Fascism: A Cancer That Can Metastasize

The far right wing, emboldened by our incompetent, narcissistic, morally impaired president, is now crawling out of the cyber-shadows and appearing on our streets. It’s an appalling, but not totally unexpected sight. Their handiwork of hate crimes has been increasingly visible everywhere for some time now. And yes, like a cancer, they have always been among us, in remission, so to speak. 

On the radio today, Marxist economist Richard Wolff explained how after every economic downturn, fascism with its bigotry, scapegoating and authoritarianism rears its ugly head. The examples he cited were after the stock market crash and depression Spain fell to Franco, Italy to Mussolini and Germany to Hitler. The United States was in peril as well. Ku Klux Klan activity, race riots and lynchings proliferated in the late 1920s when Klan membership exceeded four million. American Neo-nazi groups extolled by prominent people such as Norman Rockwell, Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh openly marched in the streets.

In 1933 when Roosevelt was elected, poverty was rampant and the rich were making money hand over fist. But in the thirties labor unions and communist and socialist organizations were a force to be reckoned with. His three terms, 1933-1945 encompassed the turbulent war years. He instituted a plethora of anti-poverty programs such as the New Deal, Social Security and Unemployment Insurance. He did this not because of altruism and concern, but under intense pressure from labor unions and leftist parties who were not only threatening revolution, but had the numbers, motivation and organizational capabilities to lead one. He taxed the rich to pay for his programs and, in the United States, the working and middle classes prospered in spite of the lingering effects of economic collapse.

Sound familiar? Except that now, no-one in the administration is looking out for the 99 percent. So as housing prices skyrocket and the stock market rises astronomically, the American worker’s salary flat lines. Everyone goes looking for someone to blame. Identity politics run wild without a class analysis in sight. And, the cancer of fascism embodied in the Neo-Nazis the Ku Klux Klan and other “Traditional Family” groups is unchecked and growing exponentially. Can it metastasize here? If we don’t excise it immediately, it can. That why when folks say we should ignore the combative right wing, they are mistaken. Ignoring cancer doesn’t make it go away. I was glad that so many people in Berkeley agreed with me on this and showed up to protest. Don’t let fear immobilize you. This is not Germany in 1933. We can win this fight. We have to. 

Where Ferguson and Occupy Meet...

I watched the coverage of the Ferguson uprising on MSNBC and a lot of what I saw the police doing looked disturbingly familiar to the police riots I experienced when I participated in Occupy Oakland. There were flash-bang grenades, bean-bag projectiles, rubber bullets and plenty of tear gas. The sound cannons were new “toys,”  for our militarized boys in blue.

When I was arrested, as part of a mass arrest in 1991 following the Rodney King excessive police force incident, the cops had little access to all this weaponry. They simply surrounded around the 400 people peacefully participating in the protest, handcuffed us and hauled us away. Today what cops are engaged in is more like a live staging of World of Warcraft.

Let me state unequivocally that racism plays a huge role in out-of-control policing in this country. There exists a rampant, unbridled fear of young, black males in our society. Beyond that, the government and its enforcement arm are tremendously afraid of resistance of any kind and invest everything they have in crushing rebellions before they can spread and take hold. This has been of utmost importance since the economic collapse of 2008.

Sure, the NSA and its defenders will say that heightened security dates back to the September 11^th attacks of 2001. But why then has the collection of metadata increased to a loud crescendo at this point in time. Why are racism and all forms of ethnic hatred being constantly and continually promoted just as labor unions, job security and workers’ rights and the right to a living wage are being hammered into non-existence?

It's a simple divide and conquer tactic to perpetuate capitalism. The existence of a cheap, disposable underclass is the foundation that buttresses the wealth of the one percent. Those in power are especially afraid of young, black males but they are afraid of all of us. They know they are sapping our life-blood both as low-wage workers and as an unemployed poverty class.With the highest incarceration rate in the world, the USA is now rounding up folks who can't pay their bills, thus reinstituting debtors' prisons. Economic inequality here has reached an all-time high and that's not going to change anytime soon. The bottom line is:  as long as WE are at each other’s throats, THEY are safe. The second we begin to rise up, they beat us down with ten times the force required to do so.

Racism is a real problem but it is not a "black" issue. It is an American issue that affects all of us. “We must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” That quote is from Ben Franklin at the signing of the declaration of independence. And he wasn’t including women, everyone considered "non-white," immigrants, non-landowners and a whole host of others. But he still has a point. We can all learn from his mistakes and try to do it right this time!

May Day in Oakland--Protest and Repression

New Oakland Police Tank

Bloodlust on the part of the O.P.D. began just after noon in downtown Oakland when the boys and babes in blue trotted out their latest toy, a tank-like armored police vehicle. This early afternoon show of irrational force included flash-bang grenades, tear-gas and warnings to get off the streets and into the Plaza and served mainly to infuriate all present who care about freedom of speech and assembly.

The group proceeded to City Hall under this armed escort battalion. The central theater of protest then moved to the Fruitvale neighborhood where thousands of people were lining up for the 3pm March for Dignity and Resistance. The group was animated, diverse and dedicated. The march was long and full of music and drumming. We stopped for a rally in San Antonio Park before proceeding into downtown Oakland at about 6pm. Police behaved themselves perhaps due to crowd size and multiple witnesses from porches and windows.

Black Block protesters were present as well with their flags and shields and masks. The only vandalism I witnessed was when one member threw a rock at a Fox News van. If I'd been younger, I'd probably have done the same. The TV news, of course, was loaded down with the evening skirmishes between police and marchers. We had already left by the time the night heated up.

Demonstrations like these, while gratifying, can no longer be the focus of the 99% Movement. Now, we have to get serious and do the hard work of organizing and mobilizing behind the scenes if we are ever going to see real change in this country. They can roll over us physically but they can't stop our resistance. To quote Emile Zola, "The truth is on the march and nothing shall stop it."

Just Stand in the Doorway and Block Up the Hall

Wild Old Women at Bank of America

The title of this post is not only a quick reversal of the famous lines from the Bob Dylan classic, "The Times They are A Changin'" but also a brilliant political strategy naturally and effortlessly utilized by a group calling themselves "Wild Old Women" out of the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. These militant "old ladies" shut down a branch of Bank of America by blocking access with their walkers, oxygen tanks, wheelchairs and slow-moving bodies.

The women ages ranged from 69 to 82 and their issues were the same ones that have brought so many people to the streets of late: rising bank rates, foreclosures, the hardship of living on a fixed income as the cost of living rises.

They didn't need to storm the bank. Like the exiled, overlooked and underestimated elderly everywhere, they simply had to show up and get in the way, thereby demonstrating the perfect technique to protest threatened cuts to Medicare and Social Security.

No legal action was taken against the women. But just think of the possibilities. Arresting old people could prove to be the law's worst nightmare. Between special needs, mobility problems and medication requirements, just imagine the monumental inconvenience of, even temporarily, incarcerating the elderly. And then consider the negative media attention it would engender.

These wild old women have undoubtedly tapped into a fantastic idea to be filed away for future use!

Occupying Berkeley

Occupy Berkeley Rally

I have so far attended two meetings of the newly emerging Occupy Berkeley group which has taken up residence in front of the Bank of America building on Shattuck Avenue in the city where the Free Speech Movement was born. Over one hundred people were present at the first meeting at noon this past Saturday and, appropriately, a pow wow for Indigenous Peoples' Day was taking place a few blocks away in Martin Luther King Park in front of Berkeley City Hall.

The group was a welcome mix of young folks and seasoned boomers, students, unemployed, union and non-union workers. Everything was structured democratically, so much so that it became a bit laborious. The people's mike, the crowd repeating line by line what is being said by the speaker, worked as far as getting the word out, and really drove home a feeling of commonality and understanding, but also made everything take much longer.

The goal of every decision is to achieve consensus. Any person can block a proposal by crossing their arms over their chest. Then the individual has the opportunity to speak out against the issue. I know from my political salad days that consensus is a laudable but extremely difficult goal to achieve. Yet, the fact that these gatherings don't feel at all like the protests of the seventies, is a positive development, like the old saying, "mental illness is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results."

At a six p.m. organizing meeting the next day, Sunday, the process worked better. Around 20 people were in attendance. An agenda was adopted that included committee reports and security shifts to protect occupiers from vigilantes as well as the police. Supporters who are not occupiers, like myself, can plug in by donating all kinds of supplies, doing outreach and just showing up to express solidarity.

Occupy Oakland is kicking off in Frank Ogawa Plaza at 4 p.m. today, Columbus Day. This Saturday, October 15th in Oakland there will be international marches entitled "Jobs Not Cuts."

I was reading today that a military commander in Iran is labeling the Occupy Together protests spreading throughout the United States as the beginning of an "American Spring." Considering it is already October, I would call them the beginning of an "American Fall," which considering the depths to which this country has sunk, sounds fine to me!

Free Speech vs Public Transit in San Francisco

Can one hundred people shut down the public transportation system in a major city? When the city is San Francisco and the system is BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) the answer is a resounding yes. As a working commuter, an advocate of free speech, a person opposed to assassinations by BART police, and a proud survivor of the social protest movements of the seventies and eighties, the kind of power that a small, dedicated group of protestors weilded this evening was astounding

The fact is BART police, hand-in-hand with the SFPD brought the traffic in San Francisco to a standstill all because of a handful of vocal folks with signs. The protest was called because the original demonstration against the BART police murder of Charles Hill in the Civic Center BART station on July 3rd, 2011. Hill was a forty-five year old mentally impaired individual. On New Year's Day of 2009, BART police officer Johannes Meserle shot and killed Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART station. With this kind of a track record, it's easy to pinpoint why those trigger happy boys in blue are having so many problems in the Bay Area.

As we look at the events today it is imperative to remember a few things:

First of all, people have the right not to get shot in a public transit station just because they're mentally ill, black or a bit mentally off. This, you would think, goes without saying.

Second, when methods of communication media are tampered with by authorities this smacks of totalitarianism. Iran, Egypt, China, all other speech-supressed nations come into focus.

Third, it is a total overreaction to mobilize as many law-enforcement officers as protestors to try to attempt to abrogate a simple protest, i.e.: freedom of speech in action.

Yes, people were protesting the BART shootings as well as the intentional wireless disruption to prevent organizing.

Whatever emotions these activities bring up is a separate issue. Shutting down the BART system along with the MUNI bus and trolley lines is not only an uncalled for overreaction by the authorities, it is also a breach of the U.S. Constitution.