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"A disaster is stalking the planet. It consumes all and threatens all. It is the epochal clash of “society” – in reality capitalism – against the forces of nature. The world capitalist class may seem all powerful, but in the face of the forces of nature it is a Lilliputian facing a giant, a tiny boat at sea in a storm of epic proportions. If this clash is allowed to play out to the fullest, the forces of nature must inevitably sink the capitalist boat.... and carry all its passengers down to a watery grave with it. "Like King Midas, who turned everything he touched into gold, capitalism turns everything it touches into capital, into a source of profits.... "In the 1990s, the H1N1 virus jumped the species barrier and caused a new flu in North America known at the time as “swine flu” because the virus originated in pigs. Rather than change the practices that enabled this new zoonotic disease (one which has jumped the species barrier), the hog industry simply sought to change the name of the disease. Profits, after all, matter. Evolutionary biologist Rob Wallace, also used a different name for that disease. He called it “Nafta flu”.... "just as the zoonotic diseases often jump from a wild animal to a tamed, or domesticated animal to humans, this disease (of the mind) jumped from the capitalist class and their propagandists to the domesticated or tamed union leadership to the rest of the working class. "This disease of the mind is the disastrous concept that the interests of the employers and those of the workers are one and the same and, anyway, there is nothing that workers can do to oppose the employers, AKA the capitalist class. As Andreas Cluver, Secretary-Treasurer of the Alameda County Building Trades Council put it “Yes, we are slaves in the capitalist economy to the financiers. They create the jobs.” “The (wage) slave is dependent on and has a common interest with the slave owner. And anyway, if you don’t like it, there is nothing you can do about it. So, shut up, go to work, and don’t think about your conditions, never mind the disastrous train wreck that awaits you further down the track.” That is the message of both the capitalists and their tamed union leaders. This crisis and the disastrous ongoing failure of the union leadership leaves workers no option but to organize on their own on the job and off - first to deal with death on the job, but also to deal with the root causes of this and future crises: The clash between capitalist development and the laws of nature. This article contains some ideas on how this can be carried out and towards what ends. https://oaklandsocialist.com/2020/04/12/coronavirus-capitalism-an-environmentalist-manifesto/ -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
