Miriam, you are absolutely correct. My current thinking, subject to
sudden change without notice, is that we are dealing with basic human
genetic programming. We Humans get so full of ourselves that we
forget that we are put together like other life forms, both animal and
vegetable. What makes us tick has been successful since the first
Man-like creature got up on its hind legs and thumped its chest. We
are programmed to propagate through a survival of the fittest
regiment. And for thousands of years, Nature, whatever that is, has
successfully balanced Life so that one species did not thrive so well
as to destroy that balance and threaten the existence of Life as it
currently exists.
One of the Human Fairy Tales that makes me smile is the one about God
being Love. If we assume that God created Life, then Love was not in
His mind. It was Survival of the Fittest, what we call a Dog eat Dog
world. Life depends upon death. We kill so we might survive. Big
eats little and little eats littler. Anyway, before I go wandering
off in Space and Time, I'm trying to make the point that we Humans
have decided to call some of our basic drives by other names. We say
we Love. Just what is Love? We say that we Hate. Aren't both of
these simply our expressions, justifying our basic survival instincts?
Sure, as complex social creatures, we Humans have built some very
complex social structures. Originally they served Humans very well,
protecting members of each group and enabling security for new members
born into the group. In those earlier times, the dominant members
controlled the groups activities, as well as protecting all less
dominant members from harm.
Out of this protective behavior, Humans began to expand on this
established structure, ultimately corrupting its original purpose.
Now we use our need to dominate and our need to be protected, in ways
that will ultimately result in our own extinction. Capitalism is our
current corruption of this basic instinct. Once we had gone beyond
defending our little wandering groups, in order to extend the life of
our group, and used it against our own members, we stepped out of
Nature's purpose, and began running wild. We have made numerous
attempts to structure our societies so that the dominant members
maintained control. We went to the extreme of creating a bunch of
Gods, who agreed with our plans, and finally combined all Gods into
One Grand All Perfect God. He comes with a number of names and has
"written" several Holy Books. As we were building this ultimate
Control, we played around with creating Human Gods, Kings Emperors and
the like. We "discovered" that in gathering possessions around
ourselves, we could better dominate and protect our lesser members.
But today, under Corporate Capitalism, we no longer feel the need to
protect the weaker members in our group.
So, Jesus, or those who claim to have put His Words into print, talked
about changing Man's Nature from that of beasts, to a Nature filled
with God's Love. Jesus, or those who set down His remembered words,
appeared to understand that in order to live in peace, Man would need
a new nature. Corporate Capitalism has no intention of living in
peace. Our huge corporations are right back to "Survival of the
Fittest".
However, over throwing Corporate Capitalism and replacing it with
something else, is not the answer. We need first to design that,
Something Else, and test it out before taking on those who currently
rule us. It would be interesting to see more worker owned businesses
such as the one Richard Wolff spoke of, given space to develop. But
of course those Dominant members now in control will never allow that
to happen. Not without a fight.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/30/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
OK. So let's substitute the word tribalism for racism and lets leave the
contemporary American scene behind. In 1986, I visited Kenya. By then, the
English Colonials were gone. The country was ruled by one party. That party
was composed of the people from one of the two dominant tribes in Kenya.
There had always been different tribes there, way before any English
arrived, way before western civilization raised its ugly head. And there
were people of the Muslim faith who had migrated from the Middle East. It
wasn't white people who captured black people and brought them to the
African coast for transport to the new world. African tribes had been
fighting each other forever and enslaving each other. Now there was a
monetary incentive. But the point is that the population was divided and
the divisions had nothing to do with Capitalism or class structure. The same
thing was true on our continent. The natives were divided into tribes and
many of them fought each other and the victors often enslaved the
vanquished. This business of banding with one's kind and seeing people
outside of one's band as other, as the enemy, as less than human, this
tendency didn't begin with Feudalism or the Industrial Revolution. The
ruling classes in western societies may have used this human tendency to
despise people who are different, to their own advantage. But the tendency
is sitting there in our human biology. One can set up a society to
discourage It or to encourage it. But it's there along with the tendency to
love and nurture and the tendency to rape and pillage.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2017 11:16 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: more from the Eleanor Roosevelt book
Miriam,
It looks like we have a standoff. I am convinced that Class Distinction is
at the root of our racism. But whether it is or not, racism is still alive
and going strong in America today. But here is where I see it. Racism was
built into the new Constitution. That document was written by the Ruling
Class of the day. Blacks, Indians, Women, and most Working Class people
were not included among those permitted to vote. For this reason I claim
that this new government was an Oligarchy. The families of those privileged
people continue to be members of the present Ruling Class. Even though we
have modified the constitution by amending it to include those people
originally excluded. But the Ruling Class and those people who benefit from
holding hands with the Ruling Class, have taken measures to continue holding
control. Look at today's voter restrictions and the manipulation of
election ballots, and Gerrymandering. All of that activity is directly a
result of the Ruling Classes effort to hold onto their control.
While I understand what FDR faced back in the 30's and 40's, and certainly
he could not have accomplished any social improvements without securing the
votes, which meant bringing on board the White Racists(the Dixicrats) and
allowing them to continue to persecute Blacks and other minorities such as
Jews and Indians.
In fact, I am not criticizing Roosevelt for doing what he felt was necessary
to secure what changes he did accomplish. But as we can see through the
ensuing 80 plus years, embracing the Dixicrats has enabled racists to
continue with their oppression of non white Americans.
But I don't find that Roosevelt believed that all Americans were equal under
the Law. Look at his method of handling the fear of American Citizens of
Japanese parentage.
Did he order Americans to include their Japanese fellow Americans when
defending our shores?
Did he even once send troops into the Solid South in order to protect our
Black Citizens? Roosevelt, for all the good he did, continued to be a
Citizen in Good Standing in the American Oligarchy. He may have had
compassion for the plight of those less fortunate than himself, but his
first order of business was to save the Ruling Class from a pending
revolution.
Today we still fight to include Black Americans, Spanish Americans, and
Jewish Americans as full Citizens. And women are barely accepted, with only
a few exceptions, at the top.
Of course, when the Democrats did put pressure on the Dixicrats, they took
their marbles and became Republicans. For the most part these New
Republicans make up the Solid Right Wing Block.
Although we are in denial, the United States is a Class Society. We think
that just because a few individuals rise up financially, that moving into
the Ruling Class is easy? In order to become a new member, a person must
first announce that they support the beliefs of the Ruling Class. If they
don't, it makes no difference how many billions they gather, they are not
accepted. Look at our friendly Bill Gates. Raised in an Upper Middle Class
home, he came to embrace the values of the Ruling Class, and has been
embraced. Does this mean that Bill Gates doesn't support "good works"? Of
course he does, through the Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation. And this is
true of the foundations of other Billionaires. The question is, are their
good works improving the lives of working class Americans? Or are their
good works actually supporting their Ruling Class values? Bill Gates, a man
who never attended public elementary or high schools, strongly promotes
privatizing public education. Even if most Americans support better funding
of public education, Donald Trump demonstrated his own membership in the
Ruling Class by who he selected to be his Secretary of Education.
I almost fall on the floor with laughter when the Talking Heads begin
pondering as to whether or not Donald Trump will be impeached. Forget it.
Just so long as Donald Trump helps smooth the way to the National Treasury,
these billionaire profiteers will have his back...regardless of what they
might say to his face.
Talk is cheap. And these people know how to talk. But I can no longer hear
what they're saying because it has not changed in my lifetime. I choose to
listen to people who have the working classes needs, rather than money as
their bottom line. People who make sense.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/30/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, if we transport ourselves back to the 1930's, there was a very
strong wing of the Democratic party called the Dixicrats and they had
support, a lot of it, from white Southerners. Now you can repeat again
how white Southerners were manipulated into thinking as they did by
the ruling class, and that may or may not be true. After all, we have
seen the human propensity to mistrust those who are different. But
however the white southerners became what they were, they had
influence in the Democratic Party. And there were the Republicans who
were strongly opposed to all of FDR's economic measures. His measures
meant spending huge amounts of government money to employ people. So,
given the country as it existed, he did what he thought he needed to
do in order to get them instituted. I'll add that even within his
administration, there were many people who didn't feel that black
people should benefit from many of the demonstration projects or other
programs. They believed that since black people were accustomed to
privation and white people were not, the help should go to the white
people. I don't think that racism can be explained away by class theory.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2017 10:28 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: more from the Eleanor Roosevelt book
Miriam,
Yes, it's interesting. But rather than talk about what the Nazis
thought about FDR, I'd rather talk about why so many of his initial
good ideas never came to be. One of the things I have had to unlearn
is that our two party system, along with the division of power between
Judicial, Congress and the President, makes certain that we continue
to be free, and do not wander down a wrong road, ending in Tyranny.
What I now think is that compromise works to the advantage of the
Ruling Class. As we've seen, the Ruling Class can give a little when
it needs to, and can take it back when the opportunity is right.
During our nation's history, we've seen good times and we've seen bad
times.
That is, "We" if we're among the Working Class. The members of the
Oligarchy, the Elite Ruling Class, seldom have "bad times".
I know I had some other profound thoughts to splatter across the page,
but after a break, I have no idea what they were. Our son and his
partner left
us(me) some Maple Nut Ice-Cream when they headed home.
James had plans to gobble it down on his way out, but Amy slapped his
hand and said, "naughty, naughty. Leave some for your Dear Old Dad."
What a girl! So I am headed for the freezer and then to watch Jeopardy.
Good night!
Carl Jarvis
On 5/29/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Here's a tidbit that I just heard on The Tel Aviv Review. This came
from an interview with a historian from, Harvard or Yale, can't
remember which, who has just completed a book about the American
concepts which the Nazis used in building their system for handling
citizens and those people who were unworthy of citizenship. Hitler
and his associates were very positively impressed with FDR because
they saw him as a strong leader who could become an effective
dictator if the situation permitted. They liked some of the federal
programs that were set up like the NRA because these programs were
set up without congressional approval and because they used effective
propaganda to convince the public to support them. Interesting, huh?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2017 6:47 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: more from the Eleanor Roosevelt book
William Randolph Hearst employed a fellow by the name of Francis
James Westbrook Pegler, who wrote under the name of Westbrook
Pegler(pronounced
Peggler) As the years passed, Pegler began to attack FDR and Eleanor
Roosevelt. I recall reading hateful articles by Pegler long after
FDR was dead.
" He denounced the civil rights movement and in the early 1960s wrote
for the John Birch Society, until he was invited to leave because of
his extreme views."(from Wikipedia)
In 1962 Pegler lost his contract with King Features Syndicate(owned
by Hearst), because of his attacks on Hearst Executives.
Westbrook Pegler was my "Go To Guy" anytime someone told me that the
American Press was Liberal.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/29/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The original plan was for universal social security. Everyone at
birth would be enrolled in the plan. There would be a federal
government contribution with funds coming from a sales tax. Henry
Morganthal, (secretary of the
treasury) and the Southern senators disagreed. They proposed a
system based only on contributions from employers and employees that
would omit poor black people. This funding system differed from all
the European social security systems. Also, FDR initially proposed
universal health care insurance which he quickly dropped under
pressure. 65 senators were in favor of the US joining the World
Court until Hearst propagandized against the plan in his papers and
told citizens to send telegrams to their senators and
representatives opposing it on the basis that the US would be giving
up its sovereignty.
Miriam
