Thank you for giving us hope. not fake fatuous hope, but an honest, tough, realistic description of what lies ahead of us. The cavalry is not coming. We are the cavalry.
On the bright side, we are the people, and there are a lot of us. We do the physical work. the caring work, grow and deliver the food, build and repair things, keep people and goods moving, and provide all the necessities of life. We prepare the payrolls and keep planes from crashing. We are the workers, the poor, the abandoned veterans, the professionals (including doctors, nurses and teachers) the owners of local and family business. That gives us a lot of power, if we can learn how to use it.
But we are so often propagandized, discouraged and isolated from one another. We are conditioned to dismiss others as unworthy, but in my experience there is a lot of intelligence, skill and kindness out there waiting to be freed from the limits imposed by fear and loathing of people who are different. I see it in everyday life. I see it when young people in various countries get on the internet to help each other with language skills and other academics, I see it on the Weather Channel, where people get in their pickups and little boats and rescue other people in a disaster regardless of who they are. Well, this is a disaster unfolding in a more violent climate and in the unearned and unwarranted concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a very few while the lives of the rest of us go downhill.
It will be hard, for sure. It will require getting out of our accustomed habits of mind and activity. In this hyper individualistic nation, we may have to change our ideas of success from me to us. We will have to be more choosy about who we trust with our lives. We may have to sacrifice. But it is necessary if we don't want a handful of juvenile billionaires, war addicts, wealth hoarders and dead eyed careerists to pillage our precious planet. I hope that we will be able to unite with kindness, creativity, fortitude and most of all with open hearts. Start there and I pray that the details of how to do this will become apparent.
Excellent speech. I’m having trouble figuring out how to make a donation on the workers strike back website. I’ll have to keep trying to figure it out.
"The trappings of this pseudo mass society are empty, cheap, spectacular leisure sports; parades where strangers meet, shout each other down and often trample each other to death on the way home; mass consumption of worthless super-suds or aspirin; ritualistic, ultra-nationalistic events on days to glorify the idiots who died at war or other days to deify those who sent them out to die.
A mass society that is actually a mass jungle.
The psycho-social dimensions of fascism become quite complex, but they can be simplified by thinking of them as part of a collective bargaining process carried on between all the elites of the particular state with the regime acting as arbitrator.
The regime’s interests are subject to those of the ruling class.
Labor is a partner in this arrangement.
At the head of any labor organization in the fascist state, there is an elite which is tied to the interests of the regime—and consequently tied also to the economic status quo."
George Lester Jackson (September 23, 1941 – August 21, 1971) was an American author, revolutionary, and convicted felon. While serving an indeterminate sentence for stealing $70 at gunpoint from a gas station in 1961, Jackson became involved in the Black power movement and co-founded the prison gang Black Guerrilla Family. He was murdered in San Quentin in 1971.
"We are not going to be assisted in our revolt by established unions. Union leaders, such as Teamsters’ Sean O’Brien, are bought off. They are comfortable. They are pulling down at least five times what rank-and-file workers make. They have sold out to the Democratic Party, or in the case of O’Brien to Trump."
This elite within labor, has been seen in the likes of Sean Fain of the UAW, Randi Weingarten of the Teachers' Union and a countless wad of overpaid, blinded labor bureaucrats ---- sell-outs.
Unions must get rid of union bosses and organize their own rank and file strike committees.
For fascism understands labor too.
“Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State.”
Benito Mussolini, 1935, The Doctrine of Fascism, Firenze:Vallecchi Editore. (p.15)
Thank you for giving us hope. not fake fatuous hope, but an honest, tough, realistic description of what lies ahead of us. The cavalry is not coming. We are the cavalry.
On the bright side, we are the people, and there are a lot of us. We do the physical work. the caring work, grow and deliver the food, build and repair things, keep people and goods moving, and provide all the necessities of life. We prepare the payrolls and keep planes from crashing. We are the workers, the poor, the abandoned veterans, the professionals (including doctors, nurses and teachers) the owners of local and family business. That gives us a lot of power, if we can learn how to use it.
But we are so often propagandized, discouraged and isolated from one another. We are conditioned to dismiss others as unworthy, but in my experience there is a lot of intelligence, skill and kindness out there waiting to be freed from the limits imposed by fear and loathing of people who are different. I see it in everyday life. I see it when young people in various countries get on the internet to help each other with language skills and other academics, I see it on the Weather Channel, where people get in their pickups and little boats and rescue other people in a disaster regardless of who they are. Well, this is a disaster unfolding in a more violent climate and in the unearned and unwarranted concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a very few while the lives of the rest of us go downhill.
It will be hard, for sure. It will require getting out of our accustomed habits of mind and activity. In this hyper individualistic nation, we may have to change our ideas of success from me to us. We will have to be more choosy about who we trust with our lives. We may have to sacrifice. But it is necessary if we don't want a handful of juvenile billionaires, war addicts, wealth hoarders and dead eyed careerists to pillage our precious planet. I hope that we will be able to unite with kindness, creativity, fortitude and most of all with open hearts. Start there and I pray that the details of how to do this will become apparent.
Excellent speech. I’m having trouble figuring out how to make a donation on the workers strike back website. I’ll have to keep trying to figure it out.
"The trappings of this pseudo mass society are empty, cheap, spectacular leisure sports; parades where strangers meet, shout each other down and often trample each other to death on the way home; mass consumption of worthless super-suds or aspirin; ritualistic, ultra-nationalistic events on days to glorify the idiots who died at war or other days to deify those who sent them out to die.
A mass society that is actually a mass jungle.
The psycho-social dimensions of fascism become quite complex, but they can be simplified by thinking of them as part of a collective bargaining process carried on between all the elites of the particular state with the regime acting as arbitrator.
The regime’s interests are subject to those of the ruling class.
Labor is a partner in this arrangement.
At the head of any labor organization in the fascist state, there is an elite which is tied to the interests of the regime—and consequently tied also to the economic status quo."
https://archive.org/stream/GeorgeJacksonBloodInMyEye_201512/George%20Jackson%20-%20Blood-in-My-Eye_djvu.txt
George Lester Jackson (September 23, 1941 – August 21, 1971) was an American author, revolutionary, and convicted felon. While serving an indeterminate sentence for stealing $70 at gunpoint from a gas station in 1961, Jackson became involved in the Black power movement and co-founded the prison gang Black Guerrilla Family. He was murdered in San Quentin in 1971.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Jackson_(activist)
As Chris notes:
"We are not going to be assisted in our revolt by established unions. Union leaders, such as Teamsters’ Sean O’Brien, are bought off. They are comfortable. They are pulling down at least five times what rank-and-file workers make. They have sold out to the Democratic Party, or in the case of O’Brien to Trump."
This elite within labor, has been seen in the likes of Sean Fain of the UAW, Randi Weingarten of the Teachers' Union and a countless wad of overpaid, blinded labor bureaucrats ---- sell-outs.
Unions must get rid of union bosses and organize their own rank and file strike committees.
For fascism understands labor too.
“Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State.”
Benito Mussolini, 1935, The Doctrine of Fascism, Firenze:Vallecchi Editore. (p.15)
"If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement."
Leon Trotsky
"If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement."
Leon Trotsky
Thank you for this call to arms! There are no other choices.