Author	Message
davesearles	Posted: 16 May 2008 08:57 pm    Post subject: Reform and Revolution Continued from recent additions topic DAS: They opened up their little red prayerbook took out a verse and statred a whole new denomination on the single line - much like the weathermen took the line "you don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows" and based a movement upon it. That and the little fucking dog. ML What little dog? Was that a reference to the Wizard of Oz dialogue? Witch: "And your little dog, too!" DAS You know, that little fucking poodle that has been (analogy alert) an albatros around the the SLP's neck for the last hundred years. ML Is it mainly the embassassingly silly story of the poodle that you dislike the most, or is it you think it led the party astray in its strategy of distinguishing between reforms and revolution? DAS: As I wrote before on analogies they became a substitute for thought. What is the SLP position on Women's suffrage? Well think about taking a little poodle into getting a beauty treatment - that's the party's position on woman's suffrage. Lynching blacks in the south? Protesting that would be just like taking a little dog to the parlor, wouldn't it? End Jim Crow? The little dog in a parlor. Interment of the Japaneese? The little dog in a parlor . Vietnam war? The little dog in a parlor. What would we do if we won a municipal election? The little dog in a parlor. End polution? The little dog in a parlor. Disabled kids being denied appropriate meaningful eduction? The little dog in a parlor.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 May 2008 01:06 am    Post subject: I don't think your description is quite right, for two reasons. (1) The party always belittled a less-than-revolutionary political demand with the term "reformism" if the demand includes and relies on capitalism being continued. A proposal to raise the minimum wage includes the assumption that there will exist something called a wage, and so it assumes capitalism being continued, and therefore it's a reform. Women's suffrage wasn't a reform of capitalism because it doesn't include the assumption that capitalism must be continued; that is, in the socialist future men and women will have the identical right to vote. The demand for a law to prohibit corporations from polluting logically inlcudes recognition of the continued existence of corporations, so that's a reform. Civil rights demands don't make any such assumption; that is, in the socialist society of the future we will still need codifications of civil rights. (2) I don't recall De Leon ever mentioning the poodle as the actual argument against a particular reform. In "Reform or Revolution" he used the poodle in a parable about a social system being like a species in biology, so going from invertebrates to vertebrates is like revolution, but giving the dog a haircut is like reform. The other place he mentions the doggie, the editorial named "Trimming the Poodle", he mentions the poodle regarding the "growing tendency to confuse Socialism with reform of one sort or another." These references are point about historical processes and mental processes. They're not intended to constitute arguments against particular reforms. He's not saying don't pass that law to improve the educational system or the transportation system because of this argument, the poodle. He's using the poodle to contrast the different attitudes that revolutionists and reformers have. De Leon was just trying to be cute with an alternative way of saying "stop limiting yourself to the little stuff, and get into the habit of going for the big stuff." Your post made it sound as though the poodle was being offered as the actual line of reasoning against the wisdom of certain bills before Congress.
davesearles	Posted: 17 May 2008 11:57 am    Post subject: ML: A proposal to raise the minimum wage includes the assumption that there will exist something called a wage, and so it assumes capitalism being continued, and therefore it's a reform. DAS: But demanding a wage increase via the union? The state telling the employers thay have to incease the wage and impve work conditions - we opposed that. Brilliant strategy. ML: I don't recall De Leon ever mentioning the poodle as the actual argument against a particular reform. In "Reform or Revolution" he used the poodle in a parable about a social system being like a species in biology, so going from invertebrates to vertebrates is like revolution, but giving the dog a haircut is like reform. The other place he mentions the doggie, the editorial named "Trimming the Poodle", he mentions the poodle regarding the "growing tendency to confuse Socialism with reform of one sort or another." These references are point about historical processes and mental processes. They're not intended to constitute arguments against particular reforms. DAS: Look at his editorial on women's suffrage. How does he justify the SLP refusing on the high moral ground to refuse to adopt a statement that it ought to be granted? Was the poodle mentioned? It didn't have to be. What evidence is there the the SLP ever tried to come up with a more cogent policy on determing whether to put its name to any demand that wasn't composed wholly of the the end of the state and the institution of the SIU? We were demading in the name of labor something that labor wasn't demanding. I think a lot of this had to do with it groping to preserve its percieved identity as being the "political party of labor". We were not. We had no revolutionary mandate, yet we acted as we did. more later
mikelepore	Posted: 17 May 2008 03:47 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: The state telling the employers thay have to incease the wage and impve work conditions - we opposed that. Brilliant strategy. The party never opposed increasing the minimum wage or improvin working conditions. What it opposed was offering the suggestion to increase the minimum wage or improve working conditions when you were just asked, "What is the goal of socialists?" The answer to that question, "What is the goal of socialists", should be about a new system, socialism. The reformers, including the SP, CP, SWP, etc., when asked what their goal is, have always replied that they wanted modified capitalism. The reformers tack on an as-vague-as-possible statement about someday not having capitalism anymore, the same kind of "someday" as when we say that someday starships will travel to other planets, but certainly not on the present agenda. Don't you see the difference? The platform of a political party is a chance to tell people what you want, so what you're supposed to do with that opportunity is just that, to tell them what you want. You're not supposed to tell them: we're pragmatially supporting what we don't want, because it's would be better than nothing, realizing that what we honestly want is out of the question. (As the entire "left" does.) Also, consider: Some reformists seem to think that making a demand less-than-revolutionary makes it easier to implement, so instead of saying "get rid of the wage system" they demand that the minimum wage be doubled or tripled or quadrupled. What I'm going to say next seems glaringly obvious to me, but somehow the entire political left fails to see it. Their assumption that the little reform would be easier to win than the system-sized change is incorrect. you can't even implement a little reform unless you have majority control. What political influence would the SP or CP or SWP need in order to implement even the smallest of its reform ideas? It would need 51 percent control in both houses of Congress. But if it did get to the point of having majority control, why then bother to enact the smallest goals instead of the big one?
mikelepore	Posted: 17 May 2008 04:04 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: Look at his editorial on women's suffrage. How does he justify the SLP refusing on the high moral ground to refuse to adopt a statement that it ought to be granted? I don't know of an editorial by that name -- do you mean his long speech-pamphlet? Instead of me having the time to read the whole thing right now -- are you discounting the possibility that it may have been a theoretical deficiency in 1909, which the SLP may have later fixed? Certainly the SLP in the 1970s-1980s wrote supportingly of the proposed women's Equal Rights Amendment, with the mandatory "but it's not enough" always appended.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 May 2008 04:26 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: What evidence is there the the SLP ever tried to come up with a more cogent policy on determing whether to put its name to any demand that wasn't composed wholly of the the end of the state and the institution of the SIU? It's true that there were not clear definitions. The mode of communication is one thing. The party has always spoken of "internal" changes and "external" changes in a way that only means something to those who are already convinced. I thought the SLP was was clear until your campaign against metaphors and analogies got me to see a problem there. When the SLP defines one metaphor in terms of another metaphor, "internal" and "external" in terms of "trimming the poodle", which has to do with "the steam" from a locomotive", etc., people who don't already get the point hear only gibberish. But it's not only the mode of communication. There's also the lack of definition, the absense of a general rule that can be enunciated. For example, it's left unclear that the party means when it advises people to "resist encroachments", to be "against" certain things but to be "for" their opposite things. We're told to "resist cutbacks", "fight" the "reactionary" "backsliding" that takes makes things "worse", but how? Why is it okay to call for defeat of a bad bill but not okay to call for passage of a better one? The party seems to have noticed a problem there and tried occasionally to address it when editorials were written urging binary "yes" or "no" judgements about politicla measures. (See the three three examples that I headlined as "yes/no votes urged" at http://www.deleonism.org/people.htm#yes-no ) However, the general formula is unclear. But that fault is as old as socialist thought. Marx didn't define his general methods either, or even his vocabulary words.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 May 2008 04:39 pm    Post subject: I'm not even sure what "support" and "opposition" mean at all, when an organization doesn't have political power yet. What exactly does it mean to say "I support women's suffrage"? Does it mean: I intend to vote for the Democrat or the Republican whom if elected, will vote in Congress for what Im for, and vote against what I'm against? Not in the SLP's case, since SLP members would never vote for any advocate of capitalism. Does it mean: send letters to the members of Congress and persuade them to vote yes or no on certian bills? But, if so, what effectiveness can their be in writing to members of Congress, if you're simultaneously advertising that you wouldn't vote to reelect that member of Congress no matter what they do? It's not clear to me that the whole categories of thought, "support" and "oppose" and "demand" are applicable to socialists. If they mean somethng to anyone, the user of the term needs to define what it consists of.
The Greenman	Posted: 17 May 2008 07:57 pm    Post subject: Dave wrote: Quote: But demanding a wage increase via the union? The state telling the employers they have to increase the wage and improve work conditions - we opposed that. Brilliant strategy. I hope this is open for everyone. Dave makes a good point. I am not worried so much about the SLP but the idea that through a union we can demand increases in wages and benefits but we should frown on those who make political demands of the government to improve the welfare of the working class, disabled, homeless, and those who lost employment. The demands on the employer does not stop him/her/them from being capitalist nor does those demands transfer ownership of the factory to the workers. Nor does it make anyone think along those lines. The IWW is making a political demand for a four hour workday. How is that going to cause workers to make a political demand for public ownership of production? Frankly, all socialist organizations think of workers public ownership of production as something far in the future when warp drive and replicators come to exist. In other words they really don't know where to start except to say that it might exist as cooperatives, workers councils and nationalization of certain industries. Another thing is that socialist are divided into various idealogical camps. The Leninist would just shoot or make slave laborers out of all of us. The population thinks those who own businesses as being highly successful people and that private ownership is a prized possession guaranteed by the Constitution. How many times was Marx mentioned that the metal production of the population is something the ruling class has control over? What can we do but make political demands until all the socialist decide they need to form those industrial unions into a "united" economic organization which would struggle with the capitalist economically and politically until public ownership is accomplished with the Constitutional Amendment. John T.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 May 2008 09:37 pm    Post subject: The Greenman wrote: I am not worried so much about the SLP but the idea that through a union we can demand increases in wages and benefits but we should frown on those who make political demands of the government to improve the welfare of the working class, disabled, homeless, and those who lost employment. I don't get your syntax. Does that mean you're for or against those political demands? I don't frown on such political reforms, or the demands for those reforms. I frown on having the demands for those reforms being expressed in the very few available places where the socialist message might be heard instead. Suppose there was only one place that anyone could go to learn arithmetic, then that would make it more of a loss if that one facility decided to talk about anything besides arithmetic. Similarly, socialist education is such a rarity that it can't afford to talk about anything else but socialism. We have only very occasional chances here and there to reach a person with the socialist message. That person you might hand a socialist leaflet to on the street will probably never see another socialist leaflet again. So why dilute that opportunity in favor of reaching the person with a message that he or she will later hear a thousand times somewhere else? There are so few socialists, to speak about socialism. Let's suppose there are 10,000 socialists in the U.S., and 100,000,000 liberals. Now let's look at that ratio. For every one socialist there are ten thousand liberals. With that kind of demographic, every time a socialist decides to use his or her valuable time to promote the liberal cause instead of the socialist cause, the liberal cause gains only the slightest drop in the bucket, while the socialist cause is significantly depleted. After all that is said, it's the individual's own time, to spend any way one chooses. If the individual want to promote reforms, that is a personal right, an inalienable right, and no one has to answer to anyone else for that choice. But I suggest - do it as an individual. One can join a reform-based coalition, do volunteer work for them, contribute money to them, and carry signs in their parades. A person could even join a socialist political party and a reformist political party at the same time, work for one on mondays and wednesdays, and work for the other one on tuesdays and thursdays. All that is fine by me. But I implore that the socialist organization's written program should be the one place in the world reserved for no other message besides the creation of a wholely new system.
davesearles	Posted: 17 May 2008 09:50 pm    Post subject: I specifically recall the New York State Committee, and it may have been the New York State Convention OPPOSING the New York State version of the Equal Rights Amamendmenet for the NY State Constitution. When the national ERA was killed the WP had an article statng that reaction had killed the amamednment, bit not once did the SLP sigh a breath of support for it.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 May 2008 09:55 pm    Post subject: Dave, while you were typing your last post, I was re-editing my last paragraph in the post directly above yours. Look again please. About the difference between an individual giving support and inclusion of support in a written program. Comments?
davesearles	Posted: 17 May 2008 09:56 pm    Post subject: In the editorial: Is recall a reform: in America, the vast majority of economic reforms that theoretically concern the proletariat, would, at best, only tend to make capitalism bearable. At best they are narcotics, or messes of pottage. For all these reasons, the SLP excludes such reforms from its platform; and, when the reforms are preached from the capitalist stump, the SLP unrolls the scroll of the immediate past, to warn the proletariat against the lure. It would take less time to overthrow the capitalist system than to capture enough wheels in the mechanism of the political state to secure the passage by legislatures, the signing by executives and the approval by judiciaries, of petty reforms which leave the tiger of capitalism alive. With the posture of the SLP towards economic reform as its background, the SLP's posture towards the recall and some other political reforms, such as woman suffrage, may stand out all the clearer. Whereas, not one of the stingy economic reforms but would become ridiculous, through being trifling, the recall, woman suffrage, statewide primaries, etc., will, together with the suffrage of which they are manifestations, preserve their vital importance in the socialist or industrial republic. Whereas, the conditions under which work will be done in the industrial republic will be a denial of the "rights of the capitalist class," and of the theory of compromise between capital and labor, which are at the base of "labor legislation," all the more vital will be the recall, as well the statewide, then become the industrialwide primaries, along with a suffrage emancipated from sex restrictions. The suffrage is one of the conquests of progress wrung by the bourgeois revolution from feudalism. Repeatedly has the point been emphasized in these columns that socialism is not merely the carrier of advanced principles of progress, it is also the safeguarder of the progress made through previous revolutions. Accordingly, SLP literature takes a decided stand in favor of the recall and statewide primaries, the same as it does in favor of woman suffrage, always, however, warning against the error of expecting automatic consequences from them, or from any other manifestation of the suffrage. Why, then, does not the SLP insert the recall in its platform? For the same reason that it does not insert woman suffrage-that is, for the reason that, in advocating either, the SLP appreciates the need of warning against false expectations concerning them. DAS: WHAT KIND OF PHONY AND PATERNALISTIC CRAP IS THIS ???
mikelepore	Posted: 17 May 2008 09:58 pm    Post subject: I didn't know the New York State SLP did that. I'll bet it was that same crowd that resigned from the party in 1977 or whenever it was. They thought everything was reformist, even after the national party had gotten past that old-time thinking.
mikelepore	Posted: 17 May 2008 10:07 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: WHAT KIND OF PHONY AND PATERNALISTIC CRAP IS THIS ??? Your right, what they gave as a reason is stupid reason. I don't know about being paternalistic, but they gave a stupid reason. A platform isn't like a bumper sticker or a picket sign, where a party can afford to use only a limited number of words. A platform can address suffrage and civil rights issues, and then add whatever is necessary about let's not expect them to be cure-alls as long as class division still exists.
The Greenman	Posted: 18 May 2008 02:28 am    Post subject: Mike wrote: Quote: I don't get your syntax. Does that mean you're for or against those political demands? I don't frown on such political reforms, or the demands for those reforms. I frown on having the demands for those reforms being expressed in the very few available places where the socialist message might be heard instead. It does not matter whether or not I am for political demands for reforms. Also, I was not saying you were frowning on political reforms. The idea that within a union people can collectively bargain for wages and benefits from an employer but socialist should not demand national health care or anything else to alleviate human suffering. Gas prices are coming up to $4.00 a gallon and people are still fawning over how to become a capitalist or rich through the lottery. The socialist message differs from one group to another. The mechanics of public ownership of production is virtually non existent except for the critique of capitalism. Critiquing capitalism is pretty much what socialist do these days and from those critiques they make political demands on capitalism. Outside of the SLP there is very little information on workers controlling the means of production or how to achieve that end. Perhaps this is why "reforming till we have socialism" is being done. There is no agreement on what workers ownership is. DSA wrote: Quote: Vision of a Socialist Economy: The operation of a democratic socialist economy is the subject of continuing debate within DSA. First it must mirror democratic socialism's commitment to institutional and social pluralism. Democratic, representative control over fiscal, monetary, and trade policy would enable citizens to have a voice in setting the basic framework of economic policy--what social investment is needed, who should own or control basic industries, and how they might be governed. While broad investment decisions and fiscal and monetary policies are best made by democratic processes, many argue that the market best coordinates supply with demand for goods, services,and labor. Regulated markets can guarantee efficiency, consumer choice and labor mobility. However, democratic socialists recognize that market mechanisms do generate inequalities of wealth and income. But, the social ownership characteristic of a socialist society will greatly limit inequality. In fact, widespread worker and public ownership will greatly lessen the corrosive effect of capitalists markets on people's lives. Social need will outrank narrow profitability as the measure of success for our economic life. As you can see they don't lay a foundation but instead hint at what sort of social ownership to implement and the same can be said of the Socialist Party USA. I have no idea what they mean by "institutional and social pluralism."
mikelepore	Posted: 18 May 2008 05:56 am    Post subject: The Greenman wrote: The idea that within a union people can collectively bargain for wages and benefits from an employer but socialist should not demand national health care or anything else to alleviate human suffering. JT ... Sorry but I still don't understand when you word it that way -- "the idea that" ... "socialists should not" -- because it's not a complete sentence. Are you saying socialists should not, or are you referring to the claim made by others that socialists should not?
davesearles	Posted: 18 May 2008 12:05 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: WHAT KIND OF PHONY AND PATERNALISTIC CRAP IS THIS ??? ML: Your right, what they gave as a reason is stupid reason. I don't know about being paternalistic, but they gave a stupid reason. A platform isn't like a bumper sticker or a picket sign, where a party can afford to use only a limited number of words. A platform can address suffrage and civil rights issues, and then add whatever is necessary about let's not expect them to be cure-alls as long as class division still exists. DAS: Not to blow our own horn, but the campiagn leaflet for Nate's Ellenville mayoral race I belive was a good demonstration of this. We have to stop looking at whther this is reform or that is not and look at our whole message. Of course the devil is in the details. But that's just it - they are in the details and not in a single phrase. You have been elected to congress and a minimum wage bill comes up for a vote. Are you going to vote against it or for it or abstain? This is politics - and perhaps we were wrong to have ever been a "party" as opposed to a purely educational group that from time to time would run or have a candidate run.
The Greenman	Posted: 18 May 2008 02:16 pm    Post subject: Mike wrote: Quote: JT ... Sorry but I still don't understand when you word it that way -- "the idea that" ... "socialists should not" -- because it's not a complete sentence. Are you saying socialists should not, or are you referring to the claim made by others that socialists should not? I am referring to the claim that socialist should not make those political demands for national health care or any other political demand that alleviates the suffering of workers, the disabled, et al. Sorry to confuse you.
mikelepore	Posted: 19 May 2008 05:30 am    Post subject: davesearles wrote: You have been elected to congress and a minimum wage bill comes up for a vote. Are you going to vote against it or for it or abstain? The right thing to do? Make a half-hour speech about the necessity to change the whole social system, and then vote to raise the minimum wage. But the reformist "socialists" make their entire speech about how great life would be if only we could raise the minimum wage, and a hundred other chiropractic adjustments to capitalism -- and then, just before leaving the podium, they append, "Oh, yeah, by the way, we're also for socialism. Bye."
mikelepore	Posted: 19 May 2008 06:04 am    Post subject: The Greenman wrote: The socialist message differs from one group to another. The mechanics of public ownership of production is virtually non existent except for the critique of capitalism. Critiquing capitalism is pretty much what socialist do these days and from those critiques they make political demands on capitalism. Outside of the SLP there is very little information on workers controlling the means of production or how to achieve that end. Perhaps this is why "reforming till we have socialism" is being done. There is no agreement on what workers ownership is. If I correctly understand what the Leninist left as well as the Debsian left are trying to do, they believe that demanding reforms is the way to get the working class "mobilized", get everyone off their butts and in the fightin' mood. I just have a different opinion about how psychology works. IMO, if people present a reform demand and they WIN it, they tend to go away saying, "wow, this proves that the system really works, things are getting better all the time" -- they go away being more conservative. On the other hand, if they present a demand and they DON'T win it, they go away saying, "the world will never change, this is fate, it's human nature" -- they go away being more conservative. Either way, if people go through a phase in which they make demands of the political leaders that they give us improvements, win or lose, people tend to get more conservative as they get older.
davesearles	Posted: 19 May 2008 01:38 pm    Post subject: ML: The right thing to do? Make a half-hour speech about the necessity to change the whole social system, and then vote to raise the minimum wage. But the reformist "socialists" make their entire speech about how great life would be if only we could raise the minimum wage, and a hundred other chiropractic adjustments to capitalism -- DAS: So it's all in the presentation. I agree. Too bad the SLP could never have come up with that.
davesearles	Posted: 19 May 2008 01:58 pm    Post subject: win or lose, people tend to get more conservative as they get older. "It's not time to make a change Just relax, take it easy You're still young, that's your fault There's so much you have to know Find a girl, settle down If you want you can marry Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy "I was once like you are now And I know that it's not easy To be calm when you've found Something going on But take your time, think a lot Think of everything you've got For you will still be here tomorrow But your dreams may not" Do you think that I am more conservative now than 40 years ago? I don't think that you are a bit. Slightly more practical, perhaps.
The Greenman	Posted: 19 May 2008 02:14 pm    Post subject: Mike wrote: Quote: If I correctly understand what the Leninist left as well as the Debsian left are trying to do, they believe that demanding reforms is the way to get the working class "mobilized", get everyone off their butts and in the fightin' mood. I just have a different opinion about how psychology works. IMO, if people present a reform demand and they WIN it, they tend to go away saying, "wow, this proves that the system really works, things are getting better all the time" -- they go away being more conservative. On the other hand, if they present a demand and they DON'T win it, they go away saying, "the world will never change, this is fate, it's human nature" -- they go away being more conservative. Either way, if people go through a phase in which they make demands of the political leaders that they give us improvements, win or lose, people tend to get more conservative as they get older. What you wrote is very true. When I was active years ago for single-payer health care I never once thought of it as being a socialist concept. The idea was to take health care insurance away from for profit insurance companies and place every single American under one giant risk pool. The bigger the pool the cheaper it would get for each individual and family. Companies and corporation would pay a far lower rate when it comes to premiums and I think there was some sort of tax idea that would generate more money. Medicaid and Medicare were to be absorbed into the system. Since no profits were to be made most of the money would go for health care and something like one or two percent would cover administration cost. Private ownership of Hospitals and those in private practice were to continue with no interference. Single-Payer does not cause people to turn to socialism. It would just reinforce the belief in the capitalist system. I still think it is a great idea to cover everyone under one big health insurance umbrella just to alleviate people's suffering and give them quality health care.
mikelepore	Posted: 19 May 2008 03:34 pm    Post subject: The Greenman wrote: I still think it is a great idea to cover everyone under one big health insurance umbrella just to alleviate people's suffering and give them quality health care. I do too. And (assuming we're talking about the present economic system, not a future system) I think everywhere is the proper time and place to say so, except for just one. When explaining to people who socialists are and what their goal and strategy is, it shouldn't be said on that occasion. Every other time and place is good to do it.
mikelepore	Posted: 19 May 2008 03:48 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: So it's all in the presentation. I agree. Not ALL in the presentation. I only answer what you asked about, what if a bill if already on the floor of Congress, how should a socialist vote. I think a socialist shouldn't *introduce* the bill to raise the minimum wage. The socialist should keep introducing bills to transfer ownership of the industries to the workers, and, as fast as the Congress allows those bills to "die in committee", just keep on introducing them, so that it becomes "a national scandal". Quote: Too bad the SLP could never have come up with that In part they did. You've read the SLP pamphlet "A Socialist in Congress: His Conduct and Responsibilities". It was partly about yelling at Victor Berger for introducing reformist bills, but at least half of it was about yelling at Berger failing to make certain speeches when he given the opportunity to do so. (It's even more true today. A hundred years ago, when a member of Congress made a speech it only got remembered by others as pages 57,284 through 57,289 inserted into the Congressional Record, but today it's televised on C-SPAN.) But the SLP errs in that they don't simply say: "If our candidates get elected, they will vote for these bills, which are better than nothing, but that's not what we're really after. What we really advocate is ...."
davesearles	Posted: 19 May 2008 08:36 pm    Post subject: Can you put that pamphlet up on line? Do you remember that guy Harry Lopes something whose wife was a nice of Aaron Orage or or Ruth, I can't recall. I asked him of he wanted the pmlets and booklets that hasd belonged to Aaron and his brother Ben who Harry didn't even know about (because Ben was expelled) He said yes so I sent him the books to the address he gave me. Not even a note of thanks or even that he got them. Maybe his wife shit canned them before he could get exposed to the virus.
mikelepore	Posted: 19 May 2008 09:44 pm    Post subject: I once had a copy of that pamphlet and someday I may find it. Seems that the SLP didn't release an online version. I just looked at their site. Original title from the beginning of the 20th century, "Berger's Hit and Misses". Later editions given a new title, "A Socialist in Congress -- His Conduct and Responsibilities." --- Did I hear you right -- the parents didn't let a kid know that he has an Uncle Ben because Ben had been expelled?!? I'm hoping that I misunderstood!
davesearles	Posted: 20 May 2008 03:47 am    Post subject: No Lope's wife was related to Ruth, to Aaron by marriage, I think, but Harry Lopes became friendly with Aaron. But Aaron had a brother Ben who had been expelled. I was very close to Aaron, Aaron never mentioned a word of him to me so it is understandable that Harry didn't know either. I only knew because Nat told me.
mikelepore	Posted: 20 May 2008 04:15 am    Post subject: Did Aaron say anything to you at the time the bunch of Section New York people resigned simultaneously (1977?) -- like, what were they thinking?
The Greenman	Posted: 20 May 2008 10:41 am    Post subject: Mike wrote: Quote: I do too. And (assuming we're talking about the present economic system, not a future system) I think everywhere is the proper time and place to say so, except for just one. When explaining to people who socialists are and what their goal and strategy is, it shouldn't be said on that occasion. Every other time and place is good to do it. Yes, the present system. I do agree that talking national health insurance socialism is not to be mentioned. Political demands on capitalism should be done to alleviate people's suffering under the system. Socialism is about the people forming into SIUs, united into a large economic organization, to take over production and distribution from the capitalist. What ever political demands to be made are not to be done under the name of socialism. National health insurance basically is only a threat to the "for profit" health insurance industry but in no way shape or form do away with capitalism or a threat to capitalism in general. It would actually reinforce the belief in capitalism as you wrote. Like I said before when I was an active advocate for single-payer and socialism never came to mind. It is when the opposition started calling it a communist program is when I started my journey toward learning about socialism. The opposition is very ignorant when it comes to socialism because reforming to preserve capitalism is what single-payer was about. I've never seen gas prices this high before and those at work wonder if their performance at work would continue the profitability of the stores. If people understand that profits have to be made for the owner then why can't it be "plainly" explained that socialism is workers organized into economic "not for profit" organizations and getting the full value from their work and meeting the needs of the entire population one SIU at a time.
davesearles	Posted: 20 May 2008 01:07 pm    Post subject: ML: Did Aaron say anything to you at the time the bunch of Section New York people resigned simultaneously (1977?) -- like, what were they thinking? DAS: I had been on 6 months suspension and the meeting that I returned to section NY was the meeting at which they all resigned. But from what I could gather and this is almost totally my based surmise - is that the national office moving to california took them out of the loop as to controlling the entire party. I don't know if it was any particular issue that led to the resignations - they all came in with their single line statements that they no longer agreed with the principles of the SLP and they were out. (Bernie Reitzes postured that that was the only acceptable reason to request to be dismissed as a member without creating a cause to be expelled instead.)
davesearles	Posted: 20 May 2008 01:14 pm    Post subject: JT: Yes, the present system. I do agree that talking national health insurance socialism is not to be mentioned. Political demands on capitalism should be done to alleviate people's suffering under the system. Socialism is about the people forming into SIUs, united into a large economic organization, to take over production and distribution from the capitalist. What ever political demands to be made are not to be done under the name of socialism. DAS: You always have to watch out that you are not proposing something to prop up the system that you would be willing to support the rest of caitalism to get.
mikelepore	Posted: 20 May 2008 04:58 pm    Post subject: Speaking of reforms, and this is on my mind because last night I watched the documentary about FDR on PBS -- I am incredulous about how Medicaid is handled. Even I didn't think that FDR's reformed capitalism was this heartless. Both of my parents spent their final days in a nursing home because they needed 24-hour-a-day nurses. Modern medical advances are able to add a few years to a person's life, but not necessarily improve the quality of those additional years, so you are given a bed, and three shifts of nurses to medicate you every ten minutes, and this is your miraculous life extension. That costs about $400+ per person per day. Where you gonna get that kind of money? Well, a volunteer in the family does about a hundred hours of paperwork for a Medicaid case worker, and attends about twenty interviews with the case worker, and then you get approval for Medicaid to pay for the nursing home. When do they start paying? Just as soon as the patient's total worldly assets have been confirmed to be zero. And don't try to hide your assets by transfering them to a family member, because the agency goes back for years in the records and tracks all that. If they see any "questionable" bank withdrawals in recent years, then the application for Medicaid will be denied, and the nursing home staff will wheel the patient out to the curb and say goodbye. After the computer detects that you gave your very last penny to the nursing home, the period of Medicaid coverage begins the next morning. After the patient dies, now it's time to read the will and close the estate. Medicaid goes in there as a debtor, claiming that the estate owes the Medicaid agency all that money, whatever the total comes out to for $400+ per day. The lawyer reports the results of the arithmetic, total assets owned by the estate: the fifteen cents found in the person's dresser drawer, and total debts to be paid by the estate: half a million dollars or whatever owed to Medicaid. Then the "heirs" are given the good news -- it look like you're off the hook! It seeems that your homes won't be seized by the sheriff to pay back all that money to Medicaid! Whew! So that's the best deal the system can offer a person -- after mom and dad have scrimped and saved all their lives in hopes of helping the grandchildren with an endowment for their their college education, instead of the kids receiving any of that, all the "heirs" get is the alleviation that they're off the hook. Now, what's really going on here? I consider it a conscious plan by the ruling class to make sure that most old people will die broke. God forbid that working class families should be allowed to inherit just a few dollars to help pay for the kids' schooling. What a piece of crap system. Thanks for nothing, FDR.
mikelepore	Posted: 20 May 2008 05:36 pm    Post subject: davesearles wrote: I don't know if it was any particular issue that led to the resignations. I think the spark was when an article (1975?) in the Official Organ of the SLP said that the "national liberation" of Vietnam was fortunate because it helps the working class when global empires are weakened. This conflicted with the traditional view that the war in Vietnam was nothing but a reflection of a U.S. puppet regime in the south and a Soviet puppet regime in the north and , so the two possible outcomes of the war would be class rule of the first kind or class rule of the second kind. With the publication of the first article mentioning "national liberation", the old-timers in the party went berserk. After that either the party press would retracts this error or else the party is no longer De Leonist. The party didn't retract any of it. A group of members left the party to form the De Leonist Society. They published a periodical, The De Leonist Society Bulletin, pubished in Toronto, which editorialized that the SLP had been captured by reformists, that the SLP had rejected Marxism and De Leonism, that the SLP was now indistinguishable from any liberal outfit, etc. Then the SLP went through a last 1970s-early 1980s phase of opposing nuclear power plants, the first leaflet on the subject of abortion, etc.. The De Leonist Society interpreted all such issues as more data points, here the SLP had dropped De Leonism as was now a reformist organization. But Sam Brandon (then general secretary of the Industrial Union Party, forerunner of Wally Petrovich's "People for a New System" group) rejected their argument entirely. Sam called me on the phone several times and we talked about it. For all of the disagreements he had with the SLP, he never saw any reformism in the SLP's new trends. When the De Leonist Society started wooing me, sending me tons of free literature and asking me to write for their publication, Sam urged me to beware of the dangerous De Leonist Society. He described them as "the old Petersen clique that crippled the SLP through mass expulsions." I'm just trying to remember which individuals resigned. I saw the writings of Aaron Orange and John Emanuel in the De Leonist Society Bulletin, so that answers that. I also saw articles by Alan Sanderson, who I believe used to be the national secretary of the SLP of Canada. I saw articles by Herbert Steiner and George Shand, names I didn't recognize. Did Bernie Reitzes stay in the SLP or quit? Do you remember any more? If you think its too personal to mention names in a public forum, you can answer me and then I can remove these messages from the forum. I corresponded with George Shand several times around 1999. For a while their group in Canada thought that the Y2K software bug was going to make industrial civilization collapse. I wrote back to educate them about how, worst case, Y2K might mess up calculations based on dates, such as mortgage amortization or utilty billing, but that it wouldn't shut down production.
davesearles	Posted: 20 May 2008 11:56 pm    Post subject: Mr. and Mrs. Bernie Ruth and Aaron Orange Whever it was who was state secretary and his wife John Emanuel out in one meeting. Concurrent with that the NEC out n Palo Alto had approved without referring to Section NY a certain bunch of upstarts who had simultaneously applied for membership, and gave them their own section. This was seen by NYC as an affront to their local sovereignty - and I cannot say that it wasn't intended as such.
mikelepore	Posted: 21 May 2008 12:17 am    Post subject: I also see the name Ernest Teichert in the De Leonist Society Bulletin. I think I recall numerous people named Teichert in the SLP, although I don't know what area, not from New York. I guess Bernie didn't decided to become a writer -- I never saw his name in a byline. Who else were the wise elders that we knew in Section New York? I can't remember their names.
davesearles	Posted: 21 May 2008 03:30 am    Post subject: The new york state secreatray and his wife were Louis and Rose Derle that was just section New York. Don't know about the blow by blow in Section Kings or the buch iovwer in Passaic.
davesearles	Posted: 21 May 2008 03:33 am    Post subject: Medicare and Medicaid didn't come into existence until the 1960s. I think the TV show, which I also saw, got it wrong. Probably S.S. disability was what they were referring to.
mikelepore	Posted: 21 May 2008 08:13 am    Post subject: Verily you say? I thought it was FDR who created Medicare and Medicaid. (But never mind me. I also thought the telephone invented by Bell was installed in the phone booth invented by John Wilkes Booth.) Another name I see in the De Leonist Society newsletter: John Timm, who was the editor of the Weekly People somewhere around 1970.
davesearles	Posted: 21 May 2008 12:31 pm    Post subject: Timm quit when he couldn't take Nat Karp anymore.