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Checking Up on Fascism

May 23, 2021
democracy, economy, elections, history, politics, strategy
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Perry Bacon Jr wrote an editorial “American Democracy is in Even Worse Shape Than You Think” in the Washington Post.

I re-posted it on Facebook and Twitter because it’s a very good think piece and deserves general consideration. Americans really must consider the likelihood of a fascist takeover.

I respectfully disagree with Bacon as to how things will happen, but not with his direst prediction.

It is not an overstatement to say that Republicans literally tried to overthrow democracy after the 2020 elections. At that point, one would have thought that they might back off a little and play the “loyal opposition” until their next chance for electoral victory. But that is not what they did. To this day, they are continuing the same policies that led to the January 6th putsch.

Beyond January, Republicans have consistently undermined democracy everywhere that they hold power.

Bacon warns that Republicans are likely to win the 2022 Mid-Term Elections. His strongest argument is the historical trend for first-time presidents to lose in their first mid-term challenge. He points out, correctly, that Republicans who control Congress will certainly, surely, refuse to ratify the 2024 presidential race if they do not win it outright. That’s reasonable to assume, because that’s what they tried to do in 2020 when they had clearly lost.

He May be Wrong, But He’s Right

Here’s where I disagree with Bacon before I agree with him. I don’t think the Republicans are likely to win in 2022. I’m not even sure they are planning to try. Certainly, the antidemocratic, racist, chauvinistic policies they are pursuing are not building a “big tent” of voters. They are avoiding all truth. Their “base” is shrinking down to the most racist and superstitious.

In the long term, civilized people are becoming more technologically capable, more educated, and more sophisticated while the Republicans deliberately appeal only to the most backward. That’s why I don’t expect them to succeed as an electoral party unless the Democrats throw away their advantage with an ideological split or allow a major economic disaster before the election.

In other words, the Republican party is getting smaller. The catch is that it’s getting more fascistic.

History Foretells

In 1931, Hitler’s fascist party was very small. They gained a tiny plurality in that election because of the worldwide economic catastrophe of 1929. The German Communists, I believe, had a slogan “After Hitler, us!” The Nazis were not a powerful electoral party, but they didn’t have to be. Faced with the likelihood of a Communist takeover, the wealthiest class of Germans went over to Hitler. Everything after that was predictable.

Speaking of Predictions

My prediction is that the Democrats will defeat the Republicans in national elections until the next economic disaster. If you don’t believe there will be another great economic disaster, then you may believe that Democrats will stay in power, but you’d be ignoring the history of our economic system. It has to have an economic disaster. It’s only “when,” never “if.”

Even a relatively small fascist political party is likely to take power in the next crisis, and that crisis will come as sure as God made little green apples. The Democrats will not be able to stop the fascists any more than the Weimar socialists could stop the Nazis.

A Further Prediction

The only hope for the future is to defeat the fascists by organizing around working families. That is what the Germans failed to do in 1931 and what Americans must do now. I predict that we will.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show at 9AM Central Time every Saturday. They post it, along with “Workers Beat Extra” podcast on Wednesdays. If you are curious about what I really think, try my personal web site.

Labor’s Big Contradiction

April 18, 2021
elections, history, politics, strategy, unions
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Sixty-five percent of Americans approve of labor unions and would join one if they could, according to a Gallup poll for Labor Day, 2020. Unions love to publicize that 65% figure. But here’s contradicting info: the Amazon organizing drive at Bessemer, Alabama, failed miserably. Despite a high-profile campaign, about 45% of eligible workers didn’t even vote! Of those who did vote, 60% rejected the union.

Longtime union organizer Chris Townsend, while urging unions to keep trying, projects a bleak future:

“You will have many, many, more opportunities to complain about what went wrong in the future failed organizing drives yet to come. Bessemer is merely a milepost on what will be a long and arduous road to organize this piece of the commanding economic heights. Many more losses lie ahead. Strikes and other uprisings are ahead. The union organization of corporate America will be a messy affair. There will be many casualties.”

Should we conclude that one contradictory fact or the other is just an aberration, or should we accept them both as hard data and try to figure out the reason? Straining to find an answer, should we think that everybody really does want a union, just not in their own workplace?

Most unions and union supporters have seized on a single explanation for the Amazon fiasco. They say that the American government is so hostile to working people that we don’t have a chance to organize. Labor law, they argue with considerable credibility, has to be changed! They are correct of course, but there’s a lot more to it.

I resolve the contradiction this way: unionization is genuinely popular in America, but our method of organizing needs changing. I agree with Chris Townsend that many future workplace organizing drives will fail. I just don’t believe that the traditional workplace organizing drive, taken alone, has a bright future. I also don’t expect a lot of immediate help from the government in changing labor law so that traditional workplace organizing drives will start succeeding. We don’t presently have that kind of government.

I believe that the data on union popularity from the 2020 Gallup Poll was correct. Further, I believe that union organizing is far more popular in 2021, because of the lessons learned during the continuing worldwide pandemic. I also believe that the American union movement, led by the AFL-CIO labor federation, is moving toward riding that popularity to real gains for working families.

Unions need more than traditional workplace organizing drives. We need big, national and international, campaigns to educate and mobilize our many supporters toward the goal of power for working families. We need to sign up all our supporters and get them to coordinate their resources meaningfully. We can do that. Given the fact that most Americans carry advanced learning and communications devices around with them, it might not take much time.

Workplace organizing, instead of being the one-and-only-labor-tactic, will become a by-product of a mighty movement. A single electronic source could start that movement and build it into an irresistible force. The AFL-CIO already has a potential tool called “Working America,” but it has not yet been fully implemented. It will, or something like it will, and union popularity will be unleashed at last.

Let’s See

If I am right about the progressive movement coming together with the AFL-CIO, then we are likely to see bigger and more meaningful activities. MayDay will be a test of sorts. In 2020, the AFL-CIO and certain national unions had big celebrations. For many of them, it was their first time to publicly acknowledge International Workers Day. I predict it will be far bigger and better in 2021. It will be based on unions, but not confined to them. MayDay will help unify and direct the progressive movement at last! Let’s see!

–-Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. We podcast the program and a more directed program, “Workers Beat Extra” on Soundcloud.com If you are interested in what I really think, take a look at my personal web site.

One Crisis From Fascism

January 29, 2021
democracy, history, politics, strategy, unions
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One of the two major parties is becoming fascist!

We saw a small but ugly part of the Republican Party terrorizing Congress on January 6. Did you notice that Trump never disassociated from them? Have you noticed, since then, that the majority of the Republican Party has not disassociated from Trump? A majority of Republicans in Congress voted to overthrow the elections even AFTER the terror attack. Republican Congressmen are circling their wagons around Trump as the impeachment trial approaches. Devout trumpsters continue to be placed in Republican Party power. That includes their national party head!

Are the Democrats Worried?

Democrats are not worried, because Trump is dragging his party down as well as backward. Democrats may find them easy to beat in near future elections.

I’ve only seen a few actual statistics on how many people are leaving the Republican Party: 2,000 in Arizona,  5,855 in North Carolina, 4,600 in Colorado. We won’t get a clear idea how many are leaving before the next national election. Some states, like mine, don’t even keep track of party registration. However, we can assume that the Republican Party, which has been the minority in popular votes for several election cycles, will be smaller. Smaller and more fanatical.

Should We Be Worried?

Damnright we should be worried! Even with a somewhat diminished official membership, the Republican Party is still one of the two massive parties. America has gone from having two parties firmly committed to limited democracy to having only one. The Republican party of today has shown its willingness to dispense with democracy altogether. That is fascist!

Did Hitler and the Nazis have a majority party? No, they took power with a plurality of voters. In fact, they weren’t even considered an important electoral threat before the great depression began in 1929. But that one crisis was enough to catapault them to power.

America today is one crisis away from fascism.

What Can Be Done?

United workers are the only force capable of stopping fascism. Fortunately for America, we have a progressive union movement around which we can unite. That’s the course that should be followed. It’s the path to victory and a positive future.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. We podcast the radio show and another narrative every Wednesday morning on Soundcloud.com. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my old personal web site.

When We Failed

January 15, 2021
economy, history, politics, strategy, unions, women
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Book Review:

Windham, Lane, “Knocking on Labor’s Door. Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide.” University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2017

Capitalism is said to have begun in the middle of the 17th century in England. Workers and bosses have been fighting since then. Any period in that great long battle for democracy, dignity and a living wage would be an interesting period.

picketing

This author chose the 1970s in the United States. Certain underlying economic and social developments made it a period of interesting class warfare.

  • The civil rights movement and the women’s movement had created a more diversified, and more militant bunch of activists into organizable workplaces
  • The “American Century” of economic domination over the war-weary victims of World War II was noticeably beginning to end
  • America’s most devoted and seasoned labor activists had been driven away by the great witch hunt that began in 1946. Union militancy had turned into “business unionism.”

Union density peaked at about 35% of the workforce earlier, but unions still had about 20% of the workforce in the early 1970s. Union members had far better wages, better benefits, better pensions, and better jobs than the workforce at large. Part of the consequence of getting more for union members while ignoring other workers was increasing isolation for the unions.

Nevertheless, young people wanted to unionize. They fought hard. For the most part in the 1970s, they lost. One could argue that the events from 1947’s Taft Hartley law to 1970 had foreordained that labor would lose, but that isn’t Mr. Lane’s argument. It’s mine.

Lane argues that companies simply worked harder at union busting. They increasingly won government over to their side. By the end of the 1970s, when Ronald Reagan was elected, the downhill slide was evident to everyone. In 1995, maybe a little late, the AFL-CIO started trying to adjust to the new situation.

One shining light in Lane’s book is the early success of an organization called “9 to 5.” They organized women to fight for the workplace rights that the larger women’s movement had won through federal legislation. The idea of organizing outside the control of government authorities like the National Labor Relations Board was a good one, and they had some early successes. However, it didn’t last.

In fact, most of the hopes that young activists may have had for union organizing in the 1970s were crushed. This is not a happy book to read. I wish he had chosen the 1990s, when American labor began to show some real promise.

–Gene Lantz

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

Facts in the Way?

January 12, 2021
politics, strategy
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The last caller on my radio talk show Saturday said, “I don’t know what to believe.” Then we ran out of time. Nearly always, I am able to draw out the right wing critics who call. Within 4 or 5 exchanges, their underlying motivation is exposed. I realize, though, that a lot of people, sincere and insincere, are saying that same thing during the Trump era of “alternate facts.”

The woman who doesn’t know what to believe launched her criticism against me by revealing that the Washington Post, which I had quoted earlier as one of my sources of news, is owned by the richest man in the world. In other words, whatever news I had announced was compromised, because it came from people who are under the control of Jeff Bezos.

If we had more time, I would have drawn her out. I’m pretty sure she would eventually have admitted that she does know what to believe. She just doesn’t want to believe it. More importantly, she doesn’t want anybody else to believe it. I’ve had similar puzzles written into the comment sections of my Facebook posts. Some of them say that the January 6th rioters weren’t really Trump supporters, but disguised Trump haters who were trying to discredit him! That’s too far fetched to even consider, but major spokespersons, including the Attorney General of Texas, are saying it.

Some of the other comments to my Facebook posts kind of try to chip away at the facts. “The rioting crowd included pro- and anti- Trump people” one guy said. But the biggest ruse of all is just to change the subject. In the discussion about the riot, one of my perpetual detractors accused me of being for gun control. Another one said that nothing I had to say could be right because I hadn’t “accepted Jesus Christ.”

I’m leading up to a point here. The point is that some Trump supporters, maybe most of them, just want to believe whatever they want to believe. Facts are just in their way.

This may seem like a digression, but I also noticed on Facebook that somebody from a national Catholic organization said that Catholics should take their share of the blame for the assault on democracy. I rather agree, but not because of the instances he quoted.

The problem of selective belief is much broader than Trumpism. There are lots of selective believers on the anti-Trump side, too. A lot of them are religious. Religion, all religion including the Catholic religion, encourages us to believe things that we know could not be true. They call it “faith.” I call it misleading, dangerous, and often hurtful.

Truth comes to us directly through our senses. “Not truth,” the nonsense people prefer to believe, comes to us through our imagination. We all develop a set of prejudices that we usually refer to as “common sense.” For most decisions, it’s pretty helpful. But it’s a great hindrance when things happen to us that haven’t happened before. We need to consult the facts, not our store of prejudices.

All philosophy falls under one of two headings: materialism and idealism. The materialist believes facts and science. The idealist believes whatever they want. Individuals cross the line between the two philosophies depending on what is at stake. They might believe science when stricken with a deadly disease; they might fall back on superstition when problems are less urgent.

But what does all this have to do with January 6th and the woman who called the radio station?

Everyone with internet connection has seen reams of facts from all kinds of sources about the January 6th riot. They know what happened, what happened beforehand and what happened afterward. For some, their layer of prejudices is more important than facts. So they challenge the information sources and say, “I don’t know what to believe.”

As for Jeff Bezos, surely the woman realizes that virtually ALL, not just the Washington Post, commercial media in America are owned by the very wealthy.  It’s important to keep that in mind and be suspicious, but it doesn’t prevent people from being able to make up their minds about factual developments. They can decide what to believe. They just don’t want to.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. We podcast it, along with “Workers Beat Extra” commentary on Soundcloud.com. If you are curious about what I really believe, look at my old personal web site.

Don’t Scream, Analyze

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–Gene Lantz

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

The Bosses’ Differences

December 15, 2020
democracy, elections, politics, strategy
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For some time, I have been hearing political radicals say that we must exploit the split in the ruling class. Is there really such a split? If there is, can progressives actually exploit it and get progressive results?

Who Are the Ruling Class?

We make a lot of mistakes on this simple concept. One is that we really don’t know what “class” means. It is a collection of people holding a common outlook because of their position in the economy. It’s the way that they accumulate money. We make an even bigger mistake when we consider the “ruling class” abstractly as an ideology. They aren’t an abstraction, they are certain people with names. Many of their names are listed every year in Forbes Magazine. It is not a big list.

We make another, possibly even more fatal, mistake when we assume that the ruling class has limited control. In America, they are virtually unchallenged in their control over the entire electoral system, both major political parties, all three federal branches of government, and nearly all state and local governments. A handful of American families control the economy as well as the government. They also control almost all information sources and use them to disguise or misrepresent their actual roles.

How Are They Divided?

The idea of a “split in the ruling class” is especially popularized today because of the growing polarity between the Democrats and the Republicans. Recently, because of the demagogue Trump, we have begun to associate one party with democracy and the other with totalitarianism. But the differences are essentially tactical and not at all fundamental to who runs what.

America never had, and does not have today, total democracy. Democracy, like everything else, is not static, but in a state of continuous change. In 1776, Americans had almost the same amount of democracy that Britains had created for themselves. Through struggle, Americans increased their levels of democracy fairly consistently until the late 1970s. From that point forward, a concerted effort from the ruling class has diminished democracy. If Donald Trump had succeeded in setting aside the 2020 elections, then democracy would have taken a drastic setback. The election of Joe Biden means that our American democracy may hold its own or move forward slightly, but it is not likely to be much.

The ruling class adopted its anti-democratic stance after the civil-rights and anti-war movements had threatened their control and at a time that their post-war international economic hegemony was challenged from abroad. From their point of view, American workers had to be harnessed more effectively than before, and certainly more effectively than their international competitors were harnessing their own workers. Democracy was an obstacle to be overcome. That economic situation was never rectified and cannot be rectified short of world war. The only thing that the American ruling class could do was out-compete other nations by driving down unit labor costs. “Unit labor costs,” to all effects, is how they think of the rest of the American population.

If the ruling class continues to be unchecked, they will continue to drive down unit labor costs and they will diminish democracy to do so. Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals, leftist or rightists, the ruling class will agree.

A split in the ruling class?

Perhaps over tactics and timing, but not over who controls what. A good lesson can be learned from the current arguments in Congress. The Democrats and Republicans are unable to agree on a COVID relief package. But, during the same period, they agreed by more than a 2/3 majority on gigantic military expenditures! Contrast the difference! The military bill goes directly to the immediate interests of the ruling class, the COVID-relief bill primarily affects only the rest of us – their unit labor costs.

Even the details of the COVID-relief bills being discussed tell us something about ruling class control. They would give a small amount in relief to the unemployed, small amounts for schools (private as well as public), substantial amounts to save the airline industry, some amounts for “small” business, and some amounts to keep state and local governments running.

Have you heard anything about job creation through infrastructure projects? Did you hear anything about simply buying the airlines and other failing corporations to run them for the public good? No, you haven’t and you won’t, because those are measures that actually do speak to the essential question of who runs what.

The bosses have some differences, but they’re only about “how” to run things, never about who runs them.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. We podcast it along with “Workers Beat Extra” on Wednesdays on Soundcloud.com. If you are interested in what I really think, check out my personal web site

See “Painted Bird”

December 13, 2020
art, history, politics
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Film review:

“The Painted Bird,” Directed by Václav Marhoul, 2 hours 49 minutes

My movie buddy and I watched this film streamed from HULU in our comfortable living room. If we had seen it in a theater, I don’t know if we could have stayed through it. I understand that many other moviegoers have walked out, not because they didn’t appreciate the film, but because they appreciated it too much!

You can tell it’s a novel. Too much happens with too many characters for an original screenplay. Also, it’s really long. It’s in the starkest black and white. The main character is mute, most of the characters are too miserable to talk, so it’s almost a silent movie.

The story, briefly, is about an Eastern European boy who suffers through the period coincident with World War II. He wanders from one miserable hovel to the next and suffers amazing, disgusting, depredations from backward and somewhat insane perpetrators. They don’t limit themselves to persecuting the boy. Some of the things they do to one another are extremely difficult to watch and almost impossible to put into words.

On the technical side of the production, any one of several amazing accomplishments would make this art movie worth watching. I don’t see how they managed to assemble such an array of international movie stars. I can’t begin to explain how they managed to train the animals to portray such wild extremes of behavior. The cinematography is breathtaking. The props include authentic German and Russian war machines. All the settings are either gorgeous or grotesque. In short, the movie is done well.

And finally, what does it all mean? Does it mean that many humans, perhaps a majority, are cruel and perverted? Does it mean that humans, even an unprotected little boy, can endure almost anything? Or is it just a statement about certain people in a certain place and a certain period of time? Probably, it will mean different things to different people, but I can almost guarantee that the effect will be on a grand scale and this movie will be talked about for some time to come.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. We podcast the program and “Workers Beat Extra” on Wednesdays. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site.

Get A Presidential Pardon

December 6, 2020
democracy, politics
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For a small donation to Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, I will write you a PRESIDENTIAL PARDON!

Friends, have you thought about getting a PRESIDENTIAL PARDON for yourself? Everybody else is getting them, why not you? You could get pardoned for anything from jaywalking all the way to TREASON during this political season.

For just a small donation to Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, I will write you your very own PRESIDENTIAL PARDON!

Friends, you and I both know that I’m not the president of the United States, but I am the president of UAW local 848 retirees, and a president is a president. When the presidential pardons are flying thick and fast, like they are now, do you think anybody is going to examine YOURS all that closely? Trump is handing out pardons like wallpaper.

Trump even pardoned a Thanksgiving turkey, although some say he only pardoned the white meat. He’s pardoned people for lying to Congress, for lying to everybody! He’s giving out so many Presidential Pardons, you could TP people’s houses in presidential pardons. With all these pardons flying around, nobody is going to check yours! Believe me friends, no one will notice which president signed it.

Donate now to Texas Alliance for Retired Americans and GET PARDONED! Just go to GeneLantz.org and click PRESIDENTIAL PARDON!

Now, friends, I know you haven’t done anything to be pardoned for, you haven’t done any crimes. But think about it. WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO? Some of these presidential pardons are going to people who haven’t even been indicted yet. Just because YOU haven’t been indicted for anything, doesn’t mean you couldn’t go ahead and get your presidential pardon. Imagine being pulled over for letting your car’s sticker expire. You just pull out your PRESIDENTIAL PARDON and roll right on! If you watered your lawn on the wrong day, NOTHING TO IT! Made wind in a crowded elevator? FORGET ABOUT IT! Just walk away with your PRESIDENTIAL PARDON. With a PRESIDENTIAL PARDON in your pocket, you could smoke marijuana in any state in the union!

I’ll write your pardon

Come on and bribe me in the Rose Garden

Come down there any time

I will pardon you for any crime

This offer expires on January 20

Fund Raising Gets Crazy!

For the last 6 months or so, I’ve been getting nuttier and nuttier on social media. The reason is fund raising. I raise money for KNON radio, where I have a talk show. I raise money for the Dallas AFL-CIO, where I am the Communications Director. I raise money for the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, where I am state secretary.

Traditionally, a fund raiser is a dinner. But the pandemic has put everything on-line. I’ve struggled with presentation concepts and video editing, but I’ve also raised a few dollars. Selling “presidential pardons” is not the silliest thing I’ve stooped to. Here are some others I did for KNON radio:

Curse People: For a donation, I offered to curse other people on behalf of mild-mannered people who are just “too decent” to curse out “people who deserve it!” On YouTube it’s https://youtu.be/Gyvvg09rWxk

Vaccination Excusals: I offered to write excusals to anybody crazy enough to want to avoid being vaccinated against COVID-19. https://youtu.be/WeKCwDxExiE

Fake Vacations: For people who don’t really want to go anywhere. https://youtu.be/qLfhpfLX60w

Ear Stiffener: Spray to help people with floppy ears keep their masks on. https://youtu.be/X6w-h17Gt_g

The economy is fast going into the toilet. Fund raising, like a lot of things, is getting desperate.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” program every Saturday at 9 Central Time. They post it, and “Workers Beat Extra” on Soundcloud.com. If you are curious about what I really think, visit my personal web site.