Sometimes when I am writing a phrase from my literary background pops into my mind; I am not always sure why. This time it was William Blake’s “Enough! or Too much” from his “Proverbs of Hell” in his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
New Year Musings: “Enough! or Too Much” By Sue Ann Martinson
I had been listening to comments from Robert Reich on the Coffee Klatch program on Saturdays that he does with cohost Heather Lofthouse. Reich is talking about the excesses in Trump’s authoritarian edicts and his behavior, the hate rants and racism, his narcissistic behavior as he wants his name on everything from the Kennedy Center to peace plans that never seem to work out, to his condemnation of anyone who disagrees with him or challenges him and what he says. He has, in effect, lost touch with reality and has taken Congress and the Supreme Court with him. Reich’s point is exactly what this proverb, the last of the Proverbs of Hell, represents: You Never Know What is Enough Unless You Know What is More than Enough.” Trump’s rantings and ravings are certainly more than Enough (or Too much), as are his inhumane and cruel actions.
Reich sees this beginning of a sea change as positive, a move toward sanity by the American people as they recognize Trump’s excesses in word and deed.
But like all Blake’s proverbs the application can be broader than the literary sphere: It applies also to Trump’s excesses revealed in their naked truth, which is what Reich understands and sees as a catalyst as cracks begin to show between the GOP Congress and Trump. More and more people also are signing on to oppose him, as reflected in the polls that rate him and his presidency at very low levels as increasing millions also join in the No King demonstrations.
In Minnesota, especially Minneapolis, Trump’s slurs about the Somali people and attacks on Representative Ilhan Omar have activated an already Woke community to take continued action — in what Roger Waters calls “steadfast perseverance” — by many activists, including religious groups as well as those who take to the streets to confront ICE regularly. Governor Walz has spoken out, as has the mayor of Minneapols Jacob Frye. Attorney General Keith Ellison has joined with Attorney Generals from other states as well in lawsuits. The Minneapolis City Council has declared Minneapolis a Sanctuary City.
Nor have we forgotten the genocide Gaza/Palestine as those actions and protests and educational programs continue as well.
Last, but certainly not least, 15,000 people marched down Lake Street in the center of the city on the cold and windy day of December 20, 2025 in protest of ICE.
ADDENDUM
Other Work by William Blake
Wm. Blake is known for his satirical poetry and the art he created that often accompanied it. An “activist,” he was once tried for sedition for an “anti-monarchy” statement but was acquitted. His activism is really through his writings. Blake’s most accessible and popular work is Songs of Innocence and Experience. Simply written, and illustrated by Blake, the poems reflect the warts on the face of English society and culture.
***All writers will want to read the following analysis by Tony Trigilio of the proverb under discussion, “Enough! or Too much,” for its insight into the writing process.
Like most writers, my creative process is rarely linear. It requires recursive movement between free-form generative writing and disciplined self-editing. This dance between drafting and revision can be a delicate one. If I linger too long in the generative stage of the process, I can find myself tangled in a free-associative clump of language with no shape or coherence. At the same time, if I linger too long in revision, I can easily get stuck, Prufrock-like, in a self-critical loop of “decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”
This movement back and forth between drafting and revision would be far more difficult if not for one of William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell,” from his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:
“You never know what is enough,” Blake writes, “unless you know what is more than enough.”
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The most common misconception about the free press of the western world is that it exists.
By Caitlin Johnstone, December 1, 2025
Every fu**ing time. The mass media do this every fu**ing time the US empire gets war-horny. And the Murdoch press are always the most egregious offenders.
Reminds me of an old tweet by a man named Malcolm Price:
“I remember in the run-up to the Iraq War a friend I had known all my life suddenly said to me, ‘We must do something about this monster in Iraq.’ I said, ‘When did you first think that?’ He answered honestly, ‘A month ago’.”
Price’s friend had been swept up in the imperial war propaganda campaign that had recently begun, just like countless millions of others. Month after month after month western consciousness was hammered with false narratives about weapons of mass destruction, forced associations of Saddam Hussein with 9/11, and stories about how much better things will be for the people of Iraq once that evil tyrant is gone.
Normally it never would have occurred to the average westerner that a country on the other side of the planet should be invaded and its leader replaced with a puppet regime. That’s not the sort of thing that would have organically entered someone’s mind. It needed to be placed there.
So it was.
The most common misconception about the free press of the western world is that it exists. All the west’s most influential and far-reaching news media publications are here not to report factual stories about current events, but to manufacture consent for the pre-existing agendas of the US-centralized western empire.
They report many true things, to be sure, and if you acquire some media literacy you can actually learn how to glean a lot of useful information from the imperial press without losing your mind to the spin machine. But reporting true things is not their purpose. Their purpose is to manipulate public psychology at mass scale for the benefit of the empire they serve.
This doesn’t happen through some kind of centralized Ministry of Truth where sinister social engineers secretly conspire to deceive people. It happens because all mainstream press is controlled either by plutocrats or by western governments in the form of state broadcasters like the BBC, both of which have a vested interest in maintaining the imperial status quo. They control who the executives and lead editors of these outlets are, and those leaders shape the hiring and editing processes of the publication or broadcaster. Reporters come to understand that there are certain lines they need to color within if they want to get articles published and continue advancing their careers, so they either learn to toe the imperial line or they disappear from the mass media industry.
If people had a clear understanding of everything that’s really going on in our world, they would tear the empire apart brick by brick. If they could truly see how much evil is being done in their name and really wrap their minds around it, and if they could understand how much wealth the plutocrats are getting out of the imperial status quo compared to how little they themselves benefit from it, there would be immediate revolution. So the oligarchs and empire managers shore up narrative control in the form of media ownership, think tanks, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, imperial information ops like Wikipedia, and now increasingly through billionaire-owned AI chatbots to ensure that this never happens.
The entire empire is built on a foundation of lies. The whole power structure is held together by nonstop manipulation of the way westerners think, speak, act, shop, work, and vote. If truth ever finds a way to get a word in edgewise, the entire thing would collapse.
We know this is true because the oligarchs and empire managers pour so much wealth and energy into manipulating our minds. They’re not doing this for fun, they’re doing it because they need to. If they didn’t need to, it wouldn’t be happening.
So what they are doing is intensely creepy and destructive, but it’s also empowering, because it shows us right where their weak spot is. They’re pouring all this energy into controlling the dominant narrative because that’s the weakest point in the armor of the imperial machine.
What we need, then, is a grassroots effort to help truth get a word in. Help people understand that they’ve been propagandized and deceived about the world by western media and by their power-serving education systems every day of their lives, because propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening to you. Sow distrust in the imperial media and institutions. Open people’s eyes to the fact that they’re being lied to, and help them learn to see the truth. Anywhere the empire is sowing lies and distortions — whether that’s in Venezuela or Gaza or somewhere else — use that opportunity to help more people unplug their minds from the propaganda matrix.
A better world is possible. The first step in moving toward it is snapping people out of the propaganda-induced coma which dupes them into settling for this dystopian nightmare instead.
DEMOCRACY NOW! December 3, 2025
Today’s DN! Updates the ceasefire in Gaza that isn’t as Israel continues its deadly genocide, explaining about the attacks by groups of Israeli’s who are then just observed or are joined by Israeli military. These raids in the West Bank and Gazans are often by Israeli settlers who stole their homes and olive groves in thr first place. They also cover the exiting of Gazans from Palestine and whether or not they have the right to return.
Amy and Juan then interview Ralph Nader who has been a watchdog of the Democratic Party and of Congress for 60-odd years. To cut to the chase he recommends Impeachment as the most effective way to render Trump’s dictatorship, which is blatantly unconstitutional as seen in so many of his actions. Another of Nader’s points is that America is not as divided on the issues as it seems. The consistent “blame the Democrats” knee-jerk reaction of Trump is designed to divide the American people because to divide them serves his propagandized platform and also a greedy mainstream corporate media they loves all conflict.
Nader discusses his new book CivicSelf-Respect and then stays around to comment on the next segment about a new film that documents the WTO demonstrations in Seattle in 1999. This was a nonviolent demonstration of at least 40,000 people from around the county. Larry Weiss, representing local labor groups, called a meeting (I was there) explaining the demonstration against corporate power and recruiting people to attend. And a contingency of Minnesotans did go to Seattle.
Another segment focused on Minneapolis/St. Paul and the attack by racist bully Trump on sending ICE against the large Somali population. Most of the Somali’s are here legally. Besides being small business and shop owners, many of the men are truck and taxi drivers. They are contributing to the economy. I see them often in various places, both men and women. I seriously question Trump’s statement that 88% are on welfare. We know he lies all the time to convince people to follow his cruel and barbarian policies.
Here the Nader interview:
For more information view on video (available on YouTube) or listen to the podcast of Dec. 3, 2025 of Democracy Now!
The Occupation of the United States by our Rogue Government
The Great Betrayal and Trump’s imitation of Nazi Fascist Tactics.
Editor’s Note: At the end of this article you will find a video of a System Update by Glenn Greenwald featuring his rebuttal of Stephen Miller, who drives much of Trump’s racist program. In addition, The Guardian has published information they have received of another Trump cohort, tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, who cofounded PayPal and whose latest travesty is Palantir, a software that now works with the Department of War and with ICE in analyzing data, among other corporations and government agencies.
Over the past month, Peter Thiel has hosted a series of lectures philosophizing about who the antichrist could be and warning that Armageddon is coming. Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Images
Here is text from talks given by Thiel who had barred reporters and anyone from recording or replicating his talks in any form of public information; the series of four talks attracted large audiences consisting of primarily young white males. The Guardian obtained the excerpts from an anonymous source. Here are Thiel’s influences:
The Silicon Valley heavyweight drew on a wide swath of religious thinkers, including the French-American theorist René Girard, whom Thiel knew at Stanford University, and the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, whose work he said helped create the core of his own beliefs. He credited the English Catholic theologian John Henry Newman as the inspiration for his four-part series, saying: “Newman did four, so I’m doing four. I’m happy about it.”
In the midst of his antichrist hype and meandering, he says:
Then of course, the global financial architecture we discussed is not really run by shadowy international organizations, it’s basically American. And perhaps always a very important feature is the reserve currency status of the dollar, where it’s sort of the backstop for all the money. The petrodollar regime, there’s sort of crazy ways you have trade deficits, current account deficits, but then in all these ways, the money gets recycled into the US.
This comment folds in with an offhand comment I heard the other day online about money laundering, Thiel is all over the place in theology; he basicallly sounds somewhat confused if not mad. But money (and how to make it) he understands. However, if the money does get recycled to the U.S. it goes to the corporations, gas and oil and war industries, to the billionaires, not to the common people or for the common good. And many Americans are beginning to understand this fact.
IMITATION OF FASCIST TACTICS
ICE
The most obvious tactic and strategy right now is ICE with unlimited power. ICE was created during Trump’s first term.
ICE stands for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal law enforcement agency within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for enforcing federal laws governing immigration, trade, and border security to promote national security and public safety. Created in 2003, ICE was formed by merging the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, giving it a broad range of civil and criminal authorities to address threats related to immigration and trade. (Definition: Google AI)
It sounds in bureaucratise like a good thing, whereas it is a deadly consolidation of law enforcement with intelligence and other government agencies. The power of their enforcement arm was enhanced by funding from the passing of the Big Beautiful (Ugly) budget biill this year and ICE police now roam the streets of our cities with impunity and cruelty, arresting and jailing immigrants and other “suspicious” people for deportation.
Needless to say, almost all of these arrests are of people of color. The ICE police are simply an imitation of Hitler’s SS/Gestapo:
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany, infamous for its brutality and use of terror to suppress political opposition and persecute minority groups. During the Holocaust, the Gestapo arrested and persecuted countless individuals, using extreme violence and torture to enforce Nazi policies. (Definition: Google AI)
Soon after the article was published an incident proving their coordination and use occurred in south Minneapolis, an Hispanic center of the city, under the rubric of being a drug raid. No doubt there is a drug trade in the Twin Cities, but this “raid’ had the hallmarks of an excuse for ICE, whose officers were present, along with FBI and some anonymous law enforcement who refused to be identified, and local police, The community responded by turning out in large numbers to protest their presence.
ICE-Led ‘Homeland Security Task Force’ Raid Draws Large Mobilization in Minneapolis: Feds Leverage Assistance from Minneapolis Police & Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office; Debut Action of New Task Force Shocks Lake Street Community; Anonymous Federal Police Identify as “The Others” on Nameplate.By Dan Feidt, Unicorn Riot /
Interestjngly, the drug trade is also named by the Trump administration as the reason for the raids on speedboats off the coast of Venezuela in international waters, which is illegal by international law. In one such attack 11 people were killed. Speculation is that they were immigrants, not drug-trade criminals. If it was a boat smuggling drugs why were many people in it? If connected to drug smuggling there would only have most likely been two or three.
Education
In regard to student protest Hitler’s action was swift and cruel. A group of students who were leafletting against Hitler called the White Rose were simply arrested and beheaded along with their faculty advisor.
Jewish professors under Hitler suddenly found themselves without a job with no good reason for their firing.
The destruction of academic freedom around Palestine/Gaza and the suppression and punishment of student protesters and their allies:
Trump has singled out and attacked professors who support the students and who support academic freedom and are against the genocidal bombing of Gaza. He has attacked faculty and students on many campuses around the country, starting with Columbia and most recently the University of California in Berkeley.
Only Harvard has had the resources to challenge the Trump administration that has threated colleges and universities nationwide with withdrawal of federal funds unless they comply with the demanded actions. Currently their lawsuit is awaiting a ruling by a judge regarding an agreement reached. However, the government shutdown may hold back the decision.
In the case of Berkely Trump and his cohorts have gone even further, targeting 160 faculty and closing down the office that dealt with these issues of academic freedom.
Note: As of Oct. 4 2025 Gov.Gavin Newsom defended his intent to withhold state funds from any California university or college that signs on to Trump’s demands to essentially silence student and academics who support Palestine or question Trump’s education agenda that curtails free speech. This defense continues.
Education programs based on DEI are under attack:
A concerted and multi-pronged attack on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts in education is underway in 2025, driven by political pressure, new federal policies, and state laws. This has led to the dismantling of DEI programs in hundreds of schools and a climate of intense scrutiny for institutions that maintain them. (Google AI)
The Camps
The Trump administration’s camps that hold immigrants illegally, without due process of law, usually before deportation, are not quite as severe perhaps as gassing people to death in “showers” as Hitler did. But the conditions have proved to be terrible, with the Florida “Alligator Alcatraz” being an example of the worst with inadequate toilet facilities, no medical care, maggots in inadequate food, etc.
Many people have already been deported; some are holders of green cards and even U.S. citizens. Often they are shuffled into inadequate spaces to hold them under inadequate facilities. Some are deported back to countries they left as political refugees and fear for their lives, others are sent not to their countries of origin but to places where they have no history with the culture and may not even speak the language. Daily, hourly, people are grabbed from rhe street by the ICE police, sometimes with the aiding and abetting of local law enforcement.
Racism
As you can see the practice of racism is woven throughout the polices of the Trump administration and the Heritage Foundation’s project 2025 with blatant evidence of rampant racism. White supremacy reigns with all its fascist implications. The false idea of a superior race flashes in white neon in front of you every step of its fascist way. The dominance of the corporation typical of fascist governments is also obvious with attempts to privatize what should be government functions.
Shutting down DEI in corporations has been controversial. Target immedately stopped the DEI programs started under the Biden administation, resulting in a national boycott. COSCO on the other hand has vowed to keep its DEI program. Those are just two examples of many corporations. A list of those who ended their programs is here. Many have been boycotted and have lost money; Target is a prime example.
Here is a list of companies who have defied the Trump administration around DEI.
Some parallels that may not seem to be so obviously connected.
Military Build-up
Hitler’s obvious build-up of the military led by the SS, also included conscription of the “common man” into the military and focus on building it as a fighting force. Along with building an army, sophisticated weapons were built and used while the rest of the world was behind Germany in their development at the beginning of Hitler’s invasions.
Trump and Co. have continued with their military build-up started in the his first term. It just gets worse and worse. Secretary of War (formerly Department of Defense before Trump renamed it) Hegseth called a gathering of U.S. military to a meeting that Trump spoke at, threatening more occupations of U.S. cities besides LA and DC that have strong antiwar movements with the excuse that they have high crime rates. Examples are Chicago and also DC whose crime rates have actually gone down recently. Such manipulation of the truth is a Trump trademark. He has now included Portland and threatened other cites of a blue stripe, that is, he is targeting cities that voted Democratic in the last election and not for Trump. Out and out revenge. Portland is the latest city to have troops sent in. All cities targeted are “blue,” dominated by the Democratic Party.
Religion
The support of Trump and his agenda by the fundamentalist Christian church has been blatant. Hitler also had the support of a majority of Christian clergy and theologians in the Christian Lutheran Church in Germany. The pope, headquartered in Rome at the Vatican in Mussolini’s Italy, did not speak out against the Holocaust genocide.
One exception in Germany was Lutheran minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who spoke out and was even involved in an unsuccessful plot to kill Hitler that he was imprisoned for, and then executed as the liberating troops approached the camp where he was incarcerated. He wroteLetters and Papers from Prisonand succeeded in smuggling the manuscript out of his prison. The book is now a classic and still read widely. This book, read in college in a history of religion class, was influential in my becoming an activist.
Propaganda/Lies
In visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. a number of years ago I was able to visit a special exhibit regarding the heavy use of propaganda against the Jewish people. There are, for example, copies of newspapers that accused Jewish people in grotesque caricature of starting wars they had nothing to do with and other crimes. Also there is a poster about disabled people rhat questions whether money should be spent in taking care of them.
Recent lying manipulations include after the shooting of Charlie Kirk when Trump immediately declared that the ‘left’ was responsible although statistics prove that actually more shootings are by right-wingers..
Another incidence was the signing of an executive order declaring Antifa a terrorist organization when Antifa is not even an organization. This move is considered a pre-warning that Trump and Co. will try to attack legitimate non-profit organizations that have said something they do not like; their attempt to sllence them is a violation of free speech.
The range and amount of propaganda and outright lies by Trump and the Trump administration increases every day. They are often covered or rather uncovered on alternative media such as System Update by Glenn Greenwald and many others. But they are not usually uncovered by the mainstream corporate media.
The Media
Attacks on journalists have escalated, especially in and around Gaza. Many have died in their courage to reveal the truth of the genocide. Most are not western journalists but some are. Many are from Al Jazeera. Many are Palestinian. Some are independent. Numbers differ, but well over 200 have been killed according to the United Nations and others. An actual number is difficult to pin down because of different methodologies in counting.
The Western Mainstream Corporate Media, led by The New York Times and Washington Post, have basically been pro-Israel over the Palestine/Israel issue and conflict, especially since Oct. 7, 2023 when the initial attack by Hamas took place. Yet just recently—and at least in part from UN Gaza rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s statement that Israel’s bombings constitute genocide — here have been some articles that are not as pro-Israel. She opened door for the governments of Western nations to formally condemn the bombings and recognize what Israel is doing as genocide although that has not stopped governments from arresting pro-Palestine protesters.
In a recent vote in the UN Security Council all voted against the genocide and for the Palestinians except the U.S. When Netanyahu spoke to UN representives on his recent visit to the United States, they staged a walk-out; he spoke to a virtually empty chamber.
As you undoubtedly know a ceasefire and hostage exchange program is now taking place. But Israel still claims Gaza as theirs.
Ukraine
Trump continues to make deals, the only way he knows how to operate, but seems to get no place. Many see the conflict as just between Russia and Ukraine, others see it as a proxy war between the U.S and Russia and consider it part of the hegemony struggle for world domination. The U.S. losing its world domination, its imperialistic empire, which it is desperate to maintain; the struggle is playing out in part in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the current rogue rulers have escalated it into an even ‘hotter’ war with missiles going back and forth between Ukraine and Russia.
The U.S. mainstream corporate media remains for the most part a tool of the government and government policy.
Art and Culture
Hitler banned artists of all types from producing any work that criticized the Third Reich. That ban included paintings, poetry, fiction, dance…all the arts.
A filmmaker named Leni Riefenstahl made two seminal films for Hitler:
In the 1930s, she directed the Nazi propaganda filmsTriumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938), resulting in worldwide attention and acclaim. The films are widely considered two of the most effective and technically innovative propaganda films ever made.
Trump has followed in Hitler’s footsteps by taking over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC and pushing to name it after himself. Trump and Co. have gone through the Center removing any art that is “woke” in their estimation.
In general Trump’s regime has frowned upon and is complicit in banning many artists and musicians such as Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame — and winner of the World Beyond War 2025 Artistic War Abolisher Award — and also singer/songwriter David Rovics: They both have had cancellations on planned tours including in Europe; Rovics has had much of his music removed from the internet.
Corporatism and Fascism (Google AI)
Corporatism is an economic and political system in which major interest groups, like labor unions and employer associations, are integrated into the government’s structure. Fascism, a radical, authoritarian political ideology, uses a specific type of corporatism as a central economic tool to exert control over the state and eliminate dissent. While corporatism can exist in other contexts, fascist corporatism is distinct in its use for totalitarian ends.
Corporatism as a Concept
Ideological roots: Corporatism developed in the 19th century as a “third way” between laissez-faire capitalism and communism, advocating for class collaboration over class conflict.
Organizational structure: The theory organizes society into “corporations” or guilds based on economic sectors, like agriculture, industry, and professional services. These bodies are meant to represent the interests of their members and work with the government for the national good.
Wider application: Outside of fascism, corporatist models have been incorporated into other political systems, such as the social democracies of Nordic countries, where unions and employers negotiate with government mediation.
Corporatism within Fascism
State control: In practice, fascist corporatism became a tool for state domination rather than genuine negotiation between interest groups. The “corporate state” in Benito Mussolini’s Italy, for example, was designed to reflect the dictator’s will, not the adjusted interests of economic groups.
Suppression of labor: In the fascist model, the state destroyed independent labor movements and outlawed strikes, ensuring that organized workers could not challenge the regime. The government created its own controlled “unions” with appointed, not elected, leaders, which served to benefit major business owners.
National interest over individual: The core principle was that the national interest superseded the interests of individuals and social classes. Workers and employers were compelled to collaborate under state supervision to maximize economic output for the nation.
State-business partnerships: While private property was allowed, the state exerted significant control over the economy through a managed partnership with business. This included subsidizing preferred companies and directing investment toward national priorities like militarization and self-sufficiency (autarky). As historian Gaetano Salvemini noted, profits were privatized while losses were socialized, with the state bailing out failing companies.
Key differences between generic and fascist corporatism:
Feature
Generic Corporatism
Fascist Corporatism
Class relations
Aims for collaboration between labor and capital through genuine negotiation, sometimes with government mediation.
Eliminates class conflict by force, imposing cooperation under state control, and suppressing independent labor movements.
State’s role
Mediates between organized interest groups to facilitate policy and promote stability.
Serves as the ultimate authority, dictating terms and controlling the corporate bodies to enforce the will of the ruling party or leader.
Decision-making
Involves formal mechanisms for negotiation between unions, employers, and state officials.
Reflects the will of the dictator, with negotiation being a facade for state-imposed policies.
Goals
Promotes social harmony, stability, and manages economic outcomes within a broader political framework.
Subordinates all economic activity to the overarching political goals of the state, such as nationalism, militarism, and autarky.
Early on Trump attacked unions and was met with strong resistance from established unions as discussed in The Unraveling of the New Deal Part 2 on Wings of Change. More recently unions have actively joined in opposing the rise of fascism under the Trump administration: (Google AI)
As of late 2025, labor unions are actively engaged in resisting the rise of far-right authoritarianism and the policies of corporate elites and their political allies. While the labor movement is a key force in this fight, there is an ongoing debate about whether its efforts are aggressive enough, especially concerning direct challenges to potential fascist threats in the United States.
Letter carriers across the country rally to stop the Trump administration from stripping the U.S. Postal Service of its independence and possibly privatizing it. Photo by: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Union actions and challenges in 2025: (Google AI)
Targeting specific policies: Unions are taking legal and public action against specific policies and political figures they see as anti-democratic and anti-worker. For example, the AFL-CIO is challenging actions by the Trump administration that have stripped collective bargaining rights from federal workers and threatened to illegally fire them during government shutdowns. The AFL-CIO has also publicly opposed Project 2025, a conservative policy roadmap, on the grounds that it would harm workers.
Promoting democracy: Unions are advocating for a “Third Reconstruction,” a political realignment that would empower a multiracial democratic movement from below. This effort aims to counter authoritarianism with a proactive vision for a more just economy and robust democracy.
Internal divisions and debates: Not all parts of the labor movement are unified on how to confront the threat. Some union leaders have been hesitant to explicitly name the threat of fascism, prompting concern from more militant voices within the movement. Publications like the World Socialist Web Site have criticized some union leadership for inaction, calling for a grassroots rebellion against the established union apparatus.
Increasing organizing efforts: Despite low union density in the United States, labor organizing is on the rise, particularly in states with stronger protections for collective bargaining. Unions are organizing in new areas and mobilizing workers to fight for better wages and conditions. This increased activity is often seen as a direct way to build worker power and resist anti-democratic forces.
Strong public support: Public approval for labor unions remains high, a factor that strengthens their position in fighting back against corporate and political opposition. This public backing provides a strong foundation for unions’ political and organizing efforts.
International perspective: Global organizations, such as the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), also explicitly condemn the rise of authoritarianism and far-right movements, seeing them as direct threats to workers’ rights and democracy. The ITUC’s 2025 Global Rights Index documented a worsening global crisis for workers’ rights fueled by these trends.
Acknowledging historical context:
The labor movement has a history of opposing fascist and authoritarian regimes. The AFL-CIO passed resolutions in 2017 to condemn and oppose fascism and white supremacist groups, stating there is no moral equivalence between those who fight fascism and those who promote hate. These efforts continue to guide the movement’s stance, but the current political climate poses renewed challenges.
Some Previous Tactics by the Trump Administration
One of several of Donald Trump’s weapons of distraction because the people, including some of his followers, want the Epstein papers released to reveal Epstein’s sick cult exploiting young women as sex objects — blatant sexual abuse — is calling Obama a traitor. Without going into detail about Obama’s presidency, which had high and low points, I hope most people have realized the absurdity of this charge. He then arranged a meeting with Putin in Alaska which came to nothing among other attempts to distract from the possible release of the Epstein papers,
Because of course the real traitor of the American people is Donald Trump and his administration, and they have taken much of Congress along with them and the Supreme Court.
The Big Beautiful [Ugly] budget bill that has passed is proof positive that they do not care a bit about the American people, and in Trump’s case only about his millionaire and billionaire buddies. The others in his administration are in it for Money. Power, and Greed. He is the real traitor to American values and to the people of America, slashing aid of all kinds right and left, raising the cost of everything, especially food and housing, essentials for living. And then Medicaid and Medicare. Even Social Security is threatened.
Many of the proposed changes will not take place until after the mid-term elections so those people who are not informed, many of his followers, will not know what hit them. Even if the Democrats are able to take back the House there’s still the Senate to deal with.
A lot of what got Trump elected was the fact that so many Americans disagree with further funding of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but Congress, especially the Senate, is immovable and has “sold the country down the river” regarding funding and arms for Israel. Anti-genocide activists did not vote for Trump but also not for Kamala Harris representing the Democratic Party. The Democrats don’t seem to understand that it lost them the election or if they do still insist on keeping their pro-Zionist stance.
In many ways the same goes for Ukraine. It’s a proxy war with Russia with the Ukranian people who are suffering the most. Many have died, and yet the war continues. The U.S. wants resources that are in Ukraine, or what’s left of it. It is not just the wheat that fed much of the world, it is evidently mineral resources as well. Congress under Biden approved money and weapons consistently for Ukraine. So he is not off the hook either. And that is a problem for all peace people.
Francesca Albanese, the UN rapporteur for Gaza, has courageously spoken out about how the war economy is controlling the government. She has come under attack of course by Trump and Co. I would include the gas and oil industry; these two corporate giants, the war/arms industry and gas and oil, are symbiotic: The gas and oil industry with their fossil fuel — and the corporations that practice fracking — and also the financial institutions that support them, who provide the fuel to the war economy that supplies the polluting jet planes that are used at the 877 U.S. bases around the world. That is just a portion of the pollution the U.S. military causes worldwide. It is a well-established tenet of fascism, and is updated and discussed in detail in Henry Giroux’s book American Nightmare.
Definition of fascism and government-directed economy: Fascist governments create a “corporate state” in which the economy is managed collectively by state officials, employers, and workers. In practice, however, the state holds the dominant role, dictating policies and subordinating private enterprise to its agenda. (Google AI)
So who is the real traitor? It is a trick we have seen before but not at this level. During demonstrations the police would attack demonstrators and then say that the demonstrators had attacked them when they resisted arrest..
I don’t like saying that the American people are the victims. Yet in spite of demonstrations and protests of all kinds we have been unable to stop Trump and the fascist authoritarianism based on military might instead of the use of diplomacy, for a start.
What characterizes Trump? A huge ego that is insatiable for starters. His rudeness. His attacks on anyone who even just disagrees with him. Lies, lies, lies. Denial. And no accountability. His racism is blatant and ugly. His fostering of hate, a legacy from his first term, continues in spades. He’s a misogenist, whether or not he participated in the Epstein cult. There really is not much to admire. I just don’t see the attraction but I know many are swayed by this con man. He can sound so sincere when he is lying through his teeth.
As far as religion is concerned, I certainly cannot see him as a Christian, although many seem to think he is. I do not know what Kool-aid they are drinking, above even his lack of moral fiber he lacks compassion: He clearly does not even know the meaning of the word.
So maybe, finally, in the Epstein scandal he has met his Waterloo. He may also be under pressure from other officials who are included in those papers about Epstein’s cult. And there are also many photos of Trump with Epstein circulating online.
In the meantime many more countries. some that are U.S. allies, are joining in recognizing the Palestinian state or have stated that they will.
Trump, with the brains of Stephen Miller in charge of racist policied, also continues his fight in the colleges against pro-Palestinian protesters and the academics who support them, many of whom like Columbia, are capitulating to his threats so they receive federal funds.
This is a clip from our show SYSTEM UPDATE, now airing every weeknight at 7pm ET on Rumble. You can watch the full episode for FREE here: https://rumble.com/v6wwl7s-system-upd…
How will we stop Trump and his fascist regime? How wll we convince well-meaning people who believe his lies that Trump is not saving America but is destroying U.S.?
Millions have turned out for the NO KING protests called by Indivisible. Daily we have demonstrations, bannerings, protests, workshops and conferences, organized and attended by many people in the U.S., and they represent many different segments of our society and culture. All that is good.
But the wheels of justice move slowly. Progress is there but slower than we might like, even with the whole world engaged with not just thousands but millions turning out in countries around the world to protest the genocide in Gaza/Palestine often in defiance of their governments, using their people power. “The game is afoot.” And it is not just about the crime that is the genocide being committed by Israel with U.S. support. It is about Decolonization, Demilitarism and instead Human Rights and governments that represent the people..
Paul Theil links the efforts to save the planet with CO2 and methane (fossil fuel and fracking) to the “antichrist” he talks about when of course the opposite is true. He attacks Greta Thunberg because of her activism to save the planet.
Such thinking does not contain any truth. “That way madness lies,” to quote Shakespeare’s King Lear. Words and the things they represent get turned around and twisted in this world as it is now, with a need to see through to truths and reality instead of an upside down, inside out world. Language and how it is spoken and written plays a large role in our perceptions and thoughts.
As activists we continue to gather and act in our communities, to collaborate with each other. To act, no matter which activist path we choose, keeps us sane. So far we have stayed along the path of nonviolence although challenged constantly by police and other authorities, many who do not honor nonviolence.
We will continue and I think strive to break the barriers that divide us from those who are often our relatives, neighbors, friends and sometimes share a church or religion with us but are still taken in by those who would destroy the good things in our heritage. Yes, there are plenty of actione that are not good, especially around the history of racism in the U.S.A. and of exploitation of workers and oppression of women. But those who argue that shoving the bad things and banning the books and stories that tell of them under a blanket of white supremacy will make America great again are of course wrong. Knowing the truth is not always easy. Learning from our mistakes is I think the cliche but true. If we do not know our mistakes how can we learn from them.
A first step is acceptance of the new demographics of a large population of people of color who are not different from you and me in their hopes and dreams and how they lead their lives as good people, imperfect as we all are.
In one job I had the research I was doing led to me an understanding that Hispanic peoples, at least in south and central America, had a much stronger sense of community and the importance of community lnstead of the individualism our western culture idolizes. Perhaps we can learn, are learning, from them the value of community. Something I think the Black culture in America also has.
We go forward with nonviolence and critique, truth-telling and collaboration and continued activism in the cradles of communities of love and hope.
Since this article was published Trump has orchestrated a ceasefire in Gaza/Palestine and a release of prisoners by both Hamas and Israel, one of his “deals.” But as welcome as this ceasefire and also influx finally of food into the starving in Gaza, the future of Palestine is not clear. While many support a two-state solution there is no guarantee that that will happen. Others support a one-state solution. In the ceasefire there is no provision for Palestine’s future. Some of Netanyahu’s govenment officials have stated that the bombing may resume. Even though the ceasefire is working thus far no concrete provisions or conditions have been proposed as to what Palestine will becomd assuming the ceasefire holds.
At practically the same time of the ceasefire Israel attacked the food for Gaza flotilla of about 50 ships in international waters, which is illegal, and took hundreds of hostages, who were then subject to beatings and other abuse before being released. Such treatment of prisoners is unconsionable. While Trump is taking credit for the ceasefire, the recent pressure on Israel that includes the walk-out refusal to listen to Netanyahu’s speech in the UN. a number of countries, especially in Europe, supporting Palestine in agreeing that what Israel has done is genocide, the massive pro-Palestine demonstrations worldwide, along with the ICC court accusation of Israel of committing genocide.
“In the end,” Henry Giroux says, “there is no democracy without informed citizens, no justice without a language critical of injustice, and no change without a broad-based movement of collective resistance.”
If Roosevelt had lived what was his vision for the country and for the world?
The Unraveling of the New Deal, FDR’s Vision, Part 4
By Sue Ann Martinson / Wings of Change / June 30, 2025
FDR: The Four Freedoms
FDR, besides the New Deal, left this legacy of a New Bill of Rights as well. He had been elected for a fourth term and these were his promises. What America would be like now if he had been able to carry them out we can only speculate. But certainly as a nation we would not have been in the autocratic state we in now and people would have been more secure economically and with the comfort of being who the are without outside definitions created by others that are derogatory.
Having corporate overmasters is unconstitutional and yet another way to deconstruct a democracy that is “of the people, for the people and by the people.” Idealistic? Yes. But FDR more than any other president attempted to make a people’s government.
National and International Intentions After the War
On January 6, 1941 ─ after the invasion of Poland in 1939 when England declared war on Germany ─ FDR was focusing on the state of the world. He gave a State of the Union address in which he named the Four Freedoms for the world. In this speech he addressed the need to achieve world peace and peace for America.
This speech is 80 years to the day when on January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., was attacked by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump in an attempted self-coup, two months after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
The Four Freedoms:
Equality of opportunity for youth and for others:
Jobs for those who can work.
Security for those who need it
The ending of special privilege for the few
The preservation of civil liberties for all.
Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As examples:
We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.
We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.
We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.
FDR also outlined U.S. foreign policy at that time:
Just as our national policy in internal affairs has been based upon a decent respect for the rights and the dignity of all our fellow men within our gates, so our national policy in foreign affairs has been based on a decent respect for the rights and dignity of all nations, large and small. And the justice of morality must and will win in the end.
Our national policy is this:
First, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to all-inclusive national defense.
Second, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship,we are committed to full support of all those resolute peoples, everywhere, who are resisting aggression and are thereby keeping war away from our Hemisphere. By this support, we express our determination that the democratic cause shall prevail; and we strengthen the defense and the security of our own nation.
Third, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to the proposition that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people’s freedom.
In the recent national election there was no substantial difference between the two great parties in respect to that national policy. No issue was fought out on this line before the American electorate. Today it is abundantly evident that American citizens everywhere are demanding and supporting speedy and complete action in recognition of obvious danger.
No realistic American can expect from a dictator’s peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion ─ or even good business.
Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors. “Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.
In a later State of the Union speech on January 11, 1944, FDR explained his vision of a New Bill of Rights:
FDR’s New Deal and his “Four Freedoms” speech outlined a broader “New Bill of Rights” that included economic security, a concept distinct from the traditional Bill of Rights which focused on individual liberties. The “New Bill of Rights” encompassed the right to a job, adequate living standards, healthcare, education, and protection from economic hardship, as outlined in FDR’s “Second Bill of Rights.”
The Four Freedoms are the foundation for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948. After the death of FDR Eleanor carried the torch forward as chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights that created the document.
Although the war was not yet over, in his State of the Union address on January 11, 1944 FDR, planning ahead for the war-end, reiterated a commitment to a New Bill of Rights for the American people.
On June 11, 1944 FDR repeated the full text of the speech in one of his Fireside Chats for the nation to hear.
Perhaps FDR had been reading Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience that calls for an even more perfect Union in the United States than existed in the Constitution. Thoreau said:
The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to — for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well — is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it.
The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual…. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government?
Thoreau goes on to say:
Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.
I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose, if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men.
First Thoreau is taking about himself as a good neighbor. We tend to think of neighborhoods as small units. But what if it were another country? What if all countries considered themselves a good neighbor to the countries next to them? He goes from the microcosm to the macrocosm. That interpretation seems to fit with FDR’s idea of the Four Freedoms as he expresses it in relation to Russia and Great Britain, remembering that settler colonialism was still prevalent and Western European countries held empires, including the British Empire, which was dominant.
Here is how Thoreau concludes:
A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.
State of the Union, January 11, 1944
“Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
FDR, in the January 11, 1944, State of the Union Speech addressed his vision for a second Bill of Rights and explains that these rights are true security and that “The best interests of each Nation, large and small, demand that all freedom-loving Nations shall join together in a just and durable system of peace.”
It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth- is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and insecure..
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
One of the great American industrialists of our day, a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis-recently emphasized the grave dangers of “rightist reaction” in this Nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such reaction should develop—if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called “normalcy” of the 1920’s—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.
I ask the Congress to explore the means for implementing this economic bill of rights ─ for it is definitely the responsibility of the Congress so to do.
Flash Forward
Los Angeles (LA) June 2025
From the Brennan Foundation: A panel discussion re the sending in the military to LA. Is it legal? What are the ramifications for the future?
The deployment of Marines and federalized National Guard members to police protests in Los Angeles poses a serious threat to American democracy. The president’s memorandum appears to preemptively allow the deployment of federal forces anywhere there are protests against immigration raids nationwide, regardless of whether or not they are peaceful. This broad authorization suggests that the troop deployments go beyond protecting federal property or law enforcement — they are about suppressing disagreement against the government.
— Elizabeth Goitein in a Just Security expert panel discussion.
Note FDR words above:
…the grave dangers of “rightist reaction” in this Nation.
…we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.
Yet now Congress has fallen under thrall to that “rightist reaction” under the influence of those forces of fascism daily are that being forced upon us that is the opposite of “a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.” Instead social welfare programs that support that vision are being slashed with support for money for corporate needs growing and for the military while the rest of the citizenry is ignored, funds for social programs decimated. Thousands have lost their jobs, their retirement savings, even their homes while the New Bill of Rights is decimated. Education, a core of democracy, is being defunded.
Yet FDR is very clear: these are the rights worldwide that bring true security, not the building up of the military:
In the plain down-to-earth talks that I had with the Generalissimo Chiang Kai Chek and Marshal Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill, it was abundantly clear that they are all most deeply interested in the resumption of peaceful progress by their own peoples—progress toward a better life. All our allies want freedom to develop their lands and resources, to build up industry, to increase education and individual opportunity, and to raise standards of living.
All our allies have learned by bitter experience that real development will not be possible if they are to be diverted from their purpose by repeated wars—or even threats of war.
Those leaders of primary world powers are now dead and the lessons learned from WWI and WWII have faded from consciousness. Endless War prevails. The monies taken from the social programs is instead to be used to increase the military might of America with Trump’s proposed Golden Dome, similar to the Iron Dome in Israel only four times larger to somehow protect the whole of the United States. But did the Iron Dome protect Israel from attack by Hamas?
Instead we now have a government that has embraced the “rightest reaction” and taken much of the nation with it through propaganda and lies. Our so-called president (not my president) becomes more autocratic every day. He blatantly declares his racism by word and deed. He is as he has always been basically a misogynist. The women he has appointed to positions are women who just do what they are told, yes-women. He openly flaunts the Constitution and tries to silence anyone who attempts to defy him. He calls himself a king. He allows his “flock” of fundamentalists to worship him as if he were divine. The “divine right of kings.” That went out in the Middle Ages.
“The law stands high above the king.” Magna Carta, 1215
The lords of England issued a writ that they would no longer be subservient to the king. The “divine right of kings” absolute authority was challenged. It included the right to a speedy trial, now known as habeas corpus.
A wise person once observed that it takes the support of the middle class for a revolution to succeed. Although it was the nobility of England who rebelled, they were in the middle, as the king with his divine right was above them and the peasants below them..
The Magna Carta still forms an important symbol of liberty today, often cited by politicians and campaigners, and is held in great respect by the British and American legal communities, Lord Denning describing it in 1956 as “the greatest constitutional document of all times—the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.”
Back to the Law
U.S. judges, have often, if not consistently, challenged Trump’s edicts, that is, executive orders, as being unconstitutional or breaking established laws. Trump has attempted to go after them of course, but different judges keep cropping up to challenge his often anti-Constitutional and law-breaking declarations. So far the idea of law above the king is functioning, resembling some semblance of law and order, not with guns, but with THE LAW as judges nationwide intervene against many of Trump’s edicts as unconstitutional or otherwise illegal. Most recent as I write this is a judge ruling the release of Mahmoud Khalil, the student from Columbia arrested for his pro-Palestinian activities although he has a green card and is married to a U.S. citizen.
Flash Forward, June 27, 2025
To stop the lower courts from challenging his unconstitutional executive orders Trump and his pro-fascist cohorts has had their allies in the U.S. Supreme Court state that the lower courts can no longer challenge Trump’s executive orders that undermine the Constitution although it will not go into effect immediately. As reported in Reuters, “The ruling also did not address the legality of the policy, part of Trump’s hardline approach toward immigration.”
Relevant Diversion
The U.S. system of law, while it was heavily influenced by French philosophers of the Enlightenment, is still based on English common law. The most predominant French influencers were Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. But in turn Locke and Montesquieu were heavily influenced by English law in their contributions to the structure of the Constitution and the shaping of the U.S. government as it still stands today.
Rousseau’s primary contribution was the idea of laws created directly by the vote of the people. He also introduced the idea of “neighborhoods,” an idea that Thoreau elaborated on in his essay on civil disobedience. The idea of neighborhoods still exists in many cities, including Minneapolis which is divided into neighborhoods that have governing bodies that create and manage programs that deal with neighborhood-specific issues.
Locke believed in what he called a social contract and influenced Thomas Jefferson’s writing of the Declaration of Independence. Locke favored a representative government. Montesquieu advocated for the separation of powers.
The Senate is debating the “Big Beautiful Bill” that further destroys the Pillars of Democracy and Violates FDR’s Four Freedoms.
If I remember my civics class correctly (that was ninth grade ─ do they teach it anymore?) the executive, legislative, and judicial sections of government were meant to balance each other. The legislative branch today is often impotent on many issues, controlled by Trump’s and the GOP’s yes-men and women. As noted, by one vote on May 22, 2025, the House passed the “Big Ugly Budget” that steals money from the people of the United States.
These cuts, if they are allowed, will cause significantly more struggling to survive for millions of Americans. In some cases they will cause preventable deaths because of the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. In the case of Social Security, cuts that are a lifeline for many Americans could be seriously cut down.
But not for corporate America: They are being pampered with money for investments and new laws are allowing them to develop fossil fuel that will further pollute the planet and hasten the global crisis. (There is no Planet B!)
Will the Senate show any backbone in accepting this Big Ugly Budget or not? That is not hopeful as they are controlled by the GOP. Sad, but true. That is the real fraud against the American people. We cannot go back (MAGA), even if we wanted to, and millions of us do not want to, as evidenced by the Hands Off and No Kings demonstrations. Many of us joined in the demonstrations not because we are Democrats (or Republicans either), but because we are antiwar and anti-genocide in Gaza because of its obvious inhumanity. We are also opposed to the illegal DOGE actions by Elon Musk and approved by Trump after creating DOGE as a government department by a presidential executive order not approved by Congress.
Elon Musk has left of DOGE and has actually criticized Trump’s platform and fascistic plans. In part this may be because the sales of his Tesla have greatly decreased, although it is only one way he makes money. He has been pilloried for the cuts he is responsible for, including USAid which affects millions worldwide.
Most members of Congress are supporters of Israel. Because so many of us support Palestine and are adamantly opposed the the genocide being perpetrated by Israel on Palestine, we are accused of being supporters of Hamas. We are what we say we are: antiwar and pro-Palestine. Having been involved in support of Palestine in educational programs and demonstrations, I can honestly say that we do not support Hamas per se. It has not come up in 20 years of pro-Palestine activities, not even since October 7, 2023. No chants I know of glorify or support Hamas.
Those who have worked on Middle East issues for 20 years or more such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and the WAMM Middle East Committee see Hamas as part of the very complicated geopolitics in the Middle East. What is not complicated is that genocide is a crime against humanity and no amount of Israel’s denial, even with the support of the U.S., can change the moral outrage at the wholesale death of a people. That was also true of the Holocaust, of course, but what Israel has become in its zealous Zionism backed by the U.S. is NOW, not then.
What About Now?
Shame hangs over the U.S. like a shroud.
As I write this the Senate is still deliberating about the Big ‘Beautiful’ Budget Bill and has not yet voted. Once they do settle on a version it has to go back to the House where members may wish to make changes. A final version of the bill may still take some time to be decided.
Trump, Congress, and the Supreme Court and 2025 supporters attack the Pillars of Democracy
Trump’s ravaging of the Constitution and American values in the Constitution and as they have developed in Constitutional additions over the years is a denial and attempt to crush democracy. These additions have become laws, such as the right of people of color to vote, of women to vote, laws against child labor, and union rights like collective bargaining. Many became law over the years of our existence since 1787 when the U.S. Constitution went into effect after being approved by the individual states. Some of these laws were created under the influence of socialism, such as the eight-hour work day, social security, the minimum wage, better working conditions, rights and healthcare for veterans, even Obama’s more recent healthcare law, and more. It’s how a democracy works.
These amendments to the Constitution and these laws have also improved our democracy over the years.
These additions and changes did not happen automatically but were fought for with much sacrifice by many Americans of all races, colors, and religions. Not the least are the laws against discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, age, gender, disabilities, etc., in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related legislation.
MAGA is an unachievable myth, at least the way Trump and project 2025 define it. The U.S. Empire is losing hold, as all empires in the history of the world do. We can dance out gracefully and still be who our best selves are.
We can choose to be what and who we would like to be in our most positive forms, created by the original Constitution and by the laws and Constitutional amendments added over the years of our country’s existence that were chosen by the people, not by corporate rule or some ruling elite that consider themselves superior; but they are not. Many Americans who came from poor circumstances have distinguished themselves in their areas of expertise while many of the “elite” have been lackluster or incompetent, as evidenced by many current public officials. On the other side are those who still have moral fiber and refuse to go along with the destruction of democracy that the Trump administration is engaged in. They include but are not limited to the current Supreme Court judges who wrote the dissenting opinions regarding Trump’s most recent efforts as he and his cohorts continue to attack democracy.
We can become an utter failure as a people and as a nation, or we can protest and actively fight for our rights against legislation like the Big Beautiful Budget that is really a Big Ugly Budget that does the opposite of what we strive for in equality, that is, it robs from the poor and gives to the rich. We can protest the obscene build-up of the military and the constant endless wars that support the oil industry and the war industry machine. We can continue to protest and fight the corporate entities that defile our planet with pollution and cause death in other parts of the world and in ours unusually severe weather patterns of storms, tornados, hurricanes. Our planet as a living organism strives to survive our mistreatment and desperately continues to need our help, which we can continue to offer in as many ways possible.
In spite of the shameful actions of our collective governments, that is, both Republicans and Democrats, we can especially protest in regard to what is clearly a genocide in Gaza/Palestine and a weaponization of anti-Semitism that is an insult to the ancient religion of Judaism and to those who died and those who survived the Holocaust. We can protest and actively defy the recent executive orders and autocracy of our current president and those he represents in cruel and anti-democratic actions that lean into fascism. Instead we can support those values that reflect our better selves in the Constitution. the amendments to the Constitution, and the laws created around equal rights and civil liberties that support those American democratic values.
In these most perilous times support independent media. Wings of Change gets no funding except from our readers.
Oh, sacred world
now wounded,
we pledge to make you free,
of hate, of war,
and selfish cruelty,
and here in our small corner
we plant a tiny seed,
and it will grow to beauty
to shame the face of greed.
As I post Part 3 of The Unraveling the breaking news I cannot ignore is that Trump has bombed Iran, ostensibly to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, in total collusion with Israel, Zionism, and imperialism, never really giving any negotiations a chance. Much has appeared online about it already and more will follow. Being antiwar I am of course totally opposed to this bombing. I think Trump has an itchy trigger finger and needed to prove himself as “strong,” (it takes more strength to be nonviolent than violent) to regain what was lost in his self-respect when the Kings Day March in Washington DC was essentially a washout. He still has very low opinion polls. He should not have put the nation at risk of a nuclear war or even of a new “hot war” in the Middle East as is being discussed by news outlets, journalists and others online now.
His alliance with Israel and their genocidal Zionist policies is of course morally and culturally just plain evil. His imperialism along with Israel cloaked in the weaponization of antisemitism is anti-American.
On June 14th 5 million Americans spoke out on the streets on No Kings Day. For everyone who was there, there are many who for one reason or another, could not take to the streets (like me). For everyone on the streets at least one more could not be: That means a mandate of at least 10 million Americans opposed to not just Trump but to the 2025 program he endorses. And to his new Big Beautiful Budget Bill that destroys or cuts services essential for so many Americans just to survive, be healthy and while not rich at least comfortable while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
The Unraveling of the New Deal: the Legacies and MLK, Part 3
Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Call to Action
The streets and other public gathering areas rang with cries of freedom across the nation in the protest called by Indivisible they named Hands Off. In Minnesota about 20 separate demonstrations took place, not including the major one in St. Paul at the state capitol that thousands of Minnesotans.
Nationwide it was a reaction to Trump’s and Elon Musk’s riding roughshod over the American people in attempting to destroy the Constitution and reverse many of the programs for the people initially created by FDR’s New Deal as well as other important social programs.
This huge outpouring of people across the country taking to the streets in mass demonstrations like Hands Off are holding Trump accountable for attacks on civil rights and civil liberties. His racist statements are blatant; his deportation tactics are cruel and inhuman punishment. And saddest of all is the support he has in Congress from the GOP and by too many Democrats who have betrayed their party’s traditional base of the working people of America and supported book bans instituted by Republicans, union busting, denying voter rights, accepting white supremacy as the order of the day, and more.
Civil Rights and Liberties
The civil rights movement for Black people, and affecting other people of color as well, was led by Martin Luther King and so many others, too many to enumerate here. This legacy of voting rights and laws to stop so many racist practices were part of the New Deal in spirit and very much a part of the work of Eleanor Roosevelt, although many barriers were put in place to obstruct those rights, especially in southern states. After the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation most southern states created the Jim Crow laws that blocked people of color from voting. They found excuses to arrest especially Black men and put them on chain gangs for forced labor to get around the 13th Amendment that prohibited “involuntary servitude” except as punishment for a crime. Also, certain questions were posed that if they could not answer correctly they could not vote. Poll taxes were often used to prevent African Americans from voting as well.
In more recent years other methods were sought as documented in the book The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. And as noted in Part 1, a federal law against lynching was not signed until March 29, 2022 by then President Biden
In 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd, large demonstrations starting in Minneapolis spread first nationwide and then worldwide. Now millions of people worldwide have protested the genocide against Palestinians in Palestine/Gaza, which under Israel leads in the Middle East while Trump targets Muslim people inside the United States along with the deportation of people of Hispanic origins from Central and South America and others.
But my writing here is not reminiscence. It is a call to action, as so many of the good things about American values are being not just threatened but eviscerated by greedy men and women who have no problem, for example, sacrificing the people of Gaza/Palestine in genocide. They have now turned on the people of all colors in their own country.
The U.S.A. does not have a good record when it comes to treatment of people of color in America, as evidenced by the treatment of Black people and Native Americans and of Hispanic workers in the fields and even of the Chinese who built the railroads of the west over the mountains or the Japanese who built the northern route that joined east and west by rail.
During WWII camps were created for people of Japanese heritage who were forced to survive under difficult living conditions because it was feared that they would be spies; although not stated, revenge for the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese was most likely a factor. FDR approved these camps and initially so did Eleanor Roosevelt. But she visited the camps and saw that the only determining factor was race and therefore later opposed them. (Ken Burns: The Roosevelts, Episode 6, PBS.)
It needs to be noted that during WWII while people of German heritage were often disparaged or even shunned. they were not put into camps even though the source and execution of the war was from Germany. Their whiteness protected them.
The Targets Now
Bernie Sanders has named some targets of the Trump camp’s attacks as he has traveled the country giving talks, now joined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). He says Trump, Musk and company want to privatize, and therefore make profitable for corporations: the USPS, the Veterans Administration, NASA, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. SNAP is also under attack. Formerly called Food Stamps, SNAP provides food to many families, most especially children and elders.
In contrast, FDR ended his acceptance of the nomination for his second term with these words:
It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Philadelphia, Pa. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project
Today it is a fight to defend democracy, but it is even more. We are fighting the specters of nuclear war and of a climate crisis that could destroy our planet. These are both worldwide struggles against pernicious forces.
In many ways these struggles are encapsulated by what is happening on college campuses in the U.S. where young people are having face-offs about the genocide in Gaza. The sides are not Muslim vs. Jew. Students of many religions and backgrounds are involved, including young Jews who disagree with Israel’s genocide and with the aggressive empire-building imperialistic policies of Zionism.
These young protesters are the future, along with the many young people who are taking to the streets. The protesters on campuses who focus on the Palestine/Israel issues are also representing the future of education, and along with the faculty members who support them, the struggle for academic freedom. The administrations of these academic institutions, with some exceptions, are aggressively on the wrong side of these issues. In many cases they are firmly against free speech and academic freedom where the Palestine/Israel issues are involved.
Dozens of pro-Palestine protesters occupied a patch of grass in front of the John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard. Photo by Frank S. Zhou, The Harvard Crimson
Harvard, one of the most elite colleges in the country and endowed with billions of dollars, has challenged Trump’s actions against the students. The administrations of other colleges have for the most part folded, placing strict penalties on students for pro-Palestine demonstrations, and in some cases firing professors for their support of the students and insistence on academic freedom. Some colleges, a few, refused to go along with the punishment of the protesters. Carlton College in Northfield Minnesota is an exception, although they did not agree to divest.
Chris Hedges has pointed out that Trump’s true target is the destruction of liberalism, replacing it with an autocratic government. Most of these colleges and universities have traditionally been liberal institutions.
Autocracy and Fascism
The techniques Trump and his camp are using overall are lifted directly from Hitler’s fascist playbook: books are banned (not burned), demands that only a white elitist history of the U.S. is to be taught in all schools (firing of Jewish professors and jailing of clergy who opposed Hitler), punishing of students (the execution of the White Rose students), and ICE is operating with impunity in making arrests for deportation and incarcerating them under poor living conditions or deporting them to impossible living conditions in detention in other countries, and more. They are not sending them to camps to exterminate them like Hitler’s Germany did but they are sending them to jails (camps) under impossible living conditions in the U.S. and other countries.
That denial of the colleges was also true in some respects during the protests on campuses during the Vietnam War. Protests involved hundreds and sometimes thousands. Not only did they occupy administrative offices, they shut down campuses. At the University of Minnesota they shut down major streets such as Washington and University Avenues and blocked access to nearby freeways. They set up a People’s Park in a vacant lot adjoining a commercial area in what is called Dinkytown. The police tear-gassed students on the main plaza near the main administration building, Morrill Hall.
This time I have seen clips of police violence worldwide. Because as was true during the George Floyd demonstrations in 2020 in Minneapolis that drew thousands of protesters, shut down freeways and city streets, and more, the police were violent toward the protesters and the press. As is always true from labor strikes to antiwar and civil rights protests, the police represent the authorities; they attempt to contain and stop the protesters; in most cases they do not hesitate to use violence to do so.
In the more recent case of the George Floyd in the Minneapolis/St. Paul protests there was looting and extensive burning of buildings. In some cases there were outside agitators who clearly led the burnings and later were picked up by federal agents in other parts of the country.
George Floyd Protest The Minnesota Reformer The place where George Floyd was killed is hallowed ground By: Max Nesterak– June 1, 2020 2:39 pm
Yet the majority of protesters was nonviolent and in many cases attempted to rein in those were more violent. But the police did not hesitate to hurt people, especially going after journalists, as is happening currently in many protest situations around Gaza. While this violence may not be viewed on the mainstream corporate media, they are numerous examples on social media. They used and still use tactics that were meant for violent criminals on the protesters and the press.
Fortunately, although we have had and are still having large pro-Palestinian protests in Minneapolis and St. Paul, they have been nonviolent, with experienced organizers who have also conducted trainings for protesters in general and for civil disobedience. Following an extensive study with the federal Department of Justice and Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB), new police guidelines have been put in place; these guidelines however have been threatened by the current Trump administration.
The same holds true in the Twin Cities for recent protests around immigration policies of the current U.S. Trump administration; while in large part pro-Palestine protests around the country and world have been nonviolent, the violence comes from the police or sometimes from counter protesters. That is not to say whether or not some pro-Palestinian protesters have crossed the line, but one never knows if these are genuine or a result of an oft-used tactic of planting violent protesters to make demonstrators look bad.
The LA Protests and Militarization
The most recent Hot Spot is Los Angeles. Trump has called out the National Guard, the Marines, and other law enforcement while the State of California suing Trump for doing so since he did not have the permission of the California governor to call out the National Guard or troops. Meanwhile the protests continue as I write this, and so do the lawsuits.
The first recent protests in Los Angeles in June 2025 took place on June 6, 2025, according to multiple sources. These protests were sparked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids targeting individuals suspected of illegal immigration. The protests initially began peacefully but escalated into clashes with law enforcement, including the LAPD, near the Metropolitan Detention Center. (Ai, Google Search)
No Kings Day, June 14, 2025
When Trump decided to organize a military parade in the tradition of dictators to show his [supposed] strength on his birthday, Indivisible, the primary organizer of the Hands Off demonstrations, again called for nationwide resistance ─ and got it, with even more people than turned out for April 5, 2025. At the Minnesota state capitol grounds in St. Paul an estimated 80,000 people came with their good will, nonviolence and their signs and chants. A turnout of five million was estimated for the day, national and international.
This turnout in Minnesota was after a state politician and her husband were murdered by a lone gunman shortly before No Kings Day and another couple was seriously injured. Rather than cancel the events planned, which some had considered, a call went out to honor the people who were killed and attacked by taking part in the demonstrations at the capitol and elsewhere.
The Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
I often speak of Trump’s Legacy of Hate, a legacy that is predominant now in the nation and worldwide: the racism, the taking away of rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, the unraveling of so many programs started by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), and the weaponizing of anti-Semitism, not to mention Trump’s hate rants against Ilhan Omar, Fifth District representative in the House, or against just about anyone who crosses him.
But now I would like to speak of another important legacy, that of Martin Luther King (MLK) and the Civil Rights Movement along, with the invaluable lessons of that movement from MLK.
Originally published in 1963, MLK’s book Why We Can’t Wait, is well-described by the publishers as ”Martin Luther King’s classic exploration of the events and forces behind the Civil Rights Movement.”
With the rise of white supremacy that disgracefully comes from the White House and Congress, the words of MLK are again relevant for Black people and other people of color, including people of Hispanic heritage and the Native Peoples.
Taking Action
It is more than that now though, as the Hands Off and No Kings Day demonstrations brought home to all of us: We cannot wait and must take action. This plight, this fight, this struggle is not essentially Democrats vs. Republicans as the mainstream media (MSM) (more accurately called the mainstream corporate media) likes to frame it. While it is for Black people and other people of color most definitely, it is also for all of us to form a movement against this insanity being perpetrated on us all by people who are demented in their treatment of other human beings, in their greed and insatiable quest for power, and in their attempts to maintain an imperialistic empire of settler colonialism that benefits the few. For them, Hegemony is All: Worldwide Domination. And it definitely is not a government ”of the people, for the people, by the people.”
From Why We Can’t Wait, the last chapter, “The Days to Come”
The hard truth is that the unity of the movement is a remarkable feature of major importance. The fact that different organizations place varying degrees of emphasis on certain technical approaches is not indicative of disunity. Unity has never meant uniformity. If it had, it would not have been possible for such dedicated democrats as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, a radical such as Thomas Paine and an autocrat such as Alexander Hamilton to lead a unified American Revolution. Jefferson, Washington, Paine and Hamilton could collaborate because the urge of the colonials to be free had matured into a powerful mandate. This is what has happened to the determination of the Negro to liberate himself. When the cry for justice has hardened into a palpable force, it becomes irresistible. This is a truth which wise leadership and sensible society ultimately come to realize.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man of vision. He and many others fought for the rights of Blacks and people of color, but his vision went beyond. He spoke against the Vietnam War. He knew. He understood. And once again now, in this rise up times, “We Can’t Wait.” Once again his words reverberate with what we need to do.
To reiterate from Part 1 of The Unraveling of the New Deal
Trump and Elon Musk created the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was not created by Congress but illegally by an executive order of Trump’s. Although DOGE is supposedly managed by the bipartisan DOGE Caucus whose purpose is “pave the way for the House of Representatives to streamline government operations and to save taxpayer money” they are dismantling and cutting off and/or reducing funding for many programs that support ordinary citizens in need as well as some foreign programs like USAid.
Trump and Musk are conducting a hell-bent crusade against as many social programs as possible that benefit ordinary people. They may not directly be the repeal of the same laws that were passed by Congress under FDR’s presidency but with the many layoffs in agencies, it is as if Trump and his cronies are trying to match the 15 million people who were unemployed when FDR officially became president in 1933. In addition are the the millions Trump has deported or plans to deport, some of whom are American citizens or hold green cards.
Elon Musk has now resigned from DOGE and has criticized Trump’s 2025 program. Regardless, Trump has vowed to go forward with the program. He has created what he calls The Big Beautiful Budget Bill which cuts many social service programs including Social Security and Medicaid. This bill passed the House by one vote, 215 to 214, and now goes to the Senate. Online articles, podcasts, etc. are constant at this time speculating about the bill and its contents. Most of this discussion is framed around party loyalty as Democrats vs. Republicans, although it affects all Americans of both parties who, are for example. on Medicaid or collecting social security and crosses party lines.
Trump and others plan to privatize all social service agencies, all agencies that serve the ordinary people, including social security. This privatization, with corporations holding the reins, would have disastrous results for the American people. Corporations ultimately have one goal, to make money for upper management and for their stockholders. Their stockholders are private individuals, not the average American citizen, who would have no rights under such a system.
The right of the people to assemble is already under fire. The right of the people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances would not exist. They could perhaps try to petition the corporations but would be shut down. Union strikes? If they have a Union. Collective bargaining? Already under attack.
The right to peaceably assemble? We are already being attacked for peaceable protest gatherings, especially on college campuses. The students have been told for the most part in no uncertain terms they have no right to petition the campus presidents and boards to redress grievances and are instead being punished for what is an established right as set forth in the Bill of Rights although it does not apply to private groups, only the government. Of course, technically that right is the right to petition government, but their government on campus consists of these college officials. They are attempting to petition the government of their colleges and universities only to have the doors slammed in their faces as corporations are private entities and there are essentially no rights for the students.
A Note About Civil Disobedience
In an act of what we now call civil disobedience, colonial men climbed aboard a ship in Boston Harbor and threw the tea overboard in protest of the tax on tea by the British, now referred to as the Boston Tea Party. The colonial women women organized what we would now call a boycott of the tea as they were the ones who made such domestic purchases. What they were protesting of course was the oppression of the British government of their “colony.”
Protest is deep in American tradition. Whether you landed here by plane or boat, or walking across the Rio Grande, whether you arrived yesterday or your ancestors arrived those many years ago, we are all a part of that tradition. In his now famous lecture and essay on A Call of Duty for Civil Disobedience, where he coined the name, Henry David Thoreau names and discusses conscience and action by individuals and their relationship to government, using practical examples from his own neighborhood and state.
FDR: WWII Intervenes
I have chosen not to go into detail on FDR’s role during World War II. He was still president; he was in constant touch and met with Churchill several times before entering the war, which took place after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on June 6, 1943. The American public was opposed to entering another world war, but did not have full information about what was occurring in Germany and mainland Europe with the concentration camps and murders of much of the Jewish population. FDR had sources and did know, but not until Pearl Harbor did he act. The American people now understood how this war far from their borders affected them.
By mid-1944, the Willow Run assembly plant [Ford] was producing one B-24 per hour — accounting for half of all B-24s assembled that year. Photo: Assembly Magazine
When FDR acted he oversaw the industrialization of the United States into a full war economy. Instead of making cars, for example, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and other major manufacturers converted their factories: some made turbine engines, some planes, some tanks, etc. While men went overseas as soldiers to several parts of the world where war was being waged, women worked in factories and stepped into many jobs previously held by men. Ken Burns: The Roosevelts, Episodes 6 and 7, PBS.
Rose Will Monroe worked on the Willow Run assembly line building B-29 and B24 “Liberator” military planes. While on duty, she caught the eye of Hollywood producers who were casting the part of a “riveter” for a promotional film encouraging Americans to buy war bonds. Her exposure in that film resulted in the popular “We Can Do It!” poster by J. Howard Miller. [The legend of “Rosie the Riveter” was born.] Photo: Ford Corporate
At the end of the war FDR met twice at Yalta with Churchill and Stalin. It was after the second of these meetings that he suffered a fatal stroke and died on on April 12, 1945. (Ken Burns: The Roosevelts, Episode 7, PBS.
UPDATE (OPINION)
As I post this the breaking news I cannot ignore is that Trump has bombed Iran, ostensibly to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, in total collusion with Israel, Zionism, and imperialism, never really giving any negotiations a chance. Much has appeared online about it already and more will follow. Being antiwar I am of course totally opposed to this bombing. I think Trump has an itchy trigger finger and needed to prove himself as “strong,” (it takes more strength to be nonviolent than violent) to regain what was lost in his self-respect when the Kings Day March in Washington DC was essentially a washout. He still has very low opinion polls. He should not have put the nation at risk of a nuclear war or even of a new “hot war” in the Middle East as is being discussed by news outlets, journalists and others online now.
His alliance with Israel and their genocidal Zionist policies is of course morally and culturally just plain evil. His imperialism along with Israel cloaked in the weaponization of antisemitism is anti-American.
On June 14th 5 million Americans spoke out on the streets on No Kings Day. For everyone who was there, there are many who for one reason or another, could not take to the streets (like me). For everyone on the streets at least one more could not be: That means a mandate of at least 10 million Americans opposed to not just Trump but to the 2025 program he endorses. And to his new Big Beautiful Budget Bill that destroys or cuts services essential for so many Americans just to survive, be healthy and while not rich at least comfortable while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Part 4, the last chapter of The Unraveling of the New Deal will be published soon.
If you must die
then I must live
to begin where you left off, although
you have never truly ceased.
Your poems journey across the world,
echo in my mind,
gather like a family’s embrace.
Your lessons visit me each night,
an alarm that stirs the soul,
reminding me to live,
always, and without fail.
I must live
to trace your steps,
stand where your footprints lie.
I must read in cafés and cars,
on bustling streets,
amidst the market stalls.
I must read at home and in the university —
just as you so often did.
I must meet you in the pages of your books —
Gaza Writes Back. Gaza Unsilenced.
No hesitation, I must live
to cling to the tail of a paper kite
soaring across the world,
boundless and free, no walls to hinder,
no soldier to halt my flight.
I fly with a pen in my hand as my weapon,
just as you did.
On my back I carry a bag
filled with your poems,
inked on paper, so true.
I must soar
to scatter the fragrance of your verses from the sky.
Your words descend, colorful blossoms upon the earth.
One drifts to a child with a paper kite in hand.
The child glimpses the brilliance you release
and is struck, as I was,
with a fever of love for poetry and art —
caught by it, just as I was.
I will live
to answer that little one’s questions,
to plant the seeds of your verses,
scatter the nectar of your steps,
and one day stand before you in the sky.
I will carry your trust on the wings of a plane,
deliver your message to all those children
who will be struck with love for poetry,
the children who tomorrow will rise,
successors to Refaat in poetry and letters.
I must live
to prosecute those who sentenced your art to death,
halted its rightful course
and sought to crush the scent of safety
your verses breathed into the hearts of your readers.
I must stand before your words,
draw hope there —
a hope I fear losing
as I lost you.
I must do my work
so you may rest in peace —
you’ve left your legacy in the right hands.
Your inheritance, divided justly, multiplies
and even strangers tremble at the weight of its value.
I will live
to mourn the tale of the great father,
to close the notebooks of barren grief,
to ignite a revolution of true poetry
and sound the warning of a searing fire,
to bring to the world the essence of your verses
and tear down the veil of Zionism,
as you once desired.
I can still imagine you there — in the university.
I must tell you how everyone yearned for your counsel,
how they hesitated to mourn you.
The students flocked to the Faculty of Arts
at the mere mention of your name in the news,
the weight of your death
pressed upon them,
even as they tried not to hear it.
I must craft endless poems
from the deepest part of my sea,
tuck them away in my travel bag
along with countless messages
from all who love you.
I will keep them safe for you
until we can meet.
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties are so much a part of Labor History in the United States that while they can also be separate, they are often inextricably tied to Labor in many instances. Immigration is linked to labor history as new immigrants were a labor force often mistreated and therefore became strong labor activists. For Black people the struggle for civil rights was constant and often linked to labor issues.
Some Immigration History and Now
Immigration is another area that Trump is active in, attempting to export as many refugees as possible, often in cases where they are actually in the U.S. legally. One example is Mahmoud Khalil, a young student with a green card who was arrested along with his pregnant wife, a U.S. citizen, for his pro-Palestine protests and activities, whose treatment is meant to make other protesters afraid.
FDR did not single out any particular group of immigrants; he included them all. He recognized the contributions they were making to the U.S. economy and culture. The influx of immigrants was initially primarily from Europe with the exception of the Chinese on the west coast whose labor built the western railroads to connect with the east for rails to cross the continent in the 1860s.
They came from Ireland during the potato famine in the mid 1800s, and many as refugees from Europe after WWI, and were followed by those who came just before and after WWII. In more recent times they have come from countries in Asia as a result of the Vietnam War when many Vietnamese and Hmong came to Minnesota.
The latest waves of immigrants have arrived from the Middle East wars and from Africa. Minnesota now has a large Somali population as many have immigrated due to our wars in their country. Many now are from other African countries as well, where settler colonialism has left them war-torn and the people destitute as multinational corporations from Western multinationals have robbed them of their natural resources and in effect enslaved their people to do hard labor in their mines.
Last, but certainly not least, many Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking people from South and Central America have left their countries to come to the United States, some fleeing from extreme dictatorships as political refugees and others from poor countries to better their economic situations. Their presence is evidenced by the need to have many formal government documents translated into Spanish, as well as Somali and other languages.
“Migrant Mother,” taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936, depicting Florence Owens Thompson, a mother with her children, during the Great Depression. Source: Wikipedia. Photo now is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Many Hispanic people originally came to work in the large farms that grew fruits and vegetables in California. Some even came to Minnesota to work for Green Giant, resulting in an area on the west side of St. Paul where many settled and stayed. The fight of these workers to unionize and to demand decent living accommodations and wages is well-documented in film, song and books that describe their struggle; often they feature union organizers Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta.
I might also add that the variety of ethnic groups represented as evidenced by the foods available from the many ethnic restaurants here in Minnesota— adding the food of the Black and Native cultures as well—speaks to America being a nation of immigrants, as it has been since the Mayflower.
Trump’s current attacks on immigrants and immigrant rights are massive as he arrests and deports recent immigrants illegally and with cold-hearted precision. There has been information about the treatment of the deportees in, for example, El Salvador where the accommodations are similar to the Nazi death camps in Germany in WWII, if not worse. He is snatching people off the streets, including students, and sending them to an ICE facility in Louisiana that is reported to be the worst in the country with a reputation for prisoner abuse. How he could possibly care about people is beyond comprehension. The contributions of immigrants to American culture, science, and so on are well-documented in books, articles and on the web.
Remembering Tammany Hall of legend in New York City, where the cops were all Irish: they had a stranglehold on the government and they were corrupt. I use that as an example because they were white, although sometimes were considered to be of another race to denigrate them. They also helped immigrants, particularly their own. The contributions of Tammany may have been somewhat negative, but they were not all the Irish who came to America during the famine. Men of Irish heritage fought on both the Confederate and the Union sides during the Civil War. Irish contributions to the culture of song and dance are immeasurable, especially when you live across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis and visit sister city St. Paul on St. Patrick’s Day. Or visit, in my case, my Irish heritage friends who have done so much good in this world, not to mention a brother of theirs who was in the state legislature for many years. These Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph were rightfully honored by St. Paul’s History Theater with a play of their own. The Irish have left their positive imprint all over the United States in spite of prejudice because of their Roman Catholic religion. (“No Irish Need Apply.”)
Now we have the immigrants from the Middle East, Africa, and those from across the southern border from South and Central America who work in the hotels and often as cleaners in various industries. From Somalia: many Somali men are taxi and truck drivers, at least here in Minnesota. Many are Muslims, and have built a number of mosques in Minneapolis and suburbs.
The immigration starting basically during my lifetime includes refugees from Vietnam and then the Hmong; it continues to the present day where many new African immigrants work in senior or rehabilitation facilities as nurses or nurses’ aids along with jobs in industry.
In other words, they are assimilating. And no, I do not see them so often in the suburbs when I visit. I live in the city, but since George Floyd I see them more often than I used to. What is important is to understand the waves of immigrants who have come to this country and the contributions they have made and that not all white immigrants were good people. But then not all were bad either, and Trump’s attempt to lump all immigrants, especially immigrants of color, into one evil group is in itself an evil, as are his deportations: especially the Hispanics that he is deporting right and left and the pro-Palestinian young college students, as he targets especially those who have taken action against genocide in Gaza.
In another racist/white supremacist move he has promised to restore all the monuments, the statues, torn down in the time of George Floyd protests that honored the Civil War Confederates in a glorification of both war and racism.
Of course there is no such thing as one evil race. In the history of the world not only has evil come from all races, including white of course, but also so many of the brilliant people who have made contributions to world culture are from a variety different races; I think particularly of music, poetry and art, but also science, which, because of its nature in work often done away from the public eye, is not acknowledged as often. No one race can claim total superiority. Or total evil either.
Trump’s obsession with The Wall that is between the U.S. and Mexico is not MAGA, not Make America Great Again, but MEGA in the sense of huge as he has ordered new walls built and increased border patrols, a militarization of the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
And he insists on drawing that “color line,” this time against Hispanics.
I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed that color line
Here at his Beach Haven family project
Beach Haven ain’t my home! No, I just can’t pay this rent! My money’s down the drain, And my soul is badly bent! Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower Where no black folks come to roam, No, no, Old Man Trump! Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!
But Trump of course is not alone in his efforts to destroy the good that America has done, the American values that so many have fought and died for and others have striven to not just preserve but make active and real in our daily lives, and continue to do so.
The 2025 program that Trump embraces was created by the Heritage Foundation. Much of a Republican Congress and some Democrats also support what he is doing as he continues to destroy America: There is no other way to describe it. He stands at the titular head of it all with his narcissism and his greed for approval and power, a W.T. Barnum of politics as he centers himself in “the greatest show on earth” as the American Empire crumbles.
Black People Under FDR
FDR did more for Black people than any previous president. He had what was called a Black Cabinet that was involved in labor. The Black Cabinet was an unofficial group of African-American advisors to FDR. They ensured that thousands of Black women and men received the training that enabled them to work in the defense industry during World War II. And while helping reverse segregation in the federal workforce, they brought about the first anti-discrimination clauses in government contracts.
Lynching Law
Although not related directly to labor, the Roosevelt connection to a lynching law also needs to be mentioned. A law against lynching was controversial at the time, although Eleanor Roosevelt was an avid supporter of creating a federal law against it. She even arranged a meeting between Walter White of the NAACP and FDR. White was an American civil rights activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a quarter of a century, from 1929 until 1955. White directed a broad program of legal challenges to racial segregation and disfranchisement. But because of the southern senators who could block bills that FDR favored, especially Social Security, even though in private he expressed opposition to lynching, it took many years before a federal law took effect. (Ken Burns: The Roosevelts, Episode 5, PBS.) President Biden signed a federal bill making lynching a hate crime on March 29, 2022.
“The Spirit of the “People”
The spirit of the New Deal, with its emphasis on the people, a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” was not a government for what FDR called the “Economic Royalists,” who held power over the people. Today one name for them is the “ruling elite.” It is true that the U.S. Constitution as originally conceived favored white male landowners. That bias has to some extent been preserved; the white moneyed elite that today takes form in racism as white supremacists as personified by the Ku Klux Klan and in other racist myths that elevate the white race as superior. We currently have a president, with his fascist cohorts in Congress, leading in racist threats and comments and with exporting many people who have sought refuge and a better life in the United States.
In the writing of the Constitution there were long and serious debates about the status of the Negro and the three-fifths compromise made that was clearly based on economic considerations of the time. Cotton was King and a major part of the economy, which succeeded on the plantations thanks to Black slave labor. The rights of women and of indigenous people were ignored.
The movements and strikes around civil rights and liberties for people of color, for women, and for labor rights led to large protests early on and continue. often related to the right to unionize regarding pay and working conditions, no small thing.
Paul Robeson singing about Joe Hill, a labor organizer who was accused of murder and executed in 1915 and who is still remembered as an inspiration for labor organizers.
From the Chicago Haymarket Affair, a protest for an 8-hour workday in Chicago on May 4, 1886, to the organizing of the Hispanic farm workers in California in the 1960s and ‘70s for their right to unions, decent pay, and good working conditions. Today organizing continues to create unions in some professions or demand better pay and working conditions, as strikes have become a method to make demands of employers in the public sector and of corporations.
Many unions went on strike during and after WWI and after WWII into the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s and ‘50s, and they have continued along with other forms of Union building. The history of strikes in the U.S. is well-documented in books, articles. songs, and online on the web.
Judy Collins sings Bread and Roses. The slogan “Bread and Roses” originated in a poem of that name by James Oppenheim, published in American Magazine in December 1911, which attributed it to “the women in the West.” It is commonly associated with the textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts during January to March 1912, now often known as the “Bread and Roses strike.” The strike, which united dozens of immigrant communities under the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World, was led to a large extent by women.
In the Twin Cities we have an annual labor celebration to remember the strike of 1934 and other labor history. The writer Meridel LeSueur, who participated as a young woman in the 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strike later wrote, “No one can be neutral in the face of bullets ” in one of her short books, I Was Marching. She had joined the women working in the kitchen during the strike. As Minneapolis was a transportation center at the time, the strike attracted national attention. Two protesters were killed in that strike and 67 injured by the police.
Meridel LeSueur was blacklisted during the McCarthy era in the 1950s for her revolutionary writing.
Collective Bargaining
Collective bargaining is the process in which working people, through their unions, negotiate contracts with their employers to determine their terms of employment, including pay, benefits, hours, leave, job health and safety policies, ways to balance work and family, and more.
According to the AFL-CIO, in 1935 the National Labor Relations Act clarified the bargaining rights of most private-sector workers and established collective bargaining as the “policy of the United States.” While it had been used in earlier strikes, it was not a federal law until 1935 during Roosevelt’s first term.
In 1935, the National Labor Relations Act clarified the bargaining rights of most other private-sector workers and established collective bargaining as the “policy of the United States.” The right to collective bargaining also is recognized by international human rights conventions.
The freedom to form and join a union is core to the U.N. Universal Declaration on Human Rights and is an “enabling” right—a fundamental right that ensures the ability to protect other rights.
Eleanor Roosevelt was the Chairperson of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights that wrote the Declaration, and she contributed to its writing. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948.
Flash Forward. March/April 2025
Statement from the AFL-CIO
Trump and Musk are trying to destroy the right of collective bargaining. It’s on their list of practices that are “unfriendly” to corporate autocratic domination of America.
March 27, 2025
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler issued a statement on a new executive order from the Trump administration stripping collective bargaining and union rights from workers across the federal government:
Straight out of Project 2025, this executive order is the very definition of union-busting. It strips the fundamental right to unionize and collectively bargain from workers across the federal government at more than 30 agencies. The workers who make sure our food is safe to eat, care for our veterans, protect us from public health emergencies and much more will no longer have a voice on the job or the ability to organize with their coworkers for better conditions at work so they can efficiently provide the services the public relies upon. It’s clear that this order is punishment for unions who are leading the fight against the administration’s illegal actions in court—and a blatant attempt to silence us Trump and Musk have now declared war on collective bargaining, and the AFO-CIO has reacted as they have joined in civil resistance to the daredevil duo’s many undercuttings of the rights of the people, who they are attacking.
We are in scary times. As we told you, even before Trump was inaugurated, a huge immigration operation has already begun in rural farm worker areas of Kern County, one of the top five most productive US agricultural counties. Border Patrol traveled 300+ miles from the US-Mexico border to profile the people who work so hard to harvest our food.
Then Trump was inaugurated. On his first day, he signed frightening Executive Orders including on immigration—which are terrifying farm workers and their families who are already badly shaken up from these raids that appeared to come out of nowhere. We immediately began having “Know Your Rights” sessions for farm workers throughout CA and producing “Know Your Rights” materials that we are distributing and sharing on social media and our website. As we’ve been dealing with this, many of our offices have received hate mail from “Trump’s Coming” with no return address. They say, “Report illegal aliens at schools, at work, at church, at restaurants, in your neighborhood … There is nowhere to hide!” We are not allowing these fear and intimidation tactics to stop us from doing our priority work of letting farm workers know that regardless of their immigration status they have rights. Our organizers are in the fields and communities sharing the resources we’ve been rushing to put together.
Yesterday, President Trump signed an order that tramples on the union rights of more than a million federal workers, stripping them of their ability to negotiate over their working conditions. The 1 million members of the UAW stand with federal workers and their union, AFGE, against the attacks from the Trump administration.
Update: April 25, 2025
Summary
Order exempting agencies from bargaining blocked pending lawsuit
Trump said order was necessary to protect national security
Unions claim retaliation for legal challenges to Trump policies
April 25 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the administration of President Donald Trump from stripping hundreds of thousands of federal employees of the ability to unionize and collectively bargain over working conditions.
Senior U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., blocked an executive order Trump issued in March from being implemented pending the outcome of a lawsuit by the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents about 160,000 federal employees.
AFL-CIO President Applauds Ruling to Restore Federal Workers’ Collective Bargaining Rights
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler issued the following statement on a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in case brought by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) blocking the Trump administration’s executive order that illegally stripped thousands of federal workers of their collective bargaining rights:
We commend the court for recognizing the Trump administration’s executive order stripping collective bargaining rights for what it was: illegal, retaliatory union-busting. This was the most significant attack on workers’ rights in history, and if Trump was allowed to do it to federal workers, he would be able to do it to every worker in America, in every workplace and every industry. So this ruling to restore federal workers’ collective bargaining rights and reinstate their existing contracts—even if temporarily while the case continues in court—is an important first step.
But this fight isn’t over, and it isn’t limited to the courts. Every member of Congress who stands with working people needs to support and vote to pass the Protecting America’s Workforce Act (H.R. 2550), a bill that would reverse this outrageous executive order and restore workers’ union contracts. We won’t rest until this illegal order is struck down once and for all.
May 16, 2025, Litigation Continues
A federal appeals court has cleared the way for President Donald Trump‘s executive order to move forward, aiming to curtail collective bargaining rights for hundreds of thousands of federal workers while litigation continues.
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In a 2-1 decision, a panel of judges in Washington, D.C., ruled that unions representing federal employees lack standing to sue. The majority cited the administration’s assurance that no existing collective bargaining agreements would be terminated during the ongoing legal proceedings.
Judges Karen Henderson, appointed by former President George H.W. Bush, and Justin Walker, appointed by Trump, supported the ruling; Judge Michelle Childs, appointed by former President Joe Biden, dissented.
[FDR] changed the relationship between government, business and labor forever.
—Doris Kerns Goodwin, Ken Burns: The Roosevelts,
Episode 5, PBS
Featured image:
“Hundreds of people join a protest in downtown Hamilton, Mont., in April supporting the work of federal employees as President Donald Trump oversees efforts to restructure the nation’s government. Federal scientific research and forestry work are part of this small town’s economic bedrock.” Photo: Katheryn Houghton/KFF Health News
These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power.
─Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The Unraveling of the New Deal
By Sue Ann Martinson/ April 5, 2025
There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
─ Franklin D. Roosevelt, Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Philadelphia, Pa.,
June 27, 1936
Nowadays we have generation this and generation that, all in categories with their own characteristics. But FDR was referring to collective generations inhabiting the United States at the time. His statement applies now to the current generations of Americans.
In 1932 when FDR was running for president, he promised if elected a “New Deal” for the American people. At the time Herbert Hoover was president and the nation was in a deep depression caused by the stock market crash of 1929.
Roosevelt introduced the phrase upon accepting the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1932 before winning the election in a landslide over incumbent Herbert Hoover, whose administration was viewed by many as doing too little to help those affected.
The following are the words of FDR in his Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency on June 27, 1936. The full speech is included at the end of this post.
For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor—other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness. [underline emphasis by Wings of Change]
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These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the Flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship of mob rule and the over-privileged alike.
[underlines emphasis by Wings of Change]
Almost immediately after the Constitution was passed, the Bill of Rights, based on English Common Law, was added, protecting freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to assemble and petition, and freedom of religion, all in the First Amendment. The first ten amendments were the originals. New amendments were added to the original Bill of Rights over the years that reflect values and issues of importance to the American people. These rights along with the Constitution itself were the values that FDR championed.
FDR kept his promise for a New Deal for the American people if they elected him on the heels of the Great Depression that began with the failure of the stock market in 1929. In 1933 during his first term as president he kept his word and initiated bold reforms that became law. Passed with both Republican and Democratic support in Congress, 15 key laws were passed during his first 100 days of office. They were bold reforms that were part of his promised New Deal.
Among these laws was the Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial and banking activities; other laws guaranteed bank deposits for depositors (no runs on banks as had previously occurred), loans to homeowners who faced losing their homes because of lack of mortgage payments, and keeping farm prices high by paying farmers not to produce. The Civilian Conservation Corp allowed single men between the ages of 18 and 25 to enlist in work programs to improve America’s public lands, forests, and parks, their room and board paid for, they sent $25 of their $30 pay home to their families. The National Recovery Act (NRA) set prices and wages: two million employers in 541 industries signed up, promising to keep prices down and wages up. The Social Security Act was signed into law by FDR on August 14, 1935. It established a system of old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and aid for dependent mothers and children, blind persons, and persons with disabilities, funded by payroll taxes.
The Bottom Line ─ The Glass-Steagall Act (June 16, 1933)
The Glass-Steagall Act prevented commercial banks from speculative risk-taking to avoid a financial crisis experienced during the Great Depression. Banks were limited to earning 10 percent of their income from investments. This legislation under FDR was a direct response to the stock market crash of 1929 and the resulting depression.
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, under President Clinton, eliminated the Glass-Steagall Act’s restrictions against affiliations between commercial and investment banks in 1999, so unfortunately, the parts of the law that separated investment and speculative commercial interests were repealed, and that repeal is considered to be a cause of the 2008 global recession by many. Some parts of the original Glass-Steagall were maintained, a most important being the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that still protects deposits and against runs on banks.
But FDR’s influence was more than creating laws. FDR inspired people. As George Will said as quoted in Ken Burns, Episode 5 of “The Roosevelts” on PBS, he “changed the relationship of the citizen to the central government.“ He instituted the Fireside Chats on the radio, when citizens tuned in weekly to listen. He spoke to them as an equal, building courage and confidence. He established a progressive cabinet, including the first woman cabinet member, Frances Perkins, who oversaw the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Established in 1935, the WPA employed 8.5 million people in building projects and arts initiatives and spent more than $11 million in relief until it was discontinued during WWII.
Some Background
Some find it ironic that Roosevelt himself was part of the over-privileged class that was monied, as was Eleanor, his sixth cousin. President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt was her uncle and FDR’s fifth cousin.
The original Roosevelt came to this country in the 1600s from the Netherlands, but not under the name Roosevelt which came later. He had two sons and the two sides of the Roosevelts in FDR’S generation were descended respectively from these two sons. Ken Burns goes into detail about the two different families and their activities in his series about the Roosevelts on public television. Some of the information used in this “unraveling” is from this series, which Burns calls The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, as he describes the relationships between the two parts of the family as each produced a president ─ first Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt on one side and then FDR on the other. He discusses the effects that contracting polio had on FDR’s personal and political life. He also includes the journey of Eleanor Roosevelt from her shyness to becoming a strong person of influence herself and how that affected her relationship with FDR, remembering that she too was a Roosevelt.
While this essay focuses on FDR’s politics rather than his personal life, the Burns series weaves the two together and is well worth watching. Note that the New Deal and FDR has its critics, while others hail FDR as the greatest president certainly of the 20th century, and even more in the history of America.
The Present and the New Deal
Like FDR, President Trump has moved boldly in these early days of the presidency. His first 100 days, always taken as a presidential measure, have been characterized by taking bold action. But the parallel ends there.What is obvious is that his goals are the opposite of the New Deal. Trump seeks to revoke or eviscerate many of the laws and programs that FDR put into place or convert them to private money-making entities that private corporations control. Without FDR and the New Deal there would be no unemployment insurance, no social security, no limit on working hours. no minimum wage, and the laws that regulate money systems, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that protects bank deposits.
“These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power,” said FDR. Yet it is these institutions that Trump and his cronies are attempting to destroy precisely because they do put controls on the power of these “economic royalists,” what today we often call the ruling elite. who, as FDR notes, “hide behind the Flag and the Constitution,” as Trump and Co. do by falsely exuding great Patriotism.
When FDR was inaugurated there were 15,000 million unemployed in America. The New Deal programs he initiated greatly reduced that number by 1935 going into his second term. It’s as if Trump is trying again to reach that number of unemployed through layoffs, releasing thousands of worker, while he and Elon Musk, operating outside of Congress, raid our institutions with layoffs and cutbacks in funding, all the while giving perks via tax cuts and investments to corporations that have raised prices and that continue to destroy the environment and contribute to the current climate crisis as well as increasing the already bloated military budget by taking money from social programs (never from corporations, which the government continues to fund.
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
Trump and his cohorts, especially Elon Musk, have created the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It was not created by Congress but by an executive order of Trump’s. Although DOGE is supposedly managed by the bipartisan DOGE Caucus whose purpose is “pave the way for the House of Representatives to streamline government operations and to save taxpayer money,” they are dismantling and cutting off funding for most programs that support ordinary citizens in need as well as some foreign programs like USAid.
Despite its full name, DOGE is not an official government department, which would have had to be established by an act of Congress. Instead it came into being through one of Trump’s presidential executive orders, and operates as an advisory body with at least four employees dedicated to each government agency.
Trump and Musk are conducting a hell-bent crusade against as many social programs as possible. While their actions may not directly be the repeal of all the same laws that were passed by Congress under FDR’s presidency, with so many people laid off it is as if Trump and his cronies are trying to match the 15 million people who were unemployed when FDR officially became president in 1933, along with the millions of immigrants Trump has deported or plans to deport, some of whom are American citizens or hold green cards.
Musk and Trump, under the auspices of DOGE, are slashing programs that benefit the citizens of America with broad strokes. What they call a campaign against fraud in reality is a gutting of social programs that benefit ordinary citizens. At the same time Trump continues more than excessive military spending by funding foreign wars ─ most obviously the Ukraine War and the continuing genocide against the people of Palestine/Gaza being criminally perpetrated by Israel─ as well as maintaining an excessive and very expensive worldwide military network. At the same time they are gutting the Environmental Protective Agency (EPA) and increasing rather than curtailing the use of fossil fuels, a CO2 pollutant that is a major cause of the Climate Crisis that puts the whole planet at risk.
The Trump administration and Trump himself pretend and encourage their followers to pretend that there is no relationship between the climate crisis and the use of fossil fuels, yet the Union of Concerned Scientists and other responsible and realistic academics as well as ordinary people have shown us otherwise with their analyses and activism alike. And the U.S. military continues to be the a major polluter in the world with its use of fossil fuels that release CO2 and methane gas into the atmosphere as well as by the pollution of water, especially by what are called PFAS pollutants, with the 1000 plus military bases and military installations worldwide.
In addition Trump is acting in true autocratic manner in attempting to shut down free speech in the colleges where pro-Palestine students are attempting to exercise the right of free speech. This ban extends to all media by his demands that no critical articles be written about him and there be no critiques of his platform and actions. In addition, the Trump administration’s policies result in the threatening of academic freedom of college and university faculty members. His actions mimic Hitler’s seeing that Jewish professors and anyone opposed to him were fired from colleges and universities and punishing students who opposed his policies, such as the White Rose student group who were murdered by Hitler for distributing pamphlets against him. The book bans that are being legislated in many states are also an attack on free speech and approximate the book burnings under Hitler.
As usual, Trump is pursuing his policy of hate and hyper-militarism for specious reasons that attack the most basic American values such as free speech and the peoples’ right to assemble along with the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances; they rationalize this Constitutional crisis with all the geopolitical ins and outs and machinations and excuses they can create. Congress keeps pouring money into weapons and then sending them to Ukraine for continued war and to Israel for the continued genocide against the people of Palestine, making sure the war industry is well-funded and much of the profits are returned to members of Congress for their election campaigns and personal use, Congress appears to have been brain-washed; when interviewed by Medea Benjamin and other Code Pink members in its halls in response to their questions, they shift all blame back to Hamas when it is the U.S. that is guilty of supporting Israel’s continuing apartheid and oppression of Palestine since 1948. It is the U.S. that keeps shipping weapons and money to Israel so they can continue with the genocide. Any attempts at forming a ceasefire Trump’s part have failed.
End of Part 1, The Unraveling of the New Deal
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FDR Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for Presidency on June 27, 1936. Full address:
Senator Robinson, Members of the Democratic Convention, my friends:
Here, and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the Nation. It is an occasion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression of an attitude toward problems, the determination of which will profoundly affect America.
I come not only as a leader of a party, not only as a candidate for high office, but as one upon whom many critical hours have imposed and still impose a grave responsibility.
For the sympathy, help and confidence with which Americans have sustained me in my task I am grateful. For their loyalty I salute the members of our great party, in and out of political life in every part of the Union. I salute those of other parties, especially those in the Congress of the United States who on so many occasions have put partisanship aside. I thank the Governors of the several States, their Legislatures, their State and local officials who participated unselfishly and regardless of party in our efforts to achieve recovery and destroy abuses. Above all I thank the millions of Americans who have borne disaster bravely and have dared to smile through the storm.
America will not forget these recent years, will not forget that the rescue was not a mere party task. It was the concern of all of us. In our strength we rose together, rallied our energies together, applied the old rules of common sense, and together survived.
In those days we feared fear. That was why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.
But I cannot, with candor, tell you that all is well with the world. Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy indeed a fullness of life greater than that of most Nations. But the rush of modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulties, new problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United States the political and economic freedom for which Washington and Jefferson planned and fought.
Philadelphia is a good city in which to write American history. This is fitting ground on which to reaffirm the faith of our fathers; to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom; to give to 1936 as the founders gave to 1776—an American way of life.
That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy—from the eighteenth century royalists who held special privileges from the crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed; that they denied the right of free assembly and free speech; that they restricted the worship of God; that they put the average man’s property and the average man’s life in pawn to the mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented the people.
And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought. That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man, who won the right with his neighbors to make and order his own destiny through his own Government. Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.
Since that struggle, however, man’s inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people.. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution—all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain free.
For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital—all undreamed of by the fathers—the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.
There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small business men and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.
It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.
The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor—these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small business man, the investments set aside for old age—other people’s money—these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.
Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.
Throughout the Nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.
An old English judge once said: “Necessitous men are not free men.” Liberty requires opportunity to make a living—a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.
For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor—other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.
Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people’s mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.
The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business. They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.
Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.
These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the Flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.
The brave and clear platform adopted by this Convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that Government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.
But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them.
For more than three years we have fought for them. This Convention, in every word and deed, has pledged that that fight will go on.
The defeats and victories of these years have given to us as a people a new understanding of our Government and of ourselves. Never since the early days of the New England town meeting have the affairs of Government been so widely discussed and so clearly appreciated. It has been brought home to us that the only effective guide for the safety of this most worldly of worlds, the greatest guide of all, is moral principle.
We do not see faith, hope and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a Nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.
Faith— in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.
Hope—renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.
Charity— in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.
We seek not merely to make Government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity.
We are poor indeed if this Nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.
In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.
It is a sobering thing, my friends, to be a servant of this great cause. We try in our daily work to remember that the cause belongs not to us, but to the people. The standard is not in the hands of you and me alone. It is carried by America. We seek daily to profit from experience, to learn to do better as our task proceeds.
Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales.
Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
In this world of ours in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.
I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.
I accept the commission you have tendered me. I join with you. I am enlisted for the duration of the war.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Philadelphia, Pa. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/208917
Letter carriers across the country rally to stop the Trump administration from stripping the U.S. Postal Service of its independence and possibly privatizing it. 
Engraving of the Four Freedoms at the 
Oh, sacred world
