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| Affiliation | Green |
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| Name | Robert J. Burns |
| Address |
Chicago, Illinois , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | [Link] |
| Born |
Unknown
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| Contributor | ev |
| Last Modifed | ev
Jul 15, 2010 12:31am |
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| Info | I am an economist and did PhD studies in Marxian Economics at the University of Massachusetts, at Amherst. I bring a rich understanding of politics and economics fostered by my keen academic curiosity. I have pursued studies in economics, finance, computer science, and constitutional law: all of which have provided me with the skills necessary to address the problems facing Illinois’ 4th District and the United States in general.
In the past, I have been involved with many volunteer and civic pursuits. I was involved in the founding of the Grant Park Advisory Council and served as its Chair in its infancy. I served as President of the South Loop Neighbors Association and was active on the board of Friends of Downtown.
I also was involved in forming a federation of Regional Park advisory councils to improve our regional parks such as Humboldt, Douglas, and McKinley.
In graduate school I played an active role in the Economics Graduate Student Organization and also devoted time toward union organizing as a graduate student employee and member of local 2322 of the United Auto Workers.
I first became interested in government and politics during Harold Washington’s tenure as mayor of Chicago. I later worked on the campaigns of other Democrats including Carol Mosely Braun’s successful 1992 bid to unseat incumbent Senator Alan Dixon.
As my education continued I became convinced that our country needed to find its way back to the principles that founded it. While we have long been told that the United States was founded as a capitalist country, there is no evidence for that contention in our founding documents. In fact, the American revolution and the principles underlying it were instrumental in spawning the French Revolution and the French socialist movements that lead straight to Marx, Marxism, Socialism, and Communism. As Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto: “the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.” We have been engaged in that same battle since at least 1776 and we still have not won. Instead our government – founded to secure the rights of the people – has been usurped by a military-financial industrial complex that sees us as merely ‘inputs’ into their voracious appetite for more and more money.
The entire purpose of government is to serve the people: to among other things, provide for the Common Defense and promote the General Welfare. Yet we have allowed private interest to trample over these governmental functions so now government largely serves the interests of only the few against the people. We are admonished for fomenting class warfare for simply raising these issues, while those admonishing us continue to pursue their own class wars against the rest of us, hoping we will not resist.
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