Tag Archives: trump

Long View: There Is No Solution

January 3, 2017

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

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

Worry Now, Worry After the Election!

October 23, 2016

elections, history, politics, strategy

Voting for More War?

Mrs Clinton’s saber rattling toward Russia during the debates reminds me that she’s a hawk and has always been a hawk on foreign affairs. She keeps asserting that Russia is working against her election and threatening them with cyber war. She also wants to escalate the war in Syria with a “no-fly” zone. If she shot down a Russian plane in Syria, wouldn’t there be hell to pay? They have nukes! Those of us who would like to see fewer hostilities and less war are likely to be very uncomfortable during her presidency.

Voting for Unfair Trade Deals?

It’s good that Mrs Clinton says she won’t push the Trans Pacific Partnership unfair trade deal. Mr Trump doesn’t believe she will stick to opposing it, and I don’t believe either one of them would. I can still remember when candidate Obama was going to fix NAFTA and oppose other unfair trade, now all of us have to worry that President Obama will try an end-run during the lame duck Congress. He’s already working on it!

Unfair trade deals are essential to the big money guys, and few politicians would even try to resist them. Obama doesn’t, and he has a lot more of my respect than either Mrs Clinton or Mr Trump!

Voting for an Openly Fascist Movement in America?

The pundits and newspersons seem to think Mr Trump is stupid. They think he is throwing away his political chances by bashing immigrants, encouraging violence at his meetings, skipping over facts to appeal to emotions, catering to the crudest kind of people, claiming the entire electoral process is “rigged,” and, especially, refusing to abide by the decision of the voters after the election (unless he wins).

I’m hoping that stupidity explains his political actions, but I don’t honestly think we can count on it. Like most analysts, Mr Trump already knows he isn’t likely to win over the Electoral College. I think he’s going to try to start an openly fascist movement, the first one since the 1930s in America.

Trump is already a skillful media person, far more skillful than the hate radio manipulators like Rush Limbaugh that have already gained considerable following. He’s already floated the rumor that he may be starting his own television network. We have to assume it would be even less truthful and more sensationalist than Fox News!

A billionaire with his own television network and millions of followers from among the most volatile and least sensible ranks of people could create an anti-worker movement that would dwarf the fascists now operating in Europe. And don’t give me “It can’t happen here” because it can and has before.

So let’s get worried together, and start figuring out what we’re going to do about it!

–Gene Lantz

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What Do I Know?

October 9, 2016

elections, strategy

I Actually Do Know One Thing

I know which side I’m on.

Even though I may not be so smart, I am at least persistent. I’ve been on the side of working people all my life and quite consciously for almost 50 years. Reagan may have beat the workers black and blue, but some of us constantly worked against him. Right now I’m working for labor’s candidates and causes, win or lose.

Sooner or later, all of us will have a choice to make. We will either lapse into fascism and court the destruction of the planet or we will give up superstition and idealism and form a rational society for ourselves and our children. Average people, maybe some but not a lot smarter than me, will choose the same side I chose.

–Gene Lantz

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