In response to a friend who wrote, “I do use “progressive” because it seems better than a lot of other options, but it’s certainly overused by those who aren’t. I wish we could win elections in Rankin county saying syndicalist, socialist or anarcho-communist, but that doesn’t seem likely.”

I know, I understand. I don’t have a problem with others using these terms as long as they are reasonably close to what they present themselves to be.

I like to present myself as “not being” ideological, but because I tend to call out others on their ideological-nesses and refuse to buy into their personal “progressive-istic-ness” I am often labeled as being ideological. I guess I am ideological because if it hurts a mass of people then I view whatever it is as bad; however, I like to consider myself as something more than the “casual political observer”, thus it is often difficult to persuade me unless you have a very well thought out marxian analysis.

Once again I don’t often refer to myself as a marxist. That is a pretty large field and the depth of my understandings in economics is pretty shallow (the dismal science, you know.) But the baseline for me seems to be how does something effect “average, ordinary, everyday, people” vis-à-vis the “ruling class” with a small intermediating “middle class”.

I tend to shy away from typical “leftist” language. I hate to be called “comrade”, for instance, because the majority of people I know who “love” to use that term simply want to “clothe” themselves in the mystic of… of… of whichever branch of the “brotherhood” (can I refer that to something so exotic as “humanity” and get away with it) thereby lifting themselves into some illusory “seventh heaven” of some body of socialist perspective with at best a rudimentary identification with the greater whole. I say a rudimentary identification with the greater whole as nearly to a person they have a visceral hatred for some segment of humanity. I don’t believe we can hate and love at the same time. Oh, yes, I know the Goebbels children loved “Uncle Adolf” and he loved them, but that is my point: that it, for the Aristocratic/capitalist class to “love anyone” they have to break the whole into segments. They simply don’t have the capacity to “love everyone”. How can we separate ourselves from others if what we do in the end is to replicate their ideology? That is to say, “If we behave as they behave, then we become as they are, perhaps toward a different “us” to their “them” but no essential difference.

It seems to me if “Socialism” (big “s” or small “s”, no matter) to succeed in the final analysis it will have to bridge all gaps and span all chasms and heal all wounds. For that to occur we have to all recognize that we are all one and not just those “like” us. This “us vs. them” dichotomy must come to an end and the fact that so many ostensibly within the “socialist or leftist” camp still insist on viewing everything in this “Aristocratic/capitalist class” worldview of an “us vs. them” dichotomy bothers me. Yes, yes, yes… we have to deal with the fact that they see things that way, as well as, the fact that the Aristocratic/capitalist class wants us to view the world this way, also. “But,” I ask, “why should we do what the Aristocratic/capitalist class wants us to?”

No, I am not defending “capitalists” I’m defending humanity. I will gladly condemn “capitalism” or “aristocracy” or any other system that pits human against human, but I will not the people in those classes. We all exist somewhere on the path together and at the same time. Some are either a little farther along than others and some a little farther back than others and when we reach the goal we will reach it together or we will fail to get there at all. The question is “Can we identify with everyone, including the “the Aristocratic/capitalist class” without loosing our connection with anyone else. I have been using the term “aristocracy” because we are well beyond anything resembling “capitalism” now. We live in a “rentier” society. A financialized society. We no longer live in a “producing” society. But this is a blog for another time.

Allow me a slightly different spin on this topic:

What I am suggesting is that only when we, the ordinary folk come to understand that we are all the same and that their money is part and parcel of the whole and that they hoard it and they THAT THEY, THE “GREEDY PIGS” HAVE TO BE BROUGHT INTO THE FOLD instead of being allowed to convince themselves and us that they are special in some way will we as a race, the human race, come to the fullness of our potential.

Roger Willis Mills, II