My friend Charlotte recently asked, “In an overpopulated world, why are Trump and other national leaders trying to raise birth rates?” I thought it was a profound question and one that deserves careful examination.
Birth rates in various countries get published every now and then. Like record high gold prices, though, they aren’t considered very fundamental to what’s going on. Or maybe, like gold prices, birth rate statistics reveal a lot more than the oligarchs want us to know.
Charlotte’s insightful question generates some other interesting questions:
“Why are reactionaries, especially religious reactionaries, opposed to birth control?”
“If reactionaries want more children, why don’t they want to take care of them?”
”If they had higher birth rates, wouldn’t they get more unemployment, especially as automation eats our jobs away? Doesn’t rising automation, especially artificial intelligence, argue for our needing fewer workers?”
“Trump says he wants more population, so why is he against immigration?”
“Right-wing governments and figures with nationalistic tendencies (including Trump) also want to increase birth rates to maintain a strong military and to counter ethnic, racial, and cultural diversification from immigration. These types of leaders often embrace the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory which states that white people are being “replaced” with foreign non-white populations that have higher birth rates. As well as opposing immigration, these governments are hostile to reproductive health and rights, especially abortion care.
‘Probably the most influential pronatalist in the Trump administration is the richest man on Earth and father-of-14 Elon Musk, who bought his new position as Trump’s right-hand man with a $288 million campaign donation. Musk has been trying to sow panic over declining birth rates for years, claiming that the human population is on the verge of collapse due to people having small families, and that low birth rates present a “much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.”
Birth rates weren’t much of an issue before hard-fighting women were able to win some control over what happens to their own bodies. Check out the tough life of Margaret Sanger to see more about that long and terrible fight.
In the mid-1960s, it looked like women and progress had finally won in America and some other countries. More recently, the oligarchs have pushed women’s rights way backwards. Again, Charlotte might ask, “Why?”
The answer lies in the economic nature of world capitalism. Each nation is pitted against the others, and the chief way they compete is with cheap labor. Whoever drives down the cost of labor lowest, beats the other competitors. Nations that have more workers, naturally, get lower labor costs.
What we call a “nation” and what more scientific people call a “state” is actually a political subdivision run by its ruling class. For the major nations, that ruling class is the capitalist class, which might also be called the owning class, or the billionaire class, or, in our case, the oligarchs. They compete with each other economically until they’ve vacuumed up every bit of profit possible. Then they go to war against each other.
You are witnessing an unprecedented national upsurge against outrageous and illegal actions by the Musk/Trump cabal. But protests are not unified. To be ultimately effective, it must become so.
To obtain the necessary unity, it would help to examine the real obstacles to unity. They may not be reasonable, but they are real.
What Is Used to Keep Us Apart?
The first and most important chasm between us is racism. That is the tool that our enemies have always exploited best. Male chauvinism and homophobia are used similarly.
Our enemies are also expert at manipulating us against one another with nationalism. International Workers Day, May 1, may be our best opportunity to overcome it. In Texas, International Workers Day celebrations usually compete with Cinco de Mayo events; but they should obviously be together.
Religion, sectarianism, and anticommunism are always handy tools for the enemies of unity. Another one is called ultraleftism. There are progressive groups that do not want to be “tainted” by unions nor the Democratic Party.
What Will Bring Us Together?
Our own collective intellect is bringing us together. More and more protesters, no matter what they have protested, are beginning to realize the need for unity.
Some of the issues are sure to be more effective than others. In my opinion, sharply increasing food prices will pull us together more than any other single issue. A close second might be retiree rights and benefits, since everybody hopes to have a good retirement eventually.
Organizationally, it would help for our protesters to learn how to create separate contingents in marches and rallies. It is a simple manner of gathering forces behind a single banner instead of marching as a mob, but we haven’t learned it yet.
Most important is leadership. We do not have to agree with one another to recognize our common enemy and work together for our common good. Leaders of progressive organizations, especially the unions where the most power resides, need to consult.
In the meantime, resisting the Musk/Trump cabal in every way possible is the necessary road.
“Tis the final conflict / Let each stand in their place…”
“Agrupemos todos, en la lucha final…”
The words to “l’Internacional” are ringing in my ears. The first 100 days of the Musk/Trump administration are only chaos to most people, but I think I have figured out a correct analysis, characterization, and prescription. I’ve been asking people individually if they agreed or disagreed over the past week or so. Nobody has outright agreed with me, but nobody has contradicted me, either. More importantly, nobody else has any kind of description other than “chaos.”
Here’s what I think: capitalism is in its death throes.
The ruling class, the owning class, the billionaire class, or the boss class as I like to call them, is thrashing about. Although the fascists achieved a majority in the Republican Party, they haven’t completely taken over all the bosses in both boss parties. And they are a long way from having convinced the majority of the American people. The bosses are clutching at fascism the way a drowning man clings to anything that he thinks will float.
Fascism, by the way, doesn’t float. It isn’t a viable way to run an economy. Slaves don’t make good employees. They tend to let the machines break and spit in the bosses’ food. If they try to run the American economy under fascism, they won’t last long. The only reason Hitler was able to hang on for 12 years was his early success in war.
So even if they manage to impose fascism, as they are clearly trying to do, they won’t have solved their problem. Their problem is world competition. Musk and Trump are offering to solve the problem by bringing all their so-called allies to heel (thus the crazy tariffs) and getting everybody to focus on defeating China (thus the effort to change Russia into an ally). Defeating China will require a nuclear war, and they know that. At the same time and for the same reason, they are offering to continue destroying the planet ecologically. To carry all this out, they need the absolute cooperation of all the boss class (thus the tax giveaway) and the total subservience of the working class (thus the moves to starve us into giving up). The result, if it worked, would be a temporary period of unstable fascism.
Long term, there are two possible outcomes: 1) America’s working class unites and puts an end to boss rule, which would effectively end capitalism worldwide 2) Not an alternative.
Either way, the system just doesn’t work any more. It is up to us to work for understanding, for unity, and for action to bring a bright new dawn for humanity. We need to hurry!
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON.org and 89.3FM in Dallas every Saturday at 9. My personal web site has been bothered by adware but seems to be working OK at last: https://lilleskole.us.
I think I like “what did you expect?” better than all the political phrases being bandied around today.
Let me point out why these times we are in have promise that is far more important than the misery that is being put onto working families. The promise won’t be seen by any but those who are genuine change agents who are in it for the long haul, but that’s including more and more people as the veils fall from everybody’s eyes.
The thing that is wrong with the world, you probably have figured out, is the profit system. A small group of legal “owners” profits while everybody else is exploited more and more. When you realize the truth, you should see, almost immediately, that it can’t go on forever. Sooner or later capitalism must capsize just because of its own internal workings.
Long ago, capitalism was a good thing. It freed the slaves and the serfs. It lowered the price of commodities. It provided education to the masses so that they could work its machines. It did good things, but the price was high.
One of the main prices was world war. In 1914, by my own estimation, capitalism started to produce more misery than good. I think a lot of people caught on then, and that’s why we began to see a serious socialist movement worldwide. Another really good example is the degradation of our planet. Capitalism is making it unlivable and more and more people are realizing it.
Capitalism could kill or intimidate many socialists, but they could never extinguish its flame.
People continue to catch on, and new capitalist technology, especially personal smart phones, helped us tremendously. Here in the United States, we began to see the system, including the two-capitalist-party electoral system, for what it is. That caused us to cast about for some other approach, or some other system, or for some other leadership. Predictably, we tend to opt for what seems the easiest route. But what we want is a better world for ourselves and our offspring, and none of the easy ways will provide it.
So here we are. Fires and floods threaten everybody. More war is on the agenda. The entire world monetary system is being rocked. The American dollar, secure and reliable since the destruction of World War II, is being abandoned piecemeal. The owning class, now largely billionaires, is desperately trying to maintain their rule by turning to fascism. In other words, capitalist rule is shuddering toward its death agony.
It might be the end of the world, but it might be only the end of the profit system. Did you think it would be pretty? What did you expect?
George Meyers was my mentor, my friend, and the person I will always wish I was. It was wonderful to hear that Tim Wheeler had completed George’s biography. I bought two copies immediately and plowed into it with glee.
Book Review:
Tim Wheeler, “No Power Greater. The Life and Times of George A Meyers.” International Publishers, New York, 2024.
To the rest of the world, George was a union organizer, the very first President of the Maryland Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), an American soldier, and one of the leading Communists thrown in prison during the 1950’s witch hunt. But to me, he was an inspiration.
When George was working as the head of the Trade Union Commission of the Communist Party, he spent most of his time visiting union leaders and union activists around the country. I was lucky enough to fit into his itinerary a number of times during his last years. He died in 1999.
Although I have never quite lived up to it, I tried and am trying hard to live up to George’s advice on how to conduct oneself within the unions. “Disagree without being disagreeable,” he would say. I’ve lost my temper and alienated people a lot, but it would have been even worse if I hadn’t known that George was right. On our side of the class struggle, we don’t need big egos and avoidable divisions. Save your anger for the bosses.
Even more important was George’s explanation why he had graduated from being a devoted union leader to being barely-paid-at-all as a Communist. His analogy was about union contracts. “No matter what you win with a new contract,” he would explain, “You still have to win it all over again in the next one.”
In other words, working families can only get temporary victories as long as the bosses retain power. They are always eager, and eventually able, to take your victories away from you. It’s true of union contracts, as most of us old-timers can verify, but it is also true of every other kind of victory for working families.
George saw a lot more social progress than any of us alive today have seen, and he also saw it evaporating after, say, 1980. He was part of the formation of the CIO and the greatest organizing years of American history. He saw, and participated in, the defeat of world fascism. He saw, and participated in the great accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, and the anti-war movement in the 1960s. He saw labor win Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, OSHA, weekends, family leave, and other monumental changes.
He also saw Reagan rip through our rights like a ripsaw. He was spared the sight of the current Supreme Court shredding democracy and successfully attacking all the rights that working families had won, but he would have understood it. He knew that all our victories are temporary as long as the bosses are still in charge.
George Meyers taught me, and many others, a lot of things, but his teachings weren’t what affected me most. It was his demeanor. I have never known anyone so steady and calm, so contemplative, so accepting, and so positive. It amazed me. Here was a man who had been to the heights of labor success and then was imprisoned like a common criminal for years for the crime of having taught others to think. He had suffered decades of anti-communist lies and hatred. He had seen legions of weaker friends fall away.
And yet, George Meyers was the happiest man I ever met in my life. He had this great big, lopsided smile that warmed everyone who met him. George Meyer’s beaming face was a face of a better future, of a great and wonderful future. I suppose he knew that it was unlikely that he would live to see that future, but it was enough for him to know that such a future existed and that he, George Meyers, was already a part of it because of the work he was doing.
I reflected on George’s positive outlook and gorgeous smile when I heard that he was seriously ill and in hospital. I tried to understand how a man who had struggled so hard, suffered so much, and contributed so much to an apparently thankless world, could be such a happy inspiration. I think I figured it out during George’s last days when I wrote and dedicated this song, “The Winning Side”
Oh we know him when we see him By the smile upon his face And we all know that he loves us Cause he loves the human race
(chorus) No they couldn’t stop his smiling No matter how they tried Cause in his heart, he always knew He was on the winning side!
Oh the bosses thought they had him When they threw him in the cell But they didn’t know George Meyers He just smiled and wished them well!
When the others talk of quitting And life’s become a trial We know we’ll go on fighting Cause we’ll see George Meyers’ smile!
I wrote this song when I heard that George was in the hospital. I recorded it on cassette and sent it to him. A week or so later, I learned that he had died. A month or so after that, my cassette was returned, unopened. So, as far as I know, George never got to hear his tribute. Others heard it at his wake.
Although we lost George Meyers’ corporeal presence, we’ll never lose his teachings nor his inspiration. And now, we have his biography. Thanks, Tim Wheeler!
I wrote this to Communications Department of Texas AFL-CIO:
Hi Katie and tech-savvy Texans,
As Ed Sills retires, it seems to me that email blasts are on the wane. Someone needs to come up with a new standard for labor communication and start trying to get all labor activists to use it.
We need to complete the move from our computers to our phones. A standard for labor communications would bring together the energies presently being thrown this way and that and make a coherent and more effective system.
I think Angi DeFelippo of Tarrant County might have done more work on this. I believe she uses WhatsApp, the most popular texting service.
It is significant that Action Network now offers free mass texting. The labor radio podcast network now has about 200 podcasters. Heaven knows how many labor bloggers there are.
What I want
For my part, I’m technologically challenged so I may not know very well what the options are, but I know what I want. I want free and open access for everyone with info or an opinion; but at the same time I want one-way, top-down, info from elected leaders. Ideally, the elected leaders would have a person or a method of monitoring the many comments (I call them blabbermouths) and discerning what really needs to go out to all activists. Serious activists don’t have time to chat all day, but some information is vital.
I understand that Telegram offers both channels with full access to chat and one-way top down channels that people can subscribe to. I think they call it “broadcast.”
I also understand that Facebook Messenger has some good features. People can chat away all day on it, but the elected leaders can “broadcast” from official FB pages or Instagram.
I don’t think encryption matters. In fact, I’m not sure it’s even a good idea, since we want to reach the public as much as possible.
Travis tells me that his union has already developed a special app for their members. A special “Texas labor” app might be the answer we need, but I imagine that some of the free services might be as good. They might be even better because, again, we want to reach the public.
Nearly all proposals, including this one of mine, are free.
If you agree with me that we need to set a standard for labor activist communication, why not convene a meeting of labor communicators with some proposals and try to reach a decision?
In solidarity
Gene in Dallas
I’m on KNON.org and 89.3FM every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. If you are curious about what I really think, visit my personal web site
The model that guides all my activities is a picture of a person climbing a staircase from right to left. I try to help that person, or all persons I may be able to influence, make steps upward in their level of activity and leftward in their level of understanding.
At the bottom step are the millions, at least 30% of the adult U.S. population, who don’t seem to do anything nor hold any important opinions. At the top are well-informed and very active people. Just for convenience, I call the ones at the bottom step “Whiners and complainers,” while the ones at the top step are “Cadre.” I also have convenience names for 8 other steps.
The names I attach to the steps may not be important nor meaningful to everyone, but they mean something to me. I don’t think that everyone needs to make each step separately. On real staircases, some people can hop up 3-4 steps at a time. They can also fall backward, but that is rare.
According to Pew Research Center, 30% of eligible voters in America do not vote, even in the highest and most generous estimates. Their idea of “eligible voters” might be the same as “registered voters,” because other estimates say that only 69.1% of eligible adults in America were even registered to vote in 2022. If one had a higher standard — asking if people voted at every opportunity, for example — the proportion of “whiners and complainers” would be far higher and would include the vast majority of the nation.
The terrific news from the Pew researchers is that voting rates are rising to record high levels. In other words, the number of people stuck at the “whiners and complainers” level, is diminishing.
The next step in activity and understanding consists of voters. Voting requires the least thinking and the least energy of all political activity. In the 2020 presidential race, about 65% of registered voters rose to that step. As I work my model, I try to get people to register and to vote. If I succeed, then they have moved upward and to the left one step.
Just getting people to make that first step is challenging, and it’s about as far as most individuals and organizations go. But I have higher aspirations. I want people to make progressive changes in America, so I ask them to take their next step upward and to the left.
I call the third step, “marchers.” People in this category go beyond voting and participate in physical actions such as marching, picketing, sign-carrying, canvassing, rallying, phone banking, petitioning, or any other physical show of commitment. As far as I know, America has had very few mass demonstrations with more than a million people, so the estimate of people at the “marcher” step is a lot smaller than that of “voters.” But they are the ones making a difference. Even though they may not be exactly committed ideologically, a lot of union members find themselves taking such physical action during their contract negotiations.
People at the fourth step have achieved union consciousness. They may not be union members, but they have figured out that organized workers are a powerful force for good, and that they should be supported. It would be really hard if not impossible to tally up the number of people who have demonstrated their union consciousness, but I think all would agree that the number is rising. There are estimates that as high as 80% of Americans approve of unions. By contrast, hardly any politician or political entity can boast of 50%.
By the time a person rises toward the fourth step, they become aware of some strong gravitational forces pushing them backward. America’s rulers hate unions, and they control all the information sources. Consequently, people find themselves pushed mightily against union consciousness. It’s amazing that so many Americans have made this step!
Union consciousness is a mighty achievement. Not even all union members rise so high and leftward. But unions are defensive organizations and rarely act for the general good of people outside their membership. Until recently, very few unions even considered taking any foreign policy position that was not in line with the government. In 2024, the Autoworkers (UAW), then other unions, and finally the AFL-CIO labor federation began to demand a cease fire in the Middle East. By contrast, nearly all unions, and especially the AFL-CIO, supported the American invasion of Vietnam in the 1960s. Most union members, like most Americans, tend to go along with whatever the bosses tell them through their control of all information sources.
A higher step, the fifth in my model, is “internationalists.” These people have already recognized the great importance of organized working families in America and have gone further. They recognize the common interests of working families all over the world. They will face up to mighty force from the bosses, but they will actively work for justice for all nations.
The sixth step is “class warriors.” At this stage of understanding and activity, people support working families as the only category of people capable of standing up to the bosses. They recognize the reactionary nature of the bosses and their system, and they know that our profit-based employer dominating system needs to be changed. They may have, and probably did, start on this staircase with something else in mind.
In my own case, I took my first steps upward and to the left because of school reform. Back in the 1960s, I was an advocate for children and took action to end corporal punishment in the schools. To this day, I still have strong feelings about educational reform and would like to spend my time and energy on that topic — but I realized along the way that school reform is not all that’s needed. I know people who began with gay pride, election reform, civil liberties, and, especially, civil rights before they rose on the staircase to see what is really wrong and what really must be done.
I made “theoreticians” my 7th step. Probably, everybody is a theoretician in one way or another. I just wanted to show that there are good class warriors who aren’t applying all of their best thinking to every task. Those who are doing their best thinking (I might have called them “anguishers” because the term fits me so well) made it to the 7th level.
Joiners, the 8th step, are people who have recognized that the only way to make progressive change is by working together. They’re already doing great activities and thinking, but they have realized that it is going to take a concerted effort with other like-thinking activists to make progressive change.
I made a special step for “sustainers.” The term comes from fund raising and means people who donate regularly. But there are other ways to make sure that a progressive organization thrives. The problem is that some of us think “joining” is a passive verb. The sustainers at the 9th step are members who take responsibility for their organization.
Finally, at the tenth step and top, are “cadre.” It’s not a word that is well understood, but there is no better replacement. To some, it means, “dutiful followers,” and to others it means “outstanding leaders.” In truth it means both and everything in between. Cadre members are the absolute best leaders, and the absolute best followers, depending on what is needed. They are hard to find.
Not a lot of people find their way to the top of my staircase. I encourage them, but my effect is relatively insignificant. What propels them upward and leftward is the truth. Like a wind at our backs, the truth pushes us toward understanding and activity. All an individual needs is a little bit of courage and, sooner or later, all will rise.
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON.org and 89.3FM radio every Saturday from 9 to 10 Central Time. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site at https://www.lilleskole.us.
People are frustrated with one another and finding it difficult to carry on conversations. My liberal friends think that the MAGA Republicans have lost their minds and aren’t worth talking to; consequently, they just make it worse.
Let’s try to understand the problem and then find a solution. Time Magazine said that a recent poll shows Biden and Trump voters are living different realities. That’s more an expression of frustration than a helpful description. There are no different realities.
But there are lots of people, on both sides of the argument, who depart from reality. In philosophy, there are basically only two main schools: one is based on feelings, faith or superstition and the other is based on reality as ascertained through our senses. We could also call the two schools “religious” and “scientific,” or, and this is my preference, “Idealism” and “materialism.” The materialist assesses their choices and asks “What is likely to happen with this or that course of action?” The idealists consults their feelings.
A materialist cannot usually win an argument with an idealist because they are using different world views. However, the good news is that reality is the great teacher and will eventually prevail. All of us are somewhat idealistic and somewhat materialistic, but in things that matter, materialism tends to erode idealism away.
The answer to the problem is civil discourse. It may be true that you cannot win an argument with someone who doesn’t believe in facts, but it is also true that you can keep communications lines open while the facts chip away at the fantasies. Civil discourse is America’s only hope for overcoming the polarity that is driving us to a violent end.
I notice this a lot because I am a talk show host on KNON.org and 89.3FM in Dallas (9AM Saturdays). People call with some of the most outrageous fantasies and outright lies. I’m well aware that I probably cannot out-argue them. But, if I keep the discussion civil, I can make my case for the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of radio listeners. Every caller on my show should get a chance to briefly make their point, and, if there is time, I get to respond. When somebody tells outrageous lies, subsequent callers can usually point it out, so the radio listeners benefit from the entire discussion. Yelling at the reactionaries who call, or cutting them off, has a big negative effect on the rest of the listeners. It makes the polarity worse.
Movie Review: “Poor Things,” Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, 141 minutes
My movie buddy had to drag me away from the lobby outside the entrance to “Poor Things.” I wanted to stay and warn everybody to stay away. It’s over 2 hours of pretentious nonsense about a baby girl growing within a woman’s body. It’s a misogynist fantasy wasting $35 million worth of the latest technology, technique, and style.
The movie really does have a lot going for it. Everything about it is quirky and over-the-top. Mark Ruffalo, as a Casanova cad, is hilarious, especially in the scene where the child/woman enthusiastically dances jerkily in the middle of a prim ballroom dance and Ruffalo tries to cover for her with impromptu twirls and dips. I could cut that 4 minute scene out and watch it every now and then, but not anything else.
On the way home, my movie buddy analyzed the title. “Poor Things” doesn’t refer to anybody in the movie. It’s the audience, us.
genelantz 