Under the Pretext of a Fight against International Terrorism, the Capitalist Class Is Making War on the American Working Clas

Sep 24, 2001

Everyone tells us we have to be ready to make sacrifices in this war against terrorism that Bush pretends to be leading. To make the point really clear, Bush tells us that this won’t be a short-term effort–that it will take years and years and that we have to be ready to do what’s necessary.

Everyone has to be prepared to sacrifice–that’s what he said, but it’s not what he meant.

The workers, of course, are being asked for big sacrifices. Listen to the roll call of job cuts already announced. For the bosses, it’s another story. The airlines, which rushed to announce they were cutting 100,000 jobs, are to get 15 billion dollars of our tax money to prop up their balance sheets.

It seems very clear: not everyone is being asked to make sacrifices.

What Bush would have said–if he were speaking the truth–is that the capitalist class will continue to profit while we make sacrifices.

It’s not just the big companies. Bush says that he is now ready to put his hands on the whole Social Security surplus in order to “jump start” the economy–that is, to bail out the stock market. The same man who has been trying to convince us that Social Security money should be put into the stock market is now draining its funds to help out this very stock market which, as everyone who has a 401(k) knows, has been in a steep nose dive.

Day after day the television is filled with patriotic images and sounds–while politicians, newscasters and ministers call on us to “sacrifice for your country.”

They are cynically playing on the genuine horror and grief we feel. Waving the flag, playing the “Star Spangled Banner” and “American the Beautiful,” they repeat over and over that it will take years and tons of money to rebuild, and longer years and more tons of money to uproot these terrorist networks around the world.

They want us to forget what our real interests are: that is, a better life for all working people. Don’t do it. Don’t let them make us forget how we have been used in the past fighting wars which were not in our interests and not in the interests of the people we were sent to kill.

Don’t let us forget what the rulers of this country, and the corporations they serve, have done to create the situation we are in. Draining profits out of the economy, speculating widely, the capitalists have created an economy which cannot provide a decent life for everyone. Directly attacking people around the world, and paying hired guns to attack many more, the U.S. government has made the world unsafe for everyone to live in.

Don’t let the rulers of this country play on what we feel to make us forget their responsibility for the mess we are in.