KENTUCKY – Progressive Labor Party members attended a two-day rally in Corbin organized by a liberal-led reformist, KY Resist. The liberal group, formed in the past couple of weeks as a response to the fascist attacks carried out by the Trump administration, is trying to form a movement which aims to “fight back against this administration” and “protect democracy.” It is mostly made up of LGBTQ workers who have been under the gun of sexist anti-trans attacks. However, the organization is still following the dead-end politics of the Democratic Party in its phony resistance against Trump, which is nothing but controlled opposition to redirect workers back into supporting the same fascist system that under the Big Fascists has been supporting genocide, pushing for more war, and has already been carrying out deportations for some time now. These workers need liberation through communism, and not some milquetoast liberals who will inevitably lead us to the slaughter.
Fascist “democracy” means death for workers
Amongst speeches calling to protect the “promise of America” and using the same nationalism that the small fascists use to build consent for their atrocities against workers, PLers went up and gave speeches talking about how the Democrats have played a huge role in building fascism, mentioning how the ongoing genocide against Palestinians was wholeheartedly supported by the Biden administration. The main focus of our speeches, however, was to demonstrate that fascism is when the bosses who already hold state power can no longer use the false banner of democracy to carry out their interests and continue making profits. We explained that capitalism is where the majority of property and wealth in society is owned by the capitalists, while workers own nothing. At the end of the day, workers are forced to sell their labor, bodies and time to the property-owners in exchange for a small portion of the wealth they create through their labor, while the capitalists take what’s left in the form of profits despite not doing any work.
Bosses need racist, sexist divisions
What results from this everyday relationship is that those same property-owners need a state to protect their wealth and keep workers from resisting this exploitation, which is why even under liberal democracy the question of solving hunger, ending homelessness, or stopping unemployment is never really addressed. It’s also why racism, sexism, and transphobia go on unchecked, because these are tools that serve to divide workers, maintain gender roles and force women to have children in order to replace the workforce, and make more profits off of the backs of Black and brown workers, super exploiting the marginalized. When this exploitation can no longer be carried out through democratic means, the bosses switch to using more openly violent tactics and no longer hiding their racism.
Bringing militancy into the fold
After our speeches, we marched together out into the streets of Corbin. On the first day of the rally, we handed out CHALLENGE and had some conversations with people who were interested in our politics, as well as introduced some more internationalist chants such as “From Palestine to Mexico these racist borders got to go!” We noticed that nobody was really talking about Palestine, likely due to the fact that most of the genocide has been carried out under the Biden administration.
The next day, we spoke again and then marched to a local restaurant known as Snappy’s Pizza, who had previously harassed one of the trans organizers when she tried to use the bathroom there. While in front of the pizza shop we were confronted by fascists who drove by yelling slurs at us, and then parked across the street holding signs and heckling us. One of the fascists even held their sign upside down without realizing it, and still didn’t notice after all of us turned ours upside down mocking them! The liberal chant leaders started a chant of “Love not hate” to encourage fighting fascism with kindness, to which we countered with “Fascism means — we got to fight back!” And eventually we were able to turn the heat up, chanting more militant chants until finally the fascists drove off, realizing that we weren’t going to back down and that we weren’t afraid of them.
Nonviolence a losing strategy
Proving our Party’s line when standing face to face with open sexism has helped us learn that the only way to fight fascism is with militant working-class solidarity that knows no race, gender, or nationality. The fascists expect us to follow suit with the Democratic Party and put up a lackluster resistance that preaches love and peace, but when they see genuine communist antiracist resistance they run and hide. Workers know that there can be no peace with fascists when they see the willingness of this system to protect the police and their buddies when they try to smash us with violence. There can be no peace under a sexist system with a state that uses kkkops to protect it. The whole damn system’s gotta go!
