by Ron Jacobs
The
show is essentially over. There might be some good floor fights at
the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia later this summer, but the
rigged odds combined with an equally pervasive corruption has given
the Democratic Party nomination to Hilary Clinton. Hillary, who
reminds me of Richard Nixon in terms of her love of power and
combative fear of political rivals, will be closer to her desired
goal of the White House than the time since she lived there with her
husband. This time, though, it will be all hers. That in itself is
reason for the left side of the world’s polity to organize. In case
that is not enough, the proto-fascist and right wing forces
mobilizing around the other party’s candidate, Donald Trump, should
be motivation for anyone who acknowledges every human’s basic
humanity to get into the streets and resist.
For
those around the nation who have become politically involved for the
first time by working or even just voting for Bernie Sanders, the
fact of Hillary Clinton’s arrogant certainty that she would win the
Democratic nomination and that Sanders never had a chance might be
too much to take. Indeed, one might be already thinking that the
whole campaign was a waste of time and, consequently, so are politics
in general. Or, one might be saying to themselves, “fuck this, we
can’t ever change anything so why bother. As for some older folks,
who worked or voted for Sanders just like they might have voted for
Kucinich, or Jesse Jackson or George McGovern, they might be saying—I
can’t believe I fell for this game again. Although the desire to go
back to being cynical or depressed might be strong, don’t. Why not?
Because this campaign has made one thing clear: a substantial number
of Americans are interested in redistributing wealth and making
government work for the 99 percent.
This
simple fact means that we must not despair. Instead we must go beyond
the paradigm, think outside the box of bourgeois electoral politics
and determine how to make the social change we desire take place. How
can we redistribute wealth and guarantee homes, education, health
care and an income for all? How can we end the rule of Wall Street
and the Pentagon over our lives and the lives of people around the
world? How can we dismantle neoliberal capitalism and put human needs
before any profits? How—and this is the fundamental question—can
we prevent the planet from becoming uninhabitable?
The
answer to most of those question lies in the answer to this one: How
can we dismantle neoliberal capitalism and put human needs before
profits? Furthermore, the answer to the second part of that
question—how can we put human needs before profits—lies in the
answer to the first part—how can we dismantle neoliberal
capitalism?
That
is the challenge of the next ten years. Why ten years? Because ten
years is an understandable number, a “do-able” time span. We can
see ourselves in ten years. Also, because, according to Kevin
Schaefer, a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center
(NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, we may have reached the “starting
point when melting permafrost begins a likely irreversible release of
190 gigatons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. “Thawing
permafrost is threatening to overwhelm attempts to keep the planet
from getting too hot for human survival. Without major reductions in
the use of fossil fuels, as much as two-thirds of the world’s
gigantic storehouse of frozen carbon could be released…this might
be irreversible.”
In
other words, humanity’s future might very well depend on what we do
to end the rule of neoliberal capitalism. Indeed, it makes necessary
the end of this economic system that demands an intensified rape of
the planet’s resources, the ever-increasing presence of armed
conflict by the imperial powers and those opposed to the destruction
of their homes, culture and existence, and the super-exploitation of
those who labor for the profits of the powerful. It is not enough to
demand a livable wage for those of us who work under that system,
although that is a starting point for a deeper and more complex
challenge to the rule of the 1%. It is also not enough to vote or
campaign for candidates trying to reform the current system, no
matter what party they are part of. As the downfall of the European
system of social democracy seems to prove, the hegemonic domination
of the neoliberal capitalist system is not satisfied until those who
were once Socialists do the work of the global financiers:
privatizing health care, tossing tenants from their homes and selling
them to banks and well-heeled real estate racketeers, re-arming their
nations and sending soldiers off to fight ill-defined wars whose only
purpose seems to be the selling of weapons so that more can made
along with the profits accompanying their sale, shutting down public
libraries, public schools, putting the elderly and disabled into the
streets, removing the hungry from food stamp rolls, denying the
veterans of those aforementioned wars health care and work and even
citizenship, sending migrants to their certain deaths…the list
continues—you know the litany.
Neoliberal
capitalism is, like all previous versions of capitalism, a hubristic
and greedy beast. It exists to feed its already bloated being and it
has no soul. It exists outside of greed, because it is an amoral
phenomenon, but when the greedy participate—as they will—the
damage done is exacerbated exponentially.
So,
where does this leave us? Are movements for reform pointless? Are
those of you working for Sanders wasting your time? Is the “Fight
for 15” movement a movement for nothing? What about
“BlackLivesMatter”, movements against drones and war and
struggles around gender issues and women’s rights? Of course they
are not. Especially given the current situation. Without these and
other movements for social justice, this nation would be much further
down the road to a purely authoritarian corporate state ruled by the
small-minded and the money-changers. The aforementioned movements and
those like them not only keep the proto-fascists at bay, they also
provide the entire population with alternatives to the world the 1%
would like to make permanent. In a political climate defined by
monopoly capitalism and its human clones in the banks, the stock
exchanges, the Pentagon, and the other halls of power, any resistance
in the name of progressive social justice is crucial to our survival.
At
the same time, what I have described is not nearly enough. We must go
further. Our challenge must be broader and deeper; broader in its
reach and deeper in its analysis. We must acknowledge that neoliberal
capitalism is the problem. In doing so, we will then understand that
capitalism itself is the problem. So, we must fight capitalism. This
is where the “broad in its reach” part comes in. The popularity
of the Sanders campaign and the struggle to raise the minimum wage to
fifteen dollars proves that such breadth exists. By deepening the
analysis of those campaigns to one that analyzes and challenges
capitalism on its fundamental claims that it is an economic system
that works for humanity and, this cannot be emphasized enough, making
that analysis an essential part of our organizing, it will be
possible to involve almost every people in every other social justice
campaign, making a broad popular coalition possible. Imagine a
movement of groups and individuals dedicated to ending capitalism. If
you can’t imagine that, at least you can imagine a movement
dedicated to insuring free or affordable health care, quality public
education and housing for every individual. A movement dedicated to
ending the stranglehold of the military-industrial complex and the
financial industry on our lives. A movement to end imperial wars. A
movement determined to end police brutality and murder. A movement to
end systemic racism and make reparations to those so wronged by the
racist history of this nation. A movement to end systemic sexism and
create gender equality.
If
you can imagine such a movement, then you can imagine a movement to
end capitalism—since these are symptoms of that cancer upon
humanity’s soul. But, it seems to be strategically smart to begin
with a movement around these reforms, with an approach that
encourages an understanding that capitalism is at the root of the
problems the movement hopes to reform.
How
would that movement take shape? What would be its various
manifestations? A political party? A movement in the streets? These
are difficult but essential questions. The moment to begin asking
them—locally, nationally and ultimately internationally, is now. I
am a firm believer in creating a Left movement in the streets like
that created in West Germany in the 1960s and early 1970s known as
the Außerparlamentarische Opposition (APO). This was a radical left
movement of groups and individuals opposed to the Grand Coalition of
the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats. Since the Coalition
controlled much of the government, the Left represented in the APO
pressured the system from the streets, in local elections and other
manifestations.
The
thinking behind this is that by not supporting a candidate or a
party, but important and radical issues instead, the resurgent Left
in the US will be able to exercise its power. The movement will exist
for the people, not for candidates. If a candidate subscribed to the
movement’s politics, they would join the movement, not have the
movement join their pursuit for power. It must be emphasized over and
over–we can’t leave it up to Bernie to create that
movement—that’s never been his thing. We must do that by bringing
together the multitude of issues, approach them through an
anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist lens, and move forward. We might
just save the planet.
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