Saturday, April 18, 2020


Don’t Participate In Your Own Demise
Jean H Hricik
Apr 14 · 

FYI — This is not a news report. This is opinion developed from many sources, some of which are included for clarity, transparency, and rebuttal, and is the Free Speech that shares ideas.

Don’t Participate In Your Own Demise….

At the risk of stirring the pot of Establishment sycophants, consider ideas about economic globalism — -

https://socialistproject.ca/2020/04/marx-in-the-era-of-pandemic-capitalism/--The map clearly shows that the Covid-19 is concentrated in the three world poles that dominate the capitalist world system: East Asia, Western Europe and North America. More specifically, a correlation seems to appear between the pandemic and the intensity of flows and mobilities in world metropolises.

American geographer and historian Mike Davis had previously shown the systemic links between globalized capitalism and the swine flu. Today, it is clear that the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrates that the productive forces accumulated on a world scale have become forces of destruction which plunge us into post-modern barbarism. To get out of it, we must reconnect, as many social movements do, with the radical quest for other paths than those of state and capital, to invent the unknown, beyond disaster capitalism. • — end of socialistproject info —

Within these centers in world metropolises, one shouldn’t be surprised to see the indoctrinated public that most compliantly accept the capitalist rhetoric, also being those most inordinately exposed to the diseases.

Many local communities have indeed been struggling for human, environmental, and civil rights violations due to the fracking industry, as can be attested to be grassroots anti-fracking advocates in NYS —

Native communities have been in this struggle for centuries — -http://ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html---When Christopher Columbus first set foot on the white sands of Guanahani island, he performed a ceremony to “take possession” of the land for the king and queen of Spain, acting under the international laws of Western Christendom. Although the story of Columbus’ “discovery” has taken on mythological proportions in most of the Western world, few people are aware that his act of “possession” was based on a religious doctrine now known in history as the Doctrine of Discovery. Even fewer people realize that today — five centuries later — the United States government still uses this archaic Judeo-Christian doctrine to deny the rights of Native American Indians. — -end of nativeweb info —

-https://www.lakotalaw.org/our-actions/kxl-pandemic--
Say No to KXL Man Camps During the Pandemic

The man camps that house workers for the Keystone XL pipeline present a clear and present danger to public safety, as they could become viral hubs during the COVID-19 pandemic. This new threat compounds existing tribal concerns about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Tell Montana governor Steve Bullock to halt KXL construction and keep people out of harm’s way. — -https://www.lakotalaw.org/our-actions/kxl-pandemic

— -end of lakotalaw info —

Studies that are not discussed often on state-run/corporate-owned mainstream media will inform people that air pollution contributes to a higher mortality rate if one is afflicted with Covid 19. Some people ignore this fact due to collaboration with the economically-advantaged groups who are too often also predatory Establishment. Hierarchy in capitalism is evidence of this predatory predilection. That those exploited but still compliant to capitalism expose their communities to this increased mortality rate is a troubling conundrum.

Bernie Sanders could conceivably run on the Green Party Presidential ticket, but chooses instead to endorse Joe Biden. Joe Biden is a strong supporter of pay-to-play health insurance rather than universal public health care policies, and Biden supported overwhelmingly, the outsourcing of American jobs that reduced workers to scrambling for jobs with foreign workers and decimated our manufacturing base that destroyed the ability for the USA to efficiently produce goods such as PPE.

Sanders supporters chose Bernie Sanders for their Presidential candidate, Sanders did not choose his supporters. Unlike the Democratic Establishment that surgically chooses their voters, other voters are more inclined to make up their own mind.

Also regarding the come-on by Joe Biden that he will choose a woman as V-P, and possibly a minority woman, what would be the benefit? If he chose a man as V-P, does that mean Jim Clyburn-captured Democrats will vote for Trump? If he did choose a woman V-P, does Biden imagine Green New Deal proponents will thereafter fall into line for a capitalistic hierarchical Establishment Presidential ticket pandering to women? This should be interesting.

Identity politics rather than governance by competence is so yesterday — -https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-governor-murphy-governor-lamont-governor-wolf-governor-carney-governor-raimondo----In the Northeast, governors are working in Solidarity against Covid 19.

https://www.nationofchange.org/2020/04/13/cuomos-star-power-exposes-biden-drawbacks/--

So goes the wail of the American leadership class as they endure another year of panic. They know on some level that what has happened in Washington isn’t due to majority rule at all, but to money and gerrymandering and the Electoral College and decades of TV programming decisions. But the anxiety cannot be dislodged; it is beyond the reach of reason. The people are out of control.

“Populism” is the word that comes to the lips of the respectable and the highly educated when they perceive the global system going haywire. Populism is the name they give to the avalanche crashing down on the Alpine wonderland of Davos. Populism is what they call the mutiny that may well turn the supercarrier America into a foundering wreck. Populism, for them, is a one-word evocation of the logic of the mob: it is the people as a great rampaging beast. — end of nationofchange info —

The tools available to the Capitalist Party D&R are quite reminiscent of those of the Former USSR. One prefers a democratic (small d) Constitutional republic with respect for We The People.

Tools available to local community members, to maintain the best chance of good health during this precarious time, is wholesome food, that itself is medicine — -https://us.e-activist.com/page/message?mid=e3e1d6e8c97d4eabb4b5f003760178ea--During these 30-minute webinars, you’ll hear directly from Iowa farmers about how they’re incorporating regenerative agriculture practices into their operations to build soil health, help clean up Iowa’s lakes and rivers, produce nutrient-dense food — all while fighting global warming. — end of organic consumer info —

And, no, this is not an implication that food cures Covid 19. This is to say whole and nutritious food, and general attention to cleanliness and lifestyle, is a factor in over-all good health. One must forestall those who will twist words.

Indigenous communities bypass capitalistic hierarchical Establishment in excellence in ideas of community relationship and leadership — -Rema, thanks for sharing — -https://www.facebook.com/rema.loeb/posts/3455981521085157https://www.facebook.com/crowlouder/photos/a.448818592198961/882835732130576/?type=3&theater------https://www.pbs.org/native-america/blogs/native-voices/how-the-iroquois-great-law-of-peace-shaped-us-democracy/------The Iroquois Confederacy, founded by the Great Peacemaker in 11421, is the oldest living participatory democracy on earth2. In 1988, the U.S. Senate paid tribute with a resolution3 that said, “The confederation of the original 13 colonies into one republic was influenced by the political system developed by the Iroquois Confederacy, as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the constitution itself.” — end of pbs info —

That capitalist hierarchical Establishment wishing to prey upon Native Americans throughout history, as the ubiquitous American community suffers in 2020, used any means possible to impose corruption on a system that is defensive of humanity and nature — --http://ili.nativeweb.org/sdrm_art.html--When Christopher Columbus first set foot on the white sands of Guanahani island, he performed a ceremony to “take possession” of the land for the king and queen of Spain, acting under the international laws of Western Christendom. Although the story of Columbus’ “discovery” has taken on mythological proportions in most of the Western world, few people are aware that his act of “possession” was based on a religious doctrine now known in history as the Doctrine of Discovery. Even fewer people realize that today — five centuries later — the United States government still uses this archaic Judeo-Christian doctrine to deny the rights of Native American Indians.

— end of nativeweb info —

The Democratic Establishment have used their own style of manipulation and control to maintain patriarchy.

The Northeastern governors may have absorbed the intelligence of Native Americans of the region, who may have been the inspiration for the US Constitution — —

Obama endorsed Biden. Obama bailed out Wall St. predators during the Financial Crisis of 2008. Is anyone surprised? Obama then attempted assiduously to further undermine We The People with NAFTA, that would have given multi-national corporations extraordinary control over local communities — -https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/10/obscure-legal-system-lets-corportations-sue-states-ttip-icsid----Investors have used this system not only to sue for compensation for alleged expropriation of land and factories, but also over a huge range of government measures, including environmental and social regulations, which they say infringe on their rights. Multinationals have sued to recover money they have already invested, but also for alleged lost profits and “expected future profits”. The number of suits filed against countries at the ICSID is now around 500 — and that figure is growing at an average rate of one case a week. The sums awarded in damages are so vast that investment funds have taken notice: corporations’ claims against states are now seen as assets that can be invested in or used as leverage to secure multimillion-dollar loans. Increasingly, companies are using the threat of a lawsuit at the ICSID to exert pressure on governments not to challenge investors’ actions. — -end of theguardian info —

Capitalistic politicians have indoctrinated the notion that money replaces a comprehensive public health care policy. We have ACA/Obamacare that supposedly gave to the public, affordable health care. In fact, the American health care system is impotent against disease, and does inflict rationing of health care. We need politicians who aren’t bought-off by big-money interests, to legislate against universal health care that is ubiquitous to all residents. The failure of our current system is in front of us, for those with eyes to see — -https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/14/juan_gonzalez?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=01354e7fc4-Daily_Digest_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-01354e7fc4-191783145

Just as choosing a capitalist woman V-P will make little difference to those who won’t vote capitalist Establishment anyway, is an endorsement from capitalist, NAFTA proposing, pay-to-play health insurance Obama endorsement. But the Primary enthusiasm among Democratic Establishment becomes intense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOLgkSO-A3A--Krystal Ball: Bernie supporters won’t fall in line for Biden no matter who tells them to

Aside from Biden’s pay-to-play health industry and outsourcing of American jobs as governmental policy, other issues have remained censored, according to evidence — -aprogressive.com/tara-reade/?utm_source=LA+Progressive+NEW&utm_campaign=645af11416-LAP+News+-+20+April+17+PC_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_61288e16ef-645af11416–286972237&mc_cid=645af11416&mc_eid=e213faa886 — The mainstream media ignored Reade’s allegation for three weeks until this Easter Sunday, when I finally saw this summary on NBC News.

— end of laprogressive info —

A President dedicated to governance of, by and for The People is crucial; one rejects the lightweights who need to bolster personal egos at the expense of others: That is precisely the subtle sexual harrassment from patriarchy .
 
 No More Than The Chicken Can Go Back To Normal……

Bernie Sanders stands out as a dedicated Representative of our democratic (small d) Constitutional republic — -https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10220626506120043&set=a.10208448260311509&type=3&theater-----Rema, thanks for sharing — -https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10220626506120043&set=a.10208448260311509&type=3&theater-------The dignity and dedication of Bernie Sanders was presented as a possibility in our Reality-Show culture, because Independent Sanders shouldered his way into the Democratic Party to be heard. Otherwise, he would have remained as censored as the equally dedicated and dignified Green Party Presidential candidate Howie Hawkins, who remains uncompromised. — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IstVVmQXhUw--Howie Hawkins answers your questions, #2

We are in a remarkable place that offers inordinate opportunity. This is the silver lining of which pandemic has nothing good about — — -https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3512055395477030&set=gm.2653263641595656&type=3&theater--https://www.facebook.com/groups/1749814981940531/permalink/2653263641595656/---Rema, thanks for sharing — -https://www.facebook.com/rema.loeb/posts/3455945587755417----end of Rema’s facebook postings — -

One doesn’t consider rushing back into the normality of hierarchical Establishment exploitation. We The People are facing a pandemic that is deadly; after this, why bother with the mediocrity and turpitude of Capitalist Party D&R???

Voters can treat the Presidential General election like a team sport in which each of 2 sides choose a team…..or voters can understand the power and veracity of political and public policy and vote for the Green Party Presidential candidate.

These are reasons many people take a more personal responsibility in Presidential choices, rather than depending on self-interested endorsements.

https://howiehawkins.us/perspectives-and-policies/

The DNC all ready controlled the Democratic voters, so any discussion today about capturing Bernie Sanders Democratic voters is nonsense. How will the DNC capture the Green Party or Independent Party voters, who view both Republicans and Democrats for what they are….Capitalist Party politicians.

*******

Demand that The League of Women Voters again host political debates. — https://www.lwv.org/

https://www.debates.org/ is the Democratic corporation and Republican corporation collaboration that has monopolized into censorship, 3rd-Party candidates, pertaining to political debate. https://www.debates.org/media/---Demand open discussion by emailing media@debates.org.

For further inquiries, please contact the Commission on Presidential Debates at media@debates.org or by phone at (202) 872–1020.

More information about each of the 2020 general election debates can be found at the following links:

First presidential debate:
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
University of Notre Dame
https://debate.nd.edu/

Suppression begins with the political debates that exclude 3rd-Party candidates. Included in the Democratic and Republican Presidential Debate, should be Green Party Presidential candidate Howie Hawkins, who actually has public policies to discuss. Excluding one with actual plans in place, will guarantee a Reality-Show Presidential Debate stand-up comedy routine, if the debaters are Biden and Trump.

One has come to realize the extent of the censorship of Speech in the USA pertaining to debate restrictions. This seems to be the reason Independent Party Presidential candidate has attempted to champion the voices of the majority of voters outside of Democratic Party domination, by running for President in the Democratic Party.

However going forward, the key will be to demand Free Speech in Presidential debates, along with other political races across the nation. If we do not demand this freedom of Speech, our elections will remain as laughable as the elections of the Former USSR in which one candidate was presented for whom to vote.

*******************************************************************

https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx----

RepublicansIndependentsDemocrats%%%2020 Feb 17–283039292020 Feb 3–163339262020 Jan 16–293042272020 Jan 2–15274527

— — end of party affiliation info — —

And many of the most non-Establishment voters are in the Green Party.

**************************************As a Green Party registered voter routinely, one re-registers every 4 years into the Democratic Party to be able to cast a vote in the Democratic Primary for Bernie Sanders. One is positive one is not alone in doing so.

Lost in the fog of political corruption over several decades, is the fact that the Presidential debates were once in the capable hands of the League of Women Voters — --https://www.lwv.org/newsroom/press-releases/league-refuses-help-perpetrate-fraud----Most objectionable to the League, Neuman said, were conditions in the agreement that gave the campaigns unprecedented control over the proceedings. Neuman called “outrageous” the campaigns’ demands that they control the selection of questioners, the composition of the audience, hall access for the press and other issues.

“The campaigns’ agreement is a closed-door masterpiece,” Neuman said. “Never in the history of the League of Women Voters have two candidates’ organizations come to us with such stringent, unyielding and self-serving demands.”

Neuman said she and the League regretted that the American people have had no real opportunities to judge the presidential nominees outside of campaign-controlled environments.

— — end of lwv info — -

In other words, (paraphrase) patriarchy says, “we’ll handle it from here, little ladies” — -

https://straty.com/controlling-outcomes-controlling-table-stakes/---After studying the election process in 1985, the bipartisan National Commission on Elections recommended “turning over the sponsorship of Presidential debates to the two major parties”. The CPD was established in 1987 by the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican Parties to “take control of the Presidential debates”. The commission was staffed by members from the two parties and chaired by the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties… (wikipedia)

— -end of straty info — -

https://www.debates.org/---The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) was established in 1987 to ensure, for the benefit of the American electorate, that general election debates between or among the leading candidates for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States are a permanent part of the electoral process. CPD’s primary purpose is to sponsor and produce the quadrennial general election debates and to undertake research and educational activities relating to the debates. The organization, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) corporation, sponsored all of the presidential debates in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016

— -end of debates info — -The Commission on Presidential Debates, replacing the League of Women Voters, controls who can debate and on which topics. They call this educating the public, others may see this as brainwashing. The CPD would profit by hearing from We The People, as to concerns about censorship. The censorship seems to have become so blatant, that petitions to the CPD have reached into the hundreds of thousands. PETITION — — -https://www.change.org/p/commission-on-presidential-debates-get-joe-rogan-to-moderate-the-2020-presidential-election/u/25040294--------Thank you all for continuing to share and support this petition. Within the last couple of days, I have composed and sent an e-mail to the Commission on Presidential Debates. The message reads as follows: — — end of change.org info — -

This also filters out any other than Democratic Establishment and Republican Establishment views. This means We The People have nothing to say in our own governance.

Consider the large number of voters who do not embrace the policies of either of the Democratic Establishment or Republican Establishment, and the fact that the Democratic Establishment and Republican Establishment have swindled the American electorate out of unbiased information directly from possible Presidential choices; often outside of the Capitalist Party D&R. Since these disgusting events in the ‘80’s, state-run/corporate-owned MSM has consistently indoctrinated We The People into accepting the falsehood that “we are a 2-Party system”. This has had the effect of rending illegitimate, the deeply legitimate tradition of free, clean, and fair elections.

In other words, politicians are now choosing their voters, rather than voters choosing their politicians.

Acting on the human frailty of ignorance combined with arrogance, and using as an example the Democratic Establishment, one recognizes what is called a Democratic Base that believes in their right to dictate to others, their voting choices.

— — -

https://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/influence-on-democracy/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pIDtvTydkU&t=638s

In Solidarity With People And Nature —

www.mothersoutfront.org
www.facebook.com/gpnjbc ;; — Green Black Caucus
www.greenpeaceusa.org
www.economichumanrights.org
www.draftbernie.org
www.psr.org
www.blackyouthproject.com
www.riverkeeper.org
www.catskillmountainkeeper.org
www.celdf.org
www.wearesenecalake.com
www.democracynow.org
www.gp.org
https://www.greenparty.org/Platform.php
www.freepress.net
www.codepink.org
www.m4bl.net

www.starhawk.org

www.openthebooks.org

www.nyipl.org
www.pogo.org

www.opensecrets.org

A Resource — www.7song.co

Trump, neo-fascism, and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce
John Bellamy Foster, Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce (Monthly Review Press, 2017).
In what follows, MY will mark questions from the interviewer, Michael Yates, and JBF will mark Professor Foster’s responses. Purchase Trump in the White House now from Monthly Review Press. on sale now for just $5 (eBook) or $10 (paperback) to the end of April.
In your book, you argue that Donald Trump’s presidency represents the resurrection of fascism in the United States, which you term neo-fascism. Can you explain how you came to this conclusion?
It depends of course on how we understand fascism. The only theoretically advanced and historically grounded theory of fascism was developed within Marxism in the 1930s and ‘40s and was common to such varied thinkers on the left as Leon Trotsky, Georgi Dimitrov, Franz Neumann, and Paul Sweezy, as well as, later on, Nicos Poulantzas. This view of fascism as an outgrowth of capitalism focused principally on the class character of fascist movements and regimes. Fascism arose as an alliance of convenience between big capital or monopoly capital and the largely reactionary elements of the petty bourgeoisie or lower-middle class. C. Wright Mills in White Collar, designated the petty bourgeoisie or lower-middle class as “the rearguarders” of the capitalist system. In periods of serious crisis, monopoly capital seeks to mobilize the more reactionary and dangerous elements of the lower-middle class, as foot soldiers against its enemies both in the working class and among the upper-middle class or professional-managerial class.
Ultra-nationalists, white supremacists, and so-called “radical rightists” are always present in capitalist society. But the conditions are ripe for fascism when there is an acute crisis of one sort or another (involving some combination of radical class movements from below, acute economic and political dislocation, declining national hegemony, and obstacles to the growth of monopolistic capital) which threaten the position of big capital and encourages it to call on (or to give free rein to) these reactionary tendencies within the lower-middle class and in rural areas. This takes the form of strong nationalist, xenophobic, racist, and fundamentalist religious (particularly evangelical) sentiments, directed at both the upper-middle class and the bulk of the working class. Ideologically fascism is associated with what has been called palingenetic ultra-nationalism (palingenetic refers to a belief in rebirth) and extreme repression, based on a climate of misogyny, homophobia, racism, jingoism, etc. Fascism was always understood in this way in the 1930s and ‘40s, during the struggle against it  by the left, and extending beyond Marxism itself—although this theoretical and historical understanding always remained firmly rooted in Marxism, the Popular Front, and the Anti-Nazi War fought from below. The preeminence of Marxian views in the understanding of fascism was evident in the fact that Neumann’s Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism was used in the Nuremburg Trials.
The historical-materialist approach to the analysis of fascism remained dominant up through the 1970s. However, in the 1980s, with the weakening of Marxism, this well-developed theory of fascism, which had been around for half a century, was systematically replaced by the views of liberal historians, who substituted an idealist view of fascism, which they merged with the conception of totalitarianism expounded by Hannah Arendt and others. One of the characteristics of the liberal view was that there was no relation between fascism and capitalism. Rather fascism was reinterpreted in purely ideological terms divorced from all class and material conditions, a kind of extreme authoritarianism, with no further definition. Such a view, which stripped away all genuine critical-social analysis in this area, had no theoretical purchase and was consistent with treating fascism as nothing more than a genocidal aberration, tied to specific forms like anti-Semitism and swastikas entirely removed from its material basis in capitalism, and floating in mid-air as it were. Already by the 1950s, some of the more conservative figures in the Frankfurt School, like Theodor Adorno (and indirectly Max Horkheimer), played a role in downplaying the material bases of fascism, seeing it primarily in psychological terms, in their focus on The Authoritarian Personality. This followed Adorno and Horkheimer’s return to West Germany at the invitation of the American authorities, during which Adorno wrote for a time for CIA publications attacking figures like Georg LukĂ¡cs, who had been unstinting in his critique of fascism in The Destruction of Reason.
The result was the frequent confusion of the outer manifestations of fascism with its inner causes and a complete distortion of history. Fascism was portrayed, in what became by the 1980s the dominant liberal view, as simply an extreme, brutal political ideology complete with Nazi salutes, concentration camps, and gas chambers, as portrayed in B movies. In contrast to the Marxist theorical and historical approach, which allowed for historical analysis, this characterization of fascism as a pure ideology and as a kind of psychological aberration lacked any real power of historical explanation and was in fact designed to dissociate fascism from capitalism. Hence, fascism was treated as a historical anomaly, or simply as part of a totalitarian couplet together with Stalinism. Even among socialists, the class basis of fascism and its relation to big business was often forgotten.
The term neo-fascism was developed in Europe, by figures like the Italian political theorist Julius Evola, a leading supporter of Mussolini and Hitler, who in the decades after the war sought to provide a new cultural fascism that would be considered more acceptable, politically and intellectually. Trump’s chief political adviser Steve Bannon was strongly influenced by Evola and was outspoken in promoting neo-fascist ideas, which he brought to the U.S. alt-right via Breitbart News. Bannon honed Breitbart into the ideological headquarters for Trumpism, also producing Stephen Miller, who remains in the White House, and other key figures. Neo-fascism, in brief, is an attempt to resurrect fascism all the way down to class basis and racist ideology, but in such a way that it is divorced from some of its worst historical antecedents. It is presented in the U.S. today as a kind of “national populism”—the  way the movement is commonly described on Breitbart.
The main reason, of course, for talking about neo-fascism today in the context of the United States is that Donald Trump occupies the White House. But what we know as “the Trump phenomenon” in general is not simply about a single individual, any more than McCarthyism was merely about Joseph McCarthy, but rather has to do primarily with class dynamics, associated with capital’s increasing reliance on a white-supremacist, neo-fascist movement, emanating from the lower-middle class, in a context of deepening economic disarray, hegemonic decline, and failing neoliberal globalization. It is these conditions that led to the active mobilization of its rearguarders within the most reactionary elements of society, made much worse in the United States by a legacy of slavery, imperialism, and war. Trump is a vehicle of this ultra-reactionary shift in class dynamics, coming along at just the right time. As a billionaire real estate mogul, he represents monopoly-finance capital. We know that his former wife, Ivana Trump, indicated that the only book she ever saw him read (other than his own ghost-written Art of the Deal) was a collection of Hitler’s speeches, which he kept at his bedside. He learned, via Reality Television and Hollywood coaching to play the role of a king-like billionaire channeling the extreme anger of the lower-middle class, directed at the government and liberal elites, and at the so-called underserving poor. He has deliberately portrayed himself as someone to whom the normal rules don’t apply, who could act with impunity, an attitude he has put into practice in the White House, and which is the secret of much his popularity with his followers.
But more important than Trump himself was the political formation that coalesced around him in the form of a direct alliance between elements of the billionaire class and the largely reactionary, white lower-middle class with the former often bankrolling the latter. The billionaire capitalists and the CEOs of the big corporations understood that the Trump administration represented their economic interests and they were willing to put up with the Cro-Magnon political ideology, of which they do not care a fig one way or another, as a kind of necessary evil enabling them to continue their looting of the society. What made Trump essential for the “masters of the universe”—as the capitalist billionaires now characterize themselves—was the nature of the neo-fascist political alliance that gave him an army of belligerent supporters, with the help of Fox News, Breitbart, twitter, etc. With this, he was able to reach the White House and from there he and his cabal were able to conduct their onslaught on the liberal-democratic state with the backing of some of the key sectors of monopoly-finance capital, and under the mantra of Making America Great Again.
Characteristic of fascism is the notion of the leader, or FĂ¼hrer, giving rise to the FĂ¼hrer principle (FĂ¼hrerprinzip). Once this is in place, as the chief Nazi legal and political and legal theorist Carl Schmitt explained, a kind of ur-legality can be perpetuated in which the FĂ¼hrer principle overrides nearly everything. There is no doubt that Trump has now come to represent something like this for his followers. He is seen as transcending the legal structure or is himself the law; the constitution is continually bent against liberal democracy. This is of course a very dangerous phenomenon, especially in a period of crisis such as the present when the seizure of greater power at the top is possible. Moreover, Trump’s iron grip on the Republican Party and his packing the U.S. Supreme Court and judiciary suggest that the famous separation of powers (or checks and balances), especially those represented by judicial review, are scarcely operative anymore. Trump and his followers attack Republican non-loyalists, those with a trace of respect for the Constitution or the separation of powers, as Never Trumpers and rage at them with an intensity far greater than their attacks on “leftists,” by which they mean anyone as far “left’ as Joe Biden. In this way, the entire Republican Party has been brought into lock step.
Here is it is important to recall Paul Sweezy’s point that fascism is the antonym of liberal- democratic capitalism. It is a form of capitalist state that seeks to overturn liberal democracy and to replace with a centralized, repressive regime enforcing a privatized monopolistic economy. What stands out in such a state is the means of repression it utilizes, but it has as its raison d’Ăªtre the promotion of capital accumulation on behalf of big corporations/cartels, just like monopoly capitalism generally—only in this case through a complete removal of political sovereignty from the people.
Do you think your view of Trump has been further vindicated since your book was published? And how would you answer critics who say that neo-fascism is not the proper way to characterize the Trump administration? He may be an authoritarian, a racist, a serial abuser of women, and a xenophobe, but fascism is too strong of a word to use in characterizing him and what he has done since becoming president.
Yes, it is an unfortunately the case that the main political, economic, and environmental dangers highlighted in Trump in the White House have materialized to a considerable extent in the events of the last two and a half years. There has been a determined effort in the corporate media to hide the seriousness of the situation by characterizing the whole Trump phenomenon as no more than an authoritarian personality at the head of a right-wing populism, likely to be kicked out of office in the next election. But to argue in this way is to remove all of the essential elements of the phenomenon and to downplay the dangers. The neofascist shift that the Trump administration promoted in its initial radical phase was followed by a partial compromise in a kind of neoliberal-neofascist alliance, but with neo-fascism gaining ground all the time and seeking to break the alliance.
This captures the basic logic of what has been transpiring at the level of the state over the last few years. Initially, Trump and his coterie merely captured the White House. Their problem was to extend their power to the state as a whole, by seizing control of the rest of the state: that is, the civil service, Congress, the judicial system, the military, the deep state (or so-called intelligence community), the Republican Party as a whole, the state and local governments, and the ideological state apparatus, extending to the media, educational institutions, think tanks, etc. My book was written in the period of Trump’s first 100 days. This can also be characterized as the Bannon period—the period in which Bannon, then head of Breitbart, engineered Trump’s victory and set the new political structure in motion, including introducing a period of Gleichschaltung or bringing into line (particularly important in capturing the state and closely related organs of civil society). The confrontation with the corporate media was a big part of this. This allowed the Trump regime, with its foothold in the White House, to beat down the initial opposition in sections of the civil service, deep state, military, Republican Party establishment, the media, educational institutions, etc. A lot of this had to do with overcoming opposition to Trumpism from the upper-middle class.
Bannon in his various capacities of running Breitbart, strategizing Trump’s campaign, and, serving as chief political operative in the White house, was an outspoken proponent of neo-fascism, all the way to promoting the viciously racist French novel, The Camp of the Saints and drawing on the ideas of Evola. When he departed from the administration (having made the mistake of intimating he was the real president, thus engendering Trump’s wrath), the establishment response was that the connection of the Trump administration to the alt-right, white supremacism, and neo-fascism had subsided. Trump we were told, even by most of the left, was merely “authoritarian,” but not in any sense connected to the “F word.”
At this point it is indeed useful, in seeking to characterize Trump himself, to draw on the Frankfurt School’s notion of The Authoritarian Personality introduced by Adorno and others. Adorno and his colleagues designed what they called an “F scale” with the “F” standing for Fascism. They introduced a cluster of nine or so personality traits to determine how high someone was on the F scale, including such traits as authoritarian aggression, authoritarian submission, anti-intellectualism, anti-intraception (opposition to subjectivity and imagination), superstition and stereotypy (fatalism and adherence to rigid categories), power and “toughness,” cynicism and destructiveness, projectivity (projection of the outside world as dangerous), and exaggerated concerns of sex. There can be no doubt that Trump is at the very top of the F scale.
But fascism, as I have tried to explain, is a political tendency, movement, and regime involving a particular class constellation, arising under circumstances where the core capitalist class feels itself in peril or blocked in its advance, leading to the unleashing of extreme right-wing forces principally based in the lower-middle class or petty bourgeoisie, which occupies a very fragile and contradictory class position in capitalism. All of this is mixed up with a spirit of misogyny, racism, jingoism, and destructivism. It is directed at the “other”—and particularly at the educated upper-middle class “elites” (often by way of attacking scapegoats and various threats and even terrorism), at the bulk of the working class, and at nationalistically and racially defined enemies abroad. The approach to the upper-middle class is predominantly one of Gleichschaltung or bringing into line, while the approach to the working class and poor (in the United States today consisting mainly of people of color and women) is one of repression. It is when a deep-seated structural crisis of capital arises, forcing a new political alliance between big capital and the lower-middle class, that a figure like Trump, very high on the F scale, can come along and become the symbol and indeed leader (FĂ¼hrer) of a fascist-style or neo-fascist regime. It is in this sense that Trump or Potus (a term to which he has given new meaning) is to be viewed today.
A friend of mine, political philosopher Sayres Rudy, said of Trump: “The one person, towering above former B-actor and dimwit frat boy [Reagan], you never ever want as President of a country is a corrupt, sleazy, mobbed-up NY salesman hawking hope.” This was in response to Trump stating in a recent press conference that he downplayed the severity of the crisis because he was trying to give the people hope.
How do you assess Trump’s handling of the pandemic catastrophe? Does it buttress or contradict your neo-fascist thesis?
Your friend clearly sees Trump as a kind of mob boss. This resembles what Brecht so brilliantly portrayed in his 1941 play on fascism, The Resistible Rise of Aturo Ui. But there are of course weaknesses as I keep on emphasizing in focusing simply on the individual—whether portrayed as a personification of madness or as a mob boss—and losing sight of the changing material forces and class constellations that come together in forming a movement or regime within the fascist genus and within a particular historical setting, including today’s neo-fascism.
Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was preceded by his closing in 2018 of the National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, has been atrocious, involving do-nothingism, denialism, and racism (with his constant references to China virus). He finally adopted an approach in line with the U.S. capitalist class in general, which as Rob Wallace and his colleagues (in “COVID-19 and Circuits of Capital,” Monthly Review, May 2020 [published online on March 27]) described as “toggling in and out” of social distancing, rather than seeking to suppress the virus, a strategy designed to promote the economy even at the expense of the population, thus leading to tens (and perhaps even hundreds) of thousands of additional deaths. Beyond that, the pandemic has been seen by the Trump administration as an opportunity to set aside all environmental regulations, vastly expand oil and gas leasing, put more economic and military pressure on Venezuela, and accelerate spending on Trump’s Wall between the United States and Mexico. The so-called “economic stimulus” package is mainly a bailout of corporations loaded with debt. Meanwhile, we are treated with constant doses of his grandiose claims about his own successes in fighting the virus, even as the official estimations of the likely numbers of deaths continues to rise. Trump only the other day dismissed the need for national testing for COVID-19, declaring that the United States had the best testing system in the world, despite the fact that its tests per million people in the population is only about half that of Germany’s and a third that of Norway’s.
We are still in the early stages of the pandemic. Yet, what we are seeing in the United States is a class-based phenomenon of “social murder,” as Frederick Engels called it in The Condition of the Working Class in England, where the deaths of what are now called “essential workers” are seen as necessary for the further promotion of the economy. The body count will pile up. At the same time, there could be a big power grab here, particularly if Trump under these circumstances is able to pull off a victory in the upcoming presidential elections. What is ominous is that Trump’s poll numbers are higher than ever before, and a majority of the population actually thinks he is handling the pandemic well—even though total deaths from COVID-19 in New York State alone, well before their peak, are at this moment about three times that of all of China, with worse yet to come.
Despite the fact that Trump tells multiple, easily fact-checked, lies in every one of his daily coronavirus briefings, his approval ratings have risen. How do you explain this?
Trump’s followers don’t view him as having to conform to normal standards of truth. This is a sign of the operation the FĂ¼hrer principle. It is now universally recognized that he lies perpetually, but his lies are then accepted by his followers and converted into accepted “political truths,” even conditions of membership in the pro-Trumper as opposed to Never Trumper club, in a game full of cynicism and defiance. The attitude among many of his followers is that he speaks “for us” and everything else can be called fake news, not because it is fake (though the corporate media is full of lies in the interest of power) but rather because it represents a perceived liberal or neoliberal establishment and political elite that is viewed with anger and disdain. The rage of the lower-middle class and some of the privileged sections of the working class is like that of Dostoevsky’s Underground Man (in Notes from Underground—see also Paul A. Baran’s The Longer View), who vomits up rationalism, rejecting the notion that 2+2 = 4. Trump in his constant twitters, laced with hyperbole, vile attacks on his opponents, perpetual self-praise, and the grandiose insistence that he is himself the ultimate arbiter of truth, and the only real actor (even while he constantly plays golf), offers a sense of “liberation” from science and the facts for sectors of society that have utter contempt for what they perceive as the liberal elites ruling society, obstructing business. Indeed, even for some sections of the white working class, Trumpism appeals to their sense of “radical” defiance of prevailing cultural norms. They enjoy seeing what they see as elite talking heads discomfited by the absolute rejection of science on climate change, COVID-19, toxic pollution, etc. We could see the growing spread of this kind of irrationalist political psychology, actually praising ignorance, and spewing hate, quite early on in talk radio, which has now migrated to social media. It has penetrated deeply into society. I don’t know if you have read Harry Frankfurt’s book On Bullshit. One can learn a lot about the vomiting up of reason in the Tea Party and Trump eras from that.
You argue in your book that Trump’s major support base is lower-middle class consisting of small business owners, lower-level managers, corporate sales representatives, lower-rung white-collar professionals, rural property owners, and the like, plus the class segment of better-paid workers. All of these groups are overwhelmingly white and have less education than those occupying the middle strata of society as a whole. There is no doubt an overlap with Christian evangelicals, whose leaders are fanatically devoted to Trump, despite the utter lack of religious conviction on the part of the president. However, it cannot be denied that there are also not a few poorer white workers who very strongly support Trump. How can we explain working class support for a neo-fascist and major-league con artist? Is it race? The demise and class-collaboration of the labor movement? The patriarchal structure of family life? Is it possible that this support will erode in the wake of the pandemic?
All of the factors you mention are important. In order to answer such questions, one has to look at the material conditions first of all. There is a certain segment of white workers in the United States, who for a number of decades in the 1950s-1960s and to a lesser extent after that clearly benefitted to some extent from the hegemonic position of the United States in the world economy and from U.S. imperialism, receiving higher wages as a result. This labor aristocracy (a term with a long history descending from Engels and Lenin) is now largely gone. Economic stagnation, financialization, neoliberal expropriation, the offshoring and outsourcing of production have all been the name of the game. These workers and their families are thus experiencing a precariousness that they never encountered before and are mired in debt, threatened with repossessions of their vehicles and foreclosures on their homes, often not knowing from where they will get their next paycheck. People I know in this country are struggling to obtain food boxes, are living in crowded rooms in houses, are unable to pay car insurance or health insurance, are constantly robbed by banks because of overdrafts which they cannot help. In the Midwest, where much of the de-industrialization took place, the anger is palpable. The United States is now experiencing a rise in deaths of despair, particularly among middle-aged white men that has been serious enough to reduce life expectancy in the entire country for three years running. And this was before the COVID-19 pandemic, which will bring social murder in our time to new heights.
Finding themselves in desperate circumstances these workers are at odds with the establishment neoliberal regime of the Clintons, Bushes, and the Obamas. Trump seemed to be a horse of a different color, and indeed regimes in the fascist genus often superficially appear to borrow from both the right and the left. The ultra-nationalist, right-wing corporatist platform seemingly promised to save jobs, protect Social Security and Medicare, remove regulations on business, get people back to work, in such a way as to Make America Great Again. Trump abandoned free trade nostrums and argued for tariffs to protect American jobs. He talked of spending a trillion dollars on infrastructure, helping the white working class while putting people of color, the poor, women, migrants, and foreign enemies in their place, ending government handouts and walling off immigrants. He seemed to care more about the plight of primarily white workers faced with de-industrialization, while antagonizing the liberal elites. His racism was directed at all “others,” a fact that he punctuated with virulent attacks on one group after another. And he manufactured plenty of scapegoats. Of course, the overtures to white people at the bottom, even to the lower-middle class, were false. Fascism, and this goes for neo-fascism as well, has always been about privatization (a term that first arose in Nazi Germany), with the plunder from expropriation going to big business, much like its neoliberal cousin. It is about extreme repression and the concentration of economic and political power. But in the climate of the United States, where both major political parties have been neoliberal parties, Trump seemed to be promising something different to a formerly privileged strata of white workers desperate to regain their former position.
The Sanders “democratic socialist” movement, if allowed to take hold, offered another, diametrically opposite alternative to workers, in the face of the structural crisis of capital. It had the makings of vast political upsurge propelled by the working class and youth. But the ruling capitalist class in the United States, and the Democratic Party establishment used the enormous weight of their money and power to stop the Sanders campaign in its tracks. The weakness of the Sanders campaign all along was that it was channeled through the corrupt and manipulative structure of the Democratic Party, which maintained the mechanisms necessary to shut down the movement. As Baran and Sweezy explained in Monopoly Capital in 1966, the United States political system is democratic in form  and plutocratic in content.
Still, capitalism is in a state of deep structural crisis, with its entire material basis eroding. It could go on indefinitely as we descend further into Hell, continuing to destroy human prospects, unless, as you argued in Can the Working Class Change the World?, a vast new global movement arises prepared to leave the burning house and build another. Revolutionary struggles against the system are naturally strongest in the periphery of the world economy. But the conditions for a socialist alternative, as Sanders demonstrated, are rapidly developing in the United States too, in the heart of the declining world empire, in the midst of Fortress America. The speed of the dissolution of capitalism in the age of stagnation, financialization, soaring inequality, precariousness, climate change, and COVID-19, and the advent of a dangerous New Cold War mean that we are facing a choice between barbarism and exterminism, on the one hand, and socialism and ecology, on the other. As Marx once said, we have reached the point of ruin or revolution.
If a real movement from below arises, the present thin layer of working-class support for a neo-fascist figure like Trump will evaporate and part of the lower-middle class will discover that it is actually aligned with the working class. The actual dividing lines between classes are in constant flux. Class, as E.P. Thompson explained in his The Making of the English Class, is not simply about the relation to the means of production, but also about culture and consciousness. So, something like the present pandemic—and such shocks are bound to emerge more frequently today—could lead to a building up of anti-capitalist and working-class forces. Neo-fascism, while it may penetrate into the ranks of workers, can never be a working-class ideology or political formation. It is always vanquished in the end by a revolt from below. This was even true in many respects in the context of the Second World War. Read Basil Davidson’s Scenes from the Anti-Nazi War.
My own view is that the storm of revolutionary socialist protest that will overrun capitalism will emanate primarily from the Global South where imperialism makes conditions far worse. But change in the system worldwide is dependent on rebellion within Fortress America too, a reality that is emerging sooner than anyone expected with the structural crisis of U.S. capitalism itself.
You have argued that the COVID-19 pandemic must be seen as part of the multiple environmental crises that capitalism has created as it has torn asunder both Earth’s own metabolism and that between humans and nature. This means that we will face future pandemics, along with global warming, the extinction of innumerable species of flora and fauna, and much else. Trump is obviously oblivious to all of this; in fact, he is doing everything he can to make these crises worse. Yet, right now in the United States, his likely opponent in next November’s election will be Joe Biden, the very definition of a political hack, a man with his own race and gender problems, a man with no discernible program, and a person who may be suffering serious mental decline. Under these circumstances, how can we be hopeful about the future?
The environmental crisis/catastrophe is now all-encompassing. The Trump administration’s actions are  speeding the world toward planetary genocide or omnicide. There is a whole chapter in my book on “Trump and Climate Change,” written during the transition to his administration, which lays out in excruciating detail the planetary exterminism being carried out by capital and its virulent anti-environmentalist stance, made far worse by the rise of Trump. As Noam Chomsky said (quoted in my book), it is not unreasonable to view Trump’s election as “almost a death knell for the human species,” raising the question of planetary omnicide. This ominous tendency toward omnicide can be seen in the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, in the abandonment of the Puerto Rican people after Hurricane Maria, in the promotion of trillions of dollars in new oil and gas pipelines in the midst of global warming, in the introduction recently of a whole new class of nuclear weapons, and in its scarcely concealed threats of war with China. The Trump Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to use COVID-19 to lay aside all environmental laws and regulations designed to protect the public is part of this same destructive enterprise. Trump’s declaration that COVID-19 is a “hoax,” something he now claims was distorted by fake news, is part of this same uncaring, omnicidal stance. Precious months went by while the pandemic spread, and the Trump White House looked on unconcerned from his golf course. Only when the stock market plummeted did it become a major issue for the administration.
SARS-CoV-2 is only the most serious (thus far) of an increasing number of pandemics that are threatening global society, due primarily to the role of agribusiness in a regime of neoliberal globalization and the accelerated destruction of forest ecosystems. The result is zoonoses that cross over from animal species to humans. This is just another manifestation of ecological breakdown attributable to the system. The danger has been known for well over a century, and was raised by the great British biologist, E. Ray Lankester, Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley’s protege and Karl Marx’s close friend, in his The Kingdom of Man (1911). The threat of zoonoses generated by human actions was raised again by the great Harvard ecologist Richard Levins in his article “Is Capitalism a Disease?” in the September 2000 Monthly Review. The inevitability of pandemics as a result of the creative destructive of ecosystems and the world’s remaining wild species reduced to commodities by global agribusiness was explained more recently in great detail in Rob Wallace’s Big Farms Make Big Flu (Monthly Review Press, 2016). At the very least, he insisted, precautions had to be taken against the inevitable pandemics. Nevertheless, such warnings were ignored by a system of monopoly-finance capital that puts profits before people and the planet. Today the nature of the U.S. response under Trump and monopoly-finance capital is leading to a maximization of the death toll in the country. Already deaths from COVID-19 per 1 million people in the United States is more than 30 times that of China, and it is still only beginning here.
Indeed, we are now in the midst of a planetary ecological catastrophe generated by capitalism, made far worse by the current reactionary turn. The imperial value/supply chains associated with neoliberal globalization are generating a gigantic bullwhip effect destabilizing economic, environmental, and epidemiological conditions around the globe. The only answer is to pull the emergency brake. Yet, capitalism is a system that has a built-in accelerator and no brake. It stops only when it crashes.
As for Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, so-called benign neoliberalism versus neofascism, I think the best general response may be that of Shakespeare: “A plague o’ both your houses.” To be sure, the Biden Democrats can’t be equated with the Trump Republicans, and most on the left faced with the “choice” between a great and a greater evil will no doubt lean toward the former, especially since the issue now entails questions of human survival. But the situation is extremely grim, and the outcome of such a contest can only affect the speed with which we accelerate to the end of the cliff. In neither case will the system put on the brakes or even swerve away from the cliff. To accomplish that requires a movement against capital.
It is well to remember that the establishment neoliberal interests represented by the Biden Democrats have opposed Trump strongly in only one area: the New Cold War with Russia. Endless attacks have been unleased on the Trump administration for its attempt (now largely faded) to engineer a detente with Russia, so that the U.S. imperial order would be able to avoid a two-front war and concentrate on a struggle with China for world hegemony. This aspect of the geopolitics of the Trump administration was dealt with extensively in my book, including focusing on the role in the Trump administration of Peter Navarro, an open advocate of economic and even military warfare against China. Since that was written, Navarro was put in charge of Trump’s tariff war directed at China, and then, when Trump declared that SARS-CoV-2 was a “China virus,” Navarro was made policy coordinator for enforcement of the Defense Protection Act, making him responsible for defending the U.S. and the U.S. population in the context of the pandemic.
To be sure, Navarro was reportedly the first Trump adviser in the West Wing to point to the possible dangers of a coronavirus pandemic threatening the lives of millions of Americans. But his choice for his current role was no doubt a result of Trump’s attempt to frame the issue as a threat coming from China. Already as a result of the Trump tariffs, engineered by Navarro, the commodity/value/supply chains with China were beginning to break, while now as a result of the pandemic they are fractured at every point. Seeing this as the critical issue, Navarro has declared that the commodity supply chains to China now need to be brought home; that is, the major strategic opportunity offered by the pandemic from the standpoint of the administration is to break down completely the U.S.-China trade, viewed as a critical step in a contest for world hegemony. Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general, has declared that the failure to put the blame for the virus on China is due to the “China lobby” in the United Sates.
Meanwhile, Navarro’s inept handing of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading him to oppose the scientific assessment of Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—with Navarro claiming he too was a doctor, with a Ph.D. as an economist!—drives home the tragedy of Trumpism. The fact that the administration viewed COVID-19 as a geopolitical opportunity and a capital accumulation problem, not principally an issue of public health, was highlighted by Trump’s appointment of the anti-China hawk, Navarro, to organize the U.S. government’s response, as well as by all the other statements of the administration.
But what does Biden have to offer on his side? The whole Trump impeachment affair revolved around Biden and was really about Trump’s breaking the ultimate rule of U.S. party politics: do not use political power to undermine the other party in the political duopoly. His actions were not seen principally by Democratic Party insiders as an attack on the Constitution, though presented in that way, but as an attack on the Democratic Party itself, and the main presidential candidate of the Democratic Party establishment. It has to be remembered that it was Trump’s inept attempts to use the Ukrainian government to uncover the nefarious dealings of Biden (and his son) that became the main issue in the impeachment proceedings. Trump was caught red-handed holding back on giving military assistance to the fascist government in the Ukraine, aid that would have helped it play its role in the New Cold War against Russia, as a means of forcing the Ukrainian government to deliver dirt that could be used against Biden. The issue from the Democratic Party standpoint was to protect the Party and Biden, while promoting the New Cold War against Russia. It had little or nothing to do with democracy or reining in presidential power. A similar analysis could be provided of the whole blown up issue of Russian election interference. Trump and Russia became the main issue of the Democratic Party establishment, not climate change, not working conditions, not growing inequality, not Black Lives Matter, not abuse toward women, not the huge tax gifts to the wealthy and corporations, not the need for universal health care, not the inhumane sanctions against Venezuela and Iran. In face of the COVID-19 emergency, Biden has not budged one iota toward acceptance of Medicare for All, which he rejects. In a debate with Bernie Sanders, his main “answer” to the novel coronavirus was simply to call in the troops.
You ask, “Under these circumstances, how can we be hopeful about the future.” I think the answer has to be that the circumstances are rapidly changing, and the system is becoming unhinged. Capitalism is in its biggest crisis this century, even dwarfing the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Everyone’s lives are being affected. It is becoming impossible to deny that the planetary environment as a place of human habitation is now in peril and populations everywhere are being endangered. The capitalist economy remains mired in stagnation and financial fragility, with financial meltdown a distinct possibility. Public health is declining even in the wealthiest countries, like the United States. Racism, war, misogyny (including femicide), are all on the increase. The possibility of a thermonuclear war is increasing. Everywhere the ground is shifting. Capitalism has failed.
People, Fidel Castro once said, are like volcanoes. With capitalism dissolving before our very eyes, we can expect real popular eruptions coming from those fighting for a more egalitarian, sustainable world. The army of reaction, even in the United States, is much smaller than the massed force of the working class. The former draws its strength from its artificial connection to centralized power, an alliance that cannot be maintained because reflecting fundamentally different interests. Fascism is invariably a sign of capitalism in peril, forcing it to call on its dangerous rearguard, which, however, it then undermines. The ruling class is losing its ability to rule, and as the planetary crisis comes even closer there will be more splits at the top as well, within the capitalist class itself, since the need to protect the planet for future generations crosses class lines.
The answer in this situation is the building of a vast, unstoppable socialist (or ecosocialist) movement. This is happening in many places in the world. What is perhaps most astonishing is that a socialist movement is emerging today in the United States itself, where no such movement was supposed to be possible. This is a manifestation of a dying Empire and the need for real change. The Sanders campaign is over, but its legacy is far more revolutionary than is generally supposed. We are seeing in the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and the Sanders plan for the reinvigoration of labor in the United States, a new agenda that cannot simply be eliminated, a shifting of the terrain of what is considered possible.
The world is now in what scientists are calling a no-analogue situation. The dangers are increasing and so is the space for revolutionary human development, calling for a new Earth movement. If humanity is to survive a renewed struggle for freedom as necessity.