[Peace-discuss] [Discuss] Fw: What hath got rot?

Tue Mar 23 23:30:16 CDT 2010

It has been my experience that all the self-proclaimed socialists  - especially in this town - tend to be self-centered, individualistic libertarian anarchists who are into doing their own thing and following their own personal agendas  - rebelling against bowing to the collective will or conforming to collective rules imposed on them by the collective.  That is when they are not busy being political gadflies flitting from one cause to another only to put in a brief appearance with little mundane grubby work before going on to the next cause.  The "Being There" syndrome where one is a voyeur  is a predominant malady in this community; and witnessing versus participating and acting tends to be the primary occupation of many supposed activists.

From: John W. 
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 9:29 PM
To: C. G. Estabrook 
Cc: peace-discuss List ; melodye at nitrogendesign.com ; discuss at lists.communitycourtwatch.org 
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Discuss] Fw: What hath got rot?

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 7:02 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:

  Not being a liberal but a socialist, I'm not looking for an escape route. I
  wouldn't have wanted to miss the most interesting and affecting observation on
  this matter that I've seen on this list. --CGE

Thanks, Carl.  Now here's the rejoinder to that, so as not to leave anyone out:  

If you and all the other self-styled "socialists" in this town were DOERS, as Melodye and Bob suggest, rather than mere talkers, you'd be organizing a credit union, for example, and we'd all pull our money out of Chase Bank and Bank of America and pool it in our very own Socialist Credit Union, which would pay far higher returns on investment because there'd be no profit incentive for stockholders, no big executive salaries, no annual bonuses, and low administrative costs.  We'd loan money to our socialist members for home mortgages, to lessen the probablility of their losing their homes to foreclosure by faraway corporate behemoths trafficking in human lives via sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps.

We could also, for example, pool our money in a health insurance pool - from each according to his ability, and to each according to his need.  That's how the modern-day health insurance companies started out, after all - as local benevolent associations organized among immigrant groups or co-workers.

The possibilities are virtually limitless if one is willing to put one's money where one's mouth is.  My experience of the "socialists" in this town is that it doesn't even occur to them to car-pool to meetings.

John again

  John W. wrote:

    On this list, three of us have been and are the harshest critics of the new
    health care 'reform' bill:  Carl, Dave Johnson, and me.  I'm curious which of
    the three of us has NOT, in the eyes of Bob and Melodye, worked our asses off
    to try to make both the local community and the larger society a better
    place, according to our lights and talents.  Name some fucking names.

    The way I see it, most of the folks on this list have decent health insurance, so they have the luxury of being "ambivalent" about the health
    care bill, reminding us of its many virtues and counseling us to take a 'wait
    and see' approach.  I, on the other hand, have no health insurance, and will
    NOT have Medicare when I'm 65 due to a quirk in the law over which I had and
    have no control.  I can't speak for Carl and Dave, but I have actually
    suffered the indignity of sitting in the Frances Nelson Clinic, getting a
    different doctor every time, KNOWING that there were tests not being
    performed because Frances Nelson could not perform them in-house, and having
    pills shoved at me which I KNEW would do no good but which were all that
    Frances Nelson had to offer. Having to present proof of income documents over
    and over so that even Frances Nelson's precious and scarce resources would
    not be "wasted" on me.

    The only decent medical care I've received in LIFE was at McKinley Clinic
    when I was a student at UIUC.  They have government-run, "socialized"
    medicine there; the doctors are on salary and all the services are "free",
    even the prescription meds, paid for by a student fee.  There I finally found
    a physician (female - God bless her) who cared about me as a human being, and
    ordered tests that were based on what I as a patient NEEDED rather than on
    what I could afford or on what paid the doctor the most money.  Sadly, when I
    ceased to be a student I could no longer avail myself of her services.  God
    bless her.

    So I'm afraid I can't be as blase as the rest of you about this shitty bill
    which leaves health insurance companies firmly in control.  Nothing at all
    has changed for me, not a God-damned thing.  And you can bet that if nothing
    has changed for me, it's not changing for millions of other Americans who are
    not, perhaps, as articulate as I am.

    Oh, yes, I forgot.  Something HAS changed for me after all, or it will in -
    what?  2014?   I'll be mandated to purchase a terrible private-sector health
    insurance plan, with money I don't have and with deductibles and co-pays so
    high I won't ever be able to actually use it, or else I'll be fined for my
    failure to purchase it.  Please forgive me if I don't see that as a benefit.

    Yeah, I'll shut up now.  Every time I try to talk personal realities "on the
    ground" rather than abstractions, all the liberals' eyes start darting around
    the room, looking for an escape route.  Don't think I don't see it.

    John W.

    On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 5:31 PM, Bob Illyes <illyes at uiuc.edu <mailto:illyes at uiuc.edu>> wrote:

    Melodye writes:

    "It never ceases to amaze me how some of the biggest critics (on every
    subject) coming out of the shadows have done---- what?"

    Precisely, Melodye.

    Some pretext is generally behind this lack of accomplishment. A "Christian"
    pretext is that because of Original Sin it is not possible for a person to do
    good. A "Marxist" pretext is that the middle class will always prevent
    political progress, which isn't possible because the middle class is not yet
    destroyed. Market Fundamentalism supplies its own unsubstantiated theology.
    But don't be fooled. These are just excuses to hold in contempt those who do their part to leave the world better rather than worse. These critics get off
    on contempt. They attempt to set up abusive relationships with those who
    would do good.

    On a slightly different subject, I confess I have never seen anything quite
    so revolting as the Social Darwinian arguments coming from opponents of the
    efforts of our first black President and our first woman Speaker. (Their race
    and gender have nothing to do with this, right?) In the Gilded Age, it was
    seriously proposed that charity was vice, because it lessened the pressure on
    those on the bottom to change their evil ways. And now the new Gilded Age has
     arrived, with the same recycled pseudo-scientific nonsense, that we all
    already get what we deserve.....

    Bob

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