Miriam,
Most certainly you are not a liar. I do hope we can all get beyond
accusing one another, when any of us post our opinion, or an article
that supports our beliefs. From where I sit, everything you post, and
everything you say tells me a bit more about your outlook on the
world. I fully accept what you post to be how you see Life, and I
hope others see my thoughts in the same light.
I do happen to agree with you more than not, but that is beside the point.
I want to tell everyone on this list that I am thankful for the honest
thoughts they post.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/18/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It was on the ACBNY list and I should have forwarded the whole messsage
which gave all of the details, but I was remiss and now it's lost among
hundreds of deleted emails and I doubt I can find it. So if someone wants to
call me a liar, I may not be able to defend myself.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Frank Ventura
Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2017 7:18 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Calling Trump
Miriam, can you send us the link to that legislation, as I would like to
share it since I get called a liar if I mention it without the specifics.
Thanks
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2017 3:55 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Calling Trump
My response to that sentiment, one which you've expressed many times, is
that you and your people, exist in the real world where the lives of your
people are affected in multitudinous ways by the power elites, the Corporate
State, the Pentagon, and the machinations of international power politics
and international finance. You are living on a beautiful isolated peninsula
in Washington State and watching all of this happen through a window pane. I
am sitting in an apartment in a suburb of a world financial capital,
watching it all happen on a computer screen. Both of us are old and pretty
much out of the action. But we may find, perhaps sooner than we think, that
we are no longer only observers. We may suddenly become real victims, not
theoretical ones, or victims by virtue of our empathy toward others, but
real victims. Just because those folks in our state capitals and in
Washington DC aren't representing our interests, they legally represent us
and they have incredible power over us. It is unrealistic to claim
detachment because they are not one of your people. It doesn't matter. They
have power over all of us. Just now, in Washington, they wrote legislation,
never written before, to destroy a policy that has protected disabled
children in schools for many years. The legislation will pass because the
Republicans have a majority in congress. Trump promises to sign the
legislation. Betsy has already said that the policy is invalid. And it may
be just a coincidence, but I've noticed a change in NLS offerings and
behavior in the past few weeks. I hope that I'm just being paranoid. There
is really a difference between the traditional evils that we've seen in our
country and about which you've been reading in that book you mentioned, and
what is happening now. Just think about the implications of Jeff Sessions
being Attorney General. Think about Trump's behavior in that news conference
yesterday.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2017 12:51 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Calling Trump
Speculation being what it is...the first part of the word is just a tiny
SPEC, there is little value in playing the, "What If" game.
President Obama was frozen in place by a Congress committed to freezing him
in place. George Bush should have been frozen. Trump is finding that he
cannot do as he claimed, run both his business and the nation. Even with a
majority Republican Congress.
Bernie would have been screwed, too. I don't wish that job onto anyone
other than my worst enemies.
Anyway, since my People are not represented by any of the "False Parties", I
can only stand by and eat my Cracker Jacks and drink a ten dollar bottle of
beer, just like all the other on-lookers...meaning the majority of
Citizens.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/17/17, Richard Driscoll <llocsirdsr@xxxxxxx> wrote:
All:
Fortunately or unfortunately (depending upon the point of view) that
is not what happened!
Richard
On 2/17/2017 2:14 AM, Bob Hachey wrote:
Amen Sister!
Many poles showed Bernie doing better against trump than Clinton
against Trump. Given that it was a razor close election it is not
unreasonable to believe that Sanders would have beaten Trump.
Bob Hachey
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam
Vieni
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 3:55 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Calling Trump
Bernie did very well against Trump and had the DNC not manipulated,
he very well might have gotten the nomination. The people who voted
for Trump because they were disgusted with the ruling elites, the
people who wanted a change from the status quo, may very well have
voted for Sanders, rather than Trump. They were people who were
looking for someone who seemed to be talking to them and who cared
about what they needed. Hillary did a lot of fund raising with big
donors and she had high profile people supporting her. What she
didn't do, was to go out like Sanders and Trump did, and have lots
and lots of rallies with working and middle class people. And Sanders
also went to some extremely poor areas and had rallies. There are
many articles by a variety of people, which talked about this. No
one was put off by Sanders' talk of being a socialist, no one except
Paul Krugman and the like. The Liberal Elites wanted Hillary, as did
the Pentagon andnd the CIA and the Neo Cons who deserted the
Republican party to support her, and the Neo Liberals. The Black
politicians, now part of the ruling Elites, also wanted her and they
dragged a lot of black people along with them, but not all of them.
The Republicans weren't the only folks stealing votes. There were all
those missing primary votes in Brooklyn, for example. The Democratic
Party lost because it backed the wrong horse. You should read that
really informative article that Roger posted last night which is a
terrific analysis of what happened and stop listening to the
propaganda of the Democratic Party leaders who would rather cause a war
with Russia by blaming them for Hillary's loss, than taking
responsibility for the kinds of things that they did which were exposed
by leaks.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Frank
Ventura
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 1:19 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE:
RE: Re: Calling Trump
Miriam, yes I know how wide of a margin Hilliary won the vote by and
I believe if it weren't for republican manipulation the real margn
would be far greater. However, if Hilliary were to express views in
line with say Bernie or someone further to the left she to would on
the defensive and her numbers would be much lower.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam
Vieni
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 9:52 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy]
Re:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Calling Trump ...
Frank,
Please don't forget that the Democratic Party won the popular vote.
That means that there were more opponents of Trump than supporters of
Trump.
The Electoral College was created to prevent the common man from
choosing our president. Add to that, the Republican manipulation of
the election, something they managed to do in 2000 and 2004 as well.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Frank
Ventura
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 1:53 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy]
RE:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] Calling Trump a ‘fascist’ disorients th
Carl, answer is a government based on social justice but that is not
what the heartland is leaning towards. They are moving towards social
Darwinism.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 11:11 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy]
RE:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Calling
Trump a ‘fascist’ disorients the working class
Bob,
In my opinion, debating the finer qualities(grin)of Hilary Clinton
and Donald Trump, is an exercise in futility. Asking if one would be
"better"
than the other is like trying to pick between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle
Dum.
More worthy of your ability is to ponder what sort of government
would serve the needs of All citizens. Then, neither Clinton nor
Trump would be in the running.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/15/17, Bob Hachey <bhachey@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Frank,
"Lazily into a republican trap?"
I must say I resent that one just a bit.
In 2008 I was mighty happy that I didn't have to vote for Hillary
Clinton because the relatively lesser known Obama was there. If the
best the Democrats can do is Hillary Clinton, then we'd better get
used to rule by the Republicans. An organized left minus corrupt
folks like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is what we need.
I will give you only one thing. President Clinton would have been
better than President Trump. But do you really believe that she'd be
fighting hard for things like an increase in the minimum wage or a
single payer health care system?
Do you think she'd lift a finger to more tightly regulate the big
banks from whom she has received mighty handsome speking fees?
Now, I see the left and even some in the center marching in the
streets and flooding their members of Congress with phone calls.
More and more Americans are waking up to the mess we're in. IT is
too damned bad that it took the election of Trump to wake up those
folks. The ones who've been asleepin?
They're the lazy ones!
It's time to stop blaming the left and start blaming the corrupt
bastards who hold leadership positions in the Democratic Party.
Democrats need to stop talking like lawyers and start talking like
regular people. That's one lesson from Trump. Also, Democrats need
to stop taking contributions from the evil practitioners of
financial chicanery.
Here's a good one for you on what's wrong with the Democrats. Tom
price was just confirmed as secretary of health and Human Services,
)UGH! Yes that's bad. But here's what's even worse. In order to take
his new post, he had to resign from his seat in Congress. His
Georgia district elected Trump by a very small margin of 3 percentage
points.
That suggests that it is a seat where Democrats could compete and win.
But it seems that the Democratic leadership is not much interested
in competing for this seat! Now that's the kind of wimpy behavior
that has thwarted democrats in recent elections.
The Democrats had better learn fast how to play hardball just like
the Republicans do or they may as well close up shop. The necessity
to play hardball is another lesson from Trump.
Bob Hachey
Bob Hachey
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Frank
Ventura
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2017 7:15 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy]
RE:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] Calling Trump a ‘fascist’ disorients the working
class
Bob, not even close. Bernie couldn't even win here in Massachusetts,
arguably the furthest left state in the union. His poll numbers were
low but his supporters vocal. The working class has been conditioned
to fear socialism and that is how they viewed Bernie. He would have
lost the general election by a landslie. Any Democratic candidate
for president needs to win by about a 15 to 20 percent margin to
overcome Republican election manipulation. Al Gore wasn't able to
overcome this and neither was Hillary Clinton. The good ole boys and
the heartland honeys are very fearful that their homes, SUVs, 3.2
kids, and guns will be taken away if one of those "commie bastard" Dems
take office.
That is what right wing talk radio teaches them isn't it? As far as
Bubba goes; he wasn't running. Anyone who considered that an issue
fell lazily into a republican trap. As I predicted many times it
would be the left that weakened the Democratic party to the point
where no Democratic Party candidate could beat Trump. The history so
far has proven me correct, that is wasn't the far right that threw
the election for Trump; it was the far left. Like I said the
Champagne is flowing in the hot tub's of Lexington and the Vodka is
flowing in the smoking rooms of the Kremlin. So enjoy your Smirnoff
now America until we are forced to dig our own graves.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob
Hachey
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2017 9:24 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy]
RE:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy]
Calling Trump a ‘fascist’ disorients the working class
Hi Frank,
ARE you saying that the fear of Bernie motivated folks to vote for
Trump?
How could the left truly support Clinton given Bubba's rotten
record in the White House?
Shame on the Democratic leadership for trying to force Clinton down
our throats. IF they hadn't rigged the thing, Bernie would have won
and he'd have likely beaten Trump given that he had way more
enthusiasm behind him than Hillary ever could. Lots of Clinton votes
were done very half-heartedly.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam
Vieni
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 6:58 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy]
RE:
[blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Calling Trump a ‘fascist’
disorients the working class
That's not my analysis. I didn't meet any working people who liked
or voted for Hillary. The more educated and politically moderate
people did. And apparently, 3 million more voted for her than Trump.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Frank
Ventura
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 6:20 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy]
Re:
[blind-democracy] Calling Trump a ‘fascist’ disorients the working
class
Miriam, all true and to look it at deeper the left put most of its
energy (this election cycle) attacking the Clintons, although only
one was running, and the Democratic Party as w hole. That didn't sit
well with middle of the road working class folks who viewed it as a
radical attempt against democracy. The result was that it pushed the
folks that we would consider the working class further and further
to the right and that is why Trump was so unstoppable, by anyone.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam
Vieni
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 1:27 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] Calling Trump a ‘fascist’ disorients the working
class
And then there's the question of just who the working class is.
Remember that only a small percentage of people voted at all. So
when we say that Hillary got the majority of the popular vote, what
does that mean? Talk to working people on Long Island and you'll
find that most of them supported Trump. When the Left talks about
the working class as if the working class actually agrees with its
positions, and I've seen numerous articles saying this, my response
is that the Left is in as much of a bubble as was the DNC.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2017 11:18 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Calling Trump a
‘fascist’
disorients the working class
"What working people need is to organize independently of both
capitalist parties."
Well said. But the hard part is in the doing. With so much
confusing propaganda by the Ruling Class, and so many years in
refining their control over the working class, the task of teaching
people to think, is daunting.
Call Donald J. Trump a Fascist and his opponents eagerly agree,
while his defenders snarl and hurl curses. And nothing changes.
But challenge the corrupt capitalist system and you could well wind
up like Leon Trotsky or Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior. Or you
might find yourself living in poverty and shunned by your former
friends, like Paul Robeson. The Great American Capitalist Oligarchy
can allow us to tear down their shills and front men. They have
unlimited numbers of eager ass kissers waiting in the wings. What
we, the working class, lack are ass kickers.
Let's turn our attention away from Donald J. Trump and pull on our
steel toed boots.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/12/17, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2017/8107/810702.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 7 February 20, 2017
(front page, commentary)
Calling Trump a ‘fascist’ disorients the working class
BY SETH GALINSKY
Many liberals, some conservatives and almost the entire
middle-class left call President Donald Trump and his administration
fascist.
Drawing on the rich history of the revolutionary workers movement,
the Socialist Workers Party has a different view.
Is there something fundamentally different about the Trump
administration compared to previous Democratic and Republican ones?
Is Trump really a new Adolph Hitler or “Mussolini in a blue suit
and tie,”
as Norman Pollack wrote on the Counterpunch website Feb. 3?
Or is Trump simply the new chief executive officer of the U.S.
ruling class, who won election because of the widespread distrust
in his opponent Hillary Clinton and interest in the working class
for political change at a time when they’re being battered by the
effects of a deepening worldwide capitalist economic crisis?
The answer to this question has serious political consequences for
anyone who is interested in defending the interests of the working
class in the United States and around the world.
Because of the decline in Marxist political culture in the world
today, “fascist” is an epithet used by many on the left to mean any
demagogic politician. They care little for seeking to learn the
rich history of the revolutionary working-class movement’s writings
on fascism from Germany and Italy to the U.S.
Fascism is the name given to reactionary mass movements that arose
leading up to World War II — like those led by Benito Mussolini in
Italy and Hitler in Germany and with echoes in the U.S. and other
imperialist countries — that were backed by the capitalist classes
in those countries when the existing dictatorship of capital could
no longer survive by normal “democratic” means.
Leon Trotsky, a leader of the Russian Revolution, who was expelled
from the Soviet Union in 1929 by Joseph Stalin as part of a broader
counterrevolution against the program of V.I. Lenin that led the
workers and farmers of Russia to power in 1917, wrote extensively
about fascism.
His goal was to lay bare the class dynamics that led to its rise
and to politically prepare revolutionary-minded workers to fight
against it.
Through the fascist movement “capitalism sets in motion the masses
of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and
demoralized lumpenproletariat — all the countless human beings whom
finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy,”
Trotsky explained, and then uses them as thugs to smash the labor
movement and its vanguard communist organizations.
The fascists “initially rail against ‘high finance’ and the
bankers, lacing their nationalist demagogy with anticapitalist
demagogy,”
notes Socialist Workers Party National Secretary Jack Barnes in
Capitalism’s World Disorder. In order to divert ruined
petty-bourgeois elements and demoralized workers from seeing
capitalism as the problem, the Nazis scapegoated the Jews as
responsible for the growing economic and political crisis and
whipped up calls for a “final” solution to the “Jewish question.”
At the same time, the fascists “ape much of the language of
currents in the workers movement. ‘Nazi’ was short for National
Socialist German Workers Party.”
“Fascism is not a form of capitalist rule, but a way of maintaining
capitalist rule,” Barnes said.
Fascist groups, which exist on the fringes at first, only get
financial and political backing from a significant section of the
bourgeoisie when the working class “puts up an increasingly serious
challenge to capitalist rule itself,” Barnes said.
In Germany and Italy the working class was unable to unify and
mobilize its allies to overthrow capitalism and take power because
of the betrayal by the Stalinist Communist Party and the reformist
Social Democrats.
In 1930 the Social Democratic Party received 8,577,700 votes and
the Communist Party 4,592,100 votes compared to 6,409,600 for the
Nazis.
If the Social Democrats and Communist Party had formed a united
front, if the trade unions they led had built workers defense
guards, if they were on a political course to lead the working
class to overthrow capitalist rule, they could have stopped fascism
on the road to power.
Instead, they did nothing to stand up to the fascist gangs and
Hitler came to power without a fight.
Workers paid the price of the Stalinist and Social Democratic
betrayal in blood. Millions of Jews and gypsies were sent to their
deaths in concentration camps. The unions were destroyed. The
working class was driven off the political stage.
Counterpunch’s Pollack says the election of Trump is “a forward
space in what I term a pre-fascist configuration, i.e., analogous
to Germany in 1938.” Hardly.
Trump surprised bourgeois politicians and pundits across the
political spectrum. He convinced a layer of workers that he was the
lesser evil compared to Clinton; not so hard to do given the
anti-working-class record of Bill and Hillary Clinton when they
occupied the White House.
Hillary Clinton helped Trump win by calling workers who were
considering a vote for him “deplorables” and “irredemables.”
That’s the same language many on the left still use today. Andrew
Levine, says in Counterpunch Feb. 3, that “Trump’s supporters fall
into three broad categories: dupes, deplorables, and opportunists.”
Levine says it’s “the lowlifes whose cages he [Trump] had rattled
and whose passions he had inflamed” that are the problem, showing
his scorn and fear of the working class.
In fact, Trump’s policies are a mix of steps designed to attract
working-class support, like his disdain for the government’s fake
unemployment figures and his call for infrastructure building and a
repair program to provide jobs, with demagogic nationalist rhetoric
that divides the working class. Like other bourgeois politicians he
seeks to shore up capitalism.
Facts don’t matter to the ‘left’
To those crying “fascist,” however, the facts don’t matter.
Workers World Party leader Larry Holmes, to take just one example,
said in a Jan. 29 speech, “Building the ‘Wall’ and this ban on
Muslims are fascist acts.”
Holmes leaves out that about 650 miles of the “wall” along the
U.S.-Mexico border has already been built, mostly by the
administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Does Holmes think
Clinton and Obama are fascists?
Labeling Trump a fascist, helps pave the way for resuscitating the
Democrats, the rulers’ other party, as the answer.
There is another danger in mislabeling Trump and his administration
as fascist. It disarms the working class politically for when
fascism really does raise its ugly head once again — as it
inevitably will when the ruling families see no other way to maintain
capitalism.
Communist workers don’t care which bourgeois candidate any
individual workers voted for — or didn’t — in the presidential
election. What working people need is to organize independently of
both capitalist parties.
Far from the political space for workers to discuss, debate and
fight having been smashed by fascist gangs, the field is wide open.
The Socialist Workers Party’s candidates take its revolutionary
program and win support on workers’ doorsteps in cities, towns and
the countryside, as well as on strike picket lines and social
protest actions.
We say the Socialist Workers Party is your party. What we do now in
building a revolutionary workers party will be decisive in the
years ahead.
Related articles:
Anarchist ‘black bloc’ politics pose threat to working class
Berkeley: Anarchists shut down speaker, attack workers Fascism
rises when capital must crush working class
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