Democrats Lose

Every Tuesday I meet with a friend for coffee, where our usual conversation is about how we can better the community and the latest outburst Trump has done. Once we get into the core of the problems, is when our ideological difference convene. And every time my friend asks me to participate in something. Whether it is making a phone call to my Congressional official, participate in a postcard night, or write a letter to them. Is when look at them, smirk, and casually shake my head. Then one day my friend asked me a question when I did this the last time to them.

“Why? Why are you shaking your head?” they ask. I just smiled and looked at them to say that those things do not work. I could tell I struck a nerve with them, to which their reaction response to me was “We need to support Democrats. Give me a good reason why you still do not support Democrats.” I simply said that Democrats lose. At this point, I could tell my friend was trying to use their deductive reasoning skills to what I just said. “What do you mean Democrats lose? They get elected into office. So how do these lose?” they ask.

Electorally yes, Democrats do not lose. But elections do not provide aid for those in your community. When was the last time you saw your Democratic Party official conduct a free breakfast program in their district? When was the last time a Democratic Party official said that there will be no drone flying over our city? I am going to say never. My friend would then say “You need to side with Democrats so that certain bills get passed or blocked.” No, I don’t. Democrats and Republicans play chess with our lives. Again, Democrats and Republicans play chess with our lives. We cannot allow that to happen. Real change starts in our communities, not in a legislative building. My friend would then go on to say “Well you are not suggesting that radicals are the ones that get things done. Are you?”

Let’s see. You cannot talk about the weekend, the 8 hour work day, having better work conditions, and other labor laws without talking about those socialists, communists, and anarchists in the unions they were involved in. You cannot talk about the civil rights movement, without those same radicals that participated in the planning in the historic events we know of. The same radical feminists that address the state of patriarchy in our society. Even to this day. The same radicals that were in the beginning of the queer liberation movement as well as fighting to protect our environment. Just to name a few. Our historical fabric is sewed with socialists, communists, and anarchists. What have Democrats done? They have voted for pro-business legislation called the Affordable Care Act, plus voted for a bailout to keep Wall Street secure. Just to name a couple of actions at the federal level. Looking at a state like Illinois, where Democrats have ruled the state assembly since 2003. They have voted in legislation; such as a bill that would transaction taxpayer monies out of the state, while giving tax breaks to entities like the Chicago Board of Options Exchange, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and related Wall St. organization. The Illinois State Assembly, along with other Democratic Party supporters, voted for a fracking regulatory bill. Which would keep fracking businesses operational, plus continue to destroy the natural beauty in places like the Starved Rock State Park and the Shawnee National Forest.

To further this point that Democrats lose. Is when US House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, even said during a CNN Town Hall that “We are capitalists and that is not going to change…” Her and other Democrats feel that reforms are the only way to address the issues we have. Capitalism will always grow over the reforms that are in place. Especially when those who assume they have power in the legislative bodies they are in. They make public policy possible for capitalism to thrive when a reform is in the works. If that were not the case, then we would have a living wage by now, have better public education and healthcare, our infrastructure would be at its best, and our environment to not be tampered with oil pipelines, fracking equipment, and the animal population would not be depleting at an exponential rate.

This is where my friend would interject to say that “The problem with ideas like socialism. Is due to the drastic change we would face if capitalism was removed.”

Who said anything about drastic change? We have to transition from capitalism into socialism through the implementation of programs, which is already in motion in the United States. One of those examples is in Wisconsin, where the Center for Cooperatives at the University of Wisconsin at Madison has a report that the nearly 30,000 cooperatives in the United States, excluding housing co-ops. Has drawn in $652 billion in revenue with it’s 2.1 million total jobs it provides. Even the city of Cleveland has looked at the cooperative model to rebuild its local economy. This led to the formation of Evergreen Cooperative. Started our as an initiative to identify six low-income neighborhoods in the city, and implement a worker cooperative program that residents could apply for as well as grow the local economy. Other examples are free schools. Free schools is a non-hierarchical, decentralized network of individuals, in which skills, information, and knowledge are shared without the institutional environment of formal schooling. Free schools are found internationally, plus can be found from Albany, NY to Santa Cruz, CA. Also, there is participatory budgeting. Participatory budgeting is a different way to manage public money and to engage people in government. It is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. It enables taxpayers to work with the government to make the budget decisions that affect their lives. First conceived in Porto Alegre, Brazil in the late 80s, and there are now over 1,500 participatory budgets around the world. Most of these are at the city level, for the municipal budget. PB has also been used, however, for counties, states, housing authorities, schools and school systems, universities, coalitions, and other public agencies. Finally, there are public banks. Public banking is distinguished from private banking in that its mandate begins with the public’s interest. Privately-owned banks, by contrast, have shareholders who generally seek short-term profits as their highest priority. Public banks are able to reduce taxes within their jurisdictions because their profits are returned to the general fund of the public entity. The costs of public projects undertaken by governmental bodies are also greatly reduced because public banks do not need to charge interest to themselves. Eliminating interest has been shown to reduce the cost of such projects, on average, by 50%.

The above mentioned are things that Democrats will never do or support. Since we signed the social contract willingly to give elected officials the authority to resign over our lives. Between that as well as the invisible hand, which is simply that. Invisible. Is the reason why we will continue to see the systemic problems that we face every day. That is why we have to raise awareness of programs that are currently underway, and like revolt, we ought to question the absence of radical ideas. As the late Grace Lee Boggs said:“You cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it…”. It is in your non-invisible hand to build a future worth of your dreams.

You can also read this article at The Socialist