Opinion: THE RETURN OF DONALD TRUMP

From Roger Silverman. London UK

Trump’s return to power marks the beginning of a new era. From his first day in office, he has broken with an eighty-year long consensus. He has released hundreds of far-right thugs from the Capitol riots; shut down entire government agencies; demanded the resignations of 2.3 million government employees (65,000 of whom have already accepted a derisory bribe of eight months’ pay to give up their livelihood); planned the mass deportation of twelve million migrant workers; started building a new concentration camp in Guantanamo to incarcerate 30,000 of them…

How far will Trump go with his nightmare programme of mass deportations, political victimisations, forcible annexations, defiance of climate treaties, a global trade war, even preparations for world war with China? What are the prospects for mass resistance, and how far can he go in crushing it?

These are not mere tactical shifts of policy; this is a coup. Trump has control of both houses of Congress and had already in his first term packed the Supreme Court with his hand-picked stooges. He is shutting down entire departments and agencies. This is only the beginning: how long will it be before we see a new version of the Reichstag fire, a theatrical pretext enabling him to assume extra emergency powers?

And this is part of a worldwide process. The ruling class have torn off the liberal mask, not only in the USA but worldwide, including most of Europe, where one government after another has fallen to the far right, from social-democratic Scandinavia to Italy with its communist traditions, with Germany, Spain, France and Britain very possibly soon to follow. Now Trump, Musk and Vance are brazenly violating all the norms of diplomatic protocol by openly promoting the AfD in Germany, and Reform and even Tommy Robinson in Britain.

To what extent would we be justified in calling this a form of neo-fascism? After all, both Mussolini and Hitler also came to power initially by perfectly constitutional means. Though neither the Fascists nor the Nazis had won overall parliamentary majorities, they were both legally appointed head of government by the King of Italy and the President of Germany respectively.

But there is a big difference. Both came to power after years of class struggle: strikes, uprisings, revolutions which had been confronted on the streets by violent mobs of counter-revolutionary strikebreaking thugs. The impasse in the class struggle having sapped the ability of the ruling class to wield power by traditional means, they made a decision to incorporate these private street gangs into the state machine and hand over power to lawless and unaccountable dictators. Fascism means the voluntary surrender of direct political power by the capitalist class to an agency of brute force in conditions of crisis and deadlock in the class struggle.

Trump and Musk and the other clowns making up their bizarre administration may have fascist ambitions; but unlike fascists they have not come to power due to a failure to curb worker militancy by constitutional means; they represent a declining empire thrashing around to maintain its supremacy by whatever means available: dismantling constitutional balances, driving down wages, imposing tariffs, threatening annexations.

The classic capitalist state originally came into existence as an executive committee of the entire capitalist class. It acted to manage their affairs, protect their common interests, resolve disputes between them, collect taxes to administer their needs, provide essential services, control and repress the working class, etc. In the heyday of capitalism, business entrepreneurs entrusted the running of their state to the experts. Political leaders in their day were connoisseurs with a whole range of diplomatic skills, an expertise in strategic planning, a thorough understanding of the lessons of history… Trotsky commented that at its height the British ruling class was able to plan for decades and even centuries ahead. By contrast, Trump has the strategic foresight of a flea; he switches policy literally several times a day.   

 How is it that the political level of the ruling class has sunk so low? It’s because society today has become so grotesquely polarised; wealth so monstrously concentrated; the capitalist class so grossly monopolised, that it feels it can dispense with the need to assign its collective interests to a specialised political agency: it now wants to rule directly in its own name. Naked personal power is to be exercised by the owners of capital themselves. This is almost unprecedented. Only very briefly, around fifteen years ago, had isolated experiments along these lines been tried out before in Italy and in Greece, with the appointment in both cases of central bankers without previous political experience suddenly playing a direct executive role.

In the USA today power is concentrated directly in the hands of brash billionaires: the crooked property tycoon Trump and the venture capitalist multi-billionaire Elon Musk (soon to become the world’s first trillionaire). In a sense, this regime is the exact opposite of fascism. Fascism is the surrender of direct political power to an unaccountable dictatorship; Trumpism is the personal takeover of the functions of the state by a handful of capitalist oligarchs.

Trump – now the single most powerful individual on the planet – is a prime example of the most criminal, coarse, vulgar, corrupt, parasitic kind of money-grubbing market trader: not even a genuine entrepreneur, just a gambler, a property speculator. He creates no value, makes nothing, manufactures nothing, simply buys and sells at an astronomical profit. And he treats the presidency simply as a projection of his business: an opportunity to get rich quick. His first act as president was to launch a personal crypto-currency, an extortion racket which has raked in millions of dollars for himself at the expense of some gullible speculators. He sees the horror and devastation of the Middle East not from the standpoint of global diplomacy, not as a statesman representing the long-term strategic interests of the American ruling class, but as a property developer, a “real estate” profiteer. For him, Gaza is a lucrative investment opportunity: at one point he even said in so many words: “I will own it”. The Israelis having already done him the favour of demolishing its existing structures, all that still needs to be done is to sweep away its inhabitants and build a “Riviera of the Middle East” – a property speculator’s dream.

And his overall foreign policy wider afield also largely entails the acquisition of property: Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal zone, Gaza… and where necessary, to clear away undesirable populations: not just the people of Gaza (and also soon the West Bank), but also up to twelve million inhabitants of the USA itself. He seems to regard his role as president running the USA as just a sequel to his former TV “reality show”. His nasty catch phrase in that show was “you’re fired!”; and that’s just the message he has now given to millions of government employees. You could call this the Trump reality show writ large.

As for Elon Musk, although unlike Trump some of his enterprises do at least have something to do with actually making something useful, Musk himself is essentially just another investor of cash. He may or may not be an expert on cybernetics or cosmology or know anything personally about artificial intelligence or space rockets; he simply has a nose for how and where to invest and make a profit.

The political skills of the ruling establishment have become vulgarised and reduced to bluster, bullying and blackmail. In the hands of such types politics becomes simply “the art of the deal” (the name of Trump’s ghost-written book). But a state ruled directly by the oligarchy and lacking the diplomatic and strategic skills of a professional political caste can only end up in an almighty crash.

And that can only bring confrontation. So far there has been little overt resistance to Trump’s shock programme. But what is the future for the American working class? The imposition of tariffs will raise prices and depress the economy. The purge of state payrolls will push up unemployment. The expulsion of millions of migrant workers and the forced relocation of US companies from abroad will squeeze workers’ wages and conditions closer to third-world levels. Whatever illusions in the American dream still linger on will evaporate.

The youth and the migrant population have begun to protest, but the mass of the working and exploited and pauperised population have not yet stirred. It is inconceivable that they will remain silent. 

Big battles lie ahead. The outcome is uncertain; there is no guarantee of victory. The US working class no longer has the enormous potential industrial power it once had. It is no longer concentrated in heavy industry, but largely in retail, catering and delivery. But there has been a wave of unionisation in this sector, as well as strikes by teachers and railway workers. The traditions of organisation and militancy will be learned anew. Of one thing we can be sure: the last word is yet to be spoken.  

Terrified of a Peer Competitor, US Capitalists Make Up Stories About China's Goals.

Palmer Luckey

Palmer Luckey is a right-wing business magnate who is very much involved in the military industrial complex. He described himself as a “Radical Zionist” in one interview.

 

Luckey wrote this on X with regard to China:

"Taiwan is not the end state for China. All the people who think this fight over Taiwan is the real fight are missing the point. China believes that the Philippines is their territory. They believe that Korea is their territory. They also believe that North Korea is their territory but they like them as a buffer state with South Korea but that would change the moment they could actually capture South Korea. 

They even think that most of Japan belongs to them. They think that it's theirs. They've tried over and over for 1000s of years and even today, even publicly, they won't say they own all of Japan but they do maintain they own part of Japan.

 It is really dangerous to let people with millennia long ambitions of ruling those areas go unchecked. Because even if you don't give a shit about Taiwan, which you should because our entire economy runs on chips from them and until we figure out how to make them better or as good ourselves we have to keep them around, there's a lot of reasons to make sure we're spooking China on Day 8, Day 80, Day 800."

 

************

 

Arnaud Bertrand, whose comments I have shared on this blog in the past and who is on X as @RnaudBertrand takes Luckey up on his ridiculous and completely dishonest appraisal of China and some of its history. Luckey’s comments are not accurate and are simply right wing political propaganda, very common among the white nationalists, fascists, Christian nationalists, Nazis and others that are in the Trump menagerie.

 

Mr. Bertrand writes frequently on China and I think lives there. He is worth following if you are on X. I am not endorsing Mr. Bertrand’s political views (I am not that familiar with them) by sharing this excellent response on China.

 

 

This is so ridiculously wrong, I'm not sure where to start.

Arnaud Betrand

At no point in its thousand years long history has China invaded Japan, not once. Japan has however invaded China at least 3 times, most recently of course during World War Two. 

China does have some disputed territory with Japan, specifically the Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku Islands), which were part of China until 1895 when Japan annexed them together with Taiwan. These are very small uninhabited islands so it's utterly ridiculous to claim that China "thinks that most of Japan belongs to them". 

There's also the question of Okinawa, formerly the Ryukyu Kingdom, annexed by Japan in 1879. To this day there's a strong independence movement on these islands and many inhabitants descend from China (the Ryukyu Kingdom was a tributary state of the Ming and Qing dynasty) but China has never claimed the territory, either historically or today. 

China doesn't believe that Korea - North or South - is its territory. Same as Japan, at no point ever in its history has China invaded Korea. It has however defended Korea several times against invasions, be it from Japan during the Ming Dynasty or from the U.S. during the Korean war (which famously led to the creation of North Korea which, contrary to popular belief, is very much NOT a vassal state of China). 

China doesn't believe that the Philippines is its territory. They have a dispute over some islands in the South China Sea, most notably the Spratly islands which are claimed not only by China and the Philippines but also, in whole or part, by virtually all the other countries around the South China Sea. Very much worth mentioning: the Philippines' claim over the islands is much more recent than China's and most other claimants' (the Philippines starting claiming the islands in 1972 when China's formal claim dates back since even before the creation of the PRC in 1946). 

 

As for Taiwan, yes, the PRC claims Taiwan and literally all the countries in the world - including the United States - agree under the One-China Policy that Taiwan is part of China (although not part of the PRC). Heck even Taiwan itself officially agrees that it is part of China - its official name is the Republic of China and some 95% of their population are Han Chinese. If you go to the national museum in Taipei, you'll find the world's largest collection of Chinese art and artifacts, brought over by the Kuomintang when they retreated to the island, and the museum claims to embody 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. The reality is that the root of the dispute over Taiwan isn't about territory - it's about which government is the legitimate ruler of China, a civil war that never officially ended. To frame this as some sort of expansionist land grab completely misses the historical context. 

 

All in all, if one studies China's history within its region, it's probably one of the least aggressive great powers in history. Despite being the dominant power in East Asia for most of recorded history, China historically preferred diplomatic influence over territorial conquest. Even during periods of maximum strength, China focused on trade and diplomatic relations rather than colonization or territorial acquisition. You just need to look at the facts: China hasn't fired a single bullet on foreign grounds in over 45 years. Which other country can claim the same in today's world? The list is awfully short. 

 

It's absolutely insane to frame China as this sort of bloodthirsty warmongering power, especially when you're American... And it's even more disgusting to do so when you're yourself literally a weapons manufacturer, as is Palmer Luckey.

Seymour Hersh: How Trump’s ideologues and profiteers are wrecking the US government

How Trump’s ideologues and profiteers are wrecking the US government

SEYMOUR HERSH

FEB 17, 2025

∙ PAID

Elon Musk, joined by his son X Musk, stands next to President Donald Trump as he speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office on February 11. / Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.

Consider three premises about the current American leadership crisis.

One: there are many reasonable ways to trim the federal budget, and the most logical way to cut the budget is to start where it is most bloated—the Pentagon. Why not begin with the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, which went into use in 2015 after two decades of cost overruns that totaled more than two trillion dollars. Shutting up Washington’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will give solace to the nation’s banking and finance world, but not much else. (Its annual budget is $823 million.)

Two: President Donald Trump believes or wants to believe—not sure there is a difference—that Article 2 of the Constitution, which says that executive power is vested in the presidency, gives him what he has called “the right to do whatever I want.” Hence his constant talk now of running for yet another term in office.

Three: I have been told by those who know the US hacking community that the young members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency computing team now running amok inside the Treasury Department, where America’s checks are drawn up, would not have been granted a clearance had they sought computer jobs with the federal government. But there is little doubt about the skills of Musk’s young Turks and their ability to get proprietary information that would enrich their boss. Musk does billions of dollars in business with the federal government, and analyzing and evaluating the way various bureaucrats evaluate his firms’ contract proposals—and those of their competitors—would be of prime interest.

The other key players along with Musk are Russell Vought, recently confirmed as a director of the White House’s Office and Management and Budget, which is as important as it sounds, especially to the Musk operatives, and Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff. Both are political extremists. Vought was one of the principal drafters of Project 2025, a radical proposal for the current reshaping of the government that emerged from the conservative Heritage Foundation. The proposals terrified Democrats—though not enough—during last year’s presidential race. The more outspoken and pugnacious Miller, once a close ally of Steve Bannon, worked on immigrant issues during Trump’s first term in office from 2017 to 2021. He was known for his harsh views on immigration that included the separation of migrant children from their parents when they crossed the US border. Such action, Miller said, would deter parents from attempting to cross the border illegally. Miller, too, was on the advisory board for Project 2025.

There is a history of this kind of right-wing madness. Two decades ago, I wrote a series of articles about the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon, a secret intelligence unit that reported directly to Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense. It was staffed by a group of political zealots who were followers of Leo Strauss, a philosopher at the University of Chicago who believed that the work of ancient philosophers contained deliberately concealed esoteric meanings whose truth could be comprehended by only a very few and would be misunderstood by the masses.

intellectual followers included Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, and many members of the Office of Special Plans, They chose not to rely on intelligence that had been analyzed and vetted by professionals in the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, and instead were sending their deranged and fabricated intelligence about the nuclear threat from Iraq to Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. The result was an unnecessary American war in Iraq in search of a nuclear arsenal that did not exist.

Some survivors of those years remain closely linked to the philosophies of Vought and Miller and they have insight and knowledge to the current goals of those who are now collaborating with Musk to turn America into an intolerant right-wing state controlled by billionaires like Musk and a president who dreams of being king.

Here is an interpretation of what is going on, supported in my other discussions with computer experts, from someone who has a great deal of insight about the people and political philosophies involved:

“Trump was led to believe that most of those working with Musk’s team have been granted ‘Read Only’ access” to Treasury and other vital government computer systems, “but in many cases the youngsters have been able to embed code in the system they were monitoring. The kids are not downloading every single database of the US government but rather focusing on areas within the government that either relate to Musk’s various businesses, or the implementation of Trump’s broader ideological goals—for example, the Treasury payment system.

“Musk has tens of billions of dollars in contracts with the US government. All six of his companies, which include X (formerly Twitter); xAI, a rival to OpenAI; Neuralink, a brain implant startup; SpaceX, which includes Starlink, a satellite internet service; and the Boring company, a tunnel drilling firm); and Tesla, have netted a combined $20 billion in US contracts and subsidies, according to the Financial Times.

“Musk, either with or without the president’s approval, has the authority to review procedures and findings of the key personnel in those federal agencies that have the responsibility to reject or approve his contract bids, and then monitor the implementation of his federal contracts.

“Musk already has forced out several top managers in agencies responsible for monitoring his contracts and replaced them with people who have been with Musk, working in his different companies, for more than a decade.

“He is also getting into all the payout systems in the US government—that pay out $6.75 trillion annually.”

One expert I spoke to was especially critical of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has stated that he has only given Musk’s people “Read Only” access to the payout systems, which would bar downloading of files and the like.

Bessent either was not informed or not telling the truth, according to the person who initially told me about the easy access the Musk teams have had to the most complex and protected Treasury Department financial transactions. He told me that Musk’s people “have the capacity to see, download, and manipulate all of the government payments, including Medicare and Medicaid payments.” Theoretically, he said, members of Musk’s team, without any security or background checks, would be able to “overwrite authorized funds from the Treasury. Simply choke them off.”

The expert provided an example: Suppose Congress passes a bill authorizing a $100,000 payment to a unit of Planned Parenthood in Chicago. The Treasury Department, acting on Congressional instruction, is getting ready to write a $100,000 check and send it. If Vought or Miller is unhappy about the allocation, they can instruct Musk’s team to block the payment that was authorized by the Treasury. In that action, the expert explained, Vought and Miller had the capacity to override the Constitution, which delegates control of the federal budget to the Congress.

At this point, the expert said, Trump, Vought and Miller have “total control. Congress has approved all of their generally unqualified Cabinet posts and, now that they’ve had their way with Congress, they believe the judiciary cannot stop them.

“Vought and Miller are true Straussians in the sense that they believe, as did Strauss, that America must have an elite who would rule the country. All others are merely subjects. I don’t see the two of them looking to enrich themselves.“

Why aren’t the Democrats raising hell about it? Because they are in total shock.”

I shared the specifics that I had been told in a subsequent conversation with a prominent East Coast professor of computer science who did not wish to be named. He expressed alarm at the extent of Musk’s increasing penetration of America’s government payment system. Musk, he told me, was already benefiting from the chaos but not Miller or Vought. “Those two,” the professor said, “are not looking to benefit themselves. They are administrators—‘banality of evil’ ideologues and fundamentalist types—the hatchet people who carry out the plans of their lords and masters. Musk, on the other hand, is already benefiting from the chaos.

“I would argue there is a fourth level of control: culture. Starting with Trump and Musk, they have zero empathy, zero shame, and a longtime sense of entitlement that laws, norms, and standards do not apply to them. In turn they appoint folks with similar thinking—Vought, Miller, nearly all in the Cabinet—who will enable the more informed worker bees to run wild since nobody—not their boss, not the White House the Congress—unless it’s blatantly obvious or politically embarrassing. And then ‘something has to be done.’

“The only security culture in this regime,” he concluded, “is to protect itself from outside scrutiny.” 

Mondoweiss: Hamas calls Trump’s bluff

Shared from Mondoweis.net

Hamas calls Trump’s bluff

Hamas fighters during the release ceremony of female Israeli soldier Agam Berger held in Gaza since the October 7, 2023, as part of a captives exchange deal with Israel, Jabalia, January 30, 2025. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)

The Gaza ceasefire was cause for celebration, but no one believed that issues would not develop across the coming weeks. At the time it was unclear what Trump had promised Netanyahu, whether Israel would abide by the agreement, how the U.S. would proceed, and how the surrounding Arab countries might factor in. We are rapidly learning the answers to some of these questions.  As soon as the deal was inked, Trump began telling reporters that he didn’t expect it to hold. He became one of the only Republicans to acknowledge the destruction in Gaza, but that recognition gave way to an imperial twist: he had designs to take Gaza over and displace Palestinians from their homes. He envisioned condos on the water, as he’s wont to do. Where would the Palestinians go? Maybe Egypt or Jordan. Trump’s comments seemed to contradict statements made by fellow Republicans and some members of his administration, but he continued to double down. Then he generated more concerns by threatening to blow the ceasefire up himself. That threat came in response to the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas.  “They are emaciated,” declared the President. “They look like Holocaust survivors. So I don’t want to do two, and then we do another two in another week, and then we do four in three weeks now. No, no, they either have them out by Saturday at 12:00 or all bets are off.” “Let all hell break loose; Israel can override it,” he told reporters, referring to the ceasefire. Trump’s ominous comments were obviously worth attention, but the mainstream media largely missed the surrounding story. This phase of the ceasefire had already hit a snag. Not because of Hamas, but because Israel had (once again) failed to abide by the agreement. First, Netanyahu ignored the ceasefire talk deadline to meet with Trump at The White House. Then Abu Obeida, a spokesperson for Hamas’s military wing, said Israel had blocked Palestinians from returning to northern Gaza, prohibited humanitarian aid from being let in, and attacked civilians. More hostages would be released, said Obeida, if Israel “complies and compensates for the past weeks.” In the short term it seems like Israel is complying. “Thousands of tents and caravans have entered Gaza,” tweeted Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed on Wednesday. “The situation is becoming more stable, and aid has been flowing in consistently over the past hours.” “The same is true in terms of medical aid as local reports indicate that at least five medical aid trucks have gotten into Gaza during the last 24 hours,” he continued. “The ceasefire will likely hold as Hamas gears up to release the three Israeli prisoners on Saturday in exchange for dozens of Palestinian hostages. Israel is beginning to allow a surge of aid instead of a trickle.” “Looks like Hamas called Netanyahu and Trump’s bluff and won,” observed Electronic Intifada‘s Asa Winstanley. “It seems the Israeli-Palestinian exchange of captives that had been scheduled for this weekend but was suspended by Hamas this past Monday is now back on track,” said analyst Mouin Rabbani in a Twitter thread explaining the developments. “What happened? The short answer: Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, caved.” “In addition to Hamas’s refusal to roll over and play dead, there is most likely a combination of factors at work,” he continued. “Trump’s histrionics notwithstanding, it’s entirely clear a decision was taken in Washington that the agreement should not be derailed at this time, and that for it to continue Israel needed to fulfill more of its obligations.” Despite these facts, you can expect Trump to declare a definitive U.S. victory here. The fictional narrative writes itself. Trump demanded Hamas release more prisoners and they did. His base will dutifully buy it, in much the same way they bought the idea that the U.S. had bullied Canada and Mexico into accepting his tariff plan. There’s always debate about how much actual method there is to Trump’s madness. Does he simply spew nonsense off the cuff, or is every outlandish claim part of a wider strategy to make his actual plans more palatable? It probably changes from issue to issue, but it’s worth noting that he publicly disregarded his idea about withholding aid as soon as he met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Shortly after that meeting, Jordan and Egypt publicly rejected the idea of the displacement of Palestinians and said they wanted the region reconstructed without the ethnic cleansing. Trump also released a video addressing the people of Jordan, where he insists that King Abdullah is “a tremendous man ” and “one of the true great leaders of the world.”  This seemed like obvious damage control, as Trump publicly embarrassed Abdullah by droning on about his Gaza plan while sitting right next to him. Another backtrack that won’t be cited in Washington’s official version of events.

New Poll

This week Economist/YouGov released a series of polls and there’s some very interesting information on U.S. attitudes towards Israel/Palestine. The surveys reveal that Americans are more supportive of the Palestinians than at anytime since at least 2017. The pollsters note that the shift is mainly driven by Democratic voters. 35% of them sympathize with the Palestinians and just 9% with the Israelis. “In the seven-year history of Economist / YouGov polling on this question, Democratic sympathies for the Palestinians have never been this high relative to the share of Democrats who say they sympathize about equally with both sides, which has tended to be the largest group of Democrats,” the report’s authors note. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the poll is how thoroughly support for Israel has eroded since the October 7 attack. 34% of Democrats sympathized more with the Israelis in the immediate aftermath of the attack, while just 16% of them sympathized with Palestinians at the time. What do Americans think of Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza? 44% oppose it and just 21% support it. Interestingly, about one-third of Americans agree think that displacing the population would amount to genocide. We’ve seen many polls like this in recent years, but this one demonstrates how the assault on Gaza has only strengthened support for Palestinians among the American people. Obviously, there remains a massive disconnect between these sentiments and the actions of most Democratic lawmakers, but there’s no debate about where the base lands nowadays. Groups like AIPAC and DMFI might insist that being pro-Israel is good politics, but the numbers show that’s simply not true.  In a somewhat related note, Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) recently introduced a resolution condemning a potential U.S. takeover of Gaza. It’s important to remember that these (rare) efforts from Democrats reflect the position of their voters.

 

Where Black History Month intersects with the UAW Flint Sitdown Strike of 1936-37

By Frank Hammer *

February 11, 2025 marks the 88th Anniversary of one of the most profound labor struggles in the US - the 44-day occupation of multiple GM factories by militant auto workers in Flint, Michigan.  Referred to around the world as the Great Flint Sitdown Strike, it culminated in General Motors recognizing the United Auto Workers (UAW) as the sole bargaining agent at GM plants across the country, and agreeing to a first contract, which was all of one page.  

The role that Black workers played in that strike is very rarely mentioned, if at all.  There was Roscoe Van Zant, pictured above with some of the leaders of the successful occupation at Chevy Plant 4, the only Black worker who was actually part of the Sitdown.   Martha Grevatt, retired Chrysler Tool & Die Maker and former Trustee of UAW Chrysler Local 869, told about him in The Occupy that won the union published in Workers World (Feb 13, 2012). She wrote:

    

“One of the heroes inside Chevy 4 was Roscoe Van Zandt, an African-American worker. He stayed inside the plant from beginning to end. This was dangerous for a Black worker…At first, he kept to himself, but Socialists like Johnson and Howard Foster educated the white workers on the need for solidarity. There was one bed in the plant, and they gave it to Van Zandt.” A Sitdowner who knew him told Martha that he was “a natural leader.”

Martha, a member of Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), mentioned other African American workers:

“GM was a Jim Crow operation then. In most plants Black workers were only employed as janitors. The exception was the Buick foundry, where conditions were the worst, and Black workers’ jobs were the worst of the worst. The Buick plant was not on strike, but was idled, and Henry Clark and Prince Combs, in whose homes the dimly-lit organizing meetings had occurred, built support for the union. J.D. Dotson was a Black Communist who carried messages from one picket line to another and in and out of the occupied plants.”

I met J.D. Dotson in 1982 during one of the many Sitdowners’ “Pioneer Reunions,'' held during the summer in Flushing Park in Flint. I would go up with other Detroit auto workers to be part of the wonderful picnics attended then by a couple of hundred Sitdowners and their families.  Here’s my interview which appeared in the underground newsletter, Straight Talk published by rank and file members of UAW Local 909 at what was then the Chevrolet Motors plant in Warren, MI. 

We urged fellow workers to “read his remarks on the company’s tactics for keeping workers down and divided, and how the autoworkers overcame them.”  He was memorialized many years later in this artist’s graphite drawing: 

J.D. Dotson, in his own words

“For years the Black man was kept out of work in the factory.  The only time he worked was when the white man didn’t want to work.  There was no union, so when the white man would stop work and strike, the boss would go out and bring the Black man into the shop in box cars.  They had cots and we would sleep, eat, and work right there in the shop.  When the whites got hungry, they would come back and we would be turned back into the street like we were sheep.

At Chevrolet the only thing a Black could get was a mop and a broom.  At Buick we had some shake out job in the foundry that nobody did want.

You didn’t get water

You didn’t know from day to day whether you were going to work.  When we did, we worked from six in the morning to six or seven in the evening.

You didn’t get water.  They had one man who would come around with one of them old pint milk bottles, rinse it out and give you water.  We could drink water with one hand, watch for the boss, and keep working with the other hand. You had to eat right on the job with dust, oil and everything in the foundry.  You didn’t wash your hands because if you did, you didn’t have a job. This was not one day - this was everyday.

I remember a white man who was made superintendent and then he hired his brother. They would go around with old gloves and get them real dirty and nasty. If you said you needed a pair of gloves and your gloves were no good, he would give you a pair of the gloves he carried around with him. If you said you wanted a clean pair he would fire you. Some days you could take a toothpick and push it through the blisters on your hands - it would be so hot while you were trying to work. 

We hid in basements 

John L Lewis told us as long as the boss could keep white and Black separated, they were going to use both of us.  He said the only way we could get anywhere is to get organized.  There should be no discrimination. The Black man wouldn’t be offended by the white man because he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere without him.

In 1929 we started to organize in secret - five Blacks and two whites. We would go from place to place in open cars in zero weather to get a union started. We hid in basements. We couldn’t let nobody know what was going on, or they would go back in the shop and tell the boss.  

We were called “reds, commies” and were called “goons.” The big manufacturer owners called us this. If you were weak minded they would tell you, “don’t have anything to do with that man because he’s a “goon.” Anytime you were a labor leader and fighting to get the union started they would call you a “goon” or a “rebel rouser.” They couldn’t put us any lower, even though a lot of people didn’t know what the meaning of a “goon” was. 

We started under the AFL [American Federation of Labor]. Later on we got two unions in the shop, the AFof L and the CIO [Congress of Industrial Organizations]. We held an election to see which one we would use for our bargainers, and we accepted the CIO.

The AFof L, you see, was all white, and for years was skilled trades. The Black man couldn’t get into the unions until we brung in the CIO. The only way we got anything was when the union came into existence. That’s when we came into power.”

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You won’t find any information on the UAW’s website or facebook page about J.D. Dotson. He was a member of the Communist Party, USA, as were many of the other leaders of the Flint Sitdown strike.  Their history fell victim to the MCarthy-era witch hunts in the 1950s and a whitewashing of our UAW history by the Administration (Reuther) Caucus.*   It’s time J.D. Dotson and the others - men and women - were placed in a position of honor for having risked their lives for the UAW. 

 See “Sore Arm Blues” Flint Sit-down Strike 1937  

* Frank Hammer is Former President & Chairman at UAW Local 909, Detroit MI.