Carl,
I'm so sorry that Dorothy had such a sad, long period of dying and I can only
try to imagine how difficult this year has been for all of you. It must be such
a relief that it is over. The death of human beings when they are aged and
suffering is so hard for us to deal with because euthanasia is such a complex
and frightening prospect for us to consider. Its misapplication can be so
drastic. But I often think that we are kinder to the pets we love, than to the
human beings whom we love.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2019 9:42 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Clueless and Shameless: Joe Biden, Staggering
Frontrunner
Miriam,
I was responding to Richard's remarks when he wrote: "We must make a effort to
not over complicate our comments and over simplify them at the same time."
And I have no idea of what Richard was talking about, or why I wrote what I did.
By the way, Cathy's mother died this past Wednesday. She was 28 days shy of
her 93RD birthday. We could see her slipping each time we visited her. Our
last two trips prior to Wednesday were not visits in the sense that we
interacted with her. She could barely whisper, and her speech was so garbled
that it made no sense. Wednesday we found her unable to respond to our words
or our touch. Cathy tried to have her mother squeeze her hand, but with no
success. It was last July 17, Dorothy's 92ND birthday, when Cathy found her in
her apartment, disoriented and unable to make sense, verbally. The doctor told
us that the extent of the stroke was so vast that she would not live beyond
three days. At the end of the third day, he said she might live another three
weeks. While she did seem to rally some, she never was able to walk, even with
a walker. She had no use of her right side, which made eating difficult. She
could say a few words clearly, but most of what she said was garbled.
It's been a long, hard 11 months for Dorothy. She was unable to turn over in
bed without assistance. She could not remember what the Call Button was, or
the TV remote. And it was a hard 11 months for Cathy and her sister
Marlene...and for me, too.
It was a good thing we'd decided to work only part time this past year, since
we spent a good 5 hours each time we drove to Bremerton to visit Dorothy and to
make certain that she was receiving good care.
Cathy and Marlene each went every other day. This meant three or four days
each week. And mostly, when Cathy headed out I was riding shotgun. Once the
dust has settled and everyone has headed home, we'll probably wonder how we
suddenly have so much time on our hands.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/22/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
What did he say?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2019 12:43 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Clueless and Shameless: Joe Biden,
Staggering Frontrunner
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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