Charlie Kirk, Gun Culture and “Regeneration through violence,”

Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz

9-13-25

 

My birthday celebration Wednesday, walking among the beautiful Muir Woods ancient Redwoods, I made the mistake to check my phone for messages and found it bursting with news of an assassination by gun of the right wing darling, Charlie Kirk in Utah. 

It got me thinking of the scourge of gun ownership in the US, like no other country, mass shootings and assassinations. Utah and next door Wyoming. The two states have few restrictions on gun purchase, ownership, or carry, calling themselves “Constitutional Carry,” interpreting the Second Amendment of the Constitution. I wrote a book of essays on the Second Amendment. 

Order here

While doing, I ran on to a comment by the late Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson: “Without guns, there would be no West,” adding that his grandfather had settled in the Wyoming territory two years before Custer’s defeat by the Sioux and the Cheyenne nations at the Little Big Horn. 

He pointed out in another interview that in Wyoming, “how steady you hold your rifle, that’s gun control in Wyoming.” Here Simpson revealed that when firearms were no longer needed to appropriate Native American lands, the firearm became a representation of ongoing racist domination—a kind of war trophy—not just of Native Peoples and their territories, but of African Americans, brown immigrants and the non-European world. 

The degree of racist pathology inherent in this perspective has become so normalized that it was barely news when George Zimmerman openly auctioned the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin, selling it for $250,000 to a mother who bought the gun as a birthday present for her son. In his auction listing “Mr. Zimmerman touted the weapon, a Kel-Tec PF-9, as ‘an American firearm icon’” and vowed to help stop the Black Lives Matter movement.

 “Regeneration through violence,” is what Richard Slotkin calls the martial tradition that goes to the root of the founding and behavior of the U.S. settler-state in the world after the “closing of the frontier,” which continues to this day domestically in multiple violent forms.

 So we had our regeneration through violence on Wednesday, the horror expressed understandable, but not analyzed as revelatory.

Books: US Gun Culture, Outlaws and False Heroes

Order this book here

In the aftermath of yet another mass murder of children at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the gun debate is front and center once again. I commented on it in a video here and added a few more thoughts underneath.

I was asked about the US gun culture and its history by a friend in the UK and I thought it worthwhile re-publishing this post from 2017 about Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz's book, Loaded. I have not yet read this book but am familiar with her work focusing on Indigenous history in the United States. In the light of the massacre in Texas I think it will be useful to read this book.

 Here are the first few pages of a chapter from the book, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment.  The chapter is on Missouri Confederate guerrillas. In this short excerpt Ms Ortiz destroys a few favorite myths propagated by popular culture and the mass media about guns and the aftermath of the Civil War. It looks like a must read for those of us intent on unlearning official history. RM

 Here is one critic's review:

"Gun violence, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz compellingly shows, is as U.S. American as apple pie. This important book peels back the painful and bloody layers of gun culture in the United States, and exposes their deep roots in the killing and dispossession of Native peoples, slavery and its aftermath, and U.S. empire-making. They are roots with which all who are concerned with matters of justice, basic decency, and the enduring tragedy of the U.S. love affair with guns must grapple."—Joseph Nevins, author of Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment. San Francisco: City Light Publishers, January 2018. *

CONFEDERATE GUERRILLAS TO OUTLAW ICONS

I grew up in rural Oklahoma. Both my parents were born in western Missouri. My father, besides being a tenant farmer and rodeo man, was an actual proletarian cowboy who worked on a large cattle ranch in Oklahoma mending fences and herding cattle long distances before he married my mother.

 

In this world, stories of “Robin Hood” outlaw heroes were pervasive. These included the James Gang, Jesse and Frank; and the Younger Brothers, Cole, Jim, John and Bob, Belle Starr—dubbed the “Bandit Queen”—my female role model. I was, thanks to my mother, a devout Southern Baptist; yet it didn’t seem contradictory that these bandits broke nearly all the Ten Commandments, because they stole from the rich and gave to the poor, or so it was said. Not until I moved to San Francisco when I was twenty-one and took a college course in U.S. West History did I learn that all my heroes had been Confederate Guerrillas, associated with William Quantrill’s Rangers. They all came from middle-class families who bought, sold, and worked enslaved Africans, and who were devoted to the Confederacy, that is, the preservation of chattel slavery. This came as a shock, because by that time, I had for the previous four years taken sides in favor of the Civil Rights movement and despised racism, the main reason I left Oklahoma as soon as I could. I’ve been trying to figure out this disconnect ever since. But I do know that border-outlaw narratives have played a role in gun fetishism and a culture of violence and racism in the United States.

I was not alone in buying into the myths about these outlaws. Even in San Francisco, New York City, and beyond, during the folk music revival of the late 1950s, Woody Guthrie’s 1939 recording of the 1882 traditional song extolling Jesse James was revived and made the pop charts:

Oh, they laid poor Jesse in his grave, yes, Lord They laid Jesse James in his grave
Oh, he took from the rich and he gave to the poor But, they laid Jesse James in his grave
Pete Seeger recorded the song in 1957, followed by Eddy Arnold in 1959, the Kingston Trio in 1961, and in the 1970s, it made the charts again recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band as well as by Bob Seger; even The Pogues as well as Bruce Springsteen got in the act in the mid-1980s. It was recorded by dozens of other lesser known folk, pop, and country musicians.

And, there was a larger theme of sympathy for the slave South’s “Lost Cause” in the 1960s counter-culture. The Band first recorded “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” with lyrics by Robbie Robertson,77 in 1969, when they were closely associated with Bob Dylan, topping the charts in several categories; Joan Baez recorded it in 1971, with the same result, as did Johnny Cash in 1975. Liberal San Francisco music critic Ralph J. Gleason waxed eloquently on The Band’s recording: “Nothing I have read ... has brought home the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does...It’s a remarkable song, the rhythmic structure, the voice of Levon [Helms] and the bass line with the drum accents and then the heavy close harmony of Levon, Richard and Rick in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn’t some traditional material handed down from father to son straight from that winter of 1865 to today. It has that ring of truth and the whole aura of authenticity.”

Virgil Kane is the name...
Back with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me “Virgil, quick, come see,
There goes Robert E. Lee!”
Now, I don’t mind chopping wood And I don’t care if the money’s no good You take what you need
And you leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best
The night they drove old Dixie down And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down And all the people were singing

This was a post-World War II composition mourning the Confederate defeat in the Civil War, written by Robbie Robertson, also a member of The Band and one of the most celebrated of the many musicians, writers, and producers coming out of the 1960s. He is also Mohawk, his mother from the Six Nations Reserve outside Toronto, Canada, his father Jewish. Not having grown up in the United States, Robertson likely had very little knowledge of the Civil War, but Joan Baez did and was a pacifist and an icon of the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the time. It seems that the sanitized lore that views bloody, murdering, Confederate guerrillas as righteous outlaws continues to be deeply ingrained in United States culture.

And, it wasn’t just the music counterculture, but also mainstream pop culture. True Grit, a best-selling 1968 novel by Charles Portis, also serialized in the popular mass-distributed magazine The Saturday Evening Post, was made into a blockbuster movie in 1969, featuring John Wayne as the fictional Rooster Cogburn, former Confederate guerrilla with Quantrill. John Wayne won the Academy Award for best acting the role as the good-hearted drunken antihero who proves himself a true hero. Ethan and Joel Cohen did a 2010 duplicate remake of the film for the new generation starring Jeff Bridges in the John Wayne role, accompanied by a new edition of the novel with an afterword by bestselling author Donna Tartt, which reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list.

The 1976 film, Outlaw Josey Wales, directed by Clint Eastwood, the script by Forrest Carter adapted from his 1972 novel, The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales, featured a Missouri Confederate guerrilla played by Clint Eastwood, based on the true story of Bill Wilson, a folk hero in the Ozarks. After Union troops murder his wife and child, Wales refuses to surrender at the end of the war, seeks revenge, and guns down the Union man that killed his family. He then flees to Texas with a bounty on his head. In the film, Josey Wales expresses his world view: “Now remember, things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. Cause if you lose your head and give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.”

Forrest Carter, who wrote the script for Outlaw Josey Wales, is the pen name of Asa Earl Carter (1925-1975) who was a leader in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s and a speech writer for the segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace in the 1960s. He changed his name and successfully turned to writing, first the Josey Wales book, then in 1976 what claimed to be a memoir, The Education of Little Tree. The story is told by an orphaned boy of five years old, being raised by Cherokee grandparents who called him “Little Tree,” with stereotypical noble savage actions and settings, perfect for the growing “New Age” appropriation and distortion of Native ways. At the book’s release, The New York Times published an article outing Forrest Carter as Asa Carter, former Klansman. It was not a big secret, as Carter had run for governor of Alabama in 1970. The article reported, “Beyond denying that he is Asa Carter, the author has declined to be interviewed on the subject.”

Carter died at age 53 in 1979, beat to death in a fight with his son. His literary fame faded. There had been no questioning of Carter’s claim of Cherokee identity until the University of New Mexico Press bought the rights to The Education of Little Tree in 1985, and published it as non-fiction in 1991. The book took off and became the number one best seller on The New York Times best-seller list and won the American Booksellers Book of the Year award, and became a much loved book. The Cherokee Nation denied that Carter was Cherokee, and Carter’s Ku Klux Klan background was once again revealed, leading the Times to shift the book to its fiction list. Despite calls from the Native American academic community and the Cherokee Nation that the University of New Mexico Press withdraw the book from publication, instead they changed the cover, removing the “True Story” subtitle and reclassified it as fiction, but the biographical profile did not change to include Carter’s Klan activities and the lack of evidence of his being Cherokee; it remains one of their bestselling books. Oprah Winfrey had endorsed the book when it was published, but removed it from her recommendations in 1994.

Clint Eastwood, directing The Outlaw Josey Wales, featured several stereotypical Native American characters, written by Carter, and performed by excellent Native American actors, Geraldine Keams as a love interest, the elderly Chief Dan George as his spirit guide, and Will Sampson as a protector. In the script, there is no mention of slavery even though Wales was a Confederate guerrilla who rejected the Confederate defeat.

Two other widely viewed films—Bonnie and Clyde and Pat Garret and Billy the Kid—glorified gun violence of real-life outlaws who were not Confederate guerrillas, but have contributed to those narratives being folded into ones of the Wild West even though Bonnie and Clyde were bandits in the Great Depression era, and Billie the Kid’s short life ended in 1882. With Bonnie and Clyde, Arthur Penn broke through to mainstream box office triumph and was embraced by the counterculture of 1967 at the same time. The film was noted for the bloodiest scenes in film history, and starred Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 film, Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, featured the popular musician and songwriter, Kris Kristofferson as the Kid, and a memorable soundtrack by Bob Dylan, who also played a cameo role.

How did it happen that popular culture transformed Confederate guerrillas into celebrity Western gunfighters, merging them with actual Western gunfighters, and what has this phenomenon contributed to the culture of violence, racism, and gun love in the United States?

* Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a tenant farmer and part-Indian mother. She is the author of many books, including Outlaw Woman, a memoir of the 1960s and her time in an armed underground group, and the acclaimed An Indigenous Peoples' History ofthe United States. She lives in San Francisco.

The Texas Massacre at Robb Elementary School

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
GED/HEO

5-27-22

 

I am sure that there will be some, including friends that disagree with me here and those that agree but think I am not being realistic, that what I suggest will never happen and that we have to do something now. I understand this sentiment and agree we can take some half measures and do some things, like better gun laws, that may temper some of the worst abuses that the so-called free market imposes on us. But our goal should be to make everlasting changes.

 

I once read somewhere that while the idea of revolutions or social transformation of the present is normally seen as almost impossible, after they occur they are remembered as the inevitable reaction to social crises. Also, I try to keep these video thoughts short and there were other points I would have liked to make.  So I’ll add a couple of them here.


One thing when we are talking about violence is to consider how many people die every year in the US because of the pathetic social services we have and in particular, health care. These deaths far outnumber gun deaths you can bet on it. And as Cedric Johnson points out in the preface of the book, The Panthers Can't Save Us Now,  nearly all of the Democratic Party leadership who are screaming about gun laws and safety and how horrible this crime is, and who "took a knee" against racist policies, during the height of Black Lives Matter movement "...have openly opposed Medicare For All, free higher education and the expansion of other public goods."

 

Another important cause of the despair and alienation that consumes people in society is that there seems to be no solution; so there is no hope at all. Combined with all the reasons I refer to in the video this is devastating. Seeing no alternative, people seek solutions in all sorts of ways like religion, hero worship, narcissism, sexual obsession and so on. Religion, which promotes the destructive idea that human nature is selfish, rotten and inherently evil and the escape can only be found in the afterlife assuming you worship the right deity is the most common.

 

In this state, all sorts of conspiracies can find root like the fear that foreigners, people that don’t look like you or speak the same language or worship the same god are about to consume you. The prevalence of identity politics is part of this escape and is an attempt to undermine class solidarity, workers seeing ourselves as having distinct class interests with millions upon millions of others, of being a class un to ourselves, this is a terrifying prospect to the ruling class and proponents of capitalism and the so-called free market. We are in a struggle for the consciousness of the working class. If you want to see how important class is, consider the image of Michelle Obama with her arm around George W Bush referring to him as her “friend” and “partner in crime. Our enemies know all too well what class solidarity is and practice it religiously.

 

As one person commented on Facebook today:

"CLASS is not a demographic. It's not a liberal categorization that fits into intersectionality. It doesn't compete for attention or resources with marginalized groups.

ALL WORKERS of ALL MARGINALIZED GROUPS have CLASS in common.

 

Class politics serve us all."

 

Working class unity is the only solution to eliminating the added oppression marginalized people suffer, or what socialists refer to as the “specially oppressed” peoples, and we fight for all marginalized groups within the framework of uniting the class. We cannot transform society without this approach. But this is different than identity politics or intersectionality, an individualistic reactionary approach no matter what its supporters say or write about it.

 

Also, please subscribe and "like" this video on You Tube if you have a general agreement with it and also share from this blog on FB or on You Tube.

12 Important Points from Jacobin’s Latest Issue: “Reduce the Crime Rate”

I am not alone on the left in being critical of the Jacobin Magazine as the author of this review points out. But like him I have also read a few, not too many, very good articles in the past and this is one of them. I recall two in particular that I posted to this blog and this is another one. I think I will republish them. Excellent material here. We share this commentary from The Multiracial Unity Blog. The author is Joseph G Ramsey.

Capitalism can't live without racism. We can't live with it.

Don’t Judge an Issue Just by Its Cover – 12 Important Points from Jacobin’s Latest Issue: “Reduce the Crime Rate”

by Joseph G. Ramsey

November 27, 2021

It’s not enough to judge a left journal by its cover. A recent case in point: people in left social media circles of late have been taking shots at the democratic socialist magazine Jacobin’s latest issue (https://jacobinmag.com/issue/lower-the-crime-rate), with its provocative (and maybe confusing) cover bearing the slogan “Lower the Crime Rate.” A range of radical voices online have reacted to this cover as if it amounts to a kind of endorsement of police repression in liberal guise. But actually the lead articles inside the issue are, in this comrade’s view, quite good. From the Opening Statement by Benjamin Fogel to the interview with Marie Gottschalk, the contents here are valuable for the way they highlight major blindspots structuring liberal and much “left” common sense and activism around policing, prisons, and the carceral state these days. The issue deserves wide engagement, as it can help us to see more clearly some of the real challenges that lie before us in terms of radically changing the system of “criminal justice” in the USA. One need not share Jacobin‘s emphasis on electoral politics (or the specific organizational vehicle of the Democratic Socialists of America) to find value in the magazine’s pages.

Among the main takeaways:

1) That last year alone 21,570 people in the USA were murdered, a significant surge from the years prior. It follows that the widespread left talking point that the rise in crime is all an imaginary product of right-wing hysteria and sensationalist mass media is false. The USA is between 3 and 30 times more violent than its wealthy “peer nations”; violent crime remains a reality structuring US working-class life. It follows that would-be working-class organizers need to take it seriously.

2) That a black person in the US is 35 times more likely to be killed by another civilian than by a police officer. The US Black population’s murder rate exceed that of all countries on earth, excepting Jamaica and El Salvador. The 1000 or so people killed by police each year in the USA remains a perpetual outrage, but we must not allow this outrageous police violence to lead us to neglect the real problem of violent crime in this country, a problem which disproportionately affects Black (and poor, and Latin@ and Native) people.

3) That polling shows that a vast super-majority of Americans at present (apparently 86%!?) want the police to spend as much or *more* time in their neighborhoods as they do now, even as strong majorities think that “policing requires major changes” (58%) and think that “police violence is a serious problem” (79%). Such (contradictory) numbers can certainly be read symptomatically–as reflecting dominant media, politicians’ framings and general social fears–but, even so, police abolitionists thus have, to put it mildly, a lot of *persuading* to do if they are going to build a majority that can make such a change viable in most parts of the country.

4) That while the Black incarceration rate in the USA is off the charts compared to other countries (as is now well-known), being around 5 times that of the white incarceration rate in the US, even the incarceration rate for white individuals alone is still 4-15 times the incarceration rate of Japan and Western European countries. Thus, to frame the expansion of imprisonment in the USA as simply a “New Jim Crow” or an expression of anti-Black “systemic racism” is clearly inadequate. Even if the US released every single Black prisoner tomorrow, this country would still be imprisoning more people than any other country on earth. Framing incarceration as primarily an anti-“Black” problem risks blinding us to half the problem, and half of the potential mass base for its transformation.

5) That the main driver of mass incarceration in the US has not been non-violent drug offenses–and certainly not non-violent offenses linked only to petty drugs like marijuana. (Such marijuana only offenses amount to only around 1% of those in prison.) Even if ALL prisoners whose primary charge is a drug offense were released tomorrow, that would reduce the prison population by only 20%, still leaving the US by far the main jailer in the world. Drug decriminalization then, however correct (and this author mostly supports it), does not yet speak to the heart of the problem: a growing punitiveness in US society and government that is at once increasing the violence of this society, while responding (and often compounding) high levels of real violence in the society more generally. (The place of property crimes here deserves more attention than the Jacobin issue provides.)

6) That there are more than 200,000 people in the US serving “life sentences,” many of them without even the prospect of parole. This is more than many countries incarcerate at any one time, for any amount of time, and around the *total* number of prisoners held in the USA before the prison boom and the “war on crime” launched in the late 70s. It represents a startlingly state-sanctioned condemnation of our fellow human beings, a mass policy of flushing people away without even the hope of rehabilitation or redemption.

7) That in the USA today, more $$$ value is stolen by employers via “wage theft” each year than the total $$$ of property stolen as a result of “robberies, burglaries, larcenies, and motor vehicle thefts.” Thus, even without going deeper to the Marxist point that all wage-labor involves a kind of theft through exploitation, the employer class is a massive source of criminality, host to a massive amount of robbery.

8)That the hundreds of billions (if not trillions) of dollars of private and corporate wealth that is held (often “legally”) in tax havens like the Caiman Islands or Panama is not only a massive social theft of tax resources from the people, but also creates a swamp of shadow banking and underground finance that attracts, feeds, and enables organized crime the world over.

9) That crime among the masses can and should be viewed not as right-wing (or liberal) invention to justify militarized policing, but as a genuine “index of oppression,” “born out of poverty and the miseries of capitalism.” As such, it requires action not just (and not primarily) at the level of policing or public safety (though the reality of these levels cannot be bypassed), but a deeper social transformation of the entire economic system. The goal of bringing down the crime rate, and thus the widely felt need for expansive policing, requires a broader kind of *abolitionism*, one aimed at abolishing poverty, abolishing homelessness, making quality health care (including mental healthcare) as well as quality education available to all, providing sustaining and meaningful employment to those who currently lack it, and generally redistributing wealth and power downward to reduce the vast inequalities in our midst.

10) That, within the current system, the kind of radical reforms above are going to *cost much more* than the current state strategy of intensive policing and punishment. Shifting the resources from existing police institutions to social programs, public health, or prevention, however well intended or symbolically powerful, will *not* be anywhere near enough (by a factor of more than 10). Indeed, to the extent that a focus on “defunding the police” takes our focus off of fighting to expand the total federal and state revenues for things like universal healthcare, public housing, jobs programs, as well as redistributive progressive taxation, it risks becoming a self-defeating endeavor. (Furthermore, some studies show that underfunded police departments may in fact become *more* abusive, not less.) We need to keep our eyes on the real prize.

11) That the current system response to the economic stagnation since the 1970s has in many ways been a response based on not only social control priorities of the elite, but controlling things on the *cheap,* keeping taxes on the rich and corporations low, maintaining profitability, etc. We should be honest about the massive social investments–and the need to expropriate the social wealth controlled by capital and the rich–that will be necessary for this kind of program of radical reform. You can’t squeeze public health and social safety from the bloody budget of a SWAT team or a Bearcat.

12) Reducing the glut of guns in the USA, shifting drug offenses from the frame of “crime” to “public health” would all be good things, and transferring the deadly militarized budget surpluses of US police to social programs and community based crime prevention initiatives would also (aka “Defund the Police” or even better “Demilitarize the Police”). So would ending the CIA, whose criminal anti-communist crusades have seeded the terrain for organized crime and drug trafficking for generations. But without deeper transformations in Americans political consciousness and society, reforms (radical or moderate) at the level of policing are not only unlikely to accomplish the ends of harm reduction, but may in fact play into the hands of far-right politicians who love nothing more than to run on “law and order,” as if their policies of increasing punishment, surveillance, militarization, and racist profiling are the only way to keep communities “safe.” The left cedes the ground of serious public safety to the right at its peril.

Joseph G. Ramsey teaches English and American Studies at UMass Boston, where he is active in the Faculty Staff Union (FSU/MTA) and in struggles to defend public higher education.  He is presently working on a book recuperating the critical communism of Richard Wright: <

https://newpol.org/recovering-the-dialectic-of-race-and-class-struggle-in-the-usa/&gt;

 

Settler Cowboys, White Nationalists, Fascists. Protest in Richmond VA

They like to dress up.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

We have not seen too much of it on the highly censored and controlled US mass media, but French workers took to the streets by the thousands the past couple of months in a general strike. Using their real power as workers at the point of production, they have forced a (temporary) halt to the attack on pensions by the capitalist state. Weeks of disruptions, deadlock, halting of profit taking Organized power did this.  Real social power not macho posturing.

Meanwhile here in the US on a holiday to celebrate Martin Luther King, some 50,000 white nationalists of various stripes are protesting in Richmond Virginia for the right to buy more than one handgun a month. Militia members, white nationalists, fascists and those ever present remnants of the Anglo American colonial settler community that are here by the grace of God according to them, are hoping to bully the Virginia legislature in to reversing gun control laws the Democratic controlled legislature has pledged to introduce.

There have been threats of violence and calls for the second American Civil War

Lee Carter a Virginia state legislator, who claims to be a socialist, says in the Guardian that, “A lot of people [have been] saying, ‘We’re going to kick off the second American civil war,” he said. “This guy is going to be the first one to die. Make sure you show up armed.”

The US Predator in Chief is jumping on the bandwagon appealing to his racist white nationalist base to protect the Second Amendment and vote for him. As usual, this is another one of his lies as no politician is calling for the banning of guns or taking guns from people.  When I bought my first handgun, the guy at the counter asked me if I was of a sound mind and I replied that I was. That was it. No sane person objects to equally sane laws about firearm possession

Virginians overwhelmingly support background check and red flag laws, and gun extremists are in the minority: On election night, Virginians sent a clear message: the time for common-sense gun safety legislation is now. Gun safety was the number one issue for voters in Virginia, and in November both chambers flipped to gun sense majorities — even in the NRA’s own backyard. And just this week, new polling by the Center for Public Policy at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University continued to show that a bipartisan majority of Virginians favor gun safety laws, with large majorities supporting background checks and red flag laws. Source: Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense

The National Rifle Association (NRA) Trump and various right wing racist organizations have appealed to supporters from other states to attend the rally, happening as I write.

From reports I have read Antifa is marching with the right wingers and neo Nazis which should reduce the chance of violence. This I hope is not the case. Defending the right to own guns is not an issue we need to march with fascists for in any shape or form. 

The election of Trump has emboldened these forces that have always been here. The instances of hate crimes and racist and homophobic attacks have mushroomed since the Predator was placed in the White House by the undemocratic Electoral College.

My inclination is that there will not be violence there. The law allows open carry in many states and they will take advantage of this. But in my opinion, just like their approach on the Internet, they like to remain fairly anonymous. The feeling of a gun on their hip is pleasure enough for them, they wouldn’t want to ruin it.

This does not mean that there will not be some serious violence in the US in the coming period as the era in which the two parties of capitalism dominated US political life for over 100 years is coming to an end. We are in a new phase in the US and throughout the world. It is hard for many workers in other countries to grasp the level of censorship in the US mass media. There is considerable isolation here although the Internet has changed that.

A study released just yesterday published some interest results. It found that “globally, 56% of respondents said that capitalism in its current form does more harm than good. In the U.S., that percentage was slightly lower at 47%. In several other developed economies, distrust of capitalism was higher, for instance at 53% in the U.K. and 69% in France. Fewer than 20% polled globally said the system was working for them personally.” Wall Street Journal

This is why we are seeing huge protests throughout the world against austerity and the capitalist offensive. Lebanon, Chile, France, a General Strike of some 200 million in India. Iraq, Iran, Ecuador, China, throughout the world a global movement is trying to find its feet. The US working class has a rich militant history in its struggle against the most ruthless ruling class on the planet.  From the European invasions and Native resistance, the opposition to slavery, the battles to build the unions in the second half of the 19^th century, the women’s movement, the CIO and industrial unionism in the 1930’s and the Civil Rights battles that followed, we have a lot to be proud of.

The US workplace is more integrated than ever before. The US military is somewhere around 40% minorities and women. There are more interracial families than ever before. The trade union leadership with their 14 million members in crucial industries as is usually the case, say nothing. And it is their disastrous role that has not only delayed the eventual movement of the US working class on to the scene but also contributed greatly to the rise of Donald Trump. But that will not last.

It is not a time to despair.

Arkansas Politician Tells The Truth About Racist US Gun Laws

Richard Mellor
Afcme Local 444, retired

I had to get out of bed at 1:00 am to put this on our blog here.This is a very powerful and righteous condemnation of Stand Your Ground laws in the US and the implications of that in the South. For followers of the blog abroad Stand Your Ground Laws exist in a number of states and they exist in states where open carry is the law. Open carry means you can wear your gun in public. Stand Your Ground is a defense that you felt your life may be threatened or are in danger and you have a right not just to  remove yourself from a situation but to engage.

This all sounds very democratic but it is giving the average citizen the same rights that the US racist state gives it police and security forces. You "feel" your life may be in danger you can kill anyone and get away with it, it happens day in day out here.

Many black males in particular, have been murdered using this excuse. For those living outside the US, you might argue that well, can't black folks carry openly and use the same law? Of course they can, but the law is not equal in its application. Not only does the law and justice system have a class bias as it is written and upheld by representatives and institutions of capitalism, it is racially biased as well.  I completely understand this woman's anger here, in fact, it's amazing she is as restrained as she is. As I say I got out of bed I was so moved by her here, it makes me want to meet her, a genuine working class woman too. I have friends from Arkansas.

Trayvon Martin who was guilty of eating a bag of skittles in neighborhood that had a predator named Zimmerman who was acting as some sort of sheriff never found the courts very useful. There are just too many black folks murdered by the police and armed racists that it is a real crisis here in the US. This woman is speaking as a concerned parent more so than trying to make a political point. Those that question black folks concerns over this issue and the institutional racism they face in society deserve our condemnation. And how is walking around with a gun strapped to your hip not threatening, not bullying and intimidation. I am not a pacifist or opposed to gun ownership.  Does open carry and the macho cowboy Stand Your Ground Law really contribute to the creation of a safe and secure environment where we can debate and disagree over issues? No it does not, it is antisocial and racist. It's backward and barbaric and a conscious introduction of vigilante behavior. What it does is that for all the media hype about individual rights in the US, it denies the individual, the right to protection by society and its institutions. And anyone that would be honest, knows that such vigilantism will negatively affect black folks most of all.

Brave Gay Kentucky High Schooler Has His Say

I read some comment that said we should hold our tongues if we haven't read the whole speech. I have to admit I have not. But if there are those that have and think it was right to deny him his graduation speech perhaps they can comment below and share their reasons why. If there is justifiable reason we will reconsider. RM

US Congress: Where Corruption and Religion Live in Peace

Mike Crapo: Deregulate banks so they can help our communities.

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people.” Eugene Debs

It is somewhat hypocritical to say the least when US capitalism’s mass media rants on about corruption and graft in the political bodies of the former colonial and now thoroughly imperialized nation states.  Sometimes their governance is referred to as “crony capitalism as opposed to good American as apple pie Little House on the Prairie capitalism here at home.

But there is no body politic in any bourgeois democracy that is as thoroughly rotten as the US Congress. The politicians are all millionaires or billionaires and their votes are bought and sold like shares on the stock exchange. The disgust among the populace is so prevalent that the “no vote” party is the big winner in most elections. In 2016, 55.7% of the US voting age population actually cast ballots according to the US Census Bureau. This puts the US way behind other advanced capitalist economies of the OECD.

Looking at the most recent nationwide election in each of the 35 OECD member nations, the U.S. placed 28^th according to the Pew Research Center.

Another influential group in the US Congress is the Evangelicals and other religious elements, Trump’s VP is Mike Pence, a right wing born again Cristian. US foreign policy in the Middle East is hugely driven by Christian mythology as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is seen to be the playing out prophecy in the book of Revelation that reads like a Grimm’s fairly tale. Much of Trump’s base is the Evangelical movement and nothing fazes them when it comes to Trump, they’re like a US Taliban.

They’re not alone mind you. I read today that the Republican Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, the aptly named Mike Crapo, a Mormon from Idaho, wrote to the heads of Citibank and Bank of America expressing his “concern” when large national banks, “cut off financial services for lawful business they may disfavor”. Both banks stated they would reduce business with the gun industry in the wake of the Parkland school shooting in February this year. Mormonism is a religion founded in 1830 by a middle class American from a mercantile/farming family named Joseph Smith. According to Smith, he had a number of dreams (visions they like to call them). In one of them he saw Jesus and his dad, (god). He was also visited by an angel who led him to a buried book and some “golden plates”. In my limited knowledge of Mormon history these plates contained Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. Sound familiar? This club has some 16 million members and lots of money.

Anyway, I’m sure Senator Crapo’s concern about lawful businesses probably doesn’t apply when religious conservatives object to funds for Planned Parenthood or gay marriage or other such demonic practices.  Crapo might be guided by his faith but his faith is buried deep in his bank account.

Crapo opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and is ardently anti-abortion supporting a 1998 bill that made it illegal for minors to cross state lines to get one avoiding parental consent laws. He also supported a bill, bizarrely named the Hearing Protection Act, that would make access to silencers easier.

Last month the Senate passed a “milestone bank deregulation bill that would mark the biggest rollback of financial rules since the 2008 market meltdown.”

"This bill shows that we can work together and do big things that make a difference in the lives of people across this country" Crapo said of it. How short sighted one is when one thinks only of one’s profits. This comes not too long after the crash and the bailout of the banks by the US working class. The rotten system that people like Crapo defends was dragged from the edge of the abyss by taxpayer money and socialist type legislation.

Like all of them Crapo is an opportunist. After seeing the infamous video showing Trump talking about grabbing women’s genitals and the like he withdrew his endorsement of the serial sexual predator and called instead for support for another anti-worker anti-woman born again Evangelical candidate Mike Pence. Pence was raised Catholic but saw the light. Pence is also from a small capitalist background. The source of so many cults, crackpot religions and other frenzied attempts at discovering the real meaning of life arises from the petit bourgeois as does fascism and individual terrorism.  Lawyers, millionaires, religious fanatics all capitalists and worshipers of the market dominate the US Congress.

The NRA has many of them in its pockets as do all the major corporations. Industry lobbyists, more often than not, former Congressmen infest the place. In the 2016 election alone, the NRA spent $11,438,118 to support Donald Trump and another $19,756,346 to oppose Hillary Clinton. In total, the NRA spent $51,854,687 during the 2016 federal election cycle.

Crapo received $81,000 from the National Rifle Association. I’m sure that it wouldn’t affect his political decisions though, that would be a sin. He got busted for drunk driving in 2012 pleading guilty in Jan 2013. Consuming alcohol is forbidden for Mormons too, but he apologized and god is very forgiving. Trump is forgiven, he’s been born again and humans aren’t perfect.

They have born again, Catholics have confession. The religion business is very adaptable.

Youth throw NRA and its capitalist gun industry onto defensive.

Chicago March 24

Facts For Working People (FFWP): Thanks to the magnificent movement against gun violence led by the Youth.

On March 23^rd, 800,000 people marched against gun violence in Washington DC. The protests were in response to irresponsible gun laws and the ease with which people can buy just about any kind of weapon in US society. Tens and tens of thousands more marched in another 800 locations throughout the US. Many solidarity marches took place around the world. 

This movement in the US is led by the youth. Only youth speakers were allowed to address the 800,000 at the march in Washington D.C. so the platform was not dominated by millionaire celebrities. Speaker after speaker in Washington and around the country condemned the NRA, the lobbying group for the gun manufacturers, the bribers of politicians, the bag men and women for the profit addicted gun capitalists. Speaker after speaker called for people to get out and vote and to vote against any candidate, Republican or Democrat or of any other party that took money from the NRA and that did not support common sense gun regulation. 

It appears that a new movement has begun and one that represents a new phase in US society. A phase which will be marked by the anger that exists amongst the majority of the population in US society expressing itself in great struggles and also through the electoral process. This represents a change in the consciousness in sections of US society.  

When Trump was elected President through the fraudulent, undemocratic Electoral College in 2016, Facts For Working People Blog in the weekly Conference Calls of our Think Tank, explained that in our view, Trump's election would result in a stepping up of the offensive of US capitalism against the working class, against minorities and women, against the environment and against the albeit minor regulations that exist to try and restrain the worst excesses of capitalism. Part of this stepped up offensive has been the massive tax cut to the rich, the removal of regulations from Wall Street and the big banks, industry and the environment and also the increased talk of war. On top of this, Trump's own racism and sexism has encouraged the most backward elements to show their faces. 

There is an extreme overconfidence and arrogance among the US and international capitalist classes. This results from the collapse of Stalinism and the refusal of the leaders of the workers' organizations, in the US the leadership of the trade unions, to fight. This arrogance, over confidence and stupidity was summed up in the recent statement of former Republican Senator and former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Rick Santorum. He condemned the youth for walking out of their schools to demand a change in the gun laws and told them instead that they should learn CPR. In other words, he advocates that nothing be done to try and stop the shooting of the students, instead students should learn CPR to try and help their classmates who would continue to be shot as the present status quo remains. This is Rick Santorum’s insulting contribution to a much needed debate.

This overconfidence and arrogance of Santorum's and of the capitalist class in general, is coming back to haunt them, is giving life to the movements now taking place. 

The view of Facts For Working People at the time of Trump's election was that the increased capitalist offensive that Trump represented would be met with an increase in struggles against that offensive. This is what we are now seeing. The women's marches for women rights and against sexual harassment and discrimination, the anti-racist movements and the anti-police violence movements, the 40,000 who marched against the Nazis and racists and chased them out of Boston, the defend the environment movements, the movements to increase the minimum wage, the victorious West Virginia teachers and education workers strike in defiance of their own union leaders, the threat of more teachers strikes, the uptick in union organizing such as the vote to unionize at the viciously anti union Los Angeles Times and there are now calls from sections of the high tech industry as coders are attempting to organize. And most recently and most dramatically we have the youth led movement on guns. All these developments are the beginnings of the counter-offensive of working people, minorities, women and youth against the capitalist offensive presently led by the racist and sexist thug, Trump.

In our weekly conference calls, one subject of discussion has been US working class history and its militant traditions.  After periods of defeat great explosive movements have taken place which have brought about changes in society. In the 1930's there was the rising of the working class that built the union movement from just over 2 million to over 12 million as the industrial workers entered the organized working class in huge numbers. In the 1960's there was the Black revolt which forced the US capitalist class to retreat on some of the worst racist aspects of their rule and the rise of the women’s movement that forced changes such as the legalization of abortion. Also in the 1960's there was the movement against the Vietnam war both at home and also with opposition and outright revolt in the ranks of the US military in South East Asia. 

It is likely that we are at the beginning of a similar period now in the US. A new period when great mass struggles will explode and when capitalism will be forced to retreat from its offensive, at least temporarily. It is a mistake to be too definite when we try to look into the future. It is necessary to be conditional as major events can cut across developing processes.  One such event could be an attack on North Korea. However it is highly unlikely that Trump will launch a war on North Korea or for that matter on Iran. The more sane sections of the US capitalist class will probably stop him. However, if he did, then this could change the process of events in the US and around the world. 

It also has to be kept in mind that the present economic situation will not last and a new deeper recession or possibly an outright slump lies ahead. This would also change the consciousness.  It is also inevitable that catastrophic events arising from climate change and the pollution of the planet’s water, land, air and food by capitalism will take place. All or any of these would come to dominate consciousness and events and cut across the existing processes. So activists have to be conditional. However while there is, and while there will be, reactionary elements in the unfolding events, most likely these events will influence developments in the direction of more criticism and action against the present unfolding catastrophe that capitalism means to life on earth. 

It has been said that the art of revolution is to combine analysis of the objective situation with subjective action. That is, revolutionaries have to try to figure out the phase through which we are passing and what should be advocated and what should be done. The youth led movement and the other movements referred to are magnificent. They must be fully supported. However it also has to be noted and pointed out that the leaders of these movements in the main are new to political struggle.

Maryland High Schoolers in Washington in February

They are under great pressure from opportunistic forces.  One such pressure is the liberal capitalist media which fawns over the leaders of this youth movement, present them on their TV shows and in doing so make every effort to ensure that there is no discussion about the realities that gun violence is driven by the wider crisis in capitalist society, alienation, despair and insecurity, and by the addiction to profit of the capitalist, market driven gun industry.

This liberal capitalist media plays the role it usually does when new movements arise, it seeks to direct them into safe channels for capitalism and prevent the issue of capitalism from being discussed at all. They played and play a similar role in the movement against sexual abuse in society. They kept all discussion of the need to organize into fighting democratic unions to fight the sexual predatory culture of capitalist and class based society off their airwaves and out of their newspapers. This liberal capitalist media seeks to channel all such movements, trap all such movements,  in the capitalist Democratic party.  

It is the task of revolutionary socialists to be part of these this youth movement and all these movements, to learn from these movements, to exchange ideas with these movements and to seek to assist these movements to see that capitalism is the problem, and seek to assist these movements to see that it is only a united working class through mass struggle that can end capitalism. 

Earlier this month, those of us that participate in the FFWP blog’s weekly conference calls discussed the gun rights question and out of that discussion issued a statement expressing what we think the approach should be. We would like to invite our readers to look at this, consider our views and see if they appear to be helpful to take the movement forward, and we also invite our readers to add to these views, strengthen and if necessary correct these views. Readers can also contact us and work together with us to these ends. 

Facts For Working People: Statement on Guns and US Society

In FFWP's view the greatest mistake at the moment would be to underestimate the effect of the events that are taking place in US society and the potential of these events for bringing about change. The youth movement in particular affects just about every area of US society. It challenges the gun capitalists and their lobbying arm, their bag men and women of the NRA. The NRA was used to funnel money from the Russian capitalist regime of Putin to Trump's campaign and Putin's capitalist regime influenced the 2016 election through the Internet. Trump is now being increasingly challenged by the Mueller investigation on this. The youth movement, by going after and weakening the NRA will add impetus to the investigation of Trump, increase the anger against Trump and increase the likelihood that he will be brought down. The weakening of the NRA will also weaken the most right wing section of the capitalist political machine - the Republican party.

The youth movement will also have an effect in the US military which is fighting its longest ever war and other wars abroad under the guise of US capitalism’s so called War On Terror. Some 40% of the military are minorities and women so the women's movement and the movement against sexual harassment will have its effect in the military where sexual harassment and abuse is endemic. The movement against racism and racist police and state violence and gun violence and the opposition to the attacks on immigrants and trans-gender, gay and lesbian people will also have its effects in the military. The impact the youth movement is having will also add impetus to the increasing calls of workers to organize into unions and also to the small up tick in strikes that is taking place. 

And all this is happening prior to the coming recession or slump and as environmental crises loom. These coming upheavals are being hurried along by Trump. Despite giving US capitalists their tax cut and deregulation, Trump is being abandoned by the most conscious sections of the US capitalist class. He cannot even get an efficient lawyer. US capitalism is not in good shape. US capitalism is under threat on the political, economic, military and environmental fronts. And things are only going to get worse. The struggles that are taking place will continue and new struggles will unfold.

However US capitalism has some breathing space. The reason is that the US working class is not acting as a class, does not see itself as a class, is not building an independent movement, is not organizing the unorganized, is not building a mass workers' party and taking on the capitalist offensive and capitalism. And the main reason for this is that the US trade union leaders who control organized labor are pro capitalist-----they see no alternative to capitalism. They do not believe that the working class can build an alternative to capitalism. They are also pro capitalist because they do not want to lose the perks they get from their positions as leaders of the trade union movement. So they cooperate with capitalism in its offensive. They prevent and repress any serious opposition to capitalism's offensive.

To win their demands, the West Virginia education workers had to defy and defeat their own union leaders. Read more here: West Virginia Educational workers defy union tops and defeat bosses. The shape of things to come. While recognizing the class collaboration role of the trade union leaders, these struggles such as the youth and women and anti racist, and anti police violence etc., that are now unfolding should seek to build a base in the working class, in the work places and in the rank and file of the 14 million strong union movement in order to draw this movement into the struggles that are unfolding as we explain in our article on Guns and US Society. 

While understanding that the trade union leaders are holding back the workers' struggles, FFWP advocates and works to build organized opposition movements in the rank and file of the existing unions and in the workplaces and link these to working class communities. Opposition forces, to be successful, must oppose the pro capitalist leadership with the aim of replacing them and their pro capitalist policies. The present trade union leadership not only hold back the struggles. They actually oppose any victories of workers. They do so because victories would expose the falseness of their policies of concessions, their claim that victories cannot be won, that concessions to the bosses are the only way.  There will only be any change in this when the pro capitalist union leadership  reach a place where an organized opposition is built which threatens to replace them. Then some sections of these leaderships may engage in struggle. But most likely only to be able to put the brakes on the struggle, to prevent it from challenging capitalism. The aim of building an organized opposition is not to pressure the pro capitalist union leaders but to replace them and their pro capitalist policies. 

Finally, a word on the various self styled revolutionary groups and also the leaderships of the recent activist struggles. Many of the leaderships of the activist movements have fallen into the trap of identity politics. FFWP while insisting at all times that the working class has to fight all special oppression wherever it exists has insisted that victory against all special oppressions can only come about by a united working class movement with an organized anti-capitalist leadership. For this FFWP has been accused of being class reductionist and other such epithets.  We respond to these criticisms here.

This youth movement shines the light on all those forces, groups and individuals who want change. In doing so this youth movement exposes the incorrectness of identity politics. Its leadership is made up of all races and all genders and all sexual orientations. Its leadership understands that in order for it to succeed it must unite students from all backgrounds in a united movement. Groups which push identity politics are silent in this youth movement. They are silent because if their politics were adopted by this movement it would divide and wreck it. This youth movement realizes the need for a united movement and is explaining that ending the violence in the schools is not enough. It is explaining that there must be an end to the violence in society and especially in the working class and minority neighborhoods where it is prevalent. The identity politics groups and individuals must draw the lessons from this movement. Their divisive policies would only splinter and wreck mass movements. This is why they are not heard, why they are irrelevant in this movement, why they do not fight for their position in this movement.  Their silence confirms the incorrectness of their policies. However their silence does not mean they recognize the incorrectness of their policies. They are keeping quiet for the moment but they will speak again when there is a lull in the youth movement. 

On the self styled revolutionary socialist groups - there are a myriad of these groups in existence. They have failed to put down roots in the working class. Some of the founders of FFWP Blog and Think Tank were once members of these groups. However, set backs, failures, defeats, inability to put down significant roots in the working class, and also it has to be said some victories, helped those of us who were once in those groups to drawn lessons and openly work to correct our mistakes and way of working. Some of the lessons we have drawn have allowed us to develop this Blog and our Think Tank and our conference calls and continue our work.

Just about all the self styled revolutionary groups have a number of things in common. One is they think they know everything and are always right on everything.  Despite when this, we should say un-Marxist position, un-dialectical position, of always knowing everything and being right on everything is inevitably and time after time shown by events to be incorrect, the leaderships of these groups refuse to admit their mistakes and suppress any voices in their ranks that refuse to go along with this denial. This is one of the reasons why the internal life of all these groups is undemocratic. Why leaderships exist who impose their will in one way or another. 

There is also the narcissism and egotism of the leaderships of these groups. Their narcissism and egotism pushes them to seek out the slightest difference, to exaggerate the slightest difference, they are only happy when they can find a difference, they only feel useful when they can find a difference. They seek to portray just about any difference as a fundamental difference and a reason to split. There are exceptions to this. We note the working together of different revolutionary groups in Argentina. 

FFWP wants to help build a new movement to challenge capitalism. We understand that such a movement will have to be a movement of tens and tens of millions. It is inevitable such a movement will have great debates, differences and internal struggles. The internal life and method of work in general of the existing self styled revolutionary groups will never be able to bring together the tens of millions of fighters in the mass revolutionary organizations that are necessary to end capitalism.  Such mass organizations will inevitably develop in an organic living fashion. This means they will have differences and debates within them and this in turn means they will have to have a democratic internal life. The self styled revolutionary groups that exist at present cannot tolerate differences and genuine debate and a democratic internal life and one which allows the formation of factions to organize debate on particular issues. They are continually seeking reasons to split instead of seeking to find a basis to work and struggle together, to identify which differences are fundamental and which are not and which can be lived within the one organization and which cannot. 

There are many more people who consider themselves revolutionary socialists outside the self styled revolutionary groups than are inside these groups. This is proof there is something wrong with how these groups function in their activity in the working class  and also internally. 

There are people inside these groups who are not content with this situation. There are many people who wish to build a revolutionary socialist group but have been put off or are repulsed by the undemocratic sectarian methods of the existing self styled revolutionary groups. FFWP wishes to help build a revolutionary socialist movement with a healthy democratic culture. A different culture, one which understands that different views are not only inevitable if a movement develops a mass base, but also are crucial and necessary if a movement is to clarify its ideas and to put down roots in and learn from and test its ideas with the working class. 

This new youth movement against the gun laws and gun culture in the US and all the  struggles that are unfolding are bringing and will bring millions more people into struggle. Those who consider themselves against capitalism and are for the working class internationally to use its collective power and collective brain to end capitalism and build a new democratic socialist sustainable planned world must learn the lessons of the past------must unshackle their thinking. Must help build within all these struggles and in a non-sectarian manner a revolutionary socialist current with a healthy democratic culture. 

FFWP seeks to help to this end. We wish to work with others to this end. We request all those who have similar views and objectives to contact us and discuss the possibility of participating in our weekly conference calls to further develop and clarify the ideas. And also contribute articles and reports of their work and struggles for FFWP's  Blog.