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Vol. 74/No. 32      August 23, 2010

 
Workers told to accept ‘new normal’
(editorial)
 
The capitalist rulers have firmly in their sights the living conditions and rights of working people as the worldwide economic depression grinds on. Many articles in the Militant this week provide evidence of that. Private employers and the government are cutting pay, jobless workers can no longer count on unemployment benefits, and essential services workers rely on are on the chopping block.

The aim of the bosses and their government is to make working people pay for their crisis. In so doing they try to convince us that the conditions they are imposing on the working class, along with their incessant wars abroad, are simply the “new normal.” We are told to get used to it, rather than resist.

At the same time workers are supposed to accept fewer constitutional protections against government encroachment on our lives in the interests of “fighting terrorism.” The decision by the Barack Obama administration to publicly order the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki—and to step up government spying of e-mail and phone communications, bank records, and even what books you take out from the library—are dangerous precedents aimed at much broader curtailment of the rights of all working people.

Working people can no more accept the U.S. government being judge, jury, and executioner of anyone they dub a terrorist, than we can accept cops doing the same on the streets of Harlem when they respond with a barrage of bullets to youths involved in a street fight. These outrages are directed at working people as a whole, not just their momentary targets.

Supporting the socialist campaign in this year’s elections is one way for workers to respond to the assaults on our class. Socialist Workers Party candidates are joining the struggles of workers and farmers to defend themselves, while pointing out that working people need to break from the Democratic and Republican parties and chart a course toward independent working-class politics by building our own labor party that can challenge the political power of the capitalists. That is a road forward for workers to discuss and act on in the fight against the “new normal.”
 
 
Related articles:
U.S. bosses press wage cuts amid joblessness
On the Picket Line
Bay Area transit workers fight givebacks
1 killed, 4 wounded in cops’ shooting rampage in N.Y.C.
Montreal: 200 march against cop brutality
UK health care, jobs in government firing line
Benefits end for growing number of jobless  
 
 
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