Our formal system of slavery ended because of the civil war and the reasons for
that war had to do with the economic interests of different sectors of our
country. Whether or not the war was fought to end slavery, seems to be up for
debate. The slavery ended, but the racism didn't. Yes, there were share
croppers in the South, but when African Americans migrated to the North, there
were no efforts to integrate this rural, under educated population into the
mainstream, as there were efforts made to integrate immigrants from other
countries into the mainstream. There were settlement houses for the immigrants.
There were jails for the African Americans. There are a lot of historians
who've written about this and they agree about some things and disagree about
others. I have to admit that I haven't read anything, aside from what I was
required to read in college, about how the Roman empire ended, about what
slavery was actually like then, about the circumstances of its ending. It was a
very different society, a different culture. I'm sure the nature of the slavery
was different from what we had. It's not so much that I think of what has
happened as being random. But I think more of socio/cultural issues along with
economics. One of the things that becomes more and more evident to me as I
read more and more articles and books, is that each piece of written
information has been filtered through the perspective, the beliefs, and at
times, the economic self interest of the writer. So not only do I have to
understand the material, I have to understand the point of view of the writer.
For example, I discovered that Media Matters, which produces a lot of articles
that are supposed to provide objective information about slanted information in
the mass media, is run by someone who also has a position as an important
operative in the Democratic Paarty. So Media Matters will probably give the
point of view of the Democratic Party on issues that are covered in the media.
Think Progress, is a publication of the Center For American Progress which is
run by a Democratic lobbyist who worked in the Clinton administration and whose
brother is a lobbyist for politicians, both Republican and Democratic. So I
know that articles from these two sources may support the present
administration and or Hillaary Clinton. Or look at The WSJ and Fox Ndews,
owned by Murdock, and you know what point of view those publications will
favor. And I have to ssay that I know, almost before I read any of them, what
the articles from The Militant or The Socialist Workers' Party will say. So I
read a lot of things that sound reasonable to me, and then I try to come up
with what seems to me to be close to the truth.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
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[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2015 9:45 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: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] ‘Lesser-evil’ pol
The trouble with the way you are describing it is that you seem to be assuming
that historical events are just random events that happen now and then with no
causes. You speak of the comparison of slavery under capitalism as an analogy
to slavery as the main economic system as if any similarities are just
coincidental. Again, if you just look at the events isolated from each other
you would tend to make such assumptions and if you look at the long view of
history without considering the dialectical dynamics you see coincidences. Of
course, there are differences. The very fact of slavery being practiced under a
much further advanced system as capitalism causes differences by itself.
Nevertheless, when similar economic systems over human history separated by
vast geographical distances and centuries of time play out in a very similar
way over and over I would think that you would become suspicious that there
might be common causes. Well, the further back an event is the spottier the
historical records are, but the historical records do still exist. You can look
at them and look for similar causes. The similar causes are there for the
finding and the studying. It is not just randomness. The ruling class might
want you to believe that it is just random events because that will serve to
squelch any desire to change the current system, but you really do not have to
slavishly view history from the perspective of the people who want to preserve
an oppressive system. If you want to change the existing system there are a lot
of lessons to be learned from struggles to change oppressive systems in the
past.
On 12/12/2015 9:58 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
OK. Immutable was the wrong word. And I can see the analogy of the feudal
system in europe with sharecroppers in the US. There are similarities. But
there are also vast differences. Sets of circumstances occurred at two
different times in history in very different societies and cultures that have
similarities, but that doesn't seem like a law or pattern that we can depend
on to predict what will happen next or what sorts of actions we need to take.
It is a way of viewing phenomena. It reminds me of Freudian theory. A great
deal of human behavior can be explained by it. When I attended graduate
school in social work, I learned a lot of psychoanalytic theory and it
influences how I see human behavior to some extent. One can, and people have,
explained almost everything in terms of psychoanalytic theory, including
history. If one is intelligent and works at it, one can make almost
everything fit. It's valid in many instances. But it isn't the one and only
way to analyze human behavior just as marxist theory isn't the one and only
way to analyze human behavior.
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: Saturday, December 12, 2015 12:25 AM
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: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy]
‘Lesser-evil’ politics from Trump to Sanders
Well, if we are talking about economics you really should think of the
economic system that is being talked about. Slavery is an economic system and
feudalism is an economic system. Slavery tends to transform into feudalism
and even so, both can exist at the same time and as subsets of a broader
economic system. It should also be realized that the transformation does not
just happen at random. Under a slave system slaves do not want to be slaves
and the slave holders do want them to be slaves. As the slave struggles to
become free the slave holder resists the struggles of the slave. When the
struggle advances to a certain point the slaves do free themselves, but
because of the resistance of the slave holders the freedom is not complete.
The slave holders may want to maintain slavery, but the time comes that it
becomes clear that to continue to maintain that slavery will more likely
result in one's own death and so some concessions have to be made while every
effort is made to hold onto as much power as possible. That is how feudalism
comes about. That is exactly what happened to slavery in more modern times
too. The struggle came to a crisis point with the American civil war.
When the war was over the slaves had become sharecroppers, that is, feudal
serfs. The whole time this was playing out under capitalism and capitalism
has its own contradictions. What I am describing is the dialectics of
history. Without analyzing the dialectical dynamics you will be able to see a
pattern in history, but you will not have the basis for a law of history.
With an understanding of the dialectical dynamics you can start talking about
laws. However, this is not a law in the same sense as Boyle's law of gas
behavior. In that case every time you try to apply it, it works. That is
probably because there are a hell of a lot more gas molecules than there are
humans to work with. If you only dealt with mere millions of gas molecules
the behavior would probably be more erratic too. The laws of history are more
accurately tendencies. There are sidetracks. There are regressions. There are
differing rates of speed. Nevertheless, though, if you take the long view of
history you can see the patterns and you can work out the dialectical
dynamics. This is a long way from saying that these laws are immutable. That
comment about the immutable laws of history is another one of those straw man
arguments. If Marx had ever said that each stage of history progresses in a
specific way and that the way isi immutable then, of course, he would be
wrong. Arguing against him as if he did say that is arguing against something
other than Marx. I think it is actually arguing against certain kinds of
fortune tellers.
On 12/11/2015 9:55 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I never even thought about slavery in relation to the Roman Empire. Sorry.
All I thought about was military conquest and the crucifixion of dissenters.
But I should have because I read that wonderful book by Howard Fast about
the Roman slave whose name everyone knows, but which, of course, has slipped
my mind.
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: Friday, December 11, 2015 8:08 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] ‘Lesser-evil’ politics from Trump to Sanders
I don't know where you get this stuff about immutable, but I am interested
in something else you said. Do you really believe that a transition from
slavery to sharecropping, even a brutally enforced form of sharecropping,
was not an improvement? What do you think the freed slaves would say to you
about that?
On 12/11/2015 6:01 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
You need to know that I have no idea what you mean by "the laws of
history", but I assume that your talking abouthow Marxist theory describes
changes over time, dialectic something or other? I know I read all this in
college, but I surely didn't focus on it. I gather that you believe that
there are immutable laws in history, sort of like in physics except that
because we're talking about the social sciences, individual activists can
kind of help things move along. I suppose that the problem is that the
imperfections of human nature keep messing up each system that has
developed. Feudalism was not an improvement on the Roman empire, just a
change. Communism, as it developed in Russia and China, wasn't better for
people than American capitalism. I do like the social democracies of
Scandanavia and Great Britain and France were OK for a brief period of
time, as was the US for about 30 years. But things go on changing - those
immutable laws of history, I suppose, and they seem to get worse, not
better.
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: Friday, December 11, 2015 3:40 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy]
Re: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] ‘Lesser-evil’ politics
from Trump to Sanders
It was followed by feudalism though. Do you think that the Roman Empire was
immune to the laws of history? If so, then what do you call the economic
system that replaced it if not feudalism?
On 12/11/2015 3:31 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I don't know about the laws of history, but I do know about the
political character of the US population And I also know that climate
change is moving at such a rate that its consequences will eliminate human
life unless immediate changes take place in how we live. I don't see the
US moving toward socialism. When the Roman empire imploded, it wasn't
followed by peace and equality throughout the world.
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: Friday, December 11, 2015 3:04 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] RE:
[blind-democracy] ‘Lesser-evil’ politics from Trump to Sanders
Can you think of any reason that the US would be immune to the laws of
history?
On 12/11/2015 11:30 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Aside from a few mis statements, this is a pretty good summary of the
situation. The problem is, I feel like it leaves us nowhere. Does the
Socialist Workers' Party or any other socialist of communist party
actually think that there can be a socialist revolution in the US? I
suppose that hope springs eternal for some folks.
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: Friday, December 11, 2015 10:19 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] ‘Lesser-evil’ politics from Trump to
Sanders
http://socialistaction.org/
‘Lesser-evil’ politics from Trump to Sanders
Published December 10, 2015. | By Socialist Action.
Sasha Murphy, of the ANSWER Coalition, leads demonstrators in a chant
during a protest against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's
hosting "Saturday Night Live" in New York, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2015.
Despite a 40-year history of lampooning politicians while inviting some
to mock themselves as on-air guests, booking a presidential candidate to
host the NBC sketch-comedy show is almost unprecedented.
(AP Photo/Patrick Sison)
Sasha Murphy, of the ANSWER Coalition, leads demonstrators in a chant
during a protest against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's
hosting "Saturday Night Live" in New York, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2015.
Despite a 40-year history of lampooning politicians while inviting some
to mock themselves as on-air guests, booking a presidential candidate to
host the NBC sketch-comedy show is almost unprecedented.
(AP Photo/Patrick Sison)
By JEFF MACKLER
That the leading Republican Party presidential candidate,
multi-billionaire Donald Trump, is a full-blown reactionary caricature of
a capitalist politician is now the common parlance of most major media
outlets. Even the relatively conservative Washington Post featured a Dec.
1 Dana Milibank column entitled, “Donald Trump Racist Bigot.”
Milibank, reflecting the general unease at Trump’s virulently racist,
misogynist, and xenophobic outbursts, wrote: “Let’s not mince words:
Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist. … There is a great
imperative not to be silent in the face of demagoguery. Trump in
this campaign has gone after African Americans, immigrants,
Latinos, Asians, women, Muslims and now the disabled…
“It might be possible to explain away any one of Trump’s outrages as a
mistake or a misunderstanding. But at some point you’re not merely saying
things that could be construed as bigoted: You are a bigot.
“It has been more than a quarter century since Trump took out ads in New
York newspapers calling for the death penalty for “criminals of every
age” after five black and Latino teens were implicated in the Central
Park jogger case. The young men, convicted and imprisoned, were later
cleared by DNA evidence and the confession of a serial rapist—and Trump
called their wrongful-conviction settlement a ‘disgrace.’”
“Since then,” Milibank continued, “Trump led the ‘birther’ movement
challenging President Obama’s standing as a natural-born American; used
various vulgar expressions to refer to women; spoke of Mexico sending
rapists and other criminals across the border; called for rounding up and
deporting 11 million illegal immigrants; had high-profile spats with
prominent Latino journalists and news outlets; mocked Asian accents; let
stand a charge made in his presence that Obama is a Muslim and that
Muslims are a ‘problem’ in America; embraced the notion of forcing
Muslims to register in a database; falsely claimed thousands of Muslims
celebrated the 9/11 attacks in New Jersey; tweeted bogus statistics
asserting that most killings of whites are done by blacks; approved of
the roughing up of a black demonstrator at one of his events; and
publicly mocked the [physical] movements of New York Times (and former
Washington Post) journalist Serge Kovaleski, who has a chronic condition
limiting mobility.”
What is perhaps a bit different in today’s virtually year-round election
hyperbole is the fact that virtually every one of the dozen or so
Republican presidential contenders have remained all but silent as Trump
daily spews out his noxious diatribes. Indeed, until quite recently, most
of the corporate media relished covering Trump’s every anti-social rant,
fearful perhaps that failure to do so might lose them critical media
ratings.
Trump himself has repeatedly affirmed that any coverage, especially free
media coverage—and to date he has by far had the lion’s share of the
latter—could only work to his advantage.
On Nov. 8, Trump delighted in the opportunity to appear on the popular
“Saturday Night Live” television show, where wacked-out comedian Larry
David, who plays the part of an obnoxious liberal racist on his “Curb
Your Enthusiasm” show, took up DeportRacism.com’s offer of a $5000 prize
to publicly heckle Trump and call him a racist. David, who has yet to
collect his winnings, did just that—with Trump’s explicit and prior, if
not enthusiastic, agreement. In capitalist America today, a real live,
laughing, racist billionaire is a profitable talent to broadcast!
Meanwhile, the front-running Trump has a dozen Republican challengers,
including the second in the polls—retired surgeon, Christian
fundamentalist, and climate and evolution denier Ben Carson. All afford
Trump virtually free rein in his fear and hate-mongering campaign, with a
few occasionally and cautiously seizing the opportunity to one-up this
racist bigot in order to better capture an ever greater portion of the
Republican Party’s alienated, largely middle-class, Tea Party-enthusiast
voter base.
No doubt Trump’s rants find fertile soil in a small layer of the overall
electorate, but even less in the general population, some half of which
increasingly does not bother to vote.
But Trump’s backwater histrionics are not new to the increasingly
polarized and crisis-ridden world capitalist scene. Overtly far-right, if
not neo-fascist, views are similarly expressed in France, England, and
across Europe. In the former two nations such right-wing parties have,
for the first time in nearly a century, outpolled the traditional
capitalist stalwart parties of the status quo.
Trump is the American reflection of overtly racist and neo-fascist
ideology— if not a conscious experiment with it. His racist rants in some
instances have encouraged the use of violent physical attacks by his
disaffected followers, who find his scapegoating of the oppressed to
their liking.
Democratic Party charade
On the Democratic Party side of capitalism’s electoral charade, this
ruling-class party’s lead candidates take the opposite tack, portraying
themselves as the font of progressive values.
In their first nationally televised debate, all five of the original
Democratic Party contenders, led by “socialist” Bernie Sanders and
matched by Hillary Clinton, enthusiastically decried the “casino
capitalism” of Wall Street.
Their purported vision of the future society is one in which the U.S.
“returns” to the moral values of its much fantasized “small business”
and “hard-working little man” roots, where prosperity awaits all who
conscientiously put in the effort. References to America’s slave-labor
and robber-baron origins are absent in this scenario.
Given President Obama’s significantly declining poll ratings, none of the
present Democratic Party contenders sought his overt political support.
“Mums the word” with regard to Obama’s record of leading the nation in
implementing each and every corporate assault against unions, workers,
and the poor. None chose to identify with Obama’s unprecedented corporate
largess in the form of multi-trillion-dollar bailouts to the richest
sectors of the U.S. ruling class.
Rhetoric aside, Sanders’ Democratic Party voting record stands at 98
percent, while Hillary Clinton’s financial support from corporate
America’s giants, as with Obama before her and Bill Clinton earlier,
topped all contributions to her Republican opponents.
We might add that former Secretary of State Clinton backed to the hilt
every imperialist war effort of the Obama administration from Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Libya to today’s U.S. war efforts in Syria. Obama’s
countless covert and drone wars abroad murdered millions while stuffing
the coffers of the military-industrial complex at home. But virtually no
comment from Bernie or Hillary!
Meanwhile, Obama’s hard-working “legacy” promoters struggle today to
posture the president as a keen environmental advocate, an ally of
immigrant communities, a champion of health care for all, a friend of the
working class, a champion of democratic rights, and a man who is
reluctant to send more troops to fight in the interests of U.S.
imperialism.
Obama has become the media-promoted rational champion of climate science,
currently partaking in the UN-sponsored Paris talks as the chief
“defender” of the earth against the ravages of global warming.
Yet, Obama’s administration holds the modern-day record for increasing
the use of fossil fuels, opening the floodgates to corporate off-shore
drilling, and maintaining the obnoxiously high government tax breaks for
the leading Big Oil polluters.
Obama’s recent squelching of the infamous Keystone XL pipeline provided
his administration a momentary fig leaf of credibility that immediately
vanishes when contrasted to the massive increase of environmentally
destructive pipeline complexes in place or under construction across the
country.
Obama, the “Great Deporter,” with a record two million immigrants
brutally forced out of the country to his credit, gifted $13 trillion in
bailouts over the past seven years to the corporate elite. He presided
over the wholesale shredding of civil liberties (as so ably exposed by
the Snowden revelations). His signature “affordable” health care
legislation gifted $3 trillion over the next 10 years to the private and
largely monopolized insurance, hospital, and pharmaceutical industries—as
opposed to a single-payer alternative that would have saved $1 trillion
in government expenditures over the same period.
A Dec. 5 New York Times article entitled, “Jobs Report Seen as Strong
Enough for Fed Action” [to raise interest rates on today’s nearly
zero-rate “loans” to corporate America] nevertheless revealed some bitter
truths about the Obama administration’s seven-year record.
“At 62.5 percent,” The Times notes, “the proportion of Americans in the
labor force remains near mid-decade lows. The jobless rate for
African-Americans rose by 0.2 percentage points in November to 9.4
percent, which is more than twice the 4.3 percent for white Americans.”
“Moreover, The Times adds, “the economy is still 2.8 million jobs short
of where it would have to be to match pre-recession employment levels
while also absorbing new entrants into the workforce. … Even if the
current trend continues, that so-called ‘jobs gap’ will not be closed
until mid-2017.”
Another Dec. 5 New York Times article, “Lawmakers Near Deal on Billions
in Tax Cuts,” notes that the upcoming bipartisan tax-cut legislation, in
almost all cases written behind the scenes and negotiated secretly by the
technocrat specialists of the corporate elite, amounts to nothing less
than a five-year duration transfer of $840 billion from us to them—from
tax-paying working people to the tax-avoiding richest portion of the one
percent that really rules America.
A general shift to the right
Today’s political/electoral drama, almost always devoid of the crooked
corporate machinations that lead to tax cuts and other perks for the
super-wealthy, can best be summarized: “The Republicans talk the talk:
the Democrats walk the walk.”
The silky and “progressive”-sounding Democratic Party election-time
jargon is no accident or fluke. It is consciously designed to pose this
wing of the ruling class as the “civilized” representatives of an
egalitarian society that respects, if not cherishes, democratic and human
rights and economic fairness.
Similarly, the Republicans’ election posturing as a racist nut-case party
of almost deranged hate-mongers, climate deniers, and war hawks is not
without its own logic. The extreme verbal political divergence between
Democrats and Republicans lays the foundation for capitalism’s well-honed
election-time lesser-evil scenario, wherein alienated voters who would
more than likely abandon the two-party shell game—a 60 percent majority
favor a new third party, according to a recent Gallup poll—feel compelled
to once again allow themselves to partake in “choosing”
capitalism’s preferred horse in the race.
The seeming Republican Party scapegoating mania combines well with a
generalized disgust with “establishment” politics, and it allows
Democrats to move ever further to the right. Few doubt that President
Obama and his Democratic Party political, social, and economic policies
are far to the right of the most “evil” Republican propositions of
yesteryear.
This generalized shift to the right of ruling-class politics, and the
associated feigned public disputes, never fail to reach resolution in the
hidden congressional and corporate corridors, where “compromise”
solutions, always at the expense of the vast majority, are routinely
arrived at.
The chaotic and crisis-ridden capitalist system itself—in a crisis
virtually equal in magnitude to that of the Great Depression of 1929—best
accounts for today’s public partisan discord. Different wings of the
ruling elite are today at odds with regard to how much, how fast, and
with what means—mass repression or “friendly” persuasion—to most
effectively advance their common corporate interests.
Sanders pledges to support any Democrat
It is in this context, where massive disillusionment with and alienation
from “traditional” capitalist parties and politics has reached new
heights, that one can also understand the rise of long-time registered
“independent,” now “socialist,” Bernie Sanders, as well as the racist
social dissident, Donald Trump.
Bernie Sanders is now an official Democrat, having pledged in advance to
support whoever of his party competitors emerges from the upcoming
election primary contests as the winner. In some recent polls in the
early primary states, like New Hampshire and Iowa, Sanders’ ranking
appears to be in the political ballpark—that is, he could win.
It was perhaps some 50-60 years ago, when I first encountered the “lesser
evil” dichotomy at work—Kennedy vs. Nixon and Johnson (LBJ) vs.
Barry Goldwater—that I half seriously predicted that the time would come
when the ruling-class elite, when it believed it was necessary to head
off a likely working-class move toward a break with the capitalist
two-party duopoly, would run a “socialist” for president, under the
Democratic Party imprimatur, of course.
That day has arrived, with “Bernie” filling the bill almost perfectly as
today’s central sheepherder of the unwary back into the Democratic Party
fold.
Sanders’ service record on capitalism’s behalf falls well within the
boundaries of ruling-class politics. He supported the Obama
administration’s wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and
Yemen—although he, like most other liberals who feigned opposition to the
Iraq War, including Obama, now claim that this war was a ”mistake.”
The Saddam Hussein government after all, they have been compelled
to admit, never had “weapons of mass destruction.” The U.S.
slaughter of
1.5 million Iraqis, we are told with a straight face, was a mistake!
“Socialist” Sanders gave his assent to countless trillion-dollar military
appropriations bills, including all congressional measures that supported
Israel in its genocidal drive to eliminate any Palestinian presence in
their historic homeland.
Thus, campaigning for and organizing mass forces to demand the immediate
and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops from every nation on
earth is not within the Sanders campaign’s calculated political
territory. He knows full well that any real socialist would view U.S.
imperialism’s wars everywhere as nothing less than the extension and
embodiment of U.S. ruling-class policies at home.
Sanders has indeed disappointed some of his liberal and even “socialist”
supporters today due to his perceived “weakness” on foreign-policy issues
and his failure to unequivocally challenge and condemn the
ever-increasing brutality and police murder of unarmed Blacks. When
confronted with a Black Lives Matter representative who jumped onto the
stage demanding to know where Sanders stood on America’s deepening racist
attacks, the “political revolutionary” was speechless and quickly exited,
leaving the audience stunned. When he was soon afterward advised that his
well-crafted liberal image had to include a modicum of support to Black
rights, he meekly assented, but only to the point of not significantly
interfering with Clinton’s prior turf “claim” to the Black vote.
Sanders has also made clear that he is not the kind of socialist that
seeks the social ownership of the nation’s wealth and the establishment
of a revolutionary state that once and for all places society’s means of
production and wealth in the hands of and under the democratic control of
those who produce it, in the framework of a government of the working
class and its allies. Sanders’ “socialism,” he insists, includes respect
for private property—operating, perhaps, in a bit more humanely manner.
In short, Sanders, like his “socialist” counterparts in France or in the
Scandinavian countries, seeks a “kinder gentler capitalism.” The fact
that he seeks to emulate Europe’s historically bankrupt social-democratic
capitalist model while these nations are engaged in supporting all of
NATO’s wars and imposing the same, if not worse, austerity measures
against their respective working masses is not unexpected.
In these troubled times “Bernie,” in fact, perfectly fills capitalism’s
needs for legitimacy. His chatter about the need for a “political
revolution” in the U.S. is subordinate to his quarter-century service as
Vermont’s leading elected official—unchallenged by the Democratic Party.
His current assignment, for which he will undoubtedly be richly rewarded
down the line, is to corral working-class discontent back into the
capitalist framework and, when the Peter Pan fairy dust has cleared, to
back Hillary Clinton.
Santa is in exile!
There is no Santa Claus on Wall Street, dear friends—neither in the form
of Bernie and Hillary nor charitable gift-giving billionaires like Gates
and Zuckerberg. Indeed, the real Santa likely abandoned his North Pole
abode at the first signs of Industrial Revolution capitalist-caused
global warming.
That once pristine ice-capped area, increasingly barren today, is the
domain of happy Obama’s helpers, including the Chevron Corporation, which
seeks to mine the exposed earth for the very fossil fuels whose continued
use spells doom for all human kind. The real Santa likely moved his
helpers to cities around the world to join the fight to restore his
homeland and ours, and to return to the people of the earth the
opportunity to collectively build a joyous world, free from those who
would irrationally destroy it in the pursuit of profit.
Another Christmastime hero, a young Jewish rebel who lived a bit more
than 2000 years ago, may have left us with some insightful words to
ponder. “Drive the money changers from the temple,” he exhorted. Not a
bad holiday admonition! Indeed, the socialist movement of the early 19th
century did include followers of Jesus, who believed that socialism was
the modern-day expression of the teachings of the Lord.
Today’s Marxist revolutionaries base themselves on a qualitatively
grounded or materialist understanding of the roots of capitalist
society’s countless horrors. As the gap narrows between workers’
mounting hatred of the dread consequences of capitalist exploitation and
oppression and their reluctance to enter the fray to challenge it in all
its fundamentals, we will see countless millions of new and clear-sighted
fighters break with all of capitalism’s ruling-class-based institutions
of coercion and control.
That day is not far over the horizon. Today, the conscious organization
of a deeply-rooted mass revolutionary socialist party—aimed at ending
capitalist rule forever and bringing forth a new world dedicated to
advancing the finest yearnings for freedom, justice, and equality—is
Socialist Action’s reason for being. Join us!
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