Good food for thought for those who want to believe we are on the
verge of a People's Revolution.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/26/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://socialistaction.org/
What is fascism?
By JEFF MACKLER
Despite the charged rhetoric of Trump and Co., the U.S. ruling class
today has no need or desire to play the fascist card. Absent any
significant working-class opposition to its policies and with a broad
array of consciously constructed and/or controlled pro-Democratic Party
“civil rights, immigrant rights and environmental NGO-type
organizations” behind it, coupled with an ever-declining labor movement
headed by the most hide-bound pro-capitalist and parasitic union
bureaucracy ever, the ruling rich today have little to fear, at least in
the short term, from a mass working-class insurgency capable of
challenging its rule.
Fascism, historically the most extreme political form of capitalist
rule, is called into being only when the question of which class shall
rule society—either the working class and its allies or the minority
property-owning elite—is sharply posed.
This was the case in Germany, Italy, and Spain in the 1920s and the
1930s, where mass workers’ organizations led by Communists and
Socialists, and anarchists in Spain, had the power and mass support to
paralyze capitalist society through massive mobilizations and general
strikes. Indeed, were it not for the Stalinist and reformist mis-leaders
of these and other working-class parties, socialist revolution would
have likely been on the immediate order of the day. Only at this point
did the divided and frightened capitalist classes employ the fascist
option, which began with the physical annihilation of the leadership of
the mass workers’ parties and organizations.
Fascism arises only when, in the context of a deep economic crisis,
society experiences a deep class polarization characterized by broad
struggles of radicalizing and class-conscious workers and their
organizations on the one side—potentially capable of seizing power and
ending capitalist rule—and a frightened, divided, and largely impotent
minority capitalist class on the other.
Under these circumstances, armed fascist gangs, usually consisting of a
threatened petty-bourgeois layer (middle class), accompanied by
de-classed and alienated workers (the lumpen proletariat) and a small
portion of misguided working-class elements, begin to take form under
the tutelage of a “strongman” leader, usually trumpeting “left-sounding”
populist/nationalist language against the powers that be, while
scapegoating the most oppressed layers of society.
Hitler and Mussolini, and Franco in Spain, initially organized and armed
these disaffected elements to direct their anger and frustrations
against the major organizations of the working class as opposed to the
ruling capitalist class. They routinely deployed armed thugs to break up
union meetings and workers’ protests.
These fascist-led forces operated outside the formal police and military
institutions of the still “democratic” capitalist state, although with
its increasing implicit approval. But when the beleaguered capitalist
rulers came to realize that the deepening working-class mobilizations
had the potential to challenge their rule, and at a time when even the
ranks of the working-class-based bourgeois army were considered
unreliable instruments to quell workers’ uprisings, they felt compelled
to call on or accede to the now sizeable armed fascist forces to assume
at least a share of the state power.
Adolph Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, for example, was never elected
as Chancellor of Germany. In January 1933 he was appointed to this post
by Germany’s president, Paul Von Hindenburg, ostensibly to keep Hitler’s
forces “in check”—that is, to give the Nazi Party a piece of the state
power to be wielded against an insurgent workers’ movement without
posing a direct threat to Germany’s existing “democratic” capitalist
parliamentary institutions. In short order, however, Hitler employed his
new “legitimacy” to physically smash, dismember, murder, or imprison the
leading ranks of the mass parties of the working class—especially the
Stalinist-led Communist Party, the largest in the world outside the
Soviet Union, and the reformist Socialist Party.
Tragically, it was the refusal of the Stalinists to join forces with the
Socialists in a workers’ united front to challenge Hitler and the
capitalist state power itself that led to one of history’s most terrible
working-class defeats, and, indeed, the single most important event that
opened the road to the Second World War, which cost the lives of 80
million people worldwide.
Photo: Nazi supporters in 1938 cheer Hitler’s campaign to unite Germany
and Austria.
Posted in Marxist Politics and Philosophy on April 25, 2016.
May 2016 Chicago $15
Fight for $15 in Chicago
By MARK UGOLINI
— CHICAGO — Low-wage workers and their supporters turned out in force at
over 300 locations in the U.S. and over 40 countries on April 14
demanding a $15 minimum wage and union organizing rights. The prime
target was McDonald’s Corporation, referred to as a “poster-child” for
unfair labor practices and poverty wages for low-wage workers worldwide.
(more…)
Posted in Chicago, Labor and tagged 15 Now, Fight for 15, McDonald's,
SEIU on April 19, 2016.
April 2016 France
One million strike in France
By JEFF MACKLER
One million workers and students took to the streets of Paris and cities
across France on March 31 to protest draconian Labor Code changes
proposed by the austerity-minded governing French Socialist Party of
Francois Holland. The changes are set to be considered by the French
parliament in late April; more giant protests are planned at that time.
(more…)
Posted in Actions & Protest, Europe, International and tagged Britain,
France, NPA on April 17, 2016.
April 2016 Trump, Cruz
The politics of deception
BY JEFF MACKLER
I am tempted to compare the stated political views of the leading
Republican and Democratic Party presidential contenders—even though they
are largely irrelevant. But ranking Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and
Bernie Sanders according to their purported degree of “socialist,
progressive, liberal, conservative” or even incipient-fascist views is
of little value in comparison to their central defense of capitalism—the
system of the rule of an elite minority that owns and controls the vast
productive capacities and wealth of society. It is the system whose
inherent evils include war, repression, racism, poverty, sexism,
homophobia, mass incarceration, environmental destruction, and
ever-deepening incursions on civil liberties and democratic rights. (more…)
Posted in Elections and tagged Bernie Sanders, Clinton, Cruz, Democrats,
Republicans, Trump on April 14, 2016.
April 2016 Miguel
Cuban official tours Bay Area
By NICK BAKER
— SAN FRANCISCO — Miguel Fraga, first secretary of the Cuban Embassy,
which opened last year in Washington, D.C., came to the Bay Area in
March for a week-long tour, speaking to students and community members
about life in Cuba, renewed U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations, and the need
to end the U.S. embargo of Cuba. The Northern California tour was
organized by the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity.
(more…)
Posted in Caribbean, Cuba, International, Latin America, San Francisco
Bay Area and tagged Cuba, Miguel Fraga on April 11, 2016.
April 2016 Labor Notes 3
Labor Notes conference big & diverse
By BILL ONASCH
Though official statistics were not yet available at our deadline, there
were clearly at least a couple of thousand participants at the April 1-3
Labor Notes Conference in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont. (more…)
Posted in Chicago, Labor on April 11, 2016.
April 2016 Saudi
Coalition to expose U.S.-Saudi alliance
By MARILYN VOGT-DOWNEY
Over 260 people attended the first 2016 Summit on Saudi Arabia held in
Washington, D.C., on Saturday, March 5 and Sunday, March 6, at the
University of the District of Columbia Law School. The conference was
organized by Code Pink and a new organization, the Coalition to End the
U.S.-Saudi Alliance. (more…)
Posted in Anti-War, International, Middle East and tagged Saudi Arabia,
Yemen on April 7, 2016.
April-2016-Teachers-1-e1459963315347
Day of Action for Chicago teachers
By MARK UGOLINI
— CHICAGO — On April 1, the solidarity of Chicago Teachers, along with
the solidarity of more than 50 union, community, and student
organizations, was on full display before the entire city and state, and
across the country. Nearly 20,000 teachers and supporters flooded the
streets in a late-afternoon rally and march in Chicago’s “Loop,” capping
a powerful Day of Action on the theme “Fund Our Futures.” (more…)
Posted in Chicago, Education & Schools, Labor and tagged CTU, teachers,
unions on April 6, 2016.
March 2016 Edu cartoon
Obama’s ‘Race to the Top’ falters
By KEVIN YESSIAN
In 2009, President Obama issued a fact sheet outlining his new education
reform plan. Race to the Top, as it is called, has four key areas:
rigorous standards and assessments, adoption of better data systems for
reporting, support for teachers and school leaders to become more
effective, and a plan for rigorous interventions when a school fails to
meet standards. In the seven years since this announcement, the results
range from somewhat satisfactory to outright disastrous. (more…)
Posted in Education & Schools on April 4, 2016.
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