So will Trump keep his campaign promises to pay to defend the fascist murders?
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From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2017 12:22 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Charlottesville rally turns deadly: Build unity to
smash fascism!
https://socialistaction.org/2017/08/13/charlottesville-rally-turns-deadly-build-unity-to-smash-fascism/
Charlottesville rally turns deadly: Build unity to smash fascism!
/ 24 hours ago
Sept. Charlottesville woundedBy STEVE XAVIER
¡Heather Heyer, presente! Socialist Action condemns the murder of Heather
Heyer, age 32, by an ultra-right terrorist, who plowed a car into a crowd of
anti-fascist protesters during the Aug. 12 counter-mobilization against the
so-called “Unite the Right” rally. More than 30 anti-racist protesters
sustained injuries during the course of the day.
Heather, who worked as a paralegal in Charlottesville, Va., went to the protest
to demonstrate her love of humanity and her opposition to the racist and
fascist thugs that the decaying capitalist system has spewed forth. Her
apparent murderer, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, escaped from the scene but was
apprehended shortly afterwards. One of his high school instructors in Ohio told
ABC News that Fields was “infatuated by the Nazis and Adolph Hitler.”
Heather Heyer
¡Heather Heyer, presente!
The call for an ultra-right rally in Charlottesville was intended to bring
together “alt-right,” neo-Nazi, neo-Confederate, and Ku Klux Klan groups in an
action to defend the statue of Robert E. Lee, the general who led the
slaveholders’ army during the Civil War of the 1860s. The Charlottesville city
council had voted to remove the monument from its site at the former Lee
Park—now renamed Emancipation Park. The rally was reported to be the largest
gathering of far-right and racist groups in at least a decade.
In an Aug. 11 torchlight march across the University of Virginia campus, the
white supremacists and fascists chanted: “white lives matter,” “you will not
replace us,” “Jews will not replace us,” and “blood and soil”
(the Nazi slogan of the 1930s extolling racial purity). Rightists attacked a
smaller group of counter-protesters, using sticks and brass knuckles, while
police stood by and watched.
On Saturday, Aug. 12, as the fascists gathered for their rally, the
counter-protesters outnumbered them two to one. As clashes broke out, the
authorities declared a state of emergency and cops ordered the gathering to
disperse. Scuffles between fascists and counter-demonstrators continued,
injuring at least 15 protesters.
Later, the counter-demonstrators began a march through downtown, chanting
“Whose streets? Our streets!” Without warning, Fields drove his car into a
column of marchers, killing Heyer and injuring at least 19 others. Among the
injured were members of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), the
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and the IWW.
Trump’s rise emboldened fascists
Klansman, Holocaust denier, and former Nazi leader David Duke said at the
Charlottesville Unite the Right rally that “we are determined to take our
country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. … That’s
why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country
back.”
Trump ran for president on a reactionary populist appeal to people with
economic and falsely perceived racial grievances. During his rise to the White
House, he scapegoated immigrants and Muslims while gathering support from overt
fascists like David Duke and alt-right founder Richard Spencer, as well as the
Ku Klux Klan. Trump supporters physically attacked protesters at campaign
rallies as the candidate encouraged their violence.
While Trump is not a fascist, he has surrounded himself with alt-right
spokesmen like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller (a college friend of Richard
Spencer). His election and rhetoric has emboldened the fascist and racist far
right. These groups have grown and mobilized since the election, taking Trump’s
rise to power as a signal to come out of the shadows. The Nazi Daily Stormer
wrote that Trump “is setting us free.”
Trump has been silent about the large number of racist and anti-Semitic hate
crimes that have taken place since he took office. In a rambling and
barely-coherent statement following the clashes in Charlottesville, Trump
neglected to mention the murder of Heather Heyer. He condemned the violence on
“many sides” and refused to condemn the white supremacists and fascists
specifically.
David Duke, apparently irritated by Trump’s mild rebuke, tweeted, “I would
recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans
who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists.”
But other rightists took Trump’s statement as a victory. “Did Trump just
denounce anti-fa?” tweeted Richard Spencer, using a term used to describe
anti-fascist protesters. And the Nazi Daily Stormer wrote gleefully that Trump
had “outright refused to disavow” the fascists. “He didn’t attack us. … When
asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good.”
Fascism and how to fight it
Fascism is a symptom of capitalism in its terminal decay. The tactics of
fascists were described by Malik Miah in the August 1975 International
Socialist Review (“Free Speech and the Fight Against the Ultra-Right”):
“Fascists try to turn the anger of all those threatened with ruin by the
capitalist crisis against the oppressed racial minorities and organized labor.
In this country, the approach of fascist organizations in the l930s and l940s
was to claim to be the representatives of the ‘little man’ against both the big
capitalists and the ‘communists,’ directing their fire especially at Blacks,
Jews and ‘big labor.’ In his book ‘Fascism and Big Business,’ Daniel Guerin
points out that ‘fascism’s game is to call itself anti-capitalist without
seriously attacking capitalism.’”
Sept. 2017 Fields & fascists
James Alex Fields (2nd from left) holds a shield with a fascist symbol on Aug.
12, shortly before he drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. Alan
Goffinski / AP
The social base of fascism is the petty bourgeoisie (“middle class”). In the
struggle for power, fascism uses anti-capitalist slogans, but their paymasters
are the ruling class. They use the petty bourgeoisie as what Trotsky called a
“battering ram” against the working class. The regime of fascism is, in the
final analysis, the government of finance capital.
Having masked their intent under anti-capitalist rhetoric, the Nazis quickly
subordinated all of German society to the needs of the capitalist class. We
can’t rely on cops, courts, and capitalist politicians to protect us from
fascist goons. Cops often ally themselves directly with the fascists.
Socialists reject the notion that small groups engaging in street fighting can
defeat the fascists. We seek to mobilize the largest possible
counter-mobilizations of workers and the oppressed against these thugs. We need
to build united-front mass-action coalitions that include the trade unions and
organizations of oppressed nationalities, women, students and LGBTQI people.
At the same time, we support the right to organized self-defense against racist
and fascist attacks. We take to heart the IWW slogan, “an injury to one is an
injury to all.”
Top photo: A woman injured in the Aug. 12 car attack in Charlottesville.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
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August 13, 2017 in Fascism / Far Right.
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