The Situation Changes Day by Day

 Thoughts on Ukraine: (as if we don't have enough...)

The Minsk II agreement in 2015 between Ukraine, Russia and E.U. has been ignored by the U.S. and Ukrainian government and hard-right.  Sec. Blinken was upset that Russia had broken it - after the U.S. had already done so. It would have created a ‘neutral’ Ukraine, free to trade with both blocs, giving limited autonomy to the Donbas, without Ukraine being in NATO.  An example of Finlandization, which has worked in the capitalist context.  However the U.S. has no interest in negotiating an end to this war.  They prefer it to go on as long as possible.

The U.S. refused to deal with several of these points, including NATO membership.  NATO and the U.S. swore that NATO would not move ‘an inch’ east in 1990, in conversations with Gorbachev … but it has, step by step.  This obviously concerned Russia, which previously hoped for better relationships with Europe and the U.S. 

The Donetsk and Lugansk ‘republics’ are to be absorbed into Russia.  Were these republics reflective of “the self determination of nations?”  It is doubtful whether they could function on their own as economic units – a key part of being a nation.  Though now economies are so intertwined across borders that this definition is becoming moot, as are some so-called ‘nations.’  Certainly parts seceded in practice in 2014, which included a vote by part of the population.  Part of the reason was the poor economic conditions in Ukraine and the better ones in Russia. However, nearly half of the Donbas remained in Ukrainian hands.

The secessionist Donetsk and Luhansk areas were subjected to anti-Russian activities by anti-Russian, anti-Semitic and fascist units after the Maidan coup, which prompted the secession effort. 15,000 have died since then in this civil war.  Well known neo-Nazi Azov units were included across the Ukrainian Army as part of this low-level civil war, something Western journalists have played dumb about.  Anti-Semites, neo-fascists and Russian white nationalists operate inside the Republics as well, even though some are draped in the hammer and sickle.  The Wagner Group, Rusich and the Russian Imperialist Movement (RIM) are a few.  

This invasion might remind some of the Sudetenland, and even present ‘democratic’ authoritarians who claim territories in other countries because of linguistic and ethnic populations who they claim are oppressed. For instance, Orban’s Hungary promotes a ‘Greater Hungary’ in Ukraine, Slovakia, Romania, Slovenia, etc.  Yet Hungarians in these countries are not oppressed minorities.  Of note, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, Roman Giertych, has claimed that Russia, Hungary and Poland signed a secret agreement to divide up Ukraine prior to the invasion.  That is now moot.

This ethno-nationalist attitude was also the logic of the wars which destroyed Yugoslavia, initiated by Germany and NATO.  This suicidal method results in endless right-wing revanchism in country after country, yet in a world of inter-penetrated peoples. We see another example of it in Ethiopia.  For the proletarian struggle to really become a focal point in these areas, peace and independence are needed, as is an end to national and ethnic oppression.  But they cannot exist in the context of inter-capitalist rivalry.

The invasion by Russia is motivated by great Russian chauvinism, but also as a defense strategy to create a buffer with NATO.  Putin sending troops and tanks into Donetsk and Lugansk, and now Ukraine itself, puts the Nordstream I & II gas pipelines to Europe at severe risk – or ends them.  Shutting down these gas pipelines is the real immediate goal of the U.S.  Strangling the Russian economy – making it ‘scream,’ is the intermediate goal.  Taking it over is the ultimate goal - regime change. The issue of gas is a key material fact that shows this is an inter-capitalist struggle.  The struggle over oil backgrounds both the Russians and the U.S. in this fight too.  The logic of eastern European gas supplying western Europe seems to make sense, over U.S. gas supplying Europe.  At least if you actually planned an economy…

Cutting Russia out of access to the banking system's SWIFT technology will be a heavy blow to Russian capitalism, as is freezing the assets of the Russian Central Bank.  This has driven the ruble to new lows. Putin will lose here, though he may think China and India are his backdoors to economic survival.  It's not just the Ukrainian working class who are and will suffer. European workers who rely on less expensive gas will lose.  Thousands of refugees will impact central Europe.  The Russian working class will be impoverished.  A gas price rise affects everyone in the world.  In response, de-dollarization by Russia, China and others is going to haunt the U.S. dollar seignorage privilege.  But according to analyses, it will not replace the dollar, as the real flight is to many smaller currencies.

The 2014 “Maidan Revolution” was a coup backed by the U.S. and NATO. This aggressive action set up the present situation.  Unfortunately the Ukraine is squeezed between two capitalist powers, when what it really needs is independence from both.  That will never happen in the present capitalist world, which is dominated by imperialism from the West and neo-colonial attitudes in the Kremlin.

The civilian populations of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics were in transit, as they were in danger of warfare and invasion from the west by neo-fascist Ukrainian units.  Peace is their goal.  Now it is the turn of the many more Ukrainians. The Russian working class will pay for this war too, with more draftees, higher prices, worthless money and more repression.  There have been widespread anti-war demonstrations, but they have not reached into the unions and workplaces.  Some members of the 2nd strongest party in Russia, the Russian Communist Party, spoke against the invasion. Putin is undermining himself and could ultimately be removed by a wing of billionaires and generals, or a revolt by soldiers in the Russian or Belarus army. 

The ultimate responsibility for this situation rests with the U.S., not Putin. The U.S. has successfully goaded Putin into a fateful, adventurist move, a plan that was born in the 2014 coup. Putin represents a cornered capitalist country, which is attempting to exercise some power in its border areas against what it views as overwhelming and hostile military forces. Détente has been thrown to the winds by the U.S., which is normal operating procedure.  This has also vastly increased the danger of a wider war, even nuclear.  With this invasion, Russia has made a geo-political mistake that will undermine its state.  Putin may think he can use this blitzkrieg and occupation to bargain away NATO, but this will spur NATO on in other countries. Now formerly neutral Finland is thinking of discussing NATO, though their President shot that one down.  Will installing a pro-Russian government in Kiev solve the situation?  Is that even possible?  Zelensky did make a recent speech as the Russians surrounded Kiev that mentioned ‘neutrality,’ so there is a glimmer of settlement.  This also occurred during the peace negotiations.  Ukraine has to break with NATO and pursue 'neutrality' to solve this question on a capitalist basis.

The Russian bloc with China will be decisive, though Russia is the junior partner this time. China is calling for reasonable negotiations, not fake ones.  It is staying somewhat neutral, though pointing to Russia’s security concerns. China's state banks have restricted financing for Russian commodities, so they protecting themselves.  China did abstain in the U.N., which the U.S. media considered a victory for the Ukraine.  But economic relations continue and will probably increase as China buys Russian assets.

Putin’s move into Kiev and Odessa is being partly justified by ethno-nationalist historical claims based on the ‘Rus’ settling there hundreds of years ago.  That is reactionary and revanchist logic.  After all, the Rus were originally from Daneland and Norway, who also settled in trading centers like Novgorod in northwestern Russia.  On the political level, a military action like this may satisfy Stalinists, Russophiles, neo-Slavists, Great Russian chauvinists and uber-nationalist Russians, but no one else.  Unless we include the 'red'-Brown' contingent of fake anti-imperialists.

Putin slandered Lenin and the ‘right of self-determination’ in his speech announcing the recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk.  This is significant.  In Lenin’s last struggle, he blocked with Trotsky, against, among other things, Stalin’s Great Russian chauvinism in dealing with Georgia and Ukraine as independent Soviet Republics.  Putin always leaned to Great Russian and Pan-Slavic thinking, as he was trained in it by the Soviet KGB.  Now as the leader of a capitalist Russia it has become useful once again as a way to ‘bind’ the Russian people to the powerful billionaires who back the state.   This time it will not work so well. 

The U.S. / U.K. media does not present a balanced picture because they are mouth-pieces for the U.S. government and the war industries.  Many slogans that ‘anti-war’ elements use also seem to be limited and reformist, certainly not proletarian, socialist or internationalist.  Two positions - "The Friend of My Friend Is My Enemy" and "Turn the Guns Around" are both flawed.  Nor is 'self-determination' in a world of imperialism a possible reality, even in this case.  As socialists, we have to keep in mind internationalism, class analysis, revolutionary defeatism and actual abilities. 

Here are some suggestions:

Oppose NATO membership for Ukraine! 

No U.S. military aid or advisors to Ukraine!

No Sanctions Against the People of Russia!

Self-determination for Ukraine!

Disarm fascist military units!

Encourage fraternization between Russian and Ukrainian troops and civilians!

Both governments are weak.  A United Struggle against both governments!

Oppose the capitalist war-makers on both sides!

Red Frog

Feb 26, 2022 (updated)

Periodical Series: Ruin or Revolution?

 “Against Doomsday Scenarios – What is to Be Done Now?” Interview with John Bellamy Foster.  Monthly Review, Vol. 73, Dec. 2021

J.B. Foster is the multi-talented author of at least 3 books on Marxism and ecology – Marx and the Earth – an Anti-Critique, The Ecological Revolution and The Robbery of Nature – Capitalism and the Ecological Rift.  They are all reviewed in the blog below.  In this article he is interviewed about the tack to take today in regards to the increasing damage wrought by climate change and global warming.  He understands that the fight must start under capitalism, immediately.  

Unfortunately, Foster starts off with 5 scenarios for climate change, 3 of which are ‘apocalyptic,’ rendering human life on the planet dubious.  The other 2 – holding the line at 1.5 or 2.0 Centigrade - can only be achieved through global ecological or eco-socialist revolutions…  Even with that conditions would be dire and adaptation needed.  In a way, he's not really dealing with the headline he chose...

Foster critiques Michael Mann, a climate scientist who understands climate change, but nevertheless defends Joe Biden and capitalism against mild Social-Democratic critics like Naomi Klein and Bernie Sanders - opposing the Green New Deal from the right for instance. Mann opposes anyone who says the social system needs to be changed or scrapped as a ‘doomsayer’ and a ‘defeatist.’  Foster quotes Marx about how scientists (like Mann) are out of their league when dealing with social problems.

As to questions:

1.    Foster favors the Anthropocene as the name of the present geologic period, which started in the late 1940s, not the ‘Capitalocene‘ as suggested by some. Climate change will continue even after a social revolution against capital.  He does suggest the first age of the Anthropocene should be called ‘the Capitalinian.’  

2.   Foster agrees with ‘degrowth’ as a qualitative strategy changing the relations of production, but not as a ‘quantitative’ strategy of less production and less consumerism, seeing that as impossible in this economy.  Some advocates of ‘degrowth’ who see it as a way to fight climate change believe it can happen within capitalism.  He prefers the term ‘eco-socialism’ but understands that the term ‘degrowth’ take semi-direct aim at capital accumulation, which is the real target.

3.   Foster doesn’t see a phrase like ‘the rights of nature’ as making much sense. 

4.   Foster understands that property destruction, sabotage and illegal acts will be used in the climate fight.  It is unavoidable, as is turmoil one way or the other. He does not address the issue of violence against perpetrators, nor the upheaval required for an eco-socialist revolution.  

5.    Foster’s solution to the situation is not very specific as to demands.  He is aware that the coming ‘leaked’ Part III Report from the IPCC will call for significant changes in the world economy.  It calls for low energy strategies, changes to soil and forestry use and opposes geo-engineering, nuclear power and bogus ‘carbon capture’ schemes as unworkable. Part III will advocate climate strikes, a just transition, environmental justice, a prohibition on coal plants and pipelines, fossil fuels to stay in the ground and an expansion of public transport.

In Foster’s arguments, he cites Cuba as being the most ecologic society in the world at present – after it was cut off from Russian oil. He stands for the rights of animals, not as exploitable machines, but as friends. He also points out that climate change is only one of a number of biological crises – ocean acidification, species die-offs, soil depletion, chemical and air pollution, environmental racism, etc.  Lastly, he thinks eco-socialism can set up the whole world at the living level of present day Italy.  With that, I would disagree.  I think the target is closer to the start of the Anthropocene and the ‘great acceleration’ in the late 1940s in the U.S. – before the car and commodity culture took off.  For one thing, Italy, in spite of its excellent train system, has the 13th most cars per capita in the world. 

Lastly Foster quotes Marx about Ireland, speaking of how the English ruined Irish soil – seeing the situation then as a choice between ‘ruin and revolution.’  He seeks to ‘accelerate history’ with an ‘environmental proletariat’ for an eco-socialist revolution.  I’m not sure what an ‘environmental proletariat is, but perhaps he means a proletariat that is imbued with an environmental understanding. For him, the next age in the Anthropocene could then be called ‘the Communian.’

Monthly Review and many other left magazines, journals and newspapers are available at May Day.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box at upper left, with these terms, to investigate our 15 year archive:  “The Ministry for the Future,” “Marx and the Earth – an Anti-Critique,” “The Ecological Revolution,” & “The Robbery of Nature – Capitalism and the Ecological Rift” (last 3 by Foster); “The Sixth Extinction,” “The Burning Case for a Green New Deal” & “This Changes Everything” (both by Klein); “A Redder Shade of Green,” "Anthropocene or Capitalocene" or references to ‘eco-socialism’ or "Monthly Review."

And I got it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

2/22/22 at 2:22 EST

Periodical Series: Back to Kenosha

 “Kenosha ‘Trial’ Was Rigged – Fascistic Murderer Gets Off”, The Internationalist (Oct-Nov 2021, No.65)

Given the inadequate and faulty information on this trial from both the corporate media and some outfits like the SWP, this article is a refreshing change, as it comes from a reporter who seems to have watched the whole trial.  Many think the Left press prints no valuable information – it is only a source of rhetoric, polemics or history worship and nostalgia. 

This article was written by the Internationalist Group (LFI). It contradicts the official narrative and makes a good number of factual points that refute Rittenhouse’s self-defense claim, as well as showing how the Judge and the ‘prosecution’ helped Rittenhouse.  It is worth reading as to the corrupt nature of the present legal system, which is no secret now.  DA’s might be forced to bring charges, but subsequently make a hash of the case.  This was a sham trial.

As is well known, Rittenhouse was a minor who traveled over a state border carrying a gun that was not his, enabled by his right-wing mother, to ‘defend’ businesses in Kenosha from anti-racist protesters over the racist shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha police.  ‘Open carry’ at this point enables right-wing militias to intimidate people, though ‘open carry’ was not on trial here – but perhaps it should have been.  Nevertheless ‘open carry’ is illegal in Wisconsin for minors, so Rittenhouse should have been arrested immediately.   Nor was the gun registered to him.  These facts ‘poison’ any defense he might have for killing 2 and wounding 1 in alleged ‘self-defense.’   

However, in this trial, that didn’t matter, as the issue could not be brought up, nor was it pursued by the prosecution.  The judge ruled this ‘breach’ inadmissible as a charge, thus hiding the original law-breaking by Rittenhouse.

The Internationalist lists these facts:

1.   The local DA never charged the cop who shot Blake, Rusten Sheskey, for anything.  This is the same DA’s office behind the ‘prosecution’ of Rittenhouse.

2.   Rittenhouse was part of a large crowd of gun-toting militia members menacing protesters, a context missing from the trial.

3.   Rittenhouse pointed the AR-15 at protesters in a threatening manner.  The defense tried to exclude evidence related to this.  Viewing this, you might think that self-defense was the motivation behind the people confronting Rittenhouse!

4.   The ‘prosecution’ accepted the idea that Rittenhousee's self-defense claim was a real issue, even though they charged Rittenhouse with murder, seemingly on both sides of their own case.

5.   The Trumpist judge, Bruce Schroeder, ruled that the prosecution could not refer to the dead and injured as ‘victims,’ but only as ‘rioters,’ ‘looters’ and ‘arsonists.’

6.   Schroeder refused to admit into evidence a video of Rittenhouse watching looters at a CVS pharmacy, saying he wished he had a gun to shoot them.  The judge explicitly admitted that it showed he had a propensity for violence, which is why it was excluded.

7.   Trumpers like Mike Lindell paid Rittenhouse’s bail.  Rittenhouse attended a 2020 MAGA rally in Iowa, sitting in the front row.  Trump later celebrated Rittenhouse’s actions.  This is the overall political context.

8.   After sentencing, Rittenhouse skipped town without leaving an address, so the DA's office asked for his bail to be raised.  Schroeder refused.

9.   Schroeder refused to allowed pics of Rittenhouse giving ‘white power’ salutes with Proud Boys or the fact that they flew him to Miami to meet their leader, thus hiding his ideological motivations.

10.               Schroeder frequently threatened to call a mistrial when the prosecution attempted to even do a partial job.

11.               The judge reviewed videos seated next to Rittenhouse.

12.               Jury selection was rammed through in one day.  One juror was admitted even though he said he couldn’t be impartial because of his high support for the 2^nd amendment.

13.               The judge had the defendant, Rittenhouse, pull alternate juror names out of a hat like he was some employee of the court. (!!)

14.               Rittenhouse cried crocodile tears over being threatened by unarmed demonstrators trying to grab his AR-15.  He showed no remorse for the people he shot.  As we know, courts take remorse seriously.  See the Potter trial in Minneapolis, where Potter got a light sentence for killing an unarmed black man, partly after she showed frequent tearful remorse.

15.                 The prosecuting Assistant DA himself, Thomas Binger, was cited by right-winger podcasters and the AP as ‘building a case for the defense.’  His choice of witnesses, and their coaching, resulted in him choosing witnesses that said they did not feel ‘seriously’ threatened by Rittenhouse.

16.               The DA put fascists and right-wingers on the stand as part of the prosecution case, who of course backed up Rittenhouse’s claims.

17.               Rittenhouse spent much of the night walking with a Boogaloo Boi Ryan Balch, a neo-Nazi.   Balch said Rosenbaum (one of the dead) shouted threats against the militiamen. This shows Rittenhouse never stayed in place protecting a store, as was his claim for coming to Kenosha.

18.               Asst. DA Binger denounced one of the dead, Rosenbaum, for overturning a dumpster and lighting it on fire.  He approved the presence of the militias, as they were ‘on private property’ – even when they weren’t.  He approved of the cops giving water to Rittenhouse and other militia members, for supporting them via loudspeaker, and for not arresting the known shooter that night.  Asst. DA Binger couldn’t have cared less about Rosenbaum and Huber.

19.               Binger’s office, at the same time, was prosecuting anti-racist demonstrators from that night.

20.               Evidence of collusion between the militias and the police was left out of the trial, which is a significant fact related to the fascistic laissez faire atmosphere on that night.  For instance…

21.               Kenosha’s police have a long history of racist policing – almost no black cops on force, racial profiling, brutality.  The police said the demonstrators were illegal because it was ‘after curfew’ – which evidently didn’t apply to the alt-right militias.

22.               Kenosha FB posts by the “Kenosha Guard,” the 3%ers and the “Citizen Guard” organized against the demonstrations. Some of their posts said “Shoot to Kill,” which is what Rittenhouse did.

23.               Balsh, the Boogaloo Boi, told protesters that the KPD police told him they were going to push demonstrators towards the militias, so the militias could ‘deal with them.’

24.               Lawsuits were filed by Huber’s family and Grosskreutz, who was wounded, alleging the KPD ‘deputized’ thugs like Rittenhouse and others to intimidate and kill demonstrators.  Kenosha showed a clear case of collaboration between the state and fascist militia men – something that is common in history, past and present.

The Shooter 

The Internationalist does not bring up the legal Castle Doctrine, which states that someone in their home can shoot an intruder in self-defense.  But in public places the duty is to retreat.  Rittenhouse did not retreat, but acted with impunity, as if the street was his home.  Nor was an effort made to get another judge before the trial was carried out, in spite of Schroeder being a well-known arch-conservative.  I think it was also possible for the DA's office to ask for a mistrial due to his actions.  (Schroeder actually reminds me of the openly prejudicial judge in the Chicago 8 trial, Julius Hoffman.)

The claim of ‘self-defense’ is used by killer cops, racist vigilantes, ‘crime-fighters’ and fascists to shoot at or gun down those they oppose.  Even Biden said that looters should be ‘shot in the leg.’

The article ends by calling for “workers defense guards” and mass black / labor / immigrant action to defend oppressed communities.  By the way, the slogan ‘workers defense guards’ is a part of the transitional program of the old 4^th International.

May Day Books has many left periodicals and magazines.  Come on in and buy one if you are not up to reading a whole book!

P.S. - 2/20/22, news that one is dead, 5 wounded in Portland, OR during a protest over the killing of Amir Locke in Minneapolis.  This is undoubtedly the fruit of the Rittenhouse decision.  A local hard-right homeowner opened fire on protesters and one shot back in self-defense.  Benjamin Smith was reported as always talking about shooting commies and antifa by someone who knew him.  Smith has been charged with murder, while the anti-racist defender who protected the march has been charged by police too!

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these terms:  “The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution,” “Anti-Fascist Series,” “The Appeal” (Grisham); “The Post,” “With Liberty and Justice For Some” (Greenwald);  “The Divide – American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap” (Taibbi); “Bad Cops, Bad Cops,” “Rise of the Warrior Cop,” “Defund, Disband or Abolish the Police?” or words like ‘fascism’ or ‘police.’

May Day has a large selection of inexpensive left papers and more expensive magazines. Come in and buy one!

Red Frog

February 19, 2022

Cops, Cons, Camps and Curling

 Streaming Dust-Up

Line of Duty, produced by Jed Mercurio, 2012-2021

This series, produced by the BBC, is a rarity.  It is not some conventional cop / detective hosanna, full of the predictable tropes of crime shows.  It is centered around an internal police investigative unit, AC-12, which is looking into a large network of corrupt police tied to organized crime.  The corruption involves 4 top officers in the London Metropolitan Police, along with their uniformed minions and cops caught up in the ring.

In U.S. TV, police internal affairs groups are hated (see Law & Order, etc.) but in England it seems they are somewhat legit.  Now the odd part is that as the series went on, cop leaders and an older female ‘top cop’ preside over the Police.  She – and others around her – are eager to present the Metro Police as having no systemic corruption problem.  Oddly, this old lady reminds one of Cressida Dick, who did preside over London's Metropolitan Police in reality and just retired.  She hated Line of Duty.

Cressida Dick

At any rate, the seasons of Line of Duty involves hard-bitten and thorough cop liars, constant unreal and unnecessary plot twists and AC-12 officers who are tough and still make mistakes.  One AC-12 officer can’t keep himself from having sexual relationships with suspects, informants and fellow officers.  The old Irish gaffer leading the crew toughs out every stupid or corrupt overseer who tries to shut down his investigations.  The lead AC-12 woman officer goes undercover in other departments to root out the slime balls.  At this point their task is to find ‘the fourth man’ – the last remaining top officer linked to the bloody world of organized criminals. AC12 has already nailed 3 ‘bent’ top coppers in earlier parts of the series. 

Like the long line of television series and movies exposing the partial criminality of the CIA, it is refreshing to see this trend now focused on the police.  The U.S. certainly needs a show looking into bad forensics, neglected rape kits, planted evidence, organized lying, illegitimate seizures of property, selective enforcement, police corruption and racist crimes, but no U.S. studio will go over that line in a streaming series. Line of Duty is rated as one of the top shows in Britain. It is in its 6^th season.

Inventing Anna, produced by Shonda Rhimes, 2022

This show is a fictional representation of the real life New York con artist Anna Delvey, a.k.a. Sorokina.  She ingratiated herself into New York society – society matrons, artists, architects, haute couture and most importantly, lawyers and top bankers, attempting to start an exclusive private arts club and foundation.  

Sorokina had no money, no experience, a hidden Russian background, a fake rich father and a fake Trust Fund, a fake name and a very unpleasant personality.  But she did observe these society people in their natural habitat and adopted many of their customs in order to fit in, like a cow bird laying eggs in another bird’s nest. For a time she defrauded these ‘worldly’ nincompoops and institutions, along with her 'friends,' into paying her bills, giving her massive loans, stealing their property and working on her Anna Delvey ‘Foundation,’ sometimes for free. She commits check fraud and phone impersonations. Her relationship started as a parasitic relationship with another bogus tech entrepreneur, along with a real society woman. Both gave her entrée into the hidden precincts of New York’s ruling elite.

The investigative lead is a naïve, improbable, pregnant and thick-headed but driven journalist working for Manhattan Magazine – a renaming of New York magazine.  She is shown as unprofessional and unethical, as she actually helps the defense.  She slowly digs up some facts of Anna’s story, partly through repeated visits with Anna in Riker’s Island jail.  Anna herself, played by the same actress who played Ruth in Ozark, has a terrible, bogus accent that does not sound German. The accent alone would give her away. The series seem to have a tolerant and 'hip' appreciation of Anna – is she a proletarian hero, getting back at the bankers?  Is she a sad social climber?  Is she a poor young woman oppressed by older men who don’t pay for their mistakes?  That is certainly one of her manipulative lines.  Or is she just a plain shit that bought into the bourgeois fable of entrepreneurship, luxury and money?  I think the latter.  She is a delusional consumerist and sociopath, a fake feminist, but coming from a working-class background.

As an aside, her most gullible friends and acquaintances are young women like herself, which makes out these women as helplessly naive.  The young female reporter is sympathetic, while the series shows Sorokina as a fashion and media sensation, getting her 15 minutes of fame - which we are supposed to take as a hoot.  The trial defense is shown, while none of the prosecution. Key facts about the crimes are left out, like the forgeries she used to try to prove she had collateral.   The series' obsession over Anna by her goofy defense attorney and the mugging reporter is completely weird.  Netflix's framing is actually a participant in this fraud.  

What is best about the series is showing the extraordinary wealth and inbred clubbiness of this spoiled group of New Yorkers.  Their yachts, country houses, Bergdorff expense accounts, extravagant parties, exclusive sports clubs, upscale hotel stays, private jets, art buys, huge apartments, designer clothing, lavish accessories, champagne lust, drinking binges and completely catered lifestyles make it easy to see why expropriation would be quite a satisfying answer to this class of snobby fucks.  The series mentions similar frauds like the Fyre Festival, Marvin Shrekli and Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos, so it puts Anna's actions in the context of a culture of moneyed bullshit, legal and illegal. New York comes off as a modern version of Rome, Versailles, the Winter Palace, the Forbidden City, Batista’s Havana or a decaying Abu Dubai.  It is the permanent Davos of present day capital.

By the way, Anna's approach of 'fake it until you make it' is also the approach of multi-level marketing schemes, otherwise known as Ponzi schemes - which is what this was.  See the "Tinder Swindler" for a romance fraud who wanted to live the life of a capitalist billionaire, and runs Ponzi games on unwitting women to get their money.

Creepy facts: Netflix and Rimes paid beaucoup bucks - $350K - to Sorokina for her 'side' of the story, money that was (partly?) taken by the courts to pay restitution.  So Netflix was taken in by this con artist too. Sorokina spent around 2 years in jail on a 4-12 year sentence (how does that happen?) and is again in police custody in 9/21 due to deportation proceedings back to Germany after overstaying her visa.  Of course, she is appealing.

‘The Humanity Bureau’ Movie: 

The Humanity Bureau is another cultural product about escaping from the U.S. to Canada, this time in the apocalyptic aftermath of climate change and nuclear meltdowns.  It involves a government-sponsored “New Eden” which is really a death camp for poor citizens patterned after the Nazi extermination camps.  A euphemistic ‘Humanity Bureau’ enforces the deportations to New Eden. As we know, Orwellian euphemisms are all the rage for present ruling class organizations and this one is a doozy. 7 million die in the camps.  Revolution follows when the truth leaks out.  A sad, aged, weird Nicholas Cage is the lead.   

And Speaking of the Olympics: 

If you’ve watched the Olympics in some way, you will note several things – besides the corporate commercialism, middle class professionalism, toxic nationalism and examples of bad journalism and vicious politics. 

1.  The largest television showing of women’s sports of the year. Fabulous examples of kinetic / physical intelligence.

2.  The new, mixed gender events.

3.   The competitive winning idiocy of being ‘off the podium’ because of losing by 1/100s of a second.   Time for some ties.   

4.  The differences between a sports contest that demands a huge investment in engineering and concrete; and a simple event that needs basic equipment.  Examples of the useless former:  Luge, ‘Skeleton,’ Bobsled, Half Pipe, Snowboard Big Air, Ski Jumping.  Examples of the latter:  Cross Country and Downhill Skiing, Speed Skating, Ice Dancing, Hockey, Downhill Snowboard, Moguls, Biathlon, Curling.   If we ever have a proletarian Olympics again, we’d think about getting rid of the former events as involving very few people and being a huge waste of labor, concrete and steel. 

5.  The pressure to ‘win’ in front of millions of people every 4 years seems to be a cruel emotional trap.  These are the wages of isolated, middle-class professionalism. 

6.  Injuries!  Broken bones, torn ligaments, concussions, you name it.

7.  A very well-organized, almost flawless Olympics, without a CoVid outbreak - totally unmentioned by U.S media.

8.  The enjoyment of seeing the U.S. lose to Finland, China, Slovenia, Canada and Norway.

Stay tuned: 

Ozark is in its last tense and overly plot-twisted season.  Ozark has become an exposure of the corruption of the FBI.  It was mostly filmed in Georgia around Lake Lanier, not the 'Lake of the Ozarks. (Prior review of Ozark below.)

Most importantly, The Peaky Blinders last season will be airing soon.  Steven Knight, its producer and director, grew up in Small Heath in Birmingham, England in a working class family, so he knows the world he created.  Birmingham’s Small Heath neighborhood is the central location of the series. The Romani Peakys will confront Mosely’s domestic fascists in the 1930s once again, though without the aid of Helen McCrory, who played Polly Shelby, the matriarch of the Shelby family gang.  She died of cancer in 2021 at 52.  (Prior review of the Peaky Blinders below.)

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive of streaming reviews, using these terms:  “Peaky Blinders,” “Ozark,” “The Meta-Meaning of Ridiculous Cops Shows,” “Streaming Run-Down,” “The Good Lord Bird,” “Trapped and Detective Series in General,” “Watchmen,” “3%,” “Maid,” “Goliath,” “Cults and Cultists,” “Rebellion,” Handmaid’s Tale,” Comrade Detective,” “The Wire,” “Treme,” “Vikings,” “Black Sails,” “Game of Thrones,” “Deadwood,” “Damnation,” “Fargo,” “White Lotus,” “Mayans M.C.,” “The Golden Age of U.S. Television,” “Hunger Games,” “Line of Separation.”

The Cultural Marxist

February 15, 2022

Class Classic Continued, Part 5 - Conscious and Made Men

 “The Making of the English Working Class”by E.P. Thompson, 1963 Part 5 Sketch: (pgs. 781 to 939 w/ Afterword)

Thompson comes to the culmination of working class consciousness, which he dates in May 1832, during the passing of the Reform Bill by the House of Lords in a situation of revolutionary crisis throughout England.  To Thompson, this consciousness consists of 1, an awareness of the identity of interests of every working class strata, 2, subsequent class opposition to the landlords and capitalists and 3, a vision of a new cooperative society.  The Reform Bill events occurred during or prior to the European revolutions of 1830, 1832, 1848, 1870, 1917, 1919, the formation of the British Labour Party, the 1926 English General Strike or the creation of the NHS in 1948.  He thinks it continued into the 1960s when he published this book.

Education has its Benefits

Thompson looks into the intellectual culture of popular Radicalism at this time, which was mostly made up of auto-didacts.  In 1825 the Combination Acts were repealed and an open ferment of ideas percolated through society - reading aloud to the illiterate, study groups, ballads, theater performances, cartoons, satire and parody, articles, books, discussions and speeches.  Jargon had to be explained or avoided, as technical phrases like “universal suffrage” might mean to the uninitiated “that all must suffer if any suffer.”  Or calling for a “provisional government” might mean “a government that provides provisions.”  (We still have this problem today on the left … archaic language, symbols or odd historical usages that do not communicate.)  2 of 3 working people might be able to read a bit at this point. Through these methods radical ideas permeated into the smallest rural village. 

The Government raised the price of transfer stamps through the 1891 Stamp Act in order to inhibit the mailing or approval of radical publications, so an underground movement of ‘unstamped’ publications was created.  Punishment under the “Vagrant Act” led to instances like this, where 2 workers were tied to the ‘whipping post’ for distributing unstamped Radical publications.  (Sound familiar?) Eventually parody and satire were legalized in 1820 when the Government’s Crown prosecutors failed to prove its case in a jury trial.  A chuckling crowd of ‘mechaniks’ might congregate around a London print shop showing the latest lampoon of the ruling elite by Cruikshank. This period resulted in ‘freedom of the press’ becoming widespread throughout England, at least in practice, a direct result of the labor ferment in the country.

Thompson identifies two Radical publics in 1832 – the working class one and the middle class one.  At all times they fought for dominance and this situation still exists. Thompson goes into a long analysis of Cobbett, whose journalism and speeches had a major impact on workers for years, but who never actually came up with a consistent theory.  He really harked back to a time of small producers, of sturdy, individual ‘free-born Englishmen,’ of rural life.  Yet Thompson considers him a representative of the working classes.  Cobbett spoke directly to the working class, sometimes using his own experience.  He avoided flowery language, impressive diction and high-flown illusions, perhaps an early example for Orwell.  This is unlike more academic Radical writers like Hazlitt, who peppered his writings with literary references, really directing his blows in the language of the middle and upper classes.

Yet auto-didacticism has its limits, as it sometimes, in Thompson’s words, allows for ‘wide swings of opinion, given its partial nature.’  Some autodidacts are only able to grasp part of a situation due to their spotty understanding and lack of consistency, and can go completely off-road in their pursuit of 'the truth.' 

5 INTELLECTUAL CURRENTS

Thompson identifies 5 currents that eventually came together to form a working class consciousness, a class 'for itself.'  These were based on the material effects of the industrial revolution that were occurring at the same time, which created a working class 'in itself.'  1, the afore-mentioned Corbett; 2, Paine-Carlile tradition; 3, Utilitarianism; 4, trade unionism; 5; Owenism.

Carlile, one of the leading London activists, put his emphasis on the French Revolutionary past, invoking the ‘Bastilles’, excoriating clerics and Kings, celebrating individualist, libertarian rebellion, scorning organization, pushing ‘cheap’ government.  His narrative was somewhat out of step in a time of creeping industrialization that was changing the cultural landscape.  Thompson considers him a ‘petit-bourgeois individualist.’  Carlile ran one of the largest speech venues in London, the Rotunda, which became a center of Radicalism.  In a way, this libertarianism can be seen as a crude, initial stage of rebellion and understanding.

Utilitarianism focuses on what is ‘useful.’  Their leading journal was London’s “The Gorgon,” edited by J Wade, influenced by the middle-class reformer Place. They understood that focusing on ‘the good ‘ol days’ - when Radicalism thundered against the evil Norman Conquest and mythologized ‘free-born Englishmen’ via Alfred - were archaic references.  Wade published practical information on present working class trades, embracing Ricardo’s 1821‘labor theory of value’, seeing there was a ‘productive’ class and a parasitic one.  Wade was also influenced by middle-class political economy like the myth of ‘supply and demand.’  The Utilitarians never went so far as to see the difference between the use value of a thing and the exchange value of a thing.  

The trade union forces were represented by leaders like Henson, Doughtery and Gast.  Gast was a long-time London shipwright who eventually led the London Trades Council and established a Trade Union newspaper.  The trade unionists opposed the Utilitarian idea that unemployment was ‘natural’ due to a surplus population – Malthus’ theory.  Instead of seeing the key issue related to unemployment was between a man and woman and contraception, the unionists saw it as a conflict between workers and employers. They, through Hodgeskins, also embraced the labor theory of value.  However, capitalists were included in the productive class if they actually worked, as the unionists still had no consistent social theory.  Eventually they concluded that every labor organization should be in one national union coalition, a great step forward.

A Cooperative Community

OWENISM

The most well-known current was Owenism, based on a politically clueless, kind and philanthropic Scottish mill owner, Robert Owen.  He wanted to ‘re-moralize’ lazy and careless Scottish workers into collective producers. He developed a theory and plan of a cooperative society, in which cooperative living, villages, farms, trading, work, mutual aid, capital and exchange were the basis of society, uniting all classes in a heaven-on-earth. Many of his practical projects were put into effect all over England, perhaps 500 projects involving 20,000 people. As part of this, bazaars where workers traded goods to each other through barter came into existence across the country. 

Thompson calls him “politically vacant” and a bit utopian, as he ignored England’s classes, repressive state and the issue of large property in his appeals.  Owen was no “Leveler”, as he believed this cooperative society would painlessly produce ‘new wealth, not expropriate old wealth.  In a way, the U.S. counter-culture of the 1960s-1970s worked quite the same stream, as does the exclusive promotion of cooperatives by Marxists like Richard Wolff. 

Owen was against religion, pecuniary marriage, celibacy and supported the unity of physical and intellectual labor. He believed that machinery should not compete with labor but cooperate with it – quite a different approach from the capitalist method.   

The labor leaders feared Owen’s plan would turn villages into workhouses for the poor, but gradually the labor movement adopted the view of organizing society on a cooperative basis as a real goal.  Instead of looking nostalgically to the past  - as even many U.S. social-democrats still do, re-running the New Deal of 1933-1939 - Owenism gave to the labor movement a picture of a different future.

During this period of labor ferment, millenarian and messianic instability continued among more backward rural laborers and workers.  A crippled shoemaker, Zion Ward, took up Southcott’s mantle, claiming to be Christ, while denouncing the official Church.  Another, T.N. Tom, claimed God would take his vengeance on the rich and society.  12 of his armed followers were killed in a forest battle with police when they tried to arrest him. 

The Revolutionary Crisis of 1832

Thompson considers 1832, like 1819, to be another point of potential revolution, as the Reform Bill was being heard in Parliament.  The ‘bunker’ reactionaries were against any concessions – Wellington, the Bishops, many Peers, the King. It would give the right to vote in England and Wales to male householders who paid £10 rent, to small landowners, to tenant farmers and to shopkeepers.  Note it excluded men without property, all women and also all of Scotland and Ireland, which were still colonies or being treated as such.  The Bill was roundly opposed by the working-class movement of the day, as it was not even for full male suffrage.  But the middle-class preferred this ‘half a loaf’ as Cobbett called it, which actually looked more like crumbs.

Huge demonstrations of 100K workers happened in London and Birmingham for a better bill.  In Leeds the suggestion was made in a mass rally that the banks be attacked, that the Political Unions should arm themselves and that no one should pay taxes. The poorest, most desperate sectors of the working class rioted in Derby, Nottingham and Bristol.  The proletarian Poor People’s Guardian published a guide to street fighting. The middle-class reformers waved the threat of revolution in the face of the reactionary elite, who finally, after 11 days of debate in the House of Lords, passed the measure. Compromise saved the system.  This was the intention of the middle-class ‘reformers’ (we can now put them in quote marks) - to bind the population to the State and property via this compromise.     

This seems somewhat similar to Obama telling Wall Street’s executives in 2009 that he was the only thing between them and “the pitchforks.”  Similarly we did not get any kind of real Wall Street ‘reform’ bill except the toothless Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill. The trillions pumped into the coffers of the banks by the government only confirmed the fact that the Kings of Finance in the U.S. were still in control.

The details of the Reform Bill are even worse.  The sponsors found out through surveys that barely 1 in 50 workers paid £10 rent and qualified to vote.  In the town of Holbeck of 11,000, only 150 would get the vote. In Leeds, (pop. 124,000) 355 workers could vote.  And so on.  The middle-class Whig ‘reformers’ had their way, as one of them put it – “the high and middling orders are the natural representatives of the human race.”

The MIDDLE-CLASS VICTORY

As noted by the Irish editor of the Poor Man’s Guardian, James O’Brien, the idea that the middle-class ‘Radicals’ cared about the proletariat was dashed, based on this and their later support for the Irish Coercion Bill, opposition to the 10 Hour Bill, attack on the trade unions and support for a backward revision of the Poor Laws. Another examples is that in 1834 Dorchester laborers were sent to Australia as punishment for a strike by this ‘reform’ Parliament.  Deporting ‘criminals’ to Australia or Tasmania was delicately called ‘transportation,’ based on an old Elizabethan law.  Instead, O’Brien advocated a peaceful political revolution, expropriation of the rich and the promulgation of Owenite communities.  Yet Thompson gives him a bit of a hard time for sectarianism towards possible future allies in the middle classes. 

The Reform Bill was denounced by labor as ‘the shopocrat franchise’ or a ‘rag merchant monarchy.’  180k gathered on Newell Hill in Birmingham for a festival and protest, which is estimated by Thompson as including people from half of the city and surrounding areas.  This ‘crumby’ Bill led directly to Chartist activity from 1838 to 1857, which called for votes for all men; secret ballot; no property qualifications for members of Parliament; paid leave to vote; equal voting districts; annual elections.  In other words, an actual representative, though still bourgeois, democracy.

In this period ‘the vote’ meant far more than what it means today, almost 200 years of manipulation and shenanigans later.  It meant that workers could be taken seriously, had some avenue for power and social control.  But like today, there was also a reaction to this real lack of a franchise in 1832, which resulted in purely labor syndicalism and a rejection of politics by some Radicals. 

Thompson ends the book with a 1968 Afterword regarding criticisms of the book, some his own.  They are:  He did not have enough new research about living standards. He was too hard on the Methodists.  He ignored for the most part coal miners, factory workers, transport, iron and building trades.  He had little focus on the right-wing nuttery found among working people during this same period.  He exaggerated underground activity or crowd sizes.  Thompson deals with all these objections in a detailed way, some of which he agrees with.   

APPLICABLE?

The inference I draw from this whole book is … has the existing U.S. working class achieved consciousness as a class for itself? I think not, certainly not now and even in the early part of the 20th century.  The three characteristics that Thompson chose – 1, an awareness of the identity of interests of every working class strata, 2, subsequent class opposition to the landlords and capitalists and 3, a vision of a new cooperative society  - have not been achieved.  

Re 1, many still don’t know they are in the working class, though that understanding is changing.  The lowest strata of the working class made up of people of color, Latinos and light-skinned working poor (our modern Irish or Scots) – are still looked down upon by some workers, especially white collars. Additionally, unionization rates are weak.  Re 2, a good number of working class people look up to the rich, thinking they too will be rich someday, or that they need their leadership. They don’t have a material grasp of what a ‘ruling class’ is, or what rich class actually is.  The Democrats and Republican are clearly run by capitalists, with legislators that are mostly millionaires, but many still vote for those parties. Class understandings is obscured by pure identity understandings cultivated by capital.  3, there is almost no vision of a new society, at best just an amelioration – ‘capitalism with a human face’ as I put it.  Single Payer might be the closest thing to the British NHS, but even that a distant goal.

There is definitely mass hostility to government, an explosion in libertarianism, opposition to various failed ‘pillars’ of society, to Wall Street, to billionaires and corporations, along with diffuse anti-war sentiment.  But this has not congealed into a left-wing movement of any size or organization.  That is one reason among many why this book is valuable, as a way to track the growth in class consciousness in the U.S. or other countries – or its opposite, its deterioration. 

P.S. - An analysis of Thompson's later work from a dialectical materialist point of view.  Much of the debate after the book was about Thompson becoming someone who thought 'culture' made a class, not its material role in production:  

https://www.marxists.org/archive/fryer/1957/09/lenin-phil.html?fbclid=IwAR2MmipedYN7rVeL1FkjgLHnN0RAPhxTfV3V1QfN_QQWgQMCfe6Bs6nPxmE

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using titles or words like this:  “The Making of the English Working Class” (Parts 1,2,3 and 4);“Class – the New Critical Idiom,” “Chavs – the Demonization of the Working Class,” “Class Against Class – the Miner’s Strike” (Matgamna); “Left Confusion on Brexit,” “The City” (Norfield); “Pride,” “Mr. Turner” (Leigh); “Coming Up For Air”(Orwell); “Monsters of the Market” (McNally); “The Football Factory” (King); "The North Water,” “The Young Karl Marx,” “The Peaky Blinders.”

Red Frog

February 12, 2022