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To bleed
and to die
By Charles Sullivan
03/18/06 "ICH" -- -- Social change of the kind that is needed in
this country has always been precipitated by organized labor. Part
of the problem we face as a nation is the decline of strong labor
unions. Labor has often been the driving force behind social justice
movements in America. Without a strong labor presence social justice
will be a very difficult proposition.
Labor unions have always been under assault by the company bosses
and their cohorts in government. This connection reveals that the
government does not serve the people; it serves business interests,
the elite. It is thus evidence not of democracy, but of Plutocracy.
Organized labor has long been at the center of the vortex of class
warfare that has always plagued America. On numerous occasions in
our nation’s long struggle for social justice, the state and federal
militia were called forth to shoot dead striking workers while
protecting the assets of businesses that often brutalized and
murdered union organizers and workers alike.
So much of what we believe about America is based upon falsehoods
and distortions—a viewpoint that lacks historical perspective. This
way of thinking allows us to see only small segments of isolated
events, out of context from the great matrix of the historical
whole. Our situation is akin to catching a glimpse of a person’s
fingernail and being required to describe that person’s religious
philosophy. It is a difficult proposition that is unlikely to
provide accuracy or useful results. Historical perspective is all
important to understanding current events.
The demise of strong unions occurred for several reasons. Unionism
has been under assault by corporate America since their inception.
Keeping ordinary people apart has always worked in the interest of
Plutocracy. Unions have fallen victim to widespread campaigns of
propaganda as orchestrated by their business adversaries. Keeping
workers isolated prevents insurrection. Isolated workers are without
power and at the mercy of their employers. They are virtually
without voice and have no legal redress of their grievances.
The unions themselves also played a role in their own demise by
selling out to their adversaries in business. Union officials are
all too often corrupt and easily bribed. Workers instinctively know
when they have been betrayed. When unions lost their militant edge
and became bureaucracies, they lost their effectiveness and their
clout with the workers they represent.
There was a period in American history when companies feared unions.
In the past, unions wielded considerable power. They had honor and
integrity and understood that they were embroiled in class warfare.
The Wobblies sought not only to democratize the world place—their
objective was to end capitalism and remake society in a democratic
image, rather than the existing Plutocracy. Eugene Debs referred to
this kind of organizing as ‘Revolutionary Unionism.’ Debs and others
recognized that justice could never be had in a system that was
inherently unjust. It is a shame that the relatively weak and
ineffectual unions of today no longer have this perspective.
I do not mean to say that there are not good and strong unions
today—there are. But they are few in number and becoming
increasingly rare. The work place and society at large are
intimately connected. If there is inequality in one, how can there
by justice in the other? The Industrial Workers of the World, like
the Wobblies of old, is perhaps the only extant union that retains
this radical and revolutionary perspective. This is the kind of
unionism that we need—one that represents workers without crawling
in bed with the employers, while simultaneously seeking to end
capitalism. In these times of severe decline in union membership, it
is no accident that the IWW is actually growing.
The working class people of today must relearn the lessons of
history. We must understand, like the workers of old, that the
working class and the employing class have nothing in common.
Keeping workers isolated assures the continuation of the present
system that exploits labor, while concentrating and privatizing
wealth; which in turn creates socioeconomic class divisions known as
Plutocracy. Unions unite workers, employers divide and conquer; they
keep the profits of labor to themselves by compensating workers
minimally in wages and benefits. The end of strong unions assures
low wages, poor benefits, and harsh working conditions for the
workers; higher profits for the corporations and obscene wealth for
their CEOs. We see this in the Wal-Mart model that is driving down
wages on a global scale.
By busting unions and preventing their reformation, employers have
created a work place that in essence is a master-slave relationship.
‘At will’ employees have few rights in the work place, and they have
no legal redress of their grievances. It is a situation that gives
extraordinary power to the employer by usurping it from the
employee. Since the same situation prevails throughout the country,
it is of little benefit to the worker to migrate from one work place
to another—they are virtually all the same. The problem is rooted in
capitalism. This is industrial slavery in its purest form. Let us
recognize it for what it is and call it by its rightful name.
The visionary union leadership of the past, like that embodied by
Eugene Debs, realized that the workplace and the country could not
be separated—they were one and the same. Debs understood that a free
and democratic society could not be achieved without first creating
a free and democratic work place. The key to creating democracy
within the construct of the existing Plutocracy lay in democratizing
the work place. That is still the problem, but we rarely see the
issue framed in this way. We lack historical perspective.
Debs also recognized that allowing the private ownership of the
means of livelihood would assure the continuance of Plutocratic
rule, rather than promoting democracy. And this is the crux of the
problem today. Private ownership of livelihood creates what is
essentially a system of wage slavery. It gives rise to the class
system and the concentration of wealth and power at the top of the
socioeconomic ladder, by taking from all of those below the top. It
robs workers of their freedom and their dignity. It reduces them to
being the property of their employers and often subjects them to
tyranny.
Eugene Debs understood that if a man owns the means by which you
live, that man is not your employer—he is your master; and you are
his slave. One’s livelihood, like the genetic blueprint for life
itself, should not be privately owned. The genetic library—life’s
blueprint—belongs to the world; being non-man created, it cannot be
privately owned. The same is true of the people’s right of
livelihood—it is public property. Nevertheless, we see corporations
that are applying for patents for the private ownership of genetic
codes they did not and cannot create. This demonstrates the
absurdity of capitalism.
As the history of labor makes clear, working class people have
always been exploited and abused by the ruling elite. Wealthy
capitalists have long fomented the wars in which working class
people serve and die. War generates enormous wealth, and guaranteed
profits without risk for those who wage them. Witness the obscene
profits that are being generated by America’s defense contractors.
Dick Cheney’s Halliburton and the Bush and Bin Laden Family’s
Carlyle Group are raking in billions, while our sons and daughters
sacrifice their lives at the altar of greed, believing it is for
democracy.
The generation of corporate wealth through the sacrifice of the
blood of our youth, has nothing to do with democracy or liberation.
It has everything to do with class warfare; the rich preying upon
the poor whom they hold in bitter contempt. What are the lives of a
few thousand working stiffs to the ruling Plutocrats? War is never
fought for noble purposes—it is about lining the pockets of the
already wealthy. It is tainted money, stained with the blood of our
children and our loved ones.
While our babies are dying by the thousands in places like Iraq, and
are killing our Iraqi brethren, rich white men are realizing obscene
profits. Our lives, our hopes and fears, mean nothing to these
people. They do not see us as their equals; they see us as their
servants, as cheap disposable and replaceable property. Few of us
are willing to face this awful truth, but history bears me out. War
produces wealth for the rich; it produces misery and suffering for
the rest of us. Let us see it for what it is.
The enemy attacks us from within, not from foreign borders, as we
are lead to believe. The enemies of democracy, the foes of freedom,
are those who profit from the misery and suffering of others. They
do not wear turbans and speak in foreign tongues. You will find them
in the White House and roaming the halls of Congress. They
masquerade as servants of the people; but they are servants of class
and privilege. They are the masters of war, purveyors of Plutocracy.
They are the enemies of the people. See them for what they are;
judge them by what they do, not what they say.
Once again, as it always has, it boils down to the fact that working
class people have nothing in common with the ruling class. The
wealthy have always been our tormentors and our oppressors. They
believe that they are superior to the rest of us, as evidenced by
the policies they enact against us.
Safe in their luxurious mansions, the masters of war send their
servants to bleed and to die in the dust. They tell them they are
serving their country. They tell them they are fighting for
democracy, which makes the enterprise sound noble and humane. But
that is not what they are fighting for. They are fighting for the
continued enslavement of the poor by the rich—Plutocratic rule
through coercion and brute force.
America will know no peace at home or abroad until we resolve the
slavery issue. We live in a class society in which the rich prey
upon and subjugate the poor of this and all nations. There are but
two classes—rich and poor, employers and workers; rulers and
servants. Do not take my word for it. Look around you. Weigh the
evidence and make up your own mind.
Ask yourself: Does the president behave like a servant of the
people; or does he resemble an emperor? Ask the same question of
Bill Frist, Hillary Clinton, and all of our so called public
servants. Who do their policies benefit? Who is working for whom? Do
they live like you? What kind of health insurance do they have? How
do their benefits compare to your own? Do they have money worries?
Are their children getting killed in Iraq? How do their retirement
pensions compare to your own?
This is not a democrat versus republican issue. Nor is it a
conservative versus liberal issue, as it is so often portrayed. It
is a class issue and it needs to be addressed as such.
The first step toward emancipation is recognition of the fact that
more than ninety percent of us are slaves in a society that is
deeply and irreconcilably divided by class inequities. This is a
system of government in which the top one percent owns as much as
the combined total of the lower ninety percent of the population. If
this is not Plutocracy; if it is not elitism, what is?
Let us recognize that this is what we are fighting for in Iraq and
135 of the world’s 192 nations—extending Plutocratic rule and
industrial slavery (capitalism). The noble cause we are so foolishly
sending our youth to die for is not democracy—it is to line the
pockets of the Carlyle Group and Halliburton. Waged under the
auspices of noble purpose, war is in fact class warfare packaged as
democracy in order to sell it to the public. War is the natural
outgrowth of capitalism and Plutocratic rule. Examine the historical
record and follow the money trail. To the Plutocrats, our youth are
nothing more than property; cheap, disposable and easily replaceable
property—slave labor used to procure wealth for the richest one
percent of the population.
One way out of the morass is through organizing the work force on a
massive scale, through the creation of revolutionary unions, as
envisioned by Eugene Debs and others. This union must represent all
workers and it must proceed on a global scale. It can begin today.
Otherwise, worker is forced to compete against worker in a race to
the lowest common denominator. The times demand strong leadership
and iron clad worker solidarity. Unity is our only hope. United, the
people cannot lose. We outnumber our adversaries ninety-nine to one.
We must make them respect and even fear us, as in days of yore.
Divided we haven’t got a prayer. Democratize the work place and we
democratize the nation while also ending Plutocratic rule.
Charles Sullivan is a photographer, social activist and free
lance writer living in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. He
can be reached at earthdog@highstream.net.
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