It is a devastating world. They are ruthless. The news is disheartening. I
listened to a working man, a black organizer, talking about how what was wrong
with the Ssanders' campaign and the other campaigns was that the organizing was
ssegregated, black organizers for black communities, white organizers for white
communities. Amd a memory floated back to me of a meeting I attended after
King's assassination during which black speakers berated the white audience for
trying to control black civil rights organizations. "You don't need to come and
talk to us. We'll do our own organizing. Go talk to your own communities about
racism". And in 2017, here was this man saying to the young white radicals who
agreed with him, "When I knock on a door, I'm representing a political
position. It doesn't matter what race I am" Seems like when things are tough,
people on the left turn on each other and scapegoat each other for using the
wrong methods or having the wrong attitudes.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2017 10:23 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: NY subway derailment shows crisis of capitalism
All that is true, Miriam, but for my part the great tragedy is the relentless
conditioning through the Empire's Media, that distorts truth and creates a
false reality for the Working Class.
I remember reading in my school history book about how the clever European
settlers traded some bobbles and bright shiny beads to the Indigenous People,
for Manhattan Island. What stupid or at least simple minded Souls, I thought.
We, meaning my classmates, are far to smart to fall for that sort of trickery.
And here we are!
At least the Indians took their bobbles and bright shiny beads and didn't have
to give them back. When I look about me and see all of my possessions I
realize that anything I believe I own can be taken from me by one means or
another, including my most valued possession, my Freedom.
The day came when my pastor said, "Either you give your life to God and Jesus
Christ, or the Devil will take control." I said, "Well then I will take
control of my own destiny," and I walked away from all religion. What a fool!
Not for waking up to the silliness of the Church, but rather, to the belief
that I could be in charge of my own destiny.
Today I live in a make believe land of Capitalism, and as I said, everything I
possess can be snatched away at a moments notice. My pensions can be taken,
and so can Cathy's. Our home can be foreclosed. Every stick of furniture
could be held, and we could be sent into the streets. And no one would care.
That's the future facing working class men and women. Unless they manage to
die before the final economic curtain falls.
I remember reading in my school books about how those silly Commies were brain
washed by the Soviet Union. And every word I read was one more bit of Brain
Washing by the growing American Empire.
If what we see around us is, The Free World, then maybe there really is a Devil.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/9/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's easy for the billionaires to be organized. They pay lawyers and
lobbyists to do the organizing and pressuring for them. They don't
have to take time out from a busy day to pressure government entities
and they don't have to worry about being arrested for their organizing
actions.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2017 11:12 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: NY subway derailment shows crisis of
capitalism
Let's see, when was the last time I boarded a public transit bus in
Seattle and sat down next to a billionaire? When was the last time I
stood in a long line at SeaTac airport, waiting to board a flight that
was delayed or cancelled, and discovered that the angry fellow in
front of me was Bill Gates? When was the last time we sat in miles
long lines on highway 3, waiting in the heat of a summers day while
the Hood Canal Floating Bridge remained open so our nuclear subs could
play at their war game maneuvers, only to discover that the car beside
us contained a hot, sweaty billionaire?
The fact is that the Ruling Class does not need such public services.
They are transported privately and without delay. They live the "Life
of Riley", that mythical world which the rest of us only dream about.
Even worse, as they zip past us in their private planes or choppers,
they look down on our struggles with contempt. And here's the really
weird thing about it all, they are highly organized, even while debunking
labor unions.
And weirdest of all is that too many of our working class brothers and
sisters have been brain washed into believing the Ruling Class
Propaganda that Unions are Evil and Socialistic, and that "real true blue
Americans"
take care of themselves. They still buy the "rugged individual"
mentality that helped bust up or weaken our nation's once strong labor unions.
Between struggling to survive, or attempting to escape the reality of
a dead end life, working class Americans have little time to think
about how they came to be in this vice.
Too bad. If we can't take time to plan how to take control of our own
fate, the only recourse will be a violent uprising. When that takes
place, the result will follow the historical pattern. Angry people
setting to the task of dismantling the world of the Ruling Class, and
setting conditions for the takeover by a new, and often an even more cruel
Tyrant.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/9/17, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2017/8126/812601.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 26 July 17, 2017
(lead article, Socialist Workers Party statement)
NY subway derailment shows crisis of capitalism
Expand public transit, fight for workers power!
TWU Local 100
Transport Workers Union Local 100 members repairing track after June
27 train derailment. Government-run MTA has cut back on maintenance,
safety, comfort throughout system
The following statement was issued July 5, by Osborne Hart,
Socialist Workers Party candidate for New York City mayor.
The mounting horrors that working people face as we use New York
mass transit — from being trapped in packed, sweltering, stalled
subway cars in dark tunnels, to risk of serious injury or death in
derailments like the one that occurred on the A train in Manhattan
June 27 — show the propertied rulers’ disregard for our needs and
safety. They show what is more and more in store for workers as a
result of the normal workings of the dog-eat-dog capitalist system
mired in a deepening economic, social and political crisis.
Transit workers face attacks on their safety, wages, health care and
pensions, and riders see mounting fares while never knowing what
they’ll face each day
The deteriorating conditions in the New York transit system reflect
the catastrophic impact of this decadeslong capitalist crisis on our
lives, from long-term joblessness for millions, to increasing deaths
from opioid drugs, and the impact on working people at home and
abroad of Washington’s unending wars in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Paying the interest on the MTA’s skyrocketing $37.5 billion debt to
wealthy bondholders comes first under capitalism, and the bosses and
their government demand that workers foot the bills.
Workers in Puerto Rico — as well as the Virgin Islands and other U.S.
territories — who live under the boot of Washington’s colonial
domination, know through their own bitter experience how the
capitalist system of debt bondage works. Under the dictates of a
U.S.-imposed fiscal board, the Puerto Rican government has slashed
pensions, wages for government workers, and closed schools and
hospitals to pay bondholders on Puerto Rico’s $74 billion debt.
Working people in the U.S. are looking for a way to end the social
devastation they face and to “drain the swamp” of bourgeois politics.
They no longer have confidence in the two capitalist party shell game
and are looking for a road to act politically in their own interests.
The Socialist Workers Party says unequivocally that low cost, safe,
efficient, comfortable, mass public transit is a basic necessity for
working people, here and around the country.
And transit workers must win workers control over conditions on the
job to protect themselves and transit riders alike.
Workers need to organize and fight for a massive, government-funded
public works program to expand mass public transit nationwide;
rebuild aging infrastructure such as roads and bridges; and bring the
New York and other subway, bus and commuter rail systems to safe,
reliable and comfortable operation — a program that would put
millions of unemployed workers to work at union rates of pay.
Working people need their own political party, the Socialist Workers
Party. This means fighting to build a movement millions strong with
the power and leadership capable of replacing the political power of
the capitalist rulers with workers power. Along this road we can
begin to reverse the social catastrophe our class faces and force
concessions from the propertied ruling families.
Join the Socialist Workers Party in backing workers wherever they
take up the fight against the bosses’ attacks, from Spectrum and AT&T
workers here to food processing workers in California and striking
silver miners in Idaho. Join the Socialist Workers Party!
Related articles:
Bondholders line pockets as mass transit crumbles
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