Answer the Coup Attempt: Fight To Secure Basic Needs
Answer the Coup Attempt:
Fight To Secure Basic Needs
On January 6, 2021, the sitting president of the United States exhorted thousands of his followers to attempt a coup. Those thousands marched on the Capitol to stop the certification of the election of a new president and the deposition of that sitting president. They overwhelmed the police forces, there to protect the Capitol, while the legislators were sequestered in a “safe place.” Rioters waving confederate flags and Trump banners ran through Capitol halls, bringing the crisis of our democracy into the halls of Congress.
This was totally predictable and predicted, given everything the president has said, threatened and urged for months. In fact, the cabal running the federal government has spent the last four years stoking the fires of division to consolidate a mass base for fascism. That mass base was fully on display in Washington D.C. January 6. Yet no preparation was taken to control the coup attempt. Contrast this with what happened just the day before, in Kenosha, WI. It was anticipated that the District Attorney would announce if the police officer, who shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back, would be charged with a crime. Under those circumstances, in a small city, Wisconsin’s governor called up 500 national guard troops. Surely the city of Washington and the federal government had the capacity to anticipate the January 6 travesty.
It is no small thing that news commentators and senators and members of the House are calling this an insurrection or attempted coup. It is no small thing that numerous people are questioning how law enforcement would have treated this if the people had been Black Lives Matter demonstrators. But it doesn’t stop there. At least 13 Senators were prepared to object to the November 3 election, by voting to disallow certain states’ electors. More than 100 members of the House of Representatives actually joined a Texas lawsuit to overturn the election results in four other states. Earlier in the year, armed paramilitary militia members took over the Michigan state Capitol, without a law enforcement response, while cops violently suppressed protests of the George Floyd murder. The minimal police restraint of the January 6 armed mob stood out in contrast to the police terror against George Floyd and the millions of Americans who came out to protest his murder. This contrast is no collateral effect. It lies at the center of our crisis of democracy. The crisis was clear throughout 2020 — when the most exploited and oppressed section of the population suffered COVID deaths at three times the rate of the rest of society. These elements paved the way for the January 6 insurrection.
We don’t use the term fascism lightly, and we don’t mean simply the use of excessive force. The response to the pandemic and the rebellions has exposed a system unwilling and unable to meet the people’s needs. At the same time as millions are threatened with destitution, a handful of capitalists has accumulated hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth. Modern-day fascism is being developed to enable the corporate ruling class to maintain control of our government in opposition to the masses fighting for transformation to a new just and equal America.
And the people are fighting, in mass demonstrations against police murder, demands for economic relief from COVID, and using the vote in the battle of our class to take control of their lives. The fight for democracy, just as much as the struggle for housing, has become a fight for basic needs. The defeat in Georgia of two multimillionaire supporters of Trump, was such a step. As a last straw, after all his electoral and judicial defeats, Trump appealed to his base to secure his returning to power. Even as this tactic has failed, our class has to reckon with the fact that the path is now open for fascist seizure of power, legally or otherwise. Unmentioned before January 6, the words “coup,” “insurrection,” and “treason” are now part of our every day vocabulary.
The coup attempt showed how fragile our democracy is. But how strong can a democracy be without economic democracy? Without healthcare democracy? How strong is a democracy that stands on systemic white supremacy and class inequality? Our time demands bold action. The 2020 election did not conclude the battle for democracy. It did not guarantee healthcare, homes, food, and equality for all. With the battle lines now clearer, with the stakes higher, that struggle is just beginning. This is the time for us — the people — to redouble our efforts to secure the true democracy that the people of our country have never had.
This is the time for the tens of millions, many thrown into poverty in the year of the pandemic, to come together to demand that the government do what it is supposed to do: Provide for what the people need from the abundance that exists.
Related articles in Rally Comrades!, the voice of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America (LRNA):
“The Reality of Fascism in America Today”: http://rallycomrades.lrna.org/2018/05/the-reality-of-fascism-in-america-today/
“Reimagine America”: http://rallycomrades.lrna.org/2020/09/reimagine-america/
“Demands for Basic Needs and the Electoral Process”: http://rallycomrades.lrna.org/2019/09/demands-for-basic-needs-and-the-electoral-process/
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The inability of poor people and/or their advocates to potently and functionally organize is as much a signature of fascism as are the crusher cops in leather boots and financial elites organizing their business flow charts with the coupling of corporate and governmental operations.
For recognizing and overcoming the impoverished and advocate’s contribution to global humanity’s current fascist state, please see Wilhelm Reich’s People In Trouble and Mass Psychology of Fascism. Reich was actively involved in party politics during the NAZI rise, and, as a member of Sigmond Freud’s inner circle for a time being, analyzes the situation from that perspective.
When Reich split from Freud he went on to discover orgone energy, so he also describes the situation from a basic human biological view. Thus, if one is inclined to follow my suggestion, it would be best to do an energetic experiment before reading Reich’s books; for 3 days at the same time drink a glass of carrot or carrot/apple juice, then for 3 days at the same time drink a glass of soda pop or coffee/alcohol… recognize the difference in your energetics, apply to reading Reich.
If you do this you will gain much beneficial insight for conquering your own and other’s contribution to humanity’s general state of fascism, including clarity on the false concept of a biologically inherent violent relationship between Labor and Executive function, as well as with the false concept that abundance needs to be created in an already infinitely abundant world and universe.
Enjoy.
I find it incredibly ironic that during the failed coup attempt the president watched with glee but was disappointed that the insurrectionists looked ‘low-class’. It’s disheartening that the policies that would benefit ALL citizens, even the insurrectionists, are being stifled by the ruling, corporate oligarchs that are in power.