar,
leader of the Republicans on the Senate foreign relations committee.
Senior advisers confirmed that Hagel, a highly decorated Vietnam war
veteran and one of McCain's closest friends in the Senate, was
considered an ideal candidate for defense secretary.

Richard Lugar was rated 0% by SANE...rated 0% by AFL-CIO...rated 0%
BY NARAL...rated 12% by American Public Health Association...rated 0%
by Alliance for Retired Americans...rated 27% by the National
Education Association...rated 5% by League of Conservation Voters...
He voted no on implementing the 9/11 Commission report... Voted
against providing habeas corpus for Gitmo prisoners...voted no on
comprehensive test ban treaty...voted against same sex
marriage...strongly anti-abortion...opposed to more federal funding
for healthcare...voted for unconstitutional wiretapping...voted to
increase penalties for drug violations.

Chuck Hagel was rated 0% by NARAL...rated 11% by NAACP...rated 0% by
Human Rights Coalition...rated 100% by Christian Coalition...rated
12% by American Public Health Association...rated 22% by Alliance for
Retired Americans...rated 36% by the National Education
Association...rated 0% by League of Conservation Voters...rated 8% by
AFL-CIO...He is strongly anti-abortion...voted for anti-flag
desecration amendment...voted to increase penalties for drug
violations...favors privatizing Social Security

Ecology

Obama voted for a nuclear energy bill that included money for bunker
buster bombs and full funding for Yucca Mountain.

He supports federally funded ethanol and is unusually close to the
ethanol industry.

He led his party's reversal of a 25-year ban on off-shore oil
drilling.

Education

Obama has promised to double funding for private charter schools,
part of a national effort undermining public education.

He supports the No Child Left Behind Act albeit expressing
reservations about its emphasis on testing. Writes Cory Mattson,
"Despite NCLB's loss of credibility among educators and the deadlock
surrounding its attempted reauthorization in 2007, Barack Obama still
offers his support. Even the
two unions representing teachers, both which for years supported
reform of the policy to avoid embarrassing their Democratic Party
'friends,' declared in 2008 that the policy is too fundamentally
flawed to be reformed and should be eliminated."

Fiscal policy

Obama rejected moratoriums on foreclosures and a freeze on rates,
measures supported by his primary opponents John Edwards and Hillary
Clinton.

He was a strong supporter of the $700 billion cash-for-trash banker
bailout plan.

Two of his top advisors are former Goldman Sachs chair Robert Rubin
and Lawrence Summers. Noted Glen Ford of black Agenda Report, "In
February 1999, Rubin and Summers flanked Fed Chief Alan Greenspan on
the cover of Time magazine, heralded as, 'The Committee to Save the
World'. Summers was then Secretary of the Treasury for Bill Clinton,
having succeeded his mentor, Rubin, in that office. Together with
Greenspan, the trio had in the previous year labored successfully to
safeguard derivatives, the exotic 'ticking time bomb' financial
instruments, from federal regulation."

Robert Scheer notes that "Rubin, who pocketed tens of millions
running Goldman Sachs before becoming treasury secretary, is the man
who got President Clinton to back legislation by then-Sen. Phil
Gramm, R-Texas, to unleash banking greed on an unprecedented scale."

Obama's fund-raising machine has been headed by Penny Prtizker former
chair of the Superior Bank, one of the first to get into subprime
mortgages. While she resigned as chair of the family business in
1994, as late as 2001 she was still on the board and wrote a letter
saying that her family was recapitalizing the bank and pledging to
"once again restore Superior's leadership position in subprime
lending." The bank shut down two months later and the Pritzker
family would pay $460 million in a settlement with the government.

Foreign policy

Obama endorsed US involvement in the failed drug war in Colombia:
"When I am president, we will continue the Andean Counter-Drug
Program."

He has expressed a willingness to bomb Iran and won't rule out a
first strike nuclear attack.

He has endorsed bombing or invading Pakistan to go after Al Qaeda in
violation of international law. He has called Pakistan "the right
battlefield...in the war on terrorism".

He supports Israeli aggression and apartheid. Obama has deserted
previous support for two-state solution to Mid East situation and
refuses to negotiate with Hamas.

He has supported Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel, saying "it must
remain undivided."

He favors expanding the war in Afghanistan.

Although he claims to want to get out of Iraq, his top Iraq advisor
wrote that America should keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in
Iraq.

Obama, in his appearances, blurred the difference between combat
soldiers and other troops.

He indicated to Amy Goodman that he would leave 140,000 private
contractors and mercenaries in Iraq because "we don't have the troops
to replace them".

He has called Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez an enemy of the United
States and urged sanctions against him.

He claimed "one of the things that I think George H. W. Bush doesn't
get enough credit for was his foreign policy team and the way that he
helped negotiate the end of the Cold War and prosecuted the Gulf War.
That cost us $20 billion dollars. That's all it cost. It was
extremely successful. I
think there were a lot of very wise people."

He has hawkish foreign policy advisors who have been involved in past
US misdeeds and failures. These include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Anthony
Lake, General Merrill McPeak, and Dennis Ross.

It has been reported that he might well retain as secretary of
defense Robert Gates who supports actions in violation of
international law against countries merely suspected of being
unwilling or unable to halt threats by militant groups.

Gays

Obama opposes gay marriage. He wouldn't have photo taken with San
Francisco mayor because he was afraid it would seem that he supported
gay marriage

Health

Obama opposes single payer healthcare or Medicare for all.

Military

Obama would expand the size of the military.

National Service

Obama favors a national service plan that appears to be in sync with
one being promoted by a new coalition that would make national
service mandatory by 2020, and with a bill requiring such mandatory
national service introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel.

He announced in Colorado Springs last July, "We cannot continue to
rely on our military in order to achieve the national security
objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security
force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

On another occasion he said, "It's also important that a president
speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of
many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19
months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the
Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are
serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's not always the case in other
parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it's
important for the president to say, this is an important obligation.
If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some."

Some have seen this as a call for reviving the draft.

He has attacked the exclusion of ROTC on some college campuses.

Presidential crimes

Obama aggressively opposed impeachment actions against Bush. One of
his key advisors, Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law
School, said prosecuting government officials risks a "cycle" of
criminalizing public service.

Progressives

Unlike his deferential treatment of right wing conservatives, Obama's
treatment of the left has been dismissive to insulting. He dissed
Nader for daring to run for president again. And he called the late
Paul Wellstone "something of a gadfly".

Public Campaign Financing

Obama's retreat from public campaign financing has endangered the
whole concept.

Social welfare

Obama wrote that conservatives and Bill Clinton were right to destroy
social welfare.

Social Security

Early in the campaign, Obama said, "everything is on the table" with
Social Security.

....................

As things now stand, the election primarily represents the extremist
center seizing power back from the extremist right. We have moved
from the prospect of disasters to the relative comfort of mere crises.

Using the word 'extreme' alongside the term 'center' is no
exaggeration. Nearly all major damage to the United States in recent
years-a rare exception being 9/11-has been the result of decisions
made not by right or left but by the post partisan middle: Vietnam,
Iraq, the assault on constitutional liberties, the huge damage to the
environment, and the collapse of the economy-to name a few. Go back
further in history and you'll find, for example, the KKK riddled with
members of the establishment including-in Colorado-a future governor,
senator and mayor after whom Denver's airport is named. The center,
to which Obama pays such homage, has always been where most of the
trouble lies.

The only thing that will make Obama the president pictured in the
campaign fantasy is unapologetic, unswerving and unendingly pressure
on him in a progressive and moral direction, for he will not go there
on his own. But what, say, gave the New Deal its progressive nature
was pressure from the left of a sort that simply doesn't exist today.

Above are listed nearly three dozen things that Obama supports or
opposes with which no good liberal or progressive would agree.
Unfortunately, what's out there now, however, looks more like a rock
concert crowd or evangelical tent meeting than a determined and
directed political constituency. Which isn't so surprising given how
successful our system has been at getting people to accept sights,
sounds, symbols and semiotics as substitutes for reality. Once
again, it looks like we'll have to learn the hard way.

Pakistan Earthquake Response

Pakistan Earthquake Response

By Brian McAfee
Muskegon, Michigan

Contact: Brian McAfee [brimac6@hotmail.com]

With now over 300 reported deaths, 500 injured and thousands rendered homeless as a result of the October 29 earthquake that struck Baluchistan in southwest Pakistan a new need for humanitarian assistance presents itself. Many in the area have left their homes because of fear that their homes will collapse due to structural damage from the initial earthquake or the numerous aftershocks that continue to occur.

UNICEF reports that over 70,00o people, 30,000 of them children have been left homeless. Numerous aid organizations as well as the Pakistani military have entered the area to give assistance. Winter is already setting in in the region that is at an elevation of about 5500 feet. The cold weather requires the need for an influx of cold weather clothes, tents and shoes, among other things. One of the district health officers in the area, Ayub Kakar, says that "due to the cold hundreds of children are being treated for pneumonia, abdominal diseases, diarrhea and chest problems". Women, according to a AFP report in Khaleej Times "were not getting medical treatment because of deeply conservative traditions and the fact that hospitals were also hit"

Because of the remoteness of the region some of the outlying areas are accessible only by helicopter so a full assessment of the damage and need was/is not immediately knowable. Pakistan was hit by an earthquake in 2005 in which 81,000 perished. The Pakistani government and numerous aid organizations that dealt with that experience are now faced with it again. The 2005 earthquake was predated by the pre-partition Indian earthquake of 1935 in which 35,000 died. Given the fault lines that permeate the Himalayas the inevitability of continued earthquakes is a reality that requires grater scrutiny. An International plan of action, similar to that that has been developed after the 2004 tsunami, should be implemented.

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

PRISONERS OF WAR

PRISONERS OF WAR



By Robert Borosage

Campaign for America’s Future STAFF

September 30th, 2008 - 10:27am ET



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.

With socialized heath care together with your call for moratoriums on foreclosures/evictions and restructuring the mortgages, 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 availbable 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 who 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/

Running While Black

Whether or not one supports Barack Obama, this piece by Bob Herbert in the New York Times points out the dangerous influences of racism in this presidential election.

Unfortunately, Bob Herbert and the other columnists who have had the courage to speak out against the racism being promoted by John McCain and the Republican Party still haven't mustered the courage to speak out against racism's twin evil--- anti-communism and its kissing cousin, anti-Semitism.

As anyone surfing the Internet can readily find, the right-wing is hard at work using Obama's association with Frank Marshall Davis--- the writer, journalist, poet and member of the Communist Party USA--- to whip narrow-minded bigots into a frenzy using racism and anti-communism.

Unless the reality of this racist and anti-communist attack is confronted by columnists like Bob Herbert, their anti-racist education will be for naught because anti-communism creates fertile soil for racism to fester and grow.

Of course, Obama choosing to be the standard-bearer for the neoliberals' big-business, pro-war, reactionary agenda fosters both racism and anti-communism; only a real progressive agenda where solutions to problems are brought forward in a way designed to make life better for all people will counter the racist and anti-communist campaign now growing in our country without opposition on the Internet which will soon become menacing in our communities... we have seen some of how this bigotry raises its ugly head in local communities around the Kosher meat plant in Iowa where anti-Semitism has raised its ugly head instead of clearly articulated calls for justice for working people.

On the one hand, clearly articulated solutions to problems working people are experiencing is the only real antidote to racism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism; while on the other hand, those big-business forces supporting Obama need racism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism to keep working people divided--- all presenting Obama with a very complex set of circumstances as he tries to juggle it all hoping he doesn't drop one of the balls before Election Day.

The longer Obama and his working class supporters remain silent in the face of racism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism raising their ugly heads the more deep-seated the problem will become. Obama seems to be banking on thinking he can get through the election before this campaign of hate and bigotry explodes.

Obama and his surrogates are playing a very dangerous game which could prove to be deadly; not only for his own campaign, but for the entire country--- as past history has proven.

Alan Maki



From the New York Times

Op-Ed Columnist

Running While Black


By BOB HERBERT

Published: August 2, 2008

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

Since then, Senator McCain has only upped the ante, smearing Mr. Obama every which way from sundown. On Wednesday, The Washington Post ran an extraordinary front-page article that began:

“For four days, Senator John McCain and his allies have accused Senator Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.”

Evidence? John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he — Senator Obama — would not have to lose an election.

Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.

The Republican National Committee targeted Harold Ford with a similarly disgusting ad in 2006 when Mr. Ford, then a congressman, was running a strong race for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee. The ad, which the committee described as a parody, showed a scantily clad woman whispering, “Harold, call me.”

Both ads were foul, poisonous and emanated from the upper reaches of the Republican Party. (What a surprise.) Both were designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.

The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place.

Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black.

So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.

Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”

The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.

But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.

Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation.

Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades.

He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition.

The Circus in the Cities and its counterpart in Washington D.C.

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

To understand the quote from the New York Times above, read on---


Many people look at the Circus in the Cities which tries to package itself as an expression of democracy and they wonder why, and how it is, that these clowns making a pretense of being democratically elected politicians can spend so much time on seemingly petty issues and they can't manage the time of day to resolve the our problems of everyday living over which they have control.

Things like health care and the minimum wage never surface and we are told, "Wait until after Election Day and we will take care of you...

Well, in the case of single-payer universal health care only sixty Election Days have come and gone.

And what do we have? One big expensive mess where we can't afford to stay well and we can't afford to die.

Lot's of progressives are enamored with John Conyers and his House Resolution 676... Conyers and his mesmerized progressive friends are telling us, "Wait until after Election Day."

What is there to wait for. H.R. 676 isn't going to be brought forward by Conyers anymore than his promises of impeachment proceedings against the most corrupt President and Administration in U.S. history.

Supporters of H.R. 676 point to a pile of resolutions in support of H.R. 676 by labor unions which mean absolutely nothing because the labor bureaucracy providing the endless trail of resolutions supporting H.R. 676 state before the resolutions are even passed that they will be looking at other health care reforms.

The American people, and especially Minnesotans, when asked what kind of health care system they want point north across the border towards Canada and say, "We want the same thing the Canadians have."

The Canadians do not have anything like the phony health care proposal Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Senator John Marty is proposing with huge, un-affordable premiums... and people know H.R. 676 isn't going to fly any better than the flying saucers Dennis Kucinich has seen.

Minnesotans have good reason to say they want what the Canadians have because Floyd Olson and Elmer Benson came up with the idea in the first place and Tommy Douglas and Dr. Norman Bethune put single-payer universal health care on the agenda in Canada as a first step towards socialized health care where all the for-profit motives are finally removed from the health care system and keeping people well and treating their illnesses when sick is the only concern... not how much some Wall Street coupon clipper is going to be making off his pharmaceutical, health management, insurance or hospital stocks.

So, why is it we can't even get a hearing on the issues involving health care when everyone in this country knows that there is a serious problem here needing immediate attention?

It is all about lobbying and the money associated with lobbying.

Politicians, including that darling of the limousine liberal crowd--- John Conyers, all they care about are issues that have well-heeled lobbyists on both sides of the issues.

The Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition can't afford to pay for office space, let alone to purchase the services of high-end lobbyists.

If we had big-money lobbyists willing to bribe their way through the capitol building and house office building we would see action real fast.

Don't believe me?

Well, consider this article from the New York Times and note what I have put in bold type:

Any antitrust inquiry in an acquisition of Yahoo is likely to be complex and last months, at least.




By STEPHEN LABATON and MIGUEL HELFT
Published: February 5, 2008
WASHINGTON — It could be payback time.


Related stories:

Google Works to Torpedo Microsoft Bid for Yahoo (February 4, 2008)

Google Assails Microsoft’s Bid for Yahoo (February 3, 2008)

Yahoo Offer Is Strategy Shift for Microsoft (February 2, 2008)

Eyes on Google, Microsoft Bids $44 Billion for Yahoo (February 2, 2008)

Microsoft's Yahoo Bid
Full coverage of Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo, who is advising, who else might be in play and where the bid goes from here.



Dennis Brack/Bloomberg News

Senator Herb Kohl and Representative John Conyers indicated willingness to hold hearings on the proposed deal.


An expensive legal and political campaign last year by Microsoft helped delay completion of Google’s $3.1 billion bid for the online advertising company DoubleClick. Microsoft filed briefs against the deal in the United States and abroad, testified against it in Congress, and worked with a public relations firm to generate opposition.

Now Google is preparing to strike back.

With Microsoft bidding nearly $45 billion to buy Yahoo, Google has begun to lay the groundwork to try to delay, and possibly derail, any deal. Google executives have asked company lobbyists to develop a political strategy to challenge the acquisition, which could threaten Google’s dominance of Internet advertising. Google’s top legal officer posted a statement Sunday that criticized the proposed deal.

Spokesmen for the two companies in Washington declined to comment Monday about a looming legal and political battle, which has yet to fully emerge and is likely to stay below the radar at least until the control of Yahoo seems clear.

Moreover, some antitrust specialists and government officials said Google might tread carefully in opposing any deal since it could backfire.

Google dominates the market for Internet advertising, and to the extent it portrays the deal as encroaching on that dominance, it could help make Microsoft’s case that its acquisition of Yahoo would create a more competitive marketplace.

Lawmakers are responding to the takeover attempt. Representative John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he would hold hearings to examine any proposed deal.

And Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, who leads an important antitrust subcommittee, said he was interested in the proposed acquisition. “Should Yahoo accept Microsoft’s offer,” he said, “the subcommittee expects to hold hearings to explore the competitive and privacy implications of the deal.”

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

Microsoft enlarged its Washington staff in the late 1990s after it came under antitrust assault in the Clinton administration. Its lobbying shop is considered among the most effective in the capital, and it has retained more than 20 law firms, lobbying companies and press relations operations for an array of political and regulatory issues.

Google’s Washington office is less than three years old and has been steadily growing. In fall 2006, it established a political action committee and has since used Democrats from the Podesta Group lobbyists, two former Republican senators — Connie Mack and Dan Coats at the law firm of King & Spalding, and the law firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

Google recently moved to larger quarters, with 27,000 square feet of space including a game room, open work areas, free lunches and environmentally friendly features like recycled rainwater — a smaller version of its Silicon Valley headquarters.

While Microsoft and Google have been occasional allies in Washington — they have worked together on intellectual property legislation and issues of open access — they clashed last year on legal and regulatory fronts.

In addition to the fight over DoubleClick, Google lodged a complaint in antitrust proceedings against plans for Vista, Microsoft’s new operating system. Google said these were anticompetitive because they unfairly discouraged the use of Google’s desktop search program. By lobbying in state capitals, Google persuaded prosecutors to intervene on its behalf. Ultimately, Microsoft agreed to modify the operating system to make it easier for users to decide which search application they wanted.

As they are gearing up now, a legal fight, if at all, is months away. Federal regulators will not begin to consider any deal until it is completed and formally presented. It is not certain whether the deal would be considered by the Justice Department, which has overseen previous antitrust proceedings against Microsoft, or the Federal Trade Commission, which reviewed and approved Google’s purchase of DoubleClick. (That transaction has not closed as European regulators continue to review it.)

Moreover, the size and complexity of a Microsoft-Yahoo deal is such that a government review is unlikely to be completed quickly, particularly in an election year, and may not be final before a new administration takes office in 2009.

Should Yahoo finally agree to be acquired by Microsoft, a focus of the political and legal debate will be the products and markets that could be affected. Microsoft has said the acquisition would increase competition in two related and large markets: Internet search and online advertising. Many ad industry executives, who have watched Google’s rise with some trepidation, agree.

But Google wants the focus of any antitrust debate to shift to issues other than search and advertising. In a statement posted on his company’s blog Sunday, David Drummond, Google’s general counsel, noted that a combined Microsoft and Yahoo would have an “overwhelming share” of the instant messaging and Web e-mail markets, and that the two companies run some of the most trafficked portals on the Web.

“Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ e-mail, I.M., and Web-based services?” Mr. Drummond asked.

It is not hard to see why Google wants to shift the focus. In the search market, a combined Microsoft-Yahoo would have about 33 percent of the market, still trailing Google’s 58 percent, according to comScore.

But in Web-based e-mail, comScore ranks Yahoo, with 256 million visitors worldwide in December, and Microsoft, with 255 million, as the top two providers. While there is bound to be overlap among users of the companies’ e-mail services, a combined Microsoft-Yahoo would command a much larger share than Google, which comScore ranks in third place with 90 million visitors in December.

Yahoo and Microsoft also rank No. 1 and 2 in financial news, and No. 2 and No. 1 in instant messaging, according to comScore.


Stephen Labaton reported from Washington and Miguel Helft from San Francisco.

You see, we have a Circus in the Cities and an even more fabulous and spectacular show under-the-big-top in Washington D.C. because of this:

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

Until working people can move beyond being manipulated and played for suckers and fools by politicians who always have their hands open behind their backs we aren't going to see a resolution to this health care mess it is as simple as that.

Organizations like the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition and others seeking real health care reform are going to have to understand that without the big money to turn over to the lobbyists to put into the pockets of politicians there just isn't going to be any legislative action in the form of H.R. 676 or the Marty proposal here in Minnesota and John Conyers and John Marty know that all too well as this one little paragraph of truth from the New York Times points out:

Google and Microsoft have the ability to wage a major political fight, the kind appreciated in Washington for the money it generates in lobbyist fees and political donations for lawmakers. Both companies began their Washington operations as one-man bands but now have large presences.

You know, I have been searching for one little kernel of truth from the New York Times for years... and this is the first time I ever found it... now, to get the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition to believe it, this is another matter.

Without having the money to turn over to the lobbyists to bribe politicians just to start the debate, we need to consider what we do have and how to use what we have to generate the real debate to win the change we need--- single-payer universal health care as a step towards socialized health care.

What do we have? We have ourselves. Alone we don't amount to anything as far as getting anything from politicians in the way of health care reform... what the heck, our annual pay-checks wouldn't cover walking into one legislators office with a decent bribe.

So, we have to educate our friends, neighbors and fellow workers; we have to organize; we have to begin sending the clowns in the Cities and in Washington D.C. that we aren't buying their line of, "wait until after Election Day" because we now understand the game.

Besides, with the price of gas we probably won't be able to afford the trip to the polls on Election Day... Barack Obama might want to think on that.

I certainly won't waste a penny on gas to drive five miles to vote for a guy who lacks the political and moral courage to turn to the north... smile... point his finger towards Canada... and say: That is what you will get when I enter the White House if you vote for me on Election Day.

We don't need this crap, "But, look at what we will get if we don't vote for Obama." We certainly don't need "Vote Democrat, impeach Bush" John Conyers lecturing us, "We are going to look after you if you put a Democrat in the White House.

This Election kind of reminds me of a friend who recently got a new job. The employer made all these promises that she was going to get this and going to get that if she would agree to work for substantially less than what she thought the job should pay. The other day I asked her how the new job was going, and she said to me, "Well, I should have got all those promises my boss made to me in writing; I am getting the lower pay, but none of the promises."

Something to think about as you are sitting around the kitchen table.

Desolation in Myanmar

Desolation in Myanmar

By Brian McAfee--- Muskegon, Michigan

In the aftermath of a major natural disaster, the ongoing tragedy that is playing out in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is unnecessary and criminal in nature. The military junta, that had initially withheld relief aid from reaching the majority of the population most negatively impacted by the May 2-3 cyclone, have reportedly stolen much of the goods and have blocked some people's access to them.

Even today, a month after the cyclone struck, over two million are still homeless and hundreds of children have become orphans without steady caretakers. Early on, a peculiar relationship between the junta, U.S. political figures and business interests became quickly evident. Most notably Senator John McCain's political adviser, Douglas Goodyear, and Doug Davenport, another lobbyist linked to McCain and Myanmar, have played major roles in seedy dealings.

Another disturbing connection to the regime is UnoCal, representing another outrageous wrong wherein human rights and social justice represent secondary concerns relative to wealth extraction, civilian exploitation and overall profit motives. Yet, few people outside of Myanmar seem aware of this association and the general populous in the country dares not contest the arrangement for fear of backlash.

Meanwhile food, drinkable water, clothing and shelter remain acutely needed, along with medicine and health care provision. All considered, the Buddhist's have been doing their best under extremely difficult conditions involving desperate people and a paucity of lifesaving supplies. However, their attempts are being greatly curbed by the junta, which just this past weekend forced large numbers out of the refugee camps. These inhumane and imprudent maneuvers display an extreme disregard for humanity and in its stead a total indifference towards ethics even at a most basic level.

At the same time, U.S. ties to the military junta in Myanmar have gone mostly unreported or underreported by global mainstream media. In a similar vein, another "popular culture" icon has emerged to further blur fact from fiction and this is compliments of Hollywood. As such, a totally fictionalized version of this little ravaged country emerges in which "Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" depicts Harrison Ford saving the land from a supposed Soviet threat.

As far as any Russian derived menace existing, we need to look no further than the North American continent and the capitalistic adventurism provided by such interlopers as Unocal, Douglas Goodyear, and Doug Davenport if we want to cite real dangers posed to the country by treacherous outsiders. All considered, the real "saviors" of Burma have yet to emerge.

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 4:36 PM
To: 'John Remington'; 'Jojo Geronimo'; 'John Remington'; 'Robert Killeen'; 'sen.david.tomassoni@senate.mn'; 'lisa.sarne@senate.mn'

Cc: 'Robert Killeen'; 'rgettel@uaw.net'; 'gdubovich@usw.org'; 'lhinkle@peoplepc.com'

Subject: RE: Upcoming Conference... Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities in St. Paul, Minnesota... May 30 & 31, 2008

John,

I have noted additions to the reinvest website--- still nothing there about saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant; and, it is my belief, based upon the lack of any previous involvement from the Labor Education Service, or any of the schools or departments affiliated with the University of Minnesota concerning this issue, that this is by intent and design.

As long as this Plant remains intact, this is NOT A DONE DEAL, and there is the possibility of saving this Plant and the hydro dam as a “manufacturing unit” as described in Senate File 607 as authored by Senator Cohen, and introduced for a vote before the Senate Committee on Business, Industry and Jobs.

Robert Killeen, in an e-mail to me stated that the building trades unions helped to try to kill this legislation in the Senate Committee. I have no direct, first hand knowledge if this is true or not since he also told me that the Republicans killed this bill, which is patently false. I was not at the Senate Committee hearing and the minutes of this meeting were kept in such a shoddy manner by the clerk of the committee, Lisa Sarne, that it is impossible to tell what happened… although I would point out that there are 11 Dfl’ers and only 7 Republicans on this Committee and only one of the DFL’ers was not present when the hearing began which still leaves a very substantial DFL majority.

I would point out, that saving this Plant does not rest on whether or not any or all of the leadership of organized labor is for saving this Plant. I think it is enough that we know that the DFL, like organized labor’s leadership--- for the most part--- here in Minnesota is fully and completely in league with the neoliberal agenda which has as its objective saving capitalism as a social and economic system. Neoliberalism is about saving capitalism when all is said and done. As such, organized labor’s leadership buys into the neoliberal argument that manufacturing and production are the sole property of the private capital… not to be challenged or tampered with.

There is not one single politician in this state, from a city council member in St. Paul or Minneapolis to the Mayors, County Commissioners on up to the state legislators, the governor or U.S. Congresspersons or our two U.S. Senators who will stand before Minnesotans and say, “What a great idea; forget the huge investment made in this manufacturing operation by tax-payers, forget that these we are talking about two-thousand union jobs, let the Ford Motor Company do as they will along with the bankers and real-estate speculators and contractors, and take the wrecking ball to this plant;” not a one of these cowardly little worthless politicians have the political or moral courage to say this. What they do say--- each and everyone of them: “Gee, we really want to save this plant; but, we have tried everything and there is nothing we can do.” Even the Star Tribune has called for saving this plant and the jobs.

I communicated with Gar Alperovitz, a leading figure in saving plants and jobs, about this. Alperovitz is very clear on this issue: The plant can be saved if there is the political will to do so.

Mayor Coleman of St. Paul went so far as to produce a YouTube video to answer those of us advocating public ownership. At one of his community meetings Coleman went so far as to say he is for doing everything possible, and has done everything possible, to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. Them in his next breath he says, “But we are not going to get into public ownership.”

In fact, short of a worker takeover of this plant, public ownership is the one and only last resort. Whether Ford workers get a pay-check from the Ford Motor Company or the State of Minnesota, they do not care; so long as they get a pay-check and maintain their livelihoods and a decent standard of living.

There is something terribly wrong when Mayor Coleman and state legislators along with the Minnesota DFL and the leadership of organized labor will not explain to Ford workers or the very public they pleaded with for funds to subsidize the Ford Motor Company, why these same people will jot now explain there opposition to public ownership as a tool to save this Plant.

The Labor Education Service Conference on Disinvestment makes the claim of wanting to fully explore and get to the bottom of the neoliberal agenda--- if alternatives are not going to be considered there is no use explaining anything.

The person who should have been invited to this conference is Ed Schreyer the former New Democratic Party Premier of Manitoba who over saw the Province of Manitoba bringing a huge bus manufacturing plant in Winnipeg under public ownership, and that plant is still going strong today and stands to provide many good jobs for members of the Canadian Auto Workers union for years to come, even though, after becoming a tremendous success under public ownership--- so successful in fact--- that it was sold back into private hands at a hefty profit to the Province… although, many Winnipeggers at the time opposed the sale back into private hands.

The university community and academia have a very special role to play in facilitating such a dialogue on public ownership. I would note that this Conference and LES along with those like Peter Rachleff are always willing to say they support worker takeovers and militant workers’ struggles everyplace in the world except in their own back-yards. Par for the course. And this is the way it has been in Minnesota since 1938. The lack of academic integrity on the part of academia and the university community when it comes to exploring any alternative that is not acceptable to the capitalist class and the bosses in the mining, forestry, manufacturing, mills, power generating and financial industries is disgusting and shameful. It was even “taboo” for “red” Rudy Perpich to talk about increasing the taconite tax to pay for the socially necessary and useful public programs and to finance infrastructure. Again, not even Perpich received the support from academia and the university community which feared even exploring the impact of significantly raising the taconite tax…. Good thing he didn’t advocate public ownership of the mining industry, eh, or he might have been called something other than “red” Rudy.

It is immoral for the Labor Education Service to call and initiate such a conference and fail to address the issue of saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant the hydro dam and two-thousand jobs; completely immoral and unethical.

Myself and Christine Frank have written an article concerning public ownership of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. This article has enjoyed widespread discussion and support all across the United States and here in Minnesota. As part of your conference, I would be willing to debate ANYONE who thinks that public ownership of this Plant and hydro dam is not feasible. People are entitled to such a debate at this kind of conference… let us see who really supports, and who really opposes, the neoliberal agenda and the attacks on the standard of living of working people.

I am including the article below written by Christine Frank and myself. I invite you to read it and distribute it to all conference participants; I invite you to post it on the web site for this conference.

Again, I state in no uncertain terms--- the failure of this conference to fully explore the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is an act of cowardice and lack of academic integrity on the part of the conference organizers. In fact, conference organizers have not even had the common decency to inform the invited speakers to touch on the issue of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. Peter Rachleff has done the same thing on several occasions including in his own presentations. This is nothing short of intellectual dishonesty. That conference organizers cannot claim ignorance of the issue makes the matter even worse than intellectual dishonesty… many call it capitulation to the bosses and class collaboration… both, as you know, part and parcel of the neoliberal agenda which requires a labor leadership which works against the best interest of its own membership and its own class--- the working class.

As I look at the information on the web site for this conference, what I see is an attempt being made to support the infusion of capital into the “new green economy” the Democratic candidates are advocating which is wholly in keeping, part and parcel of the neoliberal agenda. I dare to speculate, that at this conference we will not be hearing the message: What tax-payers finance, tax-payers should own, including the profits from these new “green” industries… neoliberalism is about the public financing so the Wall Street coupon clippers can profit… this is the bottom line.

I think the approach towards the issue of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant has been established by Mr. Kling in his e-mail to me… describing what I have to say as “tirades” as his excuse for continuing to evade the subject of the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

I would remind Mr. Kling and those organizing this conference that they are placing at stake the reputation of not only the Labor Education Service and the Carlson School of Management, but the reputation of the University of Minnesota. As they say in the world of advertising, “When people are happy they don’t say much; but, when they aren’t happy they tend to tell anyone willing to listen” And the advertising community has calculated how much it costs to overcome all the good advertising and all the good promotion--- and their calculations are that overcoming the negatives doesn’t come cheap.

I would also note, that Carl Pope and Leo Girard of the Sierra Club posed at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant for a photo opportunity claiming they were going to fight to keep the Plant open; since that time Mr. Pope has joined with those moving forward to demolish this Plant without saying why the Plant was worth saving when they wanted a photo opportunity; but since they have had a “change of mind” they fear coming into the light to explain what changed their minds. Sheer treachery and cowardice on the part of Leo Girard and Carl Pope… however, an examination of what is taking place with the Sierra Clubs in Florida sheds some light on what makes Mr. Pope tick… green… money green. As for Mr. Girard… he has a long-standing love affair with capitalism and the neoliberal agenda going back to his days in Sudbury, Ontario… Jim Tester, the former President of the Mine-Mill Union wrote quite a lot about the union Mr. Girard headed up in Sudbury at INCO… so, no one should find his turning his back on two-thousand jobs at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly plant the least bit strange.

By the way, I see the organizers have an article posted by Carl Bloice, the former editor of the Communist Party USA’s newspaper--- Daily World; his article does not mention the issue of the Ford Plant.

I also see the organizers have an article posted from the Campaign for America’s Future, even though Mr. Borosage and I had a recent dialogue which touched on the issue of the Ford Plant, again, no mention in the article posted.

As for the article posted signed by Ray Waldron and his friends who are the beneficiaries of the wealthy philanthropists of the Twin Cities, Mr. Waldron was shamefully and conspicuously absent from the hearings on SF 607 and for its House counterpart. Not a peep from r. Waldron concerning the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. Quite frankly, I doubt that Mr. Waldron has the ability to explain to working people what the term “neoliberal” even means.

I see in one of the postings, “The War On the Middle Class.” Who cares about the middle class… is this a conference for the “middle class” or the “working class?” Again, another article from the “Campaign for America’s Future,” John Sweeney’s personal neoliberal think-tank.

And then there is a posting from “Portside” cheering on the occupation and seizure of factories by workers in Argentina… yet, the professors of “Marxism” at the University of Minnesota who are associated with the Committees of Correspondence which put up “Portside” have never so much as suggested to their students the public ownership option of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant… actually, they have never even discussed the Plant closing in their classes!

Please, show me where there is any organized intent to address the issue of the closing of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant by this conference or any of the invited speakers. I see no intent to anything of the kind.

You know, Mr. Remington, when Ford told the workers to take their buy-out offers or risk losing everything and the plant was going to be shutting down with-in months… the Labor Education Service never attempted to find out if the Ford Motor Company was telling the truth… workers, worked into a frenzy over concern for their futures were left to fend for themselves as their “union leaders” like Ron Gettelfinger and Bob King schemed behind their backs without insisting that workers and the tax-payers be included in the decision making process… the Labor Education Service never questioned the lack of worker and citizen participation; do you really expect working people to believe that this conference is sincerely interested in challenging the corporate neoliberal agenda? If this was the case, the LES organizers of this conference would go right into the Plant and tell workers: Come to our conference; we want to hear from you; we want to know if you want to keep your jobs at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and if you do, we are going to discuss how to accomplish this. This is not happening in spite of the fact that I can walk into any of the union offices who are sponsoring this forum at any time and find union officials with their feet up on the desk playing computer games; just as I walked into Mr. Bratulich’s office in Eveleth and asked him for help fighting a foreclosure on a home built by a miner who paid dues to the union for over thirty years. I am sure if I were to walk into Mr. Bratulich’s office today I would find him with his feet up on a fancier desk playing computer games… when, he could be out to the Ford Plant inviting Ford workers to this conference because it takes a lot of steel to keep a manufacturing operation like the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant going which means hundreds of jobs on the Iron Range… how many industrial manufacturing jobs can be lost in this country before workers in taconite plants suffer the consequences? I would be willing to go to the Ford Plant with Mr. Bratulich to pass out leaflets for your conference. We all know that the problem isn’t money or time in reaching out to working people to come to this conference. When my grandfather and the “red” Finns of the Iron Range brought Rangers into the USW they did not worry whether or not they were going to get paid for what they were doing… in fact they not only got no pay from the union they organized, they got kicked out of their own union for being “reds.” Today, Mr. Bratulich can seat with his feet up on his desk because he has a job with a union the “red” Finns built and he could not get up out of his nice fancy chair at his nice fancy desk and take the time to help the daughter of one of these “red” Finns save the family homestead… this has a little something to do with fighting back against the neoliberal agenda.

I will tell you what… you get the organizers of the conference to print up two-thousand leaflets and I will make sure every Ford worker receives one since Robert Killeen is too busy figuring out how to save himself and the local leadership from having to explain to the members of UAW Local 879 why SF 607 cannot make it through a Senate Committee heavily dominated by the very same politicians the UAW supported for so many years.

As I have stated I am not in the least opposed to learning about how the neoliberal agenda has wreaked havoc with the lives of working people in Argentina, Canada, Chile or New Orleans… but, again I state, if it is the intent of the organizers of this conference to talk about what is going on everyplace else in the world except for taking action right here in Minnesota, this is wrong. And for those like Ray Waldron to now make it appear they are concerned about the plight of working people is one big farce… I attended a “rally” at the college in Virginia, Minnesota that was supposed to be a massive rally in opposition to Pawlenty’s cuts to “infrastructure;” and, the thing that was most noticeable about this “rally” was that so few were present in this huge gymnasium capable of holding thousands when the janitors closet probably could have held the entire “crowd.”

There is every indication this conference will be along similar lines as the “rally” in Virginia. No doubt the Minnesota AFL-CIO will bus working people in from all points of the state to “rally” for Democratic candidate for President but the funds can never be found to leaflet or bus people in to flood the state capitol demanding socialized healthcare.

We saw Jerry Tucker of the Center for Labor Renewal brought into a national conference here in St. Paul by Peter Rachleff and Tucker made no mention of the intent by the Ford Motor Company to close the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. I watched Peter Rachleff being interviewed on television and even when the host of the program offered him the opportunity to discuss public ownership as a possible solution he didn’t bite.

Mr. Kling can disparage my comments as “tirades;” however, the fact remains I see not one indication there is the intent to discuss at this conference what can be done to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant… certainly there is no excuse for there to be nothing on the web site because I have provided plenty of material.

I would encourage you to check out the blog I have created on the issue of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant:

http://capitalistglobalization.blogspot.com/



Appeal To Minnesotans For Public Ownership Of The Ford Plant

By:

Alan Maki Of Save Our Bog



And

Christine Frank Of The Climate Crisis Coalition Of The Twin Cities

Christine Frank (on right) with Minnesota State Legislator Bill Hilty and wife Laurie



[Aerial view of St. Paul, Minnesota Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant]



The HISTORY OF THE FORD PLANT

As we are all too painfully aware, Ford’s Twin Cities Assembly Plant is slated to close in 2008. The economic and environmental consequences affect everyone in the state, and for that reason, a concerted effort should be made to keep it open. Yet, city, county and state officials are throwing up their hands and helplessly accepting the situation as a fait accompli. It was the promise of cheap hydroelectric power that prompted Henry Ford to build an automotive assembly plant in St. Paul. The initial dam on the Mississippi River was completed in 1917 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the plant went up in 1924 and a major upgrade was finished on the dam in 1929 for the benefit of the automaker. The St. Paul facility is the oldest Ford plant in operation, and to this day, is still run by renewable hydropower, which is to the benefit of the surrounding community and the natural environment. The onsite availability of high-quality sandstone, making it possible to produce windshield and lamp glass, was another feature that attracted Ford to the area.

The plant first made Model As & Ts. Later, with the advent of World War II, the U.S. witnessed one of the greatest crash militarization programs ever undertaken, and Ford wasted no time in retooling for military production. The plant in St. Paul made T17 armored cars used by the British army and U.S. military police and M8 howitzers, which were light tanks. Local autoworkers also did precision machining on pistons, cam supports and pump gears for Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines. This enabled war profiteer Henry Ford to make money hand over fist. Being blatantly anti-Semitic and pro-fascist, he produced equipment for both the U.S. Army and the German Wehrmacht in his American & European facilities. The main lesson here is that in its 82 years of operation, the local Ford plant has been retooled many times, producing over 20 different model vehicles for peace- and wartime purposes. There is no reason why this cannot be done again for the good of the community.


THE ECONOMIC NECESSITY OF SAVING JOBS

In the face of increased competition from foreign automakers and in the interests of the bottom line, Ford’s president and board of directors have made a conscious decision to divest capital in areas they deem unprofitable and reinvest elsewhere. This is at the cost of 30,000 jobs nationwide. The St. Paul factory is one of the strongest components of what remains of Minnesota’s industrial base.



Its 1,885 hourly & salaried employees, who have given many years of loyal service, along with their families need the jobs, benefits and pensions that have been promised to them. The wages they earn are a vital part of the economy. If the plant closes and they do not have the opportunity to transfer to another Ford facility, they will lose everything. Plus, future generations will never have the chance to work at these good-paying, productive jobs because they will be gone forever. Turning the land over to the highest bidder for development is not the answer either because that will only make a wealthy few richer in the long run. These jobs must be saved to prevent the members of UAW 879 from being thrown onto the scrap heap.


THE ECOLOGICAL NECESSITY OF KEEPING THE FORD PLANT OPEN

With global warming and climate change threatening Earth with ecological disaster, we must take measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in every aspect of our lives. This includes transport. We can no longer afford to get from Point A to B in private automobiles. The vast quantities of materials used and waste stream generated are taxing the planet’s finite resources beyond sustainable limits. With only ten years left to put things right, producing hybrids at this point is not enough. In fact, it is a case of too little, too late. If the automakers had begun manufacturing them in the early ‘70s when carbon dioxide concentrations really spiked, then we might have something to show for it now, but that is not the case.

The use of E85s powered by ethanol are problematic as well. Ethanol is a hydrocarbon whose production wastes grains needed for food and creates air pollutants and whose burning adds to CO2 concentrations. Therefore, we must convert immediately to clean mass transit systems powered by renewable energy. Given its past history, St. Paul’s Ford Plant could easily be retooled for the production of electric train engines and carriages that are driven by green wind & solar power. Just imagine convenient and efficient rail systems criss-crossing the entire country carrying passengers and freight and what an aid that would be to Earth’s ecosystems.

INSTEAD OF THE BOTTOM LINE, LET’S TALK ABOUT THE POLITICS AND ECONOMICS OF WORKERS’ LIVELIHOODS FOR A CHANGE.

PUBLIC OWNERSHIP IS THE ANSWER

The auto-makers and other Carbon Barons are largely to blame for the dilemma we are in. It was they who destroyed the electric street car systems in the early 20th century in order to build more roads, sell more automobiles and burn more fossil fuels. This proves that they do not run their operations with the welfare of the planet or the rest of us in mind. If Ford’s management and stockholders are unwilling to keep the plant open for either clean or dirty transport, then let’s put it under public ownership. It is not unheard of. The Manitoba provincial government took over the Ford tractor factory in Winnipeg in order to prevent its closing. Let’s go them one better by using a green-powered plant to produce environmentally-friendly mass transit for the health of the planet and us human beings. Being some of the most progressive and ecologically-minded union members in the state, the leaders and ranks of UAW 879 would no doubt be proud to work in such a plant and support this campaign.


HOW WILL WE PAY FOR IT?

We should keep in mind that Ford Motor Company has made billions from war profiteering, government bailouts and subsidies and tax breaks. Being granted its own hydroelectric power is a perfect example of the free ride Ford has gotten. That dam, for all practical purposes, belongs to the community and generates 5 mWh of excess electricity that is sold to Xcel for $4 million a year so, in a sense, the operation already helps pay for itself. In order to make money available to purchase the factory, we can end state-funded corporate boondoggles and development schemes that benefit only the rich, demand that less money be spent for war and more for jobs & the environment, tax corporate polluters and halt waste on every level by reducing, reusing and recycling at the point of production.







In fact, there are many creative ways the project could be funded that are financially sound and ecological—including increasing the taconite tax since keeping the St. Paul Ford plant operating will save mining jobs on the Iron Range too.



It is merely a matter of redirecting our priorities and asserting our societal will. So let’s join together to achieve a worthy goal--retool the Ford plant to produce green mass transit and not only save Minnesota jobs but ultimately Earth!

REAL JOBS at REAL LIVING WAGES !

SAVE THE ST. PAUL FORD ASSEMBLY PLANT !

THE SOLUTION IS PUBLIC OWNERSHIP !

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/




-----Original Message-----
From: John Remington [mailto:remin003@umn.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 1:35 PM
To: Alan Maki
Subject: Re: Upcoming Conference... Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities in St. Paul, Minnesota... May 30 & 31, 2008

Alan:

Thanks you for you for your response. As I indicated, I am not part of the planning process for this conference and accordingly cannot respond to all of the issues that you raise. I can tell you that Connie Wanberg is the elected chair of the Human Resources and Industrial Relations Department and the elected Director of the interdisciplinary Industrial Relations Center. Her academic area is employee recruitment, selection and training, and not labor relations. LES is part of the Industrial Relations Center and has its own elected Director, Howard Kling. While Connie may be organizationally in charge of LES, I can tell you that she has very little involvement with, or knowledge of, LES activities.

I will look forward to meeting you at the conference.

John

Alan Maki wrote:
John,

I plan to attend and participate in this conference.

Hopefully the planners will make some kind of arrangements for those others unable to afford the cost.

With thousands of working class Minnesotans barely scraping to get by, being evicted from their homes and apartments, unable to pay heating bills not to mention the price of gas and being unemployed, I think the “pricey” fee is an obstacle to the participation of many who could use this conference the most to finally make connections to network with people experiencing the problems created by capitalism and the neoliberal agenda.

While you say the issue of the Ford Plant will be considered, I would think it should be on the web site.

I think someone should speak to the question of why SF 607 is languishing and dying in the Senate Committee on Business, Industry and Jobs handily and overwhelmingly dominated by the MN DFL.

I and others will be looking for some honest answers for a change.

If organized labor cannot get a very simple piece of legislation through a House and Senate dominated by the MN DFL there is something drastically wrong with organized labor’s approach to politics which will not be cured without the infusion of genuine rank and file action.

I would expect that a conference of this nature would bring forward the concept of empowerment to working people to the point of saying, “Look, if you are not happy with the leadership of your unions you need to decide what kind of change is needed and you need to do it fast to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant… if the leaders are not there to take on the corporations and their neoliberal agenda than you are going to have to step forward and lead.”

As far as I can see, many of the unions supporting your conference, including the leadership of UAW Local 879, are already on record supporting the demolition of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. At least this is what was conveyed to me by one Russ Adams which seems to be confirmed in the minutes of the Ford site Planning Committee... of course these minutes may be wrong as so much else has been done deceptively by this Committee… however, Robert Killeen, Jr., the Recording Secretary of UAW Local 879, has never informed me otherwise even though he has initiated communication with me on this issue in the past; and I see the name of Barb Kucera on your list who has written articles for the Communist Party’s “People’s Weekly World” newspaper on this issue but she has never explained to her readers what happened when Senator David Tomassoni brought SF 607 for a vote in the Senate Committee on Business, Industry and Jobs.

While I appreciate your response, quite frankly, your concerns are not shared by the Chair of the Department who I see is on your list. Professor Wanberg has already sent me this e-mail: Hi Alan, please take me off your email list. Thanks, Connie Wanberg.

Alan

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/




-----Original Message-----
From: John Remington [mailto:remin003@umn.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 4:42 PM
To: Alan Maki
Cc: Howard Kling; Lawrence E Casey-1; Tony DeAngelis; Randall C Croce; Mary Bellman; Deborah Rosenstein; Barb Kucera; John H See-1; Joyce R Hegstrom-1; Connie Wanberg
Subject: Re: Upcoming Conference... Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities in St. Paul, Minnesota... May 30 & 31, 2008

Alan:

Apparently you have some misinformation or misconceptions about the intent of the Crisis of Disinvestment Conference. While I am not a member of the planning committee and have no role in the development or implementation of this conference, I am a faculty member at the University of Minnesota who was copied on your e-mail. Frankly, I was concerned by some of your comments. Indeed, I was quite surprised and disappointed that your criticisms were not directed to any of my colleagues at the Labor Education Service who conceptualized the conference and have been working on it for some time. Accordingly, I discussed your comments with some of them before responding so as to avoid creating more misinformation about the conference.

First, and most important, it will be a real asset to this conference if it is well attended by rank and file workers. Accordingly, I would hope that you encourage as many as possible who share your views to go to the website, www.reinvestnow.org, and register. LES' primary means of reaching workers, other than by word of mouth, is through the organizations that represent them and the elected leadership of those organizations. There is, of course, Workday Minnesota, labor papers, the Daily Planet, and imperfect e-mail lists, but communications of this type are biased in favor of people, like us, who have access to electronic communication. Short of handing out leaflets at plant gates, a technique that would exhaust the limited resources of the Labor Education Service, there are no really effective means of reaching rank and file workers, particularly those who have already been displaced by disinvestment.

Second, LES Director Howard Kling has personally made two presentations about the conference at UAW 789 meetings and has enlisted the support of the elected leadership at this local which represents Ford workers in St. Paul. While it may be true, as you claim, that Ford workers don't know about the conference, it is not for lack of effort on the part of LES.

Third, corporate restructuring and deindustrialization together with globalization, deregulation, and job destruction are on the agenda of the conference. This should be readily apparent from the brochures and the conference website. Come to the conference and find out what the Chilean coup of 1973 has to do with plant closings, broken levees and crumbling bridges (I suspect that you already know).

Fourth, the conference is as cheap as it could be made without excluding a little food and coffee for the participants. Advertising has been very limited but it still costs money; more to construct a website, provide materials to participants, pay for mailings and rent space at the University. (Yes, LES has to pay to use University facilities. This is just one of the results of the long term disinvestment in the University of Minnesota by the state legislature.) Given the fact that the LES program has been under attack for the past two decades and will probably face another budget cut again this year, it shouldn't be surprising that they don't have the money to fully fund a conference of this type. I will be surprised if the conference breaks even despite its "pricey" registration fee.

Fifth, it should be noted that elected public officials are not actively involved in the planning or implementation of the conference. This was a conscious decision on the part of the planning committee, a decision that I am told was reached only after vigorous discussion.

Sixth, the conference agenda includes nothing about electing anyone to anything (union or public office) or even supporting specific legislating or specific causes or actions. It's about as a-political as you can get although admittedly the target audience is primarily on the political left. The idea is to do critical thinking, look at the big picture, examine the disinvestment and neo-liberal agenda and what it means, explore the interconnections between corporate restructuring and shrinking government and a massive shift of power and wealth upwards and collapsing infrastructure, not to mention a health care crisis, attacks on education, off-shoring of jobs, etc. Now you may well say that they have bitten off too big a picture. That's a fair criticism, but not the assertion that the intent of the conference is to "rally the troops to support the DFL." While I am sure that some who attend will try to send that message, it is not the purpose of the conference. Rather, it is clearly to address some critical questions (including the Ford plant), share perspectives and information, and give all who attend an opportunity to participate fully and freely. I hope that you are able to participate.

I have copied this to LES staff so that you will have their addresses in the future.


Alan Maki wrote:
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Conference Web Site: http://reinvestnow.org/

Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities
Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities
Note: Click on any picture to see labels and greater detail.

St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant... its future hangs in the balance---



Will the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant be turned into a pile of rubble?



This is an interesting conference taking place in the Twin Cities at the University of Minnesota.

The cost of the conference is a little pricey if the organizers are sincere about really doing anything... obviously, those who are now working in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws... many of the members of the sponsoring unions have come to work in the casino industry after their mines, mills and plants closed will find the price of the conference an obstacle.

No doubt the intent of the conference organizers will be to "rally the troops" to support DFL candidates on Election Day.

In spite of the limitations imposed on such a conference by those organizing it who have never welcomed rank-and-file participation... there is the possibility of turning this conference into something that could become a strong voice in defense of saving the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. Of course it would help if one of the Johnny-come-lately sponsors, UAW Local 879, were to bring the issue of the need to save the Plant and the jobs of its two-thousand members forward before this conference in a vigorous way.

Chances are, that if this conference is anything like most such conferences these unions and the Labor Education Service sponsor, most of the unions' rank-and-file members will never even know the conference is taking place. We can all help to change this by getting the word out.

Workers at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant tell me they haven't even been told about the conference. There are no leaflets or posters up around the Plant, nor in the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center.

The following unions have endorsed this conference, "Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities:"
Sponsors

MN Association of Professional Employees

IBT Joint Council 32

AFSCME MN

Steelworkers District 11

UAW Local 879

Saint Paul Federation of Teachers Local 28


Planning Committee

Labor Education Service

Minnesota AFL-CIO

SEIU Local 113

IOE Local 49

AFTRA

MN School Employees Association

MN Nurses Association

HERE Local 21

Minneapolis Building Trades

Saint Paul Building Trades

Saint Paul Trades and Labor

Southeast Area Labor Council

IBEW Local 110

Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees

Education Minnesota

Carpenters

Growth and Justice

UFCW Local 789


Perhaps what is most interesting is the pending closing of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant is not even mentioned by the conference organizers. It would be a shame for this conference not to take up the question of how to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant.
Why not?

How can such a conference take place in St. Paul, Minnesota at the state's most prestigious university, the University of Minnesota; initiated under the auspices of the University of Minnesota's outreach program to labor, the Labor Education Service--- and there is not a mention of the pending closing of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant... not even brought forward by United Auto Workers Local 879.


Here is what the conference organizers have placed on their web site:

This one-and-a-half day conference at the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus will bring together union members, staff and officers with allies and friends to expose decades of deliberate disinvestment in our state and our country and to begin building toward reinvestment and renewal. We'll take an in-depth look at how we've gotten where we are - rising unemployment and health care costs, struggling schools and communities, broken levees and falling bridges - and expose the economic models, cultural values and messages that brought us here.


This conference is designed for rank-and-file union members, as well as experienced union leaders and activists, and our friends in the community. Participants will learn how to tell the disinvestment story and ways to share what they've learned with their fellow union members, families and neighbors. Offering a range of workshops, speakers and activities, the conference will foster a sense of hope about our ability to organize and develop tools for rebuilding our state and communities.


"Crisis of Disinvestment: Organizing to Rebuild Our Communities" is sponsored by the Labor Education Service with support from the labor movement and allied organizations.


Check out the site: http://reinvestnow.org/

I would think this conference would be the perfect venue from which to bring forward a clear statement from organized labor in Minnesota to mobilize all out support for S.F. 607. The time has come to tell State Senator Jim Metzen to get on the ball and get S.F. 607 through his Senate Committee on Business, Industry and Jobs... note the word "jobs" is part of the Committee title.

Perhaps participants at this conference would like to discuss the following resolutions passed at MN DFL Precinct Caucuses:


Participants in the February 5, 2008 Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party Precinct Caucuses unanimously passed the following resolutions:


Resolution in Support of Senate File 607

Whereas Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Senator Richard Cohen has authored, together with his DFL Senate colleagues--- Senate File SF 607---legislation which would keep the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and the hydro dam which powers the manufacturing operation for free, together as an industrial unit for at least two years after Ford ceases production until a plan can be devised for its continued operation;

Whereas DFL State Representative Tom Rukavina successfully steered companion legislation to SF 607 through a House Committee with bipartisan support;

Therefore, be it resolved, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party supports the efforts of MN DFL State Senators James Metzen and David Tomassoni to have SF 607 reconsidered in the Senate Committee on Business, Industry and Jobs;

And, be it further resolved, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party uses its majority status in both the Senate and the House to bring forward legislation as provided for in SF 607 aimed at saving two-thousand jobs by keeping the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant and the hydro dam together as a manufacturing unit until a solution is found to re-open the Plant.



Resolution 0n the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant/Hydro Dam and 2,000 Union Jobs

Whereas Ford Motor Company has stated its intent to close the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, sell the hydro dam to a foreign corporation, and displace two-thousand workers in the near future without consultation from the workers, the community, or local and state governments;

Whereas this plant, its operations, and the hydro dam have received continued support from every level of government including tax-payer funding, tax-breaks and tax abatements under promises to maintain manufacturing operations and with assurances workers would have job security in St. Paul, Minnesota;

Therefore, be it resolved, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party is for public ownership being used to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant, hydro dam, and two-thousand jobs.



Resolution on Bush’s Economic Stimulus Plan and Initiative

Whereas George Bush’s “economic stimulus plan and initiative” is based upon 150 billion dollars---tax-payer dollars--- being used to bail out a failing economy which includes subsidies to private industries;

Therefore be it resolved that the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party is for tax-payers owning the industries which tax-payer dollars subsidize in proportion to what they subsidize.

Another interesting resolution has come from the Communist Party in Michigan calling for jobs not war:
People in Michigan say, "We want jobs, not war!"

Friday, April 4, 2008
Resolution on Saving Manufacturing Jobs

Note: As I recently traveled through Wisconsin and Michigan many people wanted to know about our struggle to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant through public ownership.

This resolution aimed at Presidential candidates is excellent and should be circulated at campaign rallies and meetings everywhere. This resolution should be posted in every union hall all over the United States... please feel free to copy and post widely... you might want to copy and post this to your blog and ask friends to do the same.

For additional resolutions checkout:


http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/2008_02_15_archive.html


With the continued attacks on workers and the endless layoffs and closings of plants, people in Michigan have followed the example of Minnesotans trying to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant through public ownership and put together this resolution to use during this election season:


Thursday, April 3, 2008

Support Manufacturing Jobs!


Resolution on Saving Manufacturing Jobs


Whereas our manufacturing base is steadily being eroded and


Whereas this loss of jobs is harmful to our nation and the communities we live in and


Whereas those good paying jobs are frequently replaced with lower paying non-union ones that are driving down the standard of living for all working families and


Whereas the loss of our core manufacturing industry will mean the
loss of our technological edge and vital skills and reduced tax revenues for schools and public services and


Whereas every manufacturing job creates seven others and supports small business, directly and indirectly related to manufacturing and


Whereas the $170 billion we are annually spending on the war in Iraq takes away money that could be better used to rebuild our industrial base and retrain workers


Therefore in rebuilding our industrial base primary attention needs to be placed on locating these new facilities in communities with high unemployment and historic manufacturing centers, such as Detroit, Pontiac, Grand Rapids and Flint and


Therefore by rebuilding our industrial base and with it the construction of mass transit, environmentally friendly autos, affordable and energy efficient housing, and the modernization of our infrastructure, we will create jobs, provide cleaner air for all of us, lower individual family's energy bills, and allow greater energy independence for America


Therefore be it resolved that we call on the Presidential candidates to state their support for taking one-half of the money currently being spent in Iraq to be used instead to rebuild industry and provide jobs in the United States.


Taken From: Labor Up Front


There are two great books that contain a lot of good information about the capitalist crisis of "disinvestment." "Always Bring A Crowd; the story of Frank Lumpkin- steelworker" by Beatrice Lumpkin; and, "Working Class USA; The Power and the Movement" by Gus Hall.

Both of these books can be obtained from members of the Communist Party USA who are members of the sponsoring unions:

Dean Gunderson, Chair Of the St. Paul Club of the Communist Party USA is an active member and elected official of MN Association of Professional Employees

Mark Froemke, a District Organizer of the Communist Party USA from the AFL-CIO

Erwin Marquit who is a distinguished professor at the University of Minnesota and is active in the AFL-CIO retirees. Marquit is on the Economics Commission and International Affairs Commission of the Communist Party USA.



Lynn Hinkle a retired member of UAW Local 879 has pointed out that "labor creates all wealth." To let a bunch of real estate speculators demolish the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant would be a tremendous waste of this wealth... Hinkle repeatedly points out the need to go "green." Looking at the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant really brings home these points made by Lynn Hinkle... just consider the natural resources and the human labor required to obtain the natural resources and turn these resources into building materials from which additional labor was required to build the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant... only a fool would suggest we relegate this kind of tremendous wealth created by labor to become a pile of rubble when this perfectly good plant could be used by workers continuing to create even more wealth by creating socially useful products for society, be these some kind of "green" vehicles, wind generating equipment, equipment for mass transit, or equipment to bring drinking water and irrigation equipment to communities around the world suffering the consequences of drought.

Working people have had no say regarding the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant... what good does it do to hold a conference on the "crisis of disinvestment" if one aspect of the conference is not geared toward empowering working people to force their way into the decision making process concerning the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant?

Actually, the place where this conference should have been held is in the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center so all participants could get a good look at what is at stake---



Tax-payers will be left holding the bag for over thirty-million dollars of debt for building the UAW-Ford-MnScu Training Center once the Plant is turned to rubble.

Who will make the decision over the future of the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant... working people in a public forum; or the Wall Street coupon clippers behind the closed doors of the corporate board room?



Clean "green" manufacturing? It doesn't get much cleaner or "greener"



An industrial plant in the center of a huge residential community alongside a shopping district and a grocery store next door with huge city parks adjacent, complete with baseball fields for the youth.

All powered by clean "green" hydro...



With rail shipping facilities to bring supplies in and ship manufactured goods out...



With the price of gas and diesel fuel sky-rocketing, it only makes sense to maintain an existing plant with rail shipping facilities in good operating condition.


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/