Why Communism Doesn’t
Work in North America and What We can Do to Successfully Create Social Activism
While Maintaining a Decent Profit Motive for Our Workers and Executives.
I am not a communist or a
socialist. I am a progressive-thinking North American with African and
Caribbean ancestry. I don’t think Socialism will ever work for North America
because we have too much anti-communist rhetoric allowed on the open air waves.
I also think most North Americans don’t understand or accept socialism because
they think it is un-American. Little do they know that there has always been a
stream of far-left thinking and activism in North American politics and
history...
You can trace the roots of Mother
Jones Magazine and the roots of the North American labor movement and you will
find socialists deeply involved and embedded at every level. There were also
committed socialists involved in the Civil Rights movement and the Anti-War
movement in our country. Most of them were White, but there is also a history
of Black socialism as well. However, I
feel that we basically need to use Capitalism to put forth social activism in
the year 2013 and beyond. We also need to make the Capitalist system more
humane, less exploitative and more driven to serve people than to make huge
profits at the expense of human rights, labor rights, decent living standards,
good working conditions and decent wages.
Certainly there are models that
come to mind that have been very successful at working social activism into the
mix of successful Capitalism. ``Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream’’ comes to mind as
does a few other companies such as ``Virgin Airlines’’ or ``Southwest
Airlines'' { I am not sure which} and a few other companies. These businesses
have, if I'm not mistaken, a long history of treating people who work for them
with dignity and respect and paying well.
There are several other companies that do this as well. The way I am
constructing my business, for example, is to have a strong for-profit side and
a mechanism to feed money into the non-profit side to do the social activism.
There are many other examples where this has been done successfully, such as
Annie's Pretzels.
The time for consistent positive
social change to be supported actively by the corporate structure has
come. Not just hand over a few million
dollars and take a big fat tax cut for your effort, but actually partner with
the people on the front lines of the company and decide what to do for the future
of the company, the future of Our nation and the future of Our World. How do we create diversity and maintain
fairness; how do we develop sustainability and work that concept throughout our
system; how do we allow women to reasonably raise children and maintain a
household AND a job without losing their dignity and their minds; how do we
help White people understand that the party isn't necessarily over just because
they are becoming a so-called minority; how do we create fairness when race,
gender, class, ethnicity, age and sexual orientation are still major players in
deciding if a person gets a certain job, maintains that job and moves on into the
corporate hierarchy. These are real
questions for the corporate sector to ponder and decide on as we reach into the
next phase of the Obama Age.
The dollar is weakening and other
monetary formations like the Euro and other monetary components still to be
devised are taking over world markets and becoming of increasing value to world
markets. But I digress. Let me get back to my original premise. Communism isn't the future. I am a left-thinking American and I know this
for a fact. Central Committees and other
leadership formations of Communist Parties can be just as corrupted and misled
as the corporate sector. The problem is, that often leadership in Communist
countries cannot be overthrown easily.
They often don't hold regular elections and can be the center of
nepotism, cronyism, unfairness, discrimination, and, as I said, corruption.
Once someone gets inside the Communist Party in some countries where leadership
is Communists, they had better act as the Party wants or they may find
themselves in political or even physical trouble. Communism is too
limiting. Free markets are the answer,
but if you think we have Free Markets in the United States, you are sadly
mistaken. We have something that is
about as chocking as Communism, if not more so.
We have the rule of the rich, the rule of the Oligarchy, the rule of the
monopoly and the corporate structure and the rule of the Ruling Class. This is a world of discrimination and the
flexing of muscle by people like the Koch Brothers who own several corporations
and put Tee-Party loyalists in place through the primary system and through
their very strong financial manipulation.
Such people work behind the scenes to twist arms, make deals and crush
opposition that often ends up chocking all the liberty, freedom, diversity and
justice out of our democratic system and making a mockery of our
Constitution--that is if anything much is really left of our Constitution. With Bills like the Patriot Act I and the
Patriot Act II and the National Security Act, we have lost or are losing our
right to free speech, the right to assemble, the right to not be searched and
many other rights. But the people are
asleep at the Wheel, many of them, and the Oligarchy is taking advantage of our
ignorance. Still, Capitalism and
democracy are much stronger than Communism.
But Capitalism in another formation--not its’ present form. We have to ALL get involved to make this
system of ours work. We have to vote,
have our say, fight for what we want, and make our voices heard. We can't just vote once every four years and
expect things to change that way. We
have to be actively engaged and make the changes we want. Other- wise, we will lose this democracy we
have and it will be maintained as a corporate state like it presently is.
That means you. Every North American needs to take part. If you are sick of the Gun runners at the NRA
having so much control over the process of who get a gun in our country, you
have to not only write your Congressperson, you have to write your governor and
your city council person and you may have to attend a rally or two. You may have to be willing to give up that
Saturday night movie or theater presentation to write a check to the Brady
Campaign or whoever else is fighting for reasonable gun laws and put your money
where your mouth is. I have been doing
it for 35 years and on a very light salary.
Our system might look like an old beat up Ford right about now--what
with the fiscal cliff and the non-cooperation in D.C., but look around... What
else is working? NOT MUCH ELSE!!
I am no longer a Democrat. I am registered Independent. The Democratic
Party has taken Black voters for granted for generations and the Republicans
hate us and don't want us to vote for them in any significant numbers. Register Independent and work for positive
social change. Most of all read and
think. Watch Free Speech TV and Public
TV and National Public Radio and The British Broadcasting Company. If you actually watch FOX and think that has
anything good for our Nation, I feel sorry for you. I twice voted Republican for governor of
Pennsylvania. I wasted my vote. I was sorely disappointed both times. But our
local politicians in the Democratic Party are elected by us as Black voters,
but they REALLY don't do a damned thing for us either. How can we possibly have a city with no central
shopping area with Black stores? How can we possibly have no Black hotels in
Philadelphia? How can we, in 2013, with a Black President in the White House,
still have such a small middle class and a broad underclass? The Black politicians here have failed us
significantly. There are some who have
and do work diligently to advocate for Black economic advances and good
education for our students such as State Senator Vincent Hughes; State Senator
Shirley Kitchen and State Representative Dwight Evans [Sometimes]. But most of the others are held in the
pockets of White and Asian City ``Fathers'' who don't give a crap about Black
and Latin and poor people and probably never will. Do you see the Asian community worrying about
who is in office like we as Black people ado? No!! They own ALL the businesses
in our community and they are sucking us dry each and every day along with the
Big Supermarket chains and all the other businesses that are owned by White and
Jewish merchants.... This picture doesn't change by voting. We need to get informed and read books like
``Our Black Year: One Family's Quest to Buy Black in America's Racially Divided
Economy,'' by Maggie Anderson. My new
book coming out very soon: ``A Grass Roots Criteria for Liberation: Writing in
Wet Cement,'' has a book list of over 400 books in the back. It is a book about how to help our Black
youth become an advantage to our society instead of an economic and political light
weight like we are used to them being perceived as. It will help parents teach their children
better ethical values and better Ways of treating each other. It will help our youth learn the importance
of sharing; respecting elders; intervening in a crisis with LOVe and
communications instead of a knife or a gun; it will teach critical thinking and
respect for achievement and entrepreneurship.
It encapsulates my own life story with many ethical lessons and
political analysis. It will be a Best
Seller. But remember, if you want our system to work, keep on your pointy toed
shoes [Like my Mother Mrs. Jessie M. Gibson, used to say] and keep the pressure
on your politicians--and I mean REAL pressure with plenty of letters and phone
calls. Don't be afraid to shop at stores
like ACME in the meantime, which has a union and which has traditionally
treated employees with much more respect than say, a Wal-mart. Our system
doesn't work perfectly, but like my Ole Uncle Pete Peterson used to say, don't
throw the baby out with the bath water.
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