SEPTEMBER 4, 2026 DEMOCRACY Democracy at work Richard Wolff is a Yale Ph.D. and a Marxist economist. Many of his former classmates are high level bourgeoisie, the original word for capitalist. Search his “Democracy at Work” (a regular podcast on YouTube) for a great education from the perspective of the working class. If you do that you may not need to finish this article. “Global Capitalism” is a joint podcast with Left Forum. It's on YouTube, where they have some 500,000 followers. The last one I listened to was about WORLD WAR III, which talks about Ukraine increasing its drone and missile attacks on Russia. The war on Russia got serious as the Soviet Union emerged in 1917 with roots in World War I and the competition between the British and Russian Empires of the 19th century. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” is a famous poem by Lord Tennyson, written in 1854 in the context of the Crimean War. The British cavalry charged the Russian cannons and were slaughtered. Of course, many of us know about Crimea because of the current war in Ukraine. This war began in 2014 as the U.S. regime change strategy brought an ultra-nationalist Ukrainian regime to power. The Ukrainian military, especially fascist combat units, began operations in the Don Bas areas that had large Russian-speaking populations. The United Nations documented the numbers of civilian deaths in this stage of the war. The local plebiscites who voted to be part of Russia impelled the Ukrainians to intensify the war in Don Bas. The expansion of NATO into Ukraine was at the heart of the Russian invasion in 2022. Imagine if Canada had joined the watched the epic movie "Dr. Zhivago." There is a cemetery north of Detroit with a Polar Bear section for veterans of that war. After World War II, the United States KEN PARKS Groundcover vendor No. 490 Warsaw Pact during the Cold War; the U.S. would have considered Canada a national security threat. Trump is not the first to look at Canada as a U.S. province: the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 saw U.S. troops in Canada. In 1813 the Kentucky militia was active in Michigan as the War of 1812 continued. They chased indigenous warriors into Canada where Tecumseh was killed in the Battle of the Thames. As the Americans retreated, they burned Thamesville to the ground. It was rebuilt on the south side of the river, still on Delaware Nation territory. The Canadians built a monument to Tecumseh in honor of his bravery, which slowed down the American efforts to conquer Canada. The military machine is at the service of the investor class — always in search of resources and cheap labor. Land is a precious resource. Russia still has much land and many resources which Western investors have always coveted. After World War I, British and American troops, the Polar Bear regiment, were sent to the new Soviet Union to fight in the raging civil war on the side of the White Russians against the Red Russians. You got a glimpse of that war if you’ve ever recruited General Reinhardt Gehlen, who was Hitler’s chief of Intelligence on the Eastern Front, into their Cold War and NATO strategy. Russia wanted a unified neutral Germany; the U.S. said no, our occupied zone is going to be a leading member of NATO. General Gehlen had the paperwork on all the collaborators (who supported the Nazi occupation) on the eastern front. There were many in the Ukraine, which still has a German community, mainly Mennonites, that dates back to Catherine the Great when Crimea became part of the Russian empire in the late 18th century. As Empress of Russia she offered amnesty from military service to anyone who farmed in the Ukraine. Significant numbers of German speaking Mennonites flocked to the Ukraine. Shalom Community Church of Ann Arbor, a Mennonite Brethren congregation, has a relationship to the German-speaking Mennonites who are still in Ukraine. General Gehlen surrendered to American military intelligence, saying, “We know who the real enemy is.” The Soviet Union did collapse by 1990 and the USA celebrated its sole superpower status by planning regime change in a list of countries, from Iraq to Cuba. Iraq was first because Saddam Hussein thought he could use their petrodollars to be the major military power in the Middle East. The United States has helped Israel to be the main military force, even assisting them with nuclear weapons, just as they did apartheid South Africa. As a result of the 1991 war, Saddam Hussein was forced to keep sending Iraq’s petrodollars to Wall Street, which was once again making huge profits in Latin America. The genocidal wars in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras are part of this historical saga. Of course there were the coups in Chile, Argentina and Brazil to keep investors happy. The term “banana republic” has a long history. Democracy at Work is doing the job of giving us a better understanding than the imperialist narrative of mainstream media. The Russians have said for some time if drone and missile attacks continue escalating, they will bomb the production plants in Europe (setting off World War III). The U.S. is pressuring Europe to militarize and send bigger and badder drones and missiles to Ukraine. We know in our lived experience that democracy is not welcome in the workplace. Bosses can be tyrants who stop at no cost to block unions or keep them servile. The struggle for democracy will continue for the next 250 years in the American revolution experiment. Now is the time to face reality and live a fully engaged life. Our true nature will manifest as we engage in all levels of struggle. Impermanence is the rule for all appearances, especially every experience in your life. I have found the best teachings on a natural life from Buddhist teachers. Buddhist and Marxist dialectics point at the mystery called “unity of opposites” in Marxism, and the Clear Light of the Void in Buddhism. Grant your blessings that we experience reality seamlessly with an ego not attached to itself. GROUNDCOVER NEWS 13 Groundcover Vendor Code While Groundcover is a non-profit, and paper vendors are self-employed contractors, we still have expectations of how vendors should conduct themselves while selling and representing the paper. The following is our Vendor Code of Conduct, which every vendor reads and signs before receiving a badge and papers. We request that if you discover a vendor violating any tenets of the Code, please contact us and provide as many details as possible. 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