California, Where the Democrats are King.

 

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
GED/HEO

All true, but there is one glaring omission in this report as in all the reports from "muckraking" style news shows in the US whether it's Bill Maher, Trevor Noah John Stewart or the Jimmy Dore show; there is absolutely no mention of the reality we all face, that we live and function in an economic system of production. Our system of production we know as capitalism or the so-called free market system.

The cause of this barbaric situation where insurance companies determine whether or not a human being can receive medial care is simply "corruption".  Corrupt people, corrupt politicians, corrupt corporations, run I assume by these corrupt people. It's completely devoid of any class analysis at all. Capitalists are simply referred to as "Oligarchs" or "Plutoctrats" when corruption is left out.

This is not an accident. Our misfortunes are either our own fault or the consequences of flawed people making decisions based on greedy self interest. There is no suggestion at all that the Democratic Party which is all powerful in California is a capitalist party serving the interests of the capitalist class much like the Republican Party. Political parties have class content. They are not social clubs. Capitalist politicians in these parties may or may not be corrupt in the sense they they violate even the rules of the market but that is not the problem. Their job is to defend the so-called free market system, defend the capitalist mode of production and that is contrary to workers' interests. 

They cannot campaign on a program of cuts and austerity in order to make the rich richer and the corporations stronger, no one would vote for them. And that is where we are today, the two parties of capital have had their day; they are both in crisis and this is a global occurrence.

Corporations are not simply corrupt, they are doing what is natural, eliminating their rivals from the marketplace whenever they can. The increased tensions between the US, Russia, China as well as the so-called "emerging" economies (they emerge for a minute then disappear for a while) is also a result of this natural competition between capitalist nation states. The increased US aggression for the past thirty years is a result of this and the decline in US imperialism's power and influence in the world; it feels threatened and rightly so.

Washington ( and the Vatican) welcomed the collapse of Stalinism and the increased market activity of Chinese Stalinism as long as the result was Cambodian or Vietnamese capitalism, a serious rival is  an economic threat and in the end result can lead to military conflict.

This absence of any class analysis, an independent party of the working class and a vibrant, multi-ethinc working class movement has given rise to the the right wing populism and outright fascist elements we are witnessing today.