lbo-talk-digest V1 #4359

[Leslilake1 at aol.com]

Which reminds me of an anecdote my stepfather told me at 84, the year he died 
(he was born in the 1910's):  When he was a kid, he and some of his friends 
had come across some soapbox speaker talking about how the millionaires were 
stealing from the working class, or something along those lines, and 
shouldn't we all get together to change things...  He and his friends had 
heckled the guy, saying something like "Shut up, old man, we're going to be 
millionaires too..."  He grew up to be a grade school principal.  Then he 
said to me, "While you're working, you never really have time to think about 
things; when you're retired you do.  I just don't see how this system can 
continue."  Stupidly, I didn't ask him to explain himself.  All his life he'd 
seemed so much the organization man; I was sort of dumbfounded.  He died 
within a few months of the conversation.

Leslie

Les

In a message dated 01-05-17 18:21:28 EDT, you write:

<< A real incident to illustrate. Fifteen years ago, I was selling a 
socialist 

 newpaper in the poorer districts of San Jose. I knocked on the door of a 

 run-down basement apartment, a Miller-guzzling male dressed in dirty jeans 

 and an undershirt opened the door and allowed me to enter. The apartment 

 was of the black-velvet paintings and apple crates variety: it bespoke of 

 various kinds of impovrishement. I announced that I was selling a socialist 

 paper and asked him if he was interested in buying a copy.

 

 "No." He said, "I don't believe in socialism. I'm a capitalist."

 

 "You are?" I queried looking around his apartment, "Then, where's your 

 capital?"

 

 That stopped him only for a second,

 

 "My body," he replied, "My body is my capital."

  >>