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.
Last week’s Pew Poll revealed that President Biden’s approval rating has continued to fall and has reached a dismal 33%! If we put some perspective around that figure, we can discover something really worth knowing. Think about it, how could Biden’s approval ratings keep falling while the economy keeps improving?
Compare Biden to Other World Leaders
The Los Angeles Times checked approval ratings of other world leaders of industrialized nations.
Canada’s Justin Trudeau 31%
Britain’s Rishi Sunak 21%
Germany’s Olaf Sholz 17%
Japan’s Fumio Kishida 17%
They added in several more observations. Donald Trump’s approval is harder to measure but they give him a measly 42%. While President Biden started his term with well over 50%, Trump never had over 49%.
Compare Approval Ratings over Time
The Los Angeles newspaper also checked back a few decades and concluded that President Eisenhower (1952-1960) was the last one to keep decent approval ratings all the way. That was in the days of the “American Century” when unions demanded and received 3% raises every year, plus cost-of-living raises, plus pensions, plus free health care. After Eisenhower, every American president started out with over 50% and then fell steadily to the end of their term.
The evidence shows clearly that declining approval ratings can’t be blamed on any of the simple things. It’s not the person’s age, not the state of the economy, not war, not peace, not scandal, not any of the issues of any particular period. It has to be something big, something powerful, and something consistent.
Once You See It, Things Make Sense
People in America and other industrialized countries do not like the system they live under. It’s that simple.
Want to know why Trump won in 2016 in spite of every possible prediction? Voters thought he represented some kind of new system. What they got was tax cuts for the rich and an intensification of everything that was wrong with the old system, but many of them are still desperate for some kind of positive change, and many of them, incredible as it may seem, will continue to hang those hopes on Donald Trump.
The system we live under produces the worst kind of inequality. We could call it the “rich get richer and poor get poorer” system. Just last week, in the same newspapers, we read that the stock market had peaked and, that same week, homelessness in American also reached an all-time historical high! If you read carefully, you would also have seen that the number of young Americans who expect to vote in the 2024 Presidential race is tanking!
It isn’t just Biden, Trump, Trudeau and the rest of them that can’t get high approval ratings. It wouldn’t help much to substitute other Democrats for Biden or other Republicans for Trump. We would still have the same system and approval ratings would continue falling!
Change Will Come, Because It Must
My recent blogs and podcasts have been about the outlook for fascism, for a general strike, and a viable workers’ party. Those are the trends underway, and we’d better be working hard for one of the last two.
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. On Wednesdays, they post my “Workers Beat Extra” podcasts on Soundcloud.com. If you are curious about what I really think, try my personal web site at http://lilleskole.us.
This week’s developments, written up in the Washington Post and elsewhere, indicate new gains for fascism. Far-right politicians won their elections in The Netherlands and in Argentina. A new poll suggests that Donald Trump is 7 points ahead of Joe Biden. In order to assess the danger and its consequences, it is important to understand some history and some political science as they pertain to methods of government.
Jesus, Socialism, and Democracy
In the United States, confusion has been deliberately created to keep us from understanding. For example, our information sources regularly cross-mix economic systems, religious systems, and political systems. It is common to hear things like, “We prefer Jesus and democracy to socialism.” Thus, a religious symbol and a political system are counterposed to an economic system, to the confusion of all. I’m going to leave the discussion about what Jesus prefers for another time. I’m going to dispense with economic systems with only one sentence: socialism and capitalism are the only two economic systems worth worrying about today. And now, let us focus on political systems.
Three Systems of Governance
There are three systems of governance in world competition. They can be distinguished by their degree of self-governance. They are total democracy, partial democracy, and fascism.
If we had complete democracy, each of us would be able to affect decisions to the degree that those decisions affect us. In other words, you would have proportional say-so about everything that matters to you. That would include economic decisions and decisions on foreign policy. Such complete democracy may have sounded difficult to arrange in past centuries, but the internet now makes it relatively easy and close at hand. If we wanted, for example, we could cast a meaningful vote every day on our phones!
Currently in the United States, voters have practically no options concerning economic or foreign policy decisions. Did you ever vote to go to war or to stop a war? Did you ever have a vote on which factories would remain open and which would close? Voters in the U.S. have options on which of two political parties shall rule, on certain bond proposals or resolutions, and other matters; but not on the economics and foreign policies that affect them so greatly. We have partial democracy. From about 1776 to about 1980, our level of democracy seemed to grow. We overcame slavery. Poor men and, finally, women achieved suffrage. Poll taxes were ended. Some ballots were printed in various languages. The voting age was lowered. Some racial discrimination was overcome. As political obstacles were overcome, it was tempting to say that total democracy would eventually triumph, one success at a time. Those who gave in to that temptation overlooked an important fact: there is a class of very wealthy people who benefit from less democracy and have no intention of giving up their rule, especially over foreign and economic policies. This class of people continues to struggle to move democracy backward for their own benefit.
Partial democracy has a wonderful effect on production. After partial democracy leaped ahead in England centuries ago, their productive abilities soon outpaced the rest of the world. More-or-less willing workers are far more efficient than slaves or serfs, Soon, productive England dominated much of the world and would continue to dominate until less-democratic nations caught up or surpassed them. When productive powers became more equal between nations, their competition turned into the inferno named World War I. During that war and because of it, two controversial new possibilities emerged: total democracy and fascism.
In 1932 under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the United States improved democracy and seemed headed toward total democracy. In the same period, Germany started moving the other direction, toward the total absence of democracy.
Why and How?
People either love or hate the Soviet Union and I have no intention of debating it here. I will assert only that it offered the possibility of total democracy. It was their intention that the people would have control over everything, including foreign policy and economics. It is important to mention that their productivity shot upwards as they struggled toward total democracy.
The worldwide economic disaster that began in 1929 discredited older political systems. Millions flocked to the new possibility of total democracy. The reactionary class was horrified!
In the United States, the reactionary class agreed to restrained and temporary improvements in democracy, as long as they were still in charge. In Germany, they agreed to Nazi power — again, as long as they were still in charge. The reason that the reactionaries in the two nations took different courses had to do with their different economic situations. The United States had many options. The Germans had only one, war against the nations that contained them. The reactionary rulers were taking risks with both forms of governance. They had to, because the forces of total democracy were strong and getting stronger in all nations. In neither case, however, did the reactionaries intend to give up their rule, and neither of them did.
Fascism Is a Choice
The wealthiest Germans temporarily embraced Hitler. The wealthiest Americans temporarily backed FDR. The Spanish military, with the help of the Catholic Church and military forces from fascist countries, installed a dictator, Generalissimo Francisco Franco. It is especially important to examine the case of fascist Spain. Through such an examination, one can see clearly that fascism is a choice of reactionary rulers. German fascism ended in flames. America’s “New Deal” democracy was eroded, and is eroding, away. But Spain simply gave up fascism and returned to partial democracy. No war nor revolution ended fascism in Spain. Franco died, and the reactionary rulers decided that partial democracy would improve their productivity. As with England in the 16th century, partial democracy improves productivity. Fascism, with less-willing workers, retards productivity.
One can look further than Spain and see that a number of nations have embraced fascism when threatened by total democracy. After the threat passed, they resumed partial democracy to raise their productivity. Examples are Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, and Chile. It’s still going on. Fascism does not occur naturally. Natural social progress would suggest that partial democracy increases productivity, more democracy increases productivity more, and total democracy would increase productivity to its highest levels. Fascism retards that process and leads to less productivity. Fascism is unnatural and is a choice of the reactionary rulers, the wealthiest class.
There is Only One Way to Stop Fascism
As long as there is a reactionary ruling class, they will have the option of fascism and may choose it when they will. They have to be removed from power.
I’m on KNON.org’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. My “Workers Beat Extra” podcasts are on knon.org and Soundcloud. If you are curious about what I really think, you might check out my personal web site
genelantz 