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A Series of Errors

April 19, 2020
elections, politics, strategy
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Some of the brothers and sisters on my side of the anti-capitalist fight have lately begun exhibiting some of the errors of anarchists, ultralefts, and middle class liberals. I’m hoping it’s a temporary diversion from the very good work we have seen since Bernie Sanders stirred up this giant activist movement in 2016.

The culmination of the mistakes is to disregard the interests of the working class by calling for people to abstain from voting in the 2020 elections. Some of the usual excuses are being given. Some say that they are focusing on street heat and mass action, as if they couldn’t possibly find time to engage in electoral activities while organizing picketing. Others say that they are casting “protest votes” for fringe parties, just to teach the Democrats a lesson, as if they expect the Democrats to learn from them. No matter the excuse being used, these brothers and sisters are mistakenly abandoning the electoral field when it is of desperate importance to workers.

Like nearly all political errors, these comes from not understanding the political situation. An incorrect assessment must lead to error. If one doesn’t see where we are, one can hardly prescribe the way forward.

Apparently, some of the good activists thought that Bernie Sanders and the movement he generated could actually transform the Democratic Party in 2020. Even if they allowed themselves such high hopes, they should have at least recognized that such a transformation was not a certainty.

The extreme level of disappointment that many Bernie supporters are feeling is understandable because they worked hard for the campaign. But it’s no excuse for abandoning the working class. The Bernie campaign, in 2016 and in 2020, was terrific for the working class. The advancement in working-class consciousness, understanding, and willingness to take action is excellent and is not qualitatively diminished by Sanders’ withdrawal from the race.

To let our emotions determine our political statements and actions is not a characteristic of serious revolutionaries. It’s something that anarchists might do, because they think they can jolt the world into transformation. It’s something that ultralefts might do because they don’t care about the outcome. It’s something that middle-class liberals might do because they live in the fuzzy world of pie-in-the-sky ideals.

Think of the class.

–Gene Lantz

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

Do You Have Some Ideas on What to Do?

November 12, 2016
chauvinism, economy, elections, history, politics, strategy, unions
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On the day after the election, small groups of demonstrators hit the streets in a number of American cities. I just got a request that I join a call for a general strike — a national work stoppage — on Inaugural Day. I call this kind of non-thinking acting-out “knee jerk activism.” It’s more traditionally called “ultra-leftism” and has been correctly labeled, “the infantile disorder.”

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We had a tremendous general strike in 1877

Union activists are used to hearing people call “strike!” when they have no idea whether or not the tactic would work. A lot of them don’t care. If a union called a strike every time some hothead wanted one, we’d get a lot of people fired for nothing. When my union ran a successful 15-month “work to rule” contract fight, there were people calling “strike” instead of doing the hard work of a long struggle. The three of them that I knew personally were all promoted to foreman immediately after the union won. They were company stooges, as it turned out. The company knew that the union might win the long battle, but we would almost certainly have lost a strike.

If you’re reading along in Facebook, you’ve seen lots of responses to the Trump election victory, and nearly all of them are way less than helpful. Some are silly, and some are outright dangerous!

First, Figure Out What Happened

Nearly all the pollsters were wrong about the election results. The best single explanation I’ve seen was in a “letter to editor” in today’s Dallas newspaper. A guy named, I think, Roland Young wrote that when the pollsters called, “We lied!” Some of Trump’s voters may have been too ashamed to confess.

But the best explanation of the pollsters’ failure is that their approaches are based on previous history, and the 2016 presidential race was, to state it modestly, unique.

Are Americans Mostly Chauvinists?

Elections are the best evidence we have of the national character. If the Electoral College puts Donald Trump in office, does that mean we’re mostly chauvinists like him? Actually, more than half the electorate voted against him, and only 56% of all eligible voters went to the polls at all. The ones that went voted for marijuana and higher minimum wages by much better margins than they voted for Trump.

Everyone who voted for Trump did not do so because they wanted to express their chauvinism. They surely didn’t vote for him because they think his far-flung ideas are actually going to solve America’s problems.

What They Wanted Was Change

I think it is fair to say that they voted for change. We see this in the unions all the time. Members who haven’t taken the time to investigate the candidates in union elections will nevertheless vote to “throw the bums out” against whoever is in office. Next election, you can’t find anyone who admits they voted for the incumbents and it’s “throw the bums out” again. After a lifetime in the public eye, and because of the outright duplicity of the national Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton was a perfect target for that kind of sentiment.

People voted for Trump over Clinton for the same reason that they had voted, in 2008, for Obama over Clinton. Change.

People voted for Donald Trump because they are dissatisfied with life in America and they don’t know what else to do about it.

I don’t exactly blame them. I’m dissatisfied too, but I know what to do about it.

Educate and Organize the Working People

Media pundits are blaming “white blue-collar workers” for electing Donald Trump. His voters were probably Anglos all right, but they didn’t represent the working class. The working class is the solution, not the problem. The progressive leadership of the AFL-CIO is head and shoulders above any Democratic or Republican Party politician. For now, it’s better to follow them than Bernie Sanders, too.

If we’re willing to do the long hard work of educating and organizing America’s workers, we could win elections. We could win strikes, even general strikes!

But it will take some work.

–Gene Lantz

Click here if you want to know what I really think!

 

 

Will Dallas Shootings Help?

July 8, 2016
civil rights, history, politics, strategy
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Police shoot African Americans across the nation. That problem cannot be denied.

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The question that sober people must address is what to do about it. So far, we have failed to come up with strategies that would give young people hope of a solution. Our failure resulted in misguided actions on July 7th in downtown Dallas, and we are all going to pay the price.

Prayer and Platitudes

Most of what’s been said so far consists mostly of prayer and platitudes. President Obama’s statement that the shootings in Dallas that killed five law enforcement officers and wounded several others were “a vicious calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement,” doesn’t offer any solution and doesn’t even mention the overall problem.

Just previous to the Dallas tragedy, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka commented on the two most recent police shootings: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the two African-American men who were shot by police within twenty-four hours of each other.  Racism plays an insidious role in the daily lives of all working people of color…..” He identified the problem accurately, but still, what’s the answer?

What Will Happen In Dallas?

There will be a lot of fear generated in Dallas until the police are satisfied. A lot of Dallasites, especially politicians and white people, are going to be publicly and financially “backing the blue.” Eventually, the most concrete change will probably be an increase in the police budget.

What Should Happen in Dallas and Because of the Dallas Tragedy?

Perpetration of violence against African Americans is as old as America. It’s not a problem easily solved, but it cannot be ignored. On my radio talk show on July 9, I’ll be calling for proposed solutions. As far as I have been able to ascertain, most civil rights organizations believe the problem can be solved with more restrictions and more transparency on police behavior. My own proposal may sound far-fetched, but keep in mind that the problem is very old and very chronic.

The police are an arm of a government that is run by and for the wealthy. As long as that class of people want to continue exploiting African Americans, we are going to see the police carrying out their implicit duties. What we need is a better government. In a more immediate sense, we need to move toward organized communities and away from specialized armed forces. Organizing is long, hard work, but it’s the answer.

Shooting Policemen Doesn’t Work

Does anybody think they can out-shoot or out-kill the police? Do they think they could grab a few rifles and challenge the U.S. Army? Can anybody point to a single time in history that minority violence brought progress for working people?

I think the best political advice I ever read came from a speech Leon Trotsky made during the Russian Revolution: “It is not sufficient to fight, comrades, it is also necessary to win.”

–Gene Lantz

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