THINGS WON'T BE THE SAME AGAIN.

In 1973 Pinochet in Chile carried out his military coup. He was helped in this by US capitalism. When he came to power he did two things. One he murdered the left and union activists. In this he was supported by US capitalism and its agent the mass murderer Kissinger. The second thing he did was he received the help of the economists from the University of Chicago. They were known as the Chicago boys. They told him what to do. 

Remove all regulations from capital. Let it do what it liked. Crush and kill all opposition. Privatize all parts of the economy that were state owned. And this is what he did. Pinochet and his US backed murderous coup opened the door and through the door after him came Thatcher and Reagan and after them to a greater or lesses  extent came all the capitalist governments of the world over the past three decades. This capitalist offensive is what has been happening in the world for the past thirty five years. 

When stalinism collapsed and capitalism went back to these parts of the world this gave an added impetus to capitalism's mad criminal rampage of looting and swindling. One major capitalist who was not convinced of this approach calls it "market fundamentalism." Well this has now come to its end. The arrogant offensive of US led world capitalism, or market fundamentalism  has been brought to its knees. We are at the end of an era. 

The most important thing that has to be understood as well as this is that here in the US there has been a major shift in consciousness in the working class. The bail out was defeated because of this. Support for the bail out fell from 57% to 48% in the past week and this is in spite of the hysterical blackmail of the entire capitalist press and political machinery. And it is in spite of the union leaders refusing to organize and mobilize against the bail out. In spite of all this the mood of the working class against the bail out has strengthened and it has been so great that it was defeated. 

Some sort of package will probably be passed with the help of all sorts of bribes and corruption in the next days. But this will not change the fact of the change in mood. Tens of millions are watching their retirement package go down the tubes, tens of millions are faced with loosing their homes, tens of millions will lose their jobs in the developing depression, this will not be forgotten. There has been a fundamental change in mood in the US working class. The idea that there has to be an alternative has been strengthened. 

This will allow socialists to get a greater audience for our ideas than for decades. We have to organize to prevent foreclosures, we have to organize to prevent job losses, we have to demand and organize to force the taking into public ownership of all financial institutions profitable and non profitable with compensation only on the basis of proven need.  These to be run on the basis of workers control and management. We have to organize using mass direct action. And as we do so we have to explain that these policies are the policies of democratic socialism. 

This is the only alternative. End Capitalism. Marx was right. 

Sean.