Carl,
I understand. Now if you'd just stop using the term, "working class" as if it
were a meaningful term, I'd be satisfied. I know what you mean. You mean in the
interests of a majority of Americans. That lovely Marxist term, "working
class", doesn't describe all the different kinds of people in terms of income,
education, ethnicity, race, and religion anymore than the word, "democracy",
describes the kind of political system we have. Ever since I've been dealing
with home health aides, the reality of who they are and who I am is brought
home to me and uncomfortable, miserable, hard reality, every day. They feel no
kinship with me and no one could convince them in a million years, that we have
the same interests. The same goes for you and home health workers or
agricultural workers or people working in slaughter houses. Yes, I know. We
both identify with the working class because my father was a skilled laborer in
a millinery factory and yours was, I can't remember what. But whatever our
fathers were or we were, in 2020, as much as we are not part of the wealthy
elites who run this country, neither are we the current working class. Now that
I've had my say, you are welcome to continue deluding yourself. (smile)
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 9:24 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Joe Biden's hatred of Palestinians echoes his
anti-Black racism
Miriam,
Where I'm at, is that the choices I have to select from will not be people who
care about my(working class)issues. Washington State has two fairly decent
Senators, and my Representative, Derek Kilmer, is fairly Progressive. But
without progressive leadership our government will continue drifting along,
playing footsie with Wall Street and the Billionaire Good Old Boys. Since I
was born and live in this nation, I will do, and have done, all I can to
protect and advance the Working Class. But I have no illusions. Even voting
for Bernie Sanders forced me to hold my nose and close my eyes to his Hawkish
Foreign Policies.
After so many years fighting the good fight to the best of my ability, I
understand that I will always be on the short end of the shaft.
Anyway, even though I will continue trying to assess the political scene, and
to work on behalf of working class Americans, and for a world that is free of
war and safe, I understand that there are far too many forces around me that
will never allow such a world to exist.
I'm not saying what I want to say, but I'm in a bit of a hurry.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/26/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
What does, "I have no dog in this political fight", mean? My point
is, you're voting for him because, in fact, you do. It matters to you
personally, and to your family, if Trump and the Republicans retain
control over this government.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 1:42 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Joe Biden's hatred of Palestinians
echoes his anti-Black racism
Two other things that will enable me to vote for Joe Biden. First, I
have no dog in this political fight, so I can vote for the lessor of two
idiots.
And secondly, I only need one hand to mark my ballot, so I can hold my
nose and vote at the same time.
Carl Jarvis
On 05/23/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I know. Didn't reading that article make you sick? After I read it,
it really took me a few minutes to recover. All these things that
people like Chris Hedges have said about voting for the lesser of two
evils ran through my head. And then I thought about Trump and the
Republicans and the Evangelical Christians and the white
nationalists, and the kinds of people he appoints, and his moves
toward nuclear war and the withdrawal of funds from the world health
organization. But any way you look at it, we're really ......
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2020 1:48 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Joe Biden's hatred of Palestinians
echoes his anti-Black racism
The only reason I will consider voting for Joe Biden is because a win
by Donald Trump will be the end of any hope of holding onto any
chance of moving toward a democracy.
Carl Jarvis, trudging down the dusty road that leads to the Poor Farm.
On 5/23/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Joe Biden's hatred of Palestinians echoes his anti-Black racism Ali
Abunimah Power Suits 22 May 2020 Man at podium looks straight ahead
Joe Biden's platform is an Israel lobby wish list. (Gage Skidmore)
Joe Biden has released his plan for Palestinians and Israelis.
Interestingly it is not in his campaign website's foreign policy
section, but falls under the title "Joe Biden and the Jewish Community."
This is a clear indication that he views the matter as one of
domestic political pandering, without the normal pretense that it is
about pursuing "peace" or "US interests."
It is also evidence that Biden holds the anti-Semitic belief that
American Jews are, or should be, primarily concerned about Israel,
something Donald Trump has been castigated for in recent years by
the liberal press.
The webpage mentions Israel 21 times! It reads as an Israel lobby
wish list of anti-Palestinian and anti-Iran policies - and that's
precisely what it is.
Amid promises to support practically any hardline pro-Israel policy
you can think of, there is only a passing reference to a "two-state
outcome," and it makes no mention of Palestinian rights - standard,
tedious fare for mainstream American politicians.
But one line in particular stands out - the former vice president's
attack on the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for
Palestinian rights.
"Welfare queens"
Biden pledges to "Firmly reject the BDS movement, which singles out
Israel
-
home to millions of Jews - and too often veers into anti-Semitism,
while letting Palestinians off the hook for their choices."
Choices? Did Palestinians choose to be expelled from their homeland
by Zionist militias in 1947 and 1948?
Have they chosen to live under Israeli military occupation and siege
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967?
Have Palestinians chosen to have their land confiscated and their
homes demolished, while Israeli soldiers and settlers kill their
children so that Israel can build colonies on their land?
It is striking how the liberal language of "choice" deployed against
Palestinians internationally closely echoes the justifications used
domestically since the Reagan era to support mass incarceration and
to attack social safety nets that supported poor, particularly Black
communities.
In this framework, the poverty of those with the least power is
always a result of their own moral failings - a resurrection of
Victorian notions of the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor.
Beginning with his 1976 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan
notoriously embellished a single extreme case of a Chicago woman who
had defrauded public assistance programs to create the enduring
racial stereotype of the "welfare queen."
As writer Josh Levin notes, this "vicious, baseless caricature
demonized some of the nation's most vulnerable people, laying the
groundwork for bipartisan welfare reforms that slashed direct aid to
the poor."
Biden eagerly took it up himself: In the late 1980s, he admitted
there may be no truth to the narrative of "welfare mothers driving
luxury cars," but nonetheless deployed it to justify his support for
Reagan's cuts.
The underlying logic was that it wasn't an American system built on
centuries of genocide, enslavement of Black people, segregation and
rampant capitalism that created and entrenched poverty and
inequality, but bad "choices" by individuals who now had to be
forced by a punitive state to take "personal responsibility."
A perfect encapsulation of this approach was the Clinton
administration's "welfare reform" law of 1996, which resulted in an
increase in extreme
poverty: It was named the "Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act."
As a senator, Biden, of course, voted for that law - a decision he's
unwilling to defend today.
Biden will keep Trump's policies
Yet the "welfare reform" approach remains alive and well in Biden's
plan for Palestinians.
He says he would "reverse" the Trump administration's cuts of
humanitarian and "security" aid to Palestinians, but only subject to
requirements that the Palestinian Authority "is taking measures to
end acts of violence against Israeli and US citizens, including
terminating payments to individuals engaged in acts of terrorism."
Palestinians, like young Black Americans, are always the ones cast
as superpredators.
Palestinians must jump through endless hoops, whose height is always
set by Israel and its lobby, according to their own interests and
definitions.
Incidentally, aid cuts are the only policy Biden says he will reverse.
He is totally silent about Trump's decisions to recognize Israel's
illegal annexation of Syria's occupied Golan Heights and of East
Jerusalem, his move of the US embassy, as well as Trump's
declaration that Israel's settlements in the West Bank are legal.
Biden's proposals include no word of opposition to the new Israeli
government's plans to annex even more of the West Bank.
And he pledges to continue the record levels of military aid the
Obama-Biden administration gave Israel in order to ensure - no
strings attached - that "Israel will always maintain its qualitative
military edge."
Unlike the punishment meted out to Palestinians, who have had no
choice in being colonized by Israel, Israel will not be held
responsible for its bad choices, but will continuously be rewarded
for them.
Mass incarceration
The same punitive logic underlies the system of mass incarceration
targeting Black communities described by Michelle Alexander in her
landmark 2010 book The New Jim Crow.
In the wake of the civil rights movement, Biden joined forces with
segregationist senators to prevent Black students from joining their
white counterparts in the nation's classrooms.
And Biden has notoriously bragged about his role in helping put many
of those young Black people behind bars.
"The truth is," Biden declared in 1993, "every major crime bill
since
1976 that's come out of this Congress, every minor crime bill, has
had the name of the Democratic senator from the State of Delaware:
Joe Biden."
The Delaware senator was also one of the chief proponents of the
1994 Bill Clinton crime bill that further increased racialized mass
incarceration.
Biden had warned that it was needed to deal with "predators on our
streets"
who were "beyond the pale."
Obama-Biden administration's racism
One of Biden's chief selling points is his role as President Barack
Obama's vice president. But far from representing a break with his
racist past, it provided an opportunity for its continuation, with
respectable cover.
After all, Obama himself eagerly adopted Reagan-era racist tropes in
order to attack Black communities.
For instance, in a 2013 commencement speech at Morehouse College, a
historically Black institution, Obama admonished the graduating
students that "too many young men in our community continue to make
bad choices."
"Taking the full measure of the Obama presidency thus far, it is
hard to avoid the conclusion that this White House has one way of
addressing the social ills that afflict Black people - and
particularly Black youth - and another way of addressing everyone
else," Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates observed at the time.
"I would have a hard time imagining the president telling the women
of Barnard [College] that - there's no longer room for any excuses -
as though they were in the business of making them."
In a speech the same year marking 50 years since the 1963 March on
Washington led by Martin Luther King, Jr., Obama, "resurrect[ed]
Ronald Reagan's phantom armies of 'Welfare Queens,'" as Black Agenda
Report's Glen Ford put it.
Biden now purports to have disavowed some of his anti-Black racism -
though there is little reason to believe that he would fundamentally
change after a career spent promoting right-wing policies.
(Indeed, last year, Biden reassured rich donors that if he is
elected president, "No one's standard of living would change.
Nothing would fundamentally change.")
Similarly, when it comes to Palestinians, the bigotry remains fully
intact, both in rhetoric and in substance.
In reality it is Israel, which subjects millions of Palestinians to
brutal oppression, that is allowed to do as it pleases while living
large off the American taxpayer.
Meanwhile, Palestinians, corralled in bantustans and ghettos, and
habitually bombed by Israel and murdered by its snipers, are
admonished for their poor "choices."
