“None of us really anticipated Omicron,” Stanford epidemiologist Dr. Yvonne Maldonado told CNN in a late January overview of current discussion among experts. She added, “I fully expect another version of the virus to come back.” University of California San Francisco epidemiologist Dr. George Rutherford stated: “It’s not at all clear what comes next.” What agreement there is predicts we are not only not out of the woods but that there is no reason to think future variants will be less severe.
Meanwhile, more Americans have died from Covid than the Afghanistan, Iraq, Gulf, Vietnam, Korean wars and WWII combined. And it’s clearly not over, despite the relaxing of masking and other policies.
This issue of Rally, Comrades! recognizes the desperate situation we face, but also points the way forward.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that the numbers of homeless grew in the last four years, in many areas by double-digit percentages. Once one of the most affordable places in America, the homeless population in Fresno, California has increased by as much as 43 percent since the onset of the pandemic. On the streets, homeless tent cities are regularly destroyed during sweeps. “From the Editors: The Unity of Our Class and the Fight for Home,” brings to light that the homeless are on the front lines in the fight against American fascism.
“End Homelessness, End Corporate Control of Housing,” points out that the real cause of the housing crisis is that major developers and investors deliberately withhold financing. They refuse to build unless and until the housing shortage gets worse, to project home prices and rents high enough to maximize their returns. Zoning regulations are not the determining factor. The real cause is the for-profit housing model itself.
“Women at the Forefront of Social Transformation” states that the American constitution has never allowed for economic equality, nor does it protect equal rights regardless of gender. One in three women today face rape, or mental or physical violence. The movement for #MeToo, against attacks on voting rights, against militarized border control and imprisonment of immigrant children as well as the fight for water, healthcare, public education, and destruction of the planet are all marked by a new proletarian women’s leadership.
“Dynamics of the Global Capitalist Crisis” addresses the critical importance of understanding the underlying causes for the political and military crises around the globe. While it is true that rivalry and hatred among dominant states have created instability within the global capitalist system, it is important to note that the origins of this instability are within the capitalist crisis of production and the problem of accumulation.
Every day, wage labor is being replaced with automation, and with the internationalization of production. The ruling class is reorganizing itself around the new reality. We must do the same. As shown in “A New Economy Gives Rise to New World,” those struggling to address the increase in homelessness, hunger, poverty, ecological destruction, and social injustices—and for a better world—are shaped by this situation.
With enough of a push, the worst of the climate crisis could be avoided. “Repairing Ecological Destruction,” discusses how the ruling class is making decisions that are destroying everything — and that the solution is communism. Society must be restructured to be compatible with the new methods of production. Ecological destruction can only be stopped by taking power from the ruling class. Communism is the only system compatible with protecting humans, nature, and the environment, and it is the program of the new class.
So, we face a huge question of how to fight for a new future based on controlling the economy in the interests of the whole of society. Let’s unite with the family whose father braided his daughters’ hair before school and died of Covid-19, with the family whose son was gunned down by police because he fell asleep in his car, with those who have lost their loved ones to the opioid crisis, with the mother separated from her children at the border, with those who are homeless—with our class. Let’s join the struggles together with a vision of transforming ownership of the technology, the means of producing what we need, from private to public hands. With this unity and vision, the future is ours to win. RC
March/April 2022 Vol2. Ed2
This article originated in Rally, Comrades
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