The Texas Massacre at Robb Elementary School

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
GED/HEO

5-27-22

 

I am sure that there will be some, including friends that disagree with me here and those that agree but think I am not being realistic, that what I suggest will never happen and that we have to do something now. I understand this sentiment and agree we can take some half measures and do some things, like better gun laws, that may temper some of the worst abuses that the so-called free market imposes on us. But our goal should be to make everlasting changes.

 

I once read somewhere that while the idea of revolutions or social transformation of the present is normally seen as almost impossible, after they occur they are remembered as the inevitable reaction to social crises. Also, I try to keep these video thoughts short and there were other points I would have liked to make.  So I’ll add a couple of them here.


One thing when we are talking about violence is to consider how many people die every year in the US because of the pathetic social services we have and in particular, health care. These deaths far outnumber gun deaths you can bet on it. And as Cedric Johnson points out in the preface of the book, The Panthers Can't Save Us Now,  nearly all of the Democratic Party leadership who are screaming about gun laws and safety and how horrible this crime is, and who "took a knee" against racist policies, during the height of Black Lives Matter movement "...have openly opposed Medicare For All, free higher education and the expansion of other public goods."

 

Another important cause of the despair and alienation that consumes people in society is that there seems to be no solution; so there is no hope at all. Combined with all the reasons I refer to in the video this is devastating. Seeing no alternative, people seek solutions in all sorts of ways like religion, hero worship, narcissism, sexual obsession and so on. Religion, which promotes the destructive idea that human nature is selfish, rotten and inherently evil and the escape can only be found in the afterlife assuming you worship the right deity is the most common.

 

In this state, all sorts of conspiracies can find root like the fear that foreigners, people that don’t look like you or speak the same language or worship the same god are about to consume you. The prevalence of identity politics is part of this escape and is an attempt to undermine class solidarity, workers seeing ourselves as having distinct class interests with millions upon millions of others, of being a class un to ourselves, this is a terrifying prospect to the ruling class and proponents of capitalism and the so-called free market. We are in a struggle for the consciousness of the working class. If you want to see how important class is, consider the image of Michelle Obama with her arm around George W Bush referring to him as her “friend” and “partner in crime. Our enemies know all too well what class solidarity is and practice it religiously.

 

As one person commented on Facebook today:

"CLASS is not a demographic. It's not a liberal categorization that fits into intersectionality. It doesn't compete for attention or resources with marginalized groups.

ALL WORKERS of ALL MARGINALIZED GROUPS have CLASS in common.

 

Class politics serve us all."

 

Working class unity is the only solution to eliminating the added oppression marginalized people suffer, or what socialists refer to as the “specially oppressed” peoples, and we fight for all marginalized groups within the framework of uniting the class. We cannot transform society without this approach. But this is different than identity politics or intersectionality, an individualistic reactionary approach no matter what its supporters say or write about it.

 

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