We've learned a lot over the last few weeks

As capitalism hangs on by the skin of its teeth, the Labor leaders continue their pathetic supportive role. In the last few weeks the workers of the world have been shown that the resources of society, the wealth we create, can be applied quickly.

In the absence of a leadership, capitalism, unless it is overthrown, will recover from this crisis as workers, particularly in the western nations will be forced to pay for the crisis with declining living standards. The next president of the US will savage living standards and be forced by the laws of of the market to drive us all, particularly the youth and the next generations, down to third world conditions.

There are significant numbers of anti-capitalists, socialists, and other people of the left that could, were they willing to join forces, cast capitalism in to the garbage can of history to use an old phrase, this is definitely possible.

But there are historic lessons that have been learned we should be clear about that. In the US we will be living under an administration that will drive the whip hard. The huge rescue package is borrowed money that will have to be paid back with interest. The market has been god here for the last thirty years, unchallenged, spurred on by massive debt. Workers have seen that this is an illusion. We have seen unelected figures in the matter of weeks make decisions that would take years. The lie that the wheels of government "turn slowly" has been exposed.

We must also not use their terms. Credit crunch which implies that there is a lack of capital is their term. What is actually happening is the capitalists have gone on strike; they are on a strike of capital.

I don't mean to be crude but lets look at it this way. The market at the moment is like a huge cess pool filled with excrement. The capitalists, the owners of capital in a capitalist economy, have said to the working class that if we jump in and clean out the muck they will come in and play; that's what's happening.

Another historic aspect of this crisis is that it cements firmly the decline of US imperialism's global power. It is the end of an era. The American century was indeed a very short one lasting less than a decade.

If the present crisis has taught us anyhting it is that the capitalist class has forefeited its right to govern. But they won't go voluntarily.