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Trump Must Start a War and End Democracy

November 15, 2025

democracy, economy, history, politics, strategy

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.

No one has a chance of stopping them except us.

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?

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]

‘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.

“It Wasn’t The Wall!”

February 6, 2019

democracy, politics, strategy

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“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.

So Long Donald!

May 28, 2017

art, politics, strategy

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Are we stuck with the Donald or can progress still happen in America?

me-copeguitar

Check out my new song: https://youtu.be/_MVyGYFCgz4

If you’ll sing along, here is the latest version:

We’re plowing for progress but we’ve hit a stump

We lost our Obama and got Donald Trump

He holds up our plowing, no goals can be reached

We’ll do so much better when he gets impeached

We’ll sing, So long Donald, 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

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

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

–Gene Lantz

Overseas: Same Problems, Same Options

April 19, 2017

democracy, elections, history, politics, strategy, unions

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The New York Times published a long liberal’s lament on the situation in France:

SundayReview | OP-ED COLUMNIST

France in the End of Days

Marine Le Pen’s road to victory is clear enough.
Can a pragmatist stop the extreme right?

Roger Cohen

Click here for the article.

What upsets Mr Cohen is the likelihood that the National Front’s candidate, Marine Le Pen, will win the presidency in a runoff against the “centrist” candidate after the April 23 election first round.

If It Looks Like a Duck and Quacks Like a Duck…

Lately, the National Front is telling everybody that they aren’t fascists any more. Ms Le Pen has been telling the French that they are off the hook for cooperating with Hitler and murdering Jews during the German occupation of WWII.

But, like all fascists, they still base their appeal on super-nationalism and racism. In fact, almost everything they do, and almost everything that the far-right wing politicians all over Europe do, is emulate Donald J Trump, the American success story. Why is that?

Same Problem, Same Options

Throughout the capitalist world, the same problem is being dealt with in the same way. The problem is that the capitalists in charge have saturated all possible markets and need to have another world war to re-divide the world marketplace. Since nuclear weapons are generally thought to preclude having another war, profit-seeking capitalists must compete against one another for the markets already held, and they compete by trying to lower their production costs. That is, us.

Workers are just production costs to the capitalists in charge.

Democratic governments make it hard to have an all-out assault against working people, because we are most of the population. To continue cutting us, capitalists need to do away with democracy. Hence, they gravitate toward fascism as a temporary “solution” to their crisis. Democracy is deteriorating, here and abroad.

But Why Does It Work For Them?

It’s a question of options. One way to look at Mr Trump’s victory is to say that Ms Clinton didn’t attract enough votes. Key people either voted for Trump or just didn’t vote at all. A lot of voters would say that they didn’t like either of the choices very well. The ever-satirical cartoon program “South Park” said our choice was between the “giant douche bag” and a “turd sandwich.”

After decades of cultivating reactionaries, I’m not sure the Republicans had much choice but to allow Trump to become their candidate. The Democrats might have let Bernie Sanders have a chance, but they purposely undercut his campaign to keep him off the ballot.

Neither party would allow any challenge to the basic system we live under and, probably, neither party ever will. American labor, the Bernie Sanders movement, and a lot of starry eyed idealists would really like to see the Democrats get real, but it isn’t likely because the same capitalists who control the government also control the Democratic Party. They control the Republican Party, too. Always have.

We’re Moving Toward the Answer

We need economic struggle that will challenge capitalism fundamentally. We need a workers’ party that would challenge capitalism at election time. Until we challenge and defeat capitalism, we may change candidates and parties a few times more as we zig-zag our way down to fascism and the complete absence of democracy in the capitalist countries. It may not take that long.

On the other hand, the potential is ours.

Pick Your Fightback Strategy (Soon!)

January 9, 2017

economy, elections, politics, strategy

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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.

Long View: There Is No Solution

January 3, 2017

economy, elections, history, strategy

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We can better understand the system we live in by taking a long historical view.

rottenapple

Our economic and government system, while a great improvement over its predecessors, rotted to its core by early in the last century.

After that time, there were no solutions for the society as a whole. There were, however, solutions for certain wealthy people.

World War I and World War II, although they cost millions of workers’ lives and reversed a great deal of progress, turned out pretty good for the wealthy people of the United States. They enjoyed a prosperous, though temporary, period after each successful war. The people in the nations that lost suffered terribly, of course, but as I said, there were solutions for certain wealthy people after the 20th century began.

That so-called “solution,” world war, isn’t available to them any more because of nuclear proliferation.

Some time during the 1970s, the “American Century” of post war prosperity began to wane. Working Americans haven’t done particularly well since then, and have in fact begun to slide backward. The temporary economic “solutions” worked only for the very wealthy, and they continue that way today. Some people call this a crisis of capitalism.

The Crisis is Natural

If an economic system has to sell its products for more than they cost, and if the workers of a given nation do not have the resources to pay, then the products have to be sold somewhere else. The wealthy owners have to compete for that “somewhere else.” Since the 1970s, the wealthy owners of the United States have stopped winning that competition. It shows in all the statistics. Their only way to beat out their competitors is to reduce the wages, benefits, and social benefits of poorer people. That’s what they have been doing and what they continue to do.

Deregulation, Privatization, Corporate Welfare and Outsourcing are Necessary Props

To prop up the wealthy, to provide a “solution” for the wealthy (not for us), they cause their government to deregulate their businesses, privatize the socially-owned sector, hand out tax breaks and outright gifts to corporations, and outsource work to countries where wages and environmental regulations are more advantageous to them.

It’s Temporary

Even though the wealthy people are able to get their government to cooperate in their economic “solutions,” the results are only temporary, because the wealthy people in other countries are doing the same thing. It’s a competition usually, nowadays, called, “the race to the bottom.” That’s what we call it. They probably call it “good business.”

Things get temporarily better for the wealthy class while everybody else suffers.

Comes the Trump Government

President-elect Donald J Trump will accelerate all of the “solutions” listed above, solutions only for the wealthy and not for us, and they will be, if anything, temporary fixes. The crisis will continue, there is no way to turn it around because the international competition will still be there.

No matter what reforms we may attempt, the overall competitive system will remain rotten and will continue to get rottener.

We need a new system.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on knon.org and 89.3FM in Dallas at 9 AM every Saturday. If you want to know what I really think, look at my life’s lessons

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:

The idea that Trump’s policies are going to make life better for Americans is laughable
Given the present system of American politics, the Republicans will not maintain power through the 2018 mid-term elections
They know it
The only way for the anti-worker forces to maintain power is by scrapping democracy
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