Thanksgiving Thoughts

In the many past economic disasters that capitalism is heir to, Thanksgiving was always particularly troubling. It’s a day of supposed feasting with friends and loved ones. If there isn’t enough money to put the feast on the table, people feel particularly defeated. As old Marxists we felt better than most because it was the rotten system that was failing, not us. It resulted in families banding together and making a feast out of whatever we could contribute.

My German father was a great herring fan. Many a 1930’s dinner, including Thanksgiving, was made up of a variety of herrings and potatoes. I remember him going to the lower east side to buy a small barrel of matjes herring, together with a huge round pumpernickel, and bringing them home on the subway. The celebration part of the dinner was some kind of cake that the women seemed to magically cook up.

I believe we avoided the kind of depression and anxiety that I see in this present crisis precisely because we experienced the crisis as being just another sign that capitalism was collapsing. That made it a joyous occasion as we saw our future Jerusalem of socialism right there over the horizon. Now I must admit that while I don’t see any new Jerusalem over the horizon, I do think we will all live through these rough times a little smarter and less willing to accept the hype that “we can have it all.” Yes, this party is over until the next one.

I have often written about how we radicals of the thirties, unbeknownst at the time, ended up saving the capitalist system. We did it by demanding all those reforms that became known as the New Deal. Man! We marched, picketed, protested at every City Hall and all the way to Washington raising hell for new benefits for the working stiffs of America. And boy did we get them. That’s what saved capitalism and it will probably happen again. I would credit the election of Barak Obama to the growing resentment of the electorate over the present economic crisis.

So far I am unimpressed with the selection of Obama’s team. There is a difference between people who know the Washington bureaucracy, and people who have new ideas. I believe there are capable people outside of the Washington insiders. There are bright young people who were the heart of the Obama campaign who can be quick studies for the politicking that goes in the nation’s capital. I spent a year there as a lobbyist representing a union, and I don’t think it took me longer than a month of lunches and dinners to understand the workings on Capital Hill. The people who elected Obama are the people who organized these grass roots campaigns throughout the country. They represent the new political force. He was elected by young political activists. It is essential that people from that group be highly represented in the new administration.

What I would love to see is somebody organizing all those Obama campaigners into a new organization of Youth for a New America. Whatever the title.

Lastly, as the government continues the process of “bailing” the sinking ship, maybe my notion of public advocates on the Boards of all the bailout banks and companies seem to be emerging in a number of different places. That might just be us “slouching to socialism.” Happy Thanksgiving.

Thank you Kate. N.H.W.Y.