March, 2009
A Critique of Pat Buchanan
by Lil Joe
Pat Buchanan in his Commentary below is engaging in his usual, racist demagogy, concerning the economy and politicians in America, to "explain" the present economic crisis. The article is titled "systemic failure". One would expect an objective analysis of capitalist commodity production and appropriation, that is, the breakdown in the circulation of commodities by money: the failure of that system.
Instead, although Buchanan begins stating the obvious economic facts it is laced in mysticism and ideological demagogic individualism and guilt/blame. He wrote:
"As the U.S. financial crisis broadens and deepens, wiping out the wealth and savings of tens of millions, destroying hopes and dreams, it is hard not to see in all of this history's verdict upon this generation. We have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. For how did this befall us, save through decisions that brushed aside lessons that history and experience had taught our fathers?"The obvious economic fact is that there is a financial crisis in the United States that, as it broadens and deepens, is wiping out monetary "wealth and savings of tens of millions". What does that mean? We must begin with objective, i.e., universal definitions:
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October, 2008
The Election's Rhetoric of American Anti-Communism
by Lil Joe
In this article I will explain Marx, Marxism, Sweden, Socialism, Communism, Keynesian economic theory and practices contrasted to Monetarism in theory and practice, taxes, redistribution and other words and concepts distorted by McCain and Palin, FOX News, the Republicans and others daily on television. They are playing to the ignorance and nationalist delusions of American workers, and it is that ignorance and those delusions that I address. I am not defending the Keynesian policies of the democrats or Obama's representation of it and that Party. Communism is opposed and Marx distorted and attacked by both the capitalist's Democratic Party as well as Republican Party. I am defending Communism and presenting Marx and Engels' actual positions and writings.
The Republicans have called the Keynesian economic theory and policies, as represented by the Swedish economy, "socialist". This is of course ridiculous, because the Swedish economy is capitalist commodity production by wage workers, the exploitation of wage labor by capital. I have posted an article on the history of the Swedish economy, one on the Social-Democratic Labor Party's government instituting a social wage and raising the Swedish workers standard of living to one of the highest of all capitalist countries, much higher and more secure than the ignorantly anti-socialist American workers, and Malcolm X's comment on Martin Luther King's praise of Sweden ending poverty, homelessness, and violence in the country.
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June, 2008
WORD TO THE WISE: A Rejoinder to "Your Whiteness Is Showing" by Tim Wise
By Adaoma
Greetings All:
Hillary has no more represented so-called "women's issues"( ie. need for quality child care, gender disparities in wages for the same job, lack of medical research for women, educating girls in science and math, domestic violence and single mother) than Obama has represented so called "Black issues". Therefore, to support Hillary as a presidential candidate is not necessarily to support women.
Barack Obama has run his entire campaign to say he is against lobbyists and special interest groups. He has gone to great lengths to not be known as the "African American" or "minority" candidate. Obama has made one exception. He has gone to great lengths to convey to American supporters of Israel's government that Israel's government has his "unshakeable support" and protection. Therefore, to support Obama is certainly not to support the special interests of African Americans.
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June 2008
Barack Obama And Fatherhood
This is the first part to which I was responding, the rest is below my polemic:
Lil Joe
---
Adey wrote - or was he quoting his handlers?
> Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that
> family is the most important. And we are called to recognize and honor how
> critical every father is to that foundation. They are teachers and coaches.
> They are mentors and role models. They are examples of success and the men
> who constantly push us toward it.
On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Lil Joe wrote:
This is ridiculous, you cannot base an argument concerning empirical matters, or social phenomena on analogies. The premise to an argument has to be phenomenological. Peoples lives are not based on rocks, but on food, clothing and shelter. Food, clothing and shelter is the basis of every family - food and shelter are empirical universals, and the various family formations - matrileneal matriarchies as well as patrileneal patriarchies, are based on these empirical foundations.
Family formations are the result of the levels of development of a community's productive technological powers. Paleolithic and Mesolithic percussion and pressure flake technologies provide the means to scavengers - gatherers, and then as hunters -gatherers. Scavenging didn't require and economic division of labor, anymore than there are divisions of labor between flies or vultures. It wasn't until humans produced the means of making microliths and thereby spears, then composite tools like bows and arrows, that they begin to hunt. From this economic activity that there arose a natural division of labor between women and men.
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June, 2008
Sharpening Our Swords of Words into Concepts and Class Struggle
Moving from a racialist social analysis to understanding class dynamics in the American capitalist society
By - Adoama, Lil Joe
INTRODUCTION
Dear Netters: This is my response to exchange that took place on one of the Yahoo lists in 2008 between Lil Joe and Topcrestt. It contrasts sectarianism and global citizenry.
Within this piece is a link which leads to a polemic on race vs class in 2005, which demonstrates the growth of a worker from a racialist paradigm to a worker that began to understand the dynamics of class dynamics in an the American capitalist society.
Though a great many survivors of the Katrina storm were African American, many were not. What all the survivors of the flood had in common was their inability to escape because of their dire poverty.
I want to thank Lil Joe for the exchange and for David bringing it to LaborPartyPraxis.org.
Adaoma
==============================================
Hi Topcrestt,
Adaoma here.
So..., African Americans should focus on the "innercity problems facing black america"? And, you should focus on your village, right?
No! That type of thinking is what I call a "tribalist paradigm". This is the digital age. We live in a global community and the globe should be all our concern...especially those who live in America. Barack Obama is campaigning to be CEO of the America, who will make decisions that impacts the entire globe. It behooves all critical thinking people to know what's going on in the world, not just in your "hood" or your "village". You are a global citizen whether you realize it or not, Joe.
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May, 2008
Don't Be Nobody's Fool
By Lil Joe
I do not play political ploys and games, certainly not American politics of skin color games and/or gender. I do however recognize game when I see it: the con games of pimps, preachers and politicians - pimps have their "stables", preachers their "flocks" and politicians their "constituency". As pimps turn their women as prostitutes to Johns and tricks, it is in this same way that preachers turn over their flocks into constituent voting blocs to this or that politician and political party.
Racialism in American politics is also a political hustle - whether it be Dixiecrats or "conservative Republicans" who appeal to the culture of white racism into which so-called "White" workers were assimilated as the results of deliberate economic relations of production and political policies these individuals internalized the cultural myth of race, and of "white supremacy", or be the political hustle of Democrats, masquerading as defenders of "Blacks", and their protectors from Republican "racists" and "fascists", in both cases "race" and "racism are political ploys to tie American workers to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party.
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August 5th, 2006
by David Moros
dmoros2000@yahoo.com
Who is this "International Community"?
Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance.
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engles - A Critique of The German Ideology - 1845-46
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm
---
Something about the power of words.
Who is this "International Community"?
-----
The term "international community" is a phrase that can refer to either:
* All the lands represented in United Nations.
* The people of the lands all over the world.
* Shared values and principles among actors within an international system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_community
-----Not that wikipedia.org has definitive truth on all things but:
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August 5, 2006
U.S. Policy in the Middle East
by Gale Daggs
gdaggs5@charter.net
Li'l Joe
Joe_radical@earthlink.net-----
The present violence and destruction spreading through the "Middle East" -- particularly American armed and financed war by it's Israeli State on the peoples of Gaza and West Bank on the one hand, and the fresh invasion of Lebanon on the other, is part and parcel of the American armed and financed wars waged by American proxy regimes in Afganistan, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia. Its one war, waged by the United States and American Quisling regimes.
The American variation of state-mititary-capitalism has "sustained" America's capitalism by a permanent arms economy .The US "warfare state" maintaining a constant demand for production of means of destruction: the "military -industrial complex" means the constant feeding of a permant arms economy. This required a bogeyman that is declared 'evil', and thus a permanent enemy -the Soviet Union in the 1940s to its collapse. The implosion of the state capitalist commodity production into private networks accompainied the collapse of the Soviet Union.
A 'new' permanent war is needed to justify military spending and aid to Israel: the new bogeyman is the so-called "Arab world". Yet, the "Arab world" is more myth then reality; it is not one monolithic, idealogical _expression or ethnicity, for instance, Syrians, and Somalians are different enthnicities and encompass different expressions of Islam well as various other religions.
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Sat, 27 May 2006 18:12:57 -0700
On the Rule of Law, Human Rights, &t.
by Li'l Joe
Joe_radical@earthlink.net mailto:Joe_radical@earthlink.net
The so-called rule of law is nothing but rules put in place by the dominant class' political representatives.
The dominant classes in society are the ones in possession of the major productive forces. Predicated upon this are the economic foundations upon which political, religious and other social institutions are based, and cultures expressed.
With the triumph of capitalist commodity production there is an extended diversification of production, thus manifold divisions of labor. Capitalist's compete, both economically, within each division of labor and between them, and politically for control of the State. Correspondingly, politics is competitive. Democracy is therefore the mediation by which this political conflict is regulated. Democracy is the means that determine which faction of capitalists will win political control of government, and thereby management of the state, and for how long. Thus, bourgeois politicians inevitably create Constitutional governments that state general rules governing political factions. Conditions of production and appropriation engender democracy as the means by which capitalists compete for political control of the state, and management of society. Capitalist domination of government is inevitably corrupt.
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February, 2006
Comments on President Bush's Speech To the British Ruling Classes
By Lil Joe
I address below in the form of ``Critical Comments'' the historical and theoretical aspects of the Speech by President Bush (London, 19, November 2003) at Buckingham Palace to the British ruling classes and politicians.
The "Comments" on his Speech expose his ignorance or/and deception regarding history and the logical fallacies and theoretical premises in the first part of his Speech. I think that this is sufficient to get the reader into a critical mode.
President Bush: Thank you all. Thank you very much. Secretary Straw and Secretary Hoon, Admiral Cobbold, and Dr. Shipman, distinguished guests, I want to thank you for your very kind welcome that you've given to me and to Laura. I also thank the groups hosting this event, the Royal United Services Institute and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Lil Joe: This "kind welcome" by the representatives of the British ruling classes and Labour Party's government elites are in sharp contrast to the hostility of the millions of British rank and file trade unionists, workers and political activists represented by hundreds of thousands in opposition.
Here is what the Guardian Unlimited Press reports:
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October, 2005
Social Revolutions and Winning the Battle of Democracy
By Lil Joe
I - Bourgeois Democratic Revolutions
Social revolutions are historical processes of socio-economic transformation. Such transformations are not the result of ideas of great thinkers or revolutionary theorists, but arise from quantitative changes in socio-economic technologies resulting in qualitative contradictions in an existing mode of production, new forces and new passions emerge from these changes, challenging the world-order within whose wombs these fertilized eggs of the new changes grew, and developed lives with passions and wills of their own.
Yet, social revolutions are not the product of will and idea, but will and idea the result of the development of the rising new class, it's self-consciousness is the result of development of the new social organism in its mother organism's womb struggling for self-affirmation. The fetus and the mother are initially identical, the same. The mother's womb is its natural union, its home, its nurture and defense.
Self-affirmation of the specificity of the new organism, social or biological, begins in the womb, as is the case of an unborn organism it develops biologically, including its cranial capacity; its self-affirmation comes to differentiate itself, in its natural environment and from that natural environment. It's emerging cranial capacity, however is at the same time negation and affirmation both of its self-cumulative past, and against the conditions under which this past self cumulated to this point. From being an unconscious organism in self into a consciousness of self, its self-consciousness develops being for self as it confronts and overthrows the limits within which it had till this point been nurtured.
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09/11/05
INTRODUCTION
Allowing myself to be swept along in the frenzy of the emotional declarations which constituted the discourse on the cause of the tragedy in New Orleans I offered in fora "incontrovertible" evidence of the racist motivations of the US government in occasioning the horrific destruction of New Orleans and in compounding the suffering of the inhabitants of the "Big Easy" in the wake of the storm. Said "incontrovertible" evidence took the form of a picture of a slate-black reptile lying dead on the grounds of a hurricane ravaged compound. In the spirit of the prevailing discourse, and in the stark and telling absence of a white reptile in said photo or any other photo that has come to my attention, I have become convinced, unshakeably so, that the neglect and the hardships occasioned thereby was the consequence of racist contempt for black skin. I present the evidence for my conviction here, once again, for all to consider :http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050908/480/msdp13209082300
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May 31, 2005
A Red-Green Electoral Alliance:
A Working Class Strategy To Win The Battle of Democracy
Snip: "That support is evident at the Old Labor Hall in Barre. "He is as good as they come," says Sue Lucas, a nurse in Morrisville. "He is about everything we believe in."
"He is not afraid to stand up to either party," said Jim Genovesi, a worker for an electric utility in Rutland. "He doesn't seem to be affected by political pressure or lobbyist pressure. He stands his ground."
"Sanders' booming voice fills the hall as he nears the end of his speech. "We know that our opponents have hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that they put into the political process. We know they control much of the media. We know they have an attack machine that goes from Fox to Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report and all over the place.
"We know that is what THEY have," his voice thunders.
"But there is one thing they do not have. They do not have ordinary people prepared to knock on doors and organize all over America. "That is what WE have.
"They have the money. We have the people.
"And when push comes to shove, the people are going to defeat the money."
(((((((((((--------------------------------------------------------------------------))))))))
Lil Joe Comment: Of course, 'ordinary people' versus the rich folk is not a clear statement of partisan working class socialist politics. It is populism bordering on demagogy, but in America, for a successful populist running as an open 'socialist' in independent campaign races, beating Democrats as well as Republicans, is very significant. Sanders successes in House races, which aren't as expensive as Senate races, shows to the Green Party, Peace and Freedom Party and Labor Party activists that it can be done. Rather than spreading money and resources running candidates for President, Governors, the US and State Senate, with no chance of winning those races, it is demonstrated by this maverick Congressman that we can in fact win seats to the House of Representatives.
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July 12, 2004
Analysis of Fahrenheit 9/11
By Lil Joe
joeradical@earthlink.netFahrenheit 9/11 is an editorializing documentary by Michael Moore, ostensibly dealing with the assaults of 9/11 and the subsequent invasion and occupation of Iraq. This anecdotal documentary, both the movie and the audience reactions, shows the world the pitfalls of American political thinking. American politics reduce every political issue to psychoanalysis of individual motives, the politics of the individual, and sociological discussions of racism.
This is evident in the setting up of the message of the documentary: the invasion of Iraq by the "Bush administration" was motivated by Bush's personal proclivities, such as revenge for Saddam's attempt to kill his "father" (i.e. former president Bush). The documentary goes on to show links between the Bush family and the evil Saudis, in particular family connections between the Bushes and Bin Ladins. In doing this, Moore is in continuity with blaming 9/11 on bad individuals, intimating that for personal reasons Bush went after the wrong individuals. Democratic Party balderdash!
Moore's film begins by blaming racism in Florida, and in the Senate, for Bush becoming President. However, Moore did not quote Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia saying that the U.S. is not a Democracy, but on the contrary is a "Constitutional republic". In fact, Scalia is right. In the Federalist Paper No. 10, November 23, 1787, James Madison, the 4th President of the United States, wrote: "Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property".
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July 3, 2004
Identity Politics, the Green Party, and the Necessity in the U.S. for a Working Class Party
by Li'l Joe
Joe_radical@earthlink.net
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Snip: " WOODRUFF: But aren't you really saying, David Cobb, that you're going to tread lightly when it comes to seriously challenging John Kerry? "
" COBB: Well, Greens tell the truth. And the truth of the matter is, that John Kerry voted for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. John Kerry voted for the Patriot Act. John Kerry voted for NAFTA. John Kerry opposes single payer universal health care. John Kerry opposes raising the minimum wage to a living wage… At the same time, I'm going to acknowledge the truth of the matter that as bad as John Kerry is on all these issues, George W. Bush is qualitatively worse. The difference between John Kerry and George W. Bush may be nearly incremental, but it is not inconsequential. "
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David Cobb is the Green Party Presidential Candidate.
The Green Party is based in the petty-bourgeois professionals. Yet, taking a page from Bob Dole and Dennis Kucinich -- the Jesse Jackson "son of a share-cropper" line, David Cobb boasts:
"I grew up in grinding poverty in San Leon, Texas. I've washed dishes. I've been a construction worker. I'm a genuine working class person who lived the American dream. You know, Greens are ordinary people trying to do something extraordinary which is to build a genuine movement that will take our country back from the corporate hooligans who have literally hijacked it."
The Green Party is financially and socially based in the petty-bourgeoisie and white-collar professionals. They are not based in big Capital, and certainly not in the trade unions. The petty bourgeoisie feel squeezed by the big or "corporate" bourgeoisie on the one side, and by "big labor" on the other.
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June 21, 2004
The Economic Basis of Racism and How to Eliminate It
by Li'l Joe
Joe_radical@earthlink.netNOTE: Tim Wise has written a good sociological treatise on Reagan's Racism, and White Racism in America - as far as sociology goes. (See article below) Perhaps I should say, as far as bourgeois liberal sociological writing goes. I say this because the article is completely without economic content, and avoids the economical analysis that racism is a product of the capitalist mode of appropriation, the product of the capitalist mode of production -- that is, competitive commodity production on the basis of competitive wage labor.
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May 2, 2004
American Journalism as Unchallenged Propaganda
by Lil Joe
joeradical@earthlink.netUnlike other countries, e.g. England, where society is obviously class based and the press is openly class based and politically partisan, the United States claims a classless democracy -- class realities are hidden in a culture of denial. American "journalism" in the U.S. perpetuates as well as reflects this bourgeois sociology: that America is a "democracy" without the "rigid class divisions" characteristic of "old Europe".
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April 21, 2004
OPIN: America's Way of Propaganda and War in Middle Asia/North Africa.
By Lil Joe
joeradical@earthlink.netPropaganda campaigns to demonize an enemy country's leadership, as a tyrant, dictator, extremist, a madman and a monster has always been the role of the U.S. politicians and its media. Before a war is waged, the American people are brought on board in believing that America or/and its allies are being victimized by Hitler-like creatures who must be "stopped".
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November 11, 2000
The Race for the Presidency
by Connie White
connierw@earthlink.netRecent events re elections 2000 have shown that the "race for the Presidency" is not all that it is cracked up to be -- so to speak. The recent elections -- and the disputes arising from these elections -- have again brought to light that the American "presidency" is not decided by popular vote, but by the Electoral College, i.e., the votes cast by the each states' electors. In other words, your vote at the polls is not what directly elects the President of the United States.
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February 22, 2004
Reparations and Class Politics in America
by Lil Joe
Joe_radical@earthlink.netThe reparation movement is the Black bourgeois and professional classes hoodwinking Black workers into a "movement" that is pro-capitalist, and as such not in their class interests. The American working-class is comprised of men and women of every race, ethnicity, religion and lack thereof, and racial politics of any kind is destructive to our principles of class unity. Racial politics only helps the bourgeoisie.
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October, 2003
Nuclear Theatre in South East and Middle Asia
By Lil Joe
The United States, Britain, Russia, France and Israel are "alarmed" at the prospects of North Korea and Iran having the capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons. They hate the fact that China has nuclear weapons, but can't do a damn thing about it.
The United States emerged from World War II as a nuclear power--the sole nuclear power. The American political and military establishment wanted the U.S. to remain the only power with nuclear weapons at their disposal. As such, the U.S. would dominate the world, not just the Western Hemisphere. They would have had the capacity, derived from nuclear blackmail, to run over every nation in the world, the way they treat the countries of Latin America. They would be thereby not just a regional bully but a global bully. They would have been for the past six decades the sole rogue superpower, and behaved in the Middle East then the way the U.S. and Israel are behaving today, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Today the Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, and other Muslim and Arab states in Middle Asia are at the mercy of U.S. whims.
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Sunday, September 21,2003
PaxAmerica in Decline - U.S./E.U. Rivalry and Blix Bombshell
By Lil Joe
An Athens daily news paper (Sunday, September 21, 2003) carried an interview of Hans Blix, Europe's former UN chief weapons inspector. Hans Blix, in diplomatic jargon, denounced the United States and Britain for their "unnecessary" invasion and occupation of Iraq.
I say, "diplomatic jargon," because the wording, used by Blix, is vague enough for any number of "interpretations." Blix spoke of the "questionable honesty" of the governments of Britain and United States in presenting their "case" for the invasion and occupation of Iraq (actually re-occupation since Britain was there before). Blix's opposition to the invasion -- the same as Germany, Russia and France -- is that Iraq had no WMDs and thus that Iraq was posing no immediate threat.
This implicit criticism, by a prominent European operative, of the U.S. and Britain's foreign policy in Iraq must be analyzed, critically, in context of the economic competition between the United States and the European Union.
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Summer, 2003
Commemoration of the 1963
March on Washington
By Lil Joe
In itself the commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington and memories of Martin Luther King Jr. is galvanizing, appropriate and it is quite good to want to rekindle the ``spirit of the sixties." But what spirit? The spirit of reformist preachers, that resulted in making the ``leaders'' of the 60s becoming Democratic Party politicians and millionaires? These are the same politicians at the commemoration rally for whom rekindling the spirit of the 60s means no more than voter registration for next years presidential election. The Democratic Party's Negroes are showing their usefulness by using this commemoration to rally Blacks to vote for the Democrats in next year's election.
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Summer, 2003
Hypocrisy of America's Two-Party System & the Need for a True Workers Alliance
By Lil Joe
American (and European) workers often confuse the Democratic Party as the American version of the European Social-Democratic and Labour Parties. But this is not true. The American Democratic Party was originally the political party of the American slave-holders in the South, and their supporters in the North.
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During the 1930's unionised workers in the
U.S. used the sit-down strike, another powerful
weapon in the class struggle against industrial capital.
