Carl,
Well, I was talking about myself on one level, but on another level, I was
talking about society. I started thinking about this particular interchange
between us while I was taking a shower and I thought about how our society
really does de-value older people. I thought about Joe Biden in particular. Joe
Biden is obviously in bad shape. He has some kind of senility. But he is a
symbol to a lot of people of stability and the Democratic Party. So the
leadership of the Democratic Party is going to use him as a vehicle in order to
take over the government. They will use whatever tricks it takes in order to do
that. If he wins the election, they will do whatever they need to do in order
to manipulate him to attain their goals. The Republican Party has been doing
the same thing with Trump. These two incompetent old men are being used by,
what you and Roger would call, the ruling class. They did the same with Reagan
when he developed Alzheimer's. It didn't occur to anyone that he should be
removed from office on the basis of incompetence to fulfill his duties due to
illness. They just used him. Of course, they also use, what you and Roger call,
the working class, in order to attain their goals. But most old people are
useless, from the point of view of the ruling elites. We are only useful if we
have money to spend or if a way can be found to use us in order to make money.
That's the reason for the existence of nursing homes, facilitated living
institutions, retirement communities, and senior apartment buildings that
provide services. It's important to segregate us from the rest of society so
that everyone else can keep working fulltime.
If I want to encourage my paranoia, I could theorize that the encouragement of
the feminist movement at the beginning of the 70's, at the same time that
unionism was being discouraged and industries were becoming more financialized
and the right wing think tanks were gaining prominence and power, had to do
with encouraging the breakdown of the traditional family so we could move on to
the kind of hyper capitalism that we have now in which everyone works and pays
poor immigrants to care for their children and the elderly, whether at home, or
in various kinds of institutions.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2020 11:45 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Capitalism vs. Socialism
Hi Miriam,
It seemed to me that you were talking about yourself. Your value.
And I wanted you to know that you have been of value to me, in how I have
altered my thinking through both your posts and your personal observations.
As for what Society thinks about us Aged Warriors, Screw them! As long as I
feel that I have some value, I will simply give the world the Finger, and go
about my business of educating Carl Jarvis, and hopefully my efforts will help
some others see Life a bit differently.
So...thanks for being on this List, and sharing as best you are able.
Finally, if I had a magic carpet, and you were so inclined, I'd start a small
discussion group in some quiet, cozy NYC cafe. I'd invite Roger and Bob among
others...maybe good old Richard Wolff and Naomi Klein(not certain of spelling),
and we'd sip some cheap wine and eat popcorn and explore the reasons each of us
cannot convince all the others that we are the "right thinker". And then I'd
bundle up, hop aboard my Flying Carpet and head into the cold windy
night...with another bottle of cheap wine to warm my shivering body.
Carl Jarvis...I think I drank the last of our wine around Christmas
Time...2018...or was it 2017...
On 3/19/20, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
People are different. The individual you describe, did have value to
others, up to the very end. I am not providing help to anyone at all
except, perhaps, my younger daughter. But she is basically taking care
of me so it's an even swap. I'm not saying that old people aren't
valuable. I'm saying that society doesn't value us unless we are
working, either for remuneration or on a volunteer basis.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 8:15 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Capitalism vs. Socialism
Miriam,
I don't agree with your assessment. You do have value.
One of my real life heroes was a retired commercial photographer named
Edith Marty. Edith came from Chicago, retiring to Seattle to be near
her disabled daughter. In her spare time, Edith began arranging
drivers for transporting disabled people to and from appointments,
shopping, and social outings. She also began arranging readers for
blind students attending the University of Washington. There were
some 30 plus attending at the time. As time went by, Edith began to
slow down. First she dropped the arrangement of drivers, and later
she no longer was able to handle the reader schedule. Edith told me
that she was still walking to a nearby halfway house where she
counseled residents involved in drug rehab programs. The last time
Edith and I visited, she was unable to leave her bed. "It's not so
bad", she told me, "for a while I was able to visit face to face, but
that became too difficult so I began writing to them. Just little
notes of encouragement. But finally even writing has become impossible, so I
now call them up and chat with them, telephone counseling, sort of."
Edith had a special talent of turning the darkest day into a bright
sunny garden. A couple of months after that last visit, Edith Marty
died. The Columbia Funeral Home was overflowing with more than 100 of
Edith's friends.
That was over 45 years ago. I still am honored to have known Edith.
And I am equally honored to call you my favorite email friend. Please
continue as long as you're able, to share your points of view.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/18/20, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The real difference is that China, Cuba, and even Germany and Italy
are doing a hell of a lot better at dealing with this pandemic than
the US. Not only do we have a system which means that the wealthy,
the corporations, pharmaceutical companies, will benefit in a
thousand different ways from this crisis, but we have no system or
philosophy which puts the majority of people first. And we have a
president who wants to financially benefit, and for the US to
benefit, at the expense of everyone else. And we have a military
system and national security system that will use this crisis to
remove any freedom we have left. We've already lost our ability to vote for
a president.
And by the way, as they talk about the need to ration treatment
because of shortages of medical facilities, you and I are the people
they're planning to withhold treatment from. We're the most
vulnerable, but we are also, in their minds, the least expendable.
Actually, I am. I can barely function. I'm a drain on everyone's energy.
But you still have social value.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 4:44 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Capitalism vs. Socialism
So we're faced with a choice, American Corporate Empire, or American
Corporate Empire Light?
The Oligarchy offers only one choice, pick door #1 or door #2.
Either door bets a tiger. Door #3 is locked and the lady went home
for the duration.
We're stuck. And all the "blah blah blah" is only window dressing.
Some folks spend countless hours quibbling over gray shades, never
facing the truth that it's all the same. The same Ruling Oligarchy
will rake in the sucker's money and holler, "Step right up, ladies
and gents..." And the ladies and gents step right up.
Might as well pop a beer, grab some chips and settle down for another
Lose Lose election year...did I say "year"? This election "year" has
been around
30 months.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/18/20, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My problem with this very good argument is that it deals in
absolutes, in blacks and whites. It absolutely negates subtleties.
One can try arguing point by point, but it's useless. Capitalism
isn't just one monolithic thing. It has taken different forms and
how harmful it is, has depended on the form it has taken and how
much it is regulated.
The same goes for socialism. And each of these systems looks
different in different countries because cultural traditions vary
widely. If one's ideology blinds one to the differences between the
effects on average Americans of a Trump administration, versus what
they would have been under a Clinton administration, then we have no
basis of communication. I'm as angry at the Democratic Party
leadership as anyone could possibly be, and that includes Obama. I
am particularly aware that the parties differ less in foreign policy
than they do in domestic policy. And given the fact that New York,
because of the electoral college, will vote for Biden, regardless of
what I do, I can express my rage and disaffection by throwing away
my vote, by giving it to a candidate who stands for what I believe
in, who has no chance of winning, and who won't hurt a Democratic
victory. But given what I know about how Republicans choose judges,
about their record in terms of racism, economic choices, and
immigration, if I lived in a swing state, I'd vote for Biden and
then go home and vomit.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 11:14 AM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Capitalism vs. Socialism
https://socialistaction.org/2020/03/16/capitalism-vs-socialism/
Capitalism vs. Socialism
Socialist Action / 2 days ago
A critique of “lesser-evil” politics
By NICK BAKER
Right-wing columnist George Will recently wrote that in American
elections “the question is not whether elites shall rule, but which
elites shall, so the perennial political problem is to get popular
consent to worthy elites.”
This is the American capitalist electoral strategy in a nutshell,
stated openly in Will’s syndicated column published in hundreds of
newspapers. Over
100 years ago Russian revolutionary V.I. Lenin said that in a
capitalist democracy “the oppressed are allowed once every few years
to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class
shall represent and repress them in parliament.” George Will says
Lenin was right.
While the Democratic Party forces today coalesce to push former Vice
President Joe Biden to the fore, many—including most vociferously
Senator Bernie Sanders—are proclaiming the importance of backing
whomever emerges as the Democrat’s presidential candidate. Sanders
railing against the “billionaire class” and the “billionaire
Washington establishment”
notwithstanding, billionaire Michael Bloomberg was included in his
pledge!
In January, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Leslie Cagan, Norman
Solomon, and other prominent writers and activists published an open
letter to the Green Party denouncing its decision not to follow a
“safe state” strategy in the November election. Traditionally, the
Greens tell their supporters to vote Green in “safe states” that are
already guaranteed to go to either the Democrat or Republican, but
to vote Democrat in “contested states,” where votes for a Green
candidate could prevent the Democrat from beating the Republican.
The letter proclaims the “special danger of Trump” and chastises
Greens for the “price that millions and even billions of people will
pay for Trump winning” if they “spoil” it for the Democrats.
The writers say, “We are told, ‘Greens want to get Trump out as much
as anybody’ but how can that be if Greens would vote for a Green
candidate, and not for Sanders, Warren, or any Democrat in a
contested state knowing that doing so could mean Trump’s victory?”
[emphasis added]. I suppose you would call this “Trump-shaming.”
For Chomsky, this simply continues his election-year tradition of
telling people that the moral choice is to vote for the Democrat as
the “lesser evil.” In an interview on the Al Jazeera television
network’s show UpFront in January 2016, Chomsky said that this
strategy is “exactly what I’ve said in every previous election,”
when he announced that he would “absolutely”
vote for Hillary Clinton, already the presumptive nominee at that
time, against whoever became the Republican candidate.
When asked by the interviewer, Mehdi Hasan, to describe the
difference between Clinton and the yet-unsettled Republican nominee
of either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, Chomsky cited Cruz’s desire to
carpet bomb Syria and the horrors of carpet bombing. Clinton, who
throughout the campaign called for a massive increase in U.S. troops
and bombs in Syria and a “no-fly” zone (where only the U.S. could
fly), was therefore Noam Chomsky’s moral choice, apparently because
Clinton didn’t go as far as carpet bombing. When Donald Trump became
the Republican nominee, the New York Times ran an article saying
that of the two, it was Clinton who was the hawk on Syria, not Trump.
So long as the two parties of capitalism are not literally
identical, Chomsky says that you should vote for the “lesser evil,”
as he did in 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004, 2000!
The Left Sinks into the Bernie Campaign
Many on the left insist that Sanders is unlike Hillary Clinton,
Barack Obama and Bill Clinton – neoliberals who unfailingly
subordinated workers’
interests to capitalist profit.
But Bernie Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist. Some of his
supporters insist that he’s not a Democrat at all, claiming he’s an
“Independent.” Yet Sanders is financially backed by the Democratic
Party, is a prolific fundraiser for the Democratic Party, and a
member of the Senate Democratic Caucus. The Democratic Party has
prevented party members from running against “Independent” Bernie in
Vermont. An analysis of Sanders’s congressional votes done in the
90’s showed that he had a 95 percent Democratic Party voting
record—well above the 80% rating of the average Democrat at that time.
Sanders is a capitalist candidate full stop. As we demonstrated in
our earlier analysis of his campaign platform and deeds (See
“Anatomy of Bernie Sanders’ Socialism,” December 2019), his politics
are nothing more than warmed-over New Deal liberalism.
Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal, while a genuine improvement in
health care access for American workers, would do little more than
socialize the costs of health care while leaving in place the
private, for-profit hospitals and the extortionary pharmaceutical
monopolies where massive profits and price-gouging will remain the rule.
Sanders’ answers to a recent New York Times questionnaire are revealing.
Asked if he would “consider military force for a humanitarian
intervention”
[emphasis added], Sanders gave the answer of every ruling class
candidate:
“Yes.”
Claims of “humanitarian intervention” have been the ruling class
stock-in-trade in every imperialist war in history. The current U.S.
imperialist wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, are all wars
of “humanitarian intervention,” along with the U.S.’s attempted coup
and economic warfare in Venezuela, its embargo of Cuba, and its
endless threats against China, Iran, and North Korea. Obama
destroyed Libya on the basis of a “humanitarian intervention.” Going
back over
120 years, the U.S. has justified its invasions of Cuba, Haiti,
Korea, Vietnam, etc. on the basis of “humanitarian intervention.”
Sanders response to next NYT question, “Would you consider military
force to pre-empt an Iranian or North Korean nuclear or missile
test?, was similarly revealing.” Sanders answered “Yes” again.
Is the Sanders campaign a movement to build socialism?
Many Sanders supporters insist that his campaign can be the
beginning of a movement. We hear this more and more from the segment
of his supporters who identify as socialists and who state plainly
their belief that socialism is the only way to that goal, that is, a
just society ruled by the working masses in their own name and in
their own interests, for the benefit of all, not the profits of the few.
These “socialists” often acknowledge that Sanders himself is not
actually a socialist. But, they assert, his campaign is or can be
the beginning of a movement, inside the Democratic Party – or inside
the so-called leftwing of the Democratic Party – to build working
class power and eventually socialism in America.
In truth, Bernie Sanders is a capitalist politician operating in a
ruling class party tightly controlled by the ruling rich and always
operating in the interests of capitalism. It is the party that has
absorbed so many activists from the civil rights movement, the Black
liberation movement, the women’s liberation movement, the LGBTQI
liberation movement – turning those activists away from their
movement goals while often integrating them into the very structures
of the capitalist system.
That’s why the Democratic Party is known as the “graveyard of social
movements.” It aims and operates to take promising social movements
out of the streets and into the voting booth, into bourgeois
elections – the preferred arena of the ruling class where the
wealthy elite write the rules themselves and choose whether or not
to enforce them, according to whatever best serves their interests.
All roads inside the Democratic Party lead to the same place: the
continued domination of the capitalist exploiters.
Socialist supporters of Sanders will soon learn what the class line
means.
The Democratic Party is on one side of it and the interests of the
working class are on the other. There is no movement for working
class power that can be built alongside the exploiters of working
class labor. There is no socialist internationalism that can be
built inside the party of imperialist war. There is no
anti-capitalism in the party of billionaires. There is no revolution
in the party of the one percent.
If the Democrats ran Lenin himself, we wouldn’t vote for him.
Because the Democratic Party is an instrument of the ruling rich who
control it, fund it, guide its every move, and whose interests it
serves perfectly.
Socialism can only arise from independent organizations of the
working class, acting in its own interests. Vote Socialist Action in
2020! Join us!
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
