We have elected someone crazier than I am to be President of the United States of America. And I am fucking crazy. I mean, I am some people shun me crazy. Madder than a shithouse rat crazy.
From time to time in America a bodhisattva appears. A man or woman whose honesty gleams. A human who is endowed with brains, compassion, a sense of humor, courage and oratory.
One great human runs for POTUS and loses several times. That human is the American Socialist Party candidate in the four candidate election of 1916. And last night he was waving to me in my dream.
I am thinking of Eugene Victor Debs today because he said this and we need to remember who we are today, I think. And where we need to go.
I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands.
As quoted in "Life of Eugene V. Debs" by Stephen Marion Reynolds, in Debs : His Life, Writings and Speeches (1908) edited by Bruce Rogers and Stephen Marion Reynolds, p. 71.
This was Debs ultimate goal.
The united vote of those who toil and have not will vanquish those who have and toil not, and solve forever the problems of democracy.
"In other words,"We are stronger together." - Hillary Clinton. I believe that. But I know that we "must use our heads." Debs was under no delusions about the American political parties.
The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.
I am going to vote for Hillary. And then I am going to keep on working for my country. I am going to use my head and my hands. Nobody is perfect. We must have a Republic and we must keep it. Hat tip to B. Franklin. Democracy is work. The Bernie Revolution is ongoing. No slacking.
The revolution will not be televised. - Gil Scott-Heron
“Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Change comes from power, and power comes from organization. In order to act, people must get together." - Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, p. 113
My folks had a chicken farm in rural Robbinsville, NJ in the middle 1940s.
I know what it is like to use a burlap sack as a sunshade or umbrella and pick potatoes out of the ground all morning. The Sun is brutal. After I started crying, my folks put me in the barn where I could harass the kittens. I was four maybe. And they went back to picking.
My parent's grew Tomatoes for Campbell's Soup in Camden and Eggs and Chickens for all comers.
So even though I am an immigrant's Pole/Wop child from New Jersey, I claim honorable redneck status. I know about ridicule because you talk funny. I know about living off the Earth and reading books. Jeffersonian. This man speaks to my condition.
