America is in turmoil. If the electoral process underway does nothing else, it has unmasked a deep economic crisis, which is fast becoming a political crisis. Everything is polarizing based on changes in the economy. Throughout society people’s lives are being wrecked, and they are demanding that something be done about it. What they confront in their struggles is a ruling class that is unfit to rule.
Now the crisis is being reflected in the political sphere. Cracks, fissures and downright splitting are an expression of the polarization that is challenging the two ruling political parties. Third parties could emerge. Some who have lost everything want to regain what they have lost. Some are still drawn to the argument that cutting taxes on the rich and giving the corporations a free hand will create jobs and a return to prosperity. Others want to go back to 1776, or to 1850, or even to 1996. Millions of others are inspired by talk of a political revolution that promises big change.
There is no going back. Labor-replacing technology means the jobs are not coming back. A time-worn tactic of the ruling class has been to pit worker against worker, to divide and conquer. It is becoming more and more evident that the only way forward is to build unity on a class basis around those that have no choice but to fight for food, clothing, shelter, education, health care and jobs. That class unity is possible today because the new class is objectively united across lines of color and nationality by its common economic condition.
The condition of the new class is central to, and is the basis of, the tensions, the turmoil, the polarization that is taking place in society. The false solutions and the immorality of the ruling class stand in sharp contrast to the program of the new class.
The real question is what happens after the elections. What will emerge? Third parties may come out of this, the ruling parties may never be the same, but there are only two real choices going forward: either the solutions of the ruling class, which in the final analysis are fascist solutions, or the beginning of a real political revolution that will transform America and the world in the interests of humanity.
Flint, Michigan is a flashpoint for the burgeoning economic crisis and the exposure of the rulers as a class unfit to rule. “First They Came for Michigan” shows that in Flint, Detroit, Benton Harbor and across Michigan, that the “Emergency Managers” who have taken over are unwilling and unable to provide even clean water for those the system no longer needs. “The workers who are poisoned, without running water, forced into the streets, denied medical care and facing starvation are moving toward a common struggle around a program for their very survival.”
“Hold Government Accountable to End Homelessness” reveals homelessness as the “living, visible proof” that the ruling class will not provide even the basic necessity of shelter to a section of workers who have been shoved to the wayside. Yet, the homeless and the class they represent are key to building a new kind of society.
From Michigan to Georgia to Texas and beyond, the economic crisis is deepening, exacerbating a political crisis. In Georgia, as “The Corporate State Takeover of Georgia Public Schools” shows, its own version of Emergency Manager takeovers are being engineered. The public schools are in crisis, and the state is under no obligation to provide a quality education for all children. Why educate those who will never have a job, who have no future? So-called “failing” schools will be taken over and privatized or shut down, and working class parents are fighting for their children to have a future.
“Texas: Dispatches from the Front” shows how the polarization, “the disparity between the rich and the poor” is growing. The center of the world oil industry, Texas is home to 59 billionaires, while at the same time Texas is at the bottom of virtually every index of poverty.
“The European Union and the Fall of Social Democracy” is a good example of how efforts to reform capitalism “into a kinder, gentler system” is a dead-end. Draconian austerity and now the migrant crisis reveal that the crisis being experienced in America is in reality a global crisis. A new path forward is needed.
Which way forward? “The continuation of capitalism is being called into question by the development of computerized, electronic production. This means that in order to survive the workers will have to constantly fight for unity,” says “The American People are for Unity.” A common equality of poverty is making the old divisions of color or nationality or religion less and less tenable. The fight for unity is the first step on the path to the emancipation of all of humanity.
May/June 2016 Vol26.Ed3
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
P.O. Box 477113 Chicago, IL 60647 rally@lrna.org
Free to reproduce unless otherwise marked.
Please include this message with any reproduction.
