On August 4th, white-supremacist radio-host Hal Turner along with a litany of fascist groups and individuals will be holding a “rally against black gang terrorism” in Kalamazoo in the hope of fomenting racism and building a fascist movement in West Michigan. The Socialist Party of Michigan and other organizations have organized a counter-demonstration to confront the fascist rally and expose their intentions. We encourage all groups and individuals who are opposed to the propaganda of this rally to join us in confronting the fascists on August 4th.
Saturday August 4th 2007
Meet at 12:00PM at Bronson Park in Kalamazoo (South Rose and W. South St)
Brings signs, banners, noisemakers, and anything else that will help make it clear that fascism and white supremacy is not welcome in Kalamazoo, Michigan, or anywhere else.
Click Here to Download the SPMI Leaflet for Distribution at this Event
In the wake of the failure of the capitalist system to provide what is promised, and the rise of opposition to the antiquated system: a lowered quality of life for the masses, their struggle and feelings of insecurity, a rise in the poverty-driven crime rate, lower wages, harder hours, and higher unemployment, a sense of urgency to correct these problems emerges. Traditionally, the result of this is a rise in support between two rivals in ideological opposition: fascists and socialists. Both ferment within the working and middle classes, the former through the elite of the former system, the latter through the oppressed. They view the cause of the problems in two completely different ways: fascists attempt to muster hatred against oppressed peoples to deflect attention from the ruling class; socialists blame the mechanics of a system which naturally lead to the breakdowns present, regardless of the society it is embedded in. On August 4th the fascists march; and on August 4th we socialists stand to dispel their lies.
While the local corporate media and police encourage the general public to ignore this mobilization, the result of such passivity is only to deepen the potential of fascists to realize their immediate ambitions. Fascist groups like those rallying today seek first and foremost to build a movement to target labor struggles, oppressed peoples, and all movements of social progress as scapegoats for the disastrous social policies and economic conditions that the capitalist class continues to impose upon working people of all colors and creeds.
To whatever extent these fascist groups attempt to portray themselves as a movement of social rebellion is a direct inversion of reality. From Italy to Germany to Spain, to the prior development of fascist movements in the United States, fascism at all times develops as a movement to brutally suppress working class populations who are no longer willing to tolerate the attacks on their lives and living standards by the ruling capitalist class. Generally the development of such movements directly coincides with the intensification of imperialist war – such as the current war of aggression and conquest in Iraq. It is no coincidence that these groups are attempting to build a mass movement at the same time that the capitalist media and politicians have attempted to make anti-immigrant and anti-homosexual demagoguery as well as attacks on affirmative action among the central issues in legislative and public discourse.
Whether openly displaying their swastikas or not, fascist groups, like the capitalist police, are potential henchmen for the ruling class to uphold the capitalist system during periods of extreme social unrest. The extent to which reactionary forces are mobilized by the ruling class and their propaganda becomes dominant within its culture industry corresponds directly with the extent to which they are needed to preserve capitalism against the uprisings of working and oppressed peoples.
Such groups are additional gangsters to work alongside the existing repressive apparatus of the capitalist state – a fact that the fascists marching on August 4th know all too well. Hal Turner, the organizer of the Kalamazoo rally who routinely calls on his radio show for the police and border patrol to attack and kill minorities, stated in his flyer for this event that “the cops KNOW who the bad guys are; turn the cops loose! Take the handcuffs OFF the police and let them do their job without fear of being smeared as “racists.” When the smears of “racism” happen (as they always do) stand up for the cops at City Council meetings.” Turner additionally stated in his instructions for this event “If you see any kind of scuffle break out involving the police, our natural inclination would be to assist the police but we must refrain from doing that.” In only the past week, Turner has praised an anonymous letter of support he received from a police officer, called on “white cops to bust [black] savages,” and accused the Mexican teachers union of “attacking the cops.” The neo-nazi National Socialist Movement, also invited by Turner to attend the August 4th rally, likewise routinely insinuates that the American police support their cause.
Do not let fascists tell you that they are for preventing gang violence. Historically, fascists have gained power precisely through gang violence. The Nazi party in Germany gained power through the SA and SS and their use of gang violence to subdue anyone they saw as an enemy, particularly proponents of democracy and workers rights, such as socialists and unionists. Italian fascists gained power through the use of Black Shirts, who, like the early German Nazis, would violently break up strikes and assault socialists, communists, and unionists. Formative fascist groups are better known as paramilitary groups, but are fundamentally the same as gangs, only more political and more violent. The true racially-motivated violent gangs operating in Kalamazoo are those rallying before us on August 4th.
The claims made by the rallying fascists groups about rising “black gang violence” are utter distortions. Claiming an upsurge in racially motivated attacks against whites, the groups rallying on August 4th cite a recent attack on a white homeless man by allegedly black gang members, but entirely ignore the seven incidents (as of July 14th when their flyer was posted) where non-white homeless men suffered the same fate. The true cause of any rise in crime in Kalamazoo is the increase in poverty and social insecurity endemic to a degenerating system whose economy is controlled by a ruling class and its corporations with no loyalty to the communities of working people that created its wealth. It is caused by a system which is not run on community values or any kind of democratic accountability, but rather on greed and private profit. The fascists portray themselves as protectors of law and order, but their law and order is not the law and order of freedom, it is not the law and order of democracy, it is the law and order of the existing parasitic ruling class.
Fascist groups must be confronted wherever and whenever they attempt to mobilize in order to crush their attempts to build a movement that can be utilized by the American ruling class. Whenever a fascist movement arises, it comes as the direct result of a failure of working people to stand up and defeat it. At the same time the long-term means to prevent the formation of such movements requires a much greater mobilization on the part of the working people to confront the economic, political, and social conditions that fascist groups feed from. The defeat of poverty, violent crime, exploitation, discrimination, and imperialist war will require a multi-racial mass movement of the working majority to overthrow the fascists’ prospective puppeteers in the ruling capitalist class and bring forth a socialist transformation.