Nationalize the Energy Corporations

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity have a problem with BIG GOVERNMENT but are oddly silent about the evils of BIG BUSINESS. But only BIG GOVERNMENT can protect small business and ordinary working-middle class people from this monstrous energy company greed. And despite Gordon Geko of "Wall Street" movie fame, greed is NOT good.

Vital life resources like gas and oil and electricity should not be anybody's private wealth. We socialists say NATIONALIZE ALL ENERGY CORPORATIONS. The guilty Robber Barons disappear from public view. But like the Cheshire Cat leave only a smirky smile behind.

( Comment on Cranston Herald editorial, "Who's the Cheshire Cat?", Dec.30 : on the shocking National Grid rate increase request of 24 percent for the next six months.)

Israeli "kibbutz" hints at new socialist family

These horror stories of children being snuffed out or stunted by idiotic, incompetent or just criminally insane parents should make us focus on the inadequacy, the cruel isolation of the nuclear family. This fragile "unit of society" is very much in need of "social engineering."

As a democratic socialist I find a hint of the solution in the Israeli "kibbutz"- a sort of extended family as well as an economic unit. Child abuse, for example, would become almost impossible when there are multiple mothers and fathers caring for and watching over ALL the communal children. Children will no longer be seen as some one couple's PRIVATE PROPERTY and responsibility.

To be sure, there will be no economic privilege– only shared wealth- in this socialist community. The present bourgeois family system is to blame for much mental illness.

Read Engel's "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State."

Link to book review

As Hillary Clinton said : "It takes a village to raise a child."

    

( Comment on article in Houston Chronicle: "Sentencing for man who kept 4 sons in filthy home", Dec.30, 2014 )

All you need to know about R.I. Center for Freedom and Prosperity

Gene, you not infrequently have for guests at your radio station representatives of the R.I. Center for Freedom and Prosperity.

How many of your listeners know what a sinister, far-right group this is? Just a hint: A 2012 internet ad, the Center's invitation to "all free enterprise loving citizens" to leave their brains at home and watch the Ayn Rand inspired movie Atlas Shrugged II, showing at the Lincoln Cinema World on Friday, October 12. The ad tells the hordes of Ayn Rand fans that free Atlas Shrugged II bonus items will be handed out, including an XXL-T-SHIRT.

The Holy Book of the Ayn Rand atheist cult is "The Virtue of Selfishness." The godless cult, of course, worships Money & Capitalism-with crackpot Ayn Rand as their high priestess.

Submitted to: Gene@630wpro.com

Ron from Cranston ( Italo-American- Catholic- Knightsville )

Progress on all fronts: WATCHING AMERICA

As a citizen of the United States  I am appalled by the CIA torture scandal. The guilty here must face an international war crimes tribunal. But the main stream world news media does almost nothing to explain the roots of terrorism. 

Is anti-U.S. terrorism like the Ebola virus-highly contagious and mysterious in its origins? Do sane individuals in these Middle Eastern countries just wake up one morning with a fanatical desire to fly jetliners into tall buildings in New York City?

Both China and Russia have forgotten the cause of mass misery for several centuries now: the unchecked rule of the rich.

In America, oddly enough, any mention of SOCIALISM usually comes from right-wing sources. Long after the collapse of the Soviet Union they still hate and fear the very idea of a socialist society.

What can be more ludicrous than to believe that terrorists are motivated by some insane hatred of American Freedom and Democracy?

Our now Republican Senate and our now Republican House are the real voice of the common people of America? The use of torture in American military prisons speaks of a lack of faith in the stability of the American Way of Life.

Did the threat of torture by the old Catholic Inquisition finally establish the TRUTH of Aristotle's physics and the ERROR of the free thinker Galileo?

But there is PROGRESS even in the world of metaphysics. Today the Catholic Church completely accepts the findings of modern science. And just recently Pope Francis said that the Church has no problem with Charles Darwin or Stephen Hawkins, with Evolution or the Big Bang.

Some day in the near future the world of politics will have no problem with SOCIALISM and Karl Marx's CLASS STRUGGLE view of history.

(Comment on article in "The People's Daily", China , Dec.12, 2014 by Chuan Qin)

WATCHING AMERICA : Obama No "Lame Duck"

Link to 2009 article from Salon.com

As a citizen of the United States and a democratic Socialist, I do not think I am "WILLFULLY IGNORANT of the way the world truly works." I applaud President Obama's fresh approach to Cuba.

What scares me is how out of touch the now Republican Senate and the now Republican House are with the common people of America. Imagine Cuban American Senator Marco Rubio saying he does not care what 99 percent of the American people think? Just what is HIS concept of Democracy anyway? When the majority opinion is always checked and frustrated? Does our capitalist ruling class always know best ?

Link to PBS excerpt

I am presently reading American socialist Irving Howe's political biography "A Margin of Hope." From a New York Jewish background, author of the popular best seller "The World of Our Fathers", Howe never abandoned the socialist idealism of his youth. The problem, as he saw it, was to keep socialism compatible with Western Civilization values of freedom and democracy.

Today in America there is a whole -not so fresh anymore- crop of right-wing intellectuals who idolize crackpot Ayn Rand and her "Virtue of Selfishness." Now this is atheism with an attitude!

Thank God for Pope Francis and the humane social philosophy of the Catholic Church. Francis played a key role in this ending of official hostility to socialist Cuba.

And I am sure this progressive Pope has only kindly feelings for the people of Israel.

( Comment on article in " Walla, " Israel  ,published on Dec.19 , 2014 by Uria Kanaf . Translated from Hebrew by Shani Morris. )

Hollywood should learn from French film "La Haine"

La Haine (The Hate) is a 1995 French black-and-white drama/suspense film written,
co-edited, and directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. It is about three young friends and
their struggle to live in the banlieues of Paris. The title derives from a line spoken
by one of them, Hubert: "La haine attire la haine!", "hatred breeds hatred."
Link to YouTube Trailer

I have no intention of seeing such a dangerously idiotic film like "The Interview", a comedy about political murder. But last night I watched a notable French film about the murderous hatred between the new immigrant arrivals in France and the French police and Neo-Nazi skinheads. It is aptly titled "La Haine" ("The Hate").

What an odd young trio; a black African, an outcast Jew, and an Arab: "It's all about a society in free fall." When a slum friend is killed-with NO justification by the police- all three daydream about a murderous revenge. There seems to be NO EXIT from their hellish, violent, senseless, life. They are despised and rejected OUTSIDERS. They pass by a bill board telling young people in France: " The World is Yours ". One of the trio changes it to: "The World is Ours." The old sociological theme of alienation in a capitalist, success oriented society is applicable here.

Obviously this black and white French- realism film (winner Best Director, Cannes Film Festival,1995 ) is relevant to the USA today with weeks of passionate, at times violent, street protests and mass actions over seemingly unjustified police killings of black youths- executed on the spot soon after rather petty crimes against private property.

Hollywood can serve a progressive cause by copying this French film "realism." Get inside the souls of our society's rejects, especially young people who never had much of a chance in life. As a socialist I am convinced that at least a GUARANTEED INCOME will rescue many of these hopeless youths from the nightmare of "free fall." And abject petty thievery!


Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com
 

WATCHING AMERICA - Joy in Latin America over Cuba opening

As a citizen of the United States and a Democratic Socialist I have long opposed the U.S. embargo on heroic little socialist Cuba. Even when the Cuban government fell short of international standards of liberty and democracy that did not explain the implacable hostility of the American ruling class. They also saw fit to assist an assassination plot against Salvador Allende of Chile, soon after he was elected president of Chile by popular vote. Our ruling class had no quarrel with the fascist regime of Pinochet ( his crimes against his own people are still being investigated. A few living accomplices of the right-wing dictator know where ALL the tortured-executed bodies of Allende supporters are buried.)

Whole books have documented the support of the CIA for bloody right-wing tyrannies all around the world. No, the basis for the implacable hostility to Cuba was the political base in Miami of reactionary Cuban exiles -who still dream of recovering their justly socialized PRIVATE PROPERTY. And to be sure, the U.S. ruling class has pronounced anathema on the very ideal of SOCIALISM anywhere in the world. "It can't work", their despicable intellectual representatives argue. But, of course, they will not even tolerate  SOCIALISM as a peaceful social experiment. They must sabotage and vilify it from the start.

The Russian Bolsheviks encountered this purely malignant attitude of capitalist governments in 1917. Was it so unprincipled and criminal of Lenin to withdraw Russian troops from the imperialist slaughter of the Great War? To cancel Czarist debts? To form a government of workers and peasants?

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the American ruling class -as Vladimir Putin pointed out -was triumphant. But the idea that SOCIALISM was dead- and History had ended-was delusional.

Only a political stooge and idiot will believe that the American ruling class are all sentimental slobs for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY everywhere.

No, not even here in the USA. Recall the stolen presidential election of 2000. And today a reactionary Republican Senate and a reactionary Republican House represent US-the common people of America? No way, Jose

(Comment on article published in El Nacional , Dominican Republic on Dec.18, 2014 by Editorial, edited by Bora Mici)

WATCHING AMERICA: "Hollywood's Ignorance"

As a citizen of the United States I have only a sardonic smile for the plight of Sony and this FREE SPEECH FOR CAPITALISTS crusade. As a Democratic Socialist I am well aware of the limits of  FREE SPEECH in the United States.

I remember passing out a "Bill of Rights for Working People" here in Rhode Island as a presidential elector for the Socialist Workers Party in 1976 and 1980. We did at least make it on the ballot -a triumph for whatever little democracy still possible under decaying capitalism (Peter Camejo, later Ralph Nader's Green Party running mate, was the SWP candidate in 1976. The decline of the SWP into a personality cult is another long story)

That movie "The Interview" is now showing in some Providence theaters. I will not see it. What is so very FUNNY about a political assassination-carried out by a sinister shadow government, the CIA torture-murderers, in a world-gone-mad- with irrational violence?

And President Obama suggests that impoverished North Korea compensate Sony USA for lost profits! I still think the only cure for this sick, money mad capitalist society is a more viable form of Democratic Socialism.

But in true Orwellian fashion the American ruling class tries to quarantine the very idea of SOCIALISM. They don't want the common people even to imagine a saner, more just society. Witness the cruel 50 year embargo of poor heroic Cuba.

But the more oppressed working class Americans cannot be fooled. They are back in the streets again seething with righteous wrath. If you are a poor black kid here-tempted to redistribute social surplus value- you are most likely to be executed on the spot – for some petty crime against sacrosanct private property rights. Forget about a costly jail sentence. Even the electric chair is not cheap.

We say put people before THINGS!

( COMMENT on article published in Berliner Zeitung, Germany , Dec. 21 2014 by Daniel Haufler )

The Ayn Rand inspired Center for Freedom and Prosperity

I hear the Ayn Rand inspired Center for Freedom and Prosperity quacking here. It is just the liberal-progressive-SOCIALIST perspective that puts humanity and common decency above the excessive comfort of the oblivious affluent in the Warwick, Cranston, Barrington suburbs.

The high priests of Ayn Rand at the Center are really deep thinkers: a world in which they are on top or almost on top is the best of all possible worlds. No, don't sacrifice ANY of your comforts so that poor blacks in big city slums can rise above the norm of squalor, misery, and hopelessness. What does Ayn Rand's godless "objectivism" have to offer the "Other America"?

Please defend her "Virtue of Selfishness" right here. But I suspect the brains at the Center for Freedom and Prosperity are really intellectual dullards with an attitude- an unjustified attitude-of political and educational superiority. Can they ever rise above their own Holy Book, "The Virtue of Selfishness,"and their own crackpot Pope, Ayn Rand? Their blasphemous religion of money worship and capitalism?

( COMMENT response to Cranston Herald Letter "RhodeMap RI unnecessary" by Fred E. Joslyn Jr. , Dec.18 ,2014 )

When the CIA Tortures in the Name of Human Rights

As a citizen of the United States I want to see ALL those guilty of prisoner torture here stand trial here before the Court of World Opinion. What is the ROOT of this evil? Clearly the privileged United States ruling class wants to hold on to its world imperialist power. Only a revival of CLASS STRUGGLE here can shift the social balance of power toward those less privileged classes who are naturally more empathetic and sympathetic to the wretches of the earth.

The U.S. ruling class wants to quarantine the very idea of SOCIALISM. In truly Orwellian fashion it wants the common people -even petty bourgeois intellectuals-not to be able even to imagine a saner social order than "free market" capitalism. How else do you explain the heartless and brainless 50 year embargo of little heroic socialist Cuba?

Viva all  just revolutions past, present, and future!

(COMMENT on article in L'Expression, Algeria on Dec. 11, 2014 by Karim Mohsen, WATCHING AMERICA)

Not tempted to see sick Hollwood Movie, "The Interview"

In general Hollywood films are so atrocious, so idiotic, so badly acted, so outrageously priced, that it is a wonder most actors and actresses are not getting both food stamps and Obamacare.

No, I am not even tempted to see "The Interview." North Korea should compensate Sony with a plastic bust of the North Korean GREAT LEADER. So-o-o So-r-r-r-y !

( Post in Houston Chronicle, " Select theaters say they'll show 'The Interview' Thursday" )

Hit and run scandal in Okinawa

As a citizen of the United States, I agree completely that it is morally reprehensible for a U.S. Marine Corp major to get away with this drunken (?) hit and run motor vehicle accident. As a democratic Socialist I don't understand why the U.S. military presence is still tolerated in Okinawa. In general DRUNKENNESS is the great American military tradition when our heroic soldiers are not dutifully occupied killing various and numerous designated enemies.

The late American Senator William J. Fulbright wrote a book during the Vietnam War titled : " The Arrogance of Power." And what could have been more arrogant-and criminal- than the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Japanese cities during World War II ? The horror and the inhumanity are still appalling. But it was SOBER Harry Truman who made THAT decision. How could American racism not have been a factor in deciding the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ?

As a pacifist I would love to see the whole occupied world shout: "GO HOME U.S. MILITARY!"

My own common- citizen- apology to the newly installed Okinawa governor Takeshi Onaga. For the whole catastrophe of U.S. Japan relations.
  

(COMMENT response to article published in Ryukyu  Shimpo, Japan, by Hirotoshi Kimura, Dec. !2, 2014 ... "Hit -and-Run by U.S. Service Member: We Should Reform the Status of Forces Agreement Now")

Ruling class tactic: DIVIDE and Conquer

As a citizen of the United States and a democratic Socialist, I have no problem understanding the special problems of different ethnic groups here. In the final analysis, all forms of oppression and exploitation are explained by CLASS inequality.

The ruling class tactic in dealing with a tense crisis of any aroused group is DIVIDE and CONQUER. But what a vile trick to get white working class people to imagine they have more in common with our ONE PERCENT WASP plutocracy than with the black and Latino immigrant masses.

The Jews here as a whole have no special claim for exploitation or oppression. Many of them are progressive liberals, a few still dedicated socialists. I suspect the ruling class will rediscover their usefulness as scapegoats as the economic crisis of capitalism-this endless Great Recession-festers.

I myself hope for New Deal type programs of reform. But I am beginning to suspect that our ruling class is now "incurably greedy" ( as Lenin thought ) or incurably decadent as some religious people think.

What a day of drama it will be when you WATCHING AMERICA folks learn that our Old Regime is crumbling. No, history has not ended. It does not culminate in the FREE MARKET and Ayn Rand - the crackpot queen of pro-capitalist godlessness.

    ( COMMENT response to article in La Croix ( France ) by Dec.7 , 2014 by Dominique Quinio, "A Never Ending Struggle")

Make cops safer by improving mental health system

Many news stories about cops needlessly killing individuals or individuals foolishly killing or injuring police officers yet again point to the failure of our mental health system. For decades now the mentally ill have been effectively criminalized by this society. And this "advanced" American way of dealing with the mentally ill – by malign neglect, has spread to other countries.

A capitalist society that routinely creates so many "losers" is bound to have a serious mental health crisis. In New York recently a black male who first nearly murders his girl friend, then murders two non-white cops as "revenge" for the controversial police killing of two black men– then KILLS HIMSELF, does not fit any "potential terrorist" profile. His own mother suspected he had an undiagnosed mental illness. We will all be safer when this society rediscovers the benefits of long term mental health care in major hospitals specializing in this vast social plague.

For-Profit medical care is a human disaster!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   To: letters@providencejournal.com

A hopelessly decadent American ruling class

As a citizen of the United States and a democratic Socialist I am aware of this odious art of "spin doctoring" news embarrassing to our ruling class. Many of our capitalist politicians are just corrupt , bought- and sold- lawyers. They went to ELITE colleges- like Harvard, Yale, Princeton- to learn how to champion a rotten cause: the interests of the American plutocracy-in the majestic halls of Congress. All that expensive Ivy League education devoted not to a dedicated search for TRUTH but to the devil's trade of clever lying.

These vile "leaders of the people" are ever ready with mere sound- bite words and phrases which only serve to stupefy public opinion: FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, the AMERICAN WAY of LIFE , OUR MERITOCRACY, the WISDOM of the MARKET, a SOCIETY of LAW, EQUAL OPPORTUNITY to SUCCEED.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United 

States. Democrat, he was elected four times and served from March 1933 
to his death in April 1945. He was a central figure in world events 

during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time 
of worldwide economic depression and total war. A dominant leader the 

Democratic Party, he built a New Deal Coalition that realigned American 

politics after 1932, as his New Deal domestic policies defined American 

liberalism for the middle third of the 20th century. (Wikipedia)

Of course, if you do not succeed by bourgeois, philistine values, you have no one to blame but yourself. Even a modest liberal effort to check the greed of the American capital!

The Evil Face  the American plutocracy shows the world in its invasion and occupation of foreign nations (for example, the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq) it now shows to angry Afro-Americans protesting police brutality here in the streets of the nation, most recently in the streets of Washington, D.C.

I would love to see 
a President like FDR come to power to deal with all this unacceptable inequality and injustice. But it just may be that our ruling class is now hopelessly decadent.

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Under his administration, 
the Russian Empire was replaced by the Soviet Union;

all wealth including land, industry and business was 

nationalized. Based in Marxism, his political theories are 

known as Leninism. (Wikipedia)

A study of history points to the Great French Revolution of 1789. To the much maligned Russian Revolution of 1917. Read the front pages of the New York Times covering that momentous uprising in Czarist Russia. The bourgeois journalists had to admit that Lenin "was perhaps the greatest revolutionary of all time."

That HOPE for a better world did not collapse with the fall of the old Soviet Union.

( WATCHING AMERICA ,
"Spin Doctoring Torture", published in Al-Watan, Oman on Dec.15, 2014 by Haitham
al-Aidy)

Free speech rights for the ruling class ?

Actor Randall Park, center, portrays Kim Jong Un 

in Columbia Pictures' "The Interview."

Photo By Ed Araquel/HONS 

I hope the American news media, reflecting the views of Corporate America, soon recovers from this orchestrated fury over our latest villain of the week– the crackpot North Korean dictator.

Do we need the moral equivalent of the Cuban missile crisis over a silly Hollywood movie? The greatest threat to working class citizens' "right to express themselves" is private ownership of the PUBLIC OPINION INDUSTRY.

And do we so quickly forget yesterday's headline on the CIA prisoner torture atrocity? That was indeed "outside the boundary of acceptable state behavior."

Our silly Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people too. So should we send ACLU to the United Nations? FREE SPEECH RIGHTS FOR THE AMERICAN PLUTOCRACY. What a glorious cause.

Oh, only if I were young enough ( and stupid enough ) to join the United States Marines. Send me on a parachute over the presidential palace in North Korea. But with a ton of LSD as a weapon of mass destruction!

   (post in Houston Chronicle, "FBI blames North Korea for Sony hack", Dec.19)

The Cuban Revolution revolts against itself? WATCHING AMERICA

As a citizen of the United States AND a democratic Socialist, I welcome this renewal of relations between Cuba and the United States. Let me be brief for now: Since the collapse of Stalinism in the Soviet Union the pro-capitalist nations have imagined that the ideal of Socialism is dead. That human history culminates in a heartless, brainless FREE MARKET. And here in America in the rule of the ONE PERCENT plutocracy?

What can possibly replace the Marxist explanation for the misery of the world? VIVA CUBA! VIVA SOCIALIST CUBA!

Does the American ruling class think it can quarantine a great and liberating idea - SOCIALISM?

   
 ( COMMENT  La Stampa , Italy, Dec.17 , 2014, article by Mimmo Candito)

Threat to liberty?

Link to Book

When a conservative writer cries "We the People" he invariably is thinking only about the privileged class. Republican candidates for president speak in a disdainful tone about half the population of the United States and all those shadowy "illegal aliens" desperate for government handouts and entitlements.

A while back I read a once popular book in the War on Poverty days: "The Children of Sanchez." It documents in a dramatic literary style the hellish life in Mexico of one poor family. They lived in squalor like hopeless rats. No wonder they dared to dream about the PROMISED LAND on the other side of the Rio Grande.

Anyone in Rhode Island from an Italian- Catholic immigrant background should have no problem empathizing with these immigrants-legal or illegal-from Mexico and Latin America. I commend President Obama here. He is using executive action to deal with a humanitarian crisis. We must not make a fetish of national boundaries. How many proud and arrogant nation states are visible from the moon?

(posted COMMENT on Warwick Beacon letter " Threat to Liberty " by Richard D. Walsh, Dec. 18)

Baseball pay under Socialism ( John Lester strikes out )

I am an incorrigible Red Sox fan and I miss their ace pitcher John Lester.  We can love the spectacle and excitement of major league baseball without loving the money side of it. Your editorial today, "Show him the money" (Dec. 19) is just too blasé about his $155 million offer from the lowly Chicago Cubs. After all, "Baseball is a business." And Lester just "got his big payday in the free market."

So "That's America"? Can any thinking person just accept this free market madness? Is not the "Invisible Hand" as silly as any anthropomorphic divinity the right-wing Christian fundamentalists imagine?

A socialist America will not outlaw major league baseball. But the better players will just have to play their hearts out for a living wage. The surplus value will flow into the Jimmy Fund perhaps. But  socialized medicine will soon make all bourgeois charities superfluous.

And admission to that classic stadium, Fenway Park, will again be fifty cents .

              
To: letters@providencejournal.com
                                                                                                                                                                                

Torture: Moral Defeat ... WATCHING AMERICA

As a citizen of the United States, I recall some quotes on this issue of torture from Nobel Prize winning French writer Albert Camus: "I would like to love my country and still love justice ..."

... "In  fighting our enemies let us not come to resemble them." Camus was protesting the use of torture during the Algerian revolution by the French military.

But what if? What if torture works? Well, if it works for one side in these horrific conflicts, it will work for the other. Who WINS when both sides lose moral credibility?

What we don't get here in THE LAND OF THE FREE  is an adequate account of the terrorists' STORY. Are we to believe that they are just strange and nasty sub-human beings who are just murderous-suicidal in their pathological hatred for our WAY OF LIFE? In our news media accounts of the war on terrorism there is very little historical perspective.

My own "educated guess" is that modern terrorism under the banner of fanatical Islam is rooted in extreme cultural oppression. But dig a little deeper and you will discern the CLASS STRUGGLE as described by old Karl Marx way back in 1848. His fiery words still ring true: "Workers of the  World Unite!"

( published in La Croix ( France ) on Dec.10 , 2014 by Dominique Quinio)

Breaking News: U.S. restores relations with Cuba

I just read the breaking news (Providence Journal, on-line, Dec. 17) that Cuban President Raul Castro welcomes renewed diplomatic relations with the United States.

I wonder why it was so right to ostracize revolutionary socialist Cuba for more than half a century but still recognize, for example, Pinochet's police state in Chile, after the CIA backed overthrow and assassination of the "Marxist" President Salvatore Allende?

Does the U.S. ruling class think it can quarantine an idea? Do they think SOCIALISM is so vile and unthinkable to ordinary Americans?

The black revolutionary Malcolm X once said in one of his fiery speeches: "Show me a capitalist and I'll show you a bloodsucker."

Will we ever have a democratic referendum on CAPITALISM here in the United States? What if the "tyranny of the majority" votes this oppressive economic system out?

Will the ACLU plead before the Supreme Court for the private property rights of our ONE PERCENT plutocracy? Think about it all you who embrace Logic & Reason – including the so vociferous New Atheists.

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

Reply to New Atheist Jim

Thanks for the clarification, Jim. The New Atheists that have come to my attention show absolutely no OLD SOCIALIST skills. If you believe that ordinary people can and must make profound social changes, you don't begin by suggesting they are stupid or ignorant because they believe in a rather anthropomorphic God.

Tell people you are an atheist and most of them will give you an indifferent smirk. Tell privileged people that you are a socialist and you most likely will see an expression of hate and fear on their faces.

As Engels was "a respected member of the London Stock Exchange" (and supported Marx) I have no quarrel with how you survive in this cruel society. But in his famous polemic with one Eugene Duhring he ridiculed that oh-so-German professor for wanting to wage war on religion in general.

Engels thought that religious confusion was rooted in the irrational social order. My heart breaks to hear a middle aged working man-burdened with a wife and children-now jobless- say he would lose his mind without his faith in God.

An intellectually honest socialist may not share his religious faith but he is definitely and uncompromisingly on the side of the oppressed.

If many individuals insist on ATHEIST as their public identity, I can only advise them to consult more competent public relations experts. They are not yet "winning friends and influencing people."


Thank you very much for your very reasonable response, Jim

Post at http://www.skepticmoney.com/atheists-think-superior/

Reply to Skeptic Money

I am the Ron Ruggieri who wrote the letter published in the Providence Journal : "Wary of the New Atheism."

As a SOCIALIST HUMANIST I ask you how you apply Logic & Reason to this very irrational and very unjust capitalist society. But I guess I  already have the answer here: "How science and reason can help you make money and reduce risk."

It seems to me that there is a clear divide here between RIGHT WING ATHEISM and LEFT WING ATHEISM. I am neither a convinced atheist nor a dogmatic Marxist. But Marx was clearly more profound on the matter of religion than the merely cranky and "persecuted" New Atheists.

I would rather have tea with the Catholic Pope Francis than join any atheist club that would embrace the likes of Ayn Rand.

To be sure, the New Atheism is not above the CLASS STRUGGLE. And I now wonder if it serves the U.S. war machine in spreading pernicious Islam-o-phobia.

I would appreciate a civil dialogue here– the least I can expect from such formidable FREE THINKERS.

THANK YOU

   sent to http://www.skepticmoney.com/atheists-think-superior/

WATCHING AMERICA- "Champion of Human Rights" (USA)?

As a citizen of the United States I think all decent Americans should be ashamed of this horrific torture report. If torture works for the CIA, then why not for its fanatical Islamic enemies -who also have a grievance list: against INFIDEL OCCUPIERS ?

The United States government is not above international law. The guilty individuals should be delivered to the World Court. They must stand trial for crimes against humanity.

The U.S. military has lost all moral credibility in its war against terrorism. The capitalist news media here conditions the people for a brainless acceptance of all wars -no matter how foolish or criminal. Returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are often greeted with a moronic " thank you for your service." But the unquestioning " good citizen " never inquires about the nature of this " service." Thank you for killing innocent civilians? That you for torturing helpless prisoners? Thank you for serving as soldiers of fortune in a land of endless war?

Perhaps if a million people protest in Washington, D.C.-as they did in Cairo, Egypt in 2011 - this nightmare will come to an end.

The terrorism of the enemy is rooted in unbearable cultural oppression-not the religion of Islam. The terrorism of the CIA is rooted in "The Arrogance of Power." That was the title of a book written by Senator J. William Fulbright during the Vietnam War era. A popular 60s protest song is still relevant today: "The Eve of Destruction." And also quite relevant the lyrics of another popular anti-war song: "when will they ever learn... when will they ever learn. . . ?"

("Champion of Human Rights", published in La Prensa ( Bolivia ) on Dec.10 , 2014, edited by Bora Mici )

New Atheism -new persecution racket!

I am not eager to read Greta Christina's shallow book "Comforting Thoughts About Death." I suspect that the New Atheism is both intellectually dishonest and another persecution racket.

Show me a New Atheist who is not a greedy middle class huckster? Show me one New Atheist who does not keep an eye on the stock market (well because he or she is just WORKING CLASS).

It takes far more boldness and courage to proclaim oneself a SOCIALIST in capitalist America than to play the goofy role of VILLAGE ATHEIST. I also suspect the New Atheism is funded in part by the FBI as a home front for Islam-o-phobia.

And as a HUMANIST SOCIALIST I have no qualms about giving the New Atheists a taste of their own nastiness. God bless you !


This comment will be published on my own blog where ALL comments are welcome. Unlike this bastion of "free thinking."

Attention World Court -WATCHING AMERICA

As a citizen of the United States I am pleased to know that WATCHING AMERICA observes the moral disintegration of a now completely rotten capitalist society.

The death penalty here serves one purpose and only one purpose: to protect the privileged class. Now that shameful TORTURE REPORT has just been released to the world. This report tells the Islamic terrorists that terrorism works (a lie!).

These crimes against humanity do nothing to protect ordinary American citizens. They represent the vile and evil will of a decaying American ruling class. These crimes should be brought to the attention of the World Court that judges crimes against humanity.

I recall Bertrand Russell's War Crimes Tribunal during the Vietnam War era. The then Secretary of State , Dean Rusk, called Lord Russell an "aging adolescent." Yes, at 95 still a humanitarian!

The humane Catholic Pope Francis should shut down the Church's religious ministry in the Armed Forces of the United States. The Church should have no role in greasing the war machinery of U.S. imperialism.

The decent people of America  should demand NO FUNDING for foreign occupations. To be sure, the invasion and occupation of Iraq was the greatest foreign policy blunder in U.S. history. Soon after that the favorite words of the war propagandists here - FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY for ALL- became a meaningless mockery.

The best way to honor our war dead is to end all greed inspired wars. There are no more "Good Wars."

( "Crazy to kill", published in El Mundo ( Spain ) on Dec.9 , 2014 by Jose Antonio Gomez Marin )

"Obama PULLS the Race Card" , WATCHING AMERICA

Link to "Les Miserables" Theme Song

I am a citizen of the United States and a registered Democrat in the beautiful state of Rhode Island. In my heart I am more of a democratic Socialist -but most socialist parties here have sunk into demoralized confusion or a bizarre personality cult. I hope that they too, like Christ Crucified, can rise from the dead ..

I never voted for President Obama because I thought way back in 2006 that this charismatic American politician was being puffed up by our shadowy power elite. Obama has proved himself to be a Neo Democrat out of touch with the great tradition of New Deal Liberalism. Franklin D. Roosevelt did not fear scaring our privileged class.

You cannot separate the problem of RACE from the problem of CLASS in America. I read in the above text "No, Obama is not Martin Luther King or Malcolm X ."I do think that Malcolm X is more relevant to black rage in the streets of America than the ideals of Obama or Martin Luther King.

In the last year of his life (1965) Malcolm X was thinking in much larger terms than RACE. So white radicals on the left became very interested in his new message: "Show me a capitalist," Malcolm said, "and I'll show you a bloodsucker."

You have to begin with a bold sentiment like that in order to achieve even MODERATE social progress here in capitalist America. Oddly enough, President Obama is still more representative of the great majority of Americans than our new Republican Congress.

Will these Tea Party Republicans soon be serving up the crackpot reactionary Ayn Rand to the Other America? Just what we need: "The Virtue of Selfishness" with a COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE facelift.

Interesting times in the United States of America. Thinking about the Great French Revolution of 1789. The song from the popular play "Les Miserables": "Do you hear the people sing . . . ?"

( Posted comment on Le Temps ( Switzerland ) on December 3, 2014  by Stephane  Bussard )

Should Humanists embrace Ayn Rand?

How can Humanists best respond to injustice? Not in the rude, mean spirited manner of the New Atheists putting up obnoxious ads on Rhode Island Public Transit Authority buses: "Godless, so are we."

Does Logic & Reason culminate in a reactionary social philosophy? Should Humanists embrace the Ayn Rand cult? What does her crackpot atheist cult classic "The Virtue of Selfishness" have to offer black rage in the streets of America this past week? Do Humanists want to make common cause with our ONE PERCENT plutocracy? How many of these super-rich people are oh-so-enlightened atheists, having liberated themselves from the superstitious fear of Hell for the injustice they perpetuate here on earth?

Clearly the New Atheism is giving moral support to our government's Crusade Against Islam, spreading its oh-so-enlightened  Islam-o-phobia. A scandalous  TORTURE REPORT of prisoners of war is being released today. Put the military bases on alert against THEIR evil! The evil of ISIS!

As a long time SOCIALIST,  I must ask my fellow Humanists if they think they are above the CLASS STRUGGLE? Has the New Atheism made peace with U.S. imperialism? What does Reason & Logic have to say about the madness of the capitalist way of life?

I can't imagine joining a New Atheist club where a Hitler and a Lenin can exchange mocking jokes about Jesus Christ rising from the dead. And joking too about his gospel of Love. What a fool!

The crackpot atheist Ayn Rand, of course, worshipped MONEY. Do we embrace her?

NOTE:  Of course, there is a long tradition of Judeo-Christian humanism. Did organized atheism ever sponsor even a two-bit SOUP KITCHEN?

Does Godlessness lead to "The Virtue of Selfishness"?

I want to thank my good HUMANIST friend ( and Lovecraft Pal ) Herb Marshall for directing me here. As a long time SOCIALIST I am wary of this NEW ATHEISM which is not only rude but right-wing reactionary - in the vile tradition of Ayn Rand, the crackpot atheist who worshipped MONEY. What does her book "The Virtue of Selfishness" say to oppressed and exploited black Americans?

Don't pretend that mere atheism rises above the class struggle with a wink of approval at the educated (atheist?) elite. And a look of contempt for poor, unenlightened masses. Would the New Atheists have invited Ayn Rand for tea and sent the religious Martin Luther King out as her chauffeur?

Sometimes I suspect New Atheists are funded by the FBI to serve as agents of Islam-o-phobia. No?

Does reason & logic apply to this sick and irrational capitalist system? The Providence Journal just published my letter : "Wary of the New Atheism" (Dec. 4, 2014.) ALL comments are welcome.

Radical Ron- on crack- speaks

You can't expect cops to change their behavior much when their sacred duty is to protect the private property of the rich. Naturally, have-not young blacks are tempted to redistribute social surplus value. And for petty crimes against the god of private property they are too often given the death sentence on the spot.

Only greater social equality for ALL working class Americans can bring real justice to the Other America, as socialist writer Michael Harrington called our "underclass." His book "The Other America" inspired Lyndon Johnson's Great Society legislation. Poor maligned Lyndon did do some things right. When will the Neo-Democrats stop fawning on the still comfortable middle class and SEE the real America? Time for a new War on Poverty?

( http://www.chron.com/news/ )

Was Radical Ron "flying high"? HOUSTON CHRONICLE poster asks . . .

I will post this REPLY to my comment on RACE in America:

" WOW ! this is some of the best writing while on drugs that I've ever seen!!! Very impressive. Let us all just steal things from others who work for them !! It's OK, no problem. Just take what you want when you want it. What an idiot you are !!!! Give up the crack man. It's wearing on you !! "

YouTube link: Jack Kerouac reads "On The Road"

NOTE : The comment that aroused this gentleman's wrath will next be published on my blog.  I do believe in an end to the war on drugs but I myself am rather conservative in their use. To be sure, they are no obstacle to great art. I  recall that the Beat writer, Jack Kerouac, wrote his classic "On the Road" while completely stoned on "speed", similar to "crack", I think. But it was alcohol that did poor old Jack in at age 47. I am now 67- a rather sober non-smoker too.

Link to Paul Rogers article

Reconciliation with Protesting Citizens? WATCHING AMERICA post

Time.com: Demetrus Washington joins other demonstrators protesting 

the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. 

on Aug. 14, 2014. Scott Olson—Getty Images

As a citizen of the United States, a senior citizen, I am still appalled at the shocking degree of INEQUALITY in America. The police in ANY capitalist society will defend the private property of the rich with pit bull loyalty and brutality. The black people here-living in so called SLUMS- correctly perceive the cops as THE MAN, the ENEMY. But why are they over-represented in the U.S. military? Why should young black people fight and die to extend this very same unjust system-falsely called DEMOCRACY- to foreign lands like Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Afghanistan?

In Iraq the Abu Ghraib prison atrocity best represents both the foreign and domestic policies of the American ruling class. To die and degrade yourself for THEM?

Who speaks for black Americans today? Phony Democrats? My guess is that young black people here will soon be listening again to the militant voice of Malcolm X, assassinated almost a half century ago (Feb. 1965): "Show me a capitalist", Malcolm said, "and I'll show you a bloodsucker",

The Democrats should at least return to the real liberalism of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the great president elected in 1932 to deal with a nation devastated by the Great Depression.

(published in Tokyo Shimbun (Japan) on November 29, 2014, translated from Japanese by Maisha Kuniyuki)

A Pulitzer Prize investigation: the New Atheism?

I note the number of comments on my short letter just questioning the political agenda of the New Atheism. To be sure, if the Ayn Rand cranks are prominent in the movement, the progressives have formed an unprincipled alliance.

Every socialist knows in his bones that you cannot begin to win the hearts and the minds of the common people- so necessary for REAL socialism- if you just scold them for being dupes of organized religion. And it is an effete and sophomoric atheism that wants to refight intellectual battles won by Science long ago. And no committed socialist would find it necessary to antagonize the world's major religions unless they have forged a sinister conspiracy with the ruling classes against the people.

It was the greatest mistake of the Russian Bolsheviks to make their state officially atheist. They should have copied America here-with its separation of Church and State. Any intelligent socialist would assume that public education with emphasis on basic science- biology, chemistry, physics- would free most young minds from what that IDEAL HUMANIST, astronomer, and popular science writer, Carl Sagan, called the "Demon Haunted World."

I link the crackpot atheist Ayn Rand, author of "The Virtue of Selfishness," and her bizarre cult, with HUMANIST Isaac Asimov's "Armies of the Night." They clearly worship MONEY!

I will try to reply to many of those comments on my blog http://radicalrons.blogspot.com/ But one question remains: How many of the New Atheists apply reason and logic to the everyday insanity of the capitalist way of life?

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

WATCHING AMERICA - Race in America

As a citizen of the United States, I am all ears to even "part of the solution" to the tragedy of race relations in America.  But as a democratic Socialist I can only chuckle at "improving the faith in the black community in the country's institutions."

To be sure, the courts and the police are completely subservient to our ONE PERCENT plutocracy. The police– with all due RESPECT– are correctly perceived to be the human pit bulls of PRIVATE PROPERTY. Young blacks-invariably POOR BLACKS–involved in the most petty crimes against property- set themselves up for ON THE SPOT execution by armed cops "just doing our job."

Only greater social and economic equality can deliver better justice here-even for tens of millions of poor working class white Americans.

As the black firebrand revolutionary Malcolm X said long ago: "Show me a capitalist and I'll show you a bloodsucker!"

But I expect the Neo-Democrat Party to continue to racialize POVERTY IN AMERICA. Isn't a 21st century New Deal preferable to bloody disorder?

(post to WATCHING AMERICA , published in LeDevoir (Canada on Nov. 27, 2014 by Guy Taillefer)

Right wing columnist Lonnie Barham leaves Warwick Beacon

I read a number of Lonnie Barham's columns which were certainly well written and worth reading. I recall his very PROGRESSIVE view on ending the foolish and expensive war on drugs. But his right wing ideology showed in a letter to the Providence Journal in which he expressed the strange opinion that retired editorial page editor, Robert Whitcomb, was so Far-Left that he was only borderline employable. What– a Bolshevik in power at 75 Fountain St.? Is Colonel Lonnie happy now with the right-wing, science illiterate, and ethics hypocrite Ed Achorn?

Also, very curious how so many right wing columnists fear the "tyranny of the majority." Does our ONE PERCENT plutocracy rule by divine right?

( post to Warwick Beacon letter:
"Sorry to see Lonnie go": 11/25/14 by George W. Gange)