In 2021, the question of the direction in which the country is headed remains paramount. What is this country to become? We have choices to make.
2020 was the year of the greatest pandemic in over one hundred years, precipitating a crisis that upended all of society. It was also the year of the police murder of George Floyd, which sparked a social uprising that brought millions into the streets demanding racial and economic justice. The elections of 2020 were viewed as consequential as the election of 1860, leading to the defeat of Donald Trump, but which in turn led to the insurrection attempt at the nation’s capitol to overturn the results of the election on January 6.
The polarization rooted in the polarization of wealth and poverty in the economy is reflected in a sharpening polarization socially and politically. But it is more than a matter of choosing sides. It is really about the future, about where humanity itself is headed. The article “Vision and the Music of the Pandemic” quotes from Lil Baby’s “Bigger Picture”: “It’s bigger than black and white: it’s a problem of the whole way of life. We may as well go ahead and start here.” And Bootsy Collins’ “Stars” features 16-year-old Emi Sunshine calling, “We’ve got to forge a better way.”
“The Turning Point in the Fight Against American Fascism” reveals that the ruling class is doing everything possible to block, sidetrack and defeat the rising movement of a new class of workers displaced by the new technology, who are demanding that government address their needs survive. While posed as a going back, a return to normalcy, a recapturing of what has been lost, the leading edge of this motion shows a readiness now to sacrifice even the limited democracy we now enjoy. There is more and more talk calling for the overthrow of the government. States’ political leaders across the country, led by the South, are instituting voter suppression laws designed to rig the outcome of any election, along with the right of the states to overthrow any election they do not like.
The choice is clear: fascism represents a dark future, down which global humanity dare not go. Unity of action in the fight for people’s needs is the foundation for the revolutionary movement of the future. Revolution today means embracing this powerful social force that is arising in the battle for the future of life on earth.
“Oppose War and Occupation from Ferguson to Palestine” shows how the growing fascist tendency is not just a phenomenon peculiar to America. Transnational corporations and state-sponsored institutions restrict the freedom and ignore the rights of poor and indigenous people in Palestine, the U.S., and around the world, because this new form of global fascism they are developing transcends borders and recognizes no boundaries.
“Lessons of the Pandemic: Toward Complete Transformation of U.S. Health Care” takes a more in-depth and concrete look at health care as one of the most important of the basic needs required for a secure and prosperous life. It also recognizes that the path we choose forward is indispensable for the survival of humanity and the planet: Humanity is at a threshold. The domination of private property, the inequality it breeds, and the State that protects it can no longer co-exist with human and planetary survival.
“Our Revolutionary History, Today’s Revolutionary Vision” shows how since the beginnings of this country, our history has been about the entwining of the struggles for freedom, emancipation, equality with the dark history of slavery, oppression, and inequality. History moves through stages, and at each point, the struggle advances on a new basis. The American revolution is unfinished: until now, the attainment of the vision and cause of the American project has fallen short. Our vision, our hope, is that now is our opportunity to finally complete our revolution.
Today scarcity is imposed by the ruling class. Private property is standing in the way of the distribution of abundance according to need. We stand on the edge of being able to create a truly human history for the first time. Freed from want and exploitation, we will no longer have to struggle about getting a house, we will no longer have to worry about getting food, no longer worry about getting an education. The age-old divisions of racism employed by the ruling class will no longer have a hold on us. Finally, life, liberty, and happiness will be our destiny.
“From the Editors” focuses on the rampant opioid crisis that is ravaging America. Not just a crisis of white America, it is directed at our entire class. Poverty is the common denominator. Millions are demanding that the government meet more than their basic needs, but start to operate in a way that makes a healthy and cultured life possible. These demands cannot be achieved without a radical reconstruction of society. RC
July/August 2021. vol.31. Ed4
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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