The Cultural Workerist

Reformists lie, but numbers don’t. “None of the above” won the presidency with a landslide of 90 million people, to say nothing of all those who are disenfranchised by racist and ageist voting restrictions.

The closest contender won only 76.8 million votes. Despite both ruling class candidates having billions of dollars, total loyalty of mass media and the nation’s schools, and legions of misguided ‘progressives’ at their disposal, they were roundly defeated. Third parties are completely boxed-out of any meaningful access to mass media, but even if they weren’t, no one seriously believes that the most violent organization in human history, the United States government, would ever peacefully consent to any actual reform or a transfer of power.

The Liberal Wing of Fascism

Speaking for myself, I have no trust in ‘socialist’ parties either and would never validate them, mainly because they refuse to listen when we speak. When I tell the Green Party they need to do some actual organizing like Debs’ Socialist Party did before anyone is ever going to turn out in large numbers for them, they shrug and go back to playing their games. PSL and whoever else is still running candidates at this point are equally unresponsive. The Working Families Party (WFP) is little more than a front for law enforcement and weapons manufacturing “unions” like Council 4 AFSCME, the Connecticut State Employees Association, and Region 9A of the United Auto Workers. The Democratic Socialists of Amerikkka (DSA) harbor strikebreakers and Zionists in their ranks.

This is not to say that these parties are bad because they’re full of immoral individuals. The answer is much simpler: we live in a fascist nation and fascism penetrates every corner of our lives. If I was less generous, I would go a step further beyond the slogan “there is no Israeli left” and substitute ‘Israeli’ for “Amerikkkan.” I think both slogans are fundamentally true, if overly simplistic. Amerika has its own history that goes deeper than settlers-versus-oppressed-nationalities, though not much deeper.

In both societies, which share a large overlap in membership, fascism has become completely normalized. So much so that in Amerika, even those calling themselves anti-fascists can barely point it out when it’s in the room. Nonprofit bosses who take money from the Ford Foundation and defend the police state walk freely through our doors. Anarchists who point it out are red-baited and ostracized. Disabled people are ridiculed while the state moves to eradicate us. Union bosses impose contracts on us that take away our right to strike. Democrats demonize in the strongest possible terms anyone who refuses to cosign their genocide. The Fourth Reich is unique only in the sense that it has perfected the art of weaponizing soft power, rather than leaning entirely on the hard power of the Third Reich.

Taxonomy of a Liberal

What is not overly simplistic is this: liberalism, as a political movement, scarcely exists in Amerika. If it did exist, it would look a lot like Charles De Gaulle’s Free French Army: a violent overthrow of fascism to win a new capitalist democratic constitution, with the modern features embraced by other parliamentary systems around the world (such as instant runoff and proportional representation, etc.). Nothing short of war will produce a liberal Amerikan constitution.

Instead, we have fascist Democrats play-acting as liberals, extending the life of a neo-Antebellum government that grew out of the ruins of Reconstruction and inspired the Third Reich. The same breed of political animals who breathed new life into it with the New Deal (itself inspired by the Italian Fascist labor regime). The types of fascist Democrats who oversaw COINTELPRO, the Drug Wars, and the annihilation of Gaza. That is who is called “liberal” in Amerikkka.

There are a small number of people in Amerika who could arguably be called liberals, but who mainly call themselves socialists. They understand the need for a new constitution. They hope to bring it about through some vague notion of revolution. And their political stances and class backgrounds make it clear they would go no farther than FDR’s watered-down version of a social-democratic welfare state. On paper they look and sound much more like FDR than Norman Thomas. But there is little-to-no recognition that without even a credible threat of revolution, the chances of reinventing the New Deal are even less likely than human civilization withstanding the climate collapse they are currently accelerating.

Every Cook Can Govern

As a working class anarchist I have no stake in seeing any of the above take place. Before a Green New Deal could ever be implemented, even a real liberal movement would most likely kill, imprison or exile anyone they could lay hands on that thinks like me.

So what then? My best guess at what to expect under Trump is that organized labor, Black and brown communities, the LGBTQ community and other such constituent groups the Democratic Party once enjoyed the support of, will soon go searching for some kind of new political project. It’s difficult to keep track of all the factions who stand ready to exploit (for their own narrow interests) the hopes and aspirations of millions. What’s less guess work and more certain is that rebellions will emerge in the coming months and years, and those factions will work overtime to climb them like a ladder in the hopes of securing comfortable careers in government while the rest of us drown.

If there is a left in Amerika, (which is to say, a bloc of people seeking a social order truly based on equality, in opposition to capitalism) it will be found not among protest marshals, would-be politicians or bureaucrats, but side-by-side with our neighbors and coworkers, as equals. Being in the movement for years and decades does not entitle us to whatever clout we claim. What matters to the masses who’ve rejected elections is what we do now, and what we do next.

As a unionist, it is crucial that our unions do not abandon the Democrats just to line up behind DSA, WFP, or the Republican Party for that matter. If we are truly entering a new period of rebellion, our task is to take aim at the concept of private property itself. I’m not so naïve to think it will be abolished by the end of next year, but revolutions come in waves, often starting with a sudden jolt. Like Chiapas in 1994 and Argentina in 2001, mass collectivization of private property has shaped the working class politics of their regions ever since, on a scale that’s hard to overstate.

Even within the borders of the United States, the power of working people to redefine their relationship to property has been felt at the highest levels of the system. Indeed, as President-Elect Barack Obama’s transfer team was working out of a Chicago federal building, just outside his window there were thousands of demonstrators marching in solidarity with workers occupying a factory that had been shuttered during the very economic crisis which ushered him into office. Because of the example set by those workers, the same class of Chicago politicians (from which Obama rose to power) was desperate to broker a deal that would put the occupation to an end. Though they found it distasteful, the local power structure preferred to cut a check rather than let the crisis continue and risk more workers getting any crazy ideas in their heads. Together, Bank of America, a U.S. congressman, and the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE) hammered-out a deal that would allow for a quick, peaceful, and one-time transfer of control of a single enterprise over to the workers. That, at least, would buy them some time while the new administration brought calm to the working public.

The only thing that made Republic Windows and Doors special was preparation, and opportunity. UE was on a short list of Amerikan unions that could credibly claim to be led democratically by its own rank-and-file membership, and to understand socialism correctly, is to know that it can only be the workers ourselves who can seize the means of production. The negotiations were worker-led and required worker approval, they took orders from no one, dictated terms to one of the largest companies on Earth, and won.

What would happen if every union in Amerika, rather than putting our faith in another party, another politician, another gimmick, we showed faith in one another? How many times have we shown our own bosses how best to use equipment that they own, but we’ve been forced to master? How many times have we used a group chat to fix the schedule that management fucked up? How many times have we found a no-cost shoestring solution to a problem that nobody paid us to come up with? C.L.R. James, the great Pan-African Marxist thinker, once wrote a piece called Every Cook Can Govern. To my mind, that basic concept is the hallmark of any true socialist perspective.

WTF is to be Done?

The task in front of militant workers will look different in every workplace. Restaurant workers will need to source transportation for the supplies needed to cook. Transportation workers will need to source those supplies. Farmworkers will need to source a stable supply of clean water and fertilizer for their crops and parts for their machinery. But as One Big Union, we can come together on regional councils to coordinate new supply chains and replace the old collapsing ones, breathing life into our new society. It has been done before.

Most union leaders will not go along with this vision willingly, therefore we should prepare to drag them along kicking and screaming. It is necessary for us to organize voting blocs and caucuses of likeminded union members in each workplace and union local. Together we can apply the same basic organizing principles we used to build these unions in the first place: agitation and education, mapping the workforce, and collectively planning a course of action. Simple, right? (yes, that’s sarcasm). And of course, most workplaces are not unionized, but all that really means in practice is that the workers will be starting with a blank slate.

Some places will advance further and faster than others. In the most advanced areas of the working classes, it may be possible for us to carve out liberated zones where the state dare not intrude. It is in those spaces where we can start to learn what it feels like to be free from fascism.