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Fascism, All About It

September 10, 2025
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At 7PM on September 16, I will get to open an on-line discussion about fascism. Even though these aren’t the times to sit around and study scholarly stuff, I couldn’t pass this one up. Fascism is upon us in America and people need to know what they are fighting. I’ve started circulating some questions and, bit by bit, some of the information I’ve gathered. Hopefully, people will get in touch about the link for the class.

Some questions to think about

When one considers the history of fascism in various nations, trying to define fascism is like nailing jelly to a wall. True? False?

Fascism is best described as “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” True? False?

“Fascism is capitalism in its death throes.” True? False?

A ruling class can opt for fascism at one time, then later opt for some other form of administering their state. True? False?

The United States is already fascist and has been for some time. True? False?

The Trump Administration has revealed itself to aspire to fascism. True? False?

The threat of fascism will be erased if Democrats win the 2026 mid term elections.  True? False?

Fascism comes when the capitalist class is at its strongest.  True? False?

Fascism comes when the capitalist class is at its weakest.  True? False?

When the capitalists’ economic situation is desperate, and when the progressive movement is threatening them, capitalists are likely to opt for autocracy and fascism.  True? False?

When the capitalists’ economic situation is desperate, and when the progressive movement is threatening them, socialists have a great opportunity.  True? False?

When confronted with the possibility of fascism, the united front is the way forward. True? False?

In America, the purpose of the united front is to elect anybody who opposes the Trump program.  True? False?

The united front is a broad coalition of all anti-fascist organizations and individuals. True? False?

In the broadest sense, the workers’ interest is always primarily in the form of government. Dictatorship versus democracy. True? False?

“Mango Mussolini”

I’m creating a Power Point presentation to deal with the questions. But first, here’s what I have learned:

Why Study Up?

We study fascism today because we must stop it. Let us dispense with the academic side in as few words as possible, so that we can move on to the all-important prescriptions for how to overcome the fascist threat in America today.

WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW

The previous class on “Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State gave us a clear idea on what constitutes a class and a state. That clarity is essential for understanding anything else.

In the present study of fascism, bear in mind that it is a form of government chosen deliberately by a capitalist class as a way of administering their state. Historically, capitalists chose limited democracy because it works best with their economy; but sometimes they choose fascism. This is one of those times.

ACADEMIC AND HISTORICAL DEFINITIONS

Fascism is best described as “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” According to Georgi Dmitrov, in a collection of his reports in 1935 and 1936, “Against Fascism and War,” fascism is “the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.”

Mussolini called it “corporatism.”

Google definition:

Fascism is a far-right, ultranationalist, and authoritarian political ideology that prioritizes the nation and its leader above all else, emphasizing national unity, military strength, and the elimination of perceived threats through violence and propaganda. It is characterized by a cult of personality, a rejection of individual rights and democratic processes, and a focus on national decline and rebirth. Fascism advocates for a totalitarian state with centralized economic control, often resulting in the suppression of dissent and the persecution of minority groups.”

IS FASCISM FATAL? IS IT PERMANENT?

We nearly always study fascism by looking at Italy and Germany in the 1930s and World War II, when fascism rose, was defined, and was crushed by the capitalist countries still operating under limited democracy.

But fascism has occurred at other times in other countries. These countries used limited democracy before they became fascist and were using limited democracy afterward as well. As these countries and situations are more recent, they may be more relevant for our present study. Why did their capitalist class choose fascism and why, later, did they let it go?

“WHAT” IS LESS IMPORTANT THAN “WHY”

As you learned in “Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” historical developments have an economic basis. A nation’s capitalist class chooses fascism as their way to deal with their economic problems. Authoritarian fascism is less efficient than partial democracy; consequently, fascists intervene in their capitalist economy. Hitler directed the corporations involved in war production and Donald Trump is today using state power to force business decisions and buy shares in key corporations. The need for higher profit rates call for another extreme government tool, and that tool is war.

The other, perhaps more pertinent, way to explain why capitalists choose fascism is that they need it to overcome their own domestic opposition. The German capitalists allied with the Social Democrats in order to stop the growing Communist opposition. After World War II, the Indonesian capitalists murdered a million Communist voters. The Vietnamese, Chileans, Brazilians, Argentinians and others, allied with U.S. imperialism, used “the Jakarta method” to violently overcome opposition in their countries. In later periods, when socialist opposition was less of a threat, they allowed partial democracy to return as their form of government. It’s more efficient.

WHAT MARX DIDN’T TELL US

Marx correctly predicted that capitalism will fall of its own weight. For example, the worldwide depression of the 1930s convinced many progressives that capitalism was finished. What Marx didn’t predict and what he never saw, was that capitalists can conduct world wars that destroy commodities, people, and factories. Then, afterward, the survivors effectively get to leave all our dead behind and start anew!

A SHORT HISTORY OF AMERICAN FASCISM

Early American fascism evaporated almost immediately after Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. In the 1960s, as a response to a growing civil rights and anti-war movement internally and the beginnings of a slip in American economic domination of the planet, the John Birch Society began to take the main role in promoting American fascism. When the Republican Party under Reagan embraced white nationalism, fascism bloomed. Careful and deliberate legal, electoral, and cultural schemes, underwritten deliberately by some of the richest Americans, paid off for them in 2024 when they consolidated their hold over one of the two major capitalist political parties. They are, at present, using every apparatus, including state power, to dismantle the former method of class rule and implement autocracy and fascism.

IS THIS CRISIS A DISASTER OR AN OPPORTUNITY?

American capitalists are losing their economic hegemony over the world and their political hold on the people. Opting for fascism is a sign of their weakness and desperation. Would any set of rational and strong people choose an unstable spokesperson like Donald Trump if they were comfortable with their choices?

Fascism is not an inevitable extension of capitalism. It can be stopped and, in fact, the weakness of the capitalist class gives progressive forces their best possible opportunity.

THE UNTED FRONT IS OUR STRATEGY

A united front is a broad coalition of working class and allied forces who agree to stop fascism. It is built by a serious of concerted working class activities that draw our class forces together. Concerted activities include strikes, boycotts, organizing drives, contract fights, and more general activities for progress such as civil rights and civil liberties fights. Unions, as the strongest, most democratic, and most popular institutions in America are of special importance. Activists deliberately initiate and/or support activities in order to build the necessary national coalition. Our goal is a socialist system where everyone’s human needs come before the desires of the tiny capitalist class.

From Dmitrov: “CONTENT AND FORMS OF THE UNITED FRONT”

“We must tirelessly prepare the working class for a rapid change in forms and methods of struggle when there is a change in the situation. As the movement grows and the unity of the working class strengthens, we must go further, and prepare the transition from the defensive to the offensive against capital, steering towards the organization of a mass political strike. It must be an absolute condition of such a strike to draw into it the main trade unions of the countries concerned.”

SUMMARY

American capitalists are opting for fascism because 1) they are losing their economic hegemony over the world and 2) they are losing political control over the people. Left unchecked, they will commit greater and greater atrocities, up to and including world war. The working class and its allies, working in a united front, can stop them. Further, we can break their rule and allow the people to move up to a better system.

FURTHER STUDY FOR SCHOLARS

Recent article from Sept 9, 2025: https://peoplesworld.org/article/defining-fascism-think-unpaid-labor-slavery/

CPUSA Video: https://cpusa.org/party_voices/good-morning-revolution-fascism-what-it-is-and-how-to-fight-it/

Book Review: “The Jakarta Method” https://genelantz.org/2020/08/17/american-mass-murders/

Podcast: “Where’s our Offensive Team?” https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/XHtTZgkAlWb

Podcast: Building successful coalitions https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/z01GBekAlWb

Georgi Dimitrov: Against War & Fascism [1935]

The Billionaires Must Be Removed from Power

April 23, 2025
democracy, economy, history, politics, strategy
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The for-profit economic system must be ended. Today’s unprecedented political activity must be turned toward ending this system and birthing a new system of cooperation and democracy. The opportunity is now and may soon pass by, just as two great opportunities were missed in 20th century history.

Great hordes of protesters are springing up like grass on the Earth. They are fearless and strong, but not united in purpose. In America, many of them believe that they need only to replace Musk and Trump with Democrats. They are mistaken, and, if they don’t achieve a better understanding, will probably fail even in their modest hopes. Even if they succeed, they will have solved nothing except, perhaps, a delay in fascism.

Look behind the Musk/Trump fascist spokespersons at the underlying economic situation and our place in material history.

Musk and Trump are powerful figureheads, but figureheads still. The other politicians, newspersons, judges, and law firms kneeling before Musk/Trump give a clue to the breadth of the fascist trend. The power behind it all is the billionaire class.

The billionaire class would not have chosen comic madmen and unpopular ideology if they weren’t desperate. In fact, the capitalists are aware that they are drowning in a thrashing sea. Musk/Trump and fascism, they hope, will at least keep them afloat until they can find a way to restore the profit streams that keep them alive as a class. In their desperation, and because they have no conscience, they are willing to bring about a third world war – this time against China.

Armchair socialists who believe that world war is impossible and that capitalism will die of self-inflicted wounds, aren’t helping.

 Capitalism will not die of its own internal contradictions, as some bookish “Marxists” choose to believe. Like flatworms cut in half, capitalism can regenerate its missing parts.

This was demonstrated after World War I and again after World War II. In those wars, hundreds of millions died, many more suffered lifelong debilitations, and the wealth of ages was destroyed or converted into military equipment that was either blown to smithereens or discarded as useless later on. Afterward, the capitalists who had won picked up and went on to create a new phase of prosperity for themselves.

In 1914 and again in 1939, capitalism’s internal contradictions brought the system to the precipice of extinction just as Marx and Engels had predicted. But nineteenth century Marx and Engels had no experience with mechanized world war. The twentieth century bosses didn’t step aside in acknowledgement of the fact that history had already outlived them and they had nothing progressive to offer the human race. Instead, they set themselves at each other like cannibals and came close to destroying everything.

After the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were evaporated, it was commonly thought that a third world war was impossible, since the existence of the planet was at stake. Bookish “Marxists” took comfort in believing that world war had become simply impossible and that the internal contradictions explained by Marx, usually described as the tendency of the profit rate to decline, was still operating to bring the bosses to their eventual knees.

Past bosses had no qualms about ordering millions of automated deaths nor of destroying civilization’s wealth. In fact, a lot of them did quite well in the wartime economy. The bosses on the winning side also reaped a bonanza in post-war prosperity.

Even though the corporate-owned newspersons describe the Musk/Trump regime as chaotic and senseless shenanigans, they have a clear purpose that is completely in line with the wishes of the billionaire class that sponsors them. They intend to bring everyone possible under their control and to direct them, like a collective battering ram of nations, corporations and individuals, against their economic adversary — China. A trade war is hardly the beginning, because only the mighty U.S. military might be able to overcome China’s commercial advantages.

If the billionaires are not stopped and removed from power, they will sooner or later carry out a third world war at immeasurable cost to the people and the planet. That’s how they handled their inevitable internal crises before; that’s how they will handle them again, unless they are stopped.

My Guiding Model

August 7, 2024
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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.

Here Come the White People!

October 18, 2023
democracy, history, politics, strategy
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“Here Come the White People!” should have been a warning throughout history. People who had land, or thought they had land, found themselves on tiny reservations while their former lands were taken over by relatively prosperous white people. If the former landowners fought back, they were labeled “terrorists” and killed.

I could be talking about Geronimo, or maybe Pontiac, or Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull. I might be talking about the former occupants of the land known as Palestine, but not necessarily.

I might also be talking about the many enslaved people who followed General Sherman’s army in the Civil War. Sherman actually gave them land and, with it, the possibility of accumulated wealth some day in the future. This is the beginning of the idea of “Forty Acres and a Mule” that we still refer to.

After the shooting was over, President Johnson and the federal government made all the former slaves give up their lands. Title was returned to the slavemasters.

A few Black Americans received land when the Dawes Commission forced the tribes of Oklahoma to divide their communal land. Some of the tribe members were former slaves, and they received allotments. I’m not sure how that went down with every tribe, but I have read that the Chickasaws hired “Alfalfa” Bill Murray as their attorney to get all the land away from Black tribe members. Murray went on to become Oklahoma’s first governor in 1907, and Black people went on being landless and poorer than dirt.

Today on radio, I heard President Biden pledging eternal allegiance to Israel. He painted the Palestinians in the ugliest of colors. When I read the newspaper, I saw that the world is afire with protests. Even on U.S. campuses, people, including young Jews, are speaking up against Zionism and the liklihood of genocide in the Gaza Strip. Last night, an on-line group called “U.S. Labor Against Racism and War” held a webinar with 256 union activists attending. They have another one in two days.

What’s the Real Issue?

I don’t think the issue is the sorry state of Native reservations, nor Little Big Horn, nor the exploded hospital in Gaza, nor the maurauding soldiers from Hamas. The issue is land. The issue is land and it has been gleefully ignored in nearly a century of land-grabbing and settler outposts extending from Tel-Aviv.

I also think that another big issue is arising. For some time, the United States’ domination of world finance has been unchallenged, but the BRICS consortium is beginning to erode it away. Biden’s speech this morning must have accelerated that process.

History tells us that everybody should look out for the white people. Wikipedia tells us that the white people share of the world population is 15% and falling.

–gene lantz

I’m on KNON.org’s “Workers Beat” 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 old personal web site.

When Our Troubles Began

September 21, 2023
democracy, economy, elections, history, politics, strategy, unions
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Salon has very good news story covering developments 1982-present and the significance of today’s upsurge. Lone Star Project caught it for their daily news summary. I posted it on my FB page. It’s excellent.

https://www.salon.com/2023/09/21/uaws-high-stakes-gambit-this-strike-is-a-potential-paradigm-shift_partner/

My only problem with the article is that, like nearly all liberal analysis of today, it implies that labor’s problems began with Reagan in 1982. All of them, including the most erudite economists, start in 1982 with evil Republicans and recommend, as a solution, voting for liberal Democrats. They say that 1945-1982 was “normal” and that we could “get back” to that era by voting Democrat.

Nobody, except me and a handful of radical economists, especially Pikety, start with 1947, when America’s real troubles began. When the unions, some of them reluctantly, accepted the Taft Hartley law, solidarity ended.

Not only did the CIO separate from 14 of their best unions after Taft Hartley, the remaining unions raided them. What inevitably followed was decades of union isolation from one another and, even worse, from the public at large. The so-called “Treaty of Detroit” in the 1950s was a tragic error, not a wonderful accomplishment by Walter Reuther of the Autoworkers. When the UAW accepted employer-provided pensions and health care, they turned their backs on everybody else. We’re all paying for it now.

The great tragedy marked by Reagan’s firing and blacklisting of PATCO air traffic controllers was only made possible by the failure of the rest of the labor movement, and its public supporters, to respond. PATCO union leaders made several bad mistakes, including among them their having supported Reagan for election, but the historic lesson from the PATCO firing was that nobody helped them.

Once we understand that it was the lack of labor solidarity, not just Reagan, that was the root of our problems, we can see an actual solution — and it’s not just voting for liberal Democrats. It’s building up the movement for working families!

The current labor upsurge, especially the UAW strike, is attempting to rectify a catastrophe decades in the making. It will take all of us to win!

–Gene Lantz

I”m on knon.org “Workers Beat” radio talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. They also post my “Workers Beat Extra” podcasts there and on Soundcloud. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site

3 More Ways the UAW Could Win

September 11, 2023
civil rights, democracy, economy, history, politics, strategy, unions
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There are at least three ways that the UAW could win against their 3 large corporate opponents without a massive strike:

  1. A rolling strike: The UAW could strike only in the plants where they are strongest, and the strikes could be limited to relatively short periods. The auto industry is interconnected and uses just-in-time inventory; consequently, one facility might shut down several others for lack of components.
  2. A slowdown: My own local, 848 in Grand Prairie, Texas, ran a successful campaign in 1984-5 and defeated a rich and powerful corporation by “running the plant backwards” for 15 months. During that time, only 65 of us were fired and required strike pay. The first 10 months or so were very difficult and not successful, but we learned how to carry out the fight and, eventually, went on strike for only 11 hours before we reached victory. All 65 of us marched back in the plant with back pay in our pockets! I wrote an account that is available on-line.
  3. A Hit-And-Run: Around 1960, my union local invented an entirely novel tactic. Instead of going on strike, they looked through the membership to see which departments were strongest for the union. Those departments alternated one day work stoppages. A lot of the members were entirely unaffected. Some of them did not even know that a battle was going on, but the stronger units were slowing down production.

Because of just-in-time inventory and assembly-line production, the UAW does not need an expensive full-fledged strike to win. Just a few workers can shut down an assembly line; just a small component shortage can shut down a factory.

I’m not a labor lawyer, so I do not know what tactics might run closer or further from the law. Also, I do not know if any of these suggested tactics might result in as much public support as a full fledged strike against all 3 big auto corporations would surely engender. I don’t know which tactics might result in more political support as the 2024 elections loom large. Ultimately, I believe that the key to victory is the support of the American people, and I believe that working families have that support, and will win more of it as time goes by.

I’m just pointing out that there’s more than one way to defeat a greedy corporation.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on knon.org’s “Workers Beat” talk show at 9AM Central Time every Saturday. My “Workers Beat Extra” podcasts are on knon.org and Soundcloud. Lately, my personal web site, http;//lilleskole.us, has picked up some malware, so be careful.

Should Labor Use Commercial “News?”

August 7, 2023
democracy, history, politics, strategy
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The answer is “yes,” but there are powerful caveats.

Why Do Unions Tend to Avoid Commercial Media?

American law protects a union’s right to communicate fully and openly with their members. Unions can even publish their candidate recommendations – but only to their members. Unions have to be much more careful when talking to  any audience that may include people who are not their members. Some unions don’t talk to them at all.

For unions, there are good reasons to avoid the commercial media. The laws are stacked against us, and the “news” sources virtually all belong to giant corporations who are, after all, our worst enemies. Try Googling “Who owns America’s news?”

https://www.google.com/search?q=Who+owns+American+news%3F&oq=Who+owns+American+news%3F&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512l2j0i22i30l7.8422j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

And you will find that it’s 15 billionaires in 6 mega corporations. Every one of them would fight to the death to keep their own employees and those of their corporate advertisers from organizing.

“Just 37 years ago, there were 50 companies in charge of most American media. Now, 90% of the media in the United States is controlled by just six corporations: AT&T, CBS, Comcast, Disney, Newscorp and Viacom”

The Big Six’s big media game

Economics and Foreign Policy

Our “news” is most shamefully dishonest when it comes to economic and foreign policy news. They literally sing from the exact same hymnbook, and that hymnbook is written by corporations with no input from working families. One would like to exclude “public” media such as NPR or the BCC, but it would be a mistake. Compare any news item on the economy or on foreign policy over the full spectrum of what is available. Even the phrasing is practically identical!

Exceptions like the all-volunteer community radio station KNON in Dallas are so small as to be almost negligible. The hour-long talk show, “Workers Beat,” which I have proudly hosted for decades, is the only worker-friendly program on the Texas airwaves and one of only 3 or 4 in the entire South!

When labor takes actions big enough to affect the economy, we sometimes get news coverage. But the bosses’ “other side” version generally gets more.

Consider the Vietnam War

In the 1960s, tiny newspapers sprang up with the truth about the war in Vietnam. While the commercial media went on, as they always do on foreign policy questions, raving about the wonderful work that America was doing in Southeast Asia. tiny newspapers like “Space City News,” “Abraxis,” and “Mockingbird” (I worked on Mockingbird) in Houston and many cities were publishing actual accounts from soldiers’ letters.

Consider the pacifists. They carried out dramatic anti-war actions time and again, but could not get favorable news coverage anywhere except in the “underground” press. Singer Joan Baez was arrested almost daily for trying to stop young men from going overseas. Her commercial news coverage consisted of being denigrated as “Joannie Phoney” in one of the most popular comic strips.

The truth, years later, giant demonstrations and the underground press eventually eroded the truth through. After that, it wasn’t the glorified accounts of Vietnam’s battlefields that swayed the public. It was the scenes of coffins and body bags landing at American airports. Since Vietnam, America has preferred to fight its wars with machines and proxy combatants. Journalists are vetted and “embedded” by the military.

Does my condemnation mean that all commercial “news” must be disregarded as untruthful? Certainly not. Corporate bosses insist that their commercial journalists be scrupulously honest on all the smaller issues, the better to fool us on the big ones.

 Public Actions Can Get Good News Coverage

Even though giant corporations monopolize virtually everything we read, hear, or see, democracy still gives us opportunities. The American people believe in democracy and think they have it, even in their news sources. The print trades that once ran the great newspapers may have been broken years ago, but journalists are now joining writers’ unions, especially The Writers Guild formed by the Communication Workers of America. The internet and social media may be spreading innumerable lies, but truth also finds it accessible – and commercial news sources are made wary. More than anything else, handy mobile phones give Americans access to friends and sources they can trust.

The larger and more public our actions are, the more likely they are to get honest coverage. The better that our news conferences and news releases are, the more likely they are to be covered accurately. The more adroitly we use quasi-democratic platforms like talk shows and letters-to-editors, the more likely we are to get our message out.

It is good to understand the corporate media with all its anti-labor proclivities, but it is even more important to take advantage of every possible avenue to reach working families with the truth. We can do that. More and more, we ARE doing it!

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON.org’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show every Saturday at 9AM Central time. My “Workers Beat Extra” podcasts are usually published on Wednesdays on KNON and Soundcloud. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my old personal web site.

Escaping from, or with, Joe Biden

July 8, 2023
democracy, history, politics, strategy
1 Comment

The American people have zero say-so on foreign policy. None of us ever wanted to die in wars, nor to send our sons and daughters to die, but the people in charge, whose sons and daughters are safe, keep creating havoc around the world. None of us wants our tax money spent on killing everybody’s children anywhere, but we have no say-so. We have to rely on Joe Biden.

Biden and the Democrats created the proxy war in Eastern Europe. All the Russians asked was to stop NATO to stop creeping up on them, but the U.S. would not even discuss it. When a crime like this war is committed, the detectives are supposed to ask “Who benefits?” But our detectives, the public “news” persons, are just house pets who faithfully repeat everything that the state department tells them.

Who benefits?

It’s not the Russians nor the Ukrainians. They’re just doing all the dying. It’s certainly not the Europeans who are paying through the nose for oil and gas now that they can’t get it from Russia. It’s clearly not the starving people who can’t get grain and fertilizer from Ukraine and Russia.

It’s the American oil companies! Anybody who stops and thinks about it will see it! In fact, if they think their way through “who benefits” from the proxy wars in Syria, Iraq, and Libya; they’ll get the same answer: American oil companies.

What’s next?

As the war drags on, the U.S. and the Westerners under U.S. control keep upping the ante. They send just enough weaponry and guidance to keep the automated conflict going because keeping it going, not ending it with any outcome, is in the interests of the oil companies. Possibly, the U.S. oil companies might consider ending the war once they have established, once and for all, that they have taken over all of Russia’s former oil customers. There’s no telling how long that may take.

The most recent development is Biden’s announcement in early July that he will send the illegal cluster bombs that have been condemned all over the world. They come in rockets that explode in the air and send smaller bombs that explode at about eye-level for all the people they will kill. 6% of them fail to explode right away and are left for little children to find and detonate for several years to come.

The war isn’t anywhere close to ending. Just to make sure Russian doesn’t pull out, Biden has made sure to keep NATO creeping up on their borders. Even the pacifists in Sweden have been conned into the game. Ukraine can’t quit because they are defending their homeland. Russia can’t quit for the same reason, they are defending their homeland against certain attack from NATO.

An editorial in the July 8 Washington Post suggests a way to end the war: get Ukraine to join NATO. They would probably do it if they NATO would let them. Biden might let them, too, if the much-vaunted Ukrainian counterattack is failing, and I suspect it is although no one can tell because the state department hasn’t told the American “newspersons” to say anything about that.

If Ukraine joins NATO, then all the Western Powers are obligated to attack Russia. Russian, surrounded sure to lose, would have only two choices: surrender and let the Western powers do anything they want with them, or nuclear war.

Biden could stop it

Joe Biden has a long history with Ukraine. He was there when they were still friendly with the Russians. He helped engineer a new government takeover to be hostile to the Russians. He was there when the Russians said they would invade if the NATO threat continued. He’s been there to promote and aggravate this ongoing war all along.

If the oil companies decide that they have taken over enough (unlikely) or if Joe Biden decides he can stand up the the oil companies, this proxy war could be stopped. In fact, Biden could come out of it looking pretty good if he “suddenly” decided that the U.S. could “intervene” (as if they hadn’t been involved all along) for the sake of peace.

Biden could call a meeting and mediate the peace. At his behest, NATO could pull back. The Ukrainians and Russians could negotiate their territories. People could stop dying. America’s military could spend a lot less of our money. Biden, hero of the hour, would assure his re-election. And the world could take a breath.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON radio’s “Workers Beat” talk show every Saturday at 9AM. My “Workers Beat Extra” podcasts are usually posted on Wednesdays on KNON and Soundcloud. If you are curious about what I really think, you might look at my old personal web site.