More than a million people took to the streets of cities across the country (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/womens-march-trump-updates-2)Saturday to protest President Donald Trump on his first full day in office. Demonstrators at the events, which were billed as Women's Marches, criticized the president's policy agenda and his attacks on women and minorities. Many of the marchers pledged to use the rallies as a springboard to get involved in local politics.
"This is the first election in which I've become politically involved," said Olivia Lezcano, 20, from Cleveland. "So I'm considering getting involved with my local congressman and local municipal government."
The flagship event in Washington, DC, overwhelmed the city's train system, as event organizers were swamped with more than double the 200,000 people they expected (http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2017-01-21-US--Trump-Inauguration-Protests/id-fac703606343426a945cdbe33eecfc43). People packed Independence Avenue in downtown DC, which runs along the National Mall, eventually clogging the planned march route, according to the Associated Press (https://www.apnews.com/171bf67526014cc9b46baf81a355015e?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP_Politics), and likely surpassing the turnout for Trump's inauguration on Friday. Large numbers of marchers also came out in Denver (http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/21/womens-march-denver/), New York City (http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYC-Womens-March-Expected-to-Draw-Over-65000-Participants--411350185.html), Boston (https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/01/21/thousands-protesters-expected-join-boston-women-march-saturday/uAWNwH9R5FHltkqyQNzeFL/story.html), Chicago (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/21/chicago-womens-rally-massive-march-canceled/96882902/), Los Angeles (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-womens-march-los-angeles-20170121-story.html), Atlanta (http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-womens-march/486564022), Miami (http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article127925999.html), and dozens of other cities (https://twitter.com/MotherJones/status/822909465859129346) around the United States and abroad.
We asked a range of the marchers in DC what they were committing to do over the next four years. You can check out their answers in the video above.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/motherjones/main/~4/vUA138uZ0bc

More... (http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/motherjones/main/~3/vUA138uZ0bc/womens-march-donald-trump)

I have been sorta following a discussion on the twit between what appears to be real leftists. One seems more commie and the other seems more anarcho, but who knows?

Anyway, here is the crux of the thing and I admit that I am not sure where the correct idea lies.

Liberals who were demonstrating were castigating anarchists, who were also on the streets, to stop the violence. The liberals wanted only peaceful demonstrations, but the police were becoming violent - I guess the liberals thought the scenes of them being tear-gassed and billy-clubbed would be the positive result they were looking for. (I certainly got no problem with it).

The anarchists replied that they were protecting the demonstrators from the police, by fighting back.

The commie's take on it was: liberal imperialists are protesting - holding demonstrations - in the streets against conservative imperialists, who are currently in power, having ousted the liberal imperialists. The Black Block or anarchists in general, have pledged to protect the liberal imperialists from the police who are now controlled by the conservative imperialists. The commies' question to the anarchist was why would any radical protect one group of imperialists from another. The anarchist said, basically, that the point was in the violence, period.

Now, I know that getting beat-up by cops and thrown in jail is the pathway to radicalism for some, but I wonder at its efficacy. I would think most liberals would become very good and docile citizens at the first "whiff of grapeshot" (as the old man said). The main reason for this is because liberals do not disagree with conservatives about anything that matters. You might take a beating and come back a more hardened class warrior, but you got to be a class fighter first. Liberals are bourgeois sycophants, petty bourgeois yearners, or outright class traitor, wannabes. They will fall in line so quickly it will make Trump's head spin. Oh they will continue to support liberal politicians and celebrities, but at the polling place - and nowhere else.

So, that leaves the anarchists (if that is who they are). I saw a little video today of a Trumpster trying to put out a fire in the street and talk all reasonable to the crowd of liberals about respect and non-violence and couldn't we all just get along? And up comes this black-clad anarchist and punches him in the face and steals his Trump cap. Now there was all kinds of "twitter flash" from all sides of this, but it struck me as being a pretty simple thing to stage.

I guess what I am asking is: Is there any positive outcome to these protests and demonstrations in regard to the working class struggle? I have already been fussed at on the twit for not putting anti-imperialism before pro-socialism. I said that overturning capitalism was the only way to end imperialism, otherwise what have you got? So, I might be in error here. There might be some kind of anti-imperialism that could precede socialism, I don't know.

Here's an item. Not sure where to post it.

After Being Punched by Anti-Trump Protesters, Richard Spencer Demands ‘Alt-Right’ Vigilante Force

https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.forward.com/images/cropped/richard-spencer-0119-youtube-1484872126.jpg

Richard Spencer told followers on Friday that he and fellow white supremacists might need their own protection force, after the ‘alt-right’ founder got punched in the face during an anti-Trump protest.

(His pertinent tweet)

Richard 🐸 Spencer
✔ ‎@RichardBSpencer

If law enforcement can't protect us from antifa assaults we will begin protecting ourselves.

8:25 PM - 20 Jan 2017

1,003 1,003 Retweets

2,899 2,899 likes


Spencer did not go into details but about what such protection would look like. “Antifa” is a term for anti-fascist demonstrators.

He filed a police report on Saturday, as he continued to tweet about the incident. “It was absolutely terrible,” he told CNN. “I’ve certain never had this happen before — a sucker punch in broad daylight.”

Since the election, Spencer has emerged as a premier movement representative, hosting a conference in Washington, D.C. where he led a Nazi salute and shouted “Hail Trump.”

http://forward.com/fast-forward/360757/after-being-punched-by-anti-trump-protesters-richard-spencer-demands-alt-ri/

So, the advent of the Brownshirts - and with a falseflag incident, to boot...

And as a perfect counter-post for the neo-Nazi, you got this from the Women's March:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2zKYsfVQAEO1A4.jpg

I think the phrase is "Coming and going!"

I have been sorta following a discussion on the twit between what appears to be real leftists. One seems more commie and the other seems more anarcho, but who knows?

Anyway, here is the crux of the thing and I admit that I am not sure where the correct idea lies.

Liberals who were demonstrating were castigating anarchists, who were also on the streets, to stop the violence. The liberals wanted only peaceful demonstrations, but the police were becoming violent - I guess the liberals thought the scenes of them being tear-gassed and billy-clubbed would be the positive result they were looking for. (I certainly got no problem with it).

The anarchists replied that they were protecting the demonstrators from the police, by fighting back.

The commie's take on it was: liberal imperialists are protesting - holding demonstrations - in the streets against conservative imperialists, who are currently in power, having ousted the liberal imperialists. The Black Block or anarchists in general, have pledged to protect the liberal imperialists from the police who are now controlled by the conservative imperialists. The commies' question to the anarchist was why would any radical protect one group of imperialists from another. The anarchist said, basically, that the point was in the violence, period.

Now, I know that getting beat-up by cops and thrown in jail is the pathway to radicalism for some, but I wonder at its efficacy. I would think most liberals would become very good and docile citizens at the first "whiff of grapeshot" (as the old man said). The main reason for this is because liberals do not disagree with conservatives about anything that matters. You might take a beating and come back a more hardened class warrior, but you got to be a class fighter first. Liberals are bourgeois sycophants, petty bourgeois yearners, or outright class traitor, wannabes. They will fall in line so quickly it will make Trump's head spin. Oh they will continue to support liberal politicians and celebrities, but at the polling place - and nowhere else.

So, that leaves the anarchists (if that is who they are). I saw a little video today of a Trumpster trying to put out a fire in the street and talk all reasonable to the crowd of liberals about respect and non-violence and couldn't we all just get along? And up comes this black-clad anarchist and punches him in the face and steals his Trump cap. Now there was all kinds of "twitter flash" from all sides of this, but it struck me as being a pretty simple thing to stage.

I guess what I am asking is: Is there any positive outcome to these protests and demonstrations in regard to the working class struggle? I have already been fussed at on the twit for not putting anti-imperialism before pro-socialism. I said that overturning capitalism was the only way to end imperialism, otherwise what have you got? So, I might be in error here. There might be some kind of anti-imperialism that could precede socialism, I don't know.

I think anything that gets people in the street is good. The problem of course is having this embryonic movement, if that's what it is, merely becoming an attribute of the Democratic Party as has happened time and again. I'm disturbed about the way they are using Russia as a club to beat Trump, gotta have those fuckers in the Pentagon grinning from ear to ear. Here is a demand for leadership, now.

And as a perfect counter-post for the neo-Nazi, you got this from the Women's March:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C2zKYsfVQAEO1A4.jpg

I think the phrase is "Coming and going!"

These people are geniuses at party building, blaming Sanders and equating him with Trump. I guess we could thank them for that bit of self-destruction.

I took the train into DC on Friday, not realizing what weekend it was. I blame a bout of insomnia. It was chaos and seemingly directionless.

I took the train into DC on Friday, not realizing what weekend it was. I blame a bout of insomnia. It was chaos and seemingly directionless.

Glad you made it out okay. The whole ting made me think of that low-grade movie, "The Purge". Ha...

Not what MJ had in mind...

"Trump will be a disaster for the US working class" - Interview with Zoltan Zigedy

On the occasion of the beginning of Donald Trump's presidency and the recent anti-Trump demonstrations throughout the United States, we asked from the US-based blogger and activist Zoltan Zigedy* to share his views.

* * *

Q: Generally speaking, how do you think Trump's Presidency will affect the U.S. working class?

ZZ: Thank you for inviting me to discuss these questions with you. While the views are mine, they benefit from extensive discussions with my comrades at Marxism-Leninism Today. We believe that the election of Donald Trump reflects a multi-faceted crisis of growing inequality and insecurity, of systemic economic instability, and of the two-party electoral charade. Unfortunately, the broad US left-- a potential counterforce to the crisis-- is ideologically immature and organizationally splintered. Because of its failure, other forces have leaped in to address the crisis. We see Trump’s right-wing populism as such an attempt to offer an alternative.

In our view, the Trump phenomenon is very much akin to the radical right-wing populist parties that have emerged in Europe, where a similar bankruptcy of existing “left” parties has driven many desperate workers towards demagogues and false friends.

Trump will be a disaster for the US working class. He has surrounded himself with a cabal of counselors, advisors, and cabinet members who count as the most rapacious and anti-worker elements in the upper echelons of capitalism. The idea of a worker-friendly bourgeois billionaire and his billionaire colleagues as a savior to working people is an absurdity. The corporate leaders recently called to the White House to meet Trump have all left with a confident smile. In the short run, Trump, a master at public relations, will secure some moral points with gestures in the direction of workers, but that will fade quickly.

We are confident that Trump will fail to pull the US out of its deepening crisis.



Q: On Trump's inauguration day, as well as in the following days, we saw numerous mass demonstrations throughout the States against him. How do you evaluate this "anti-Trump movement"? Is it a temporary reaction without any class characteristics or it could possibly have further development in the future?

ZZ: The anti-Trump movement is complex and contradictory. On the one hand, it has produced demonstrations and marches unprecedented in size. It has brought many people with no previous engagement with activism into the streets. The movement has shown some resilience and sustained passion.

On the other hand, it has yet to surface any advanced positions. It has drawn mainly from the white, urban middle strata. It’s leadership has been moderate and centrist. And it has lacked working class leadership and the embrace of working class issues.

Some see the not-so-hidden hand of the Democratic Party and its enormous resources actively hijacking the anti-Trump movement.

Still others sense a whiff of Maidan and the Color Revolutions in the anti-Trump mainstream media hysteria, the activities of George Soros, and the intervention of US security services in recent politics.

Nonetheless, the mass actions offer an occasion to engage those new to or returning to activist politics. Like the earlier “anti-globalization” movement, the Occupy Movement, and other movements hostile to organization and ideology, it is up to Marxist-Leninists, our friends, and allies to liberate as much of this political development as we can from opportunism or hijacking.

Q: Do you think that the US labor movement needs a strong Communist Party and how the existence of such a vanguard party can be achieved?

ZZ: We believe that a strong, revolutionary Communist Party is vital, essential to restoring class struggle unionism to the US labor movement. The purging of Communists from the labor movement during the McCarthy period left the working class movement in the US harnessed to class collaboration, a yoke that the movement has not cast off to this day.

The absence of an authentic, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party is felt in every arena of struggle, on every political moment. We believe that only a militant Communist Party can deliver working people from the labor misleaders and from the “Scylla and Charybdis" of two party tyranny, as our Greek comrades so aptly say.

The legacy of McCarthyism and the lure of “American Exceptionalism” have infected the left with opportunism, making the task of building a new, militant Communist Party a formidable task.

We look to create a pole of resistance to the reformist, opportunist left that vacillates on US imperialism and its wars, on class struggle unionism, on not-for-profit health care, on the two-party system, and, of course, on socialism.

At the same time, we are seeking unity-of-action with individuals and some organizations of a Marxist-Leninist orientation. While differences exist and surely will further surface in the future, we feel that practice and dialogue will determine the next steps in founding a revolutionary vanguard party in the US.

While we see this as a pre-party period, we recognize the urgency of providing our working class with a beacon for its liberation. We are optimistic that we are on that path.

https://communismgr.blogspot.gr/2017/02/trump-will-be-disaster-for-us-working.html

Thank you for inviting me to discuss these questions with you. While the views are mine, they benefit from extensive discussions with my comrades at Marxism-Leninism Today. We believe that the election of Donald Trump reflects a multi-faceted crisis of growing inequality and insecurity, of systemic economic instability, and of the two-party electoral charade. Unfortunately, the broad US left-- a potential counterforce to the crisis-- is ideologically immature and organizationally splintered. Because of its failure, other forces have leaped in to address the crisis. We see Trump’s right-wing populism as such an attempt to offer an alternative.

In our view, the Trump phenomenon is very much akin to the radical right-wing populist parties that have emerged in Europe, where a similar bankruptcy of existing “left” parties has driven many desperate workers towards demagogues and false friends.

Trump will be a disaster for the US working class. He has surrounded himself with a cabal of counselors, advisors, and cabinet members who count as the most rapacious and anti-worker elements in the upper echelons of capitalism. The idea of a worker-friendly bourgeois billionaire and his billionaire colleagues as a savior to working people is an absurdity. The corporate leaders recently called to the White House to meet Trump have all left with a confident smile. In the short run, Trump, a master at public relations, will secure some moral points with gestures in the direction of workers, but that will fade quickly.

We are confident that Trump will fail to pull the US out of its deepening crisis.

Frustrating, isn't it? Even Zigedy is still peddling superficial as hell analysis that is regurgitated from 1000 sources. On the other hand, good opportunity here to ask "What do we think?"

Frustrating, isn't it? Even Zigedy is still peddling superficial as hell analysis that is regurgitated from 1000 sources. On the other hand, good opportunity here to ask "What do we think?"[/COLOR]

I think there must be opportunity here if the ruling class is in disarray, too fucking bad we are too. Trump must be portrayed as the poster boy for capitalist society and not any sort of aberration, as the Dem etc will have it. The personification of naked capitalism. So far his actions, heinous & disgusting as they are, attack the periphery, red meat for supporters & enraging all opposition except the core working class. The ruling class is taking the opportunity to dust off every foul item on their bucket list, even as they eye this vulgar exemplar of their kind with distaste. Striking while the iron is hot, they're already working on slashing health care for the poorest, the rest of the so-called entitlements cannot be far behind. It is not enough to be ready with answers, we gotta prompt questions. And we must give the Dems hell, no breathing space, no credit for nothin, only opprobrium for both current and systemic horrors.

Practically, how do we do this? And who is we?

Nothing is possible without organization.


No One Knows Where

Date: February, 1919;
Source: The Seattle Union Record, February 4, 1919, p. 1;
Published on-line: http://courses.washington.edu/spcmu/speeches/annalouisestrong.htm;
Transcribed: by Sally Ryan for marxists.org in 2002.

ON THURSDAY AT 10 A.M

There will be many cheering, and there will be some who fear.

Both these emotions are useful, but not too much of either.

We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by LABOR in this country, a move which will lead

- NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!

We do not need hysteria.

We need the iron march of labor.

LABOR WILL FEED THE PEOPLE.

Twelve great kitchens have been offered, and from them food will be distributed by the provision trades at low cost to all.

LABOR WILL CARE FOR THE BABIES AND THE SICK.

The milk-wagon drivers and the laundry drivers are arranging plans for supplying milk to babies, invalids and hospitals, and taking care of the cleaning of linen for hospitals.

LABOR WILL PRESERVE ORDER.

The strike committee is arranging for guards, and it is expected that the stopping of the cars will keep people at home.

A few hot-headed enthusiasts have complained that strikers only should be fed, and the general public left to endure severe discomfort. Aside from the inhumanitarian character of such suggestions, let them get this straight -

NOT THE WITHDRAWAL OF LABOR POWER, BUT THE POWER OF THE WORKERS TO MANAGE WILL WIN THIS STRIKE.

What does Mr. Piez of the Shipping Board care about the closing down of Seattle’s shipyards, or even of all the industries of the northwest. Will it not merely strengthen the yards at Hog Island, in which he is more interested?

When the shipyard owners of Seattle were on the point of agreeing with the workers, it was Mr. Piez who wired them that, if they so agreed -

HE WOULD NOT LET THEM HAVE STEEL.

Whether this is camouflage we have no means of knowing. But we do know that the great eastern combinations of capitalists COULD AFFORD to offer privately to Mr. Skinner, Mr. Ames and Mr. Duthie a few millions apiece in eastern shipyard stock,

RATHER THAN LET THE WORKERS WIN.

The closing down of Seattle’s industries, as a MERE SHUTDOWN, will not affect these eastern gentlemen much. They could let the whole northwest go to pieces, as far as money alone is concerned.

BUT, the closing down of the capitalistically controlled industries of Seattle, while the WORKERS ORGANIZE to feed the people, to care for the babies and the sick, to preserve order - THIS will move them, for this looks too much like the taking over of POWER by the workers.

Labor will not only SHUT DOWN the industries, but Labor will REOPEN; under the management of the appropriate trades, such activities as are needed to preserve public heath and public peace. If the strike continues, Labor may feel led to avoid public suffering by reopening more and more activities,

UNDER ITS OWN MANAGEMENT.

And that is why we say that we are starting on a road that leads - NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/strong-anna-louise/1919/laborspeech.htm