history

“Hey Hey Fascist Scum, You’re Outnumbered 10 to 1“ — chant at Portland’s June 4th counter-protest.

Portland, Oregon has had its collective mind blown in recent weeks. A Nazi murdered two people on public transit and a week later, on June 4th, Portland police were “protecting and serving” a rally of 300+ “Alt-Right” white supremacists, while 3,000+ counter-protested.

A crushing tension gripped Portland as the protests neared; people were understandably scared that more deaths would occur during the confrontation. The fascist/far-right rally organizer — local demagogue Joey Gibson — announced that a local far-right militia would provide security, while alt-right “celebrities” from around the country descended onto Portland, many of them decked out in protective gear for street fighting. One of these “celebrity” fascists who goes by “Based Stick Man” (real name Kyle Chapman) tweeted: “I declare open season on Antifa [anti-fascists], squash on sight.”

Other far-right groups at the rally were the Oath keepers, Three Percenters , Proud Boys, and the Warriors for Freedom. This loose coalition of fascist-minded groups are being led by genuine fascists: the person who coined the term Alt-Right, Richard Spencer, has been quite open about his white supremacy, which is the dominate ideology among alt-right groups.

The alt-right’s strategy has been mobilizing in key “progressive” cities and provoking anti-fascists into a fight, while using “freedom of speech” as a populist tool to demonize those who “oppose the first amendment.” This strategy has proven effective as a way to push public sentiment against “black bloc” anarchists, making the fascists appear to be “the good guys” that are being attacked by authoritarian anarchists that seek to squash unpopular ideas. Ultimately the fascists do well when they fight with anarchists in the streets; the fascists stand a fighting chance so long as the size of both groups is small. Even a “draw” is a victory for the fascists, who for years have stayed underground due to their small numbers.

In Portland the alt-right rally — and counter protests — were scheduled before Portland’s Nazi murders took place, and after the murders the dynamic changed everything, raising the stakes. Before the killings three different counter-protests were already planned.

Across the street (to the south) at city hall was where a coalition of 70+ labor and community groups rallied, led by the International Socialist Organization, whose aim was a united front to rally the biggest number of people against the fascists. This group organized, in part, because they believed, correctly (in this writer’s opinion), that a smaller group of “militant” counter-protesters clashing with the far-right would amount to folly, and play directly into the hands of the fascists that came to fight.

Across the street (to the east) of the fascist rally was a counter-protest organized by Rose City Antifa and the Anti-Fascist Workers Collective. This protest attracted nearly a thousand people (many who dressed in “black bloc” clothing), and was billed as the more aggressive of the protests. Many in this group sought to give “no platform” to the fascists and were expected to take a more physically confrontational approach.

Across the street (to the south) was another counter-protest, organized by another socialist group, Class Struggle Workers, which was endorsed by several labor unions and attracted hundreds of people. In reality many counter-protesters walked seamlessly between the rallies, not realizing (or caring) about the political-tactical differences.

There was a lot of talk about occupying the park before the fascists showed up in order to prevent them from having their rally. This tactic was likely impossible before the Nazi killings, simply because there wouldn’t be enough people to make it a reality. After the Nazi murders the balance of forces shifted sharply in favor of the counter-protesters; people were disgusted that the alt-right would act so provocatively after such a tragedy; and the broader community felt a need to take a stand.

Thus, the conditions for mobilizing to stop the rally — and defeat the alt-right fascists outright — became more possible, though unrealizable due to lack of organization; the competing rallies had already divided the forces, and it remains questionable how many attendees would have been ready to risk that level of confrontation.

If thousands had occupied the square, the fascists may have faced total defeat; but if only hundreds occupied the square the fascists may have had the brawl they wanted and could have declared victory, rally or no rally (they also had the full support of the police). The organizational wheels of the counter-protestors were already set in motion, and were not flexible enough to adjust to the new circumstances.

This gets to the heart of the matter: tactics cannot be separated from power. More power equals more options for tactics. The left, however, cannot exercise maximum power without mobilizing the broader community, and this requires the united front strategy, where a broad coalition of groups agrees to come together around a single issue that they agree on. More people = more power; this truism is the foundation for successful anti-fascist organizing.

In Portland there was exhaustive debate leading up to the rallies about preventing the fascist rally from proceeding. Mayor Ted Wheeler asked the Trump administration to pull the rally permit (which was on Federal property… of course Trump did not oblige). Leftist Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly took a more militant stance against the alt-right rally, and the left were divided against themselves on whether or not it was OK to try to prevent the rally. The conversation had an educational effect on Portland’s left while also galvanizing the fascists, who were successfully able to paint themselves as “victims of government repression.”

The rally itself proved that asking the government to repress fascists is folly, because during the rally the police were so blatantly pro-fascist that local mainstream media were forced to ask provocative questions:

1) Why did police allow a far-right militiaman to co-arrest a counter-protester?

2) Why did the police use rubber bullets and tear gas against hundreds of counter-protesters?

3) Why were the police so obviously chummy with the far-right organizers of the march?

The answer is that the majority of police shares a far-right political outlook, and are very sympathetic to these movements, if not actual members of alt-right groups themselves. A further reason to distrust government action against fascist movements is that, historically, the ruling class has directly supported fascist movements as a hammer against the left and the workers movement in times of social-economic crisis. The police’s actions in Portland are a microcosm of what to expect from the national ruling class in relation to fascism.

There is a big difference between asking the government to stop a fascist rally versus mobilizing independently to protest a rally. But even with this distinction made, many Portland liberals — and the Oregon ACLU — loudly protested that the fascists have a right to “freedom of speech.”

The comprehensive debate around “free speech for fascists” occurred last time a real fascist movement existed in the United States, which grew alongside Hitler’s rise to power. In 1939 a mass Nazi rally was organized at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Liberals loudly defended the Nazis’ right to organize, since it was “freedom of speech.” Meanwhile in Germany Hitler had already consolidated dictatorial powers and annexed Austria, while having already decapitated the left, as the concentration camps were filled with leaders of the labor union, socialist and communist movements. The Jewish holocaust was just gaining its legs.

Ultimately the liberals of today decrying “freedom of speech” for fascists do not understand what fascism is and the very real threat it represents. The hate crimes exploding across the country — including Portland’s Nazi double murder — are being perpetrated by the vanguard of this fascist movement. They are not “crazy” or “deranged” individuals, but true believers in white supremacy who are emboldened by a movement that is fighting a race war. They are the shock troops.

Liberals also don’t realize that an actual fascist movement was birthed alongside Trump’s election; the cockroaches have boldly crawled up through the floorboards, and they are organizing for power in a strategic way. Who are their enemies? They say it loudly: “the liberals, socialists, communists, anarchists.” They are a politically conscious movement that is following the footsteps of successful fascists before them.

But this ignorance of liberals is, in part, why the debate about “freedom of speech” is secondary to organizing a united front against fascism. An abstract debate around democratic rights will not win the broader community to act against fascism.

Ultimately the only way to crush a rising fascist movement is a larger movement of labor and community groups, requiring a united front strategy. A variety of tactics can be implemented under the umbrella strategy of a united front, but without mobilizing the broader community winning is impossible.

Organizing a powerful united front offers the opportunity to educate the broader community about the real threat that fascism represents. Without understanding why fascism affects working families and ethnic and religious minorities, sections of the broader community may be sympathetic to the alt-right’s “freedom of speech” rhetoric, while others will remain confused or ambivalent about the political issues at stake.

Once the broader population is educated about the issues via a united front, the more likely they’ll be willing to engage in more militant action; people also feel more confident about engaging in actions when there are thousands of people involved, versus dozens or hundreds.

Ultimately the fight for the hearts and minds of the broader community is critical in this struggle, and is too often ignored by the left. The united front makes the broader working class community its focus; millions of people are watching these demonstrations on TV, and our signs, banners, and chants need to be directed to the TV cameras, so that those watching at home know which side to choose (and perhaps join in the streets).

It’s arguable that the far-right in Portland did a better job promoting its message to the community. The rally’s organizer, Joey Gibson, is a committed organizer and excellent public speaker who is serious about growing his movement by any means necessary. His speech was intended to inspire those present while appealing to the broader community. He also appealed to the different factions of the alt-right to come together and stop their petty difference (essentially a type of “united front” of the far-right).

Meanwhile, many of the counter-protesters seemed uninterested in what the public thought, conceding the TV cameras to the fascists. An ongoing chant from the more radical anti-fascist protest was “A-C-A-B, All Cops are Bastards.” And although disliking cops is fine, such chants do very little to gain broader support, and show a lack of seriousness in organizing and confronting the alt-right. The united front rally was more focused on effective messaging and appealing to the broader community.

The counter-protests were ultimately successful in proving that the public was against the far-right, and that was itself a victory. However the fascist rally was allowed to continue, and the far-right was able to declare victory in their inspiring speeches which kept morale high. They continue to organize for the future.

Actually stopping fascist movements in their tracks is possible, as opposed to simply protesting them. There are many examples in the U.S. and Canada of crushing incipient fascist movements using the united front strategy, but a larger movement has not been present in the U.S. since the 1930’s.

The most famous case of mass action to shut down a fascist movement happened in 1936 in London, when the English Nazis attempted a march and rally through East London (a working class area with a large Jewish population). The “Battle of Cable Street” showcased 20,000+ anti-fascists mobilized against 2,000 fascists and the thousands more police who attempted to clear a march route for the Nazis.

It was a total victory for the anti-fascists: the march was cancelled and the fascist movement lost momentum, since it was exposed as being hated by the vast majority of people who were willing to take bold action against them. The cost to become a fascist was simply too high after the defeat at Cable Street.

The battle for Cable Street has a lot to offer anti-fascist mobilizations. But before we get to the point of mass direct action, we need an educated, united front movement. The anti-fascist coalition protest in Portland was an important step forward in this regard.

A further step might be what the Black Panthers did in 1969, when they organized a United Front Against Fascism conference in Oakland that attracted thousands of people from across the country, which spawned organizing committees in different cities. In Portland the coalition that organized the counter-protest could organize a citywide or regional conference. To ensure that such a conference is a genuine united front, it should be co-organized by the largest number of left, labor and community groups as possible, rather than giving the impression that one group is using the conference for notoriety or recruitment, etc.

Although the Portland protest showed promise in anti-fascist organizing, it also showed that the fascists are stronger than we expected. The alt-right still has momentum and will strive to bait smaller anarchist contingents into street fights, which ultimately benefit the fascists at this stage. With Trump in office the fascists will have plenty of opportunity to engage with a larger base of Trump supporters, defending “their president” against a “dangerous and unreasonable” grouping of liberals and communists. Such a complicated dynamic requires that the left take the situation seriously, and organize for power by mobilizing the broader community, by any means necessary.

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As Venezuela’s fascist-minded oligarchy conspires with U.S. imperialism to overthrow the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro, few in the U.S. seem to care.

Instead of denouncing rightwing violence that aims at regime change, many on the U.S. left have stayed silent, or opted to give an evenhanded analysis that supports neither the Maduro government nor the oligarchy trying to violently overthrow it. Rather, the left prioritizes its energy on lecturing on Maduro’s “authoritarianism” and the failures of “Chavismo.”

This approach allows leftists a cool emotional detachment to the fate of the poor in Venezuela, and clean hands that would otherwise be soiled by engaging with the messy, real life class struggle that is the Venezuelan revolution.

A “pox on both houses” analysis omits the U.S. government’s role in collaborating with Venezuela’s oligarchs. The decades-long crimes of imperialism against Venezuela is aided and abetted by the silence of the left, or by its murky analysis that minimizes the perpetrator’s actions, focusing negative attention on the victim precisely at the moment of attack.

Any analysis of a former colonial country that doesn’t begin with the struggle of self-determination against imperialism is a dead letter, since the x-factor of imperialism has always been a dominant variable in the Venezuelan equation, as books by Eva Gollinger and others have thoroughly explained, and further demonstrated by the ongoing intervention in Latin America by an endless succession of U.S. presidents.

The Venezuelan-initiated anti-imperialist movement was strong enough that a new gravitational center was created, that pushed most of Latin America out of the grasp of U.S. domination for the first time in nearly a hundred years. This historic achievement remains minimized for much of the U.S. left, who remain indifferent or uneducated about the revolutionary significance of self-determination for oppressed nations abroad, as well as oppressed peoples inside of the U.S.

A thousand valid criticisms can be made of Chavez, but he chose sides in the class fault lines and took bold action at critical junctures. Posters of Chavez remain in the homes of Venezuela’s poorest barrios because he proved in action that he was a champion for the poor, while fighting and winning many pitched battles against the oligarchy who wildly celebrated his death.

And while it’s necessary to deeply critique the Maduro government, the present situation requires the political clarity to take a bold, unqualified stance against the U.S.-backed opposition, rather than a rambling “nonpartisan” analysis that pretends a life or death struggle isn’t currently taking place.

Yes, a growing number of Venezuelans are incredibly frustrated by Maduro, and yes, his policies have exacerbated the current crisis, but while an active counter-revolutionary offensive continues the political priority needs to be aimed squarely against the oligarchy, not Maduro. There remains a mass movement of revolutionaries in Venezuela dedicated to Chavismo and to defending Maduro’s government against the violent anti-regime tactics, but it’s these labor and community groups that the U.S. left never mentions, as it would pollute their analysis.

The U.S. left seems blissfully unaware of the consequences of the oligarchy stepping into the power vacuum if Maduro was successfully ousted. Such a shoddy analysis can be found in Jacobin’s recent article, Being Honest About Venezuela, which focuses on the problems of Maduro’s government while ignoring the honest reality of the terror the oligarchy would unleashed if it returned to power.

How did the U.S. left get it so wrong?

They’ve allowed themselves to get distracted by the zig-zags at the political surface, rather than the rupturing fault lines of class struggle below. They see only leaders and are blinded to how the masses have engaged with them.

Regardless of Maduro’s many stumbles, it’s the rich who are revolting in Venezuela, and if they’re successful it will be the workers and poor who suffer a terrible fate. An analysis of Venezuela that ignores this basic fact belongs either in the trash bin or in the newspapers of the oligarchy. Confusing class interests, or mistaking counter-revolution for revolution in politics is as disorienting as mistaking up for down, night for day.

The overarching issue remains the same since the Venezuelan revolution erupted in 1989’s Caracazo uprising, which initiated a revolutionary movement of working and poor people spurred to action by IMF austerity measures. How did Venezuela’s oligarchy respond to the 1989 protests? By killing hundreds if not thousands of people. Their return to power would unleash similar if not bloodier statistics.

In Venezuela the revolutionary flame has burned longer than most revolutions, its energy funneled into various channels; from rioting, street demonstrations, land and factory occupations, new political parties and radicalized labor-union federations and into the backbone of support for Hugo Chavez’s project, which, to varying degrees supported and even spearheaded many of these initiatives, encouraging the masses to participate directly in politics.

Chavez’s electoral victory meant — and still means — that the oligarchy lost control of the government and much of the state apparatus, a rare event in the life of a nation under capitalism. This contradiction is central to the confusion of the U.S. left: the ruling class lost control of the state, but the oligarchy retained control of key sectors of the economy, including the media.

But who has control of the state if not the oligarchy? It’s too simplistic to say the “working class” has power, because Maduro has not acted as a consistent leader of the working class, seeming more interested in trying to mediate between classes by making concessions to the oligarchy. Maduro’s overly-bureaucratic government also limits the amount of direct democracy the working class needs before the term “worker state” can be applied.

But Maduro’s power base remains the same as it was under Chavez: the working and poor people, and to that extent Maduro can be compared to a trade union president who ignores his members in order to seek a deal with the boss.

A trade union, no matter how bureaucratic, is still rooted in the workplace, its power dependent on dues money and collective action of working people. And even a weak union is better than no union, since removing the protection of the union opens the door to sweeping attacks from the boss that inevitably lower wages, destroy benefits and result in layoffs of the most “outspoken” workers. This is why union members defend their union from corporate attack, even if the leader of the union is in bed with the boss.

History is replete with governments brought forth by revolutionary movements but which failed to take the actions necessary to complete the revolution, resulting in a successful counter-revolution. These revolutionary governments often succeed in breaking the chains of neo-colonialism and allowed for an epoch of social reforms and working class initiative, depending on how long they lasted. Their downfall always results in a counter-revolutionary wave of violence, and sometimes a sea of blood.

This has happened dozens of times across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where the class divisions are sharper, where imperialism plays a larger role, and where the class dynamics are more variegated: the poor are poorer, there is a larger informal labor force, a larger section of small shopkeepers, larger rural population, etc.

Winning significant reforms under capitalism is incredibly difficult, even in rich countries; it is twice as difficult in former colonial countries, due to the death grip the oligarchy has on the economy plus the collaboration of imperialism, which intervenes in financial markets — or with bullets — to prevent the smallest reforms.

The example of Allende’s Chile could be compared to Maduro’s situation in Venezuela. Allende was far from perfect, but can anybody claim that Pinochet’s coup wasn’t a catastrophe for the Chilean working class? In Venezuela the counter-revolution would likely be more devastating, as the oligarchy would have to push back against decades of progress versus Allende’s short-lived government. If it came to power the street violence of the oligarchy would be given the resources of the state, aimed squarely at the working class and poor.

Maduro is no Chavez, it’s true, but he has kept most of Chavez’s victories intact, maintaining social programs in a time of crashing oil prices while the oligarchy demands “pro-market reforms.” He’s essentially kept the barking dogs of the oligarchy at bay, who, if unleashed, would ravage the working class.

The oligarchy has not accepted the balance of power that Chavez-Maduro have tilted in favor of the working class. A new social contract has not been cemented; it is being actively fought for in the streets. Maduro has made some concessions to the oligarchy it’s true, but they have not been fundamental concessions, while he’s left the fundamental victories of the revolution in tact.

The social contract we call Social Democracy in Europe wasn’t finalized until a wave of revolution struck after WWII. Although Maduro would likely be happy with such a social democratic agreement in Venezuela, such agreements have proven impossible in developing countries, especially at a time while global capitalism is attacking the social democratic reforms in the advanced countries.

The Venezuelan ruling class has no intention of accepting the reforms of Chavez, and why would they so long as U.S. imperialism invests heavily in regime change? A ruling class does not accept power-sharing until they face the prospect of losing everything. And nor should Venezuela’s working class accept a “social contract” under current conditions: they have unmet demands that require revolutionary action against the oligarchy. These contradictory pressures are at the heart of Venezuela’s still-unresolved class war, which inevitably leads either to revolutionary action from the left or a successful counter-revolution from the right.

Thus, for a U.S. leftist to declare that either side is equally bad is either bad politics or class treachery. Many leftists went bonkers over Syriza in Greece, and they were right to be hopeful. But after radical rhetoric Syriza succumbed to the demands of the IMF that included devastating neoliberal reforms of austerity cuts, privatizations and deregulation. Maduro has steadfastly refused such a path out of Venezuela’s economic crisis.

This is why Maduro is despised by the rich while the poor generally continue to support the government, although passively but occasionally in giant bursts, such as the hundreds thousands strong May Day mobilization in support of the government’s fight against the violent coup attempts, which was all but ignored by most western media outlets, since it spoiled the regime-change narrative of “everybody hates Maduro.”

The essential difference between Maduro and Chavez will make or break the revolution: while Chavez took action to constantly shift the balance of power in favor of the poor, Maduro simply attempts to maintain the balance of forces handed down to him by Chavez, hoping for some kind of “agreement” from an opposition that has consistently refused all compromise. His ridiculous naivety is a powerful motivating factor for the opposition, who see a stalled revolution in the way a lion views an injured zebra.

Venezuelan expert Jorge Martin explains in an excellent article, how the oligarchy would respond if it succeeded in removing Maduro.

1) they would massively cut public spending

2) implement mass layoffs of the public sector

3) destroy the key social programs of the revolution (health care, education, pension, housing, etc.)

4) there would be a privatization frenzy of public resources, though especially the crown jewel PDVSA, the oil company

5) massive deregulation, including turning back rights for labor and ethnic-minority groups

6) they would attack the organizations of the working class that came into existence or grew under the protection of the Chavez-Maduro governments

This is “Telling the Truth” about Venezuela. The U.S. left should know better, since the ruling class exposed what it would do during the Caracazo Uprising, and later when they briefly came to power in their 2002 coup: they aim to reverse everything, using any means necessary. The documentary “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is still required watching about the 2002 coup.

Maduro may have finally learned his lesson: Venezuela’s crisis has forced him to double down on promoting the interests of the poor. When oil prices collapsed it was inevitable the government would enter a deep crisis, it had only two choices: deep neoliberal reforms or the deepening of the revolution. This will be the litmus test for Maduro, since the middle ground he sought disappeared.

Rather than begging for money from the International Monetary Fund —which would have demanded such Syriza-like reforms — Maduro instead encouraged workers to takeover idle factories while a General Motors factory was nationalized. A new neighborhood-based organization, CLAP, was created that distributes basic foodstuffs at subsidized prices that benefits millions of people.

On May Day this year, in front of hundreds of thousands of supporters, Maduro announced a Constituent Assembly, an attempt to re-engage the masses in the hopes of pushing forward the revolution by creating a new, more progressive constitution.

It’s true that Maduro is using the Constituent Assembly to overcome the obstruction of the oligarchy-dominated National Assembly — whose stated intention is to topple the government — but the U.S. left seems indifferent that Maduro is using the mobilization of the working class (the Constituent Assembly) to overcome the barriers of ruling class.

This distinction is critical: if the Constituent Assembly succeeds in pushing forward the revolution by directly engaging the masses, it will come at the expense of the oligarchy. The Constituent Assembly is being organized to promote more direct democracy, but sections of the U.S. left have been taken in by the U.S. media’s allegations of “authoritarianism.”

If working and poor people actively engage in the process of creating a new, more progressive constitution and this constitution is approved via referendum by a large majority, it will constitute an essential step forward for the revolution. If the masses are unengaged or the referendum fails, it may signify the death knell of Chavismo and the return of the oligarchy.

And while Maduro is right to use the state as a repressive agent against the oligarchy, an over reliance on the state repression only leads to more contradictions, rather than relying on the self-activity of the workers and poor. Revolutions cannot be won by administrative tinkering, but rather by revolutionary measures consciously implemented by the vast majority. At bottom it’s the actions of ordinary working people that make or break a revolution; if the masses are lulled to sleep the revolution is lost. They must be unleashed not ignored.

It’s clear that Maduro’s politics have not been capable of leading the revolution to success, and therefore his government requires deep criticism combined with organized protest. But there are two kinds of protest: legitimate protest that arises from the needs of working and poor people, and the counter-revolutionary protest based in the neighborhoods of the rich that aim to restore the power of the oligarchy.

Confusing these two kinds of protests are dangerous, but the U.S. left has done precisely this. Maduro is accused of being authoritarian for using police to stop the far-right’s violent “student protests” that seek to restore the oligarchy. Of the many reasons to criticize Maduro this isn’t one of them.

If a rightwing coup succeeds in Venezuela tomorrow, the U.S. left will weep by the carnage that ensues, while not recognizing that their inaction contributed to the bloodshed. By living in the heart of imperialism the U.S. left has a duty to go beyond critiques from afar to direct action at home.

Protesting the Vietnam war helped save the lives of Vietnamese, while the organizing in the 1980’s against the “dirty wars” in Central America limited the destruction levied by the U.S.-backed governments. In both cases the left fell short of what was needed, but at least they understood what was at stake and took action. Now consider the U.S. left of 2017, who can’t lift a finger to re-start the antiwar movement and who supported Bernie Sanders regardless of his longstanding affection for imperialism.

The “pink tide” that blasted imperialism out of much of Latin America is being reversed, but Venezuela has always been the motor-force of the leftward shift, and the bloodshed required to reverse the revolution will be remembered forever, if it’s allowed to happen. Their lives matter too.

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Shamus Cooke

As Vijay Prashad says in his excellent book, “The Death of The Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution:”

“… revolts become revolutionary when the apolitical sections join the struggle — a point that can neither be properly calibrated nor properly encouraged.”

The movement inevitably seeps into the military, where enlisted soldiers have family in the streets protesting while the issues are being discussed on social media. Most soldiers don’t join the military to serve a Commander in Chief that is a national joke. Their loyalty to such a president has its limits, as exhibited by the powerful documentary Sir No Sir, about active duty soldiers resisting the Vietnam War.

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Recently Captain America was added to the long list of comic book characters that have died (well that is if being frozen in ice didn’t already put him on the list). Deaths have been a big part of comic books over the years and some of them are among the biggest moments in comic book history. Here are some of the best of many comic book deaths over the years.

15. Sue Dibny

To be honest I didn’t follow DC Comics that much when I first read Sue Dibny’s death so to me Sue Dibny’s death was not a big deal. But the writing in Infinite Crisis was good enough that I could tell how important it was to the other characters.

14. Serpentor

I love the 80’s so I had to include at least one death from a comic book of an 80’s cartoon. Unfortunately nobody ever dies in the G. I. Joe cartoon but the comic book wasn’t afraid to kill off characters, especially the characters on Cobra’s side. During Marvel’s G.I. Joe series there was a Civil War that broke out among the Cobra faction. As a result Zartan killed Serpentor.

13. Thomas And Martha Wayne

By now we all know the origin of Batman. A small time criminal killed Bruce Wayne’s parents on their way home from a movie theater. From then on Bruce Wayne decides it is up to him to rid Gotham City of crime as a superhero named Batman. We don’t actually see the death of the Waynes in real time but it is still a great comic book death because it shapes one of the most well known comic book characters.

12. Karen Page

Matt Murdock just doesn’t have much luck with women. Karen Page was one of Matt Murdock’s romantic interests. In one issue of Daredevil, Karen Page returns home and finds Daredevil being beaten to death by one of his foes, Bullseye. Karen Page picks up a gun and gets Bullseye to leave but as Bullseye leaves he suddenly turns and throws Daredevil’s baton at him. Karen Page leapt in front of him and took a blow to the chest. Karen Page then died in Matt’s arms.

11. Colossus

During the 90’s one of the main storylines in the X-Men Universe was a mutant-killing virus called the Legacy Virus. One of the victims of the Legacy Virus was Illyana, the younger sister of Colossus. The X-Men’s resident scientist Beast found a cure for the Legacy Virus but the cure would kill the first user before it became airborne. Knowing what the Legacy Virus could do Colossus injected himself with the cure and sacrificed himself to save his fellow mutants.

10. John Hartigan

In Sin City John Hartigan followed Junior to rescue Nancy. Hartigan let out his rage on Junior and beat him to death. John Hartigan shared one last kiss with Nancy before telling her to leave. Hartigan knew that as long as he stayed alive the Roark family would come after him and Nancy. Hartigan committed suicide so the Roark family would have no reason to bother Nancy.

9. The New Warriors

The once teen superhero returned a couple of years ago and decided to cash in on the reality show craze. The New Warriors started a reality show where a camera followed the New Warriors as they captured villains. The show went horribly wrong when the New Warriors bit off more than they could chew and one of the villains caused a giant explosion that killed all the New Warriors as well as many civilians in the neighborhood. None of the New Warriors were very important but the incident led to the Marvel’s big event that year, Civil War.

8. Captain America

Captain America has been the biggest death this year and for the past several years. After the Civil War between Marvel’s superheroes Captain America finally surrendered. As Captain America was being brought to the courthouse he was shot by a sniper and then in the commotion was shot three more times. The plan was, of course, the work of the nefarious Red Skull.

7. Elektra

The relationship between Matt Murdock and Elektra Natchios was very complicated. Though the two were in love in college they found each other on opposite sides of the law. Matt Murdock was crime fighter Daredevil and Elektra was head assassin of the kingpin of crime. Kingpin ordered Elektra to kill Foggy Nelson, Matt Murdock’s partner, but she couldn’t do it. Eventually Kingpin forced Bullseye and Elektra to fight to the death to decide which one would be his assassin. Bullseye won the fight and stabbed Elektra with her own sai. Elektra crawled to Matt Murdock’s home and died in his arms. He has to be tired of that happening.

6. Kraven the Hunter

Spiderman has many more well known villains but one of the best Spiderman stories was “Kraven’s Last Hunt” starring Kraven the Hunter. Kraven is a great hunter that always gets his prey. He gets tired of capturing easy prey like lions, tigers, and bears so he decides to capture Spiderman himself. Kraven tries catching Spiderman unsuccessfully for years. In “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, Kraven finally captures Spiderman and shoots him. After defeating his enemy and proving he was better, Kraven no longer had a purpose and turned his own gun on himself and committed suicide.

5. Jean Grey

Jean Grey has now died more times that I can count, each one cheapening deaths everywhere more and more but the first death was actually pretty special and was probably the first major death in the X-Men world. After being consumed by the power of the Phoenix, Jean Grey knows the only way to stop the Phoenix from killing everybody she loves is to commit suicide.

4. Jason Todd

For the first time ever the writers of a comic book put the ending of their comic in the hands of the fans. Fans could call a 900 number and decide how the comic book ended. Comic book fans showed that they are either sick or they hated Jason Todd because they voted for him to be killed. Batman’s long time rival, the Joker, did the honors and comic book fanboys rejoiced.

3. Uncle Ben

Like the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents the death of Uncle Ben shaped the life of one of the most famous characters in the comic book world. When Peter Parker first acquired his abilities he used it for personal gain. It wasn’t until the death of his Uncle that he decided to use his powers for good. It was Uncle Ben who gave Peter Parker that famous piece of advice, “with great power comes great responsibility.”

2. Superman

For many years Superman was the number one superhero. He was unbeatable, indestructible and nothing could stop him. So naturally it was a huge news story, not just comic book news story, when the unthinkable happened and Superman died. Superman’s return was inevitable but at the moment that Superman died it was one of the biggest moments in comic book history.

1. Gwen Stacy

Gwen Stacy might not be a huge superhero like Superman and her death didn’t shape anybody’s life like the Waynes or Uncle Ben but Gwen Stacy’s death was probably the most shocking death of all time, maybe the most shocking moment in all of comic book history. At the time of Gwen Stacy’s death it wasn’t very common to kill comic book characters so when the Green Goblin threw Gwen Stacy off a bridge it was the first time comic book readers had seen that kind of brutality.

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Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) represents for many African Americans an unjustified surrender to racism and inequality, an embarrassing “Uncle Tom” philosophy. On the other hand, there are those who believe that relative to the times in which he was living, and the objective circumstances African Americans faced, his advice to his people to be realistic and stress pragmatism over principle in the short run was justified, or at least understandable.

Booker Taliaferro was born in Virginia, the child of a white father and African American mother. Though he was half white, as was the practice at the time he was treated as African American, meaning he was born a slave. After he and his family were emancipated as a result of the Civil War and moved to West Virginia, he prevailed upon his stepfather to allow him to go to school part time, in exchange for working extra hours in the mornings and evenings in the local salt mines. On his first day at school, the children were asked their full names, but he never knew himself to have any name other than “Booker.” So when it came his turn, he just made up “Washington,” which is what his name remained in the school records. When he found out his actual last name from his family, he took to calling himself Booker Taliaferro Washington, then shortened it to simply Booker T. Washington.

Washington worked his way up from the bottom, to put it mildly. He heard about an all-black college in Hampton, Virginia called Hampton Institute, and it became his dream to attend. He scraped together enough money to make it part of the way there, sleeping outdoors along the way, and then begged work of any kind, eventually getting enough funds for the rest of the journey. Hampton agreed to admit the penniless and homeless Washington, and gave him a job as a janitor to pay his way.

Hampton was more of a vocational school than an academic college. Washington did fine there, as he was a tireless worker and learner, willing to do anything and everything to achieve his goals.

He decided he wanted to go on to a more academic environment, so after Hampton he attended Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C., another all-black institution. He became disillusioned with Wayland however, and decided that Hampton had the better idea after all. What African Americans-who were nearly all illiterate sharecroppers at this time-needed most, he believed was practical and vocational skills, not the kind of book learning that made them feel superior to and separate from the rest of their race.

In 1881, at age 25, Washington was recommended by the President of Hampton Institute to be the first President of the new all-black Tuskegee Institute (full name Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, later Tuskegee University) in Alabama, a position which he did indeed receive, and which he remained in for the rest of his life.

Under Washington, Tuskegee Institute’s mission was to function as a teacher’s college that would produce men and women qualified to teach practical skills to African Americans to make them more efficient farmers and tradesmen. Non-vocational academics were not eliminated entirely, but the emphasis was very much on training people to be able to teach African Americans to be useful workers who could economically support themselves and their families.

Washington made a decision early on to seek cooperation rather than confrontation with the white establishment in the South. He was under no illusions about the horrific racial injustice of his society, but he felt that challenging it in any kind of direct way was suicidal for people who were greatly outnumbered and had no political, military, economic, or other power to call upon. To get people riled up and rebellious, he contended, would simply mean more lynchings and more oppression. He urged upon his people instead the strategy of accommodating themselves to Jim Crow and working on proving their loyalty and their value as workers and producers, to gradually gain the respect of white people. Equality was to be a very long term goal, not something defiantly demanded immediately.

Not surprisingly this was a stance that many African Americans felt was incompatible with their self-respect. The man who emerged as Washington’s main rival along these lines was W.E.B. Du Bois, an early leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), who respectfully but firmly criticized Washington for accepting and cooperating with a system that afforded no civil and political rights to African Americans.

Washington proved skillful at hobnobbing with, and gaining financial and political support from, prominent whites such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. He was invited to the White House by Theodore Roosevelt in 1901. He received honorary degrees from Harvard University and Dartmouth College.

However, Washington was not only white people’s favorite black man, but also respected and supported by the mass of African American opinion. Many ordinary African American people agreed that the only realistic path to betterment was to play by the rules, work hard, learn useful skills, and work yourself up as Washington himself had, rather than get involved in politics or futile and dangerous efforts aimed at social change.

Washington died at the young age of 59, his workaholic lifestyle having thoroughly exhausted him and driven his blood pressure to extremely high and dangerous levels.

No one denies that Booker T. Washington deserves respect for devoting his life to what he felt was the betterment of his people, and indeed for succeeding in making great advances in educational opportunities for African American people and enabling many to have the skills to work their way out of abject poverty. History has not been as kind to his accommodationist philosophy however, his willingness to “make a deal with the Devil” and cooperate with a system of brutal, humiliating racial apartheid. In time, African Americans followed the lead of figures such as Du Bois and not Washington in challenging this system.

Sources:

“Booker T. Washington Biography.” Biography.com.
“Booker T. Washington Delivers the 1895 Atlanta Compromise Speech.” History Matters.
“Booker Taliaferro Washington.” Africa Within.

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