Sean O'Torain.
The authors of this Blog have always argued that capitalism will destroy life on earth as we know it. And destroy it, not in the centuries ahead, but in the decades ahead, maybe even the years ahead. We have argued that it will do this either by climate change, nuclear war, mass starvation, drought or a combination of all of these. We have argued that to preserve and develop life on earth the working class has to build a new revolutionary international leadership of tens and tens of millions and overthrow capitalism and be prepared to do so with whatever ruthlessness is necessary. The capitalist class will not voluntarily relinquish power.
In thinking about capitalism destroying life on earth as we know it we must use our imagination. It is time for a new John Lennon to write a new "Imagine". This one to go along with his song "Imagine", which was an optimistic view of what would be possible. This one to be a song based on what will be inevitable if capitalism is not overthrown. So let is imagine this. To do so let us look at a recent study concerning a possible war between the two nuclear armed nations India and Pakistan. Not the greatest nuclear powers by any means but they possess some 200 nuclear warheads between them. In looking at this study, imagine what would result if a war took place between major nuclear powers such as the USA and Russia. We are already seeing the man child predator Trump leading the charge for the building of more nuclear weapons and the spreading of nuclear weapons to more countries. And just in the last few days we see where he has said he would deal with North Korea if China did not.
This study I am referring to was part of an article by Max Fisher in the New York Times on April 1st. 2017. The article was titled "Hints of 'Scary' Shift: India may be rethinking ban on nuclear first strikes." This article contains the following two paragraphs.
Nuclear war between these two countries, ".....would be of global concern. A 2008 study found that, although India and Pakistan have relatively small arsenals, a full nuclear exchange would push a layer of hot, black smoke into the atmosphere.
This would produce what some researchers call without hyperbole 'a decade without summer'. As crops failed, the resulting global famine would kill a billion people, the study estimated."
Think about this study. Use your imagination. Then think about this: There is no way that capitalism has built up to 20,000 nuclear weapons for them to just sit in silos forever. In addition, there is the reality that with capitalism, war is inevitable. The history of capitalism is a history of war. Already in one of these wars US capitalism has dropped two nuclear weapons on the civilian population of Japan. On the basis of capitalism nuclear war or wars are inevitable. And with these would come the destruction of life on earth as we know it. As they say, wake up and smell the roses. That is while there are roses to smell.
So what conclusion should we draw from this?
We should not be pessimistic. There is a force that can overthrow capitalism. This is the international working class. It is more widespread and larger than ever before. It can do the job. But with one proviso. It can do the job if it has a mass leadership of tens and tens of millions organized internationally, a leadership that has drawn the lessons of history and commits itself to overthrowing capitalism. Part of this task is to recognize that the present leadership of the working class, the trade union leaders, the left political party leaders, are all pro capitalist and will not only not lead the movement to end capitalism but will seek to obstruct the movement to end capitalism. They do not believe the working class can build a new society and anyway, they are getting too many goodies from their privileged positions at the top of the workers' organizations. So the conclusion for all of us is to set to work to build a new international leadership for the working class.
There are some who claim to understand this. They are mostly in small organizations which are very sectarian, that is, they look after the interests of their own small grouping first and put these above the interests of the working class. If they really understood the damage this approach does to the building of a workers' movement that can defeat capitalism; they would surely change course. They would see that putting the interests of their own tiny organizations above that of the working class, or in many cases their own personal interests above that of the working class is an obstacle to victory. They can only play a role in building the new international revolutionary leadership of the working class if they break from their sectarianism and work together.
There are also many more workers, youth and middle class people who see that things are going badly but convince themselves that there is nothing they can do and hope that things will work out in the end. They do not draw the lessons from history. Time after time old societies developed but could not progress further. The ruins of these are to be found in the jungles and deserts and oceans. But this time it would be different. Capitalism is not able to take society forward. But this time it will not be a question of sinking back into the jungles, the deserts and the oceans. This time, given the development of science and technology, life on earth will be destroyed; either by climate change or nuclear war or mass starvation and drought.
For all responsible and serious people, for all who wish to leave a world in which our children and grandchildren can live, our task is to help build the mass international revolutionary organization of tens and tens of millions dedicated to overthrowing capitalism and building a democratic socialist world. This is possible. Those of us who are not doing this, or seeking ways to do this, are not acting in the interests of our children and grandchildren, not acting in the interests of life on earth as we know it. Part of being a parent, a grandparent, part of being a human being, part of being one of the many species that share this planet, is to get over whatever is stopping us and help build the international force that can overthrow capitalism.
Those of us that that are around this blog, want to be part of building this mass movement. We want to use the resources we have to help build it. Our human resources are limited at this point, but that is slowly changing. Our blog is being read by more and more people on every continent except Antarctica.
If you like what you read on this blog, if you think you have something to offer in the building or helping to build what we describe here. Please contact us and lets talk. We can be reached by e mail at: we_know_whats_up@Yahoo.com or through our Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/FactsForWorkingPeople
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