American socialist history & government spies

Introduction: This essay is an attempt to make sense of important early worker/labor organizations in the United States, and place their significance into a modern context. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was the global event that changed socialist party & labor organizing politics forever. I’ve sifted through a lot of content on Wikipedia to made this understandable.

Eugene V. Debs was instrumental in the founding of the American Railway Union (ARU) in 1893. Debs led the bitter Pullman Strike in 1894, and was jailed by US president Grover Cleveland Alexander over that. The Social Democracy of America (1897), the Social Democratic Party of America (1898), and the Socialist Party of America (1901) were political organizations founded by Eugene Debs, America’s most prominent early socialist leader. Debs twice (1912 & 1920) won nearly a million votes in a presidential election.

Socialist Party of America (SPA) opposition to US involvement in World War I (1914-18), was welcomed by many workers, who were about to be recruited to fight & die in the mud overseas. But the SPA was shattered by US government agents, who provoked constant factional warfare over how to respond to the Russian Revolution in 1917, and the establishment of the Communist International in 1919.

Many SPA members left in favor of the Communist Party (CP), which in 1928 fell completely under the influence of Joseph Stalin. By then, the Communist International was infiltrated with GPU spies, in every national section around the world.

One theme that comes up over & over in researching the history of American labor & socialist parties in the 20th-century is the constant factionalization, name changes, shifting alliances, break-ups & reformations. Why was this?

Modern US intelligence begins with J. Edgar Hoover, a key state bureaucrat in the Palmer Raids of 1919-20, which was the first major salvo of the “Red Scare” in America, which continues to the present. An eager & young Hoover quickly became the chief operating officer of the Bureau of Intelligence (BOI, formed 1909), renamed the FBI in 1936. J Edgar Hoover was a virulent anti-communist autocrat, and ran the BOI/FBI as a personal dictator until his death in 1972.

Before the Russian Revolution, and its threat of international socialism to the capitalist order, state intelligence was limited to foiling assassination plots of high officials, rooting out spies trying to steal military secrets, stopping counterfeiters, etc. Intelligence was seen as a necessary wartime activity, with limited application during times of peace.

Allan Pinkerton fought for the Union in the US Civil War, and helped protect Abraham Lincoln, by using agents to sniff out assassination plots. Allan Pinkerton helped found the US Secret Service in 1865, which then was part of the Department of the Treasury for the use of combating then-widespread counterfeiting of US currency.

As a footnote, the Department of Justice was formed in 1870 during the Ulysses S. Grant administration to prosecute crimes against the US government. The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is America’s oldest federal law enforcement agency, created in 1789 during the presidency of George Washington. That was it for federal policing back then, outside of the US military.

It’s important to note here, that after the US Civil War, Allan Pinkerton founded the strike-breaking Pinkerton Agency which hired, trained, and outsourced private goons to robber barons for the purpose of attacking picketing workers. Allan Pinkerton made extensive use of women as spies, and has been praised by some in modern identity politics as a pioneer for doing this. Pinkerton said that women often were his most valuable agents because they could gain the trust of others, easier than most men.

Most of Europe was in a depression during the 1920’s, and it finally came crashing to America in October 1929. The ideology of FDR’s New Deal was to provide enough crumbs to the working masses so they wouldn’t revolt. Wildcat strikes with socialist leadership among workers were rampant in this era. Pinkertons & police were often used for violence against organizing workers.

World War II breaking out in Europe in September 1939 saved American capitalism, and ushered in profiteering, a successful war effort, and a post-war boom that lasted into the 1960’s. These historical forces saved capitalism in the 1930’s and led the way to reformist labor movements (AFL-CIO, Teamsters, etc.) dominating the post-war period, entrenching nationalism & anti-communism into worker consciousness, through fear & propaganda campaigns.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), commonly called “Wobblies”, were an international labor union (1905-24) that was founded in Chicago, an American city rich in labor struggle history. The philosophy & tactics of the IWW were described as “revolutionary industrial unionism”, with ties to socialist, syndicalist, and anarchist labor movements. Wobblies opposed the splitting of workers into separate trade unions, as their slogan was “One big union.”

IWW membership declined dramatically during the Great War, due to conflicts with other labor groups, particularly the reformist American Federation of Labor (AFL), which regarded the IWW as too radical. On September 5, 1917, US Department of Justice agents made simultaneous raids on dozens of IWW meeting halls across the country. Physical attacks, mass arrests, and agent provocateur infiltration caused the IWW to splinter irrevocably in 1924.

Historically in 1924, Vladimir Lenin final succumbed to a series of strokes, as a result of wounds he received in an assassination attempt by a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in August 1918, and died on January 21, 1924. There was already a succession struggle going with with Trotsky’s Left Opposition taking a principled internationalist stance against Joseph Stalin’s reactionary theory of “socialism in one country.” Stalin first declared this gospel in the Soviet Republic in 1924, after Lenin’s death, and it immediately killed the Wobblies fighting spirit by disorienting workers in America– and everywhere else.

IWW leader Big Bill Haywood left the county and fled to the Soviet Union in 1923, while Eugene Debs died an early death in 1926 upon being released from prison. That’s how the first generation of American socialists were handled by the US government. They were led to align with endless variations of opportunists, due to their political naivety & desperation. They really didn’t have a chance of succeeding, without help on the world stage, in the form of a successful revolution in Germany in 1923, or in China in 1927. Both of these potential revolutions were betrayed by social democrat & Stalinist treachery.

Mixed-in also on the “left” at this time were the Socialist International (SI), a worldwide (dis)organization of social democrat political parties which had collapsed when every nation’s organization supported war credits for their own country in August 1914. This party is also known in history as the Second International. To hide their shame, they changed their name to the Labour and Socialist International (LSI) from 1923-1940, as a rival to the Communist International (Comintern), AKA, the Third International. The First International was the Paris Commune of 1871.

Getting back to political opportunists & government agents, the Conference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA) was a established in May 1929 by anti-communist pastor A.J. Muste (below). The organization’s true purpose was to promote the reform of the American Federation of Labor, while spying & informing on socialists. A.J. Muste’s CPLA dissolved itself in December 1933, to form the American Workers Party, a new pseudo-socialist organization.

One year later, the Workers Party of the United States (WPUS) was established in December 1934, by a merger of Muste’s American Workers Party (AWP), and the Trotskyist Communist League of America (CLA) led by James Cannon. The Workers Party of the United States was dissolved in 1936, when its members entered the Socialist Party of America, the original party of Eugene Debs.

This caused A.J. Muste to resign from “socialist” politics, due to his anti-Trotskyist positions, and return to his roots as a Christian pacifist. According to Wikipedia, “He became director of the Presbyterian Labor Temple in New York City from 1937 to 1940 where he paid special attention to combating Marxism and to proclaiming Christianity as a revolutionary doctrine.”

During a 1969 debate with William F. Buckley Jr., Noam Chomsky cited A.J. Muste as “someone who did take a very strong, and I think very honorable position” on opposing World War II. For ideological & political reference, the American linguist Noam Chomsky aligns with anarcho-syndicalism & libertarian socialism. He rejects Trotskyist internationalism. William Buckley’s best intellectual comparables would be George Plimpton & Lou Dobbs, for reference on that end.

James Cannon (above) was the first American Trotskyist, and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Cannon was personally groomed by “Big Bill” Haywood, and was an IWW organizer. Cannon was expelled from the Stalinist Communist Party (US) in 1928, and formed the SWP that year.

The SWP news organ is The Militant, a weekly newspaper, and it’s publishing house is Pathfinder Press. In 1937, The Militant headquarters was transferred to New York City. According to Wikipedia, “The Militant [currently] is not officially owned or controlled by the SWP. To protect the party and the paper, The Militant is owned by a private group.”  No citation is provided. I use Wikipedia (not my favorite reference) so often here as a source, simply because this information isn’t available anywhere else.

David North proved in “Security & the Fourth international” (1975-85) that the Socialist Workers Party had been completely infiltrated with spies long before WWII. Eric London has just researched & published how SWP members were actually GPU & US agents responsible for the assassination of Leon Trotsky in August 1940, in Coyoacan, Mexico City. The crucial agent in this murder was Sylvia Ageloff, first within the SP and then within the SWP, who was close to a group of New York Trotskyists around Martin Abern, a former IWW member and leader of the Communist youth movement in the 1920s.

Martin Abern, Max Shachtman & James Burnham were leaders inside the SWP. They allied in an unprincipled factional fight over the position of the SWP’s majority Trotskyist faction, led by James Cannon defending the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers state surrounded by imperialism.

This reactionary triumvirate was expelled from the SWP in 1940 for their political treachery, and the Workers Party (WP) was founded in April 1940 by Max Shachtman. Martin Abern was placed on the governing National Committee of the Stalinist WP, and remained there for the rest of his life.

During World War II, James Burnham left the SWP to work for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, leading the “Political and Psychological Warfare” division. These were the rogues established into leadership of the US Trotskyist movement back then.

The WP eventually became the party of Michael Harrington & post-modern liberalism. They are known today as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the party of Bernie Sanders & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The DSA organ is Jacobin, an American pseudo-socialist quarterly magazine based in New York, where (as we keep seeing) it’s most convenient for the US intelligence (and anybody else) to plant & handle its agents.

Louis F. Budenz (above) was a Soviet espionage agent, who was part of the Central Committee of Communist Party (USA) & editor of Daily Worker. Budenz taught labor organizing & strike management at Brookwood Labor College, a creation of A.J. Muste outside New York City. Bundez later taught at Fordham University, before being prosecuted by J Edgar Hoover as a Soviet spy.

The International Socialist Organization (ISO) existed from 1976-2019, recently dissolving itself (again), this time apparently into the Green Party. The Greens popped up like weeds in the 1970’s around the world, in response to environmental & social justice issues. They are completely petty-bourgeoisie in political orientation, as every national section of the liberal reformist Green Party is controlled by capitalism & its agents.

The Progressive International (PI) is a mish-mash of pseudo-left activists & international organizations, armed with post-modernism. They are not to be (or meant to be?) confused with the Progressive Alliance (PA), a political soup of social democrats & progressive liberals founded in May 2013 in Leipzig, Germany. The Progressive Alliance reaches nobody in the working class, claiming they have 140 participants from around the world, according to Wikipedia.

All this brings us to the Fourth International (FI), which was founded by Leon Trotsky in Paris, in 1938. The ICFI was formed after their split with Pabloism in 1953, though James Cannon’s “Open Letter.” Pabloism was the creation of Michel Pablo & his milieu of supporters, who rejected dialectics & Trotsky’s characterization of Stalinism as counter-revolutionary.

The SEP (US) was formed in 1995 by the Workers League (WL), the US supporters of the ICFI. The Workers League had been founded in 1966 by the American Committee for the Fourth International (ACFI), which emerged out of a split with the spy-infested Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Much more can be read on this history in David North’s classic book, The Heritage We Defend (1988).

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is the only Trotskyist party in the United States, as everything else that claims to be “socialism” is pseudo-left politics. The SEP (US) is affiliated with SEP’s established in other nations around the world, and the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). The ICFI publishes daily Marxist news & analysis on the World Socialist Web Site, and maintains Mehring Books as its publishing house.

It took the International Committee for the Fourth International (ICFI) about 50 years to solve the issue of spies & government agents. It is the only socialist party in the world that can honestly claim to have done so. The political significance of this can’t be overstated. Since February 14, 1998, the ICFI has published Trotskyist content on its daily news organ, the World Socialist Web Site, which is by far the most read & influential socialist publication in the world.

How do we know the SEP is secure? Here are a few revealing clues. First, you don’t see, read, or hear of any factional battles over party line & policy. Second, you don’t see, read or hear of any factional battles between SEP sections in all their established nations around the world. Joe Kishore (US) agrees with Nick Beams (Australia), who agrees with Alex Lantier (France), who agrees with Chris Marsden (UK), etc… Third, the WSWS is heavily censored by big tech & the state. If the SEP/WSWS was infiltrated with agents, the deep state would enable it, not attempt to silence it.

…………………..<><><><><><>…………….

Bob Dylan sells his songs

When an artist dies, the inheritors are often not equipped to deal with the responsibility of owning such valuable work. The estate inheritors almost always end up selling this intellectual property to a conglomerate, and for less than the artist would have received, because they don’t know the business, or have the clout. This is why Bob Dylan just sold his entire song catalog of over 600 songs to Universal Music Group, for reportedly over $300 million.

Bob Dylan is 79 years old, and he lived a hard life, which means he knows his death is near. Selling his song catalog makes inheritance easier, as an artist can’t control their music when they’re dead. I’m guessing that’s Bob Dylan’s primary motive for selling out at this time. A lot of other prolific musicians have been doing the same lately, and it’s because they need the money.

As for Dylan’s legacy, he did his part as an artist, and more. A major reason Bob Dylan turned towards the mainstream was because there was no politically organized “left” back in the 1960’s. The Trotskyist movement itself was splintered, and needed to be ridden of Pabloists, Stalinists, and worthless middle-class radicals.

Bob Dylan was so far ahead of his time in 1965, that in many ways, the world has yet to catch up. That’s why “It’s Alright, Ma”, “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Visions of Johanna” lead his list of timeless classics. Find those albums and you will discover the meaning of art in songwriting.

This brings up the issue of artists becoming dinosaurs. “Dinosaur” is an industry term for a performer who can no longer adapt to the current culture, and gets left behind. It’s partially a misnomer, as the real dinosaurs didn’t go extinct because they failed to adapt, they were wiped-out by an asteroid impact which changed the conditions of life on our planet. In truth, they survived in miniature form, as birds.

With that anthropological understanding in mind, it can be said that all artists eventually become dinosaurs, because no one can stay current & relevant forever. Once you become a dinosaur, your priorities change from being an artist, to making a living & survival. Bob Dylan is the most extreme example of this phenomenon. Fans can debate when he became ossified, but by the 1980’s (for sure) Bob Dylan was a dinosaur.

This is what capitalism does to all artists. You have a choice of “playing ball,” or being left out in the cold. By orienting towards a genuinely revolutionary organization such as the Socialist Equality Party, an artist can remain relevant much longer than most contemporaries, because that artist is staying in-tune with the times for inspiration. It’s reactionary politics which overwhelmed & ossified Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna & the rest. The price of remaining a true artist is the lack of money, sponsorship & venues to perform. That’s the lesson to be learned here.

…………………….<><><><><><><>………………………

Donald Trump, “You’re fired!”

On Friday, November 6, by ~1:00 PM ET, Georgia & Pennsylvania had  grown to an insurmountable lead for Biden, as the votes continue to be counted. Both states can be  called for Joe Biden with 100% certainty, putting him over 270 in the Electoral College. Arizona & Nevada will also go to Biden; with Alaska (for sure) & North Carolina (probably) going to Trump. That’s all that was left in play. It appears the final Electoral College totals will be Biden 306, Trump 232, or somewhere in that vicinity.

In 2016, I titled my election night write-up “Fascism Wins Election 2016.” I prefer this title much better, I must admit. The majority of Americans have wanted to say this to Trump for a long, long time. That’s what’s being celebrated, much more than a Joe Biden victory. Ironically, it was Trump being hospitalized at Walter Reed with Kung Flu that contributed in making him a lame duck. This made Trump appear weak & stupid when he most-needed to project strength & authority.

A huge round of appreciation & recognition is deserved for all the polls workers, ballot counters, etc, who had to do their jobs under the most extraordinary circumstances, including an uncontrolled coronavirus pandemic with intentional political intimidation & shenanigans from the right. The vote counting in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Philadelphia & Atlanta, which took days to complete, swung those states for Biden and determined the election.

ABC, CBS & NBC all cut-away from Trump’s press conference during the evening news Thursday night, another unprecedented episode in these unprecedented times. After tweeting “STOP THE COUNT,” and other cynical messages from his White House bunker, Trump still has lawsuits pending in a few states, and possibly a campaign to pressure electors in the Electoral College to flip to him, a violation of the US Constitution.

Recounts and/or litigation will be going on in Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada & Pennsylvania, so voters will need to keep an eye on all that for themselves, and not trust the Democrats to do it for them.

It was the Trotskyists led by the World Socialist Web Site, who did more than anyone in defending the US Constitution and democratic principles such as free speech during Election 2020. These fundamental democratic rights are still under attack, but now workers & youth are much more aware of them, which is half the battle. This was an ideological struggle where Trotskyists were the most adamant defenders of the right to vote, in an election where their candidates were blacklisted.

Donald Trump took an oath as US President to defend the Constitution, and only the Trotskyists held him to that oath. The Democrats insist only when it’s convenient, such as now. This is how right-wing Democrats flip to appear progressive, as needed. Bernie Sanders is the master of this type of chicanery.

It wasn’t anything close to the Democratic landslide which had been predicted in the fake media, as enthusiasm for the two-party system is flagging, and the slack is being picked-up by the Trotskyists, which MSM can’t acknowledge– out of fear. That’s the issue with all bourgeois political polling, the unacknowledged shift to the left by 90% of the population. This was a dump Trump vote. Nothing in the Biden-Harris campaign has anything progressive for the workers & youth of America which have been devastated by COVID-19 & inequality.

The Trump administration had help in unleashing its back-to-work, and then back-to-school campaigns, under the policy of herd immunity– all during the election. The Democrats rallied with Republicans to bail out ‘too big to fail’ zombies for the last time on March 27, 2020 with the CARES Act. The problem is that they’re bankrupt again already. The free money is gone and they need more, but there is no more. The Fed is tapped out, so it’ll be more money printing with hyper-inflation ahead. That’s when a general strike & educational sickouts will stop everything, and then politics enters the revolutionary domain, where Trotskyists will take the historical stage.

This repudiation of Trump is a devastating blow to the far right, which includes Nazis, white supremacists, Confederates, religious gun nuts & fascists. Their figurehead has been toppled, and more importantly, he’s about to lose his trappings of power. Without Democratic props to hold him up, and all means of violence at his command, Trump is nothing. Fascism has been democratically rejected by the American people, and that has serious implications for the incoming Biden-Harris administration as well. The people have moved far, far to the left.

It was the Trotskyists who warned the working class & youth of the dangers of fascism during this election, from Trump’s coup attempt in calling out the National Guard to suppress protests against police violence, to his plotting with armed militias to kidnapped & kill the governor of Michigan. The World Socialist Web Site led this effort in political educational for the working class & youth. Chaos & violence was the Trump election strategy because they knew he couldn’t win re-election honestly. Never in US history has an incumbent President run such a campaign. As the WSWS pointed out, Trump was running for führer, which is remarkable.

Trump is a sociopath with delusions of grandeur, and this is his Waterloo. Comparisons to Adolph Hitler’s last days in his Berlin bunker may be apt as well. History will tell, but this is what to expect, in one form or another. In 2016, Trump blew up the Republican Party in winning the nomination, then the US Presidency. In the four years since, he has divided Washington, the nation, and the world like no politician since Hitler. The Republican Party became the party of Trump, an elitist fascist gangster. Trump attempted to establish his own personal dictatorship, and failed. He will never get another chance. This is why fascists are so morose right now.

It’s also why the Democrats are trying to fix their relationship with the Republicans. Fox News flipped on Trump, and it was obvious early on election night, which is a huge story. It means Rupert Murdoch is abandoning the alt-right, Breitbart & Q-Anon. These outright fascists had been Republican Party allies, until very recently. The Republican Party has been irrevocably fractured by four years of Trump, and there is no putting Humpty-Dumpty back together.

The most politically far-sighted Democrats, such as Barack Obama, understand this is supposed to be an intramural scrimmage, and they are surely reaching out to Trump (behind closed doors) to be part of an orderly transition-of-power. Trump will acquiesce soon enough, because he’s weak-minded, defeated & hopeless. By February 2021, no one will care about Trump tweets anymore, and that is what kills him politically. Take away his big stage and Trump is nothing more than a blowhard conman. He has no intelligence or resourcefulness to fall back on, and apparently he’s over $400M in debt. All this has political implications.

One final media note, Russia Today (RT) took an openly pro-Trump line early in this election, and it hurt their journalistic credibility irreversibly. RT used to have some reporting, but pro-Trump bias has turned them into an open mouthpiece for reaction, a legacy of their Stalinist roots. Their articles are often lazy, their Op/Eds are all awful, and their commenters are now 90+% fascist trolls. It also needs to be said that since Biden won, there was no ‘Russian interference’ from bots in election 2020, according to the MSM.

Political ‘ground game’ is defined as how you do for your Party, on-the-ground, during election day & the crucial days leading up to it. As a rule, I walk all over people who deserve it, so the following is a sketch of my 2020 ground game.

I’m surviving in a Sanford apartment complex, with lots of people moving in & out during the past six months. I used to be a newbie, but now I’m the grizzled veteran here. That’s COVID-19. The county hospital next door is filling up with ICU cases.

Military jets are doing drills overhead, out of Sanford International Airport, the weekend before election day. They sound like they’re mobilizing for Iwo Jima, with cops all over the place, and rarely with a friendly face. Fire engines & ambulances are drilling & blaring their sirens to whip up support for Trump. It’s a total shitshow at the taxpayers’ expense.

It was the “Lockheed Martin Space and Air Show” at Sanford International Airport, which actually ran three days from Friday, October 30 to Sunday, November 1– a thoroughly Trumpian event. I watched & heard it all, for three days. I had no choice, they flew overhead so many times. Tight triplets strafing is their favorite Thunderbird maneuver. “Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed…,” I say out loud in my James Earl Jones voice.

Photographed above are the remains of the vapor trails from the military jets who made a heart symbol, way up in the atmosphere. I call it “Bullet the Blue Sky,” and sang that U2 song on my porch as I observed my tax dollars at work, “Peelin’ off those dollar bills, slappin’ them down, one hundred, two hundred…”  I’m a big Brian Eno fan.

Later, in my best redneck voice, “Any one of them F-15 or Blue Angels boys could shoot down any Russian mig, and drop a big enough nuclear payload to light up them Ruskies until Kingdom Come.”

And my final Sanford Military Airshow riff, “Maverick just lost Goose, where are you Iceman?!!”

This was Friday mornin’. They’re either rentin’ or repossessin’. Aaron’s is their big competitor. To be fair to the police, they have a tough job right now. Beyond Trump’s fascist militia supporters in their ranks, there are a few boy scouts (& girl scouts) in law enforcement. I see them here often now, with their ‘community enforcement’ vehicles for domestic incidents. All races & ages are affected. Before coronavirus that almost never happened here. That’s how quickly it’s all collapsed.

Early voting at the public library (pic above) had lines everyday from start to finish. Political signs & lobbying on every street corner of 1st & Palmetto. Strong support for “Dump Trump.” The Democrats had the better music, I told a Trump supporter in his camping chair one afternoon, and he just laughed as I passed by. That’s what is was like downtown.

Sanford city landscaping took out the Coleus and planted these, I don’t know their name, but I think they’re nice– so I snapped a shot. Sanford ‘Parks & Rec’ keeps up with this, so the workers are doing a good job, meaning they aren’t they problem. It’s another class that is the problem. Another point here is to find the beauty where you can and acknowledge it. All this needs to be in your head while doing this, and if you do, you’ll have an unstoppable ground game.

Downtown Sanford, all around.

This is my favorite graffiti art around town. I have no idea who it actually is.

The Sanford Herald published all the local news that’s fit to print.

Wells Fargo are among the institutions which We the People need to directly talk to and demand accountability from. If they can’t deliver, then they must be declared bankrupt and arrested on the spot as criminals. These banks must be seized as public utilities by the workers & youth. Since big banks are transnational, this revolution will be international in character.

Wells Fargo & their cronies got Dems & Reps to unite & bail them out, with trillions of dollars in the CARES Act this past March, the largest swift transfer of wealth, to the extremely wealthy, in human history. Wells Fargo also financed this shitshow called Election 2020.

Other thoughts:  How do voters make sure any recounts aren’t stolen? Transparency in the process, along with keeping armed militias & right-wing mobs from interfering, is essential. There can be no tolerance for criminal behavior against the US Constitution. This is how to defeat fascism. Knowledge is power, but it take principles & courage to act appropriately.

On profanity & bad language. Profanity means cognition is inhibited and replaced with emotional rage. That doesn’t help. Vulgarity just drags us down into the mud with Trump & his far-right filth. Get control of these powerful but dangerous emotions, and channel them into Trotskyism, as I did here. This is how a modern artist creates a meaningful political statement from anger.

      1. The Road Rage Song - Ric Size

 

Fri 06 Nov 2020 11:00 AM EST

I called Georgia for Biden on my Fakebook pages around 10:30 AM ET. Fakebook doesn’t like that. They have been censoring & meddling with everyone’s newsfeed because they hate free speech. When it’s down to a trickle with absentee & military balloting, along with ‘curing’ spoiled ballots, and they’re mostly going for Biden who has an insurmountable lead with well over 99% of the vote counted, you can call it with 100% certainty. That’s 16 Electoral votes for Biden, which put him at 269 or 270 depending on whom you follow.

One thing that needs to be highlighted at that point in time is the archaic nature of the Electoral College, where Nebraska & Maine split their votes for the actual election on December 14, 2020. These electors can be put under extreme political pressure to be ‘unfaithful delegates’ if it ends up 270-268. Or 269-269. There are 14 US states which have laws that allow Electoral College delegates to flip.

Real Clear Politics provides the best online return data for US elections, with 15-second interval updates, which is crazy. This allows anyone with the know-how to be an online expert in real time, from home. I don’t read any of the RCP articles, I just need their data. If you can be good with numbers and understand what they mean, it’s a nice compliment to a strong ground game. This gives you all-around political legitimacy that is hard to beat.

As far as network analysts go, one NBC politico nailed it when he pointed out the number of remaining ballots were all in urban Democratic strongholds, with their current & historical splits– going back to 2008. The splits were holding up, and mostly 70/30, with a few 85/15, for Democrats.

That’s all I needed to know from TV, besides the live reports & video from Maricopa County, Arizona, where Trump supporters descended like locusts on the vote-counting center, after Fox network declared the state (11 electoral votes) for Biden. This was Trump’s reason for wanting to stop the count. What did you expect, for Trump to be a good loser?

Fri 06 Nov 2020 11:30 AM EST

Joe Biden’s lead is increasing with about 350,000 votes to be counted, mostly in overwhelmingly Democrat strongholds.

Pennsylvania 95% Reporting
Biden 49.5% 3,301,186
Trump 49.4% 3,292,153
Biden +9,033

one hour ago:

Pennsylvania 95% Reporting
Biden 49.5% 3,297,614
Trump 49.4% 3,290,788
Biden +6,826

Fri 06 Nov 2020  1:00 PM EST

The Democrats are milking this for all it’s worth, while Trump is in denial– as always. Everyone else wants it to be over. By 1:00 PM ET it’s mathematically over, so I fill in the few remaining blanks in the opening paragraph, and click publish. No more fake media for me. Over & Out

………..<><><><><>………..

Prognosticating Collapse

What’s difficult for most ordinary people to realize is that if they have a few thousand dollars on hand, with no debt of any kind, then they are worth more than any major bank. JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, BOA, et al, are living off never-ending, cheap money from the Fed. Whatever their “stock market value” is, it’s dwarfed by at least 2-3 times that amount in debt– which they can never repay. Hence they are zombies. This situation applies to most household, corporate & all national debt. That is the crux of this impending financial crisis.

These banks, stock markets & hedge fund investors hold extravagant claims to assets that are 99+% worthless. These are all toxic assets that will all go to zero when the next crash hits. It’s called a Ponzi scheme. Central banks all around the world have this same policy, so no nation will be spared. The capitalist system is about to implode upon itself in every epicenter, in a mountain of bad debt fueled by rampant corruption condoned by the entire global establishment.

This isn’t going to be your regular periodic crash, like in 1987, 1998, 2000, or even 2007-08 which was the biggest shock wave since 1929. This next collapse of corruption is going to call into question the viability of the entire capitalist system on Facebook. It’s going to take riot police & military troops to keep hungry workers from their bank savings. The only way a government can stop people from posting on social media is to shut down the internet. That will anger people, for sure.

This show of force will be deemed necessary for “national security,” as the banks are insolvent, so a military-police state will be needed to maintain “law & order.” If you are not among the elite class, then this will be your fate. ATM’s will not give you cash. and the bank deposits will be inaccessible. “How am I supposed to live?” you may ask. The answer is that you aren’t.

This is class war in the death-throes of capitalism. Through the internet & social media, the youth & workers of the world have been exchanging ideas for over a decade, since the crash of 2007-08. These lessons have been learned & absorbed by a great many.

For the masses, it’s about leadership, in terms of having a vision for the future of humanity along with everything else on this planet. Leadership needs to be revolutionary, with a scientific program for equality & peace. Karl Marx gave civilization that program when he published The Communist Manifesto in 1848, a year of revolution in Europe.

Socialism is best expressed in our modern world in the writings of Leon Trotsky, who should be considered the last classical Marxist; and today through the International Committee of the Fourth International, which publishes the World Socialist Web Site. Trotsky founded the 4th International in 1938, two years before he was assassinated by an agent of Stalin, so this party has a long & impressive political history.

Political leadership is groomed by reading the WSWS, and adopting their line. Opportunities for polemics are plenty, but they are in areas of subjectivity such as opinions on art, and analysis of profound new ideas. Predicting future events by using Marxism & its dialectical method is an invaluable form of leadership that must be cultivated among the working masses.

The revolution of the future needs to be leaderless. When great & courageous individuals become elevated to supreme leader of a movement, they can easily be neutralized by any deep state conspiracy. Think Malcolm X, MLK or John Lennon, who were all assassinated. Great leaders of today don’t seek cult followings & celebrity status, they seek to be understood & influential.

Great leaders are the best listeners & observers. They see & hear things others miss, because they make it a point to be aware of their surroundings. This is sound leadership, because it compliments the survival instinct. We can’t continue to be at war with our planet, and expect to survive as a species. Leaders must understand & weigh all positions.

The root idea of socialism is that leadership is shared. This will allow the best in any field to rise to the top, since everyone will have access. This idea is abhorrent to every capitalist, who prefer monopoly, mass slavery, world war & annihilation– to socialism.

This is obviously sociopathic “thinking,” which is why Donald J. Trump is now the US President who has been given unlimited governmental authority to wage war on socialists. That’s what economic inequality, internet censorship, and war on immigrants while inciting neo-Nazi violence is all about– it’s the political strategy of fascists.

The objective of socialists since Trump was handed the US Presidency on November 8, 2016 is to discredit fascism & the deep state– in order to prevent a world war. It’s over three years, and humanity has now been perilously driven to the brink of world war by these madmen & madwomen.

But the truth is there is no mass support for any of these lunatic semi-corpses anymore. They are ready to crumble, and will, as soon as their supply of free money, media monopoly & military obedience finally fails them as a class.

If there is an election this November, Trump will get less votes this time, because he no longer fools so many people. The situation for most is getting worse, while Trump the conman keeps making speeches on how things are better than ever. That’s the way it is for billionaires.

For the Democrats  it’s their primary season, as Iowa is finally two weeks away, with billions already spent on 2020. Among young, left-leaning voters, Tulsi Gabbard was by far the most popular early candidate, especially after she embarrassed #MeToo & BLM party favorite Kamala Harris as shown here.

Gabbard has been a target of Hillary Clinton, who refers to the congresswoman from Hawaii as a “Russian asset” in the media. We’re talking about a left-leaning, CIA Democrat in Tulsi Gabbard. She has been neutralized at this point, fundraising-wise, but now Bernie Sanders has regained the top spot in many Democratic polls. This deeply concerns the Clinton’s, Barack Obama, John Kerry, and the rest of the deep state.

At this point, any expression of any impulse to the left is dealt with hysterically through the corporate media. Denunciations, censorship & blacklisting are the methods. Hence the term “fake news,” which didn’t exist ten years ago, but is understood by everyone with a functioning brain today.

Serious political discussions need to be ongoing for as long as possible, with the realization that the deep state may eventually block internet access to the masses. This coordinated shutdown of essential services has been rehearsed over & over during “natural disasters” such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods & fires.

The ruling establishment has its hands on all the levers of power, and a playbook from which it never veers. This makes them powerful, but predicable. When you know what the ultra-rich will do in every crisis, then you can be ready with a revolutionary strategy to defeat them. It’s up to the yearning masses to consider all this, and be ready to act when the time comes.

The #1 rule in bourgeois politics is: no socialism. Only Trump is allowed to say that, because he’s a fascist, which is acceptable. Democrats prefer to hide that primary motto, under the guise of pseudo-politics such as feminism & black racialism, which support elite members of those demographics, under the tired lies of class discrimination & social inequality.

Both parties double-down on their reactionary ideologies, because they have no other choice. As the absurdity of their policies became more apparent, their social support erodes even further. Kids don’t believe in politicians anymore, like they used to. There’s too much information, and access to it, which proves them liars. Millennials are smart like that.

Conclusion: These are the outlines of the coming social revolution. The wildfires in Australia and everywhere else will never be contained under capitalism, and that is now apparent on a mass scale. Humanity has reached it’s tipping point, where business-as-usual is about to come to an end. There is too much want & awareness, combined with too much excess & hypocrisy, for things to continue as before.

The deep state can’t behead 21st-century socialist leadership, because it’s now grown to a point where so many advanced workers & youth have become learned & class-conscious that leadership will be able to nurture & replenish itself from within. Socialized leadership for permanent revolution.

Julian Assange is an example of this process, as he sits in Belsmarsh prison outside of London, awaiting a rigged extradition trial. Assange is a courageous whistle-blowing journalist who has been kidnapped & tortured by the US & UK governments & deep states. But even if he dies in prison, WikiLeaks will live on. The point is to get Julian Assange out alive, which protects ALL journalists & whistle-blowers.

The coming Julian Assange trial portends this revolution. While the courts of law are rigged, the court of public opinion is squarely behind Assange & freedom of the press. This up-coming show trial could be the spark that ignites this coming socialist revolution. The ruling establishments fear this, while revolutionaries are preparing for it.

The reason capitalism must collapse and be revolutionized into socialism is because it’s an idea whose time has come. There is no amount of fake media, authoritative coercion & physical violence that can stop an idea whose time has come. That is a fundamental truth of socialism.

……….<><><><><><>……….

Defining Terms

Bourgeois politics can be confusing, for sure. So here’s a handy Marxist working dictionary of what you need to know when everything crashes.

“Modern Monetary Theory” is unlimited money for the rich, dressed up in post-modernist gobble-de-gook. In short, it’s monopoly capitalism. Capitalism is how a billionaire class can develop, by extracting all the wealth of labor from the workers, and congealing it into money. Marxism is a scientific approach to political economy, with the intent of educating & uniting the global working class in revolution, to overthrow capitalism & establish socialism. Socialism is defined as social equality for all– globally & permanently.

When philistine haters attempt to slander socialism, they usually equate it with Stalinism, which is bureaucratic rule over a state-planned economy. Russian workers & peasants in the army, led by the Bolsheviks of Lenin & Trotsky, overthrew the Tsar & reformists in 1917, and state planning was then implemented. When Lenin eventually died from ill health, due to gunshot wounds he received in an assassination attempt by a liberal party loyalist, there was an ideological struggle for power between Trotsky & Stalin.

Stalin was an unexceptional old Bolshevik bureaucrat, who was kept in the background during the October Revolution because of his centrist tendencies which were correctly considered counter-revolutionary by Lenin & Trotsky. After Lenin’s debilitating strokes, and then final death in January 1924, Stalin stepped forward and defined his theory of “socialism in one country” to attack Trotsky and usurp power for himself, which he eventually did as Trotsky was exiled by 1929.

Stalin played the political game well, and laid many traps for his friends & enemies, eventually liquidating them all. Trotsky himself was one of the last old Bolsheviks to be murdered by Stalin’s agents, in August, 1940 in Mexico City, just as World War II broke out. Trotsky fought mostly with his pen, which is why he remains so powerful a figure in modern politics. Trotskyism is the only genuine expression of revolutionary socialism in the world today, represented by the ICFI and their publishing organ, the World Socialist Web Site.

Stalinism and all of its crimes are directly comparable to Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist party, better known as the Nazis. Nationalism & socialism are diametric opposites in politics. That’s because genuine socialism (Trotskyism) is international in perspective. Nationalism is about racism, religious chauvinism & patriotism, which define they worst instincts of humanity in their ignorance, selfishness & lack of democratic input.

Diametric & dialectic are similar words. The latter is the philosophy of Marxism, which replaces religion and all other forms of mysticism, with the science of opposites & revolution known as dialectics. When water freezes or turns to steam, there are qualitative shifts in the properties of water. What happens to water at 0 & 100 Celsius, is unlike anything in-between or beyond those temperatures. That’s a clear metaphor for dialectics, in that you have to stop thinking linearly and more dialectically, in times of revolutionary flux in order to understand what is happening.

When an army of millions of peasants led by a political opportunist, overthrows an ancient regime after a Second World War, and takes state power into it’s hands, that is called Maoism. When a band of peasants & guerrillas take state power into their hands in a banana republic, because it falls to them, that is called Castroism. When an anarchist leader proclaims, “Power comes from a gun barrel,” and then dies isolated in a third-world jungle, that is called Guevaraism.

The collapse of the Soviet Union from 1989-91 profoundly influenced US militarists, who saw it as an opportunity to reconquer the world. These are the bureaucrats, profiteers & warheads who planned 9/11, and engineered the bank bailouts after the financial crash of 2007-08. This is what is known as the deep state.

Our biggest political problem is the deep state, which is not acknowledged. “Thank God for the deep state” said ex-CIA Director John McLaughlin, to resounding audience approval on October 31, 2019. Up until then, “deep state” was another nutty conspiracy theory, pushed by kooks online such as yours truly. Now it’s vindicated, but still not discussed, except in the most general & glowingly patriotic terms.

The deep state is defined as any powerful institution which no one elects and holds power over US political economy. Every nation has a deep state these days. This institution acts independently of public oversight & democratic input. The Federal Reserve banking system is part of the deep state. So is the CIA, and the rest of the military-police apparatus. They will always lie & slander to hide their own guilt, and will never give up power peacefully. The deep state is the root of all evil under capitalism, and it must be dealt with decisively.

“Quantitative easing,” negative interest rates for big banks, and now the “repo market” intervention by the Fed & Treasury, are injections of newly printed money which has no backing, but is desperately needed to keep this “zombie economy” going. Zombie companies are defined as publicly traded corporations that can’t even pay the interest on their debt– which is massive & unpayable. At least 20% of DJIA & NASDAQ listings are zombies. This endless supply of free money keeps the stock market going up & up to new all-time highs, from which it will eventually crash.

Government is defined as a committee of the ruling class, so if you want social justice, then don’t look towards the two-party system bureaucrats for solutions. They put us in this mess in the first place. The solution in politics is so far beyond reform, that it makes Bernie Sanders look so much like the old windbag he actually is. Liberalism is dead, as it died with Barack Obama and all his vague promises of hope & change back in 2008. Then Hillary Clinton came out stillborn 2016, and the working masses got Russiagate & the #MeToo campaign in retribution for Donald Trump winning the Electoral College.

Journalists are defined as people who report the events of the world. The best ones do it honestly & with deep insight. Julian Assange is a journalist. People who persecute journalists for revealing the truth are fascists. Fascism comes in many forms, through the thuggish brutality personified by Donald Trump, or from the deep state, hidden spook, censorship version– agreed to by all the rest in the US two-party set-up. These are the “adults in the room” we are told by authoritative fake news sources.

Fake news is defined as CNN, MSNBC, Fox, Breitbart, ABC, CBS, NBC, et al. They are all owned by multi-national corporations, who push a pro-capitalist agenda in their interest. Social media including Facebook, Twitter, Google & YouTube is revolutionary in that everyone can now participate, but realize that it has also been tied into the deep state, which manipulates what you see, while selling your content to others without your knowledge. That’s called stealing, creeping, and abusing power. These entities will all become public utilities under socialism, with democratic control by users, which allows for maximum participation & innovation.

“Two-party strait-jacket” means Democrats & Republicans are two sides of the same coin– domestically & in foreign policy. They can’t exist without the other, and therefore are all in it together. Their mission in Washington is to enslave the working class, and rule the world through intimidation & military supremacy. This is pathological madness personified in capitalist politics.

Madness is defined as repeating the same mistakes over & over again, and expecting better results. This is the conundrum which no Ivory Tower, ideological apologist can solve or hide, no matter how eloquent they are in post-modernist sophistry. Capitalism is bankrupt, and must be overthrow dialectically, through the international working masses uniting under the banner of socialist revolution in permanence.

…………<><><><><><><><>……………

The Quadrillion Dollar Question

Money printing by every central bank in the world has now ballooned stock, bond, derivatives & real estate markets to record highs, which has been a bonanza for those wealthy enough own these assets. The problem for them is that most of these “assets” are worthless, measured in the hundreds of trillions of dollars globally, and widely conceded to total over a quadrillion US dollars in fake value. No one really knows the amount, because little-to-no data is published or made publicly available, as economic policies that affect everybody & everything are discussed, agreed upon & implemented behind closed doors & kept secret.

In official politics, everything is kept classified in the interest of national insecurity. In establishment economics, an undercurrent of paranoia is now running rampant through every market, as anyone with their eyes open can see what’s about to happen to the global economy. Deutsche Bank just unloaded €50bn in worthless derivatives known as long-dated interest rate swaps onto the taxpayers, who are the lender of last resort for a bank considered “too big to fail.” This event has to be kept quiet on MSM, because this could be the next Lehman Brothers collapse which triggers financial Armageddon.

No government has the ammunition to hold off this inevitable crash much longer, much less handle it when it arrives. Money printing for the rich will eventually manifest into hyper-inflation of currency for all. Meanwhile on every inhabited continent, austerity & corporate tax cuts have wiped out national tax bases– the primary source of all government revenue. The other bullet which has been spent is interest rates, which can’t go much lower and in many countries is negative– so that can no longer be used as a palliative. Hence militarization, nationalism, and the drive to war led by the US.

What this means is that the next financial crash will create a revolutionary situation globally, due to the bankruptcy of every central bank & government, who have exhausted their limits on bad debt & interest rate cuts. But the corporate banks, hedge fund firms, brokerage houses, etc, have so much more junk they need to unload! This is the conundrum these parasitic financial criminals are now facing, and when it all breaks down, “Who will pay the piper?” becomes the quadrillion dollar question.

Crypto vs Gold: Part X

Consider this. If cryptocurrency became backed by gold, it would collapse every fiat currency– which are all debt-ridden by money printing & austerity. But here’s the virtual rub. Where can the owners of cryptocurrency store their gold while remaining anonymous? That is the unsolvable paradox of cryptocurrency.

Eventually the governments of the world will use their police, intelligence & military apparatus to find & seize that gold. The deep state of any nation also controls the electrical grid & internet– which means bitcoin becomes unusable under such political conditions. This is no longer hypothetical, as there have been multiple electrical blackouts across South America recently, either due to decaying infrastructure or malware attacks by the US deep state.

It was Venezuela a few months back, as part of the failed US-instigated coup attempt to overthrow Nicolás Maduro and install its puppet Juan Guaidó as president. Last weekend it was announced that Russia’s grid had been attacked by US military-intelligence. This proud US government provocation of war against Russia was barely noted or commented upon in the fake news media.

What is to become of the digital energy waster known as crypto-currency when the working masses & youth of the world unite under the banner of international socialism and march on the centers of power in every nation? After an international workers’ revolution, bitcoin & all other forms of crypto-currency will no longer be allowed to contribute to global warming. Humanity needs solutions which don’t cause greater problems, as is allowed under capitalism.

There is more than enough wealth being produced to provide for everyone’s needs while making reparations to our planet and all its inhabitants. This makes the need for money superfluous in a socialist society, but not under capitalism which is leading humanity towards disaster.

Every day Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and there rest of that fascist White House cabal are in power, the greater the threat of thermo-nuclear incineration to our planet. It is really sick that things get pushed this close to the edge of extinction by delusional & psychotic tendencies. But that’s “maximum pressure” under capitalism, and it’s how the rich & powerful maintain their privileges in a rigged game.

Those of us who have been socialists for a long time, know that we are the most suppressed, censored & blacklisted political tendency. Trotskyism of the Fourth International is real socialism, and we are always the first targets of the corporate censors & deep state sponsored fascism. Fake media of every variant always portray Trotskyism as “left-wing extremism,” and brand them as “terrorist,” but not officially because they are blacklisted– which means they aren’t acknowledged. This combines the murky world of US intelligence with the anti-socialist ideology of the ruling class.

Notice that no mainstream media ever covers the World Socialist Web Site, the modern daily organ of Trotskyism. Any attempts by “leftists” to politicize the WSWS become silly & hateful, as these fake intellectuals never approach anything from a historical or materialist perspective. Everything from pseudo-intellectual liberals is thinly-veiled class interest wrapped up in the irrationality of post-modernism– where all is subjective & anything goes. What remains of liberalism is comparable (as a class) to a degenerative disorder, incapable of controlling itself and getting worse by the day.

The fake left lose the battle of rationality & facts against the Trotskyists every time. Trotskyists are always strictly censored under capitalism & Stalinism, because we are recognized as their most formidable & intractable enemy. Capitalism & Stalinism (socialism in one country) have the same common goal: to subordinate their nation’s working masses to obey & carry out ruling class directives.

Trotskyists are the only political tendency that seeks to unite workers & youth internationally under the banner of revolutionary socialism. This must be achieved to avert an all-destructive Third World War. Capitalism keeps doubling down on its failures, which is only leading to more catastrophes. There is no tendency in mainstream media or official politics that opposes this suicidal trajectory for human civilization. Political power must be removed from these criminal ruling classes of all nations.

Julian Assange & Chelsea Manning must be set free and protected by the workers & youth of the world, against these ruthless & tyrannical global networks of US-UK sponsored terrorists. Julian Assange & Chelsea Manning are courageous heroes for what they have done, and for the political stance they maintain– by not capitulating to US deep state coercion, suppression & criminality. Their fate is humanity’s fate. It’s up to those who are conscious and willing to fight for equality & democratic rights to unite for the purpose of freeing them, and revering those who reveal hard truths & ask important questions.

……….<><><><><><><>…………

New Keiser Comments

The first one got through. But the theoretical explanation of historical economic models will surely get censored by Russia Today, so why bother?

Preface: I view the Keiser Report as today’s “money talk” version of WKRP in Cincinnati (1978-82). The program always begins with Max Keiser saying in one form or another, “Hello, I’m Max Keiser. Welcome to the Keiser Report.” If you’ll notice, that has a very Les Nessman quality to it. Max Keiser also has a lot of Herb Tarlek in him, with a touch of Johnny Fever.

Fans of course love Stacy Herbert, who plays the calming influences of Jennifer Marlowe & Bailey Quarters, which holds things together. The second-half interviews are hit-and-miss, just like original series.

Great show Stacy & Max!  Trans·mog·ri·fy (verb): to transform in a surprising or magical manner.

To second-half guest Rick Ackerman: Hyper-inflation implies a huge financial crisis, which isn’t sustainable. At that point it’s two paths: 1) the monopolists win, or 2) there’s a socialist revolution of the masses. Hyper-inflation can’t normalize to the point where “you can take a few bills out of your wallet to pay the mortgage.”

To the commenters here: Yes, Max & Stacy check the comments. If you have something to say, they’ll even read them. Censorship is never the answer.

On Max Keiser’s idea that we are becoming neo-feudalist, that’s impossible. Feudalism was an economic system that came into being after centuries of post-Roman Empire anarchy. Feudalism was peasant (farmer) based, and its reinforcing ideology was the Catholic Church. Capitalism comes from the Enlightenment & science, and is a higher economic model, which began in England as the industrial revolution.

The reinforcing ideology of capitalism is the power of money in the form of capital. Napoleon spread it across Europe, using superior forms of violence in conquest. The one “great power” that stayed backwards was Russia, which Napoleon couldn’t conquer, due to its vastness & harsh winters. This became historically significant in 1917.

Capitalism is an urban (working class) economic model, which in its early stages allowed for mass education & ground-breaking innovation. but quickly turned into monopoly. After the Great War, America took the lead in global capitalism.

But inevitably it becomes an uncontrollable Frankenstein which consumes everything. Theoretically, the masters of capitalism seek to rule a world of slaves. This “highest level of capitalism” is unachievable, because the people of the world won’t live as slaves. They’ll die first. The only path out is a socialist revolution.

…………………<><><><><><>………………..