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Who “Shifted to the Right?”

March 20, 2017
civil rights, economy, elections, history, politics, strategy
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Did You Shift To the Right?

Fascist_OK

The reactionary candidate in the Dutch elections didn’t do as well as predicted. Maybe the fascists won’t win in France, either, but Donald Trump will still be President of the United States and the talking heads of the news will still be saying that there’s a “shift to the right”

They don’t say that somebody else shifted to the right, they say that the electorate did. We’re the electorate, so they mean us. Did you shift to the right? I doubt it.

In fact, a “shift to the right” by the electorate is not what is happening at all. If the electorate were becoming more reactionary, we wouldn’t have seen the liberal election results on marijuana and minimum wage. What we’re seeing is something else.

What Are We Seeing?

We are seeing a shift in tactics by the rich.

Throughout written history, the more-or-less propertyless have fought against the propertied for basic sustenance, for rights, and for freedom. We have done pretty well for ourselves, especially under capitalism. Once workers freed themselves from slavery and serfdom, we went on to get better living conditions, a little bit of dignity for workers, and limited democracy.

Limited Democracy?

We’ve always fought for more democracy, more control over our lives, and in generally we’ve been winning. Winning at least until lately. American workers did particularly well during the golden days from the end of World War II to the late 1970s. That’s when American industry completely dominated the world. We got rid of all-white primaries, poll taxes, English-only ballots, fake literacy tests for Black voters, prohibitions on voting for 18-year-olds, and we made other great accomplishments during that period. But our democracy was always limited.

We never won the right to vote on wars, on plant closures, on layoffs, on hiring policies, and lots of other things that are exclusively done by the propertied class. Only recently, most of us realized that we’ve never had the right to vote on Federal Reserve officers. So our democracy has grown, but it was always limited.

After 1982, when the government started coming down on our right to unionize, our democracy began to erode. When the Supreme Court opened our election process to unlimited financial intervention, when they gutted the Voting Rights Act, and when unfair redistricting and voter suppression laws became common, we began to realize that the long-term trend toward more democracy was being reversed.

Why The Reverse in Democracy?

Around 1980, the propertied class changed their tactics. Instead of kidding us along with limited democracy, they decided on an all-out war against our rights. What changed for them was international competition. The United States no longer had the only functioning factories in the world and had to compete with countries who could make better products cheaper. The squeeze was on.

One can validate this with any account of inequality. From 1945 to the late 1970s, American workers constantly improved our lot. After that, it’s been downhill economically. One good book about it is “Runaway Inequality” by Les Leopold. Leopold shows what happened, but he is a little skimpy on “why” and “what the heck do we do about it?”

The owning class changed their tactics, and we have to fight them! That’s the why and what.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organizing/Action, Which Comes First?

March 17, 2017
politics, strategy
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fdrquote

Like a lot of us, I get several requests to “take action” every day lately. The progressive movement, if would seem, is up in arms and raring to go.

Some of my friends are skeptical. They say that these activities are “going off half-cocked” and don’t merit our support if they can’t show that they are well organized. The March 8 general strike, “A Day Without A Woman” is a case in point. As far as I could tell, it wasn’t organized at all. So, my friends told me, we shouldn’t recommend it and we didn’t need to participate.

They were wrong.

Organization or Action?

Organizing and action have the same relationship as the chicken and the egg. Organization in the movement can’t take place without action. Action can’t take place without organization. Neither one comes first. Both have to happen, and they augment each other.

One could make the same case for leadership. Without leaders, one could say, there can be no action. But there are no leaders without action. “Leadership comes out of the struggle,” as my friend Kenneth Williams said on my radio show on KNON. That was the wisest summary of today’s situation.

Everything Is In Motion, Nothing is Stable

The problem that people have is that they see things in rigid, unmoving categories. In fact, everything moves all the time. The only constant is change. Action and organizing interact, they develop one another. Both are necessary. Neither is exclusive.

Or, just take it from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who said, ““Do something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn’t, do something else. But above all, do something!”

Don’t Underestimate March 8!

February 20, 2017
civil rights, economy, education, history, politics, strategy
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March 8, 2017, could be gigantic!

me-aug31marchlaborday

Good strategies and tactics only come from understanding the situation we’re in. If one overestimates people’s willingness to take action, one tends to try things that can’t be done and make other “ultraleft” errors. If we underestimate people, we end up settling for petty reforms when we could get bigger changes.

For most of my political life, I’ve tended to think people would do a lot more than they actually did. I thought, for example, that voters would really turn out to defeat the Orange Menace last November.

Afterward, when individuals and small groups began to call for militant political action, I fell on the timid side of evaluation. I never imagined that the January 21 marches and rallies would be the biggest in American history, but they were.

Now, to my surprise, I’m seeing some actual results from calls for a “general strike.” Even in my town, some small businesses shut down and a lot of students — of all ages — stayed out of school on February 16. For my entire political life, and all of almost everybody else’s, the call for a “general strike” was just a foolish dream of ultralefts and knee-jerk activists who weren’t even interested in whether it would work or not.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day

Now, calls for a general strike are beginning to get some traction. People are discussing the idea and beginning to talk about what it would take to be successful. I imagine that some people are looking at the general strikes in American history. The years 1877, 1886, and 1919 would be good ones to look at, but general strikes occurred in limited geographical areas right up to the big government attacks on workers that began in 1946. None were effective since then that I know of, until February 16, 2017.

To really make a difference, a general strike needs to be organized. Leadership needs to agree on the demands. They need to make those demands clearly understood, and they need to call off the action if the demands are met. It is hardly fair, and certainly not smart to ask people to make sacrifices without knowing what they are fighting for.

Leadership also needs to figure out how the strike should be conducted and how people’s needs can be met during the action. I have always loved reading about the successful strike in Seattle in 1919 where Rob Rosenthal wrote this poem:

“Nothing moves in the city,

Without our say-so

Let the bosses curse,

Let the papers cry

This morning

I saw it happen, with these ancient eyes of mine

Without our say-so

Nothing moves but the tide!”

March 8 is Coming. Look Out!

As I understand it, the February 16 activities were largely organized on social media. A lot of people didn’t know about “A Day Without An Immigrant,” but a significant number of the ones who knew about it went ahead and participated. That’s the times we live in.

As I understand it, the leaders that organized the biggest demonstrations in American history on January 21 have called for actions on March 8 — International Women’s Day. If “A Day Without  A Woman” goes anything like “A Day Without An Immigrant” –given that more people will know about it, that the leadership has already made itself credible and somewhat seasoned, and that there are more women in America than immigrants — a general strike on March 8 could be the most important political event in America since World War II.

That is, if I understand the times.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on the “Workers Beat” talk show ever Saturday at 9AM. 89.3fm in Dallas and http://knon.org everywhere. If you’re interested in what I really think, click here.

Who Understood International Relations?

February 1, 2017
economy, history, politics, unions
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At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a popular theory that the capitalists of the Earth had reached some sort of detente and would have no further use for war.

earthdivided

Another theory said that the capitalists were no different from gangsters fighting over their “turf.” Creating world wars was an intrinsic part of their very nature.

World War I and then World War II validated the second theory and completely discredited the first. Modern monopolistic capitalists were willing to kill millions in wars to establish their financial control over different parts of the planet. Their national armies were basically at the service of the bankers. Each “nation” was in fact a separate military operation, each opposed to the others.

This was explained in 1916 in a very important booklet named “Imperialism” by V.I. Lenin. There’s a short version on-line.

The big wars temporarily worked out great for the victorious bankers, despite having been hard on the millions killed, imprisoned, or maimed and on the nations who lost.

The New Theory Was Really the Old

Then in the 1980s, a new version of capitalist peace on Earth began to circulate. It was especially boosted when the Soviet Union failed. Opponents of the new theory called it “neoliberalism” rather than the classic name “imperialism.” Those who promoted the idea, which included virtually all the information sources in the rich countries, called it “globalization.” (I called it “gobblelization”).

The new theory, like the old one, held that the capitalists of the world had brought about a new world order based on extending the benefits of the “invisible hand” of capitalist markets to all the world through “free trade.”

Is It “Free?” Is It “Trade?”

The name “free trade” was a tremendous publicity success. Who’s against freedom? Who’s against trade?

Through long hard work, a few workers’ organizations, particularly unions of the world, explained that these so-called trade deals were nothing but agreements between capitalists at the expense of the workers in their respective territories. Time and a flood of actual data proved we were right. The capitalists were only agreeing among themselves that they would move their operations around to obtain the lowest possible wages and the fewest possible pollution controls.

Just as they had previously used their government’s armies to obtain their wishes, the bankers were now using their respective government’s negotiations. The ends were the same. The bankers from the countries with the biggest armies obtained more advantages over the countries with less clout. Only the 1% of any country benefited.

A Lot of People Bought Into the “New” Theory

Nevertheless, the idea that capitalism had established a new and lasting peaceful relationship persisted, and a lot of people thought it was true. Then, in 2016, came super nationalism, came Brexit, came Donald Trump.

The British poked a hole in the European Union from which it may not recover. The Scots tried to leave the British. Polls showed that near-Nazi nationalists were gaining electoral power in several major capitalist states. President Trump declared “America first” and spit in the faces of several other nations.

Will Capitalism Ever Bring Peace?

People must now review the two theories of international relations. We have to ask ourselves, “Are the bankers who control the major capitalist countries creating a peaceful world, or are they actually no different from gangsters fighting over turf?”

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON.org and 89.3FM in Dallas every Saturday at 9 Central Time. If you want to know what I really think, click here.

Sort Out the Issues on Immigration/Refugees

January 30, 2017
civil rights, politics, strategy, unions
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January 28 was significant for learning about immigration and refugees.

dfw-e-1

On the day after President Trump spit in the face of a large world religion, we were confronted with a dramatic historic page-turning and an opportunity to learn a lot.

There are a wide range of positions

Americans are divided on this issue. Positions range from outright racism and jingoism — hating all foreigners — up to my guest on the “Workers Beat” program on http://knon.org and 89.3FM in Dallas. Joshua Hatton gave his position as “abolitionist” and compared it to the brave Americans opposing slavery before the Civil War. They, too, helped people move from South to North, and they, too, opposed any effort to deport people back. The Fugitive Slave Act, tested in the Dred Scott decision, is said to be a major cause of support for the Northern side in the Civil War.

There were so many calls that I didn’t get to ask him if there were any difference between his “abolitionist” position and the old “sin fronteras” socialist position. “Sin fronteras” means “no borders.” In other words, workers could move back and forth across national borders with the same ease that capital does.

The argument is that national borders were created and operated by capitalists to defend their interests and are actually a hindrance to working people on both sides of the border. In 1999, the new leadership of the AFL-CIO labor federation, changed from “deport them all” to “let them in and then organize them.” In other words, solidarity is our strength and division is our weakness. Still, I expected most union people, and most politicians, too, to duck the issue as much as they could, since nobody wants to fight when your own people are divided.

Some politicians really stepped up

Congressman Marc Veasey of Dallas/Fort Worth has been saying for some time that he opposes Trump’s anti-immigrant actions. He held a meeting on that fateful day, January 28, at Kidd Springs Park. The subject was DACA — Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals. He had a young woman, Diana Radilla, tell what it was like to be raised undocumented. He also had Congresswoman Linda Sanchez from California. They spoke up strongly on keeping DACA intact.

inmig-veasey-1

I didn’t realize that morning that crowds were forming in airports. That evening, when I did find out and went to the DFW airport to join the protests, the first person I saw was Marc Veasey. The second was our Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. Here were two leading Democrats going far beyond electoral politics to stand with us, 1000 members of the rabble more or less, against anti-immigrant racism!

Would the unions duck?

Contrary to what the bosses like to tell us, unions are scrupulously democratic. Elected union leaders have to consider every move in terms of how much flak they are going to catch from their members. Consequently, I would have expected them to “lay behind the log” on immigration issues as much as they could. I was wrong again.

On the night that we were at the DFW airport, my good friend Rick Schoolcraft turned up. He’s from my own aerospace local. Gary Livingston, from another aerospace local, had been there all day. His aerospace local probably leans as far right as mine does, but there he was.

The next day, I asked permission to use the Dallas AFL-CIO communications network to encourage more participation at the airport. I couldn’t reach the principal leader, Mark York, but his political director, Lorraine Montemayor, told me immediately to go ahead. So I put it on the web site, sent out 4,000 emails, and used labor’s social media to encourage more turnout.

An hour or so later, I found out why I hadn’t been able to reach Mark York. He was already out there, injured ankle and injured shoulder and all, in the middle of the airport protest! Mark was live-streaming the protests and complimenting other unionists, including Darryl and Stacy Sullivan from the Teamsters, for joining the protests. So much for ducking!

What’s Next?

There is a lot of political space between “reasonable immigration/refugee policy” and “Welcome all.” I don’t think the American public is nearly as pro-immigrant/refugee as my radio guest Joshua Hatton or my fellow protesters at the airport. But people are learning fast as we are being prodded by President Trump and incipient fascism.

We learn quickest when we take action. Policy and leadership are emerging, so don’t count out the American people, even on the complicated and difficult issues!

My video of the DFW protests, 3.5 minutes, is on You Tube.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on http://knon.org and 89.3 FM in Dallas every Saturday at 9 Central Time. If you are interested in what I really think, click here.

 

 

 

 

Are You Afraid of Your Government?

January 25, 2017
history, politics, strategy, unions
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There are probably two reasons for Americans to not be afraid of their government.

price-of-dissent

One of them is that they are just good, clean, honest people who can’t find it in their heart to think ill of others. The other is that they probably just never did much of anything.

Those who have stepped, even a tiny toe, outside the ring of expected behavior have probably been spied on and  recorded at the least. They may have also been intimidated, smeared, fired from their jobs, blacklisted, beaten, shot, and/or murdered.

Our government, local and national, has been doing those things all along.

Book review: Bud Schultz and Ruth Schultz, editors, “The Price of Dissent. Testimonies to Political Repression in America.” University of California Press, 2001.

The book is a collection of original testimony from people who stepped outside the ring and found Big Brother waiting there. It also mentions things that happened in earlier times, such as the wholesale murders, whippings, arrests, deportations, and illegal persecution of labor activists throughout American history. The chapter titled “The Unrelenting Campaign against the Industrial Workers of the World” is especially enlightening.

The first hand explanations from activists of the 1950s-1980s, though, aren’t just history lessons. They are up close and personal, hard hitting and sometimes a little difficult to read. Witnesses to the Black Panthers murdered in Chicago, the students shot down at Kent State, and civil rights victims of murder and mayhem in the American South are especially effective. I don’t know why they left out the time that the Houston police fired 1,000 bullets into the dormitory at Texas Southern University and the police sniper who killed Carl Hampton a few blocks away, but I guess there were just too many episodes to fit into one book.

Texas isn’t left out completely, because they interviewed my good friends Jose Rinaldi and Linda Hajek about the FBI agent in our Dallas CISPES (Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) anti-war group. Agent Frank Varelli was commissioned by the Dallas FBI to do nasty things to our friendly little group of peaceniks. Among the horrors he committed was informing the murderous death squads in El Salvador about the names and arrival dates of deported Salvadorans and visiting Americans from here.

He told us his name was Gilberto Mendoza, and he gushed gratitude to our group for standing up for Central Americans. As I remember it, he gushed that over and over again, every time he showed up. I got tired of him and thought he was an idiot, but I didn’t spot him as an agent. In fact, I interviewed him for The Hard Times News. I never look for agents, I just ask everybody I know to do a lot of work. Agents never want to do any actual work.

In 1987, the Dallas FBI got behind on Varelli’s paychecks. To pressure them, he went to the Dallas Morning News, and they ran a full front-page expose! I think Varelli liked the notoriety, because the next thing you know he came to one of our meetings, without his Mendoza disguise, and explained the entire thing!

Varelli did ugly things, and most of the folks were shocked. I wasn’t, because I had already participated in an ACLU lawsuit against the Houston police and a national lawsuit against the Justice Department. I wanted to sue the pants off the FBI over Varelli, but was outvoted.

Our government does ugly ugly things and always has, but they always say, as the book shows, every time they get caught, that they won’t do it any more.

–Gene Lantz

Hear “Workers Beat” on 89.3FM in Dallas and knon.org everywhere every Saturday at 9 central time. If you want to know what I really think, click here.

Why Are They Lying?

January 25, 2017
economy, elections, history, politics, strategy
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Trump is blasting his prevarication machine, and most people think he is “out of control.”

mad-hatter

The pundits and columnists seem confused by all the “alternate facts” blasting out. See, for example,
Trump’s disregard for the truth threatens his ability to govern
Dallas Morning News

But there is method to his madness

As I’ve said before on this blog, watch out for major attacks against democracy during this political period. They can’t fix the economy for the voters, so their only alternative is to make sure the voters’ power is diminished BEFORE the 2018 Mid-Term elections.

Trump and his minions are repeating this nonsense about millions of undocumented workers voting because he is building a case for more voter suppression. 

As Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels taught us long ago, the most outlandish lies will be believed if they are repeated often enough. From his “bully pulpit” the presidency, Trump can repeat a lie many many times.

Liars are blaming liars

The “responsible” journalists, of course, are doing what they should do today and calling him a liar. But who will believe them in these days of failing trust? Who will believe newspersons who basically echo the beliefs of their six giant corporate employers? The most popular television news service, Fox, is by far the least honest.

The newspersons are already largely discredited, they largely did it to themselves. And Trump is discrediting them more and more by repeating, more and more, that they aren’t to be trusted. That’s the second part of Trump’s conspiracy against democracy.

Will it work?

One is tempted to say that a national prevarication campaign won’t work because the people have their own access to information, particularly through the internet and particularly through social media. One is tempted to say that even the discredited newspersons, if they stick to their guns, will be believed by a significant part of the population. BTW, I wouldn’t count on their sticking to their guns. People work for whoever signs their paycheck.

The big lie technique worked for Goebbels. It worked for Hitler. Millions died for their lies. Whether or not it will work now and here in America depends on us.

–Gene Lantz

I’m still on knon.org radio and 89.3 FM every Saturday at 9 in North Texas. If you want to know what I really think, click here.

 

Recommended Herd Behavior

January 18, 2017
politics, strategy, unions
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I just can’t get away from these cow metaphors. I grew up in the country and worked, for a while, in a dairy. You can learn a lot from cows.

stampede-cows

But what I’m actually trying to wrap my mind and yours around is how to deal with the difficult political situation we’re in. The question came up because of one of my earlier posts. It drew a comment, more or less, to the effect that one of the major tasks confronting progressives is re-educating or replacing our union leadership.

I Used To Be a Lot More Intelligent Than I Am Now

Long ago, I was a member of an organization that didn’t like the union leadership. In fact, I don’t think we liked any leaderships. Not in the women’s movement, not in the civil rights movement, not in the anti-war movement, not in any of the progressive movements. It’s not that we were anti-leadership anarchists, it’s just that we thought we alone knew best. We only liked one leadership, ourselves. Everybody else, everybody in leadership of any organization, was just wrong. We were the smart ones!

The result was that we almost always got into squabbles with the leadership of any organization we tried to relate to. We had a reputation for it, and knowledgeable activists didn’t look forward to our company.

Build Up Our Side, Don’t Tear it Down

I don’t think that we need, at this time, arguments with the leaders of the unions or of any progressive organization as a way for the progressive movement to go forward. I can’t say that I actually agree, point-by-point, with the leaders of any of the organizations that are doing so much and moving so many people into action right now. But I’m sure glad they are building the movement!

We should be deliriously happy to see so many people starting to get active, and we should encourage it in every way possible. When it’s appropriate, we can make our suggestions on program, on tactics, on strategy, or even on broad ideology. But we should do it in a friendly helpful cooperative way, not an argumentative or confrontational way.

Arguing and confronting are what we do to our enemies, not our friends.

How to Get Cows to the Right Place

Cows tend to meander along. It’s kind of hard to figure out why they go where they go, what influences them, who they look to for leadership, what they try to avoid. We’ve all seen the stampedes in the western movies, where some poor old cowboy gets killed while trying to “turn the herd.” Death by stomping.

It’s mighty hard for a cowboy to do it. But it’s even harder for a single cow. And in this metaphor, we aren’t cowboys. We’re cows, stampeding right along with everybody else. It would be inadvisable to get in front of a mad stampede and try to argue. We’d get stomped and maybe hurt some of the other cows, too.

We’ll be more effective if we go along with the herd and do our best to nudge one here, poke one there, moo loudly when appropriate, moo softly if it will work better, and try to get the herd over where we all need to be. That’s leadership in a cow stampede. Also in a mass movement.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON.org and 89.3FM in Dallas every Saturday at 9AM central time. If you want to know what I really think, click here.

Is the Working Class Staying Alive?

January 12, 2017
economy, history, politics, unions
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Book review: Cowie, Jefferson, Stayin’ Alive. The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class. New Press, New York, 2010.

travolta

According to this author, the American working class met its death in the 1970s. Some of it was suicide, some of it was homicide, some of it was chronic depression.

He goes to great length to talk about how America’s powerful labor unions lost their clout, but he spends a lot more time and energy talking about the culture of the 1970s. “Saturday Night Fever” gets about as much play as the Hardhat attack against anti-war protestors.

Combining political and cultural changes isn’t a new approach. One of my favorite books is George Lipsitz, Rainbow at Midnight. Labor and Culture in the 1940s. University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 1994. Lipsitz explains where labor went wrong, 1940s and 1950s, while Cowie merely comments at length on the resulting shipwreck in the 1970s. Of the two books, Lipsitz’s is by far the stronger and more informative.

Cowie weaves a fascinating tale with very few heroes, but some stunning villains. One of the biggest reasons given for labor’s downfall is AFL-CIO President George Meany, who deliberately split the Democratic Party and destroyed the hopes of presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972. The vivid description of these events is the strength of Cowie’s book, but its weakness is that he doesn’t explain why. He says that Meany hurt the union movement very substantially because he was a “cold warrior” who didn’t want a peace candidate to carry the Democratic Party standard. But he doesn’t explain why Meany was such a “cold warrior.” Maybe Cowie didn’t know.

Back in those days, and for some time before and after, the AFL-CIO got a lot of money from the CIA. That’s why Meany was a cold warrior.

Cowie also explains that a lot of labor’s strength disappeared when steel plants were shuttered and when other American industries went overseas. He doesn’t say why. He doesn’t explain that international competition had recovered from World War II by the early 1970s and American corporations were forced to compete with excellent German and Japanese imports.  Maybe he didn’t know.

Cowie explains that labor was blindsided by clever politicians like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. He explains that they made mistakes of commission and omission and they just weren’t farsighted leaders. He didn’t say why. He didn’t explain what Lipsitz’s book had explained so well, that the militant leadership of the American union movement had been expelled and blacklisted during the post war witch hunt. Maybe he didn’t know.

The unions may have squandered their basic strength and their political clout in the 1970s, or at least they may have done better than they did. But the inference that the American working class just evaporated is just wrong. People still work, nearly all of us still work, and the working class is just what it was and has always been — the only people who can stand up to capitalism.

Cowie’s great strength is in vivid description. Whether you lived through the 1970s or are just curious about how things got as bad as they did for working people, this is a good book to read. The AFL-CIO promotes it through Union Communications Service. That’s how I found it and I’m glad I did.

–Gene Lantz

you can hear me on knon.org or 89.3fm at 9AM Central Time every Saturday. If you want to know what I really think, click here.