Roger,
What you describe, seems to explain why our country has had center right and
right of center governments for most of its history. People on the left are
unwilling to compromise. They feel that their ideology is so important, that
they are not willing to compromise in order to be pragmatic. The Marxists'
disdain for Democratic Socialism is one example. If one's goal is to help
people achieve a better life and if setting up a social welfare state within a
capitalist system is one way of doing that, even if it is far from the ideal
way, if it is the attainable way, then why not join together and do it. If one
looks at the world as it currently is, it is obvious that we're not going to
have state socialism in America, most probably not before our whole human
society is destroyed by climate change. So to me, it seems reasonable to work
for what we might possibly attain. Given the response of the establishment to
the Sanders campaign, it's unlikely that even that is possible.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2020 10:16 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] Re: Fight for gov’t-funded, cradle-to-grave health care!
I don't see how you can think it is underhanded. Its not like the purposes of
running a candidate is some kine of secret. It is a fully admitted vehicle for
disseminating ideas. As for getting together with one candidate, well, I am not
sure that can be done with the Green Party. There are some groups that do
support Green Party candidates and still call themselves revolutionary
socialists. Socialist Alternative is an example. But I am not so sure that they
are not drifting toward being social democrats by doing so. The Green Party, as
a whole, simply supports capitalism and that is kind of antithetical to
socialism. As for the socialist parties banding together to promote one
candidate, that is being tried in both Britain and Australia with the Socialist
Alliance, but the big trouble is that it is really hard to get them to agree on
a single program. After all, the reason they split into their various parties
over the years is because they had profound principled differences with each
other. But I remember taking that position myself in my distant past. As I was
meeting radical groups and trying to learn about them and figure out which I
most agreed with I did say to them that it would make more sense to me if they
could all merge into one organization and trade on the strength in numbers idea
instead of remaining weak by bickering with one another. I said that, after
all, we all have the same goals. I was told that it would be hard to even get
them all in the same room together. Then I saw what happened when they did get
in the same room. The Young Socialist Alliance was giving a presentation at
West Virginia State College and some members of the October League were in the
vicinity and decided to attend. The October League people were entirely too
contemptuous of the YSA to make any kind of common cause with them. Then
another time I actually invited a Communist Party member to a YSA meeting. He
was pretty polite, but he declined offers to work together and then later, in a
private letter to me, he made some pretty strenuous denunciations of the Fourth
International. Then when I was in the Committee Against Registration and the
Draft that organization kind of attracted communists like honey attracts flies.
There was the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist). There was the International
Anarchist Communist Federation. There was the Socialist Workers Party. There
was the Communist Workers Party. Not joining the coalition, but still orbiting
around it was the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Communist Party, USA and
the Communist Labor Party. I may be even forgetting some. Frankly, I think our
chapter of CARD was torn apart by the bickering. But what remains is that the
various parties have different messages that they want to disseminate. One
candidate would not be able to convey all of those messages because they tend
to be contradictory. Besides, some of those organizations have the message that
the elections should be boycotted in the first place. I had some arguments with
the RCP about that. They urge people to not vote as if that is some kind of
revolutionary statement.
They just don't seem to be aware that most people don't vote anyway and that is
never portrayed as a revolutionary statement. I know that it is not apathy
either, but it is always portrayed as apathy.
___
Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
On 3/5/2020 9:16 PM, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
No, certainly not. Organizing people around issues where their actions have a
chance of having an effect is not underhanded. Strikes aren't underhanded.
Passive resistance isn't underhanded. But running candidates when you know
that there's no chance in hell that they can win, that they can't even get on
the ballot in most states, taking up people's time and energy for what
amounts to a "show candidacy", seems underhanded to me. If all the various
socialist parties and the Green party would join together and try to form a
real alternative party, that would make sense to me.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2020 9:06 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Fight for gov’t-funded,
cradle-to-grave health care!
Then it must follow that any attempt to get out any kind of ideas is some
underhanded manipulative scam.
___
Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
On 3/5/2020 8:41 PM, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Roger,
Sorry, That was my interpretation of what the SWP is doing. I know you
didn't say that. You just said that the candidates running would be used as
propaganda to organize people. I wrote what that means to me.
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2020 8:30 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy]
Re: Fight for gov’t-funded, cradle-to-grave health care!
Miriam, you misrepresent everything I said. The best way I can refute this
is to just refer you back to my last message. Reading that message shows
that I said nothing like you are claiming I said.
___
Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
On 3/5/2020 4:24 PM, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Isn't using the election as solely an opportunity for agitation and
propaganda a rather cynical way to treat the working people who might be
attracted by that candidate's campaign? It sounds like all those poor
unsuspecting people who might be tricked into getting involved, are being
used as pawns to further the SWP's objectdives of which they are unaware.
"We're offering these pretend candidates so we can use their campaign to
seduce you into believing a philosophy which, we believe, is in your best
interests in the end. But we aren't going to tell you that we don't believe
in this election, that we're actually planning a revolution to overthrow
this rotten system, and you might become embroiled in this revolution,
whether or not you originally planned to, and it might become violent".
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2020 3:32 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: Fight for
gov’t-funded, cradle-to-grave health care!
You are completely missing the point that Alyson Kennedy has absolutely no
expectation or intention of becoming president. The ruling class would
cancel the election before they would let that happen.
Furthermore, if there was a realistic prospect for her being elected then
the class struggle would have had to sharpened to the point that we would
either be in the middle of a civil war or else we would be on the brink of
it. Alyson's candidacy is simply a move to take advantage of the bourgeois
electoral system to spread agitation and propaganda. But suppose that she
did get elected and suppose she survived the violent attacks that would be
launched against her and her supporters if she did get elected and then she
took office. If she then went ahead and merrily administered the bourgeois
state she would have upon that instant transformed into a social democrat.
That would be a complete betrayal.
Her job would be to give the bourgeois state its final kicks to ensure its
collapse. Then she would participate in building a new workers and farmers
state, possibly being a delegate to a new constitutional convention.
___
Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
On 3/5/2020 11:56 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
The article states: "The Socialist Workers Party campaign is
grounded in the conviction that it is possible to emulate that
example(the Cuban Revolution). We can mobilize in our millions to
overthrow the dictatorship of the capitalist class here, take power
into our own hands and open the door to working people running society."
And then the article concludes, "Join us in campaigning for Alyson
Kennedy and Malcolm Jarrett, the working-class alternative in 2020!"
My problem with this article is that we can't take both approaches.
Either we advocate for Revolution and the replacement of our
current Ruling Class with a government which represents All the
People, or we send Alyson Kennedy and Malcolm Jarrett to be our
sacrificial offerings. That approach appears hopeless. Let's
suppose, and it is a real long shot, that Alyson Kennedy and
Malcolm Jarrett squeak out a victory, and find themselves in the White
House. Then what?
I mean what do we Revolutionaries do? We have just won the top two
offices in the nation, and the most influential top dogs in all the World.
Are they prepared to lead a Revolution from within the
Establishment's System? Do they attempt to swim upstream and make
what social changes they can make? To me it is a lose lose
situation. The fact is that we live in, and have lived in from the
beginning, in a Class System.
This nation of the people never set out to be the government of All
the People.
Although I have no dog in this presidential fight, I plan to vote
for Bernie Sanders. Not because I think that he will win, or even
if the Heavens opened up and God smote all his opponents and
Bernie, like David with his sling, did win, but because I believe
it is my only way of spitting in the Establishment's eye. Bernie
will be as unable to return America to the New Deal Days, as would
Alyson Kennedy and Malcolm Jarrett.
But on the other hand, if we are truly serious about a People's
Revolution, then we need to stop pretending that we can "make a
difference" through tucking a few Progressives into the System.
It's like tossing red meat to a pack of wild dogs.
As a defender of the American People and their Rights and Dignity,
I am faced with deciding whose laws I must obey. Do I take the
safer path and obey the laws that have been bought and paid for to
protect the properties and positions of the long established Ruling Class?
Or do I obey those basic laws that defend the dignity and security
and health, and all the Rights that belong to First Class Citizens?
This is no easy decision. But it is one that every Citizen must
make, because we cannot serve two Masters. Either we support the
right of a few to own us, or we defend the Right to Human Dignity
by All the People. This constitution we live under was created
back when we were a collection of 13 Colonies and an Agrarian Society.
The Document was truly revolutionary in its day. It declared that
the Colonists were no longer the economic slaves of the King of
England. In the situation the Colonists found themselves, there
was no misunderstanding over whether they could somehow take over
the government and make changes to existing laws. There was only
one of two roads, compliance or revolution.
The ensuing struggle was costly for many Landholders. Many chose
to duck and cover, hoping the King would reward them once the
uprising was quashed.
While Times are very different today, we live in an Urban Society
and number 50 states and over 300 million People, we are still
faced by the same two roads. We can duck and cover and accept what is
"given"
us by our Ruling Class, hoping they make wise choices that somehow
include us, or we can set them aside, thanking them for their long
years at the helm of our Ship of State, but recognizing that they
have outlived their day, and that they have become far too self serving.
But if we do the latter, we must realize that once declared, the
New Revolution must follow. Are we ready for it?
Carl Jarvis
On 3/5/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://themilitant.com/2020/02/29/fight-for-govt-funded-cradle-to
- g r ave-health-care/ Fight for gov’t-funded, cradle-to-grave
health care!
article
Vol. 84/No. 9
March 9, 2020
The U.S. government, the most powerful imperialist power on the
planet, like every other capitalist power around the world, is far
from prepared for the spread of coronavirus. The virus is new, no
one is immune, and it will take time to develop an antidote.
The rulers in China and Iran tried to pretend things weren’t so
bad and working people are paying for it. The administration in
Washington tells us they’ve got everything in hand and complain
the media is trying to make coronavirus “look as bad as possible.”
The deadly impact of the virus will fall overwhelmingly on working
people in the U.S., as it does elsewhere, exacerbating the broader
social, economic and moral crisis of capitalism bearing down on us.
Millions of workers already confront the declining availability of
health care. Hospitals have been closing in rural areas and
working-class neighborhoods, where the owners decide they aren’t
making enough profit. The system of health insurance in the U.S. —
whether it’s “Obamacare,” private health insurance or the
Medicare-for-all insurance schemes promoted by a wing of the
Democrats — is designed to guarantee a profit for hospital bosses
and drug and insurance companies, not to provide the health care
working people need and deserve.
If we can’t afford to pay the rising costs they charge for
premiums, deductibles or copays, we have to go without something
that should be a basic human right.
The capitalist rulers consider the provision of health care to
workers a nonproductive expense. Hospital bosses are notorious for
transporting homeless people seeking care out of the city and
dumping them. The capitalist rulers seek to impose the
responsibility for medical care onto individual workers and our
families. And if you don’t change your lifestyle — quit smoking,
lose weight, etc. — they want to make you pay more. You’re on your own.
Health care is social right
Health care is a social question. The working class and our unions
need to fight for government-funded cradle-to-grave health care
for all. Our labor produces all the wealth, more than enough to
provide care for all, for a lifetime. The problem is the employers
expropriate that wealth for themselves. So they don’t have to
worry about the costs of getting treatment.
Health care as a social right can only be won by class struggle,
including breaking from all the capitalists’ parties, which insist
that the health insurance racket is untouchable. It will take
massive struggles by workers and our allies to take the hospitals
and drug companies out of the hands of the capitalists who run
them for profit and organize to run them under workers control in
the interest of all. But it can be done.
Revolutionary Cuba is the one country in the world where health
care is not a commodity, where the surplus workers and farmers
produce is used to provide lifelong, preventative health care for every
person.
And where thousands of volunteer medical workers provide much
needed care throughout the world, treating all they look after
with dignity and respect. A vivid account is provided in the
recently published Red Zone: Cuba and the Battle Against Ebola in West
Africa.
The volunteers’ internationalism, author Enrique Ubieta
writes, “is an expression of their revolutionary humanism.”
As Che Guevara said, to be a revolutionary doctor you have to make
a revolution.
Revolution transformed working people in Cuba This is only
possible because Cuban workers and farmers made a revolution and
the government today is in their hands. Making that revolution
transformed working people. They simply look at the problems they
confront — from the U.S. rulers’ economic war against them to the
threat of coronavirus — as the responsibility of the whole people.
Whatever they face — a hurricane, a threat of disease, or anything
else — they prepare, mobilize the whole people and resources of
their government, and take it on.
The Socialist Workers Party campaign is grounded in the conviction
that it is possible to emulate that example. We can mobilize in
our millions to overthrow the dictatorship of the capitalist class
here, take power into our own hands and open the door to working
people running society. Join us in campaigning for Alyson Kennedy
and Malcolm Jarrett, the working-class alternative in 2020!
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___
Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
