In revolutionary politics, all tactics are good if they are appropriate in their time and place. Armed struggle and exclusive devotion to parliamentary work, for example, may have been good tactics in a certain nation at a certain time. In the United States right now, both are disastrous.
Don’t Shoot!
The obvious argument against armed struggle is that no one is going to out-shoot the U.S. military. It is the strongest military the world has ever known and has sufficient nuclear weapons to destroy the planet. Nevertheless, some naïve activists exhort us to “pick up the gun.” Perhaps the problem is just that they are new to the movement and haven’t thought much about what would work and what wouldn’t. More likely, they aren’t materialists in their thinking. In other words, they believe in religious or superstitious notions that exist only in their own heads. They don’t even consider the likely outcomes of their actions.
If they did think about outcomes, they might consider what actually happens when trigger-happy activists try to take on the establishment. A civil rights activist in Dallas some few years ago was able to shoot five policemen before they blew him up with a grenade attached to a robot. I’m not sure anybody remembers his name today, but the police collected large sums of money in donations. They got raises and improvements in their benefits. They held, and still hold, special public celebrations for their fallen heroes every year.
More recently, someone shot a right-wing commentator at a public presentation. The Trumpsters imposed the largest anti-free-speech movement in history. People went to jail; even more people lost their jobs – not because they had anything to do with the shooting or condoned it, but because they failed to speak about it with what the Trumpsters considered proper allegiance to the shooting victim. Presently, the guy’s wife is spreading his ideas to thousands, and the Governor of Texas has mandated that every high school in the state has to have one of his clubs.
And possibly the worst example ever is the sniper who apparently took a shot at candidate Donald Trump while he was making a televised speech. His ear may have been hit. His polling shot up. Some of his white Christian nationalist supporters said that the bullet was deflected by God. Trump implied the same. A little later, he was elected president of the United States.
Don’t Stop At Voting
The electoral sphere cannot be ignored because power actually changes hands there. Who gets elected and who doesn’t is of vital interest to the working class. But those who prioritize voting to the point of ignoring all other forms of organizing and political struggle are misleading us to the point of criminality.
The joke is that people attend a craps game where the dice are known to be loaded because, “it’s the only game in town.” The same could be said about American electoral politics. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party rigged the game decades ago so that American voters are hemmed in between them. Gerrymandering and allowing oceans of secret money to sneak into campaign treasuries are more recent deteriorations of democracy.
Around 27% of all eligible voters do not even register. 73% do. A great many don’t vote. In non-presidential races and local races, considerably more people skip voting. Wikipedia says that 64.1% of registered voters turned out in 2024. Of those, Trump won a plurality of 49.8%. Multiply .73*.641*.498 and you will get .23. In other words, 23% of the eligible voters in America elected Donald Trump in 2024. But he has used that “mandate” to impose the most anti-working-class rulings in modern history.
With few and largely irrelevant exceptions, elections rigged by the bosses will always result in victory for the bosses. There are exceptions, of course, and all bosses are not equal. Voting matters, but it is entirely untrue that the winners of our rigged capitalist elections represent the will of the people.
Real democracy has to assert itself from underneath all the gimmicks and pressures. That means working in all possible arenas of struggle. They include labor organizing, strikes, boycotts, fund raising, and mass demonstrations. The idea of abandoning all but the legislative arena deserves the name that Lenin used, “parliamentary cretinism.”
“Expect the worst and hope for the best.” – Accountant’s credo
The Worst
The world economic system will continue to tremble and quake
American manufacturing and the stock market will rise without improving the jobs situation
Artificial intelligence will gobble up jobs and tremendously worsen the jobs crisis that is already underway
Income disparity, juiced up by Trump policies, will drastically worsen
Communications, especially cell phone communications, may end healthy competition and become even more of an oligopoly
In the electoral arena, candidates will be straining to find a “middle” in an increasingly divided electorate
Mister Trump, who has already shown that he will stop at nothing to maintain and extend his power, will likely start a war and implement martial law as his continuing drive toward fascism continues
Unions will refuse to recognize the new situation and continue the exact policies that have so far lost nearly ¾ of our peak density
Millions will not be able to afford decent health care. Emergency rooms will be overrun
The Best
In the electoral arena, candidates will be forced to clarify their intentions during 2026. Where I live in Dallas, labor will pressure all candidates to reveal their stand on Gaza
Unions will be more aggressive in the electoral arena. Where I live, we are working on two union members running in the January 31 special election. Two Steelworkers have filed for statewide races in the coming primaries.
A growing but unguided mass movement against dictatorship has exploded
More and more people are figuring out the dangers and what to do about it
Some unions are discarding old ways and implementing a larger reliance on our magnificent popularity in the general population of workers
Youth and retirees, two sectors recently encouraged by the labor movement, are growing and adding muscle
The Starbucks workers, using a combination of strike and boycott simultaneously, are showing all workers how use labor’s popularity against the bosses. On December 22 alone, 19 Starbucks stores signed up for union elections.
The Indicators
Nearly all of this analysis comes from information gathered during the past week, and especially on Christmas Day when the Washington Post published ten charts describing the current U.S. economic situation.
Gold and silver prices set new records. The usual “gold bug” speculators are buying precious metals of course, but major investors and some governments are also buying them. Precious metals pay no dividends, but they are a haven of safety for those who think a worldwide financial crisis is imminent.
Two major financial indicators, a soaring stock market and an expected increase in manufacturing, are both rooted in investment in artificial intelligence. Investors are buying into it and energy-gobbling data center building way up and projected to be gigantic. At the same time, the labor movement is “cool.” Although Trump’s anti-labor policies explain some of the labor market problems, the main problem now and in the future is job-killing artificial intelligence. The same thing lifting the stock market and manufacturing in America is driving down the jobs market.
The union response, so far, is to try to contain artificial intelligence through union contracts. Even if this were possible, it wouldn’t solve the problem because most workers, more than 90%, have no union contracts. As the bosses without unions implement artificial intelligence to lower their production costs, they will undermine all workers, including those with union contracts.
Income disparity is the illness afflicting all workers worldwide. Among the many alarming reports comes this sentence from the current week by Politico: “Bank of America says its top account holders saw take-home pay climb 4 percent over the last year, while income growth for poorer households grew just 1.4 percent.” Even though inflation held at 3% during the past year and dropped to 2.7% for November, it’s still a lot higher than income growth for poorer households.
All of the major tech companies have hitched themselves to the Trump agenda, and for good reason. They produce artificial intelligence, and they all know that artificial intelligence is Trump’s main hope to lower production costs enough to outperform China and other worldwide economic competitors. “Lower production costs” is a euphemism for fewer jobs.
Elon Musk, in many ways the master tech investor, has practically cornered the market in communications satellites. He has already bought the software and established the partnership with T-Mobile that he needs to change all cell phone communications to satellite. Everybody who currently works in cell phone tech is in danger. The Communications Workers of America have a vital boycott against T-Mobile, but it hasn’t yet achieved nationwide participation.
Just two recent election results are sufficient to show the strain in the electoral arena. Mister Trump successfully used the power of the United States government to overcome the progressive government of Honduras. He failed to do the same in the New York Mayoral race. Candidates in 2026 will find it difficult to dodge the issues important to working people. For example, the Dallas Central Labor Council voted to pressure all candidates who apply for endorsement to reveal their positions on the genocide in Gaza.
War in Latin America is imminent. The Trump Administration has already discarded every aspect of international law and human decency in its attacks against Venezuela. So far, they have managed to resist the provocations, but Trump isn’t finished. He needs the popularity of a wartime presidency and, if it becomes necessary to maintain power, he needs an excuse to implement martial law and end democracy once and for all.
Our unions have taken hardly any positions on the coming war nor on any of the pressing international questions. Domestically, we continue to try to organize more workplaces under the rules set in the early Roosevelt Administration. We continue to try to use our diminishing membership base to affect legislative change, just as we have since around 1947 when we had 35% of the American workforce organized. Today, we have closer to 9%.
So… Why Are We Smiling?
Clearly, the Trump Administration and the billionaires it leads are flailing around in desperation. They aren’t acting out of strength nor confidence, but like boat wreck survivors trying anything and everything to cling to life. They have very little thought of what they are doing, and they are being led by an unstable person.
Democracy has taken hits, but is a long way from disappearing in a country convinced, for 250 years, that democracy is best. The worldwide system of governance is very weak against a super power, but it has the credibility of all caring people.
Our anti-war movement may seem small, but the structures created in earlier upsurges still exist and are ours to use. Our unions may seem small and timid, but we still have the power to shut down the major intersections of economic and social life. Organizations close to the unions, especially the youth and senior movements, are growing stronger.
Candidates in 2026 will be pressured to take our side, and more of them will
People are catching on. We have the communications ability for accelerated strategic progress. We haven’t yet agreed on a plan of coordinated mass resistance, but we are clearly headed that way.
In a recent discussion, I asserted that Trump will start a war soon, most likely against Venezuela. Nobody agreed.
They all said that Trump is doing everything possible to achieve a regime change in Venezuela, but won’t go as far as starting a war.
Some of them took a military view and said that he doesn’t have enough troops – estimated at “only” 15,000 – ln the Caribbean. The other 2.1 million Americans “under arms” are reserves or are deployed elsewhere.
Others took a psychological view and said that Trump is a coward who likes to create chaos but doesn’t really have the courage to start an actual war.
And Trump could never face the international condemnation that has already begun, they said. The murders already carried out on the high seas were “trial balloons” that have already brought harsh criticism from abroad.
Lastly, people said that Trump could not risk any further deterioration in his approval ratings in the U.S.. Public opinion, in other words, will restrain him.
In summary, my friends say that Trump is attempting to “create chaos” and to bluff the Venezuelans into an uprising leading to regime change. But all of the above reasons, my friends say, will prevent him from actually making war.
I replied that their logic was understandable in normal times, but we are not in normal times. No one living today knows what to do with the situation in the United States, because we have never faced it. The best path to understanding is to look at other autocracies in other countries and from other periods, inexact as that may be.
Here is the Situation
Here is my description of the current situation. It will be followed by the unassailable conclusion that Trump is going to start a war before 2027 unless the restraining force of the American people grows exponentially higher than it is today. Most of my information comes from common news sources, mostly the Washington Post.
“As of Friday (November 14), there were seven U.S. warships in the Caribbean: the guided missile cruisers USS Gettysburg and USS Lake Erie; the destroyers USS Gravely and USS Stockdale; and the amphibious ships USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale and USS San Antonio. The Ford was nearby in the Atlantic with the destroyers USS Mahan, USS Bainbridge and USS Winston S. Churchill.” Wapo 11/15/25
Amphibious ships carry armed personnel, usually Marines, to foreign shores. Guided missile cruisers, aircraft carriers and destroyers are just what they say they are. The United States is the greatest military power that the world has ever seen. As their world economic hegemony diminishes, and whatever goodwill they might have enjoyed is thrown away by Trump, military power is all they have left.
The Trump Administration raised the bounty on the President of Venezuela to $50 million. “Operation Southern Spear” has blown up a number of boats and killed their passengers. Trump asserts, without any evidence, that they were all carrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States. Hardly anybody with any knowledge agrees.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation announced in October that the Venezuelans had foiled a “false flag” attempt to blow up the U.S. Embassy. Newspersons here discounted the report. The U.S. State Department suspended operations at its Caracas embassy in March 2019. If the embassy had been destroyed with any loss of American life, Trump would have had a welcome excuse for military action.
NBC News announced that the U.S. Department of State has categorized Venezuela as Level 4: Do Not Travel due to crime, civil unrest, etc. They proclaimed that Americans should not travel to Venezuela and that they should avoid the Venezuela-Colombia border.
The Trump Administration has already sent armed troops into several cities. He told a meeting of top military leaders that they might be practicing on the U.S. citizenry. Partly because of Trump’s disdain for morality and law, his approval ratings have been falling.
Even though newspersons focused on Trump’s disappointment at not winning the Nobel Peace Prize, it actually went to a certain Maria Corina Machado. Machado has been a long-time advocate of U.S. intervention in Venezuela. On November 14, an article ran in the Washington Post describing how she is lining up corporate leaders with promises of privatization and protection of American corporations as they raid Venezuelan wealth, especially oil.
In November, in spite of gerrymandering and myriad schemes to undermine the election process, Republicans were humiliated at the polls. Democrats and pundits began predicting a Blue Wave of victory against Trump in 2026.
How Do I Know Trump Will Create a War?
There are several good arguments and one unassailable one. Begin with American presidents in history. Most of us can’t name them all, but we can name the “important” ones like Washington, Jackson, TR Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Eisenhower. All of them were warriors. More recently, Bush the First tried to portray himself as tough by invading Iraq, but was criticized for pulling back without achieving regime change. His son learned the lesson, re-invaded oil-rich Iraq, and enjoyed two relatively strong terms of office. Iraq and Venezuela, by the way, are famous for their oil reserves.
But no one can understand today’s situation in the U.S. simply with domestic examples. Our present situation is entirely new. Look, instead, at other countries and other times. Trump is a fascist and all fascists are military leaders. Fascism doesn’t just define its relationship to the populace. It also defines its economic policies and its relationship to the rest of the world. Trump, so far, has followed in the footsteps of such notable fascists as Franco, Pinochet, Mussolini and Hitler – except that he has not yet claimed the title of military leader.
For those who are unconvinced, I ask them to look at posts on social media. Many posts are already calling for criminal proceedings against Trump and the Trumpsters. Their disdain for morality and law has clearly put them into the criminal class. They know it. They see the same social media posts that you do.
If the Trumpsters were to lose power, they would be subject to criminal charges and would risk spending the rest of their lives in prison. Furthermore, they know it. They must, therefore, stay in power.
In order to stay in office and out of jail, they need a war to give them special powers, including the power to declare martial law and use the military against the populace. That’s why they have to do it.
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.
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.
“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.
“It had nothing to do with the wall!” Kenneth Williams explained the recent 35-day government shutdown to the Dallas Chapter of Texas Alliance for Retired Americans meeting on February 6. Williams is a political activist from Rowlett, near Dallas. President George Nolan put Williams on the agenda first.
Kenneth Williams explained the shutdown
The tipoff, Williams explained, was that Mr Trump had two years in which his party controlled both houses of Congress, yet he didn’t take such drastic action to get his wall. He didn’t do it until the Democrats won the House of Representatives. Williams asked, “If they really wanted money for the wall, why didn’t they do it when they had control of Congress?”
The real reason that Trump provoked the shutdown was to usurp power from Congress. Williams said that Trump was thinking, “We must do something to put them in their place.” But, Williams said, “They underestimated the unity of the Democrats in opposing them.”
Another lesson we learned from the shutdown is
that so-called “middle income” job holders don’t have money in reserve. They
live paycheck-to-paycheck. The shutdown put a terrible hardship on government employees
and contractors. The contractors may never recover.
Will Trump provoke another shutdown? Williams
thinks not, because the entire Republican party is not crazy. They know that
they lost power and influence and they don’t want any more of it. Williams
said, “The Republican Senators are terrified of going through this again.”
One of the activists asked, “How is Trump going to get out of this corner?” Kenneth Williams answered, “He is not going to get out of the corner… he will make up some facts.”
Other retiree activists at the meeting agreed
with Williams. Some of them had even stronger statements.
Retiree Meetings Aren’t Just Social Events
The two-hour meeting covered a lot of analysis
of the situation confronting retirees followed by recommendations as to how to
fight back. Fernando Rojas gave announcements from Senior Source, the local
dispenser of government help for retirees. Alliance Field Organizer Judy Bryant
went over pending state and federal legislation affecting how retirees live.
Bryant then went on to organize delegations to local
congresspersons, voter registration, and other ways that retirees may influence
decision makers.
We’ll sing, So long Donald, it’s been good to know you
So long, it’s been good to know you
So long, it’s been good to know you
You’re going backward but we’re going on
And we’ve got to be moving along
The big man in Congress, his name is Paul Ryan
He don’t care who’s hurting, he don’t care who’s dying
He prisses and prances across Congress’ floor
But pretty soon he will dance out the door
We’ll sing, So long Ryan, it’s been good to know you
So long, it’s been good to know you
So long, it’s been good to know you
You’re going backward but we’re going on
And we’ve got to be moving along
They can’t stand the truth now, they’re just blowing smoke
The worst of the liars are both brothers Koch
Just sing this song now and please heed the call
We’ll get to work and get rid of them all
We’ll sing, So long Kochs, it’s been good to know you
So long, it’s been good to know you
So long, it’s been good to know you
You’re going backward but we’re going on
And we’ve got to be moving along
##################
I have an unshakable confidence that people will figure out what is going on and act responsibly. My argument is this:
I figured it out
I’m not so smart (I know, I’ve been tested)
Everybody else is at least as smart as I am
Therefore, everybody else will figure it out
I also think that we are suffocating in a capitalist-created culture. Even though we may not be the best singers or the most clever poets, we should treasure a culture that is our own. That’s why I’m always trying to get you to sing.
It’s also why I continue volunteering at KNON radio 89.3 FM and http://knon.org every Saturday at 9AM
I’ve been investigating the various strategies for dealing with the upcoming Trump government.
Rowlett activist Kenneth Williams
The best was the simplest: “Get active, because leadership will emerge from the struggle!” Kenneth Williams said that on my radio show, “Workers Beat” Saturday at 9.
Another guest on the show, historian Max Krochmal who was talking about his new book, Blue Texas, offered a lot of encouragement when he pointed out that Texans have organized successfully under much more difficult circumstances than we face today.
Here’s what Franklin Delano Roosevelt advised in the depths of the Great Depression, “Do something. If it turns out to be wrong, do something else. But, above all, do something!”
Several Strategies Are Being Offered
So far, I’ve had opportunities to check out strategies offered by the Communications Workers of America, Our Revolution, Indivisible, Democratic Socialists of America, Communist Party USA, and just about everybody I know. I like all of them and none.
A Union Idea
The CWA held a webinar on the topic of the upcoming Senate confirmations of Mr Trump’s cabinet nominees. They explained how terrible they are, of course, but we knew that. Their idea is to get the Democrats to delay the confirmation while we use our union networks, social media, and informal communications to rouse the population. In the short term, it sounded pretty good.
The Bernie Sandinistas
For over the weekend of January 7, I sat through about 7 hours of education, planning, and organization with Our Revolution in Dallas. I missed the first 5 hours. I was a little bit surprised to hear them talking almost exclusively about winning elections and conducting successful lobbying campaigns. Only one person mentioned street actions, and I actually had whispered the idea to him before he spoke.
I don’t think it’s because they were excluding street actions, I think it’s because lobbying and election work are what originally brought them together and, for many of these young activists, it’s the only kind of political work they’ve ever had.
At the end of the second day, I asked if I could make a proposal. I proposed that we support activities around the coming MLK birthday. It passed unanimously, enthusiastically, and with no discussion. Then they went right back to talking about elections and lobbying.
The Bernie people, where I live, are the largest, youngest, and most optimistic group in local politics. I was delighted to see them setting up a regional structure and electing officers. I understand that we’re going to be something of a model for organizing Our Revolution nationwide. I have high hopes.
“Indivisible” Plans to Copy the Tea Party
I saw some of this on Rachel Madow, and there were two guys at the Our Revolution meeting promoting a pamphlet and web page called “Indivisible.” It is apparently made up of former congressional staffers who had firsthand experience with the obstructionist tactics of the Tea Party during the Obama years. They recommend that Democrats do the same thing to Mr Trump.
One of the presenters said, “If we want to preserve what we are used to, our top priority needs to be… Use obstruction and delay to minimize the damage that we know is coming.” He explained that the one thing the Tea Party had going for them was the fact that they were organized.
One could drive a truck through the hole in this argument: Tea Party success came from their access to big money, not their organizational genius.
Our role in this strategy is to lobby the Democrats to get them to act like Tea Partiers. I’d say it’s a whole lot better than doing nothing.
Democratic Socialists Are Fired Up
The Democratic Socialists of America, an offshoot from the old Socialist Party during the Vietnam War, have always wanted to take over the Democratic Party. They still do. Bernie Sanders got them close in 2016, so they are growing in numbers and enthusiasm today. If Bernie’s, and labor’s, candidate to lead the Democratic National Committee, Keith Ellison, gets the job, it will add even more credibility to this venerable political strategy.
Meanwhile, DSA activists are moving faster and with more certainty than just about anybody. Whether or not one agrees, long term, that the Democratic Party is going to transform into a working people’s party, anybody who craves action would do well to follow DSA.
Communist Party, USA Has Been Changing
I read a series of articles on People’s World, which is “sort of” associated with CPUSA, and sort of not. The writer recommended fighting the Trump government on all fronts and with all strategies. That makes a tremendous amount of sense, but doesn’t winnow down the opportunities very much. If you recommend everything, is it very much different from recommending nothing?
But CPUSA and its worldwide network justly claim to have more experience fighting fascism than anybody. Their basic text, Dmitrov’s “Against War and Fascism,” is the best exposition of what fascism is and how to put together a united front against it. Those are lessons from the 1930s, of course, and not directly applicable to today. I don’t think CPUSA thinks fascism has come to America, but they point out that there are certainly trends in that direction.
Historically, the communists would have put a lot more emphasis on workers and the working class. They would have had a clear aim of eventually taking power through class struggle. Nowadays, it’s pretty hard to tell the difference between them and the larger, more socially acceptable, less red-baited, legitimized-by-Bernie, DSA. Both of them say what Kenneth Williams said at the beginning of this article: “get busy!”
My Two Cents
I’ve been thinking through this strategy thing a lot. It’s the reason I started this blog.
I think there are things missing from all of the suggestions above. They don’t start with a solid analysis of what’s wrong, they are basically short-term solutions, and they tend to pine for the “good old days.”
What’s actually wrong is that American capitalism is at the end of its rope. It can’t deliver the goods any more, hasn’t been able to for some time. It isn’t fascist yet, but it’s going that way and the only thing that can stop the process is you and me.
The good old days weren’t that good, and nobody but nobody wants to go back to them. Americans want to go ahead to something better and they won’t settle for anything less.
Voters haven’t turned racist or backward, they’re just desperate. A lot of them voted for Trump for the same reason they voted for Obama — anything other than what we have!
As I said in an earlier article, there are no long term solutions for those of us caught in this system.
That’s why we need long-term plans for fundamental change. The goals are in Bernie’s book — things like free education, decent health care, democracy, and all the many fine things he explained so well. I think Bernie has set the goals very well, the argument should be over how to achieve them. For that, we have to organize everybody, and we organize through successful struggles.
Each of us need to adopt long term goals like those Bernie set down. We need to recognize that elections and lobbying are not the only way to struggle and that, in fact, real change is more likely to come from organized economic activity than from generous politicians. That means that fundamental fights over economic benefits weigh more heavily than purely social questions. It means that workplace organizations mean more than idealistic social groupings.
We have to analyze our own resources and opportunities so we can pick the struggles we join, even if we have to skip some of them.
Then we have to get busy and organize. Leadership will emerge from struggle.
–Gene Lantz
KNON hasn’t fired me yet, so I’m still on the radio at 9 AM every Saturday. 89.3FM and knon.org. If you are curious about what I really think, click here.
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