Time to Ramble!

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