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

A Real Solution for our Economy

A Real Solution for our Economy

By Joe Wantz

October 7th, 2008 - 3:04pm ET


The national conversation has been focused squarely on the economy in the last several weeks, with pundits and experts breathlessly declaring a financial catastrophe of epic scale. Of course, those of us who live in the real world knew the economy has been in trouble far before Wall Street failed. We know people who had their house lost to foreclosure. We know people who have had their jobs outsourced or eliminated. We know people who work more than one job to pay the bills and support their families. And we know that something needs to change.

Change, however, cannot simply come from the top down. The financial market bailout may help to restore confidence on Wall Street, but does little to cure the many problems on Main Street. The average American worker needs more than assurances that once the financial markets are “fixed” that they will be taken care of. Workers truly need to have their own voice and determine their own economic destiny. One of the best ways to do that, of course, is through forming a union at work. Unfortunately, over the last thirty years, employers across the United States have cracked down on organizing, resulting in a decline of union membership. It comes as no surprise that during that time wages have stagnated, 47 million Americans have no health insurance, and foreclosures have skyrocketed out of control.

The Employee Free Choice Act is an important part of the fight to regain the American dream for millions of workers. It will level the playing field by giving employees a free and direct path to form unions, toughen penalties against employers who break the law, and help restore balance to our obsolete federal labor laws. Union members earn 30% more, have better access to health care and other benefits, and have greater job security. Let’s get the conversation back to where it belongs, on the well-being and strength of the American worker. It’s time our economy worked for everyone again.

The author works for American Rights at Work, www.americanrightsatwork.org


My response:

The Employee Free Choice Act

By Alan Maki | October 7th, 2008 - 4:59pm GMT

Mr. Wantz, you fail to mention that some twenty-eight states have "at-will hiring, at-will firing" legislation which makes the Employee Free Choice Act useless for workers in these twenty-eight states including the huge industrial state of Michigan and Minnesota.

You also fail to mention that the The Employee Free Choice Act will have no affect on some two-million casino workers employed at jobs in the Indian Gaming Industry who are forced to work in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws in spite of the fact that the "Compacts" creating this Indian Gaming Industry are the creations of state and federal governments.

These two-million workers employed under these Draconian conditions in the Indian Gaming Industry would, again, be excluded from The Employee Free Choice Act.

When is your organization, American Rights at Work going to acknowledge this problem and bring forward solutions.

As you are fully aware, the Democratic Governor of Michigan has just signed her signature to another one of these "Compacts" without insisting that the rights of workers be protected. Governor Granholm could have withheld her signature from this "Compact" and insisted that before she approved it, all laws regulating terms of employment and working conditions must be adhered to. I would note that the state and federal bureaucracies regulate the one-armed bandits and inspect these slot machines... certainly the lives of working people employed in these casinos are as important as the machines rigged to take in money.

December 10, 2008 marks the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and here we have the Democratic Party touting the Employee Free Choice Act which, for all practical purposes will leave working people in twenty-eight states without protection from a piece of legislation claiming to aid workers in union organizing and some two-million workers employed in more than 450 casinos strung out across this country will have no rights at all... for whom The Employee Free Choice Act will be completely meaningless.

How would you suggest that these casino workers escape from poverty?

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