The Economy: Happy Days Are Here Again! For Whom?

Thomas Riggins

Last week the stock market made a great leap forward. "Dow Leaps to Record" the Wall Street Journal blazons on its front page (3/6/13). The news weekly The Week quotes Bernard Condon of the AP: "The stock market is back." ["Markets: Dow soars to a record high" 3/15/13] Investors and other social parasites living off of unearned capital gains are celebrating getting back the $11 trillion dollars eaten up by the Great Recession. The Week says this is seen "as another sign of recovery." The Wall Street Journal hails it as "a key milestone in the long slog to recovery from the financial crisis."

This remarkable "economic comeback" is even happening under the Obama administration-- which the Wall Street Journal and other right-wing prognosticators and prevaricators of presidential malfeasance have been telling us is running the economy into the ground and scaring investors away from the markets because of its anti-business "socialist" proclivities. Paul Krugman in The New York Times (3/8/13) quotes the op-ed of one these negative Nellies, Michael Boskin who advised presidents Bush 1 & 2 on economics: "Obama's radicalism is killing the DOW." Whose policies were it now that brought the stock market and the economy crashing down? I think they were those of the presidents being advised by Michael Boskin.

Now to be a wet blanket. The resurrection and coming again of the DOW is only one expression of the economy. The fat cat expression. What about people at the other end of the economic blight-- how are they faring. While the bankers and speculators who caused the Great Recession are partying on Wall Street the nation's homeless are increasing in numbers.  After reading the front page of the same issue of the Wall Street Journal celebrating "recovery" we find a quite different story on page 6: "New York City Leads Jump in Homeless."

New York City prides itself with being the leading city in the U.S. and under Mayor Bloomberg it has become first in the nation in homeless families. The city also set a new record for its homeless shelters-- 50,000 souls a night in January of this year. Revealing, the WSJ says "an unsettling national trend: a rising number of families without permanent housing." Higher stock prices and bigger bonuses for bankers do not a recovery make.

According to the Coalition for the Homeless (using numbers from January provided by New York City) 1% of all children in the city are in shelters (over 21,000) which is up 22% over last year (corresponding increases for Boston and Washington D.C. were 7.8% and 18% respectively). Mary Brosnahan, of the Coalition, said: "New York is facing a homeless crisis worse than anytime since the Great Depression." Some recovery!

Resources to help keep families in their homes have been cut by the Obama administration, advocates for the homeless say, in order to concentrate on the "more visible" problems-- i.e., getting those unsightly homeless from sleeping on the streets and in public areas where they can be, God forbid, seen.  So the money goes for shelters after the fact, not to keep people housed before the fact. But this did not start with Obama-- it goes back to the Bush years as homeless families have increased 73% since 2002 in New York City alone. The city reflects national trends. It has, for example, gotten back, in gross numbers, all the jobs lost since the Great Recession" began, according to the WSJ --but not really, as the the jobs are lower paying than those lost--- you don't come out even getting an once of silver for an once of gold just because you still have an once of something. When asked to comment the Department of Housing and Urban Development did not respond.

For the crisis in New York City the Bloomberg administration said it was the fault of, that abstract beast, "the economy."  Seth Diamond, NYC's commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services (a whole department for this!) was quoted in the WSJ as saying, "The economy is very different in the past years, and that is a substantial change. We understand we have an obligation to continue to work with people and provide shelter for those who need it, and the economy is nowhere near where it was."

Was it the fault of "the economy" that the State of New York ended aid to help people who got out of shelters to keep their new housing-- thus forcing them back out on the street? Ending that program resulted in a 35% increase in families in New York City shelters alone.

Was it the fault of "the economy" that in 2005 Mayor Bloomberg (forgetting his "obligation" to help people) ended a program from the 1990s that had been created to set aside some federal housing units and vouchers managed by the city for homeless people so they could get out of the shelters and live normal lives? We can't accept that being homeless is the "new normal."'

No, it's not the fault of "the economy" it is the fault of politicians that prioritize aiding the rich and well off at the expense of everyone else; of politicians who would rather see children thrown out on the streets than raise, even minutely, the taxes on the bloated incomes of the rich squeezed out of the labor of working people as well as grants and subsidies they get from the Congress corrupted by lobbyists and corporate contributions.

The "Great Recession" is not over and never will be no matter how high the stock market goes as long as homelessness, unemployment, low wages, and the persecution of unions and their members continues. The American people voted for a progressive government and they must now unite to see that the forces of reaction which refuse to recognize the choice of the people are driven from the centers of power and an end put to their obstructionism and attempts to undermine popular democracy. Only then will "Happy Days Be Here Again" or at least the possibility for them.

Federal IDs for All Workers: A Trial Balloon?

Thomas Riggins

According to an article in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal (2-21-13) the Senate is considering a bipartisan plan to require all working people in the United States, citizen as well as non-citizen workers, to carry a biometric ID card with their finger prints or other markers in order for them to "prove" they have a right to work in this country.

This plan has come about as a result of bipartisan negotiations on an immigration bill. It was originally proposed for non-citizens but the senators involved, including Democrats as well as Republicans, decided the entire working class should be biometrically IDed. Some civil libertarians suspect the real function of the card is to create a national identity card that could be used to track and locate people wherever they happen to be-- at work, at home, in hospitals or airports, on the road, etc (the card could have a chip for this purpose-- Big Brother indeed!).

There are eight Senators on the committee working on a draft for an immigration bill and five of them favor the new ID including John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Charles Schumer. But they are not insisting on the ID at this point, merely tossing around the idea. The Wall Street Journal report is clearly a trial balloon to see what the reaction will be to this universal (for working class people) ID card.

The purpose of the new ID is to let bosses know what the legal status of a worker is and also to discourage illegal immigration since immigrants without the card won't get jobs (or so the plan is). The new system will replace the current E-Verify which lets the boss match a worker with a list of social security numbers; but this is a flawed system because of stolen, forged, and borrowed social security cards, according to the WSJ.

While ostensibly there are other ways to have immigrants IDed which the senators are looking at, Senator Graham (R., S.C.) thinks that only a biometric ID card (for all workers) will work. He is quoted as saying "This is the public's way of contributing to solving the problem" of people being in the US illegally. In other words, the contribution of the US working class is to allow itself to be potentially tracked by the government 24/7 so that the bosses will know who is and who is not "legal." The "public" would be wise to vote Sen. Graham out of office.

Senator Jeff Flake  (R., Ariz), Sen. McCain's comrade in reaction, also on the committee, is also favorable (but says he is still open) to a biometric ID: "You have to give employers the tools" they need to check out potential workers, he maintains. Would the Senate also consider an ID for employers so that workers could check them out as well with respect, for example, to their attitudes towards  the legal rights of unions, decent wages, workers rights, sick leave, and racist attitudes (if any), as well as women's rights, and views on voter suppression. Workers are more in need of tools to check out bosses than bosses are to check out workers.

In 2010 Senators McCain and "Chuck" Schumer (D., N.Y.) devised a plan for a biometric ID card for immigrants (it would have had their fingerprints or a scan of the veins on the top of a hand) but today Schumer, along with Sen. Dick Durban (D., Ill.)-- who also backed biometric cards previously-- says the new bill they are working on may not include such a card.

President Obama does not back a universal biometric ID card but is in favor of getting biometric information from undocumented people who are in the US as a precondition for getting "legal status." As far as a universal card is concerned he advocates a "fraud-resistant, tamper-resistant Social Security card."

The remaining three senators on the committee are Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) [both "no comment"] and Robert Melendez (D., N.J.) who wants "antifraud measures" (the Senator is having his own "fraud" problems right now, perhaps the Senate needs some measure of anti-fraud protection that voters can have access to?)

At any rate, this trial balloon has lifted off into the atmosphere and the weather reports are beginning to come in.  C. Calabrese of the ACLU says, the ID "becomes in essence a permission slip to do all of the ordinary things that are your rights as an American." Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute [originally the Charles Koch Foundation co-founded in 1974 by one of the Koch brothers] says "It's not only a gross violation of individual privacy, it's an enormously high-cost policy that will have an incredibly low to negligible benefit." Would it not be so bad if it were cheap and effective? Personally I don't trust the Cato people to care all that much about the violations of worker's privacy.

There are also other opinions coming in for and against the biometric card-- it is pretty much a mixed bag, but it seems there is opposition and support from both the liberal and conservative camps. While it really is a big civil liberties issue and the adoption of the biometric ID for all workers smacks of Big Brother perhaps, in our current deficit crazed political landscape, the economic cost will prohibit its adoption as a study out of the University of California (Berkeley) says it will cost over 22 billion dollars to put it in place and over 2 billion annually to run it. Progressives will have a major fight on their hands if that doesn't stop it.

Lessons and Conclusions from Lenin's "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder

Thomas Riggins

In the last chapter, the tenth, of his 1920 book "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder" Lenin looks back over the previous nine chapters and then draws several conclusions about the then current state of the world struggle for socialism and also predicts some future developments. Let us see how accurate he was from our point of view some 93 years later.

He begins by looking at the Russian Revolution of 1905 and remarking that two lessons can be drawn from it. First that the industrial working class (the proletariat) has far more power and influence in society  than its actual numbers would suggest. It does not have to be a majority of the population in order to lead the population in a revolutionary direction. By waging economic and political strikes it can start an armed uprising aimed at the ruling class. Granted that 1905 was premature, but the tactics developed then paid off in 1917. Second, the creation of Soviets in 1905 was the beginning of a new way to organize the masses and to lead a mass struggle against capitalism.

 I think we can give Lenin high marks here. Even though only at the beginning of a new revolutionary upsurge, due to the on going crisis of world capitalism, we can already see the working class more and more organizing both economically and politically to lead the struggle against the rule of the banks and financial and industrial oligarchs.  "Soviets" is a Russian word, so whether you want to use it  or the term "worker's councils" or "the occupy movement" organizations similar to these will have to be eventually set up as the bourgeois governments lose control of the economy and working people have to take it over and direct it towards serving the needs of the people.

Having said that, we must admit that Lenin's optimism about the near future in his own day was completely wrong. He thought it was clear that bourgeois parliamentary types of government were clearly on the decline and would be replaced throughout the world by Soviet type governments. That trend, after the rise of fascism, World War II, and the Cold War, is no longer discernible in the early 21st century.

Lenin was convinced that "communism"-- i.e., revolutionary Marxism was on the ascent  in the working class movement against its two  main enemies "Menshevism" (by which he meant nationalism and opportunism under whatever forms in different countries) on the one hand, and ultra-leftism ("Left-Wing" communism) on the other.

After a hectic century of struggle we currently have five "communist" countries in which both those currents have been nominally overcome (at least as openly argued for positions). In the rest of the developed world Menshevism is alive and well as a popular option in the working  class movement and "revolutionary" Marxism, where it exists at all, is a very small fraction of the working class (although in some countries it is growing and radicalizing thousands of workers in response to the calls for "austerity" in response to the general crisis of capitalism). "Ultra-leftism" has been reduced to small cult-like extremist groups on the fringes of the anti-capitalist struggle with little or no influence within the working class.

The Second International (which Lenin thought "virtually dead") is alive and kicking while the Third International, which Lenin held was winning the dual between the Internationals "on a world-wide scale"- is, as they say, "history." Lenin was blinded by the stunning successes of the Bolshevik revolution and its positive reception by the international working class. The founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, just two years after his book on left-wing communism came out would seem to have justified all this optimism.

What else did Lenin think was on the agenda for the near future, or at least the not very distant future? Well, he thought the international working class was ripe to be led towards the construction of "a world Soviet republic." This is a pipe dream today vis a vis the near future. However, the preconditions for such a republic remain exactly as Lenin stated them.

There are, he said, two FUNDAMENTAL principles of communism that parties have to work towards-- one is Soviet power (i.e., working people actually meeting in councils and taking political and economic power as a result; the other is "the dictatorship of the proletariat"-- an infelicitous  expression these days-- but this only means that the working people once in power will not allow the bourgeoisie to engage in active opposition to the worker's new government.

Lenin thought the establishment of these two fundamental principles on a world wide basis was the historic task of the working class  in his day. As it turned out it was all the working class could do to keep itself from being crushed by fascism and economic depression and it failed to live up to the expectations Lenin mistakenly, as it tuned out, had had for it.

He thought the "chief thing" necessary for the struggle he saw coming had already been achieved by the time he wrote LWC. The chief thing was that internationally the vanguard of the working class had been won over to the need for proletarian dictatorship and the establishment of the Soviet system and was "against bourgeois democracy." Let us grant that Lenin was correct about this (although I have my doubts). Even so this "vanguard" was not able to pull off the NEXT step in the struggle--i.e., "the search after forms of the TRANSITION or the APPROACH to the proletarian revolution." It was unable to convince the majority of the working masses to follow its lead and remained a militant contingent of the working masses but not THE vanguard (except in a theoretical sense).

Lenin was well aware of the necessity of winning over the majority as he said, "Victory cannot be won with a vanguard alone." And the broad masses of the people cannot be won over by agitation and  propaganda "alone." No, "the fundamental law of all great revolutions" is that "the masses must have their own political experience."

Well, in the U.S. and Europe they have had plenty of time to gather this experience and unless they are suffering from some type of attention deficit disorder (ADD) we can only hypothesize some failure on the part of the socialist leadership (opportunism, nationalism) OR, dispute the horrendous world upheavals that have rent the world in the last ninety years, the three crucial constellations of social forces have not come together which portend the outbreak of a world wide revolutionary movement  such as Lenin expected in his time.

ADD is not to be taken seriously (only about 2.5% of the world's population, plus or minus a few percentage points, appear to suffer from ADD according to many experts) so what are the three social conditions that have to be in action? Lenin says that millions and tens of millions of people must be on the move and ready for progressive revolutionary leadership to change the system.

 If this is the case then revolutionary Marxists must find (1) ALL the hostile bourgeois class forces usually united against the workers are embroiled in internecine struggles among themselves and have so weakened themselves they can no longer effectively oppose the workers ; (2) the petty bourgeois democrats (Mensheviks of whatever stripe) and their parties have so discredited themselves politically that the workers no longer have faith in them and will not vote for them; (3) the working people are becoming more and more determined, as the struggle continues, to support revolutionary forces dedicated to over throwing the bourgeoisie and creating  a workers government.

All three conditions must hold and if they do "revolution is indeed ripe", and if the Marxists have correctly understood that these conditions are in fact present and they act on them at the RIGHT MOMENT, then "victory is assured." This is a tall order indeed! I can see why "victories" are few and far between, especially considering the fact that Marxist leaders in many countries they already "controlled" were blind to the fact that they were the ones their "own" workers had lost faith in. Well, as Lenin pointed out earlier, it is not a crime to err, but it is not to learn from the error and correct it. The five "Leninist" states still standing have their work cut out for them.

Here is another important conclusion that Lenin draws looking back over the history of the socialist movement and adapting it to the struggle he sees coming. That is, that since the really class conscious vanguard can be numbered in the thousands, while a revolutionary upsurge is to be measured by the activity of millions who are not at a high level of class consciousness but reacting to oppressive conditions in an almost instinctive manner, the vanguard must be able to master all forms of revolutionary struggle-- both legal and illegal-- and be ready to correctly act under rapidly changing conditions.

It is relatively easy to act in a revolutionary manner once the pot of discontent has boiled over, Lenin points out; the really difficult time for the class conscious Marxist is to know how to behave in times that are not revolutionary, are indeed relatively calm and peaceful and revolution looks to be a far off possibility, or no possibility at all,  and the bourgeoisie is seemingly benign or even when it is behaving in a reactionary manner does not seem about to lose control of the state.

In these situations when conditions for "direct, open really mass and really revolutionary struggle DO NOT YET EXIST" it is the task of the revolutionary Marxist not to lose sight of the revolutionary ends even when the masses of working people "are incapable of immediately appreciating the need for revolutionary methods of action."  Lenin says in these conditions the main task for socialists in both America and Western Europe [nowadays we might as well include the whole capitalist world] is to find a way to lead the oppressed classes "to the real, decisive and revolutionary struggle." I think if Lenin were around today he would see this as the real task  of 21st Century socialism. The problem is, to figure out how to do this without falling into the traps of opportunism (Menshevism) on the one hand, and/or being too focused on national peculiarities and interests at the cost of not maintaining an international outlook on the other.

Lenin understood this problem and stipulated that Marxists must actively engage with the political struggles in their own countries but in a NEW way completely different from the usual way of working in the union movement and in political movements influenced by the traditional (and opportunist) left. They must propagate Marxist theory to the masses with leaflets and meetings and work not only with the advanced industrial workers but also get involved with "the unorganized and downtrodden poor" and their election work should NOT be aimed at winning elections per se ("to 'get seats' in parliament") but to educate and inform the masses about what Marxism is all about, they should "try to get people to think, and draw the masses into the struggle, to take the bourgeoisie at its word and utilize the machinery it has set up, the elections it has appointed, and the appeals it has made to the people."

 This may have to be done within the rules of the bourgeoisie but the Marxists will always keep to their own slogans and advocate Marxist solutions and not water down their positions to curry favor with the opportunists and their followers. Lenin says this is a very hard job to do, "and extremely difficult in America" but nevertheless "it can and must be done." Well, this is the message of the 1920s to us and to the 2020s: is it still appropriate or is it out of date and ready for the ash heap?

One must note, in considering this question, that the tactics put forth by Lenin were based on the historical conditions that he found himself in and his interpretation of what they portended. Here is the context as he understood it.  The masses were on the rise everywhere as a result of colossal destruction inflicted upon the people by the savage world wide war waged by imperialism from 1914 to 1918 "for the sole purpose of deciding whether the British or the German robbers should plunder the largest number of countries." Social "sparks" were flying every where and revolutions could flare up at any moment and the Marxists had to be ready and able to take advantage of them.

The Russian Revolution had shook the world and the bourgeoisie was "terrified of Bolshevism" and over reacting to the perceived threat to such an extent they were actually helping Bolshevism grow in popularity with the working class. Lenin refers to the Palmer raids when the American bourgeoisie had "completely lost its head" and arrested thousands and thousands of people suspected of being Bolsheviks. This could only help the cause he thought because it helped to get "the masses interested in the essence and significance of Bolshevism."

But this revolutionary fervor was tamped down, a great economic depression gripped the world leading to another explosion of a world wide imperialist war (1939-1945) , followed by revolutionary upheavals which were countered by a resurgent imperialism led by the U.S. in the form of the "Cold War." McCarthyism was a revival of the Palmer "red scare" and definitely showed how the bourgeoisie could "lose its head"-- but (pace Lenin) did not "help the cause" by moving the working class to become more interested in Marxism. Finally the "Cold War" eventuated in the demise of the Soviet Union and east European socialism. So, looking at the world of today, we have to decide if the tactics Lenin put forth in the 1920s are still the best guide to action in the struggle to overthrow capitalism. Are there any after shocks from the Russian Revolution still to come?  What tactics could be better?

Lenin himself was not unmindful of the fact that the capitalist countries would gang up on Russia and do all in their power to crush "Bolshevism"; he just did not think it was possible for them to do it. He tells us that the bourgeoisie thinks of practically only one thing when it hears the word "Bolshevism": "insurrection, violence, and terror; it therefore  strives to prepare itself for resistance and opposition primarily in this field." This sounds familiar.

 He even thinks they may succeed for a time in putting down the Marxist "contagion" (their favorite word) by violence and the killing of "hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands" of revolutionary Marxists (as they have already done in India, Hungary and Germany-- [and were about to do in China])-- but these are only the actions "of all historically doomed classes." Lenin is a little too cavalier here, I fear, and certainly underestimated the future death toll inflicted on the worker's movement by the capitalists-- especially their Nazi incarnation which cost about 25 million Soviet lives alone.

At any rate Lenin thinks they will fail to eliminate revolutionary Marxism because the "contagion" is too wide spread and has infected every aspect of the capitalist organism-- its social, political, economic, educational, and moral institutions-- Marxist ideas are every where and the corruption and exploitation of capitalism can no longer be hidden from the masses who must, eventually, overthrow it. "Life," he says, " will assert itself." Today, when the bourgeoisie is busily destroying the planet itself and threatening the existence of billions of people these views of Lenin remind us how far we still have to go to rid the earth of the exploiters and to educate masses of people in the fight against "the frenzied ravings of the bourgeoisie."

In his day Lenin thought that only ONE THING was preventing the victory of the socialist movement from rapidly coming about-- is it the same thing that is holding it back in our time as well?-- "namely, the universal and through awareness" on the part of all revolutionary Marxists dedicated to the achievement of socialism "in all countries of the necessity to display the utmost FLEXIBILITY in their tactics." This is something that from Lenin's day to the present most Marxists have failed to learn how to put into practice.

Finally, Lenin explains why the leading Marxists of the pre-World War I Second International (Kautsky, Otto Bauer, and Plekhanov to name just a few of the better known) fell into opportunism and took the capitalist road ( if I may use that expression). It was their lack of flexibility and inability to properly understand dialectics. "The principal reason for their bankruptcy was that they were hypnotized by a definite form of growth of the working-class movement and socialism, forgot all about the one-sidedness of that form, were afraid to see the break-up which objective conditions made inevitable and continued to repeat simple and, at first glance, incontestable axioms that had been learned by rote…."

In other words, they did not appreciate the revolutionary environment created by the war and its aftermath and attempted to impose bourgeois political legitimacy and parliamentary democracy on the socialist movement which they had learned in the post 1848 struggle of the working class to organize itself and develop its consciousness. By failing to ally with the new revolutionary consciousness (such as manifested by the Soviets and revolutionary worker's councils) they ended up on the side of the bourgeoisie and against the workers. At least this seems to me to be his position.

Considering the situation to be as he described it, Lenin held that the two trends within the socialist movement, he called them Right doctrinairism (opportunism) and Left doctrinairism (ultra-leftism), had to be opposed but that the Right was far more dangerous than the Left (which was new and experience would soon correct).  Today the ultra-left is confined to fringe groups or to groups that thrive in countries with an under developed working class due to backward economic conditions, while almost all of the major political parties following the dispensation of the Second International are completely controlled by opportunist non revolutionary cadre that are running dogs (another useful expression from another context) of the dominate forces of finance and industrial capital.

 Those remaining socialist parties and groups which consider themselves "Leninist" in orientation will find Lenin's book on "Left-Wing" Communism still a meaningful tool to use in the struggles of the 21st century as will others who are struggling with the problems of organizing the working people to take political and economic action to liberate themselves and humanity at large from the scourge of capitalism.

Despite the NRA and the Ultra-Right Most Americans Favor Gun Controls

Thomas Riggins

According to a recent report in Science Daily (1-28-2013) the majority of the American people support more gun controls to reduce and prevent the epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. Despite the hysteria over the "violations" of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution generated by the NRA and the lunatic right-wing extremists in the Republican congressional delegations  and their misinformed constituents (as well as others)  that new gun controls laws would result in, a recent scientifically conducted poll by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has determined that the majority of the American people reject these right-wing arguments and want more laws to ensure gun safety.

Here is a breakdown in percentages of the survey's findings:
1. Universal background checks (no loopholes)-- 89%.
2. Ban on military style assault weapons-- 69%.
3. Ban on high capacity ammunition clips-- 68%.
4. Ban on gun ownership for individuals considered "high risk"-- 83%.
5. Ban on those who violate restraining orders for domestic violence-- 81%

While percentages were not given, the article also reports that more regulation of gun dealers was supported as well as various restrictions dealing with those having a mental illness. The survey was conducted with both gun owners and non-gun owners and found little difference between them in their responses so that it represents a true cross section of the American public on this issue.

Colleen Barry, PhD, one of the authors of the study said,"This research indicates high support among Americans, including gun owners in many cases, for a wide range of policies aimed at reducing gun violence. These data indicate broad consensus among the American public in support of a comprehensive approach to reducing the staggering toll of gun violence in the United States."

The researchers also conducted a separate survey, at the same time they did the gun control survey, to determine the public's attitudes towards mental illness. This is a complex subject requiring a dialectical analysis of the potential contradiction between the goal of preventing gun violence and that of preventing stigmatization of persons with mental illness.

This second survey revealed the following:
1. In favor or more screening and treatment of mental illness to prevent gun violence-- 61%.
2. Agreed that there is a big problem of discrimination against the mentally ill--58%.

About 50% of those interviewed thought the mentally ill more dangerous than other people and about 66% did not want to live near anyone with a "serious" mental illness. This led Dr. Barry to conclude, "In the light of our findings about Americans' attitudes toward persons with mental illness, it is worth thinking carefully about how to implement effective gun-violence prevention measures without exacerbating stigma or discouraging people from seeking treatment." Actually, it is more complicated than not just exacerbating stigma; we must find a way to diminish stigma and even eliminate it in the long run without watering down gun control measures in the process.

This means Congress must engage in a serious non-partisan legislative project to begin reversing and eventually eliminating the dangerous culture of gun-violence that has been created by the gun manufacturing lobby, the NRA and the corrupt politicians that are dependent on them and do their bidding in Congress.

This survey has shown what the majority of the American people want and those in Congress and elected positions of power who work against the goals described above are only interested in their own narrow interests and the interests of a few big corporations and not those of the American people and their children.

Right now the number of people murdered in the U.S. (31,000 a year according to Science Daily) is 20 times greater than the average in other developed capitalist nations that consider themselves "advanced."  It is not the American people who are ultimately responsible for this violent gun-culture imposed upon them by reactionary corporate forces and their political stooges. Now is the time to bring about meaningful change and mobilize progressives to support those fighting for change.

Lenin on "Left-Wing" Communism in Great Britain

Thomas Riggins

There was no Communist Party in Great Britain when Lenin wrote "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder [LWC]  (the Communist Party of Great Britain was founded a few months later at the end of July 1920). Nevertheless, Lenin devoted chapter nine of the aforementioned book to discussing the problems of ultra-leftism in Britain. It is not my intention to rehash all the political fights of 1920 surrounding the formation of the CPGB discussed in  LWC, instead I will highlight those insights from Lenin that pertain to general principles of Marxism and that are arguably relevant to the struggle for socialism in the early 21st century.

Lenin begins this chapter with a discussion of an article written by Willie Gallacher (1881-1963) published in the  "The Workers' Dreadnought" (a publication of one of the groups which were in the process of founding the CPGB) which was full enthusiasm for communism, the Russian Revolution, and the future of the working class in Britain. It also rejected cooperation with the Labour Party and working in the Parliament and the author did not want to cooperate with those who did.

Lenin praised Gallacher's article [he later refers to it as "a letter to the editor"] for expressing the mood, or the temper, of the masses and explained it was just these type of young workers, represented by the author, who would be the future of socialism and who should be supported in all their efforts to build a revolutionary socialist party in Britain. Nevertheless, he does not want them to commit the same errors that the early Bolsheviks made, and that the German party made with respect to ultra-leftism.

The future CPGB would be a formation composed of the coming together of at least four different socialist groups. To build a mass party it would be necessary to work with many other groups of workers at differing levels of class consciousness. Lenin stress that the CPGB, as should be the case with all Marxist parties, has to base its activities on SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES: and science, Lenin says, requires two things.

 First, a knowledge of what is happening in other countries, capitalist countries, and an analysis of the similarities and differences with your own country and how revolutionaries in those countries have coped with their own conditions. Second, a knowledge of your own country and ALL the groups, classes, parties, etc., and their positions and relationships. The policy adopted, in order to have the greatest number of supporters and best chance of wining, "should not be determined only by the desires and views, by the degree of class-consciousness and the militancy of one group or party alone."

The focus of all this fuss about cooperating and compromising with the bourgeoisie was the Labour Party. The leaders of the Labour Party were considered by the radical workers as sell outs and "social patriots" who would govern in the interests of the capitalists not the workers whom they ostensibly represented and led. Lenin agrees with this and then states "it does not at all follow that to support them means treachery to the revolution; what does follow is that, in the interests of the revolution, working-class revolutionaries should give these gentleman a certain amount of parliamentary support." But why does this follow? Why give any support to false leaders who pose as progressives and really do the dirty work of the enemy? What can Lenin be thinking of?

We must consider what was going on in Britain in the 1920s. The Labour Party was growing and the two main governing parties (the Liberals and the Conservatives) were beginning to panic. The Leader of the Liberals, Lloyd George, proposed a coalition with the Conservatives to stop the Labour Party. [Imagine a time in the US when the Republicans and Democrats unite to stop the Green Party!].

Meanwhile many Liberals are jumping ship and going over to the Labour Party. Lenin says that what is happening is that the liberal bourgeoisie is abandoning the traditional two party system by which the liberal and conservative capitalists alternate in ruling the government and exploiting the workers; a system "which has been hallowed by centuries of experience and has been extremely advantageous to the exploiters…."

The British leaders of the revolutionary workers, the very leaders of the future CPGB saw what was going on and even admitted the majority of workers were supporting the Labour Party saying, as did Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) one of the founders of the CPGB, that "the majority of the British working class has not yet emerged" from the way of thinking represented by the Labour Party.

Even knowing this she said: "The Communist Party must not compromise…. The Communist Party must keep its doctrine pure, and its independence of reformism inviolate: its mission is to lead the way, without stopping or turning, by the direct road to the communist revolution." Shades of Blanqui!

Lenin is a firm believer that the working class learns by doing. If the workers believe in such a party or such and such an idea, which is wrong and will not emancipate them, they must go through the experience of living and working with these false ideas until they learn from experience that they must abandon these wrong approaches.

Meanwhile the revolutionary Marxists will have been working along with the workers and supporting their efforts but also explaining why their views will not succeed and why Marxism provides a better alternative. This is the only way to win over the working people to the revolutionary Marxist point of view. This is why we must work in the reactionary institutions of the bourgeoisie.

 "To act otherwise would mean hampering the cause of the revolution, since revolution is impossible without a change in the views of the majority of the working class, a change brought about by the political experience of the masses, never by propaganda alone."

We come now to Lenin's famous formulation of The Fundamental Law of Revolution. Lenin says this law applies to all revolutions which means many of the revolts, insurrections, and coups that historians like to call "revolutions" are not revolutions at all. The Law states: "for a revolution to take place it is not enough for exploited and oppressed masses to realize the impossibility of living in the old way, and demand changes; for a revolution it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the "LOWER CLASSES" DO NOT WANT to live in the old way and the "upper classes" CANNOT CARRY ON IN THE OLD WAY that the revolution can triumph."

Two obvious conclusions Lenin draws, with respect to an anti-capitalist revolution, are, first,  the majority of the working class (or at a minimum the majority of the politically active class conscious workers [this is "iffy" a majority of these may still be too small]) must fully understand the need for a revolution and be willing to take up arms if necessary to carry it out; second, the government of the ruling class must be undergoing a crisis which brings the masses of people, even those "hitherto apathetic," into a movement that so weakens it (the government) that the revolutionary elements can "rapidly overthrow it".  The revolution will not be a tea party.

Lenin thought the two conditions mentioned above were fast developing in Great Britain, but they did not in fact come about. Nevertheless, Lenin's advice in general as to how the Marxists in Great Britain should behave still makes sense even in our own day, and it is not restricted to any particular country. Briefly he says that unless we want to risk being seen as "mere wind bags"  and  a party that represents only a group and not the masses of the revolutionary working class ["revolutionary" is the key word to understand in this context] we must get the MASSES to follow our party.

To do this we must help the working class achieve the maximum of class consciousness and this means working in the political world in which we and they find ourselves and helping them to understand, by their own experiences, that no solutions of bourgeois politics can solve their problems and the only way forward for their class is by supporting a revolutionary Marxist party.

How would this practically be done? Extrapolating from the conditions of Lenin's day to the present time, and using the experience of the 2012 US elections, I suggest the following edited comment from Lenin: We would take part in the election campaign, we would hand out leaflets in favor of Marxism and explaining what's wrong with capitalism, and where we are not running our own candidates we would urge support for the candidate most favorable to the workers and who had the most support from the union movement and we would urge the defeat of all reactionary, ultra-right and anti-labor, anti-progressive candidates.

Lenin's actual advice to the British Marxists was: "We would take part in the election campaign, distribute leaflets agitating for communism, and in ALL constituencies where we have no candidates, we would urge the electors TO VOTE FOR THE LABOUR CANDIDATE AND AGAINST THE BOURGEOIS CANDIDATE." Others may have a better revision of this quote than what I have proposed above, but I have tried to factor in specifically US conditions (both major parties are bourgeois, the ultra-right poses a clear and present danger, the labor movement is under attack, among others).

As Lenin maintained that each country had an unique historical configuration of its own regarding the class struggle and the relations between the classes and parties making it up, it was therefore the task of Marxists to learn "to apply the general and basic principles" of Marxism to their own situation in order to "study, discover, and predict" the proper course of action. It is with this conclusion that he ends this chapter of LWC.

New York City Stop and Frisk Police Harassment Found Unconstitutional

Thomas Riggins

A federal judge has found the NYPD policy of "stop and frisk"-- whereby the police can stop anyone they please and frisk them for weapons whenever they like-- at least in the Bronx-- unconstitutional, according to a recent New York Times article. The decision was limited to the Bronx because the case under consideration (Ligon v. the City of New York) concerned police behavior with respect to the Trespass Affidavit Program which only involved privately owned building in the Bronx. This decision will inevitably impact the "stop and frisk" policy in other parts of the city as it reveals the racist attitudes and disrespect of the law itself as well as the constitutional rights of the American people, that underlie its  implementation.

The Trespass Affidavit Program (TAP) involves thousands of privately owned buildings whose owners and managers have signed affidavits permitting the police to patrol their buildings and expel trespassers. It is part of the "war on drugs" as it was designed to be used in high crime areas and in buildings where drug dealing and related crimes are alleged. The police think they can stop and frisk whomever they please and then arrest them if they find drugs or weapons.

The way mayor Bloomberg and his police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, apply this program is to just stop and frisk anyone inside or outside a TAP building especially, as the judge found, a non white person.

Manhattan Federal District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin found that the Bloomberg/Kelly application of "stop and frisk" was a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution which outlaws unreasonable search and seizure. The Judge found that the police policy of stopping anyone they felt like (without applying the standard of "reasonable suspicion")  had "crossed the line between constitutional and unconstitutional police encounters."

Note that "reasonable suspicion" means the police officer must believe that criminal activity is at hand before he can stop and question a person and he can only frisk the individual stopped if he believes he or she is armed and about to inflict physical injury on the police officer. But the police have been stopping and frisking people who are outside of the buildings on the sidewalk just waiting for a friend or family member to come down, or people who are just in the neighborhood. The police seem obviously to be violating the "reasonable belief" requirement.

It is not the police officers per se who are at fault. The N.Y.P.D. may have been training its officers to violate the requirement. The judge said that the evidence before her "strengthens the conclusion that the N.Y.P.D.'s inaccurate training has taught officers the following lesson: Stop and question first, develop reasonable suspicion later." The judge has ordered the police to stop doing trespass stops outside of the TAP buildings without really having a "reasonable belief" that a crime is at hand-- whims, caprices, feelings, and hunches are not good enough. The police also cannot just stop a person because he or she has gone into or come out of a building.

The judge noted that the training video used to teach police officers what is a legal stop is not accurate . The training video says an order of "Stop, Police!" is not clear enough. The video says a legal stop requires physical action by the officer, pulling out of his/her  gun, or physically blocking the person. Judge Scheindlin said "This misstates the law." So it seems that it is only by misstating the law to the officers being trained that the Bloomberg-Kelly harassment policy can be enforced.

The judge also said after the police unlawfully stop a person outside of the building and demand what he or she is doing there they become hostile when the person tries to explain "especially if the person is a young black man, he is frisked, which often involves an invasive search of his pockets; in some cases the officers then detain the person in a police van."

Commissioner Kelly did not like the judge's ruling and said the decision "unnecessarily interferes with the department's [unconstitutional and racist] efforts to use all of the crime-fighting tools [including illegal ones] to keep [TAP] buildings safe and secure [especially from young Black men]."

An ACLU lawyer involved in the case said, "If New York City [he means Bloomberg and Kelly] has any sense, it will use this ruling as an opportunity to start a wholesale reform of stop and frisk."  Judging from Kelly's response, it doesn't seem that "New York City" has come to its senses.

Lenin on the Need for Political Compromise by Thomas Riggins

Current political struggles often echo those of the past. In the US today we see the conflict between the Republicans and Democrats over the best way to shore up monopoly capitalism presented as a series of stark alternatives leading to a political paralysis in which major leaders of both parties are seen as pushing competing agendas: "left" Democrats favoring higher taxes for the rich  and  spreading around more money to stimulate the economy (an indirect way to transfer tax money to the business community) vs "conservative" Republicans dedicated to cutting taxes by reducing social benefits available to the poor and working class members of society (a direct way to transfer tax money to the business community).

The only way to end this paralysis, we are told, is by a "grand compromise" or as it is called today a "grand bargain" to be struck as both sides move to the center. But what kind of compromise is acceptable? Can basic principles and long term goals be compromised away for short term  solutions that only postpone and delay real solutions to fundamental problems? Is it ever permissible compromise your beliefs in the face of the struggle against those whose ideas you hold are anathema.

I think it will be helpful to understand the politics of today by considering the nature of compromises and how to deal with them as put forth by V.I. Lenin in chapter eight ("No Compromises?") of his classic work "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder.

Lenin wrote that work to counter an ultra-left  pamphlet published in Frankfurt which
had taken extreme positions urging communists and socialists to go it alone down the road to revolution eschewing cooperation with trade unions  as well as the institutions of bourgeois democracy because they were not revolutionary enough for the Frankfurt radicals. One of their positions was the refusal to compromise on their program no matter what the external conditions might be.

Lenin thinks it sad that people who call themselves Marxists "forget the fundamental truths of Marxism." In order to remind them of these truths he refers to an article published in the German socialist paper Volkstaat in 1874 by Engels entitled "Programme of the Blanquist Communards."

A little background: Louis Blanqui (1805-1881) was a utopian socialist agitator who thought a small band of dedicated revolutionaries could seize power in a coup d'etat and then impose socialism upon the state. After the fall of the Paris Commune in 1871 the followers of Blanqui fled to London where, a few years later, they published their "Programme."

"We are Communists," they wrote, "because we want to attain our goal without stopping at intermediate stations, without any compromises, which only postpone the day of victory and prolong the period of slavery."

In his article Engels ridiculed such thinking saying that it is "the course of historical development" that forces Communists to compromise and to pass through intermediate stations and that what makes one a Communist is holding on to the strategic "final aim" of creating a classless society that abolishes human exploitation during all these tactical shifts.  Engels says just because the Blanquists don't want to compromise that doesn't mean the real world will comply with their subjective desires. "What childish innocence," he wrote, "it is to present one's own impatience as a theoretically convincing argument!"

Lenin says that all workers who have struggled against the exploiting class, who have been on strike, who have fought for greater benefits, have had the experience not only of victories but of bitter defeats when they have had to admit defeat or accept a partial victory and compromise "with the hated oppressors."  But the workers also know the difference between a compromise that has been forced upon them by the necessity of the objective conditions and the balance of forces and one that has been the result of a sell-out by leaders who have betrayed them for their own self interested motives.

But how can we tell the difference? Lenin tells us that there are "cases of exceptional difficulty and complexity, when the greatest efforts are necessary for a proper assessment of the actual character of this or that 'compromise.' " In these cases, he says, we have to use our own brains to figure out the situation.

Lenin also points out that the history of the Russian Revolution is full of examples  of compromises carried out by the Bolsheviks, Lenin calls these "changes of tack." The Bolsheviks made deals not only with other revolutionary forces but also with bourgeois parties. The war that socialists are waging, "a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie," is more difficult, long-lasting and complicated than any of the other wars that have taken place in history. The idea that we can never make compromises and changes of tack during this war is, Lenin says, "childish."

Lenin further points out that bourgeoisie is internationally more powerful than the workers and this holds true even after a successful revolution in one or a few countries has brought the working class to power. Not only that, but even in a successful revolution, such as the one Lenin himself was leading, the bourgeoisie remains dangerous, even more dangerous than it was before the victory of the workers, because of its international connections.

Wherever there are small commodity producers at work, Lenin says, even within a country trying to build socialism, the "continuous restoration and regeneration of capitalism and the bourgeoisie" will be taking place. The revolution will never succeed if its leaders do not know how to "change tack" to take advantage of every weakness shown by the enemy and to further the interests of the working class, however slight, when it is possible to do so. "And this applies equally to the period BEFORE and AFTER the proletariat has won political power." To use a Chinese metaphor, revolutionary leaders and parties are riding the tiger and the tiger has, for example, eaten up the Russians and East Europeans-- but its hunger is unabated. Only the future will tell if any more revolutionary parties end up as tiger chow.

Inspired by the  views of Marx and Engels (they saw their doctrine not as a CREDO but as a GUIDE-- Engels' Letter to Sorge 11-29-1886)  Lenin declares Marxist "theory is not a dogma but a guide to action." He then gives some examples of major compromises the revolutionary Russian Marxists made before the  overthrow of tsarism.  In 1901-02, before the Russian Social Democrats split into the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions, they made many compromises with the bourgeois liberals and at one point were even allied with the leader of the liberals [Peter Struve 1870-1944].

Even then, in a formal alliance with the liberals, the Marxists waged "an unremitting and most merciless ideological and political struggle against bourgeois liberalism and against the slightest manifestations of its influence in the working-class movement." Later, after the split, the Bolsheviks had to compromise at times and work with the Mensheviks and other forces. But, Lenin says, "we NEVER STOPPED our ideological and political struggle against them as opportunists and vehicles of bourgeois influence on the proletariat."

 Lenin's lesson is thus:  we must sometimes compromise but never give up pressing our own views about the nature of reality, never water them down for the sake of appeasing our temporary "allies." Compromises should be, as far as possible, principled compromises, and should never result in misleading the workers about the true nature of capitalism and the bourgeoisie. This would be especially true in circumstances where the workers are woefully ignorant of their role in the class struggle and how that struggle affects them.

Lenin now proceeds to discuss some examples of compromises and errors made by revolutionary Marxist parties. After the February Revolution in 1917 the Menshevics had their own right and left wings. The right Mensheviks took part in the Kerensky government and the left refused to participate. This weakened the appeal of the Mensheviks to the Russian workers who gradually shifted their support to the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks who had about 13 per cent support of the working people in the summer had garnered about 51 per sent by October of that year (as gaged by votes in the All-Russia Congresses of Soviets). This shift in support allowed the October Revolution to supersede the February Revolution. Lenin asks why the revolutionary Marxists were successful in Russia in gaining over the working people while in Germany, which had an identical right/left split in the opposition, the revolutionary Marxists failed to rally the working people to their side.

The answer he gives is that it was the ERRONEOUS tactics of the German revolutionary Marxists: specifically their refusal to work in reactionary trade unions and reactionary parliaments (thus isolating themselves and being unable to to take advantage of the right/left split within the other organizations of the working people involved with these institutions). This is a perfect example of the "Left wing" infantile disorder that Lenin is polemicizing against. He thinks seeing its results is the best way to cure it. The mainstream Left has been pretty much inoculated against it but it still manifests itself in left fringe groups who have somehow escaped being vaccinated against it by properly understanding Lenin's book.

Lenin also points out that capitalism produces, besides proletarians and semi-proletarians (handicraftsmen, people who work part time for others and also for themselves even sometimes hiring others, etc.)  a great number of "motley types" in between as well. There are thus many different types of workers and kinds of mixtures creating different levels of class consciousness and false consciousness (a consciousness so unrelated to a person's actual existential conditions that he or she is rendered incapable of understanding the world).

This being the case it follows that revolutionary Marxists, or the Communist Party as their political organization, which represent the class conscious vanguard of the entire class must "resort to changes of tack, to conciliation and compromises with the various groups of proletarians, with the various parties of the workers and small masters. It is entirely a matter of KNOWING HOW to apply these tactics in order to RAISE-- not lower-- the GENERAL level of proletarian class-consciousness, revolutionary spirit, and ability to fight and win."

Lenin ends this chapter with a discussion about the Treaty of Versailles and how Marxists should handle the question about supporting it or not depending on the circumstances.  This discussion is of historical interest only as regards the treaty itself but Lenin enunciates some basic principles which all Marxist and socialist parties would be well advised to subscribe to today.

One is that we should not be dogmatic but tailor our tactics to fit the circumstances of the moment. We should not proclaim grand revolutionary plans and make non negotiable demands based on our theoretical ends such that we cannot take actions and make temporary alliances because of our public stances: "it is folly, not revolutionism, to deprive ourselves in advance of any freedom of action, openly to inform an enemy who is at present better armed than we are whether we shall fight him, and when."  There is no doubt who is better armed at the present time.

For this reason a frontal attack on the capitalist state and its bourgeois democratic institutions would be futile as neither the consciousness of the people nor the strength of the Marxists is anywhere near the level of development necessary to even contemplate such a ludicrous program of action. "To accept battle at a time when it is obviously advantageous to the enemy, but not to us, is criminal; political leaders of the revolutionary class are absolutely useless if they are incapable of 'changing tack, or offering conciliation and compromise' in order to take evasive action in a patently disadvantageous battle."

It is no easy task to apply these principles today. Every party in every country has to to formulate its programs based on a correct analysis of the balance of forces specific to its own situation. It is especially difficult for the "leaders of the revolutionary class" in those countries where the revolutionary class doesn't know it is the revolutionary class and the leaders don't know that the class they lead is supposed to be revolutionary. It will be some time, I think, before Lenin's ideas will become fully applicable; that time, however, will surely come due to the failings of capitalism and its impending collapse (if we don't first destroy ourselves with greenhouse gases).

Betrayal Without Remedy: The Case of the Missing Wages by Thomas Riggins

Monday's Wall Street Journal tell's the story of how Hostess Brands, Inc., took its workers wages and used them to cover its own expenses ("Hostess Maneuver Deprived Pension" WSJ 12-10-12).

Hostess Brands (famous for Twinkies and Wonder Bread) has gone out of business after a lengthy bankruptcy process. During this process information has come out about how corporations can break their contracts with and steal from, their workers and yet escape prosecution for their actions. It is an object lesson on how the laws are written to benefit private property and capitalists at the expense of working people who are often denied equal protection.

Here is what Hostess did. It signed contracts with workers in which it was agreed that part of their wages would be diverted from their paychecks and be invested in their pensions. This was a contribution made by the workers independently of the contractual payments made to the pension funds by the company.

In 2011, due to the company's financial problems, Hostess announced that it would end payments to the pension funds. OK, that is one problem for the unions to deal with. But what happened to the worker's wages that Hostess was supposed to be putting into the funds? These wages were not payments coming out of the pockets of Hostess per se.

Well, Hostess did not start to include these payments in the worker's paychecks. Instead they just kept their wages for the company and used them to pay for their own expenses. During an interview the new CEO, brought in to oversee the liquidation of the company, said this was "terrible" but , "I think it's like a lot of things in this case. It's not a good situation to have." As to getting the money back-- C'est la vie.

The WSJ reports that "experts" say that since the money didn't come "directly" from the workers [?] no federal laws were violated ("probably"). Huh! The company says they will put the wages I earned into X and they divert it to Z and since I didn't have it listed as "deducted" from my paycheck it didn't come "directly" from me therefore it is really theirs!

The WSJ quoted a lawyer not involved in the case who said, "It's what lawyers call betrayal without remedy. It's sad, but that stuff does happen, unfortunately." Why then would any union sign contracts with companies to co-contribute to their pension funds and allow the companies to oversee the payments if they can just keep them and the workers are "without remedy." Is this gaping hole in federal law being addressed?

This betrayal only affected one of two major unions at Hostess: the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union. The Teamsters did not have this kind of arrangement with the company. The baker's union did because "This local was very aggressive about saving for the future," according to a union officer. This is just another example of the truth of the socialist adage that any future for workers under capitalism is problematic.

Update 1: The Kansas City Star reported on 12-10-12 that the National Labor Relations Board has found "that Hostess had failed to bargain collectively and in good faith with a union."

Update 2: Hostess Brands issued the following statement on 12-11-12: “At no time were these pension contributions paid as wages, so no funds were ever ‘deducted from paychecks,’ as one news outlet erroneously reported. Hostess Brands has at all times continued to pay its union employees' current wages in full compliance with its collective bargaining agreements.''

This statement from Hostess is a new low in the metaphysics of mendacity: since the wages were not first paid then deducted but went directly to the pension funds they were not wages. Caveat faber.

Lenin on Marxism and Bourgeois Democracy by Thomas Riggins

Thomas Riggins In chapter seven of "'Left-Wing' Communism an Infantile Disorder" Lenin addresses himself to the ultra-left claim that socialists should no longer work with or be members of bourgeois parliaments. This may not be a very pressing issue for American (i.e., U.S.) socialists and it seems settled as far as other countries are concerned (as a result of widespread agreement with Lenin's views) but in Lenin's day there were many so-called Left socialists who supported boycotting all bourgeois electoral work. Lenin thought this totally incorrect. The ultra-Left's position was that bourgeois democracy was historically and politically obsolete; the wave of the future was advancing worker's democracy in the form of Soviets and so all Marxist socialists must only work to build that future. Lenin's response to this is philosophically interesting and rooted in his reading of Hegel and his understanding of the latter's historicism. Lenin had made a profound study of Hegel's Logic while in exile (among other of the German's works) and could not but have been impressed by the following passage in Hegel's introduction to his "Lectures on the Philosophy of History" (even though he thought Hegel had been completely antiquated with respect to most of his views on history by the work of Marx and Engels.) But the following Hegelian passage, I believe, still had meaning for him, and for us today as well.  Hegel wrote that he wished to call his students "attention to the important difference between a conception, a principle, a truth limited to an ABSTRACT form and its determinate application and concrete development." An example would be that "all men are created equal" was an abstract truth, the civil war was a determinate application-- as was the later civil rights movement. That application is still working itself out. Grasping that Hegelian principle we can understand Lenin when he agrees with the ultra-left that indeed bourgeois democracy IS historically obsolete.  Lenin says this is true in a "propaganda sense."  Capitalism has also been obsolete for over a hundred years, he says, it is obsolete today in that we know its contradictions, that it doesn't work and cannot feed the people and insure their future and we know that socialism is the answer and the only future available if humanity is not to perish but this ABSTRACT truth, from the point of view of world history, does not mean that its determinate application, its concrete development will not require "a very long and persistent struggle ON THE BASIS of capitalism" Lenin says world history is measured in decades, indeed he could have said centuries (Napoleon saw the Sphinx looking down on him from 40 centuries): whether the concrete development reaches fruition now or a century from now is something indifferent to world history. Lenin was mistaken in seeing the revolutionary era of his day as the fruition of the social ideal just as we are wrong to see the globalization of the capitalist world market as the refutation of the social ideal which from the point of view of world history may be ushered in by a new revolutionary era which may even now be at the heart of the current world capitalist breakdown and may take place in a decade or in 20 decades. For this "very reason," Lenin says, "it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics." So, while in a technical sense the ultra-left is correct about the historical "obsolescence" of bourgeois democracy, the real question is, is bourgeois democracy politically obsolete? The answer to that is a resounding "NO!" The masses of working people participate in bourgeois elections and think in terms of bourgeois constitutionality and for Marxists to ignore that fact and refuse to engage in political work where the masses are is the height of irresponsibility. This mistake that is raising its head again in 1920 was already refuted and abandoned in 1918 by the German socialists. Both Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, "outstanding political leaders" opposed it in Germany and subsequent events have proven them to be correct. Those parties today (1920) that are again bringing up this erroneous theory should study the history of Marxism on this issue and admit their mistake. This is a most important principle for Lenin. When a mistake is made it cannot be papered over, ignored, denied, or explained away. How a party treats its mistakes is one of the best ways of judging how serious it is about its duty towards its CLASS and towards WORKING PEOPLE in general. A party that fails to admit and rectify publicly its mistakes is NOT a party of the masses. The mistake of the ultra-lefts is failing to recognize what is obsolete from the point of view of Marxism-- from OUR point of view is NOT obsolete from the point of view of the masses. Granted then that we must work within the framework of bourgeois democracy so that we can influence the masses, Lenin stresses that we must not SINK TO THE LEVEL OF THE MASSES. The working people must be told "the bitter truth." That truth, which we are duty bound to tell the people, is that their allegiance to bourgeois democracy is nothing more than a "prejudice." Even so, we must also act politically with regard to the ACTUAL class consciousness of the working masses (not the class consciousness of the Marxist elements): if we don't, Lenin says we risk turning into "windbags." Here I must mention an issue that was important to Lenin but is no longer applicable at the present time. One of reasons he was upset by the ultra-lefts is that some of them were in leadership positions within fraternal communist parties which were members of the Communist International (Third International). Lenin was convinced that his position on bourgeois democracy was correct and had been successfully applied in Russia and it was also the position of the International, which, he said "must work out its tactics internationally (not as narrow or exclusively national tactics, but as international tactics)…," and the rejection of his views by some members of the International amounted to abandoning the concept of internationalism even while giving lip service to it. Today, of course, we have to be concerned with internationalism but there is no "International" to oversee and direct a unified program subscribed to by all the active Marxist parties. In fact, national tactics take a leading role everywhere. There are some regional groupings of Marxist parties as well some groupings based on particular ideological interpretations of Marxism, and some "go-it-alone" parties. This reflects the fragmented and ideological confusion that reigns on the left and is a major reason why more international meetings and conferences should be held with a view to creating some kind of consensus around international issues and how the national struggles in each country can relate to the movement  towards creating the conditions or preconditions for an international unified fight back against capitalism. Another issue addressed by Lenin in this chapter is the relation between legal and illegal activities by the worker's party. All worker's parties are faced with this issue and all engage in some form of illegal activity. In the U.S. Marxist parties, for example, although they were legal parties, still engaged in illegal activities such as sit ins and illegal demonstrations during the civil rights movement , and various forms of civil disobedience in anti-war protests and marches. Lenin thought that as capitalism begins to breakdown and the workers become more militant the bourgeois state would crack down ever harder on the working class violating its own standards of legality. As an example of ruthless persecution of working people he gives the example of the United States ("the example of America is edifying enough"). He has reference to the Palmer Raids and the espionage acts. It is also edifying to see the Obama administration dust off these old laws from ninety years ago to try and shut down whistle blowers and journalists (think of Wiki leaks). Socialist parties should be prepared to face savage persecution by the state as the class struggle intensifies. Paper tiger parties today will be treated as real tigers tomorrow if they effectively lead the workers in the struggle against capitalism. Lenin stresses that before Marxists even think about repudiating working within bourgeois democracy there must be a revolutionary situation in which the majority of working people have lost faith in the bourgeoisie and are willing and able to advance towards the seizure of power and the establishment of a socialist state. People can talk revolution all they like and advocate revolutionary tactics all they want but "without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action." Certainly in the U.S. there is no mass revolutionary mood [yet] and none on the immediate horizon and this must be taken into account by the left (as it has been in the pages of Political Affairs and other socialist publications- albeit with some confusion between tactics and strategy among those who have not kept their eyes on the prize). In Europe and other areas of the world the situation is different and various degrees of the "revolutionary mood" are rapidly advancing as the glacial melting of global capitalism speeds up a pace. Lenin further notes that "it is very easy to show one's 'revolutionary' temper merely by hurling abuse at parliamentary opportunism" [i.e., bourgeois democracy] but tactics "must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of ALL the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements." A tall order, I should think, with many opportunities for error: all the more reason for more international conferences and even the creation of a new International. So, the upshot of this discussion is that Marxists must work within bourgeois democratic institutions and it is childish to attack parties and socialist leaders who do so. The only justified criticism, Lenin says, is against those leaders "who are unable --- and still more against those who are UNWILLING --- to utilise the structures of bourgeois democracy … in a revolutionary and communist manner." The question that remains is: What constitutes a revolutionary and communist manner in the 21st Century?

Urgent Action Needed to Combat European Climate Change by Thomas Riggins

The European Environment Agency ( EEA, an agency representing 32 member states set up by the European Union) issued a recent report entitled "Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012." The report describes shocking examples of climate change and predicts even more shocking future impacts of the changing climatic conditions in Europe. However it never spells out the real causes of the climate change (our dependence on and use of fossil fuel for example) nor does it propose any far ranging solutions. At least none are reported in the story published by ScienceDaily on November 23, 2012 covering its conclusions ("Climate Change Evident Across Europe, Confirming Urgent Need for Adaptation.")

The EEA informs us that throughout Europe extreme weather has resulted in more and more destruction from floods, droughts, heat waves and that these trends are on the increase with greater occurrences  expected in the future. Rainfall has been going up in Northern Europe and down in the South. All across Europe the temperature has been going up and new higher averages are being recorded. Not only that, but this warming trend is melting away the sea ice in the Arctic, the Greenland ice sheet and many of Europe's glaciers. Also most of Europe's permafrost is now exposed and melting  due to less snow cover.

The EEA isn't reported to be worrying to much about how this will impact the human population in Europe as such, but is warning all this climatic disaster could cost a lot of money: "If European societies do not adapt, damage costs are expected to rise, according to the report."

Granted all this extreme weather and climate change is in the works, the European Union doesn't want to go out on a limb as to the cause: "more evidence is needed to discern the part played by climate change in this trend…." Our climate deniers here in the U.S. could not agree more. Meanwhile over 95% of climate scientists are agreed that this "trend" is the the result of human caused  global warming.

The EEA also knows that humans are involved because while they need "more evidence" as regards climate change they do add that, according to ScienceDaily, "growing human activity in hazard-prone areas has been a key factor" in the rise of damage costs. But it is not just activity in "hazard prone areas" and it is not simply "human activity"-- it is the activity of the trans-national and national corporations on a world wide basis polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases and the governments that refuse to take meaningful action against them-- including some European Union governments that sponsor the EEA.

The best the EEA Executive, Jacqueline McGlade, can come up with to counter the damages of climate change is to hope people can "adapt" themselves to it. This is at least the implication of the Science Daily quote attributed to her: "Climate change is a reality around the world, and the extent and speed of change is becoming ever more evident. This means that every part of the economy, including households, needs to adapt as well as reduce emissions."

What we have to do is force political actions that reign in the oil, gas, and coal industries and others who want to increase and further develop the uses of carbon based fuels. What we need is binding international agreements that reduce and eliminate the use of all chemicals that endanger the lives, health and well being of human beings and other life forms making up the biosphere. The up coming climate change meeting in Doha next week will show how seriously the governments of the world take this challenge.

Lenin on "Reactionary" Trade Unions: Chapter Six of "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder by Thomas Riggins

One of the most difficult questions facing any socialist movement is its relation to the trade unions. Modern day trade unionism is an integral part of the capitalist system. It functions to further the interests of working people within capitalism by trying to get their commodity (labor power) paid for at the highest price possible in relation to its value. This price can be measured in wages as well as benefits wrested from the capitalist class by means of negotiations, demonstrations, work stoppages, sit ins, and strikes. Under capitalism unions qua unions are not revolutionary organizations. Some unions and union members are in fact even reactionary. In the U.S. for example about 40% of unionized workers voted for the Republican reactionary Mitt Romney in the 2012 general election.

In chapter six of his work "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder, Lenin address himself to the relation Marxists should have with the capitalist trade union movement. He refers to the trade unions under capitalism as "reactionary" because he was writing in a revolutionary period in which socialist as well as capitalist oriented trade unions both existed. This is not that time so I shall dispense with the term "reactionary" except in direct quotations.

At the beginning of this chapter Lenin notes that the ultra-Left in Germany consider it very revolutionary to condemn the German unions as compromising, nationalistic, and counter-revolutionary and that no communists should have anything to do with them. Lenin intends to give reasons why he thinks these ideas are wrong and are just a lot of "empty phrases."

Lenin will first make remarks about the situation in Russia. He does so to remind us
what the purpose of this work is --i.e., to apply "to Western Europe whatever is universally practicable, significant and relevant in the history and present-day tactics of Bolshevism." We may not find as many things today, ninety years later and in non-revolutionary conditions (but growing pre-revolutionary movements are afoot in the anti-austerity struggle and the fightback against the banks), as people in Lenin's day found but there still are some practicable ideas in Lenin's work.

One such idea is that as the struggle today intensifies Marxist parties will start to grow into larger and larger mass parties (as happened to the Bolsheviks after 1917) and many of the new members will be "careerists and charlatans" out to feather their own nests with no real dedication to the workers. Lenin says they only "deserve to be shot"-a la the Chinese Communist Party's response to extremely corrupt officials. This may be a little too "proactive" for our sensibilities these days, but we should be aware of such people and kick them out of the movement and warn the workers about them. If conditions become more revolutionary we can expect the working people to handle these types as they see fit.

Another point made by Lenin is really not so relevant in the current situation, but should still be mentioned in case the working class actually finds itself exercising state power in the future. That is the relation of the worker's party to the institutions of the state. We must not look at the state as some kind of independent institution that all political parties share in and whose main departments are headed now by one party, now another or a combination of parties. The bourgeoisie is an unnecessary parasitical exploiting class with no useful role to play in modern society except to oppress working people and exploit them. This class will no longer have a role to play in the political life of a state controlled by workers so no state institution will make any political or organizational decisions without consulting with and taking guidance from the worker's party.

With respect to the trade unions, Lenin says that the party "relies directly" upon them. Trade unions are formally non-party organizations but the party, in Russia (and presumably in any future worker's  state), actually controls the leadership positions in all the unions and the unions carry out the party line. There are millions of workers only a relatively small number of whom (the most class conscious) are members of the party. The trade unions are the vehicle by which the party keeps in touch with the working masses and keeps the class unified in its struggle to defeat the bourgeoisie and build socialism. Under capitalism the unions are not typically led by leaders committed to building socialism and thus the unions function to uphold bourgeois rule despite their struggles for better pay and working conditions.
Marxists should be in the union movement and hopefully get themselves elected to leadership positions by the rank and file. Marxists union members should be carrying on socialist education and agitation and explaining to workers why they will never be secure in their lives, jobs, or pensions under capitalism.

There are two main positions that the Marxists should push that will differentiate them from the opportunistic and pragmatic labor leaders. The first is to fight against the view that bourgeois democracy is the only form of democracy that should be supported. Direct worker's democracy, in whatever form it takes (worker's councils, soviets, etc.), should be the ideal. The second idea to fight is that the union movement should be politically "independent." In Russia that would have amounted to the workers having unions independent from workers political power running the state. In our pre-revolutionary situation the unions should support and be affiliated with political parties having a pro-working class agenda. An intellectually mature working class will have its own political party or parties reflecting working class values and led by working people themselves. In the U.S., I repeat, it is absolutely scandalous that forty percent of unionized workers vote Republican in general elections.

However, it is not sufficient just to maintain contact with the workers and the people in general through the trade unions. Lenin says that other types of non-party organizations have to be set up and institutions developed whose membership consists of workers and petty bourgeois elements who are not members of the party. In the West these organizations have been give the uncharitable name of "front groups" by the bourgeoisie. Their real purpose, according to Lenin, is to allow the party to understand the "temper" of the people and "to come closer to them, meet their requirements" and "promote the best among them" to leadership positions. This is a thoroughly democratic way for the people and the party to interact for the common interests of the working class and its allies.

In Russia all of this party work was carried out by means of the Soviets which Lenin
says are a form of democratic expression far superior to anything created by bourgeois democracy. While making these remarks Lenin also mentions exactly what type of workers rule is involved in the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" (DP). The DP is not a dictatorship of all the working people, or a dictatorship of workers and peasants. In Russia it is "a dictatorship of the urban proletariat" and the DP is meant to lead the agricultural population (a backward majority) towards supporting the rule of the urban working class. It has as one of its main functions to lead the mass of poor peasants  and to wage "a systematic struggle against the rich, bourgeois, exploiting and profiteering peasantry, etc." In the West of the 21st Century such a DP has no existential basis and would not make a good role model for the type of workers democracy required to establish socialism.

In Lenin's day such a DP was what was required. The Russian Marxists had arrived at these ideas after 25 years of intense struggle against the Russian feudalists and bourgeoisie and from their point of view the ultra-left antics of some German "Communists" and others of pitting "leaders" against the "masses" and advocating abandoning the trade union movement and also other forms of legal struggle sounded like "ridiculous and childish nonsense."

Lenin admitted that the old bourgeois craft unions and distinctions between workers are a legacy left to socialism by capitalism and that the trade unions too are riddled with bourgeois attitudes and prejudices. But he said this is the material we have to work with and it will take years and years of work to develop the industrial unions of the future which will represent whole industries  and lead to the abolition of the division of labor between people. This goal is the goal of fully developed Communism and in1920 only the first baby steps were being taken. Lenin warned that, "To attempt in practice, today, to anticipate this future result of a fully developed, fully comprehensive and mature communism would be like trying to teach higher mathematics to a child of four." This warning was another in the species of not trying to skip stages and prematurely try to bring about remote future possibilities. Perhaps all the errors of Soviet collectivization and also of the Great Leap Forward could have been prevented had Lenin's views been taken seriously.

Lenin here seems to reject the whole idea of "social engineering" and the idea of creating the "the new Soviet man." He says we have to build socialism with the type of people "bequeathed" to us by the capitalist system and not try to build it "with human material specially prepared by us." If Lenin's successors had followed this advice they would have been much more tolerant of the frailties of human nature and open to different ideas and notions of how to go about building on the foundations of socialism created under his direction. They could have avoided the paranoia and purges of the 1930s and 40s.

Reflecting again on the trade unions, Lenin remarks that they evolved out of the primitive isolation and disunity of the early working class and were an essential form of working class organization that developed to unify and unite workers and give to them class consciousness. Now it is the Communist Party which is the highest form of working class organization and which expresses the highest level of class consciousness and the trade union movement, born as it was under capitalist conditions has revealed that, compared to the revolutionary class conscious workers, it has backward tendencies related to narrow minded craft interests.

Lenin uses the term "Communist" in relation to the Party in a way which leads me to think he didn't really believe Communist parties had arrived at a stage of development where they deserved to be called "Communist." He says "the Party will not merit the name until it learns to weld the leaders into one indivisible whole with the class and the masses." I don't think that ever happened in the Soviet Union but the reasons for this failure to weld an indivisible whole are to complex to discuss here."

At any rate, whatever the limitations displayed by the trade union movement this movement was indispensable for the development of the working class and every capitalist country has produced trade unions which represent the interests of the working people in the economic contest with the capitalists. The unions will be necessary in the transfer of the management of the economic life of socialist countries to the working class, not to the separate unions, and eventually to all working people. For this reason Lenin calls the unions a "school of communism" that will be the training ground for workers in the building of socialism.

Nevertheless at the present time there are many backward attitudes and ideas floating about in the ranks of the trade unions and many of these attitudes will remain even if working people eventually gain state power. How should we deal them both now and in the future. Repression was not an option favored by Lenin. He says these backward attitudes are INEVITABLE considering the historical context in which the unions were formed. Not to understand this is to show complete ignorance of the role of the party. It would be "folly" to either evade this problem or try to "leap over it" [even a great leap won't work]. The role of the party is to educate and enlighten the backwardness that living under capitalism will inevitably imprint on large sections of the working people. The Party's job is to win the support of the masses and to maintain and extend that support through education and example. Obviously shooting people or sending them to the Gulag is not a good way to carry out that assignment. It will take many years of patient work and struggle to carry out that mission. Presumably the party that fails in this mission will not be around in the long run.

Paradoxically, Lenin thinks the labor leadership in the more advanced countries of the West are more opportunist and play upon the credulity of the workers than those in backward Russia. This is because Russia was going through a real revolutionary awakening and the the vast majority of the workers chose to follow the Bolshevik wing of the Marxist movement rather than the Menshevik wing which was opportunistic and social chauvinist. Lenin is particularly vitriolic when he refers to the Western labor leaders calling them "the craft-union, narrow-minded, selfish, case-hardened, covetous, and petty-bourgeois 'labour aristocracy,' imperialist-minded and imperialist-corrupted" leadership. This type of leadership has to be fought against and completely driven out of the trades union movement. Marxist trade unionists still have that daunting task before them.

Taking all this under consideration, Lenin warns that the attempt of Marxists to assume political power "should not be made" until the majority of workers are firm supporters of the Party. This stage in the struggle will vary "in different countries and in different circumstances; it can be correctly gauged only by thoughtful, experienced and knowledgeable political leaders of the proletariat in each particular country." It s thus still, it seems, the primary mission of Marxists to educate the working people and remind them that, while it is necessary to work in bourgeois trade unions, and to contest bourgeois elections (to hold off the right and protect the interests of the working class) these forms of bourgeois democracy are not a solution to the problems of exploitation, unemployment, and preventing war, and must be replaced with real democratic institutions based on working class political power. The faux democracy of the West is part of the problem, not part of the solution leading to human liberation from capital.

It is of course the case, Lenin says, that Marxists uphold the interests of the working people AGAINST the opportunistic labor bureaucrats ("the 'Labour Aristocracy'"). This is "an elementary and most self-evident truth." The ultra-left's error is to think that because some unions, or even most unions, in the West have a pro-capitalist  top  leadership that Marxists should abandon the trade unions and create ARTIFICIAL organizations to compete with them. This is infantile. The only way to help the workers better understand what the issues are is for Marxists to work in the labor movement with them and expose those "agents of the bourgeoisie in the working class movement."  Lenin particularly likes Daniel De Leon 's (the leader of the now moribund Socialist Labor Party) formulation: "labour lieutenants of the capitalist class."

Lenin maintains that Marxists cannot leave the backward workers to the mercy of these capitalist labor leaders or under the influence of those workers Engels described as having "become completely bourgeois." Lenin's reference is to a letter Engels sent to Marx in 1858 in reference to British workers. I'm going to quote it because, with a few slight adjustments, Engels' observations hold true for many workers  today in the West.

Engels wrote to Marx from Manchester on October 7, 1858 that, in effect labor leadership could move to the right, because "the English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat ALONGSIDE the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable. The only thing that would help here would be a few thoroughly bad years…." Well, the bad years are once again upon us, I hope we can make the best use of them.

With regard to the trade union movement, Lenin finds the ultra-left "Marxists" to be acting in a "frivolous" manner with regard to mass work. Their "ridiculous 'theory'" of not wanting to work in the union movement betrays a fundamental principle of mass organization which is  to WORK WHEREVER THE MASSES ARE TO BE FOUND. Marxists have a duty to work in the union movement and educate the workers by exposing the baseness and class collaborationist nature of the pro-capitalist labor leaders. The nature of this type of work has to be fine tuned and take into consideration the specific features of the working class and its history in each country but it cannot be ignored.

It is particularly childish of the "Left opposition" to demand brand new unions be set up with but one requirement for membership: accepting the Soviet system and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin says that the Communists have been running Soviet Russia for almost three years and it would be ruinous for them to make such a demand on Russian workers for union membership. "The task," he says, facing Marxists "is to CONVINCE the backward elements, to work AMONG them, and not FENCE THEMSELVES OFF from them with artificial and childishly 'Left' slogans."

Not only should Marxists work in the trade union movement, but In fact Lenin even favored Marxists, following the idea of being where the masses were, joining the Black Hundreds (the Russian KKK of the time) so as to win the backward workers and peasants away from the organization. I cannot, however, envision Leftists in the U.S. flocking to the Tea Party Movement to enlighten its working class members and win them away from the reactionary Republican party (however correct that tactic might be).

So much then for Lenin's views on the relation that a Marxist party should have with the trade union movement. I will next examine his views about working in bourgeois parliaments.

Extreme Weather: The Maya and Us by Thomas Riggins

Two weeks after hurricane Sandy ravaged New Jersey and New York thousands of people are still without power, food  or potable water and are dependent on the city, state and federal government, and increasingly on Occupy Sandy (the volunteers from Occupy Wall Street and related groups) for basic survival goods.

Sandy represented extreme weather conditions that crippled the emergency response facilities of the government-- nationally and locally. No one had the foresight to plan ahead for such a wide spread storm disaster. Scientists and realistic politicians are now saying that Sandy like events will be increasing in frequency as the earth continues to heat up due to global warming and the use of fossil fuels (oil,coal and gas). What the people of the North East have gone through in the last several weeks may well be "the new normal."

These extreme weather events are not limited to the United States but are world wide phenomena. The whole international system may collapse in we can't halt the warming of the atmosphere. It won't be the first time a civilization has collapsed due to radical changes in weather. ScienceDaily (11-8-12) published an article that details how the civilization of the Maya Indians in Mexico and Central American collapsed and extreme weather changes are the suspected cause ("Extreme Weather Preceded Collapse of Ancient Maya Civilization.")

An interdisciplinary group of scientists determined after decades of extreme weather the political system of the Maya, and the Maya population itself was basically destroyed. Bruce Winterhalder, co-author of the report (which appeared in the journal Science for 11-9-12) was quoted as saying, "Here you had an amazing state-level society that had created calendars, magnificent architecture, works of art, and was engaged in trade throughout Central America. They were incredible craftspersons, proficient in agriculture, statesmanship and warfare [always a sign of civilization] -- and within about 80 years, it fell completely apart."

Scientists correlated the written record of the Maya (using the Maya Hieroglyphic Data Base) with oxygen isotope dating of stalagmites from caves in the Maya culture area which provided them with a 2000 year record of rainfall. The scientists found that when rain was plentiful (300-660 AD) Maya culture experienced the growth of cities and of population but during a subsequent drying period (660-1000 AD) political instability set in, warfare increased, and the state finally collapsed. Then a drought began (1020-1100 AD) and the Maya population withered and collapsed likely because of "crop failures, death, famine, migration" and other extreme events.

Martha Macri, the other co-author and like Winterhalder from UC Davis, remarked, "It has long been suspected that weather events can cause a lot of political unrest and subject societies to disease and invasion. But now it is clear. There is physical evidence that correlates right along with it. We are dependent on climatological events that are beyond our control."

But there is a big difference between the Maya case and our own. The Maya actually did not have any control and could not see their end coming. But we know what is causing our extreme weather-- carbon emissions and some other chemicals as well and we know it is the big corporations  (and state owned ones as well) existing in a for profit capitalist economic framework that are responsible. Are these corporations really beyond "our" control-- i.e., the democratic control of the people?

Dr. Winterhalder said about the story of the the Maya that, "It's a cautionary tale about how fragile our political structure might be. Are we in danger the same way the Classic Maya were in danger? I don't know. But I suspect that just before their rapid descent and disappearance, Maya political elites were quite confident about their achievements."

Yes, but we are not run by "political elites" the same way the Maya were. This past election in the US showed that people can unite and fight off the political elites representing nothing but the profit motivated capitalist corporations. The democratic people's movement has won some breathing space and now has an opportunity to push the US government into a serious commitment to fight global warming. It is one thing to go down before an invisible unknown enemy and another to know who your enemy is and know you have the power to stop him, and do nothing.