Sanders: A Man with A Hammer, Who Sees Nails Everywhere

[kennetha]

On another thread, someone wondered if Sanders is "tone-deaf" on matters of race. I think he's not exactly tone-deaf. He's just a man with a hammer who sees nails everywhere.

In particular, he's an economic determinist, who thinks in quasi-marxist fashion, that class antagonism is more fundamental than any other form of antagonism, more fundamental than racial antagonism in particular. That doesn't necessarily mean that he thinks racism isn't real, but he thinks that if you bring about true economic justice, racial justice will somehow follow in its wake -- but probably not the other way around. Indeed, he probably thinks that it would be impossible to achieve racial justice without first achieving economic justice.

I mean that's why he rails and rails against the Billionaire class. He thinks they and their greed are the source of almost all social/political/economic ills. So I wouldn't say he's "tone" death, as much as he is monomaniacal in his singular focus on the billionaire class as public enemy number one.


It's worth thinking how plausible it is that the billionaire class really deserves to be labelled public enemy number one. Personally, I've got no brief for the billionaire class. I do have to admit that I wouldn't complain if somebody dropped a few billions on me and made me one of them. But I'm just not sure that they are the only villains worth fighting or how many of our many woes they are directly to blame for.

First off, if we going to talk the billionaire class, we gotta realize that we're not just talking an American class, but a sort of global international cooperative. Rein in just the American segment of the class and you still got global international capital to contend with. And it's not at all clear how many problems you can really solve just by addressing the American segment of the global class. (That's why some Marxists -- like Trotsky -- thought that the revolution of the proletariat had to be a world wide revolution.)

So here's a question for Bernie, can you really de-rig the American economy, without de-rigging the Global economy?

Now I wouldn't want to deny that there surely some truth to the idea that the billionaire class would very much like to make the US government into its wholly owned subsidiary. But I don't think they've quite succeeded entirely. Miscreants of many types have a piece of the thing -- evangelicals, nativists, racists, old people, the rural folk -- Certainly not all of them are card carrying members of the billionaire class. One of the reasons politics is such a mess in this country is that it's a big complicated sprawling thing with many centers of power, many veto points, with a constitution that is designed to prioritize stasis and conflict over change. Makes it damned hard to get anything done.

That's why it's sort of silly to think that it's the billionaire class that is wholly responsible for the fact that we don't have single payer health insurance. I grant that a lot of resistance comes form the drug companies and the insurance companies. And these folks are charter members of the billionaire class. But I think you can go a lot further down the economic ladder than the billionaire rung and find a lot of people who are resistant. Most doctors aren't card carrying members of the class. But a lot of them -- especially the specialists -- are highly opposed to "socialized medicine." People who work for big companies with generous benefits always fear they are going to be net losers in any new scheme that at all lifts those below. That's a pretty American thing. And you don't have to be a billionaire to be subject to that particular affliction -- call it "I got mine-ism." American as apple pie.

And, by the way, it was president Jimmy Carter -- no servant of the billionaire class, who actually torpedoed Kennedy's national healthcare bill back in the late 70's, prompting Kennedy to challenge him for the Democratic nomination.

It's less clear to me whether it's the evil billionaire class that is supposed to be responsible for mass incarceration in Bernie's mind. Personally, I tend to blame white people at large and their fear of the black other for that one. I don't think it was the billionaires who insisted for decade after decade that politicians be "tough on crime." It wasn't the billionaire class that got that insane and costly three strikes and your out law passed in California. It was a lot of angry and afraid white people -- a lot of them working and middle class.

Now as a quasi-Maxist economic determinist, comrade Bernie probably thinks their racism is due to "false consciousness." What angry white racists need is a little class consciousness to make them immune from being played against their black brethren in chains by the billionaire class.

Same thing with illegal immigration, I guess. Have to find a way to lay xenophobia at the feet of the billionaire class. That's a little tricky, since you might naively think that the billionaires would be for open borders -- cause, you know, more cheap exploitable labor, and all.

Obviously some of the desolation of America -- the desolation of its heavy industries, the emptying out of rural American -- is due to the GLOBAL billionaire class, at least in part -- cause you know global capitalism, agribusiness, and all that capital moving around the globe at the speed of light. That kind of stuff takes livelihoods with it in the blink of an eye, enriching those over here, while impoverishing those over there, with a brutal and indifferent efficiency.

Dealing with that is tough stuff. One of the biggest challenges of the 21st Century. Not sure how to stop it. Way more difficult than saying "Main street bailed out wall street, time for wall street to bail out main street." a la Sanders. Way more difficult even than "breaking down all the barriers" al la Clinton too. But at least she recognizes that there are many distinct and interacting barriers and soaking the billionaires while necessary isn't sufficient to break all the barriers down.

Bottom line, even given the partly destructive force of global international capitalism, and the havoc it has wreaked on the American landscape -- I doubt it's just the billionaire class that's responsible for all of our decay. I mean just think about it, even billionaires have to live and work and do business somewhere. They have to draw workers from somewhere. They have to ship resources here and there. So you would think they would want a highly efficient infrastructure, a highly educated workers and all that jazz. That argues for a lot of public investment in things that we haven't been investing much in for a very long time. Who exactly is to blame for that lack of investment? If it's really and truly the billionaire class that is blocking that investment, then, well they are just stupid and working contrary to their enlightened self-interest, aren't they?

Long winded way of saying that comrade Sanders isn't tone deaf -- not exactly -- it's more like he's got tunnel vision. He's a man with a hammer, who sees nails everywhere.

[libtodeath]

1. If you want to be taken serious try ending the red baiting.

[cosmicone]

6. There was no red baiting at all

Red baiting would be a viable argument if "sickle" was added to the hammer.

[kath]

28. Reading comprehension (heck, reading *period*) is your friend.

Did you miss the "comrade Sanders" bit?

[pangaia]

37. comrade Bernie ?

[cannabis_flower]

104. Quasi-Marxist isn't red-baiting?

[RichVRichV]

127. I literally got to that comment and stopped reading the rest.

It's obvious the person is either biased or ignorant of what Marxism is.

[CajunBlazer]

137. You're loss - good points made

[merrily]

152. Even then...The "Bernie is a one track candidate" is such a false non-starter from the campaign.

[TubbersUK]

2. I got as far as "comrade Bernie" n/t

[Merryland]

3. wow

yes, red-baiting is so 1950's...

[bravenak]

4. DU REC!

[kristopher]

117. Of course, that is what the Rev. King believed also.

You knew that, right?

I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic… [Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive… but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.
(Letter to Coretta Scott, July 18, 1952)

One day we must ask the question, “Why are there forty million poor people in America?” … When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy.
(Final speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1967)

In the thousands of speeches and celebrations on the official Martin Luther King holiday since its inception, there is a crucial fact of his life, activism and thought that no major commemoration has ever celebrated: that King was a strong and uncompromising opponent of American capitalism. This was no late-in-life development for King. It spanned from his youthful years to his death while attempting to gain humane wages and working conditions for a public union. Why was Martin Luther King so opposed to capitalism?

On the one hand, capitalism has generated immense wealth, significantly raised living standards and generally made life more comfortable and secure to varying degrees for most of those living in capitalist countries. On the other hand, it has exacted an excruciating toll in human toil and treasure. It has wrought immense suffering, systematic oppression and exploitation, and debilitating social alienation. Capitalism rewards, indeed depends upon, selfish, aggressive behavior. It values profits over people, promotes material values over spiritual values, dispenses power without social responsibility, and treats people as commodities to be discarded.

Moreover, capitalism is not compatible with “one person, one vote” political democracy because those with the most capital have far more political influence and power per capita than less well-heeled Americans. It is also incompatible with economic democracy because capitalism allows no democracy in the workplace. Workers have to comply with capitalists’ rules and dictates or risk penury and, in egregious cases, physical violence.

However, the factor that most powerfully fueled King’s opposition to capitalism is the imperative of his biblical faith to bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth....

Go to http://oberyhendricks.net/uncompromising-anti-capitalism-martin-luther-king-jr/

[Arazi]

133. Now you're for redbaiting ?!

Any port in a storm I guess

[bravenak]

134. Yeah yeah yeah

[cosmicone]

7. Kicked and highly recommended n/t

[Sheepshank]

97. Carefully considered post...a heart K & R

[kennetha]

107. thanks for the heart and the K&R

[cali]

8. Blah.Blah. Bernie bad. Hilly good. Blah blah blah

[nc4bo]

9. +1. nt

[BlueJazz]

22. Yep, My parents knew a lot of filthy-rich people (Father was a surgeon)

He told me when I was about 12 "Most of them got rich by inheritance or fucking people or both"

[JTFrog]

39. I guess that balances out your Blah.Blah. Hilly bad. Bernie good. Blah blah blah.

[CajunBlazer]

138. Super intellegent comment

I have come to expect better from you.

[Fumesucker]

11. Some music for a thread about hammers

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

79. Always liked Seeger.

seems to be the most appropriate song for this primary. For the owners, or for the workers?

[DURHAM D]

12. Sanders makes it seem like

the solution to all the world's problems is a simple matter. eom

People are busy and and really appreciate it when things can be reduced to a noun, a verb, and billionaires or Wall Street.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

147. Very astute observation

IMO, Bernie is just as much a policy-ignorant demagogue as Rudy Giuliani, except "billionaire class stands in for "9/11"

Both are WAY out of their depth in seeking The Oval Office, IMO.

[Gregorian]

13. So what you're saying is you like Ronald Reagan?

The poor are not the ones who made this mess.

What I'm learning on this forum is that if you are a hillary voter, you don't want to see the truth. It's really odd seeing this on a democratic forum.

Also, Bernie isn't able to take on the global economy. He's just focusing on the mess that has been made here in the US.

[kennetha]

14. Wow

Talk about a non-sequitur of numbing proportions. That takes the cake for illogic.

[Gregorian]

15. Sorry, I garnered that by reading between the incomplete sentences..

[m-lekktor]

18. What do you mean wow. Your OP sounds like it was written by a conservative republican. nt

[kennetha]

20. I don't think you can read

if you think that.

[99Forever]

100. IMO

It was.

[kristopher]

119. So how do you account for Rev.King believing the same thing as Sanders?

Do you think he was he as misguided as you claim Senator Sanders is?

In 1964, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, he observed that the United States could learn much from Scandinavian "democratic socialism." He often talked about the need to confront "class issues," which he described as "the gulf between the haves and the have-nots."

In 1966 King confided to his staff:

"You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism. There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism."

In holding these views, King followed in the footsteps of many prominent, influential Americans whose views and activism changed the country for the better. In the 1890s, a socialist Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy, wrote "The Pledge of Allegiance" and a socialist poet, Katherine Lee Bates, penned "America the Beautiful." King was part of a proud tradition that includes such important 20th century figures as Jane Addams, Eugene Debs, Florence Kelley, John Dewey, Upton Sinclair, Helen Keller, W.E.B. DuBois, Albert Einstein, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and Walter Reuther.

Today, America's most prominent democratic socialist is Senator Bernie Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Like King, Sanders says that the U.S. should learn from Sweden, Norway and Denmark -- countries with greater equality, a higher standard of living for working families, better schools, free universities, less poverty, a cleaner environment, higher voter turnout, stronger unions, universal health insurance, and a much wider safety net. Sounds anti-business? Forbes magazine ranked Denmark as the #1 country for business. The United States ranked #18.

Concerns about the political influence of the super-rich, the nation's widening economic divide, the predatory practices of Wall Street banks, and stagnating wages, have made more and more Americans willing to consider the idea seriously. A December 2011 Pew survey found that nearly half of young voters under the age of 29, regardless of their political party affiliation, viewed socialism positively....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/martin-luther-king-was-a-democratic-socialist_b_9008990.html

[RiverLover]

17. I got from this that its better to keep minorities poor than to give them jobs or pay them more.

That would show our leaders aren't tone deaf at least.

Keep them poor!

Their problems will work themselves out.

[kennetha]

21. Glaring non-sequitur of

numbing proportions again.

[pangaia]

42. You have now used 'non-sequitor' twice, at least.

And yet, in your screed you say 'gotta.'

[Recursion]

19. Reagan started this, more or less

I think, looking back 100 years from now, they'll look back on Reagan as the one who really revolutionized messaging in US politics. Obama recognized that, and mentioned it in the 2008 campaign (which doubled as a way of trolling the Clinton campaign).

Also, Bernie isn't able to take on the global economy. He's just focusing on the mess that has been made here in the US.

They aren't separable. He knows that, incidentally, quite well; he also knows what message works for US voters right now.

[Recursion]

16. And in the Twitter Era that's sadly what it takes to win

He has consistently had the initiative in the primary because of that. People bristle when he's compared to Trump, but they really are comparable in that sense: they have a diagnosis and a solution to the nation's problems, and that's what they talk about, period. Relationships between the things they say and actual facts are of secondary importance.

And that's our current political world.

[CajunBlazer]

139. And another similarity - Assurances that they will fix everything

All you have to do is trust me and all will be well.

[Karma13612]

145. Wrong, Bernie Sanders continues to remind us

That it is about ALL the voters working together to tackle the big issues.

Not unicorns, REVOLUTION

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

23. I feel so sorry for the poor, downtrodden, billionaires being attacked by "comrade" Bernie.

Red bait much?

[kennetha]

25. Who said billionaires are downtrodden?

and comrade is a term of affection and solidarity

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. Wouild "Picked on"? Balamed? Scorned? Attacked? Defamed? be more apt.

Is "comrade" how you refer to Hillary or Bill? In an affectionate way of course.

And, if you're in "solidarity" with Bernie, will you vote for him?

[kennetha]

38. the question is whether billionaires are responsible for

all our ills -- racism and xenophobia, disinvestment in public infrastructure, failing schools (which is a local thing, by the way, hardly within the reach of the billionaire class). Are the billionaires responsible for white flight from American cities and the loss of the political will to stop urban decay?

What do you really think?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

47. Which is like asking if the Mafia is responsible for all our ills.

Does the billionaire class share much of the responsibility (while, certainly not the effects) of much of what you listed? Absolutely. Along with the politicians they buy to ensure their dominance.

[hobbit709]

24. Hillary supporters. Nails that see hammers everywhere raised against them.

[kennetha]

26. you seem incapable

of serious exchange.

[hobbit709]

29. Have you looked in the mirror.

Here's a little music for you.

[kennetha]

31. Try responding to something I actually said with a thought of substance

you're like those fox news watchers who never let an inconvenient thought enter their closed little minds. I thought democrats were better, more open-minded, more thoughtful than that.

[hobbit709]

33. What substance have you actually provided?

I AM a Democrat, not a corporate shill.

[kennetha]

35. you can't read obviously.

[hobbit709]

41. And you won't.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

36. And, sicles. Don't forget the sickles, comrade.

[randys1]

27. Comrade? let me put forth my biggest

S I G H

of the week

[My Good Babushka]

30. The billionaire class is absolutely responsible for the decay,

who else has bought that kind of influence in American labor and economic policy? They would rather have tax breaks than investment in American infrastructure. They are global competitors with no allegiance to any country. They don't need an American middle class because there are emerging middle class markets in developing countries, countries that have invested in their infrastructure, health and education.

[kennetha]

34. What about racism and xenophobia

Do you really think they are responsible for that? Seems counterintuitive. Or mass incarceration?

if they want cheaper labor, they want more labor competition, not less. Mass incarceration shrinks the labor pool. So do closed borders.

[hobbit709]

40. Maybe this attitude had something to do with it

I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
Jay Gould

[kennetha]

44. Right that's the marxist and quasi-marxist line that I was talking about.

that sees class antagonism as fundamental. When the working class is divided against itself, that's the doing of the capitalist, who manipulates worker consciousness so that they don't see their common economic interest.

If you believe that class antagonism is fundamental, you think that racial antagonism will wither away with the achievement of class consciousness.

I'm just not convinced. lots aren't. That's what separates economic determinist like Sanders seems to be, from those who think that things like racial antagonism isn't just secondary or derivative, or enforced in a sort of top=down fashion.

[hobbit709]

46. Jay Gould spouting Marxist lines-that IS the funniest thing I've come to in your posts yet.

[kennetha]

49. All Marxists are economic determinists

but not all economic determinist are marxists.

That's why I said "quasi-Marxists."

[hobbit709]

51. Do you even know who Jay Gould was?

[kennetha]

54. yeah.

that was my point. You could be a robber baron and believe in economic determinism.

[OrwellwasRight]

57. So your argument is what?

We should "cure" racism, do nothing about economic inequality and everything will be OK? Awesome!

[kennetha]

61. Jeepers.

you flunk reading comprehension 101.

[OrwellwasRight]

62. Actually I don't.

You flunk "writing a convincing argument 101"

[floppyboo]

70. Unfortunately, not many historical examples. Chile might have been

before Allende was assassinated. Jamaica might have been before the IMF and World Bank took over. And then their are the host of other South American countries. There are many good arguments to be made that racial antagonism MAY have withered away. Can you show me a good one that proves that economic justice has failed in correcting racial injustice somewhere?

[kristopher]

122. What do you believe then?

There is only one theory of culture which explains the situation better than Marxism, and that theory (Cultural Materialism) incorporates virtually all of Marxist thought into it. In the case of racism, they both would come to the same conclusions.

[OrwellwasRight]

53. Actually keeping the masses from uniting together keeps the elitists in power

and keeps wages down.

If you don't think racism supports the plutocracy you haven't been paying attention.

It benefits them to keep us fighting each other.

[kennetha]

55. the question is does it go the other way round.

Labor divided against itself supports the plutocracy. But does the plutocracy cause or exploit the racial division of labor against itself? YOU know it was the resistance of white working class people that kept blacks out of unions for a long time. Not sure that was the doing of the plutocracy, even though it weakened labor solidarity.

[OrwellwasRight]

58. Who do you think promoted that?

Who benefits from a divided labor class? THINK.

Hint: It's not poor white people.

[kennetha]

66. They sure think they do.

They get higher wages if they don't have to compete with the black other, if they can exclude the black other, and can make the labor pool smaller and make labor a scarcer commodity.

The capitalist doesn't care about the color of the skin of the laborer. True, he wants labor to be completely atomized -- so he is opposed to worker solidarity. That's why he tries to break up unions. But he doesn't try to drive any workers out of the labor pool. He wants an infinite pool of atomized laborers.

The white laborer who wants to exclude blacks from the union, is, to be sure, acting against his long term economic interest. His long term interest is in not allowing the capitalist to atomize labor. No doubt about it. But his short term interest may seem to him to lie with excluding the black other, with whom he refuses to stand in solidarity not necessarily out of pure economic calculation, but out of radicalized consciousness.

But that's the point that economic determinist don't see. That humans are more than the sums of their economic interests. They have all sorts of antagonism that shape consciousness.

[OrwellwasRight]

68. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I don't make more money if the guy working next to me makes less because of his race or immigration status. I make less.

The more that "capitalists" can pay less than the minimum wage, can abuse and exploit, the less they get to pay everyone. they surely benefit from ignorant whites thinking that they are superior to others. And so that is promoted. Why do you think all the Republicans use dog whistle politics. By accident? Hello! You just don't get it. At all. Pay attention!

[kennetha]

71. They immigrant or the black guy

isn't working (in theory). You, the white guy, want to close the border to the immigrant and lock up the black guy and (historically speaking) keep him out of your closed union shop so he can't take you job and drive down your wages. Again that's not the doing of the factory owner. He does indeed want to drive down your wages, so he's got nothing at all against the immigrant laborer, no reason to want to keep the black guy out of the labor market. he wants you to compete with all comers.

[OrwellwasRight]

76. Um, yes, they are working, for less.

And driving down wages for all.

What makes you think immigrants and POC don't work?

And closed shops are illegal. There are only union shops now and the Rs are trying to get rid of those, presumably with your help given all of your anti-union rhetoric. Then we'll be a 100% right to work country and wages will be driven down even more.

And get a clue by the way, union jobs have been a path to the middle class for POC.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2011/03/antiunion_bills_a_trend_that_hurts_the_black_middle_class.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/business/public-sector-jobs-vanish-and-blacks-take-blow.html

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/04/16/path-middle-class-via-hotel-work/0uMS8TXvkmZdl1CjZcSYCN/story.html

[kennetha]

80. yes I know all that

I'm trying to distill the constellation of competing interests and trying to show that racism and all that isn't the doing of capitalism or the billionaire class.

Marx himself said this, you know. He actually thought that capitalism was an extraordinarily progressive force. He thought that it destroyed all previous systems of oppression -- he was thinking of feudalism and nationalism and all that jazz, less about race -- but capitalism and capitalism alone brought us to the point in history where the very idea of an international workers state was even conceivable.

(But one of the things that Marxist and all influenced by him can't explain is the persistence of all sorts of divisions -- ethnic divisions, racial divisions, which seem to work contrary to economic self-interest.)

[OrwellwasRight]

85. Again, willful blindness.

And historical inaccuracy.

You're saying that racism is humanity's natural state rather than imposed by the elites to maintain control over everyone else. And you are incorrect. Study the concept of hegemony. Why it exists and how it is perpetuated.

Why do you think the Inquisition appeared at the same time as the rise of the bourgeoisie?

Why do you think anti-Muslim hatred was created while the elites needed volunteers for their crusade adventurism?

Why do you think Birth of a Nation was produced?

The elite teach and push racial, religious and other divisions to perpetuate their own status.

I'm done with this pointlessness.

[kennetha]

86. Ad hominem insults

the last resort of the intellectually challenged.

[OrwellwasRight]

87. Do you even know what ad hominem is?

It means a personal insult, such as "intellectually challenged." Point out where I called you a name.

I guess this proves the old adage that you always accuse your opponent of what you actually are.

[kennetha]

90. willful blindness

sounds pretty ad hominem to me.

[OrwellwasRight]

91. Uh, no.

That describes your actions, not a personal trait.

Here's an example:

You're ugly = ad hominem.

That was an ugly remark = not ad hominem.

You're too stupid to see the truth = ad hominem.

You are ignoring the truth = not ad hominem.

You're "intellectually challenged"= ad hominem.

You're engaging in willful blindness = not ad hominem.

Hope this was helpful.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

101. You are condescending to

someone who obviously is vastly more knowledgeable and articulate than yourself, IMO. Why is it that you feel free to do that?

[OrwellwasRight]

114. I very much appreciate the fact that you find other posters

"vastly more articulate" than me.

It is too bad that not one of the posts disputing my critique in this sub-thread was supported by a link, nor has the other party admitted that it is the elites who benefit when the working classes divide by race instead of unite together.

I wouldn't think one has to be particularly "articulate" to make a point that is glaringly obvious to anyone who cares to look, which is that racism benefits the current hegemon. I find the argument made in the OP wildly off-base, far-fetched, and unsupported by reality, no matter how "articulate" it may be.

Thank you for your generous critique, however, and feel free to ignore my inarticulate posts in the future.

All the best.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

115. This sounds like stubborn

clinging to the very non-billionaire white privilege you are denying when scapegoating only Senator BS's "billionaire class". Since you asked for links here's one from a U of Texas journalism prof. that IMO could rock your world:

https://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/whiteprivilege.htm

It's a real classic I've seen linked dozens of times, called "White privilege shapes the US".

I dare you to remain so apparently stubbornly rude after you have read it.

[OrwellwasRight]

116. WTF are you talking about?

What does "white privilege" have to do with understanding concepts like hegemony? What does "white privilege" have to do with understanding that unions have been a path to the middle class for people of color? What does "white privilege" have to do with understanding concepts like closed shops being illegal? What does "white privilege" have to do with understanding concepts like the hegemons win when the average folks are too busy fighting each other than to go after the actual source of the power? These are all things I pointed out earlier and all things the OPer denied were true. So I guess that must mean that I am white, and I am privileged. Think about what you are saying. It's actually totally offensive.

Now I see why you think so much of the OP. You also don't get it. Well, good for you. Keep the hegemon in place. I hope that works out well for you.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

121. Did you really read and savor every

sentence of that one-page essay? I doubt you even clicked through the link you demanded.

[OrwellwasRight]

128. It's not that I didn't read it.

It's that it has ZERO to do with this conversation. I have read and shared that piece on Facebook before. So what? I never said that White Privilege doesn't exist and instead try to explain it to people that think it doesn't. So your implication is massively off-base.

However, getting a bunch of privileged, entitled white folks to admit they have been the beneficiaries with white privilege, either in housing (http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/01/248039354/a-battle-for-fair-housing-still-raging-but-mostly-forgotten), or in bank loans (http://www.epi.org/publication/latino-black-borrowers-high-rate-subprime-mortgages/), or when they just don't have change for the bus (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/opinion/research-shows-white-privilege-is-real.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0), or in any other aspect of life DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT THIS COUNTRY IS RUN BY A PLUTOCRACY THAT TEACHES HATE AND BENEFITS FROM IT. You aren't going to fix it by preaching hope and love or by trying to make whites admit they benefit from white privilege (since most of them aren't interested in that). You change it by tearing down the system that screws the 99% and and promotes the dog whistle politics.

The answer to fundamental change is to tear down the hegemony, not to act holier than though and call other posters "rude" and lacking "knowledge."

Again, too bad you love to call names, like accusing my "white privilege" of having to do with my position on the economy without even having the slightest clue who I am.

I know you're still feeling superior, so enjoy it.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

131. None so blind ...

[OrwellwasRight]

135. Look in the mirror.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

142. Follow your own advice

[OrwellwasRight]

146. You too.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

84. You don't think slave-owning was all about money?

The original sin of America had its roots firmly founded in the love of money, loving money more than human beings, and teaching their children to think of blacks as less than human so as to relegate them to the status of property, all in the name of exploiting them for profit. The 'billionaires' of their day made their wealth by using racism as a tool to exploit workers, and to write laws to make sure racism thrived in America long after literal slavery became illegal.

As to cheaper labor? A lot of 'American made' products are made by prisoners these days, for far less than minimum wage. Mass incarceration is just another modern day form of slavery, and is the labor pool they prefer. Closed borders? Immigrants expect higher wages when they get to America. Far better to leave the borders closed and simply ship the factories overseas, as they've been doing for decades.

Your arguments are as shoddy and wrong-minded as your logic.

[kennetha]

88. Final Exam Question

Why did poor, landless Southern Whites, support slavery, so much so that they were willing to die for it?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

92. For many reasons.

Starting with what I wrote in the comment just above - they were inculcated in racism by the wealthy, who set up every facet of society to reinforce 'property rights', ie, their right to make money by exploiting others. And, just as modern Republicans play on the notion that if you just 'work hard' you too can become a wealthy person, the wealthy back then did the same thing, holding out the promise that 'in the future' you might be one of the owners, not the owned, at least if you were white and supported them in oppressing blacks.

[kennetha]

94. I think that's partially right.

But the thing is that in fact the landless white person had almost nothing to gain from slavery in reality, economically speaking. But he did have something to gain from the system of white supremacy -- the status of "not being black."

How much was that worth economically? Not a helluva lot.

Point being, the guy at the bottom of the white hierarchy was willing to accept a "bargain" that was contrary to his economic interest, but served some other, darker interest of his, that he was willing to trade off against his economic interest.

Even when slavery ended, and share cropping and Jim Crow segregation came to replace it, reintroducing slavery by another name, the white worker still felt himself such a beneficiary of white supremacy that he was willing to foreswear all solidarity with the black other, just so that he could hang on that status of not being black.

My only point is that economics is not all. It's one thing among others in a stew of competing factors.

[My Good Babushka]

110. Is Nestle working little white children to death in the cocoa fields?

Behind every garment you wear are there white women and children locked into sweatshops? Or are they people of color. Do the incarcerated people who work here for less than minimum wage in the prison industry seem to be of a predominate race or ethnicity? Do industries dump their pollution on the lawns of the well-to-do? Or does that end up in poor, minority neighborhoods as well?
I don't know what you are getting at. At all. Yes. Global corporations support racism and slavery. A lot of it.

[PatrickforO]

154. Are they responsible for racism or xenophobia?

Oh, yeah they are. Read your Howard Zinn. In 'A People's History of the United States' he speaks at length about what the divide and conquer strategy foisted off on the poor by the rich looks like and provides many examples. You must understand that the global capitalists do everything they can to pit poor whites against blacks, dislocated workers against immigrants and a host of other polarized groups. They polarize these groups so that we won't notice that they are picking our pockets and taking an ever greater share of the world's wealth, our wealth, to themselves. That's the way it has been for centuries.

[pangaia]

43. Are you REALLY this naive?

[kennetha]

45. naive?

can you explain yourself rather than just hurling stupid insults?

[hobbit709]

50. NOPE, he knows EXACTLY what he is doing.

[Orsino]

48. Sanders is right to see class warfare at the bottom of most of our ills.

He's right to believe that economic justice would tend to mute institutional racism, climate catastrophe, homelessness, hunger and political disenfranchisement.

That's not to say that a candidate stressing these other problems couldn't improve our lives, but Sanders has not only identified a root cause for the death of the American dream, he's identified the issue that the Establishment most steadfastly refuses to acknowledge.

[kennetha]

52. You and I disagree, I think on one thing.

I think if economic inequality went away, white privilege and racism and xenophobia could still persist unabated. The emptying out of our cities, the disinvestment in public infrastructure, I lay mostly at the hands not of class antagonism, but at the hands of white fear, resentment, anxiety, etc.

[Orsino]

56. Economic inequality is linked to racial inequality.

Hence my belief that the former would tend to mute the latter, and vice versa.

Racism sucks a lot less when individual perps don't have the backing of the system.

[kennetha]

60. Definitely in one way you are right.

If blacks were economically equal to whites, then structures of white privilege and exclusion would be less onerous, but they would still be onerous and hurtful and evil. Separate but equal might mean the end of economic inequality. But it would mean the end of white privilege and/or racism.

[Orsino]

72. Yeah. There's no need to decide which issue must be handled first...

...or is most important. I think we're overdue, though, for a president who will finally do more than talk about economic inequality.

[kennetha]

73. a meeting of the minds!

[whatchamacallit]

59. So much work... TL;DR

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

78. short version: Kennetha can read Bernie's mind,

and according to his mind reading powers, Bernie is a one trick pony. Soooooo... it's the Clinton campaign talking point of the week.

[whatchamacallit]

89. Yeah, kinda got the gist from the title

and figured the rest was hot wind

[CajunBlazer]

140. A huge K&R - GREAT Post - darn, I am out of hearts

[Persondem]

63. Dissent will NOT be tolerated. The revolution must proceed. Resistance is futile.

In other words .. be ready for a hide.

[Autumn]

64. We need a man with a hammer and nails. It's time to build some wealth

for the poor, seniors who have to make a choice between food or medicines, Veterans who are homeless, the lower middle class, student burdened with a lifelong debt, the young facing low wages and unemployment.

Who exactly is to blame for that lack of investment? If it's really and truly the billionaire class that is blocking that investment, then, well they are just stupid and working contrary to their enlightened self-interest, aren't they?

Fuck the billionaire class, no they are not stupid and working contrary to their enlightened self-interest, they are smart and working to their financial self-interest at the expense of the poor and the working class. They have the best fucking politicians money can buy that take care of their interests at the expense of the American people .

FUCK THEM.

[floppyboo]

65. Kennetha, you wrote: "They have to draw workers from somewhere.

"They have to ship resources here and there. So you would think they would want a highly efficient infrastructure, a highly educated workers and all that jazz. That argues for a lot of public investment in things that we haven't been investing much in for a very long time. Who exactly is to blame for that lack of investment? If it's really and truly the billionaire class that is blocking that investment, then, well they are just stupid and working contrary to their enlightened self-interest, aren't they? "

You sound like you've put a lot of thought into the circumstances of today and so I am flummoxed by the above. You would question why investment in things like infrastructure are all but absent, and then you might look at the advent of something like the TPP that is going to only make things worse (since NAFTA). No, they are not being stupid. They are listening to their investors.

And as for workers, private prisons and proxy slaves makes competition for a labour force a moot point.

As I understand, Hillary has caught up with Sanders and is now against both the TPP and private prisons. Good. Now, time for you to catch up too.

[Ron Green]

67. What helps the billionaires is a fearful and alienated society.

To maintain their place atop the heap, they need to ensure that everyone is chasing dollars.

Healthy and connected local communities (which I believe would grow in the kind of bottom-up socialism Bernie's advocating) are the glue that solves racial and social conflicts. As long as outside, centralized corporate money is extracting value from these locations, fear rules.

Bernie's message from the White House would be not one of collectivism, but of interdependence. Your OP doesn't seem to acknowledge this.

[kennetha]

69. Why don't we have this already?

I happen to think it's a lot of different factors. The ravages of global capitalism one major factor among them. But an independent and persistent factor that is America's deep, pervasive, and inalienable racism. It's been with us since the beginning of the Republic and has persisted in many different forms. The structures of exclusion and isolation and fear are not simply the doing of the elites. They are in large measure the doing of the people at large. That makes them damned hard to address.

When the elites --i.e the courts -- tried to enforce integration in our schools, whites en masse, basically rose up and said "hell, no." and today 60 years after Brown v Board of education, our schools are as segregated as they ever were.

Moreover, the billionaire class has almost not say in the management of local schools.

[OrwellwasRight]

74. "the billionaire class has almost not say in the management of local schools"?

I'm sorry. What do you think Common, Core, No Child Left Behind, and TISA are? Putting global corporations in charge of schools.

Channel One, the "free" school news channel?

Pepsi and Coke "sponsoring" schools?

I cold go on but you aren't paying attention.

[Ron Green]

77. I'd be interested to know your age and experience in matters of

race. My view is that culturally, we are truly moving into a post-racial society; that in the past 20 years more change has occurred than in the previous many decades. I'm talking on-the-ground cultural changes, not school segregation; that has to do with billionaires and land use.

[kennetha]

82. I'm an old black guy, father born in the depths of Jim Crow segregation, dirt poor sharecropper.

grew up in a now dead factory town, call n-word more times than you can imagine. Managed to make good despite all that crap.

[Ron Green]

112. OK - I'm an old white guy, grew up in a county 40% black (my first playmates

were black), and never went to school with a black kid until I went away to college. My own kids, now in their 30s, would not recognize this world and wouldn't know of it had I not taken them around when they were little to show them where there had been separate drinking fountains and restrooms, and the outline of the "Colored Entrance" sign over the back door of the restaurant.

The guy in Post 99, who ridicules my "post racial" remark, might reconsider if he'd lived in the older world. I don't maintain we are actually in a post-racial society, but today's young people are never going to allow what you and I saw.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

99. "Moving into post-racial society"?

You've got to be kidding. John Lewis, who damn near have his own life to win the right to vote, has seen the USSC ratify voters ID laws, which Zoltan Hajnal and other turnout experts at ucsd.edu have convinced many are very effective modern day poll taxes.

Racial gaps in poverty rates, extreme poverty rates, and other social indicators are rising.

"Post-racial society", indeed.

[Ron Green]

113. See my reply #112.

I'm not denying the economic factors still seeking to divide working people and to disenfranchise people of color. I'm talking about the norms of only 60 years ago that are now gone forever. What will come in their place will be based not on racism inculcated into children, but on increasing economic opportunities within more diverse and connected communities.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

75. And Hillary is a woman who has a hammer but doesn't believe in using it,

and just intends to let Republicans steal every last thing that isn't nailed down.

[hobbit709]

83. Actually she wants to use the claw end to help pry up the nails.

[Festivito]

81. Yes, because of the world's oldest profession.

Last edited Mon Feb 15, 2016, 02:06 PM - Edit history (1)

Which is not prostitution, rather it is the underlying desire to find moral justification for greed. (Which, BTW, leads to prostitution.)

We are all born into free stuff. Life itself. Baby food. Cleaning service.

Some are freely born into riches. Should we be resentful to the last penny? Some might think so. Most, I think, do not. But, should we be resentful if we are so downtrodden by the lucky few that our very lives, our liberty and happiness are each jeopardized? Some might think so. Most probably do think that would be bad.

That is where we are today.

So, the answer would not be socialism, but, rather democratic socialism. It's okay to be rich, but, no, not so rich that you destroy the lives, the liberties and happiness of others.

Finally, the moral justification by bamboozling voluminous word salad does not cut it for me. Cutting out some of the greed does.

EDIT TO ADD: To de-rig globally would be cheaper, but not required. As example, per capita health care costs. England, surrounded by waters had the cheapest per capita at just under $3000/year. Whereas Canada cost $3500/year and I would note that Canada has a long border with US that has many people who need free health care such as Sarah Palin breaking her arm and her family taking her into Canada, getting free treatment, and returning back to Alaska as a young person. A long but easy drive. England, OTOH, is harder to enter that way. So, England's health care can be cheaper.

[AOR]

93. What are your views on capitalist social relations ?

What is your political affiliation. Leftist politics is about power and resources and who controls them. Sanders is not a Marxist or a Leftist (anti-capitalist). Bernie Sanders is a capitalist reformer (a somewhat radical one) who believes that a ruling class of private capital can remain in place. No Marxists or anti-capitalist Leftists believe that. Billionaires are but a symptom of capitalist social relations. Marxists believe the system of social arrangements must be replaced. Expropriation without representation of the ruling class. Not the ruling class "paying their fair share." These terms you're throwing around very loosely matter in context.

Institutionalized racism is a symptom and a by-product that arose from capitalist social relations and the capitalist modes of mass commodity production. Capitalism didn't arise out of institutionalized racism. Institutionalized racism arose from capitalism.


How Poor Black Lives Matter to U.S. Capitalism Today: Reflections on “The New Jim Crow”

--by Paul Street

(Snip)

King Cotton

"Black lives have always mattered to white America primarily as a source of economic exploitation. And white American authorities have never been particularly squeamish about killing and maiming Black Americans in defense and advance of that exploitation. Untold millions of Black slaves were tortured and murdered so that Southern tobacco, rice, sugar and cotton planters could extract vast quantities of surplus value from them. As the historian Edward Baptist has recently shown, the violence that was systematically inflicted on Blacks in the forced labor camps of U.S. cotton slavery generated much of the economic surplus that drove the United States’ emergence as a modern capitalist and industrial state before the U.S. Civil War."

(Snip)

"Still, Black lives mattered to northern white capitalists and authorities mainly as a source of cheap, super-exploited labor. Blacks were kept at the bottom of the northern industrial proletariat by their branded status as racial inferiors. Black workers were concentrated in northern industry’s dirtiest, hottest, most unpleasant, worst-paid and least secure jobs. (In Chicago’s slaughtering and meatpacking industry – a major destination for southern Black migrants from WWI through the 1940s – Black employees’ time-cards were specially marked to make sure that they were the first fired and last re-hired during and after seasonal layoffs and economic downturns.) The northern Black population was penned up in inferior and overcrowded ghetto neighborhoods. “Northern blacks,” historian Thomas Sugrue notes, “lived as second-class citizens, unencumbered by the most blatant of southern-style Jim Crow laws but still trapped in an economic, political, and legal regime that seldom recognized them as equals. In nearly every arena, blacks and whites lived separate, unequal lives.” This de facto racial separatism and disparity was sustained and enforced by violence. The agents of white northern repression included street gangs, property associations, city police, and, when deemed necessary – as during the race riots of 1919 (Chicago), 1943 (Detroit), and the 1960s (across urban America) – the National Guard and the U.S. military."

(Snip)

"Becoming the Raw Material

Today, as across the long neoliberal era that began in the mid-1970s, millions of Black working- and lower- class lives still matter to the U.S. power and profits system primarily as subjects for economic exploitation. The exploitation still relies heavily on violence and repression – violence that all too commonly turns lethal, as with the killings of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and the hundreds of other Black Americans (usually but not always young and male) who are killed each year by mostly white police officers in the U.S. But there’s a key difference now. Black lives have been largely torn asunder (along, of course, with many white, Latino, and other U.S. lives) from direct engagement in surplus value-generating productive labor."

(Snip)

"Disturbing Parallels

"The resulting giant army of Black prisoners and “ex-offenders” constitutes a criminalized “underclass” that cycles back and forth between the nation’s worst-off jobless and high-poverty ghetto zip-codes and a sprawling archipelago of high-tech mass confinement holding pens that are mainly located in predominantly white and rural parts of the nation. The prison construction and operation boom – fed by the rising “market” of Black drug criminals – has been a significant source of jobs, tax dollars, and associated local economic “multipliers” for mostly rural (“downstate” in Illinois, “upstate” in New York and Michigan) prison towns. As the distinguished criminologist Todd Clear noted nearly 20 years ago, “Each prisoner represents an economic asset that has been removed from that community and placed elsewhere … represents as much as $25,000 in income for the community in which the prison is located, not to mention the value of constructing the prison facility in the first place. This can be a massive transfer of value: A young male worth a few thousand dollars of support to children and local purchases is transformed into a $25,000 financial asset to a rural prison community.”


Full article at link...

http://www.blackagendareport.com/poor_black_lives_matter_to_capitalism_new_jim_crow

[kennetha]

95. Good stuff.

Deserves a longer more thoughtful answer. I'll try to give one later.

Roughly, though, I want capitalism with a human face. I think of myself as a European style social democrat --rather than a European style Democratic Socialist. I think that's really what Sanders himself maybe in his heart of hearts. Perhaps he has evolved in that direction. Don't really understand why he doesn't call himself a social democrat, rather than a democratic socialist. I think maybe just history and stubbornness.

I also wouldn't say he's anything close to a true Marxist. But he does seem to accept economic determinism -- at least he has phrased his message in a way that suggest that.

[oasis]

96. Kick and recommend.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

98. BRILLIANT post! Scapegoating

one archenemy IMO makes Senator BS to Wall Street what Orville Faubus and George Wallace were to African-Americans. IMO there's a huge difference between Soros and Buffet on the one hand and Shkreli and the Koch brothers on the other.

I don't like scapegoating. I prefer politicians who lead voters to begin changing the world by changing, with government OFFERING substantial targeted help, what they have full control over: their own everyday behavior, using the Golden Rule as a guide. For example, does SBS, like PBHO, admonish students to work hard, or, like the President's wife to eat well and exercise? Living wages don't go easily to those who have wasted opportunities to learn, and good health does not come easily to those who do not care for themselves.

[workinclasszero]

102. "He's just a man with a hammer who sees nails everywhere."

K&R

[azmom]

105. "Money trumps peace"

Money is a huge motivator; don't underestimate it's power.

[nichomachus]

106. Well at least he doesn't see dollar signs everywhere he looks. n/t

[TCJ70]

108. Yep, nails everywhere...

...there's a lot of work to do. He's the only one facing it and willing to fight for it. Feel the Bern!

[azmom]

109. Billions are being made on our broken immigration

System. Plus, Who needs open borders when they can pass their corporation friendly trade agreements.


http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/03/627471/private-prisons-spend-45-million-on-lobbying-rake-in-51-billion-for-immigrant-detention-alone/

[Gothmog]

111. The US is not a single issue nation

[lumberjack_jeff]

118. Racism thrives in the absence of class solidarity.

Proof can be easily found by contrasting the speeches of the two populists in this campaign.

[UglyGreed]

120. So in other words

let the rich get richer and screw everyone else....

[Bluenorthwest]

123. See, you support the candidate who attacked my basic rights on the basis that her Bible is a hammer

meant to bash people and their lives with. That's what makes all the red baiting and half coded antisemitic dog whistling in your screed so much worse. It's just the natural modality of the right wing Democrats, the DOMAcrats, the Iraq Invasion branch of the Party.

I expect conservative straight Democrats to vote for Hillary. It's not surprise they'd not like Bernie. They also don't like me, so I'm very much hip to their game, your game that whole current of things.

[Beacool]

124. Great essay, thanks for posting it.

Sanders' view of the world is seen by the narrow prism of income inequality. Saying that he would be better at race relations than Obama because he would tax the rich is tone deaf and over simplistic. Even if we did achieve income equality, that in of itself would not eliminate racial tensions. He seems to want to ignore the social causes for racism that go far beyond keeping people in poverty. Don't educated and financially well to do minorities face racism too?

[ProgressiveEconomist]

125. Another rare post in

this thread that gets beyond simplistic slogans and anger at those who won't swallow them.

Do you know this often-linked one-page essay on white privilege by journalism prof Robert Jensen?
https://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/whiteprivilege.htm

In post number 115 above, I toldan SBS sloganeer that link might rock his world, and it may have done just that.

[Beacool]

129. Thanks for the link.

I think that Sanders' views on race are not nuanced. I don't doubt his sincerity, goodness knows he's been repeating basically the same speech for decades now, but he appears to think that everything in the world would be A-OK once there's income parity. An income parity that in this country of ours I doubt that is achievable, but that's a different discussion. White privilege does exist, but I would add that it's been mostly white male privilege. Historically speaking, women (white or otherwise), didn't have much power either. I find it ironic that Sanders thinks that he would be better for race relations than an actual AA (Obama) or better for women than a woman who has fought for children and women's rights all her adult life.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

132. Agreed. Jensen downplayed

women's pay equity too much in that last-century piece. Defenders of pay inequity can blame inequality in opportunities to learn for racial disparities but notso much for gender disparities. With rare exception, women go to school right alongside men of the same race or ethnicity.

[Beacool]

136. True...

It's depressing that today there's still salary disparity between women and men performing the same job. There's still work to be done in that front.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

141. I think paid family leave

would go far to take away the most popular right-wing economic argument for gender pay disparities. Provided that men take it as much advantage of such leave as women. IMO that would solve a LOT of problems children face later because their fathers effectively abandoned them by spending 100 hours a week working.

Are you a Pete Seeger fan? He sings, "Oh of I had a golden thread of rainbow design ... In it I'd weave the bravery of women giving birth ..."

[Beacool]

149. Yes, I like Pete Seeger.

[Motown_Johnny]

126. That analogy is used to explain people (like Hillary) who always use the military option when

trying to solve a problem.

[Ellipsis]

130. How American Thinker of you... stunning imagery.

[Warren DeMontague]

143. TL;DR. Stopped at "Comrade Bernie" because the derp started to splash over the rim of the bowl.

Short answer- he's not Trotsky, nice try.

"How?" Hmmmm, how about by raising the top marginal rate on the top earners, raising the minimum wage to a livable one- $15- and working for a single payer health care system. For starts.

Maybe to you that sounds just like the Bolsheviks collectivizing soviet industry, but ....it really ain't.

As for the rest of it, these arguments -coming from camp hillary, of course- are predicated on the premise that, unlike Sanders with his "single issue focus on economic justice", Hillary Clinton is somehow positioned to "do something about" things like racism in our society.


So.... Um, how?

Unless racism is going to be eliminated by her proposal to break the encryption on your iphone, she hasnt exactly come out wih a detailed slate of policy proposals to "do away with" any of this shit.

Apparently just by being Hillary the societal barriers will come crashing down.

And sanders supporters get accused of not having concrete 'get from here to there' plans. Laughable.

[eridani]

144. Otherwise known as having a coherent message

So what is Chinton's message? She can get things done? What things?

[kennetha]

148. breaking down all the barriers

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-calls-facing-the-reality-systemic-racism

[eridani]

150. There is nothing in there about what she proposes to do about any of that. n/t

[merrily]

151. Comrade Sanders? Desperate much?

[PatrickforO]

153. Quasi-Marxist, is it?

The global neoliberal capitalist model is unsustainable as it is and poses not only an economic threat but an existential one to all humankind.

The billionaire class is responsible for much of the decay in our society; certainly since the Powell memo in 1971, we've 'enjoyed' an ever-growing, ever-more-powerful right wing propaganda machine that has all of us mistrusting and even hating one another. I've been watching on here as these divide-and-conquer memes roll out.

You are wrong. If we work to propel more people into the middle class, and implement policies to keep that middle class strong and growing and make it possible to actually get ahead with hard work, then we will remove much of the incentive for racism. I agree with Bernie. Until we do something about the wealth inequality and the corruption we face in our government because of it, everything else is moot; if the elites still hold the power they do now, we won't be able to get shit done by way of ending racism, homophobia, xenophobia and other elements of 'decay.'

[lovemydog]

155. Excellent post.

I appreciate thoughtful posts like yours.