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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 Case for an American Workers Party

July 4, 2025
democracy, elections, history, politics, strategy
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Will the Democrats save America from fascism or do we need a Workers Party? I think it’s the latter. The former, counting on the Democrats, has been tried over and over without success. Fascism in America has been a long time coming, and the many Democratic Party administrations of the past didn’t stop it.

The Workers Party idea isn’t new. It isn’t even American. Lots of other countries, with parliamentary system instead of two-party winner-take-all elections, have Workers Parties or Labor Parties associated with their union movement and pledged to the interests of the working class.

The Democrats and Republicans both represent the interests of the billionaires. Some of the billionaires may have slightly different opinions that are reflected in their choice of which party to support in a given election, but they own both parties in an overall sense.

Would working families be better off with a Workers Party?

Here are few advantages:

* Independent political voice: A workers’ party would provide a platform for workers to voice their concerns and advocate for policies that directly benefit them, independent of corporate influence and the agendas of major parties.

* Addressing economic inequality: Supporters argue that a workers’ party would focus on issues like raising the minimum wage, creating living-wage jobs, expanding social safety nets, and holding corporations accountable for unfair labor practices, which they believe current parties neglect.

* Democratic accountability: A workers’ party, accountable to its members, would ensure that elected officials prioritize the needs of working people and fight for their interests, rather than being influenced by corporate donors or elite interests.

* Building class unity: A workers’ party can unite different segments of the working class and marginalized groups in a common struggle against the influence of the wealthy and powerful.

* Facilitating social change: Such a party could serve as a vehicle for broader social and political change by mobilizing workers and activists to challenge the status quo and push for a more just society.

Is a Workers Party the Best of the Alternatives?

Probably the prevalent hope for stopping fascism is reforming the oldest political party in the world until it gives up its billionaire base and embraces the working class. This is not a new idea. It has been tested time and time again and always failed.

What about just skipping the whole idea of an electoral party for workers and going straight to socialist revolution? This would be the hope of anarchists and amateurs. It has a lot of appeal for them but isn’t much more than a fantasy. Successful revolutionaries in other countries did not turn up their noses at electoral work, nor any other arena of struggle for that matter.

Is a Workers Party Possible in the Present?

Up to now, the answer to that question has always been “no.” The last successful third party was the Republican Party which grew because the Whigs had no solution to America’s division over slavery. Since then, the two billionaire parties have done everything possible to maintain the status quo. The legal barriers to a third party are formidable.

It takes a lot of money to win elections.

While romanticists imagine a working class that is united in its electoral preferences, practical politics tells us that it isn’t true. American workers are all over the map, and voters make their choices the same way they decide what commodities to buy – by emotion rather than reason.

But is it possible?

For a number of reasons, I think that the American Workers Party may have come into its time:

* A growing number of Americans believe that the Democrats fail to adequately represent the interests of the working class.  Witness the growing protest movement, with five million demonstrators on June 14, 2025 alone.

  • Low turnout in elections shows that people don’t really care for either party.
  • Progressive Democrats like Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett are being passed over for good committee assignments by other Democrats (Dallas Morning News)
  • Independent and third-party voter registration is growing, largely at the expense of Democrats  (NBC News)
  • Two major labor leaders, Randi Weingarten and Lee Saunders, quit the Democratic National Committee, saying it isn’t doing enough to “open the gates” and win back the support of working-class voters. (The Guardian)
  • A democratic socialist won the most votes in the first round of the Democratic Party primary for New York Mayor. He defeated billionaires and union supporters from the traditional wing. So called “moderate” Democrats attacked him during and after the election. They will run their candidate against him as an Independent! (Washington Post).
  • Political winners like Trump, Obama, and AOC have proven that they can raise money without the help of the national political party
  • People no longer get their information from the major parties. They get it from their phones, social media, etc.

Do these facts prove that a Workers Party is feasible? At the very least, the facts show that it is more feasible than it used to be.

Given that Americans are being forced into fascism, it’s time to develop an alternative.

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.

Why Raise Birth Rates?

April 23, 2025
civil rights, democracy, economy, history, politics, strategy, women
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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?”

I got this from a web site:

Pronatalism in the US: The Trump administration’s push for more births

“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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger

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.

They need higher birth rates for their wars, too.

‘Tis the Final Conflict

March 3, 2025
democracy, economy, history, politics, strategy
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“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.

What Did You Expect?

February 9, 2025
democracy, economy, education, elections, environment, history, politics, strategy
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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?

–genelantz19@gmail.com

What Are We Learning?

November 18, 2019
art, democracy, history, politics, strategy
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Across the world and at home, we are learning how to improve our societies. At a breakfast meeting Sunday, November 17, we discussed the present situation and went over some of the lessons of the past.

The United States had more workers on strike in 2018 than in any year since the crackdown against the working class began in the 1970s. Working families in Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Iraq, Iran, Spain, and Greece and other nations are holding massive protests. The progressive movement is far broader, that is that more disparate individuals and groups are practicing solidarity, than in recent history.

How do we make sense of it all and decide which of the many opportunities most merit our resources? We posed some interesting questions that, for most of us, are not easy to answer:

  • Why are there so many arguments in the progressive movement? What are some of the major divisions in the progressive movement today?
  • What is happening in Bolivia? In Hong Kong?
  • Are all the world’s protesters working toward similar goals?
  • Would you defend the right of the Ku Klux Klan to recruit members in public places?
  • Would you defend the right of American armed forces to recruit members in public places?
  • Would you defend the right of ISIS, Middle Eastern religious fighters, to recruit members in public places?
  • Would you defend the right of your local police department to recruit members in public places?
  • Would you urge police associations to join organized labor federations?
  • Does America really need a revolution?

Will revolutionaries be elected into power?

Were the Bolsheviks correct in taking power in 1917, or has history shown that the Menshevik gradualists had a better understanding of their situation?

One would like to think that all progressive activists would agree, even on difficult questions. But the truth is that arguments have always racked and divided the movement. Our group tried looking at the time-tested ideas of great thinkers of the past. We were looking for guidelines, not specific directions.

For guidelines and to initiate discussion, we used the automated learning modules in the “ABC” section of the Little School at http://lilleskile.us/school. I am its author. So far, we’ve looked at the first nine lessons. The next one will be on trade unions. Some people finish a module in five minutes.

Here are some of the main points we’ve discussed so far:

  • Activists need to study in order to become more unified and effective
  • Almost everything we have been taught has been filtered by reactionaries
  • Of the two main branches of philosophy, idealism and materialism, materialism is the best guide
  • In general and in the long view, the human condition has improved
  • People’s views are strongly affected by their station in society
  • Different classes of people have strongly divergent views
  • Everything, including societies, is constantly changing

We plan to get together again on the morning of December 1. Let me know if you’re interested

–genelantz19@gmail.com

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” program every Saturday at 9AM Central Time. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site

Democracy — the Main Battleground

November 30, 2016
chauvinism, civil rights, economy, elections, history, politics, strategy
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I urge all progressives to fight reactionaries on every front, but the main one is going to be the battle to save basic democracy in America.

trumpinfrastructure

Simple logic:

  1. The idea that Trump’s policies are going to make life better for Americans is laughable
  2. Given the present system of American politics, the Republicans will not maintain power through the 2018 mid-term elections
  3. They know it
  4. The only way for the anti-worker forces to maintain power is by scrapping democracy
  5. Therefore, progressives must fight for basic democracy now

Will Trump Improve Life for Americans?

Economist Josh Bivens has a good summary of expected Trump policies on line. It doesn’t look good.

Mr. Hitler made immediate improvements in the German economy by massive infrastructure programs and by going to war. Will Mr Trump be able to do the same?

The U.S. Congress has blocked infrastructure programs all the way through the Obama Administration, even though they would have greatly shortened the long recession. It is unlikely that they would allow Mr Trump to implement anything good along those lines, because their main commitment is to the barons of finance, not construction businesses and certainly not to the American workers. Actually, I’d love to be proven wrong on this.

Mr Hitler had tremendous early successes in his war-making, but that was largely because the Great Powers did nothing to rein him in. They thought he would put an end to communism before he struck at any major capitalist countries. It is doubtful that Mr Trump will be able to use war to improve the American economy in any meaningful sense, and it is unlikely that he will receive cooperation from the other major capitalist countries in whatever adventures he undertakes.

The world wars that resulted from the economic crises of the 20th century are not considered available as a “solution” to economic and political crisis today, because of the imminent destruction of the planet.

Capitalist economies have always suffered from phases of “ups” and “downs.” “Down” is already overdue after the long recovery during the Obama Administration. The current expectation of new “tight money” policies, combined with Mr Trump’s new tax cuts for the rich and deregulation policies will create an immediate and painful crisis for working people.

Hard Times Will Likely Dominate the Mid-Term Elections

If one assumes that our American levels of partial democracy continue, it is unlikely that the party in power will fare well in 2018. In fact, the party in power usually does very poorly in mid-term elections.

None of this is a secret, neither to progressives nor to reactionaries.

What Can We Expect about Democracy?

Since around 1980, American democracy has already taken hard knocks at the hands of Republicans. Unions were assailed in every imaginable way. The Voting Rights Act was gutted, big money was sanctified by the Supreme Court, Republican redistricting largely overcame the popular vote, and voter suppression schemes were put into effect all over the nation.

The Obama Administration fought to maintain democracy, but does anyone think the Trump Administration will? If Mr Trump were to make outlandish anti-democratic Executive Orders, for example, who in government would oppose him? Not the legislative branch that is already in the hands of Republicans, and not the judiciary which will return to a reactionary anti-worker majority as soon as Mr Trump makes his first appointment.

Mr Hitler, it is often pointed out, won an election without winning the popular vote. How did he stay in power? How will today’s reactionaries try to stay in power?

Get ready to organize and fight!

–Gene Lantz

Listen to “Workers Beat” at 9 CST every Saturday morning on 89.3FM and http://knon.org

If you want to know what I really think, look at my life’s lessons site

Revolution When?

June 22, 2016
history, politics, strategy
2 Comments

In a casual discussion group I participate in, somebody asked, “Where are we in the swing of the historical pendulum? Are we close to revolution?”

Che

I didn’t try to answer at all, because I couldn’t deal with the way the question was framed. There is no “historical pendulum.” It’s common to believe that history just swings back and forth or goes around in circles, but it doesn’t. The general movement of history is forward and progressive. We aren’t savages any more, most of us, and we aren’t serfs nor slaves. Over the centuries, progress is being made.

But later, I wished I had answered the question, because my analysis may seem unusual to some people: Revolution in the United States and in most of the world may be just around the corner!

Doom and Gloom

OK, there are a lot of naysayers and former radicals among us today. The implosion of the Soviet Union hit hard. The rapid change in Eastern Europe devastated some folks, and the difficulties they’re having in Venezuela and Brazil today are squeezing the optimism away. Add to that the tremendous success that dark money has enjoyed in turning our American democracy backward during the last 4 decades. It’s enough to get some people down. Some people. But they aren’t taking the long view.

The Long View Looks Great!

What are the requirements for a qualitatively better society? A well informed and well organized public with leadership from among the workers. We have that, more than ever!

Nowadays, I am in awe of the millennials. They grew up understanding more about using new technology than I will ever learn. Technology extends their knowledge and their capabilities.

The millennials also grew up without all the anticommunism that crippled the thinking of my generation. When I was young, we were afraid to even look to the left, much less think in that direction. The Bernie campaign has made “capitalism” and “socialism” everyday words. People are thinking thoughts that used to be taboo.

Today’s young people have the entire world at their fingertips. Most of my generation would never have left home if it hadn’t been for the military draft.

Don’t Overlook the Unions

Unions are the organized sector of the working class. It’s true that there aren’t as many union members per capita as there were in 1957, but that’s misleading. One worker today is doing the work of 4 pre-war workers. And he/she is likely to be highly skilled and hard to replace. Workers are just as central to the progressive movement as they were in Russia in 1917 and every year since! Nobody else can stand up to the bosses eyeball to eyeball, but workers can!

Older people think that the 1960s and 1970s were the revolutionary times. Long hair and marijuana do not a revolution make! Ask them how much union support they enjoyed in their anti-war marches, their feminist causes, their environmental rallies, or anything they look back on with smug satisfaction of revolutionary activity. Unions barely participated in those days, but things have turned around now. It’s hard to find a street action that isn’t supported by AFL-CIO members. In fact, they originate a lot of them!

Furthermore, it is now possible for everybody to work with America’s unions. From 1947 to 1995, that was impossible. The unions in the post war years grew more and more isolated, but today they are reaching out with both arms!

Communications Are Already Revolutionized

There were a number of revolutions in the 20th century. They did it with clandestine meetings, secret leaflets, and a tiny few underground newspapers. One person might “spread the word” to a few dozen on a very good day. Today, we can reach thousands, maybe tens of thousands, without leaving home!

The possibilities are amazing!

–Gene Lantz

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