Debate The Socialist: opening remarks

Text from a talk given at E.O. Smith High School, in Storrs CT on Feb. 9th 2009

These are the opening comments of Todd Vachon on the four topics:
1. Israel/Palestine, 2. Obama and Dems, 3. Economic Crisis and 4. What is socialism?
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"So, the first topic of debate is The Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

The prevailing understanding of this conflict as portrayed in the mainstream media is it’s ancient historic nature—a clash of civilizations or cultures. While this is true for the ideological hardliners on both sides of the dispute, it does not address the fact that the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians alike want the violence to cease- they’ve had enough. But, just like all wars, in all epochs, the leaders, that is, the members of the dominant or ruling class in any society, wage the wars and enlist the poor and working class masses to fight them. So, the war-waging class is a very small but powerful section of the society and the war-fighting class and real victims of war atrocities come from the majority class, which so long as they’re unorganized have little power or say in things….even in a so-called democratically organized society.

So, recent history, a closer look at the past 20yrs will reveal some key facts regarding this dispute:

#1. Israel receives massive funding from the United states government. Palestine, none. Israel is in fact one of the largest recipients of foreign aid, second only to Colombia I believe…Another area of conflict where we fuel one side of a very political dispute.
#2. Israel is the largest foreign customer for U.S. arms-makers. Private, capitalist, industries that earn massive profits by selling jets, helicopters, bombs, etc… technology that is of course publicly siubsidized by our collective tax dollars and then used to garner private profit. So, for this particular brand of capitalist, unrest and conflict are good.

#3. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Palestinians served as a desperate pool of cheap labor for Israel; much like the United States’ current mistreatment of Mexican and Central American immigrants and historic mistreatment of Irish and Italians, etc.. . When the USSR was abolished and extreme capitalism put in it’s place, unemployment rates, inequality and poverty skyrocketed, causing a massive outpouring of Russian Jewish people to Israel. These new Jewish immigrants quickly filled the role of in-house cheap labor, effectively downgrading the Palestinian migrants to the status of “surplus humanity.” And what we now see is full out apartheid, which leads to point number 4

#4. Hypocrisy. The standards and measures that the U.S. government uses to ostracize or even attack some countries are completely ignored in other countries. If the candle were held equally upon all, then Israel would be labeled an apartheid and terrorist state. The U.S. itself would ironically be labeled a terrorist state by it’s own standards….But, without spending too much time on details I’ll give one quick and powerful example: Israel began to illegally invade and occupy southern Lebanon in the 1980s. There was a U.N. resolution issued which demanded Israel’s withdrawal. This resolution had remarkably similar language to the resolution regarding Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. That resolution which the U.S. enforced when engaging in the first Gulf War. So, not only was there a double standard, but the U.S. actually provided monetary and military aid to Israel’s illegal invasion. Today, Israel still illegally occupies parts of Southern Lebanon and as we all know the U.S. is occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.




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Okay, so now to our second topic. Obama and the Democratic Party.

The Democrats, supposedly the “left” party in America, stand solidly to the right of center, with of course a few individual exceptions, but the party itself is more conservative than most so-called conservative parties in Europe…. I mean, Even the Torries, in England, wouldn’t dare try to privatize the British National Healthcare system.

What we have in America are 2 wings of one large business party. Our alternatives are The Greens who are left of center and the various Socialist paries- the only true Labor Parties, but these options are all effectively barred from the democratic process by the two-party monopoly.

In terms of Mr. Obama, I am thrilled by the historical significance of the election of a black man to be President by the American electorate. I think that he is a very intelligent man, one who can certainly answer unscripted questions and use real words, unlike our last President, but it does not change the fact that he is still a part of the Democratic Party and can only be as effective as the people that he is surrounded by.

Let’s just refresh our memories and keep in mind that:
1. He was the first candidate to forego public campaign funding and caps since they were created
2. He ran the most expensive campaign for public office ever
3. He had the most commercialized and marketed campaign ever
4. He is a millionaire; apparently a pre-requisite for being a Senator or President
5. He never actually offered any detailed progressive policy proposals throughout the entire campaign, and
6. We are now getting a not-so promising glimpse of the future by his selections for cabinet members, department secretaries and other advisors in major government offices.

Um, I want to keep that one short so there will be time to get to the other two doozy of questions.


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Topic number 3, a real big one at the moment: The Economic Crisis.

I think that it is of great importance that we make no mistakes in understanding the nature of our current economic “downturn” as they call it. It is quite simply part of the regular capitalist cycle of boom and bust that has been occurring in 10-15 year intervals since the dawn of capitalist production.

Um, simply stated, the only permanent solution to this cycle, caused by chaotic overproduction in blind pursuit of profit and simultaneous weakening of consumer buying power, also in blind pursuit of greater profit, is to have some economic planning.

In order to have economic planning and still live in a free society, the clear answer is democratic socialism- that is, public ownership and democratic control of the means of production for actual human use and need, NOT private profit.

In the short-term however, I’ll offer this quick analysis and set of solutions:

#1. Healthcare. Our corporate media has blamed the start of this recession on a housing crisis caused by massive foreclosures. What they have failed to mention is that the number one cause of bankruptcy and foreclosure in America is large medical bills… This includes both the insured and those who cannot afford private health insurance. Thus a National Health Plan or single-payer system would alleviate a great amount of this stress to begin with. It would also open up great opportunities for people to pursue livelihoods based on their interests and not just on what the benefits package for that job included, all good things for economic recovery.

#2 Living Wages. The productivity of the American worker has been steadily increasing for decades and is now fourfold what it was in the 70’s. But the real wages of these workers, adjusted for inflation, have remained stagnant and in many cases declined during this same period of time. So where did the fruits of this extra productivity go? You guessed it, into the pockets of the capitalists, that one percent of society that earns 20% of all income. Employers who earn 500 times as much as their average employees. If ever there were doubts about Marx’s theory of class struggle, these facts should wash them all away. Workers are making more stuff and can’t buy it.

#3 Military Spending. Remember the big to-do about the big $700 billion Wall Street bailout back in September? I’m sure you do, we were all disgusted by the notion of handing our public assets over to these greedy bankers to clean up the mess they created. Well, what you probably don’t remember, because it wasn’t even mentioned in the corporate news, was that just the week before that bailout, Congress signed the appropriations bill for The Pentagon’s 2009 operating budget. Now keep in mind, that does not include the ongoing wars. Guess how much that one cost us? The number might sound a little familiar….$700 billion, and that’s just for ONE YEAR of Pentagon operations. Now add the couple trillion for the wars…..

All of these military expenditures combined account for more than half of all tax dollars. We grossly outspend everyone else in the world on military, in fact more than double our very distant second place contender. We have an empire sized military with bases scattered all across the planet to protect American Big Business interests. No other country has this, and we certainly wouldn’t allow anyone else to have a military base on our soil….. I mean, just think about the fact that the uniform of our nationalArmy is desert camoflouge- We don’t live in a desert country….well, not yet anyway.

The point is, we already generate more than enough tax revenue to easily support real social reforms that would improve the living conditions of everyone, but our government chooses to spend that money instead to seek new markets and defend capitalist interests.


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Okay, now the final subject of debate; one which could have easily filled the whole program itself without even beginning to skim the surface….What is Socialism?

I think that the simplest definition is wrapped up in the phrase: “economic democracy”, or perhaps “Participatory Economics.” Socialism is public assets for the public good controlled democratically. One can look at this simply as extending the liberal form of democracy- electing representatives, etc.. to also making decisions about the economy. What do we want to produce? How do we want to produce it?

This kind of public ownership and democratic planning process is the only sure mechanism that can ensure fair treatment of all people, conservation of vital resources and environmental stewardship. I say this because a truly democratic debate will bring all of the real social costs and benefits of production and consumption to the decision making table. Today, capitalists externalize as much as they can in order to increase their profit margins. They seek to lower wages and exploit the environment and resources as much as the law will allow them. They are able to do this because their employees and neighbors have no place in their business decision-making process. There is no economic democracy.

I think that one of the most important points for socialists like myself to make in order to demystify the “S” word is this: The Soviet Union and China were not socialist countries. They still had extreme class distinctions and of course a complete lack of democracy. These two practices are completely incompatible with the definition of true socialism: a classless society where working people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically-controlled public agencies; where full employment is realized for everyone who wants to work and where the production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. In other words, socialism and democracy are one and indivisible.

Capitalism on the contrary only benefits more from a decrease in democracy; Less regulation, unfettered exploitation, no environmental laws, no pesky workers’ rights demanding minimum wages, etc… The most profitable free market system is one that has a dictatorship, like Augusto Pinochet’s model in Chile….hailed in the American media as “a miracle” with no connection being drawn between the human rights abuses, the extreme poverty and the ability of investors to rake in unimaginable profits…


So, my final comment here is that Socialism IS Democracy, and true democracy is socialist in nature.

Thank You"