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Anarcho-Syndicalism versus
Letters #36-#40
Letter #036
Hello, Babette,
And you must have learned to read just the night before I first e-mailed you. Are you aware, that according to UN statistics, one out of every five children in the United States is starving or suffering from malnutrition, with only a dollar a day to live on? Do you know that two out of five children in the United States is in extreme poverty and not too far behind this other group?
Well, hot damn! The plague of poverty that causes more than 30,000 people to starve to death every day because of Capitalist ownership of land!?!? That's going to be abolished in the next five years? Awesome, I'll let everyone know. "Hey guys! You don't have to worry about poverty anymore or starving to death! In five years it'll all be over!" If they disagree, I'll just say, "Don't doubt it, comrades! Just believe in the UN Revolution! It's the only way to abolish poverty forever!" Between napsoc.org and starvation.net, up to 50,000 people starve to death every single day. And, if you can pick up a history book, you'd realize that this trend began when the core security members of the UN established their dominance over the underdeveloped world. Yes, goals to abolish poverty by 2015. I'll mark my calendar with all the days for when the world is supposed to end.
You're living in a world where those you serve are those responsible for mass murder, poverty, dictatorship, genocide, and child-rape. You're drawn between a variety of masters: Capitalist class and Catholic church, National government and NGO-watchdog. If everyone "goes along to get along" in a system built on murder, then wouldn't you agree that destruction is the only meaningful form of creation?
The Islamic "thugs" have lost hundreds of thousands of people due to the murderous crusades of the United States and Britain. For every single one act of Islamic terrorism you see, there are at least 10,000 acts of corresponding terrorism delivered upon the Islamic people. This isn't spinning the news. That's just looking up the civilian body count. The Lancet Survey, published by one of the oldest scientific journals in the world, uncovered more than 600,000 civilian deaths caused by the Iraq Invasion. Now, when you see 10,000 innocent people killed compared to one single Islamic terrorist, you should understand the same points as I've pointed out above. These people aren't the greatest threat to the world right now. Those terrorist nations of the Middle East, like Israel, have already obtained nuclear armaments because of the United States illegal arms dealings. Not even the Soviet Union would do that. So, when it comes to a nuclear hailstorm in ten, or twenty years, I'm sure you'll cursing "those Islamic thugs." Even if it's your own government that's responsible for turning your own children into radioactive, french fries. Who cares about actually saving lives, improving living conditions and creating democracy? You have something so much more important to serve: tradition, religion, militarism, patriarchy. I'm not a supporter of Islamic terrorism, but I only focus on the terrorism caused by Capitalism since it claims significantly more lives. You, on the other hand, think that it is a good idea to work with those who kill more than Islamic terrorists, in order to resist them. After all, when you criticize Islamic terrorists for murdering, do I say "Stop criticizing and start doing some good!" ? No, you're right to criticize them for killing. Don't work with them, don't help them, don't support them. But when it comes to those who kill millions and never are charged for it, your defense is "Don't just criticize all the time! Do something!" A miserable contradiction. Are you even offended at the concept of taking a human being's life? Sincerely,
Letter #037
Dear Andy, You are wrong about UN statistics, or the UN is wrong on this one as it was on climate change. I travel frequently to the US and I have not seen a single starving child. I have seen children, women and men so fat they cannot fit into bus seats. I have seen them eat rubbish like sweet drinks and McDonalds fries while they are bursting out of their jeans. The poor get welfare stamps in the US and free medical attention in emergency hospital rooms. Of course we object to the taking of a single human life, that is why we oppose abortion. Those 600,000 killed in Iraq were not killed by the US or the Brits but by fellow Muslims. There is a civil war raging in Islam, has been since the death of Mohammed about who is his legitimate successor, and it is in a particularly ferocious phase now. That is why Muslims are blowing up mosques in Pakistan, why the Kurds are fighting the Turks, why the Taliban are fighting the Karzai government, why Hamas is fighting Fatah, why Sunnis are fighting Shia - that is what the killing in Iraq is about. I would agree with you that the US should get out and let them fight it out, but then I think of the awful plight of women under Islam - not allowed a male doctor to see them in childbirth ,e girls schools torched, acid thrown in their faces, imprisoned in canvas tents all their lives (the burqa) etc. etc. It is comic how Castro is coming out more and more how the communist system has failed his country, and similarly China is going capitalist. You could establish your revolutionary paradise on Mars if it the climate were not so inhospitable - global warming or cooling caused by its previous capitalist inhabitants.... Babette
Letter #038
Hello, Babette,
That's nice. Tourism doesn't usually entail the ghettos, though. Have you been to anywhere, say, in New Orleans? I do not remember any point in that city, from uptown to downtown, where you cannot see gangs or even crowds of homeless and hungry children. But, of course, that is only one city, in my hiking back-and-forth from coast to coast seven times. If you didn't see any starving children, then you were a tourist, like the followers of Hitler where were Lebenstraumists. Of course you don't see starving children. They have been "politely removed" by the police and the state. It happens in every major city, even Britain, Canada, and Australia, especially when some public event like a political convention or a holiday shopping fest. "Sweeps," is what it is called when police arrest every single person on a street who does not have identification or money. I have watched these assistants to tyranny go from street to street, neighborhood by neighborhood, checking every person and filling several police vans. This happens on an almost weekly basis in many of the major cities, from Boston to New York City to Seattle to Los Angeles. Of course you don't see it. That's why they shuffle them all into prison whenever there's an event. Because it's "bad for business" to see so many hungry, starving people lining up in the streets.
What does this have to do with children starving? You think children are allowed to get welfare stamps? No, they're not. Their parents are allowed to, but not children. Obviously, you've never interacted with any of the starving children on the streets, or ever applied for food stamps as a starving child. And free medical attention in emergency hospital rooms? What part of America did you visit? Free medical attention with free medical dejection. They're throw your ass out if you can't afford the operation. Yeah, they'll take your front-desk fee to see a doctor, $30, but treatment? Hell no. I was thrown out. The only way to get medical attention is to let a handful of medical students examine you, lining up like twenty or thirty. You have to be a "medical exhibition," to receive "treatment," and even then, the treatment is fairly careless. Yes, what great "attention" to be receiving. And even then, you'll get extremely limited treatment, which may simply be amputation instead of actual treatment. George Orwell wrote an article about it titled "How the Poor Die." That is, if you can accept the thesis that there are poor people.
The 600,000 were not killed by Muslims. You'd have to, you know, prove something like that. The study that found that figure did not find that these people were killed by Muslims, so much as they were killed either by US troops or starvation situations created by US troops. See the Lancet Studies report here: Lancet Surveys of Iraq War Casualties . It was based on a household survey. Cause of death was recorded, with 30% attributed to the US/British Government, 20% "others," and 50% was "unknown." Muslim terrorists made up such a significantly small number that they did not even make up a subgroup. Even the most conservative estimates by US military reports indicates upwards of 100,000 dead, most from US devastation. So, you believe Castro when he says Communism has failed, but you don't believe the US-British military, when they say they have killed at least 100,000 civilians in war? Sounds like you're more concerned in supporting one side over the other, instead of actually caring about human life. But perhaps you are proving a point: caring about human life is only secondary when one has to think of the image and doctrine of the Pope.
You don't believe those governments when they call themselves Democratic. Why would you believe them when they call themselves Communist? After all, Communism means the workers own the means of production. In Cuba, it is a political party that owns the means of production. As the Wikipedia entry for Communism says, the system is "structured upon communal ownership of the means of production..." There is no communal ownership of the means of production in either Cuba or China, and in some parts of both of these countries, something resembling slavery can be found to still exist. There is no Communism here, like there is no Democracy here. The two ideas, of peoples' management of economy and then peoples' management of politics, are as far as possible from Cuba, China, Vietnam, etc.. So, why rely on the words of dictators and tyrants to fill the coffers of your ideology? Doesn't it seem like you'd end up accepting lies that way? Sincerely,
Letter #039
Dear Andy, You are wrong about where I have been in the USA - I have been in the ghettos of Harlem - more fat people than in the "white" suburbs. Ignorance about diet is what ails them. And yes, the parents may spend food stamps on rubbish, but what do you suggest, that the state take the kids away from the parents? Better try to educate parents about diet and health. I have also been in black areas of Chicago - my siblings live in Chicago and I visit every year. And yes, I had emergency treatment in Chicago when I dislocated my elbow and cannot speak more highly of the attention I received. You don't seem to realise that if you get a Professor and his medical students examining you, then you are getting the best treatment and diagnosis possible. Your best chances of correct diagnosis and treatment are in a teaching hospital. Many people have complicated ailments, not a simple dislocated elbow and they need doctors and students discussing the case and working out exactly what things are wrong and how they can be treated. Ever tried to speak to those students instead of adopting a hostile attitude? And if they don't get the experience of examining basket cases like you, where will the doctors of the future come from? And I live in Australia so don't try to sell me garbage about the police doing sweeps to hide the homeless. We try to provide shelters - often the homeless prefer to live on the streets, at least during our balmy summers. With your remark about the governments hiding the homeless - at least in Australia - I know you are talking nonsense. Two of my close friends do a "bread run" with a St. Vincent's van bringing soup and bread to the homeless late at night. Not the slightest evidence of police hassling anyone - no not even during the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games or the constant festivals and convention we have. Grow up, Andy. Castro has just sacked thousands of his public servants - he is moving to a free market economy, albeit slowly. He knows government is not the answer to his island's economic woes. And he was an admirer of Che Guava - if I remember correctly they supported each other. Stop being so bitter about everyone and everything. There are good things that most people do. Babette
Letter #040
Hello again, Babette,
All things considered... I think I'll rely on the statistics of public and state agencies, the UN, progressive organizations, and my own personal observations in traveling widely throughout the US. Instead of, say, someone on the internet, who has never attempted to compile statistics or interact among the homeless -- or, at least, who has never even been remotely close to poverty or homelessness.
Maybe you don't understand. They don't TREAT you. They DIAGNOSE you. And then they do it fifty times, over and over again, student by student. And, at the end, if you don't have health insurance or $250, they throw you out with a bill and a piece of paper that describes your illness. That is how these free health clinics work. In the words of Orwell, who was treated at one of these free places... "Later in the day the tall, solemn, black-bearded doctor made his rounds, with an intern and a troop of students following at his heels, but there were about sixty of us in the ward and it was evident that he had other wards to attend to as well. There were many beds past which he walked day after day, sometimes followed by imploring cries. On the other hand if you had some disease with which the students wanted to familiarize themselves you got plenty of attention of a kind. I myself, with an exceptionally fine specimen of a bronchial rattle, sometimes had as many as a dozen students queuing up to listen to my chest. It was a very queer feeling — queer, I mean, because of their intense interest in learning their job, together with a seeming lack of any perception that the patients were human beings." -- George Orwell, from "How the Poor Die"
Such a hostile attitude. Did you even try googling the phrases "homeless" and "sweep"? Los Angeles, USA -- LaWeekly.com San Diego, USA -- CBS8.com Seattle, USA -- NWSource.com Tennessee, USA -- HomelessForums.org I have personally seen sweeps in New Orleans, Boston, Los Angeles, and New York. What are you going to tell me? That everyone is imagining these mass arrests? Oh, what's this? Even articles about sweeps in Sydney, Australia? ABC.net.au -- "There's little doubt that the new powers given to rangers in the Sydney Harbour area are designed to be used and to be used to sweep away the homeless people..." UQ.edu.au -- "According to the respondents to this survey, the most common legal issue that Indigenous homeless people present with is an arrest for failing to move on." By shelters in Australia, you mean prisons, right? Or do the words 'arrest' and 'detainment' mean something else there?
I have said this about five times by now. I'm not a supporter of Castro or Che Guevara. And, like I keep saying (maybe you're just not reading my e-mails), you don't believe that Cuba is Democratic, do you? Then why believe that it is Communist? It is the same source that makes both declarations. And, of course, now you believe Castro is moving away from "Communism" because he says so, allegedly. If you don't believe Castro when he says he's Democratic, then why believe him when he says he's Communist? Do you not understand the basic reasoning here? >>"Stop being so bitter about everyone and everything. There are good things that most people do." Yes, but the things the UN does, and what those Authoritarian-Capitalist nations do, are not good. They are bad. Very, very, very bad. How are you going to support the supplying of weapons for the genocide of Kurds in Iraq? Or what about the supplying of nuclear arms to Israel? What about the killing of one third of the East Timorese? What about the slaughter at Waco, and the slaughter at MOVE? What about the daily execution of black individuals across the United States, without trial, the vast majority of them unarmed and in their own homes? And then, what about a legal system that suppresses this information, that arrests people for divulging this information? Mordechai Vanunu was arrested by a swat team in Italy for bringing back evidence of illegal, nuclear weapons production in Israel! There's not one good thing about this system, except that it is built by human beings who will one day die. At the current rate of mass murder propagated by the UN, that will be sooner rather than later. Sincerely,
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