Let's see, when was the last time I boarded a public transit bus in
Seattle and sat down next to a billionaire? When was the last time I
stood in a long line at SeaTac airport, waiting to board a flight that
was delayed or cancelled, and discovered that the angry fellow in
front of me was Bill Gates? When was the last time we sat in miles
long lines on highway 3, waiting in the heat of a summers day while
the Hood Canal Floating Bridge remained open so our nuclear subs could
play at their war game maneuvers, only to discover that the car beside
us contained a hot, sweaty billionaire?
The fact is that the Ruling Class does not need such public services.
They are transported privately and without delay. They live the "Life
of Riley", that mythical world which the rest of us only dream about.
Even worse, as they zip past us in their private planes or choppers,
they look down on our struggles with contempt. And here's the really
weird thing about it all, they are highly organized, even while
debunking labor unions. And weirdest of all is that too many of our
working class brothers and sisters have been brain washed into
believing the Ruling Class Propaganda that Unions are Evil and
Socialistic, and that "real true blue Americans" take care of
themselves. They still buy the "rugged individual" mentality that
helped bust up or weaken our nation's once strong labor unions.
Between struggling to survive, or attempting to escape the reality of
a dead end life, working class Americans have little time to think
about how they came to be in this vice.
Too bad. If we can't take time to plan how to take control of our own
fate, the only recourse will be a violent uprising. When that takes
place, the result will follow the historical pattern. Angry people
setting to the task of dismantling the world of the Ruling Class, and
setting conditions for the takeover by a new, and often an even more
cruel Tyrant.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/9/17, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2017/8126/812601.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 26 July 17, 2017
(lead article, Socialist Workers Party statement)
NY subway derailment shows crisis of capitalism
Expand public transit, fight for workers power!
TWU Local 100
Transport Workers Union Local 100 members repairing track after June 27
train derailment. Government-run MTA has cut back on maintenance,
safety, comfort throughout system
The following statement was issued July 5, by Osborne Hart, Socialist
Workers Party candidate for New York City mayor.
The mounting horrors that working people face as we use New York mass
transit — from being trapped in packed, sweltering, stalled subway cars
in dark tunnels, to risk of serious injury or death in derailments like
the one that occurred on the A train in Manhattan June 27 — show the
propertied rulers’ disregard for our needs and safety. They show what is
more and more in store for workers as a result of the normal workings of
the dog-eat-dog capitalist system mired in a deepening economic, social
and political crisis.
Transit workers face attacks on their safety, wages, health care and
pensions, and riders see mounting fares while never knowing what they’ll
face each day
The deteriorating conditions in the New York transit system reflect the
catastrophic impact of this decadeslong capitalist crisis on our lives,
from long-term joblessness for millions, to increasing deaths from
opioid drugs, and the impact on working people at home and abroad of
Washington’s unending wars in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Paying the interest on the MTA’s skyrocketing $37.5 billion debt to
wealthy bondholders comes first under capitalism, and the bosses and
their government demand that workers foot the bills.
Workers in Puerto Rico — as well as the Virgin Islands and other U.S.
territories — who live under the boot of Washington’s colonial
domination, know through their own bitter experience how the capitalist
system of debt bondage works. Under the dictates of a U.S.-imposed
fiscal board, the Puerto Rican government has slashed pensions, wages
for government workers, and closed schools and hospitals to pay
bondholders on Puerto Rico’s $74 billion debt.
Working people in the U.S. are looking for a way to end the social
devastation they face and to “drain the swamp” of bourgeois politics.
They no longer have confidence in the two capitalist party shell game
and are looking for a road to act politically in their own interests.
The Socialist Workers Party says unequivocally that low cost, safe,
efficient, comfortable, mass public transit is a basic necessity for
working people, here and around the country.
And transit workers must win workers control over conditions on the job
to protect themselves and transit riders alike.
Workers need to organize and fight for a massive, government-funded
public works program to expand mass public transit nationwide; rebuild
aging infrastructure such as roads and bridges; and bring the New York
and other subway, bus and commuter rail systems to safe, reliable and
comfortable operation — a program that would put millions of unemployed
workers to work at union rates of pay.
Working people need their own political party, the Socialist Workers
Party. This means fighting to build a movement millions strong with the
power and leadership capable of replacing the political power of the
capitalist rulers with workers power. Along this road we can begin to
reverse the social catastrophe our class faces and force concessions
from the propertied ruling families.
Join the Socialist Workers Party in backing workers wherever they take
up the fight against the bosses’ attacks, from Spectrum and AT&T workers
here to food processing workers in California and striking silver miners
in Idaho. Join the Socialist Workers Party!
Related articles:
Bondholders line pockets as mass transit crumbles
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