As significant and encouraging as the recent strike resurgence (actually it continues a trend that began in 2018) is, I would still argue that the best measure of the maturity and level of consciousness of the working class and labor movement at this particular moment remains the degree to which it engages in and gives leadership in the streets and voting booth to the diverse, cross class coalition (in the middle of which is the Biden administration and Democratic Party) arrayed against and in an existential battle against Trumpists and Trumpism.

This isn’t to counterpose one form of struggle or understanding against the other. Ideally, they reinforce one another. But only to remind ourselves that the prospects of the labor movement beyond this or that strike will depend on the ability of labor and its allies to politically and decisively defeat Trump and Trumpism

Today I rose early – 4am. Made some strong and very tasty coffee and toasted a slice of whole wheat bread. To the latter I added a little jam as a reward for getting up before dawn made her appearance. Then I sat quietly for 45 minutes and tried not to think about the state of the world, unsuccessfully. Around 4:55 am, jumped into my car and drove off to my 5:15am spin class.

There, a youngish woman with lots of energy lead what is mainly an over the hill gang in frenetic peddling for 45 minutes. Today, we warmed up to Tom Petty’s “You don’t know how it feels” and cooled down to Barry White’s “Can’t get enough of you love baby.” I quietly sang along to both.

After cleaning my bike, I drove home on the still dark streets of Kingston. At home I made another pot of coffee, woke up my wife and dog, and drank one more cup even though a mini nap awaited me. All and all, a good start to what looks like a beautiful late fall day.

This article, critically analyzing the Ortega government and Nicaraguan society, will likely generate controversy. A couple of general observations. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, I’m not so ready to take on face value the claims – including the democratic character – of left governments. Another is – and this is a reconsideration – that the path to socialism lies in the expansion and deepening of democracy. In other words, it’s an indispensable means as well as an end of socialist development.

Trumpists have weaponized weapons in order to drive democratic minded people out of politics as well as to normalize their place and use in politics.

One can quibble with this thing or that in the essay, but its general thrust is in the right direction, indeed a necessary direction for our country and world. Reading it reminded me of a conversation I had in the early 1970s with Peter Berg, a founder of the Diggers in San Francisco, larger than life character, and early ecological visionary.

I was living in a commune in Portland, Maine at the time and Peter and his family were traveling the country in a makeshift truck across the country and Portland was a stop – a few months stop – on their journey. It wasn’t long before nor surprising that I and other communards in the High Street commune met him and his family soon after they arrived. In addition to sharing vegetarian dishes, home made beer, and pot, we had long conversations about the world. In one, he said to me, something like, “Webb, you Marxists speak of only class consciousness (and my concept was very narrowly constructed at the time). But that’s only one level of understanding. If we hope to create a better world, what is absolutely necessary is planetary consciousness (that is, ecological consciousness in today’s language).”

Even though it sounded a little cosmic to me at the time, I didn’t dismiss Peter’s remark out of hand. How could I? I was a novice to the world and politics in many ways. He on the other hand was older and seemed (and was) much wiser than me. So I took his observation more as advice than criticism. Moreover, I filed it in my memory and carried it with me over the years and decades.

Not long after that exchange, Peter and his family trucked out of town, I believe to Nova Scotia. Eventually, he returned to the Bay Area where he become a pioneer proponent of bio-regionalism and planetary sustainability. One of my great regrets is that I never saw Peter later on, even though I traveled to California frequently. Thus I never had the opportunity to tell Peter that he got the best of me in that conversation back in the 1970s.

It was only after I stepped down as the chair of the Communist Party in 2014 that I googled his name and I found out to my great regret that he died, but by some good fortune, while visiting Juan and Cassie Lopez in Oakland a little later, I came upon an announcement that an exhibition commemorating Peter and his ecological vision was on display at the San Francisco Library. I mentioned it to Juan and off we went to the exhibit of Peter’s life work and legacy. We had a well spent afternoon, to say the least. But I still kick myself (but not too hard for what purpose will that serve) for not contacting Peter while he was still living.