EDITORIAL
16.7 Billion Dollars Squandered to Hand Government back to the Same Two Parties

Dec 5, 2022

What follows is the editorial that appeared on the front of all SPARK’s workplace newsletters, during the week of November 28, 2022.

Republicans used their part of the 16.7 billion to attack the Democrats, blaming them for the economy’s problems. Democrats used their billions to attack the Republicans for tearing up a woman’s right to choose abortion.

It’s true the Democrats controlled the levers of federal government power while the economy was going haywire. It’s also true that Republicans used their power in the courts and state legislatures to tear up women’s right to choose abortion.

But putting the two parties back in power doesn’t mean these problems will be dealt with.

To deal with inflation and other problems of the economy, the capitalists’ mad chase after profit has to be dealt with. Profit is what tears the economy to pieces, causes inflation, squeezes the last drop of money out of public services and schools, and turns the whole economy into a wildly-swerving, driverless car, riding roughshod over the population.

The capitalist mad rush to make profit off of our labor has to be taken away from them. But neither party has ever tried to do that—not even proposed it.

As for the right to abortion, what protection came out of this election? Yes, in Michigan a constitutional amendment was put on the ballot to leave the choice for abortion up to a woman and her doctor. And the amendment passed.

But the Democrats weren’t the ones who got it passed. They just rode the tail of a popular mobilization that did the work, using it to put themselves in office in Michigan.

That wide mobilization of people, women and men, scoured the state, getting over 750,000 signatures to put the amendment on the ballot. They were the ones who made sure that people came out to vote for it, talking to neighbors, co-workers, friends, long-lost friends, family, people on the street, going door to door ....

Many women must have felt relief the amendment passed. But no right is permanent, no right guaranteed. The courts once declared that Roe v. Wade guaranteed women the right to choose an abortion. But it never did, not now, not 10 years ago, not 20 years ago, not 49 years ago when Roe v. Wade was issued. Both parties have been voting to legally restrict that right ever since. But it’s worse. In this capitalist society which puts a price on everything, a woman has never had the full right to choose abortion if she couldn’t find a way to pay for it.

The only way any one has ever had rights is by fighting to impose them.

Elections are over—the two parties now go back to rearrange their seats in the new Congress. But just as in the old Congress, they will both work to defend the one right they both respect: the right of the capitalists to make a profit.

The election didn’t change that. What will change the situation is the decision that workers make to fight for their wages to keep up with inflation and to fight to make sure that the whole next generation, all of their kids, get jobs.

What will give us rights is the decision that any part of the population makes to mobilize to get basic human rights denied to them.

Working people have the power to do this. The working class, sitting in the center of the economy, can tear up the capitalists’ hold over the economy, which those greedy vultures use to steal wealth from the workers’ labor.

Power resides in the center of the economy, and the working class occupies it every day.

From that power can come a new society, one where profit doesn’t stain everything. In such a society, there will be no need for a “struggle for survival.” Everyone will respect everyone else.

In this way, we all finally can have what we today call our human rights.