Eisenscher, I don't know what your problem is. I have never had a conversation with you before as I can recall except one on PEN-L where you posted a virulent 30,000 byte attack on Fidel Castro 15 times in a row because I had the temerity to describe Castro as an exemplary socialist. Now you are urging me to "chill" on PEN-L and to mind my manners on LBO-Talk.
Well, fuck you.
Part of the problem with the American working class and the trade union bureaucracy that you adapt to is that it is so forgiving of racist and sexist attitudes. Maggie Coleman had you figured out pretty good on the sexism question, I must say.
I am telling you, the ISO'er and whoever else that anybody who has the idea that you can get a "free meal" anywhere in the US is not anybody worth talking to. My 77 year old mother in upstate NY has to take food around to oldsters she grew up with who can't buy a decent meal with their social security money.
I became a revolutionary socialist as a result of working as a welfare worker in Harlem in 1967. I used to give money out of my own pocket to my clients. One of my first clients was a black woman on social security who had worked as a housekeeper for a Jewish charitable organization her entire life. She was diabetic and couldn't afford medication. She went to welfare to supplement her income. She was shocked to discover that SS paid more than welfare. I put together a household furnishings grant of a thousand dollars for items she didn't need just to help her make ends meet. This was back in 1967 when welfare people had it "good."
Another client was Florence Lewis, a 28 year old mother of three who was recovering from a heart attack. She had discovered that her kids were being neglected and decided to check herself out of the hospital. I literally ran from my office in central Harlem up to St. Lukes Hospital near Columbia University to convince her to stay in bed. For an hour I sat by her bedside pleading with her, while she sobbed uncontrollably. Why was the world so cruel to her, she asked. Why did her children have to suffer. I walked out of the hospital that day as Detroit was bursting into flames. I joined the SWP that week.
Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)