Letters of September 27

Workers Protest Macron-Style Fascist Attacks
My wife and I are visiting Paris, and joined the big demonstration called by the major unions to protest labor law changes which will take away rights the workers won in struggle over the past century (see photo above).
Tens of thousands marched under union and political banners, with loud chanting and signs. Even the occasional rain didn’t stop them. It was a very integrated march, with white, Black and Asian workers, men and women, young and old, marching together. At one point, there was even a loud singing of the Internationale.
But sadly, because the union leadership is tied to the bourgeois political parties, all the demands were against the changes, not against the system that’s always trying to take back workers’ victories everywhere. The new laws, which president Emmanuel Macron will issue by decree to avoid a fight in the National Assembly, will break workers’ rights to their jobs, reduce pension rights, end limits on night and overtime work and more. All this is in the name of efficiency and competitiveness against other imperialist bosses.
Macron was elected a few months ago, mainly because he’s not an open fascist like Marine Le Pen. Many of the workers who voted for him on that basis must now be realizing that under capitalism there is no lesser evil. Imagine what today’s march of 100,000 workers could have accomplished if they were fighting for communism, not reform.

Mosely & British Fascism
The Guardian published an article (9/8) worth reading about the Nazis in Britain before and after World War II through a discussion of Morris Beckman’s book The 43 Group: Battling with Mosely’s Blackshirts. Sir Osswald Mosley led British Nazis. He was from a wealthy British family and was married into the Mitford family, wealthy and highly placed in British society. Through his in-laws, he met Adolf Hitler in 1936.
Being the chief Nazi in Britain earned Mosley a prison sentence during the war. There were many protests when he was released. Upon his release, he reorganized his British Union of Fascists. Nazis did not need much of an excuse to attack Jews in Britain, and they tramped out the usual anti-Semitism. This led to many racist marches and attacks on Jewish, African, South Asian people in Britain.
On a personal note, I was about nine when the war ended. My family lived in Kilburn in London, one of the centers of Nazi and anti-Nazi activity. At the end of the road I lived on was a Communist Party bookstore. My uncle frequented this store. Besides occasionally buying the comic books I read he would get a copy of his Daily Worker, the newspaper of the Communist Party. There were often discussions in my house between the conservatives (my mother and grandmother), the left-winger (my father), and the communist (my uncle).
My uncle and his friends got involved in fighting the local Nazis. Sometimes he came home looking a bit knocked about. Being one of only three Jewish students in my school, I was under constant anti-Semitic attack. The attacks taught me to fight well. My friends would support me, but I was in a fight a couple of times every week.
According to the Guardian this period of fascism ended around 1949, but there was still plenty of open anti-Semitism around in 1956 when I had to sign up for National Service (British equivalent of the military draft).
The Guardian wrote, “Fascism is one of those creatures which, once its head has been cut off, soon enough grows another one. Little remembered today is that at the end of the war, with German cities in ruins, Hitler dead and Nazism seemingly destroyed, Mosley and his men were released from prison. Undeterred and unrepentant they went straight back to what they’d been doing before the war.”
Fascism is like a hydra, the serpent-like monster from Greek mythology. We have to keep cutting its heads off and bury its roots of capitalism deep. Only communism and hundreds of years would end this process.

Problem with Labeling Fascists as Just “Hate Groups”
When speaking of the Klan and Nazis, the concept of hate is largely misplaced. What these fascist groups, not hate groups, really do is downgrade entire groups of workers to subhuman status, not worthy of rights to thrive or even to live.
The concept of subhuman is rooted in the plantation-owners’ attitude toward enslaved Africans since the 1600s, and the similar regard of Native Americans even before that time. The subhuman status of enslaved Africans allowed the theft of their bodies and forced backbreaking labor, while that of Native Americans justified the theft of their land and genocide. Hate only lent support to the practical needs of this theft of labor and land, and guaranteed enrichment for the planter class.
Regarding the crimes of fascist groups as based on hate, or labeling them “hate crimes,” allows members and supporters of the ruling capitalist class to brand the anti-racist left with the same label. After all, don’t we anti-racists hate racists and fascists? And is it not proper for us to do so? Hate is an accusation that only muddies the water.
Let’s take away from ruling class propagandists this symmetrical branding of the concept of hate—the false idea that both sides are wrong. The real issue is the exploitation and oppression (that necessitate the degradation of the exploited and oppressed to subhuman status through racism and sexism) versus our determined resistance and rebellion against those evils. Acknowledging that there is no symmetry places the blame solely on the exploiters and their fascist helpers, the side where it belongs.
In recognition of this asymmetry, some members and supporters of the capitalist class hypocritically denounce the Klan and Nazis, out of one side of their mouths, for the very racism that they themselves practice daily in a hundred less obvious institutional ways. They profit greatly from doing so, and by dividing the working class in that fashion, they secure their control over their exploitative system. Without racism their days would be numbered.

Eternal War in Afghanistan
Donald Trump administration announced more troops in Afghanistan. Trump ran on an “America First” platform which implied defending the homeland and avoids getting involved abroad. Politicians, ruling-class intellectuals, and former National Security advisors, both Republican and Democrats, pushed for more troops “long-term commitment” to war. National Security Advisor General McMaster proposed sending more troops and was joined by two of Obama’s Defense Secretaries, Leon Panetta and Ash Carter, as well as many U.S. generals, active-duty and retired.
Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon favored using mercenary contractors to replace the U.S. troops and had former Blackwater chief Erik Prince to the White House to push his plan to privatize the Afghan war. Not only was this proposal rejected, but also Trump and 30 advisors held a long-anticipated daylong discussion of Afghanistan at Camp David on the day Bannon was fired.
Adding 5,000 U.S. troops to the 8,400 already in Afghanistan might sound modest. For each 100 U.S. soldiers, there are another 50 on “temporary duty”, 50 allied troops (mostly European), and 500 “contract” workers from mainly Asia and Africa (for equipment maintenance, transporting supplies, and preparing food). So, every 100 U.S. soldiers translates to 500 added to the imperialist war machine.
During Trump’s campaign and since his election, he has repeatedly asked, “Why isn’t the U.S. winning,” and “Why are we still there after 16 years?” As to the first question: in addition to a weakening U.S. and competition from its rivals, Afghanistan’s neighbors, mainly Pakistan, don’t want the U.S. to win. Many in the Pakistan ruling class support the Taliban. When the U.S. armed and funded the Taliban to fight the Soviet invasion, they did so through Pakistani Intelligence. Those bonds remain strong. Another complication is Iran working more with the Taliban, continuing a 20-year history of both fighting against and working with them.
As to the second question, many in the ruling class figure “if we can’t win, then we can at least not lose.” They argue that the war could go on forever without a high cost: “only” $8-10 billion a year (plus another $5 billion a year in bribes and “aid” to Pakistan to guarantee access), and “only” a dozen U.S. soldiers killed each year. This is seen as a cheap and acceptable compared to the $200 billion a year former president Bush spent in Iraq. The comparison is made to South Korea, where U.S. troops have been stationed for 70 years. To these ruling-class voices, it does not matter if deaths of those in Afghanistan are over 8,000 a year and climbing.
Workers have no dog in the fight between the “establishment” rulers and the “America First” gang. The racist profit system only promises more imperialist war. The only way out is to organize to overthrow the entire system.