The Coming Storm

Liberals and a host of self-described socialists argue that, deficient as his party and his personal record may be, people must vote for Joe Biden in 2020 because Trump and the Republicans are that much more odious. Once again, working people are urged by these pitiable strategists to vote for the least worst corporate candidate. Rather than weighing the full impact of lesser evil voting, its advocates pretend the scheme has only an up and no down side. But as we will see, the costs of lesser evil voting far outweigh any presumed benefits. Without a doubt, Trump’s policies and actions have been despicable – from his support for criminal aggression against Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia, Yemen and elsewhere; his racist attacks on immigrants and people of color; his tax cuts for the rich at the expense of programs for working people; his deadly mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis; his eagerness in the wake of the pandemic to bail out corporation...

The left shares blame for new McCarthyism ** This article was published on OffGuardian   February 12, 2020 ** In the 1940s and 50s, advocating Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism could get you fired from your job,  blacklisted , deplatformed and even  imprisoned . Though communists and  socialists  were  instrumental  in the struggles of the 1930s and 40s that built the industrial labor movement in the U.S., by the late 1940s those radical ideas were vilified and virtually outlawed. Communism was purposely conflated with the crimes of Stalin. Communists and socialists were driven out of the unions. A layer of union bureaucrats that supported the witch-hunt was promoted. For fear of reprisals, many radicals kept quiet and self-censored. Some “recanted” socialist beliefs. Some fingered others to save themselves. The poison unleashed by that witch-hunt dealt a body blow to the labor movement and its devastating effects are felt to this day. It’s no ...

               ** This article was published on  Counterpunch  December  28, 2017 ** Real unemployment in the U.S. today hovers around 8.3% , afflicting more than 17 million people. This is roughly equivalent to the combined populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. Over one third of the working age population has given up looking for work. On top of this, pundits project that many more jobs will be lost to automation in the near future, with computers and robots replacing as many as 49% of the jobs now done by humans. The mechanization of dirty, dangerous, repetitive, mind-numbing tasks should be a blessing. Instead, the future is described in apocalyptic terms. Why? The problem is rooted in the disingenuous narrative we are fed. Jobs, so the story goes, are mysterious, ephemeral things, whose comings and goings are largely beyond our control. The number of available jobs has to vary independently f...

** This article was published on Counterpunch  March 30, 2017 ** It’s a sleep that puts Rip Van Winkle to shame. The long, fitful slumber has lasted for more than a generation. But the alarm has sounded and the snooze button is wearing out. Sooner or later, the giant that is the American working class will awaken. When that happens, the game will be dramatically altered; the majority, so used to playing defense, will take the offense; the score, so long lopsided, will begin to shift. What will it look like once that celebrated last straw has been added to the camel’s back? How will we know that the long slumber is over? Oh, we’ll know! Union Power The place to focus our attention is on the working class. This is not for abstract, doctrinaire reasons, but because that is where the power lies. It is there that numbers and proximity to production combine to yield a force capable of challenging the 1% for control. Control of what exactly? The whole works, includi...