The social counterrevolution in America and the tasks of the working class

Two and a half years after the Wall Street collapse and multi-trillion dollar bail-out of corporate swindlers, the ruling class is carrying out a savage and unprecedented assault on the living standards and basic social rights of tens of millions of working class families in the United States... What is unfolding in the United States is a social counter-revolution—the ruthless and systematic destruction of the fundamental gains and social rights won by the working class over a century of struggle...

One study estimates that a proposal from Republicans to cut Medicaid—which the Obama administration has refrained from publicly criticizing—would raise the number of people without coverage by 44 million over the next decade. State governments throughout the country, bankrupted by the economic crisis and starved of resources by the federal government, are carrying out their own sharp cuts in services and eligibility.

Public education, a central concern of progressive movements in the United States for over 150 years, is being dismantled...closing public schools, expanding private charter schools, increasing class sizes, laying off thousands of teachers, and imposing sharp cuts in pay and benefits...public colleges and universities are raising tuition to levels unaffordable to the vast majority of working class youth.

At the same time, recent data confirms that there is no letup in the jobs crisis in the United States. Persistent mass unemployment is being used by corporations as an opportunity to drive down wages and slash benefits... Michigan has already shortened the length of benefits to 20 weeks, excluding federal emergency relief. The Florida legislature passed a similar measure this week.
State governments have passed legislation targeting the basic right to collectively resist the demands of the corporations and states. Several states...have followed the lead of Wisconsin in passing laws that rip up existing contracts with state employees and prohibit strikes.

With extraordinary speed, the ruling class is working to destroy whatever remains of the social reforms of the 20th Century...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/pers-m13.shtml

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But instead, people are cheering those who are acting against their own self interests - which are often the ones we would have voted for.

So long as they can keep the people divided, they will succeed.

Simplistically speaking, as soon as any society permits rulers, it divides into two classes - the rulers and the ruled. It is in the interests of the rulers to make the gulf between the two as broad as possible, both to prevent any challenge to their rule and to make the extraction of wealth from those below as efficient as possible. As the wealth-extraction proceeds, the rulers accumulate ever more power, making the extraction process ever-easier, in a sort of positive feedback loop. This loop of wealth- and power-consolidation by the rulers can only be broken with the greatest of difficulty, and can never be completely eliminated. While the dream of "no-rulers" can never be completely achieved, the cycle of disempowerment and impoverishment can be periodically reset if the people have the will.

As we contemplate resetting this cycle I would suggest we regard all promises by the rulers to relinquish some of their power in the interests of democratic egalitarianism with a jaundiced eye. It's just part of the game...

and the Democratic party are willing to compromise on the destruction of their social justice laws. Every so often they say they are going to spread the liability to the monied class, but they are all part of that group, and we now know it's bullshit!

But few have any interest in looking behind it.

Churchill had it right: "Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened."

Right on the money!

Soon we'll be powerless and compliant like the populations of third world countries. I've seen this coming since Dubya was selected. By the time their goals are met we'll be competitive with the lowest wages in the world and jobs will be exported back here. Cheer up! :sarcasm:

The "blame-the-worker" theme is officially over. It was over last September when we were told there
were all sorts of new jobs unfilled because workers lacked the skills.

Oops, BLS revised it's data and the new jobs part of that argument is now a dead letter.

Structural Unemployment and "Skills gap" - RIP
Michael Collins on Thu, 05/12/2011

all along. Well, ever since they had to give up some of their power post October '17.

It's what they DO. They will grant SOME concessions IF they're scared enough and then IMMEDIATELY start to try an claw it back. In the USA it's taken 80 years or so. That shows just HOW scared they were of a united working class back in the 30s.

Until they're that scared again, this shit will continue to happen. Slowly or quickly, the retrieval of these benefits for the working class WILL continue no matter WHICH bourgeoisie party nominally controls the reins of government.

We need extra electoral remedies.

It gets updated a lot quicker than most socialist web sites and seems pretty darn solid in theory.