The Weimar Solution

The Weimar Solution
By David Glenn Cox


We talk and talk and discuss the pros and cons and the rights and wrongs until our tongues grow weary and our heads begin to ache. That is fine, that is how it’s supposed to be. Or is it?

I was taught as a child to never start fights and never get involved in a fight that didn’t involve me, but to never, ever back down from a bully. Backing down from a bully will only bring you more fights in the long run, not fewer of them. A bully who sees a soft mark will always push for more and more. A bully confronted will either back down or fight, but in most cases will move on looking for another easy pushover.

In March of 1932, the hungry and the unemployed in the Detroit area organized a march to draw attention to their plight. Since 1929 the monthly caseload for the city's welfare department had swelled from 5,000 a month to 50,000 a month. The plan was to march to the gates of Henry Ford’s River Rouge auto plant. Henry Ford at the time was the richest man in America and the Rouge plant was the largest manufacturing complex in the world.

The marchers made their way to Detroit’s City Hall where the mayor, Frank Murphy, came outside on the steps and waved to the marchers and said in solidarity, “I’m with you all the way.” Murphy ordered a police escort to the city limits. When the marchers reached the Dearborn city limits the story and tone changed. The road had been blocked with police cars and motorcycles, and officers on horseback pushed the crowd into a wedge. The police ordered the marchers to disperse and then fired tear gas into the crowd.

The marchers responded by throwing frozen mud and stones back at the police. The Dearborn fire department then turned high-pressure fire hoses on the crowds in sub-freezing temperatures. When that failed the police and Ford’s private security thugs opened fire on the crowd with live ammunition killing four and wounding several dozen. Calls for food and work had been answered with ice water, tear gas and bullets.

There has never been a question as to who were the aggressors in the Dearborn massacre. Henry Ford was the richest man in America so when Ford tells the Dearborn police to stop them, the police stop them. We all answer to power on some level and power never backs up. Power only moves forward. Power services its own needs; it doesn’t make moral concessions nor does it admire sincerity. The only thing that it admires is more power.

My grandfather was a union organizer in Ohio and while walking his turn on the picket line was confronted by a bullyboy. A bullyboy was a street tough, a thug type who was hired by the company to cross the picket line. The men on the picket line always knew when the bullyboys were coming because they showed up shortly after the police had arrived. This fellow tried to push his way past my grandfather and my grandfather pushed him back and was arrested for disorderly conduct. The bullyboy was put into another car but never made it to the police station to be charged.

In a fair system the bullyboy should have been charged with assault; instead my grandfather was charged with a crime. The power was behind the company. The union paid my grandfather’s bail and he was back on the line the next day. Again the bullyboys came and again my grandfather was arrested and hauled before the same judge. The judge asked, “If I release you on bail will you promise no more trouble today?"

He answered, “Today? Sure!"

As he was released he turned to the judge and said, “See you tomorrow.”

My grandfather was a large man at six foot four and stocky and easy to identify, so when the bullyboys came the third time they focused on him specifically. As he resisted their assault a policeman’s billy club came down across his forehead opening a three-inch gash. In the melee some of the men on the line put him in a car fearing what might happen if he was arrested again. They took him home, bleeding and unconscious, and a neighbor lady sewed up his forehead with a needle and thread.

Towards evening as he lay on the couch my father called out from the porch, “Some cops are coming.”

My grandfather met them at the door with a baseball bat in his hand.

The officers explained, “The plant owner wants to talk with you but was afraid that you would kill him if he came by himself.”

My grandfather answered only, “He’s a smart man.”

The next day the plant owner arrived and my own father said it was the first new car he had ever seen up close. The deal was simple, if my grandfather would get the men to call off the strike the boss would make him the plant foreman with a large raise and answering only to him.

My grandfather told him, “Get the hell off the porch.”

Within another week the bosses gave in and the strike was over and was settled in favor of the workers. At no time did the bosses bargain in good faith. They tried intimidation and then force and then coercion, and only when all of those tactics had failed were they willing to bargain fairly. It is a sad commentary on our society but it was force and not negotiation that ended the strike. Power only backs up when forced to back up; they don’t admire courage, and they don’t care about the environment or saving the whales.

Don’t get mad at me. I didn’t invent the system, I’m just calling it out. I’ve often wondered what did more to bring about civil rights for African Americans. Martin Luther King’s marches or the riots in the inner cities that caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages? During the peaceful marches the marchers were stoned and tear-gassed and had police dogs and fire hoses turned on them. During the riots insurance companies run by rich white folks got creamed. I think that the change was brought about by both. The moral force of the marchers and the economic force of potential riots.

Where would the gay rights movement be without the Stonewall riots? Do you think that waving rainbow flags and wearing funny clothes will get you anywhere?

On March 12, 1932 thousands marched to a public funeral for the slain auto workers. More than 70,000 Americans listened and removed their hats as a band played “The Star Spangled Banner” and then the Communist anthem “The International.” Riots and food riots were becoming the norm across Herbert Hoover’s America. His administration had spent two years fighting the depression with loans and tax breaks for big business.

The Red Cross sent vegetable seeds to hungry farmers in the Dust Bowl, oblivious as to why they called it the Dust Bowl and why the farmers were hungry in the first place. Soldiers with bayonets and not negotiations had run the Bonus Marchers out of the capital and army tanks stood guard at the gates of the White House.

This is the America that Franklin Roosevelt assumed the Presidency of in 1933. The Communist party was the fastest growing political party in America and some feared that there was a real threat of revolution. Where Hoover had lived in denial on Pennsylvania Ave., Roosevelt offered accommodation. This wasn’t because Roosevelt was just a great guy but out of a genuine concern that they could lose the whole capitalist shooting match if they didn’t make accommodations. So successful were his reforms that millions of Americans today can’t imagine taking to the streets to defend their rights.

It was force and fear that the status quo would be smashed that brought about change. At the same time across the ocean in Germany the Fascist party developed a reputation for being street brawlers. They took joy in breaking up opposition party rallies until people feared showing up for the rallies of centrist parties.

The Social Democrats and the Catholic party made complaints to the police but the police could only offer a few men to defend their rallies. The Nazis came to power because the power to oppose them was weak and disunited. Once in power they began to make territorial demands and because the powers in Europe were weak and disunited they decided, “Let’s just give them what they want to keep the peace.”

So, let’s not fight with them; let’s let them keep the media spotlight and tell their side but not yours.

“You do not become a 'dissident' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.” Vaclav Havel

is now no one tells the power wielding money man to get the hell off the porch.

k and r

The bigger problem is, if such a person appeared, they'd be Googled and dug up dirt on by both sides in less than 24 hours, and people right here on DU would be calling them agitators, and worse, and making fun of them while helping dig dirt on them.

Let's not forget either the obligatory posts ridiculing statements that person might have made here and there in public or online, followed by these :rofl:

There is no unity. Even Obama has his detractors here, and no matter what shade of magical marshmallow pink the miraculous winged ponies he provides, one or two will have too dull a mane for some people, and nothing he does will ever be enough.

Do we deserve a man on the porch with a baseball bat yet? I think the water will need to get a little hotter and the losses a lot more personal before that man or woman will get the respect and united support he or she will require to confront the plant owner and win.

After 15 years of being a homeowner, I am a renter again as of about two weeks ago. Wells Fargo auctioned off my house for $40,000 less than we had made in payments. We'll live, but it stings.

While I contend it is long since past time for bats and porches, we, because of all the new hi tech ways to contain a discontented public, have to be more careful about how we make our case and cause change.

Dave's grand dad wouldn't be made to embrace his own gain at the expense of others. These days, that's exactly how a living should be made in the eyes of the ruling elite and their posse of ring kissers.

Check out the Institute for Local Self Reliance and a piece over at Mother Jones about a serial revolutionary named Popovic, I think.
There are smarter, better ways than blood shed to bring about a brighter way forward. Learning that may prove to be the challenge of our era.

shed blood but there are so many people that don't even understand that they're being screwed raw.
300,000 people per month losing their homes while Wall Street bankers borrow money at one quarter of one percent! The treasury then issues treasury bills and pays out 3.5% interest. Hello!

five years ago I lived in a 3,500 sq foot house. I drove a new car and had a 65 Mustang in the garage just for fun. I worked for 25 years without missing a paycheck. Now I live in a garage and can't find work of any kind. I understand you and I think you understand me it is a question of getting others to understand us.

stand our ground. don't initiate violence. but don't be intimidated either. don't back down.

keep speaking out loud and clear. keep getting back in the picket line like his Grand Dad and mine.

keep calling them out for what they are. keep repudiating the lies, even if no one is listening.

keep voting in progressives. keep telling the truth.

and I think he's also saying we need big turnouts, large demonstrations, like in the 30s and again in the 60s against the war. forget that the media never cover us now. they will.

and if the teabaggers come out like the bully boys, if the cops come out to beat us, we fight back like in Chicago in '68. we hope there is not another Kent State but if there is, and this time with the penchant for the 'bully boys' to carry, there probably will be, the victims will be our martyrs and spur us on to stay the course.

he's right on one thing, sadly, change has not come without violent attempts to stop it. only by not letting it faze us have we made progress.

and conversely Fascism has only taken root when people have backed down in the face of its bullying.

and very sadly, this time, their propaganda juggernaut has been so effective that many of those bully boys believe we are the Fascists and they are the ones standing up against it. I don't know how we change their minds, I don't know how we wake them up to the truth. and we all have tried and tried. But that is the key to tipping the balance, and if we can do so successfully, the corporate elite will never be able to do pit the people against each other like this again.

this won't end without more violence and probably death...but it will end...and we will only win if we don't give up.

...and inspiring. Your grandfather was a great man, Dave, and you honor him well in your writing.

They either didn't learn, or have forgotten, the benefits that they have, were fought for by people such as your grandfather, my spouse's grandfather, father and uncles, himself, all ironworkers. Because of such complacency, those benefits are slowly being eroded, and most likely will disappear as we devolve into a deeper recession/depression.