The gulf catastrophe and the silence of the lambs.

The most serious capitalist newspapers in the US are the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Over the past days they have been running page after page of articles on the catastrophe in the gulf. In these they have spelled out how BP and the firms it hired cut corner after corner, bribed official after official just to get their drilling done as quick as possible and to make as much profit as possible. These papers are carrying this material because they fear that their own class is going too far and could provoke a mass movement against capitalism. The result of the process that the capitalist papers have been spelling out has been the catastrophe we are now witnessing. As we say again and again on this blog, capitalism does not work. It keeps the majority of the world in poverty and it is destroying our planet. It does not work. It has forfeited the right to exist. We have to fight for a democratic socialist world.

As we work for this we should also refer to what I call above the "silence of the lambs." Workers were killed in the explosion which wrecked this oil well. Workers livelihoods are destroyed in the fishing and marine industry. And of course the gulf region is being destroyed. This is an issue damaging to working class people the world over. So faced with this catastrophe where are the union leaders with their millions of members? These union leaders should be mobilizing these millions of members at every BP and corporate function, meeting, head quarters that exists. They should be organizing them to take over and control and manage the entire oil industry. They should be explaining that it is the utterly corrupt and profit addicted corporations and their criminal capitalist system which is responsible for what is going on in the gulf. In this way a new movement of mass proportions could be built which would transform this country and transform world politics.

But no. These union leaders, these lambs, sit with their mouthes open, or troop into the corporations offices and nod their heads in agreement with the corporate bosses. These lambs are almost unbelievable in their refusal to lead. The owners of the corrupt capitalist corporations must be rubbing their eyes in disbelief at the fact that the union leaders are not mobilizing their members and the working class as a whole on this issue. The union leaders are letting the corporations get away with murder.

While continuing to demand the union leaders act we have to get active and build opposition caucuses in the workplaces and unions to replace these union leaders.

Sean.

PS Let me adjust my condemnation of the union leaders as "lambs." At least lambs throw up their heels every once in a while and frolic. These union leaders do not even do that. They are paralyzed by their belief that there is no alternative to capitalism and because of this they bootlick the bosses and obey every word they say. They also of course do quite well out of capitalism with their high wages and secure jobs.

Sean.