Well, other countries have tried socialism, and its turned into communistic greed. Why we think we're so different is beyond me. Oh but we're Americans, we're better than them mean old Ruskis, right? Nope. In many ways, we as a consumer society would be worse socialists, because we can't give up what we have to the state, and when everyone owns something, no one owns it; it's no one's responsibility because some one else will come and fix it, it ain't my problem.
Am I a fan of how things are done now? Nope. I want a job, but nowadays you have to have a job to get a better one, and no one wants to hire some one with little experience, and all the blindness agency wants from me as a never-ending internship so they can have cheap Assistive Tech labor. Other than that, businesses are greedy. They want staff to fill 2 or 3 different positions so they don't have to pay many people.
> On Jan 22, 2019, at 11:25 AM, Carl Jarvis via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org> wrote:
>
> Yes my friends, it's time for another Jarvis Ramble...do I hear eager
> panting? Or is it the sound of feet scrambling for the door.
>
> Carl Jarvis
> *****
>
> Capitalism by any other name is still oppression for the Working Class.
>
> Remember that sad fellow pushing the huge rock up the steep hill, only
> to have it slip past him and roll to the bottom? That huge rock is
> Capitalism. As long as we are forced to push Capitalism, any gains
> are temporary. A gain here and an improvement there, and just when we
> think we are getting somewhere, Capitalism slips past us and rolls
> back to that bottom line. Profit!
> All social services, not just for the blind, are doomed to failure,
> unless we conquer the basic problem. We cannot have both Capitalism
> and democracy at the same time. Nor can we support Capitalism and
> Social Reform at the same time. They are opposing forces, and neither
> will feel safe until the other is destroyed.
> Within the field of work with/for the blind, we see the same story as
> has happened throughout recorded history. Capitalism is simply
> another name for a System in which a few dominate the many. In its
> extreme it looks like America's South, during Slavery. Under another
> name it can be the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.
> And today it is controlling America's working class disguised as The
> American Empire.
> One of my disagreements with Kenneth Jernigan, former president of the
> National Federation of the Blind(NFB), was over the direction he felt
> the NFB must take in order to influence improved services for the
> blind. Jernigan believed in a tight corporate structure with a hand
> picked board that was under the control of one man, Kenneth Jernigan.
> He believed that we must build strength in order to better stand our
> ground.
> I told him that when this happened, we would have lost our fight. I
> said to mimic a System that oppressed us would make us no better than
> they, and would eventually lead us to the same abusiveness that we
> were fighting. My last meeting with Kenneth Jernigan was in Seattle,
> over breakfast with Sue Ammeter, at the University Towers. It was the
> late 70's and I likened what I called "the wrong direction", to the
> mistaken belief that by "giving" Israel land on which to build a new
> nation, we were simply assisting the Jews to duplicate the same sort
> of oppressive government that Adolph Hitler had built. I am
> convinced that after this meeting, Kenneth Jernigan counted me as an
> enemy. Or perhaps he simply dismissed me as a nuisance. Jernigan was
> a master debater and was seldom bested. But he may have won out over
> me, and still lost. The NFB has become a Nation-Wide Corporation of
> the Blind, providing good jobs and rewards for those in Baltimore, but
> little change for those in the work shops and dead end entry level
> jobs. In 2020 the NFB will be 80 years old. Certainly life is
> different for all Americans. But how well have the blind really done?
> Aside from some secure government administrative jobs and a
> scattering of wealthy blind entrepreneurs, are blind men and women
> really doing better than those sighted folks around us? Do our blind
> children have an education that opens doors to success?
> Capitalism, in all its forms, must have a large base of workers in
> order to function successfully. As long as there is a need, we can
> gobble the crumbs that fall from Master's table. But when money
> becomes scarce and competition becomes fierce, there are no more
> crumbs. We are entering such a time. Even as America's Labor reaches
> for $15 per hour wage minimum, jobs are disappearing, Social Services
> are being eliminated or drastically reduced, schools are seeing
> critical staff cuts, military spending is expanded, CEO's are
> receiving super bonuses.
> That sucking sound you here outside is not a distant wind. It is the
> sound of our nation's wealth being sucked into off-shore banks.
> They say, "don't fix it if it''s not broken". Well, it's broken! And
> patching it, or shoring it up will not do. The Capitalist System must
> be scrapped, and a new, totally different System must be set in place.
> Whatever it is, it must be based on a "bubble up" model, rather than
> the same old "Trickle down" one. True democracy must replace our
> present Oligarchy. Belief that the workers are as bright and creative
> as the Drones now in power must be taught to our children. The
> Self-Serving Individual has to be replaced by "People Power".
> Cooperatives replacing Corporations.
> Until then, we're just spinning our wheels, we're just blowing smoke
> up our noses.
>
> Carl Jarvis
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