U.S. Socialist Party - Elections 1904

EUGENE VICTOR DEBS 1855-1926

keeping a live the spirit of progressivism. humanitarianism and social criticism epitomized by Debs

history profile HERE

President Harding Frees Debs From Prison 

The U.S. socialist leader once said: "I am opposed to every war but one; I am for that war with heart and soul, and that is the worldwide war of the social revolution

هذا بيان للناس .. اذا عندك وقت  تستطيع قراءة  الروابط الموضوعة لوضع أفكار كيف  أنشأ  الأمريكان ديمقراطيتهم

الأفكار التي وضعوها في البداية ثم ساروا عليها أختصرها بالتالي وكانوا يرفعون لافتات (هذا هو الطلب) خلال مظاهراتهم واضراباتهم والعصيان المدني وربما نستفيد منها مستقبلا لتحويل  الكويت من عزبة ودولة مشيخة تافهة فاشلة وعنصرية وغير محترمة  تربي اجيالها على الشتائم والبذاءات والذي يدل على بيئتهم الاجتماعية الفاسدة والحقيرة  الى دولة محترمة حيث الملاحظ هنا والغريب أنه لم يتم او محاسبة أي شيخ او تاجر فاسد منذ 45 سنة – لصوص العالم يتمنون ان يكونوا كويتيين..!

لذلك نستغرب ان يحتج بعض الناس من مطالبات  حكومة منتخبة وامارة دستورية حيث الملاحظ فشلهم بادارة البلد منذ نشاته والذي يملك احتياط 10 بالمئة من النفط العالمي. وانهم انشغلوا بالسرقات والفساد والفتن الخ الخ الخ.

الأفكار:

الأرض لجميع الناس. هذا هو الطلب.

آلية إنتاج وتوزيع لجميع الناس. هذا هو الطلب.

والملكية الجماعية والسيطرة على الصناعة وإدارته الديمقراطية في مصلحة كل الشعب. هذا هو الطلب.

القضاء على والإيجار الربح والفائدة وإنتاج الثروة لتلبية رغبات جميع الناس. هذا هو الطلب.

صناعة التعاونية التي سنعمل كل معا في وئام كأساس لنظام اجتماعي جديد، وارتفاع الحضارة، وجمهورية حقيقية. هذا هو الطلب.

نهاية الصراع الطبقي وحكم الطبقة، السيد والعبد، أو الجهل، أو العكس، من الفقر والعار، من القسوة والجريمة - ولادة الحرية

وكما قال سام بيوكانان:

على أية حال، إن صناعة قرار جيد ليس بالضرورة تلائم صناعة قرار فعال. إذا أردت الفعالية، اجلب مستبدًا وابدأ حفر قبرك. ولكن إذا أردت مجتمعًا يصلح للعيش، عليك أن تقبل المشاركة العظمى في عملية صناعة القرار أكثر من مجرد تصويت على بطاقة كل ثلاث سنوات."

Eugene Debs: “Canton, Ohio”

made on June 16, 1918 is read by Marc Ruffalo

From Voices of a People’s History of the United States

Eugene Debs made his famous anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, protesting World War I which was raging in Europe. For this speech he was arrested and convicted in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio under the war-time espionage law. He was his own attorney and his appeal to the jury and his statement to the court before sentencing, are regarded as two of the great classic statements ever made in a court of law. He was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison. [From the debsfoundation.org

Film clip description

Actor Mark Ruffalo reads union leader Eugene Debs’ famous “Canton, Ohio” speech made on June 16, 1918. This was part of a reading of Voices of a People’s History of the United States (Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove) at All Saints Church in Pasadena, CA on Feb 1, 2007. The excerpt is from Voices of a People’s History of the United States edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. More video clips can be found at the Voices of a People’s History website and in the film The People Speak

  

Here is a text excerpt from the speech:

Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their lives.

They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.

And here let me emphasize the fact—and it cannot be repeated too often—that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace.

Yours not to reason why;

Yours but to do and die.

That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation.

If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace.

The Election of 1904

AMERICAN POLITICAL 'PROGRESSIVISM'

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt (U.S. President 1901-1909)

It is important to note that the framers of the Constitution back in the 1780s were not intending to create a ‘democracy’ when they set up the American Republic.  For whatever reasons – partly Puritan, partly Aristotelian – they were not believers that democracy was possible ... or even desirable.  Puritan understanding of human nature and Aristotle’s teaching about the susceptibility of any kind of government, including democracies, to tyranny made them very cautious about turning all power over directly to the ‘people.’  They had created a system that the French political philosopher Montesquieu had pointed out (and Madison reaffirmed) afforded all sorts of checks and balances against any one particular kind of political impulse (rule of one, of the few, or of the many) securing a dominant or controlling – or tyrannical position – in the governing program.   Power was cautiously allotted to this and to that part of the governing system, without it being concentrated in any one particular position.  Power was purposefully spread widely across all these various political impulses to ensure that no power holder, not a Presidential monarch, not an Congressional oligarchy, not a voting democracy, could establish a controlling grip over the system.  To allow that to happen would be to allow tyranny to develop.  No indeed... this was no ‘democracy’ that they had created, but instead was a mixed system designed to best serve the whole society, present and future – for hopefully a very long time.

Turn-of-the-Century Progressivism

HERE 

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, seated, and Susan B. Anthony, standing - 1908 Library of Congress Ball, Images of American Political History  

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS

 

United States presidential election, 190 

HERE

Why Wisconsin?

most famous Wisconsin Socialist was Victor Berger, who with Eugene Debs helped found the Socialist Party in 1901

Here

The earth is for all the people. That is the demand

The machinery of production and distribution for all the people. That is the demand

The collective ownership and control of industry and its democratic management in the interest of allthe people. That is the demand

The elimination of rent, interest, profit and the production of wealth to satisfy the wants of all the people. That is the demand

Cooperative industry in which all shall work together in harmony as the basis of a new social order, a higher civilization, a real republic. That is the demand

The end of class struggles and class rule, of master and slave, or ignorance and vice, of poverty and shame, of cruelty and crime — the birth of freedom, the dawn of Brotherhood, the beginning of MAN. That is the demand

Statement to the court upon conviction for speaking out against World War II:

 

I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and factories; I am thinking of the women who, for a paltry wage, are compelled to work out their lives; of the little children who, in this system, are robbed of their childhood, and in their early, tender years, are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon, and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the machines while they themselves are being starved body and soul

Cont. HERE

I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity. The people are awakening. In due time they will and must come to their own

 The Great War

We are always in need of radicals who are also lovable, and so we would do well to remember Eugene Victor Debs.....Debs was nationally famous as leader of the Socialist Party, and the poet James Whitcomb Riley wrote of him:

"As warm a heart as ever beat

Betwixt here and the Judgment Seat."

These words from Eugene Debs himself are what endear him to me:

 

 

"If you go to the city of Washington, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of congress, and mis-representatives of the masses claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad that I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks."

 

Back my first thought: "Cometh the hour, cometh the man" - where is such a mortal in 2010? I suspect that "the hour" is nigh!

 

Look Photos and information - download here

 

Socialism Isn't Welfare - by E. McCarson

 

What we are seeing lately in the economy isn’t a trend towards socialism, but rather blatant and outright welfare for major corporations.

Look HERE

 

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free

 

Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs HERE