Capitalism Threatens Life as We Know It. An International Working Class Movement is the Only Force That Can Stop It.

The US and Israel Must Be Stopped. 

 

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

HEO/GED

3-09-26

 

An interesting discussion with John Mearsheimer on the status of the imperialist aggression waged by the US and Israel against Iran. It’s useful given the near blackout of information by the main stream media in the west. Israel has even gone to great lengths to defend its image as untouchable, threatening 5 years in prison and huge fines for any Israeli sending out video clips of the destruction caused by Iranian missiles after Iran retaliated to the unprovoked attack. The assault also assassinated Iran’s head of state and numerous government officials, clearly in violation of international law.

 

I respect Mearsheimer’s views and he is perhaps the most astute of the bourgeois commentators on world events in my opinion.  He was an early critic of the Zion*ist regime and was condemned as an anti-Semite by Israel and zio*ists in the US and around the world for co-authoring an article criticizing the influence AIPAC has on the US body politic. In another interview, Mearsheimer points out that between 1971 and 2021 the US "murdered" 38 million people. He includes in this, the US sanctions it imposes on states and individuals, an aspect of warfare that hides the deaths by its very nature. The US having the reserve currency is another weapon of war that allows the US to accumulate wealth and punish enemies and competitors alike. British. colonials had this same weapon with the pound sterling.

 

An aspect that is missing, or a question that is glaringly absent in the video, is: What will the US working class do? There is tremendous anger and frustration within US society. What is the situation in the rank and file of the military, or among the brass? That is not easy to gauge and from what I understand Trump has replaced any or most of the top officers with his bootlickers. But it is inevitable that fissures will appear and probably already have.

Americans are angry at the politicians and both of the capitalist, war mongering parties to the point that in the electoral sphere, as many as 100 million of the registered voters refuse to support either party in national elections. The sheer cost of these ventures, about a billion dollars a day both in the Caribbean and the Persian Gulf, is staggering, and does not go unnoticed by the millions of Americans that are victims of such a waste of resources. The crisis of capitalism and the so-called free market is felt in every aspect of US life, particularly when it comes to the essentials like housing, health care and mass transit. More and more the effects of climate change are becoming a serious disruption in everyday life.

 

In a post on this blog some time ago I shared these details about life in the US:

Sixty-three percent of U.S. adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do “such a poor job” of representing the American people that “a third major party is needed.”  Gallup

 

According to a Gallup survey…… 62 percent of Americans now say that the federal government should ensure that all Americans have health coverage, Dec 2024

 

 Nearly four times as many voters

support increasing public transportation funding as support reducing it. 

70 percent of respondents agree that “providing people with more transportation options is better for our health, safety, and economy than building more highways.” 

Data show that these kinds of investors bought almost 1 in 4 homes sold in 2021. (private equity and corporate property management firms. The results reflect Americans’ broad concern about housing costs. Rents have reached all-time highs in the U.S., wit  half of renters spending 30% or more of their income on rent and one- quarter spending more than 50%. 

 

82% of Americans want the government to make housing more affordable PEW

Two-thirds of Americans prioritize developing alternative energy sources, like wind and solar About three-quarters of Americans support a U.S. role in global efforts to address climate change Pew

The federal minimum wage was last raised in 2009 to $7.25 per hour. Since then, consumer prices have increased by 45% — including a 49% increase in medical care prices, a 51% increase in food prices, and a 67% increase in rental housing prices. Nonetheless, the federal minimum wage hasn’t budged in those 15 years.

I don’t think things have improved for US workers and the middle class. For some, the stock market is making them richer than ever before. No doubt those holding Lockheed Martin or Raytheon stock are doing well but it’s not a working person’s game. In my state, California, there are some 200 billionaires, over 80 of them live within a 60-mile radius from where I am now.

It should come as no surprise, that the issue of how the US working class and population in general might respond to this war is missing, should come as no surprise. And it’s not simply people like Mearsheimer and other “experts” that never consider the working class in their calculations. But why would they?  

Over the past 40 years the US working class and the organized sector have been quieted, bar a few rare exceptions. Massive debt, no state health care system, increased political repression and militarization of the police and antiunion laws, have made the likelihood of a mass movement in the streets similar to the anti-war and civil rights movement of the 60’s much more difficult. So many US workers rely on their employer for health care coverage so striking is a risky business in more ways than one.

There was an effort in the 1980’s among sections of organized labor to push back. There were major strikes that adopted tactics used during the great labor battles of the 1930’s that led to the formation of the United Auto Workers union and, rise of industrial unions and the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CEO). 

These strikes were defeated primarily through a powerful combination of the employers and the trade union hierarchy that act as representatives of the Democratic Party within organized labor. 

As I always stress, it is not so much criminal activity or corruption that is the cause of the labor bureaucracy’s failures and outright betrayals. They accept that the capitalist mode of production is the only form of social organization and believe the so-called free market is the answer to all things. So when the system enters crisis they move to bail it out and that inevitably means undermining the living standards of their own members and the working class in general. A mass movement from below, whether within organized labor or outside of it (it will engulf  both) can only lead to chaos for the them. The movement will demand all sorts of social needs that capitalism will not provide. Zorhan Mamdani is feeling this reality right now.

When President Joe Biden, the former Senator from Du Pont and the self-described most union friendly president in US history, went to his friends in Congress and passed legislation overnight that prevented rail workers from engaging in what would have been a “legal” strike, the trade union leadership did nothing in response. And here Trump is causing havoc around the world, causing economic disaster and untold misery and likely will send more US workers to their deaths and the heads of oraganized labor remain silent. The Dogs That Don’t bark is appropriate when describing their absence from the fray.

A friend on Facebook commented today that Trump can’t be stopped. “Who will do it? “, she wrote.

 

Well he can be stopped. The Democrats winning in the primaries, which seems likely, will not lead to a path that reverses the likelihood of global conflagration as the capitalist system exhausts it ability to take humanity forward. The status quo was still misery for millions of Americans. Climate catastrophe alone and the damage the free market inflicts on the natural world is threatening life as we know it, and this too is a market driven catastrophe. The biggest polluter on the planet is the US military and it affects every human being on earth.

 

It will take a mass movement to halt this increasingly dangerous slide in to the abyss. And while nothing is guaranteed, I believe it is guaranteed that the working class in the US, and around the world,  will attempt to resolve these crisis that are driving us to despair. Our backs will be against the wall. 

 

It is not utopian to have the position that the working class in the US and throughout the world will step to the plate. It is utopian to think we can survive as a species by doing nothing.