Tag Archives: history

Two Flags Flying

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For the last month or so there have been two small flags flying prominently outside the front door my and my wife’s house. One is an American flag, the other the Palestinian flag.

In the 46 years that Jane and I have been married we’ve never done anything like this. We’ve had issue-oriented signs in our front yard, and we’ve had Bernie, renewable energy, peace and other bumper stickers on the back of our car, but we’ve never flown flags where we’ve lived.

We’re flying the Palestinian flag because for over two years, since the terrible October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and, afterwards, the hugely more terrible, genocidal attack on all of Gaza by the Netanyahu government, we have demonstrated almost every week in a nearby town calling for a ceasefire, an end to US military support of Israel and justice for the Palestinian people.

For those who know us, it isn’t a surprise that we’re doing this.

But flying the American flag? For a very long time we’ve not done so largely because, going back to the Vietnam War days, we have seen that it has been right-wingers and conservatives who primarily use that flag to advance often-racist and imperialist agendas. And it’s definitely the case that, historically, when the US has engaged in military campaigns against Indigenous nations or in overseas, imperialist military campaigns going back to 1898, the US flag has been there.

The US flag now flying outside our door was likely given to us by someone at the October 18 No Kings action which we helped to organize in our town, after we came back from our trip this summer to Montana to visit our grandson, son and daughter-in-law. We left home in mid-July and came back eight weeks later, in September.

We got to Montana by driving our all-electric, 2018 Chevrolet Bolt out and back, close to a 5,000 mile round trip. Here is how I described our reasons for doing so and what we learned from it in a past Future Hope column:

“One of the reasons we decided to travel this way was to experience very directly areas of the country we had never been to or not been to for a long time. We hoped all would go well mechanically, as well as our interactions with people along the way as we stopped to charge the car, camp or stay overnight in motels, eat in restaurants, get food and drink during rest stops and then, in southwest Montana, interact with others for the five weeks we were there.

“I returned with a lot more hope about this country than I had before this trip. In the 12 states we went through or spent time in, most of them “red” or “purple,” we saw and heard very few signs of much support for Trump and his authoritarian government. I would estimate that, in all those eight weeks and thousands of miles, we saw no more than a dozen Trump signs and even fewer Trump hats or t-shirts being worn. People overwhelmingly were polite to us, as we were to them. There was virtually no evidence from these very many brief encounters that the USA at the grassroots has become a nasty, brutish, mean place.

“I am sure that if we had gotten into ideological/political discussions with the people we interacted with, most of them of European descent, there would have been some disagreements and tensions, but my sense is that, even when that were true, there would have been some points of agreement to be found.”

It was a hopeful trip. And the election results over the past month in many parts of the country, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, California and elsewhere, all of which showed a definite and significant shift away from the Trumpists, confirmed what we experienced.

Indiana was one of the states we went through, one of the most conservative of the northern US states. 80% of the members of the Indiana state senate are Republicans. But just a few days ago half of those Republicans, 20 out of 50 Senators in total, voted down a Trump-pushed plan to gerrymander US Congressional districts so that all nine of them would end up having Republican US House members after the November elections. Politically, this was huge, the latest sign that more and more Trump supporters are alienated by this would-be dictator and are willing to stand up to him publicly.

There are lots of reasons to believe that, if we all keep working and organizing day after day, increasingly united, 2026 will be a huge year, a clear and powerful repudiation of the Trumpists and their billionaire enablers.

 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.

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Conditions are Ripe for a Resistance Counter- Offensive

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It’s been over ten long months that the forces of democracy have been on the defensive, doing our best to withstand the many and various assaults on us on issue after issue, but the tide is turning:

-Trump’s polling numbers keep going down, at 36% positive and 60% negative in the latest Gallup Poll;

-Four weeks after Democratic Party electoral victories all over the country on November 4, it’s possible as I write that, today, a Democrat running for Congress in a special election in Tennessee could win despite, in the 2024 election, the Republican candidate winning by a 22% margin of victory;

-Long-time MAGA leader Margaret Taylor Green is resigning from Congress and publicly criticizing Trump on health care, the Epstein issue and more, with the likelihood that other Republican House members will follow her lead;

-The Epstein sex trafficking crisis is not going away!

-Trump’s “Justice” Department’s indictments against James Comey and Letitia James have been thrown out by a US District Court judge;

-Congressional Republicans are on the defensive over what to do about the health care crisis, overall, with the specific problem of huge increases in premiums, doubling, tripling or more, for millions of people by the end of the year; this was one of the main reasons for Green’s resignation;

-And now comes the Caribbean motorboat revelations about Pete Hegseth giving the illegal order to “kill everybody” on those boats even if a boat has been destroyed and there are survivors. True to form, exposed as they have been, rats like Hegseth are deserting a sinking ship by trying to shift the blame to a career military admiral.

Remember that it was Joe McCarthy in the 1950’s attacking the US military that was the beginning of the end for his McCarthyite repressive campaign.

There are probably some on the political Left who would counsel that we allow all of this to keep unfolding and not “rock the sinking boat,” just let it take its course, but I don’t agree at all.

We should do just the opposite, consciously up our game, keep broadening out our resistance movement and make plans for 2026 to be the year that Trump and the MAGA’s are decisively defeated and the House and the Senate come under Democratic and progressive independent (Bernie, others) control. Like it or not, that has to be our north star for the next 11 months, as we keep up the resistance to ICE and Border Control raids and take action on all of the many other issues our peoples are dealing with.

That issue-oriented activity will strengthen the electoral campaigns of genuine progressives in the Democratic primaries running against corporatists or anti-Left centrists, as well as serious, tactically smart, progressive independent campaigns

It will be essential that we do what we did so effectively over this past year as far as taking it to the streets. We need national days of coordinated local actions, which began in 2025 on February 5 with the 50501 actions in just about every state capitol. Those actions kept building throughout the year up to the seven million of us coming out in 2,600 local actions in every state on the second No Kings day October 18.

January 19, 2026, one year after Trump took office and the federal Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, would be a very good day to initiate this continuing campaign of nationally coordinated street action.

2026 will be the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which offers us lots of possibilities.

We do need to be up front about the mixed reality of that historic revolution against British colonialism, the reality of European-American enslavement of Africans and violent theft of land lived on by indigenous nations for thousands of years. But it is a fact that the American Revolution helped to inspire anti-colonial and anti-monarchy revolutions in France, Haiti, South America and elsewhere. Indeed, when the Vietnamese revolutionaries in 1946 put forward their call for independence from French colonialism, they quoted the US Declaration of Independence.

We should have no illusions that the MAGA’s as a whole are going to see the light and stop with their repressive and regressive efforts, though there’s no question that some of them already are moving away from Trump and there are major internal rifts. This is another important fact about the crisis the Republicans and fascists are in.

As bad as 2025 has been, 2026 can be very different, if we all stay strong and keep consciously building the resistance movement in all its many different aspects. 2026 can  end up being a happy, a joyous, successful new year of popular, nonviolent uprising for justice, democracy, peace and defense of our threatened ecosystems.

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.

Honor War and Anti-War Veterans

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Last year I attended a Veterans Day event in my town organized by the local town government. At the event I was asked by a local news reporter if I was a veteran. I responded, “I’m an anti-war veteran.”

This got me thinking: what about an anti-war veterans day, or an inclusion of them in Veterans Day events?

Who are some of the people who would be remembered? There are lots of us, but some of the most well-known would include:

-Jane Adams
-Ella Baker
-Rachel Corrie
-Dorothy Day
-Dave Dellinger
-Mohandus Gandhi
-Helen Keller
-Coretta Scott King
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
-Jeannette Rankin
-Ron Kovics
-Brian Willson
-Howard Zinn

Note that Kovics, Wilson and Zinn were both kinds of veterans. Kovics fought and lost his legs in the Vietnam War, Willson lost his as part of a peace action in the US, and Zinn fought in World War II.

There are several anti-war veterans organizations in the United States. The three which are most active are About Face: Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Today they and other groups have organized “No War on Our Cities” actions around the country.

There is power in a peace movement which links non-veterans and veterans. I first experienced this in the early 70’s after spending 11 months in prison for nonviolent acts of draft resistance as part of the Catholic Left. In early 1972, in connection with a trial in Harrisburg, Pa. of myself and other Catholic Left activists, the Harrisburg 8, I distinctly remember connecting with Vietnam vets in their combat fatigues taking part in demonstrations held in support of those of us on trial. They were small in number, but their open and visible participation had a very positive effect on me and many others.

It’s important for progressive organizers and activists to be open to connecting up and working with people who, on the surface, seem to be on the other side. Some of us don’t get this. For them, anyone in the military or the police is an enemy. But history, including recent history, shows that this isn’t true, that those carrying weapons on behalf of those in power, especially when it is unjust and abusive power, can be affected when spoken to or even nonviolently confronted about why what they are doing is wrong.

This is a critical point for us right now as we build upon the October 18th No Kings victory of 7 million people in the streets in every state, followed by the “tsunami” election defeats November 4th all over the country of the MAGA Trumpists.

As much as these huge victories have changed the country, its political dynamics and the resistance movement’s morale for the better, they almost certainly will lead to more illegal and repressive actions by a Trump regime hemorrhaging support. In the battle for the future of the USA, it will be important that those once Trump supporters, including police and military people, be encouraged to speak out and change sides and be supported by us when they do.

I am certain that the Vietnam War would not have ended when and the way it did if not for soldiers’ resistance within the US military to the war while in Vietnam, as well as the open resistance in the streets by veterans returning home. I think it’s similar today. As the Trumpists ratchet up their efforts to create 21st century fascism in the USA, defections by individuals who are being ordered to carry out those repressive activities will be an important component of our ultimate victory.

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.


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October 18, November 4: World Changing?

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Many millions on the streets this Saturday all over the country loudly proclaiming: No Kings! Yes to Democracy!–followed on November 4th by victories for Mamdani in NYC, Sherrill in NJ, Spanberger in Virginia, redistricting in California, and more–could this be truly “world changing?”

On one level, no. This is not a Presidential election year or a Congressional election year. It’s an off-year electorally.

But it’s not an off-year politically. The battle is fully joined between the forces of democracy and the forces of authoritarianism, between the resistance and blind Trumpism. And because of this, what happens over the next three weeks could be a decisive turning point, victories for the significant majority of US Americans who are saddened and outraged by the lying, divisive, destructive and dangerous Trump federal government and its billionaire co-conspirators.. .

Think about it: potentially the biggest mass demonstration  ever in the USA, in every single state and literally thousands of localities, organized by a broadly-based progressive/liberal/independent coalition of hundreds of organizations that is not going away. That alone is a huge thing at this challenging time for the US and the world.

A Zohran Mamdani victory in itself will be a huge deal, a non-sectarian, democratic socialist becoming the Mayor of the country’s largest city, the financial capitol, a melting pot of diverse peoples and nationalities and which often leads the country as far as political shifts.

Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger winning the Governor races in their states will not be the same thing. Neither are consistently progressive, definitely not socialists, but there’s no question that many people to their left support them over the Trump-supporting Republican opponents. Combined with October 18 and a Mamdani victory and continued progressive organizing at the grassroots, that will make a difference in how they govern.

If California comes through and neutralizes Texas’ brazen, Trump-pushed, Congressional redistricting plan to try to gain 5 more Republican House seats from Texas next November, that will be important both practically and politically.

There’s something else, less visible and obvious but critical, that must be said about why we are at this point, why the popular resistance movement for democracy, justice and our threatened ecosystems is at this historic moment: we have learned how to unite.

It’s not unity based on following one great individual, usually a man. It’s not unity concerned very little with the internal culture, the health, of the organizations that make it up–just the opposite, in general. A critical mass of us of all ages, nationalities, genders and classes have internalized positive values and ways of working together which are making a huge difference in how we have responded, and will keep responding, to the efforts to impose a form of 21st century fascism in the USA.

The Trumpists are in trouble, and they know it. That’s why, one week before No Kings! Day, House leader Mike Johnson and others began publicly attacking it, lying about who we are and what we are about, trying to scare people away from coming out that day.

It’s not going to happen! There ain’t no power like the power of the people, united and organized, and when we are, nothing and no one can defeat us. Si, se puede!

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.

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.

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.