"It’s fascinating. But it also raises a serious question: Are these the desperate thrashings of a dying movement or the labor pains of a new one?"

As a response to this question in this article I thought you may be interested in a recent episode of Al Jazeera's Power and People program called "White Power USA", which covers the growth of the far-right in the Obama era and examines how they have inserted themselves very successfully into the anti-immigration movement and are now attempting to do the same with the tea bag movement.

It can be found on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXFuZwqGrCU

Eventually they just won't have the numbers. This is another contradiction in American capitalism. Big capital needs low wages and a lot of "illegal" immigration. But it also needs fundamentalist Christianity and racism. It needs Mexicans slipping over the border. It needs fat, middle-aged white male Rush Limbaugh worshipping crackers screaming about "illegals" and "socialism".

The only hope that the right has it to convert enough of the new immigrants to the ideology of the Ameican right. And, admittedly, some of the most utterly vicious racists I know are slavic immigrants or white skinned Latin immigrants who want to prove they're "real Americans" so badly they wind up being more Catholic than the Pope. That's why the Vatican is about to make John Paul II a saint and not Oscar Romero. JP II destroyed the Catholic left in Latin America and opened the way for the surge of Pentacostalism we're seeing today. That's why the right has invested so much in the evangelical mega churches. That's why John McCain gave in and nominated Palin for his VP candidate. The Christian right is the one chance the American ruling class to build a bridge between the native Anglo right and the immigrant right.

Will it work? Only time will tell. The huge immigrant rallies in 2006 embodied the contradictions. You had a lot of working class Mexicans marching in the streets scaring the ever living hell out of the Limbaugh/Beck worshipping white conservatives. But a lot of the immigrants were also organized by the evangelical churches, a lot of them were waiving American flags, and the marches disappeared as soon as their top town leaders decided to call them off.

Stanley wrote:
<blockquote>Eventually they just won’t have the numbers.</blockquote>

Oh, I really hope you're right about this. So much of the discussion about the teabaggers has focused on the enormous amount of anger and racism they display -- but can we also talk about The Stupid? It's actually painful to listen to the interviews that have been going on at these protests. Not only are there a huge variety of things that make them insane with anger, but these gatherings are simply overflowing with incredibly ignorant, misinformed, and just plain dumb people. They're like giant drooling, flag waving, gun-toting, teabag draped, Nincompoop Conventions!

<blockquote>fat, middle-aged white male Rush Limbaugh worshipping crackers screaming about “illegals” and “socialism”.</blockquote>

It's not just the male teabaggers -- a vast number of the female baggers are exactly the same as the men. And these women also seem to have... shall we say, quite a bit of a "thyroid problem" too.

I agree with Adrienne. If this is true it could be the best news we've heard in a long time. To hear people screaming that global warming is a scam is just plain scary. There's not much of a future for humanity at all if these crackpots actually get what they want.

<i>It’s not just the male teabaggers — a vast number of the female baggers are exactly the same as the men. And these women also seem to have… shall we say, quite a bit of a “thyroid problem” too.</i>

Yeah. I snagged a few pictures of the "Lynch Khalid Sheik Mohammed" rally in downtown Manhattan. There were a lot of women, but everybody was white.

These two were among the youngest

http://www.rogouski.com/2009/December-2009/10548262_TJKWk">http://www.rogouski.com/2009/December-2009/10548262_TJKWk#754467605_UVB4o-A-LB

This was closer to the medium age.

http://www.rogouski.com/2009/December-2009/10548262_TJKWk">http://www.rogouski.com/2009/December-2009/10548262_TJKWk#732578873_rc2yr-A-LB

Hitler's 1000-year Reich didn't have much of a future, either. It lasted only about 12 years.

Just because a movement is irrational and has no viable long-term program doesn't mean it's not dangerous. And I think it's part of our task to try to nip in in the bud, isolate and divide it in various ways, so it never does take off. But than requires a lot of planning, revolutionary education, mass work in the method of 'the mass line' and other things. Liberal wishful thinking or ultraleft bravado won't do.

I'm not a big fan of the way the RCP handled the question of theocratic fascism, even thought I did some propaganda work on it myself. The paper and slide show are at http://carldavidson.blogspot.com, for those interested. I worked with a few of their people on the topic once, for a panel at a Chicago social forum. They didn't care too much for my approach, either.

My estimate back then was that the religious right was about 20 percent of the electorate. They've lost some, but the teabaggers have added some to that proto-fascist core. And the 'proto,' by the way, means the real fascists are a smaller minority growing in this milieu, not that all of them are fascists.

That means they are about twice as strong as the left, defining the left, which we know is very weak, very broadly. But they have some things we don't--some very wealthy backers, institutional support in the far right churches, an independent rightwing media with some reach, and finally, some organized armed militias that, fortunately, are not too well coordinated.

Some of their best core leaders, the head of 'The Order', Robert Matthews, are out of the picture, killed by the FBI in 1984. And William Pierce, author of 'the Turn Diaries,' died more recently, with his followers split and dysfunctional at the moment.

But Matthews was a talented and visionary revolutionary of the far right, who studied Lenin seriously for his own warped ends. And there's no reason new ones can't arise to take his place in this Hot House.

So while I'm not an alarmist, I also take these people very seriously. I engage them here where I can, when we're both at the same events, not only to oppose them, but to learn their thinking as best as we can. At the moment, a good number of them are infatuated with Ron Paul's brand of libertarianism, which we need to develop a deep critique of, and something called 'originalism,' meaning the US Constitution, but minus the Civil War Amendments. Some hard liners even mean just the Constitution alone, minus the Bill of Rights as well.

I think it very important that all candidates endorsed by them in 2010 be defeated, and we should work on it where we can.

<i>I think it very important that all candidates endorsed by them in 2010 be defeated, and we should work on it where we can.</i>

But the problem is that if the Republican party gets its shit together, the teabagger candidates aren't going to be running in the general elections.

Once again, look at New Jersey governor's race as the template. In the Republican primary, a wild eyed anti-immigrant wackjob had a very strong primary run but ultimately lost to Chris Christie. It brought the base out and Christie won the general election. So do we vote in Republican primaries for Bushite corporate Republicans? That's even more absurd than continuing to support corporate right wing Democrats. And what's going to happen in 2012? Do they run Palin in the primary to mobilize the teabaggers out for Romney or Pawlenty? Don't say it won't work. It worked in NJ in 2009.

In other words, I don't think this has an electoral answer to it.

My Take on Tea Baggers
Our scientific approach shouldn’t be to look in theory for the plan of historical events to come. Our scientific approach should be to look in theory, in our understanding of class struggles, all the tendencies and actual social conditions the means to understand these events as soon they manifest to actively participate, without precipitation or activism, in giving alternatives in set of reacting to them, be in constant defensive mode.

It is important to understand the configuration of the capitalist class in the US social formation. One of the ways to understand this configuration is by analyzing the internal class struggle of the capitalist class. It is important that we also identify the dominant form of capital. Is finance capital is going to be monopolized by the Sate or Is it monopoly capital? Or is there a tendency of fusion of these two? The latest measures[ bail out] surely are opening the way for a fusion process. What remains fundamental is the devaluation of financial assets thru different means. This devaluation is, in effect, putting imperialism in a deeper hole that is more difficult to come out of.

This latest series of crises are happenings in the US imperialist social formation at a historical conjuncture were the masses are their lowest level of political conciseness and political organizations and mass organizations, especially the working class. Even if capital, in particular finance capital, is at a dead end, even if they are running out of alternatives and can’t offer any valuable long-term solutions, the beast is not buried and will not self-burry. The beast will resist and continue to come up with measures that will guarantee their social reproduction. Finance capital will battle and resist any political orientation that will question their hegemonic role in the US imperialist bourgeois’ power block. They will take measures to guarantee their fake form of surplus value extraction and the reproduction of these forms. A class or a fraction of a class will not self-destruct. Only the working class can actually play that historical role

In looking at these crises, there is a dominant tendency to only look at the effect of these crises and define political orientation to resist from their effect. The danger in this orientation is looking at a secondary element of the contradictions of imperialism, a tactical aspect, and articulating it as an end, a mean to resolve the problems. If our tactic, is not dictated by our strategy, is not determine by a clear cut anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist strategy the result will be a re-structured form of imperialism, simply a reformist approach. This is the line being offered now by the non-profit, non-political structures and by left petit bourgeois radicalism. The core of the problem is the imperialist mode of production and the fundamental aspect of the core is finance capital. Our tactical struggles need to be dialectically determined by the strategy of addressing imperialism and its dominant form of functioning.

It is important that we identified two types of contradictions and two types of struggles.

1]The struggles whiten the capitalist class to find a solution primarily in the interest of the hegemonic fraction and the capitalist bloc as a whole. Capitalist’s structure will use , under its dictatorship, bourgeois democratic practices[ elections, parlemantarism and bail out] to guarantee its reproductions or more antagonistic means such as coup d’Etat. The civil war is a perfect example in how capitalism resolve their internal contradiction when existing democratic structural practices were insufficient or weak. The civil war fundamentally resolves a contradiction whiten capitalism in the means of extracting surplus value, thru labor or slavery.

The tea baggers are a social base in construction of a new breed of fascism in the benefit of Monopoly Capitalism. The white Supremacist are dogmatic fascist that are not able to adapt to new existing realities. It is a mistake, for us revolutionaries, to simplify the Tea Baggers as a white /black phenomenon[ totally metaphysical]. Fascist ideologies has traversed the "color" line. A lot of African American Churches, politicians are integral part of the new breed of Fascism. They are daily on CNN, MSNBC or Fox trashing Obama [ populist representing other fraction of the capitalist class] on many issues. They are in the Cuban American Mafia and other Immigrants[ of origins] belonging to the their respecting dominant classes now integrating the American Capitalist class.

2] The second type of contradictions is the contradictions of the fundamental popular masses against the bourgeoisie. This is the principal aspect for revolutionaries to confront.

There are only two possible solutions to the imperialism crises now. The reinforcement of imperialism either by electing more Democrats or more Republicans or the radical transformation of the means of productions. Looking at the objective reality from subjective factors the possibly of the reinforcement of imperialism is far greater than a popular alternatives unless the American masses spontaneously resist.[ YES WE SHOULD]

The revolutionaries forces[elements of the subjective factors] have to recognize their limitations and defines a political line base on a mass line to make the Leap Forward with no opportunism[ class collaborationist ] and adventurism...

Does anyone other than me think this is a rural movement, and by rural Im also including far suburbs of large cities.

<i>Does anyone other than me think this is a rural movement, and by rural Im also including far suburbs of large cities.

</i>

There were multiple Teabag rallies in Morristown, NJ. And it was huge in the New Jersey governor's race.

It wasn't "rural" so much as "angry suburbs." The Republicans managed to make the governor's race about "them negros in Newark and Camden stealing from hard working white folk in the suburbs" and Teabaggers played a big part.

The rank of file of the teabag rallies seemed mostly like working class white ethnics. But it certainly had the passive support of all the rich WASPS in the Wall Street bedroom towns.

<i>Jfsp wrote:</i>
<blockquote>Does anyone other than me think this is a rural movement, and by rural Im also including far suburbs of large cities.</blockquote>

I don't know whether or not anyone else shares your views, but South Florida (while there are pockets of rural regions still left) is overwhelmingly urban. At the April 15 Tax Day protests, the vast majority of people I saw attending were urban professional classes, with a smattering of the pick-up/biker crowd. Even at the protests that continue every week at a busy corner in FtL (where our street fight occurred), but of these folks appear to be middle class.

Like any fascist movement, it draws support from all alienated sectors of society. The core of this movement, however, seems to be drawn from those middle class elements who believe that if it weren't for (name scapegoat), they'd be fine economically, and who have grouped together to target their rage against all they see as responsible (Obama, the Democrats, illegal immigrants, socialists, the media, etc).

I've been a socialist for 25 years, and a communist for 20 of them. This is the first time I've ever felt that we faced a real fascist movement in the United States, in my lifetime anyway. The dregs that Carl Davidson mentions in his post certainly were fascists, but they were never a movement. They were terrorists. Aside from the damage they could do to individual lives, they didn't matter.

The Tea Party fascists, were, and maybe still are, being funded by the ruling lawyer of capitalists, finance capital. This is what differentiates them from the various fringe hate groups, and even mass movements like the Moral Majority or the Promise Keepers. This is what unites them across time with the Nazis and the Fascists.

When I first went to college, one of my professors was a German Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. He said that even though everyone recognized the Nazis as thugs, everyone also thought of them as clowns. It wasn't until <i>Kristallnacht</i> that Germany's Jews woke up to the real threat.

Having let the fascist genie out of the bottle, it remains to be seen if the capitalists can force it back in. I think we would do well to remember the lessons of fascism past, and take them quite seriously. It's our job to organize the fight against them.

<blockquote>
Big capital needs low wages and a lot of “illegal” immigration. But it also needs fundamentalist Christianity and racism. It needs Mexicans slipping over the border. It needs fat, middle-aged white male Rush Limbaugh worshipping crackers screaming about “illegals” and “socialism”.
</blockquote>

DO they? What does the elite need racism and fundamentalist Christianity for anymore? I think it's possible that the social system is moving to a place where it _doesn't_ need the US white settler labor aristocracy anymore -- in which case, these movements may be the anger of a class whose fears that it's privileges are being liquidated may indeed be correct. Dying throws.

(But to be clear, I agree with Carl in the sense that even dying throws can be quite dangerous -- and that sometimes what the ruling class wants _isn't_ what it gets. And that can go both ways. And indeed at the moment that proto-fascist movement is probably stronger than any left movements. )

<i>What does the elite need racism and fundamentalist Christianity for anymore?</i>

Don't they need to assimilate at least part of the new immigrant population into the conservative, militaristic worldview of the older white population?

<i>I’ve been a socialist for 25 years, and a communist for 20 of them. This is the first time I’ve ever felt that we faced a real fascist movement in the United States, in my lifetime anyway.</i>

What would you have called Nixon's "Silent Majority" and the white ethnics in the northeast who voted for Wallace in 1968?

"It is a mistake, for us revolutionaries, to simplify the Tea Baggers as a white /black phenomenon[ totally metaphysical]. Fascist ideologies has traversed the “color” line. A lot of African American Churches, politicians are integral part of the new breed of Fascism."

I don't know how broadly we can go with this before we fail to make distinctions. Perhaps Jan could elaborate on how you define fascism. It seems tha collapsing all forms of conservatism into this movement could lead to a mis-estimation of the nature of both.

"The core of this movement, however, seems to be drawn from those middle class elements"

I'm not sure I agree with this. I don't think it's accurate to portray fascism as just something from above. It's also a working class response to crisis and in the absence of a viable radical alternative, they gravitate towards the most coherent [if not rational] and forceful one available. The elements of fascist ideology [xenophobia, homophobia, racism, misogyny, anti-intellectualism] are part of the cultural air we breathe, but we can also struggle against it. The middle class may be organizing this fascist rage, but they didn't create it, workers did out of the tools that were available. I don't believe there's a deep ideological commitment, rather it's a desperate bid to latch onto any explanation that appears to make sense. The emotional attachment, on the other hand, may be harder to break, since as we can see, reason isn't the binding element of this movement.

Things are more dangerous than some suspect. Let us not fall into the fallacy of "After Hitler, US." Ernst Thallmann did not live to see "after Hitler" as did millions who perished waiting to see such a day.

Fascism, as Lenin pointed out, is "capitalism in decay."

As the suffering masses of workers demand democracy and equality in their millions, the capitalists will be forced to abolish democracy and civil liberties, as these things will empower the people's movement.

Fascism begins with elements outside of the ruling class, often made up of alienate members of the Petty Bourgeosie. Most of the time, the ruling class considers them a nuisance, like Timothy Mcveigh, Ron Paul, Michigan Militia, Montana Freeman.

However, when the crisis becomes so accute, they will take hold of these dangerously psychotic elements as the "last resort." These elements become tools of the bourgeosie as armed terrorists against popular movements, while maintaining the facade of being "revolutionary" because of hollow anti-corporate rhetoric and empty bellows against the status quo.

The biggest mistake of the massive people's movements of the 1930s against fascism, in France, Spain, the U.S., and elsewhere, was to put faith in the capitalists, the very people employing fascists, to defend them.

Only a broad, yet independent movement of the people can combat the terror of fascism. A movement scarred by ultra-left sectarianism cannot combat fascism, because it will be too small and ineffective. A movement alligning with the capitalists and their government cannot combat fascism, because it is constrained to the limits of capitalist ideology, and cannot counter-pose fascism with anything but a continuation of the miserable status quo.

Broad, United Fronts must be forged to combat the evils of fascism. Trade Unions, Churches, Community Organizations, Leftist Groups of All Stripes, must be forged to combat the Ultra-Right terror. However, dependence on the government or liberal capitalists will not suffice.

Together we can fight fascism. Together we can defend ourselves. Together we can protect our future.

We need not align with those who oppose us, though. We need not chain ourselves to a status quo that is wrought with misery.

One cannot defeat fascism by counter-posing it with the present state of misery. One must offer an alternative, the future that all of us can forge together.

I reccomend the following theoretical Marxist text:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/whitherfrance/index.htm

<blockquote>
<i>What does the elite need racism and fundamentalist Christianity for anymore?</i>

Don’t they need to assimilate at least part of the new immigrant population into the conservative, militaristic worldview of the older white population?
</blockquote>

I'm not sure that they do. Of course, the elite may be divided on the question, and some of what we say about what the elite wants or needs isn't really about ruling class people's subjectivities but about trends and material forces, but it's a convenient shortcut to talk about what the ruling class needs or plans.

But, so, I'm not sure they do. I think the older white populations conservative militaristic worldview is based on (or deeply entangled with) racism -- one of the reasons it was 'needed' before was to maintain the white supremacist structure of society, and likewise the white supremacist structure of society fueled that worldview. But I'm not sure the the ruling class is planning on racism/white supremacy as a significant way of organizing society anymore.

(And if they wanted to assimilate immigrants to it on the side of racism, they'd probably need to make em white, right? Which isn't neccesarily impossible that could happen to Latinos; it happened to Irish, Jews, Italians. But I'm not sure that's where we're going).

So why did the power structures ever need a certain segment of the population with a conservative, militaristic, racist viewpoint? Which segment(s) of the population in what proportion were required? And do they/will they still need that going forward, or do they think they will? The way I answer those questions, I think it's possible they _don't_ need that anymore.

<i>But, so, I’m not sure they do. I think the older white populations conservative militaristic worldview is based on (or deeply entangled with) racism — one of the reasons it was ‘needed’ before was to maintain the white supremacist structure of society, and likewise the white supremacist structure of society fueled that worldview. But I’m not sure the the ruling class is planning on racism/white supremacy as a significant way of organizing society anymore. </i>

What would be a good example of a racially/ethnically heterogenous society that doesn't need to maintain some sort of ethnic caste sysem in order to prevent challenges to capitalism?

Take a few racially homogenous places. China and Japan use their own methods of control, which I don't presume to understand. Saudi Arabia uses religious fundamentalism.

Israel is an interesting case. It's currently a racially heterogenous society where the majority of the dominant population want to a racially homogenous society.

On the other hand, genuinely heterogenous places like most of Latin America have their own ethnic caste system. How often do you see non-white faces on Mexican TV? And their history is quite different from the history of the United States, although it's wrapped up in slavery and genocide just the same.

Even Victorian Britain, which was all white, depended at least on some degree to distinctions between the Protestant English and the Catholic Irish.

How would this future post-racial American capitalism look?

Interesting blog post by Joe Bageant. He's saying that the racism of the Tea Parties is an attempt to drive a wedge between people who might otherwise form a third party.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/01/taking-tea-with-the-lizards.html#more

<i>The Tea Party is the latest neoconservative end run around the possibility of a real third party emerging to threaten the status quo. To be honest, it's a brilliant political move, absorbing any energies that might have propelled a real third party. And, in true neocon fashion, it capitalizes on the working class' inchoate anger at the ongoing screwjob they've been getting from both parties for thirty years. </i>

Huh, so you're actually claiming that capitalist (I think?) society neccesarily depends on racial/ethnic stratification? Certainly it neccesarily depends on class stratification. It's not obvious to me that it _neccesarily_ depends on tying those classes to _racial_ castes.

[Although interestingly, the argument that classes have in fact historically been demarcated by racial caste in the US is one that, although I'm partial to it, I'm not sure how popular it is on Kasama.]

I guess I'm suggesting that the tendency in current capitalist society, not just in the US but in the world, is to move away from racial stratification as a means of class stratification. Someone's racial/ethnic characteristics will less and less tell you what class they are in. That seems to me to be the trend. Certainly it's true that members of all races are, _globally_, members of the global ruling class, which just as certainly did not used to be the case.

But it's not entirely clear what this means. I guess what's obvious to you is not to me, and vice versa. Perhaps we'll have to leave it at that. In general, the relationship between racial/ethnic hieararchy and capitalism (and class), both historically and where it's going, seems to be an issue of quite a bit of disagreement among those on this site.

<i>Huh, so you’re actually claiming that capitalist (I think?) society neccesarily depends on racial/ethnic stratification? Certainly it neccesarily depends on class stratification. It’s not obvious to me that it _neccesarily_ depends on tying those classes to _racial_ castes. I guess I’m suggesting that the tendency in current capitalist society, not just in the US but in the world, is to move away from racial stratification as a means of class stratification.
</i>

I don't think capitalism or any kind of oppression is necessarily tied to racial caste. The Romans, for example, had a slave economy that wasn't necessarily related to race. But I do think that European/North American capitalism developed coterminously with slavery based on race, genocide based on race. I also think that the American labor movement made the mistake of depending on ethnic castes within the white population. See David Montgomary's book "The Fall of the House of Labor." A lot of the late 19th century trade unions were organizations of Anglo Saxon workers AGAINST Slavic and Latin immigrants.

And I wasn't arguing against your suggestion that we may be evolving out of it. I was just asking you to expand on how it would look. How would the ruling class keep Mexican workers from organizing with black and white workers if they didn't have racism to fall back on as a way of dividing people? Would it just be pure authoritarian repression? I think you're arguing that white workers will no longer be bribed under this new system. That certainly seems likely. But the fact that they won't be bribed won't necessarily mean you still can't use racism to divide them from blacks and Latinos. I don't see these "Tea Party" people as being in any way rational. In fact, just the opposite. They seem to have based their movement around a fiction, that the government is designed to fleece white people redistritube their income to blacks and latinos.

This "excise tax" the democrats are planning to slap on union health care plans, btw, seems almost designed to divide the white working class from blacks and immigrants.

Interesting questions, Stanley. I really don't know what it will look like, of course. But I suspect that the fact that white people won't be bribed WILL, eventually (psychological prejudices may take a bit to catch up with material conditions) significantly take away the ability to use racism to divide the non-ruling class. They will have to find other ways to divide, or find other ways to maintain power without dividing.

But note that if we accept that there was some bribery of the white working class going on ('bribe' means increased privileges and/or increased wealth given to them, right?)... then it is not _entirely_ a fiction for this class whose bribes are being lessened to think that they're wealth or privileges are being taken away, right? What's a fiction is ideas about who "deserves" what for what reasons, or that it's some kind of conspiracy based on anti-white-person prejudice.

Also consider your analogy with other kinds of historical stratification, like the Romans or what have you. I think those analogies help point out that racial/ethnic caste stratification in the US in fact is a form of class stratification. (Roman slaves were clearly a different _class_ than non-slaves, right?) In that light, it's not neccesarily using racism to divide the sympathies of a unified class, but using racism to _divide into classes_, where one (not ruling) class does not unite with another (not ruling) class.

So I agree with you entirely that North American capitalism developed coterminously with slavery, genocide, and racial caste -- part of this is that the _class system_ in North American capitalism developed dependent on racial stratification, right? So, if the 'bribes' are being gradually removed, and the trend is no longer to use race to construct the class system.... that means the global capitalist class system is (potentially) changing a LOT, right? Which is pretty huge, and I certainly can't make any kind of predictions for what it will mean that you'd want to bet your fortune on.

One thing it means, apparently, is certain parts (certainly not all) of the white working class are getting rather scared about what they may be _right_ is a trend for dissolution of their class as previously defined.

Another thing it indeed might mean is an unprecedented possibility for cross-race alliances which can indeed threaten the ruling class and the status quo, while the system is still re-adjusting to some new form of class division that is safe for the ruling class (they hope).

This is all just hypotheses, I'm not wedded to them, I'm just wondering, and I don't know either!

Interesting questions, Stanley. I really don't know what it will look like, of course. But I suspect that the fact that white people won't be bribed WILL, eventually (psychological prejudices may take a bit to catch up with material conditions) significantly take away the ability to use racism to divide the non-ruling class(es). They will have to find other ways to divide, or find other ways to maintain power without dividing.

But note that if we accept that there was some bribery of the white working class going on ('bribe' means increased privileges and/or increased wealth given to them, right?)... then it is not _entirely_ a fiction for this class whose bribes are being lessened to think that they're wealth or privileges are being taken away, right? What's a fiction is ideas about who "deserves" what for what reasons, or that it's some kind of conspiracy based on anti-white-person prejudice.

Also consider your analogy with other kinds of historical stratification, like the Romans or what have you. I think those analogies help point out that racial/ethnic caste stratification in the US in fact is a form of class stratification. (Roman slaves were clearly a different _class_ than non-slaves, right?) In that light, it's not neccesarily using racism to divide the sympathies of a unified class, but using racism to _divide into classes_, where one (not ruling) class does not unite with another (not ruling) class.

So I agree with you entirely that North American capitalism developed coterminously with slavery, genocide, and racial caste -- part of this is that the _class system_ in North American capitalism developed dependent on racial stratification, right? So, if the 'bribes' are being gradually removed, and the trend is no longer to use race to construct the class system.... that means the global capitalist class system is (potentially) changing a LOT, right? Which is pretty huge, and I certainly can't make any kind of predictions for what it will mean that you'd want to bet your fortune on.

One thing it means, apparently, is certain parts (certainly not all) of the white working class are getting rather scared about what they may be _right_ is a trend for dissolution of their class as previously defined.

Another thing it indeed might mean is an unprecedented possibility for cross-race alliances which can indeed threaten the ruling class and the status quo, while the system is still re-adjusting to some new form of class division that is safe for the ruling class (they hope).

This is all just hypotheses, I'm not wedded to them, I'm just wondering, and I don't know either!

<i>So, if the ‘bribes’ are being gradually removed, and the trend is no longer to use race to construct the class system…. that means the global capitalist class system is (potentially) changing a LOT, right? Which is pretty huge, and I certainly can’t make any kind of predictions for what it will mean that you’d want to bet your fortune on. One thing it means, apparently, is certain parts (certainly not all) of the white working class are getting rather scared about what they may be _right_ is a trend for dissolution of their class as previously defined.
</i>

And this would mean the teabaggers are the dying gasp of a white working/lower-middle-class who see Obama as representing the end of their bribe, as, indeed, the "excise tax" in his health care plan seems to indicate that he might be doing just that.

Interesgintly, one thing I have noticed on the website of my local newspaper (the Star Ledger).

There seems to be a hard core of paid union bashers who try to slip the same narrative into the comments section of every article. "Unions are dominated by blacks and liberals and they're designed to fleece white people in the suburbs."

It's possible these people are getting paid by professional union busting firms. It's possible it's the employees of the newspaper itself who have been instructed to post them. It's possible they're white working class people who are unaware of their own interests. It's possible they're white professional people out in the suburbs or small business and the like who see unions and liberalism as preventing them from squeezing their own workers even more.

But there's one thing that's certain. Union bashing and racism go hand in hand on this particular newspaper.

What David Montgomary was writing about in "The Fall of the House of Labor" was rational. It was rational for Anglo Saxon miners and steel workers to resist immigration from eastern and southern europe since the new immigrants were being used to lower their own wages.

But it just seems like we've entered bizarro land when every unemployed angry 40 year old white guy is armed with a copy of Ayn Rand and an ideology that makes him want to kiss the asses of his banker overlords.

True that, Stanley.

So here's an interesting thing to me. If it was rational for anglo saxon miners to be anti-immigrant -- that would, I think, be to say it represented their class interests (or sub-class, or class fraction, however you want to define it). Which would, I think, be to say that the anglo saxon miners weren't actually in the same class (or sub-class, or class fraction) as those immigrants.

So the end of THAT story is that those immigrants (or their children) WERE eventually adopted into the class. That's, I think, what the thing about Jews and Italians and Irish and Bohemians "becoming white" means, they changed their class position when they became white.

And that maybe could happen to Latinos too, it's definitely one thing at play, that not all of THAT class (US immigrant latino labor) would necessarily be opposed to.

But if instead of keeping the class formation pretty much the same but adopting new people into an existing class -- the existing classes are actually being _disolved_ and presumably re-formulated after quite a bit of stirring (for reasons we haven't gotten into in this discussion, but in part because the ruling classes can't afford their bribes anymore).... We can probably expect quite a bit of 'irrational' behavior. Things are confused. We can hope that the ruling classes will likewise demonstrate this irrationality.

Sorry if I'm droning on.

<i>But if instead of keeping the class formation pretty much the same but adopting new people into an existing class — the existing classes are actually being _disolved_ and presumably re-formulated after quite a bit of stirring (for reasons we haven’t gotten into in this discussion, but in part because the ruling classes can’t afford their bribes anymore)…. </i>

OK. That makes it a lot more clear. A multiracial heard of sheep being led to the slaughter bickering all the way there about the color of their wool.

ps I'm amazed at the number of Latino Glenn Beck fans out here in suburban NJ hell.

There's a pretty significant part of the Latino population (mostly white Cubans and Columbians although not Mexicans) who have already been thoroughly assimilated into Redneck Ugly Americanism.

Sucks for them that they'll never get a New Deal, a GI Bill, or a Great Society.

As is common with many words in use, there are many uses of the term fascism. One must recognize the inherently democratic nature of language. Notwithstanding the pretensions of academicians and their institutions, on the left or on the right, language has a dynamic of its own. And there certainly has been an evolution of the use of the term fascism. Fascism, as any word, is a concept. Each concept use has theoretical value that is historically determined.
Originally, fascism was used to describe the political programs and parties of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco… Etymologically, the fascism comes from "fasces", referring to a bunch of rods brought together by an ax-head.

Nonetheless, in order to have scientific analysis, one must rely on a scientific problematic. This problematic itself is a dialectical synthesis of the concepts it relies upon. In the proletarian problematic (which is by no means a dogma and is a work in progress, involving discussions and debates leading to eventual class consensus) and a collective class position the term fascism has a particular meaning that is quite different from the every day use of the word as it has evolved. Nowadays, a lot of people use the term loosely, descriptively or empirically, to denote authoritarian, undemocratic or autocratic regimes, characterized by the massive use of violent repression against masses of people.

In the proletarian problematic, fascism is most often used to refer to a kind of state and its corresponding government, the center pole of that State Apparatus determined by a political structure where the hegemonic sectors of the ruling exploiting classes have acquired enough political power to establish a very centralized state, which takes over the political, economic and ideological direction of these social structures, managing capitalism [mostly finance capital] through the autocratic rule of a centralized authority, most often through a one-party state.

On an ideological and political level, this fascist program is able to mobilize significant sectors of the dominated and exploited masses in its support, particularly, significant sectors of the petty bourgeoisie. This most often has occurred through the Machiavellian appeal of demagogic dictators, such as Mussolini, Hitler… and their appeal to nationalism in defense of threats propagandized by their ideological apparatus, their party, the state… Those who do not adhere to this program are severely repressed and persecuted.
This nationalist and militarily aggressive program uses "patriotism" and "national (or religious) identity" in the defense of the "homeland" and the allegiance to the "party", the "state" and the "nation", and often to the "supreme ruler" as the supreme and determinant rationale for developing and implementing a series of radical transformations of the political structure to progressively consolidate and entrench the political, ideological and economic dominance of the central power authority.

Fascism is a conjectural period of capitalism/imperialism, in crisis, where a political current is taking hegemonic control of the State Apparatus. Fascism is an exceptional form of the State Apparatus aim at restructuring and reorganize bourgeois dictatorship and democracy in the interest of the bloc of the bourgeoisie, but primarily in the interest of the hegemonic fraction, finance capital. In the period of Fascism, ideology plays a very important role. The bourgeoisie is not only leaning on dominated and exploited classes to build representativity in order to consolidate their social power base at the same time needs to control this social base to prevent any overflowing.

In the 60’s and 70’s, a new definition of Fascism took form. Many left of organizations, in dominated social formation, identifies their repressive governments as Fascist. This theoretical understanding enables them to elaborate an anti-fascist line. A new Anti fascist/ anti dictatorial front was being built. Many left US organizations did have unity with that line. I will not in this moment criticize the opportunist/ revisionist line of the anti dictatorial line. I will only succinctly cover the anti fascist part.

An incorrect theory will always leads to an incorrect political line and political orientation. By identifying these governments heading the State Apparatus, in dominated social formation, as fascist was notan appropriation of the objective reality. These political organizations confused phenomenon and tendencies. They took tendencies in a phenomenon as the phenomenon so tendencies became the phenomenon. In doing so, their political vision became narrowed. These repressive governments did have fascist tendencies. Political power was very autocratic, bourgeois democracy and bourgeois democratic rights were limited, in some case totally inexistent. But these governments weren’t fascist. The broad united anti fascist/ anti dictatorial front was only a melting pot of revisionist, opportunist,reformist and ultra right pro imperialist organization in the fight against the existing government...
IN the US, I strongly argue the rises of fascism and the needs to have a correct proletarian line to defeat it.

Suggested reading: Fascim and Dictatorship by Nicos Poulantzas

I'm no expert on American bourgeois politics, but I think it is too early to count the Republicans as on their dying last steps.
Capitalism has cycles at it's heart, boom then busts, building accumulation and then shedding it. It also has political cycles. The Democrats (or Republicans) will come in to make the turn necessary to do what capitalism needs at the time. While the Republicans right now might not be much of a force to be reckoned with. The capitalist system has historically proven to be a flexible one. Things will keep going in their usual twists and turns, tweedledee will replace tweedledum, until the system itself is challenged.

Carl Davidson's line is ultimately to follow with the descent into ignominy that mimics that of bourgeois system. If your goal is to "critically" support the bourgeois group who are losing the race to the bottom, you're still heading to the bottom at a fast rate of knots...