5LL #3 - Abolishing ICE, Bullshit Jobs, Democratic Socialism, Medicare For All, Equal Outcomes
Abolishing ICE is Only the First Step
Caitlin Bellis, Current Affairs
Given this history, I am surprised at Democrats’ adoption of Abolish ICE, but it would be counterproductive to impose a purity test on anyone now rallying to the cause. On the contrary, I hope Abolish ICE spreads further beyond the progressive wing of the party. I fear, though, that focusing on the agency obscures the real message behind the hashtag, which is not about merely scrapping a single agency, but about a total abolition of our immigration enforcement system as it presently exists. This is the goal that activists have been fighting for, often at great personal risk, for years.
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant
David Graeber, STRIKE! Magazine
In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century's end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There's every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn't happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.
What is Democratic Socialism?
Neal Meyer, Jacobin
Some commentators have tried to invent differences between the kind of society “democratic socialists” fight for and the kind envisioned by so-called “traditional socialists.” On MSNBC, Stephanie Ruhle confidently declared that democratic socialists make “no call for communal ownership of production.” According to Ruhle, the excitement around the emerging socialist movement is much ado about nothing: democratic socialists want good things like free college and public libraries — and that’s pretty much it. While we definitely support good library systems, democratic socialists’ vision of a better society and how to achieve it goes much further.
"Medicare-For-All" Means Something. Don't Let Moderates Water It Down.
Tim Higginbotham and Chris Middleman, Vox
Let there be no doubt — Medicare-for-all is a universal, public program that would provide comprehensive medical care to all American residents, totally free at the point of use. Any attempt by pundits or lobbyists to muddy the waters around this proposal is an obvious attempt to co-opt the campaign’s momentum with an eye toward weakening future legislation and protecting the interests of health-industry profiteers.
How We Can Get a More Equal Union
Vanessa A. Bee, New York Magazine
The problem is, striving for equality only with respect to opportunity is myopic. This approach focuses on fairness of process, while ignoring inequality in outcomes. It reflects the very meritocratic mentality that has helped sustain wide gaps between black Americans and white Americans, between the genders, between classes, and between broader demographic categories. Envisioning our future through an egalitarian lens would require us to seriously reconsider political ideologies that embrace equal outcomes. More broadly, it would compel us to prioritize the well-being of the collective over that of the few, even if this came at the expense of the few.
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