Miriam:
In my almost 90 years of searching and looking and questioning and
posing various and sundry theories I have not, as yet, found the
exceptions or the rule that is proven.
I am still actively searching. Have no idea of how much time I have left.
R. E. (Dick) Driscoll, Sr.
On 11/15/2015 10:58 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I don't think that most people understand the trans gender issue, and their
opinions regarding it certainly don't relate to their concerns about their
economic situation. I can also see how people might respond positively to a
one on one discussion about capitalism when an organizer comes to their
door. But I'm not sure that this kind of rational approach can compete with
the constant barrage of misinformation from the mass media. And, of course,
often they don't see any immediate reward because the SWP or any other
alternative party, seldom gets enough votes to actually win an office. I
know, that there are exceptions to prove the rule.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2015 11:15 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Do 2015 election results show workers moving to
the right?
http://themilitant.com/2015/7942/794253.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 42 November 23, 2015
(commentary)
Do 2015 election results show workers moving to the right?
BY SETH GALINSKY
Are workers who are Caucasian becoming more conservative? Do the off-year
elections show a rightward shift in U.S. politics? Or are working people
beginning to look for alternatives to crisis-ridden capitalism, including by
showing interest in the 2015 Socialist Workers Party election campaigns?
"From Coast to Coast, Conservatives Score Huge Victories in Off-Year
Elections," read the headline of a Nov. 4 article in the Washington Post.
This was typical of others in several liberal and conservative publications
that claim this year's mid-term election marked a big shift.
Those articles point to the defeat of Houston's Equal Rights Ordinance and
to a few races where Republicans defeated Democratic Party candidates -
mostly ignoring other races where Democrats defeated Republicans - to make
their case. In fact nationwide there was little change in the number of
Democrats or Republicans who won office in this round.
It's worth looking at the vote on the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance - which
would have extended nondiscrimination laws to gay and transgender people -
to see how far off this analysis is. The ordinance went down to a crushing
defeat with 61 percent voting no.
But the vote had nothing to do with alleged reactionary views of workers or
a retreat in the overwhelming sentiment against prejudice and unequal
treatment based on an individual's gender or sexual orientation.
Instead, the liberal and petty-bourgeois radical supporters of "political
correctness" sank the proposed law by including in the initial version of
the bill a clause - later deleted - that said no business open to the public
could deny a transgender person entry to a restroom consistent with their
self-proclaimed gender identity.
Conservative opponents of the law took advantage of this to attack the bill,
including by printing signs proclaiming "No Men in Women's Restrooms" that
were prominent in working-class and other neighborhoods around the city.
The defeat of the bill was aided by the Nov. 2 decision of the U.S.
Department of Education that a transgender student in Illinois had the right
to use female restrooms and locker rooms.
"I got three daughters," Houston city worker Todd Ward told the New York
Times. "There's not an equal right for me to go into a women's bathroom.
That's common sense."
Several articles in the Wall Street Journal, including one Nov. 6 headlined
"Has the World Lost Faith in Capitalism?" get a little closer to what's
happening in U.S. politics today.
To the consternation of the Journal, a "survey found that 55% of Americans
think the 'rich get richer' and the 'poor get poorer' under capitalism.
Sixty-five percent agree that most big businesses have 'dodged taxes,
damaged the environment or bought special favors from politicians.'"
The article reports on a poll in seven countries - the U.S., Thailand,
India, Indonesia, Brazil, the U.K. and Germany - that also shows that people
in the U.S. are "gloomiest about the future. It is new-world America, where
only 14% of those surveyed think that life will be better for their
children, and 52% disagree."
The liberal capitalist Post comes at the question from a different angle. A
Nov. 4 article by Harold Meyerson cites a recent study by Princeton
economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case that reports the number of deaths by
suicide, alcohol use and drug use "among working-class whites ages 45 to 54
has risen precipitously since 1999 - so precipitously that their overall
death rate . increased by 22 percent."
The Post blames the rise on the "disintegration of the working-class white
family." The paper notes that "the share of blue-collar jobs in the U.S.
economy declined from 28 percent in 1970 to 17 percent in 2010," while
downplaying the depression conditions that millions of workers in the U.S.
are facing.
"This helped fuel a racial and nativist backlash that has driven much of the
white working class (particularly in the South) into Republican ranks," the
Post asserts. In the eyes of the Post, these so-called uneducated,
alcoholic, drug-saddled workers are the principal reason behind Donald
Trump's success in the presidential race so far.
Interest in Socialist Workers Party
Socialist Workers Party candidates for mayor and City Council in
Philadelphia and for port commissioner in Seattle have found that workers
who are Caucasian - just like the rest of the working class - are being
battered by the capitalist economic crisis, including high unemployment and
the slashing of wages and benefits over the last several decades. Workers -
whatever their ethnicity - looking for radical solutions are often attracted
to Trump and other candidates who profess to tell it like it is or who rail
against "crony capitalism."
Backers of the Socialist Workers Party have won a hearing at several Trump
rallies from working people when they explain the problem is not "crony"
capitalism, but capitalism period. Workers at those rallies were open to
considering the working-class alternative to the Democrats and Republicans,
including the SWP's opposition to Trump's program of deporting immigrant
workers. Workers need to join together in a common struggle, no matter where
they were born, to fight for raising the minimum wage and for organizing the
unorganized into unions, the SWP candidates say, on the road to building a
revolutionary movement capable of taking power out of the hands of the
capitalist class.
Going door to door in working-class neighborhoods, communist workers have
gotten a good response to their Marxist explanation of the capitalist
crisis; the need for working people to organize independently of the
capitalist parties and to fight for a labor party based on the unions; and
the importance of solidarity with the struggles of working people and the
oppressed around the world.
Related articles:
SWP campaign in Philadelphia: 'We won because we built the party'
Join defense of SWP exemption from disclosing campaign donors
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