Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Don't underestimate the potential for violence of this representative of US capitalism above. As a woman among the patriarchal US ruling class she has to prove herself and would in a moment. Neither her, nor her party is the road out of this mess we find ourselves in. We are seeing the stirrings of opposition on the ground and in the workplaces and working class communities of the US. Out of this movement, rooted in it, we can build a genuine working class political alternative to the catastrophic future that awaits the world as a decaying system clings to life.
"Clinton also said Russian agents were targeting the November midterm elections in a renewed attempt to disrupt US democracy..."
“We don’t know what was said in the room between them,” she said. “Putin is telling the world what was said but we hear crickets from the White House. Make no mistake this is a direct attack on our democracy."
“We are still very vulnerable. And we don’t have leadership from the administration.”
"Clinton claimed Putin “wants to break up Nato, the European Union. He wants to undo the architecture of the post-world war two world. He thrives on divisiveness. His attacks on the electoral system were designed to help Trump.”
“Vladimir Putin has a very clear strategy,” she said. “He is quite adept at reading people … at manipulating people. Hardly anyone who believes in freedom gets on with him. [Trump] wants to be friends with him for reasons we’re still trying to find out about.” Says the woman who publicly stated the brutal dictator Hosni Mubarak was "like family"
What Clinton doesn't mention: "Clinton beat Trump by nearly 3m ballots in the popular vote in 2016, but lost in the electoral college."
So Trump didn't need the Russians to win then.
He had the undemocratic Electoral College help him, the power in both parties of capitalism along with the millions of Americans who are so disgusted with both these parties and these individuals that they refused to participate. But Clinton will not raise this and the Democratic Party will not make an issue of it because it is not Trump's racism, misogyny or that he's a serial sexual predator that is the danger. He is undermining the legitimacy of the system and that is what the Democrats want to preserve. Recall the shock when Trump hinted during the debates that he might not abide by the election results if he lost. He went on about elections being rigged, the system being rigged. If he can reject the result of a "democratic" election so can we.
So the nationalist card comes out now. The US along with every other bourgeois institution from the Catholic Church in Vatican Inc to the heads of organized labor in Washington, intervened in one way or another to ensure as the old brutal, undemocratic Stalinist regime collapsed that the powerful Russian working class did not rise to political supremacy and institute a genuine democratic socialist state, a workers' democracy.
The folks in Washington and the Pentagon and all the academic think tanks of US capitalism wanted Russian capitalism to fill the vacuum. Gorbachev offered up the social assets of the Russian people and in stepped every crook, former Soviet official and opportunist from that regime including ex KGB thugs like Putin, and Russian capitalism, instead of arising organically like its western European counterparts, arose overnight. The western bourgeois were delighted, workers power and genuine socialism was averted.
They wanted Russian capitalism they got it. Now they don't like it. When capitalism doesn't work, when it can't feed, clothe and house people, and this is the case in most parts of the world, we should not be surprised. When in the might belly of the beast here in the US there is massive poverty and the society cannot provide even the basic social needs of its population, that countries based on the capitalist mode of production from Ecuador to Thailand, Kazakhstan to The Congo can is a fantasy.
The US and its western bourgeois allies refer to capitalism when its abuses and failures become so blatant as "Crony Capitalism".
When, as is the case in most of the countries of the world based on the capitalist mode of production, the capitalist class is not powerful enough to allow even a semblance of bourgeois democracy and resorts to military dictatorship, Bonapartism or some form of "one man" rule; that is "Crony capitalism". "Oligarchy" "Plutocracy" terms that refer only to the individuals or clique at the top are thrown around.
Hillary Clinton is a particularly vicious and more astute representative of US and global capitalism than Trump who is an accident of history and a fool. He is a member of the ruling class but has no class loyalty and class loyalty among the bourgeois is paramount-----the system must be defended, the lie maintained.
The increasingly obvious political and economic crisis in the US is moving ahead apace. The end of two party rule, the era of the dominance of the two capitalist parties has come to and end. The global system that arose after the last great Imperialist World war is threatened and the institutions that gave it sway, the UN, the World Bank, IMF and others are also in crisis. The so-called "American Century" expected after the collapse of the Stalinist regimes lasted not much more than a decade.
Failed states, regional wars, environmental catastrophe's this is the order of the day and beyond that, destruction of life as we know it if capitalism isn't replaced by a rational, democratic global system, a world federation of democratic social states and a planned global system of production in harmony with the natural world.
We are seeing many attempts to fight back, workers acting on our own behalf, not just for the immediate needs, jobs, wages, etc. but democratic rights for all, housing, water rights, environmental justice and international solidarity.
There is a bright future if these rising movements are successful and with a leadership that understands that capitalism cannot resolve the crises we face today, that it cannot be reformed, we can build that future.
We must not join Clinton and all those that are playing the nationalist, so-called patriotic card. The Russian workers have a proud history of struggle against feudalism, capitalism and now Stalinism it is them we as workers must reach out to. The Chinese workers also have such a history, they are hundreds of millions strong and will also enter the stage of history at some point in a major way as they seek to free themselves from the bureaucracy's grip. There are already hundreds of thousands of protests in China yearly that we do not hear about.
International solidarity between workers of all countries is what will save the world from disaster. Workers of all countries should unite as a class, our interests are the same.
Wait: didn't someone say that?
No comments:
Post a Comment