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| image via twitter |
With International Workers' Day at hand after weeks of the capitalist coronavirus crisis the truly awful, harsh and likely to get much worse, corporate driven dystopian reality we find ourselves in can only be summarized by saying...fuck capitalism.
If ever a system has been exposed as a rotting, putrid corpse riddled with the maggots of oppression, racism, vast inequality and staggering arrogance and ineptitude, it is the global capitalist order and the various clowns leading it.
Before anyone thinks our society is likely to get much better due to its being exposed, that is, rather terribly, not at all the case. Things are likely to get much worse...unless we do something about it.
For all the cheery and, frankly, delusional optimism of those who think "society cannot go back to where it was" they may be right. But at the moment not in a good way.
We are seeing the absolute triumph of the very worst tendencies of the neo-liberal era all exploding at once, from the sacrificing of the lives of the least paid, often racialized workers so as to "keep the economy going", to the white supremacist armed American rallies at state legislatures, to the billionaires, corporations and CEOs being bailed out -- yet again -- on the backs of all of us for a failed economic system they created.
Amid the capitalist cornavirus crisis the wealthy and the powerful continue to control and take advantage of the situation. The mainstream parties are still engaging in mainstream politics. Circumstances have dictated that they have had to sweep some crumbs to the masses and say a few things here or there but they have and they will sweep a lot more to the wealthy and the corporations.
As we see millions and millions of workers or the formerly middle class facing destitution, bankruptcy and even homelessness, Wall St. just had its best month on the stock market in over 30 years. The utter and absolute disconnect between human needs and our economic system could not possibly be better expressed. Never mind the vast quantities of food being literally destroyed because capitalist agriculture is based around corporate "demand" as opposed to actual human demand.
With trillions of dollars being pumped in to prop them up, of course the stocks are soaring. They are literally laughing in our faces all the way to the bank.
Fuck capitalism.
Meanwhile, billionaire manchild egotists like Elon Musk scream "Free America" and the corporate political class from Georgia to Quebec look to "reopen" and throw us all under the bus as fast as possible wherever possible.
They cannot make money unless we are working. They need us to risk our lives to keep that stock market and those profits humming along. They will finance any number of stooge politicians or angry white lumpen petty bourgeois rallies to make it so. They will get the dumbest and most mechanistically reactionary of their corporate owned media talking heads to vomit out columns and TV moments claiming that compensating workers for lost income or for not being able to work will make them "lazy" and unwilling to go out and find some new job that pays less and that is more dangerous than the one they used to have but that exists now because fucking Amazon can hire more workers as Jeff Bezos gains a billion dollars in blood money every day or two.
Fuck capitalism.
The sick vampire lifeblood sucking disgusting shitshow sham of divide and conquer one day you too will be rich hahahaha reality horror show travesty that is capitalism is willing to cannibalisticly eat you whole and sacrifice the old, the workers and -- don't kid yourself -- the young and whoever else it takes as long as it can make money and thinks that it can replace one dead or sick delivery or cashier worker with another.
They will keep the mines, the factories, the warehouses going no matter how many workers are crammed together, no matter that social distancing is impossible, no matter that nearby communities will pay, no matter that workers will die, because they are all literally willing to end your life in their bloodlust for profit and "growth".
Don't worry, hundreds of thousands of you are going to die...maybe even millions...but it will all be worth it! Freedom! Why would you not want to offer yourself up so that the parasites can feast on you living or dead.
Soon enough they will cut off your benefits to force you back. Already the corporate class in Canada has somehow conned "progressive" politicians in parties like the NDP to back programs that hand 75% wage subsidies to businesses while Employment Insurance remains maxed out at 55%! How clever is that? And the NDP sheep squad is happily taking "credit" for this. The imbecility of it would almost be funny were the consequences not so grim.
And get ready, as it is coming fast and furious, for the austerity attack when the lockdown is lifted. When the corporate political goons and their media sycophants will demand deep, deep cuts. If you think the bailout corporate cash grab will be repaid by those who primarily benefited -- the wealthy -- I have got some Florida swampland for you for a song. You may need it after all is said and done.
With no actual mass anti-capitalist left political movement in North America outside of the institutionalized and failed ones like the Democrats, Liberals and New Democrats, how exactly is the fightback to this politically being envisioned?
The principle that it was necessary to discard these failed capitalist vessels and build something new was perfectly obvious for many years now and especially after 2008. Had this been done we would be in a far better position now.
Capitalism is not going to just get "nicer" or disappear on its own. All that rhetoric about "heroic" workers is only that. It has already adapted to the new reality.
If there was ever a May Day where it was obvious that we had to build new left parties and movements out of the ashes of the old it is this one. Otherwise we will once again see the workers pay dearly and deeply while perhaps a few parks are occupied again, some Marxist academics have conferences about it all and maybe everyone wishes the establishment "left" parties would really do something as it only ends up getting worse.
This is not inevitable but it is what is happening. Collectively we can try to stop it. Or the capitalists will walk away unscathed and empowered as they did after 2008. It is our choice.
Fuck capitalism.
Happy International Workers' Day.
Workers of all countries unite!
