Disobedience and Democracy by Howard Zinn

Disobedience and Democracy is a short essay Howard Zinn wrote in response to a short essay about Law and Order written by a Supreme Court Justice. Zinn outlines nine fallacies in the original essay, quoting extensively enough so that reading it is unnecessary. Each fallacy deals with a more fundamental question on law and order; when, if ever, it is morally permissible to break the law through protest? According to Judge Fortas, the justice who wrote the piece Zinn is eviscerating, the answer is never. Zinn disagrees.

It’s hard not to look at Zinn’s argument as a relic. The moral peril the nation was in at the time of his essay seemed greater than that of today. We’re talking about the Vietnam War, McCarthyism, redlining, and remnants of Jim Crow. So when Zinn states the scope of the civil disobedience in question did not outweigh the immorality of the things they protested, this seems, somehow, truer than today. When Zinn argues that burning your draft card or blocking the road to a chemical weapons manufacturer doesn’t compare to the atrocities of an illegal war, the benefit of hindsight means there are few of us who would disagree as modern readers.

That said, it is important for the modern reader to understand that Zinn’s arguments, at the time, were not widely accepted. That which he advocated the protest of is more comparable to what is happening today than we may be willing to admit while reading argumentative essays of the past. The Vietnam war and the conquests of Indo-Asia/Latin America can strike parallels to the relentless wars in the Middle East today. Surely we can use the same fallacies of law and order when assessing the moral decision demanded of the nation in the case of Edward Snowden, or Standing Rock, or Flint Michigan.

In this regard, Zinn’s words are more relevant than ever. Providing a moral justification and guidebook for disobedience against the state, Disobedience, and Democracy becomes essential reading at a time when democracy is most threatened. While we like to believe we exercise control over our lives by merely participating in democracy, the reality is that we don’t have a say in far too many ways. Americans don’t vote on foreign policy or wars, they don’t decide how much of their taxes go to schools vs corporate subsidies, and with so much corporate spending in elections, they don’t really even elect the leaders that make these decisions. Zinn makes the compelling argument that when democracy becomes an obsolete tool of change, disobedience becomes increasingly necessary.

Whether you’re protesting the state at Standing Rock or the Bundy Ranch, Zinn’s line of questioning will prove invaluable. What do we owe the sanctity of law and what does it owe us? Why must civil disobedience necessarily be non-violent? What are the limits of our government and how do we keep it in check?

If you’re planning to get organized, don’t leave home without your copy.

Socialism...Seriously by Danny Katch

Being from the Midwest, I think the ascendancy and eventual victory of Donald Trump came as less of a surprise to me than many people on the coasts. Michigan was an absolutely essential victory for the Donald and he carried it exactly the way I predicted he would; losing the wealthiest/most diverse counties and sweeping everything else.

I called this victory in Michigan, not from luck, but because this is exactly how Sanders took the win from Clinton in the primaries. Almost county by county. Clinton’s loss in the Mitten speaks volumes about the limitations of Democrats, but this is a book review on a short book, so I’ll keep it short.

So many who consider themselves left leaning value the world the Democratic Party claims it fights for. We care about the environment, economic empowerment, minimum wage increases, ending poverty and war. There is a lot of speculation why the rest of the nation isn’t on board with the Democrats despite their supposed dedication to the causes listed above. These explanations range from racism to stupidity, to brainwashing and corruption. While these could all be a little right, they don’t explain the limitations of the Democratic Party.

Think about the inadequate responses environmentalists have when talking about the jobs that are lost when coal plants are shut down, or of labor activists when advocating the minimum wage, or of democrats advancing agendas of Global Trade when auto jobs are shipped to Mexico.

Even Bernie Sanders, considered the furthest left of the party, gives some wildly inadequate answers to perfectly understandable questions. Just the other day when he was debating Ted Cruz (of all people) about health care on CNN; he was posed with questions from a business owner about their inability to afford the ACA provisions enforced on their business. Sanders’ answer pretty much amounted to “sorry, but you have to offer insurance, if you can’t, go out of business”. That is a nightmare answer for small business owners and probably the reason why so many of them hate the government.

So, why can’t the Democrats answer these questions? Because they are all operating under the assumption that their ideal world - the one devoid of war and poverty and injustice - can be achieved under capitalism. But capitalism doesn’t account for the jobs of coal miners when plants are shut down, or of minimum wage employees, or the sustainability of a salon in Texas that offers health care.

Enter Socialism...Seriously by Danny Katch. A short introduction to Trotsky inspired Socialism via humor and laymen terms. There are a lot of working parts in the book, Katch is asking his readers to imagine a world that isn’t structured by capital or profit, driven by a purer democracy than we have today, and all while debunking some of the major criticisms hurled at the ideology.

At times it seems like Katch has the answers Democrats lack. For example, in a world that doesn’t conform to the rules of “profit first”, full employment and environmentalism seem more compatible. When you really consider that we have to sell our labor to survive (something Katch goes into in perhaps his strongest section of the book; Freedom isn’t Free) suddenly it makes sense that coal miners and auto-workers and displaced lumber workers banded together in Michigan to elect Donald Trump. They see Clinton and the left as job cutters, destroyers of livelihood. There isn’t much indication that they are wrong either, Obama himself admitted that coal refinery workers might hate him for legitimate reasons. When Donald Trump enters that scene promising to bring back lost jobs and protect future ones he makes sense to people who have no choice but to work for a living. Katch is offering a vision of a world in which you don’t lack basic needs or a job just because society decided to automate truck driving.

This short, airtight book is a great one to share. Even if those you give it to aren’t going to run out and buy a copy of the Communist Manifesto, it still offers succinct and radical criticisms of capitalism and government, essential for anyone who is interested in answers beyond the standard liberal talking points.

Where Socialism...Seriously deludes itself is not in the ideology or implementation, but rather its perceived accessibility. I don’t find Katch very funny, his humor parades as edgy but is actual banal and overly safe. One wonders if he favored a poppy, referential humor over a more biting one for fear of isolating readers or if that is just his sense of humor. Either way, it is easy to imagine this sense of humor pissing off actual laborers. Then there are some passages about religion toward the end that seem rushed and incoherent, after a few sections of savage capitalism take-downs the section titled “Is Socialism a Religion?” seems like it’s attempting to win over an abundance of people who associate Socialism with Atheism, which isn’t to say those people exist, but rather that they would never read this book.

Which really speaks to another limitation on the left. This book is great to share with liberal friends and family, or maybe people who don’t consider themselves very political but voice concerns about social justice and human decency. Yet even after all the imagining of a socialist America, this book got me to do, it still couldn’t get me to imagine a Trump voting machinist in Up-North Michigan reading it, let alone being convinced of anything it has to offer.