The enemy within: US capitalism's war against American workers

California North

At a time when so many Americans are losing their jobs, homes or, if they're lucky, only wage cuts of 20% or more, the politicians of the two Wall Street Parties are waging a war of terror on the few affordable amenities we have left, the national parks.  We have a great national park system and millions of working class Americans take the family and head to the hills and the lakes and the mountains of the various states.  Campgrounds are full of playing children who meet for the first and normally the last time as mum and dad get away from the pressures of life for a while.

But at the same time as $17 billion dollars disappears in to some contractors pocket in Iraq, Democrats and Republicans are claiming there is no money for parks at a time when American workers need them most, for many it is the only vacation option.

California has more state parks than any other state and 70 of these are expected to be closed next year. The legislature cut a further $22 million from the dept. of Parks and Recreation last month in order to help close a budget deficit of $9.6 billion; half that money that disappeared.

State funding for California's state parks has declined 43% since 2006 from $175 million (still small) to $99 million.  Think about this, as the warmongers in Washington and at the Pentagon  wage war on the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan at an estimated cost of $1.3 trillion by the end of 2011, the total allotted to the 30 million people of California for upkeep of the national parks is less than $100 million. 

Consequently, the sixty parks already closed are falling in to disrepair which will mean we have to fork out more money if they ever open again; there is an estimated $1.3 billion hanging over us in deferred maintenance costs says the Wall Street Journal.  Beyond this sixty, there are another 90 that have experienced severe reductions in services and staff.  As is always the case, the game the Democrats and Republicans play is in full swing.  The Republicans call for savage cuts and the Democrats, supported by the heads of organized Labor call for  slightly less savage cuts.  The Democratic Party has no fundamental difference with Republicans over the need for the burden of this crisis to be borne by the working class and poor of America.  A bill introduced by Democratic  Assembleyman Jarred Huffman is expected to make it easier for non-profits to take over the running of some of the closed parks.  This is the best the Democrats can do?   Whoopee, all the laid off park workers can go work for a non-profit.

In Arizona, where the blame for the economic crisis is laid on immigrants and undocumented workers, seven of the states parks have been closed.  I guess immigrants are to blame for that too.

California South

I was camping with my grandchildren last year a fair bit and it was such a great experience. I met families from all over the US, not just California.  It was a relatively cheap and exciting adventure for many of the kids.  The rangers do naturalist shows, we hiked up to a mountain lake and chased bears out of our campsite.  We never met any of the people who make the decisions to deny us these resources as they don't generally use them. You won't meet Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich or Jerry Brown in a campsite.

There is tremendous anger in US society at what is going on. One headline I saw yesterday reads "States try to wean parks off funding". It made me so angry.  Why should we "wean" parks off anything? What about weaning the Pentagon of war funding?  The economic system we live under is oppressive in so many way, for some much so than others. If you have no money in this country you are nothing.  You can be a war hero, it doesn't matter, many of the homeless are veterans. The flag waving and tears is all for when they're going out not coming back.

People resist in all sorts of ways, struggle to maintain their dignity in a society that attempts to crush the human spirit.  The young guy removed from the flight fought back with dignity.  For a young man of color this can be a risky business as men like him fill this country's prisons as the black/white ratio of incarceration at eight to one shows. According to Glenn C Loury, "Among black male high school dropouts aged twenty to forty, a third were locked up on any given day in 2000."  *  The US imprisons children, executes young adults and the mentally ill. And with 2 million in prison we have more people behind bars than any country in the world. It is a violent society in many ways.

The anger at all this has to come out and sometimes it comes out in unproductive and and  self destructive ways.  The reason for this is that there is no generalized mass movement that has arisen to throw back this war that US capitalism is waging on workers and the poor; there is no significant organized force to join, that shows a way out.  During the protests around the murder of the young black worker by a transit cop there was no attempt by the leaders of the potentially powerful Labor movement to link the attacks on black youth to the attacks on all workers.  Consequently, the demonstration here in Oakland took place as employers let workers go home early to avoid the two groups meeting.  The excuse was that there is automatically violence in these situations and fear was set in to the minds of the workers of being attacked by rampaging black youth.  The alternative would have been for the thousands of workers in the immediate vicinity to have joined the youth in a call for an end to racism, police brutality, for jobs, housing etc.  (visit here). The heads of organized Labor had the resources to organize this and by not doing so bear the most responsibility for the delay of a mass movement in response to the bosses' attacks.

We can take certain steps to begin the process of resistance.  One is to reject in our own consciousness the view that there is no money for parks, jobs or otherwise.  Like the first step of an alcoholic in overcoming denial, we have to overcome the view in our own minds that we can't win and that society does not have the resources to provide  a decent life for all people.

We have to not limit our resistance to our own immediate issues or single issue campaigns.  The attacks on all aspect of our lives come from the same forces and we cannot stop this by fighting isolated battles when the war must be confronted collectively. We must also recognize that for some people, women, youth, the specially oppressed racial minorities, the assault is is a dual assault, on them as workers and on them as women or youth of color with brutal consequences.  Racism and sexism, like religious sectarianism are tactics aimed at dividing the working class making our resistance to the assault harder.

We can recognize that it is imperative that we participate in some way as far as our resources allow in the struggle to build a mass workers political party as an alternative to the the Democrats.  Depending on our situation we can influence our co workers and help them understand that not voting for Democrats will not be the end of the world, it will open a new road.  To continue to buy in to the lesser of two evils  approach to politics means we will never build an alternative to the two evils; we can only continue to go backwards through policies of damage control.

When movements develop or gain momentum around issues like police brutality, education, an issue on the job, or around environmental pollution, we must always use the opportunity to reach out beyond the immediate and seek allies in the struggle and fight against attempts to drag independent movements in to Democratic Party electoral campaigns rendering them harmless as has occurred in Wisconsin and other states.  If a campaign grows, independent candidates could be put forward from such a campaign and rooted in it with a program that doesn't limit its demands to what is acceptable to the bosses but demands what we need to live a decent life not in a perpetual state of war.  Politically, being in open opposition to the two parties of the corporations is integral to the success of such campaigns.

In our Unions at the local level we must build opposition caucuses that openly challenge the concessionary policies of the present leadership that have brought us to this point.  A movement does not come ready made.  Activists demanding it must be socialist as a condition for participating in it would be a mistake. What is important is that the movement resists the offensive of capitalism, comes in to conflict with this offensive and challenges it.

Socialists like myself should raise the importance and need for socialism and what that means but this has to be done in a way that takes the movement forward--helps build it and draws the most combative workers to it who may not consider themselves socialist but want to fight.  The dual scourge of left sectarianism and reformism must be avoided which doesn't mean the struggle for reforms which is how we learn and draw conclusions about the world around us, but the view that capitalism can be made human and resolve the human and environmental catastrophes that are regular features of this system and that some "liberal" wing of the capitalist class can accomplish this.   A world of democratic socialist states will open the door to true emancipation and the liberation of humanity from the never ending struggle for the basis necessities of life.  It is a reason for optimism.

What is certain is that the working class will fight, history teaches us that.  And its my view that when workers move in to struggle there is a powerful tendency to unite across racial, gender and other lines that divide and weaken us.  The role of leadership then is crucial. The crisis of the working class today is one of leadership.  Leon Trotsky said that many years ago and it is as true today as it was then.

* Race Incarceration and American Values Glen Loury