Last Saturday, I exhorted the crowd to join me in building a mass movement capable of smashing the capitalist system and all forms of oppression that it creates and maintains. Believing this, and believing that we have the power to change our society makes me a rabble-rouser, a revolutionary — but it does not make me a demagogue.
I appeal not to people’s prejudices, but to their experiences. In our communities, we have furloughed federal workers worried if they will have enough money for their bills. Two residents of Greenfield froze to death behind a McDonald’s because we don’t have a common-sense approach to housing that provides people with homes. A third of students attending college in Massachusetts are food insecure. Why? Because our current system prioritizes profits over people — capitalists have no qualms with cutting costs even if kills people.
[In his letter to the editor, “Stephen C. Boos: The danger of demagoguery”] Mr. Boos claims that “the situation for children, women and disenfranchised minorities is best in countries with capitalist economic systems.” This is claim dubious at best. This myth of trickle-down wealth was a lie when Reagan told it, and it’s a lie today. If it were true, then the world’s 1 percent wouldn’t own half the wealth. They wouldn’t use their hoarded wealth to influence politicians to rig the system in their favor. If it were true, then why does Flint, Michigan STILL not have clean water? Why is our infrastructure crumbling, and are our schools underfunded?
Mr. Boos should speak to teachers who have heroically gone on strike for themselves and their students. Mr. Boos writes that, “the Women’s March needs willing supporters,” but that they “cannot give voice to every idea espoused by those supporters.” Boos’ position is contradictory and anti-democratic. If you want me to support your movement, yet deny me a voice to share my ideas, then you aren’t a big tent after all.
I too listened to speakers with whom I disagreed at the Women’s March, but I didn’t walk away. Instead, I made my perspective heard and people could choose to join me or not. I hope they join us, we have a world to win.
Stacey Sexton
Chicopee