<html><head></head><body><div style="font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px;"><div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>While I'm not a big fan of "dialectical materialism," perhaps I should be; this article from BAR seems to place the antifa in an appropriate analytical and critical context.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><br></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'><br></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>Boston Protest of White Supremacy and Fascism
Reveal Deep Contradictions of the Trump Era</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><b><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>Danny
Haiphong</span></b></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'> </span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><b><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>Boston
Protest of White Supremacy and Fascism Reveal Deep Contradictions of the Trump
Era</span></b></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><b><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>by
Danny Haiphong</span></b></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>“<b><i>The
two ruling parties in the US, which have united to wage an all-out assault on
the oppressed both here and worldwide.”</i></b></span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>August
19th marked the arrival of so-called "free speech" groups to the
Boston Common. They were met by 30,000 protesters who sought to run them out of
the city in the aftermath of events in Charlottesville just a week earlier. The
overwhelming opposition forced what many deemed to be Nazis to end their event
prematurely. Activists rejoiced over the sheer numerical advantage they enjoyed
over the right-wing assembly. The protest has been hailed as a victory for the
"left" in the US. As with any perceived victory under the terminal
decline of the US empire, the question of how revolutionaries can move the
struggle against white supremacy toward the transformation of society remains
unanswered.</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>First,
white supremacy cannot be confined to the ideas that exist in the minds
individual white Americans or even organized formations of white Americans.
White supremacy is a system of power rooted in the social relations of US
capitalism. The invention of the white race has historically justified the
dispossession and oppression necessary to maximize profits in the midst of
labor solidarity. Whiteness not only divided workers based on race, but ascribed
a more intense form of exploitation to whoever was deemed by the ruling class
to fall out of the markers of white identity. White supremacy first justified
the colonial conquest of indigenous lands and the enslavement of Africans. The
system of white rule was then implemented beyond the borders of the US
nation-state to encompass all nations and peoples who stood in the way of
capitalism's unmitigated expansion.</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>“<b><i>White
supremacy is a system of power rooted in the social relations of US
capitalism.”</i></b></span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>Marxist
thinkers and organizers use the scientific method of dialectical materialism to
understand the development of society. The dialectical method studies
contradictions as the defining force of all phenomena and concludes that the
struggle between contradictions leads to change. Contradictions are always in
motion and change constantly as they interact with each other. Quantitative
changes in the interrelations of things eventually lead to qualitative change.
Marxists use this scientific outlook to study the development of class society
from the earliest periods of humanity to the present day.</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>And
in the present day, the principle contradiction of US society is the struggle
between white supremacy and the class exploitation it produces both at home and
abroad. White supremacy is often promoted by the power structure as nothing
more than bad ideas which are unrelated to the structure of US society. This
can be seen by the number of people at the Boston protest who were in
attendance primarily to condemn “hate” speech and “Nazis.” Separating “hate
speech” and “Nazis” from their historical roots masks the fact that white
supremacy and corporate power have always interlocked in the US to produce ripe
conditions for the rise of actual fascism. US intelligence nurtured fascism
during the Roosevelt period and after, hiring many former SS war criminals to
help wage a <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=luciana+bhone+nazis+then+and+now&form=EDGEAR&qs=PF&cvid=9f6306636bec4ae996a2180b8a169acf&cc=US&setlang=en-US&PC=DCTS" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: rgb(109, 110, 113); text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><u>"cold" war against the Soviet Union. </u></span></a>Under the
Democratic Party presidency of Barack Obama, the US backed similar forces in
Ukraine to <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/svoboda-ministers-ukraine-new-government-far-right" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: rgb(109, 110, 113); text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><u>intensify the new cold war against Russia. </u></span></a>NATO, a thoroughly
bi-partisan institution of war, recently released a documentary that celebrates
the historic struggle of fascist forces in the Baltic States <a href="https://www.rt.com/politics/396208-historical-perversion-russian-officials-blast/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: rgb(109, 110, 113); text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><u>against the Soviet Union. </u></span></a></span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>“<b><i>The
system of white rule was then implemented beyond the borders of the US
nation-state to encompass all nations and peoples who stood in the way of
capitalism's unmitigated expansion.”</i></b></span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>The
conversation and activity targeting white supremacy and fascism in the US must
move beyond the present outlook of the ruling class. This outlook places Donald
Trump at the center of the struggle to legitimize the US imperial system.
Trump's ascendancy is more reflective of the crisis of white supremacy and
imperialism than it is of the gathering strength of fascism.<b> </b>For Trump
would not be President at this moment were it not for the deep contradictions
that plague every facet of the US social structure. The intensity of opposition
to Trump's racist policy propositions has been met with an equally intense
opposition to his campaign promises to ease relations with Russia and institute
a variant of "economic nationalism." The dialectical method thus
reveals a contradiction in the struggle against white supremacy, fascism, and
Donald Trump.</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>All
contradictions possess two sides. The struggle against white supremacy and
Donald Trump is no different. On one side sits the ruling class political
parties, both of which oppose Donald Trump based on his positions on foreign
policy and economy. On the other side of the contradiction is the left. The
left has targeted Donald Trump for his racist and sexist commentary and policy
throughout his campaign and presidency. Much of the left's opposition to Trump
has ignored the system of imperialism. Ruling class opposition to Trump has
thus created a hostile political environment for organizing on a class basis.</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>“<b><i>Trump's
ascendancy is more reflective of the crisis of white supremacy and imperialism
than it is of the gathering strength of fascism.”</i></b></span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>This
has significantly limited the debate and terms of struggle. Opposition to Trump
is united is in its inability to project a coherent class analysis of the period.
Unity between contradictions renders the conflict between them invisible. In
this time of stagnation and crisis in US imperialism, ideological unity between
the left and the ruling class has blurred the contradiction between the people
and the system. To fight white supremacist ideas and not the total structure of
the white supremacist system of imperialism places the left in dangerous
territory. Such activity obscures the actual levers of power that make the
material conditions for racist ideas possible.</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>The
fact remains that US popular anger over racist ideas is nowhere to be found
when Washington decides to bomb, occupy, or destabilize another country.
Demonstrations against the war on Syria have been small over the course of
six-plus years, and there have been few, if any, popular protests of the US war
drive against Russia, China or the DPRK despite their potentially nuclear
implications. Few protested the NATO bombing of Libya that murdered over <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/libya-conflicting-death-toll-raises-questions-about-what-truly-happened-237895" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: rgb(109, 110, 113); text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><u>50,000 Africans </u></span></a>and struck a huge blow in the struggle against
US military occupation of the continent through AFRICOM. The same can be said
when the police in the US lynch Black Americans at a daily rate and imprison
them in world record numbers. Of course, individuals and even movements are not
solely to blame for this phenomenon. Much of the blame rests on the shoulders
of the two ruling parties in the US, which have united to wage an all-out
assault on the oppressed both here and worldwide.</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>“<b><i>To
fight white supremacist ideas and not the total structure of the white
supremacist system of imperialism places the left in dangerous territory.</i></b></span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>Disagreement
within the ruling class exists over just how white supremacy should be
presented to the masses. Russophobia is not considered white supremacy, nor is
the constant, Orientalist coverage in the media of the DPRK being a "rogue
state" ruled over by a singular "dictator." The ruling class
also has no problem portraying Black Americans as a criminal element in the US
whenever the police need to be defended from persecution. White supremacy must
be framed as a malady of the past, one that doesn't stain the fabric of present
day US imperialism. Trump and his Administration makes the suppression of US
imperialism's white supremacist reality increasingly difficult and therefore
possess little use to the ruling class.</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>And
it isn't just Trump's overt white supremacy that makes his rule impractical to
a large section of the ruling class. White nationalists in the streets are
problematic, but even more problematic is Trump's willingness to debate the
rulers on key policy issues. When questioned about his support for Confederate
monuments, Trump lashed back by raising the racist implications of
memorializing <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-are-statues-of-slave-owners-george-washington-and-thomas-jefferson-coming-down-next/article/2631620" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: rgb(109, 110, 113); text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><u>George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. </u></span></a>This is but one aspect
of Washington's power struggle over Trump's Presidency. Since his inauguration,
Trump and his Administration have clashed with the corporate media and with the
CIA over the questions of Syria and Russia.</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>The
contradictions of the current epoch must be understood to chart a clearer path
forward to social revolution and transformation. White supremacy is not just a
feeling of hate that incites white Americans into violence. It is a system of
social relations that supports the profit-driven interests of the US
imperialist system. So what side are we on? Who is marching among us, and would
they march with us should we turn our attention to the actual levers of power
that make white supremacy possible? These are the questions that must be asked
as the contradictions of the Trump era become more acute by the day.</span></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><p style="margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; line-height: normal;"><b><i><span lang="EN" style='color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN;'>Danny
Haiphong is a Vietnamese-American activist and political analyst in the Boston
area. He canbereachedatwakeupriseup1990@gmail.com</span></i></b></p><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
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