And, Richard, you have done a magnificent job, if I do say so myself.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/22/19, R. E. Driscoll Sr <llocsirdsr@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Comment: We must make a effort to not over complicate our comments and over
simplify them at the same time.
A difficult process for most people.
Richard Driscoll
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 21, 2019, at 8:21 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
OK. So I got the term wrong. But my idea was right. The view is
mechanistic. All these labels and definitions that are so important to
you, are not important to most of us. We don't think the way you do. We
don't understand all the terms, nor are we so literal. But instead of
fighting with me because I got the words wrong, try to understand the
general thought behind it. Your view is a mechanistic view of history as
economic class struggle and it is not the way in which I conceptualize the
world or human nature or history. But I certainly do see class struggle as
part of the whole.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2019 9:30 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Clueless and Shameless: Joe Biden,
Staggering Frontrunner
Miriam wrote: "I suspect that what you are referring to, is a very
mechanistic formula of economic theory like, "dialectic materialism"
How many times have I explained dialectical materialism on this list? Not
as many times as I have explained concepts like class relations, but I
have still explained it more than one time and you still do not seem to
understand what it is. First, dialectical materialism is not an economic
theory. It is not a theory at all. It is a philosophical framework
presented to understand the dynamic nature of the universe. It concerns
itself with the unity of contradictions. It is true that it applies to
economic theory just as much as it applies to anything else, but before it
can be used in economic theory the dialectical relationships have to be
identified. Second, calling dialectical materialism mechanistic shows not
only a very fundamental failure to understand the concept, but it shows a
failure to understand the polemics of the debate that originated it.
Materialism is the view of the universe without appeals to the
supernatural to explain it. Some antiquated materialist concepts have been
identified as materialism itself, specifically mechanical materialism.
That is the view of the universe as a clockwork universe with a specific
mechanical event causing every other event which causes another event
until all events have occurred. Dialectical materialism denied that over
simplistic view of the universe. It gave the view of the universe that
allowed for a constantly dynamic universe without the necessity of falling
back on mechanics or the supernatural either. Calling dialectical
materialism mechanistic is like calling a spacecraft a submarine. This
reminds me of a conversation I once had in a bar. Somehow the subject of
materialism came up. The other person said that he was completely aware of
what materialism was and so I started talking about some of the
implications. I was not even talking about dialectics. Soon it became
apparent that my conversational partner thought that materialism meant
something that might be better called consumerism or acquisitiveness. That
had nothing to do with what I was talking about. So I started trying to
explain what kind of materialism I was talking about. No matter what I
said he persisted to assume that I was talking about the desire for
expensive consumer items. Finally someone who had been just sitting there
listening said, "You two are on entirely different wavelengths." Miriam, I
am suspecting that is how you and I can be described. We are on entirely
different wavelengths. I am talking about one thing and you respond to me
with the assumption that I am talking about something and you go ahead and
talk about that something else as if I had been talking about it. ---
Carl Sagan
“ Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. ”
― Carl Sagan
On 6/21/2019 5:27 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Roger,
You say that if we talk about economic classes, we must name them and
then you give them names like national bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, petty
bourgeoisie, proletariat, lumpen proletariat labor aristocra
peasantry, proletarianized peasantry and so forth. These are simply
names that describe classes in a capitalist economic system
Those are names that Marx gave them back in what year? In what country?
Even if I chose to think about contemporary issues only in terms of
economic class, as if no other variables influenced what is happening in
today's world, there is no rule that says that I must use those names.
Those names are not relevant to America in 2019, not as far as I'm
concerned. And I haven't heard any current Marxist economists use them
either. Not that they may not have used them as they were learning
Marxist theory, but if they want to communicate with their fellow
Americans, they need to use language and concepts that feel relevant to
people's everyday lives.
You write about how class can be used to understand people's economic
situation. You said, The categories of what is commonly called class is
there to let us know what economic role people play in economic relations
and how they relate to each other on an economic basis. Ethnicity,
religion or even the specific job one performs are mostly irrelevant to
this.
I cannot imagine how it is relevant to talk about people's financial
situations, about who has more privileges or more power, about who ends
up homeless or incarcerated, without taking ethnicity, race, religion,
and personal psychology into account. I suspect that what you are
referring to, is a very mechanistic formula of economic theory like,
"dialectic materialism" or some other economic theory, the reverse side
of market theory, which doesn't take real people and their thoughts,
feelings, or motivations into account.
In fact, one of the criticisms made of Bernie Sanders by some of his
detractors on the left, is that he doesn't talk enough about how race
impacts people's economic situation. I don't agree with that particular
criticism of him, but I do think that one can't look at class status in
the United States without analyzing the impact of race, religion, and
ethnicity on just who is a member of which economic class.
We also have, in this country wide differences in philosophical
viewpoints regarding religion, sexuality, and civil liberties and this
divergence of viewpoint exists among the very wealthy. So although in
some ways George Soros and the Koch brothers have similar self interests,
in other ways, they use their money in very different ways when it comes
to influenceing events.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2019 3:24 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Miriam Vieni
<miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Clueless and Shameless: Joe Biden,
Staggering Frontrunner
Okay, you are getting into some of those quibbles that I alluded to that
I have with what Carl had to say, but your quibbles come from an entirely
different perspective. I will have to agree that it is over simplistic to
divide everyone into two classes, the ruling class and the working class.
However, this talk about different ethnicities, religions and things like
that does not even address the whole point of dividing people into
classes at all. In some contexts the word class means category and that
is what you seem to be talking about. You can divide people according to
their ethnicity. You can divide people according to whatever shade their
skins are. You can divide people according to whether they prefer to play
chess or checkers. But if you divide people by any of those criteria or
any of the vast number of criteria available for you to divide them by
you have to ask the question of why are you dividing them. Any such
division you come up with may very well have some usefulness in some
study or endeavor like psychology, sociology marketing studies or
whatever, but you are still talking about categories as opposed to class.
Okay, dividing people into classes is categorical too, but the purpose of
doing so will not be the same as dividing people into the categories of
people who stand under five feet and people who stand over five feet. The
categories of what is commonly called class is there to let us know what
economic role people play in economic relations and how they relate to
each other on an economic basis. Ethnicity, religion or even the specific
job one performs are mostly irrelevant to this. As I have said before,
you can be either a lumper or a splitter and varying degrees of lumping
or splitting may be more or less appropriate for whatever you are doing
with your categories. You could pick out at random any two people from
the human population of the earth and compare them and find that one or
the other has some advantage over the other with some amount of greater
power or privilege, but to what purpose would you be making that
comparison? The only thing I can think of is that you might be studying
individual psychology, but that doesn't have much to do with what is
ordinarily meant when the word class is used. This comparison of just one
person to another, though, is an extreme example of splitting. What Carl
has explicated, though, is an extreme example of lumping. Okay, there is
the ruling class. They are called the ruling class because they rule.
They control how the economic system is conducted and they have life and
death power over a lot of people. However, there are other people who
have a lot of power too who are not quite as powerful as the ruling
class. Their own lives may be subordinate to the ruling class, but they
still have a high degree of privilege and they maintain that privilege by
implementing ruling class directives and by making their own directives
when not directly implementing ruling class directives. You have powerful
people who own the biggest manufacturing companies and who control those
companies. You have other powerful people who manage the transfer of
money who are the bankers. Below those kinds of people you have managers
of various levels and owners of smaller companies. You have company
owners who not only own and so implement their own power, but who also
perform productive labor themselves. Then you also have people who make
their living only from productive labor. Other people perform
agricultural labor for a wage or perform agricultural labor while owning
the farm where they work. Then you have a reserve of unemployed people
who are maintained to keep the price of labor from being bid up so high
that the owners would fail to make a profit after paying wages. Among
those unemployed are a layer who have to resort to criminal activity to
make a living and may become professional criminals. There are a lot of
other gradations too and it has very little to do with their ethnicity,
religion or other characteristics that you mention. But my point in
mentioning all of these layers in the economic system is to illustrate
just how over simplistic Carl's division is. There are a lot of classes
other than the ruling class and the working class and just how far you
are going to split or lump them depends on what you happen to be doing
with the information. Now, let me add what I have been avoiding so far.
These various classes have names.
If you are going to talk about anything and have it make sense you have
to give it a name. Oh, I suppose you could describe it every time you
mention it, but that would be very unwieldy. I know, Miriam, that you
don't like it when I put a name to these classes, but they have to be
named in order to make sense of what is being talked about. When someone
calls classes by their names it does not mean that there is an attempt to
make you think in a certain way. It does not mean that you are being
looked down on. It does not mean that anyone is dismissing your own
cultural perspective. It does not mean that you are being personally
attacked or however you see it. It only means that the person who uses
those names is calling something by its name. The names of those classes
include names like national bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie,
proletariat, lumpen proletariat labor aristocracy, peasantry,
proletarianized peasantry and so forth. These are simply names that
describe classes in a capitalist economic system and the names were never
given to any of these classes to offend you or anybody else. And if we
only call the class divisions ruling class and working class we just
cannot talk about the ways these varying classes effect and relate to
each other.
---
Carl Sagan
“ Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. ”
― Carl Sagan
On 6/21/2019 9:25 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
My feeling is that you can't just lump everyone together in, "the
working class". People have different levels of education, come from
different ethnic and racial and religious backgrounds, do very different
kinds of work, have very different kinds of life styles, and most
importantly, have very different views of who they are and what their
place is in this world. You're talking about power and it's true that
you don't have any more power than the people with no education or who
struggle to make a living for their children. That is, you don't have
any more power to influence whether or not we have war or peace, or
whether or not we get a single payer health system. But you do have
enough power so that you will be treated with more consideration by
business people, politicians, and police officers. To me, for people
like us to say that there's no difference between us and migrant workers
or fast food workers or Walmart employees, is to trivialize the kinds of
problems that those working class people have. You're not one of them.
They know it and you know it.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2019 10:11 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Clueless and Shameless: Joe Biden,
Staggering Frontrunner
With all due respect, I continue to consider all of us who are not
members in good standing of the Ruling Class, to be members of the
Working Class. Unless we are homeless or chronically unemployed, which
would put us in the Lower Class.
Middle implies halfway between something and something else. In the
economic structure of the American Empire, there is no "Middle"
anything.
My wife and I earned, back in the early 1990's, a bit over $100,000
per year between us. So $100,000 would put us mid way between
$000,000 and $200,000. But in order to be midway between $000,000,000
and $100,000,000, we would need to come in around $50,000,000.
Middle Class is just another make believe term that soothes the Soul,
but means absolutely nothing.
But hey! All of the rest of you can call it anything you want, because
the fact of the matter is that all of us who are not members in good
standing in the Ruling Class are owned by one or more members of that
Ruling Class.
Remember, when you get set to disagree, a Monkey on a golden chain is
just as much of a prisoner as a Monkey on an Iron chain.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/20/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Clueless and Shameless: Joe Biden, Staggering Frontrunner By Norman
Solomon, Reader Supported News
20 June 19
Joe Biden just put a spotlight on his mindset when he explicitly
refused to apologize for fondly recalling how the Senate "got things
done" with "civility" as he worked alongside some of the leading
racist lawmakers of the 20th century. For Biden, the personal is the
political; he knows that he's virtuous, and that should be more than
good enough for African Americans, for women, for anyone.
"There's not a racist bone in my body," Biden exclaimed Wednesday
night, moments after demanding: "Apologize for what?" His deep
paternalism surfaced during the angry outburst as he declared: "I've
been involved in civil rights my whole career, period, period,
period."
Biden has been "involved" in civil rights his "whole career" all
right. But at some crucial junctures, he was on the wrong side. He
teamed up with segregationist senators to oppose busing for school
desegregation in the 1970s. And he played a leading role - while
pandering to racism with a shameful Senate floor speech - for
passage of the infamous 1994 crime bill that fueled mass
incarceration.
Such aspects of Biden's record provide context for his comments this
week - praising an era of productive "civility" with the virulent
segregationist Dixiecrat senators Herman Talmadge of Georgia and
James Eastland of Mississippi (known as the "Voice of the White
South"), who often called black people "an inferior race."
Said Biden at a New York fundraiser Tuesday night: "Well guess what?
At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn't
agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished."
To Biden, any assessment of his past conduct that clashes with his
high self-regard is unfair; after all, he really means well. On the
campaign trail now, his cloying paternalism is as evident as his
affinity for wealthy donors.
Biden shuttles between the billionaire class and the working class -
funded by the rich while justifying the rich to everyone else. His
aspirations are bound up in notions of himself as comforter-in-chief.
"I get it, I get it," Biden said during his brief and self-adulatory
non-apology video in early April to quiet the uproar over his
invasive touching of women and girls. He was actually saying: I get
it that I need to seem to get it.
"I want to talk about gestures of support and encouragement that
I've made to women and some men that have made them uncomfortable,"
Biden said in the video. "In my career I've always tried to make a
human connection - that's my responsibility, I think. I shake hands,
I hug people, I grab men and women by the shoulders and say, 'You
can do this' . It's the way I've always been. It's the way I've
tried to show I care about them and I'm listening."
Weeks later, appearing on ABC's "The View," he declared: "I have
never in my life, never, done anything in approaching a woman that
has been other than trying to bring solace." It was not a credible
claim; consider Lucy Flores, or the countless other women and girls
he has intrusively touched over the years.
For several decades, Biden has made his way through the political
terrain as a reflexive glad-hander. But times have changed a lot
more than he has.
"What the American people do not know yet is whether Biden has
actually internalized any of the blowback he's earned over the years
for his treatment of women," journalist Joe Berkowitz wrote last week.
"So far, it's not looking good."
What's also looking grim is Biden's brazen adoration of wealthy
elites who feed on corporate power. His approach is to split the
rhetorical difference between the wealthy and the workers. And so,
days ago, at a fundraiser filled with almost 180 donors giving his
campaign the legal limit of $2,800 each - an event where he tried
and failed to get funding from a pro-Trump billionaire - Biden
declared:
"You know, you guys are great but Wall Street didn't build America.
You guys are incredibly important but you didn't build America.
Ordinary, hard-working, middle-class people given half the chance is
what built America."
The formula boils down to throwing the "hard-working middle class"
some rhetorical bones while continuing to service "you guys" on Wall
Street.
Given his desire to merely revert the country to pre-Trump days, no
wonder Biden keeps saying that a good future can stem from finding
common ground with Republicans. But for people who understand the
present-day GOP and really want a decent society, Biden's claims are
delusional.
Biden sees his public roles of winking patriarch, civility toward
racists, and collaborator with oligarchs as a winning political
combination. But if he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee,
Biden will suppress turnout from the party's base while providing
Republicans with plenty of effective (albeit hypocritical) fodder.
Already the conservative press is salivating over the transparently
fraudulent pretenses of Lunch Bucket Joe, as in this headline
Tuesday in the right-wing Washington Examiner: "Biden Rubs Elbows With
Billionaires in $34M Penthouse."
When Bernie Sanders (who I continue to actively support) denounces
the political power of billionaires and repeats his 2020 campaign
motto - "Not Me. Us." - it rings true, consistent with his
decades-long record. But Biden can't outrun his own record, which is
enmeshed in his ongoing mentality.
And
so, the former vice president is in a race between his pleasant
image and unpleasant reality.
As the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe
Biden is the biggest threat to Joe Biden's political future. He
continues to be who he has been, and that's the toxic problem.
Email This Page
Norman Solomon is cofounder and national coordinator of
RootsAction.org. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to
the 2016 Democratic National Convention and is currently a
coordinator of the relaunched independent Bernie Delegates Network.
Solomon is the author of a dozen books including War Made Easy: How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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