A new dawn

A new social movement rising

Trump has been defeated. The people needed relief and hope to deal with the pandemic, income inequality and repression-police brutality. A movement that is growing its ranks and more importantly has a new awareness that is throwing it into battle with the capitalist class in the many fronts of struggle in their varied forms. From these ranks and struggles there are new leaders with a new developing consciousness.

Trump is attempting to reform his ranks and continue to challenge for their ideological demands outside the democratic process. There are other forces of the state that are contending for governance and “control of the growing revolutionaries” with another equally dangerous form of fascism.

The battle for the soul of our country is now on a new level. Our world has been transformed before our eyes. Expressing itself first as practical struggle for a decent standard of living leading to a new struggle for our very survival. The political crisis has reached a new level as well.

Struggle against economic inequality

After World War II, our economy was expanding and growing, drawing more workers into new jobs with rights, benefits and new hope. Minorities, women and workers as workers were demanding inclusion in the expanding economy. The demands arose again for “real” democracy, an end to racism and discrimination and major changes in the laws and how they were enforced.

Changes in technology, then in the economy and global labor market forced the capitalists to shift a large portion of the wealth (created by the working class) to themselves to maintain their profits and the system that protects those relationships. The concept of the “American Dream” (a social contract) emerged and took root in the psyche of the United States and influenced the world.

“The vaunted American dream, the idea that life will get better, that progress is inevitable if we obey the rules and work hard, that material prosperity is assured, has been replaced by a hard and bitter truth. The American dream, we now know, is a lie. We will all be sacrificed. The virus of corporate abuse – the perverted belief that only corporate profit matters – has spread to outsource our jobs, cut the budgets of our schools, close our libraries, and plague our communities with foreclosures and unemployment.” Chris Hedges Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (2012)

Beginning in the 1970s they began attacking wages and benefits then cutting and destroying the safety net and transferred immense wealth to themselves in the form of “tax cuts.” Just in the last 20 years we have seen other major transfers of wealth to the rich. Democrats like Clinton or Obama continued the same austerity programs of the Republicans continuing to attempt to save and stabilize capitalism from collapse.

The transfer of wealth to the capitalists and wealthy is incalculable. The damage to the working class in financial and social stagnation is equally incalculable to measure. The pandemic, as we know, has accelerated the rate of polarization of wealth and the growth and depth of poverty.

There is and has been a growing movement against income equality by women, minorities and workers that has been made worse by these attempts to maintain profitability and the effects of the virus and pandemic has exposed the economic system and added to the consciousness of that movement.

Social Struggles intensify

There are historical struggles for basic necessities of life and for social equality. African Americans have been at the core of this social movement. Battling constantly against all forms and expressions of systemic and institutional racism.  Pre-civil war, reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and throughout police murders have been examples of forms of control for blacks and through the blacks the rest of the movement.

The murder of George Floyd and ongoing murders of African Americans has exacerbated and elevated the struggle for equality to a new level. Millions mobilized in the anger over the murders generating a new broader deeper movement that triggered a new “social consciousness” that prepares the conditions for new program of the class.

A new movement

What happens from here depends on a vision, organizing and education. The struggle for basic needs, for survival, is increasing, changing, deepening and broadening. It includes and at times is driven by the struggle for democracy and justice. There is a trend that indicates something new is taking shape. This new something played a major role in the defeat of Trump.

There has been a shift to the fight for survival. What else will the battle for survival, for basic needs be able to accomplish in the short and long term? A new economic plan? A new political program? A new party? A new dream and a new dawn!