chegitz guevara For Congress

[Imran Siddiqui]

I think Ben just didn't know she was such a big socialist (there is that "doesn't know much about American history" thing that hits Ben when he tries to discuss US politics) and is trying to backtrack.

Otherwise, it's one of the dumbest objections of all time.

[DinoDoc]

Well I got to admit that I didn't know she was such a big pinko myself but I didn't care enough to click on che's link and wouldn't have found out if Ben hadn't brought it up.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Well I got to admit that I didn't know she was such a big pinko myself but I didn't care enough to click on che's link and wouldn't have found out if Ben hadn't brought it up.

Well, you also didn't yap on about it... I'm sure you would be researched why before you started jumping up and down .

[Ben Kenobi]

I think Ben just didn't know she was such a big socialist

Excuse me.

I was aware she was a socialist.

I didn't see her as the second most prominent socialist in the US, warranting her position in Che's campaign. Honestly I just about spit up when I saw that Che was running her along with Debs.

And, as I'm seeing in this thread apparently many other Americans didn't see her that way either.

That to me says everything. If Che wants to run a token in his campaign, he should expect to get called out for it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Excuse me.

I was aware she was a socialist.

Well then, read the rest of my post:

Otherwise, it's one of the dumbest objections of all time.

I didn't see her as the second most prominent socialist in the US, warranting her position in Che's campaign. Honestly I just about spit up when I saw that Che was running her along with Debs.

Who is the second most prominent socialist in US history? Come on, let's hear it.

And, as I'm seeing in this thread apparently many other Americans didn't see her that way either.

You mean those who disagree with you and think you are looney?

That to me says everything. If Che wants to run a token in his campaign, he should expect to get called out for it.

He's a socialist. He wants to have a very prominent socialist on his website. The only big deal is being made by overly politically correct wusses like yourself.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
That to me says everything. If Che wants to run a token in his campaign, he should expect to get called out for it.

With all due respect, Ben. Aparently the woman was a commie scum (in addition to being an icon for the disabled) and a big supporter of Debbs. Can you give me a real reason why Helen's image can't be used by someone looking to promote commie scum causes along with Debbs?

[Ben Kenobi]

Who is the second most prominent socialist in US history? Come on, let's hear it.

Norman Thomas, without a doubt.

I'm surprised Che didn't choose him.

[Ben Kenobi]

Can you give me a real reason why Helen's image can't be used by someone looking to promote commie scum causes along with Debbs?

He's welcome to. He should expect to get blasted, and asked, why if he has Helen Keller on his campaign, he hasn't done anything previous to support disabled people in the past.

[snoopy369]

Che hasn't been in GOVERNMENT* in the past, so how has he had a chance to support disabled people?

(*as far as I know, anyway, at a level where the issue would come up)

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Can you see why a disabled person might have a problem with her inclusion in a campaign by someone who has never done anything for disabled people?

It's disappointing that you are choosing to categorize someone based solely on their physical limitations and not their character. After all, this is evidence that she chose not to allow her disabilities to define her, why do you then have the right to decide otherwise?

[chequita guevara]

There are two issues here. One is that Ben is making a couple of assumptions about what I have or have not done for the disabled and whether or not I have a disability. Apparently Ben is making the assumption that had I done something, I would be tooting my own horn about it here. Since you want to know, Ben, a good deal of what I do is ensuring that websites are accessible to people with disabilities. Also, I have mid range hearing loss (from tinnitus) and I'm moderately asthmatic. In addition to that, I've suffered from depression for most of my life. Not that I should have to justify myself.

The second, and I think the real issue, is that Ben doesn't like to think about the fact that one of his icons was a real socialist. She wasn't just a socialist, but she was an exceedingly prominent member of my party, the Socialist Party. She wasn't just a member of the party in a way that Ben can slough off. She was a revolutionary, not some liberal reformer who got caught up in the spirit of the times.

From the Hellen Keller Reference Archive

The Spirit of Lenin 1929
I think that every honest belief should be treated with fairness, yet I cry out against people who uphold the empire of gold. I am aware of moods when the prefect state of peace, brotherhood and universal love seems so far off that I turn to division, pugnacity and the pageant of war. I am just like St. Paul when he says, "I delight in the Law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind." I am perfectly sure that love will bring everything right in the end, but I cannot help sympathizing with the oppressed who feel driven to use force to gain the rights that belong to them.

That is one reason why I have turned with such interest toward the great experiment now being tried in Russia. No revolution was ever a sudden outbreak of lawlessness and wreckage incited by an unholy brood of cranks, anarchists and pedagogues. People turn to a revolution only when every other dream has faded into the dimness of sorrow. When we look upon these mighty disturbances which seem to leap so suddenly out of the troubled depths we find that they were fed by little streams of discontent and oppression. These little streams which have their source deep down in the miseries of the common people all flow together at last in a retributive flood.

The Russian Revolution did not originate with Lenin. It had hovered for centuries in the dreams of Russian mystics and patriots, but when the body of Lenin was laid in simple state in the Kremlin, all Russia trembled and wept. The mouths of hungry enemies fed on new hopes, but the spirit of Lenin descended upon the weeping multitude as with cloven tongues of fire, and they spoke one to another and were not afraid. "Let us not follow him with cowering hearts," they said, "let us rather gird ourselves for the task he has left us. Where our dull eyes see only ruin, his clearer sight discovers the road by which we shall gain our liberty. Revolution he sees, yea, and even disintegration which symbolizes disorder is in truth the working of God's undeviating order; and the manner of our government shall be no less wonderful than the manner of our deliverance. If we are steadfast, the world will be quickened to courage by our deeds."

Men vanish from earth leaving behind them the furrows they have ploughed. I see the furrow Lenin left sown with the unshatterable seed of a new life for mankind, and cast deep below the rolling tides of storm and lightning, mighty crops for the ages to reap.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Norman Thomas, without a doubt.

I'm surprised Che didn't choose him.

Thomas's very strong religious beliefs (he was ordained as a Presbyterian Minister after all) may have precluded that.

[q=asleepatthewheel]It's disappointing that you are choosing to categorize someone based solely on their physical limitations and not their character. After all, this is evidence that she chose not to allow her disabilities to define her, why do you then have the right to decide otherwise?[/q]

HEAR! HEAR! Ben is committing the cardinal sin of identifying Keller due to her disability, as if she has no personage outside of that.

How are you, Ben, any better than those others who only identify the disabled based on their disability and nothing else? Like they aren't individuals, but a person who has X.

[chequita guevara]

She wrote this article for people like you, Ben

How I Became a Socialist 1912

For several months my name and socialism have appeared often together in the newspapers. A friend tells me that I have shared the front pages with baseball, Mr. Roosevelt and the New York police scandal. The association does not make me altogether happy but, on the whole, I am glad that many people are interested in me and in the educational achievements of my teacher, Mrs. Macy (Anne Sullivan). Even notoriety may be turned to beneficent uses, and I rejoice if the disposition of the newspapers to record my activities results in bringing more often into their columns the word Socialism. In the future I hope to write about socialism, and to justify in some measure the great amount of publicity which has been accorded to me and my opinions. So far I have written little and said little about the subject. I have written a few letters, notably one to Comrade Fred Warren which was printed in the Appeal to Reason. I have talked to some reporters, on of whom, Mr. Ireland of the New York World, made a very flattering report and gave fully and fairly what I said. I have never been in Schenectady. I have never met Mayor Lunn. I have never had a letter from him, but he has sent kind messages to me through Mr. Macy. Owing to Mrs. Macy's illness, whatever plans I had to join the workers in Schenectady have been abandoned.

On such negative and relatively insignificant matters have been written many editorials in the capitalist press and in the Socialist press. The clippings fill a drawer. I have not read a quarter of them, and I doubt if I shall ever read them all. If on such a small quantity of fact so much comment has followed, what will the newspapers do if I ever set to work in earnest to write and talk in behalf of socialism? For the present I should like to make a statement of my position and correct some false reports and answer some criticisms which seem to me unjust.

First — How did I become a Socialist? By reading. The first book I read was Wells' New World for Old. I read it on Mrs. Macy's recommendation. She was attracted by its imaginative quality, and hoped that its electric style might stimulate and interest me. When she gave me the book, she was not a Socialist and she is not a Socialist now. Perhaps she will be one before Mr. Macy and I are done arguing with her.

My reading has been limited and slow. I take German bimonthly Socialist periodicals brinted in braille for the blind. (Our German comrades are ahead of us in many respects.) I have also in German braille Kautsky's discussion of the Erfurt Program. The other socialist literature that I have read has been spelled into my hand by a friend who comes three times a week to read to me whatever I choose to have read. The periodical which I have most often requested her lively fingers to communicate to my eager ones is the National Socialist. She gives the titles of the articles and I tell her when to read on and when to omit. I have also had her read to me from the International Socialist Review articles the titles of which sounded promising. Manual spelling takes time. It is no easy and rapid thing to apsorb through one's fingers a book of 50,000 words on economics. But it is a pleasure, and one which I shall enjoy repeatedly until I have made myself acquainted with all the classic socialist authors.

In the light of the foregoing I wish to comment on a piece about me which was printed in the Common Cause and reprinted in the Live Issue, two antisocialist publications. Here is a quotation from that piece:

"For twenty-five years Miss Keller's teacher and constant companion has been Mrs. John Macy, formerly of Wrentham, Mass. Both Mr. and Mrs. Macy are enthusiastic Marxist propagandists, and it is scarcely surprising that Miss Keller, depending upon this lifelong friend for her most intimate knowledge of life, should have imbibed such opinions."

Mr. Macy may be an enthusiastic Marxist propagandist, though I am sorry to say he has not shown much enthusiasm in propagating his Marxism through my fingers. Mrs. Macy is not a Marxist, nor a socialist. Therefore what the Common Cause says about her is not true. The editor must have invented that, made it out of whole cloth, and if that is the way his mind works, it is no wonder that he is opposed to socialism. He has not sufficient sense of fact to be a socialist or anything else intellectually worthwhile.

Consider another quotation from the same article. The headline reads:

"SCHENECTADY REDS ARE ADVERTISING; USING HELEN KELLER, THE BLIND GIRL, TO RECEIVE PUBLICITY."

Then the article begins:

"It would be difficult to imagine anything more pathetic than the present exploitation of poor Helen Keller by the Socialists of Schenectady. For weeks the party's press agencies have heralded the fact that she is a Socialist, and is about to become a member of Schenectady's new Board of Public Welfare."

There's a chance for satirical comment on the phrase, "the exploitation of poor Helen Keller." But I will refrain, simply saying that I do not like the hypocritical sympathy of such a paper as the Common Cause, but I am glad if it knows what the word "exploitation" means.

Let us come to the facts. When Mayor Lunn heard that I might go to Schenectady he proposed to the Board of Public Welfare that a place be kept on it for me. Nothing was printed about this in The Citizen, Mayor Lunn's paper. Indeed, it was the intention of the board to say nothing about the matter until after I had moved to Schenectady. But the reporters of the capitalist press got wind of the plan, and one day, during Mayor Lunn's absence from Schenectady, the Knickerbocker Press of Albany made the announcement. It was telegraphed all over the country, and then began the real newspaper exploitation. By the Socialist press? No, by the capitalist press. The Socialist papers printed the news, and some of them wrote editorials of welcome. But The Citizen, Mayor Lunn's paper, preserved silence and did not mention my name during all the weeks when the reporters were telephoning and telegraphing and asking for interviews. It was the capitalist press that did the exploiting. Why? Because ordinary newspapers care anything about socialism? No, of course not; they hate it. But because I, alas, am a subject for newspaper gossip. We got so tired of denying that I was in Schenectady that I began to dislike the reporter who first published the "news."

The Socialist papers, it is true, did make a good deal of me after the capitalist papers had "hearalded the fact that I am a Socialist." But all the reporters who came to see me were from ordinary commercial newspapers. No Socialist paper, neither The Call nor the National Socialist, ever asked me for an article. The editor of The Citizen hinted to Mr. Macy that he would like one, but he was too fine and considerate to ask for it point-blank.

The New York Times did ask me for one. The editor of the Times wrote assuring me that his paper was a valuable medium for reaching the public and he wanted an article from me. He also telegraphed asking me to send him an account of my plans and to outline my ideas of my duties as a member of the Board of Public Welfare of Schenectady. I am glad I did not comply with this request, for some days later the Times made me a social outcast beyond the range of its righteous sympathies. On September 21 there appeared in the Times an editorial called "The Comtemptible Red Flag." I quote two passages from it:

"The flag is free. But it is none the less destestable. It is the symbol of lawlessness and anarchy the world over, and as such is held in contempt by all right-minded persons."

"The bearer of a red flag may not be molested by the police until he commits some act which the red flag justifies. He deserves, however, always to be regarded with suspicion. By carrying the symbol of lawlessness he forfeits all right to respect and sympathy."

I am no worshiper of cloth of any color, but I love the red flag and what it symbolizes to me and other Socialists. I have a red flag hanging in my study, and if I could I should gladly march with it past the office of the Times and let all the reporters and photographers make the most of the spectacle. According to the inclusive condemnation of the Times I have forfeited all right to respect and sympathy, and I am to be regarded with suspicion. Yet the editor of the Times wants me to write him an article! How can he trust me to write for him if I am a suspicious character? I hope you will enjoy as much as I do the bad ethics, bad logic, bad manners that a capitalist editor falls into when he tries to condemn the movement which is aimed at this plutocratic interests. We are not entitled to sympathy, yet some of us can write articles that will help his paper to make money. Probably our opinions have the same sort of value to him that he would find in the confession of a famous murderer. We are not nice, but we are interesting.

I like newspapermen. I have known many, and two or three editors have been among my most intimate friends. Moreover, the newspapers have been of great assistance in the work which we have been trying to do for the blind. It costs them nothing to give their aid to work for the blind and to other superficial charities. But socialism — ah, that is a different matter! That goes to the root of all poverty and all charity. The money power behind the newspapers is against socialism, and the editors, obedient to the hand that feeds them, will go to any length to put down socialism and undermine the influence of socialists.

When my letter to Comrade Fred Warren was published in the Appeal to Reason, a friend of mine who writes a special department for the Boston Transcript made an article about it and the editor-in-chief cut it out.

The Brooklyn Eagle says, apropos of me, and socialism, that Helen Keller's "mistakes spring out of the manifest limitations of her development." Some years ago I met a gentleman who was introduced to me as Mr. McKelway, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. It was after a meeting that we had in New York in behalf of the blind. At that time the compliments he paid me were so generous that I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for socialism he reminds me and the public that I am blind and deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in intelligence during the years since I met him. Surely it is his turn to blush. It may be that deafness and blindness incline one toward socialism. Marx was probably stone deaf and William Morris was blind. Morris painted his pictures by the sense of touch and designed wall paper by the sense of smell.

Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle! What an ungallant bird it is! Socially blind and deaf, it defends an intolerable system, a system that is the cause of much of the physical blindness and deafness which we are trying to prevent. The Eagle is willing to help us prevent misery provided, always provided, that we do not attack the industrial tyranny which supports it and stops its ears and clouds its vision. The Eagle and I are at war. I hate the system which it represents, apologizes for and upholds. When it fights back, let it fight fair. Let it attack my ideas and oppose the aims and arguments of Socialism. It is not fair fighting or good argument to remind me and others that i cannot see or hear. I can read. I can read all the socialist books I have time for in English, German and French. If the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle should read some of them, he might be a wiser man and make a better newspaper. If I ever contribute to the Socialist movement the book that I sometimes dream of, I know what I shall name it: Industrial Blindness and Social Deafness.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Thomas's very strong religious beliefs (he was ordained as a Presbyterian Minister after all) may have precluded that.

I'm not a big fan of Thomas for a number of reasons. Religion actually isn't one of them.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
It's disappointing that you are choosing to categorize someone based solely on their physical limitations and not their character. After all, this is evidence that she chose not to allow her disabilities to define her, why do you then have the right to decide otherwise?

I wonder if Ben's read her writings on her desire to have a sexual relationship and being "protected" from having sex against her will. Comrade Keller was more than just a blind person who also couldn't hear (how she defined herself). She was a real human being with a full range of interests, views, and activities that went beyond simply being disabled.