Author: thefreeonline

American techno-fascism is no longer a philosophical abstraction for Silicon Valley to tinker with, in the vein of intermittent fasting or therapeutic ketamine doses.

It is a policy program whose constitutional limits are being tested right now as DOGE, staffed with inexperienced engineers linked to Musk’s own companies, rampages through the federal government Silicon Valley is premised on the […]

Techno-Fascism Comes to US America

Racism and fascism ruin lives and we need to tell how they ruin lives. It is through understanding, articulating and acting on those kinds of connections that we will enhance our work

by David Rosenberg at Rebellion on 5th March 2025 via thefreeonline at https://wp.me/pIJl9-Gf6

Talk by David Rosenberg on 1 March 2025 at the Trade Union conference of Stand Up To Racism

a fighter for better housing who co-led […]

No blueprints, no quick fixes, but we can defeat the Far Right!

Max at 100

I want to start by telling you about a trade unionist I knew personally, called Max Levitas, a shop steward in the Tailors and Garment Workers’ Union for many years;a fighter for better housing who co-led a four-month rent strike when he was in his mid-20s; a co-organiser of an occupation of the bomb shelter at the Savoy Hotel during the Blitz, to protest about the lack of such shelters where he lived in London’s East End.  He was also a local councillor for the Communist Party, taking up all kinds of issues across Tower Hamlets. He worked until he was 80, and in retirement remained active in pensioners campaigns. When he was 101 he became the world’s oldest Dementia Friend – helping individuals suffering that condition. And he was a brave fighter against racism and fascism his whole life.

You cannot emulate a life like that – he was extraordinary – but you can take one key idea from that biography which is that these spheres in which he was active are all inter-connected. The connections though are not always immediately obvious. We cannot serve the anti-fascists and anti-racist movement if we focus on them in isolation, or do so simply as moral condemnation – “racism is bad”, “racism is evil”.

Racism and fascism ruin lives and we need to tell how they ruin lives. It is through understanding, articulating and acting on those kinds of connections that we will enhance our work against racism and fascism and build a better world.

But if you asked Max to name the proudest day of his life – he would tell you immediately – 4^th October 1936 – the Battle of Cable Street. The iconic clash of fascism and anti-fascism in Britain in the 20^th century.

The day when thousands of foot-soldiers in black military uniforms with jackboots of Oswald Mosley’s deeply antisemitic British Union of fascists, were blocked from invading the most heavily Jewish-populated East End streets by my favourite prevent strategy of them all: blockades, barricades, and masses of working class activists working in unison across ethnic and religious divides.

That day remained a touchstone for Max and it should be for all of us. But by 1936 the fascist forces had already recruited many thousands across Britain to their ideology, across classes and generations.

Mosley placed a particular emphasis on youth, saying: “We are a party of action based on youth that will mobilise energy, vitality and manhood to save and rebuild the nation.”

He claimed that his fascist party were the only party that offered young people a chance to play their part for the nation in peace-time not just in war. Incredibly powerful and compelling stuff when so many working class families lost sons in the first World War.

But never forget that fascism was, and is, a project of the elite. Mosley and his elite friends were especially focused on the fascist student branches they formed in 20 public schools.

But by 1936, anti-fascists were attracting large numbers. We need to understand how their numbers and resistance were built and what that knowledge can mean for us in the different – but not completely different – world of 2025. Before I leave Max, though – here is my favourite Max story:

Attack near Toulouse caps weeks of actions against Elon Musk’s company in the US and Europe

~ Rob Latchford ~ Eight Tesla cars were burned completely and four others seriously damaged in an arson near Toulouse, France in the small hours of Monday (3 March).

According to a local paper, the attack on a dealership […]

Mass arson at France Tesla dealership