US, the Californian students are fighting, they are an inspiration.

Most of the contributors to this blog have been, and are, very involved in the fight back on education in California. This has meant it has been hard to keep so much material up these past few days. The student/worker struggle in California is going very good. The movement to have a student/worker day to prepare the way for a strike and day of action on March 4th is going very good developing and gaining strength. The state's governor and ruling elite are calling on the Federal government to give them more funds. this is a direct result of the student movement and the fear that it has created in these elements. March 4th Committees are springing up throughout the state. The struggle is to affiliate the students, the colleges, the universities, the high schools and the union locals and workplaces to these March 4th committees. On this basis these March 4th committees can provide the foundation for the March 4th strike and day of action and if all goes well can provide the basis afterwards for a structure which can fight and defend all the rights and conditions of students and workers. Crucial to the building of the March 4th committees is the linking of the students with the workers. This is being done through the passing of resolutions at union locals supporting March 4th and affiliating to the March 4th committees. But the majority of workers in California are not in unions. How does the March 4th committee get to these? The high schools and the high school students are the key. Take the information to the high school students and ask them to take this to their parents and ask their parents to form student/parent committees in their neighborhoods and affiliate these to the March 4th committees and through these integrate the struggle further.

All out on march 4th for a strike and day or action.

No increases in education fees. Fully federally funded expanded education system for all with increased resources and more jobs.

Preserve and increase all social services.

Education not incarceration. Education for all whether documented or undocumented.

Pay for increased education and social services through increased taxation on the rich and the corporations.

End the wars and occupations abroad and use the wealth saved to fund education.

On another topic. We have argued on this blog that the US political system is corrupt. Well it just got more corrupt. The Supreme Court, that unelected bunch of elitist capitalist representatives just made a decision to remove the limit that corporations could spend to bribe the politicians. The dissenters on the court who opposed this ruling said that: "allowing corporate money to flood the political market place would corrupt democracy." It is already corrupted, this will only make it worse.

The timing of this decision is not accidental. Capitalism hit a wall in the last two years and it almost brought down the entire world economic system. The only reason it did not was because it was bailed out by tax payers dollars. A $14.00 trillion bail out according to one estimate. The financial system has been desperately trying to ward off regulation since. It has been stepping up its lobbying, that is bribing, efforts to prevent increased regulation. So now here we go and the Supreme Court, these unelected swine, hand them an even more powerful weapon to stop this regulation. Now they can bribe the politicians without any limits. They can give them as much as they want. Bribery unlimited, Corruption unlimited. Huge dump trucks will soon be seen in Washington delivering the loot.

This lifting of the limits on bribery will further undermine the political system in the US in another way. With unlimited cash, the corporations will utilize the communications systems that have developed in the past couple of decades. The US population will be bombarded with corporate propaganda as never before. Unlimited cash to bribe the politicians, unlimited cash to fill the TV screens, the mass media in general, the country's blogs and websites. Their intention is to step up their efforts to be able to find an alternative view of the world to that of capitalism.

Unfortunately, tragically, they will be helped in this because of the role of the labor leaders. The labor leaders have bought into this lobbying system also, this bribing of politicians. They will respond to the new laws by increasing the amount of union members money they pay to the capitalist politicians. They will try to outspend the corporations' contributions to the capitalist parties. Of course even if they could outspend them this would not work because the Democratic and Republican parties are capitalist parties, are bosses parties and no matter how much they are bribed by the unions they will remain so.

By continuing to try and bribe the capitalist parties the unions get dirtied by this process. They are seen as just as bad as the corporations. They too are trying to bribe the politicians. How can they criticize what they are doing themselves?

The unions have something the corporations do not have. They have millions of members. They can mobilize these in great campaigns and struggles, they can organize them in the workplaces and neighborhoods. They do not need to bribe the politicians. They should condemn this bribing process, refuse to participate in it and emerge with clean hands, as the democratic force in US society. The way they do it now they get the worst of all possible worlds. They bribe the politicians but they cannot outspend the corporations in this bribery, they cannot change the policies of the politicians because the politicians are corporate politicians, and at the same time they get the bad reputation of being just as bad, just as corrupt, as the corporations.

The unions give hundreds of millions every election to the Democrats. This should immediately stop. They might as well throw this money down the drain. Instead they should launch a campaign around a few clear issues which are directly related to working peoples lives.

#A 15.00 minimum wage or a $5.00 an hour wage increase for all whichever is greater.

#Free heath care and free education for all.

#Affordable decent housing for all as a right.

#An end to all wars and occupations abroad and the transfer of resources now used on these and on the military to solve the problems we face in society both here and abroad.

#Education not incarceration.

#An end to the corporate destruction of the environment through capitalism's mad addiction to profits.

#An end to the dictatorship of capitalism and for a Democratic Socialist Society.

#Build a Working Peoples Party to organize and fight for this program.

If the labor leaders gave a lead on this program, if they condemned the corporations and the lobbying/bribing system of US politics, they would open up the basis of a new movement which could begin to transform society to one where peoples interests and humanity's interests came first and which was genuinely democratic.

Sean.