On this holiday honoring Martin Luther King, I want you to read a couple of articles  that I posted on this website about Dr. King.  The first one is about his close ties with and support of the Union movement. The second one is about The March On Washington where Dr. King partnered with unions like the UAW in his fight for social justice.

Martin Luther King had a dream but that dream wasn't of the world that we have today.  His dream was not of mass foreclosures, homelessness, hunger, outsourced jobs and political greed.
On this day, I am asking you to please sign my petition.

For over thirty years, we've seen the American dream slowly fade into oblivion.  We've sat on the sidelines as corporate interests “convinced” our electeds that “free” trade is a good thing.   We've sat on the sidelines as our electeds lowered trade tariffs on imports, gave tax breaks to corporations that manufacture overseas and signed job-killing “free” trade agreements while telling us that those measures would “create jobs.”  Didn't work out that way, did it?

The underlying reason that we have our current unemployment, national deficit and high levels of personal debt is that our electeds have created an environment that lets corporations shop the globe for cheap labor.  In their quest for better bottom lines, corps. treat working people as a commodity to be bought at the lowest price.  For those of us who are lucky enough to still be employed, this situation is lowering our wages or keeping them stagnant.  This kind of corporate greed isn't a matter of promoting “free” enterprise, it's a matter of morality.  Although they are in business to make money, an American corporation has a moral responsibility to America and Americans!

We can reverse the situation, despite what our electeds say about globalization being a “given” and that the “horse is out of the barn!”  Many of our electeds are now mounting an attack on Social Security and Medicare, things that we thought were inviolable givens.   How much are we willing to give up?  Let's protect Social Security, Medicare and take away their sacred given, the corporate “right” to send our jobs overseas!  Let's send a strong message to the people we elected to look out for OUR interests! Let's tell them that our war of attrition stops here and now!  Join me in fighting job offshoring, become a Jacktivist! Please sign my petition! This is only our opening salvo in the fight for economic justice!  


What are you waiting for? Sign it!

When U.S. corporations outsource jobs overseas, they create a cycle of unemployment, lost tax revenues and damage to the U.S. manufacturing infrastructure.  We've had over thirty years of the people who are supposed to represent the American voter, not just American corporations passing "free" trade agreements, lowering trade tariffs and granting Permanent Normal Trade Relations to China.  The net effect of this has been a massive loss of jobs that no amount of exporting will offset, stagnant or reduced wages and in many cases working people going into debt just to put food on the table and pay the rent or mortgage.  A side effect of manufacturing in China is the sharing of U.S. manufacturing technology with a place that just happens to still be a Communist country!

This petition asks that our elected officials make working Americans whole by re-instituting the trade tariffs that were reduced or eliminated over the past thirty years. In addition, it asks that Congress, The Senate and The President refrain from signing any new "free" trade agreements, rescind existing ones and pass the appropriate legislation to curtail corporate job offshoring.

Please click this link to visit change.org and sign my petition.  Let your friends and family know about this petition.  The future of our country depends on you!

Had a rough year?  Most of us are glad that 2011, a year of unremitting rough times is over.   Many of us were and are still unemployed.  The rest of us and by us, I mean the bottom 99% are either underemployed or have stagnant salaries that haven't gone up in years or are retired, on a fixed income and praying that the people they elected won't cut their Medicare.  Everyone had to deal with the endless speculator driven price increases of life's necessities.  I'll bet you thought that this wasn't supposed to happen after you voted for the candidate of “hope and change” in 2008?

They say that the definition of insanity is doing things the same way but expecting different results. In light of that, and with an eye towards starting 2012 out with a clean slate, let's throw out a few stale concepts.

•  The Republican/Tea Party created myth of corporations being “Job creators” is nothing short of false advertising.  In most cases corporations are job exporters whose CEOs think of working people as commodities that they buy for the lowest cost possible from places like China and India.  They conveniently forget that they run American corporations, but expect our sons and daughters serving overseas in the military to defend their and our interests overseas.  These corporate “patriots” don't have any sense of duty to our country apart from making a profit for their shareholders.
•  The premise that many Republicans like to use is that unions are special interest groups that only represent a narrow segment of the American working public.  The fact is that unions, when not encumbered by restrictive laws created by corporate owned electeds help American workers and their families achieve the American dream and protect their rights as workers. 
•  During the time that the Republicans fought healthcare reform legislation tooth and nail, tons of bogus sock puppet scare ads sponsored by corporate backed “public” interest groups popped up on most evening network TV newscasts.  Those ads created mass confusion and helped the Republicans in their attempt to make the phrase Obamacare stick.  Let's get one thing straight, protecting everyone's health is a GOOD thing!
•  When Republicans whine about Big Government and press for further deregulation, they are usually doing so on behalf of corporate interests and their wealthy backers.  They like to say that big government's regulations hamstring the previously mentioned corporate “job creators.” In reality, deregulation was one of the key reasons for the mortgage crisis, the economic almost meltdown and our current economic mess.   As a matter of fact, deregulation is the root cause of most of our current problems.
  

What do all of those myths have in common?  In each case, each one of those fabricated myths demanded a strong, quick, unequivocal response from the people that we elected to represent us, namely the President and the Democrats.  The party that, in a perfect world, purports to look out for the interests of working people, retired people and the poor didn't look our for our interests.  What we got for most of the past few years, were feeble Democratic calls for “bipartisanship.”  While the Democrats were playing “can we get along”, the Republicans were going after everything that generations of working people and decent electeds like FDR have built.

The reason for the Democratic caves to the Republicans is obvious, many of the electeds of BOTH parties answer to the same corporate lobbyists and virtually ignore the average voter.  Stay tuned to this website for several petitions that are coming in January that will let them know that we are on to them and put our electeds on notice!  Have a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Let's take a big time out during this holiday season from the political issues of the day to reconnect and restore!  Reconnecting with family during the holidays reminds us about what we have been fighting for all year, they deserve a future.  Nothing, no candidate, no party, no ideology is more important that our loved ones!  We have to keep that in mind going forward and use the family test as our criteria to select our next set of electeds.  In 2012, the big question should be, Who is going  to do the right thing for my family and America's families?

So, have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and Happy Kwanzaa! Let the joy of the season restore you, we have work to do and petitions to sign in 2012!

We all know how adept corporate America has become at offshoring manufacturing jobs.  They send their production, what used to be a major source of our jobs to factories in countries like China and their call center jobs to countries like India.   The official corporate quest for greater and greater profits on their quarterly reports has turned the third world into a virtual global hiring hall where capital chases lower and lower labor costs and turns a blind eye to working conditions.  

All of the above creates a dilemma for the "poor" CEO who is at the helm of a service industry business that, because of the nature of its business, has to render its services right here in the good old USA.  The restaurant industry is a perfect example. One CEO of a  national restaurant chain that was the target of an Immigration and Customs  Enforcement inspection raid that netted 500 undocumented workers reacted in an unexpected way, he demanded that our electeds  change the immigration laws.  
The reason being that the fast food industry has a high turnover rate.

We've all heard the standard line from business people that they can't find American workers willing to do certain jobs.  In the case of many corporate fast food jobs, I suspect the real case is that they can't find American workers willing to work long hours for low pay!  If many corps in that industry paid a living wage and had decent benefits, they would have a minimal employee turnover. 

Haven't we heard that song before years ago when manufacturing CEOs  who subsequently took their production overseas were asking our electeds to reduce global trade barriers?  They almost sang a chorus of "We Are The World" to get what they wanted, low cost labor. Let's not let history repeat itself in the service industries!  I have no problem with loosening up immigration policies for moral or ethical reasons, not for cheap labor! 

OK, I'm going to say it and I'm not pulling any punches, rational intelligent people vote based on issues that are important to them, sycophantic jerks blindly vote for their party's candidate!  If the previous statement seems rather harsh, it's because of some of the nonsense emanating from many of the more fanatical Obama supporters on the social media over the past few days.  They have been jumping on any progressive who states that he or she is voting for a third party candidate in 2012 with the accusation that said progressive is dividing the vote for Obama. 

Back in 2008, every progressive that voted for Obama, myself included, did so based on his bold campaign promises and soaring speeches.  In other words, we voted for the ideals that he stated in his promises and speeches.  Obviously, he didn't deliver on most of his promises, he compromised with the Republicans, even in the first few months of his Presidency when the Democrats had a clear majority and he had the momentum of winning the election.  To make matters worse, he continued many of the Bush policies that most of us strongly oppose.

 My philosophy is, if an elected isn't going to do anything for me, he or she had damn well better not do anything to me.  In my humble opinion Obama's support of "free" trade agreements makes him almost as unacceptable a candidate for President as the clowns that the Republicans are fielding.  My choice is none of the above because in the spirit of 2008, I will be voting for issues, not parties and will be looking for a candidate who truly represents those issues!

Due to the serious nature and implications of The Petition, we have a slight delay in publishing it here.  We want it to hit a home run, so we have to make sure it covers the intended issues.  I will have it up on my website in about two day's time. I am also going to make a widget available so you can post it on your website.  Trust me, it's worth the wait. 

I (with a little help from my friends) am in the process of writing what could only be described as the petition to end all petitions.  This petition will go out to Congress, The Senate and The President,  and it will put the blame for our current economic situation squarely where it belongs, in both houses of Congress and the Executive branch of government where, over the years, they have put the interests of corporations and the top 1% above our interests.  This document will differ from most of the other petitions that our electeds receive in that it will not be asking them to do something, it will be giving them an ultimatum - EITHER YOU DO WHAT WE OUTLINE IN THE PETITION OR WE WILL PRIMARY YOU! Hey, if it worked for Norquist on the Republican side of the fence, it can work for us on the Democratic side.  Besides, Democrats should have been working for the bottom 99% all along.

At this point, you might be curious about what we will asking for in the petition. Hint, read some of my articles here and think about some of the ways our electeds wrecked the American dream for the bottom 99%.  The ONLY way to get our country on the right track is to reverse what amounts to 30 years of political malpractice by our electeds.  Many of those corporate owned politicians and their smug sycophantic supporters will say that it's too late, the horse is already out of the barn, don't believe it!  This may be our last chance to reverse 30 years of corporate ownership of our country and many of its electeds.

As we progress, your input will be very welcome.  We can do this!!! Stay tuned because I want to make this website a launching pad for all sorts of political activism.

In light of the issue mentioned in the previous post that is apparently just another legacy of the Reagan administration, I decided to delay the Buy Strikes for a couple of postings.  That will allow us to use another activist tool that could remedy part of Reagan's 30 yr. siege on the 99%. I'm going to post one heck of a petition here in the next few days!!