The naked partisan brawl over their hallowed Supreme Court seat is another reflection of the bosses' inability to govern "in the old way"–of their turn toward fascism.  It wasn't so long ago that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and arch-racist "intellectual" Antonin Scalia were besties who went to the opera together. It was like Joe Biden's warm and collaborative relationships with Jim Crow senators James Eastland and Strom Thurmond ("one of my closest friends," Biden once said). Whatever their disagreements, they were on the same team. But given the sharpening contradictions of capitalism, that era is gone.
As the fight among the bosses sharpens, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg exposes some of the problems the Big Fascist bosses are having within their own ranks with selfishness. Ginsburg as a judge willingly defended the racist anti-working-class policies of the Big Fascist liberal bosses, but when push came to shove, she, like many in the capitalist class, put herself above the class needs of the bosses. When then President Barack Obama took her to lunch and hinted that she should resign so he could appoint her successor, she refused. This type of subjectivity is causing problems for the Big Fascists as they struggle to take down Donald Trump and his Small Fascist backers in preparation for war with China.
The Big Fascists bosses are trying to mobilize around the mythology that the Supreme Court has the power/potential to defend the working class against rogue presidents or a right-wing Congress. The Big Fascist bosses want us to believe that it's essential to elect Biden (and Obama and Hillary Clinton before him) to appoint "progressive" justices and in particular to preserve Roe v. Wade.  This big lie that liberal politicians or judges will defend the working class has led to disasters such as Bill Clinton and Biden teaming up to throw millions of Black workers into prison. Where was the Supreme Court then? The Court (like the President and Congress) responds to mass militancy in the streets and mass movements in general. Reforms, however temporary, are driven by class struggle, not a group of nine ruling-class stooges in robes.
For her part Ginsburg was an eager stooge of the bosses racist system. She consistently carried out her job to enshrine and protect racist policies. In her decision in Sherrill v. Oneida, she ruled against indigenous people with “the language in that opinion…considered some of the more overtly racist language in its challenge and skepticism of tribal interests” (Marshall Project, 9/23/20). In United States v. Sineneng-Smith, Ginsburg argued for prosecution of advocates for migrant workers who “encouraged” those workers to enter the country. She supported the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Trump administration's policy of speeding deportation of asylum-seekers (Politico, 9/20) This is on top of her rulings in support of prosecutors and searches by police officers (Ohio State Law Journal, Vol. 70:4).
Ginsburg was a "federalist," which is short-hand for the racist "states' rights" movement that goes back to slavery days. Her racism sometimes slipped through her "progressive" façade. Most famously she was particularly tone deaf when she called Colin Kaepernick’s protests “stupid and dumb.” (She was later forced to apologize for this). She also had the worst record of any current justice in hiring Black law clerks, a coveted pathway to becoming a judge, having only one in her 27 years in the Supreme Court.  As devoted as Ginsburg was to defending a racist system, she exemplified the contradictions within the ruling class’ politicians, and in this case a judge, who demanded seemingly unlimited fame or money or both in reward for their service. Her individualism and refusal to retire when Obama was President is another example of the lack of discipline within the capitalist class.
Just a quick look at the ages of the leading politicians says a lot about the rulers failure to create space for younger leadership. Trump 74, Biden 77, Mitch McConnell 78, Nancy Pelosi 80. It raises a question as to whether Biden will, should he win, be willing to step down after one term or insist on running again at the age of 81. But it’s not just the age issue for the bosses. While the working class has been bearing the brunt of the capitalist crisis in lowered life expectancy, increased poverty and miserable health care, the bosses servants in Washington are demanding and receiving more and more for their loyalty.
As the political class makes demands, the culture of self-servingness dominates. Bill Clinton was caught sleeping with an intern, yet to this day he is defended by his fellow Democrats. Then, after leaving the White House, the Clintons raked in millions through donations from bosses from other countries to their foundation as well as big bucks for speaking on Wall Street. The Obamas have taken in over $60 million in television and book deals since leaving the White House. The Biden and Trump families have gorged themselves at the trough of capitalists from around the globe by selling their connections. In a period where the ruling class is preparing a fascist crackdown to prepare for war, the gross selfishness of their front people is becoming untenable for them.

One rallying cry for the liberal ruling class is that the November U.S. elections are about saving “American democracy” (See editorial, page 2) As the communist revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin pointed out, there is no such thing as “pure” democracy (see Lenin’s Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky). In class society, every so-called democracy is actually a dictatorship by whatever class holds state power.  Ancient Greece, often cited as the birthplace of democracy, disenfranchised all women and the people who actually kept their society going—the enslaved workers. In the 18th century, the U.S. “Founding Fathers,” many of whom owed their fortunes to large plantations under slavery, had a similar rulebook: “[T]he colonial electorate consisted of only 10 percent to 20 percent of the total population” (crf-usa.org).
Every revolutionary period, whether from slavery to feudalism or feudalism to capitalism, represented a change in the nature of “democracy.” In the U.S. today, the democracy among the bosses is also a dictatorship over the working class. As a result, voting cannot address the fundamental contradiction of capitalism: the conflict between those who own the means of production (the bosses) and those who create everything of value (the workers).
Internationally, the working class struggles for basic necessities while the capitalists fight to accumulate more wealth. War and climate change have made millions of workers refugees. Hunger is widespread and growing. As we’ve seen in recent months, decent health care is restricted to those who can afford it; those without jobs or insurance may be left to die at home.
Only through class struggle can workers exercise our power. But even after we win hard-fought reforms, the bosses will eventually take any gains back. For real democracy, workers must fight for communism and the dictatorship of the working class. Only then will the working class have the final say in how we run our factories, schools, farms, and communities.

The basic issue in philosophy is the struggle between materialism and idealism. In philosophy, materialism means that material reality - the stars and planets, the atoms and molecules, heat and light - existed before thought. Idealism is the opposite.
Idealists believe that thought—in the form of God, order,  spirit, destiny, fate, karma, or human consciousness—came first. Materialists believe that thought reflects matter. Idealists believe that matter reflects thought. Communists are materialists.
As pushers of idealism, the capitalists are similar to earlier ruling classes. The enslavers of ancient times and the feudal lords of the Middle Ages used religious ideas to keep the enslaved and serfs from rebelling. For example, they said the pharaoh, emperor, or king was God, or at least a direct representative of God on earth, and therefore had to be obeyed. Lesser ruling-class figures were indirect representatives of this divine power.
Serfs were told that life on earth might be hell, but disobedience to these God-chosen rulers was a sin that would lead not only to immediate punishment, but to eternal hell. Passive obedience, on the other hand, would be rewarded after death by an eternal afterlife in heaven.
Idealism can't stop rebellion
Religious forms of idealism still influence many people, because they offer security and care, even if imaginary, to those who suffer from the real insecurity and harshness of capitalism. And they offer rationalizations to those who fear fighting back.
However, in an age before the development of science, when superstition was virtually universal because it appeared to be the only way to explain nature, religious idealism was an even more powerful weapon against the masses. Despite this indoctrination, people fought back, at times even inventing other “Gods” to justify their actions.
During antiquity and the Middle Ages there were thousands of rebellions by slaves and serfs, such as the revolt led by Spartacus in ancient Rome, and the Peasant Wars in Germany during the 16th Century. These revolts were put down by the organized violence of the state, often only after prolonged armed struggle, and often followed by mass executions of the rebels and anyone suspected of supporting them.
The crime? Astronomy. The penalty? Death
Even people not directly involved in class struggle were attacked. The Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was imprisoned for seven years, before being excommunicated and burned at the stake by the Catholic church.
What crimes required Bruno's execution? He ridiculed the “mysteries and miracles” described in the Bible, claiming they were impossible. He put forward the astronomy developed by Copernicus, who said the earth and the other visible planets revolved around the sun, and that the stars could be other suns, with other planets revolving around them.
Galileo, who also put forward and further developed Copernican astronomy, publicly retracted his views in 1633, under the threat of torture by the Church. But Galileo knew that the Church and the rulers were wrong. As he was led from the court that convicted him, he is rumored to have said: “Well, it [the earth] moves, anyhow.”
In the beginning are the facts
To the feudal lords and the Church, what was most frightening about Copernicus, Bruno, and Galileo was their materialist approach. These early scientists all believed in God-they even dedicated their work to God. But they based their conclusions about nature on investigating material reality. Their “final authority” was nature.
But the feudal lords and the Church based their authority on the words in the Bible and in the writings of Aristotle. If Aristotle and, especially, the Bible could be proven wrong about nature by investigating facts, who knew where this could lead?  Would they go on to deny the existence of heaven and hell, and of the soul. Then what would keep people from rebelling?
The capitalists also fight against materialism. But where there is likeness there is also difference. The capitalist class had to use some materialist ideas to overthrow the authority of feudalism. For example, they had to oppose ''the divine right of kings.”
They also had to take a materialist approach to develop the science necessary for capitalist production. Aristotle and the Bible did not provide guidance for inventing steam engines or dynamite. Because capitalism is competitive, there is constant pressure to take a materialist approach in order to come up with techniques that will revolutionize production and produce more profits. Failure to do so often means defeat by other  capitalists.
Capitalists want science AND superstition
Once materialism was stalking the land in the form of physics, chemistry, geology, biology and engineering, what was to prevent the working class from using the same scientific approach to analyze and change human society? Science is a more powerful tool than superstition.
The capitalists panicked. They denied that the scientific method could be applied to history or society. The theories of Marx, Engels, and other advocates of dialectical materialism were attacked in articles and books by bought-and-paid-for professors all over Europe and America.
Marx and Engels were expelled from Germany, France, and Belgium. They lived in exile in England. Many of their comrades were jailed or killed.
In 1871, the working class of Paris dared to put some of the ideas of communism into practice. They established the first dictatorship of the proletariat- the Paris Commune.
The workers of Paris were furious with the Catholic priests for their service to the old regime, the bourgeois dictatorship headed by the “Emperor” Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. They removed the religious symbols from the churches, which they converted to meeting places for clubs of revolutionary workers. They took education out of the hands of the Church, where it had been placed by the old government, and put it in the hands of the Commune. Materialism, not idealism, was to be the basis of education. Ideas were to be questioned, not taken on faith.
Bosses build a  monument to their own fear
The Commune lasted only seven weeks. The revolution had taken place during the Franco-Prussian War. It was destroyed by a temporary alliance between the invading Prussian (German) army and the defeated army of the French bourgeoisie. The German rulers were afraid that revolutionary ideas would spread to Germany! So they rearmed their defeated enemies so that they could crush the revolutionary workers of Paris.
When the French capitalists recaptured Montmartre, one of the centers of communist strength, their troops rounded up and shot up to 50,000 men, women, and children. Their blood flowed down the sewers to the river Seine, which ran pink for days. Then, on the same hill where the Communards had kept their artillery, the Catholic Church built a white stone chapel called “the sepulcher of the expiation of the sins of the Paris Commune.” Known as Sacre-Coeur, it still stands today, a monument to the fear and hatred of the bosses toward workers who dared to overthrow the idealist lies of religion and apply science to society.
The battle between idealism and materialism is not an academic affair, but a vital part of the class struggle between workers and bosses for control of the world.

Following up with the excellent article in the 9/23 CHALLENGE on John Brown’s raid, there are lessons still to be learned from this courageous action. His plan was to seize the weapons there and start arming the enslaved workers who would then lead a large-scale rebellion against slavery. With the recent increased violence in the United States by racist cops and vigilante racists, and (on a much smaller scale) antiracists, it is worth exploring the decade that led to the U.S. Civil War.  By the end of the 1850s the use of violence to settle political disputes had become something of a norm.  
Like all forms of class society, slavery itself relied on ruling class violence, both organized and spontaneous.  Nat Turner’s 1831 armed rebellion catapulted the anti-slavery movement into a new phase, where immediate abolition became an increasingly popular program. Abolitionists like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Sojourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison and many others, joined this fight. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act extended the reach of the enslavers into the North to capture accused runaways, but abolitionists often attacked these kidnappers, sometimes freeing the runaways. Frederick Douglass said, “The only way to make the Fugitive Slave Law a dead letter is to make a dozen or more dead kidnappers.”
Northern capitalists defeat southern enslavers
At the same time northern finance and industrial capitalists were expanding, even looking at profiteering opportunities all over the world. To the backward, southern slave owning class, King Cotton depended on enslaving Black workers indefinitely even if it meant seceding and forming their own country. Even worse, this southern ruling class had a stranglehold on federal power, controlling the Supreme Court and the presidency into the 1850s. The logic of the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court case of 1857 gave a green light to expand slavery.   
The rising northern capitalists needed a united country and unimpeded command of federal power to build an empire that would eventually encompass the world.  Lincoln’s promise that slavery would not expand to new territories fit the needs of northern capital.  Lincoln’s seizure of the White House in 1860 was intolerable to the slaveocracy who then quit the Union.   To discipline and control these secessionists, Lincoln waged war to bring them back.  Immediate emancipation, the long-time abolitionist goal, but never one of Lincoln’s, was a wartime necessity forced on to the ruler’s agenda by thousands of brave, enslaved Black workers. In the chaos of war they made countless desperate bids for freedom by running away to Northern lines.  With the southern enslavers defeated, the federal government “would end slavery under conditions controlled by whites, and only when required by the political and economic needs of the business elite of the North. It was Abraham Lincoln who combined perfectly the needs of business, the political ambition of the new Republican Party, and the rhetoric of humanitarianism…” (Howard Zinn, The People’s History of the United States)
U.S. imperialists face Chinese imperialists and racist domestic isolationists
Today there is again a split within the U.S. ruling class, but the world situation is much different. After almost a century of vicious Jim Crow racism, an industrial revolution built on the sweat and blood of millions of workers, two world wars, Korea, Vietnam and countless other wars, the U.S. imperialists briefly ruled a worldwide empire. They controlled both the Republican and Democratic political parties. But now rising Chinese imperialism, resurgent Russian imperialism and even many regional wannabe imperialists are challenging them as their global power fades.  These rulers presided over a breathtaking assault on workers’ standard of living since the 1970s that has accelerated with the 2008 crisis and it’s billionaire-friendly ‘recovery.’ And now, there is a domestically oriented group of capitalists that have taken over the Republican Party led by Donald Trump. Violence has been increasing, with cops and neo-Nazis on the offensive and some antiracist, armed resistance. As the November election approaches more violence is expected. There is even talk of civil war.
Today the Big Fascist, imperialist section of the U.S. ruling class has no Lincoln. They have feeble, 77 year old Joe Biden. And the domestically oriented, Small Fascist capitalists have unhinged, egomaniac Donald Trump. The Big Fascists are building fascism under the guise of saving a democracy that never existed. They are trying to build a multiracial patriotism to prepare for war with China and or Russia. They are even trying to pose as antiracists to save their worldwide empire. The Small Fascists want an isolationist Fortress America based on racism.
Unite to fight racism and organize for communism
If violence escalates before or after the November election, masses of workers and students should get into the streets attacking racism. Let’s organize our unions, tenant organizations, student groups, and churches to make racists afraid again. If politicians are calling for the vote, or a recount, or such, we organize direct action against racism and sexism. If there is chaos in the streets, we should organize and focus actions against racist targets and call for antiracist demands. Above all we should make clear that this capitalist system has to go. The working class can and should run the world. That’s communism. Join the Progressive Labor Party in the fight for worker’s power and communist revolution.