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We Have a Chance for a United Front

July 14, 2026
strategy, elections, history, civil rights, politics, chauvinism, democracy
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Three alternatives are possible when we wake up on November 4, the day after the election:

  • No substantial transfer of power
  • Trumpsters substantially win
  • Anti-Trumpsters substantially win

In the first scenario, we go on with the day-by-day fight to keep from sliding completely into autocracy. In the second, we’ll do the same thing, but with a tremendous handicap. In the third scenario, we can expect the electoral fight to spill over into the streets.

In other words, the Trumpsters will do everything they can to overturn elections — even to the point of overturning the system itself. As they did in 2020, they will use everything at hand — but this time they will have at hand a lot more than a bunch of lawyers and a gang of violent loonies.

In Any Scenario, We Have to Unify

We have less than four months to pull the anti-autocracy forces together. It is not just a good way to win, it is the only way.

Against our unity effort is the mighty obstacle of sectarianism. While opposing the Trumpsters is common to many organizations and ideologies, each of them exists within its silo of isolation. Hardly any of us is open to working with everybody.

The Democrats, or course, have the simplest solution: vote Democrat. But they may be the most sectarian of all. For example, look at the way they gang up against their more progressive (and amazingly successful) candidates for office!

Today’s (7/14/26) Dallas Morning News has a strong lead editorial warning against “extremists” from the Democratic Socialist camp. I wrote them a letter asking if they were comfortable in the “middle of the road” along with yellow stripes and dead armadillos. I’ve seen dozens of articles imploring the Democrats to denounce their progressives because, they say, the American people are so reactionary that denouncing progressives is the only way for Democrats to win.

Cut off your nose to spite your face!

Who’s a Sectarian?

Almost everybody in almost every organization. We were fragmented deliberately by those who rule us, whether Democrat or Republican. We remain fragmented and have never in our history overcome sectarianism completely.

Now, we must. We can because we have to. It’s the only way to win.

How Do We Overcome Our Sectarianism?

Patiently explain.

We find ways to put aside our differences for the common goal of not becoming an authoritarian state in 2026. Texans, especially Dallasites, have a tremendous opportunity for unity because the Trumpsters are planning a gigantic fund raising extravaganza at the American Airlines Center September 9-10.

As usual, of course, every organization in town is working on separate events, but I may have thought of a way to get everybody out of our silos and working together. It has to do with the President (I’m the VP) of the North Texas Area Labor Federation, Tevita Uhatafe.

Unions may not be perfectly aligned, even with one another, but they have a better understanding of winning through solidarity than anybody. Tevita, whose nickname is “Brother Solidarity,” is the most powerful, and the least sectarian, labor leader around.

Tevita has agreed to work with me on an all-encompassing, totally non-sectarian and open, approach to opposing the Trumpsters on September 9-10.

How?

We’re going to do it on-line.

With a lot of technical help from Travis Cantwell, who joined me to put on a successful “Labor Day Breakfast” during the pandemic, we’re planning to stream anti-autocracy speakers and Q&A sessions all the way through the Trumpster extravaganza. They are charging $5,000-$20,000 for a ticket. We’re charging nothing. Talk about democracy!

We will also post every speech on YouTube so people can watch them later.

Newspersons will be the first people invited. Next, we’ll invite spokespersons from every anti-Trumpster organization that has a following.

Who?

Why not get the most outstanding anti-Trumpster speakers? Since it’s on-line and free, we should be able to get Zohran Mamdani, Mayor of New York. We should be able to get dynamic labor leaders like Randi Weingarten of the AFT or Shawn Fain of the UAW.

We should be able to get the most critical candidates, but we shouldn’t stop at electoral politics. Let’s also invite the Palestinians, the peace movement, the communists, the retirees, the feminists, the gays, the church leaders — any single spokesperson for any single organization with a following against the Trumpsters.

That’s the way to unity! That’s the way to win!

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON.org radio 89.3FM at 9AM every Saturday. I post all over the internet. My personal web site is https://lilleskole.us.

Fear: Autocracy’s Tool

June 7, 2026
chauvinism, civil rights, democracy, history, politics, strategy
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The Nazis did not control Germany because they coerced every resident. They did it with fear. The Trumpsters today do not have the capacity to coerce the American population. They are hoping to do it with fear.

The gigantic turnouts at national demonstrations proves that fear isn’t working for the Trumpsters. Nevertheless, they will keep trying because it’s all they have.

Progressives must stand up to the fear campaign. Our defense is the American people. The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in fair play for all, including protesters and activists.

The Ku Klux Klan did not stop African Americans from voting in the South by coercing them individually. They did it with fear. The courageous leaders of 1954 were successful in overcoming the Klan because they were able to reach the American majority. The key, for them, was television. It worked.

Television continues to work for those seeking justice, but the internet is a close second. The more our ideas and activities are presented to the American people, whether through mainstream media or through the internet, the safer we are. In other words, the more effective we are in outreach the safer we are.

An unfortunate incident in Alvarado, Texas, last year derailed the thinking of some activists. When the Trumpsters took advantage of the errors of some well-meaning activists, some learned the wrong lessons. I have personally heard otherwise-rational North Texans say that we should start going underground or stockpile weapons. I can almost hear the Trumpsters laughing, because they think their fear campaign is succeeding.

Another terrible example is the one-or-two deluded people who dress up in military-looking outfits and carry weapons to demonstrations. I plead with them to get rid of their weapons or leave, but they don’t. They are risking everyone around them. They are either seriously deluded egotists or they are outright provocateurs working directly for the Trumpster cause! They should be treated as provocateurs because, effectively, that is what they are.

There is no doubt that the Trumpsters will threaten some individuals because that is how they spread fear. In those cases, the best defense is not a weapon. The best defense is one’s phone. If I were threatened, I’d rather have a cell phone with Facebook Live than a dozen machine guns!

–Genelantz19@gmail.com

Fear: Autocracy’s Tool

June 4, 2026
chauvinism, civil rights, democracy, history, politics, strategy
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Fear: Autocracy’s Tool

The Nazis did not control Germany because they coerced every resident. They did it with fear. The Trumpsters today do not have the capacity to coerce the American population. They are hoping to do it with fear.

The gigantic turnouts at national demonstrations proves that fear isn’t working for the Trumpsters. Nevertheless, they will keep trying because it’s all they have.

Communists and other progressives must stand up to the fear campaign. Our defense is the American people. The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in fair play for all, including protesters and activists.

The Ku Klux Klan did not stop African Americans from voting in the South by coercing them individually. They did it with fear. The courageous leaders of 1954 were successful in overcoming the Klan because they were able to reach the American majority. The key, for them, was television. It worked.

Television continues to work for those seeking justice, but the internet is a close second. The more our ideas and activities are presented to the American people, whether through mainstream media or through the internet, the safer we are. In other words, the more effective we are in outreach the safer we are.

An unfortunate incident in Alvarado last year derailed the thinking of some activists. When the Trumpsters took advantage of the errors of some well-meaning activists, some learned the wrong lessons. I have personally heard otherwise-rational North Texans say that we should start going underground or stockpile weapons. I can almost hear the Trumpsters laughing because they think their fear campaign is succeeding.

Another terrible example is the one-or-two deluded people who dress up in military-looking outfits and carry weapons to North Texas demonstrations. I plead with them to get rid of their weapons or leave, but they don’t. They are risking everyone around them. They are either seriously deluded egotists or they are outright provocateurs working directly for the Trumpster cause! They should be treated as provocateurs because, effectively, that is what they are.

There is no doubt that the Trumpsters will threaten some individuals because that is how they spread fear. In those cases, the best defense is not a weapon. The best defense is one’s phone. If I were threatened, I’d rather have a cell phone with Facebook Live than a dozen machine guns!

Road to Contentment

March 10, 2026
art, chauvinism, democracy
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I want to tell you why you are discontent. I want to tell you how to overcome your discontent every day.

The reason for your unhappiness is that you aren’t being yourself. If you were being yourself as you were created by millions of years of evolution, you would settle into a life of caring for others.

As evolution shaped us, we are herd animals. We care for one another the way a herd animal protects its members. When they are aware of an attack, for example, bison form a circle with the calves and weaker members at the center. It is natural for them, and it is natural for us to take care of one another.

Left to themselves, children are the same way. They strive for fairness among themselves. I know this because I had a private school where children were largely left to their natural inclinations rather than being pitted against one another for grades and encouragement as they are in other schools.

But the children in most schools and the adults in capitalist society are pitted against one another. The only way for anybody to advance under capitalism is to climb over others. Alienation is forced on us, and alienation is the source of our discontent.

We know about this alienation. We usually experience it as guilt. Every day in every city, we walk by or drive by the suffering victims at the bottom of our capitalist fight among ourselves. Sometimes we give them a dime or a dollar, but it doesn’t seem enough.

What About Your Exes?

Alienation makes us desperate, and that is why we cling to the one person that capitalist society allows us to have – our spouse or significant other. It’s also the reason that so many of our relationships fail. We cling too hard, or maybe the other person clings too hard.

We cling desperately to that one person because we are alienated from virtually everybody else, and we doom the relationship because no one person can fill our void of alienation.

Some people try to fill the void with their children. These are the stage mothers and helicopter parents who, again, are often undone in their ambitions because they tried too desperately.

We Need to Do More

Recognizing your true need to care for other humans is the way to overcome your alienation and your discontent. We aren’t bisons, of course, so we are called upon to do considerably more than form circles around our calves.

Knee-jerk charity is also insufficient. Should you stop every time you see a homeless person and try to meet their true needs? Should you buy them new clothes, find them a job, or rent an apartment for them? How many could you help? Should you aspire to religious poverty and try to become the next Buddha? A few people try that, but more of them try it for only a while.

Strive to Care Effectively

We are herd animals like bison, but we are also thinking animals. If we seriously and honestly want to stop human suffering, then we have to think about the reasons for it. After that, we have to apply ourselves to resolving those reasons. That is the road to contentment and the way to stop being simply a victim of alienation.

It may be simple, but it’s not easy.  It doesn’t take a lot of thought to realize that the people at the bottom of this alienated heap have counterparts at the top. Elon Musk, for example, has more wealth than 53% of American households! They are the ones benefiting from this awful system and the ones who will fight you to continue it.

Follow the Good Examples

Look among your friends and acquaintances for those who are older and have maintained their sense of humanity. I don’t mean the churlish and cruel older people who make up stereotypes of discontent. I mean the older people who are still smiling at life.

You will find them among the activist population. The happiest old people I ever met were those who were still in the struggle. I never met an unhappy old communist.

It’s a Fight, but It’s Worth It

You can’t be content while you’re being oppressed.

It was really hard for me to accept a life of struggle. I think I tried everything that looked easier before I gave in to the obvious.

During the “Pop Psychology” days of the 1960s and 1970s, the key word for everybody was “adjust.” “I’ve adjusted” generally meant the same thing as “I’m happy” or “I’m content.” A “well-adjusted” person was someone who had it made. If someone (me) wasn’t happy, he/she wasn’t fully “in sync with his/herself” and needed to “adjust.” There were all kinds of elaborate ways to help people get adjusted, and most of them involved long expensive therapy sessions. Some involved massage, some involved heavy sedation, some involved electric shock, some involved brain surgery.

I never met a therapist who didn’t subscribe to this “adjustment” business. To that extent, they are agents of the status quo. Maybe all of them aren’t, but then I’ve not met them all.

Why Adjust?

But why should we adjust to an unfair world? Why should we adjust when we ourselves are being oppressed, and we can see a lot more oppression on other people? Why should we adjust when we could make things better?

There is precious little peace for anyone in our society. “Getting and spending, we lay waste our lives,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Actually, most of the world’s population doesn’t have enough for the bare necessities and spend their days searching for subsistence. Half the world’s children don’t have enough to eat. People are currently being incinerated by bombs paid for by American taxes.

Most of the people who do have enough can’t stop driving to accumulate more. Their children often become degenerate spendthrifts. Are any of them content?

The Only Possible Peace Comes from Fighting

Countless religions and motivational speakers promise that you can adjust to the present society and find contentment, but you can’t. The only contentment within a contentious society comes from striving to improve it. Figuring out how to do that doesn’t take a lot of brain power. It might take a little courage.

–Gene Lantz

Poor Us!

December 27, 2023
art, chauvinism, women
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Movie Review: “Poor Things,” Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, 141 minutes

My movie buddy had to drag me away from the lobby outside the entrance to “Poor Things.” I wanted to stay and warn everybody to stay away. It’s over 2 hours of pretentious nonsense about a baby girl growing within a woman’s body. It’s a misogynist fantasy wasting $35 million worth of the latest technology, technique, and style.

There! Now I know you won’t be able to resist going. I saw a couple of outright rave reviews before I started mine. I found a major reviewer who calls “Poor Things” “best movie of the year.” https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/poor-things-movie-review-2023. Another joins in praising its technical accomplishments, both in film and in storytelling: https://www.vox.com/culture/23992608/poor-things-review. Reviewers, apparently, loved it.

The movie really does have a lot going for it. Everything about it is quirky and over-the-top. Mark Ruffalo, as a Casanova cad, is hilarious, especially in the scene where the child/woman enthusiastically dances jerkily in the middle of a prim ballroom dance and Ruffalo tries to cover for her with impromptu twirls and dips. I could cut that 4 minute scene out and watch it every now and then, but not anything else.

On the way home, my movie buddy analyzed the title. “Poor Things” doesn’t refer to anybody in the movie. It’s the audience, us.

–genelantz

Texas History, Really!

September 13, 2022
chauvinism, civil rights, democracy, history, politics
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Book Review: Horne, Gerald, “The Counter Revolution of 816: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of U.S. Fascism.” International Publishers, 2022. Available through Amazon Books

University of Houston Professor Gerald Horne has created a book that must be read. I wholeheartedly recommend it, but that doesn’t make it an easy read.

I believe there is a long-awaited tendency toward truth in Texas history. Most of us have only seen the bleached and romanticized version. It makes great romantic heroes of all the “revolutionary” “founders” of the state. Everyone who can read knows it isn’t true. If they were really such wonderful people, why did they prominently feature slavery in their first constitution?

As far as I know, though, the new revisionist histories lead up gradually to the truth and don’t actually denounce any of the Texas “heroes” before their conclusions. Gerald Horne starts there. The “founders” of Texas are ratfink landgrabbers devoted to genocide for natives and enslavement for Africans from page one.

“Father of Texas” Austin wasn’t a saint trying to find homes for poor settlers. A slave owner himself, he worked constantly and consistently to overcome his host country’s ban against slavery. He was the slaveocracy’s front man. The ones who followed were no less committed to slavery and even more bloodthirsty in its pursuit.

As for the Natives, there were only two ideological trends in Texas: the few “liberals” wanted to put them all into bantusland reservations as in apartheid South African; the majority, including President Mirabeau Lamar, wanted to kill every last one of them. Mexican Americans received little more consideration. The Texas Rangers were an equestrian version of Murder, Inc.

From the first white settlers until modern times, Texas history is a story of lynching and genocide. For good measure, Horne throws in some little-known truths about Oklahoma and the states that were created after the greatest land grab — usually known as the Mexican War.

Most white Texans supported secession from Mexico. Many of them coveted even more Mexican land and only reluctantly joined the United States when forced by economic circumstances. Nearly all of them supported seceding from the union over the slavery issue in 1860. Their contributions to the Confederacy exceeded every state except, possibly, Virginia. After General Lee surrendered in 1865, many Texans moved to Mexico where they supported the French imperialist forces under “Emperor” Maximillian because they hoped to re-start the Civil War with France on their side.

The total destruction of previous Texas histories is one reason that “The Counter Revolution of 1836” is hard reading. Texas history as we have known it is deservedly turned inside-out! The other reason comes from Horne’s writing style. A few pages into the 575-page opus, the reader starts hoping that Horne will run out of obscure pejoratives to describe early Texans, but he doesn’t. He rarely employs a sentence that wouldn’t diagram as compound/complex. Because he has assembled so many quotes from so many sources, he hop-scotches from one to the other so quickly that it’s not always easy to remember what point he was making.

The book has a tremendous list of resources. Oddly, I did not find Randolph Campbell’s “An Empire for Slavery” among them. Possibly, Campbell may have been too easy on Texas.

–Gene Lantz

I’m still on KNON.org with “Workers Beat” every Saturday at 9 AM Central Time. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site

Learning From Tioga

January 24, 2022
chauvinism, civil rights, democracy, elections, history, politics
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Tioga is 50 miles north of Dallas. Politically, it may be in another world.

When we made our little road trip, the first thing we noticed were the big campaign signs for Don Huffines hanging on barbed wire fences. He seems to think that Governor Abbott is a liberal. HIs main slogan for getting votes in rural areas, based on an outright lie, seems to be “Stop Giving Our Money to Illegals!”

Our second clue came when we arrived at Tioga and stopped for barbecue. By the way, we liked the food, and apparently lots of other people like it, because the crowd was pretty good for a town with population 803. While we were scarfing it down, though, we noticed that we hadn’t seen a mask anywhere on the trip. Pandemic or not, they just don’t wear them up around Tioga!

Tioga is the birthplace of the great singing cowboy

After the restaurant, we tried to fit in by taking off our masks for our walking tour. We went right down Gene Autry street. We thought there might be some kind of statue, plaque, or other tribute to the great singing cowboy who is, among many other things, who I’m probably named after. The tribute is probably there, because being the birthplace of Gene Autry is Tioga’s only claim to fame, but we couldn’t find it. Right next to the street sign where we paused for a photo, a sign hung from a tree: “Trump: Make America Great!”

By then, we city people had begun to get a little uneasy. A couple of blocks further, we saw our first “Trump 2024” yard sign of this political year. By the time we got to Race Street and saw a certain house, we were downright nervous.

Stars and Bars flies in Tioga

When we saw the confederate flag and the posted threat of violence, we decided that it might be good to get back to the car before anybody noticed my “Bernie” bumper sticker. As soon as we got back to City Hall, where we had parked, we checked the car for possible painted swastikas. Then we got out of Tioga.

Does anybody remember when Adolf and Barack made a joint statement?

On the way home, we wondered if there were any dark-skinned people in Tioga. More importantly, we wondered why people in the rural areas of Texas seem committed to the Republican Party despite all facts and information. We think it might be racism.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show at 9AM Central Time every Saturday. KNON posts my weekly blog “Workers Beat Extra” Wednesdays on http://soundcloud.com. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site.

Nellie Bly: Amazing Woman!

September 20, 2021
chauvinism, history, politics
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Book Review: Kroeger, Brooke, “Nellie Bly, Daredevil. Reporter. Feminist” Times Books, New York, 1994

These are 510 astonishing pages from the life of a person of excess. Whether or not one likes and appreciates everything about Nellie Bly, they would have to agree that she did more and went further than any woman of her time. From around 1890 until her death in 1922, the nation and much of the world followed her from one incredible adventure into another one even more drastic.

Elizabeth Jane “Pink” Cochrane was re-named Nellie Bly when editors were assigning her to find out about scandalous treatment of patients in a mental institution. To investigate, she went crazy and let everybody know about it. While she was undergoing “treatment,” she interviewed and observed patients and staff, then lowered the boom on the entire operation. That was just a beginning.

Before she was through, she had been filthy rich and desperately poor, despised and applauded, deceived and honored. When she began, hardly any women had regular jobs in the news industry. The few women employed at all were assigned gossip columns and society news only. When she passed, one of her eulogists called her simply “the best reporter in America.”

Bly served a time as an industrialist with 1,500 employees in her factory. She invented, and held the patent, for steel barrels. To her credit, she took a utopian attitude toward the treatment of her employees. At another time, she championed the Seamen’s Union. Toward the end of her life, she was especially well known for helping poor widows and orphans.

On the negative side, she supported the aristocracy of Austria all through World War I and afterward. She greatly admired Kaiser Wilhelm. She went out of her way to oppose the Russian Revolution and encouraged President Wilson to help combat “Bolshevists.” Her no-holds-barred approach to business, and everything else, must have made many enemies. In this book, though, any rough edges that Bly may have had could be excused by the anti-woman kind of world she lived in. She would never have succeeded at anything without being tough!

The book is good for explaining the historical setting that Bly had to contend with. It especially clarifies the early days of women’s battle for a place in the world of news. A few other newswomen succeeded during Bly’s life, but no one smashed the glass ceiling as thoroughly as Nellie Bly.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” talk show every Saturday at 9AM. KNON podcasts it and my “Workers Bet Extra” on Soundcloud.com on Wednesdays. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site.

Don’t Scream, Analyze

January 8, 2021
chauvinism, civil rights, democracy, economy, history, politics, strategy
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The rich rulers of America have not chosen fascism at this time. That’s the only reason we don’t have it yet.

Today’s endless stream of denunciations of the January 6th fascist riots in Washington are excellent as far as they go. All of them blame Donald Trump. Some of them call for his removal. Some call for the removal of Senator Cruz and the other Republicans within Congress who provided the “legitimate” cover for the rioters and looters. One of those Republicans made videos of himself breaking into the Capitol with the rioters!

But every outraged denunciation I have read so far misses the point. The January 6th fascist uprising is just one of many such outrageous political acts around the world. There is a universal fascist movement, and it is gaining power.

Like any political development, there are reasons for the burgeoning fascism. Those who lay the blame on individual demagogues, even truly disgusting opportunists like Donald Trump, haven’t made a proper analysis. Without a proper analysis, a practical remedy is impossible.

The root of the crisis is unbounded inequality. The prevailing economic system is making the rich obscenely richer and the poor even poorer. Logic infers that the remedy is a different system, but there has been inadequate leadership in that direction. Instead, the world’s discontented are being channeled toward racism and supernationalism.

Instead of understanding that the system we live in can only make inequality worse and does not have the capacity to do otherwise, we are told to blame peoples of other nations, ethnicities or skin coloring.

Racists rioted and attacked their capitol in Germany last August. They rioted and attacked their capitol in Washington in January.

As we live in the U.S., we must primarily concern ourselves with the fascists here at home. They are not so hard to understand, because their political tendency has always existed and was made most clear during the American Civil War. They lost that war but won the peace and continued to dominate people of color.

Their political home was the Democratic Party until the civil rights movement became victorious (1965). After that, the Dixiecrats re-aligned with the Republican Party. Ronald Reagan announced his run for the presidency in a notorious racist town, Philadelphia, Mississippi. Powerful Senator Phil Graham of Texas quickly changed from Democrat to Republican, as did many other reactionaries.

But the Republican alliance of rulers and racists was always unstable. It only needed the pinch of a worsening crisis and an unstable demagogue like Donald Trump to split the coalition with violence. The racists ransacked the Capitol, the rulers piously tried to pull their skirts up out of the muck they had created. In the immediate future, they will likely emphasize their other political party.

That is what happened on January 6th, and it is far from over.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s ‘Workers Beat’ program at 9AM Central Time every Saturday. We also podcast “Workers Beat Extra” on Soundcloud.com. If you are curious about what I really think, take a look at my personal web site