The article states: "The Socialist Workers Party campaign is grounded
in the conviction that it is possible to emulate that example(the
Cuban Revolution). We can mobilize in our millions to overthrow the
dictatorship of the capitalist class here, take power into our own
hands and open the door to working people running society."
And then the article concludes, "Join us in campaigning for Alyson
Kennedy and Malcolm Jarrett, the working-class alternative in 2020!"
My problem with this article is that we can't take both approaches.
Either we advocate for Revolution and the replacement of our current
Ruling Class with a government which represents All the People, or we
send Alyson Kennedy and Malcolm Jarrett to be our sacrificial
offerings. That approach appears hopeless. Let's suppose, and it is
a real long shot, that Alyson Kennedy and Malcolm Jarrett squeak out a
victory, and find themselves in the White House. Then what? I mean
what do we Revolutionaries do? We have just won the top two offices
in the nation, and the most influential top dogs in all the World.
Are they prepared to lead a Revolution from within the Establishment's
System? Do they attempt to swim upstream and make what social changes
they can make? To me it is a lose lose situation. The fact is that
we live in, and have lived in from the beginning, in a Class System.
This nation of the people never set out to be the government of All
the People.
Although I have no dog in this presidential fight, I plan to vote for
Bernie Sanders. Not because I think that he will win, or even if the
Heavens opened up and God smote all his opponents and Bernie, like
David with his sling, did win, but because I believe it is my only way
of spitting in the Establishment's eye. Bernie will be as unable to
return America to the New Deal Days, as would Alyson Kennedy and
Malcolm Jarrett.
But on the other hand, if we are truly serious about a People's
Revolution, then we need to stop pretending that we can "make a
difference" through tucking a few Progressives into the System. It's
like tossing red meat to a pack of wild dogs.
As a defender of the American People and their Rights and Dignity, I
am faced with deciding whose laws I must obey. Do I take the safer
path and obey the laws that have been bought and paid for to protect
the properties and positions of the long established Ruling Class? Or
do I obey those basic laws that defend the dignity and security and
health, and all the Rights that belong to First Class Citizens?
This is no easy decision. But it is one that every Citizen must make,
because we cannot serve two Masters. Either we support the right of a
few to own us, or we defend the Right to Human Dignity by All the
People. This constitution we live under was created back when we were
a collection of 13 Colonies and an Agrarian Society. The Document was
truly revolutionary in its day. It declared that the Colonists were
no longer the economic slaves of the King of England. In the
situation the Colonists found themselves, there was no
misunderstanding over whether they could somehow take over the
government and make changes to existing laws. There was only one of
two roads, compliance or revolution.
The ensuing struggle was costly for many Landholders. Many chose to
duck and cover, hoping the King would reward them once the uprising
was quashed.
While Times are very different today, we live in an Urban Society and
number 50 states and over 300 million People, we are still faced by
the same two roads. We can duck and cover and accept what is "given"
us by our Ruling Class, hoping they make wise choices that somehow
include us, or we can set them aside, thanking them for their long
years at the helm of our Ship of State, but recognizing that they have
outlived their day, and that they have become far too self serving.
But if we do the latter, we must realize that once declared, the New
Revolution must follow. Are we ready for it?
Carl Jarvis
On 3/5/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
https://themilitant.com/2020/02/29/fight-for-govt-funded-cradle-to-grave-health-care/
Fight for gov’t-funded, cradle-to-grave health care!
article
Vol. 84/No. 9
March 9, 2020
The U.S. government, the most powerful imperialist power on the planet,
like every other capitalist power around the world, is far from prepared
for the
spread of coronavirus. The virus is new, no one is immune, and it will
take time to develop an antidote.
The rulers in China and Iran tried to pretend things weren’t so bad and
working people are paying for it. The administration in Washington tells
us they’ve
got everything in hand and complain the media is trying to make
coronavirus “look as bad as possible.”
The deadly impact of the virus will fall overwhelmingly on working
people in the U.S., as it does elsewhere, exacerbating the broader
social, economic
and moral crisis of capitalism bearing down on us.
Millions of workers already confront the declining availability of
health care. Hospitals have been closing in rural areas and
working-class neighborhoods,
where the owners decide they aren’t making enough profit. The system of
health insurance in the U.S. — whether it’s “Obamacare,” private health
insurance
or the Medicare-for-all insurance schemes promoted by a wing of the
Democrats — is designed to guarantee a profit for hospital bosses and
drug and insurance
companies, not to provide the health care working people need and deserve.
If we can’t afford to pay the rising costs they charge for premiums,
deductibles or copays, we have to go without something that should be a
basic human
right.
The capitalist rulers consider the provision of health care to workers a
nonproductive expense. Hospital bosses are notorious for transporting
homeless
people seeking care out of the city and dumping them. The capitalist
rulers seek to impose the responsibility for medical care onto
individual workers
and our families. And if you don’t change your lifestyle — quit smoking,
lose weight, etc. — they want to make you pay more. You’re on your own.
Health care is social right
Health care is a social question. The working class and our unions need
to fight for government-funded cradle-to-grave health care for all. Our
labor produces
all the wealth, more than enough to provide care for all, for a
lifetime. The problem is the employers expropriate that wealth for
themselves. So they
don’t have to worry about the costs of getting treatment.
Health care as a social right can only be won by class struggle,
including breaking from all the capitalists’ parties, which insist that
the health insurance
racket is untouchable. It will take massive struggles by workers and our
allies to take the hospitals and drug companies out of the hands of the
capitalists
who run them for profit and organize to run them under workers control
in the interest of all. But it can be done.
Revolutionary Cuba is the one country in the world where health care is
not a commodity, where the surplus workers and farmers produce is used
to provide
lifelong, preventative health care for every person. And where thousands
of volunteer medical workers provide much needed care throughout the
world, treating
all they look after with dignity and respect. A vivid account is
provided in the recently published
Red Zone: Cuba and the Battle Against Ebola in West Africa.
The volunteers’ internationalism, author Enrique Ubieta writes, “is an
expression of their revolutionary humanism.”
As Che Guevara said, to be a revolutionary doctor you have to make a
revolution.
Revolution transformed working people in Cuba
This is only possible because Cuban workers and farmers made a
revolution and the government today is in their hands. Making that
revolution transformed
working people. They simply look at the problems they confront — from
the U.S. rulers’ economic war against them to the threat of coronavirus
— as the
responsibility of the whole people.
Whatever they face — a hurricane, a threat of disease, or anything else
— they prepare, mobilize the whole people and resources of their
government, and
take it on.
The Socialist Workers Party campaign is grounded in the conviction that
it is possible to emulate that example. We can mobilize in our millions
to overthrow
the dictatorship of the capitalist class here, take power into our own
hands and open the door to working people running society. Join us in
campaigning
for Alyson Kennedy and Malcolm Jarrett, the working-class alternative in
2020!
article end
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• Back Socialist Workers Party 2020 campaign Contribute to $25,000 fund!
• Families, former inmates, SWP protest conditions at Georgia jail
• Capitalist economies wobble as coronavirus cases spread
• Women in Iraq say no to segregation of protesters
• ‘Communism is not a doctrine but a movement’
• Bosses step up spying on workers — on and off the job
• Join 2020 May Day international brigade to Cuba!
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Editorials
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”
― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
