Fascist Violence and the Form of the State ~~ Sam Marcy

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2021/01/07/fascist-violence-and-the-form-of-the-state/

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

White supremacists stormed the Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, brandishing KKK-inspired nooses.

Below is an excerpt from an article by Sam Marcy, a leading Marxist thinker and fighter of the second half of the 20th century. It was written shortly after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981 — that is, at the beginning of the long period of reaction that is peaking today.

The Coup in Washington: Why is Anyone Surprised by Trump’s Fascist Politics? ~~ Anthony DiMaggio

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/07/the-coup-in-washington-why-is-anyone-surprised-by-trumps-fascist-politics/

~~ posted for collectivist ~~

Photograph Source: DrDannielle – CC BY-SA 4.0

Making Sense of the Terrible Events at the National Capitol Building Yesterday (January 6, 2021) ~~ Dmorista

The dramatic events that occurred at the United States Capitol Building yesterday, January 6, 2021 demonstrate just how far down the path to authoritarian / fascist rule the U.S. has traveled. In fact the latest reports, from Newsweek, are that 4 people died in the events.  Some commenters have labeled the actions by the Trumpista Mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol Building as a “coup d'etat”.   A more accurate label for the ongoing operations, by Trump and his minions at all levels to overturn the Presidential Election results, would be Auto-Golpe'. In an Auto-Golpe' a head of state and his coterie stay in power, by using tactics similar to those that a cabal of Coup d'etat plotters would use in trying to seize state power. The process of an Auto-Golpe' is often smoother because the head of state already has levers of power available to him/her.  Donald J. Trump, while he retains control over many of those levers of power, has encountered significant resistance to his more strident demands from various parts of the U.S. Government apparatus. Most significant in this internal power structure resistance are the repeated statements by the military high command and such figures as the 10 living Secretaries of Defense, that the U.S. military must not and will not directly intervene in American politics to keep Trump in power. (See “All 10 living former defense secretaries: Involving the military in election disputes would cross into dangerous territory”, Jan 3, 2021, Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld, Washington Post, at < https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/10-former-defense-secretaries-military-peaceful-transfer-of-power/2021/01/03/2a23d52e-4c4d-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html >: “Ten Angry Men: What the Incredible Letter From Former Defense Secretaries Should Tell Americans”, Jan 4, 2021, James Stavridis, Time, at < https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ten-angry-men-incredible-letter-214010429.html >).

UPDATE II: News Reports Refute the Mandatory Optimism Cult's Claim the Nazis Lack Effective Leaders and Organization

By Loren Bliss 

THE RATHER FORCEFUL assertion by disciples of the cult of mandatory optimism there is no proof of nationally effective ChristoNazi/Trumpite leadership, organization and solidarity – and that we should therefore stop fearing it and its armed rabble -- is refuted by local and national news reports.

Below we have 22 states in which local media reported Nazi demonstrations obviously coordinated with the assault on the U.S. capitol, plus five more states in which local media suppressed stories of coordinated Nazi violence nevertheless reported by Associated Press.

That’s 27 states total or 27/50, which is 54 percent.

Plus based on these findings and my own 60-odd years’ professional knowledge of such matters, I’d guess local media in at least a dozen more states suppressed reports of Nazi violence due to the protective censorship imposed by chambers of commerce and/or other Ruling Class organizations, as is typical in most less-urbanized states.

So 39/50 – 78 percent – is almost certainly a more accurate estimate.

Which, curiously enough, equals the percentage of the total U.S. Caucasian population proven to be incurably white-supremacist by their responses to post-Katrina polls.

As to the proof itself, firstly there is this from Associated Press: Protesters swarm Statehouses across US; some evacuated .

Next I checked the websites of local newspapers in eight cities, but found all news of the Nazi assaults – local or national – to be censored by paywalls.

Finally I settled on the following, which I assembled by reviewing the websites of at least one major local (non-FOX) TV outlet in every U.S. state capital, a tedious process that took four hours and 52 minutes  to complete:

Alabama – https://www.wsfa.com/2021/01/06/trump-supporters-rally-outside-alabama-capitol/

Alaska – none locally reported

Arizona – https://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/arizonans-rally-at-the-state-capitol-as-chaos-unfolds-in-d-c

Arkansas – https://katv.com/news/local/trump-supporters-rally-at-the-arkansas-state-capitol

California -- https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2021/01/06/sacramento-trump-capitol-sacramento-arrests/

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/unlawful-assembly-declared-as-angry-trump-supporters-clash-with-police-in-downtown-l-a/

Also relevant: https://ktla.com/news/california/republican-leader-of-california-senate-tweets-then-deletes-false-claim-of-antifa-leading-u-s-capitol-mob/

Colorado – none locally reported.

Connecticutt – none locally reported.

Delaware – none locally reported.

Florida –https://www.wctv.tv/2021/01/07/presidential-election-result-protestors-counter-protestors-peacefully-protest-at-florida-state-capitol/

Georgia – locally suppressed; reported by AP.

Hawaii – locally suppressed; reported by AP.

Idaho – https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/trump-rally-boise-capitol-building-dozens/277-527d9d56-6264-4e64-b5aa-ce3969352b4c

Illinois – none locally reported.

Indiana – none locally reported.

Iowa – https://www.kcci.com/article/dozens-of-stop-the-steal-protesters-gathered-at-statehouse/35142662

Kansas –https://www.wibw.com/2021/01/07/demonstrators-rally-at-kansas-statehouse-in-support-of-president-donald-trump/

Kentucky – none locally reported. This Kentucky story from a West Virginia tv news channel:
https://wchstv.com/news/local/member-of-an-eastern-ky-church-in-washington-as-violence-erupts

Louisiana – none locally reported.

Maine – none locally reported.

Maryland – none locally reported.

Massachusetts – none locally reported.

Michigan – https://www.fox47news.com/news/political/protesters-gather-in-lansing-as-lawmakers-certify-election

Minnesota – none locally reported.

Mississippi – none locally reported.

Missouri – none locally reported.

Montana – none locally reported.

Nebraska – none locally reported.

Nevada – locally suppressed; reported by AP .

New Hampshire – none locally reported.

New Jersey – none locally reportedly

New Mexico – https://www.kob.com/new-mexico-news/armed-trump-supporters-rally-outside-roundhouse-in-santa-fe/5970329/

New York – none locally reported.

North Carolina – https://www.wral.com/a-couple-dozen-for-and-against-president-trump-exchange-words-at-nc-capitol/19460061/

North Dakota – none locally reported.

Ohio – locally suppressed; reported by AP.

Oklahoma – locally suppressed; reported by AP.

Oregon – https://www.newsbreak.com/oregon/salem/news/2140150053974/state-police-declare-unlawful-assembly-at-oregons-capitol-2-arrested

Pennsylvania – none locally reported.

Rhode Island – none locally reported.

South Carolina – https://www.wistv.com/2021/01/06/protestors-gather-sc-statehouse-support-stop-steal-movement/

South Dakota – none locally reported.

Tennessee – https://fox17.com/news/local/tennessee-lawmakers-hold-prayer-rally-in-support-of-trump
(Complete with Nazi salutes; see photo.)

Texas – https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/protest-supporting-trumps-attempt-to-overturn-election-results-planned-for-texas-capitol

Utah – https://fox17.com/news/local/tennessee-lawmakers-hold-prayer-rally-in-support-of-trump;
Also relevant: https://kutv.com/news/local/protestors-gather-at-utah-state-capitol-building

Vermont – https://www.wcax.com/2021/01/06/stop-the-steal-protesters-in-montpelier-call-for-accountability/

Virginia – none locally reported.

Washington – https://www.newsbreak.com/washington/olympia/news/2140060994666/protesters-break-through-gate-of-gov-inslees-home

West Virginia – none locally reported.

Wisconsin – none locally reported.

Wyoming – https://www.wyomingnewsnow.tv/2021/01/06/hundreds-gather-at-state-capitol-building-to-protest-election-results/

I also apologize for the use of full URLs rather than highlighted links; for a non-Nurd such as I to convert them would have added more than an hour to the preparation of this report, and in this instance I felt speed took precedence.

LB/02:32PST 7 Jan 21

-30-

 

UPDATE: The Ultimate Question Is the Extent to Which the Ruling Class Intends to Exploit This Rebellion as It Did 9/11

...Thus to Complete the Coup They Began 22 November 1963.  

By Loren Bliss 

I RAISE THIS as the ultimate question because history proves such purposeful atrocities are many -- among the most notable are the Reichstag Fire (which the Nazis manipulated into seizure of absolute power in Weimar Germany), plus of course the original Bloody Sunday -- the massacre organized by a Russian Orthodox Priest named Georgi Gapon.

This "Father Gapon" -- an agent-provocateur for the Okhrana (the Tsar's secret police) -- organized the incident precisely to provide Tsar Nicholas II the excuse for the relentless genocide by which he then exterminated hundreds of thousands of Russian progressives. 

Might Trump thus be another Gapon?    

LB/18:40 PST 6 Jan 21

-30-

 

 

Though I Have Long Foreseen the Nazi Lynch Mob That's Captured D.C., It Is Not My Preferred Return to Blogging; but the Federal Response Will Damn Sure Tell Us Who We Are

by Loren Bliss
(Originally self-published at Dispatches from Dystopia,https://www.dispatchesfromdystopia.net/2021/01/though-i-have-long-foreseen-the-nazi-lynch-mob-thats-captured-dc-it-is-not-my-preferred-return-to-bl.html)

FOR THE PAST several weeks I have been working on a new, definitively apolitical Dispatches format essentially based on the Royokan haiku I regard as our species' best-ever expression of gratitude in the wake of hopelessly ruinous loss:  

The thief
left it behind:
    the moon at my window.

But the seizure of our national capital by a Trump-spawned Nazi lynch mob has interrupted that quarantine-enabled growth process, and my own resurgent journalistic ethics demand response:

Because I (involuntarily) lived in the South for most of my first 24 years, I know entirely too well the bottomless, irremediable Evil of our national Southron/Neoconfederate mix of reactionary Christian misogyny, racism and general hatefulness.

Hence despite the constant disinformation from the "Democratic" [sic] Party's cult of mandatory positivism,  I have been warning for years of the danger of a ChristoNazi revolution. 

Now we are at the inevitable pivot-point wherein the government's response to this (armed?) rabble that has captured D.C. will answer three pivotal questions:

(1) -- the extent to which Trump's ChristoNazis have subverted the military and the police;

(2) -- the extent to which Trump's modern-day Sturmabteilung is organized for actual warfare (commanders, chain of command, training, armament etc.);

(3) -- the extent to which the Ruling Class opposes or supports the continuation of  at least a charade of constitutional governance in the imperial United States.

The answers to these three questions determine our future.

But the answer to the first question is already obvious in the alleged "unpreparedness" by which the Capitol Police (and D.C. law enforcement in general) compromised the defense of the Capitol Building.

It is even more outrageously obvious in how the militarized cops are treating these traitorous ChristoNazi insurrectionists with a respectful gentility so notably absent in the murderous violence of their everyday responses to people of color or any of the rest of us on the (real) Left.  

The international response to this Nazi insurrection will also be most revealing -- and could indeed be the ultimate factor in determining in its outcome. 

LB/16:16 PST 6 Jan 2021

(Auto-complete's  misspelling of "capitol" -- weirdly appropriate, given the givens --  corrected at 20:54 PST.)

 

-30-

 

The Bezos Earth Fund and the charity of the oligarchs ~~ Shuvu Batta, Tom Carter

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/30/bezo-d30.html

Amidst an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the working class to the billionaires this year, sections of the bourgeoisie have decided to “donate” a small fraction of these ill-gotten gains to philanthropic causes. 

The economics of laziness ~~ Paul D'Amato

https://socialistworker.org/2007-1/630/630_08_Laziness.php

From the Meaning of Marxism Series

PAUL D'AMATO explains why a socialist society would produce a flowering of universal creativity.

We've Always Had the Money for Medicare for All - We've Just Given It to Corporations Instead ~~ David Sirota

readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/63543-weve-always-had-the-money-for-medicare-for-all-weve-just-given-it-to-corporations-instead

Since 2008, the US has spent $20–35 trillion on corporate bailouts. It’s about the same “unaffordable” amount that Medicare for All has been projected to cost — used for lining corporate pockets instead of providing health care to people who need it.

More Important than Gold, Water Should Not Be Traded on Wall Street ~~Avexnim Cojti

Two articles on the trading of water...

Escalating Plunder ~~ Robert Brenner

 https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii123/articles/robert-brenner-escalating-plunder

~~ posted for dmorista ~~

On 23 march 2020, the Federal Reserve made the historic announcement that, in response to the coronavirus economic crisis, it would provide loans to non-financial corporations in industry and services for the first time since the early 1930s.footnote1 A few days previously, former Fed Chairs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen had given their imprimatur to this precedent-shattering step.footnote2 Just how huge a cornucopia for big business the authorities had in mind would soon become clear. The Federal Reserve had, for the better part of a century, confined its lending to the us government, purchasing Treasuries and bonds issued by the Government Sponsored Entities (gses)—Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae. The Central Bank had traditionally resisted extending its loan purchases beyond these instruments, not least because buying the debt of specific companies would leave it open to charges of favouritism. At the time of the 2007–08 global financial crisis, however—with the justification that the meltdown threatened the financial sector’s very functioning—then Fed Chair Bernanke consigned such niceties to the dustbin of history, showing in the process why those norms had been established in the first place.footnote3

Trench Warfare - Notes on the 2020 Election ~~ Mike Davis

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii126/articles/mike-davis-trench-warfare 

This article was recommended by dmorista  

We assume that times of great social upheaval and human peril produce equally dramatic political reactions: uprisings, counter-revolutions, new deals and civil wars. The one and only thing that most Americans agree about is that we are living in such a time, the greatest national crisis since 1932 or even 1860. Against a background of plague, impeachment, racist violence and unemployment, one party espouses a vision of autocratized government and a return to the happy days of a white Republic. The other offers a sentimental journey back to the multicultural centrism of the Obama years. (Biden’s promise of a ‘new new deal’ was for gullible progressives’ ears only.) Both parties are backward looking, solipsistic and unanchored in economic reality, but the first echoes the darkest side of modern history. The vote, held on a day when more than 100,000 Americans tested positive for covid-19, was supposed to deliver a definitive verdict on Donald Trump. Indeed the President’s increasingly frenetic attempts to delegitimize the election seemed to signal his apprehension of a Democratic landslide. In the event a projected 160 million ballots were mailed in or cast in person, representing the highest turnout rate in 120 years. A stunning judgement was expected.

Georgians Are Starving — And Their Millionaire Senators Refuse to Force a Vote on Aid. ~~ DAVID SIROTA ANDREW PEREZ

 https://jacobinmag.com/2020/12/georgia-kelly-loeffler-david-perdue-covid-relief-bill

Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue could actually force a Senate vote on $2,000 checks for almost two thirds of Georgia households. After all, their state is in the middle of a calamity. Instead, they are issuing belated, meek platitudes.

Solutions: A How-To Guide for Citizens in a Dying Empire ~~ Maxwell

Let me package a "solution" for you in nice and pretty, American-style,

wrapping. All slick and shiny and ready for you to take home.

Dmorista on Covid-19 and Related Matters Can Capitalism Survive? PART 1 ~~ dmorista

This is the first installment of a series of articles that are generally entitled "Dmorista on Covid-19 and Related Matters Can Capitalism Survive?". There will be at least 4 or 5 more installments posted here at Leftist Politics.

The Christmas Gift That Keeps on Giving

 http://libcom.org/news/gift-keeps-giving-hatred-ruling-classes-21122020

The meaning of Christmas.

In 'Emblematic Parting Blow,' Trump Moves to Take $700 Million Per Year Out of Tipped Workers' Pockets ~~ Kenny Stancil

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/23/emblematic-parting-blow-trump-moves-take-700-million-year-out-tipped-workers-pockets

A waitress serves guests as people dine outdoors in Pasadena, California on December 2, 2020. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

IWW Organizing Manual

https://usa.anarchistlibraries.net/library/industrial-workers-of-the-world-iww-organizing-manual

A few snips from the detailed IWW manual about how to organize..

Collective Statement of Total Objection to Military service

https://usa.anarchistlibraries.net/library/xupoluto-tagma-collective-statement-of-total-objection-to-military-service

This declaration is a collective public statement of total objection to military service. What does this mean? It means that we refuse to enlist to the army. We want to make our objection publicly, under our own names, not only because we do not want to hide, but because we also want to encourage others to declare their objection. It means that we are not looking for individual solutions for each one of us separately, but we are seeking ways of collectively responding to the problems that the capitalist system produces. It also means that we are not merely trying to avoid military service, but we want to oppose the institution of the military as a whole – what it represents, protects and reproduces.

Social Democracy- An Unworthy Goal ~~ Kacey SW

https://usa.anarchistlibraries.net/library/kacey-sw-social-democracy-an-unworthy-goal

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IS NOT DESIRABLE

It's Been a Long Nightmare Before Christmas for UPS and Postal Workers ~~Alexandra Bradbury

 https://labornotes.org/2020/12/its-been-long-nightmare-christmas-ups-and-postal-workers

For postal and UPS workers, the peak season started in March with the pandemic... and it never let up. Photos: IMF Photo Cory Hancock (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0), Michael Shea

NIKE: UNDERSTANDING HOW WEALTH AND POVERTY ARE CREATED IN THE GLOBAL CAPITALIST SYSTEM ~~ Jeremy Cloward

https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/zvq4786agn3el4jw9lpyyyr3o6bzct

Remembering Protest Singer Phil Ochs on his 80th Birthday

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/remembering-protest-singer-phil-ochs-on-his-80th-birthday/

Phil Ochs

CBO: Medicare for All Reduces Health Spending ~~Matt Bruenig

https://portside.org/2020-12-15/cbo-medicare-all-reduces-health-spending

Overall, the study confirms what serious Medicare for All analysts have known for some time now. It is possible to provide high-quality public health insurance to every person in the country while also saving money overall on health spending.

Immigration - Marxist/Socialist Position Documents

This is a ready reference for leftist writing on immigration from the SP archives.  The articles are numbered for reference purposes.

Capitalist Covid Catastrophe ~~ Martha Grevatt

https://www.workers.org/2020/12/53129/

It’s December 2020. The working class in the United States is facing a crisis of survival. It is the worst such crisis since the Great Depression, especially for the most oppressed.

The statistics are damning: One in six households face hunger; one in five workers are out of work; some 30 million renters and homeowners face homelessness in the coming winter months. The COVID death toll will hit 300,000 any day now. The virus is now the leading cause of death in the U.S., passing heart disease and cancer. Hospitals are unable to cope with the surge in COVID cases.

There could likely be half a million deaths before vaccines are widely available — more than double the 200,000 projected as a worst case scenario at the start of the pandemic.

The Unraveling of America ~~ Wade Davis

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/

~~ posted for dmorista ~~

Never in our lives have we experienced such a global phenomenon. For the first time in the history of the world, all of humanity, informed by the unprecedented reach of digital technology, has come together, focused on the same existential threat, consumed by the same fears and uncertainties, eagerly anticipating the same, as yet unrealized, promises of medical science.

In a single season, civilization has been brought low by a microscopic parasite 10,000 times smaller than a grain of salt. COVID-19 attacks our physical bodies, but also the cultural foundations of our lives, the toolbox of community and connectivity that is for the human what claws and teeth represent to the tiger.

MARX'S IMMISERATION THESIS, THE TRUMP/BIDEN EFFECT, AND THE FASCIST TIDE. ~~ Colin Jenkins

https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/marxs-immiseration-thesis-the-trump-biden-effect-and-the-fascist-tide

Patriotism, a Menace to Liberty ~~ Emma Goldman

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1911/patriotism.htm

WHAT is patriotism? Is it love of one’s birthplace, the place of childhood’s recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations ? Is it the place where, in childlike naivete, we would watch the fleeting clouds, and wonder why we, too, could not run so swiftly? The place where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest each one “an eye should be,” piercing the very depths of our little souls? Is it the place where we would listen to the music of the birds, and long to have wings to fly, even as they, to distant lands? Or the place where we would sit at mother’s knee, enraptured by wonderful tales of great deeds and conquests ? In short, is it love for the spot, every inch representing dear and precious recollections of a happy, joyous, and playful childhood?

If that were patriotism, few American men of today could be called upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into factory, mill, and mine, while deafening sounds of machinery have replaced the music of the birds. Nor can we longer hear the tales of great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of sorrow, tears, and grief.

Marx on Immigration ~~David L. Wilson

https://monthlyreview.org/2017/02/01/marx-on-immigration/

Renters Are Organizing To Fight Evictions, Just Like They Did in the 1930s ~~ Zacharias Szumer

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/12/australian-renters-evictions-organizing-1930s-covid

In the wake of the pandemic, Australian renters are once again facing the threat of mass evictions. The militant renters’ struggles of the Great Depression are an excellent model for the movement that’s taking shape today.

Intellectual Property Rights ~~ DEAN BAKER, ACHAL PRABHALA AND ARJUN JAYADEV

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/09/want-vaccines-fast-suspend-intellectual-property-rights

Tens of millions of Americans struggle to pay rent as unemployment benefits and eviction moratorium near expiration ~~ Alex Findijs

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/04/pers-d04.html

~~ snip ~~

The September 11 terror attacks, which killed 2,977 people, were used to launch wars costing some $6 trillion and to implement sweeping attacks on democratic rights, all on the basis of a supposed national emergency. Now that the equivalent of a 9/11 is happening every day, death on such a massive scale is effectively treated by the US political establishment as inevitable. And amidst the greatest social crisis since the Great Depression, there is supposedly nothing that can be done to alleviate mass impoverishment.

Amazon workers unite and fight: “Bezos’ obscene fortune only possible because of the work we do”

https://www.liberationnews.org/amazon-workers-unite-and-fight-bezos-obscene-fortune-only-possible-because-of-the-work-we-do/

Workers in more than a dozen countries organized coordinated actions against corporate giant Amazon to coincide with the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Those participating are from a diverse array of countries and lines of work up and down the supply chain, from warehouses of the United States to call centers in the Philippines. The demands are varied and serve as an indictment of the monopoly’s anti-worker operating practices.

The Creation of Scarcity ~~. Michael Perelman

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLPicUXGrfdQIQliNIHeThSUTNIcbXkEVJt0nnpNEhsbpIN8HSphR-vRCh9DgV0hvEUKlIVUTkHFFal-YxY8c7AJavS2Pfh2vlQoDHaSbqY7HFQqRRCNlSIuyECxDtawldvZ7lj5dBFTsl/

This was posted by SageThinker quite some time ago.  It is a PDF so had to be re-typed by hand to post.

The key to avoiding the curse of a comfortable life was to create artificial scarcity for the rural poor.  As Arthur Young observed in 1771, "everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious" (cited in EP Thompson 1963, 317).  Access to common land touched a particularly sensitive nerve among more affluent property owners.  Marx (1977, 881 and EP Thompson, 1963, 217 ) cited by a Dr. Hunter who fretted that "a few acres to the cottage would make the laborers too independent."

Reviving the Gallows, Electric Chair, Gas Chamber, and Firing Squad Recalls a Hideous History ~~Austin Sarat

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/12/05/trumps-plan-revive-gallows-electric-chair-gas-chamber-and-firing-squad-recalls

The way the federal government can kill death row prisoners will soon be expanded to ghoulish methods that include hanging, the electric chair, gas chamber and the firing squad.

Set to take effect on Christmas Eve, the new regulations authorizing an alternative to lethal injections – the method currently used in federal executions – were announced by the Justice Department on Nov. 27.

What is clear is that these new regulations send a message about the lengths the administration will go to kill as many death row inmates as possible before Joe Biden takes office and, as expected, halts the federal death penalty.

If the president and Department of Justice succeed in their plan, the period from July 14, 2020, the date of the first of Trump's federal executions, through January 20, 2021 will be the deadliest in the history of federal capital punishment in nearly a century.

Isn't socialism about conformity? ~~ Paul D'Amato

https://socialistworker.org/2006-1/590/590_09_MakeSame.php

From the Meaning of Marxism Series

SOCIALISM WILL make us all like the same. This claim is, to quote the British journalist Paul Foot, "delicately stoked by the press and television of a capitalist society which is increasingly stamping sameness and conformity on its working people."

LEE CAMP: We Can’t Vote ‘Em Out

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/11/30/lee-camp-we-cant-vote-em-out/

The criminal absurdity of American politics - 

It doesn’t matter when you read this, the assholes will still be in power. I know that because here in America we can’t vote out the assholes. We can trouble them, scare them, annoy them, and sometimes even pressure them into doing some small thing that’s mildly progressive. 

But we can’t vote out the assholes.

The Philosophy of Antifa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ&feature=youtu.be

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

COVID Tipped the Scale: How King County Employees Made Childcare a Union Benefit ~~Michael Laslett

https://labornotes.org/2020/11/covid-tipped-scale-how-king-county-employees-made-childcare-union-benefit

Ten thousand union members who work for King County, where Seattle is located, have won a $9 million fund to cover emergency childcare expenses this school year. Now the union coalition is pushing to make the benefit permanent.

“We did not sign up to be raped”: Women veterans fight back against military sexual trauma ~~ Johnnie Lewis

https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52749/

~~posted for Collectivist ~~ 

This month two veterans, represented by the Yale Law School Veterans Legal Service Clinic, won a lawsuit against the U.S. Army for giving “bad paper” discharges to veterans with mental health diagnoses. The discharges include women victims of sexual assault, abuse and harassment, known collectively as Military Sexual Trauma (MST). Additionally, the lawsuit supported all veterans with diagnoses of traumatic brain injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder who were given bad paper discharges. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/11/18/army-agrees-review-thousands-of-bad-paper-discharges-part-of-lawsuit-settlement.html

200 years since the birth of Friedrich Engels ~~ Peter Schwartz

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/28/pers-n28.html

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

Friedrich Engels was born 200 years ago today on Nov. 28, 1820. Together with his friend Karl Marx, who was two-and-a-half years his senior, Engels co-founded scientific socialism. Two hundred years later, their life’s work is of burning contemporary relevance. They were much more farsighted than the countless academics who have filled entire libraries with their attempted refutations of Marxism.

Whiskey Snakes and Voltaire ~~ Joe Bageant

https://bageant.typepad.com/joe/2013/06/whiskey-snakes-and-voltaire.html

See the introduction to this series of posts: Writing on Things Southern and Past

Are Workers “Smart Enough” to Govern Under Socialism? ~~ Gordon Haskell

Gordon Haskell - 20 September 1948
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/haskell/1948/09/socdem.html
 
"In our present set-up the man who gets to the top is usually the man blessed by rich parents, good connections, or a willingness to grind his fellow humans under his heel."

“A few months ago,” says my friend Jack to me the other day, “you were telling me about how the workers and farmers and other people that do something useful will run things once they wake up and take over from the monopolists and politicians and the rest of the riff-raff that has the world by the tail these days.”

Five Difficulties in Writing the Truth ~~ Bertolt Brecht

http://www.idcommunism.com/2017/08/bertolt-brecht-five-difficulties-in.html

Summary

The great truth of our time is that our continent is giving way to barbarism because private ownership of the means of production is being maintained by violence. Merely to recognize this truth is not sufficient, but should it not be recognized, no other truth of importance can be discovered. Of what use is it to write something courageous which shows that the condition into which we are falling is barbarous (which is true) if it is not clear why we are falling into this condition? We must say that torture is used in order to preserve property relations. To be sure, when we say this we lose a great many friends who are against torture only because they think property relations can be upheld without torture, which is untrue.

Lenin on Social Class

https://mltoday.com/from-the-classics-lenin-on-social-classes/

From  A Great Beginning

June 28, 1919

And what does the “abolition of classes” mean? All those who call themselves socialists recognise this as the ultimate goal of socialism, but by no means all give thought to its significance.

Creeping fascism after the U.S. election: Trump’s march to Gilead

https://mronline.org/2020/11/24/creeping-fascism-after-the-u-s-election-trumps-march-to-gilead/

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

Would you believe it? Just when these ‘creeping fascism’ people were expecting Donald Trump to unleash hordes of Brownshirts onto the streets of America, he goes and gets defeated in an election! Yes, the normal functioning of capitalist democracy! Which shows you just how far fetched the idea of creeping fascism was.

Ben Fletcher’s One Big Union ~~ Robin D.G. Kelly

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/ben-fletchers-one-big-union

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

Ben Fletcher, once one of the most important black labor figures in the United States, has faded into obscurity. But he couldn’t be more relevant to the most urgent political projects of the present.

The Nation’s New Crime Boss ~~ JOHN DAVIS

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/20/the-nations-new-crime-boss/

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

A great deal of energy was expended recently to influence who would be the next president of the criminal enterprise that is the United States of America. The nation’s criminality was established historically by its extermination of indigenous populations inconvenient to its imperial goals and its enslavement of Africans expressly imported into the country under hideous conditions for the further ease and enrichment of the already wealthy. Although these were crimes initiated long before the formal constitution of the U.S., when the slave trade was belatedly outlawed in 1808, slaves were bred in the Upper South and driven in chains across the country or shipped down the Mississippi to be sold in the Deep South. There, they joined their brothers and sisters in an industrialized system of enforced labor cruelly driven by the whip. The expansion of cotton across the south required the removal of Indian tribes who lived on the land the plantation owners wished to cultivate. Their forced removal included documented acts of genocide.

The First Thanksgiving: Separating Myth From Fact ~~ RUTH HOPKINS

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/thanksgiving-myths-facts-mayflower-landing

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

Here in the United States, we’ve all heard the legendary tale of the first Thanksgiving, when Pilgrims dined with Natives in celebration of a bountiful harvest.

What Could be Better Than a Drug That Can Stop Covid? A Society That Doesn’t Let Some Make Billions off a Drug Millions Can’t Access ~~ SAM PIZZIGATI

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/23/what-could-be-better-than-a-drug-that-can-stop-covid-a-society-that-doesnt-let-some-make-billions-off-a-drug-millions-cant-access/

The capitalist economy doesn’t work for workers

https://mronline.org/2020/11/19/the-capitalist-economy-doesnt-work-for-workers/

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

Capitalism, an economic system of private ownership and control of production based off the exploitation of workers, is ultimately not reformable. But that doesn’t mean we can’t change economic system. We believe that socialism provides the solution to the world’s ills and that marxist theory gives us the tools to enact social change we so desperately need.

Bolivia: A hero’s welcome — Inside Evo Morales’ triumphant return tour ~~ Oliver Vargas

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/bolivia-heros-welcome-inside-evo-morales-triumphant-return-tour

~~ posted for Collectivist~~

The return of Evo Morales to Bolivia on November 9, one day after President Luis Arce’s inauguration, marked the formal end of last year’s United States-backed coup.

US history proves it: change comes from struggle, not elections ~~ Eleanor Morley

https://redflag.org.au/node/7429

Pinning hopes on the outcome of elections has weakened social movements. When the oppressed take matters into their own hands, things change.

Nearly 1,000 Homeless People Died in LA in 2020 as 93,000 Homes Sit Vacant ~~ Alex Ferrer, Terra Graziani and Jacob Woocher

https://portside.org/2020-11-02/nearly-1000-homeless-people-died-la-2020-93000-homes-sit-vacant

We must see real estate market for what it truly is: an institution rooted in settler colonialism that allows land (and the housing that sits atop it) to be distributed and controlled by those who have enough money for their preferences to matter.

Rosa Luxemburg's Revolutionary Socialism ~~ Paul Leblanc

https://socialistworker.org/2019/01/15/rosa-luxemburgs-revolutionary-socialism

TEN YEARS after the murder of Rosa Luxemburg in January 1919, playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht wrote in his typically stark, homely verse:

Red Rosa now has vanished too.
Where she lies is hid from view.
She told the poor what life’s about.
And so now the rich have rubbed her out.

Luxemburg was born in 1871, in a Poland divided under German and Russian domination, and she played a role in the working-class socialist movement of each country.

Yet her influence has been global. She was part of a mass working-class movement seeking a transition from capitalism to socialism. The decades following her death saw increasing crises and finally a half-century decline and collapse of that movement.

Why the military establishment backed Biden

https://mronline.org/2020/11/17/why-the-military-establishment-backed-biden/

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

The U.S. military establishment will breathe a sigh of relief at Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. Nearly 800 former high-ranking military and security officials penned an open letter in support of the Democratic candidate during the campaign. A who’s who of former generals, ambassadors, admirals and senior national security advisers—from former Secretary of State Madeline Albright to four-star admiral and Bush-era Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Steve Abbot—backed Biden as the best bet to revive U.S. power. A month earlier, 70 national security officials who served in Republican administrations threw their weight behind Biden (the list soon grew to 130), arguing that, on foreign policy, Trump “has failed our country”.

Labor podcasts

https://portside.org/2020-11-16/labor-podcasts

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

The right-wing has effectively taken over much of the media, from TV stations to radio and podcasts. Fortunately, labor organizers and analysts are creating high quality informative podcasts and news shows.

Reasserting the Importance of Committed, Truthful, On-the-Ground Reporting on the Centenary of John Reed’s Passing ~~Juan Antonio Sanz

https://portside.org/2020-11-14/reasserting-importance-committed-truthful-ground-reporting-centenary-john-reeds-passing

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

On 17 October 1920, just days before his 33rd birthday, American journalist John Reed, author of Insurgent Mexico, a book covering the Mexican Revolution, and Ten Days that Shook the World, the most famous chronicle of the October Revolution of 1917, died of typhus in a Russian hospital in Moscow. Both of these works and Reed’s career now constitute an invaluable example of engaged journalism committed to social justice while ensuring truthful reporting, respect for sources and the indispensable need for the journalist to be where the news is happening.

Class Oppression and the Virus ~~ Deidre Griswold

https://www.workers.org/2020/11/52464/

~~ posted for Collectivist ~~

The United States continues to lead the world — in the number of COVID-19 cases as well as in deaths.

Americans Work Too Damn Much AN INTERVIEW WITH JAMIE MCCALLUM. ~~ Micah Uetricht

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/work-time-leisure-hours-overwork-labor

Workers in the United States have lost control of perhaps the most important aspect of their lives: their time. Getting that time back is crucial — for workers’ well-being, for democracy, and for weakening the tyrannical power of the boss.