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Study Reconstruction to Understand the South

November 15, 2016
chauvinism, civil rights, elections, history, strategy
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Reconstruction Was a Horror in Texas!

It’s amazing how one can see the roots of today’s problems in this important period of U.S. history. I’m writing this on Nov 14, 2016; the same day that Ed Sills of the Texas AFL-CIO wrote that two Texas Legislators have decided that “states rights” still supersedes national law. They have filed two companion bills, SB 89 and SJR 7, by Sen. Bob Hall, R-Canton, that would provide for nullification of federal laws that Texas deems to violate the Constitution. HB 74 by Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Van, is in a similar vein. By their thinking, the Emancipation Proclamation never took effect in Texas because the Texas Legislature didn’t want it!

 

Lynching

When I first began to study and ask questions about Texas during the Reconstruction Period, I received the impression that all went rather smoothly. Texans accepted the federal troops, freed the slaves, and continued with their business, I was told.

What an incredible lie!

The following book has some of the facts:

Richter, William L., Overreached on All Sides. The Freedman’s Bureau Administration in Texas 1865-1868. Texas A&M Univ Press, College station, 1991. For forty months, the Freedman’s Bureau attempted to enforce the ideals of political liberty, and, to a lesser extent, economic liberty for African Americans in Texas. This book details their failure to stop lynchings, continued slavery, torture, rape, robbery, and illegal exploitation. The victorious North lacked both the material resources and the commitment to carry out these ideals.

Texans resisted mightily. For those seeking to document the racist atrocities perpetrated by white Texans during Reconstruction rather than believe the glossed-over histories we are usually offered, there are plenty of descriptions here. In fact, there is more blood than ink on these pages. Blacks and their grossly outnumbered white supporters were vilified, terrified, driven out, and murdered throughout the book while the tiny force of reconstructionists hurried from one part of the state to another seeking justice.

Northeast Texas was particularly bad.

But the book also contains many stories of men who made a great effort to bring justice to Texas. Their failure does not diminish their commitment nor valor.

A Definitive Text on Reconstruction

Book Review
Foner, Eric, “Reconstruction, America’s Unfinished Revolution: 1863-1877” History Book Club by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1988

What most of us were told about reconstruction is that it was a failure and the fault was on the former slaves, who “just weren’t sophisticated enough to make their own way and handle all the gifts they were given.” It’s an ugly view.

This author, on the other hand, talks about the real problems. He especially points to the role that the freedmen played in trying to win their own equality. In spite of criminal acts against them, including numerous mass murders, they managed to accomplish some things, and they laid the groundwork for the future civil rights gains.

Even though the author joins the chorus in branding American Reconstruction a failure, he points out that we did better than any other country that had emancipated its slaves, in that we granted them citizenship fairly soon. Also, he puts the main blame for failure on the economic crisis of the 1870s.

Even though the author doesn’t point it out, one can see how the Republican party evolved from one advocating “free labor” capitalism to one favoring big corporations and caring very little for anybody’s rights – all in a short space of time during the industrialization that followed the Civil War.

I was a little disappointed that there was so little about Texas, and nothing about Dallas. I had read elsewhere that the appointed head of the Freedman’s Bureau in Dallas never made it to the city, but was murdered somewhere in East Texas while en route! About Reconstruction in Dallas, almost nothing is known. See Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Dallas_(1856%E2%80%9373)

Here are some of the sentences from the book:

Pg 17: Texas “The (Republican) party’s Southern governors would include Edmund J Davis, who during the war raised the First Texas Cavalry for the Union Army…”

63 Texas “Jean-Charles Houzeau, one of the most remarkable men to take part in the saga of Reconstruction…”  revolutionary. Journalist and astronomer who emigrated to Texas in 1858, sided with Unionists there early in the Civil War, and in 1865 arrived in Louisiana. Edited New Orleans Tribune.

97 education “Northern benevolent societies, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and, after 1868, state governments provided most of the funding for black education during Reconstruction. But the initiative often lay with blacks themselves…”

119 murder “In Texas, where the army and Freedmen’s Bureau proved entirely unable to establish order, blacks, according to a Bureau official, ‘are frequently beaten unmercifully, and shot down like wild beasts, without any provocation.’”

121 Texas “One black who refused to be bound and whipped, asserting that ‘he was a freeman and he would not be tied like a slave,’ was shot dead by his employer, a prominent Texas lawyer.”….

181 Johnson “Throughout his Presidency, Johnson held the view – not uncommon among Southern yeomen – that slaves had in some way joined forces with their owners to oppress nonslaveholding whites.”

195 Texans for Suffrage: “A handful of delegates, such as Texas Unionist Edward Degener, called for extending the suffrage to literate blacks, but in general the idea was scarcely contemplated.”

204 TX murder an inalienable right: “Texas courts indicted some 500 white men for the murder of blacks in 1865 and 1866, but not one was convicted. ‘No white man in that state has been punished for murder since it revolted from Mexico,’ commented a Northern visitor. ‘Murder is considered one of their inalienable state rights.’” The footnote is John A Carpenter, “Atrocities in the Reconstruction Period,” JNH, 47( Oct 1962)

205: “The convict lease system, moreover, which had originated on a small scale before the war, was expanded so as to provide employers with a supply of cheap labor. In Texas in 1867, blacks constituted about one third of the convicts confined to the state penitentiary, but nearly 90 percent of those leased out for railroad labor.”

218 Johnson/Jackson: “…Johnson’s hero, Andrew Jackson.” The same page says Johnson was a drunk.

235 40 acres: “In a speech to Pennsylvania’s Republican convention in September 1865, Stevens called for the seizure of the 400 million acres belonging to the wealthiest 10 percent of Southerners. Forty acres would be granted to each adult freedman and the remainder – some 90 percent of the total – sold ‘to the highest bidder’…” The book has several references to the idea of selling or giving land to freedmen. General Sherman did it on his march to Atlanta. Lincoln allowed it on the Carolina Islands and in a large area at a river junction. Johnson, however, had the soldiers remove all African Americans from their land.

243 Natives: On the Civil Rights Bill around 1866. “This defined all persons born in the United States (except Indians) as national citizens…”

279 Citizenship: “Alone among the nations that abolished slavery in the nineteenth century, the United States, within a few years of emancipation, clothed its former slaves with citizenship rights equal to those of whites.” I conclude from this that Reconstruction may have been a “failure,” but it was less of a failure than all the other countries that stopped slavery!

281 Strike 1867: “Strikes broke out among black longshoremen in Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, Richmond and New Orleans, and quickly spread to other workers, including Richmond coopers and Selma restaurant waiters.”

282 Waco: “Throughout the South, planters complained of blacks neglecting their labor. Once a week during the summer of 1868, ‘the negros from the entire county’ quit work and flocked to Waco, Texas, for political rallies.”

285 Tx back wages: “…some Texas leagues demanded back wages for blacks held in slavery after the Emancipation Proclamation.” //I think they mean “union leagues.”

297 Parsons: “…the party did gain the support of Gen. James Longstreet, whose example inspired some Confederate veterans to follow in his footsteps. One was Alabama-born Albert R Parsons, a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims, who in 1867 established a Waco newspaper advocating black rights, and stumped central Texas for the Republicans.” //the footnote is Hamilton and William, eds., “Graham Papers” 7:533//

299 TX Germans: //Germans are mentioned here and there as scalawags — Southerners opposing the Confederacy.// “The Germans of Southwestern Texas comprised the largest bloc of immigrant Southern Republicans, helping to send to Congress Edward Degener, a San Antonio grocer who had taken part in the revolution of 1848, been imprisoned by Confederate authorities, and seen his two sons executed for treason.” //I googled him and found Wikipedia summary that said he settled in Sisterdale in 1850 and that his two sons were killed in the Nueces massacre. He joined in purchasing the land for the “true der union” monument in Comfort!//

342 KKK shut down, 1868 elections: //There’s a long list of mass murders and other atrocities.// “Unable to hold meetings and fearful that attempts to bring out their vote would only result in further massacres, Georgia and Louisiana Republicans abandoned the Presidential campaign.” (1868 I think)

//some nice photos in the middle of the book//

399 TX planters’ decline: “Planters constituted a large majority of the wealthiest Texans in 1860, but only 17 percent ten years later.”

437 Colfax massacre of 280 people: Apparently armed blacks tried to resist in Louisiana around 1873. “They attempted [armed self-defense] in Colfax. The result was that on Easter Sunday of 1873, when the sun went down that night, it went down on the corpses of two hundred and eighty negroes.”

Pg 440 Davis Suppressed Klan in TX: “By early 1869, order had been restored and the Klan destroyed. Davis proved equally decisive, organizing a crack two-hundred-member State Police, 40 percent of whose members were black. Between 1870 and 1872, the police made over 6,000 arrests, effectively suppressing the Klan and providing freedmen with a real measure of protection in a state notorious for widespread violence.”

480 Sylvis a racist? “William Sylvis, president of the Iron Moulder’s Union, toured the South early in 1869 recruiting members of both races, but simultaneously called the Freedmen’s Bureau, a ‘huge swindle upon the honest workingmen of the country’ and blamed carpetbaggers for the South’s woes.”

528 the Depression of 8173 – largely ended reconstruction: “Buffeted by the shifting tides of public opinion, p[reoccupied first with the economic depression and later with yet another wave of political scandals, the second Grant Administration found it impossible to devise a coherent policy toward the South…. Grant in his second term presided over a broad retreat from the policies of Reconstruction.” //there’s some point here where he refuses to use troops in Louisiana, and that’s the dividing line ending the Reconstruction era.//

531 Supreme Court racism: Slaughterhouse case of 1873. Supreme Court more or less re-affirmed states’ rights. “In the name of federalism, the decision rendered national prosecution of crimes committed against blacks virtually impossible, and gave a green light to acts of terror where local officials either could not or would not enforce the law.”

548 Grange excluded Blacks: Grange …”’really a political society’ which excluded blacks from membership and took an active part in mid-decade Redemption campaigns.”

549 Texas taken by Democrats in 1873: “Texas Democrat Richard Coke defeated Gov. Edmund J Davis in 1873 by a margin of better than two to one.” Texas had a massive influx of white immigrants that changed the demographics.

550 Assassinations! “The situation worsened in 1874 with the formation of the White League, openly dedicated to the violent restoration of white supremacy. It targeted local Republican officeholders for assassination, disrupted court sessions, and drove black laborers from their homes.”

556 Dawes’ early career: “”…the Massachusetts legislature elected Henry L Dawes to fill Sumner’s seat…” //Dawes comes up in my history again as author of legislation ending tribal ownership in Oklahoma — thus opening up all Native lands to exploitation//

556: “Civil Rights Act” “Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1883…”

557 communists in 1875: Some guy in Ohio advocated Greenbackism and was accused as a “proponent of ‘communist revolution.’”

586 1877 strike and federal intervention: Author makes the point that federal govt had decided they didn’t need to intervene in local affairs and thus ended protection of blacks, but they had no qualms about intervening against workers during the general strike of 1877! “Thus, the upheaval marked a fundamental shift in the nation’s political agenda.”

587 Civil rts act of 1875 declared unconstitutional in 1883

603 Summary of failure. “Nonetheless, whether measured by the dreams inspired by emancipation or the more limited goals of securing blacks’ rights as citizens and free laborers, and establishing an enduring Republican presence in the South, Reconstruction can only be judged a failure.” He blames the depression of the 1870s. “None of these factors, however, would have proved decisive without the campaign of violence that turned the electoral tide in many parts of the South, and the weakening of Northern Resolve, itself a consequence of social and political changes that undermined the free labor and egalitarian precepts at the heart of Reconstruction policy.”

Pg 603: “Perhaps the remarkable thing about Reconstruction was not that it failed, but that it was attempted at all and survived as long as it did.”

609 Rewriting history: ‘This rewriting of Reconstruction’s istory was accorded scholarly legitimacy – to its everlasting shame – by the nation’s fraternity of professional historians.”

Pg 609: “The views of the Dunning School shaped historical writing for generations, and achieved wide popularity through DW Griffiths film, Birth of a Nation (which glorified the Ku KLUX Klan and had its premier at the White House during Woodrow Wilson’s Presidency)…”

Pg 612: accomplishments: family, church, and school. “Yet the institutions created or consolidated after the Civil war – the black family, school, and church – provided the base from which the modern civil rights revolution sprang. And for its legal strategy, the movement returned to the laws and amendments of Reconstruction. ‘The river has its bend, and the longest road must terminate’ Rev Peter Randolph a former slave, wrote these words as he dark night of injustice settled over the South. Nearly a century elapsed before the national again attempted to come to terms with the implications of emancipation, and the political and social agenda of Reconstruction. In many ways, it has yet to do so.” //end of book//

–Gene Lantz

This is just a tiny part of my on line labor history collection

Slavery — A Story Worth Sharing

October 9, 2016
art, civil rights, history
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Movie review: “Birth of a Nation,” Directed by Nate Parker, Written by Nate Parker, Starring Nate Parker. 2 hours

natturner

Everybody in America needs to know about slavery. If right were right, we’d probably be required to attend a showing of Nate Parker’s new movie. Unfortunately, that may be the only way it would get a wide viewing. We don’t necessarily WANT to know what we NEED to know.

Nat Turner was a preacher who led an important slave rebellion in 1831. It led to a panic in the Old South. When white people panic, black people die. The title “Birth of a Nation” is famous in America because a silent movie long ago laid the emotional foundation for a re-birth of the Ku Klux Klan. If a person knew why Parker chose this title, one might also understand why audiences may not like his movie.

I don’t think anybody will complain about the technical aspects. Audiences feel right there with the slaves when they are shot, raped, tortured, humiliated and confined. They won’t complain that the actor wrote and directed himself, because the movie doesn’t fall victim to the self-indulgence of so many artists. But I don’t think people are going to come out of the theater feeling uplifted or enlightened the way they do when they come out of a really great art experience.

I think people will feel that they’ve been through an ordeal. It might be good for us, but so is going to the dentist. I’m not sure why the movie doesn’t make the connection it needs to make. The Pulitzer winning book by William Styron did. It’s possibly because it seems that the filmmaker took the Hollywood route of made-up romances, personal entanglements, and emotions that aren’t likely part of the record.  Maybe viewers couldn’t connect because they felt manipulated?

There were only 6 of us in the theater when we saw a matinee performance. I saw 4 go in for the next showing. I hope it does a lot better than that.

–Gene Lantz

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Suing Saudi Arabia and Snowden

September 28, 2016
civil rights, politics, strategy, unions
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Two big questions are in the news: Should mega-whistleblower Edward Snowden be pardoned? Should 9/11 victims be allowed to sue Saudi Arabia?

snowden

Both questions have to do with the nature of the state. By “state” I mean what most people call “nation” or “government,” not the kind of state we say when we talk about the sorry state we’re in.

Do You Love Snowden?

The new Oliver Stone movie “Snowden” makes a strong case for national hero status. In it, the central actor talks to journalists and directly into a TV camera. The earlier movie, “Citizen Four” was a documentary consisting almost entirely of those recordings that Snowden actually made with the journalists while all of them hid in his Hong Kong hotel room. Of the two films, the documentary is the better movie and makes the stronger case for hero status because Snowden explains, in his own words, why he did it.

It was for love and respect. He says he loves and respects himself and thus has the same regard for all others. We are, in plain truth, all pretty much alike. If we care about anybody, we have no excuse for not caring for everybody. Snowden realizes that. He explains it well to the camera. When he did, I was in love!

It’s Harder to Love the Saudis

A bill to allow 9/11 victims to sue any country that they think was involved in the attack on the Twin Towers in New York sailed through both houses of Congress. Then President Obama vetoed it. Then the congresspersons, whose collective wisdom has earned them the lowest regard of any Congress in American history, decided to override the veto. They did it, too, just today! (Click here).

Their argument was that the victims should get more compensation. The President’s argument was that they’re opening a can of worms that will end up with the United States being sued all the time by foreigners. The real question is whether or not individuals in a given state should be allowed to conduct negotiations with other states.

In Snowden’s case, the real question is whether or not an individual can reveal state secrets.

Unions Prohibit Individual Negotiations

If one were a union member, he/she would be discouraged from negotiating with any entity outside the union — especially not with management. Union members are also expected to keep silent about union business. If one were helping negotiate a contract, for example, one would be sworn to secrecy until negotiations had concluded and formal announcements were made. There’s really no other way to run a union!

So, if the analogy between a union and the United States holds up, citizens shouldn’t be suing Saudi Arabia and Brother Snowden should have kept his mouth shut.

It Depends on the State

Socialists believe that states will eventually wither away because they won’t be necessary once class divisions are finally behind us. So far, that has never happened, but it’s still the general idea. Socialists may be all in favor of unions, but not in favor of states.

So, if you love your state the way I love my union, Congress and Snowden are both wrong. But if you don’t think so much of this government, the opposite opinions prevail.

Let ’em sue anybody they want to! Let’s join the movement to pardon Edward Snowden! I wouldn’t call him a “national” hero, but definitely a world hero!

–Gene Lantz

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Where Labor Went Wrong

August 19, 2016
civil rights, economy, history, politics, strategy, unions
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Everybody should read “Runaway Inequality” by Les Leopold. Don’t wait for somebody from the Communications Workers of America to invite you to one of their classes on it.

runawayinequalitybook

Some of the best stuff is in the beginning. The forward is by Chris Shelton, President of the CWA. The middle parts of the book are mostly statistics about how inequality rose after America selected a new business friendly government policy in 1980. The other really great stuff is near the end

I particularly like Chapter 22: “When unions decline, inequality soars and we all lose.” On page 288 Leopold says, “Wealth inequality and unionization levels are intertwined.” You probably knew that but it’s good to see it in print.

What happened?

Then he goes into the reasons for the great union decline from its heady power of 1946, when Americans won strikes more than ever before or since. Leopold apparently doesn’t have the nerve to say it outright, but he lists, in a dispassionate way, several “theories” about how union leadership could have done better. I’ll shorten them and make them more blunt:

  • The decline started in 1947 when unions cooperated with the anti-communist witch hunt and expelled some of their best leaders.
  • Unions shouldn’t have worked closely with the CIA
  • The merger of the AFL and the CIO didn’t work out for the members
  • Unions shouldn’t have supported the War in Vietnam
  • Unions became bureaucratic and undemocratic
  • All unions haven’t learned community organizing techniques
  • Unions aren’t linking up with unions in other countries

Even though Leopold didn’t really commit to it, I thought it was a pretty good list. It probably should have included something about how unions largely ignored and still ignore the civil rights movement, but it’s still a pretty good list.

Right after the list, the author gives the underlying reason for all the problems: “Unions and the rest of us are on the losing side of a gigantic class war — a war that we have to recognize, discuss and address if unions are to grow again.”

In other words, we can list the things union leaders did wrong all we want, but the underlying reason for the decline was aggressive anti-worker policies of the boss class. Even if we’d had the best leadership in the world 1947-1995, it would have been very very hard to withstand the combination of government/boss aggression and the post war “good time” prosperity that allowed opportunist labor leaders to get pretty good contracts for their members — while slowly sinking into isolation from everybody else.

By 1979, unionized American workers were the envy of the world, even though our numbers were dwindling fast. In 1980, the party was over. I don’t think many union leaders figured it out, and some of them still haven’t. They still expect the bosses to act “reasonably.”

The essence of the problem

What it boils down to is this: From 1947 to 1995, the bosses were able to isolate the organized sector of the American working class from the rest of us. I picked this up from an earlier book by a prof in California named Lipschitz, “Rainbow at Midnight,” and from talking to people who lived through it. The new book, with CWA backing, will force unionists to look at the problem and see what we did wrong. Even if it did nothing else, the book would be worth the $20.

But Les Leopold actually does a lot more in “Runaway Inequality.” He makes serious suggestions as to how we can turn the situation around and return to the kind of militant union progressivism that succeeded for the CIO 1935-1947. The progressive leadership of the AFL-CIO, 1995 to present, can and probably will implement these ideas.

I can’t wait!

–Gene Lantz

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Fidel Outsmarted, Outlived His Enemies

August 15, 2016
civil rights, history, politics, strategy
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Fidel Castro just turned 90. Our lives are all wound up with his.

moraleschavezcastro

Efforts to assassinate the Cuban revolutionary date back to the Kennedy Administration. All the attempts failed and it seems that he will die a peaceable old age, long after his adversaries are forgotten.

And socialist Cuba has survived too, despite all the lies, all the terrorism, all the official oppression, and all the economic pressure that the capitalist world could muster. Despite also all the predictions, including my own, of their demise. The Cubans remain as they have been since 1959, a beacon to the rest of the world.

I can hardly wait to see what happens next!

–Gene Lantz

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Strategies for the Other Side

August 6, 2016
civil rights, economy, elections, environment, politics, strategy
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The whole point of this blog is to help people work out our strategies for a better world. In any battle against any enemy, it’s wise to try to figure out how things look from their point of view.

me-realjobsrealwages

Suppose you were a wealthy capitalist intent on hanging on to your vast wealth and adding to it.What problems would you see and how would you over come them?

Here are some problems for big capital:

  • Other nations are under-selling our products and pushing us out of markets
  • Some of the under-developed countries are slipping out from under our domination
  • Environmentalists are gaining the initiative in proposals that might cost us money
  • Another financial crisis would really undermine people’s confidence in us
  • More and more, people seem eager to organize, and they are finding new ways to do it
  • There’s a growing level of activism among the people
  • The internet has improve communications among individual people & groups
  • There is a trend toward growing international solidarity
  • A number of our secret methods are being exposed to the people
  • There’s a real danger that our political system could be reformed

Whatever shall we rich people do?

Our biggest problem, new since the 1970s, is that other industrial nations are competing with us more and more successfully. More of our “free trade” agreements would put us in a better competitive position. Also, they would help us tighten the screws on the underdeveloped world. We can spare no resources to make sure that these bills get through Congress.

Print money

Being able to print money and make sure it stays in our own hands is a big help. The people are starting to catch on, but so far they haven’t figured out anything they can do about it. Most of them still think that some of the wealth is going to trickle down to them, and we have to do everything we can to keep them thinking that way.

Stop the unions

Unionization is not compatible with good business practices. We have to keep up the pressure on all political and legal entities under our control to discredit and ruin American unions before they cause us some real damage!

Tame the internet

We have to extend our grip over the internet. “Net neutrality” has to be overcome with a strong campaign claiming that it’s un-American. Maybe we can get some of our religious spokespersons to come out against it.

Invade, baby, invade!

The only sure thing that works when our underdeveloped markets begin to rebel against us is invasion. We overcame a lot of the domestic opposition to our wars by switching to a professional army with maximum use of substitute soldiers and deadly machinery, but more and more propaganda is needed to convince the people to allow us to continue. We already have troops on extended missions in three countries, but there will likely be need for more in the near future.

Control information

We can continue beating the environmentalists with our control over the information sources. We can continue characterizing them as kooks and malcontents as long as we keep the “high ground” with our purchased army of intellectuals and professional spin doctors. Even at that, it may be necessary before long to take the gloves off and start some serious repression.

Divide and conquer

Our biggest domestic problem is the minorities. They won’t stay sidelined and they won’t remain isolated. Isolating them and discrediting them is our best defense, only we need a lot more of it. Our efforts to undermine democracy have only had modest success, and a backlash is already underway. Unfettered police and military forces may be needed.

–Gene Lantz

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Opportunism: The Judas Error

July 24, 2016
civil rights, economy, elections, politics, strategy
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Watching the Republican convention may have convinced America that never have so many white people gathered for such malevolent purposes. But, every now and then, the TV cameras pick up a dark face and zoom in. A handful of African Americans took the podium, as did a handful of Latinos, women, and a tiny handful of gays. This for a party whose avowed platform reeks of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and hatred. It’s legitimate to ask “Why?”

judasiscariot

Long before the mafia started using the kiss of death, Judas laid it on Jesus

It’s also a good time to expound on the common political phenomenon known as “opportunism.” My glossary of political terms says opportunism is “Sacrificing higher ideals for personal gain. Specifically, someone within the progressive movement who profits by selling out the interests of others.” Judas Iscariot, who turned Jesus in to the Roman authorities for thirty pieces of silver, is a classic example.

In other words, some of those few African American spokespersons for racists are getting paid, as are some of those women and gays. Did you ever wonder if Clarence Thomas is on the Supreme Court because he’s a reactionary, or if he was a reactionary because he is on the Supreme Court?

Closer to home, you can see opportunism every day in your workplace. Almost all of us feel some solidarity with our co-workers, because they’re in the same boat we’re in. Yet, almost all of us would take a promotion into a management job if we got the chance. Once in management, solidarity is gone — even though nobody will admit that. Managers always claim to feel exactly like their employees, but their every action proves otherwise.

When somebody moves from worker to management, he/she is taking advantage of an opportunity. From the point of view of worker solidarity, he/she has also committed an error of opportunism. It’s common. Almost everybody does it or would do it if they had the chance. It’s just the way our economic system works. It turns us against one another.

American politics is filled through and through with opportunists. It’s tempting to say that almost all the politicians in our economic system are opportunists. All of them aren’t. But some of them would sell out their own mothers.

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other. –Will Rodgers

–Gene Lantz

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Ultraleftism — Big Mistake!

July 16, 2016
civil rights, strategy
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Ultraleftism: Although it sounds “more left,” ultraleftism actually means making a fetish of being “more radical” on every question and activity, whether the proposed tactics would have a good result or not. That’s what it means.

Unfortunately, what people think it means is “more left” or even “more progressive.” They’re wrong.

Michael X Johnson made a serious ultraleft error on July 7 when he shot Dallas police officers downtown. He may have thought he was somehow contributing positively to the fight to end police shootings of African Americans. Instead, he set off a storm of support for anything the police might want to do while the civil rights movement was simply swept under the rug.

Several new funds have been set up so that people can give money to the police. Here is what the Dallas newspaper announced just today:

“Groups that announced donations: › RBC Wealth Management-U.S. gave $10,000 to the Assist the Officer Foundation. › American Airlines is helping fly in families affected by the shootings and donating $50,000 to the Assist the Officer Foundation. › Southwest Airlines is offering travel assistance to families and donating $75,000 to the Assist the Officer Foundation. › Through the Texas Bankers Association, member banks are making donations to the Assist the Officer Foundation. PlainsCapital Bank, based in Dallas, made a $25,000 donation. Dallas-based NexBank is also donating funds.

‘The Texas Instruments Foundation board of directors approved two grants to provide immediate assistance to the Dallas police and DART victims and their families, and to support long-term relief and efforts to unify and strengthen our community. These contributions have been pledged to two organizations: ª $25,000 to the Assist the Officer Foundation, which will provide immediate assistance to the injured/slain Dallas police and Dallas Area Rapid Transit officers and their families. ª $100,000 to the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas United Dallas Relief Fund, which has been set up to provide supportive services, including mental health resources for victims and families of both first responders and civilians, and helping long-term through the difficult time ahead.

‘Empire Baking Co. raised $4,200, which was donated to the Assist the Officer Foundation.

‘The Capps family in the Devonshire neighborhood of Dallas raised $600 from a lemonade stand to donate to the Dallas Police Association’s officer assistance fund.

‘Restaurants and breweries across the Dallas area are offering free food and drink to uniformed police officers. Some are donating a portion or all of their proceeds to groups supporting the Dallas and DART police departments.”

Another article goes over some of the things that are expected of the City Council, including getting more police officers and raising their pay. On Facebook, someone is selling T-shirts promoting Mayor Rawlings and Chief Brown for President and Vice President!

Funerals and memorial services are drawing crowds of 5,000 or more. I think the 800 on the night of the shooting was the biggest demonstration we’d seen to stop police killings.

Mothers Against Police Brutality, which started in Dallas well before anybody ever heard of “Black Lives Matter,” had steadily built their support with good, well thought-out tactics. Ultraleftism has given us all a setback.

–Gene Lantz

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Police Shootings, Solutions and Carl Hampton

July 10, 2016
civil rights, history, politics, strategy
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Three days after the Dallas police shootings, the outpouring of “Back the Blue” is even stronger than I predicted.

carlhampton

Before July 26, 1970, Carl Hampton called for strong community organizations

Most of the public statements, even some from African American leaders, don’t even mention the underlying 400-year old problem of racism that underlies everything. Financial support for the police is everywhere. Dozens of restaurants have opened their doors and menus for free meals for the police. Special prayer services in parks and churches have taken place and are taking place today. There will be a big service for the police on the City Hall plaza tomorrow. The increase in tax money for police activities is virtually inevitable.

What About Solutions?

“Come together,” is the cry from the establishment. “We can work out our problems later,” is added by the more thoughtful ones. Everybody wants to treat one of the symptoms, retaliation against police officers, but few are looking at the problem.

On my radio show yesterday, a wide ranges of responses came from callers. One man  agreed with the Texas Lieutenant Governor that the police shootings were the fault of the peaceful protesters. The leaders, he said, should be arrested. Protests should be banned. Thursday night’s protesters should all be rounded up and “sent back to Mexico.” I think he confused some of his issues.

Another man said that Micah X Johnson, the sniper in question, should be treated as a “quasi hero.” Most of the callers said that the problem was societal and that it would not be solved until our society is changed. I thought that was reasonable, but not very concrete.

Can We Ameliorate Racist Violence?

I’ve been puzzling over answers to this ongoing problem since I was involved in exposing the police killing of Milton Glover in Houston in 1975. Glover waved a New Testament at two patrol officers and they shot him over and over again. In their defense, they said that the book looked like a gun. They walked, of course, but not until after we made it an international scandal.

I’ve heard a lot of the “reform” suggestions before. Here is a list of them published in a statement by the Texas Green Party:

 

  • In order to prevent further police brutality, we support the use of full body cameras that cannot be disabled by officers, demilitarization, and gradual across the board disarmament of the police. All video recordings should be stored indefinitely and available to the public online, without charge, except in cases to protect the victim’s identity and dignity.

  • Every law-enforcement department should be required to keep and report data to the public regarding police violence statistics.

  • We advocate a shift in funding from policing and prisons on the local, state, and federal levels to minority communities for job creation and educational opportunities.

  • Along with the Black Lives Matter movement and other movements and organizations, we demand justice for all people murdered by the police.

  • We advocate the dismissal of and criminal investigation into all officials that allowed police brutality to continue without acknowledgement or justice.

  • We advocate the establishment and full funding of independent civilian review boards, with subpoena power, at municipal and county levels, to oversee the investigation and subsequent prosecution of law enforcement officers accused of misconduct or brutality.

  • We strongly urge jurisdictions to provide independent prosecution and to require instructions and incentives for prosecuting agencies to pursue indictments against law enforcement officers in cases of alleged misconduct or brutality, rather than withholding evidence from grand juries, as well as comprehensive reform of the grand jury system to prevent no-bills of officers when evidence is clearly sufficient to proceed to trial.

The civilian review board with subpoena power has been a demand of African American community leaders to my own knowledge since the 1980s. The Black Lives Matter group has been publishing these suggestions since 2013. I kind of doubt that young Micah X Johnson knew about these ideas, and I don’t know if it would have stopped him if he did. If some of them had been implemented, Micah X Johnson might have had a lot more hope.

In my own opinion, though, the reforms are unlikely to be instituted because of the basic class nature of the police

Who Are the Police?

I would challenge the idea that poor people and police are the same. The police work for the government, and the government is ruled by wealthy people. Their interests are not the same as the interests of poor people and workers in general.

The 1970 Black Panthers Had the Answer

At lunch with friends on Saturday, I talked with a woman who was at Thursday’s march. She didn’t think the omnipresent police around the march in uniforms, in plain clothes, in cars, on foot, and on horseback were there to “protect people’s right to march” as is being affirmed in most of the public comments. She thought they were there to intimidate the marchers and to arrest anybody who looked crosseyed. Her solution to the overall problem of hatred between poor people and police and persistent racism was direct: “The Black Panthers were right!”

She didn’t mean that everyone should arm themselves as the Panthers did in the late 1960s. She meant that strong community organizations could eventually police themselves. There would be no need for armed police in the everyday concerns of well organized communities. That’s what the Panthers thought, but they didn’t get much of a chance to try it.

Carl Hampton (click here), Houston leader of “People’s Party II,” was murdered by a police sniper on a church rooftop July 26, 1970. His cousin, Fred Hampton, and other Panther leaders had been murdered as they slept by Chicago police a few months earlier.

The Dallas shootings of July 7, 2016, may have generated a lot of feelings, but it didn’t expose a new problem. This has been around for a long, long time.