RETRACTION (Was “MNDFL Chair poo-poo's Gaza slaughter”)
On my blog Jan. 22, I posted a link to a letter allegedly written from Brian Melendez to Alan Maki. I received a denial from the DFL, and was unable to verify the authenticity of the letter. If I learn otherwise I will let you know.
I still have a problem with DFL policies and actions; I just don’t have a "smoking gun" confession from the Chair of the MNDFL. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
posted by Tom Cleland @ 1/28/2009 05:32:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I guess this Alan Maki guy is quite the berserker. He has posted my personal correspondence on his blog, along with some wild accusations about racism and negative campaigning. I am including my copy below, just in case he changes it. If anybody cares about his claims, you can add a comment here and I’ll set the record straight.
http://mndfl.blogspot.com:80/2009/01/response-to-fruit-loop-in-green-party.html
----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Maki
To: 'Tom Cleland'
Cc: 'John Kolstad' ; 'Kip Sullivan' ; eadickinson@mindspring.com
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 8:23 AM
Subject: I posted our correspondence
Tom,
I hope this is the last I have now heard from you.
http://mndfl.blogspot.com/2009/01/response-to-fruit-loop-in-green-party.html
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: Alan Maki
To: 'Tom Cleland'
Cc: efought@dfl.org ; 'Elizabeth Dickinson' ; 'John Kolstad' ; 'Kip Sullivan'
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 9:35 PM
Subject: RE: DFL denial of Melendez Gaza letter - Response Requested
Tom,
Yes, you are better off using your time in better ways.
You or anyone can make whatever you want out of this as I am sure you will.
Your motivation is very clear.
Alan Maki
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: Tom Cleland
To: Alan Maki
Cc: efought@dfl.org ; 'Elizabeth Dickinson' ; 'John Kolstad' ; 'Kip Sullivan'
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 5:14 PM
Subject: Re: DFL denial of Melendez Gaza letter - Response Requested
Alan,
I already said you could look at my computer. I can't speak for anyone else. Other issues may be important, but the purpose of my inquiry was simply to get to the bottom of this one issue. I thought you would be excited to prove the email was authentic. I guess I was wrong.
I had forwarded the email to friends and family. Now I need to retract it. Drop me a line when you post a YouTube video of the email on your computer, or provide some other sort of solid evidence, and I will link to it.
Tom Cleland
----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Maki
To: 'Tom Cleland'
Cc: efought@dfl.org ; 'Elizabeth Dickinson' ; 'John Kolstad' ; 'Kip Sullivan'
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 9:50 AM
Subject: RE: DFL denial of Melendez Gaza letter - Response Requested
Tom,
You say,
“I have not spent a lot of time researching this, and I would like to avoid getting immersed in it right now.”
Well, you are the one interested in this so it is up to you to do the research… I am not your hired research assistant.
I am involved in issues of concern to me.
You have never written me with your concerns on any issues as far as I am aware. The Green Party, like the Democratic Party, has a very dismal record on many of the issues I am involved in so anything someone from the Green Party, like you, says about something like this is of little relevance to me.
I posted the letter as I received it.
What you say and do with this letter, or about me, is up to you.
I have seen this letter you refer to… so what about it?
I would not subject myself to your foolish request to examine my computer… perhaps I should make a similar request to examine your computer and all the computers of Green Party members who have had quite a bit to say about me via e-mails… some of which have been forwarded on to me… letters much worse than this one from Brian Melendez. I don’t make an issue out of these letters because the Green Party is of little significance in Minnesota any more.
My suggestion would be that you explain why the Green Party has refused to support efforts to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Plant; has been silent concerning the rights of casino workers to organize and on the issue of these anti-worker “Compacts;” why the Green Party has refused to support efforts to halt peat mining in the Big Bog.
I will tell you what: you can examine my computer when I can examine the computers of any Green Party members of my choosing to find out who Elizabeth Dickinson and Rhoda Gilman have been working with to sabotage these movements.
Let me close by providing you with another disgraceful example from a letter I received from John Kolstad who you supported for attorney general on the Green Party ticket that is written in the exact same vain as Brian Melendez’ letter (I have similar letters from Kip Sullivan with vicious red-baiting and from a variety of Democratic and Republican State legislators). Kolstad objected to my attacks on the Marty Health Care Bill… he said my attacks on this worthless health care bill of Marty’s somehow impugned the issues I am involved in. This is a most disgraceful kind of attack to suggest that the problems working people are experiencing are somehow not worthy of attention because of my stand in opposition to one piece of legislation.
I have no interest in “convincing you” of anything.
More to the point is that you and the Green Party share similar perspectives on most working class issues as the Democrats, and where I am concerned the Green Party has just as dismal record on most of the issues of concern to me as the Democratic Party and both the Green Party and the Democratic Party have worked in the same mean-spirited, dirty way to evade these issues.
Now, why would I be interested in working with anyone over a “letter” when we cannot work together on any of the issues?
And why would I even consider such a thoroughly stupid request to allow you access to my computers… do you also want access to my computers in Canada?
Previously, the FBI and Homeland Security seized my hard-drives and found nothing illegal or improper. And now you want access to my computers… don’t make me laugh.
Please feel free to share (post, etc.) this e-mail with anyone provided you do so in whole; including from your first correspondence.
By the way, how about we go through all the computers the Green Party activists have used to drum up this little campaign of support for Sen. John Marty’s pathetic excuse for health care “reform.”
And then you talk about how you will never be able to use me as a reliable source for information… and you use the racist, fascist David Icke as a “source” for information. Please, I implore you to not ever cite me as a source for anything because your association with the racist, anti-Semitic, fascist ideas of David Icke would cause people to challenge my credibility.
You go ask the Minnesota DFL to examine all of their computers… they are the ones who placed this hate campaign against me in motion… let’s see how far you get… lol! Then go ask Marc Asch and Mr. Hanson and Vivian Votova to examine their computers, too. Let me know there response. If I can be present when you do all these examinations of their computers you can call a press conference inviting the media to view while you conduct your examination of my computers… do you want to examine the library computers I use, too--- all over Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa? And the computers I use from various peace, civil rights and unions? What about all the servers involved?
Are there any other letters from other people I have published that you would like to verify, too? Perhaps from the casino managements and their attorneys or the threat from Brownstein/Hyatt/Farber/Schreck? What about the racist letter I received from Bob Walls, the International Rep for the International Association of Machinists; or the vulgar letter from a Mr. Skoog from the Teamster’s Union? Do you want to examine the authenticity of the hundreds of hate letters and e-mails I receive and have published?
Here is a suggestion for you: Why don’t you make a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI and Homeland Security to find out what they found when they “examined” my computers?
You say you don’t have time to put much effort into this; and, yet, you make these ridiculous demands on me and waste my time over a letter that everyone knows is authentic.
Get a response from Brian Melendez not some “statement” issued by one of his hirelings to do his dirty work so Melendez can say his hands are so clean.
Perhaps I should have you examine my cell phone to find out who has made death threats against me, the Chisago County Sheriff’s Department doesn’t have a clue and the FBI and the United States Department of Justice refuse to assist them… since you are such a technology expert, let’s start with these death threats text messaged to me.
You are a real hoot… the FBI and United States Department of Justice admit to having wire-taps on my phone and monitoring my e-mails, my ISP has admitted the FBI sought their permission to monitor my e-mails… and now you want to examine my computers, too.
And by the way… do you have any concern about who has set up this most vicious and malicious blog maligning me:
http://rikijo.blogspot.com/2006/03/phase-iioperation-show-me-money.html
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hackers.malicious/browse_thread/thread/a0ac2fbf3db936c0
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hackers.malicious/browse_thread/thread/9f7236115f08f31a
http://rikijo.blogspot.com/2006/03/update-operation-show-me-money-casino.html
Kind of a strange coincidence these “blogs” about me started appearing after Kip Sullivan went postal on the MUHCC list serve controlled by Democrats and Greens after I attacked Mike Hatch and the Democrats and the Greens for trying to push phony health care schemes under the guise of health care reform.
Maybe you should ask Google to examine their computers and servers to find out who posted these hateful and malicious blogs full of lies about me.
Oh, yes, why don’t you ask John Kolstad and Kip Sullivan and Rhoda Gilman who Barbara Distasio is and what she was allowed to post on the MUHCC list serve about me? Kind of a strange coincidence.
You seem to have a very narrow focus in your concerns here; perhaps you would like to explain what motivates you? Perhaps your motives are somewhat other than your stated concerns?
I would also point out that Elizabeth Dickinson… a high profile member of the Green Party has e-mailed out a very vicious attack on the Palestinian liberation movement published by the New York Times suggesting that Palestinians are as responsible for their plight as are the Zionist butchers of Gaza. Let’s examine Ms. Dickinson’s computer to find out who put her up to this dirty work--- again.
You better make sure you have a whole lot of time if you want to take up my time with your stupid requests to examine my computers, and sleazy innuendos.
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: Tom Cleland [mailto:tomcleland@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 7:39 AM
To: Alan Maki
Subject: Re: DFL denial of Melendez Gaza letter - Response Requested
Alan,
I have not spent a lot of time researching this, and I would like to avoid getting immersed in it right now.
I have an email denial from Eric S. Fought, MNDFL Associate Communications Director. His email address is efought@dfl.org, which I don't think can be forged on my end. I would be willing to invite you and any other witnesses over here to look at it. Luckily the surrounding emails aren't too embarrassing, haha.
If I could personally look at your computer, that shouldn't take too long, and it would probably be enough to convince me, though I'll need to check with some techies to make sure the email address can't be forged. I am open to other evidence, but this seems to be the quickest and surest, and with witnesses, the most damaging to the DFL.
If you're not comfortable inviting people into your home, the next best thing might be links to Daily Kos or other sites that are public forums, and then I could try to verify what was said. I didn't see any live links that I could click from your blog.
By the way, I am no defender of Elizabeth Dickinson. Not all Greens are on the same page on various issues.
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Maki
To: 'Tom Cleland'
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 10:50 PM
Subject: RE: DFL denial of Melendez Gaza letter - Response Requested
I don’t save dfl minutes… I have documented Melendez’ hate campaign against me very meticulously and very publicly.
I am no longer on the DFL State Central Committee so I don’t have access to this info.
You need to corroborate any of this independently from me if you need this “proof.”
There are literally hundreds of bigoted postings that were made on the DFL State Central Committee list serve including comments posted about me by Mike Erlandson, James Oberstar, and later Brian Melendez since 2000.
By the way, in order to push me out of the DFL SCC position I was repeatedly elected to by overwhelming votes with opposition coming from Walter Mondale, Matt Entenza and Mike Hatch… these people had to change the time and place of the Roseau County DFL Convention and they only notified a small group of people of the change and left over 90 of us sitting at the scheduled place at the scheduled time. And then the Chair drove by after they concluded their “secret” County Convention and said, “Oh, I am so sorry. The convention is over. I forgot to place the change of the time and meeting place on the door here.” This is the way these people operate.
It is amazing to me that Melendez’ closest associates initially just wrote this letter off as “Brian just got fed up with Maki and went off on him again. Maki knows how to push all of his buttons.” These kind of comments along with very right-wing bigoted comments were all posted on a Daily Kos blog. This was the initial defense from Melendez’ closest associates… it wasn’t until others started looking at this that they stood back and kind of said, “Whoa, we better come up with something better.” In fact, Melendez refused all comment initially and he still does. He assigned a low level party hack to issue this refutation in denying he wrote the letter… kind of strange Melendez refused to comment himself in making the denial. Previously Melendez has made the most vicious comments about me in State Central Committee meetings… only to later have these low level bureaucrats call me to apologize.
You can verify all of this by contacting any DFL county chairs, members of the SSC etc.
When Israel attacked Lebanon, I asked Melendez to place this issue on the SCC agenda… one member of the DFL SCC responded by saying, “You must be fucking an Arab bitch.” Many members of the DFL SSC started referring to me on the DFL SSC list serve as “anti-Semitic;” not knowing that I am Finnish-Jewish… so I started signing everything I wrote using Alan Sompolinsky-Maki.
Even your great Green Party leader Elizabeth Dickinson joined in these attacks on me.
Like I said, this is part of a very long hate campaign that began with Mike Erlandson and James Oberstar.
Oberstar called me names and called me a liar… this entire episode was video-taped by the U of M as part of last year’s “Freeman Forum on Water, Water everywhere.”
You can read some of the problems which I have documented on my blog:
http://mndfl.blogspot.com/
Melendez sending me this letter is one of his more “mild” dirty deeds. Him and two other guys, a Hanson and Marc Asch together with some ex-cop have attacked me without let-up.
I never thought this letter was going to create so much commotion at the time I circulated it. Had I known there was this kind of potential I would have held a press conference at dfl headquarters.
I am the only activist in the dfl who has consistently challenged this die-hard support for Israel so I have become kind of a lightning rod for their abuse.
Ask Charley Underwood how he has been treated… he doesn’t even have the guts to bring this issue forward inside the dfl. Or, ask Bill Hilty’s Legislative Assistant how these people attacked her so viciously at a DFL SCC meeting they made her cry. Melendez and these people are vicious. They will say or do anything to try to intimidate people.
My priorities are not to waste time on this letter from Melendez… I posted it and circulated it… if you or anyone else wants to make it an issue, fine. But, go to Melendez and make him “prove” what he is saying.
I never engaged in a hate campaign against him… the only thing I did that has enraged him is bring forward issues of concern to me… very legitimate issues that he resents me pushing the dfl to take positions on.
You know, I accused Melendez of being biased in favor of the Indian Gaming Industry after he made this comment at the dfl state convention in Duluth a four years ago: “I want to welcome our friends who operate and run the casinos to our convention.” Melendez that denied making this statement. At a SCC meeting following the convention I asked him why he didn’t consider casino workers friends of the mn dfl. In front of the entire SCC he stood there and denied making this remark. I played his remarks recorded from MPR for him to hear. He still denied saying what MPR had recorded… the whole thing was treated like a joke and a game.
To this day, the dfl refuses to do anything to right the injustices that casino workers have been subjected to… in fact, the Green Party has also refused to take up this issue and there are plenty of Green Party people who have been just as nasty to me for bringing these issues forward. Elizabeth Dickinson has been just as mean and nasty as Brian Melendez. She had the unmitigated nerve and gall to say in front of thirty or forty people at a fund-raising even on Summit Avenue that I had never discussed issues surrounding peat mining in the big bog or casino workers’ rights with her… an outright lie… I have letters from her and her husband on these issues. She is as big a liar as Melendez… feel free to show this e-mail to Dickinson, Melendez or anyone else.
So, I am not going to play this “prove it” game. I couldn’t care less who believes that Melendez wrote this letter or not. For all I know, he had some two-bit party hack write this letter for him just so he can stand back and say, “I didn’t write this letter.”
The fact is, Melendez has orchestrated a hate campaign against me and to me it seems logical that he wrote this letter.
By the way, I sent a copy of this e-mail to Melendez to confirm that he wrote it before I circulated it. He did not respond. I followed up with a phone call and left the message with the secretary for him to call me back and I left a message on his voice mail… he never called back. I made every possible effort to find out if he actually wrote this letter before circulating it because I found it to be so outrageous and stupid that I thought someone might be trying to instigate something with a letter like this… I concluded Melendez was the actual author of the letter--- or that he at least directed someone to write it and send it under his name.
I would further point out, in conclusion, that there is nothing in this letter which contradicts the policies and positions of the MN DFL and Democratic Party… so why is Melendez so concerned? You can contact any member of the DFL SCC who will tell you that there isn’t anything in this letter that Melendez has said over and over again to many people about me… so, what is the problem? In fact, most members of the DFL SCC thought the Melendez did a good job telling me off… they have applauded him for writing this dirty letter. Now that this letter has for some reason become a point of embarrassment they want to play this game of denial… If there had been no controversy they would still be patting Melendez on the back for “telling that commie off.”
You know, I don’t even understand why no one has taken Melendez to task for his bigoted campaign of hate against me before this… perhaps this says something about the cowardice of much of the left and progressive movement in Minnesota because this letter has been one of Melendez’ more mild attacks on me.
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: Tom Cleland [mailto:tomcleland@comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 9:40 PM
To: Alan Maki
Subject: Re: DFL denial of Melendez Gaza letter - Response Requested
I am not with the DFL. I would love nothing more than to nail them to the wall on this. But since they are in power, the onus is on us outsiders to come up with the evidence. I didn't bother to ask them for evidence because I would not expect them to comply. Besides, the presence of an email should be easier to prove than to disprove. I could accuse him of deleting it and it would be his word against mine.
Sorry if I sounded harsh, I'm just a fact-based kind of guy. If there's a handy link to the DFL minutes I'll take it.
Tom Cleland
----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Maki
To: 'Tom Cleland'
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 8:48 PM
Subject: RE: DFL denial of Melendez Gaza letter - Response Requested
Maybe suggest that the dfl open its computer system for your inspection… get real… there is a clear and steady stream of evidence Melendez is engaged in a hate campaign… including dfl minutes.
You are free to think whatever you want… you haven’t even raised your voice within the dfl against this Israeli killing spree.. if you did you would get the same shit I have been subjected to.
You don’t even have the courage to demand the same accountability from Melendez that you do from me.
I couldn’t care less what you think.
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: Tom Cleland [mailto:tomcleland@comcast.net]
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 6:39 PM
To: Alan Maki
Subject: DFL denial of Melendez Gaza letter - Response Requested
Alan,
The DFL is denying that Brian Melendez wrote this letter:
http://peaceandsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2009/01/e-mail-from-brian-melendez-head-of.html
I will keep an open mind if you can offer some sort of proof that the email was authentic. It might involve making your computer available to a filmed inspection, or working with your Internet Service Provider.
If I don't hear back from you, I will have to assume that the letter is fictitious as they say, and I will have to remove you from my list of trusted sources. I will plan to give it a few days, but I hope you will respond as soon as possible.
Tom
Here's the original alleged letter with Maki's response and DFL denial...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
An e-mail from Brian Melendez the head of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party
Mr. Melendez who is the head of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party sent me this e-mail:
Mr. Maki,
Enough already.
Give Gaza a rest. Just let us enjoy our victory in electing Barack Obama.
You take up a cause and you try to push that cause down our throats. What don't you understand? We don't care about your diatribes about Gaza.
You started out demanding justice for casino workers claiming a little smoke is harmful to their health. Let them get another job if they don't like the opportunity we have given them. With you it is always demanding. Your list of demands is never ending.
You started with your casino workers. From there you went to demanding single-payer health care and this has turned into your demand for socialized health care because we didn't give you and your casino workers single-payer as soon as you demanded it.
You harp endlessly about Iraq.
Now you have taken up the cause of Palestinians and you are bashing our best friend and ally, Israel.
No, you aren't satisfied with taking up one of your issues at a time. Now you put them all together like they are related in some way and shove then all down our throats.
We are getting fed up with you. We have a big tent. Apparently our tent is not big enough for you and all your causes. Please pack up your tent and move elsewhere. Might I suggest you take your tent to Gaza.
Just leave us alone and give President Obama a chance.
Brian Melendez,Chair, MNDFL
My response:
Mr. Melendez,
Too many "causes: for you eh?
Well, how many different promises does the Democratic Party make to voters to get elected, which you conveniently ignore once elected.
For your information, all the "causes" I am involved in are related. These problems, you call them "causes," all stem from this rotten capitalist system.
Might I suggest that you move on... perhaps find yourself a job working in one of your beloved smoke-filled casinos.
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Fought
To: tomcleland@comcast.net
Cc: Brian Melendez
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 10:01 AM
Subject: RE: Gaza denial or apology?
Mr. Cleland –
The email you are referring to that supposedly came from Chair Melendez is fictitious. Chair Melendez had no knowledge of it until a recipient called it to our attention. It does not reflect his views.
Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions.
Thank you.
------------------------------------------------------
Eric S. Fought
Associate Communications Director
Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
(651) 251-6334 Office
(612) 751-0955 Mobile
efought@dfl.org
www.dfl.org
From: Tom Cleland [mailto:tomcleland@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 7:25 PM
To: bmelendez@dfl.org
Subject: Gaza denial or apology?
Brian,
Did you write the following?
http://peaceandsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2009/01/e-mail-from-brian-melendez-head-of.html
If you issue an apology, I will still criticize you, but not as much.
You may have felt pestered, but Gaza is serious. The casino workers too.
If I don't hear back I will keep pressing the issue.
Tom Cleland
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