Fired after 30 years.

Hundreds of thousands of workers march for socialism in Bolivia earlier this year.

My companion's best friend called last night. She had just been fired from a major US corporation after working there for 30 years. Her husband has been out of work for over a year. Recently they helped their daughter buy a condo for herself and her young child after her marriage had ended. It was heart breaking to hear my companion weeping on the phone. My companion's best friend's life is hurtling downwards as US capitalism hurtles downward. Destitution is a very real possibility.

My companion's friend alternates between hatred for the corporation which having taken everything they could from her for thirty years has now thrown her on the scrap heap, to blaming herself and saying she is a failure. We have spoken on this blog about consciousness and how the capitalist class sees its rule so dependent on its ability to control the consciousness of the working class. The corporation that fired my friend wants to control her consciousness. It wants her to think her firing is her own fault. That it has nothing to do with their policies or their corrupt, criminal capitalist system. This way she will not fight back.

We have to help her to see that it is not her fault, it is precisely the fault of the corrupt criminal capitalist system and its mad addiction to profit. As we have reported on this blog recently US capitalism itself, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, says the country is "awash with cash" yet their profit addiction is so great they fire my friend and millions like her to feed this addiction. This capitalist system is rotten. It has forfeited the right to exist. It must be replaced with Democratic Socialism.

Where are the union leaders in this struggle for consciousness? They go along with the employers and the capitalist class and say to workers like my friend: "what can we do, there is no alternative?" They strengthen the employers in their struggle to dominate the consciousness of the working class and make it think that it has to do what the employers say as there is no alternative to their system. But this is not correct. There is an alternative, democratic socialism. Between 30% and 40% of Americans today say they prefer socialism to capitalism. And this is without any mass force campaigning for the socialist alternative. This base must be organized and built upon.

The role of the union leaders is a scandal. They are cowed by the capitalists and go along with their arguments and their attacks on workers' lives. They did not even exist in my friends consciousness when she was fired the other day. They should have been there, they should have organized that big corporation which has been around for 100 years, and they should have refused to go along with any firings. An opposition movement has to be built in the workplaces and the unions. One that will take on and fight capitalism, the unions leaders and their support for capitalism and one that will fight for democratic socialism.

As we take up this struggle the various left groups and individuals have to look at our/their role. The long history of left sectarianism and ultra leftism of these groups prevents them from substantially contributing to build a fighting alternative in the working class. These groups and individuals have to examine their role. Contact the organizers of this blog as we have for some time been attempting to draw lessons from our own past and to see how our own left sectarianism damaged the working class movement.