Posted by Wally P. on February 05, 2008 at 09:09:22:
In Reply to: Edwards/Kucinich posted by Emanual on January 30, 2008 at 09:07:21:
Can Senator Edwards and Rep. Kucinich bring democracy into our government and economic public institutions? Short answer… Until both politicians adopt the program for an Economic Democracy …our reply is a resounding No !!! …
Does ANY political Representative in either of our Congressional Houses advocate a program that will enable We, the People, to have a direct voice and vote in all matters than affect our lives.., which will translate into an effective, democratically legislated decision, that will be carried out by the appropriate institutions so charged …, to resolve one of our many social and economic problems?
You can ask: ‘Is there anything both Edwards and Kucinich have said or done that might, just might, lead them to approving the Pfans goal of We, the People, having a direct voice and vote in all matters that affect our lives… ALL matters, which includes our governments on all levels as well as our work places?”
Based upon their past and recent histories in their Congressional seats…, still a loud and clear, “NO!!!?
Rationale..
Rep, Kucinich and Senator Edwards have not demonstrated any realistic directions toward helping us to change our government and economic institutions so that we, as citizens, can use the democratic process to become directly involved with our voices, our votes and our direct participatory involvement in both our government and industrial/service work places, in all matters that affect our lives….
Today, We, the People, have all the Constitutional tools and democratic traditions to make our society one in which we can employ our wonderful, industrial technology to produce a domestic prosperity, and a duration of peaceful, cooperative relationships with our global neighbors.
Nothing either Edwards or Kucinich have ever done anything to lead us to believe they can be part of such a liberating, desperately needed, democratic process. But their public appeal for a “different” face for our present political system is very attractive because they touch upon our instinctive knowledge that We, the People, are NOT represented properly by the politicians We send to government to make our lives better.
What may give many people an “impression” that perhaps both the Senator Edwards and the House member Kucinich, are demanding fundamental changes in both the public government and the private governments of the corporate autocracy… is that John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich have made statements which suggest they are for a drastic change in the way government is being run by both the Democrats and Republicans.
Kucinich has correctly pointed out the unconstitutional , illegal Iraq invasion, and is demanding impeachment proceedings against President Bush . …, which, were the majority of the Democrats in power agreeable, is “doable.” But Bush’s improbably impeachment removal from office, even if it were to happen, would not in any way change the basic operations of our government and/or economy …, the two critical factors which contribute to our perennial social, economic and government problems.
Senator Edwards has made definite statements that he will “Fight the corporations” which have removed “DEMOCRACY” from our society…
The democracy Edwards calls for the “People,” is NOT the democracy that ensures for We, the People, to have, enjoy and use a DIRECT VOICE and DECISION-MAKING DIRECT VOTE in OUR COMMUNITIES.. and in OUR WORK PLACES...in ALL matters that affect OUR lives.
Edwards is committed to Congress’s role as a representative for We, the People. His “fight” with the corporations revolves around the commonly known fact that Congressional members are not independent of thought, and their actions are not necessarily in the interests of the PEOPLE, and too often are coerced by corporate lobbies to vote for corporate, private profit interests.
Edwards refers to huge amounts of campaign monies needed by today's Democrat and Republican candidates without which they can never hope to achieve a high office. Corporate and private capitalist campaign spending has spawned the daily lobbying tactics of the corporate financiers who expect, and get legislative favors in return.
Limiting campaign spending by the corporations does not in any way change the social and economic relationships between the powerful, autocratic corporate governments, and the absence of decision making empowerment of people who work in our society’s industries and services.
It is along these political lines that Senator Edwards tells his audiences that he can “FIGHT” the corporations and “WIN ! Win what? Democracy for We, the People so that We can have a direct voice, and decision making empowerment, in new forms of government based on democracy for We, the People, rather than the decision making powers We now give over to our politicians?
Of the two, Senator Edwards is the more blatantly political opportunist.
Throughout his campaign for the Presidential nomination, Edwards has unabashedly promised extraordinary economic changes in our society. The most dramatic PROMISE, and certainly most understood by anyone who has lived through capitalism’s recessions and depressions, and who works for wages, is Edwards’s declaration that he will end POVERTY in 20 years!!!
The “poverty” Edwards cites has many depressing societal faces. To appreciate the extent of capitalism’s impoverishment of millions of Americans, and the bleak future this system holds millions of Americans in the any future …, access this site for your own appraisal of what “poverty” really encompasses…
Poverty in America: One Nation, Pulling Apart -- The Atlas on Poverty in America
To judge Edwards without a fair and intellectually honest and open discussion, let us afford the Senator all the benefits of he being sincere in his promise to end poverty in our society…, but, let us share and explore our specific reasons for the questioning the “realism” of the Senator’s public pronouncements…,, reasons which make the Senator's claims without substance.
At the outset, We, the People for a New Society, remind the reader to reflect on our American history of the last 100 years. , We, and our past generations, have been allowing our necessary public institutions…, including our work places, to be controlled by autocratic corporate CEOs, , and We have given over to the Democrat and Republican politicians in Washington, total control to use our government to serve the needs of the corporations, to the exclusion of our majority electorate, that is, We, the People.
In doing so, we have GUARANTEED a continuance of our economic DEPRESSIONS, perennial IMPOVERISHMENT for millions of jobless people, PERIODIC WARS for the resources of other nations , which today is IRAQ’S OIL…., and a realistic, growing potential conflict for China’s global markets.
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In addition, and by far the most questionable promise is the Senator Edwards declaration that were he the President, he will ELIMINATE POVERTY from American lives in 20 years!
Wow! No poverty in America? No Layoffs? Relative prosperity for everyone? Wow, again!! That would a FIRST in the HISTORY of capitalism. And coming from a capitalist politician ???
For us to accept Edwards’ declaration as having validity…, and any possibility for poverty’s disappearance from CAPITALISM's economics…, we must first hear from him HOW he will accomplish such an extraordinary, historic feat. For us to have any confidence in his promise, the least the Senator can do is provide us with some specific understandings of HOW poverty is produced…, and most critical, what he will do to change the capitalism mechanics which produce the poverty that today plagues millions of Americans..
To have our confidence in the Edwards call for poverty’s end, he must first demonstrate to his constituents, the electorate majority, that joblessness and its perennial , ugly offspring…, poverty…, is the result of CAITALISM’S economics. Poverty does not simply appear in our lives due to some unknown, mystical reasons .
Poverty is a direct result of capitalism’s explicit mechanics which are practiced daily in the system of wages. He should also include the social relationships produced by the “commodity production” system, which is another name for the use of wage labor to make items for sale in the competitive market, where other capitalist companies are always struggling to stay in business by gaining the greater share of consumer dollars…
The 1930’s collapse of capitalism…, known as the Great Depression , forced the then President, FDR to enact reforms which saved capitalism for the capitalist class, which reluctantly capitulated to FDR’s warning: “Reform if you wish to preserve.,“ referring to the preservation of the system itself!
The Unemployment Compensation law passed during FDR’s New Deal reforms…was meant to “soften” a jobless person’s sufferings…, with a minimal amount of dollars to get by day to day… but it does not, BY LAW, continue to support the unemployed until a job is found …. Unemployment Compensation has its limits…., but UNEMPLOYMENT has NO LIMITS…, thus, such a reform does not resolve the poverty problem. So, whatever was his plan Senator Edwards could rely simply on such temporary measures.. His vow to end poverty must be addressed to the workings of capitalism itself.
Senator Edwards certainly must have learned enough American labor history, as well as from his own experiences growing up in a working class milling community…, to know that widespread poverty has been with us since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution when the post Revolutionary War agrarian society of farmers and farm hands began to leave the farms to the promise of jobs in the post Industrial Revolution factories in all major cities..., thus heralding in of capitalism's domination of our economy..., and along with it, a new social/economic majority of American citizens called wage workers who, today, are the majority working class.., that majority electorate which, contrary to Edwards promise…, is the ONLY force in society that can legally and peacefully eliminate poverty..., not necessarily in 20 or so years..., but as soon as We, the People, get ourselves organized along new programs for democracy in OUR GOVERNMENTS and in OUR INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS....
Check out this … http://www.johnedwards.com/news/press-releases/20080130/ a URL sample of an Edwards speech which includes some of his “good” intentions which, most conspicuously, are completely void of specific directions in which to work to accomplish poverty’s elimination from our lives…
Why are Edwards's promise without substance?
Consider... Were Edwards the President..., he, as ONE person sitting in that seat of power..., is not the "Decider," as the corporate puppy, Pres. G. Bush, would want us to believe... Presidents are mandated by law to wait for Congress to produce the legislation that effects our social and economic organizations and their directions. And we cannot ignore the fact that Presidents come “up” through the political system dependent on private campaign contributors without whose support their high offices could never be achieved. And this applies even to those wealthy , capitalist class office holders such as the former President Kennedy, and the present President.,
And there is still another factor which conditions all seekers of high office…, even the very wealthy who may not “need” all the financial contributions to gain their chosen political office…, example being NJ’s present Governor, who, prior to his NJ governorship…, financed his own way to the U.S. Senate with $60m million of his own bank account! THESE PEOPLE ARE TRUE BELIEVERS THAT CAPITALISM IS THE ONLY AND BEST SYSTEM , despite its history of failures to service a peaceful and prosperous society for all the people. They believe poverty and other societal shortcomings are “unfortunate,” but it is a necessary tradeoff for the system to function as it does…, particularly for its chief beneficiaries, the dominant capital investors who are of the capitalist class…, whose membership is less than 10% of our population, but whose wealth encompasses more than the rest of the 90% , most of whom are of the working class.
Today, John Edwards is a millionaire. His fortune was accrued by his success as an attorney in winning huge money settlements for victims of pharmaceutical corporation abuses . His experiences in contest with the corporations gave him the credentials to tell Presidential audiences that he has fought the corporations and has won, and so he knows that corporations will never voluntarily agree to programs that will benefit the “people…” that they have to be forced into acting against their own profit interests…, that he, John Edwards, “knows” how to do it.
But when it comes down to telling us HOW he will rid us of the ever present poverty in our society…, Edwards is silent.
One important understanding we have is that despite his declared animosity to the “corporations…,”Edwards has been effectively conditioned by the system of capitalism to follow all its rules, a loyalty which has enabled him..., and practically all the present Congressmen...in the House and the Senate...., to abide by the interests of their corporate and private capitalist whose monies their afforded their political campaigns..., which enabled them to achieve their Government positions... in Congress as well as in the Executive Branch. And it is general knowledge that these major party "politicians" are beholden to their "private" sponsors. It is a TRUISM that CORPORATIONS give out” CAMPAIGN DOLLARS only with the UNDERSTANDING that they GET BACK SOMETHING IN RETURN.
Make no mistake… The CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES “gives back” accordingly…,
In this latest 2008 Congressional session, obedience to the profit interests of the dominant capitalist corporations has been very publicly, spuriously, shamelessly expressed, but not to reveal its past corporate pay backs…, but to present it as a GREAT legislative accomplishment in the interests of our the nation’s working class, when the “PEOPLE’S” representatives…, those whom WE have been sending to the Federal Government to make our lives better… , the same Congress that has kept the minimum wage FROZEN for ten (10) long years, at $5.15 an hour…(to the demands of their corporate “advisors.”) with much fanfare… raised the ten year frozen minimal rate from $5.15 an hour to a WHOPPING $5.85 an hour!!!
That “… 10 year in the waiting…” SEVENTY CENTS an hour RAISE translates into a mind boggling $28.00 WEEKLY INCREASE to an already poor worker’s low weekly pay…Imagine his “skyrocketing” leap to a “higher” life standard??? Just imagine how $28.00 more a week will make your own life significantly better?
And even throughout this Minimal Wage debate…many Congressmen voted AGAINST any minimum raise because some of their smaller corporate backers felt even a slight raise in the minimum wage would cut into their profits!
Robert Hutchins, erstwhile President of the U. of Chicago once characterized all the work place reforms by Congress as a corporate PREVENTION of what he termed “SOCIAL DYNAMITE,” referring, of course to the historic fact that when people become so abused and demeaned and oppressed by their rulers.., be the rulers of the monarchy class, or of the CAPITALIST CLASS…, open public protests and threats of radical change are most feared by the rulers…, and their given “sops” usually hold off the oppressed population and quell their dissent for another time.
For Senator Edwards to eliminate the “poverty” which is always present in this capitalist society, Edwards would need the cooperation of the capitalist owners of the corporations to adjust the wages system so that workers receive back a greater amount more than the ¼ or 1/5 of the values they produce which they get back in monetary form as their wages. This ratio…one dollar paid in wages in return for 4 or 5 dollars worth of saleable value is THE reason why wage workers never have enough of an income to purchase their life needs without going into debt… , and also explains the real source of corporate profits…, which are derived from that 3/4s or 4/5s of the values workers produce…, which corporate owners keep, more accurately, expropriate, and convert into profits from market sales.
Were Labor to receive back the FULL measure of values produced…, which is one of the as key, democratic elements in the Economic Democracy advocated by People for a New Society…, our poverty problem would be immediately eliminated…But Senator Edwards never talks about such systemic mechanisms that produce the money shortages and other societal inequities, experienced by all wage workers.., including those whose incomes are above minimum wage levels.
Clearly, the Senator from North Caroline, would- be Presidential hopeful… has been either entertaining delusions..., or is purposely spoofing us., as do all of capitalism’s politicians whose commitment to this system is most apparent ... to the class conscious realist whose aspirations for the construct of a true democracy in our needed social institutions are held as a measuring standard for all our government's
legislators.
Our majority “wage -earner” electorate (that’s us, We, the People) has available the Constitutional avenues through which We can send our own representatives to Washington…, people who have work place and industrial experience, to act as political messengers on our behalf, who share our understandings of how capitalism’s undemocratic institutions deprive us of a real empowerment in making decisions to better our individual and societal lives.., in both our communities and in our industries…, and, most important, how We can legally and peacefully transform our socially, cooperatively operated necessary industries into instruments for our societal well being rather than for the private profits of \the relatively few dominant capital investors who make up our society’s capitalist class.
Were the Senator truly dedicated to “eliminating” poverty , he needn’t project a 20 year time period. It can happen much sooner…, as soon as We, the People are alerted to both how the SYSTEM now works to prevent us from living in peace and prosperity, and how We can replace it with one in which DEMOCRACY becomes a reality for us today, and a birthright for our future generations.
In the interests of open and thoughtful discussion, we attempted to send this reply to the Senator…, but none of his web sites seeking votes and money support have an E mail address.
Perhaps a reader of this site will have a way to share these ideas with the Senator?
wp, for Pfans.