Category Archives: Future Hope

Thomas Paine, Working-Class Hero

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“In ‘Common Sense,’ Thomas Paine defines common sense as the fundamental ability of all people to reason and discern truth, regardless of social standing or education. He argues that this innate capacity, when applied to political matters, reveals the absurdity of hereditary monarchy and the necessity of self-governance based on the consent of the governed. Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ is a call to action, urging colonists to reject British rule and embrace republicanism, a system of government where power resides in the people.”      AI Overview 

Labor Day is almost here, and demonstrations against Trumpfascism and in support of the right to organize and join unions and collective bargaining are taking place all over the country. Given the reactionary attacks on workers and unions by the Trump regime, it would be fitting to remember at this time one of the heroes of the USA anti-colonial revolution that began 250 years ago: Thomas Paine.

Tom Paine, more than any other leader of that revolution, was a working-class hero. Unlike many of the other leading figures of that time, he wasn’t a landowner or a slaveholder or a man of wealth. Indeed, he was openly against slavery, and for much of  his life he struggled to make a decent income.

Paine’s primary occupation was as a writer. He is most well known for the writing of the short but popularly written, powerful book, “Common Sense,” in 1776, a book which inspired broadly-based support for the revolutionary cause at a time when it was badly needed.

But he was a very special kind of writer. He deliberately joined the Continental Army in Valley Forge, Pa. in the brutal winter of 1777-78 at a time when the odds against that army winning were very long. He did so to help keep up the army’s morale and, from that vantage point, wrote a series of essays published and widely distributed as The American Crisis. In the very first issue he wrote this stirring passage, still appropriate today:

 “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

What was Paine’s specific vision for human society? Long after the successful defeat of British colonialism in “the colonies,” he wrote this passage in “Rights of Man, Part the Second”: “When it shall be said in any country in the world that my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want; the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am the friend of its happiness—when these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and its government.”

One of the most comprehensive and well written books about Paine is a book, ‘Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution and the Birth of Modern Nations,’ by Craig Nelson, published in 2006. It explains Paine’s life within the times in which he lived, “enlightenment” times which had and continue to have very real impacts. He concludes the book with words that are almost painfully relevant to our situation in the USA in the year 2025:

“Anyone needing to be reminded of core Enlightenment beliefs—that government can only be empowered by its citizens; that such citizens are born with certain natural rights; that none are born superior to any other; that all will be treated equally before the law; and that the state has a duty to help the neediest of its people—reading Paine offers a political and spiritual inspiration, one that has driven men and women to achieve greatness across history. Of Paine’s many reasons for daring to publish work for which he could have been hanged or guillotined in the United Colonies, the United Kingdom, or France, this legacy is his glory.”

The US resistance movement fighting the Trump regime’s effort to destroy everything Thomas Paine stood for and fought for, and more, will be stronger if we raise him up more and more over the coming months as we approach the 250th anniversary on July 4th next year of the issuing of the Declaration of Independence. There’s no question which side he would be on if he was alive today.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Self-Determination for Eastern Ukraine?

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Completely absent in any of the governmental efforts for the last three and a half years to end the war on Ukraine is the issue of self-determination as it relates concretely to where the on-the-ground war and the huge percentage of casualties are primarily happening.

The principle of nations having the right to make decisions about the form and nature of their governments goes back over 100 years and has long been upheld by the United Nations and most of the world’s governments.

When it comes to the Russia/Ukraine war this principle clearly applies to Ukraine’s efforts to defend its territory, economy and form of government from Russia’s 2022 military invasion, intended to extinguish Ukraine as a self-determining country.

But so far, from neither the United Nations nor any other country, has the concept of self-determination been applied to the reality that it is in eastern Ukraine, the four provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, where the path to a just and peaceful end to this terrible war lies. Following a ceasefire and other necessary steps to prepare for them, there should be binding referendums under United Nations supervision so that each of these four provinces can decide whether they want to be part of Russia or part of Ukraine.

It would be essential that these referendums be under the auspices of a neutral entity, which is why the United Nations is the logical choice.

Is this point of view pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian? It seems to me it is neither. Neither side wants to risk losing territory it considers to be its own via a popular vote which would put the stamp of political legitimacy on the results. Of course, the alternative seems to be a continuation for years if not decades of destructive and dangerous military conflict, tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars wasted and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of additional deaths.

Would the implementation of such a deal set a precedent for situations elsewhere in the world where there is conflict over territory between more-or-less distinct peoples? It probably would, but is such a precedent a bad thing? In a world where democracy is under threat by fascists and authoritarians, a successful application of the democratic principle of self-determination would be a ray of light, a hopeful development.

Is there an alternative that is more just, more likely of success, more likely to end this brutal, destructive and dangerous war and allow for positive economic and social rebuilding? That must be the objective.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Rise Up for Our Planet September 18-21

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It is crystal clear that millions of US Americans are prepared to organize and take action to fight the efforts of the Trump regime to impose a form of 21st Century fascism on the USA. From the first youth-led, #50501 actions in all 50 states on February 5th to the more than five million people who came out in over 2,200 localities on June 14th, No Kings Day, and everything in between and since, it is unquestionable that there is a mass resistance movement that is not giving up.

History is calling upon us to step up, and we are doing so.

This resistance movement has been a multi-issue movement participated in by people with a wide diversity of radical to progressive to liberal to common sense sentiments but who are united in our fear, rage, and support for democracy and social and environmental justice.

One of the issues of this multi-issue movement has been the climate crisis, but it has not been a priority. This is the case even as the world’s scientists and accelerating extreme weather events worldwide are clearly saying that this existential crisis is getting worse, and time is running out to turn things around in enough time to prevent worldwide climate catastrophe.

Since the Trumpists have taken office it has become increasingly clear that, despite significant Republican voter support in many states for jobs-producing wind and solar energy and electric cars, the Trump Administration is doing everything it can to halt and reverse the growth of these critical industries. A few weeks ago the head of the EPA, Lee Zeldin, former NY Republican candidate for Governor, announced that he intends to try to overturn the “endangerment finding” upheld by the US Supreme Court 16 years ago. That finding determined that CO2, methane and four other greenhouse gases are pollutants that can be regulated and reduced.

But the climate movement in the US and elsewhere is fighting back. Finally, on the fall equinox weekend of September 20th and 21st, the climate crisis will be a central issue in mass demonstrations around the US and beyond.

On the 20th world leaders will be gathering in NYC for the UN General Assembly and Climate Week. A major climate justice demonstration will be held that day in NYC, convened by international 350.org, DRUM, Climate Defenders and the Women’s March and endorsed by over 100 other groups so far. Simultaneous actions will happen on that day around the world as part of a Draw the Line campaign. The youth-led Fridays for Future is calling for actions around the world beginning on September 20. We are uniting across the world to demand a better future for our communities and for all living beings!

Then on Sunday, September 21, “Sun Day”, local actions around the country organized by national Third Act will “celebrate solar and wind power and the movement to leave fossil fuels behind. Solar energy is now the cheapest source of power on the planet—and gives us a chance to actually do something about the climate crisis. But fossil fuel billionaires are doing everything they can to shut it down. We will build, rally, sing and come together in the communities where we must work to get laws changed and work done.”

But this isn’t all that is happening five weeks from now. On the Thursday and Friday before this big weekend, September 18-19 in Washington, DC, actions are happening each day calling for: Hands Off Our Planet, No Fracking Petrostate

–Thursday morning: Action at the monthly meeting of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to demand that this agency do what the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals has said they must do: stop approving new methane gas projects unless they have done serious analyses of the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental justice impacts of proposed new methane gas pipelines and other infrastructure.

–Thursday afternoon: Action at the federal headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency as the beginning of a sustained national campaign to demand its restoration and the removal of Administrator Lee Zeldin.

–Friday morning: A Petrostate Tour stopping at trade associations that have captured our government, compromised the environment, and violated private property rights, including the American Petroleum Institute (API), American Exploration and Production Council (AXPC), and the American Gas Association (AGA). 

These DC actions are being organized by Beyond Extreme Energy, Elders Coalition for Climate Action, Third Act Actions Lab and the UnFrack FERC Campaign, supported by many others.

The peril our planet is in cannot be overstated. The popular democracy movement which has done so much over the last seven months to resist Trumpist tyranny must, really must, hit the streets next month.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

The Trump Death Cult, Part 2

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Six weeks ago I wrote a column entitled, Fighting Climate Meltdown and the Death Cult. In it I said, “This would-be fascist government wants to roll back hundreds of billions of dollars approved in 2022 for wind and solar energy, electric cars, buses and trains and other clean and jobs-producing energy. This is the kind of energy we must shift to as rapidly as possible if we are to avoid the breakdown of ecosystems and human societies worldwide. It’s as if Trump and the MAGA’s were a death cult, truly, and not just when it comes to energy policy.”

I wrote this before the vote, one week later, on the Big Billionaires Bill that passed in the House and the Senate by the narrowest of margins. Millions of US Americans, predominantly low-income working people, will be hurt because of this bill’s passage.

At the very last minute of the months-long work of putting together this legislation there was an effort to insert language to make its energy provisions even worse by adding a new tax on wind, solar, batteries and other clean energy technologies. This tax would be levied if companies cannot prove that their products are made without Chinese parts. This provision, if passed, would have made the bill much worse. Fortunately, there were enough Republican Senators who refused to support it so that it was taken out before the final vote.

Interestingly, as far as I can tell, no one has come forward to take credit for this diabolical effort to decimate these rapidly-growing and world-critical technologies. I’d put my bet on Trump and/or Steven Miller being behind it, almost certainly.

One week ago this Trumpist campaign in support of fossil fuel industry dominance of US energy took another huge step when Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA, announced that it will move to overturn the 2009 Supreme Court “Endangerment Finding” which determined that there are six greenhouse gases (GHG’s) that are air pollutants which endanger public health and welfare.

If this 16-year-old finding is ultimately overturned by the current Supreme Court, it would be a huge dagger, a knife to the chest, of US efforts going on since 2009 and before to reduce those GHG’s and shift, instead, to a 21st Century clean energy economy that cleans up air, water and land, particularly in environmental justice communities, and gives humankind a fighting chance to prevent worldwide ecosystem and societal breakdown as this century progresses.

Then there is the recently revealed Trump Administration policy linking lower tariffs for other countries to their agreeing to buy US-produced, climate-destroying methane gas exports. Was this from the beginning a major purpose of the tariff campaign?

Truly, maddeningly, Trump, Miller, Zeldin, Vance, the whole cabal, can best be described given all of these actions, and more, as no less than a death cult. Their actions prove that they literally don’t care about anything other than the amassing of as much wealth and power for themselves and their billionaire backers as they can. They are climate criminals.

Fortunately, the US movement for climate justice is very much alive and kicking. There is organizing going on in every state and numerous localities in support of the urgently needed shift away from fossil fuels and to clean renewables, battery storage, electric vehicles and electric heating/cooling systems. These clean energy technologies are advancing worldwide and, still, if now more slowly, in the US.

Support for renewables among the US population continues to be high. A recent Pew Research poll in June reported that 68% continue to support wind power and 77% support solar power.

Our job today is to expose the deadly implications of the Trump/MAGA policies, activate the clear majority which supports making the clean energy transition, fight in every way we can against the planned dramatic expansion of fossil fuel, especially methane gas, pipelines, export terminals and infrastructure, and groundswell a visible, in the streets, mass climate justice movement that refuses to quit.

Down with the Trump death cult.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Nixon and Watergate, Trump and the Epstein Crisis

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On November 6 last year, the day after the big election, I wrote about the “so-serious situation we are now faced with in not just the USA but the world because of the MAGA victory. I remember a very similar feeling after the November, 1972 runaway Presidential victory of Trump-similar Richard Nixon over George McGovern. But 21 months later Nixon was gone from DC, resigning in disgrace before he was impeached.

“What was Nixon’s vote total compared to Trump’s?

“Nixon had a 23% margin of victory in the popular vote and won every state except Massachusetts and DC. As far as Trump, when all the votes are counted It looks like he’ll either be ahead by a couple percent or pretty much tied. And Harris will have won a lot more states than Massachusetts and DC.

“History sometimes develops in unexpected ways. Who would ever have thought after Nixon’s overwhelming landslide victory in 1972 that he would be disgraced and gone from the White House 21 months later?”

Nixon’s fall from power was completely a result of what became known as the “Watergate crisis,” the revelation of a secret plan to illegally disrupt the 1972 Presidential election. It began when four pro-Nixon burglars were arrested late at night inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters housed in the Watergate building in DC.

There are a lot of similarities, as well as differences, between this early 70s Republican Party crisis and the one they are dealing with today because of the all-of-a-sudden exploding into public view of Trump’s long-term friendship with corrupt child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The fact that it was MAGA people who brought the grassroots pressure leading to this state of affairs for Trump is definitely something different compared to what Nixon went through in 1973 and 1974.

Another difference is that the Epstein crisis is about much more than an illegal effort to steal an election, as big as that is. This one is about criminal depravity, the apparent years-long sexual abuse of teenage girls by Trump and other rich and powerful white men to satisfy their twisted sexual desires. It’s sick, sick, sick at the most fundamental human level.

Also of significance is the allegiance so far to Trump of the vast majority of Republican Senators and House members, as well as MAGA-related, conservative religious leaders, despite how clearly despicable Trump’s conduct was over the many years he and Epstein were close buddies in sexual criminality.

Finally, there is the important difference that in 1973-1974 the House and the Senate were controlled by Democrats. This meant that as the extensiveness of Nixon Administration efforts to illegally seize political power were revealed, public Congressional hearings educated the US population about them in a way which dramatically affected Nixon’s political support. Just before impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives were about to begin, and just before he resigned, Nixon’s approval ratings were at about 25%.

This has some similarities to what Newsweek reported just two days ago:

“According to the latest Wall Street Journal/Fabrizio, Lee & Associates poll, 76 percent of voters believe the Justice Department is hiding important information about its Epstein investigation, with nearly half saying they have ‘no confidence’ in the department’s handling of the case. Another 21 percent say they have little confidence, while fewer than one in four expressed any real trust in the probe.”

What does all of this mean for the independent progressive movement in the US which has been publicly demonstrating in every state in the country since early February, the millions of us who are “taking it to the streets,” as well as the many more US Americans who support us?

We should clearly be supportive of the efforts to get out the truth about Epstein’s connections to Trump and other political and corporate rich white men and which of them, because of those connections, engaged in personally corrupt and criminally abusive, illegal conduct toward teenage women.

We should also be more knowledgeable and active than many of us are, myself included, on the issue of child sex abuse. Two weeks ago I was astounded to read a story in The Guardian which reported that “Florida records more than 700,000 people as victims of human trafficking in 2024–Report from University of South Florida says total includes 100,000 children targeted for sex trafficking in state.”

This political crisis for Trump is bringing into the open a dirty, despicable underside of US society that is rarely visible to those not experiencing it. While keeping up the pressure on him and those who continue to support him, while demanding that Trump Must Go, we can never forget that, as big a victory as that would be, our problems in the US are profoundly systemic and will only be solved by a massive movement of tens of millions of us rising up in a sustained and organized way.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

To Each According to Their Need

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“To whatever extent we reach our potential in this world, my grandmother would be furious if I didn’t say that it was due to a combination of our individual talents and the societal conditions – the real existing material conditions, as a good Marxist might say – that have shaped our lives. But while she would probably not admit it, the faith in her eyes – the challenge to imagine with others a better world and actively move with them towards it, to engage in collective struggle to achieve a more humanistic society – that faith will always remain with us.”

–Dorothy Ray Healey remembrance, Jewish Women’s Archive

“Without vision, the people perish.” This famous quote from Proverbs 29:18 in the Old Testament is absolutely on target, based on my experiences over many years. A variation of this quote—if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there—underlines the danger of not having a vision. A road to nowhere is a dangerous road.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had a vision, summed up in the phrase, “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” Was this an original idea back then, 177 years ago? I don’t think so.

In his younger years Marx was connected to religion; he was baptized as a Lutheran at the age of six. He studied religion, ultimately leading him to develop his well-known critique of it as an “opiate of the people.”

The book of Acts is a religiously-oriented history of the first years and decades of the Christian church after Jesus of Nazareth was killed. In chapters two and four, it is made clear that in these early days of the Christian religion, the concept of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” was a central vision.

Here’s how it is described in Acts 2: 44-45: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all as any had need.” And similarly in Acts 4: 32 and 34: “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. . . There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.”

I’m pretty sure that Dorothy Healey got this. She was the first socialist I ever heard quote Bible verses as she made her case from the podium speaking to hundreds of mostly young people at a national conference of the now-defunct New American Movement in 1974. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I remember thinking that I wished I could do that. Why did I feel that way?

One reason is that I had generally positive experiences growing up in the church my parents took me to every Sunday, as well as with others in my extended family, especially my grandparents, who were devout Christians. But it was also because, as I became a peace and justice and impeach Nixon activist in my late teens and early 20’s, and as I was exposed to individuals who looked to Marx and Engels and “scientific socialism” as their “bible,” it seemed to me that one thing both had in common was a vision for a very different kind of society than the one dominating much of the world.

And let’s be real: what both also have in common is the corruption of the original vision of their founders as they grew politically stronger and more institutionalized. That is a reality that can never be forgotten, something those of us today need to study and learn from going forward.  

Healey tried to put the two positive visions together. She believed in Christian/Marxist unity. She may or may not have been an atheist, I don’t know, but her life was grounded in the best of both those worlds.

All of us have a responsibility to “imagine with others a better world and actively move with them towards it, to engage in collective struggle to achieve a more humanistic society” with the long term goal, one many of us will not see, of human societies where the abilities of all are used to meet the economic, social and cultural needs of all. We must hold fast to this vision whatever the odds against us right now.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Progressive Comradeship During the Trump Times

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I’ve noticed over the last couple of years younger progressive/revolutionary organizers using the word, “comrade,” to refer to other organizers. Is this a good idea?

During the days of McCarthyism in the 1950’s, and probably before then, self-righteous conservatives used this word as a smear against people on the political Left. “Comrade” was a word used before and after the Russian Revolution in 1917 by members of the Bolshevik Party which led that revolution and dominated the USSR government for decades afterwards. I suspect, without knowing for sure, that members of the Communist Party in the USA from the 1920’s on, at least until McCarthyite repression in the 50’s, used that term also, given the CPUSA’s very close connection to the Soviet CP during that time.

George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” published in 1945, had a lot to do with the comrade word becoming much more widely discredited. Animal Farm is the story of a revolution gone bad, corruption of once-revolutionary and brave leadership upon gaining power, and even as those bad things happen and demoralization sets in among many of the animals, use of the word comrade is continued by those in power.

As a young person growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s, I absorbed much of the dominant conservative ideology of those days and as a result never used, and still don’t use, the comrade word in any way. To me, it has been seen as a problematic word.

But there are other-than-leftist groups in the USA that use the word. Doing some google searching I learned that it is in use in both the US military and among veterans groups, which is surprising. Why would that be the case?

In a Random House dictionary published in 1966, they give three definitions for the word: “1) a person who shares closely in one’s activities, occupation, interests, etc: intimate companion, associate, or friend. 2) a fellow member of a fraternal group, political party, etc. 3) a member of the Communist Party or someone with strongly leftist views.”

I think it’s telling that the US military and veterans groups apparently use the word. Clearly, their doing so would fall under definitions 1 and 2, not 3. There is something about the word, something about the idea of comradeship, that connects people who are working “closely” together in a shared task, shared “interests.”

Many of us today, literally millions, are standing up and taking action against the Trumpfascists. 5 million or more took part in 2,200 local actions in all 50 states on June 14, No Kings! Day. Probably millions are going to take part in local “Good Trouble Lives On” actions on July 17, the 5th anniversary of the death of longtime freedom fighter John Lewis; there are already over 1,000 planned. And I feel a sense of comradeship, progressive comradeship, with this so-very-important mass political force, this popular resistance movement.

“Progressive comradeship:” that’s a phrase I’m comfortable with. It fits with definitions 1 and 2 above. It clarifies that this movement is broadly-based, representing tens of millions of people, going from “strong leftists,” including communists, on one pole to decent, concerned people on the other who believe in “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

During Hakeem Jeffries’ record-breaking, 8 hour and 44 minutes, impressive speech right before the Big Ugly Bill was narrowly passed in the House of Representatives on July 3rd, he quoted more than once a passage from the Bible that clearly resonated with the many Democratic Congresspeople sitting, and sometimes standing in loud applause, behind him. That passage? Matthew 25: 35-40. It’s one that should undergird all that we do as we keep building and strengthening the Resistance.

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

We must do all we can as long as we are alive to try to bring into existence a world motivated by these words in Matthew. It’s a certainty that the warped and twisted, pro-oligarch, obscene policies of the current federal government, combined with the day-to-day organizing of the millions of us, is going to lead to many more millions joining with us in this profoundly important task history has placed before us.

Our mass democracy movement is now and must continue to be characterized by progressive comradeship in the way we interact and a deep, abiding love for others and the natural world. Nothing can defeat that kind of movement, nothing. We really can change the world.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Fighting Climate Meltdown and the Death Cult

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“This is a fight for life. And like all fights, you need a tremendous amount of bravery to take it on. Before I started working on climate change, I didn’t think of myself as a fighter, but I became one because I felt I have a responsibility to preserve the world for my son and children everywhere. That kind of fierce protectiveness is part of the way that I love. We can draw on that to have more strength than our enemies because I don’t think they’re motivated by love. I believe love is an infinite resource and the power of it is greater than that of greed or hate. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be here.”

-Dr. Genevieve Guenther, The Guardian, June 24

On June 14th I spoke at one of the 2,200 or so “No Kings!’ actions around the country, this one in Newark, NJ. In part I said, “This would-be fascist government wants to roll back hundreds of billions of dollars approved in 2022 for wind and solar energy, electric cars, buses and trains and other clean and jobs-producing energy. This is the kind of energy we must shift to as rapidly as possible if we are to avoid the breakdown of ecosystems and human societies worldwide. It’s as if Trump and the MAGA’s were a death cult, truly, and not just when it comes to energy policy.”

I’ve thought about this characterization that I made since I did so publicly. I’ve wondered if it was too over the top, too rhetorical. I’ve thought about all of the many other people down through history, Hitler and the Nazis as exhibit number one, who clearly fit this description.

There’s no question Trump would like to rule the world and that he cares little about the lives of Black, Brown and Indigenous people, low-income people, women and lgbtq people. He’s a racist and sexist through and through. He’s OK with genocide in Gaza, doesn’t even feign to be concerned, instead dreaming about turning Gaza into another luxury resort on the Mediterranean Sea. He wants to drastically increase the already obscene US military budget, etc., etc., etc.

But what I think makes the “death cult” phrase unquestionably accurate is his and his billionaire buddies’ very explicit efforts to stop and reverse the growing worldwide, and US, shift from fossil fuels to renewables and a truly clean and green economy.

We are already far down the road as far as climate disruption and danger. Climate scientists are telling us that there is a very real possibility of soon passing environmental tipping points that could destabilize the climate for generations, centuries. Those who are doing all they can to set back renewable energy and achieve “energy dominance” via coal, nukes, oil and methane gas; these people, Trump and his government appointees, the fossil fuel industry and the banks and billionaires who support them, are absolutely a death cult.

Fortunately, a big majority of the US population supports the shift to wind, solar, electric vehicles and heat pumps and other truly renewable energy sources. This is crucial, and a reason not to lose hope.

What is the evidence for this assertion? Here is one source: a poll released in late January this year by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication:

Registered voters across the political spectrum support many policies designed to reduce carbon pollution and fossil fuel dependence and promote clean energy, including: 

  • 88% support providing federal funding to help farmers improve practices to protect and restore the soil, so it absorbs and stores more carbon.
  • 77% support funding more research into renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power.
  • 74% support setting strict limits on methane emissions from oil and gas production.
  • 73% support regulating carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) as a pollutant.
  • 69% support providing tax credits or rebates to encourage people to buy electric appliances, such as heat pumps and induction stoves, that run on electricity instead of oil or gas.
  • 69% support funding more research on global warming and climate change by Federal agencies such as NASA, NOAA, and the EPA.
  • 67% support requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax and use the money to reduce other taxes (such as income tax) by an equal amount.
  • 63% support transitioning the U.S. economy (including electric utilities, transportation, buildings, and industry) from fossil fuels to 100% clean energy by 2050.
  • 58% support providing tax rebates for people who purchase electric vehicles.

Note that these percentages could not be what they are unless more than a few Trump voters had these views. There is widespread, tri-partisan support on this huge issue.

So is there hope? Yes, there is. There’s hope not just because of the results of this, and other, polls but because of the massive local demonstration turnouts in every state since Trump took office, over 5 million people the most recent time on June 14. There is hope when climate and social justice state assemblyman Zohran Mandani decisively wins the New York City primary on June 10. And there are so many more examples, so many of us rising up on issue after issue and continuing to resist.

There is absolutely no question that the national progressive movement in the United States is in the ring, landing punches and fighting hard in this existential and urgent battle for the future.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Turning Political Repression Into Movement Building

Future Hope, , , ,

My first years of progressive activism and organizing took place during the presidency of Richard Nixon, who, without a doubt, led one of the most repressive presidential administrations we have experienced in the United States in the modern era, prior to this Trump regime. It was under Nixon that the Republican Party, with its “southern strategy,” began to move toward becoming the kind of regressive entity that allowed pathological liar, racist, and convicted sexual abuser Donald Trump to be elected president in November 2016 and again in 2024.

During Nixon’s first term, from 1969 to 1973, he oversaw the use of government agencies to attempt to destroy groups like the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement and the Young Lords, including armed attacks by police that resulted in deaths. Newly enacted conspiracy laws were used to indict leaders of the peace movement and other movements. An entirely illegal and clandestine apparatus was created to sabotage the campaigns of his political opponents in the Democratic Party, leading to the midnight break-in at the Watergate Hotel that eventually led to the exposure of this apparatus and Nixon’s forced resignation from office in 1974.

I learned several things during those Nixon years about how to deal with government repression. Unfortunately, given Trump/MAGA’s attempts to replace US democracy with a fascist regime, those are very relevant lessons for today.

One critical lesson is that there is a disparity in the government treatment of people of color—Black, Latino/a, Indigenous and Asian—compared with the treatment of people of European descent—white people. The historical realities of settler military aggression, broken treaties, slavery, Jim Crow segregation, assumed white dominance, and institutionalized racism continue to have their negative, discriminatory impacts.

We are seeing this play out right now with the Trumpist arrests of Brown and Black immigrants, over 90% of whom, according to AI, have no criminal record. There can be little doubt that the intention is to use this racist campaign to establish a wholly new “justice” system which will increasingly come after not just immigrants but anyone who is consistently resisting their efforts to overturn democracy and install an authoritarian, repressive regime.

Those of us of European descent must be conscious of these realities and act accordingly, prioritizing right now the defense of immigrant rights. Very big numbers of us are stepping up, demonstrating and engaging in nonviolent action, risking and getting arrested, in opposition to what is happening with ICE in particular.

Government repression can’t be allowed to paralyze or divide organizations or movements. This is one of the objectives of an unjust government trying to repress those who challenge its policies and practices. That is one of the reasons why we need to be about the development of a movement culture that is respectful and healthy. Such a supportive cultural environment can help us weather this storm we are in and emerge from it stronger and better both as individual activists and organizers and as a mass progressive movement.

This is one of the necessary elements for successful resistance to government repression.

When I say “successful” I don’t mean that there won’t be casualties on our side, people behind bars, some for months or years, or people physically attacked and injured or worse, or deportation, job losses or greater economic hardship. It is clear that under a Trump/MAGA regime this is already happening and will continue and likely get worse, particularly for immigrants, people of color and low-income people generally.

Other things which can defend our rights and our movements are these:

-effective legal representation in court. It is good to see the way that many lawyers and progressive legal organizations are stepping up to defend immigrants and challenge the Trump executive orders issued so far;

-broad community support when repression happens. There are instances when ICE has attempted to arrest people and, on the spot, neighbors and others have prevented those arrests or, by their actions, have brought media attention to what is being attempted and, over time, have gotten people released from jail. It is a fact that there is a strong and extensive network of organizations nationally which is having an impact.

All of this can immediately or over time serve to undercut support for the Trumpists, strengthen our justice movement and hasten the time when the power of the organized people overcomes them on the way to the worldwide social, economic, environmental and cultural changes needed for humanity and all life forms to avoid ecosystem and societal breakdown.

Ultimately, what I have learned is that government repression can have a disruptive impact on our work, but we can turn a negative into a positive. The extent to which we can creatively, intelligently, and fearlessly demonstrate the truth of what we are about when responding to what they are doing to us is the extent to which we can have confidence that yes, we will win. Si, se puede!

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

Nonviolent Tactics and the Fascist Threat

Future Hope, , , ,

“Anger against injustice and oppression is not just legitimate; it is necessary to successfully build a movement for real change. But anger needs to be used in a disciplined way. Those who are quick to call cops “pigs” or throw bricks or otherwise display anger negatively are either government agents attempting to discredit the movement or people who need an intervention. They need to be taken aside and spoken with in a direct, to the point, and loving way about the counter-productiveness of what they are doing. Some will keep doing it, but others will change, maybe not right away but over time.”         Future Hope column, June 11, 2021

When violence, against cops or property, takes place during an action organized by progressive groups, who, in general, is such violence likely to come from? From my experience I’d say there are three sources:

-Government or corporate agents who are consciously using violence to try to discredit the cause people are demonstrating about.

-People at the demonstration who are very upset and pissed off, for good reason, about something the government, oppressive corporations and/or the police are doing and who lash out in response.

-Dedicated activists and organizers whose theory of change supports firebombings or other destruction of property, like police cars or, in LA recently, Tesla cars—in other words, targeted destruction to express outrage and do damage. Also in this category would be those who are quick to engage in street fighting with police.

I come to this discussion as someone who is not across-the-board against any destruction of property. During the Vietnam War I was part of the Catholic Left, initiated and led by Catholic priests Phil and Dan Berrigan, which went into Selective Service draft boards and destroyed files of potential draftees as a way to obstruct that war and build resistance to it. I spent 11 months in prison for one such action in Rochester, NY.

These actions were controversial within the peace movement back then. More moderate groups and individuals, including even some individuals who had burned their draft cards publicly, felt this was too provocative, could hurt the cause.

I didn’t think so at the time. For me as a 20 year old deeply outraged about the war in Vietnam, it met my need for action at the scale of the urgency of that situation. And since all of our actions were always done in a way that no one could ever be hurt or killed by what we did, with the possible exception of us if caught and arrested, I was good with this type of property destruction, especially as we became more effective at destroying files, for some actions in the thousands of them.

There were others of my generation who felt the same urgency I did who came together into the Weather Underground, which then carried out bombings of war-related targets. Three WU members were killed while making bombs; no one else was, but these actions were used by the Nixon Administration to prolong the war, just as Trump is now using the relativity small-scale property destruction and some fighting with police to try to ramp up military occupations not just in LA but possibly elsewhere.

Times are too serious for us to avoid movement-wide discussion about this issue.

It’s probably the case that some of those into street fighting or performative property violence are well aware that their actions will be used to increase repression on the part of the Trump regime and similarly-inclined state and local governments. They think that such repression is going to hasten “the revolution.”

It’s possible, probably likely, that some German Communists in the 20’s and 30’s who were more critical of the Social Democrats than the Nazis had this view. Here’s how AI describes this:

“During the 1930s in Germany, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) adopted a strategy of attacking the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as ‘social fascists,’ viewing them as allies of the capitalist system and thus an enemy of the revolution. This ‘social fascism’ theory, promoted by the Comintern (Communist International), led the KPD to actively oppose the SPD and even align with the Nazis in some instances. The KPD’s rejection of cooperation with the SPD is seen by some historians as a significant factor in the rise of the Nazi Party.”

Very fortunately, those on the Left espousing similar views as the KPD in Germany back then are in a very small minority. The vast majority of Leftists, as well as those who would have been called Social Democrats back then and the many who are more issue-oriented than ideological in their day-to-day work for progressive social change, systemic change, get it that what is absolutely the task of the moment right now is to build a very broad, massive, united movement against the attacks on US democracy, the efforts to create 21st century fascism in the United States.

This Saturday, on June 14th, we all must come out wherever we are to make the almost 2,000 No Kings! nonviolent actions taking place in every state on that day as massive as possible. Trump Must Go!

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.