Do You Hate Both Candidates?

August 24, 2016

Humorists are having a good time with the 2016 elections because never in our history have we had two candidates with such negative approval ratings.

Remember that terrific episode of “Rosanne” when Dan’s bowling team came in next to last and celebrated by chanting “We’re not the worst! We’re not the worst!”?

Some of my friends tell me that they’ll launch some kind of a protest vote, possibly for one of the growing “other” parties. They think about Trump, they think about Clinton, then they stop thinking.

How does positive change come about?

If you want positive change, then you owe it to yourself to think through how that positive change could come about. If you believe, as I do, that the basic conflict in the world today is between employees and bosses, then strengthening the employees’ side is the road to progress. So how the election is going to affect working people is the key to understanding the election and making the most use of it. The perfections and imperfections in the candidates aren’t what matters. What matters is what’s going to happen.

There are lots of other theories

I’ve known people, actually quite a few, who believe that bad is good. If something really terrible happens in the 2016 elections, then people will “wake up” and stop being so lackadaisical about progressive change. So they’ll pick the worst candidate. They loved it when Reagan was elected. I once heard a speaker call this the “vulture theory” of politics. We’ll wait around until all hope is lost, then we’ll pick up the carrion pieces. It’s not a good theory and there are absolutely no historical precedents to justify it.

I’ve known people who say that elections don’t matter because the capitalists are just going to do whatever they want anyway. So the upcoming Supreme Court appointments, the unfair trade deals, austerity proposals, and immigration reform won’t matter at all to the oppressed people. It’s not a good theory and it’s sad.

There are people who don’t believe in trying to win a majority. They actually believe that some small, dedicated group is going to make positive historical change. It’s utter nonsense and tends to lead them, in their constant frustration, toward violence as a strategy. Besides, even if they could effect change with a handful of conspirators, they couldn’t make it stick. How would they get the great unlearned people to support them?

Then there are the “revolution right now” people. They don’t need theories. They just sit around sanctimoniously and wait for everybody else to become as smart as they are. Then there will be a revolution and then we’ll be happy. Until then, they can take their joy by saying, “I told you so!”

I’m afraid to say it, but it’s possible that many voters don’t care about outcomes at all. They only care about their own feelings!

Working people make positive change

Working people have a big stake in the 2016 elections because we have a big stake in all political struggles. It makes a big difference who wins, both for working people and for prospects for change. Look at that, not the imperfections of the candidates.

–Gene Lantz

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It’s Just Capitalism

August 22, 2016

elections, history, politics, strategy, unions

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For weeks now, I’ve been raving about “Raging Inequality” by Les Leopold. Not so much because it’s a great book, which it is, but because the powerful Communications Workers of America (CWA) union is promoting it, teaching classes, and giving away copies. But I’ve been holding something back.

abevigoda

In essence, the book uses economic data and graphs to show how rotten things have been in America since 1980 in contrast to the period 1945-1980. Then it goes on to suggest how we can return fairness to our nation.

What’s wrong with that?

We’re looking at the wrong end of the graphs. The right side of each graph, the period 1980-2016, isn’t the period that’s out of kilter. It’s 1945-1980, the left side of each graph, that was un-historical. That “American century” of 35 years was downright peculiar in the entire 400-year old history of capitalism. It was the only time in history when the working class of any capitalist country ever held its own against the bosses! All the other periods, including the present one, were just business as usual.

Business as usual means constantly increasing the exploitation of the workers. It’s not anybody’s fault, it’s just the only way that capitalism can work. The only thing that can even slow the process down is resistance from the working class.

The post war period in America began with over 1/3 of all American workers in unions. There were more successful strikes in 1946 than in any year before or since. The unions, especially those led by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), were integrated, practicing solidarity with one another and with the community at large, and even internationalist in their outlook! They were a real force to be reckoned with, and their power took decades to dwindle down to the skeleton that the new progressive AFL-CIO leadership picked up in 1995.

Shouldn’t we be fighting?

Of course we should be fighting every day. That’s why I tout the book so much. It shows where we are now and some of the steps we could make that would take us forward. My objection to it is that we don’t really want to return to 1945-1980, nor can we. We must bear in mind that we are fighting for something entirely new: an end to boss rule.

Until then, every advance that working people make can be taken away, because the bosses are still in power.

Read the book, please!

Let’s do our best to expand this marvelous educational project that the Communications Workers have begun. Let’s read the book and get everyone else to read it.

–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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Union Studying for Real Progress

August 5, 2016

economy, elections, environment, politics, strategy

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The Communications Workers of America is doing what unions almost never do — studying the actual mechanics of American capitalism and figuring out how to fight it! They are distributing and studying a book by Les Leopold of the Labor Institute.

runawayinequalitybook

Leopold, Les: Runaway Inequality. An Activists Guide to Economic Justice, Labor Institute Press, New York, 2015. (click for a review)

The foreword by CWA President Chris Shelton urges all union members to read the book. Shelton is also quite specific in recommending an electoral strategy: “…we need to build our own, independent, anti-corporate, pro-union, political organizations! Wall Street has two parties. We need one of our own.”

He recommends the Working Families Party, (click here) which already exists in 10 states. Could this be the labor party that American progressives have been begging for since forever?

The fact that one of America’s largest, best distributed geographically, and most vibrantly active unions is putting this body of information out is significant. It’s also a timely prescription for the national illness. The negative images of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are moving people away from the traditional two-pronged capitalist political system while the hopes aroused by the Bernie campaign are still not settled on a program and course of action.

It’s the Economy

Most of the book consists of graphs and explanations of the wealth gap and income gap that have become deep chasms since around 1980. Most of us have seen some of this striking data before, but nowhere is it presented so thoroughly and connected so well to an underlying cause. Around 1980, when Reagan was elected, America’s ruling elite adopted an extreme anti-worker and pro-corporate program that included deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, service cuts for the poor, and attacks on unions and democracy in general.

We have all felt parts of this ugly program firsthand, but Leopold’s book connects the parts into a whole, then begins an optimistic discussion on what we can do about it.

Let’s Get Behind It!

One could make an intellectual discussion about the better or worse aspects of Leopold’s book, but doing so would be frittering away an opportunity that the Communications Workers are giving us. Here’s a chance to join in an educational process that can give immediate direction to the progressive movement. We can’t afford to miss it!

–Gene Lantz

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How Could a French Socialist Pass Laws Against Workers?

July 29, 2016

economy, elections, politics, strategy

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People were shocked recently when French President Francois Hollande, head of the Socialist Party, forced legislation through that would make it easier for bosses to lay people off, make them work longer hours, cut their pay and cut into some of their special leaves — such as maternity leave. Click here for BBC version. Protests were very large. I read that 70% of the people were against the new labor rules. But they passed!

How could that be?

The simple answer is that Hollande is a SINO — Socialist in Name Only. But simple name calling doesn’t really provide any answers. Undoubtedly, France is a capitalist nation with a president who calls himself a socialist and leads a party that calls itself socialist. They got elected, but they didn’t overcome the bosses and, probably, never intended to.

As long as the bosses are in power, workers will never win any permanent gains. Everything we can win, even the 35-hour week that they enjoy(ed) in France, can still be taken away.

France is a capitalist nation and subject to the same economic laws that govern all the capitalist nations. All of them function in competition with one another. When the competition gets rough, as it is worldwide right now, the employers turn like vicious cannibals against their own people in order to drive down costs. Most costs are labor costs, so capitalist governments, including ours, are in the process of competing with one another by chopping away our standards of living.

Even nations that actually have overcome the employers have to compete with other nations within a world capitalist system. Did the Soviet workers ever win a 35-hour week? I don’t think so.

It doesn’t matter much what the government calls itself as long as it is still capitalist and still operating under the capitalist rules.

–Gene Lantz

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Our Side Can Win in 2016

July 28, 2016

economy, elections, history, politics, strategy

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I sometimes think of politics as a football game where each side pushes for yardage. The goalpost ahead of us is a decent democratic society. The one behind us is slavery and want. In all of American history, we have struggled for yardage between those goal posts. The little upright yard markers are the court decisions and legislation that show progress or setbacks.

The 2016 elections will not result in a perfect society. Neither did the 2008 elections, even though, to listen to the complaints, that’s what some voters expected. All things considered, the Obama Administration has been a whole lot better than what might have happened in 2008, and what will happen after 2016 can be a whole lot better than the Republican alternative.

Lesser evil?

That’s not “Lesser Evil” politics. It’s just an honest assessment of where we are and what the possibilities are in the current election.

The Outlook for Seniors is Promising

Nowadays, I mostly work with the retiree movement. Over the years, my speeches have been long, whiney complaints about all the attacks against the right to retire. There was a lot to whine about. Since Reagan was elected, most pension plans have been lost. Employer-sponsored health care plans have disappeared or been shamefully altered to the advantage of management. Social Security, so far, has not suffered a fatal blow, although several have been fired at it, but it’s been hit hard around the edges. The budget for administering Social Security has been cut so severely that there are empty buildings all over the nation where seniors used to be able to get help, but are gathering dust now. The Republicans in the House of Representatives just voted to cut another $1.2 billion!

Thanks mostly to the Bernie campaign, things are looking up for retirees in 2016. The Democratic Party platform and presidential nominee are publicly committed, not to “saving” the right to retire, but to extending and improving it!

But Seniors Have to Organize and Fight

Older Americans are going to have to do a whole lot more than hope for the best to make the Democratic Party promises come true. Fortunately, the AFL-CIO has made that possible by creating the Alliance for Retired Americans and a bunch of state affiliates.

Over the month from July 26 to August 25, the Texas affiliate scheduled nine separate actions in 6 different cities. Click here for list. The period includes the anniversaries of Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security.

At the July 26 event, State Rep Chris Turner read the words of ex-president Harry Truman on July 30, 1965, when Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare/Medicaid amendment:

“No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years. No longer will young families see their own incomes, and their own hopes, eaten away simply because they are carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents, and to their uncles, and their aunts. And no longer will this Nation refuse the hand of justice to those who have given a lifetime of service and wisdom and labor to the progress of this progressive country.”

That was progress. In 1965, we moved the football and the yard markers in the right direction. We’re moving them now!

–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?”

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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America’s Road to Socialism

July 7, 2016

civil rights, economy, elections, history, politics, strategy

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Working Americans have always fought the bosses. We’ve won a few battles and lost many, but we always fought on.

redflag

The closest we ever came to a “cease fire” in America’s class war came between 1947 and 1972, “The American Century.” During those few years, the United States had so much economic domination over the rest of the post-war world that they were able to buy off militant workers and collaborationist leaders. Unionists regularly received 3% annual raises and steady improvements in their benefits packages, including retirement. Non-union people got their improvements, but only as a result of the unions.

Then Came International Competition

After 1972, when President Nixon was obliged to change the worldwide monetary agreement set up after the great war, the bosses returned to business as usual. Their usual business is screwing their workers whether they are organized into unions or not. From those days forward, bosses in every capitalist country have been getting government handouts for themselves and austerity for everybody else.

They would like to continue that, but, as I said, we’ve always fought them. We’ve never won a decisive victory and, for the most part, never even thought about a decisive victory. Our battles have been over immediate objectives such as a pay raise for a limited number of workers or voting rights.

Our Victories Have Been Temporary

Even when we win, our victories are temporary because the bosses are still in power and, sooner or later, will try to reverse our successes. Thus, for example, we won the Voting Rights Act and then lived to see it gutted by the Supreme Court. We fought to see our American standard of living rise to the highest in the world, then saw it fall ignominiously.

The trends on our side of the class war are getting hopeful. Just on the wages front, for example, we aren’t just fighting a few scattered battles over peanuts here and there, we are engaged today in a nationwide battle to raise the minimum wage to a respectable figure. The Fight for Fifteen can involve everybody, and actually does involve quite a few of us.

Things Are Looking Up

On the political side, millions were drawn into action by the Bernie Sanders campaign, and I do not believe it is over. Instead, we are on our way toward a working people’s political party that would give us a real choice in elections. I don’t know if that is what Bernie Sanders intends, but I think the momentum of his followers is going that way. Union leadership is better integrated, more militant, and far more progressive than it has been since 1947.

Most exciting of all, I believe that Americans are better informed, more capable, more connected, and more sophisticated than ever in history before.

–Gene Lantz

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Law, Justice, and Whatever Texas Has

July 1, 2016

civil rights, elections, environment, politics

—genelantz

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