Month: September 2026

A Scholars Conference

Just a short stroll down memory lane….

In the 80s I was invited to give my paper, The Shortcomings In The Theory Of Non-Violence, I wish I could repost my paper but unfortunately it was destroyed when Katrina attacked my home, The conference was held at the Univ of Louisville over a 4 day period.

To say that I made an impression would be an understatement….after the presentation I was not going to make many friends.

My premise of the paper was that non-violence while is a good tactic did not hold up over time…..I used India s an example…..Gandhi wanted to end the occupation of the UK, end the ‘untouchable’ thing and bring unity to the sub-continent….

Sorry but he failed.  India got independence basically because it was a drain on the UK treasury, the untouchables are still part of the country and the unity did not last….Pakistan split off after the independence….and then I pointed to civil rights here in this country….yes equality and voting rights were granted but after that all eyes moved on and in the long run the rights were crapped on by the government… and now the fight is on again to retain those hard won rights that were mostly through non-violent means.  The same happened to women’s rights…..the eyes moved on and the forces of ‘evil’ took hold once again.

After my talk there was a guy with a cane sitting and listening and I could tell he was getting angry as I went on…..I finally asked him if he disagreed and he said yes and then I said since you are so angry would you consider hitting me with your cane…he nodded yes….and then I said thank you and you have proven my point.

I then told the audience that the problem with all these examples is that they were focused on the wrong thing….they should be a continuing to make sure to retain any hard fought wins.

I said the problem with conferences like this was that the participants were talking to each other when they should be talking to the people that these wins effected.

This country needs a strong working class party to keep the focus where it belongs….what we have now is what Gompers wanted many years ago….a fight for money when they should have been fighting for political power which would have almost guaranteed that hard won rights remained in force.

I know that this maybe an unpopular stance but look what has happened in the last couple of decades….workers are losing all those hard won rights in favor of corporate profits….and the attacks are coming from both parties….the workers are just tools for the next election….their livelihood means very little to the bastards in the parties.

Of all the participants in the conference most we academics and thought that all people could follow their obfuscation of different trends in political thought.  Every presentation, as I looked around, had the audience all nodding with the presentation…..that is until I took the floor and brought some reality into the room.

I do not condemn non-violence just that it cannot be the only tactic used to win rights…I know someone will dispute that well that is okay because I will accept any optional technique as long as the eyes are kept on the prize and never look away….even for an instant…..look what has happened today….rights are being shaved away until we are back where we were in the 1950s.

Democratic, political leadership role of the working class is indispensable for raising consciousness beyond economic struggles to socialist consciousness, which means recognising the irreconcilable antagonism between the working class and the entire capitalist system. The most politically conscious section of the working class must lead the oppressed peoples as a whole to overthrow capitalism and build a socialist society based on equality and justice.

Keep in mind that those two words strike terror into the hearts of capitalists….equality and justice.

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

cogito ergo agito

The Need For A United Labor Movement

I have always thought the the American got screwed by Samuel Gompers….I know who?

Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) was the first president of the American Federation of Labor, the first enduring national labor union. He served as president from 1886 until his death in 1924, except for a single year, 1895. Born in London, he immigrated to the United States at the age of 13, and worked as a cigar-maker. He became the leader of the cigar-makers’ union, and transformed it into one of the country’s strongest unions.

Gompers believed that labor had the most to gain by organizing skilled craft workers, rather than attempting to organize all workers in an industry. He refused to form an alliance with the Knights of Labor. “Talk of harmony with the Knights of Labor,” he said, “is bosh. They are just as great enemies of trade unions as any employer can be.”

Gompers repudiated socialism and advocated a pragmatic “pure and simple” unionism that emphasized agreements with employees–which would spell out for a stipulated period the wages, hours of work, and the procedures for handling grievances. Gompers proposed that agreements contain clauses stipulating that employers hire only union members (the closed shop) and that any employee should be required to pay union dues. Employers advocated the open shop, which could employ non-union members.

https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm

He seemed to think that the worker should go for economic power instead of political power….I believe he shafted the workers.

Look at labor today….did the economic power work out for them?  Maybe in the earlier days but now they are spinning their wheels and falling for any lame ass promise some random politician gives them.

We on the Left have been advocating a unified labor movement for many decades….this is from 1933 and the rise of fascism….

‘The Need for a United Labor Party’ by A.J. Muste from Labor Age. Vol. 22 No. 1. February-March, 1933.

I agree that a functioning labor party would have and will make the workers the strongest subset in American politics….but from the shadows the corporate slugs and their minions in politics will do everything possible to prevent the workers from gaining any power at all.

This concept needs revisiting in these days of loss of income and livelihood….time to ask the important questions….but will we?

The real problems is that we do not elect more workers because the campaigns have gotten out of hand and the candidates owe too much to the fat cats that fund them.

But if one wants more information on that thought….

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/28/why-we-need-to-elect-more-workers-to-public-office

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

cogito ergo agito

We, The People….

I have always liked the term…..but is it truly all about the people?  The government that is.

Our tortured country is floundering and it is in dire need of assistance.

But who will save this nation?

The elected politicians?  No for they are not in it to save this nation but rather to further their personal ambitions.

If not the politicians then who can save this country from itself?

The Founders believe that the people would do what is right for the nation.

“When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something.”John Lewis’s words echo across this moment in American life because the responsibility he described no longer rests with parties or politicians. It rests with the people themselves.

Recently, a nurse shared a choice no family should have to make: pay for a needed surgery or replace the failing roof over their heads. That is not just a personal crisis. It is a civic one— a sign of what happens when institutions stop working for the people they were built to serve.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, the framers made a wager— not on presidents or parties, but on the people. They argued fiercely, yet built a Constitution rooted in one idea: power must remain with the people, and government exists only by their consent. That principle carried the nation through war, depression, corruption, and conflict because, in every crisis, the people stepped in to correct what institutions alone could not.

The framers believed the people would be the final safeguard when institutions failed. History proves they were right. From colonists resisting British overreach to Frederick Douglass demanding that the nation honor its ideals to the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr., change came not from the top down, but from people who acted when government would not. This is why only the people can save the Republic: every safeguard the framers built ultimately depends on them.

As the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approaches, the question is not what the Constitution says. The question is whether the people will still enforce it— and whether they will use their vote, judgment, and voice to preserve the Republic.

https://thefulcrum.us/civic-engagement-education/only-the-people-can-save-the-republic-not-parties-politicians

The premise may be accurate but if we vote we must vote party….so how does that give us any power?

Those same Founders that gave us the way to heal this country also made it possible for politics to destroy the very thing that helped create.

The men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 were students of history, and it taught them a singular lesson: power corrupts, and unchecked power can destroy a republic.

They designed our experiment with overlapping safeguards to ensure that no single faction, branch, or man could hold the nation hostage. What remained unresolved was agency: who, exactly, can determine when to trigger those safeguards? History has since exposed this as the system’s deepest vulnerability.

The Constitution assigns Congress the power of impeachment but says nothing about the political will required to use it. It grants the cabinet the authority to remove an incapacitated president but assumes that cabinet members will prioritize constitutional duty over personal loyalty. It tasks Congress with checking executive overreach, yet it cannot compel a partisan legislature to act.

In each case, accountability mechanisms exist. The decision about when to use it was delegated to individuals in a political system. The Founders hoped this system would produce honorable leaders, though they could not guarantee it. Nearly two and a half centuries later, we are forced to confront the consequences when it fails to do so.

https://thefulcrum.us/governance-legislation/founders-safeguards-politics-useless

There has got to be a return to sanity if this nation is to survive….but how and when are the only questions that need an answer.

Any thoughts?

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

cogito ergo agito

A Return To Religious Coercion

The rise of christian nationalism is turning this country onto its head.

Donny and his band of religious cutthroats are doing all they can to force America into some form of MAGA christianity.

I have a huge problem with this.

I for one do not think that christianity is has anything to do with governing…..on a personal level I have no problem with people and their religious beliefs….just not forcing me and others into believing in something that we chose not to follow.

I mean what happened to freedom of choice?

That is just like everything else in the Constitution….being stripped away by the thugs in the government.

This is not something new….it has happened several times in this country (and yes a history lesson is involved)

American revival movements have always contained two competing impulses: the belief that all people possess equal moral worth before God, and the belief that society must be disciplined into righteousness whether it wants to be or not. That tension runs throughout the history of American Christianity. It shaped the First and Second Great Awakenings, fueled both abolitionism and moral policing, and inspired democratic reform movements—all while simultaneously justifying social hierarchy and coercion. If you’re wondering how the MAGA movement can speak constantly in the language of Christianity while bearing intense hostility to many traditional Christian virtues themselves, we can look to this history, which is now repeating itself.

There has been a great deal of discussion on the right in recent years about whether the United States is experiencing some kind of new religious revival. Church attendance remains historically low by many measures, most notably in the mainline churches that have historically fostered religious moderation and created communities of believers from across the political spectrum. That said, religious identity is also increasingly central to American political conflict. Christianity, particularly conservative Christianity, often functions as a marker of political and cultural belonging on the American right. The result is a society that may be becoming less religious overall while simultaneously becoming more religiously polarized. To understand this moment, it helps to revisit the Great Awakenings in U.S. history, when Americans renegotiated the meaning of freedom, morality, and identity on a national scale.

The First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s challenged older religious hierarchies by emphasizing direct spiritual experience and personal conversion. Revivalist preachers like George Whitefield insisted that ordinary people could experience God directly without relying on established church authority. These ideas also intensified preachers’ use of emotionalism and encouraged suspicion toward institutional authority that would echo throughout American history. The emphasis on inward spiritual experience eventually fed into later forms of American individualism, including nineteenth-century Transcendentalism and the broader tendency to treat authenticity and inner conviction as sources of moral authority.

But it was the Second Great Awakening, stretching roughly from the 1790s through the 1830s, that most profoundly shaped American political culture. Massive revival meetings swept across the early republic, with Evangelical Protestantism rapidly expanding on the frontier and in growing northern cities. Preachers such as Charles Grandison Finney taught that both individuals and society itself could be morally transformed.

https://newrepublic.com/article/214330/maga-christianity-return-religious-coercion

This coercion is unacceptable to me and I shall fight it as best I can.

What say you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Political Parties, Why?

This is a sore spot for me….I do not see what good they have done for this country.

From the very beginning of this nation’s new government the need for political parties became inevitable….during the debate on the new Constitution there were the Federalist and the anti-Federalist….and so it began…..political camps that morphed into what we now have the political parties.

Let’s be honest there are some advantages….a quick look at thgose advantages….

Increase voter turnout…maybe in the beginning but today all is being done to limit the turnout.

Political Parties Improve the quality of candidates….have you seen this quality lately?

Encourage more candidates to run for office….but only if you are a member of a the two parties….all others are discouraged.

Political Parties encourage party loyalty….and that is where the biggest problem lies….no opposition is allowed.

There you have what I think of those so-called advantages.

Now let’s look at the disadvantages….

Disenfranchisement

One of the major drawbacks of political parties is Disenfranchisement, which indicates that some people feel like their vote doesn’t count. This can be because they aren’t inquisitive about any of the candidates or platforms suggested by the various parties and therefore determine not to participate.

Decreased voter turnout

Decreased voter turnout is even among the problematic weaknesses of political parties. Fewer individuals want to get concerned with the procedure or participate; even if they do, their votes separate us more and more parties are made.

Corruption

It is one of the common drawbacks of Political Parties not every political group follows transparency while operating governments. The former US president’s involvement with the Watergate scandal left individuals asking how corruption can seep into the greatest Political systems.

Encourage Disunity and divisiveness within the governing body

Political Parties can also guide to Disunity and Divisiveness, particularly when it comes to succeeding or losing an election. When someone from one party fails out to a candidate from another, there exists often some degree of personal animosity concerned because they feel like their opponent defrauded or made the race unfair in some way.

Encourage negative campaigning and mudslinging

Negative Campaigning and Mudslinging exist another issue of political parties as they promote the worst types of behavior and characters to come out during an election. The issues set an excellent example for politicians as crabs inside a bucket.

I cannot disagree with anything there….we are witnessing most of the disadvantages today and have been witness to the total collapse of the system.

But there is so much more that has turned this system into an ugly POS….

Parties may prioritize their own interests and agendas over the welfare of the nation, sometimes neglecting important issues that do not align with their platform.  (and they do)

Members of political parties may feel pressured to conform to party policies and decisions, restricting their ability to express independent opinions or vote according to personal beliefs.

Rivalry between parties can lead to gridlock in government, making it difficult to pass laws or implement policies, which can hinder effective governance and development.

It has been ten years since I ranted about political parties and in that time my views have not changed….but read it for yourself….

Why Political Parties Are Unnecessary

As you can see I am an opinionated SOB and I do not change with the times….

I would appreciate your thoughts.

Educate, Agitate

cogito ergo agito