Tag: history

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

The Long Con

I make no secret of my extreme dislike (some may call it hatred) for the Supreme Court and the political hacks that sit on it…..none more disliked than chief justice Roberts….

This judge has done more damage to this country than most are unaware of because it is not reported as it should be….

I recently read an excellent article on his long con….

There is no bigger con man in the United States than Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Not even President Donald J. Trump.

The con began in September 2005, during Roberts’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Articulate, handsome, and energetic at fifty years old, Roberts seemed to have been culled “straight from central casting,” as Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama actually remarked on the first day of the hearings. Roberts was also convincing—he famously promised that if confirmed, he would serve in the fashion of a baseball umpire, calling only “balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” Seventy-eight Senators, including twenty-two Democrats, fell for the ploy and voted to give him the lifetime assignment.

The biggest yarn Roberts told during his hearing concerned his views on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), a cornerstone of American democracy, which the Supreme Court gutted this past April in a redistricting case from the state of Louisiana (Louisiana v. Callais).

As is his prerogative as Chief Justice, Roberts assigned the task of drafting the Callais majority opinion to fellow conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who responded with a 6 to 3 ruling that held that, henceforth, Section 2 of the landmark legislation would require VRA plaintiffs to meet the nearly impossible burden of proving that redistricting maps challenged as “racial gerrymanders” were created with discriminatory intent rather than for permissible political purposes. The opinion allowed Louisiana to eliminate one majority Black Congressional district. It also effectively negated legislation passed in 1982 that had amended Section 2 to permit the Justice Department and private citizens to challenge election laws that have the effect of diluting minority voting power without proving intent.

Flash back to 2005 and it is apparent that, at best, Roberts misled the judiciary committee. In response to a question from Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy about the VRA’s constitutionality, Roberts replied, “[T]he existing Voting Rights Act—the constitutionality has been upheld. And I don’t have any issue with that.”

https://progressive.org/magazine/the-long-con-of-john-roberts-blum-20260821

The voters have had long cons played on them by politicians and we could have changed that….but we chose not to do so…..but with the Supreme Court we do not have that option and once seated they are there for life….even if they live to past one hundred…..we cannot rid ourselves of their devastating rulings.

We hear promises that reform is high on the agenda during elections and so far I have not seen shit once the elections are Over with…..have you?

I am sure we shall hear much on this issue and once the election is over nothing will materialize.

Anybody see anything differently?

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

cogito ergo agito

“lego ergo scribo”

Why Do Americans Hate Americans?

Over the years there is been a growing hatred for our fellow Americans….why is that?

Americans are becoming increasingly distrustful of one another, with younger generations showing the lowest levels of trust, according to new polling highlighted in a recent opinion piece published by The Hill.

“There is a dramatic decline in the level of trust of people by age groupings, with people born before 1960 the most trusting and each subsequent grouping by age less trustful than the one before,” states the survey by Marquette Law School Poll.

Trust also varies depending on the relationship. Ninety-two percent of Americans said they have at least a fair amount of trust in their immediate family, while trust drops sharply when it comes to strangers and federal elected officials.

A separate Pew Research Center study found another troubling sign of social division.

In its survey of 25 countries, 53% of American adults said the average person in the United States has bad morals and ethics. Pew said Americans were particularly likely among the countries surveyed to hold negative views about the morality of their fellow citizens.

“Younger Americans (ages 18 to 39) are slightly more likely than older adults to say other Americans are morally bad (57% vs. 50%),” read the study.

The Hill contributor Ghlionn claimed that this combination of distrust and negative perceptions could make political disagreements more hostile. Instead of seeing opponents as people with different opinions, Americans may increasingly view them as fundamentally bad or dangerous.

The Marquette researchers cautioned against blaming social media alone for the decline in trust.

Their survey found that people using five or more social media platforms were generally less trusting. However, researchers found little consistent relationship between social media use and trust when comparing people within the same age group.

The findings suggest that America’s trust problem may have deeper causes, particularly across generations. While the surveys do not establish why trust has declined, they show a clear divide in how Americans view strangers, institutions and even their fellow citizens.

(knewz.com)

It is more distrust than hate….

The polls looked at several angles for this conclusion.

I blame social media ….and then there is the morally bad thing….what does that mean?

I understand the lack of trust for if you look at what the politicians have done( that should be not done) then I understand what the poll is saying.

I am not sure I can say I know of one politician that I trust…..and I have been watching since 1980 and in that time I have watched the attitudes  and decline of our elected representatives and it is getting worse instead of better.

Have you any thing to change my mind?

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

cogito ergo agito

The D/Bags Are Watching

I sure most everyone has heard the statement “Big Brother Is Watching” and it is true.

As someone who was the target of the old COINTELPRO I can tell you that if you disagree with the government then they will find you and spy on you.

Since Donny took to the now destroyed White House there have been a wealth of spying on protesters and the groups that support them…..and it is getting worse…..

It’s time to familiarize yourselves with the names “Operation Puppet Master” and “Operation Keyhole.” If those nefarious phrases evoke to you the U.S. government’s domestic spying on leftist groups in the 1960s and 1970s, it’s for good reason. The terms are coinages of today’s Department of Homeland Security, and they’re associated with a massive covert surveillance effort that DHS unleashed earlier this year to track anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in Minneapolis, where Donald Trump’s violent paramilitary invasion triggered months of intense civil conflict.

We just learned about the broad outlines of this domestic surveillance from newly released court papers related to the ongoing prosecution of a handful of protesters. As The New York Times reported, the papers show that DHS began surveilling left-leaning groups—including a union, a climate change group, and others—after ICE killed Alex Pretti in January. This has entailed seeking financial records and infiltrating protest meetings that are protected by the First Amendment.

But you can get a far more vivid picture of these undercover surveillance operations—and how brazenly they were conducted against American citizens—if you read deep into the court papers. The documents—which are attached as exhibits to a motion filed by lawyers for one of the protesters facing prosecution and are available on Pacer—include investigative reports that were transmitted by the undercover agents themselves about meetings they infiltrated.

It’s jarring, revealing stuff. The reports show that covert agents surreptitiously attended well over a dozen protest meetings organized by groups like the Sunrise Movement and various small socialist organizations. In some cases the agents secretly recorded the gatherings.

https://newrepublic.com/article/214482/trump-dhs-secret-police-spying-anti-ice-americans

Just a warning if you think about getting involved with the protests of Donny and the Gang….

Big Brother Will Be Watching!

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

cogito ergo agito

The Coming National Election–2028

I am an unashamed political junkie and am always looking for reports that can help inform the people that visit IST….there is some disturbing writings about 2028…..

It should be a shoo-in for Dems but it is not looking so ducky for them but we are a ways out from the vote and things can change….

First, I know there are many ‘independents’ (I hate that term) which are moderates and their choices are not looking good right now….

The choices they are looking at is the Left and far Right….

I am writing this text with the Americas and Europe in mind, but the phenomena I analyze apply, with modifications, to other regions of the world. We are on the brink of a new world war, facing imminent ecological collapse, witnessing the end of international law, and the end of the distinction between democracy and autocracy. The political paradigm of Eurocentric modernity has globalized to the extent that it has transformed democracy (liberal democracy) into the only legitimate political regime. Based on concrete examples, it is time to acknowledge that this historical process has run its course and is producing perverse effects: liberal democracy exists today primarily to create and legitimize dictatorships; democratic institutions are committing suicide as a normal way of operating. There is resistance, but it will only be effective if those who resist have the clarity to recognize the gravity of what is happening and the importance of what is at stake

https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-right-is-disappearing-the-choice-is-between-the-left-and-the-far-right

Let’s look at ‘swing voters’….those moderates or centrist or whatever one chooses to call oneself….

Swing voters in North Carolina say they are frustrated with President Trump and the state of the economy, but aren’t ready to abandon him or his party as the midterms inch closer.

NPR observed two online focus groups on Tuesday featuring 12 voters in North Carolina who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and then Trump in 2024. These focus groups were conducted by messaging and market research firms Engagious and Sago as part of the Swing Voter Project.

Seven of the voters who participated identified as independents, four said they were Republicans, and one identified as a Democrat. That’s a more Republican-leaning cohort than prior months’ focus groups.

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/21/nx-s1-5828924/north-carolina-swing-voter-focus-group

That is scary results….so anyone but Donny may not care much weight at the polls.

It seems MAGA Repubs are taking over and the conserv party we once knew may soon be a thing of the past.

President Donald Trump has remade the Republican Party in his own image, but that transformation could prove costly in future elections, according to a new report.

The share of GOP voters identifying as MAGA Republicans has skyrocketed over the past four years, climbing from 38 percent in September 2022 to 62 percent in May 2026, YouGov/Economist surveys have found.

“It’s a change that has occurred with remarkable speed,” Brookings senior fellows Elaine Kamarck and E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote in a new analysis.

Just in the past month, the 79-year-old president demonstrated that his dominance over the Republican Party remains as strong as ever. Candidates he endorsed swept primaries across the country, unseating multiple incumbents who had openly criticized him — over the ongoing Iran war and the Epstein files.

Yet at the same time, non-MAGA Republicans have moved steadily further from the president, according to polls. While this group only constitutes a slice of the party, it will play a crucial role in determining the GOP’s future, partly because MAGA enthusiasts make up only a minority of the overall electorate.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/maga-republicans-midterm-elections-trump-b2990017.html

Now my thought is where will the conserv non-MAGA idiot put their vote…..do they go Dem or maybe third party like Libertarian?

2028, as of today, is turning out to be a chaotic mess…..and no matter who wins this thing not much will change in this country….sorry to be a bummer.

Any thoughts?

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

cogito ergo agito

The American Revolution Isn’t Over!

WE hear daily from both sides of the political spectrum that America is now past the revolution part and on to claiming it’s spot in history…..and from the Left the revolution is still going on until we have equality, rights that are not transient, etc,,,,,,but  what is the down and the low?

This is an article from Reason…..to me it sounds like a libertarian site…..(but you decide)….

What was the American Revolution actually about?

We all remember the broad strokes we learned in school: Independence from the British crown. Taxes on tea. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But on a deeper level, the American Revolution was—and is—a revolution in political theory, reimagining what a legitimate government is and what its relationship to its citizens should be.

Washington’s troops won the ground war 245 years ago at Yorktown, but the ideological battle continues against forces on both the left and the right who are pursuing a ruthless assault on America’s core values. The American Revolution isn’t over.

Inscribed inside the dome of the Jefferson Memorial are the words: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Thomas Jefferson wrote that in an 1800 letter, but that feeling of hostility toward the tyranny of a distant monarch is what drove him and his fellow revolutionaries in 1776.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch summarized the Declaration’s core ideas in an interview with Reason: “The Declaration of Independence had three great ideas in it. That all of us are equal. That each of us has inalienable rights given to us by God, not government. And that we have the right to rule ourselves.”

That’s why Jefferson declared that a legitimate government requires the “consent of the governed.” Thomas Paine put it more scathingly in his 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, writing that “government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens.” Monarchy was the Devil’s most effective and enduring form of “idolatry.”

We don’t fret over tyrannical kings in today’s America. Only ceremonial vestiges of hereditary monarchy remain in the modern world. The Revolution achieved a complete victory in that sense.

Yet a counterrevolution is underway, one that views the American Revolution and the republic it birthed as a failed liberal regime that has outlived its usefulness. And these counterrevolutionaries sit remarkably close to the levers of power.

https://reason.com/video/2026/06/29/the-american-revolution-isnt-over

Is this a continuing revolution to guarantee the rights of Americans or just something written to try and calm the rhetoric down?

I Read, I Write, You Know

Educate, Agitate

“lego ergo scribo”

cogito ergo agito

Are Free Markets In Danger?

With the success at the polls of the DSA there are plenty of warnings of Marxists, Communists and most important if they win the free markets will cease to exist.

First of all this whole free market thing is a myth.

Yes, I said a myth!

Capitalism is meant to pivot around the free market. The theory goes that if only the market were rid of government meddling (regulation) then true competition would reign, with corporations battling it out to provide their goods and services to rational, all knowing consumers. This, according to supporters, would provide stable and accurate prices and quality for goods and services as competition would aggregate supply, demand and pricing.

Corporations who provided a good or service which was not wanted, was above the market price or below the market quality demanded by the rational consumer in this open, free market would simply fail and those who met demand would win. Therefore the success or failure of a company would be directly proportional to its ability to meet the needs of its consumer.

So, some might argue that recent failures assigned to capitalism – the bankers bailout, the corporatisation of government, the decline in social mobility – are because we do not have REAL capitalism as outlined above. They might argue we are in fact in a post capitalist, state capitalist of fascist state. There are valid arguments in favour of all these possibilities. But whatever state we are in, it is as a direct and inevitable result of capitalism. These outcomes are not aberrations, but natural and logical given the reward mechanisms of the system itself.

Like unicorns, the 'free market' doesn't exist

Now the part about the DSA would destroy the free markets…

Actually the DSA is a bridge to electoral politics….but what about the fears that we will lose our ‘free markets’?

The DSA champions many views that exist wildly outside the mainstream of American politics, including the abolition of the police, prisons, the Pentagon and the U.S. Senate.

This is all, to borrow a term from social science, bat guano insane. Even if you think such proposals make sense on the merits — I don’t! — politically, this stuff is nuttier than a pool party at Mr. Peanut’s pad. For one, the Constitution effectively bans abolishing the Senate, even via amendment. So expending any political energy on eliminating it is like demanding 2+2 equal 5.

But, man, do some people eat this stuff up. Specifically, fringe left-wing political activists, young and mostly white progressives with useless college and graduate degrees, and the Republican Party. Now, the first two groups eat it up because they love it. The Republicans eat it up because they’re eager to run against it.

Republicans are increasingly insisting that the only way to stop a takeover by “godless communists” is to vote Republican.

“Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty,” President Trump said during a July 3 speech at Mt. Rushmore. “It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor or even 9/11.” (I agree! Barring some time machine shenanigans, Communism is a bigger threat than Pearl Harbor and many other past events.)

“We’re fighting right now in Congress over whether we’re going to maintain our status as a constitutional republic,” House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted. “Or we’re going to trade that in, dismantle the foundations and go down this dark road of death to communism. That is the question on the ballot this fall.”

There’s a “bootleggers and Baptists” dynamic here. The DSA benefits from the attention, and the GOP benefits from the perception that Democrats are either too radical or too cowardly to confront the radicals in their ranks.

https://thefulcrum.us/governance-legislation/democratic-socialists-free-market-analysis

I really like the term ‘bat guano insane’.

You will get so many lies about what the DSA is doing and only people like me want you to know the truth of the matter so that you may make an informed decision.

Any thing?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Can White People Survive Without Racism?

This is a question that needs to be asked….and it is a perfectly timed question.

Let me preface why I am posting this…..I grew up in Spain and at 15 we moved back to the States and Mississippi to be accurate that was 1962 so I fell into the world segregation and racism and I have been living here since those days……so I have seen the awfulness of segregation, the civil rights movement and so on and during all these ‘changes’ one thing has remained the same…..the racism and the hatred of people of color….so the MAGA movement fit into these people’s beliefs perfectly.

I do not do generalities but since I have lived through the changes in the South I feel this is a question that needs and answer…..so I turn to a social historian….

This is not a question of hatred. It is a question of history.

More honestly: can America, and much of the Western world, function without the economic, political, and psychological advantages created by white supremacy?

For more than 400 years, the United States has built wealth, power, and institutional control through systems rooted in racial exclusion. From stolen Indigenous land to enslaved African labor, from redlining to mass incarceration, from the Tuskegee experiment to discriminatory lending, racism was not a side effect of American history—it was a central business model.

The Bible warns in Proverbs 22:16: “Whoever oppresses the poor for his own increase… will come to poverty.” America must confront whether its prosperity was built on justice—or theft.

The numbers tell the story.

According to Pew Research Center, the median wealth of Black households remains dramatically below that of white households, while lower-income white households had about 21 times the wealth of lower-income Black households in 2021. This is not accidental. It is the long shadow of policy: slavery without reparations, Jim Crow without restoration, and civil rights without economic repair.

Forty acres and a mule never came.

But redlining did.

Mass incarceration did.

Predatory policing did.

Environmental poisoning of Black neighborhoods did.

HBCUs had to be created because Black people were excluded from predominantly white institutions. Black Wall Streets were built because Black people were denied equal access to white economic systems. Welfare policies often destabilized Black families while industrial policies extracted labor and left fragile infrastructure behind.

And globally, the same pattern exists.

https://eurweb.com/can-white-people-survive-without-racism

This is a situation that use to lie beneath the surface where people at least attempted to hide their disdain for people of color but since 2008 that disdain has grown into the hatred….yes I said hatred….that lives today.

I know we can say that no one is racism free for we all have a twinge of it in some fashion….but what is happening today is not a twinge it is full blown overt racism sprinkled with hatred.

I think the dude that wrote the paper made some excellent points…..meet the man ….

Edmond W. Davis is an American social historian, international speaker, and Amazon #1 bestselling author. He is a global authority on the Tuskegee Airmen and serves as the founder and executive director of the National HBCU Black Wall Street Career Fest. A native of Philadelphia, PA, and current resident of Little Rock, AR, Davis is committed to cultural empowerment and educational equity through storytelling and civic engagement.

What do you think of his piece?

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

cogito ergo agito