Anarchic update news all over the world - 11.02.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  freedom news - Spain: temporary end of the anarchist
      terrorism myth (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Britain, Solidarity with the Mapuche people by Bristol
      Anarchist Federation: Sunday, February 11 at 12:45 PM - 2:45 PM
      UTC Champion Square, Bristol, BS1 3 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL - Syria-Kurdistan: A
      libertarian communist in IFB # 04: "Condemned to observe the
      Afrîn battle from afar" (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #279 - Maintenance-river,
      Restoring other perspectives to trade unionism (fr, it, pt)
      [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  Greece, Corfu, Solidarity with the persecuted partner By APO
      (gr) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  anarkismo.net: An Anarchist Review of Michael Wolff, Fire
      and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. by Wayne Price
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





After a total of 33 arrests, three years of investigation during which hundreds of 
documents were analysed,  house searches across the country, hours of phone conversations 
recorded, bank accounts frozen, and, worst of all, after subjecting some of the accused to 
months of imprisonment, Spain's Audiencia Nacional tribunal has closed the legal 
proceedings and state persecution of anarchists known as Operación Piñata. The reason: 
lack of sufficient evidence to put anyone on trial. The decision follows the request by 
defense lawyers to dismiss the investigation. ---- The police Operation Piñata joins 
Operations Pandora and Pandora II as criminal cases against the so-called ‘anarcho 
terrorism', as the Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, called it during 
the morning when <span title="que se produjeron las detenciones) que han terminado por 
sobreseerse.

">the arrests took place in March 2015.
Five of the twelve defendants under Operación Piñata were placed in custody for months. 
The arrest warrants made reference to acts of sabotage, possession of explosives and even 
‘<span title="El auto de prisión hizo referencia en su día a la producción de sabotajes, a 
la tenencia de explosivos e incluso a "posibles ilícitos penales relacionados con el 
tráfico de sustancias estupefacientes o psicotrópicas".

">possible criminal offences related to trafficking of narcotics or psychotropic 
substances': none of which was supported by evidence.

The tribunal decided  that the anarchists were arrested without ‘rational indications of a 
criminal action', and that  ‘the scant intensity of the events attributed by the police 
makes it impossible to speak of the existence of a terrorist organization since there is 
no coordinated, hierarchical and structured group; nor do the actions attributed to them 
have a terrorist purpose', and that ‘their activities were absolutely legal'.

More than three years have passed since the chief of the national police, Ignacio Cosidó, 
announced that "anarchist terrorism had gained root in Spain". This statement never found 
confirmation in the courts. At no point were the defendants linked to any violent act. The 
  evidence gathered during the three police operations  pointed to the ‘crime' of 
distributing anarchist literature or publishing essays and books, such as this text 
entitled Against Democracy.

The three operations taken together amounted to the most virulent offensive against 
Iberian anarchism since the "Scala case" of 1978.  Independently of their legal success or 
failure, what is always accomplished in such cases is the dismantling of social centres, 
spreading fear and suspicion among activists, breaking up of networks of mutual aid and 
the criminalization of the ideology and the movement.

https://freedomnews.org.uk/spain-temporary-end-of-the-anarchist-terrorism-myth/

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Message: 2





Benetton is exploiting huge areas of stolen land in Argentina paid for in the blood of the 
indigenous Mapuche people. The Mapuche people have faced violence, persecution and 
imprisonment for not wanting to give up their ancestral homes to logging firms, and the 
clothing giant Benetton. ---- In 2017 at a demo blocking Benetton's headquarters, the 
anarchist Santiago Maldonado disappeared. His body was found two months later near to 
where he was last seen being chased by the police. ---- On the day of Santiago's burial, 
the Mapuche community of Bariloche faced a violent eviction which resulted in the death of 
Rafael Nahuel, who was shot in the back. ---- The Mapuche people and Argentinian 
anarchists have asked for solidarity actions across the world to raise awareness of what 
is happening, targetting both Benetton and the Argentinian state.

Protests and other actions have already taken place this month in Greece, Italy, Wales and 
Germany.

Join us on Sunday 11th Feb, let the corporate leaders know that we will not let them get 
away with kill us and our comrades to line their pockets!

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Message: 3






"I was spotted by the same Syrian officer before even getting into the vehicle, still 
under the eye of a Russian soldier." ---- Libertarian Alternative reproduces the posts of 
the blog Kurdistan-Autogestion-Revolution where, after Arthur Aberlin, engaged in the YPG, 
now expresses Damien Keller, engaged him in the International Liberation Battalion (IFB). 
---- Over the weeks, he will testify to life in the IFB, the debates that are going on and 
the evolution of the revolutionary process in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. 
---- As I said in a previous post, I had to participate in Afrîn's defense with my YPJ-YPG 
comrades. Yet this proved impossible, for reasons that speak volumes about the profit that 
the regime of Bashar el Assad hopes to draw from this clash between two of his opponents.

The canton is under the fire of the Turkish army and its deputies of the Free Syrian Army 
; the Syrian Democratic Forces send as many reinforcements as possible. But the canton of 
Afrîn is isolated from the rest of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. 
Reinforcements must therefore be transported by coach and car through areas controlled by 
the Syrian army. This one filters the combatants and the combatants, and forbids the entry 
of the canton to a certain number - including me.

Syrian officer and Russian soldiers

On the day of departure, we waited in the countryside of Manbij. The day before, a YPJ 
officer told us of the sacrifice of our comrade Avesta Xabur, who managed to destroy a 
Turkish tank, but did not survive.

In a grenade attack, Avesta Xabur destroyed a Turkish tank, but did not survive.
As we were preparing the convoy, we were observed by Russian soldiers and Bashar al-Assad 
officers.

Obviously, the presence of international volunteers bothered them. Despite several hours 
of waiting, the convoy still did not get permission to leave. In the end, a Syrian officer 
came to challenge us: ban to pass for internationals. Anyone who did not have enough 
Kurdish facies to his taste had to get off the bus. Many, however, have fallen through the 
cracks. These lucky comrades left for Afrîn, where they fought the next day.

Why this ban ? To prevent the death of international volunteers from attracting the 
attention of the international community ?

Two days later, we tried our luck again. A YPJ officer told us to speak only Kurmanji. 
Same instruction to the Arab comrades, to prevent the regime prevents them from passing, 
which seems to have happened on other convoys. That Kurds are killed in Afrîn, it suits 
the regime that has always considered them as second-class citizens. But not Arabs, who 
are still considered "  safe  " even if they joined the SDS.

Useless trickery

To go unnoticed, I knotted my keffiyeh on my forehead, tried to brown my skin with a 
little cream mixed with rust ... Lost sentence: I was spotted by the same Syrian officer 
before even being mounted in the vehicle, still under the eye of a Russian soldier. Still, 
some more fellows managed to pass.

Whenever I saw a convoy leave, I knew that I would not see half of my comrades again. All 
and all volunteers are aware that they may not return.

So I left behind, for logistics and management of our headquarters. Other international 
comrades will try their chances, their faces being unknown to the services of Bashar el Assad.

Meanwhile, shelling of civilians continues in Afrin township, killing dozens of people. In 
Turkey, protesters and Internet users opposed to this operation were arrested.

On February 2, we learned of the mutilation of the body of our comrade Barîn Kobanê by 
members of the ASL, after his death in action.

Gangsters of the Free Syrian Army have horribly mutilated the body of Barin Kobanê and 
three other YPJ fighters. The pain and anger are immense in the population.
In France, the government unhesitatingly betrays the YPG-YPJ. After using them and them in 
the fight against Daesh, Le Drian and Macron call them "  potential terrorists  ". This 
betrayal can only encourage Erdogan, in his offensive against Afrîn, and perhaps against 
the city of Manbij then on the Iraqi-Syrian border.

You can continue to help us from your country, whether in France or elsewhere, by leading 
and continuing actions: solidarity demonstrations, actions (blockades, cyberattacks, ...) 
against the embassies of Turkey or its companies.

Damien Keller

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Un-communiste-libertaire-dans-l-IFB-04-Condamne-a-observer-de-loin-la-bataille

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Message: 4





Union unity, unity in struggles, historical lighting ... An interview-river with four 
revolutionary syndicalists - Theo Roumier (SUD-Educ), Christian Mahieux (SUD-Rail), 
Jean-Yves Lesage (CGT-Book) and Guillaume Goutte (CGT-Correctors) - gathered by the 
Autrefutur.net website. ---- Number 6 of the journal Union Syndicale Solidaires, Les 
Utopiques, was devoted to the mobilizations against the labor laws. On this occasion, it 
seemed interesting to question, with contributors from different trade union 
organizations, the difficulties and possible prospects of trade unionism and social 
mobilization. ---- The theme of unity has occupied many minds in recent months, both at 
the union and political levels. But beyond the question of unity, or even union 
unification, it is the possible place of trade unionism today, at the heart of a dynamic 
of emancipatory social transformation, that has been questioned.

Interviewed by Fabien Delmotte

To read on the Autrefutur.net website

http://www.autrefutur.net/Redonner-d-autres-perspectives-au-syndicalisme-echanges-autour-de-la-revue-Les

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Redonner-d-autres-perspectives-au-syndicalisme

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Message: 5





On February 8, 2018, partner A.A. for the events that happened on November 17, 2013 only a 
few months after the assassination of Pavlos Fissas from a neonassis battalion of the 
Golden Dawn. Then, while the body of the course normally did the pre-determined route, it 
was prevented from continuing, from cops of cops who protected the offices of the Golden 
Dawn, many meters before the course approached them. The cops attacked the course that 
defended and managed to pave the way to continue the route normally. Later (20 days 
later!) "The partner was identified by a cop as a person who participated in the" fight 
"and was charged with 2 categories (attitude and attempt of dangerous bodily injury) that 
he denies. ---- It is of no importance that we also say that there is no relationship 
between the particular companion and the accusations, as that course was not in the care 
of security, and that is not the reason why he is prosecuted.

It is a time when the state and the repression at the local level have even more targeted 
the world that is struggling. Especially from the anarchist place, a large number of 
people had a lot of court cases that in our eyes are clear that they arose on the one hand 
as a means of suppressing the fighters, on the other, as a means of terrorizing those who 
would like to follow their respective paths and ways. Of course, their charges were so 
funny and fixed that all the courts that have been made in all cases have resulted in the 
acquittal of the defendants, except for that last court of that period still pending.

We know that in the eyes of civil justice the testimony - even the obviously false - of a 
cop corresponds almost to a condemnation of the individual accused, and that the equality 
of democracy is a lie that no one believes. In any case, although we are talking about an 
obviously dated file, we must say that the judgment of what is fair and what is unfair on 
our part is not based on a legal system that exists to serve the interests of the state 
and of the capital. We stand by the law of the bottom, the oppressed of this society, with 
those who strive for a different, fair organization of society.
Comrade AA have been and are over the years active and active part of those who struggle, 
we have stood by the road, we have distributed texts, we have set up actions and events, 
we have defended together our vision for a society of equality, solidarity and freedom.
He will not be alone now, no one will ever be alone against repression and state vengeance.
Immediate acquittal of the partner.
Under the hands of the fighters.

Cumulonimbus anarchist group.
Member of APO /O.S.

http://apo.squathost.com

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Message: 6





Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff is a popular book about Trump and his administration. It 
may be popular because it focuses on Trump's bizarre personal peculiarities rather than 
the political context and the forces which led to Trump's presidency. ---- If not the best 
book on the crazed Trump administration, this is certainly the most popular. Perhaps 
because it focuses on Donald Trump's personal peculiarities rather than the political 
context, it has become a top best seller. It has been criticized because the author, 
Michael Wolff, says that he sometimes listened to contradictory reports of various events, 
given by the unreliable members of the administration, and then used his own judgment in 
integrating these reports into unified accounts. While this may lead us to wonder how 
accurate his reportage of specific White House events may be, there is no doubt that his 
overall account is accurate. It fits very well with what we have seen of Trump and his 
agents as they have acted out in public, in front of cameras and newspaper reporters.

Through his own observations of the president, and through the reports of Trump's allies, 
supporters, family members, and minions, Wolff draws a picture of his behavior and 
personality. Trump is thin-skinned and easily hurt by criticism, desiring always to be 
liked and admired, yet insensitive to others' feelings, desires, and needs. He is 
impulsive, and easily aroused to anger. He is highly distractible, unable to concentrate 
for extended periods, and readily bored. He has a need to constantly be winning. Women are 
seen by him as merely sex objects or as aides to his work if they are sufficiently 
obsequious-but then he sees everyone as objects, useful to him or not.

Trump knows very little and is generally incurious, including about what he should know to 
manage the presidency. He lies constantly, not necessarily for specific purposes but just 
for the sake of it. However, he may not know when he is lying, since he lives in a fantasy 
world of his own making, an alternate reality which is immune to facts. Most of those 
around him regard him as stupid (although it is hard to say if this is due to limited 
intelligence or to a personality-based unwillingness to think-or both). "Trump didn't 
read. He didn't really even skim...Some believed that ...he was no more than 
semiliterate....Some thought him dyslexic....He didn't listen. He preferred to be the 
person talking." (113-4) He develops his views mostly through watching right wing television.

"Rupert Murdoch[was]...certain Trump was a charlatan and a fool." (19) "The people who 
knew him best" regarded him as "careless, capricious, disloyal, far beyond any sort of 
control." (223) "...Senior staff believed the president had a problem with reality...." 
(242) Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State, called Trump "a fucking moron." The Treasury 
Secretary, Steve Mnuchin regarded him as an "idiot." H.R. McMaster called him a "dope." 
(304) All the senior staff belittled Trump's intelligence, openly or quietly. 
"Everyone...struggled to express the baldly obvious fact that the president did not know 
enough, did not know what he didn't know, did not particularly care, and, to boot, was 
confident if not serene in his unquestioned certitudes." (304) "...Staffers[were]concerned 
that his ability to stay focused, never great, had notably declined...." (309)

These observable traits have led some mental health professionals-and other people who 
could pick up a psychiatric manual-to diagnose Trump with various personality disorders, 
even though they have not personally examined him. I am not going to do that, precisely 
because I am a licensed psychologist (although I would love to see his responses to the 
Rorschach Inkblots). His publicly observed behavior is terrible enough for us to say that 
he should not be in office. Trump has responded to these reports by asserting that he is 
really "a stable genius."

Wolff focuses almost entirely on these personal traits of Trump and of those around him. 
These others are also more or less batty in behavior, the administration being full of 
crackpots, clowns, ignoramuses, right-wing ideologues, and other strange people. "Few in 
the thin ranks of Trump's inner circle....had almost any relevant experience. Nobody had a 
political background. Nobody had a policy background." (25) They pride themselves on being 
saner and smarter than Trump but cannot keep him from engaging in bizarre and 
self-destructive behavior.

Besides personal behavior, Wolff looks at the court tensions among Trump courtiers. He 
observed three main factions: (1) family members, mainly son-in-law Jared Kushner and 
daughter Ivanka Trump, whom he peculiarly describes as New York "liberal Democrats"; (2) 
establishment Republicans, who were then represented by Reince Priebus, now fired.The 
pressure continues from the Republicans who lead in the House and Senate; (3) Steve 
Bannon, reflecting the extreme nationalist, nativist, right-wing. Bannon has also been let 
go, and since this book came out (with Bannon's criticisms of Trump and his family 
members), has lost much of his influence-at least for now. But others carry the torch, 
such as Steven Miller, encouraging Trump to stick to his worst anti-immigrant policies. 
There is also the on-going influence of the ultra-right Mercers, father and daughter, who 
are described as among the "difficult, even sociopathic, rich people" pushing their agenda 
on Trump and his entourage. (177)

Beyond this, there is little consideration of politics or of the political context. These 
only come up in relation to the personal quirks or cliquish conflicts in the White House. 
For example, Trump's decision to withdraw from the international climate treaty is 
discussed as a victory for Bannon and a defeat for Ivanka, rather than as an attack on the 
global climate. Trump's continuation of the war in Afghanistan is considered in relation 
to his reluctance to make decisions as well as the differences between the generals' 
desire to expand the war versus Bannon's isolationist desire to withdraw.

Wolff downplays the issue of Russian collusion, looking more at Trump's inept reactions. 
He speculates that Trump's resistance to the investigation has mostly to do with the fear 
that it would uncover various illegal financial shenanigans by the family businesses 
(which may certainly be one aspect of Trump's reaction). Trump has "come out of the real 
estate business; ...based on substantial debt...it often...is a preferred exchange 
currency for problem cash-money laundering." (17) "...If the unraveling began[it]would 
likely lead to the messy Trump (and Kushner) business dealings." (102)

However, Wolff does describe the now-notorious meeting of Trump's people with Russian 
agents as "one of the most preposterous meetings in modern politics" (253) and an 
"imbecilic meeting." (254) He quotes Bannon as regarding the meeting as "treasonous or 
unpatriotic." (255) Wolff expresses certainty that Donald Jr. would have told his father 
about it.

Much of what Wolff describes, while not completely new, is still fascinating. However, it 
is weak as a guide to understanding the political situation. While Wolff may be some sort 
of liberal, there is nothing in the book that a "Never Trump" Republican would disagree 
with. Wolff repeatedly describes the mainstream media as the "liberal media." He accepts 
the right-wing view that most of the newspapers and television news programs are 
"liberal," left versions of Fox News and right-wing radio talk shows. Actually, if we 
compare the views of really liberal journals (The Nation, Mother Jones, etc.) with most of 
the press and TV news, the mainstream comes off at least right-center. (The exception is 
the mildly liberal evening MSNBC shows of Rachel Maddow and others.) Noam Chomsky has 
demonstrated the pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist, bias of the media, and this has not 
changed. However, Trump is so bizarre in his behavior and so far to the right that the 
media cannot report on him without appearing hostile. As has been said, "Reality has a 
left bias."

Trumpism is Republicanism

Much of President Trump's politics and behavior is idiosyncratic, unique to him. His 
constant lying, bragging, misstatements, and other peculiarities, would not have appeared 
if other Republicans had been elected president-such as Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, or even 
Mike Pence His reluctance to criticize Nazis is not a typical Republican attitude. (The 
U.S. ruling class is not ready for fascism.) The whole Russian imbroglio would not have 
appeared with any other politician. There are sections of the U.S. capitalist class which 
are for better relations with Russia (represented by Tillerson, the former head of Exxon). 
But even these would not have been so in denial about the Russian interference in the U.S. 
election. Also most of the U.S. capitalist class favors more "free trade" agreements with 
other countries and a more flexible immigration policy; they want to benefit from cheap 
labor. On these points they (and their hired politicians) have been in disagreement with 
Donald Trump.

Yet in many ways, Trumpism is a symptom of the reaction by Republicans and Democrats to 
deep problems in U.S. and world society. These have caused a drastic turn to the right, to 
attacks on the working class. There is economic stagnation, increased inequality, and 
pressures on real profits (as opposed to financial speculation and overvaluation of stocks 
and bonds).

Basically, Trumpism is an extension of modern Republicanism. The Republican party is the 
cutting edge of the attack on the working class and the environment. This was pretty clear 
when virtually all the Republican politicians supported the unpopular Trump tax cut for 
the very rich. It is also apparent when almost all the Republican Representatives and 
Senators have doubled down on defending Trump against the Department of Justice 
investigation. They are attacking the investigators and trying to distract the public.

Big capitalists had not supported Trump in the election and had preferred Clinton. But 
with his election, there "was a surprising and sudden business and Wall Street affinity 
for Trump....An anti-regulatory White House and the promise of tax reform outweighed the 
prospect of disruptive tweeting and other forms of Trump chaos...." (87) (Note that Wolff 
uses the pro-business term, "tax reform," instead of the accurate "big tax cuts for the 
rich.")

Some sections of Trump's popular base have become disillusioned with him, but polls have 
shown that the rank-and-file of the Republican Party overwhelmingly still supports Trump. 
(For the general public, he is the most unpopular first year president in the history of 
polling.) The Republicans have lied to a section of the population (white middle class and 
upper working class, especially males, in the suburbs and rural areas). These people have 
responded to real grievances of growing poverty and inequality, de-industrialization, loss 
of jobs, de-unionization, and rural stagnation-but mostly responded with false and 
misleading politics, being called on to blame African-Americans, immigrants, Muslims, 
Mexicans, environmentalists, feminists, and the "liberal elite." The Republicans have 
whipped these people up to a nihilistic frenzy of despair. Then the Republican leadership 
was surprised when this hyped-up mass did not follow their lead but instead voted (in the 
primaries and in the general election) for the most unqualified person available, since he 
said what they believed. However, many other Trump voters were not attracted to his overt 
racism and nativism, but rather voted for him for change and because of a dislike of the 
Democratic candidate. But even these did not object to Trump's racism, not enough to 
reject voting for him.

While the modern Republican Party, as well as Trump himself, leans far to the right, 
neither it nor he are fascist. Neither Trump nor the party leaders will ban all other 
political parties, shut down the newspapers, cancel elections, or declare Trump 
president-for-life. If the system seems increasingly repressive, well, that is what we 
have in the limited democracy of capitalism. Yet Trump has opened the door for the real 
fascists, given them a bit of respectability. After the Charlottesville march of Nazis and 
Klanspeople, "the president's sympathies were muddled. However easy and obvious it was to 
condemn white racists...he instinctively resisted...and he continued to be stubborn about 
not doing it." (293-4)

The "Lesser Evil" Democrats

If the Republicans were Trump's "enablers," as Paul Krugman has suggested, then the 
Democrats were the enablers of the enablers. After eight years of Barrack Obama's 
presidency, there was more inequality than ever and continuing de-industrialization 
throughout much of the nation. This was even though the economy was in a long, slow, and 
shallow "recovery" from the Great Recession-which continues now, and will continue until 
the next crash. A not-very-good health plan was passed. More immigrants were deported than 
ever before. Climate catastrophe was recognized in words but an ineffectual minimum was 
done about it. Wars were continued and expanded abroad.

The two-party system encourages a certain type of amoral maneuverer, for whom political 
programs are not goals to be achieved so much as means to personal success. "A close Trump 
friend who was also a good Bill Clinton friend found them eerily similar-except that 
Clinton had a respectable front and Trump did not." (23)

The Democrats ran the most business-as-usual figure they had, Hillary Rodham Clinton. She 
and her husband Bill had gotten rich in their years of "public service." She was paid big 
bucks for speaking at gatherings of the biggest capitalists. She was known as the most 
hawkish member of the Obama administration. (There were also bad reasons for disliking 
her, including sheer misogyny, and the way a mountain was made out of a molehill over her 
emails.) The only reasons for voting for her came down to breaking the gendered 
presidential glass ceiling and that she was not Trump. These were reasons enough for her 
to win a thin majority of the popular vote, but then to loose in the archaic Electoral 
College.

For years the Democrats had been deliberately turning their backs on the unions and the 
working class in favor of appealing to the professional-managerial middle and upper 
classes. Thomas Frank had warned that this would have electoral and political costs (Price 
2016a). In the event, many white workers and their families who had voted for Obama, now 
voted for Trump. Many others stayed home. (A little less than half of eligible voters did 
not vote.) Meanwhile large sections of African-Americans were disaffected; they would not 
vote for Trump but, again, many who had voted for Obama also stayed home. Latinos knew 
that Trump was viciously against them, but they also knew that "the Obama administration 
had been quite aggressive in deporting illegal aliens." (63) Many Latinos also sat this 
one out.

For years the liberals had been opposing the greater political evil by supporting the 
lesser evil. Sometimes they won and sometimes they lost, but overall the greater evil got 
more and more evil, and so did the lesser evil. That is, the Republican Party became 
completely committed to far-right ideology, while the Democratic Party moved to where the 
"moderate Republicans" used to be. (For example, for a health care program they did not 
advocate the liberal "single-payer" approach but adopted the program developed by Mitt 
Romney when he was Massachusetts governor.) In brief, the politics of "lesser evilism" has 
not worked.

The liberal Warren-Sanders wing of the Democrats has no power. It serves as a shill to 
bring young people, labor, progressives, African-Americans, feminists, environmentalists, 
etc., into a party really ruled by corporate politicians such as the Clintons. Liberal 
Democrats and the MSNBC talking heads like to focus on the issue of Trump's ties to Russia 
and his efforts to cover them up. While this is a real issue, it also has the effect of 
distracting from such U.S. matters as inequality, climate change, or the danger of nuclear 
war. It makes the Democrats look patriotic and proudly chauvinistic. It lets the liberals 
wallow in patriotic hypocrisy. The imperialist U.S. state intervened in 81 national 
elections and supported about 36 attempted military coups, from 1946 to 2000. (McCoy 2017) 
Who is the U.S. to denounce foreign intervention in elections?

The Republicans can fire up their middle class base. While these people may get out of 
hand and elect a Trump, they do not threaten the system. But the Democrats never could 
fire up their historic base of workers and People of Color. The demands of the working 
class and the oppressed for better standards of living and more public services 
immediately threaten the profits of the corporate rich. Brought to an extreme, their 
demands threaten the very basis of capitalism. This is why liberals constantly complain 
that the Democrats do not stand up to the conservative Republicans, and why the Democrats 
were so willing to turn away from the working class, the poor, and People of Color, in 
favor of the professional middle class.

According to Wolff, Trump and his campaigners never expected to get elected; he expected 
to improve his "brand" while he prepared to claim that he had been cheated. With the 
election of this accidental president here has been a major increase in popular struggles 
and movements. (Price 2016b) This includes forming thousands of local anti-Trump clubs, 
enormous mass demonstrations, and local demonstrations at "town hall" meetings and at 
airports. At this time, most of the movement has been channeled into electoral activities, 
electing more Democrats, especially women. Probably this was inevitable for now, but it is 
a dead end. There needs to be a radical, libertarian-socialist, wing of the anti-Trump 
movement, which rejects the Democrats in favor of independent, mass, direct action.

Many liberals and Democrats look forward to when Trump is gone (through losing the next 
presidential election or even being impeached). They think that the evil days will be gone 
and things will return to "normal." It is true that the peculiarities of Trump's behavior 
will be over. But the crazy right-wing politics of the Republicans will continue. The 
wishy-washy but pro-corporate capitalist politics of the Democrats will continue. And the 
underlying economic decay and stagnation and ecological catastrophe will continue. The 
system will escalate its attacks on the working class and the environment, and, through 
wars, on people around the world. No part of the political or economic system can be 
relied on; as with the weather under conditions of global warming, there is a "new 
normal." Those of us who believe in ecological sanity, freedom, mutual aid, and radical 
democracy had better do all we can to build a popular movement for these goals.

References

McCoy, Alfred W. (2017). In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of 
U.S. Global Power. Haymarket.

Price, Wayne (2016a). "Party of Which People? Review of Thomas Frank, Listen, Liberal." 
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/29505?search_text=Wayn...Price

Price, Wayne (2016b). "Not My President! The New Resistance." 
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/29862?search_text=Wayne+Price

Wolff, Michael (2018). Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. NY: Henry Holt.

*written for www.Anarkismo.net

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30841