No More Confederate Nostalgia in NOLA

By Darryl Barthe

For the last few days, armed men in New Orleans have been protesting the removal of monuments to a failed, White-Supremacist republic. The workers tasked with carrying out the removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans are working in flak jackets and with masks to obscure their identities since threats of violence have surrounded the plan to dismantle statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and Generals Robert E. Lee and Pierre Beauregard. Many of the "protestors" at these monuments are not from New Orleans but have traveled from elsewhere in the South in order to express their disapproval of the City Council of New Orleans' decision to remove monuments to men who raised armies against their own country in order to defend slavery.

It would be easy to attribute this latest episode of white racial outrage to the rising tide of "populism" surrounding the ascent of Donald Trump to the Presidency. Yet, the monument to the Battle of Liberty Place, in particular, had been the cause of controversy in 1989, 1993, and 2004. White Supremacy and racism wrapped in a veil of "heritage" is not new for Louisiana.

It would be even easier to connect the liberal insistence on removing these monuments to the Charleston Church Massacre. In June of 2015, Dylann Roof murdered nine African Americans at a prayer meeting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church because he believed black people "rape (white) women and are taking over our country." Roof wrapped himself in symbols of White Nationalism for pictures he posted of himself online before he went on his rampage and so, of course, liberals concluded that these symbols were problematic and, to be fair, these symbols are problematic. However, what is more problematic is that the United States has existed as a White Nationalist Republic for much longer than it has existed as a, nominally, representative democracy where all citizens enjoy equal protection under the law.

The American South, and specifically the Confederate States, lost a war that they fought in order to preserve slavery. That same war that the Northern States won was a war to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery in the South. After the Civil War, there was a mad rush to reconciliation that resulted in the reinstitution of "White Rule" in the Southern States through a regime of racial terror. The Battle of Liberty Place was one episode of racial terror and violence, inflicted on New Orleans by White Supremacist terrorists, and was fought between the Metropolitan Police Force and the White League, a White Supremacist paramilitary organization comprised mostly of Confederate veterans that served as a street army for white conservative politicians in New Orleans.

The Monument to the Battle of Liberty Place is a monument to Louisiana's "redemption" and the reinstitution of the old, antebellum caste order following the period of Reconstruction, when people of color in the South enjoyed the briefest semblance of the rights of citizenship guaranteed by the Constitution. Redemption of the South for White Rule meant the dispossession and disenfranchisement of non-white people. It also entailed a rearticulation of slavery through the criminalization of black life. Indeed, the legacy of that political program persists today in the form of a mass incarceration state that has extended the life of that "peculiar institution" of American slavery into the 21st century. And Louisiana, in particular, stands out as the state with the highest rates of incarceration in a country that incarcerates more people than any other in history. [1]

To be certain, that is the "history" and the "heritage" that is currently being reified and dignified through the demonstrations of armed men flying the Confederate battle flag ("the Stars and Bars"), in New Orleans tonight. They hide their threats behind a fig leaf of free speech, but the very history they are celebrating is a history of treason and lawlessness. They are a modern day White League (replete with token people of color, desperate for white approval) hinting at a willingness to resort to violence should anyone -even the elected government of the city of New Orleans-dare to abandon the trappings of a failed rebellion perpetrated by their ancestors, men who were wicked and ignoble, who betrayed their country and who fought and killed and died to preserve their right to buy, sell, rape and murder black people.

Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Pierre Beauregard were all men willing to throw in their lot with a slave regime and do not deserve to be commemorated for that decision. To pretend as if these men deserve to be lauded for leading men into the jaws of oblivion, in defense of an evil regime ruled by men whose position was "thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery" is absurd, and it is long past the time that the people of New Orleans recognized the absurdity of it and put an end to it. [2] None of these men deserves to be elevated on a pedestal, and the question of celebrating the history of the Civil War is moot: the South remembers the heroes of the Civil War every 4th of July when they celebrate the birth of the Union.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu will face waves of criticism for his decision to remove these monuments. Those criticisms don't matter though, and Landrieu should not waste time arguing with his detractors in this matter. The fact that the men tasked with dismantling these memorials must hide their identities and conduct their work wearing Kevlar vests is a testament to the character of the people who oppose Landrieu's efforts in this. Those people deserve no reasoned consideration at all. Mitch Landrieu, the first white mayor of New Orleans since the Civil Rights era came to an end (the last white mayor was his father), was the person who had to get this done, and he did.

Notes

[1] "The peculiar institution" was the way that Kenneth Stampp described the American slave system in his book The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South (New York: A.P. Knopf, 1969).

[2] See Civil War Trust "A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union," civilwar.org https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states#Mississippi (accessed May 5, 2017)

Marxism, Psychiatry, and Capitalism: An Interview with Dr. Bruce M. Z. Cohen

By Brenan Daniels

This is the transcript of a recent email interview I did with Dr. Bruce M. Z. Cohen, senior lecturer at the University of Auckland and author of "Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), where we discuss capitalism and psychiatry, and view psychiatry under a Marxist lens.

What made you want to apply a specifically Marxist view to psychiatry and psychology?​ Are you personally a Marxist and how did you come to be one?

That's a good question. I didn't expect to ever be writing such a book, but thanks to my students I realised that someone had to take responsibility for filling a current gap in the literature. I run a postgraduate course on the Sociology of Mental Health, in which my students complete project essays on topics of their own choosing. As it is a sociology course, they are obviously required to apply different theoretical approaches to their chosen issue. I always encourage the students to consider the wide range of theoretical approaches available to them including structural functionalism, labeling, social constructionism, Foucauldian, critical feminist and race theory, as well as Marxist scholarship. Regarding the later, my students complained that they couldn't find anything much out there. As a lecturer, I am always a little skeptical of such claims, but -hats off to my students!- they were correct on this occasion. With all the literature on mental health and illness currently in circulation, I found it astounding that there was no standard Marxist account available. Hence, the main reason for writing Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness.

To answer the second part of your question, yes I am a Marxist! Though I grew up in a very conservative -large as well as small 'c'- part of England in the 1980s, my parents were members of the CPGB (Communist Party of Great Britain). (In fact, my mother became the first communist parish councilor in the area, kicking out a Tory in the process). So I was politically conscious and politically active from a young age thanks to my family, imbued with a strong sense of social justice, and particularly incensed by Thatcher's attacks on the trade unions and the working classes at the time (which most people in my area thought was just fantastic!). But I think being a sociologist has really made me a fully committed Marxist; whichever area you are studying or working in, be it religion, education, health, crime, the family, or whatever, it doesn't take long to uncover evidence that the needs of capital determine the priorities of these institutions- they reproduce inequalities, oppress the majority of the population, and produce surplus value for a privileged minority. Is this a kind of society that, in good conscience, I or any sociologist can accept or support? Of course not! That's why I'm a Marxist. Human beings can do better.

Please discuss the connection between psychiatry, psychology, education, and capitalism and how the former institutions have been influenced by the latter, historically speaking.

Following my point above, the mental health system (I use this as an umbrella term here to bring together psychiatry, psychology, and the various support professions and agencies working in the area of mental health including therapists, counselors, psychiatric nurses, and social workers) and the education system in their contemporary forms are both products of industrial capitalism. Briefly, compulsory schooling developed across western societies in the nineteenth century due to the needs of capital for higher skilled workers as well as to socially control working class youth (through, for example, socializing them into the norms and values of capitalism as the only "correct" way to think and understand the world). As I discuss in my book, the mental health system develops during the same period as another institution of social control: the asylums separate the able from the non-able bodied, it pathologises and confines problematic populations (primarily working class groups).

In neoliberal society, I argue that the connections between the mental health system and the education system (as well as many other areas of public and private life) have become much stronger and more explicit. For example, my socio-historical case study of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the book demonstrates that the origins of the diagnosis began with psychologists' concern for deviant working class youth who failed to "adapt" to the demands of compulsory schooling. A hundred years later, we can still see in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) that the symptoms of ADHD have nothing to do with having a mental illness but rather denote the requirements for more productive and efficient students and workers (for instance, forgetting or losing homework, failing to complete assigned tasks, poor time-management, and so on). As the demands on young people to stay on at school and go further in education have increased, so we have seen an increase in mental health experts in this area, and thus the increasing medicalization of "at risk" (I would argue, non-conforming) children. The expansion in the use of diagnoses such as autism and "oppositional defiant disorder" by psychiatry can also be theorized as serving a similar purpose here.

In what way does capitalism utilize psychiatry and psychology to demonize and ridicule those who have politics that don't fit with the status quo? (This has been talked about somewhat before and I would be interested in hearing you expand upon it.)

I devote a chapter to this issue in my book, but to be honest I think a whole monograph is required on the subject. It's a fascinating (and, as you do the research, shocking) issue. I can follow many other scholars by reiterating that the mental health system is highly effective in neutralizing threats through pathologising political and social dissent. I think it's more effective than say the criminal justice system because the courts are usually questioning the legality of the person's actions alone, rather than the rationality or sanity on those actions. Imprisonment of a protester, for instance, does not fundamentally undermine his or her actions or beliefs in the same way as being labeled as mentally sick does.

There are many examples of this process in operation. In the late nineteenth century, the suffragette movement was a frequent target for the "hysteria" label. During the civil rights movement in the US, there was a significant increase in the labeling of young Black men with "schizophrenia" (psychiatrists sometimes referred to this as "the protest psychosis"). Similarly, young African-Caribbean protesters in the deprived inner cities of 1980s Britain were theorized by psychiatrists as prone to "cannabis psychosis." As I mention in the book, I think an increasingly popular diagnosis which the mental health system is utilizing to pathologize those involved in civil disobedience or political violence today is antisocial personality disorder (APD): post-9/11, you can see that psychiatry is taking a much greater interest in medicalising any behavior which breaks the legal or moral status quo within capitalist society, particularly acts which involve perceived or actual violence.

How is psychiatry not an actual science in some ways? May people assume it is just by virtue of its utilization of 'experts' and 'quantitative studies'?

This is really at the heart of the matter. To be considered as a valid branch of medicine, psychiatry has to reach the medical "gold standard," which is to observe and identify real pathology on the body. And, though they're tried repeatedly to do this, so far psychiatry has failed in this fundamental goal. Most recently, for example, the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) DSM committee (which was responsible for producing the DSM-5) came to the following conclusion: the causation of mental disease remains unknown (for example, there is no useful biological marker or genetic test that has been identified) and psychiatrists still cannot distinguish between mentally healthy and mentally sick people. And of course without accurate identification of disease, a medical discipline cannot claim proof of causation or evidence of successful treatment, and they certainly cannot predict future cases of that disease.

So, to answer your question, no psychiatry is not a valid medical science. However, I argue in the book that progressing knowledge on madness (if such a thing is even possible) was not the reason for the establishment of the psychiatric profession or the continuation and expansion of the mental health system today. Rather, it's a discipline that has supported capitalism, both in the pursuit of surplus value as well as being an institution of ideological control, responsible for reinforcing the norms and values of this society and punishing deviations from them.

In what ways does this massive increase in the labeling of people having psychological disorders affect us on a personal, familial, and community level? How does this increase the alienation from ourselves and our larger communities that has been going on for some time now?

The biggest issue is that it individualizes what are fundamentally social and political issues in this society. This obviously suits capitalism, it follows a neoliberal ideology that you need to work on yourself and look nowhere else for solutions to your problems. As I argue in the book, this is why the psychiatric discourse has been allowed to become all-encompassing (effectively "hegemonic") over the last few decades; it has become highly useful in de-politicizing the oppressive reality of our lives. The involvement of the mental health system here is only one factor in the bigger issue though, which is of course the way the neoliberal project has attempted to destroy the social and the collective.

What are the negative aspects of self-diagnosing and how does that reinforce the status quo?

As with Marx's famous comments on religion as the opium of the people, I think we can understand self-labeling and people desiring to have such a label as a way of coping with the alienating tendencies of capitalism. It's no solution to the fundamental issues they have, but it can be a means of survival and maybe a limited form of "emancipation" at times. For example, the parents of a child who is underperforming in school may desire a mental illness diagnosis so that they can claim extra funding for study assistance, or someone who doesn't enjoy socializing in large groups may seek a psychiatric diagnosis so that they can legitimately take antidepressants which dull their inhibitions.

There are a number of significant problems with self-labeling: most obviously, you cannot solve the social and political problems of capitalism with a mental illness label or by being subjected to talk therapy, drugs, or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). It can obviously be dangerous to your health (for example, long-term users of antidepressants tend to die at a considerably younger age than non-users), and it can be stigmatizing. Further, it falsely legitimates the mental health system as a valid medical enterprise.

How do you see the working class overcoming this system?

Ultimately it's a case of abolishing the mental health system and all its supporting apparatus. As with the criminal justice system, this is not an institution that has ever functioned in the interests of the working classes. At the end of my book I suggest a few practical things that can be done immediately to challenge and weaken the power of the mental health experts, these include: campaigning to remove psychiatry's compulsory powers to confine and drug people against their will, withdrawing their prescription rights, and outlawing ECT. I also think it is crucial to form closer alliances between academics, left wing activists, community groups, and progressive psychiatric survivor organizations to build a strong abolitionist alliance against the psychiatric system.

Tell us about your upcoming book and where you and others argue that "the best form of treatment for mental disorder is no treatment at all, and the causation of mental illness itself has yet to be established." It would be great to hear about those last two parts in-depth.

Well, I've hopefully addressed those two specific issues previously in this interview - what passes for "treatment" at the hands of the mental health system is, ironically, very bad for your physical and emotional health. Perhaps that is unsurprising given that mental disorders are fabrications produced by psychiatry without real evidence for their existence.

The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Mental Health (due out later this year) is an edited collection of original contributions from colleagues in the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, which systematically problematizes the practices, priorities, and knowledge base of the western system of mental health. Basically, I have constructed a comprehensive resource manual which offers a variety of ways in which to theorize the business of mental health as a social, economic, political, and cultural project. So, for instance, the book provides updates on critical theories of mental health such as labeling, social constructionism, antipsychiatry, Foucauldian, Marxist, critical feminist, race and queer theory, critical realism, critical cultural theory, and mad studies. But it also demonstrates the application of such theoretical ideas and scholarship to key topics such as medicalization and pharmaceuticalisation, the DSM, global psychiatry, critical histories of mental health, and talk therapy. I'm very pleased at how it has turned out.

Is there a way to bring back a form of alternative psychiatry or psychology at all?

Some scholars are positive about the development of a post-revolutionary "Marxist psychology" or similar. I don't think that's possible, and I worry about giving these professions any sort of way out. My analysis points to these professions as agents of social control; they have always been responsible for policing the population not for emancipating them. So my answer to that question is an emphatic "no!"

Bruce M.Z. Cohen is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His other books include Mental Health User Narratives: New Perspectives on Illness and Recovery (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and Being Cultural(Pearson, 2012).

Gun Control in Capitalist America

By @leftistcritic

With the beginning of the "Trump era," the calls for gun control have been partially (but not fully) muted. This article will go beyond the critical history of gun control and armed resistance by discussing my justification for rejecting gun control and, instead, an embrace of armed self-defense and armed resistance, terms which I will explore later in this post.

The Battle Between Gun Control, Gun Rights, and Armed Resistance

Gun control and armed resistance, with the latter used to defend against acts of oppression, have been often at odds. When the White European settlers came to the Western Hemisphere, indigenous peoples "offered heroic resistance" but they were ultimately suppressed because "Europeans possessed a huge superiority in weapons." [1] At the same time, armed resistance has been an effective form of self-defense. During the Reconstruction period, Black militias were formed to defend the Black population against racist Whites, sometimes even unifying with poor whites to achieve this goal. [2] Examples of such self-defense later on includes Robert F. Williams and his gun club, called the Black Armed Guard, as noted in a previous post, meaning that "becoming a threat to the capitalist order and defending the gains of the workers movement and democratic rights through force if necessary" is important. The long history of racial domination in the United States (1510-2017), with "systematic transportation of African slaves to the New World" beginning on January 22, 1510 , shows that the right and ability to own guns is an essential tool to "stand up to white terrorists and overt racist ideologues." [3] This has been flaunted by the fact that, as also noted in the previous post of this series, some of the first gun control laws were aimed at Blacks, which is why many view the debate over such control with caution, and the fact that the KKK was first a "gun-control organization," and that policies like "stop and frisk" were driven by gun control desires, feeding an "exploding prison population." [4] Such history allows gun rights supporters on the "Right" to claim that gun control has racist roots, even though some liberals say that this claim does not negate the possibility of adopting any gun regulations in the present. [5]

The history of guns and gun rights have become politicized. Some claim that the assertion that gun control is racist and that the civil rights movement succeeded because blacks "were willing to take up arms against their oppressors" came from libertarian and "obscure right-wing" websites. [6] Some of these people have also used the example of gun control laws enacted after the Civil War and that Martin Luther King, Jr. was "blocked by segregationists when he tried to get his concealed carry permit" to argue against current gun control efforts, criticizing "Obama or his gun-grabbing cohorts," saying that gun control is racially motivated. [7] This claim reportedly was tied with the claim that "slavery might not have lasted so long in America if black people had been granted the right to bear arms at the outset of their arrival in the new world." [8] To digress a bit here, not only is the claim that armed enslaved Blacks could have resisted their bondage with guns ahistorical (because why would the white overlords give enslaved Blacks guns at all? wouldn't that undermine their whole system of control?) but it implies that enslaved Blacks did not resist their chains of human bondage. Any analysis of history shows this to be completely false. Yet again, gun rights supporters will do anything they can to promote the use of guns. Saying that, the liberal arguments for gun control are at times so deluded as to be a joke.

Ladd Everitt, the former communications director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV), a gun reform organization, is one of theses people. In his article on Waging Nonviolence, one of those progressive publications, he scoffs at the idea of gun control being racist, asking "if gun control laws had targeted blacks for disarmament, how would they have been able to successfully engage in armed resistance against White terrorists during Reconstruction and the civil rights movement?" [9] This ignorant argument doesn't even make sense, because it disregards the fact that enslaved Blacks gained guns during the Civil War and due to evasion of gun control laws, allowing them to engage in armed resistance. Apart from Everitt's silly argument, he then claims that calling gun control racist doesn't make sense because "for most of our 234 years, the entire U.S. legal system has been arrayed against blacks" and that history is "replete with examples of African-American communities being severely punished and repressed after they did take up arms against white terrorists." [10] Now, he is correct that the entire US legal system has been arrayed against Blacks and that some Black communities did suffer backlash from armed resistance, but he dismisses the obvious reality that such resistance allowed Blacks to survive through years upon years of bondage, discrimination, and bigotry.

As the years have gone by, the " political forms of the left-right axis " have begun to change. In 1976, cities like DC led the way in gun control, with the majority black city council banning "residents from owning or carrying handguns (excluding guards, police, and those with already registered handguns)." [11] By 1989, the NAACP voted to support gun control measures, and four years later, during "the peak of gun homicides among African-Americans," 74% supported gun control." [12] Still, a number of groups have historically engaged in armed self-defense, including the Deacons for Defense and Justice , the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, the Brown Berets (which has a modern version formedin 1993) the Young Lords, the Young Patriots , and the still-existing American Indian Movement. Currently there is the Fruit of Islam, Muslim Girls Training , the Red Guard Party (Maoists in Texas), Brothas Against Racist Cops , Redneck Revolt, Black Guns Matter, the John Brown Gun Club/ John Brown Militia , the Huey P. Newton Gun Club , and the Indigenous People's Liberation Front , among many others, showing that "marginalized communities and their supporters [can use]…firearms for self-defense and the defense of others against hate crimes, protection against the police, and as a means of challenging oppression from across the political spectrum." [13]

There have been a number of current developments when it comes to gun rights. In 2008, the Supreme Court, in District of Columbia v. Heller , held that the Second Amendment "guarantees an individual's right to possess a gun" rejecting the existing D.C. law that someone could own a shotgun but could not use in self-defense apparently, but Antonin Scalia had a whole set of exceptions to this declaration of gun rights including allowing "laws banning guns in sensitive places…laws prohibiting the mentally ill from possessing guns, [and] laws requiring commercial gun dealers to be licensed." [14] This decision was also one of the first fortes into "gay rights activism for the Second Amendment rights of sexual minorities and of all other Americans." [15]

In 2010, the Supreme Court hit another nail in the coffin of gun control in the United States. In a 5-4 decision in McDonald v. Chicago , the longstanding ban in Chicago of handguns was overturned, with the declaration that the Second Amendment applies to states. Justice Alito, writing for the majority, noted Black Americans who used guns throughout US history, noting that "Reconstruction-era efforts designed to grant equal citizenship to black Americans were equally as much about gun rights as they were about civil rights." [16] The amicus brief for the Pink Pistols group declared "Recognition Of An Individual Right To Keep And Bear Arms Is Literally A Matter Of Life Or Death For Members Of The LGBT Community," which was cited by Justice Scalia , contending that gun rights are "especially important for women and members of other groups that may be especially vulnerable to violent crime." [17] Scalia further argued that even the Fourteenth Amendment contemplated guns rights because it was based on the Civil Rights Act of 1866 , which is not likely referring to the law itself, since it NEVER mentions the words "gun" or "arms," but rather to the fact that "advocates of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 cited the disarmament of freed blacks as a reason the law was necessary" as the arch-conservative National Review claims . While these claims may seem erroneous, a number of books seem to back up this assessment as a correct one. [18] There is no doubt that gun rights were on the minds of Radical Republicans in Congress since the State of Mississippi had enacted a law in November 1865, part of the " Black Code " in the state, saying

"…it shall be the duty of every civil and military officer to arrest any freedman, free negro, or mulatto found with any such arms or ammunition, and cause him or her to be committed for trial in default of bail…That if any white person shall sell, lend, or give to any freedman, free negro, or mulatto any fire-arms, dirk or bowie-knife, or ammunition, or any spirituous or intoxicating liquors, such person or persons so offending, upon conviction thereof in the county court of his or her county, shall be fined not exceeding fifty dollars, and may be imprisoned."

Furthermore, the Second Freedman's Bill the following month declared in Section 7 that

"…whenever in any State or district in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion, and wherein, in consequence of any State or local law, ordinance, police or other regulation, custom, or prejudice, any of the civil rights or immunities belonging to white persons, including the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, and to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and estate, including the constitutional right of bearing arms, are refused or denied to negroes, mulattoes, freedmen, refugees, or any other persons, on account of race, color , or any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, or wherein they or any of them are subjected to any other or different punishment, pains, or penalties, for the commission of any act or offence, than are prescribed for white persons committing like acts or offences, it shall be the duty of the President of the United States, through the Commissioner, to extend military protection and jurisdiction over all cases affecting such persons so discriminated against."

White racist attacks on Southern Blacks and efforts to take guns away from them by the KKK and other terrorist groups likely influenced the provision in the 1868 Mississippi Constitution saying "All persons shall have a right to keep and bear arms for their defense."

Back to the McDonald case, Clarence Thomas had a concurring opinion which was evidently different than Alito's . He noted how "blacks were disarmed by state legislatures and denied protection from white mobs" and after this, and the decision itself, articles appeared in numerous conservative publications saying that gun control was racist. [19]

Fast forward to 2013. That year, the Washington Post came out with an article about Black gun clubs in Maryland such as the Metro Gun Club, Big Foot Hunt Club, and elsewhere. The members of the club who were interviewed said that they loved "their guns and recalled growing up in black farming communities where every family had guns for hunting - and protection" noting that such love for guns "spanned generations in their families." [20] Members had a variety of opinions, with some believing that "guns should be in the hands of decent, honest people" but that assault rifles should be "restricted to military and law-enforcement personnel," some saying that guns could protect women from rapists, others saying there are new challenges being in favor of guns "in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December and talk of tighter gun control laws," and one long-time gun owner saying "I'm torn. I don't want guns to shoot people, but I don't want you to take away my guns either."

As the years past, more began to question peaceful protest and thought that violence could be the answer. One writer put it in 2014 that "weeks of peaceful protests and outright riots in Missouri have accomplished nothing" and said that people should act to "preserve their own life" from an out-of-control police state, and then posing the question "is it time to start resisting police with violence?" [21] This question is nothing new, as resistance to police has taken a more combative tone in the past, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, during the main thrust of the Black Power movement.

In 2015, the tension between gun control and gun rights continued. That year, 60 percent of Black Americans believed firmly in gun control, while White Americans believed the opposite. However, the racist history of gun control is present for some in the Black community, with the right to bear arms seen as civil rights issue, support for gun control in this community decreasing in the last 20 years, and support for gun ownership by black Americans has grown, especially since the massacre at the Charleston Emanuel AME Church when gun control was pushed as a solution by President Obama. [22] Taking this into account, it worth remembering that "gun control and race…are inextricably linked." The idea of gun ownership as a form of civil rights may result in some balking from liberal gun control supporters. One point they can dispute is the idea that guns are used in self-defense. From first glance, it may seem that firearms are not used in self-defense, with gun rights supporters countering that "in most cases shots are never fired, because simply displaying a weapon can deter a criminal." [23] The idea of guns being used for self-defense is supported by many Americans, even if evidence may not be as clear, especially when it comes to armed civilians ending acts of mass killing, with date from places such as the Violence Policy Center. However, it is worth noting that even the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, cited by gun control advocates, says that "firearms are used far more often to intimidate than in self-defense." [24] While they say that this isn't a use of self-defense, this is actually the idea entirely. It is worth quoting this Center in full:

"We found that firearms are used far more often to frighten and intimidate than they are used in self-defense…We found that guns in the home are used more often to frighten intimates than to thwart crime; other weapons are far more commonly used against intruders than are guns…We found that these young people were far more likely to be threatened with a gun than to use a gun in self-defense, and most of the reported self-defense gun uses were hostile interactions between armed adolescents…Compared to other protective actions, the National Crime Victimization Surveys provide little evidence that self-defense gun use is uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or property loss." [25]

You could say that this disproves the idea of armed self-defense, but actually I would say that in a sense, it actually proves the idea by saying that guns can frighten and intimidate. And isn't that part of self-defense?

In 2015, the Pink Pistols filed an amicus brief in the case of Fyock v. Sunnyvale . They argues against a ban on standard magazines for common defensive arms, such as popular handguns from Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Springfield or Glocks, making clear the idea of a "relationship between gay rights and gun rights." [26] That same year, there was a powerful argument against gun control. The writer said that the idea to do something after a tragedy is nothing new, but new gun laws have consequences for Black people. He argued that any new criminal laws should be "carefully considered" saying that gun laws, like many criminal laws have "contributed to sky-high rates of incarceration for minorities," citing the story of Marissa Alexander, and saying that "strict gun laws with harsh penalties aimed at punishing violent criminals can also ensnare law-abiding people who make mistakes." [27] He goes on to say that gun control, historically has "been directly or indirectly tied to race," citing bills such as the Gun Control Act in 1968 and the Mulford Act in 1967, noting that these laws, among others in the years to come , "opened the floodgate to further federalization of criminal laws and the "tough on crime" mindset that dominated late 20th century American politics." He ends by saying that while "every gun death is a tragedy," with loss of life being horrendous, gun laws, even if well-intentioned, disproportionately burden the black community, arguing that "as calls grow for more gun laws, let's not compound a tragedy by continuing the same mistakes of the past."

From 2015 to the present, Black Lives Matter fits into this equation. They didn't focus on gun control as a priority possibly because of the "racist history of gun control" and the fact that such gun laws are "are more likely to be used against African-Americans than whites." [28]

There have been a number of developments in the fight between gun rights and gun control. The NRA, which declared that women with guns can stop abusers and rapists, called for armed guards in schools after Sandy Hook), was mum when unarmed Blacks (incl. Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, and Tamir Rice) were killed, even when a black man with a concealed permit, Philando Castile, was killed. [29] They weren't the only game in town. In Dallas, Texas, a Black man named Mark Hughes was marching with an AR-15 rifle across his chest in a solidarity rally to protest the deaths of Castile and Sterling, shooting began and he was referred as the "suspect" in the shooting on Dallas police officers by Micah Xavier Johnson, leading Black gun owners to feel, rightly, that "they're discriminated against for exercising their constitutional right to bear arms." [30] Clearly, the NRA is "a bunch of old white guys, and honestly, I don't think they have the tools and minorities in the organization to address these types of issues" as Michael Cargill, the owner of Central Texas Gun Works, put it, even as he said that they were "afraid to make the wrong statement," which just seems like a convenient excuse. [31]

In the Black community in the United States, there have been strong calls for Black gun ownership and establishment of a Black nation within the US. [32] As General Babu Omowale, national minister of defense for the New Black Panther Party and co-founder of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club argued, "we [Black Americans] are a defenseless people and surrounded by a hostile society here in America…Blacks and African people need to be armed, We look at our history in this country…Being surrounded by white supremacy like we are, we are in the most volatile position of any race in the world." [33] Such feelings means that as Victoria Bynum, author of The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War, a book on Newton Knight, a white Mississippi farmer, soldier and Union sympathizer who united with Confederate deserters and escaped slaves to secede from the Confederacy, puts it, "we're at a critical juncture of history in terms of race relations, reminiscent of the post-Civil War era" with independence and separatism viewed as the only recourse. Christian Davenport, author of How Social Movements Die: Repression and Demobilization of the Republic of New Africa , adds that "it is fairly easily for African-Americans to form a Black nation within the United States" including organizations like the Nation of Islam occupying "decent size areas in American cities." [34] Apart from this, other groups have been formed. In February 2015, Philip Smith started a group, the National African American Gun Association (NAAG), for "law-abiding, license-carrying gun owners who happen to be African-American" which had grown to over 11,000 members in all 50 states, a sign of more interest by Black Americans in gun ownership, especially from Black women. [35] This has also manifested itself on protests by armed members of the New Black Panther Party (with questionable beliefs) and the Huey P. Newton gun club against the anti-Muslim hate group named the Bureau of American Islamic Relations (BAIR), with the horrid group declaring that, in typical fashion, "we cannot stand by while all these different anti-American, Arab radical Islamists team up with Nation of Islam/Black Panthers and White anti-American anarchist groups, joining together in the goal of destroying our country and killing innocent people to gain dominance through fear! We will be going in full gear for self defense only. This is a full gear situation." [36]

Since Trump's election, there have been a rise in memberships in gun clubs and gun ownership because they are worried about their safety, especially threatened by white racists, bigots, and neo-Nazis emboldened by the Trumpster. This includes more members in the Liberal Gun Club, which will be described later, Black Guns Matter, and the NAAG among "non-traditional" people such as self-described liberals, non-binary folks, Black Americans, and Latino Americans. [37] This included people, like Yolanda Scott, who said "I'm not the type of person who is afraid of my own shadow. I'm going to protect myself, whatever that means."

In 2016, there were a number of other developments. After the shooting at the Orlando LGBTQ nightclub, Democrats in the US Senate pushed forward a "gun control" measure to demonize Muslims by pushing to exclude those in on "watchlist" that the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center maintains. [38] Bursting to the forefront was the Pink Pistols, a decentralized "LGBT self-defense" group founded in 2000, headed by a disabled woman in Philadelphia named Gwendolyn Patton, with 45 chapters nationwide and 1,500 to 25,000 members, declaring "armed queers don't get bashed." [39] The group also files court cases on their behalf. They describe themselves as people dedicated "to the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the sexual-minority community…We change the public perception of the sexual minorities, such that those who have in the past perceived them as safe targets" and sometimes work with the NRA on certain cases, but not always. [40] At the present, there is another gun group, called the Liberal Gun Club. This group aims to "provide a voice for gun-owning liberals and moderates in the national conversation on gun rights, gun legislation, firearms safety, and shooting sports." [41] They also describe themselves as an "education and outreach non-profit" Beyond this, they declare they provide a place for gun owners who do not agree with "right-wing rhetoric surrounding firearm ownership" a voice. [42] With a range of opinions, the long-time contributors and annual meeting attendees (not all members), who they call "elders," believe in stronger mental healthcare, addressing homeless and unemployment, along with poverty, enforcement of existing laws instead of new laws such as the Assault Weapons Ban, uniformity in permits for guns if they are the law of the land, licenses for carrying a concealed weapon. [43]

There are a number of aspects worth keeping in mind. For one, at the present, as Democrats push forward gun control measures, including a number of Black politicians, White politicians oppose the measures, along with the NRA, which wants gun use to be deregulated without a doubt, and "conservative entertainment complex." [44] Perhaps those who call for Communist Gun Clubs to "learn basic skills of using weapons and armed self-defense, could become a basis for future workers militias that will fight all forms of reactionaries," recognizing that the principle of self-defense is universal, that views of guns are racialized, and that "opposition movements [to bigots] cannot function without simultaneously building communities." [45] Once we realize that, we should not reject those in the heartland of the United States who may oppose fracking but also strongly believe in their right to have firearms, with " liberals " possibly a section of the citizenry which is "less well informed than it believes it is, more driven by emotion and prejudice than it realizes," leading it to harboring "dangerous biases," as shown in the recent presidential election. [46]

Where we Stand Now

With the beginning of Trump's presidency, a grueling four years (or horrifyingly eight) is ahead. While there are some who say that gun control laws are classist, some say that gun control efforts are not racist, others who demand the removal of all gun laws, there is no need to delve in such areas [47] There is no doubt that there are people in the United States who feel that guns make them safe, whether they are part of the largely White NRA or not. [48] As it stands now in the US, gun laws will contribute to the white supremacist order. [49] More specifically, such laws are related to the fact that class rule in all states and in the US at large, reply on "bodies of armed men," such as police, prisons, a standing army, and other "instruments of coercion" to maintain order, manifesting itself in the Klan disarming Blacks, the "stop and frisk" laws in New York City, and creating "ore reasons for police to suspect people of crimes," bringing with it more justifications for a militarized police force. [50] Already, over 7 million Americans are subject to a form of correctional control, with gun control efforts as a major factor, coupled with Supreme Court decisions that authorized exceptions to the Fourth Amendment since policing guns, with unequal and unfair enforcement, can said to be like policing drugs.

While practical measures, such as increasing funding for mental health programs should occur, we have to turn to "mutual help and self-defense" to strengthen the solidarity between all of those never meant to survive under the unjust system of capitalism. [51] Additionally, a "reasonable gun control regime" is not possible in the US currently, with the need for racial justice ignored, even as some claim that "permissive gun laws [in the US] are a manifestation of racism," and claiming that gun control are anti-racist measures, which doesn't even make sense. [52] Some who are in favor of gun control have proposed all sorts of "technological fixes." This includes support of (1) "smart guns" that can only be fired by "authorized users" and connected to cell phones perhaps; (2)"gunfire detectors" or make a school a "fortress" with lockable doors and a computer terminal at a local police department allowing police to control the school; (3) using robots to detect those who "don't belong" in an effort and ultimately having "lethal robots" to kill suspected shooters. [53] In all, each of these ideas is horrible and should not even be considered as a "solution" as they would increase police power and reinforce the problems with the (in)justice system. Others are vehemently opposed to guns, like one person who was incensed with "gun ads" on TV, the rhetoric of the NRA, and romanticizing gun efforts. [54] One piece specifically, mocking those on the "Left" who "active oppose gun control," says that it doesn't make sense that people need "guns to wage an eventual revolution and liberate themselves from the shackles of the state and corporate America," saying that such "leftist dreams" would not occur because of a "toxic gun culture….with a lethal cocktail of supercharged masculinity, racism, and provincialism" and that "disarming the Right" would do more, even saying that "guns hardly keep away the police or help communities fight back against the cops" and implying that such laws are "against patriarchy and other forms of oppression." [55] While the piece may have some good points, it misses the bigger picture. Gun control laws are not the the "only ways to reduce gun violence and save lives" and such laws don't help protect marginalized communities, arguably disarming them at most, or weakening their protection at minimum. [56]

As the Trumpster continues to sit in office with his cronies and state violence increases across the country by police, immigration enforcers, and bigots, we should listen to Lorenzo Raymond . He said that in this "historical moment," hate crimes and racist terror is growing and the "Left" needs to recognize the right of "necessary self-defense against oppressive force." Raymond goes on to say that there is a growing "black gun movement" in the US based on past history, remembers that there has been a "virgorous Black gun culture" in the South when the Black freedom movement was working to overturn segregation, and that gun control for most of the establishment isn't about peace but has to do with "an orderly and centralized capitalist empire." He adds that while guns kill 33,000 a year, alcohol (80,000 a year) and prescription drugs (120,000 a year) kill more, with more lobbying by these interests than the NRA since as the New York Times put it once, guns are a small business in the US at large. He goes on to say that gun control won't bring us to a humane society, noting that Australia has such control and their society isn't humane, while saying that the "open-carry state of Vermont" has elected imperialist "progressive" Bernie Sanders, and citing the "autonomist Kurds of Northern Syria," who are not as radical as he portrays them but are actually serving the interests of imperialism in helping to split up the Syrian Arab Republic, as examples. Raymond has more. He says that "unilateral disarmament of the American Left" is new, with Eugene Debs calling for guns after the Ludlow Massacre to protect from Rockefeller's assassins (and goons), armed miners in Harlan Country in the 193os, and armed protection by urban labor unions. He ends by saying that armed resistance by the Right-wing is likely in the coming year, such as by right-wing militias and white terrorists, that there is a need to recognize the right to bear arms like conservatives, joining groups like the Liberal Gun Club and Phoenix John Brown Gun Club, since it is the only hope of making the country safer, defending from bigots and others by any means necessary, even as the "right-wing's fetishization of brute force" should be refuted most definitely.

While Raymond is right, he is only putting forward part of the puzzle. A month ago, in an article where I attempted to predict the likely agenda of Trump's administration, I declared at the following:

"…Considering that US society is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and otherwise bigoted, it is criminal and irresponsible to fight for gun control. Anyone who is a person of color, whether female, transgender, bisexual, homosexual, intersex, or is otherwise considered a "minority" in current society, should have the right to defend themselves with arms as necessary. That right is already claimed by white, straight men, so why can't others in society arm themselves to fight off bigots? You can't fight a revolution with flowers and sayings, but political power, as Mao Zedong put it, "grows out of the barrel of a gun." Gun control, if decided as necessary, should happen after a socialist revolution, not before it."

Now, in saying this, I am simply saying that any "minority" should have the right to self-defense by arms as necessary. Also, in saying that revolution can't be fought with "flowers and sayings" but that political power grows out of a gun barrel, I was trying to say that there should be a diversity of tactics. When I pointed out that gun control should happen after a socialist revolution, not before, I was arguing out that such self-defense cannot occur as effectively with gun control measures in place. Also, I was trying to say that the focus on gun control should be removed from the equation, with other approaches instead, which are more effective.

Guns have been seen as necessary by those advocating for socialist revolution. Karl Marx, in his 1850 Address to the Communist League, declared that

"…it is necessary to organize and arm the proletariat. The arming of the whole proletariat with rifles, guns, and ammunition must be carried out at once; we must prevent the revival of the old bourgeois militia, which has always been directed against the workers. Where the latter measure cannot be carried out, the workers must try to organize themselves into an independent guard, with their own chiefs and general staff…under no pretext must they give up their arms and equipment, and any attempt at disarmament must be forcibly resisted." [57]

Marx was not the only one to make such a declaration. Vladimir Lenin, one of the leaders of the Great October Socialist Revolution , supported "special bodies of armed men" as part of a socialist revolution and believed that armed people can make communism a possibility. [58]

He even went as far as saying, in earlier years that workers should be immediately armed and said something that should make liberals tremble:

"…only an armed people can be a real stronghold of national freedom. And the sooner the proletariat succeeds in arming itself, and the longer it maintain its position of striker and revolutionary, the sooner the soldiers will at last begun to understand what they are doing, they will go over to the side of the people against the monsters, against the tyrants, against the murderers of defenceless workers and of their wives and children" [59]

There is no doubt that guns can be a tool to allow socialist revolution to succeed. Why should the "Left" focus on limiting such a tool? Sure, guns can be used for malevolent ends and have often been used in such a way as gun violence on the streets of cities across the US, in the slums and ghettos of the oppressed, demonstrates. However, they can also be used to allow socialist revolution to succeed in countries such as China (1949), Russia (1917), Cuba (1959), and the DPRK (1948-1950), among many more.

Finding the way forward requires looking at the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. I am aware that the document in its entirety is classist and bourgeois in character. However, I think it is worth reprinting here:

"A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Apart from the fact that this Amendment reads like an unfinished sentence, one can still have an interpretation. I think it is fair to say that the amendment says that militia units in states should be well-regulated for the purposes of securing the State from "undesirables" (whoever the elites and society think they are) but also declares that "the people" which means the whole population of the US, over 324 million people, have the right to "keep and bear Arms," a right which shouldn't be infringed.

Now, while the Second Amendment is mainly said to be about gun rights, I would argue that is too narrow. The word "arm," which has been associated with weapons since its origin in Indo-European languages is defined by "any instrument used in fighting" or a "weapon," with a weapon defined as either an organ used for defense or an "instrument of any kind used to injure or kill, as in fighting or hunting" as noted by Webster's New World College Dictionary and numerous thesauruses. This means that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" applies to ALL weapons, not just guns. Hence, people, as noted by Akinyele Omowale Umoja in We Will Shoot Back, on pages 7 and 8, have the right to defend themselves with "fists, feet, stones, bricks, blades, and gasoline firebombs," along with guns of course.

Keeping this in mind, it worth defining a number of terms. Umoja, in We Will Shoot Back, on page 7, defines armed resistance was the "individual and collective use of force for protection, protest, or other goals of insurgent political action and in defense of human rights," while also including armed struggle, armed vigilance, guerilla warfare, spontaneous rebellion, retaliatory violence, and armed self-defense. He also defines armed defense, on the same page, as the "protection of life, persons, and property from aggressive assault through the application of force necessary to thwart or neutralize attack." Adding to this, Black's Law Dictionary (Third Pocket Edition), defines force (which they break down into eight types), on page 294, as "power, violence, or pressure directed against a person or thing," meaning that one does not have to kill or maim someone to apply force. These definitions are suitable for describing tactics used in the current political climate of the United States.

As we watch the Trump Administration from our TVs, computer screens, phones, or read it in the papers, we must recognize the need for resistance and act on such feelings. Still, we cannot be roped into the bourgeois milquetoast resistance by the Democratic Party and their lackeys and instead engage in solidarity, at minimum, with those under attack by the capitalist system within the US and across the world as a whole. It is not worth "waiting" for revolution. Rather, it is best to act in the present against the threats that face this planet and its people, even when one should do so without illusion, whatever form that takes offline or online.

This was originally published one the author's personal blog.

Notes

[1] LeftistCritic, " Annotating a Section of The Great Soviet Encyclopedia ," Soviet History, Vol. 1, no. 1, p. 6.

[2] Donald Parkinson, " Armed self-defense: the socialist way of fighting the far-right ," Communist League of Tampa, November 13, 2016; accessed January 17, 2016.

[3] Malik Miah, "African-American Self-Defense," Against the Current, January/February 2015; accessed January 16, 2017.

[4] Ibid; Joe Catron, " Gun control and bigotry ," Worker's World, ; David Babat, " The discriminatory history of gun control ," Senior Honors Projects, Paper 140; accessed January 16, 2017.

[5] David B. Kopel, "The Klan's Favorite Law: Gun control in the postwar South," Reason, February 15, 2005; accessed January 16, 2017; Adam Winkler, "Gun Control is "racist"?, The New Republic, February 4, 2013; accessed January 16, 2017. The latter piece Ends up advocating for gun control.

[6] Ladd Everitt, "Debunking the 'gun control is racist' smear, Waging Nonviolence, September 26, 2010; accessed January 16, 2017. Everitt heads the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV). He goes on to talk about Nat Turner's rebellion, the Colfax Massacre, and numerous other instances to disprove the gun control is racist idea.

[7] Newsmax, "Top Firearms Group: Gun Control Has Roots in Racism," February 25, 2013; accessed January 16, 2017.

[8] Bill Blum, "There's Nothing Racist About Gun Control … Anymore," Truthdig, January 29, 2013; accessed January 16, 2017.

[9] Ladd Everitt, "Debunking the 'gun control is racist' smear, Waging Nonviolence, September 26, 2010; accessed January 16, 2017.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Jane Costen, "The (Really, Really) Racist History of Gun Control," MTV News, June 30, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Logan Marie Glitterbomb , "Combating Hate: A Radical Leftist Guide to Gun Control," Augusta Free Press, January 11, 2017; accessed January 16, 2017. Reposted from the website of the Center for a Stateless Society which states that this article is only "Part 1." They also note the Sylvia Rivera Gun Club for Self-Defense as an example but this group could not be found despite internet searchings. It is possible the group exists but may be a small group with little publicity or its name has changed from the past.

[14] Adam Winkler, "The Secret History of Gun Control," The Atlantic, September 2011; accessed January 16, 2017.

[15] David Kopel, "The history of LGBT gun-rights litigation," Washington Post, June 17, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[16] Ladd Everitt, "Debunking the 'gun control is racist' smear, Waging Nonviolence, September 26, 2010; accessed January 16, 2017. Everitt heads the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV).

[17] David Kopel, "The history of LGBT gun-rights litigation," Washington Post, June 17, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[18] Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law , Vol. 1 (ed. Gregg Lee Carter, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2012), 9; John Massaro, No Guarantee of a Gun: How and Why the Second Amendment Means Exactly What It Says (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2009), 652; Markus Dirk Dubber, Victims in the War on Crime: The Use and Abuse of Victims' Rights (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 93; Deborah Homsher, Women and Guns: Politics and the Culture of Firearms in America: Politics of Firearms in America (Expanded Edition, New York: Routledge, 2015), 292; Christopher B. Strain, Pure Fire: Self-defense as Activism in the Civil Rights Era (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005), 19, 197; Charles E. Cobb, Jr., This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 45; Philip Wolny, Gun Rights: Interpreting the Constitution (New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2015), 26.

[19] Ladd Everitt, "Debunking the 'gun control is racist' smear, Waging Nonviolence, September 26, 2010; accessed January 16, 2017.

[20] Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery, "Black gun clubs and the right to bear arms," Washington Post, February 19, 2013; accessed January 16, 2017.

[21] Rob Los Ricos, " The US police state is out of control - is armed self-defense a necessary option? ," rob's revolting, November 15, 2014; accessed January 16, 2017; Justin King, " When Should We Start Forcibly Resisting Police Tyranny? ," September 19, 2014, TheAntiMedia; accessed January 16, 2017.

[22] Jane Costen, "The (Really, Really) Racist History of Gun Control," MTV News, June 30, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; Gun control's racist reality: The liberal argument against giving police more power," Salon, June 24, 2015; accessed January 16, 2017.

[23] The Week Staff, "The truth about guns and self-defense," November 1, 2015; accessed January 16, 2017.

[24] Michael McLaughlin, "Using Guns In Self-Defense Is Rare, Study Finds," Huffington Post, June 17, 2015; accessed January 16, 2017.

[25] Harvard Injury Control Research Center, " Gun Threats and Self-Defense Gun Use ," accessed January 16, 2017.

[26] David Kopel, "The history of LGBT gun-rights litigation," Washington Post, June 17, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[27] Jonathan Banks, "Gun Control Will Not Save America from Racism,"Vice, June 22, 2015; accessed January 16, 2017. I know its horrid Vice, but so what.

[28] Jane Costen, "The (Really, Really) Racist History of Gun Control," MTV News, June 30, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[29] Claire Landsbaum, "NRA Ad Claims 'Real Women's Empowerment' Is Owning a Gun," New York Magazine, July 13, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; Max Plenke, "When Black Men Are Shot and Killed, the NRA Is Silent," Mic, July 7, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[30] Tessa Stuart, "Black Gun Owners Speak Out About Facing a Racist Double Standard," Rolling Stone, July 14, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; Korri Atkinson, "Black Gun Owners in Texas Decry Racial Bias," Texas Tribune, July 9, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[31] Hannah Allam, "For black gun owners, bearing arms is a civil rights issue," McClatchy DC, July 15, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; Korri Atkinson, "Black Gun Owners in Texas Decry Racial Bias," Texas Tribune, July 9, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[32] David Love, "Is it Time for Black People to Reconsider a Black Nation Within a Nation and Armed Self-Defense?," Atlanta Black Star, July 17, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Hannah Allam, "For black gun owners, bearing arms is a civil rights issue," McClatchy DC, July 15, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[36] RT (Russia Today), "New Black Panthers in armed showdown with anti-Muslim militia in Texas," April 6, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[37] Charmaine Lomabao, "Liberal Gun Club Experiences Increasing Membership Since Trump Victory," Newsline, December 27, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; Shantella Y. Sherman, "Black Gun Purchases Reportedly Skyrocket Since Trump Election," Afro, January 4, 2017; accessed January 16, 2017; The Grio, "Gun sales to blacks, minorities surge after Trump win," Aol News, November 28, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; , "Firearm sales rise among minorities," WBCD (NBC Affiliate), December 28, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; Ben Popken, "Trump's Victory Has Fearful Minorities Buying Up Guns," NBC News, November 27, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; Teryn Payne, "Gun Sales Among Blacks See Increase," Ebony magazine, November 29, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017. Reprinted from Jet magazine; Brian Wheeler, "Why US liberals are now buying guns too," BBC News, December 20, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; Joe Schoenmann, "Fearing Trump Supporters, Now Liberals Are Buying Guns," KNPR, January 10, 2017; accessed January 16, 2017; Teresa Walsh, "Now it's the liberals who are arming up," McClatchy DC, December 23, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; Brandon Ellington Patterson, "African American Gun Ownership Is Up, and So Is Wariness," Mother Jones, July 12, 2016; Brandon Ellington Patterson, "African American Gun Ownership Is Up, and So Is Wariness," Mother Jones, July 12, 2016.

[38] Minnie Bruce Pratt, " Gun control or self-defense? ," Worker's World, Joe Catron, " Gun control and bigotry ," Worker's World,

[39] John Burnett, "LGBT Self-Defense Site 'Pink Pistols' Gains Followers After Orlando Massacre," NPR, June 23, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; Julia Ioffe, "The Group that Wants to Arm Gay America," Politico, June 13, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017; David Kopel, "The history of LGBT gun-rights litigation," Washington Post, June 17, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[40] Pink Pistols, " About the Pink Pistols ," accessed January 16, 2017.

[41] The Liberal Gun Club, " Who We Are," accessed January 16, 2017.

[42] The Liberal Gun Club, " What We Do," accessed January 16, 2017.

[43] The Liberal Gun Club, " Talking Points Regarding Regulation ," accessed January 16, 2017.

[44] Adam Winkler, "Is Gun Control Racist?," The Daily Beast, October 19, 2011; accessed January 16, 2017; Niger Innis, "The Long, Racist History of Gun Control," The Blaze, May 2, 2013; accessed January 16, 2017; Edward Wyckoff Williams, "Fear of a Black Gun Owner," The Root, January 23, 2013; accessed January 16, 2017.

[45] Donald Parkinson, " Armed self-defense: the socialist way of fighting the far-right ," Communist League of Tampa, November 13, 2016; accessed January 17, 2016; Nicholas Johnson, "Negroes and the Gun: The early NAACP championed armed self-defense," Washington Post, January 30, 2014; accessed January 16, 2017; Malik Miah, "African-American Self-Defense," Against the Current, January/February 2015; accessed January 16, 2017; Alexander Reid Ross, " "Death to the Klan" and Armed Antifascist Community Defense in the US ," It's Going Down, July 26, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[46] Barbara Nimiri Aziz, " Profile of a Progressive Gun Enthusiast ," CounterPunch, Accessed January 16, 2017.

[47] David Babat, " The discriminatory history of gun control ," Senior Honors Projects, Paper 140; accessed January 16, 2017; Ladd Everitt, "Debunking the 'gun control is racist' smear, Waging Nonviolence, September 26, 2010; accessed January 16, 2017; Adam Winkler, "The Secret History of Gun Control," The Atlantic, September 2011; accessed January 16, 2017.

[48] Ehab Zahriyeh, "For some blacks, gun control raises echoes of segregated past," Al Jazeera America, September 1, 2013; accessed January 16, 2017; Bill Blum, "There's Nothing Racist About Gun Control … Anymore," Truthdig, January 29, 2013; accessed January 16, 2017; Stephen A. Nuňo, "Gun control is people control, with racist implications," NBC Latino, July 24, 2012; accessed January 16, 2017.

[49] Donald Parkinson, " Armed self-defense: the socialist way of fighting the far-right ," Communist League of Tampa, November 13, 2016; accessed January 17, 2016.

[50] Gun control's racist reality: The liberal argument against giving police more power," Salon, June 24, 2015; accessed January 16, 2017; Minnie Bruce Pratt, " Gun control or self-defense? ," Worker's World,

[51] Ibid.

[52] Gun control's racist reality: The liberal argument against giving police more power," Salon, June 24, 2015; accessed January 16, 2017; Gary Gutting, "Guns and Racism," The New York Times, December 28, 2015; accessed January 16, 2017.

[53] William Brennan, "Bulletproofing," The Atlantic, January/February 2017.

[54] Bruce Mastron, " My Latest Reason to Boycott the NFL: Guns ," CounterPunch, January 16, 2017; accessed January 16, 2017; Ken Levy, " If You Don't Support Gun Control, Then You Don't Support the Police ," CounterPunch, July 16, 2016; accessed January 16, 2017.

[55] Andrew Culp and Darwin BondGraham, " Left Gun Nuts ," CounterPunch, May 29, 2014; accessed January 16, 2017.

[56] Logan Marie Glitterbomb , "Combating Hate: A Radical Leftist Guide to Gun Control," Augusta Free Press, January 11, 2017; accessed January 16, 2017. Reposted from the website of the Center for a Stateless Society which states that this article is only "Part 1."

[57] Karl Marx, "Address to the Communist League," The Marxist Reader: The Most Significant and Enduring Works of Marxism (Illustrated, New York: Avenel Books, 1982), 67.

[58] V.I. Lenin, "The State and Revolution" (1918), The Marxist Reader: The Most Significant and Enduring Works of Marxism (Illustrated, New York: Avenel Books, 1982), 572, 591.

[59] V.I. Lenin, "The revolution in 1905: The beginning of the revolution in 1905" (January 25, 1905), The Marxist Reader: The Most Significant and Enduring Works of Marxism (Illustrated, New York: Avenel Books, 1982), 508-509.

The Question of Hierarchy: An Interview with Colin Jenkins

By Brenan Daniels

This is a recent email interview I did with Hampton Institute founder and Social Economics Dept. Chair, Colin Jenkins, on the nature and problems with hierarchical structures, which he discusses in his article entitled Deconstructing Workplace Hierarchies: On Contrived Leadership and Arbitrary Positions of Power .

Some people would argue that hierarchies are needed as people aren't really capable of leading themselves or that if they did, we wouldn't have a stable modern society. What is your response to that?

First, I would ask where this "stable modern society" is? For a majority of the world's population, life is incredibly unstable. For many, life is dire. Even in a so-called "advanced" society like the US, tens of millions of people suffer from homelessness, food insecurity, joblessness, a lack of reliable and affordable healthcare, and with no means to feed and clothe their children. Tens of millions must rely on government assistance. Tens of millions do not receive adequate education. Tens of millions live paycheck-to-paycheck and can't pay their bills. And millions are terrorized by police forces and government agents in their own neighborhoods. Most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings , if any, and studies have estimated that more than half of all working Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless . And even those who appear to be getting by just fine are actually buried in debt, with credit card debt averaging $16,000 per household , mortgage and car payments that are barely doable, and student loan debt averaging at $49,000 per borrower, many of whom are in no position to ever pay that back. Our collective existence, despite a general appearance of comfort, is extremely fragile. And this economic reality doesn't even begin to touch on the compounded social realities lived by historically marginalized sections of the working class - people of color, women, immigrants, etc… The US is a ticking time bomb on the verge of exploding at any moment. Stability is a mirage.

Second, the idea that "people aren't capable of leading themselves" stems from a need to maintain fundamentally unequal societies where a very small percentage of the population controls most of the wealth and power. This has become part of the dominant ideology of most of the modern world. Because, quite simply, when a very small percentage of a particular population controls everything, there must be various ways to justify and enforce this control.

One way is through brute force or the threat of such force, which the modern nation-state holds a monopoly on. This is accomplished through the mere construction of a criminal justice system that has laws and ways of enforcing those laws. Over time, these laws become equated with some vague form of morality that is not questioned by most. You see the effects of this everywhere. For instance, when people try to condemn political struggles for doing things that are "illegal," they have subconsciously bought into the idea that written laws which have been drawn up by millionaire politicians , who are directly influenced by billionaires, should be revered as some sort of moral code. In reality, many of these laws are constructed to keep our extremely unequal society intact, and are directly tied to protecting those who own this illegitimate wealth and power . They are designed to keep most of us powerless and stuck in our increasingly precarious lives. Under such a society, a person who does not have access to food for themselves or their family is punished for taking food. A person who is homeless is punished for squatting in an abandoned building. A person who does not have medical care is punished (financially, if not criminally) for seeking medical attention. So on and so on… and all of this takes place in a very strict hierarchical arrangement where the appearance of "stability" remains at the forefront. It's an inherently unjust arrangement for so many, and the threat of force is constantly held over our heads to maintain this façade of stability.

Another way to justify and enforce this control is through what Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci referred to as "cultural hegemony," or dominant culture. Ruling classes throughout history have relied on both formal and informal channels to mold a dominant culture (ideology) that supports their rule. This can be established through a formal education system, through media sources, through organized religion and churches, etc… Under capitalism, this doesn't have to be done in a conspiratorial kind of way because the basic inequities stemming from the economic system create a sociopolitical structure that mimics and protects these inequities through social, cultural, political, and "legal" avenues. One of the results of this is a widespread, conditioned belief that we are not capable of caring for ourselves, our families, and our communities; and thus need so-called "extraordinary" people (politicians) to do this for us. It is a lie.

In a social sense, why do you think that social hierarchies and larger societal norms still reign when we don't seem to need them anymore? (Social norms were important in the early days of humanity as if one wasn't part of the group, they often wouldn't survive, but now it is rather easy to flourish alone or find people who you link with.)

Social hierarchies still exist because they are a natural extension from the more tangible/structural economic hierarchy. The dominant culture in this type of society needs such social norms. The Marxist theory of base and superstructure is useful in this regard. A materialist conception of history tells us that society is constructed on an economic base, or is based on the modes of production, because it is this fundamental arrangement that ultimately determines how people fulfill their basic needs. Everything else builds off of that arrangement. In a capitalist system, a large majority of the population is forced to rely on wage labor. This is an incredibly fragile and unstable existence because we are completely dependant on a privileged minority to provide us with jobs and living wages, things that capitalism inherently cannot provide to all. So, most of us are set up for failure from birth. This is why Frederick Douglass recognized that a "slavery of wages [is] only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery." Hence, Marx's focus on exploitation and alienation. This structural oppression created by capitalism explains the need for a Welfare State, because societal unrest would be inevitable without the state supplementing these inherent and widespread inequities.

So, according to this analysis, there is a superstructure that builds from this unequal base, and this includes social, cultural, and political realities. Naturally, the superstructure mimics the base, while it also helps to maintain it. In doing so, these corollary developments tend to take on the same characteristics as the base, which, as already noted, consists of a high degree of alienation and exploitation. This basically means that social systems stemming from an inherently exploitative base tend to become exploitative themselves. One of the best examples of this is white supremacy, which is an artificial system of valuing human worth based on skin color. White supremacy is a modern cultural phenomenon that extends throughout the superstructure in both overt and undetected or insidious ways. And it is a valuable tool used by the capitalist/ruling class to create division within the working-class majority. This is why Malcolm X once proclaimed that "you can't have capitalism without racism."

Other cultural phenomena like patriarchy and homophobia work the same way. These things easily catch on within the working class because they are a source of empowerment for an otherwise powerless group. We're all economically disenfranchised, but poor and working-class white men can still grasp on to whiteness, "manliness," misogyny, and homophobia as sources of power and social dominance. You see this psyche develop not only in white people, but also throughout the working class. Some black men, despite their own intense structural oppression, will become misogynistic or homophobic as a source of empowerment. A particular immigrant community will dehumanize another immigrant community as a source of empowerment. American workers across the board will target and dehumanize immigrants. So on and so on. What we're seeing here is the formation of social hierarchies within the working class, all of which mimic the hierarchy created by the economic base. Tragically, this perceived power over others within the working class is easily accessible, and it's a cheap and toxic source of empowerment. But it is a good thing for the capitalist class, as it keeps working-class angst directed within its own ranks and away from the real culprits - the rich. It's the ultimate distraction.

On a related note, these social hierarchies are worthy of examination to all of us who oppose the capitalist system. When we look at developments within the superstructure, we can strategize and build liberation movements that will ultimately break them down, which will in turn allow us to build a formidable resistance against the economic base. This is why intersectionality is crucial. But intersectionality only works if it is based in a fundamentally anti-capitalist orientation. Because if we don't approach this with the ultimate goal of attacking and destroying the economic base, it won't matter in the end. We'll find ourselves in the same position, only under a multi-cultural, multi-sex, non-gender-descript boot, as opposed to a "white, cisgender, male" boot. And this is the pitfall that identity politics fall into. Capitalism has the ability to accommodate these types of political movements by simply allowing individuals from hyper-marginalized sections of the working class to assume positions of power within these hierarchies. This approach is only about assimilation; and because of this, it only demands that that the power structure become more inclusive, not that the power structure be eliminated. Capitalism can and will seek to appease this kind of tokenism without changing its inherently authoritative and exploitative structure.

People seem to be (at least somewhat) against hierarchy, from having an intense dislike of their bosses to wanting a level playing field. Why do we not see more people moving away or speaking out against hierarchy? So many times, it seems that the very people at the bottom are the ones who argue in favor of it.

Yes, definitely. This is a form of cognitive dissonance that we all experience from time to time, and I reflect on it briefly in the piece: "…organizations are often able to stoke a cognitive dissonance among its workforce, which simultaneously puts forth a healthy dose of faith in the 'team approach' by day while complaining about the incompetent and overbearing bosses by night."

This particular line refers to the contradictions we feel in the workplace. The daytime mentality is one that is a product of constant conditioning, which tells us that hierarchies are needed, that we are naturally dependent on bosses, and that we would be lost without them. The nighttime mentality is more natural and will creep into our heads at times, causing us to question everything we're conditioned to believe during the day. Daily interactions with bosses plant the seed for these realizations, as we recognize their incompetence or at the very least their lack of exceptionalism. This will inevitably bring us to consider that maybe we don't need them, maybe we are just as (if not more) competent, that there really is no meritocracy, and that if they happened to suddenly disappear one day they probably wouldn't be missed.

This is, of course, true. We don't need them. But the conditioning that we are subjected to in most aspects of our lives tells us otherwise, and this makes it difficult for many to realize that truth. To consider the very notion of "supervision" and "management" as anything but insulting is truly amazing, when you think about it, yet most struggle with this dissonance. And understandably so, since the conditioning is intense and begins at such a young age. This reminds me of the notion of " bullshit jobs " that David Graeber has talked about in length, and is in the process of writing a book about. His angle is more focused on working-class jobs throughout the system, but I think this same line of thinking can be applied to jobs that fill the hierarchy just for the sake of filling the hierarchy.

In addition to this conditioning, there is also a mentality that becomes fairly prevalent among those who exist on the lower end of the hierarchy, and it speaks to the old adage, "if you can't beat em, join em." It is the mentality that creates the toadies for bullies, that creates house slaves for the master, etc… it forms whenever someone has been psychologically beaten into submission. These are the folks who have given themselves completely to the system, to the powers, to their bosses and overseers because, quite frankly, they simply have no fight in them, no self-esteem, and no dignity left. They are the first to dish the dirt to the bosses, the first to scab during a strike, the first to call the police on their neighbor, the first to serve the powerful with whatever is needed, and always at the sake of their class peers on the lower end of the hierarchy. These folks will always argue in favor of hierarchy, despite their lowly position in it, because they've decided that it's easier to accept it, support it, and invest in it, rather than fight it. And, in many respects, they're right. Fighting power isn't easy. It often has disastrous personal consequences for those who partake in it. As the Russian anarchist Sergey Nechayez wrote in the opening of his famous Catechism of a Revolutionary, "The revolutionary is a doomed man." There is a lot of truth to this.

How do people reinforce hierarchy in their everyday lives and how can they fight back against it?

I think basic daily human interactions reinforce these cultural hierarchies that the base relies on. There is an ongoing debate within the Left about the power and usefulness of language. This debate is intimately connected with things like "privilege discourse," "political correctness," "call-out culture," and identity politics. Many leftists who are loyal to materialist analysis, and who spend a lot of time railing against post-new left discourse, minimize the importance of language. Many younger leftists, who are more inclined to intersectionality or who enter the Left through a lens of identity politics, place a premium on policing language. While I realize the dangers that are associated with this type of " post-new left discourse " (primarily when it is not based in anti-capitalism), I also agree that there is something to language and how it reinforces the hierarchies that we are ultimately seeking to bring down.

Dominant vernacular is rooted in dominant culture, no? If we are to believe in historical materialism and the reciprocal relationship between the base and superstructure, then it seems consistent to also believe that all of the societal norms that development within this cultural hegemony stem from this same base. Because of this, language tends to be misogynistic, homophobic, white supremacist, and classist. This is reflected in media, Hollywood, advertisement, talk radio, and sports, and as well as in our daily interactions with one another.

It can be very subtle. Using the n-word reinforces white supremacy. Using the f-word reinforces homophobia. Claiming that someone has "no class" reinforces bourgeois culture. Using the term "white trash" reinforces white supremacy by implying that "trash" is defaulted as being non-white. Calling women "hoes" and "whores," while at the same time basing their human value in attractiveness or sexuality, reinforces patriarchy. Praising someone as being "like a boss" reinforces capitalist hierarchy. Worshipping celebrities reinforces a capitalist culture that determines human value based in wealth, or the lack thereof. Being absorbed in consumerism reinforces a culture that determines human value on the brand of clothing or shoes one is wearing, or the kind of car they drive, or the house they live in. These types of things quite literally place varying degrees of value on human lives, thus reinforcing various forms of social hierarchy. And something as simple as language, or the ways in which we interact with one another, emboldens the power structure(s) that we as leftists seek to destroy.

In what ways do you see hierarchy expanding or intensifying now that the US has moved to a 'service economy,' apparently in which there will be an increase in hierarchical authority, compared to when the US was a manufacturing nation? How has the dismantling of unions aided (as of current) or helped to dissuade (in the past) workplace hierarchy?

I am not sure the service economy will necessarily expand or intensify hierarchical arrangements in any structural sense. But you're right in suggesting that a move away from an industrial/manufacturing economy has made workers more vulnerable and powerless within these hierarchies. Service-sector work is much more precarious, is typically low-wage with very few benefits, and often does not include any kind of healthcare coverage or retirement plan. And the service-sector environment leaves workers on a virtual island, in that it doesn't offer the same potential for collectivization as the traditional shop floor once did. Without collectivization, workers are basically powerless.

The dismantling of unions went hand in hand with the offshoring of manufacturing jobs. Since the neoliberal revolution that was ushered in by Reagan, the share of workers who belong to unions in the private sector has fallen from 34 percent to 7 percent. I believe 1 in 3 public sector workers are still in unions. Overall though, union membership has plummeted in the US, which is a very bad thing for the working class. Under capitalism, our only leverage against capital is either (1) the government, or (2) labor unions. The government is now owned by capital, and thus acts solely in its interest. So that's effectively out of the equation. And unions have not only eroded, but many that have endured have taken on a corporate hierarchical structure themselves, where union executives are often completely out of touch with membership. Union leaders tend to be in bed with corporate politicians, an arrangement that is contradictory to the purpose of unions.

We see this contradictory nature when unions routinely endorse corporate Democrats who represent capital. We see it when unions agree to no-strike clauses. We see it when so-called leadership gives concession after concession, year after year, until there's virtually nothing left to bargain for. And we see it in this bureaucratic, corporatized union culture of today, where demands have been replaced by requests. Unions will often take reactionary stands that defy international and universal solidarity. We saw this recently with the AFL-CIO endorsing the Dakota Access Pipeline. You see it with police unions or prison employee unions, all of which side with capital and the social hierarchies that extend from capital, ultimately oppressing large sectors of the working class.

With the erosion of authentic labor unions, we've become much more vulnerable to these extreme hierarchies as a whole. And without these types of unions, workers simply have no chance against the powerful interests of capital. So, yes, the degrees to which we are smothered by these hierarchies will only intensify in this environment, especially if we continue to place our hopes in the government, politicians, and corporatized labor unions. This is exactly why I'm a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, which is "one big union" that is rooted in revolutionary industrial unionism.

How does your argument regarding hierarchy creating a lack of trust square with this modern idea that work places need to be 'open areas' so that people can 'bond?'

That's a good question. We read a lot about this new-age sort of workplace organization stemming from Silicon Valley, Google, Apple, etc… This idea that workplaces should be more carefree, less constrained. I've read about such experiments where workers can take naps, bring their pets to work, have access to fun activities directly in the workplace. And when you look at workplace organization in some European countries, you see that many companies have attempted to do away with traditional hierarchical structures to make workers feel more "at home" in a relaxed environment.

The fact that companies are experimenting with these 'open areas' confirms, at the very least, that they are aware of the archaic and inhumane nature of traditional hierarchical workplaces. This move also reflects some studies that have been done regarding productivity, which have suggested that workers are more productive in environments that are less constrictive, and that workers typically are only productive for a few hours a day. So, if anything, it's an attempt by companies to adjust with the times and do away with old forms of organization.

Unfortunately, attempts like these only tend to create more internal contradictions to capitalism. Attempting to mask the inherent nature of capitalism only goes so far. And the "open-office model" that Google became known for is not really an effort to make hierarchical structures more horizontal. It is concerned only with literal workspace, not with the ways in which the hierarchy operates on a structural level. And while it may appear to be benevolent on the surface, it often has more insidious motives. A 2014 article by Lindsey Kaufman touched on some of these issues, pointing out that "these new floor plans are ideal for maximizing a company's space while minimizing costs," and that "bosses love the ability to keep a closer eye on employees," with less physical barriers obstructing them. Studies cited in the article suggested that these open-office experiments were not beneficial to workers, at least from the workers' point of view. A study found that many workers are "frustrated by distractions" and lack of privacy, both sound and visual. And workers reported that these new floor plans did not ease interactions with colleagues, as intended, because this was never viewed as a problem to begin with.

With these results in mind, it seems such attempts have been a failure. And it makes you wonder why they were attempted in the first place. Was it really to create a "friendlier" atmosphere, or was it rooted in something more sinister? Understanding the way capitalism operates, it's safe to assume the latter. Either way, despite the motivations, the capitalist structure still remains - which means that most workers are creating massive amounts of wealth for executives and shareholders in exchange for wages and salaries that do not equal their contribution. If they make enough to lead comfortable lives, they may be more willing to overlook this structural exploitation. But it still exists. Bosses still remain, and workers are still treated as commodities, no matter how glossed over the physical workplace appears. There are still those who make more, in many cases a whole lot more, for doing much less (the pursuit of "money and idleness" that I referenced in the piece). And some who rake in large amounts of money for doing absolutely nothing, and without even stepping foot in the workplace. That is the fundamental nature of both capitalism and hierarchies. No amount of makeup can change this.

What is your take on the literature and ideas surrounding employee relationship management? What do you think is the actual idea around it on a structural level?

This type of literature is designed to address the inequities by essentially covering them up as best as possible. Their purpose is two-fold: to teach bosses how to get the most from their workers; and to get workers to buy into a "team approach" that convinces them they're vested in the mission in some way. This is accomplished basically through propaganda, or a conscious effort to downplay the coercive nature of this relationship. On the one end it provides bosses, supervisors, and managers with tools and tactics rooted in persuasion, to get workers to think, behave, and perceive themselves in a way that is detached as far from reality as possible. Since human beings don't typically react well to being treated and used as tools, to be manipulated, prodded, directed, etc, employers find its useful to mask this reality as best as possible.

So this type of literature is designed to give bosses ways to obstruct this reality. To interact with their workers in ways that mask the coercive power they wield over them. And they tend to be very successful in doing this… so much so that many workers truly believe they are vested in the businesses they work for, or at the very least will rep that business in a positive way to friends and family, if only to mask their shitty realities to themselves. A shitty reality that basically amounts to us spending most of our waking hours in a place we do not want to be in, doing something we would rather not be doing, so we can get a paycheck every few weeks, so we can pay our bills, so we can scrape out a living for another few weeks. For most of us, it's a never-ending cycle that we'll never escape. It's a miserable, inhumane existence where life is lived a week at a time, or two weeks at a time, essentially from one paycheck to the next. And the best we can hope for is to stay afloat until the next paycheck, so we can start over again. And to add insult to injury, we're told that we "should feel lucky to even have a job." That's the world capitalism brings us.

So this workplace literature, and the management tactics that come from it, plays into the cognitive dissonance that I mentioned earlier. On a structural level, the idea is merely to keep things churning by creating alternative realities that workers can be proud of. To use the plantation analogy, it really is a way to instill the house-slave mentality in each and every one of us. It won't work for some, but it works well enough for most. Even those struck with this cognitive dissonance will often lean toward that which makes them feel vested, secure, proud, respected, appreciated, etc… even though these feeling are not consistent with reality. It is a form of coping for many, and corporate literature will certainly exploit that and drill it home. And we as workers, stuck in our miserable realities, will often accept it if it helps us cope. Because we need that paycheck.

Gangsters for Capitalism: Why the US Working Class Enlists

By Colin Jenkins

This was published as part of the Transnational Institute's State of Power 2017 report.

Through its reliance on the relationship between labour and capital, fortified by state-enforced protections for private property to facilitate this relationship, capitalism creates a natural dependency on wages for the vast majority. With the removal of 'the commons' during the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the peasantry was transformed into a working-class majority that now must serve as both commodities and tools for those who own the means of production.

While those of us born into the working-class majority have little or no choice but to submit to our ritualistic commodification, we are sometimes presented with degrees of options regarding how far we allow capitalists, landlords, corporations, and their politicians to dehumanize us as their tools.

While we are forced into the labour market, for example, we can sometimes choose public jobs over private, therefore limiting the degree of exploitation. While we are forced to find housing, we may sometimes choose to live in communal situations with family or friends.

One of the areas where total choice is allowed is in the business of Empire, particularly in the maintenance and proliferation of the modern US Empire. Although governments worldwide are using technological advances in robotics to replace human bodies in their military ranks, and thus lessen their dependence on the working class, there is still a heavy reliance on people to act as tools of war. In 'all-volunteer' militaries like that of the United States', 'willingness' is still a crucial component to the mission.

As global capitalism's forerunner and guardian, the US military has nearly 3 million employees worldwide, including active duty and reserve personnel and 'civilian full-time equivalents'. The US Department of Defense's official proposed budget for FY 2017 is $582.7 billion , which, combined with corollary systems of 'security', swells to over $1 trillion.

According to public Pentagon reports , the US Empire officially comprises of 662 overseas military bases across 38 countries. Since the birth of the United States in 1776, the country has been involved in a war or military conflict in 219 of these 240 years.

Throughout this history, the US government, which has directly represented and acted upon the interests of capital and economic elites, has required the participation of many millions of its working-class citizens to join its military ranks in order to carry out its missions by force.

For many generations, the US working class has answered this call to serve as what US Marine General Smedley Butler once deemed, 'gangsters for capitalism'. Millions upon millions have lost life and limb to clear the path for new global markets, steal and extract valuable natural resources from other lands, and ensure the procurement of trillions of dollars of corporate profit for a privileged few.

Why? Why does the working class willingly, even enthusiastically, join to serve in a military that bolsters the very system which undermines and alienates them in their everyday lives?

Cultural Hegemony and Capitalist Indoctrination

We can start to answer this question by drawing on Antonio Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony to see how capitalist interests have shaped the dominant culture in US society. Utilising Hegel's binary of social influence, where societal power is jockeyed between 'political society' and 'civil society' Gramsci suggested that power is based on two forms: coercion (Dominio) or consensus (Direzione).

According to Gramsci, the battle over ideology between the ruling and subaltern classes is ultimately won through 'the hegemony of one social group over the whole of society exercised through so-called private organizations, such as the church, trade unions, schools, etc.'

Under capitalism, the hierarchy relies on the state to control and dictate these central organs of ideological influence, thus establishing cultural hegemony. This isn't necessarily done in a highly centralized or coordinated manner by a tight-knit group, but rather occurs naturally through the mechanisms of the economic system.

Just as the economic base shapes society's 'superstructure', the superstructure in turn solidifies the interests of the economic base. In this cycle, the interests of the capitalist class are morphed into the interests of the working class.

Unearthing these dynamics allows us to explain why impoverished Americans living in dilapidated trailers and depending on government projects still proudly wave the red, white, and blue cloth; why tens of millions of impoverished people measure their value according to which designer clothes or sneakers they're wearing; why these same tens of millions, who can barely afford basic necessities to survive, spend much of their waking time gawking at and worshipping obscenely wealthy celebrities; or why over 100 million working-class people show up every few years to vote for politicians that do not represent them.

It also allows us to explain, at least in part, why members of the working class so willingly carry out the brutalization of their class peers by serving in imperialistic militaries and militarized police forces.

This culture, which is ultimately shaped by capitalism, receives its values through many different channels, formal and informal. Part of this is accomplished through formal education, where traditional intellectuals become more specialized, and where the process of learning and thinking is replaced by indoctrination.

In his 1926 examination of the 'Southern Question' , Gramsci wrote of this phenomenon:

The old type of intellectual was the organizing element in a society with a mainly peasant and artisanal basis. To organize the State, to organize commerce, the dominant class bred a particular type of intellectual… the technical organizer, the specialist in applied science... it is this second type of intellectual which has prevailed, with all his characteristics of order and intellectual discipline.

While Gramsci was specifically referring to the dominant intellectuals in northern Italy during his time, and how they influenced the 'rural bourgeoisie' and their 'crazy fear of the peasants', he was also expounding on the general development of a cultural hegemony that characterizes the capitalist system:

The first problem to resolve… was how to modify the political stance and general ideology of the proletariat itself, as a national element which exists within the ensemble of State life and is unconsciously subjected to the influence of bourgeois education, the bourgeois press and bourgeois traditions.

Uncovering these hegemonic elements stemming from society's economic base, according to Gramsci, was crucial in exposing the ruling-class propaganda that seeped through layer upon layer of working-class and peasant cultures of the time.

So, how does Gramsci's analysis play out today? Within systems of formal education, it exposes the strict parameters set by the capitalist modes of production and the social norms that result. It explains why formal education, even at its highest level, often takes the form of indoctrination.

A prime example of this indoctrination can be seen in the field of Economics, whose students at the most prestigious institutions and earning the highest academic achievements seem unable to apply their thought beyond the narrow confines of classical liberalism and its modern form of neoliberal capitalism.

They may be Ivy League PhDs, members of the Federal Reserve, or highly influential presidential cabinet members, but all exhibit an unwillingness or inability to see the most obvious of contradictions within their theory.

The indoctrination that has essentially taken over all fields of formal 'study' and 'expertise' inevitably flows throughout society, originating from elite institutions that are specifically designed to justify and maintain the economic base, and transferred from there into so-called public policy.

In turn, public education programmes that are shaped by the capitalist hierarchy are not concerned with the students' ability to comprehend or critically think, but rather with turning them into 'docile and passive tools of production'.

Part of this process is focused on the creation of obedient workers who are minimally competent to fulfill their exploitative labour role; and another part is focused on preventing the same workers from being able to critically think about, and thus recognize, their exploited labour role within this system. The former fetishizes obedience, control, and 'work ethic'; the latter obstructs awareness and resistance.

These formal, 'public' structures of dominant ideology are naturally coupled with more informal arrangements deriving from the market system, notably the consumption process. As such, workers are moulded through a structured progression that begins at birth.

In fulfilling this role, workers become consumers in the market for both necessary and conspicuous consumption. As the US capitalist system has become ever more reliant on conspicuous consumption (evidenced in the 'supply-side' phenomenon of the 1980s), this way of life once reserved for the 'leisure class' has now taken hold of the 'industrious class' (working class).

This intensification of the consumption process has exposed the working class to informal channels of indoctrination, established through advertising and marketing, popular entertainment such as television shows, movies, and video games, and the arrival of a billion-dollar voyeur industry based on worshipping the 'cult of personality' and celebrity (and, thus, wealth).

Clearly, when consumption becomes the only goal in life, people are pushed to consume more and more. In doing so, the working class is serving capitalist culture even in its 'personal life'. And through this manufactured encouragement to consume lies a complementary ideology that convinces working-class folks to literally buy into, become vested in, and thus serve and protect, the capitalist system.

Whose Security?

In a class-based society, fear becomes a convenient and effective tool in shaping ideology and pushing through ruling-class agendas with widespread working-class approval.

As in Gramsci's notion of cultural hegemony, where the interests of the owners and facilitators of capital are gradually accepted as the interests of the masses, issues of security also become blurred between those designed to protect the powerful and those designed to protect the powerless.

The modern security culture that has come to fruition in the US, especially after 9/11, compels masses of citizens to not only be subjected to increasing measures of authority and surveillance, but also to join in the effort to carry out these measures. Americans do so with a shocking willingness.

The reasons for this unquestioned submission to authority can be found in the most blatant of examples: the formation of the US Patriot Act. With the threat of 'extreme Islam' and 'global terrorism,' such legislation passed with ease because, like all such measures, it exploits the emotional (and irrational) needs brought on by fear.

Mark Neocleous tells us :

Security presupposes exclusion. Take the piece of legislation passed just a few weeks after the attack on the World Trade Centre, called the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. Coming in at over 340 pages and carrying twenty-one legal amendments, the Act was said to be necessary and essential to the new security project about to be unleashed on the world.

It changed criminal law and immigration procedures to allow people to be held indefinitely, altered intelligence-gathering procedures to allow for the monitoring of people's reading habits through surveillance of library and bookshop records, and introduced measures to allow for greater access to property, email, computers, and financial and educational records. But if the Act is about security, it is also immediately notable for the wordy title, designed for the acronym it produces: USA PATRIOT. The implication is clear: this is an Act for American patriotism. To oppose it is unpatriotic .

This modern security culture has also taken on an extremely broad and vague agenda of 'national security', a term that represents a very specific construction of government strategy designed to create a catch-all apparatus that accommodates the never-ending growth of the military-industrial complex.

In fact, the term was deliberately chosen as a play of words with 'national defense', used during post-World War II reconfiguration efforts aimed at creating 'a unified military establishment along with a national defense council'.

'By 1947, "common defense" had been dropped and replaced with "national security" - hence the creation of the National Security Council and the National Security Act.' The purpose of this change in wording was tipped by Navy Secretary James Forrestal, who 'commented that "national security" can only be secured with a broad and comprehensive front', while explaining, 'I am using the word "security" here consistently and continuously rather than "defense''.

As Neocleous notes, "security" was a far more expansive term than "defense", which was seen as too narrowly military, and far more suggestive than "national interest", seen by many as either too weak a concept to form the basis of the exercise of state power or, with its selfish connotations, simply too negative'.

This conscious shift from 'defense' to 'security' was made for fairly obvious reasons. President Dwight Eisenhower's outgoing speech in 1961, which included an eerie warning of a creeping military-industrial complex that had become largely unaccountable, exposed the underlying reason in a rare act of deep truth coming from a major political figure.

In a similar act some four decades earlier, US Major General Smedley Butler exposed the embryo of this insidious institution , famously equating his 33-year military career to serving 'as a high-class muscle man for big business, Wall St., and the bankers' and 'a racketeer and gangster for capitalism' by making:

Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.

This shift also highlights the importance of understanding Gramsci's concept of cultural hegemony and how it plays out in the real world.

By examining the focus of US domestic policy over the past century, we can see how forms of 'security' can be dissected into two parts: those focusing on the interests of the ruling-class minority, and those focusing on the interests of the working-class majority.

An example of the latter, which can aptly be described as 'social security', can be seen in the aftermath of the Great Depression and the subsequent focus on working-class (social) security in the New Deal. Neocleous points to the literature of the time to highlight this culture rooted in social security :

The economist Abraham Epstein, for example, had published a book called 'Insecurity: A Challenge to America,' in which he spoke of 'the specter of insecurity' as the bane of the worker's life under capitalism, while Max Rubinow had been articulating demands for 'a complete structure of security' in a book called 'The Quest for Security'.

A 2012 report issued by The Corner House provides a very clear and useful differentiation between what is referred to as 'lower-case' and 'upper-case' security.

The first type, which they label as 'lower-case' (which Neocleous refers to as 'social'), specifically applies to that of the working-class majority. This type of security, which relates to us all, include 'the mundane, plural protections of subsistence: holding the land you work and depend on; having a roof over your head; being able to count on clean water and regular seasons; knowing you can walk home without being assaulted by thieves or marauders; getting a good enough price for your crop to make ends meet; above all, knowing you have the right to the wherewithal for survival'.

The second type of security, which they label as 'upper-case' (and which Neocleous refers to as 'national'), applies specifically to the capitalist class. 'This is the Security that matters particularly to ruling elites: security of property and privilege, as well as access to enough force to contain any gains made by, or to counter the resistance of, the dispossessed or deprived.'

Actions taken under the umbrella of national security are done so for two main reasons: to protect ruling-class interests, and to feed the immensely profitable military-industrial complex. When major political figures own personal financial stock in the arms industry, as they often do in the US, these dual purposes go hand in hand. The fact that it has developed so intensely within the global epicentre of capitalist power (the US) is expected.

Karl Kautsky's 1914 essay on 'ultra-imperialism' described this inevitable stage clearly, stating that, as capitalist governments, in representing their profit sectors, were forced to seek out new industrial zones, 'the sweet dream of international harmony (free trade) quickly came to an end' because, 'as a rule, industrial zones overmaster and dominate agrarian zones'.

Hence, the massive outgrowth of industrial capitalism, in its constant search for new markets to exploit, can be accomplished only through widespread shows of force and power. Once the ball is rolling, this forceful expansion becomes a perpetual cycle through the opening of markets, the manufacturing and deployment of massively destructive armaments, and the rebuilding of markets.

In this process, the enormous loss of human life is viewed as a necessary and acceptable sacrifice in light of the potential profit to be made.

The final stage of capitalism, which has materialized over the course of the last 50 years or so, confirms these power relations based in the obsessive search for more profit. It is occupied by corporations that 'gobble down government expenditures, in essence taxpayer money, like pigs at a trough', and are facilitated by a 'security' industry that is funded 'with its official $612 billion defense authorization bill' that contributes to 'real expenditures on national security expenses to over $1 trillion a year' and 'has gotten the government this year (2015) to commit to spending $348 billion over the next decade to modernize our nuclear weapons and build 12 new Ohio-class nuclear submarines, estimated at $8 billion each'.

Ironically, by upholding upper-case Security, the working-class majority undermines its own security. As upper-case Security strengthens so too does our insecurity. Despite this, we remain active participants in maintaining the highly militarized status quo.

Patriotism and Penury

Realizing the difference between 'lower-case' and 'upper-case' security allows us to see how the interests of the ruling class can be inherited by the working-class majority through the construction of an 'outside threat' or common enemy:

Traditionally the business of lord or state, Security has always had an uneasy, ambivalent relationship with the lower-case 'securities' of the commons. The law was used to take people's land and subsistence away, but it could also occasionally be mobilised in their defence. The lord or the state's ability to make war was typically used against many of the common people both at home and abroad, but could also enlist a willing community to defend territory and livelihoods against common enemies.

Today, outside threats and common enemies are constructed through popular culture. Corporate news stations that are concerned only with ratings (thus, profit) choose sensationalist narratives that strike fear and shock in the viewer.

In this realm of profit-based 'news', there is no need for government propaganda because corporate 'news' outlets fill this role through sensationalism. The successful creation of foreign threats runs hand in hand with the dominant narrative of safety that is centred in upper-case Security.

It is also made possible through an intense conditioning of patriotism to which every US citizen is subjected from an early age, where as children we are forced to stand in formation in school classrooms with our hands to our hearts, citing a pledge of allegiance in drone-like fashion.

Children as young as five are made to participate in this ritual, with absolutely no idea what they're saying, why they're saying it, and what this odd pledge to a piece of cloth hanging in the corner means. As we grow older, this forced allegiance is layered with vague notions of pride and loyalty, all of which remain defined in the eyes of the beholder, with virtually no substance.

The notion of American exceptionalism serves as the foundation for this conditioning, and has roots in the cultural and religious practices of the original European settler-colonists. 'It's there in the first settlers' belief that they were conducting a special errand into the wilderness to construct a city on a hill in the name of their heavenly father', explains Ron Jacobs :

It is this belief that gave the Pilgrims their heavenly go-ahead to murder Pequot women and children and it was this belief that gave General Custer his approval to kill as many Sioux as he could. It made the mass murder of Korean and Vietnamese civilians acceptable to the soldiers at No Gun Ri and My Lai, and exonerated the officers who tried to hide those and many other war crimes from the world. It [gave] George Bush the only rationale he needed to continue his crusade against the part of the world that stands in the way of the more mercenary men and women behind his throne as they pursue their project for a new American century.

This notion has motivated the ruling classes of the US (and subsequently, the global capitalist order) to ride roughshod over the world's people in order to establish a global hegemony conducive to capitalist growth.

And it is this notion, often rooted in white-Christian supremacy, that has given many working-class Americans a false sense of superiority over the global population - whether labelled 'savages', 'uncivilized heathens', 'filthy Communists', 'backwards Arabs', or 'Muslim extremists'.

Because of its Eurocentric organization, the global capitalist onslaught that has dominated the modern world has blatantly racial underpinnings. The 'core nations' that have led this global hegemony (US, UK, France, Germany) tend to be 'lighter' on the skin-colour scale, while the 'periphery nations' that make up its dominated group (primarily in the global South) tend to be 'darker'.

This oppression based in white makes it easier for core-nation ruling classes to justify their actions to their own. As world-systems theorist Samir Amin tells us , for the peoples who live within periphery nations, 'colonization was (and is) atrocious. Like slavery, it was (and is) an attack on fundamental rights', and its perpetuation is motivated by material gain.

'If you want to understand why these rights were trampled on and why they still are being trodden on in the world today', explains Amin, 'you have to get rid of the idea that colonialism was the result of some sort of conspiracy. What was at stake was the economic and social logic that must be called by its real name: capitalism'.

In relation to the trajectory of imperialism, notions of American exceptionalism and patriotism are almost always fronts for deeper emotional calls to obey capitalism and white supremacy. These are effective and powerful tools.

Most answer this call because, quite frankly, we are incapable of comprehending the systemic exploitation that plagues us under capitalism. It is difficult for many to understand that cheering for the carpet-bombing of Arab and Muslim peoples worldwide, or publicly calling for the mass killing of black protestors in places like Ferguson and Baltimore, only strengthens the proverbial boot that crushes us in our daily lives.

This inability to understand is rooted in the aforementioned formal education system that prioritizes obedience over enquiry, with the ultimate goal of obstructing any degree of class consciousness from forming among American citizens.

For working-class kids in the US, this 'manufactured consent' doubles down on the existing desperation that materializes through a forced dependence on wage labour. Jobs and income are needed to sustain us, but often these do not exist. In the US, unemployment, a staple of capitalism, consistently fluctuates between 4% and 8%.

Underemployment, or the lack of jobs that provide a living wage, plagues another 25-30% of the population, with some estimates as high as 40% in the age of neoliberalism and globalization, where many former unionized, 'middle-class' jobs have been sent overseas. The poverty rate, as defined by the government, consistently rests between 13% and 15% of the US population. As of 2015, 15.8 million households (42.2 million Americans) suffer food insecurity.

Because of this bleak economic landscape, many in the US are forced to consider military enlistment. My own entry into military service, for which I served four years in the US Army, was strongly influenced by a lack of options. With college appearing too costly, the job market appearing too scarce, and with few resources to explore life as an adult, it was a relatively easy decision despite the severity that it posed.

Choosing an unknown future where I could find myself anywhere in the world, fighting whichever enemy my government chooses, and ultimately risking my life and well-being was, I concluded, a better option than wandering aimlessly into a world where my basic needs were not guaranteed, and where jobs, living wages, and affordable housing were scarce.

During my time in basic military training, I recall each soldier being asked why they enlisted. The most common answers were, 'because I needed a job' or 'I need money for college'.

My personal experience is confirmed by a 2015 field study conducted by Brad Thomson for the Institute of Anarchist Studies, where a series interviews with veterans concluded that 'a significant common thread is that they came from working-class backgrounds and overwhelmingly named financial reasons as their motivation to enlist'.

As one veteran, Crystal Colon, said: 'Most of them [recruits] are people that just want money for college, or medical care, or have a family and need money.'

Another veteran, Seth Manzel, sacrificed personal beliefs in order to satisfy material needs, saying: 'I was aware of the war in Afghanistan - it seemed misguided but I was willing to go. I heard the drums beating for Iraq. We hadn't invaded yet but it was pretty clear that we were going to. I was opposed to the idea, but again I didn't really have a lot of options as far as skills that could transfer to other jobs.'

In the face of material desperation, the addition of spiritual and emotional calls to duty becomes even more effective. As one interviewee recalled: 'When I joined, in all honesty, I was very, well, that way I would put it now is indoctrinated… your thinking is that this is your country, you're giving back, it harkens on those strings, and then there's the pragmatic side - how am I going to pay for college? I've got these problems, my family didn't plan well, financially, so I've gotta take care of my own, and how am I going to do that?' For me, the calls to duty were firmly planted through the repetitive ritual of pledging allegiance.

And, growing up in the 1980s, Hollywood had no shortage of blockbusters that glorified war and military service. From Red Dawn to Rambo to Top Gun, working-class kids like myself were (and continue to be) inundated with films that delivered passionate and emotional calls to serve.

It is no coincidence that US military recruiters strategically seek out economically marginalized populations to fill their ranks - which explains why the ranks are disproportionately Black, Latino, poor, and working class.

This modern practice reflects historical precedence. During the Vietnam War, African Americans and poor whites were drafted at much higher rates than their middle-class counterparts, leading to numerous allegations that 'blacks and the poor were intentionally used as cannon fodder'.

Today, African Americans represent 20% of the military population, but only 13% of the general population. In contrast, Whites make up about 60% of the military ranks, despite representing 78% of the general population. Only 7% of all enlistees hold a Bachelor's degree. Nearly 30% of military recruits in 2008 did not possess a high-school diploma, a large proportion of whom came from families with incomes of less than $40,000 a year.

The military (all branches combined) spends roughly $1 billion per year on advertising, which is specifically designed to pull at these emotional strings. The content of these ads, along with recruitment promises, are largely misleading. The money for college, whether through the GI Bill or the College Fund, is overestimated; the supposed job skills that can transfer to the civilian sector are almost always non-existent; and the compensation itself, which is skewed by 'housing' and 'meal' adjustments, is drastically overvalued.

During my time in service, it wasn't unusual to see soldiers using public assistance programmes and receiving Article-15 punishment for writing bad cheques in order to buy groceries.

At each of my duty stations - Ft. Jackson (South Carolina), Ft. Sill (Oklahoma), and Ft. Campbell (Kentucky) - pawnbrokers and cheque-cashing establishments were strategically positioned nearby, ready to exploit the many soldiers who needed their services. My last two years in service were sustained by using cheque-cashing services that charged up to 40% interest on advancing money one or two weeks ahead. For me, as for many, this was a necessary evil to sustain any semblance of a reasonable standard of living.

Conclusion

Under capitalism, the working-class majority constantly finds itself in a paradoxical state. Our entire lives are dominated by activities that directly benefit those who own the houses we live in, control the production of the commodities we buy, and own the businesses we work for. Our participation in these activities both strengthens those owners while also further alienating us from what would otherwise be productive and creative lives. Our activities increase the owners' social and political capital while at the same time separating us from our own families and communities.

This soul-sapping existence takes on a more severe form when we are called upon to fight and die in wars that, once again, only benefit these owners.

In our social capacities, we are conditioned to follow the status quo, despite its propensity to subject many of us to authoritative and militaristic avenues. The vague notion of patriotism ironically leaves us vulnerable to direct repression from our own government. For those who run our worlds, the use of the term 'patriot' in the Patriot Act was not arbitrary, just as the decision to replace 'defense' with 'security' in official policy discussions was not.

This play on words is very effective to an already dumbed-down population. And the cognitive dissonance it creates is blatant - while over 80% of Americans do not believe the government represents our interests, most of us go along with the authoritative policies stemming from this same government, as long as they're labelled patriotic or presented as being designed to keep 'the Other' in check.

Even blind faith in a Constitution that was written 229 years ago by wealthy elite landowners (many of whom were also slave-owners) strengthens this method of control, for it creates another vague form of Americanism that can be used for coercive means.

Just as patriotism is a naturally vague notion, so too are our respective ideas of freedom, liberty, justice, loyalty, and service to our country. So, when called upon to give our lives for the 'greater good', 'for God and country', for 'defense of the homeland', or 'for freedom', working-class Americans volunteer en masse, without question, are slaughtered and maimed en masse, and remain socially and economically disenfranchised en masse, despite our 'service'.

Capitalism's tendency toward mass dependence on wage labour (and, thus, widespread desperation) serves the military-industrial complex well. The politicians who facilitate the system know this, and actively seek to maintain this advantageous breeding ground. Arizona Senator John McCain's off-hand comments during his 2008 presidential campaign, warning about the dangers of 'making veterans' benefits so good that nobody will stay in service', alluded to this fact.

When tens of millions of working-class kids are faced with the dire options of McDonald's or the military, or perhaps college followed by impotent job markets and lifelong student-loan debt, the coercive nature of military recruitment tends to set in.

So, we join en masse, travel the world in metal machines, kill impoverished people whom we've never met, fight, get maimed, sometimes die… and return home still broke, living paycheque-to-paycheque, with inadequate benefits and medical care, struggling to support our families and keep our heads above proverbial water. All the while, arms manufacturers enjoy skyrocketing stock prices and unfathomable profits. And the American military machine keeps churning, spitting us all out in its tracks.

Remembering Martin Luther King in the Age of Trump

By Jim Burns

This year's celebration of the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assumes special significance, poignancy, and urgency as we remember King during the same week that Donald Trump assumes the U.S. Presidency. My university, like many other institutions across the United States, paid homage to Dr. King. Yet leaving the commemoration, replete with speeches that praised King's dream, I wondered whether the paradox of celebrating the life of a Black anti-capitalist, anti-war radical juxtaposed with Trump's empty "Make America Great Again" sloganeering was lost on many of those in attendance. Trump's victory, which stunned so many White liberals, resulted from a historically proven winning strategy that tapped White fear through racist appeals for "law and order" and virulent anti-immigrant sentiment tied to economic stagnation.

In the aftermath of Trump's victory, many in the White liberal academic, media, and political establishment, who apparently viewed Hillary Clinton as entitled to the U.S. Presidency, fumbled to explain Clinton's defeat. Columbia University Humanities Professor Mark Lilla, for example, in a New York Times Op-Ed , characterizes the electoral outcome as "repugnant," yet he condemns liberal identity politics and the "obsession with diversity" for producing Trump's victory. Lilla offers his own "make America great again" prescription for a "healthy" national politics based not on affirming and appreciating difference, but on "commonality" and returning to the liberal politics of the New Deal, racial exclusivity and all. Lilla's appeal to contextualize education about the "major forces shaping the world" in their "historical dimension" sits uncomfortably beside a stunning lack of historical perspective, particularly in the presentation of Whiteness as a neutral norm and the glorification of the American project as the assimilation of difference.

Katherine Franke, Lilla's colleague at Columbia, provides that critical perspective in her response in the Los Angeles Review of Books . Franke characterizes the liberalism championed by Lilla as the "liberalism of white supremacy…that regards the efforts of people of color and women to call out forms of power that sustain white supremacy and patriarchy as a distraction." The Trump phenomenon, and analyses of it such as Lilla's, represent, as Franke points out and as Michael Kimmel writes in Angry White Men , a sense of White, heteropatriarchal aggrieved entitlement. Anyone who possesses the deep understanding of American history advocated by Lilla would conclude that Trump's victory actually demonstrates the victory of the White heteropatriarchal identity politics long deployed through relations of institutional power against many Others. Trump's election is no anomaly; it illustrates a history of White terror and backlash against demands by historically oppressed groups for their rights and human dignity.

Returning to the memory of Dr. King, his life and legacy have long suffered the tragedy of many civil rights leaders, who have been caricatured to comfort White America and fit a partial historical narrative to preserve the status quo. King's vast body of public intellectual work and activism have been reduced to his "I Have a Dream" speech, trotted out yearly to absolve the guilt and paralysis many Whites feel for their lack of personal commitment and action in the struggle for justice-racial, economic, social, and political-for which King and many others fought and died. Understanding King requires engagement with the entirety of his evolutionary thought, for example his Letter from Birmingham City Jail , in which he clearly articulated his disappointment with the white moderate "more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice."

Yet a major aspect of the justice that King fought for, which seems lost in the sanitized celebrations of his life and work, included economic justice for all the people of the world. In an August 16, 1967 speech entitled " Where do We Go from Here? " King concluded that "the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society":

"There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, 'Why are there forty million poor people in America?' And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy."

James Baldwin echoed King's skepticism of the White moderate in his 1965 essay The White Man's Guilt . White Americans, Baldwin wrote, possess the ability to see the "disastrous, continuing, present, condition which menaces them and for which they bear an inescapable responsibility," but in lacking the "energy to change this condition, they would rather not be reminded of it." Baldwin, like King, appeals to the force of history, not as something exterior to us, but as something that we embody, a force that exercises unconscious control over us and "is literally present in all that we do."

Yes, the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency in what Gore Vidal famously called the United States of Amnesia illustrates yet again the masterful and predictable use of the White identity politics of fear, racial divisiveness, and class oppression. Trump's election demonstrates the dearth of meaningful dialogues about class in our political discourses, specifically the intersection of race and class, and the historic expunging of the class consciousness of working people through the destruction of organized labor. Super-wealthy plutocrats like Trump and much of his cabinet, to whom Adam Smith referred in his day as "the masters of mankind," maintain a clear sense of class consciousness lost by so many in the burgeoning precariat of disposable people mired in contingent work and living increasingly tenuous lives. Remembering Dr. King in the age of Trump should remind us that we cannot realize the totality of King's dream without immersing ourselves in the full range of his thought and the grandeur of the Black intellectual tradition more broadly. Commemorating King's life should also remind White Americans that we cannot develop a more complete and humane understanding of our country, ourselves, or the world without engaging with the force of history to which the African American intellectual tradition is integral.

The Working Class, the Election, and Trump: An Interview with Sean Posey

By Brenan Daniels

Given the talk of the role of the white working class in the recent election I decided to do an interview with Hampton's Urban Issues Chair Sean Posey on the white working class, seeing as how he is from such an area. In it, we discuss the media, the Democratic Party's relation to the white working class, and end with what the left can do from here.

There is constant talk of how the Democrats lost the white working class. What do you think of this narrative? It seems especially strange when the media rarely if ever brings up the working class and especially the white working class.

It's true. As the New York Times put it, "In the end, the bastions of industrial-era Democratic strength among white working-class voters fell to Mr. Trump." Basically, voters in the Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania allowed Trump to breech Clinton's "blue wall" and win the election.

But yes, it's interesting that working class voters-white working class voters, anyway-were a significant part of the media's presidential coverage for the first time in many years. The media's focus on the white working class is predominately because of Trump and the kind of campaign he chose to run.

Trump honed in on what he called "forgotten Americans," largely working class people in "flyover country," as it's often derisively called. Somehow Trump understood the enormous malaise that exists in wide swaths of America where local economies-and cultures-have disintegrated. He tapped a vein of populist rage and channeled it back into his campaign. It seemingly took everyone by surprise, especially the media and the political elite.

It's important to remember how concentrated the media is now-mostly on the coasts around Washington, New York City, Boston, places like that. So it comes as no surprise that many journalists are deeply puzzled by Trump's rise. It's far less surprising to those of us rooted in what you might call "Trump Country."

Although poorly covered by the media, white working class support buoyed Obama in 2008 and 2012. As the New York Times put it, Obama's "key support often came in the places where you would least expect it. He did better than John Kerry and Al Gore among white voters across the Northern United States, despite exit poll results to the contrary. Over all, 34 percent of Mr. Obama's voters were whites without a college degree - larger in number than black voters, Hispanic voters or well-educated whites."

There are those that argue that those who voted for Trump are all racists/sexists? Now, it would be foolish to say that racism and sexism didn't play a role, however, how true would you say these accusations are, being from an area that voted for Trump?

As you mention, it's foolish to discount the importance of race-and racial appeals-along with sexism. However, those who attempt to reduce Trump's win to matters of race and gender alone are kidding themselves. Whites actually lost a net total of 700,000 jobs in the aftermath of the Great Recession-the only racial/ethnic group to experience such losses. White workers aged 25 to 54 lost nearly 6.5 million jobs during those nine years, while Asian, Latino and black workers in the same age bracket gained millions of jobs.

And there are now almost nine million more jobs than in November 2007.

According to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, during the primary, Trump won 89 of the 100 counties most affected by trade with China. And most disturbingly, life expectancy for whites, predominately in the working class, is actually declining. There's nothing similar in the West to compare it to. It's no wonder that so many found Trump's appeals, which aside from race, centered on trade, jobs, national and cultural renewal.

My home state of Ohio suffered immensely after China's entry into the WTO; that's in addition to the deindustrialization that began in the 1970s. The inability or unwillingness of the Democrats to address the pain of the "hollowed out American Heartland," as I call it, brought them disaster on November 8. Trump won HALF the union vote in Ohio. That's unprecedented for a Republican candidate.

Some would say that those who voted for Trump are getting exactly what they deserve, as they voted Republican. While understandable, isn't that line of thinking a bit of a problem seeing as how these very same people didn't really have any other options besides Republicans or neoliberal Democrats, both of which would have damned them?

Those who say that Trump voters get what they deserve are actually feeding into the Trump movement. It's important to understand where many of these people are coming from. Now, I'm not talking about the Alt-Right or the Klan elements, but I'd clearly place them in the minority. If we write off a huge chunk of the working class, how are we ever going to build a movement of working people?

In his book, Listen, Liberal: Or, Whatever Happened to the Party of the People? Thomas Franks dissects the decades-long movement of the Democrats into the neoliberal camp. The Democratic Party is America's left party; it's why the party exists. Yet Democrats increasingly represent a tiny fraction of Americans, not the top 1 percent, but the top 10 percent. Unions, industrial workers, service workers, etc., have no place left to turn. Many ran to Trump's campaign. Condemning those voters as completely stupid or as a "basket of deplorables" will simply give us eight years of Donald Trump. Liberals would do much better by looking in the mirror.

There seems to be something of a stereotype of poor whites who voted for Trump as these dumb, backwards people who can't figure out their own interests, which doesn't seem true, as Washington Post reported in November that people voted for Trump as they saw him as vital to securing their economic interests . Seeing as how you are from an area that voted for Trump, how would you characterize the people there?

The Washington Post article you mentioned gets to the heart of it. Obama actually carried Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin-twice. The idea that Hillary couldn't win these states is pretty laughable. Trump is the first Republican candidate in 30 years to be really competitive here in Ohio's Mahoning Valley, and he became competitive by running a populist campaign. By contrast, Clinton couldn't even elucidate a reason why she wanted to be president, other than the fact that she wanted to be president. The deindustrialized communities of the Rust Belt voted for disruption. Why? They've clearly gained little from the status quo. Perhaps the Democrats should listen…

What are your thoughts on the attempt by Jill Stein and others to engage in a vote recount or try to pressure the electoral college to vote for Clinton?

Stein's recount effort proved to be a waste of time and resources. It represents one of several misguided efforts (such as the attempt to influence electoral voters to defy Trump) to derail the Trump Train. I see it as one more effort to avoid building a real movement for change. Say what you want about the right, but they understand how to organize and influence power. Liberals and progressives? Not so much.

There is large amounts of anger and frustration at the election of Trump, however, it seems to be being put into marching and backing other Democratic candidates, some of whom such as Bernie Sanders, have said they would work with Trump. Why do you think that people are still pushing for the same old solutions, when those clearly have not worked?

The left is badly fractured and demoralized. The failure of the Democratic Party and the failure of movements such as Occupy have left many on the left confused and bewildered. For decades, communism served as the one great unifier for many leftist movements, but communism is dead. No coherent competing philosophy has emerged to counter capitalism and neoliberalism. You can see this in Europe where nationalism and right-wing populism are on the rise. The left across the West is perplexed about how to deal with it.

What is to be done? No one seems to know at this point, and we don't have time much time left to figure it out.

Welcome to the Trump Era: Time To Rethink the Word "Allies" (Yes, White Women, We Are Looking At You)

By Cherise Charleswell

The Orange Empire Strikes

On January 20, 2017 we will be entering what some have begun to call the Trump Era, an era that will be post-facts, considering the disdain that Donald Trump seems to have for facts and truth . It will also likely be marked with attacks on civil liberties, civil rights, women's rights, and LGBTQ rights, along with cuts to social services and funding of government agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Health & Human Services, and Department of Education. When a President is elected on a platform of climate change denial and promises to end the Affordable Care Act, all of this should be expected. However, this clearly is just the beginning of attempts to erode democracy and the right to dissent. In fact, any form of dissent or disagreement has been viewed as an unforgivable slight that cannot be ignored by President-Elect Donald Trump, a man who is unable to control his emotions and "Twitter fingers," often rushing to provide 140-character responses with startling regularity. Then there is the scandal at the Department of Energy , where the Trump transition team sent a 74-point questionnaire to workers, requesting an inventory of all agency employees or contractors who attended meetings or conferences on climate change, and asking for a current list of professional society memberships of any lab staff. All this has raised fears among civil rights lawyers specializing in federal worker whistleblower protections, who say the incoming administration is at a minimum trying to influence or limit the research at the Department. And at worst, attempting to target employees with views that run counter to the president-elect. The incoming administration's and Republican party's anti-science stand has actually led to Scientists frantically copying U.S. climate data because of fears that it may vanish under the new administration.

Then there is the recent failed attempt of the Republican-majority House of Representatives to end the House of Ethics Office , which was swiftly and rightfully met with backlash.

There are arguably Dark and Dangerous days ahead, particularly for women and other minority groups (Latino- particularly Mexican-Americans, African Americans, Asians, Muslims, LGTBQ) in the United States, all of whom were individually attacked during Trump's campaign. Since the Presidential election there has been a reported rise in hate crimes and speech, where many of the offenders are actually referring to Donald Trump and "Making America Great Again" amidst their acts of hate. See here , and here - regarding attacks against Jews, despite the GOP's peculiar love affair with Israel. Proving once and for all that they view they view this "Greatness" as a throwback to the time when White Protestant Heterosexual men (and women) were the majority, and discrimination and segregation were the status quo.

His Administration, and the Republicans that are seizing this opportunity, with control of the Legislative and Executive branch of government, have already announced their priorities to defund, repeal, and cut programs that helped to ensure access to health for women and others, including what some may refer to as an all-out war on women's bodies:

· Supposed Man of Faith, Vice President Michael Pence's statement to the press explaining that the Administration promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and that it will be THE priority of the Trump administration. Now they have been saying this and attempting to do so for 8 years now, but still have yet to come up with a replacement. And on January 5, 2017, before Trump takes office and President Obama's final address the Senate voted 51 to 48 to repeal the Affordable Care Act .

· Promises to defund Planned Parenthood. To see what's at stake there, revisit my Ensuring the Right To Reproductive Health: The American Public Health Association Takes A Stand With Planned Parenthood .

· Mike Pence has actually positioned himself as an opponent of Planned Parenthood and has openly acted to dismantle the organization. In October 2016, during a speech at Liberty University, he promised that "a Trump-Pence administration will defund Planned Parenthood and redirect those dollars to women's health care that doesn't provide abortion services." In addition, in 2011, the House of Representatives passed a bill co-sponsored by Pence to defund the group.

· Making the Hyde Amendment permanent law to protect taxpayers from having to pay for abortions. Despite asking then mistress-Marla Maples to have an abortion , in 2016, Donald Trump stated that abortions are "not acceptable," and that women who try to obtain them should be subject " to some form of punishment ." Following a public outcry, Trump backtracked on his remarks , saying it's not women who should be punished for having an abortion, but the doctors who perform the procedure.

· Making open promises not to cut social security, while stacking his cabinet with millionaires and lobbyist who are Pro-Privatization . A lesson in believing what people "show you", not what they "tell you".

· Continuing to deny what scientist, public health specialists, human rights activists worldwide, and others agree is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. Climate change and environmental degradation. The Trump administration is unfortunately a triumph for climate change deniers .

The Blame Game

Now that we are in this era we cannot make the same mistake as previous generations, and that is to dismiss history and not take the time to truly reflect on how we got here. This process of reflection should not solely be about placing blame, but accountability has to be done. In a previous article Bamboozled: On African Americans and Feminists Casting Their Votes for Hillary Clinton , I discussed many of the blaring problems with Hillary Clinton's candidacy, much of which has also been pointed out by many others, such as Michelle Alexander, author of the New Jim Crow. Yet, the DNC is still taking it upon themselves to deflect and blame Russia for hacking emails -while ignoring the fact that even if hacked, the Russians did not create the content of those emails. The Russians did not set out to sabotage Bernie Sanders' campaign and disenfranchise many Democratic voters. The DNC did that, and needs to take full responsibility for it and the fall out that it created, which includes the millions of dismayed voters who chose to sit out the 2016 elections all together. Seriously, constantly blaming and being upset with Russia for their deceit is the equivalent of being upset with a Woman who chooses to let her friend know that her husband is cheating on her. Maybe she decides to share a Tinder profile as "evidence" with her friend. Perhaps she got the information because the husband left his phone unlocked. None of this changes the fact that the husband - like the DNC-did the cheating.

But the DNC's blame does not stop there. It includes lashing out at those who voted for third-party candidates (again a foolish strategy that will only help to further distance and infuriate these voters), and then the DNC actually had the audacity to lash out against minority voters who did not show up at the polls. Those who have been left off the hook, who have seemed to be forgiven because they are part of this often-mentioned group, are "white working class" voters - the people who seem to be the only group that has a right to be angry and heard. The group who is just now feeling the effects of unchecked capitalism, high rates of unemployment, and poverty. And this is why a historical lens is always needed. Other historically disenfranchised groups could literally just leave the " Welcome" mat out for them. A welcome to their reality. Malcolm X once made the remark that when "America catches a cold, Black people catch pneumonia," and this speaks to the historical social disparities that continue to exist. For instance, one can consider the national unemployment rate (4.9), and that of Native Americans (11.3%), African Americans (8.8%), and Latinos (5.6%). For a further explanation of why this focus on the White working class voter in a country that has changed greatly in terms of demographics and attitudes is problematic, see here .

Still, the greatest problem with the DNC's misdirected blame game is that it goes back to asking groups of people whose issues are not acknowledged or addressed until it comes to election time - to mobilize and do the heavy lifting, and this is especially true of Black women, who were the largest voting block for Hillary Clinton. Malcolm X once described this problem in his speech Ballot or the Bullet . This is an issue that has been discussed in great detail by Black- and intersectional feminists.

Intersectionality: Seeing Beyond Privilege

But let's focus on this term intersectionality, coined by Kimberlee Crenshaw, Civil rights advocate, educator, and leading scholar. While Black feminists and other feminists of color have pointed out the relevance of an intersectional framework in politics and legislation, establishment feminism - including Hillary Clinton, her pants-suit nation, and the strategist at the DNC - focused on what seemed to be a revisionist history of Suffragists and Second-Wave Feminists., conveniently ignoring the racism and classism present in both movements. Yes, the part of history that most white feminists would like to forget, or have not even been taught about (conveniently not discussed and swept under the rug), includes historical facts such as - once it became apparent that the right to vote would either come first to Black men or White women, the White suffragettes quickly betrayed Black women who had worked beside them. Just reference the history of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and their treatment of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, many white feminists extended this indifference toward intersectional issues throughout the 2016 Primaries and National election - up until it was too late. Sure, they conveniently put on a "dog-and-puppy show" inviting the mothers of victims of state-sanctioned violence out to attend the 2016 Democratic National Convention, referring to them as " Mothers of the Movement" after previously refusing to provide a space for Black Lives Matter protestors or even have an open and honest conversation about the Clinton legacy and Hillary's use of the term "super predators" to describe African American children. Still, there was the concerns with Hillary's dishonesty, lack of sincerity, pandering, and bolstering of imperialist foreign policy that primarily negatively impacted women and children, people of color, and the poor through war, political de-stabilization and disenfranchisement, environmental degradation, and unchecked capitalism.

Again, there should be no surprise that we are in a Trump Era, given the DNC's support of a candidate as flawed and out-of-touch as Hillary Clinton, despite the electorate's demands for Change and a much needed rift between multinational corporations and those in government. I am not one to readily believe in psychic powers, and I do not believe they were needed to predict this win. It is something that I pointed out in my interview for the Hampton Institute's podcast, A Different Lens, entitled, False Feminists & Hillary Clinton.

Intersectionality has always been understood by Black feminists and other feminists of color, as well as women of color in general who do not identify as feminists or may not be familiar with the term. They literally LIVE the reality of intersectionality, leading lives where they do not have the privilege to ignore the impact of racism, sexism/misogyny, and classism on their lives; and it is this perspective and understanding which really sets them apart from white feminists (often referred to as allies) and certainly white women voters. In the 2016 election white women voted 53% for Donald Trump (compared to only 43% who voted for Clinton ), making it clear that they certainly do not view the world through an intersectional lens, and that white privilege for the most part " trumps" solidarity or womanhood/sisterhood.

A Closer Look at the 2016 Exit Polls:

There was a distinct racial gap between voters, which opened wider when age and religion came into play.

· 58% of White women voters ages 45-64 voted for Trump (perhaps they remember the days of blatant White supremacy - and thought that a Trump presidency would harken back to that and "Make America Great Again".

· And again, it was not just White working class women who supported Trump - 45% of White college educated women supported Trump.

· 64% of White Protestant women also voted for Trump.

· While 88% of Black voters supported Clinton.

· And 65% of Latino voters supported Clinton

Source: NBC News Exit Poll

Further, as much as the media likes to focus on the uninformed, uneducated, poor, working-class white voters, the fact of the matter is that the educated and more affluent voters came out in support of Trump. The median income of Trump voters was reported to be $72,000--- $16,000 more than the national average. Perhaps one can make the argument that when it comes to a platform characterized by racism and ran by a millionaire who will look out for corporate interest and that of the upper middle class - these people really may have believed that they were "voting for their own interests, and not against it."

The reality of who Showed Up to vote for Donald Trump sent Comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actress, media critic, and television host, Samantha Bee, to unleash a tirade that bemoan the country's decision, calling out the group responsible for his election: " The Caucasian nation showed up in droves to vote for Trump, so I don't want to hear a goddamn word about Black voter turnout…… How many times do we expect Black people to build our country for us? ........Continuing with " If all 3.3 million Muslims in America apparently have to be held accountable for every radical terrorist, then white people better be ready to take their responsibility for their peers, too. "

Then there is the fact that Trump's candidacy did not come into question, or begin to lose endorsements, until the "Grab Them By The Pussy" moment; because his crass remarks were specifically about White women, sending many to clutch their pearls and wag their tongues in disgust. Apparently, he had taken things too far! And this despicable reality was appropriately addressed by Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, in her article " Dear Fellow White Women: We Fucked This Up:

"After all the supposed progress we've made, painstakingly trying to change a white feminist movement into an intersectional one (and for that we have only the hard work of women of color to thank ), white women didn't show up to fight back against a man whose rhetoric and policies directly attack women of color , immigrant women , Muslim women , LGBTQ women and more ."

She goes on to add:

"So I am ashamed. I am ashamed of my country. I am ashamed of white people. But more than anyone else, I am ashamed of white women. Is this who we really are? Clearly ― and it is who we have always been ."

So, who really are these "White middle class, educated, women" supporters of Trump, who helped to usher in this era of despair?

I think that the following excerpt from the Buzzfeed article " Meet the Ivanka Trump Voter " provides a great description:

There's a Trump supporter you rarely see at rallies, but whose existence has been affirmed, again and again, through polling. Call her the Ivanka Voter. She lives in the suburbs. She has great highlights, most certainly not out of the box. She might be middle-aged, with kids in high school or college, or a stay-at-home mom; she might be an up-and-coming professional, not yet married. She lives in the well-to-do suburbs - places like Rochester, Michigan; Indian Hill, Ohio; Eden Prairie, Minnesota; and Haverford, Pennsylvania. She had to drive to get to the rally, because not enough people would come if he held one where she actually lived. She wears expensive jeans tucked into her cute boots. She doesn't wear a Trump shirt - but she might wear a button on her fashionable sweater. She shops at Nordstrom, and Macy's, and Marshall's.

This voter is almost entirely absent from the images that proliferate around Trump and his events, which are overwhelmed with obvious signifiers of class: the men and women depicted might be overweight, have bad haircuts, or wear crass T-shirts. They might have bad teeth. They might be worked up, red-faced, quoted spouting a racial epithet. They're the heavily mythologized "white working class": men and women who've been left behind by globalization, ignored by both parties, and magnetized by Trump

More about this group:

· They most likely do not consider themselves racist - and much of that is because they truly do not know what racism is. However, even if they do not see themselves as racist - they have no problem supporting a racist.

· They have the privilege of voting for Donald, even when they do not "agree with EVERYTHING" he's said. And as people of color and others are being openly attacked, based on his inflammatory remarks, that has emboldened bigots and racists --- they also have the privilege of knowing that they will not be attacked by these groups of people.

· They are certainly not all conservative, and may view themselves as socially moderate. It should not be hard to believe that white women also have abortions. The fact that there decision to vote for Trump jeopardizes this freedom-is one clear example of where they did vote against their own interest; regardless of socioeconomic status.

· They do not realize that the way that you vote, much like budgets are a reflection of morals. It is about what you prioritize and what you deem acceptable.

· They are dangerous - moving in silence, while secretly upholding white supremacy. Essentially the vote for Trump is just another example of the use of macroaggression against minorities. More about that here , here, and here.

· They are willing to look past blatant nepotism and cronyism when it comes to Ivanka Trump, and they actually believe that she is qualified to serve in her father's cabinet and hold a position of prestige and power. Why?? Because they like her, find her relatable, and think that she has phenomenal people skills. And we should note that this reflects the same mentality of the "Ol' boys club" that ensured that only those who one lives amongst and interacts with (other white people) would be those who were (are still) able to get the most prestigious positions, or employment period. But hey, why should we demand that Ivanka be qualified, when her father is grossly unqualified for the position that he was elected to serve?

Moving In Silence. Silence in the Face of Fascism

Let's go back to the issue of silence, and how these "Ivanka Voters" may not have openly taken part in the rallies, shied away from the cameras, and chose to not openly discuss their support from Trump. They told exit pollers one thing, and their actions reflected the exact opposite.

This tradition of doing things in "Secret" to uphold white supremacy is certainly nothing new. Just consider the KKK and their love of white sheets that serve as their cloak of anonymity. This practice of Secrecy helped to spawn the use of Dog Whistle politics, covert in nature, allowing for one to readily go back and deny charges of racism.

When looking closely at their actions, and the need to hide their true intentions, one can only assume that they went through all of these shenanigans because they knew Who and What they were supporting, a racist and bigot, and they did not want to admit it to themselves and colleagues. They didn't want to face judgment. They did not want to explain why they were casting their vote for a candidate who was openly endorsed by the KKK, and for whom the KKK held parades in celebration following his election. Leaving them with no way to pretend that they didn't notice that he was not a racist. Ultimately, what they have shown us all is that they are not to be trusted, that being women does not automatically make them an ally, and further that we must come to the realization that not all women should be viewed as minorities or "marginalized majorities." The Ivanka voter was not fighting to dismantle systems of oppression, racism, and discrimination; they were fighting to uphold them, because they believe they are part of and benefit from that power structure. In the words of the late Poet, memoirist, actress, dancer, and civil rights activist, Dr. Maya Angelou, "When people show you who they are, believe them."

What is clear is that there was a convenient narrative to Blame a certain subset of voters, particularly white, uneducated, "low informed" and working-class women; and that was done because it is more difficult to deal with the fact that even the more educated and affluent white women, those who benefitted the most from Affirmative action, the women's rights movements, and may (or may have identified) as Second Wave feminists, quietly and secretly casted their votes for Donald Trump. And they did so because they have the privilege -- white, affluent-- to look past his racist views, even his misogyny.

In terms of Pants Suit nation and the white feminists who could not understand why many women of color and others had such a visceral reaction and disdain for Hillary Clinton as a candidate-this image from Glamour magazine provides the best visualization of the problem . In describing this issue, which involved no use of Photoshop , Editor-in-chief Cindi Leive stated that "Gender equality is on all of our minds. It's really important to me that Glamour not just talk the talk about female empowerment, but that we also walk the walk …… So we've decided to support women in the most meaningful way we can: by hiring them. From first page to our last, every photo we commissioned for the February issue was created by women: photographers, stylists, hair, makeup, everything." However, in looking at the cover, it is quite clear that this is White Feminism, a wall of white women, who believe that their representation and presence reflects or represents ALL women.

The Trump ERa is in part brought to us by the toxic mix of Pants Suit nation and establishment feminism, and their quest for the first Female US President, which left them blind to her many flaws. From suburban soccer moms (60-70% of who stated that they viewed Trump negatively but found a reason to vote for him regardless), professionals who have successfully "lean forward" and push against the glass ceiling , and working class "angry" WHITE women - it is truly time to reevaluate whom are considered and called allies. It is time to redistribute the work being done, to counter oppression and yes, get candidates elected. Because those who overwhelmingly (many holding their noses) to vote for Clinton were again Black women, who for far too long been viewed as "mules of the earth," as described by Short story writer, folklorist, and anthropologist, Nora Zeale Hurston. In this Trump Era, if you want to really be any ally, checking your privilege will not be enough. You will have to literally put down and unpack that invisible knapsack of privilege . And this process begins with stepping forward, getting on the front lines, and being the first to resist and push back against the rising fascism of the Orange Empire, which now threatens the health, viability, security, and well-being of all Americans. Essentially, you caused the spill -- and simply cannot ask African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, Jews, immigrants, those who are LGTBQ, and even the disabled (who were also openly mocked by the President Elect) to handle the clean up on Aisle 4 for you.

Media Monsters: Militarism, Violence, and Cruelty in Children's Culture

By Heidi Tilney Kramer

"10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction." 

- Susan Sontag

Who ever thought there would be torture scenes in G and PG rated American children's films or that a video game would allow one to feel the rush of killing? Who would have imagined in their worst nightmare that the Disney corporation would try to trademark "SEAL Team 6," especially right after this elite military group killed Osama bin Laden, so they could use it for toys, Christmas stockings, and snow globes? Or that a child would write a few loving words on her desk and be arrested in front of her classmates? Who could have believed that the U.S. would torture real children in the "war on terror" campaign?

Consider that there are now only five big media conglomerates controlling over 90% of everything seen and heard. Media in the U.S. is engaging in post-9/11 rhetoric even in the world of children. Seeing little Boo, the toddler who can barely speak in Monsters, Inc., strapped in the torture chair - equipped with holes in the seat's bottom like electric chairs have for drainage of bodily fluids - convinces us to look closer at what American kids and children the world over are watching as their purported entertainment.

As cartoon images of militarism and prison fill children's heads, the school-to-prison pipeline is active in the schools of poor neighborhoods and those of color mimicking the prison system - and these children have largely been slated for a life in prison or the military. Pushing students out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system - often for minor offenses such as getting behind in their homework! - is as disturbing as the JROTC instituting programs on the middle school level as a way of getting especially inner-city, racially targeted recruits.

This is against the U.N.'s Convention on the Rights of the Child's (C.R.C.) Article 38: "Children under 15 should not be forced or recruited to take part in a war or join the armed forces...The Convention's Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict further develops this right, raising the age for direct participation in armed conflict to 18 and establishing a ban on compulsory recruitment for children under 18." The United States, along with Somalia and South Sudan, refuses to ratify this document under the guise of parental rights, but that decision allows the following problems: 21% of U.S. children are living in poverty; the U.S. is the only high-income country not to grant paid maternal leave; and the U.S. is the only country in the world sentencing under-18-year-olds to life without parole. These infractions are all against the C.R.C. Over twenty-five years old, the document will never be ratified by the United States because it interferes with business as usual, and Michael P. Farris, president of Parental Rights, actively fights the treaty. His group fears that, if instituted, "[a nation] would have to spend more on children's welfare than national defense." As the old saying goes, "It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber." The grand total in 2013 for U.S. Homeland Security and National Defense was an astounding $931 billion, or nearly $1 trillion, and part of the funding has come from cutting the school-lunch program. China has the next largest military budget, estimated at $136 billion.

Yet the propaganda continues...The Incredibles shows the 9/11 trope of a plane bent on destruction heading toward a U.S. city while the entire family ends up on the torture rack; the film also shows Mr. Incredible blasted by viscous bubbles similar to new, real-life (theoretically) less-than-lethal incapacitant sticky foam weapons being proposed for crowd control in the U.S. and abroad. And what are the children to think when their beloved Buzz Lightyear - a friend to all for two of the three films - is tortured, his personality changed, and he becomes, in Toy Story 3, prison guard for the cruel overlord in the surveillance-laden dystopia?

Children's beliefs about others are molded from a young age - just think how characters in Aladdin contributed to persuasion for the first Gulf War as even children came to see the Arabic world as mean-spirited. Henry A. Giroux explains that Disney not only included offensive language toward the region in this (and its follow-up) film, it didn't even bother to write actual Arabic where it was called for in the film, instead choosing to scribble the substitute of nonsensical scrawl.

In addition to death language, war scenes, and general barbarism, there are other disturbing depictions in G and PG rated children's movies. Nearly all African-American characters have an inner-city vibe as we see in Turbo. Often Spanish-speaking characters are presented as poor and lazy or loud as observed in the aforementioned and in Open Season. Women are shown as either "bitchy" or subservient. If you want evidence, just watch Beauty and the Beast - it's a primer for women to learn how to endure an abusive relationship (as in, "If I'm just nice enough, he'll come around"). Or watch how Ratatouille presents a woman as psychotic. Native Americans are depicted as mysterious and speak monosyllabically, as seen in Rango. Children themselves are presented as either endangered or as monsters, sometimes both, as is the case in both Toy Story and Nanny McPhee. Guns, cruelty, and bullying are in just about every kids' film in the U.S., but the Motion Picture Association of America doesn't care that the violence component is through the roof as long as no one hears cursing or sees drugs or alternative lifestyles.

How are people affected by that last one? Ritual ridicule in a brutal gender binary system is largely responsible for the mass school shootings. Our definitions of what it means to "be a man" are injected early on. Seeing Ken - depicted as supposedly effeminate - bullied and threatened by Barbie in Toy Story 3 tells boys to be wary of having nice hand-writing or any other purportedly feminine behavior. There are many, many examples of gender policing in American kids' films - take how the minion is teased for wanting affection in Despicable Me as just one example.

Meanwhile, over 6,000 were killed from the U.S. drone assassination program in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine in 2015 alone - some of the victims are children and 90% of victims are innocent bystanders. You won't see this on American TV or in the country's films. The U.S. veteran homelessness rate is appalling - and suicide rates among armed services veterans and active duty personnel have sky-rocketed. You won't see this either. The world is grappling with how to handle refugees from the fashionably long-lasting wars amid - and aiming specifically for - civilians. You'll see the refugees but no coverage of why these victims are fleeing. You won't hear the name Omar Khadr, a 15-year old Canadian citizen tortured by the U.S. or that of 14-year old Chad-citizen Mohammed El-Gharani who suffered the same fate. You won't see coverage detailing that those of Arabic/Islamic origin or background rounded up in the U.S. after 9/11 were ALL found innocent. Instead, you will see over 900 mostly Hollywood films vilifying these groups over the past century so the military-industrial complex has an eternal "enemy."

U.S. children are busy at school being patted down and going into lockdown mode, learning how to kill from video games, repeating cruelties learned from their films, and watching playground fights on YouTube, while American tax dollars are hard at work being used for nationalistic ceremonies at pro sports events and censoring directors who don't promote "patriotism." That citizens shudder at fellow hijab wearing citizens shows how the U.S. public has been sucker-punched.

We are undergoing a paradigm shift of monumental proportions wherein some are awakening to possibilities on a dimming horizon. Doing so has never been more imperative because our very survival depends on seeing what is true: that we are more alike than we are different and that the "have nots" have a my-voice-matters stake in which way life proceeds. It is time for us, "the 99%," to stand against the media and political giants engaged in separating us from one another. God bless the whole world: NO EXCEPTIONS.

"Of course the people don't want war...That is understood...But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

- Hermann Goering (at the Nuremberg trials)

Heidi Tilney Kramer is a mom and independent scholar focusing on Critical Children's Studies and U.S. Media. She has written two theses: "Visionary of Control: The efficiency, expertise, and exclusion of Alexander James Inglis," which reviews elitist changes made to the U.S. education system during the Progressive era in order to ensure a stable workforce - said changes resulted in sexist, racist, and classist policies which continue in the modern world; "Monsters Under the Bed: An Analysis of Torture Scenes in Three Pixar Films" highlights the ways in which torture is framed in G and PG rated films - as state/corporate control in Monsters, Inc., the prison/concentration camp theme of Toy Story 3, and the 1960s spy thriller trope used in The Incredibles. She lectures and teaches about childhood in the U.S. Her recently released book, Media Monsters: Militarism, Violence, and Cruelty in Children's Culture, available through Amazon, explores the history of propaganda and exposes the powerful forces pouring billions into influencing children with militaristic, violent, and cruel images at increasingly younger ages. Her quest is two-fold: 1) to identify negative messages children are receiving in their formal training and entertainment (and she would love for you to send her any examples you find), and 2) to uncover the ramifications of being conditioned to accept cruelty. Her latest project is the analysis and categorization of the entirety of American children's films. There is a Facebook page, Media Monsters R Against Kids, as well as a website, mediamonsters.us. She can be reached at: megamediamonsters@gmail.com or mediamonsters2016@gmail.com.

White, Working-Class America: My Family of Addicts

By Susan Anglada Bartley

There is a pain that many of us hide, a truth that is hard to bear. It's a pain that starts slow, like a pin-prick, but flames into a fire that burns forever, until we are all consumed. We are a family of addicts. May I speak to you privately, family? White addicts and family members of addicts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and nationwide, especially those who voted for Trump, this is for you. As a fellow family member of multiple heroin​ addicts, I feel your pain, but family, hate will not heal our broken hearts.

Where did it start for your family? Was it your Brother, your best friend? Was it your beloved Mother? How long did you deny it? How much time, money, and energy did they steal? When did you lose your ability to trust? Can you ever regain it? What did you see that you can't unsee? Who did you lose that you will never, ever hold close again? How is the hole in your heart today?

At four years old, in 1982, I remember pressing my face close to the glass, making halos of steam on the inside of the window, staring out at my favorite Uncle-a brilliant, 30-something Irish-American man with shocking red hair, a man whose stories mesmerized neighborhood strangers. I waited for those stories, for days, for hours, for years sometimes. And there he was, waiting outside on a freezing winter day. He was not allowed to come inside the house because he was addicted to heroin and would steal everything we had. He stood out there waiting for hours, for days, through a whole Buffalo, N.Y. winter. He wasn't waiting for love. He wasn't waiting for justice. He was waiting for my grandmother to give him money to buy heroin.

Sometimes, when my Mother and Father weren't home, she let him inside the house. He came upstairs into her small room, talking her out of her social security check while I played with buttons on the floor. I waited for a wink, for a smile, for a flash of brilliance from his light blue eyes; I waited outside of his window for the day when he would break through his addiction, coming back to my childish heart, which revered him.

Anyone who really knows heroin knows that he never really did come all of the way back. He came back in fits and rages; he came back in bouts; he came back in moments of extraordinary storytelling; he came back in strums of his guitar; he came back in calls from jail; he came back from prison; he came back to life from suicide; but there was something in him that stayed far, far away forever.

And I still fucking miss him.

And that wasn't the whole story. The whole story is too hard to paint with a poetic brush. So I'll say it this way. They were a band of brothers living in Detroit during the Vietnam era. Due to one-eyed blindness that runs in the males in my family, they avoided the draft. Their Father, an Irish alcoholic who was an amateur boxer, horse-trainer, and expert auto-upholsterer before being fired from every auto-plant in the city of Detroit, was murdered and thrown in a ditch when my Mother was 18. At that time, the brothers fell deep into the Hippie Movement in Detroit, they all took up guitar; they were all taken by the needle.

When I was six months old in 1978, my Uncle James Fitzpatrick died of an aneurysm while battling heroin addiction. My Uncle Kearney, after fighting and playing with heroin and other opiates for the past thirty years, died an addict a few years ago. My beloved Uncle who waited outside the window, attempted suicide two months ago, and continues to battle with depression while managing his relationship with methadone and other substances.

Lately, I hear a new rhetoric about addiction--many Black and Latino writers say that the new efforts to remove the stigma of addiction are racist. In a 2016 PBS article, critical of Obama's campaign to end the national opioid epidemic, Judy Woodruff writes, "Back then, when addiction was a black problem, there was no wave of national compassion. Instead, we were warned of super predators, young, faceless black men wearing bandannas and sagging jeans." When I read Woodruff's words, which I know are true, there is still a part of me that asks does she really know what it is like to have a family member live and die in addiction? She must not really know because if she knew the reality of living with family members addicted to heroin, she could never speak against the work being done to destigmatize it.

The answer, though, is yes, she does know. F​or Woodruff and other Black and Latino family members of addicts, along with addiction, they also face the brutality of a system that incarcerates and kills their family members on a systemic level. Where I had thirty years, off and on, with two severely addicted Uncles, Black and Latino people actually faced the pain that we are feeling right now, while also experiencing racial hatred in society, and taking all of the stigma and shame of the beginning of our society's addiction only to see that now that their loved ones are dead or in prison. We want to take off the mask and ask for compassion for our pain.

When I think of all of you tonight -- family members of opiate addicts in a nation facing unprecedented levels of addiction in almost every state -- I want you to know that I truly feel that pain that you experience on a daily basis. What I need to say is that, statistically, it is evident that many of you also voted for Donald Trump. Have you thought about the way that he appeals to that last shred of pride in you, that part that hasn't been taken by your addiction, or your family member's addiction to opiates? Have you thought about the way that, in a moment when you and your family were hurting, he came along to say what you needed to hear--that you, your family, and your country could be great again?

I know the blindness that heroin causes in families of addicts. Are you unconsciously blaming Black and Latino communities for the presence of heroin and opiate-based pills, when really Big Pharma is profiting off of working-class whites like you as you vote a man to power who will boost their corporate reach, making a killing off of your family and friends?

Dig deeper. Those of us who have survived ancestral legacies of addiction must come together to unite against hate, despite the pain that we feel. We cannot blindly follow an individual who is promoting Nazis while promising us a stronger economy. Be honest. Seek the healing that you need as an individual; don't sacrifice your humanity for the promises of a rich executive who wears a mask while stabbing you and your loved ones in the back. Love yourself more. Love your faith more. Love your country more. Reject the hate machine of Donald Trump.

Susan Anglada Bartley is an activist, writer,​and teacher in Portland, Oregon. She earned her B.A. from NYU, and her M.Ed from Portland State University. She was awarded a National Education Association H. Councill Trenholm Human and Civil Rights Award in 2013 for her work to end racism in public education. She presented her work on Systemic Barriers to AP and IB Courses for Black, Native American, and Latino Students, and co-presented with Pedro Anglada Cordero, MSW on Invisible Fences: Removing Obstacles for Latino Students at the Teaching for Social Justice North West Conference and at the Evergreen Education Association Diversity and Social Justice Conference. She has published articles with Artvoice Buffalo, Literary Arts Portland, The National Education Association Magazine, NEA-Ed Votes, and The Hampton Institute: A Working Class Think Tank.