from Richard Mellor
Although it may seem hopeless, I will not, and neither will this blog, stop sharing the horrific images and stories about the genocide that Zionism is committing in Palestine. The Israeli’s are committing this horror with full support of the US and most of the western nations and media.
The US provides the weapons, the money and the diplomatic cover. Netanyahu, a fascist and indicted war criminal, was welcomed to the White House this week by Donald Trump. According to International law, he is a war criminal and should be arrested. Naturally, the US does not recognise international institutions or international law.
But what I do find staggering is the passivity of the majority of the population in the US and Britain to sit out this horror show. Yes there are courageous students and workers that are protesting the Genocide and are being brutalised and beaten, in some cases in the US deported for doing so.
But where are the trade union leaders? There should be calls for a no handling of any and all exports or imports in to Israel. The workers in communication, transportation, the docks the airlines, never mind the defense industry and so on should, in absence of such a call from their leaders, begin a campaign from below to stop all traffic. And domestic needs have to be linked to demands to end the brutalisation of the world’s people by the imperialist powers. The recent protests against Trump’s polices are positive but demands need to include what we need to live a decent life at home as well. The Democratic Party cannot show a way out of this crisis of capitalism. Let’s not forget that Biden and co razed Gaza to the ground, and Trump wants to build a resort over the bones of murdered Palestinians.
The fawning of the billionaires at the degenerate Trump’s feet shows how little human life means to them when it comes to profits. Of course, workers know this abstractly, but we are so unused to acting on it through independent action, withholding our labor power, building international solidarity and more, that we do nothing.
The feeling of powerlessness is so great and the threats if we act and use the tremendous potential power of labor to bring society to a halt means that millions of us just bury our heads in the sand, and turn off the TV or change the channel (not that there’s much on MS Media anyway). In addition, labor history and the tradition of struggle in the US, from the building of the CIO to the Black Revolt that followed, is practically absent from our thought processes. It’s almost a fantastical idea that workers can stop the society from functioning.
And people don’t see any force to which they can turn. We have no party, there is no apparent mass movement. We are in debt, weeks away from homelessness ourselves if the rent, mortgage or interest on other debt is not handed over to the parasites on Wall Street. Becoming sick is a huge fear as most bankruptcies are due to the failure of the pathetic health care system in the US. US workers are becoming increasingly consumed with our own battles to keep our heads above water, becoming involved in an issue like the Gaza genocide or even the struggle to transform our unions seems like an insurmountable, almost impossible, task.
But as the capitalist offensive against workers and sections of the middle class continues apace, and Trump’s approach will ensure this is the case, the anger that lies beneath the surface of US society will break through; people’s backs will be against the wall so it’s inevitable. It’s impossible to say how this will play out, but even within organised labor there will be a movement from below that will overcome the obstacle of their own leadership that has no vision of the future other than the glorious rule of market forces. There will be splits among the hierarchy and possibly with the federation itself. There are deep divisions between sections of the trade union hierarchy that will intensify in the coming period.