“Don’t cheat, lie, or steal”—The latest comments from PW readers

People’s World readers offer their take on a number of recent articles featured in our pages. The comments below have been proofread and edited for length. Join the discussion on the PW website and on Facebook. Your thoughts could be the next to appear in this space.

Re: Veterans to lose big time if Trump tax plan passes

Gabe Falsetta says:

These workers deserve our best to support them…. I don’t think the working class can do much to save these jobs until we change the Congress. I believe globalization is here to stay, so we must think of and create new ways of employing people as has been done in other advanced nations, e.g., guarantee a living wage income while creating massive infrastructure jobs and creating massive renewable energy jobs.

We can do this, but first we must defeat the 1 percent and elect socialists, communists, unionists, and true progressives who have not been corrupted by this most corruptible system, capitalism!

 

Re: Building a majority movement during the “End Days”

Diane Mohney says:

Great article. I do think that the evangelical movement of today is meaner, nastier, and more politicized than previously. Based on some of their facilities, I suspect there is big money behind them and the promotion of their ultra-right/fascistic message. However, I really believe most people agree on what’s right and what’s wrong: don’t cheat, lie, or steal; that they genuinely want to share what they have with those who have nothing; help others when they need it; and be constructive members of their communities. We can most certainly build on this. Thank you for your analysis.

 

Re: Arriving without their parents: Child refugees being warehoused on the U.S. border

Jeanne Smith says:

Thank you, Mr. Schepers, for your insightful commentary here. My husband and I adamantly stand up for refugees entering the United States. Of course, we expect them to be vetted, but thus far, our current rule is to turn them back at the border with no intention of acknowledging the dangerous situations that brought them here in the first place.

This breaks our hearts, as our nation was built on the contributions of refugees and immigrants in the past. Today, the only ones in the USA who can, rightfully and historically, claim the United States as, “My Country”, are Native Americans. Sadly, even they are treated poorly and given little credence after all these years.

I might add that this past year I published a book on refugee resettlement here in the United States. Its title, for your perusal, should you or others like to see it, is Refugees! A Family’s Search for Freedom and the Church That Helped Them Find It. In addition to our refugees’ story, the book provides guidelines for churches, synagogues, and other philanthropic groups planning to resettle, thus giving potential sponsors an opportunity as to what to expect. The book also features appendices with advice, contacts, and helpful guidelines for resettling refugees today.

Once again, I want to thank you for bringing this topic to the attention of the public. I am hopeful that you will write more articles on this issue, as it takes authors like yourself to stir the public into action.

 

Re: Tipping points: Stop Trump and restrain capitalism to save the world

Earl Clay says:

The “metabolic rift” between capitalist society and nature demands a positive response—the response of the workers, by the workers, for the workers. This positive response must by definition be international.

The whole focus of scientific and spiritual human activity has to change to meet the existential crisis, caused largely by both the incremental and decremental devastations of capitalism and imperialism. Marx and other philosophers like W.E.B. DuBois, Jose Marti, and Fidel Castro have supplied us ample historical backdrop for the current crisis, which cannot be solved without the rapid elimination of the dire deadly physical poverty of capitalism and imperialism.

MLK, Jr. attacked this poverty problem, following the great DuBois with his efforts at massive anti-poverty campaigns. We should all stress the connection between these two great leaders on the North American continent, informing all workers of the need for anti-imperialism if the human existential crisis is to be stemmed.

Historically, in times of great existentialist crises, the African element in North America has been a central part of solutions. The great North American brain physiologist and Marxist, Robert Hodes, emphasized the methods of science in the brains and hands of the whole working people to meet human need. The time is now for anti-racism, anti-capitalism, and anti-imperialism. For if we do not reject these (their opposites), employing the methods of science of, by, and for workers of all backgrounds, we will not continue to exist.

 

Re: The Soviet past we never knew

Stefan Johnson says:

The article says, without saying so in words, that Lenin was wrong in declaring NEP a retreat. Well, it’s not going to be the last time someone tells us Lenin was wrong. The thing is, when the article implies NEP was the path forward instead of a retreat, it neglects to present any evidence. Even on a purely formal, superficial level, I’m not altogether sure the Soviet Constitution of 1936 (written by Bukharin as I understand it) with its invocations of the most advanced bourgeois democracy, in preference to soviets, was quite the advance implicitly claimed here.

Perhaps my memory serves me ill, but I have a vague memory of a “scissors” crisis, where private agricultural production was limited to what was profitable for the private owners of land…which was not enough even to feed the cities, much less help fund re-industrialization. It’s one thing to argue [against] Stalin’s version of collectivization of agriculture/crash industrialization by central planning, but if the world had been so blessed by Bukharin’s victory, would the USSR have been able to mortally offend the world bourgeoisie by defeating Hitler?

And as for the notion that Deng is a reformer? I don’t believe China is a capitalist country, nor imperialist. But Deng’s reforms required an aggressive invasion of Vietnam, with thousands and thousands of casualties, apparently in outrage over the Vietnamese defeat of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In my opinion it is Deng, not Mao, who is the ambiguous figure in the history of Chinese Communism, to put it diplomatically.