Discussion Group Tonight (October 18, 2015) & Voting Rights

We are having out monthly discussion group tonight.

We will be discussing Leon Trotsky's Transitional Program.
Think of it like a bridge - how do we get from where we are to where we want to be.
Kind of our escape route from c(r)apitalism.

We will be transitioning to a discussion of A Transitional Program for Black Liberation. (I couldn't resist the pun.)
It needs some updating ($3/hour for wages? Try $15 NOW!) and other modernizations.  In reading it though, the demands and needs of the African American community have not changed.

If you are interested in joining in on the conversation, e-mail wnysocialist at gmail.com and I will send you the information. 

This leads me to an article that I read in the Buffalo News yesterday about this African American youth that was supporting Marco Rubio (I believe).  This is what the Republican Party "needs to do. " Reach out more to the "minorities."

In 2012 Herman Cain ran for president.  He was (& still is?) the head of the National Restaurant Association - an organization that has worked to keep wages in the restaurant industry down.  Waitresses still make $2.13 an hour plus tips.  I worked in the restaurant industry for 12 years and the number of women that I knew that worked full time as waitresses and still required food stamps and other public assistance was incredible.  Not to mention the wages of the kitchen staff (where I worked).

Now, in 2015/6, Ben Carson is running.  Another African American that "made it good" by becoming a brain surgeon.  How many African Americans, Latinos, Asians, and others never get to go to college because they went to substandard schools, were arrested for petty crimes, and went to jail/prison?

In the Black Transitional Program these people are referred to as "token examples" of capitalism's success story.

I'm not interested in a few people succeeding.  I'm interested in all people succeeding.  Capitalism has a few on top and the many on the bottom.  I want a fair playing field for all.

And Hillary was in the news because she spoke out against how Alabama was going to require voter ID cards (issued by the DMV) for voting AND THEN was going to close down DMV offices in predominantly African-American communities.  They (Alabama Republicans) have since retreated from that.  Who knows what they are planning to do next to disenfranchise those they do not like.

What about the African Americans that are denied the right to vote because the state they live in denies convicted felons the ability to vote?  What is the Democrat's plan to deal with that?

Did you hear a pin drop?

 I did.