Which Way For America: Corporate Rule Or Rule By The People?

The American people are approaching the fork in the road where they must decide what kind of country they want and how they intend to achieve it. We cannot for long continue the path we are on. Five banks practically control the economy, racking up billions in profit every month while 25 million workers are unemployed or under-employed. Industrial production is declining around the world as millions find themselves unable to buy more than bare necessities. Labor replacing electronic technology in the hands of those interested only in profit is accelerating the polarization of wealth and poverty. Today, America’s richest 1 percent holds more wealth — over $2 trillion more — than America’s entire bottom 90 percent. This polarization of wealth and poverty forces polarization in society and its political life. This concentration of wealth had to come from somewhere. Part came from taking more from the defenseless poor in the form of cutting services. Most of it came from the ongoing destruction of the broad economic middle class. This middle class played an important role in the shaping of America. They worked in their small businesses or at stable well paying jobs.They purchased property as well as dabbled in the stock market. With one foot in the capitalist class and the other in the working class, they held the nation together, making democracy both possible and necessary. This concentration of wealth creates privilege and privilege is hostile to democracy. Each stage of polarization chipped away at what democracy there was until today it threatens to completely destroy it. The destruction of democracy comes through the merger of the corporations and the government. This merger isn’t someone’s idea. As wealth concentrates it has to buy up the government as it buys up the nation. It is the only way the capitalist system and private property can continue. Economic polarization is expressed politically. The ruling class would like us to think that the deepening political polarization is between the two major parties. It is not. It is between the whole political establishment and the growing, discontented mass of people who are beginning to understand they are threatened by an economic system that has turned against them. The American people are awakening. As with all awakenings there is confusion. The people are used to listening to and following their enemy. This time, their actual conditions— losing their jobs and homes—makes them open to other views. This is the moment for revolutionaries to boldly step forward and explain to the people where each of these forks in the road will lead. One fork—the fascist road advocated by the spokespersons of the corporations—leads to the destruction of democracy, to political repression, to the destruction of the ecology and unending war. The other fork, the road to socialism, leads to co-operation instead of competition, to peace and an orderly world where humanity can finally separate itself from the animal kingdom. This is the moment of decision. Will the corporations take over society and run it in their interest or will the people take over the corporations and run them in the interest of society? The future is up to us.