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Re: People's Weekly World - As economic crisis worsens, hunger stalks the land

TomSiblo — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:19:57 -0000

Dear Tim:

This report is not an exageration because I am one of the more than 2 million added. I have been on SSDI since 1994 and I was always able to make it. Now I am on Food Stamps but get this only $14.00 worth per month.. The food stamp program will pay more if you can show more. payments for medical care. If your disability check is paid out on the same day you pay your rent leaving you some $87.00 fopr the rest of the month is criminal.

I got more going to see a local farmer I know who filled my refrigerator with greens and fruit. I am a diabectic I must have regular food in order to survive. My doctor is so happy my young adult offspring have lost 30 to 35 lbs and I too have dropped the same in the past year. When I tell him I am starving and say it three times he makes like he did not hear me. My situation is not unique and every month its getting worse.

I worked for 40 years until I could not work anymore. I paid all my life into the system and what I have goes out the door. I find myself selling books that have benn in my family for two or three generations. I read them because they are by Marx, Engels, and Lenin. When I was well I was a local union President. My job a semi-professional helping the poor. The irony is the poor farmer and other poor people are feeding me. My books I read and sell are teaching me. Only socialism is the solution. Nobody down here under Main Street is talking about giving me job that I can do. None one is talking about increasing SSI payments. The only ones Bush is bailing out are his class friends. There are so many of us now maybe we should walk into all those Wall Street bail out corporations or next free AGI giveaway and sit down order a meal and hand them the ticket. The problem is I can hardly walk to the door because I am so il from this no food diet of bread and water.

It reminds me of all the songs I use to sing by Woody, Pete, and Sis. At least I have the music to pass my time. I thought about getting a bundle of PWWs just to make something extra for me and the boys now eighteen and twenty-four.

We need socialism and we need it now here in under Main Street, USA.

Re: People's Weekly World - A dose of socialism to forestall financial disaster

TomSiblo — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:51:31 -0000

WHEN i READ THIS WHAT JUMPED IMMEDIATELY INTO MY HEAD WAS THE FAMOUS mARY pOPPINS SONG " a spoon full of socialism makes the capitalist go down, make the capitalist go down which is absolutely absurd by Marxist-Leninist standards. Comrade Case has obviously read the New York Times and the Economist more than Das Kapital by Marx and Engels. He also needs to read more from Lenin on the dynamics of capitalism. Let's not forget our late comrade Victor Perlo whom I met at Solway House many times during the seventies until it closed down.

The reform is nationalize these financial institutions rather than giving them back to the capitalists. Why should the working class or middle class bail these capitalist out? Besides the U.S. needs large doses of socialism and workers democracy.

At a time where working people are beginning to ask questions it is our job to be clear as to what the solution is and not a nice little pill. We need a socialized economy and the workers and small farmers
running the economy instead of the Wall Street Gangs of New York.

Re: People's Weekly World - No more McPain

TomSiblo — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:10:04 -0000

I totally agree with the three points raised by the People's Weekly World Editorial Board. Capitalist political economy is failing to provide any solid economic theory capable of ending the current crisis.

The $770.00 billion dollar bail out being proposed and being considered is like trying to stop a bleeding artery with a band aide. Anyone knows you must apply strong pressure with a wrap around turn-a-kit and then you must locate the bleeding artery and stop the bleeding. The Bush proposal does absolutely nothing for the great majority of Americans and increases the swollen deficit, which then starts the whole bubble process over again. If we allow them they will be blowing up bubbles for ever and the poor working people, farmers and the disappearing Middle Class will remain in poverty or be further impoverished as Marx and Engels clearly defined throughout their revolutionary pro-proletarian lives. So unemployment needs to be continued but also must be increased in order to meet the staggering inflation. An unemployment check may just about pay your rent but it will not cover your gas and then the workers are subjected to possibly losing their benefits because they did not make enough efforts to find a job. Adding further difficultly to providing a real solution jobs need to be created in mass at union-scale for all working people as well as the unemployed. Unions must be freed to organize all working people who want to join a union but are not joining due to fear of being fired in the private sector.

There needs to be a moratorium until the crisis is over for all foreclosures and evictions. Restoring funding and increasing its availability to those in need such as Section Eight Rental Assistance, and more Public Housing can be built to accommodate the number of retiring and working people with disabilities who have no other choice because they are no longer able to work in a gainful capacity.

We need to re-build our infrastructure but this needs to be done by massive federal funding to do just that but it should not come out of the meager wages of working people to pay the bill in the form of tax relief for the rich 1%. Reaganomics, trickle-down theories, wage freezes, cuts in human and education services, failing to provide working people with decent health and dental care. America needs to get back to work productively and socially. Finally the state budgets need to stop duplicating the federal and increase taxes on those who can afford them and not beat the working person into the ground. It is nice the AFL-CIO has made a similar proposal, however the Communist Party USA has a fighting history to uphold and keep as our bond withe proletariat not only here at home but throughout the world. A fighting party is something to be proud of and going boldly forward proposing what we know works. We know that it is socialism rather than capitalism is the solution.Our party's tradition is educating, organizing and mobilizing the working people. Iin the days and months after the election our party is going to be tested and in this fight we owe to our Leninist tradition to meet the theoretical as well as the practical aspects that the class struggle requires each of us to meet.

I completely agree with proposal two but not only do we need to embrace the manufacturing sector but ever part of the capitalist system is failing. Just as Marx, Engels, Lenin and any consistent communist since 1848 has said it would. Only the working class is capable of realizing its tasks as being the leading class capable of creating the kind of social movement of defeating McCain and Palin and later keeping all the Democrats honest. Look at how many times the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Federation as tade unions have hit the bricks mobilizing it members to elect Democrats who as soon as they are elected say "AFL who or Change to What?" The Anti-war movement worked hard for a Democratic party Congress but did this leadership stop Bush and his surge. In the recent past John Sweeney saved Bill Clinton's Presidency but this did not change the Clinton Administration's weak record on labor? In caparison yes it was better than Bush I or Bush II, but it did not add to the political power of the working people when it came to terms with being placed on a equal footing legally, politically, socially and economically as their bosses and the corporations. Our fighting history of American Communism puts the interests of the workers before the federal or state governments. These governments reflect the political interests of Main Street National and Global Capitalism more than the working people and their natural allies- the small poor impoverished family farmers and rural workers.

I believe the working people of America are being asked to bail out for free the likes of Lehman, Merrill Lynch and AIG. This $770 billion is a purchased and these institutions must be nationalized and every other failed capitalist institution that has been stealing the surplus value of the American working people and farmers and then lending it to the government, corporations, and some tiny crumbs for working people's mortgages. I say nationalized them or use a word equal like Public Ownership of the U.S. Financial Institutions. Simply regulating becomes meaningless if they are left to regulate themselves. Perhaps when Bush writes the check we should all change our names to these financial institutions so we can get our rightful portion of the pie. Back in 1973 Chrysler received a bail out and did every other failing manufacturing firm.
This did not stop them from moving out of the country or outsourcing American jobs?

It is time this gang of exploiters and thieves get what is coming for them this Fall in the election and to elect Obama is going to take a social movement that only the communist movement and its fighting party can provide. My only disagreement with the editorial board is we as the leaders of the proletariat must do just that and not what is going make our liberal friends like us. They will really never ever like us as long as they remain liberals. Liberals did not make the revolution of October 1917, however many formal liberal who became first members of the Bolsheviks and later formed the core of what became the ruling party of Russia for some seventy-five years. William Z. Foster wrote an excellent analysis of that Russian Communist Party, just as he wrote a “History of the Communist Party of the United States.” This is the tradition we must live up and create new solutions from learning from the concrete history of the past, fully realizing our mistakes as well as our success for what we are- Communists Workers of the World Unite! Yes this is not 1917, or 1927, even 1991. It is 2007 and Global Capitalism is entering it most severe crisis and its our job to fully scientifically explain it so the proletariat can change it.

Re: People's Weekly World - Iraq pullout ploy

TomSiblo — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:39:42 -0000

I recall similar ploys when Nixon was running for re-election along with his slogan "Peace with Honor.."
I think the next 8 weeks are important for the anti-war to reactivate itself by going door to door. When Al Lowenstein ran for Congress the very first time he did so as an independent peace candidate because at that time the entire Democratic Party defended the war. They rejected Eugene McCarhty and Al Lowenstein at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Bobby kennedy was the only peace and labor candidate and he just been assassinated.. There are two accounts on the Democratic convention and the Chicago police riot one by Norman Mailer "Chicago and the Seize of Mimai and Mark Lane's "Chicago An Eyewitness Account."

After Chicago students mobilized to go door to door to register and get out the vote. I participated in the organized door to door activity as a high school student.

The war and occupation of Iraq like Vietnam is an imperialist illegal war. The ploy of a troop reduction of 8,000 troops is designed to throw the American people off guard, while at the same time. It is also designed to placate the vast majority of the troops, many who have been stuck there all five years.

The tremendous difference today because we have a Democratic peace candidate who has organized a coalition and an alliance of a much larger f force of activists and oppressed people. It is important in order to win to mobilize this mass of supporters labor, students, farmers and a significant portion of the middle class to get out the vote and convince those not registered to register.

This will be the beginning of a significant change for the American and in their best interests.

Re: People's Weekly World - Cuba devastated by Ike, but Cubans show grit

TomSiblo — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:05:38 -0000

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

It is important to help the Cuban people and I would like to request that the People's Weekly World find out as quickly as possible where we can send money and other items to help the Cuban Socialism in an hour of desperate need. I am disabled and very ill but I am still willing to send $10.00. Please send this information so I can contact as many people in the Hudson Valley in order to help our Cuban sisters and brothers during this time of need.

Sincerely,

Tom Siblo

Re: People's Weekly World - Growing jobless figures impact presidential race

TomSiblo — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:59:22 -0000

There is little doubt the Republican-Conservative Agenda represents "Change" as John McCain alleges. The party of big business reflects the same lies since 1980, while they are desperately trying to re-strengthen their hold onto the political power which they have consistently abused in promoting policies designed to create as many wars needed to assure their bourgeois dictatorship.

These would be representatives of monopoly capitalism reflect the interests of the corporate ruling class bent on worldwide domination. The destruction of the American labor movement, attacking the living standards of all working people, refusal to pay equally for the same work, its attempts to advance racism and sexism in order to divide the working people against each other it is no wonder unemployment is 6.1% and thousands of workers are losing their both jobs and homes.

The Republican-Conservatives ruler's goal is to lower wages as Marx and Engels illustrated as early as 1843 when Engels first published his book on "The Working class in England. and Marx gave his lectures on "Wages, Values and Profits." Back in the 1840s a similar period like today happened when the Middle had been split by those who lost their estates by land speculation. Has this not happened under Bush? Those who lost their land back then fell into poverty and debtor's prison. There has never been a more clearly historical illustration of the Marxian thesis that as the ruling class consolidates and centralizes capital into fewer the working people continue to drop into poverty. During the same period the number of people living in poverty has increased even before the current crisis.

The past ten years provides the proof that with this consolidation of wealth a deep economic crisis or a series of them occurs. Recent bourgeois economists have claimed these are only a series of market corrections and are really not a crisis taking the shape of economic bubbles. When the Internet Bubble broke a recession began, the stock market bubble broke the balloon fell, now the bank and real estate bubble crashed, the dollar is once again plummeting in the global market place, gold is on the rise and oil is going up and down lie a yo yo. It is both a bubble and a yo yo both are media developed lies, confused misinterpretations and ruling class pundits who can't by law put George W back on his horse so they found two new clones---John McCain and Palin.. You couldn't offer a better set of twins than the moose-killing Governor of Alaska in the tradition of charge up the San Juan Mountain by the rough brothers Teddy Roosevelt like Palin who is trading in her fishing road for a big stick as the old Teddy Bear use to clown around doing oppressing the people of the emerging nations. Even Teddy believed in Conservation of Wildlife but this bungalow Jill has little or any respect for nature or wildlife.

It is time for a change, a complete and total transformation in the radical American working class tradition by building a popular alliance with all the oppressed people in the US. We need to build an alliance of working people, small farmers, rural workers, immigrants and the undocumented to create eventually a democratic socialist commonwealth. The road to liberation is starting now; full emancipation from wage slavery is on the agenda, free public education including college, free health care, childcare, housing, food and where each according to their ability and each according to their needs are met. Most importantly the complete and total abolition of war in any form whatsoever Vote for democracy and taking our government over because after all we own it.
This November is the start as the democratic revolution is completed socialism becomes the best means of cooperatively sharing the social, cultural and political rights that is our inheritance handed down from one generation of working to the next. We want this inflationary war and occupation of Iraq to end

Re: People's Weekly World - Growing jobless figures impact presidential race

TomSiblo — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:18:24 -0000

The Republican-Conservatives ruler's goal is to lower wages as Marx and Engels illustrated as early as 1843 when Engels first published his book on "The Working class in England. and Marx gave his lectures on "Wages, Values and Profits." Back in the 1840s a similar period like today happened when the Middle had been split by those who lost their estates by land speculation. Has this not happened under Bush? Those who lost their land back then fell into poverty and debtor's prison.. There has never been a more clear historical illustration of the Marxian thesis that as the ruling class consolidates and centralizes capital into fewer the working people continue to drop into poverty. During the same period the number of people living in poverty has increased even before the current crisis.

The past ten years has only added the proof that with this consolidation of wealth comes a deep economic crisis or a series of them. Recent bourgeois economists have claimed these are only a series of market corrections and are really not a crisis taking the shape of economic bubbles. When the Internet Bubble broke a recession began, the stock market bubble broke the balloon fell, now the bank and real estate bubble crashed, the dollar is once again plummeting in the global market place, gold is on the rise and oil is going up and down lie a yo yo. It is both a bubble and a yo yo both are media developed lies, confused misinterpretations and ruling class pundits who can't by law put George W back on his horse so they found two new clones---John McCain and Palin.. You couldn't offer a better set of twins than the moose-killing Governor of Alaska in the tradition of charge up the San Juan Mountain by the rough brothers Teddy Roosevelt like Palin who is trading in her fishing road for a big stick as the old Teddy Bear use to clown around doing oppressing the people of the emerging nations. Even Teddy believed in Conservation of Wildlife but this bungalow Jill has little or any respect for nature or wildlife.

It is time for a change, a complete and total transformation in the radical American working class tradition by building a popular alliance with all the oppressed people in the US. An alliance of working people, small farmers, rural workers, immigrants and the undocumented to create eventually a democratic socialist commonwealth. The road to liberation is starting now, full emancipation from wage slavery is on the agenda, free public education including college, free health care, childcare, housing, food and where each according to their ability and each according to their needs are met. Most importantly the complete and total abolition of war in any form whatsoever Vote for democracy and taking our government over because afterall we own it.
This November is the start as the democratic revolution is completed socialism becomes the best means of cooperatively sharing the social, cultural and political rights that is our inheritance handed down from one generation of working to the next..We want this inflationary war and occupation of Iraq to end

Re: People's Weekly World - AFSCME convention: �Take back America for working people�

TomSiblo — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:27:56 -0000

It is noteworthy the 38^th Biennial convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is about reclaiming America for working people after eight years of the Bush administration.

It is fantastic AFSCME has stood behind Presidential candidate Barrack Obama. However, recent drift toward the center by the Obama campaign illustrates how easily his political policies can change just like all the other bourgeois political candidates who run against him or with him.
.
There is a difference between a Marxist-Leninist party’s policies and program. The program is discussed between all its members with specific written proposals are voted on at the local club level and then sent to be voted on at the national convention. Very often the national committee produces a draft program which members comment on and suggest different points. At the national convention whether there is a full majority or a difference of opinion which is then discussed and voted on by the delegates. The majority wins and that is the party’s program. The majority of the members of the party are workers and the party runs promoting the perspectives and views of the majority until the next convention. Anyone not following the decision at the convention publicly can be disciplined.

This is why we need to offer critical support to Osama’s campaign while at the same defending him from racist attacks. However, this does not mean we lower our Communist banner. We must provide a class conscious analysis of the changes or lack of changes since the primaries and his recent shift towards the center along with his support for Israel and calling for the turning back socialism in Cuba. Obama in the end represents the interests of one part of America’s ruling elite the neo-liberals. Their interests are not the same as the majority of the working class made up of, Black, Hispanic, and Women.
The liberals are not in the forefront of defending immigrant and undocumented workers, rural workers, farm workers and small independent farmers. It is our job to show the difference by education, organization and mobilization.

We should not agree with the AFSCME leadership when they claim Afghanistan is the right war while Iraq is the wrong war. The two wars are imperialist in nature and are being fought for U.S. capitalist control of the global oil economy. Just like we need to join in the August 2nd, 2008 emergency demonstrations called to stop Bush’s drive for a war with Iran just in time to help McCain in the upcoming election. We must mark a difference between us the Communists Party USA and this plan that Obama must be clearly aware of. This is our “fighting history” and we must be true as always to the traditions of both Marx and Lenin.

Tom Siblo
tsiblo@gmail.com
Saugerties, New York

Re: People's Weekly World - McCain bashes workers, public education at NAACP meet

TomSiblo — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:11:13 -0000

John McCain offers the same sick program of the past eight years that is destroying our democratic way of life and at the same time attacks the rights of all working people. The fact the Republic Party continues this criminal direction remains a mystery to all people who believe in freedom, equality and justice. The idea he would address the NAACP making these comments indicates he is aggressive in his overall plans to expand the war in the Middle East and undermine the education system by attacking those who teach in our seriously under funded public education system.

I think John McCain is part of the problem and certainly not part of the solution.

Re: People's Weekly World - EDITORIAL: Hungry for change

TomSiblo — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:01:28 -0000

I completely agree with this editorial. There is a growing crisis in the distribution of food for hungry Americans who are experiencing the pinch of the price increase. Many food pantry's are running out of food and at the same time the food is not getting to the people who need it the most. Food pantry's do not have the means of reaching out because their budgets are not covering the costs of advertisement. Everything is done by word of mouth. A recent discussion with a supervisor for Medicaid indicated more people are applying for assistance and are being faced with medical bills tht are insurmountable. The turn over in case workers has resulted in improper decisions and more fair hearings. This is what started to happen near the middle of the War with Vietnam.

There is no Welfare Rights movement active today and the poor and dislocated working people are being denied. At the same time the media continues to press misinformation that undocumented workers are snatching up all the benefits.

Everyday there is a growing move by the ruling class to split the working class along racial lines in preparation for the upcoming election.

The false scarcity of food is just one more path to dividing our multi-national and ethnic working class during times of economic crisis. It is important to draw the class line by uncovering the ruling classes plans..