We are living in rapidly changing, dangerous times. Polarization of all kinds is expressing itself. To protect and expand its private property interests, the U.S. ruling class is attempting to build a fascist social base to support its austerity, deregulation and repression policies at home, and its war policies abroad.
At the same time American workers are losing faith in the government and beginning the process of separating from the political system. The American people are increasingly becoming more disgusted and distrustful of the government. A new social movement is forming. It is making demands on the government to respect human rights and protect the environment, while also demanding the government provide food, healthcare, housing, water, and more to those in need.
The demands of this movement are objective. The workers need housing, food, health care, and other basic necessities of life. This movement is coming into conflict with the State, which is standing in the way of them securing these basic necessities. We are dealing with the beginning stages of revolution. The demands of this movement are class demands. Therefore, building the unity of our class on the basis of these demands is the decisive and central task of revolutionaries today.
“From the Editors: Who is Donald Trump?” points out that the fight against fascism is the fight to acquire the necessities of life that moves beyond resistance. The ruling class is making every effort to contain and divert the movement of the workers. This points to the necessity of the development of an independent class politics, not tied to either of the ruling parties, and breaking the bonds of reform solutions constrained within the system.
In the article “Organized Crime and the Mexican State,” a friend of the LRNA from Mexico shows how there are few places on the planet where organized crime rivals the power of the State as much as in Mexico. The problem in Mexico country is not only the out-of-control violence caused by the drug trade throughout its territory, but also the infiltration of organized crime into the State apparatus. Organized crime has become a central player in contemporary capitalism, both in Mexico and across the planet.
The article, “Without a Vision, the People Perish,” explains that in times of crisis, society’s spiritual leaders step forward to address the defining moral issues of the day. But spiritual and religious groups do not speak with one voice. In fact, their ideas polarize along class lines. One section of the spiritual community responds to the suffering by speaking up for the status quo, for the government, the rights of property and the privileged. Another section of the spiritual community responds to the suffering by emerging as a “moral movement” that aligns itself with the workers, the outcasts, the poor, the immigrants, the sick and incarcerated.
“End of Bribery, Dawn of Class Unity” points out that until this time, the struggle against capitalist class ownership and control of the economy could not take root. Working class unity was always blocked by the strength of divisive ideas of race and nationality, which rested on and were reinforced by bribery. Today, robotic production and sophisticated computer programs are permanently eliminating more jobs than they will create, step-by-step eliminating both the industrial-era working class and the system in which it grew. We are witnessing the emergence of a new class, a section of workers being pushed outside the economy, hence beyond any material bribe.
Our cover article, “Being a Revolutionary Today,” shows hat revolutionaries have an important and special role to play in those organizations that are engaged in the day-to- day struggles for the necessaries of life. Revolutionaries explain the bigger picture in the context of building class unity. Most of the growing numbers of the new class are not yet aware of the historic and revolutionary role they are playing. They are not yet aware that whoever controls the technology will determine life and death for millions of people. A winning strategy can only be built on what unites us, not what divides us. The role of a leader is to fight consistently for a unity based on the fight for the basic necessities of life. From petty differences to ideological disparities – a revolutionary must navigate around the potholes and roadblocks of potential division, to steer a course towards the larger goals that are only obtainable through class unity.
May/June 2017 Vol27.Ed3
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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