We could win this thing, Bernie people. What the media and the mainstream politicians don’t or won’t understand is the role of movements in politics. Trump would not be where he is without his racist movement. Hitler could not have taken over without a movement. The only person capable of leading a countermovement is Bernie. Movements change peoples’ minds in a hurry. Movements like ours wake people up. People are rising all over the world. Iraq. Ecuador. Chile. Haiti. Algeria. France. Honduras. Movements like these make people realize very quickly how much power we have if we work together. We […]
EMBRACING YOUR INNER ASSHOLE
Announcing a new Webinar series by soon to be best-selling author Henry Hitz on “Embracing Your Inner Asshole.” Your first installment of this ground-breaking webinar series is yours absolutely free if you’ll share your email with me so that I can inundate you with special offers, modeling the essence of my lesson. The three essential premises of this world-changing webinar series: All writers are assholes. You have to be an asshole to think that anyone would really want to read your insignificant narcissistic scribblings. If you want anyone to actually read your shit, your primary job is not writing but […]
WANTED
Stories about working-class organizing. Do you have a story? About rank-and-file organizing in the unions? Organizing the unorganized? Working-class community organizing? Organizing in working-class schools? Please comment on this post with your contact information if you do have such a story. Ken Epstein https://www.oaklandxings.com and I are editing an anthology of such stories called Solidarity Forever. So far we have stories from Walter Riley (Boots dad) about organizing in the auto and steel industry, from a Black Panther Party community organizer, from a leader of last year’s West Virginia teachers strike, from a leader of the Teamsters for a Democratic […]
Bernie over Liz
The most important accomplishment off Bernie’s 2016 was to prove that it was possible to run a credible and competitive campaign for president without taking money from the corporate billionaires with their own agenda. And he’s doing it again in 2019, which is why we should support him, and not Elizabeth Warren. While Warren has pledged not to take corporate money in the primary race, she has said she will take it in the general in order to compete with Trump. And the New York Times ran a front page article last week that revealed that even in the primary, […]
Happy birthday to me
That’s me in the picture. I’ll be 75 years old on July 26, 2019 (Mick will be 76) and the Cuban Revolution will be 66 – 66 years since the seminal battle on July 26 when Castro’s rebels attached a military barracks. 60 years since seizing power in 1959. Cuba is arguably the most purely socialist society – and most successfully so – in the world. We need to embrace this fact. Free excellent health care, 100% literacy, great schools, international solidarity, cooperative spirit, exquisite cars, terrific beer, delicious ice cream, music, dance, and visual arts to die for. Indomitable […]
Happy Mayday!
Happy Mayday! I proposed in my previous blog post [http://henryhitz.com/happy-earth-day/ ] that catastrophic climate change could not be stopped under capitalism, that only the central planning that comes with socialism could prevent the catastrophe. But what is socialism? The word has been so dragged through the holocaust and the gulag that one is tempted to drop it and come up with a better term. But Bernie Sanders has done us the great favor of embracing the term. I know there are people who wish he wouldn’t use it, especially since his core proposals are not really socialist in the sense […]
Happy Earth Day
Newsflash: Climate change is not caused by humans. It’s caused by capitalism. The dynamic of capitalism requires growth in production every year, at least 2 or 3%. It’s capitalism that drives the fossil fuels industry, the corporate farming industry, the auto industry, the steel industry, the coal industry and all the industries which spew CO2 into the air at unsustainable levels and dump industrial waste poisoning our oceans, lakes, and streams. Can climate collapse be stopped without ending capitalism? Personally, I doubt it. Bringing bags to the market and recycling are worthy endeavors, but most people realize they’re not nearly […]
Bernie and the united front
The united front. I don’t think it’s possible to understand Bernie’s strategy for his “revolution” without understanding the concept of the united front. Lenin developed the strategy in leading the Russian Revolution, but as a strategy, it has little to do with communist ideology. It’s about how you win. In pursuing the strategy, we unite with everyone who agrees with a certain set of principles, points of unity. Often we unite with people and groups with which we have profound disagreements. The way we handle these disagreements determines whether we will be successful or not. “Struggle with, struggle against” is […]
Feeling the bern…
Are you feeling the bern yet? I am. And I think others are opening up to the possibility that he could win this thing. Can we take a second to imagine what that might really be like? Bernie Sanders, Socialist, sworn in as POTUS on January 20, 2021. Breathe. This could happen. Exactly what would happen from day one on all our ambitious policy goals, I can’t say. But more importantly, I sense the whole country relaxing a into smile, from Bangor to San Diego, from Anchorage to Honolulu, Miami to San Juan. The nightmare is over, and not just […]
The Candidates’ Reparations Proposals
Last week I promised to examine the various proposals that the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates are proposing. Cory Booker is proposing “baby bonds,” a savings account for every newborn, with preference to those in poverty. This would amount to $1000 for each child, to be added to by “as much as” $2000 each year until the age of 18. Now it’s true that black families are disproportionately below the poverty line, but if black families aren’t singled out racially, it isn’t reparations, it’s just another anti-poverty program, maybe even a good one, but call it what it is. […]