Why The Revolution Hasn’t Started Yet Part II: Team Work

Happy Indigenous People's Day!

Free the indigenous people of Palestine from the internment camp created by their occupiers! Free Palestine! Watch this short video from 2 years ago to understand better what's going on there today. Related article links are located in the links section below this week's blog post. It's a post inspired by an incident this past week that proves the 1%/capitalists/occupiers are everywhere and could be anyone, even a person you thought you could trust to be on the people's side...

Why The Revolution Hasn’t Started Yet

Part II: Team Work
by C.A. Matthews

If you want our society to change for the better so you don’t have to keep asking, “Why hasn’t the Revolution started yet?” then you need to grow up emotionally and treat your fellow workers as equals, worthy of your trust, respect, and forgiveness. Anything less won’t cut it. —from Why The Revolution Hasn’t Started Yet

I never thought I’d be writing another piece along these lines—and so soon—but needs must. 

The Revolution hasn’t started yet because some of us are still not on the same page as to what being a socialist means. I’m not talking about technical terms or academic explanations. I’m talking about what it means to want to make the world a better place.

Hopefully I explained it well in my first essay that wanting to make the world a better place means that you want it to become a better place for all human beings. And I meant all, not just for those you like or those who look like you, think like you, or like the same kinds of food, books, music, movies, and video games as you. If we make a decision to leave anyone out, then we’re not truly wishing to reform society to bring about equality. We’re just wanting to change things a little bit to make life easier for ourselves and those who are essentially clones of us. That’s not socialism; that’s just maintaining the capitalist status quo.

When we make the decision—consciously or unconsciously—to leave out the other 99% of human beings and keep the good stuff only for the 1% we agree with and like to be around, then we are not acting like a socialist. The 99% versus the 1%… Now, where have I heard those percentages before?

The Revolution hasn’t started yet because it’s not going to start with just the 1% who want it to begin in order to meet their own personal wants and desires. No person is an island unto themselves, so you have to acknowledge that, by the end of the day, the Revolution must involve the whole planet and the entirety of its inhabitants or else it’s a bust.

We can’t go it alone, in other words. The Revolution is going to take a team effort. So we must form teams and nurture them.

To be a team working toward a socialist Revolution means we have to respect and trust our fellow team members. We make a promise to each other that we’ll work together to reach our goals of equality and that we will be there for each other, come what may. We can’t bail out on our team members when times get tough. We can’t just walk away without giving a decent reason as to what why we wish to leave the team.

 We make a promise when we join the team to keep the lines of communication open. That means we can’t hold grudges and stuff all our hurts or confusions deep inside ourselves. We have to share what’s on our minds. We have to talk—and listen—to each other as equals, respecting each other’s unique perspective.

Sure, we might need to take a break or some R and R occasionally, but we don’t leave our fellow teammates out in the cold without any explanation about what’s going on with us. We can’t afford to keep our fellow workers out of the loop or else misunderstandings could occur. Misunderstandings can break up the team and destroy the efforts we’re making as a team. Because we truly respect and trust each other and want only the best for all of humanity, we won’t risk breaking up our team. We should see our team of fellow socialists as an essential tool to make the whole of Planet Earth safer, healthier, and happier. 

Breaking up a team for personal wants or desires comes across as an action a capitalist would take. A capitalist is an individual who sees himself or herself as being intrinsically better than others and possibly more deserving of attention. It’s a person who relishes getting their own way and telling others what to do since they know better, so it isn't necessary to share the limelight or the decision-making processes. A capitalist might join a team and say they’re doing it for the sake of the Revolution, but they see the others on the team only as being good for window-dressing and grunt work purposes. The voice and image that matters are the capitalist’s.

To reiterate, socialists treat everyone with respect, freely giving their trust and forgiveness to their fellow workers. This is necessary for all to benefit from the better society socialism is building. No one is left behind! Socialists aren’t doing all this work on their own for their own glory—they’re members of a team, working together to realize the dream of a better world for all of creation, human beings as well as the plants, animals and the totality of the environment.

The reason I’m revisiting my previous article this week is because of the actions of one of the persons it was inspired by. Suddenly what I thought was true of all socialists, that we all are working hard together to bring about the better society, might not be quite as true for this particular person as I first believed. I might have projected my hopes and dreams onto this person, thinking he was happy to be working toward building this better world as a member of our big team. I was wrong. Recent events have convinced me that maybe deep down this person wants to do things on his own because it would be of more benefit to his own team, the 1%.

It’s heartbreaking to come to this realization. I’m deeply disappointed, but it’s better to discover the truth now rather than later. Later on when the corporate contributions via political action committees (PACs), Super PACs, and millionaires’ checks come rolling into this person’s campaign war chest, we’ll see how, slowly but surely, this candidate’s focus will shift toward his wealthy capitalists donors at the expense of the working class. 

It might have already happened at a $250 a ticket soiree held in this person’s honor. The workers who thought they were on the same team, but who couldn’t afford this type of luxury, weren’t welcome. Worse yet, the venue where the event was held is known for being hostile to its own workers unionizing. That doesn’t sound like a place a socialist would want to be seen partying at, let alone allowing it to host their fundraiser. Why cater to capitalists at the expense of those you presumably wish to help unless you feel they are not worthy of your help to begin with?

This is not a campaign I’d be proud to be a part of as a socialist. The duopoly candidates accept corporate money via PACs/Super PACs and host champagne receptions with rich capitalists. I thought the candidate was on our team—the workers who wish to bring about a better society—but maybe I misunderstood. He seems to be on a team of one.

Our team was doing hard work to help this candidate get on the ballot in multiple states. Ballot access work for alternative party candidates in the US truly takes a team effort. We really felt that the candidate was a member of our team, and he respected our efforts. We were all equals. 

But it seems this person prefers to pay strangers to collect signatures for his ballot access instead. It explains why he suddenly announced he was leaving our team’s party in the middle of our ballot access work. He wants to be free to take PAC dollars and kiss up to rich capitalists to raise funds to pay for these professional petition circulators. He didn’t seem to appreciate our team’s volunteer efforts, even though we had been doing quite well gaining ballot access so far.

In a recent online interview, this person demonstrated that he isn’t really into “grassroots democracy” which is practiced by our team’s political party. He stated plainly that he didn’t want to go through our team’s party primary or its debates or even attend state party events in order to meet with fellow team members. 

This person said in the interview that meeting with members of the party was a waste of time and took him away from the real people he wanted to reach with his campaign. He even stated a horrible falsehood that the party didn’t reach out to people of color and that nobody in those communities even knew who we were, but they knew who he was, so it was better if he just walked away from our team’s party now.

Ouch. 

Does that mean the people of color who are members of our team's party don’t count in his eyes? Those who worked hard for his campaign's ballot access don’t count? Those he claims aren't worthy of his time don’t count? That he doesn't consider any of us to be his equals?

And this person claims to be a “socialist”? 

Apparently, this person, who freely joined our party, wants to be free to use campaign finance methods such as PACs that have totally corrupted the duopoly. Can’t he see that by pushing away the enthusiastic volunteer ballot petitioners and accepting large sums of cash from millionaires/billionaires is exactly what the capitalist corporate-owned-and-operated candidates of the duopoly do? Does he believe those large sums of money won't affect him like they've have for every candidate before him?

If he wants to run his campaign like a capitalist/duopolist, then perhaps he’s not really interested in building a better world for all that he thinks he is.

The Revolution hasn’t started yet because some folks, who may have fooled themselves into thinking they’re socialists, are actually arrogant lone wolves of the capitalist class. They don’t hunt in a pack. They want to do it all by themselves, and you should be grateful to get anywhere near their presence without a minimum $250 donation.

You could say that they “don’t play well with others,” but that’s assuming they even know we “others” exist in the first place. A socialist would acknowledge that their teammates can provide invaluable insights and assistance. A socialist would have the humility to ask for and accept help from others they see as equals instead of ditching them and buying help. A capitalist feels free to walk away from those they see as “less than” at any time and hang out with their rich friends because they're more important. It’s called hierarchy.

This person, a candidate who likes to call himself a “Jazz Man,” is really a solo artist. He wants to do things his way without a thought to how his fellow band members could be of benefit to the cause. He’s not interested in making harmonious music with others. He said in the interview he felt he was better off without our party volunteers around, bringing his image down, keeping him away from the real people who counted more, in his opinion. 

In other words, "Screw the workers who can only donate their blood, sweat, and tears instead of big fat checks!"

The Revolution hasn’t started yet because we the workers, the loyal teammates, need to stop relying on capitalists to lead us through this corrupted and corrupting system of government. We must start leading ourselves without the so-called leadership of famous personalities and other arrogant types who believe their own press releases. We must build our own teams of equals and call the shots.

We must do it ourselves. Worker standing beside worker. As equals. As brothers and sisters. Together.

Power to the people.

 

Related Articles and Interesting Links

Why The Revolution Hasn't Started Yet https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com/p/why-the-revolution-hasnt-started

Sabby Sabs interviews Jill Stein about Cornel West's decision to go Independent https://youtu.be/1vP_NUqnwA0?si=XVKujzUnUGWvhfN4

Sabby Sabs interviews Cornel West about why he left the Green Party https://youtu.be/_N7uhv3oa50?si=mGBwYQrnhNfiFMwf

What Happens to Rich People Under Socialism https://youtu.be/HKOYmE7oRCQ?si=UA9nqAT-mTB_fwdJ

“Can you give a brief synopsis of what’s happening in Israel?”
https://raymcgovern.com/2023/10/08/can-you-give-a-brief-synopsis-of-whats-happening-in-israel/

Palestinian resistance in Gaza launches historic surprise attack against Israel https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/10/07/palestinian-resistance-in-gaza-launches-historic-surprise-attack-against-israel/

A Population With Nothing To Lose
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/a-population-with-nothing-to-lose

How Israel Made Gaza the World's Biggest Prison https://youtu.be/iWG7JB9saE4?si=nEeQLameYtHH7Pjx

'Horrific Step Backwards': Biden Admin Waives Protections to Speed Border Wall Construction https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-border-wall-waiver

Patrick Lawrence: Depleted Ukrainium https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/05/patrick-lawrence-depleted-ukrainium/

They're Repeating The Word 'Unprovoked' Again, This Time In Defense Of Israel https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/theyre-repeating-the-word-unprovoked

This Proxy War Can't Be Both 'Unprovoked' AND A Great Strategic Investment https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/this-proxy-war-cant-be-both-unprovoked

The Priority Must Be To Put Bush, Blair and Cheney Behind Bars Before Trump  https://www.mintpressnews.com/priority-must-be-put-bush-blair-cheney-behind-bars-before-trump/285867/

Julian Assange May Be Extradited To The United States This Month
https://popularresistance.org/sassanges-imminent-extradition/

75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers begin the largest healthcare strike in US history https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/10/05/jfgp-o05.html

Washington Post Columnist Charles Lane Wants Auto Workers to Lose Their Jobs  https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/03/washington-post-columnist-charles-lane-wants-auto-workers-to-lost-their-jobs/

How CIA and NSA Created Google https://kitklarenberg.substack.com/p/how-cia-and-nsa-created-google

“We need to all be out now”: Autoworkers demand all-out strike to break corporate resistance to their demands https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/10/02/ypau-o02.html

The Solar World We Might Have Had https://popularresistance.org/the-solar-world-we-might-have-had/

When Even The Nazis Aren't Nazis https://open.substack.com/pub/caitlinjohnstone/p/when-even-the-nazis-arent-nazis

Britain Has Run Out of Military Equipment to Give Ukraine
https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/04/britain-has-run-out-of-military-equipment-to-give-ukraine/

Patrick Lawrence: Tampering With History https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/03/patrick-lawrence-tampering-with-history/

Idaho County Shutters Its Only Obstetric Department, Citing “Political Climate” https://truthout.org/articles/idaho-county-shutters-its-only-obstetric-department-citing-political-climate/

Kaiser Permanente Workers Begin the Largest Healthcare Strike in U.S. History https://www.leftvoice.org/kaiser-workers-begin-the-largest-healthcare-strike-in-u-s-history/

The Average Billionaire

 

The Average Billionaire

by C. A. Matthews

How “average” would I feel if I became a billionaire? Since I’m nowhere close to becoming even a lowly millionaire, it’s a moot point really. Looking deeper into what it means to be a part of the highest echelon, some very uncomfortable truths are revealed.

There are only 2,640 billionaires on this entire planet of approximately 8 billion people according to Forbes’ yearly survey called The World’s Billionaires. Most American small towns average about 3,000 people. And yet… “These few billionaires together have ‘investment emissions’ that equal the carbon footprints of entire countries like France, Egypt or Argentina,” said Nafkote Dabi, Climate Change Lead at Oxfam in their report, Carbon Billionaires: The investment emissions of the world’s richest people. The world's wealthiest individuals' investments account for up to 70 percent of their emissions, so presumable the other 30 percent is due to their lavish lifestyles.

According to Fortune magazine, the investments of a mere 125 of the world’s richest individuals have a carbon footprint equivalent to the entire emissions of France.

Excuse me? A tiny handful of human beings and their investments have carbon footprints the size of entire countries? Check out the population of the countries listed and prepare to be shocked.

Egypt has a population of 103,376,607.

France has a population of 68,042,591.

Argentina has a population of 46,044,703.

This is insane. A village worth of billionaires cause carbon emissions as much as 103,376,607 Egyptians or 68,042,591 French persons or 46,044,703 Argentinians, and we’re all okay with this?

I’m not.

But let’s not blame simply the small cadre of billionaires for why the climate catastrophe is worsening.The World Inequality Lab, led by the Paris School of Economics and University at California at Berkeley, found that the top 10 percent of polluters—about 770 million persons—are the climate equivalent of the world’s wealthiest 10 percent and are responsible for roughly 50 percent of all carbon emissions. The bottom 50 percent of the planet’s population make only 12 percent of the total emissions.

Furthermore, the richest 1 percent—the 60 million+ individuals who make more than $109,000 a year—are responsible for the fastest-growing source of carbon emissions. 

Okay, so it’s more than a small town’s worth of polluting individuals at fault for half the world’s carbon emissions. It’s the top 1 percent of the world’s population or approximately 60 million+ people who are the fastest-growing source of carbon emissions. If we could get the top 1 percent to cut back their carbon footprint even by half, the climate catastrophe would lessen appreciably and, perhaps, give us more time to revitalize plant and animal species hanging by thread over the chasm of extinction.

That sounds good and doable to me. Don’t you agree? We get slightly less than the population of France to cooperate and cut back their polluting ways to match or do better on carbon emissions than the bottom 50 percent and things will be looking up for all of us.

I know what’s causing some of you to hesitate. I hear folks saying, “Hey, I make over $109,000 a year! How can I be lumped together with the richest 1 percent on the planet? Why am I included in the evil billionaire class?”

 

Why indeed.
 
Go ahead and pat yourself on the back. Most human beings on our planet survive and have survived on far less income. Of course, they also survive/survived by utilizing fewer fossil fuel-using contraptions and vehicles in their lifetimes, too. Don't forget these are sizeable source of pollution.  
 
Don’t know what I mean? If you make $109K+ yearly, I bet you own a car. You may even own two or more petroleum burning cars, trucks or SUVs, the most polluting of personal vehicles. You might own a motorcycle, off-road buggy, lawnmower, motorboat, Skidoo or snowmobile, too. You probably own/are buying a house or a condo and possibly another home or vacation cabin or even an RV. You fly frequently for work or leisure and occasionally travel on cruise ships, right? Eat out more than once a month? Eat meat on a regular basis? Buy water in little bottles and then toss them away when they're empty?
 
Your actions demonstrate why you’re a part of the 1 percent. The rest of us aren’t quite as fortunate. We don't possess the means to participate in as many polluting activities.
 
And still… You’re not an average billionaire. You don't own nineteen vehicles or nine mansions yet. You’ll probably never become a billionaire, unless you inherit a large sum of money or marry into it. Don’t be sad—at least you’ve got a good chance of becoming a millionaire before you retire. Your lifestyle reflects your good luck, and it means you’re creating a lot of carbon emissions that add to the greenhouse effect and drive the climate change we're all experiencing.

Billionaires definitely own more homes than most of us, but more telling, they own a lot more cars and other vehicles, including diesel burning yachts and the yacht's newest iteration, the superyacht.

Remember that headline a year or so back about Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos' newly built yacht being too large to pass under a bridge in the Netherlands? They had to dismantle the historic structure just to squeeze the yacht through and get it out to sea. That's a superyacht. An average superyacht produces 1,500 more carbon emissions than a typical family car. By comparison, in the US the bottom 50 percent of Americans emit fewer than 10 tons of carbon dioxide, the middle 40 percent emit around 22 tons, and the richest 10 percent emit over 70 tons of carbon dioxide.
 
“Emissions from billionaire lifestyles, their private jets and yachts are thousands of times the average person, which is already completely unacceptable. But if we look at emissions from their investments, then their carbon emissions are over a million times higher,” said Oxfam’s Dabi.

According to Fortune:

The role of the super-rich in super-charging climate change is rarely discussed...These billionaire investors at the top of the corporate pyramid have huge responsibility for driving climate breakdown. They have escaped accountability for too long.

It’s true. We as a society have covered for the climate destroying billionaires long enough. Not only are they murdering our planet, they’re killing us as a people. Billionaire capitalists create dissension and divisions among the working class in order to make their obscene profits. We workers are kept busy blaming our equally struggling neighbors for a variety of imagined grievances instead of observing how it's the billionaires exercising their carte blanche to abuse the Earth however they please who are our true enemies. 

 

Let’s face it—billionaires own everything, including our politicians. The US Supreme Court gave them that right in their Citizens United ruling. Whatever billionaires say goes.

For example, Texas billionaire Harlan Crow had his companies purchase several properties in Savannah, Georgia, in 2014. What makes this real estate purchase interesting is that Crow bought these properties as a gift for his buddy US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

It’s nice to have a billionaire for a friend when you’re seated in such a "lowly" position, a justice on the US Supreme Court, isn’t it? 

Of course, when you’re a billionaire (or even a hundred-millionaire) and fall into a patch of trouble, such as your bank becomes insolvent, you always have the US government to fall back on to bail you out. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of bailing out. Right, Silicon Valley Bank? 

When’s the last time the American working classes were bailed out of such massive debt? We can’t even get our unfair student loan debts or medical debts forgiven outright, can we? Heck, we can't even get universal health care to cover all Americans regardless of income!

Before I must return to my day job, I want to leave you some thoughts to ponder. What would the planet be like if we didn’t have these 2,640 super-wealthy persons and their extreme carbon emitting, climate destroying, planet and people killing lifestyles? What if the resources of the top 1 percent were distributed to the bottom 99 percent of the population who make less than $109,000 yearly and pollute far, far less? What if the richest persons’ hoarded wealth were put to use to help fight the climate catastrophe, so we could leave our children a cleaner, greener planet and a brighter future?
 
Speaking of green things and bright energy, why not tax these billionaires (and actually make them pay their taxes for a change) so we can retire the dirty coal plants and leaky nuclear plants and erect more solar panels and wind turbines? Or would that upset too many of 1 percent who own shares in coal mining corporations? Should we really care if their feelings get hurt when our planet’s fate and our future as a species is in their hands?
 
After all, if the majority of human beings survive on less (much, much less) than $109,000 a year, why can’t the billionaires? Once the fossilized dinosaur remains are all burned up and the power goes out and the skies grow brown with blowing dust due to drought, we’ll all be living in the dark together, now won’t we? It's about time we learn how to cooperate and live alongside our neighbors.

 

Related Links:

A billionaire emits a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person  https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaire-emits-million-times-more-greenhouse-gases-average-person

Carbon Billionaires: The investment emissions of the world’s richest people https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-billionaires-the-investment-emissions-of-the-worlds-richest-people-621446/

The Huge Carbon Footprint of Billionaires https://impakter.com/billionaries-rich-carbon-emissions-ineqauility/

125 billionaires produce the same carbon footprint as the entire country of France  https://fortune.com/2022/11/08/billionaires-carbon-emissions-oxfam-report-france/

The World's Billionaires
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires

Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-real-estate-scotus

The Silicon Valley Bank Bailout: The Purpose of Government is to Make the Rich Richer https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/02/the-silicon-valley-bank-bailout-the-purpose-of-government-is-to-make-the-rich-richer/

Does Endless Spending in Ukraine Cause Deprivations at Home?/System Update #68 https://rumble.com/v2hmj0s-system-u pdate-68.html

IMF Is Forcing Some Of Hardest-Hit Countries To Pay Unnecessary Fees  https://popularresistance.org/imf-is-forcing-some-of-hardest-hit-countries-to-pay-unnecessary-fees-on-loans/

US bank bailout benefited billionaires, exposing corruption: 'I understand why Americans are angry' https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/bank-bailout-billionaires-corruption

Michigan health care crisis: Billionaires cash in at the expense of nurses’ conditions
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/12/ilqz-a12.html

Richard Wolff Explains How Billionaires Exploit the 99%

 https://odysee.com/@SabbySabs:e/richard-wolff-explains-how-billionaires:3

 

Countries worldwide are dropping the US dollar: De-dollarization in China, Russia, Brazil, ASEA https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/de-dollarization-china-russia-brazil-asean/comments

Oxfam Slams Rich Nations for Artificially Inflating Their Global Climate Funding
https://truthout.org/articles/oxfam-slams-rich-nations-for-artificially-inflating-their-global-climate-funding/

Anti-Protest Laws Are Not About Safety, They Are About Silencing Dissent  https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/11/anti-protest-laws-are-not-about-safety-they-are-about-silencing-dissent-2/

13 Groups Sue the EPA for Failing to Update Regulations on Water Pollution  https://truthout.org/articles/13-groups-sue-the-epa-for-failing-to-update-regulations-on-water-pollution/ 

Student Debt Forgiveness is a Win-Win for Our Country

https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/16/student-debt-forgiveness-is-a-win-win-for-our-country-2/

Zelensky & Friends Embezzled $400 MIL | Lula goes to China https://www.youtube.com/live/yp0pt1zymBI

The Indiana fire disaster: Another case of US industry polluting and killing with virtual impunity https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/13/faie-a13.html 

  

Welcome to the CLASS WAR! - Why Capitalism SUCKS - Part 2  (video) https://youtu.be/pVCqOpM4UUw

 

Here's why capitalism SUCKS! -- and why it needs to end! [part 1]

 https://youtu.be/8aHvA0KHXqM

 

Seen on Twitter:

Welcome to the United States, the country where the average billionaire owns 9 homes and 19 cars, ex- presidents from both parties have mansions valued in the tens of millions of dollars - and hundreds and thousands of people sleep on sidewalks and under bridges. pic.twitter.com/yq6JoUvCOs

— Prof Zenkus (@anthonyzenkus) April 11, 2023

The creation of the concept of "middle class" was specifically designed to divide the working class. There is no such thing as middle class.

— Prof Zenkus (@anthonyzenkus) April 11, 2023

  

Photo by Ahsanization ッon Unsplash

                                         

The Real Person of the Year

observations by C.A. Matthews

They great each morning knowing that their day will probably not go the way they’d like it to, but still they soldier on.

They have a family to feed, a mortgage to maintain, rent to pay, school loan debts they owe, car payments to make.

Photo by Adam Winger on Unsplash 

                                      

They get in their car, catch a lift with the carpool, run to the bus stop, hail a taxi, climb up the steps to the train platform, go down to the subway and head into the office, the factory, the store, the shop, the restaurant, the warehouse, the shipyard, the rail yard, the university, the school, the daycare, the airport, the hospital, the clinic, the nursing home, the group home, the theater, the studio, the courts, the laboratory, the water treatment plant, the power plant, the growing fields, the greenhouse, the stockyard, the slaughterhouse, the construction site…

Once there, they do what needs to be done. They put up with flack from the boss, the management, and/or their fellow co-workers. They dream of a better life for themselves and their loved ones. They dread catching sick or becoming injured on the job because they know this is America and just one illness or accident can mean losing their means of making a living. It usually means they’ll lose their employer-sponsored private health insurance if they do. There goes the means to pay for necessary medicines, surgeries, therapies and treatments. They’ve witnessed friends and family members fall upon hard times under just these kinds of circumstances, so they know they’re not overreacting. They could lose it all with just one small slip.

The threat of job loss and loss of life on the job is ever-present to the American worker. There are no sissies when it comes those who have little to no say over their fate at the workplace. Organize a union and strike for better pay and working conditions? If workers survive the unionizing process without being laid-off by their bosses first, they're lucky. Most won't. That's an essential feature of the capitalist system—not a bug. Those who own the means of production can choose to shut it down at a moment's notice.

The company CEOs may decide to close up shop and that’s that. No more work. Workers are out on their rears the next day. The bills don’t stop and the debts don’t magically go away. Their need for lifesaving medicines to treat a chronic condition for themselves and/or a loved one doesn’t disappear overnight. A “prior condition” is what it’s called in the United States. It's an unknown term for most other humans on the planet who receive free health care unconnected to their workplace.

Photo by Liam Martens on Unsplash

                                     

Without employment, workers are often forced to beg, steal, or borrow to make ends meet and keep food in their children’s stomachs. They're sometimes forced to sleep in their cars or on the streets. Couch-surfing can become their way of life before they even know it.

They had no say so over this cruel twist of fate. Rich people who own the means of production decided that the workers’ high level of productivity has made them a whole lot more money, but it also has cut into their profits. The market is flooded with their products and nobody wants to buy them. Something had to give, and it isn't going to be the billionaires. Workers can’t expect billionaires to give up a red cent of their profits or their extravagant lifestyle, can they?

If they’re lucky, workers will find another job soon enough and back they will go to the same routine. They’ll get in their car, catch a lift with the carpool, run to the bus stop, hail a taxi, climb up the steps to the train platform, go down to the subway and head into the office, the factory, the store, the shop, the restaurant… Sure, this time they’re not making as much money as before, but it is what it is. No health insurance provided by this new employer, but it is what it is. No hopes of promotion, no guaranteed hours, no paid sick days, but it is what it is.

TIME magazine's Person of the Year wearing his favorite color--green.

It is what it is. This is America. This is the trap 99% of Americans will put up with from the time they take their first job until the day they’re forced out of their last one. The lucky 1% who inherit large sums of wealth and capital haven’t a clue.

Braver than any actor who takes billions of dollars in armaments to fight a proxy war for a cowardly government run by intelligence agencies on behalf of the self-same billionaire oligarchs who control the lives and health of workers worldwide—that’s the American worker. Workers used as pawns, brainwashed to take the blame for the recklessness of the corporations/institutions they’re forced to work for, suffering early death and illness because of the lasting damage these wealthy reprobates have inflicted upon the planet due to their addiction to fossil fuels burning and its profits. The workers, dying because of the oligarchs’ total lack of respect of the environment, the water, the soil and the very air we all breathe.

The American Worker. This is who really should be TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

 

TIME's Man of the Year 1938. Yeah, they went there.

Related Articles:

Zelensky Named Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" https://youtu.be/9ReQ_97k7sI (video) 

Railroad Workers Speak Out After Congress and Biden Block Rail Strike https://scheerpost.com/2022/12/08/railroad-workers-speak-out-after-congress-and-biden-block-rail-strike/

Fast Track to the Gilded Age (short animation) https://scheerpost.com/2022/12/08/mark-fiore-fast-track-to-the-gilded-age-video/  

No Union? You Still Have a Right to Strike https://popularresistance.org/no-union-you-still-have-a-right-to-strike/

Sick Days Are a Human Right https://popularresistance.org/new-york-city-sick-days-are-a-human-right/

Solidarity Rally for Railroad Workers  https://popularresistance.org/solidarity-rally-for-railroad-workers/

 

Seen on Twitter:

You’re either with the strikers or with the oppressors

— Tiberius ☭ (@ecomarxi) December 8, 2022

#SupportRailWorkers pic.twitter.com/o4kEZ2kqkH

— Yup… I said it. And? (@RJohnston815) December 7, 2022

This politician literally voted to crush a union rail strike last week pic.twitter.com/f3L0TDtQg9

— Defund Ukraine (@DoctorFishbones) December 7, 2022

It was a tough choice, he just barely won out over this guy... pic.twitter.com/SVQbAHEJN6

— Andreas 🇵🇸 (@AndreasKep) December 8, 2022

Both Parties working together to crush the rail workers should have shown people the reality of what we as a society are up against, but it won't, both sides will continue to live in the fantasy that their team is fighting for us.

— Black in the Empire (@blackintheempir) December 10, 2022

We Have To Fundamentally Change

 We Have To Fundamentally Change 

(What Are You Celebrating?)

Why should any American "celebrate" the results of this presidential election?

Many Americans are facing looming evictions and downsizing due to the pandemic, while the number of Covid cases increases daily, the death toll mounts, and many more are without affordable health care than ever before. And our president-elect has openly said he will veto any Medicare For All bill that crosses his desk--if one even gets that far.

If "nothing would fundamentally change," according to Mr. Biden, then it will be up to us--we have to fundamentally change. We have to become braver and more willing to take on the fixed, corrupt system and break it wide open. We can't let things remain static, unchanged, when our very lives and the fate of our planet stand in the balance.

Some have already started planning how they will bring about fundamental, progressive change and ask you to join them in their efforts: https://howiehawkins.us/keepfighting/

The general mood in the "Twitterverse" among true progressives about the results of this election cycle has been somber. The following examples illustrate their concerns and frustrations:

Ryan Knight (@ProudSocialist) tweets: Joe Biden is a neoliberal corporatist who has spent 47 years propping up our corrupt system. He is not a savior.

Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) tweets: Nice to hear speeches without the racist abuse of the past 4 years. But not a word of commitment to real solutions for the crises killing us - like M4A, Covid relief, a long-term eviction moratorium at the least. Platitudes don't make me want to celebrate.

A paraphrase of several good tweets: 

Sorry if I'm not quite as enthusiastic as you are that the proud author of the 1994 Crime Bill that has incarcerated thousands of Americans (especially those of color) and the backer of the US Iraq War that has caused huge loss of life in that country, as well as PTSD in American service personnel, is now in charge. Those sorts of things, and the people who are proud of their involvement in them, just don't appeal to me very much.

Jimmy Dore says, "Trump loses! Now what?"  It's a serious question. And he stresses, "We need an independent media that pushes politicians, not protects them." Listen to his valid complaints in the following video.

 https://youtu.be/gSYQYGAhcEQ

 Pulitzer Prize-Winner Chris Hedges puts it eloquently in his essay, American Requiem:

Well, it’s over. Not the election. The capitalist democracy. However biased it was towards the interests of the rich and however hostile it was to the poor and minorities, the capitalist democracy at least offered the possibility of incremental and piecemeal reform. Now it is a corpse. The iconography and rhetoric remain the same. But it is an elaborate and empty reality show funded by the ruling oligarchs — $1.51 billion for the Biden campaign and $1.57 billion for the Trump campaign — to make us think there are choices. There are not. The empty jousting between a bloviating Trump and a verbally impaired Joe Biden is designed to mask the truth. The oligarchs always win. The people always lose. It does not matter who sits in the White House. America is a failed state.

https://scheerpost.com/2020/11/05/chris-hedges-american-requiem/

On Facebook, a local activist voiced well what many are feeling this week:

Why I Will Not Be Celebrating the Election Results

by Sean Nestor

I will celebrate when single payer healthcare is enacted and people can receive medical treatment without it ruining their lives. I will celebrate when qualified immunity is ended, the police are demilitarized, and law enforcement offices aren't let off the hook for executing black people in the streets. I will celebrate when the concentration camps at our borders are closed down and migrant families are no long split apart and children no longer disappear into human trafficking rings. I will celebrate when we see a full troop withdrawal from the Middle East and we start using our tax dollars to fund much-needed domestic programs  instead of killing innocent people abroad.

If you think the Biden/Harris administration is going to do any of that, you're either uninformed or dishonest. Nothing in their campaign rhetoric nor their time in public office suggests that those will happen without borderline revolutionary activity from the public. And in the spirit of honesty, the vast majority of Democrats, in spite of the memes they share, are ready to go to brunch for the next four or eight years because Trump is gone.

I know this because I remember 2008 very clearly. At the time, we had two terms of a monster President who drug us into two costly and unnecessary wars, grew the police state in the name of counter-terrorism, and bailed out Wall Street on the back of working people everywhere. People bragged about voting for inanimate objects over Bush, as though lowering the bar like that was something to be proud of.

What we got starting in 2008 was eight years of "At least he's not Bush!" and a climate of shushing anyone who dared criticize the Democrat for not doing enough to address the real problems that were growing around him. Everything that was an outrage when Bush did it became defensible or just swept under the rug when Obama did it. I was practically spit on when I criticized Obama's continuation and expansion of military action in the Middle East, or his ramping up of deportations, or his refusal to promote single payer while supposedly tackling healthcare reform.

Well, that climate brought us Trump. In another four or eight years, mark my words, it will bring us someone even worse.

Cue the hand-wringing and frustrated pleas about the powerlessness of Democrats under a Republican Senate. Look--if Democrats can raise billions of dollars and organize tens of millions of people all over the country to vote someone into office, they can do the same to enact single payer healthcare or eliminate the electoral college or a major nationwide gerrymandering reform or something meaningful to change this country, regardless of the Senate's disposition. That's what politics are for.

Politics are all about figuring out how to enact policy in spite of obstacles, not pointing out obstacles and adjusting your standards accordingly. There is an extremely disgusting culture in the Democratic Party of competing over whose standards are lowest, giving up on ideals immediately and invoking some trite rhetoric about the importance of compromise in politics. But their compromise is always with Karl Rove or Steve Bannon and never Michelle Alexander or Aviva Chomsky. It's a lie comfortable people tell themselves to justify their own laziness and lack of compassion.

My standards are human rights standards, and I'm not lowering them come hell or high water. Call me privileged or elitist, but I'm not celebrating until I know for sure that we've genuinely protected the vulnerable minorities that are constantly preyed upon by this nation's governments.

I know victories are few and far between, and the temptation is high to celebrate them even when they are hollow, so I don't judge or begrudge anyone who wants to express their pleasure at the end of the Trump nightmare. I sincerely hope it provides you with relief and healing. But please don't repeat history and pretend like any of this marks a sea change in our country's politics. We seriously cannot afford a repeat of the smugness and complacency that brought us Trump, because at this trajectory, we're going to get a Trump again before we know it.

"The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." --Milan Kundera

"Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul." --Thomas Paine

 ***

 From Friends of the Earth:

Joe Biden will be our next President -- and he’s starting to fill powerful positions within our government. Take action to reject corporate lobbyists for key nominations.

Every President in recent memory has filled their government with appointees with close ties to large corporations. When corporate cronies are in government agencies and in the Cabinet, it provides them with the means to undermine protections Americans count on. Instead of considerations for the people, they favor rollbacks and giveaways for big business.

Pressure from people like you can stop the Senate from confirming corporate cronies for these positions. That’s why we’re asking you to demand our elected officials oppose the confirmation of any more corporate lobbyists.

Take Action: Demand the Senate reject corporate lobbyist appointees.

Sign Now

Biden will need to fill thousands of government positions -- from the head of the EPA to deputy secretaries at over a dozen agencies. These appointees have power to implement our environmental protections.

Look at what happened under Trump -- he appointed, and the Senate confirmed, fossil fuel lobbyist David Bernhardt to the Department of the Interior. Bernhardt has overseen huge giveaways of our public lands to benefit the fossil fuel industry.

The vast majority of Americans agree that large corporations have too much power. We need your help to change that!

Sign the Petition: No more conflicts of interest that benefit big business. No more corporate appointees.

Sign Now

Our elected officials must reject appointees with direct ties to big business. But without hearing from concerned American’s like you, C.A., they might not act.

Don’t let nominees with ties to mega-corporations make key decisions for the people. Demand corporate executives and lobbyists not be confirmed to any appointee positions.

25,000 Signatures still needed: Fight to reduce corporate power. 

Sign Now

Standing with you,
Ariel Moger,
Legislative & political coordinator,
Friends of the Earth Action

 ***

Stand For Something!

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