Organizing Notes

Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....

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Location: Brunswick, ME, United States

The collapsing US military & economic empire is making Washington & NATO even more dangerous. US could not beat the Taliban but thinks it can take on China-Russia-Iran...a sign of psychopathology for sure. We must all do more to help stop this western corporate arrogance that puts the future generations lives in despair. @BruceKGagnon

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Is civil war coming to America?

 

Are we heading for civil war in America?  Increasingly I observe that many voices are saying they think such a violent divide is coming.  Wouldn't the corporate oligarchs that really run America be quite happy if that was so? Divide and conquer.

I've been sifting my way through many articles and social media postings to try to get a feel for where people's heads are at.  Below are just a few samplings of what some folks are writing. I'd be interested to hear what you think about this question....

Bruce

  • It doesn’t have to be civil war if both sides of the argument realize the “elites” have neither of their interests at heart.
  • Stop looking at the differences and start looking at the common enemy.

  • Both sides have to rid themselves of the pyramid shape of power, this is a common cause.
  • Use what is common between you to overthrow the tyrants!
  • I doubt that there is a large support in the big cities for a return to the Obama-Biden-Hillary years. Instead I believe that both the Democratic and Republican party have been hijacked by Political Agents, operating on behalf of the Global Elite. These agents don’t even need the votes of the city population anymore. They can now print all the votes they want, just as they are printing all the money they want. The American People now have a common enemy: the Global Elite and their Agents.

  • Biden's regime will be as neocon controlled as Trump's regime was.
  • There is obviously a deep-state war taking place that the deep-state is trying to drag everyone else into. What else is new? 

 

  • What happened on January 6 was a right-wing populist and racist reaction, in the opposite direction of progressive demands, to the very same cumulative effects of the deepening class and racial divisions and polarization of the whole society — massive unemployment, rampant poverty, and enormous number of deaths — all direct results of the government’s policy of neglect. That, too, was a clear expression of the masses’ distrust for the institutions of the U.S. state....What is happening in the U.S. is a microcosm of what the capitalist financial institutions and elites have wreaked upon the planet through trade agreements and an imperialist foreign policy that has suppressed populations through illegal acts of interference, aggression, and economic warfare designed to create the conditions for exploitation, the theft of land and resources and environmental destruction. Our actions cannot be limited to the U.S. because if the global elites are willing to oppress and exploit people anywhere, the crises we face will continue....All this tells us that the era of hoping for reforms from above has ended. It is time for the people’s movement to recognize this dangerous qualitative shift in the current situation in the U.S. and adapt its approach, tactics, and organizing methods to the requirements of the present situation.
  • We — the workers and oppressed within the U.S. — cannot depend on the state to prevent violent, KKK-like attacks, especially those on workers of color who are and always have been the fascists’ primary targets. When have the Democrats and Republicans ever offered any real protection? The fascist movement within the U.S. — for whom today’s mobilization marked a turning point in the worst way — demands a mass, independent response from the working class. The power of working people, both in the streets and at the point of production, must be wielded to push back the continued rise of this fascist movement.
  • You are idiots. I can see the election was STOLEN. LOOK, open your eyes. Put the LIGHT on and open your eyes. Of course the election was stolen. There is overwhelming evidence of this. The agents provocateurs in Capitol Hill are nothing new.  Trump supporters did walk through opened barriers and into open doors, invited by the police who also may have been AGENTS provocateurs. The Guards were not called until after the disorder. The regular police WERE TOLD to NOT COME IN that day??? I really looked through all manner of links of video footage and spent hours doing so. Pelosi wants to make Trump supporters look bad. She did it. It was a set up. Whilst Trump supporters were still listening to the speech Trump gave, before they managed to even get to the capitol, the hijackers of the Trump movement were, dressed in disguise, already creating havoc. 
  • What happened Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol was a violent takeover of Congress by a fascist mob, not a “protest by Trump supporters.” You can call it an attempted coup. But it was not a sign of imminent fascism. It was a mob egged on by a deranged egomaniac enraged that he has become the only incumbent president in nearly 30 years to be defeated in an election....Donald Trump was allowed to become president and stay in power for four years because he was able to cut taxes for the rich, deregulate business, roll back social gains and oversee a skyrocketing stock market, all of which resulted in the very rich becoming very much richer....Not all the elite were happy with everything Trump did, but the very wealthy can live with immigrant children left alone in cages, the steady deterioration of the environment, accelerating climate change and worsening racial oppression....What they could not tolerate was the steady erosion of the dominance of the United States on a world scale. The growing hostility to China by all sections of the ruling class is because that country, which still has significant state control over important sections of the economy, is making a serious bid for world economic dominance, and Trump has been letting it happen. So the ruling class came up with a safe alternative, an establishment figure who has long proven his commitment to defending and expanding the American Empire - Joe Biden....while their stated enemy may be antifa, anarchists and communists, today’s fascists are fundamentally white supremacists deeply afraid of being “replaced” by the changing demographics that are projected to make the United States a country of majority people of color as soon as 2040....what is clear is that the Left needs to greatly broaden its influence as well as its practical ability to defend itself, its events, its organizations and the community at large from the determined right-wing street-fighters that we now cannot deny exist. 

 

  • The inauguration of President Joe Biden on January 20 is not the end of the era referred to as Trumpism. Violent right-wing forces have been activated and they are not going away unless major actions are taken to divide them and remove the material conditions that gave rise to them. That is our task going forward....It is critical that those who are responsible for violence against people and threats of harming or killing elected officials are held accountable, but it is just as important that what happened is not used to further strengthen the repressive apparatus of the state. Evan Greer warns that Biden, the architect of the 1994 Violent Crime Bill and Law Enforcement Act that led to mass incarceration, is already calling for a domestic terrorism bill even though domestic terrorism is currently illegal....Greer writes: “More money, weapons, and technology in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security—an agency complicit in human rights abuses long before Trump took office—won’t stop the rising threat of right-wing violence. Instead it will be used to suppress legitimate dissent, and disproportionately target Black and brown activists, Muslims, immigrant communities, and social movements that effectively challenge systemic injustice and corporate power.”  
  • Instead of moving with urgency to impeach Trump, Congress should show the same urgency to pass national improved Medicare for All, a guaranteed basic income that brings everyone above the poverty line, erasure of debt and investment in an eco-socialist Green New Deal that creates millions of high quality jobs while repairing our failing infrastructure, building a green economy and addressing the climate crisis. This can be funded by significant cuts to the military budget and through a wealth tax, as well as reclaiming the government’s ability to print money. These are actions that will begin to bring prosperity to the people and heal the divisions.
  • Malcolm X once said, “The chickens have come home to roost.” How ever one might characterize the events of January 6 or the several weeks since the election, one thing is certain: Millions of people in the United States have lost respect for U.S. political institutions. Across the political spectrum, people are adopting a common cry that the U.S. government doesn't represent their interests. Decades of neoliberal austerity, low wages, de-industrialization, privatization of public services like healthcare facilities, the looting of public resources to transfer to the military-industrial complex and the inability of the state to protect the fundamental human rights of the people have created the crisis of legitimacy that has made it difficult for the U.S. ruling class to govern in the same old way. 
  • Amerikastan
    Amerikastan
    Wants to fight Russia and China
    Syria and North Korea
    Venezuela and Iran.
    Amerikastan
    Amerikastan
    Got its head handed to it on a platter
    By
    The Taliban.

3 Comments:

Blogger Lisa Savage said...

My two cents:
Civil war is already here. The streetfighting in Portland, OR and Wash DC -- just to name a couple of locations -- all summer long was violent and saw white supremacists facing off against Black Lives Matter activists, antifa activists, and anarchists. The police generally gave a pass to the Proud Boi contingent while beating and tear gassing the BLM side.

That pisses me off because my taxes pay for white supremacist policing. Yes, that is redudant. #DefundPolice

I would also include armed militias threatening state governments around the US with violent takeover. And I've personally seen mild street fighting in Portland ME between young, poor antifa types and mostly older white supremacists using pickup trucks, noise, and a flag depicting Trump as Rambo. (Wrap your head around that image!)

Our corporate overlords would rather see us divided by civil war than united in a revolution demanding health care, housing, and education as human rights.
That's the truth underlying these surface appearances. The corporate media work for the overlords, and Silicon Valley big tech controlling other places where people can share information (and disinformation) are the overlords. They will continue to fan the flames of civil war because they fear for their lives if revolution comes about.

I'm not big on violence as it perpetuates itself and a LOT of innocent people like children suffer. I suggest workers join in a #generalstrike to bring the corporations up short before we are any deeper in civil war.

1/12/21, 4:03 PM  
Blogger John Branson said...

Thank you, Bruce. As usual, rather than driving home your own narrative, spin, and talking points, you have provoked us all to consider different perspectives about this trying time of struggle, and think for ourselves in the spirit of community.

1/12/21, 11:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I miss the 70's...

1/13/21, 9:54 PM  

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