Now that the midterm elections are over, the presidential election campaigning of 2024 has already begun, even though not all of the midterm ballots have been counted.The American people cannot get a break from all the political posturing!
Yet all of this campaigning for an election, which is still two years away, reveals the entire range of thinking of the class of people who are running the country. Of course, I am referring to the billionaires, technically referred to as the bourgeoisie. More accurately, it reveals their mind boggling stupidity!
Even the billionaires are now admitting that they are at a crisis point, with a ”severe recession imminent”, high inflation, crime ”out of control”, immigration plagued by an ”open border”, and widespread ”voter discontent”. This does not stop them from resorting to ”verbal gymnastics”, in an effort to avoid using the word capitalism. Instead, they use the word ”democracy”.
Their most visible ”headache” comes in the form of one of their own, Donald Trump by name, a former president, a member of their class, a successful capitalist, a fellow billionaire. That boy just will not ”play by the rules”!
The rules are that government officials must lie and deceive. The working people, the class of people they crush and exploit, must be ”kept in the dark”. Under no circumstances must working people be told the truth! Yet Trump once again ”shot his mouth off”, and blurted out that which everyone knew, but was supposed to deny! These are his very words:
“The citizens of our country have not yet realized the full extent and gravity of the pain our nation is going through, and the total effect of the suffering is just starting to take hold,” Trump said. “They don’t quite feel it yet, but they will very soon. I have no doubt that by 2024 it will sadly be much worse, and they will see much more clearly what happened and what is happening to our country. And the voting will be much different. Twenty twenty-four. Are you getting ready? And I am too. I am too.”
In fact, Trump is correct when he states that ”by 2024 it will sadly be much worse”, unless the working people take action! Of course, I am referring to the working class, the proletariat, as well as the lower strata of the middle class, the petty bourgeois.
As a monopoly capitalist, an imperialist, Trump is well aware of the fact that capitalism gives rise to periodic crises. In this, he is correct.
As Lenin stated, in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: ”Crises of every kind -economic crises more frequently, but not only these- in their turn increase very considerably the tendency towards concentration and monopoly”. Today we are facing an economic crisis, along with a political crisis.
It was Marx and Engels who explained these crises, in The Communist Manifesto:
”A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.
”The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now used against the bourgeoisie.”
That is precisely the current state of affairs! We have here a crisis in capitalism, in no small part because we have too much! So many people are hungry, homeless, unemployed or under employed, because of over -production! Because we have a vast surplus! Truly, that which was considered to be an ”absurdity”, in years gone by, is now a reality!
Naturally, as a typical capitalist, Trump embraces this ”absurdity”. He is well aware that the ”destruction of a mass of productive forces” is currently taking place. Of course that will in turn lead to further mass unemployment, countless more workers out of work, hungry, cold and homeless, but that is of no consequence to the capitalists.
The Communist Manifesto also mentions the workers, the proletarians, those whom the capitalists ”discard”, much as we throw away old newspapers:
”But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who will wield those weapons – the modern working class – the proletarians.”
No member of the capitalist class, the bourgeoisie, including Trump, can imagine the proletariat, the working class, rising up in revolt. Hence the reason that Trump, as well as other billionaires, are openly predicting that ”things are bound to get much worse”.
This crisis in capitalism has spread across the country. In particular, the governor of the state of Texas has effectively announced that he plans to go to war with the ”army of invading immigrants”!
No doubt, many people are thinking that the governor was merely posturing, making threats which he absolutely did not plan to implement. America could not possibly go to war with defenceless civilians! Think again! Recently, border officials separated mothers from their young children, and then locked up those children in jails! That is quite possibly still happening! It stands to reason that the people responsible for such actions, are also capable of mass murder!
The Governor of Texas has ”justified” this proposed war on unarmed civilians, including women and children, by invoking a clause of the American Constitution. That clause, Article 1, Section 10, is as follows:
”No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
This article I downloaded from the Internet, hence the italics.
The governor of Texas is arguing that unarmed civilians, families who are attempting to escape poverty, persecution and violence, amount to an invading army!
It is significant that Trump agrees with that Governor. It is also significant that the act of an individual state, ”going to war”, would almost certainly result in that state separating from the Union!
Texas was, at one time, a self declared separate country, and will very likely, once again, become a separate republic. The American Empire just moved one step closer to dissolution.
In this article, I have focused upon Donald Trump and the Republican Party. There is a reason for this. They are in the news! That is the only reason I have focused upon them! The Democratic Party is also in disarray! Both Parties serve the same class! As that is the case, the two are equally reactionary! They are part of the same state apparatus, which has to be destroyed, at the time of the Revolution!
The current situation is absolutely Revolutionary! Various ”crises in capitalism” have come together, at the same time, and created the ”perfect storm”! The capitalists are ”at their wits end”! They do not know ”which way to jump”! Which is not to say that the system is going to collapse, under its own weight! It is not going to collapse! It has to be destroyed! That can only happen through Revolution!
This is to stress the fact that a Revolution can be successful, only if it follows the Revolutionary guidelines of Marx and Lenin. This is to say that the existing state apparatus, which has been set up by the capitalists, in order to crush the working class, must be destroyed. It must be replaced by a different state apparatus, in order to crush the capitalists, as they try to ”restore their paradise lost”. That state apparatus is referred to as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. It is to be administered through the medium of the Soviets.
For the members of the working class who have just recently become politically active, or ”woke up”, I can urge you to read State and Revolution, by Lenin. He wrote that article immediately before the Great October Socialist Russian Revolution. That Revolution was successful, but only because the Revolutionaries followed the Revolutionary line, laid down by Lenin.
Perhaps a word of caution is in order. You can expect the ”social chauvinists” to oppose the ”smashing of the existing state apparatus”. There is a good reason for their opposition. Their plan is to ”take over” the existing state apparatus, at the time of the Revolution, and set themselves up, as the new rulers. Perish forbid! They too, are in the service of the capitalists! Their choice! They must be treated accordingly.
As most people enjoy company, may I suggest that workers get together on the Internet, through computer programs of some sort, and discuss the Revolutionary works of Marx and Lenin. It may help to think of it as a book club, as that is precisely the case. At the same time, you can form Councils, otherwise known as Soviets, and prepare for Revolution. I have covered this in a separate article, so there is no need to go into detail here.
Bear in mind that Revolution is ”right around the corner”. The success of that Revolution depends upon the most advanced members of the Proletariat. As you are reading this article, that very likely means you!
We will know that the Revolution is sure to be successful, when certain expressions become common place:
Workers of the World, Unite!
Dictatorship of the Proletariat!
Soviet Power!
World Socialist Republic!
Gerald McIsaac Science Project 