http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=450370798353542&set=a.450370551686900.102196.190668574323767&type=3&theater
The event was advertised as very specific:
The Left Labor Project presents Angela Davis-- After the Election: Where Do We Go From Here?
Great subject matter but did Angela Davis address the topic she was brought to speak about?
You be the judge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkR0LqrwCnc&list=PLnPLUb_CyJa83Kn0PV_0ejiYMI-ny78jQ&index=1
As you listen to this video make a list of all of Angela Davis' suggestions about "where we go from here."
Let's have a discussion on the points she brought forward on the topic.
Make a list.
Question: Why didn't Angela Davis connect the dots between wars making us poor, the need to tax the rich in order to create jobs by putting people to work solving the problems of the people?
No mention of WPA, CCC, CETA, National Public Health Care and Child Care Programs--- over twenty-five million jobs in all for less than we are paying for militarism and wars.
No mention of these kinds of solutions to our problems so there was no mention of what kind of movements we need to build in order to force the government to enact these kinds of programs.
Angela Davis passed over the main problems (although she pointed to the jobs poster behind her and mentioned it) but then skipped movement building and talked about how she likes to talk about socialism and communism without suggesting how the socialist alternative to capitalism should be placed on the table in the present for people to discuss as part of the discourse about solving our problems.
Why no "end the wars" sign?
Why no: "People before Wall Street profits" sign?
Why no sign asking: "How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?"
Why no sign in the union hall of 1199 stating: "Obamacare is the Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010"?
Angela Davis also forgot about the anti-monopoly struggle; challenging Wall Street for political and economic power.
A few weeks before this talk Angela Davis campaigned to re-elect Obama at a huge rally in Detroit.
Angela Davis describes Obama as having "progressive proclivities."
Does anyone really believe Barack Obama has any "progressive proclivities?" If so, what are those "progressive proclivities?" Let's get these "progressive proclivities" stated right here so we know what we are working with--- or up against.
Perhaps there is a "Progressive Health Insurance Company" Obama is partial to?
A "progressive proclivity" would mean Obama is someone who tends to trend toward peace; wouldn't it?
I would suggest Angela Davis consults a dictionary, preferably a good dictionary of philosophy, for the definition of "progressive."
She can find a good definition for the word "proclivity" in any standard dictionary.
Obviously Angela Davis refused to address the topic she was invited to speak on because there must have been at least one person in the audience of hundreds who would have asked her:
You campaigned for Obama now we are going to have to fight him and his Wall Street agenda of wars abroad paid for with austerity measures here at home?
Angela Davis blamed people for not mobilizing the day after Obama was elected to fight for the change they wanted but she never took that suggestion to people in the streets celebrating Obama's election and she didn't talk about specific plans to initiate such movement building activities and actions this time around.
And what about states like Minnesota with Democratic super majorities? What do we expect to gain? Specifics are required.
Wouldn't this gathering of labor leftists have been the perfect forum from which to launch such a mobilization with a specific program for change like this:
A progressive program for real change...
* Peace--- end the wars and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan & Libya; shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil. No new Wall Street imperialist wars. End drone attacks.
* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.
* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.
* Re-establish the Works Progress Administration (WPA) - three million new jobs.
* Re-establish the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) - two million new jobs.
* Re-establish the Comprehensive and Employment Training Act (C.E.T.A.) - 6 million jobs.
* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.
* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.
* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage based on all cost of living factors & indexed to inflation.
* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.
* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.
* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people. Rescind “At-will” employment the main impediment to union organizing.
* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions; no more concessions.
* Defend and expand Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare; repeal Obamacare which is nothing more than the “Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Bailout and Profit Maximization Act of 2010.”
Wall Street is our common enemy.
How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?
Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.
Organize the “People’s Lobby” to counter the interests of big-business.
**** Establish a working class based people's progressive party.
Is there anything wrong with having a discussion about all of this?
Comment:
Democratic Party hacks and their over-paid apologists have created this idea that if they talk about taxing the rich they can avoid talking about the need to financing militarism, these dirty imperialist wars and the Israeli war machine.
Does anyone seriously believe that a Democratic Party which has evaded discussing the "Peace Dividend" will actually carry on a struggle to tax the rich?
We need to fight for the "Peace Dividend" and fight to tax the rich along with corporate profits and all Wall Street transactions. This is the only way we are going to pay for the kind of massive universal social programs required to put millions of people back to work by putting them to work at real living wages solving their problems.
