Trevor Loudon must be stopped

I have not been posting to my blog for a while because rightwing idiots have been making my life a living hell.

A rightwing nut job from New Zealand, Trevor Loudon, who works for the CIA and FBI is instigating hate campaigns against anyone who publicly identifies themselves as a socialist.

As a result my telephone is ringing off the hook at all hours of the night with these people harassing me. I haven't had a good night's sleep for months.

Loudon seems to be attacking and smearing anyone associated with Alan Maki.

I have repeatedly reported this harassment to the police who refuse to do anything.

Trevor Loudon is orchestrating this hate campaign from someplace in New Zealand.

Loudon is a convicted felon who has molested small boys. Loudon is one of the founders of NAMBLA.

Loudon created his own Wikipedia page which reads like something out of one of Hitler's degenerate hate-mongering accomplices:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Loudon

Hey, Small Spender... says Paul Krugman; Alan Maki responds

Monday, October 11, 2010
Hey, Small Spender

From: Alan Maki
Subject: [Out_Of_The_Frying_Pan] Re: [progressivesforobama] The Spending that Wasn't: Still Another Reason for a Popular Front vs. Finance Capital
To: progressivesforobama@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Out_Of_The_Frying_Pan@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Bloice" , "Carl Davidson"
Date: Tuesday, October 12, 2010, 12:57 AM

It is not that the "size" of the stimulus spending was inadequate; Krugman shows his true colors on this one... its the fact that all this money was turned over to the private sector.
Those of you in the Progressives for Obama have been afraid to criticize Obama at the time he is making decision every single time.

Anyone can understand that it will take government becoming the employer of first choice in order to get the most "bang for the buck;" more jobs.

You berated alternatives like spending for a national public health care system and a national childcare system because you knew that it would embarrass Obama. Between the two programs some 15,000,000 jobs would be created and still at this late date you refuse to advocate for specific solutions to specific problems.

All of this and more can be paid for by ending these dirty wars and "taxing the hell out of the rich." A federal bank should be created to borrow at substantially lower interest rates so tax-payers reap the profits in interest rates and not Wall Street bankers.

Mark Dayton is calling for "tax the rich" in his campaign for Governor of Minnesota and Virg Bernero running for Governor in Michigan is calling for Michigan to create a state bank like The State Bank of North Dakota.
The Progressives for Obama run away from these concrete suggestions as Barack Obama and the leadership of the Democratic Party is mounting pressure on both Bernero and Dayton--- in fact, their campaigns are being sabotaged by the state and national Democratic Party.

Are you waiting for Paul Krugman to endorse these two ideas? If so, I hope you are holding your breath.

In fact Barack Obama is a HUGE spender; the problem is, not as Krugman claims the spending is too small; the money is not being spent in the correct way with the federal government becoming the employer of first choice investing our tax dollars solving the problems of working people--- solving the problems of working people is what creates jobs. We need to work our way out of this capitalist economic depression not spend our way out... in fact, Barack Obama and Wall Street are afraid to create the kind of massive universal social programs required because they see that once these programs work, they will be defended by the people--- Social Security and public education being perfect examples.

Wall Street apologists and Sooth-sayers are definitely afraid of people realizing that socialism works.

Alan L. Maki
58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763
Phone: 218-386-2432
Check out my blog:
http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/
--- On Mon, 10/11/10, Carl Davidson wrote:


From: Carl Davidson
Subject: [progressivesforobama] The Spending that Wasn't: Still Another Reason for a Popular Front vs. Finance Capital
To: "progressivesforobama" , "moderator" , the-rag-blog-group@googlegroups.com
Date: Monday, October 11, 2010, 12:36 PM

October 10, 2010

Hey, Small Spender
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Here’s the narrative you hear everywhere: President Obama has presided over a huge expansion of government, but unemployment has remained high. And this proves that government spending can’t create jobs.
Here’s what you need to know: The whole story is a myth. There never was a big expansion of government spending. In fact, that has been the key problem with economic policy in the Obama years: we never had the kind of fiscal expansion that might have created the millions of jobs we need.
Ask yourself: What major new federal programs have started up since Mr. Obama took office? Health care reform, for the most part, hasn’t kicked in yet, so that can’t be it. So are there giant infrastructure projects under way? No. Are there huge new benefits for low-income workers or the poor? No. Where’s all that spending we keep hearing about? It never happened.
To be fair, spending on safety-net programs, mainly unemployment insurance and Medicaid, has risen — because, in case you haven’t noticed, there has been a surge in the number of Americans without jobs and badly in need of help. And there were also substantial outlays to rescue troubled financial institutions, although it appears that the government will get most of its money back. But when people denounce big government, they usually have in mind the creation of big bureaucracies and major new programs. And that just hasn’t taken place.
Consider, in particular, one fact that might surprise you: The total number of government workers in America has been falling, not rising, under Mr. Obama. A small increase in federal employment was swamped by sharp declines at the state and local level — most notably, by layoffs of schoolteachers. Total government payrolls have fallen by more than 350,000 since January 2009.
Now, direct employment isn’t a perfect measure of the government’s size, since the government also employs workers indirectly when it buys goods and services from the private sector. And government purchases of goods and services have gone up. But adjusted for inflation, they rose only 3 percent over the last two years — a pace slower than that of the previous two years, and slower than the economy’s normal rate of growth.
So as I said, the big government expansion everyone talks about never happened. This fact, however, raises two questions. First, we know that Congress enacted a stimulus bill in early 2009; why didn’t that translate into a big rise in government spending? Second, if the expansion never happened, why does everyone think it did?
Part of the answer to the first question is that the stimulus wasn’t actually all that big compared with the size of the economy. Furthermore, it wasn’t mainly focused on increasing government spending. Of the roughly $600 billion cost of the Recovery Act in 2009 and 2010, more than 40 percent came from tax cuts, while another large chunk consisted of aid to state and local governments. Only the remainder involved direct federal spending.
And federal aid to state and local governments wasn’t enough to make up for plunging tax receipts in the face of the economic slump. So states and cities, which can’t run large deficits, were forced into drastic spending cuts, more than offsetting the modest increase at the federal level.
The answer to the second question — why there’s a widespread perception that government spending has surged, when it hasn’t — is that there has been a disinformation campaign from the right, based on the usual combination of fact-free assertions and cooked numbers. And this campaign has been effective in part because the Obama administration hasn’t offered an effective reply.
Actually, the administration has had a messaging problem on economic policy ever since its first months in office, when it went for a stimulus plan that many of us warned from the beginning was inadequate given the size of the economy’s troubles. You can argue that Mr. Obama got all he could — that a larger plan wouldn’t have made it through Congress (which is questionable), and that an inadequate stimulus was much better than none at all (which it was). But that’s not an argument the administration ever made. Instead, it has insisted throughout that its original plan was just right, a position that has become increasingly awkward as the recovery stalls.
And a side consequence of this awkward positioning is that officials can’t easily offer the obvious rebuttal to claims that big spending failed to fix the economy — namely, that thanks to the inadequate scale of the Recovery Act, big spending never happened in the first place.
But if they won’t say it, I will: if job-creating government spending has failed to bring down unemployment in the Obama era, it’s not because it doesn’t work; it’s because it wasn’t tried.
Posted by Alan L. Maki at Monday, October 11, 2010

Support FARC-EP

I received this from Alan Maki. People need to understand more about the liberation movements solidarity activists are supporting. The FBI has no right telling the American people that we are not allowed to support people struggling for their freedom while Obama, Democrats and Republicans use our taxes to oppress people in other countries.

Some background info on FARC-EP:

The United States and the Colombian ruling oligarchy have, since the 1960s, repeatedly implemented socioeconomic and military campaigns to defeat the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia–Ejército del P...ueblo, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People’s Army (FARC–EP). However, this offensive, whose main purpose is to maintain capitalist accumulation and expansion, has resulted in an embarrassing setback for U.S. imperialism and the Colombian ruling class. In a time of growing and deepening U.S. imperialism, it is important to examine this failure. Over the past four decades, despite U.S. efforts, support has risen for what has been the most important continuous military and political force in South America opposing imperialism. I examine how the FARC–EP has not only maintained a substantial presence within the majority of the country but has responded aggressively to the continuing counterinsurgency campaign. I also show as false the propaganda campaign of the U.S. and Colombian governments claiming that the FARC–EP is being defeated. This analysis provides an example of how a contemporary organic, class-based sociopolitical movement can effectively contend with imperial power in a time of global counterrevolution....

read on:

http://www.monthlyreview.org/0905brittain.htm

ANY SYSTEM

I just received this poem from Alan Maki. Fantastic!

Rita


ANY SYSTEM
by Leonard Cohen

Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down
We warned you before
and nothing that you built has stood
Hear it as you lean over you blueprint
Hear it as you roll up your sleeve
Hear it once again
Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down

You have your drugs
You have your guns
You have your Pyramids your Pentagons
With all your grass and bullets
you cannot hunt us any more
All that we disclose of ourselves forever
is this warning
Nothing that you built has stood
Any system you contrive without us
will be brought down.

Obama supporter and apologist for Israel Tom Hayden leaves something out

Sherrod, Obama, and the strength of roots

by: Tom Hayden

July 24 2010


How would members of the Obama administration have reacted to racist pressure from the Deep South in the early '60s? Would they have fired Justice Department civil rights monitors who antagonized hard-line segregationists?

For those of us with long memories, this is one of the key questions posed by the firing of Shirley Sherrod in a fit of official over-reaction to the shameful right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart. It is true that the administration reversed course quickly after the true story was revealed, but that the Obama administration can be spooked so easily by Glenn Beck and FOX News raises a serious question: if they are so tough on national defense, drugs and crime, where is their resolve against the deceitful attack dogs of the right?

My introduction to virulent southern racism came in 1961 when I ventured to Albany, Georgia, first to write an article about the Deep South organizing done by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] and, second, to become a freedom rider on a train to Albany that December.

It was then I met, and came to admire, a brave young civil rights worker named Charles Sherrod, whom everyone in the movement simply called "Sherrod." Albany was a segregated town near Plains, Georgia, and the home of Hamilton Jordan who went on to become Jimmy Carter's chief of staff. Sherrod was the kind of front-line young militant who eventually brought about the New South of Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, among others. Sherrod had to face violence, and the possibility of death, every day in his effort to mobilize young people and their parents against the suffocation of fear.

Sherrod, and his equally committed wife Shirley, made a conscious decision to stay in rural Georgia long after the voting rights laws were passed and the national media departed. I left Albany after my two brief and harrowing experiences in 1961, and never returned until I spoke at commemoration of the Albany civil rights movement a few years ago. The Sherrods were still there. She was engaged in programs supporting rural farmers, while he had served on the city council and was a minister in a nearby state prison. There were 500 people at the event, the stalwarts of the past.

So Shirley Sherrod's life cannot be reduced by a dishonest and amoral right-wing blogger into a few seconds of videotape 25 years old. She is one of many thousands who had the force of character to face racist abuse, and seemingly immovable state power, when they were demonized and disenfranchised. They were the trees standing by the water, and they would not be moved. They tried to bring their morality to politics, not accept the politics of Machiavelli.

Our leaders today could learn from this strength of long ago. In fairness, government officials and leaders of large organizations, who are beneficiaries of the Southern civil rights legacy, have institutional reputations to protect. They should avoid needlessly provoking the right, and have every right to pick their fights intelligently. But years of battering from the right have bred a defensive anxiety in the ranks of too many Democratic liberals. They flinch before they fight. It's almost as if they internalize the right-wing refrain that they are weak, tea-sipping elitists. They give far greater consideration to conservatives, militarists and bankers who rarely vote for them than to the millions of activists in social movements who actually made their power possible.

This is a moment when roots should be remembered, recovered from oblivion and venerated, not airbrushed out of history and polished resumes.

What did Tom Hayden leave out? Obama refuses to enforce affirmative action.

Censored: Greetings from Greece

Note: This is the link to PAME, the All Workers’ Militant Front, as mentioned below.:

http://www.pamehellas.gr/main.php?lang=2



Communist Party of Greece - [13.05.2010] Message to the National Committee of CP, USA
Communist Party USA,
National Committee,
New York
Athens, Thursday, 13 May 2010

Dear comrades

We would like to thank you for the information regarding your 29th party convention and to extend our greetings to the delegates. Our parties have met in the past in common struggles for workers’ rights, in the struggle against anti-communism, for the defense of socialism and the Soviet Union, for the unity of the communist movement on the basis of our revolutionary principles and traditions.

We are following as closely as we can the developments in the USA, the escalation of the aggression of US imperialism which lately has become quite obvious. The US is striving to respond to the trend of losing ground within the framework of the imperialist system by inciting regional tensions and conflicts, so that it can take advantage of its political and military supremacy in order to safeguard its interests and maintain its spheres of influence.

In Greece, the working class and the popular strata are facing a barbaric attack, on the pretext of the economic crisis; an attack which has been jointly unleashed by the social democratic PASOK government, the EU and the IMF, with the assistance of the conservative ND party and the open support of the nationalist LAOS party.

The remarkable resistance presented by the labor and popular movement is spearheaded by KKE which continually strives to reveal the real cause of the crisis, the sharpening of the basic contradictions of capitalism. Without the consistent exposure of the compromised and discredited in the eyes of the workers trade union leaderships of GSEE and ADEDY (the national confederations of the private and public sector respectively), without the decisive contribution of PAME (All Workers’ Militant Front), the national trade union front comprised of class oriented Federations, trade unions, labor centers and trade unionists, the labor movement in our country would have been disarmed, unprepared, and unable to fight back.

KKE calls upon the working class, the self-employed, the poor farmers, and the youth to engage in even stronger, more massive and organized actions in order to stave off the onslaught and pave the way for a different path of development. There can be no way other than the nationalization of the monopolies. The working class must take possession of the concentrated means of production and mobilize them with central planning and popular participation. This presupposes a struggle aiming for people’s power, for socialism-communism.

The fightback against anti-communism, the adamant defense of the historical contribution of the Soviet Union and socialist construction in the 20th century, of the identity and revolutionary traditions of the communist movement, take on particular importance today.

As long as the crisis of the international communist movement persists, as long as the situation does not improve and retreats from ideological and theoretical principles are not resolutely confronted, as long as the front against opportunist views that hinder the formation of a single revolutionary strategy against imperialism does not become strengthened, the situation will harbor the danger of an even greater backslide.

The existence of strong Communist Parties steadfast to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, with a revolutionary program for the overthrow of the rule of monopolies, for building socialism - communism, is the foremost demand of our times.

We look forward to learning the conclusions and the resolutions of your convention.

With comradely greetings

The Central Committee of KKE

e-mail: cpg@int.kke.gr

Minnesota Health Act... it's "single-collector" not "single-payer"--- John Marty is a scam just like his legislation

From: Alan L. Maki [mailto:amaki000@centurytel.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 11:50 AM
To: David Swanson; James Mayer; info@pnhp.org; info@pdamerica.org; brian.melendez@usa.net; ollamhfaery@earthlink.net; sen.john.marty@senate.com; Working_Class_Study_and_Action@yahoogroups.com; roseaucountydfl@gmail.com; info@actionforjustice.org; info@pnhp.org; info@peoplestribune.org; info@jamesmayer.org; info@iowapeacenetwork.org; info@markdayton.org; info@wnpj.org; info@rnc8.org; bswenson@bemidjipioneer.com; amistad.nai@rcn.com; rep.bill.hilty@house.mn; rep.tony.sertich@house.mn; rep.tom.anzelc@house.mn; rep.patti.fritz@house.mn; rep.carlos.mariani@house.mn; rep.al.juhnke@house.mn; rep.maryellen.otremba@house.mn; rep.dave.olin@house.mn;'bob bergland'; judy_turenne@warroad.k12.mn.us


Subject: Re: Minnesota Health Act... it's "single-collector" not "single-payer"--- John Marty is a scam just like his legislation

Mr. David Swanson,

You continue to spread the lie that the proposed Minnesota Health Act legislation created by John Marty who is about as progressive as Barack Obama is “single-payer universal healthcare.”

Maybe you don’t understand the difference between “single-payer universal healthcare” and “single-collector.”

You are one of the few people still calling the Minnesota Health Act, “single-payer.” It is in fact “single-collector;” the state collects the premiums for the insurance companies who will underwrite this plan.

For you and others to continue portraying the Minnesota Health Act as “single-payer” does a grave disservice to the single-payer movement.

Please note that on the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition’s (MUHCC) web site--- they, along with Senator John Marty, being the major backer of this legislation--- two things are lacking:

1. We are not told what the premiums will cost us.
2. There is no claim the insurance companies have been eliminated from healthcare with this legislation.

I would note that previously, MUHCC called for the elimination of the insurance industry from healthcare; if this legislation accomplishes this, why is no such claim being made?

I seriously doubt you have taken the time to read the entire legislation and YOU have a responsibility to do this before you go around the country promoting this legislation.

At the present time, the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party has the best single-payer universal healthcare resolution as part of its “Action Agenda;” I should know how good it is--- I wrote it, and it was approved and passed by 72% of the delegates to the MNDFL State Convention in 2006. You can read this resolution on the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party’s website under “Action Agenda.”

Your promotion of the Minnesota Health Act is contributing to a campaign in support of a resolution that will undermine the present single-payer resolution because you are contributing to a very powerful misinformation campaign for this new resolution being brought before the state convention--- I have suggested to people that we no longer bother to refute the lies about this legislation; that, instead we point our fingers at the perpetrators of these lies AFTERWARDS.

It is because of having to work with completely dishonest people to achieve a very simple and mild reform to a thoroughly corrupt and rotten healthcare system like we have at present and made worse by the recent passage of Obama’s and the Democrats’ legislation, that I will suggest to everyone I know that we not settle for anything short of the socialized healthcare systems which have been proven to work the best when properly funded--- like VA, the Indian Health Service and the National Public Health Service… the finest healthcare delivery services in the world all free of charge--- socialized healthcare for everyone.

For your information: The majority of Minnesota legislators who are supposedly “sponsors” of this legislation have told me in person they would never vote for this legislation… for, as Minnesota State Senator Rod Skoe, a sponsor told me when I asked him why he was a sponsor if he has made up his mind he will not vote for it if it ever gets to the Senate floor, exclaimed to me, “To get people like you off my back.”

I have placed a box with three great articles on my blog in the upper right-hand corner about the federal legislation that just passed; your opinion has not been included because you are not credible on healthcare issues because of your continued deceptive promotion of the Minnesota Health Act, which is not single-payer; but, rather, single-collector bolstering the profits of the insurance industry. You do, however, join with the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and Wayne Newton and his quacking white duck hawking AFLACK in supporting this legislation--- quack, quack!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhWrABF4Yyo


Yours in struggle and solidarity,

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

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763

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

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Please check out my blog:

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Let’s talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for real change.

Pretenders

This pre-convention article demonstrates everything that is wrong with the leadership of the CPUSA.

Two words: Thought Control

This anti-Marxist-Leninist preconvention article is the embodiment of everything anti Marxist-Leninist imaginable. It relegates the CPUSA to a cult not a revolutionary working class Party capable of leading the working class movements for reforms and revolution.

This moron states:

Our Party's outstanding web page should make it clear that our elected leadership, and only our elected leadership, is the voice of the Party. There is no way to stop the pretenders, but it should be made completely clear that we are the genuine Communists. We need clear guidelines on communications. Every genuine Party information source should be hosted and overseen by our entire Party.

Each and every member, each and every club, each and every district and each and every leader of the Party is the voice of the Communist Party U.S.A.

What this pathetic "contribution" to pre-convention discussion demonstrates is the intent of the present national Party leadership to want to control what people think so they can be easily manipulated.

Jim Lane is a racist to begin with who shouldn't even be in the CPUSA.

Anyone can see from the delegate allotment in the State of New York that these "leaders" cannot be trusted when it comes to anything. They are lying about membership numbers and concealing the real numbers so as to control and manipulate this upcoming convention.

The sincerity of Jim Lane, Webb and this entire bunch of traitors becomes apparent in their double-talk about "Party building." We need only look at the on-line District contact information to see that these leaders are not sincere because they don't even bother noticing what contact information they are posting.

For the Minnesota/Dakotas District which was the Southern Minnesota District of the CPUSA, the phony District with all of five members headed up by Erwin Marquit who is joined by his wife Doris, Peter Molenaar, the control freak Janet Quaife and her live-in lover Harry McAllister who is the District Organizer for this 5 member District that can't even convene a club meeting. They list their address as the former chair of the defunct St. Paul club as Dean Gunderson's:

300 East 4th St, #611, St. Paul, MN 55101 is Dean Gunderson's address.

The thing is, Dean Gunderson has joined a Trotskyite grouplet so people contacting this address are contacting the Trotskyites.

Jim Lane talks about "pretenders." He and the Webb leadership have been the "pretenders" for over ten years as they do the dirty work for big business, Obama and the Democrats.

Rita.




29th Convention » Convention Discussion: Experiences with the newer technology
.Convention Discussion: Experiences with the newer technology
by: Jim Lane
February 16 2010
29th National Convention, Internet



This article is part of the discussion leading up to the Communist Party USA's 29th National Convention May 21-23, 2010. CPUSA.org takes no responsibility for the opinions expressed in this article or other articles in the pre-convention discussion. All contributions must meet the guidelines for discussion. To read other contributions to this discussion, visit the site of the Pre-Convention Discussion period.

All contributions to the discussion should be sent to discussion2010@cpusa.org for selection not to the individual venues.For more information on the convention or the pre-convention discussion period, you can email convention2010@cpusa.org.

"New Opportunities to Grow the Communist Party" is an excellent and energizing document. As we throw ourselves into carrying out its ambitious suggestions, we are likely to encounter challenges that we have not previously experienced.

The question raised in the middle of the document has a typo that might actually impart more truth that correct spelling would have. It says, "If what we say is true and we are in the mist of a new wave of political activism not seen in 40 years, of a new interest in socialist ideas..."

Probably, the author meant to say "midst" instead of "mist." My experience, though, indicates that we really are "in a mist" technologically. People and groups are getting active to a higher degree and manifesting their activism in new ways that we have not experienced, no matter how seasoned and prepared we may think we are.

The first casualty of communications technology is geography
Our party is organized in geographic sections that, for many of today's purposes, are almost meaningless. A dozen volunteers in one state may wait for months for a response, while a District Organizer in another state is eagerly responding to every opportunity.

Another casualty of communications technology is democratic centralism
How can our Party speak with one voice when every member can broadcast to the world with a few keystrokes? The most innocent e-mail between comrades can be repeated thousands of times! The most carefully worded comments can set off angry flame wars! Individual members can exchange political views, for better or worse, with communists and anti-communists around the world. Discussions within our highest leadership body have been published on the world wide web along with anti-leadership diatribes!

Another casualty of communications technology, in some cases, is responsible membership
It has always been possible for defective people, anti-communists, and police agents to join the Communist Party. The internet can make it easier. New members have generally been responsible people who agree with the party, but internet applications can come from anybody. Whether or not they are accepted into membership might depend on whom they ask!

Internet problems are not insurmountable
Weighed against the tremendous advantages that new technology offers, the attendant problems are almost insignificant. It is entirely possible that our Party membership may increase geometrically in one or two days. It is entirely possible that our carefully described stages of revolutionary activity could be jumped over like lightning! It is entirely possible that millions of dollars and thousands of volunteers could come to us in a twinkling. But to position ourselves for those possibilities will take some thinking and some experimentation.

Technology overcomes vast spaces and diverse people
Here in Texas, the 2nd largest state, we have been experimenting with technology for some years. We were among the first to put up a District Web Page, among the first to download information from national, among the first to file news articles through modems, the first to try programmed learning on the internet, and the first to carry out webinars for educationals and district meetings. I recently took on the assignment of maintaining contact with "internet applicants."

We began putting tiny educational modules on the internet some years ago. They can be viewed at http://tx.cpusa.org/school. Generally, they consist of a short essay on a single point and a handful of easy questions in multiple-choice form. The answer one clicks on results in a commentary and, sometimes, a link to other information. If the choice was correct, of course, they are waved forward to the next question.

We also use links to the school as "footnotes" in our posted news articles. If, for example, a news article refers to "imperialism," the reader may click on the word to find a definition or a short explanation of Lenin's great book by that name. The Marxist glossary may be thought of as the center of the school. I also began holding regular webinars on educational topics.

After I took on the new assignment with internet contacts, I started holding weekly webinars for them. Currently, we are discussing the CPUSA convention documents. In November, I received about 45 names of people who had applied to the Party since the previous March. About 10-12 new names have come in each month. There are 23 people who filled out the enrollment form for the school, and I have e-mail for another 40 or so people who live within CPUSA districts, mostly Texans. Out of a total of 125 people on my list, only about 30 have joined me in a webinar, but some of them have done several.

Here are a few suggestions
As someone who has already made hundreds of errors in internet contact work, I feel justified in offering my suggestions. The first and most important is that the work should be centralized. Our party center should be dealing with all internet contacts, whether in districts or not in districts, and stay in contact with them until they are members of physical clubs. Geography is a distraction, nothing more.

We should accept the idea that a "path to full membership" is not necessarily the only priority for this work, and not necessarily first among goals. Internet members make terrific worker correspondents, and they can write a check as well as anybody. Internet members can study Marxism, follow political developments, and influence people in their own areas as well as physical club members can. Internet members can and probably will travel to faraway Party activities from time to time. Internet members can recruit other members, both physically and, even more, on the internet.

Internet members should have regular meetings, perhaps by webinar, with other people as physically close to them as possible. Eventually, the psychological and political advantages of a physical club will probably be possible everywhere. In the meantime, webinar attendance can be an excellent guide for planning physical tours of Party leaders.

More on-line educational opportunities should be developed. I cannot say if the interactive model on the Texas web page is worth following, but it should be considered, and, perhaps, developed much further.

The Party should continue the fine work we are doing in developing our interactive web efforts. More telephone conferences, more webinars, more streamed presentations should be developed. Party leaders and experts should make themselves available to lead educational and other web presentations. All of us need to try to learn whatever is necessary.

Our Party's outstanding web page should make it clear that our elected leadership, and only our elected leadership, is the voice of the Party. There is no way to stop the pretenders, but it should be made completely clear that we are the genuine Communists. We need clear guidelines on communications. Every genuine Party information source should be hosted and overseen by our entire Party.

The World Wide Web will someday be an integral part of a socialist world. Even now, it is a vital road toward it.

Racist fired Bemidji City Planner, Rita Albrecht, cries foul

Early this morning, I was tipped off by a Bemidji City Council member that the fired racist Bemidji City Planner, Rita Albrecht, has carried her campaign of racist hate to "e-democracy" forum--- the Blandin Foundation operated front for the MNDFL.

Rita Albrecht has filed a complaint claiming accusations made against her in a posting are untrue.

Strange thing about the complaint is that Albrecht did not cite one single specific accusation she considers to be untrue.

The construction firm hired to oversee the building of the Bemidji Regional Event Center has filed as its response to a lawsuit accusing them of failing to enforce affirmative action policies and guidelines, that it was Rita Albrecht who told them they could just go ahead and overlook the City of Bemidji's affirmative action policies.

Rather than dealing with righting the racist injustices perpetrated by Rita Albrecht, the City of Bemidji simply tried to escape responsibility by eliminating the Department Rita Albrecht headed up.

The one and only person coming to the defense of the racist actions of Rita Albrecht is John McCarthy who is the head of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association. After writing a letter to the editor of the Bemidji Pioneer Press, McCarthy has gone mysteriously silent and has tried to escape having to answer a very simple question:

Why did you come to the defense of Rita Albrecht?

Rumors are swirling through the Bemidji community because John McCarthy has a reputation as a "ladies man" and Rita Albrecht has now admitted a "close personal friendship" with John McCarthy.

Now people want to know just "how close" this friendship is and if Rita Albrecht and John McCarthy's "special" friendship doesn't go beyond what the rumors allude to since people are finding it strange that John McCarthy was instrumental in getting Albrecht's daughter a job with the corrupt, racist Democrat now running for Minnesota governor, Senator Tom Bakk.

As they say, racism and corruption make for strange bedfellows.

Rita

Affirmative action

Women and minorities can't even count on the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party for help in enforcing affirmative action because the MNDFL doesn't even have as part of its Action Agenda a plank supporting affirmative action. This needs to be corrected in the upcoming caucuses in February.