It seems to me that we have some long standing examples of socialism
doing a much better job than the private sector. Our Postal System,
although battered by the Privateers, continues to move tons of mail
daily. Our public education has always provided a better and cheaper
level of education for all children, than the private schools.
Private schools not only cost families more per child, but only serve
those select students who meet the school standards, and whose parents
can afford the tuition.
Then there is the network of fire protection, from well paid fire
fighters to volunteers. Police protection is also paid for by the
public it is supposed to serve and protect.
Turn on your faucet or take out your trash. In the majority of
communities such public services are still under the jurisdiction of
government, not private companies.
Although they've been corrupted in recent years, communication
channels are owned by the public.
Seattle City Light is a public owned utility and is far better run,
and cheaper than is privately owned Puget Power. The Washington State
Ferries are part of our State Highway System. The county road
maintenance is paid for by our taxes.
But bit by bit such services are being stolen away by the Privateers,
who will do and say anything in order to get control.
It was our government that built an amazing super highway network.
The downside of that is our loss of a rail system. That rail system
was begun by our government underwriting the private railroad
companies with huge tracts of public lands(which the government had
stolen from the American Indians)and much of which the railroads held
onto and sold off to private citizens at huge profits, none or little
of which was put back into developing a more efficient System.
But we Americans seem not to trust our Working Class. We would rather
put our lives in the greedy hands of the likes of Donald Trump and
Company.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/30/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, as you said,
Socialism is our only hope for world peace, and for the continuance of Life,
as we know it. But Socialism paired with Democracy. Socialism, paired with
autocracy, would not service us well. And, aside from some communes and
companies owned and operated by their workers, we haven't actually seen
Socialism in action. Perhaps in Russia for a very few years? Remember that
Communist vision of the state withering away? Well, it never has. So what
we've seen is State Socialism, sort of. And for various reasons, in each
case, the state has been autocratic. Individual rights were denied. And
within those socialist states, there were people who had more material
comforts than others. Part of the reason for that might be that it isn't
true that one can talk about economic theory apart from human psychology.
Human nature always seems to interfere with ideal abstractions. My mind
works similarly to yours. I can't retain huge amounts of detail and then use
all these discrete details to debate. But I have impressions from what I
remember of what I've read and observed.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, June 30, 2019 11:07 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Sanders's Speech Presents a Conundrum for New
Left's Socialist Strategy
Actually, I don't quibble either. For details and precise definitions I
rely on several folks who enjoy immersing themselves up to the eyebrows,
like it was chocolate pudding. Roger is my "go to guy" on this list. I'd
say "Professor Roger" if I thought he would not be offended.
I have a close friend a man in Seattle. He was once director of the
Washington State Commission for the Blind, and prior to that, of the Idaho
Commission. At 45 he returned to college, took a law degree and returned to
Seattle to practice law until he retired a couple of years ago. He was over
80 and still had a mind like a steel trap. He is the guy I turn to when I
want details about any historical event.
When I was young, people like Roger and Ken gave me inferiority tremors.
But I've come to understand that while we might all look similar, our brains
are wired very differently. Mine is a Generalist Brain. It sweeps up tons
of details, shakes them all together and arrives at conclusions. The down
side is that I cannot simply read, and store, tons of data and retain
details. I must throw myself into the thick of things in order to "get the
feel".
Hmm...now how did I get off track...my thought was that the decline of labor
unions and the confusion of the Working Class are fine examples of why
socialism cannot build up any strength within the Capitalist System. We
force a few basic improvements like the right to organize, or Medicare, or
Social Security, or Public Education, or a National Postal System, and the
capitalist system goes to work to destroy those gains and gobble up the
money from the public taxes. While I will join in struggles to reestablish
some of our recent losses, I do so understanding that given where the
control lies, we cannot win under the current rules. Those rules were set
in place to protect those who still remain in control.
Socialism is our only hope for world peace, and for the continuance of Life,
as we know it. Left unchallenged, Capitalism will devour all in sight, and
then attack itself until there is nothing left. So of course we must resist
within the System. But we should never fool ourselves into thinking we can
simply make this System work for our purposes.
Carl Jarvis...84 and still seeking answers...
On 6/29/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I remember Sylvie writing to Roger, saying that there are different
kinds of socialism. I'm not sure what she meant. But I've been reading
and listening and I'd like to point out that there are different kinds
of capitalism. Adam Smith was not talking about the same kind of
Capitalism that Milton Friedman was talking about. And the Capitalism
that we had in the 50's and 60's, was very different from what we have
in 2019. I'm talking about how Capitalism is practiced in everyday
life. In the 50's and 60's, we still had the regulations that FDR had
put in place. We have more companies because we were preventing
monopolies from forming. Companies were producing products in order to
make profits for their stockholders, rather than doing stock buy
backs in order to make profits for their CEO's. It was in the 70's or
80's that business schools began teaching that the only purpose of a
corporation was to make as much profit as possible for their stock
holders.
There was a time when business thought it had a duty to its employees
and to its customers. Now I realize that left to their own devices,
the power elites will always do what they did in the 70's and 80's,
and what they've been doing ever since. But remember, we have never
experienced socialism as it is described to us, working in a country
without negative pressures from the US. We've never experienced it
here. It's a dream, an ideal that is held out to us. But we've only seen
distorted versions of it in real life.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, June 29, 2019 9:08 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Sanders's Speech Presents a Conundrum
for New Left's Socialist Strategy
Capitalism and Socialism cannot coexist.
Socialism and democracy can coexist.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Carl Jarvis
On 6/29/19, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The answer to your question is that you just go ahead and organize
that socialist party outside of the existing power structure. The
question, however, seems to be assuming an incorrect idea of what
should be done with that socialist party organized outside the
capitalist electoral system. First, running socialists inside a
capitalist party defeats the whole idea of socialism. How is it going
to bring about socialism to work for and ensure that a capitalist
party continues in power? Then, since the electoral system is rigged
to ensure that only capitalist parties ever get elected then what is
the point of running candidates who will compete for votes with the
capitalist parties? If a socialist party, socialist in reality and
not just in name, runs candidates the whole point in running them is
to get a platform to get out socialist ideas. That is, take advantage
of those cracks in the system to turn it against itself. The main
goal of a real socialist party, though, is to encourage and help
organize strikes, marches, demonstrations and other forms of mass
action.
Again, when you try to change the system from within the system you
are the one who gets changed, not the system. That has been proven
over and over so many times that it is amazing that anyone still
tries to change the system from within it. But people still do and
they just keep failing.
---
Carl Sagan
??? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. ???
??? Carl Sagan
On 6/26/2019 9:48 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
This article makes Roger's case for him. There are some problems
like, in America, how could you convince people to vote for open
borders and, given our election laws, how do you actually construct
a powerful working socialist party outside of the existing structure?
Miriam
Sanders's Speech Presents a Conundrum for New Left's Socialist
Strategy
Sen. Bernie Sanders delivers remarks at a campaign function at
George Washington University Democratic presidential candidate Sen.
Bernie Sanders delivers remarks at a campaign function in the Marvin
Center at George Washington University on June 12, 2019, in Washington,
D.C.
Sarah Silbiger / Getty Images
By Ashley Smith, Truthout Published June 25, 2019
In the U.S., the failures of capitalism are being refracted in the
race for the White House, just as they were in 2016. On one side,
President Trump is rallying his predominantly middle-class voters to
re-elect him based on his program of economic nationalism and
bigotry that has wreaked havoc at home and abroad.
On the other side, Democrats are in a battle for their party's
presidential nomination to challenge the bigot billionaire in 2020.
Predictably, the party has banded together, at least for now, around
the establishment's favored candidate, Joe Biden, who defends the
existing capitalist order, albeit with minor reforms.
His challengers, however, have moved to the left, adopting (however
honestly or dishonestly) much of the program Sen. Bernie Sanders put
forward in 2016, while at the same time, rejecting Sanders's
self-proclaimed democratic socialism. They all know, including Sen.
Elizabeth Warren, that to win the party's support if Biden stumbles,
they must toe its pro-capitalist line.
Worried about Sanders and the growing popularity of socialism, Trump
and bottom-dwellers for the Democratic nomination like Colorado Gov.
John Hickenlooper have red-baited Sanders, trying to discredit his
politics by associating him with Stalinist regimes. Recently,
Sanders took his detractors head-on in a landmark speech at George
Washington University.
He argued that the threat from authoritarian oligarchs like Trump
cannot be defeated by centrist neoliberals like Biden and
Hickenlooper, but only by democratic socialism. He defined that as
an extension of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal through a new
economic bill of rights that would include a right to a decent job,
health care and secure retirement.
Sanders also integrated the fight against climate change and all
forms of bigotry as essential parts of the struggle for socialism.
He underscored that he could not win any of this on his own but only
as part of a political revolution in which millions of people join
the political process, take over the Democratic Party and win
control of the government to transform the priorities of U.S. society.
Predictably, the establishment in the media and both parties brushed
off the speech. The Washington Post's Robert J. Samuelson called
Sanders a "refugee from the 1930s." Senator Warren - who recently
proclaimed she's "capitalist to my bones," perhaps an electorally
foolish mistake that may alienate Sanders's supporters - reacted
with laughter when asked about his speech.
Some on the left have also dismissed the speech as merely Sanders's
attempt to woo radicals back into the Democratic Party. Others
breathlessly celebrated it as the most profound and transformative
speech since those delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. and rejected
criticisms of Sanders as missing the forest for the trees.
The left should not reduce its role to cheerleading Sanders's speech
and gloss over its weaknesses, because what's at stake is the
politics, aims and strategy of the new socialist movement.
But these responses on the left fail to grasp the contradictory
nature of the Sanders campaign, his electoral strategy in the
Democratic Party, and his conception of democratic socialism. In
contrast to Sanders's ultra-left detractors, radicals must
appreciate that, for the second consecutive presidential primary, an
open advocate of socialism is in the running for the Democratic
nomination.
Of course, those who credit Sanders for creating the new socialist
movement are exaggerating his impact; his popularity was made
possible by the Great Recession, the capitalist parties' bailout of
banks, and the popular resistance to austerity and scapegoating.
Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that Sanders has
encouraged this resistance and given a name to its politics -
socialism - and helped fuel the rise of the Democratic Socialists of
America (DSA).
We should celebrate his attacks on "unfettered capitalism," the
oligarchic billionaire class, authoritarians and fascists, as well
as his full-throated defense of socialism as means to achieve
freedom for workers and oppressed people.
Moreover, Sanders's proposed economic bill of rights raises the
stakes for all of us to fight for an agenda that puts people before
profit. That a mainstream candidate is putting forth such demands
should be grasped as an opportunity and used to advance social and
class struggle in order to achieve them.
At the same time, though, the left should not reduce its role to
cheerleading Sanders's speech and gloss over its weaknesses, because
what's at stake is not Sanders per se, but the politics, aims and
strategy of the new socialist movement. His speech exposed three key
problems we must overcome in order to win the systemic change we so
desperately need.
The Democratic Party: The Graveyard of the Left
First, Sanders's strategy of pursuing a political revolution through
the Democratic Party, however much it may raise the profile of
socialism, is a trap. As everyone from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to
many (if not most) members of DSA recognize, the Democratic Party is
a capitalist and imperialist party, not a labor party rooted in
unions like that led by Jeremy Corbyn in Britain.
The Democratic Party is a capitalist and imperialist party, not a
labor party rooted in unions.
It is tightly controlled by a bureaucracy and elected officials,
both of which depend on the bosses for funding. That does not mean
it is no different than the Republican Party, which has historically
been the capitalists' "A Team" that openly serves their interests
and espouses conservatism.
The Democrats are the ruling class's liberal "B Team" that appeals
to workers and oppressed groups by promising change within the system.
Capitalists send them onto the field only when the "A Team" has
played badly and are in danger of losing.
The Democrats' function in the political game is two-fold: to co-opt
the left and prevent it from building a workers' party; and to
confine class and social struggle to tinkering with capitalism
instead of replacing it with socialism. That's why Marxists have
always called the Democratic Party the graveyard of social movements
and the left.
Every attempt to use the capitalist's "B Team" has backfired, from
the Communist Party's popular front during the Great Depression, to
Michael Harrington's realignment strategy that tried to turn it into
a labor party in the 1960s and 1970s, to the Maoists' similar effort
in Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition during the 1980s. Each time the
left was co-opted, movements demobilized in support of a party that
then took them for granted and moved to the right, betraying their
promises in the process.
Today, the Democrats are in a stronger position to co-opt the new
socialist left. As Kim Moody documents,
The party has become a well-funded, professionalized, multitiered
hierarchy capable of intervening in elections at just about every
level. It selects candidates, provides funding, furnishes
endorsements, offers media relations, and supplies computer and
digital campaign and get-out-the-vote services. In Congress and most
state legislatures, its leaders impose a high level of party
discipline, such that for the last two decades 90 percent of floor
votes in both houses have been along strict party lines.
Sanders's run in 2016 exemplifies the ruling class's stranglehold on
the party. Although he electrified a new generation with his call
for socialism and did better than he or anyone expected, he was, in
the end, stymied by the bureaucracy, elected officials and
capitalist funders. While they treated him politely in public, they
ensured that their anointed candidate, Hillary Clinton, won the
nomination.
The Democratic establishment is even more prepared to neutralize
Sanders this time. Now backing Biden, it has encouraged a host of
pro-capitalist progressives to split Sanders's vote and greenlit
Hickenlooper and others'
redbaiting. The party will try to persuade voters desperate to kick
Trump out of office to play it safe, take no risks on Sanders's
socialism, and vote for Biden or some other "electable" candidate
who is moderate enough to win over conservative voters.
Even Anita Hill, who suffered the worst sexist discrimination from
Biden and has every reason to oppose him, has accepted this logic,
telling reporters, "Of course, I could" vote for him. These tactics
have successfully driven down Sanders's poll numbers over the last
couple of months with Warren in particular gaining at his expense,
proving yet again the difficulty of advancing socialism in a
capitalist party.
Socialists, regardless of their position on Sanders's campaign, must
unite to organize an exit from the Democratic Party and build a new
independent socialist party.
While DSA has endorsed Sanders, its left wing understands that the
Democratic Party cannot be taken over, but rather must be replaced.
Instead
of backing third parties now, though, one of its most prominent
caucuses, Bread and Roses, supports a dirty break strategy of using
the Democrats'
ballot line to run socialist candidates, project its program,
encourage class struggle, win office and build an organization
within the Democrats to eventually split off and set up a new workers'
party.
While this strategy has led to some stunning breakthroughs, like the
election of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress, as well as
candidates for state and city council offices, Sanders does not
support it. Instead of advocating taking over the party, he has
already promised that if he loses, he will campaign for whichever
Democrat wins the nomination in the general election.
The left must challenge his argument, especially because he has the
greatest influence over the trajectory of our new movement. To avoid
the fate of our left-wing predecessors, socialists, regardless of
their position on Sanders's campaign, must unite to organize an exit
from the Democratic Party and build a new independent socialist
party.
Socialism Not Liberalism
Second, as part of his accommodation to the Democratic Party,
Sanders
- who used to extol Eugene Debs's Socialist Party as his model - now
explicitly associates socialism with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New
Deal. While he may do that to reach a popular audience, as some on
the left have argued, it both sows illusions about Roosevelt's
program and limits the horizons of socialism to, at best, reformist
management of capitalism.
Let's be clear: Roosevelt was, as he declared, "the best friend the
profit system ever had" and the "savior" of "the system of private
profit and free enterprise." FDR's aim was not to institute
socialism through the New Deal, but use government programs to
revive the system, stabilize it through social reform, and co-opt a
workers'
movement that threatened to break with the two-party system and
challenge capitalist rule.
As much as Sanders raises expectations for social reform, he narrows
the vision of democratic socialism below even that of social democracy.
Even FDR's call for an economic bill of rights, which Sanders
resuscitates, never threatened to nationalize capitalism's means of
production. That's why
169 capitalist countries - including Germany, Australia and France -
ratified the U.N. version of it called "The International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights."
That's where many on the left are mistaken, confusing liberal
tinkering with actual socialism. Norman Thomas, the longtime leader
of the reformist Socialist Party, was right when he wrote, "What Mr.
Roosevelt has given us is State capitalism: that is to say, a system
under which the State steps in to regulate and in many cases to own,
not for the purpose of establishing production for use but rather
for the purpose of maintaining in so far as may be possible the
profit system with its immense rewards of private ownership and its
grossly unfair division of the national income."
Thus, as much as Sanders raises expectations for social reform, he
narrows the vision of democratic socialism below even that of social
democracy to New Deal liberalism. Classic social democracy, whatever
its weaknesses, at least promised to use nationalization to
socialize and democratize control of the economy, whereas liberalism
merely promises adjustments to capitalism, not its transformation
into workers' democratic control of society, which is the goal of
socialism.
Compromising Socialist Internationalism
Third, Sanders's speech failed to uphold socialist internationalism
on today's central questions of immigration and U.S. imperialism.
This failure flows from his collaboration with an imperialist party,
as well as the nationalist logic of social democracy, which has
always put use of the state for domestic reform for workers at home
above international solidarity.
It
was thus not an accident that he delivered the speech before a sea
of U.S.
flags.
Of course, Sanders rightly denounces Trump's attacks on immigrants.
But he opposes open borders as an idea hatched by the Koch brothers,
and instead supports the Democrats' preferred "solution" to the
"problem" of undocumented immigrants - Comprehensive Immigration
Reform (CIR). At best, this is a lesser evil; it includes increased
policing of the border to stop further immigration, onerous
conditions for legalization, and pro-corporate guest worker programs.
As Lucy Herschel argues, in practice, this policy was responsible
for "a reign of terror on immigrant communities that former
President Obama himself elevated to a high art during his eight
years in office. For the past decade, CIR has required the
deportation of more than 100,000 people a year, the detention of
hundreds of thousands more in inhuman conditions and the
terrorization of millions of families - all in exchange for
comprehensive legislation that never came and now seems further away
than ever."
Socialists should reject CIR and instead demand amnesty for all
undocumented immigrants and open borders. Our slogans should be
those Jesse Myerson
advocates: "No penalties, no electric fences, no drone surveillance,
no papers, no fear. Instead, universal human rights, consecrated in
struggle, enforced by solidarity. The unification of the world's
workers demands this."
Such internationalism also requires opposition to imperialism -
something Sanders strangely left out of his speech. Socialists must
remember that the U.S. is not just any other state. It runs an
informal empire that reproduces and enforces global capitalism; it
is in competition with other imperialist powers, especially China;
and it oppresses weaker nations throughout the world. Under the
misnomer "national defense," Washington's war machine gobbles up
hundreds of billions of dollars a year on conventional and nuclear
weapons, troops, and over 800 military bases around the world.
Of course, Sanders has rightly opposed George W. Bush's occupation
of Iraq, Saudi Arabia's U.S.-backed war in Yemen, and Trump's threat
of war on Iran.
But he voted for the war in Afghanistan and war budgets that funded
the occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Underlying this mixed record is his mistaken belief that the U.S.,
under progressive leadership, could play a positive role in the
world, especially in forging what he calls an international alliance
in defense of democracy against authoritarian rulers like China's Xi
Jinping, who he explicitly singles out in his speech. Such a
position risks giving left-wing cover for Washington's confrontation
with Beijing, an inter-imperial rivalry driven not by the politics
of either regime, but their capitalist economies'
competition for domination over the world market.
The new socialist movement should instead follow the lead of Martin
Luther King, Jr. who viewed the U.S. state not as a potentially
benign force, but "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world
today." King further called attention to how the massive expenditure
on the war machine killing people abroad drains funds and resources
that could otherwise go to workers and the oppressed at home.
That's why he spoke out against the Vietnam War and argued that the
poor people's movement he initiated near the end of his life had to
oppose what he called the "triple evils of racism, economic
exploitation, and militarism." The new left should heed this call
and build an independent mass movement to confront all of the
system's inequalities at home and abroad.
To win that struggle, we must build a new party of our own, uphold
fierce internationalist opposition to all imperialisms, organize
international solidarity from below, and challenge both parties of
capital not only in the ballot box, but more importantly, in the
streets and in workplaces where we have the power not only to win a
political and social revolution for socialist democracy in the U.S.,
but throughout the world.
We don't have much time left.
