Photos From Ferguson 8.16.14

Wait, when did I wake up in Russia?! I heard there were "problems" in New York and Kansas as well. "And the walls came tumbling down." Anyone else got the five stages of insurrection stuck in their head as we watch this unfold?! Growing up, I was taught to be grateful that our ancestors had the courage to stand up to an oppressive government for all of our freedoms. When I started having children, I was grateful again to those same ancestors for fighting and dying so me and mine wouldn't have to live in a world of oppression, blood, fear, and death. smh It was all for nothing apparently, because here we are, having the same fight all over again. Only this time, there's no other country to run off to en-masse. There is, literally, no where to run. " But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. " --Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, 1776. Almost chill-inducing, isn't it? I'm scared for us, for my children, for our country as a whole. I'm more scared, however, if we as a people do nothing to change the status quo. Stand with Ferguson, MO...quite possibly the birthplace of the New Revolution. I do.

What we are witnessing in Fergusson, Missouri, a state admitted to the Union as a slave state, is nothing new. In both "free" and slave states, contempt for the workingclass, especially the black workingclass, has existed since the inception of this backward country, which was born and based on genocide of Native Americans, enslavement of Africans, and the vicious exploitation of the labor of all nationalities, including children, to the present day. The only thing new is we now have the Internet to see it all instantly, and the concept of full equality is more acceptable now, primarily because the white European descendants are a minority in most metropolitan areas, and with a median age of 42 and rising, white European descendants are soon a minority nationwide.

I do not know when you grew up, but this writer can easily recall the late 1950s to the present day. Racism was rampant then as was male chauvinism and homophobia. All 3 still exist today, but the male chauvinism and homophobia are somewhat subdued in some areas. I have no memory of a peaceful, democratic USA. So long as the profit motive exists, there can be no democracy in this backward country that still has the death penalty, unlike most of the world, not just the industrialized world, and actively promotes prisons and the police state, all of which are profitable, the primary goal of this bankrupt society being maximization of profit.

Your beloved Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner and a serial rapist, who raped several of his slaves, by whom he had children. We did not win the right to organize labor unions in this backward country until 1935, after the general strikes of 1934 in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo, along with Social Security and unemployment insurance. Germany had old age pensions and unemployment insurance, along with socialized medicine which we still do not have, in 1883, under Bismarck, because the German workingclass fought for them. American history is a long series of Indian killings, just as the US and its puppet engage in the same Indian killing in Palestine and vicious brutal treatment of the entire workingclass to the present day. Everything we have, we fought for, and paid for with our lives.

Russia won the right to vote for women and all 18 year olds in 1917 (the 18 year old vote came in the USA in 1971 in a failed effort to quell the antiwar movement), when the workingclass took state power, abolished the private profit system and nationalized everything. Also in 1917, they established socialized medicine, unemployment insurance and old age pensions, which they have to the present day. American women finally won the right to vote in 1920, thanks to the impetus of the Bolshevik Revolution, ending almost a century of struggle.

On Russian old age pensions, see
http://www.oecd.org/pensions/private-pensions/24063422.pdf
"After the revolution of 1917, the pension and medical insurance, as well as insurance against accidents systems formed in the pre-revolutionary period were in the 20-s consolidated into a single system subsidized from the State budget and called the public social security system. Social, including pension, insurance formally continued to exist, but the principles of individual’s personal responsibility and mutual aid solidarity were excluded from its basis. The socialist pension system was funded from contributions of enterprises, which, in their turn, were the property of the State. As a result, the State acted as a single subject of social protection;"

REMEMBER, LIFE EXPECTANCY IN 1900 WAS 50, AT BEST AND THERE WAS NOT MUCH MEDICINE. LIFE EXPECTANCY AMONG WHITE WOMEN IN THE US REACHED AGE 70 BY 1950 AND AGE 80 BY 2003. AS TO THE QUALITY OF LIFE, MOST PEOPLE OVER AGE 70 ARE NOT VERY ACTIVE AT ALL.

Life expectancy increased in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1964. See
http://www.rus-stat.ru/eng/index.php?vid=1&year=2000&id=58&page=2
The decline came especially after 1991, when they fully embraced capitalism. They have recovered somewhat but their figures of age 64 for men and 76 for women are still not great, but better than the poor countries of the world. Their primary problem is that 60% of the men and 22% of the women smoke, and alcohol is a big problem among men. Some 31% of Russian adults consume alcohol, mostly men. The average Russian consumes 4.75 gallons of pure alcohol a year. See
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/news/russia-poisions-her-people
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/31/russian-men-losing-years-to-vodka
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption

Smoking:
See http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/who-russians-smoke-the-most/422117.html
http://www.russianlife.com/archive/article/params/Number/1690/

In contrast, about 18% of American adults smoke, 20% of men and 15% of women. Some 30% of the US workingclass smokes. Remember, this is a nation of 315 million people, some 200 million being adults, so there is still a lot of smoking in the USA. See http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/

While Russians over age 15 consume 11.5 liters per capita, Americans consume 8.6 liters per capita. It is more common among men than women, as in Russia.
Actually, the US is not far behind in having an alcohol problem. See
http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/mens-health.htm

As to American life expectancy, the workingclass, the 80% of us who sell our labor for less than $80,000 a year, have a life expectancy of 76 years, the same as China’s life expectancy. China’s life expectancy increased from age 35 in 1949, the revolution year, to age 76 today.

We measure a society by its ability to provide healthcare and education to its people. Russia before 1991 had a well-earned reputation of a strong school system, with all grade schools being the same no matter who attended, unlike in the backward USA, where the workingclass schools are just warehouses. From all reports, not much has changed in the top quality of Russian education. One person I met said he learned his first foreign language at age 7 and the second at age 10. In the workingclass schools of the USA, a child is lucky to learn any foreign language.

What is going on in Ferguson is as American as apple pie and has been going on in this backward country since its inception. That is why the police are lying constantly, because they do it routinely with the correct assumption that they will not suffer for it. The way to get rid of police killings is to organize labor for a general strike to end the private profit system. The name of the game is always money. The police are the armed thugs of the capitalist class whose purpose is to terrorize us into accepting the bankrupt status quo.