The COVID 19 pandemic has shined a light on who are the most important people on the planet while also revealing how our social order regards working people. The pandemic highlights a reality many of us already know that those who play, entertain, count money, or manipulate people as way of life are regarded as more important even by most workers who truly are more important. Because we must first survive, it must be known by all people that those who provide food, shelter, sanitation, and physiological medical care are the most important people on the planet. Because of this, it is in our hands to resolve the problem. When elites die from the virus, their face is pasted across the newspapers and highlighted on the internet. Currently we do not even know how many workers have died in this pandemic. And when they do, we rarely know their names. We do know that 30 percent of hospital workers at one New York hospital have perished since the spread of COVID-19 started and at least 68 Transit workers have died in New York because of COVID-19. Thousands are being infected in food processing plants and in fields all over America, which in turn could dismantle the food chain. Things are so dangerous for those providing our meat that some are refusing to work. Instead of providing safer conditions for these workers, some senators have proposed to absolve meat packing owners from liability from workers suing them if they catch COVID-19 while on the job, Instead of providing safer conditions for these people, the president says he may order them to work. In Nebraska, as of the first week of May, public health officials reported 96 workers contacted the virus at the Tyson plant in Madison; 237 at the JBS plant in Grand Island; and 123 arising from the Smithfield plant in Crete. In a manufacturing plant in Iowa as many as 20 percent of the workers have come down with the disease. Some bosses of nursing homes demand that those who are ill, work even as they endanger themselves and patients. We are the cannon fodder for the nonproductive. Because racism is a direct result of the class system and more people of color are producing class than whites, people of color are disproportionately affected by the virus. The resolution is for us to organize as a class for its own power with no one getting paid for organizing people. Putting productive labor in the lead for all members must be a principle leading our workers’ democracy movement. Despite what is commonly taught, the left and right are not separate things, but are just complementary aspects of the same thing—the nonproductive elite. They are married together; one cannot exist without the other. In physics, a negative charge cannot exist without a positive charge. In mechanics, action cannot exist without reaction. In the social world, both aspects of the elite, left and right continuously criticize each other which is part of their necessary inner struggle which gives them power to preserve the system that exploits our labor, and treats us as if we are expendable. We do not yet have the internal struggle of opposites until we organize as a class for itself. We need to understand this to get our thing going! We will win when our own institutions have a rainbow hue with workers of different races, genders and sexual orientations playing leadership roles. The increased racial, and gender hatred combined with homophobia from our fellows divides us while blinding us from seeing the root cause of why our standards have diminished for the past 50 years which is the class thing. If we desire to be one of them, we will continue to be their cannon fodder. Our class unity will prevent the racism, sexism, and homophobia for it is only in the need of master to divide us. We need to create the necessary institutions to end this ugly system. It has not yet been tried; thus, it has not failed. Political movements being led by those who find a way out of work is not worker’s power. Many assert that the Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions were led by workers This is false. What existed in the former Soviet Union, in China and Cuba, was state capitalism. The leaders of those states, Lenin, Mao, and Castro were not workers; thus, they could not give power to the workers. While many of those leaders correctly pointed out the failure of monopoly capitalism, and the ugliness of imperialism they could not expose their own elite class nature as professional organizers. One must justify his practice or change it. The first thing communist leaders had to do was to seek to justify their getting out of the working class. One cannot lead something he is not part of. The American president emphasizes winning for he knows power comes from it. During his campaign, he said what many Americans wanted to hear. He exposed the social experts as not being all that correct. The small dedicated, passionate followers of Trump overcame the larger, smug followers of the left. During the presidential campaign, the left aspect used slogans such as “when they go low, we go high,” which only reinforced the impression many workers have of the them as being condescending. Some members of the left aspect and their followers erroneously label the followers of Trumpism as stupid. Standards of living were better for most workers when the right aspect was in the lead, so it was logical many of us followed the Donald. The problem in following the new right is that it identifies with a social order that will never return, a social order when racism was more institutionalized, when women more like second class citizens, and gay people in the closet. The psychocrats and their party, the democrats, have largely ignored the plight of the working people which created the conditions for the new right. The psychocratic movement erupted during the 1960s’ with the peace and love of the Hippies, who most became the more militant Yippies, to the establishment Yuppies; that is the evolution of the psychocrat. In the beginning most of them opposed imperialist wars such as Vietnam, while many workers did not. This was a significant reason why the democratic party became the party of the psychocrats while losing many workers to the right. Now, many psychocrats support imperialist wars. Both parties stood idly by as many of our jobs went overseas while the new face of the right voiced opposition to the job exit. In addition, an increasing number of workers dreamed to be businesspeople which attracted them to the new right. The egalitarian nature of the psychocratic state diminished the people’s incentive to excel in production and for the system to maintain itself, its opposite a different type of the right aspect evolved: Trumpism. However, this new right’s inability to reduce the ranks of the nonproductive, its increased racism, and putting down the science of real things will guarantee its doom. Until we organize a class for itself, though, Trumpism will inflict much suffering. Although the billionaires are part of the exploiting class since the early 1970’s they are secondary to the psychgocrats, or the left aspect. The left aspect or liberals are more apt to try to tranquilize us with songs, words, and chemicals. The right through violence and the threat of starvation. Despite what is taught by the professional word people and academics the left and right aspects of the elite are not separate things. The left wing and right wings are simply different aspects of the same thing—the elite. The left being the professional manipulators of people by words and numbers, and the right being the professional people of violence and the capitalist class. They seem to be at odds, but they are struggling to see who the leading aspect is, thus the criticism. Although both aspects say they represent workers, their need is to get more out of us for less. Because we live in inside a society that postulates certain assertions, and these assertions are accepted as truths, it puts us in a fog. One deadly assertion and teaching received in formal education is that those who organize us are the more important than those who provide the necessities. A perfect example of this upside-down teaching is ruling class professionals calling themselves servants of the people, which is to reverse the meaning of the word servant. The higher their rank the more servants they have. We are secondary in class society thus going to work for us is like playing Russian roulette. The nonproductive class controlling the means and fruits of our labor stands as the root cause wo why this catastrophe is mushrooming before our eyes. While the elites did not create the virus, they are mostly responsible for spreading it as most who fly are part of the nonproductive class, This unnatural relationship of one group organizing people and the other doing the work has lasted for thousands of years in large part because the teaching of the social order is done or controlled by the nonproductive elite. The dawn of worker’s democracy is delayed because 99.99 percent of us identify with either, the left, right or middle aspects of the elite instead of our class. To organize effectively we first need our own identify and to be less shy and take the offensive of proclaiming that we are the most important people on the planet. The leading aspect of the elite, the left or the psychocrats and their party the democrats have mostly ignored the working people in America. Sometimes regarding us as stupid, so it is understandable that so many workers identify with the likes of our president. Protesting the shelter in place and blaming it for ruining the economy, though endangers our own. We should be demanding our own type of economy where we control health and safety. The problem is not initially Sheltering in Place; it is the class system itself. SIP saves hundreds of thousands of lives. A nation that has nearly as many entrepreneurs and professional organizers as workers is increasingly vulnerable to things like a pandemic. Opening up is necessary in the short term but doing it recklessly will increase infection and death while de railing a recovery. Because many small businesses will never return, for the economy to stabilize the government may put people to work-whether it is led by a Republican or a Democrat. Establishing worker co-ops led by producers will be a better alternative to combat the pandemic effects on the economy because they will be more resilient than privately owned business. We will be making the safety decisions thus preserving the health and lives of our kind. Capital is more evenly distributed in a co-op instead of in the hands of one person or family. Already forms of “worker co-ops,” exist with some still having non producers playing leadership roles. The fascist trend will continue in America if we do not organize because the left aspect has little to offer the productive people. Under the democratic dictatorship of the psychocrats, standards for American workers have degenerated. So, it is no wonder so many of us have turned to Trumpism because our standards were generally better when the right aspect was in the lead. The past will not return, though. We cannot go back, though, so we must create something different. Something separate from what exists yet flourishing as we provide the necessities more efficiently than what exists now. That will start when we organize as a class for itself. This means we create our own institutions where no one gets paid to represent us or organize us or preach to us. Only those who do productive labor will be paid, and the producers will determine the differentiation of wages. We will not be egalitarian because paying everyone the same suppresses incentive to increase skills. To win, we will need to economically out compete the classist institutions that exist today which should be no problem because most institutions have family members or investors or stock holders which get the greater part of the pie we create. Because change starts with a few mutations, it is unlikely we will start by taking over hospitals or meat packing plants. A great need exists in such fields such as health care transportation where our co -op could transport patients to home and medical procedures. Day care centers. small clinics are among the few things we can start with. With 3-D technology, we could create a face shield company for all those workers in harm’s way. The existing privately owned and corporately owned institutions cannot compete with genuine worker’s co-ops because the worker/owners will receive more of the pie we create instead of the bosses, the likes of the public relations people and investors. Giving producers more of a say of their work environment improves productivity and retention. No blueprint yet exists on how the first co-op will be structured because it has not been done yet. When former President John F. Kennedy said he was going to send a man to the moon, he did not have a blueprint. He knew it would be done because we had the principles of rocket science. The principles leading to our success will be to put productive labor first, and no one make a living organizing us. Our nation’s health is threatened by the criminally irresponsible acts of the right aspect. Because the left and right need each other, the left cannot effectively resist the advocacies of the nonscientific right. Although the billionaires are part of the ruling elite, they are not the primary aspect of it. The ruling class now numbers in scores of millions in America and their collective need is to get more out of us for less thus the needs of the left and right are similar. As an oncology/telemetry RN for nearly 30 years, I have experienced workloads slowly increasing as the societal bureaucracy grew. As this pandemic mushroomed, though, it hit us like a sledgehammer—many getting infected and losing our lives. For those survivors, the long-term effects of working under such pressure remains unknown. For all those front-line workers, in meat packing, in grocery stores, and health care workers it is time to start organizing as a class for itself. Although certain aspects of American leadership have greatly increased our risks with lack of supplies of protective equipment and ignoring medical science, they could not inflict this upon us unless they have mass support. Although the president during his campaign exposed the social experts as not being all that correct, he and his group have a need to ignore science which endangers scores of millions. The democrats, who are the party of the psychocrats, also have ignored working people’s lives during the past 40 years. The left and right aspects of the elite criticize each other, but this inner struggle makes them stronger. The class that exploits us is neither a left nor right by itself, but a single elite consisting of both left and right aspects that put our lives and safety secondary. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we know that the system has failed us, that this “great” economic giant cannot even provide us with proper protective equipment nor has it been able to protect the food processing workers, thus endangering the food supply chain. Meanwhile in some states, those following Trumpism while not identifying with their own class and shelter in place create more danger for producers helping people survive. 10 nurses walked out of California hospital because the appropriate masks were not provided. They were suspended, then reinstated. These brave single acts by themselves are not enough. We have the courage, and the creativity, and most importantly the need to create a worker’s rainbow democracy movement to start a world of sustained progress. To disregard and put down the class struggle will be a condition for our increased exploitation, and to perpetuate racism and sexism. So, let us come together with our fellow meatpackers, grocery clerks, construction workers, and the rest of the producing class of all races, genders, and sexual orientations to initiate the next great social movement. To succeed we lead with practice. Be a producer, stay producer, organize for the power of producers, and then we will never be cannon fodder for the elite because eventually no elite will exist. Stan Roberts, Plumber. John Tuvo, RN. 2020 Evergreen Drive 650-296 0671 San Bruno, CA 94066 [email protected] 650- 296-1545 peoplesideas.weebly.com RACISM DIVIDES WORKERS |
AuthorsStan Roberts Archives
May 2020
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