Corporate America throws out the over 50 worker with the trash

This last week Spirit AeroSystems , which has a plant in my home town of Wichita, KS, announced  last week that it was it is laying off approximately 360 salaried personnel. Among the various types of people they focused on were its aging workforce, of which 30 % were between 50 to 59 years old, and would soon be eligible for retirement.

Just a few years ago, many CEO’s, according to The Washington Post, were calling for raising the retirement age to 70. But here is the catch: Most of these people don’t actually want to hire or keep on people who are past the age of 50. So what are these potential workers supposed to do between the age of 50 and 70? They may be fit enough to work, but corporate America doesn’t want them around. Perhaps our corporate masters just want them to sit around for 20 years until retirement age. Of course most will starve and die off by then, but that may be the actual plan.

According to Yahoo Finance, unemployed and those of 50 and older are now living in an economy where employers just don’t want them. According to that article those over 50 are facing a jobless future.

The Article makes it clear:

For those over 50 and unemployed, the statistics are grim. While unemployment rates for Americans nearing retirement are lower than for young people who are recently out of school, once out of a job, older workers have a much harder time finding work. Over the last year, according to the Labor Department, the average duration of unemployment for older people was 53 weeks, compared with 19 weeks for teenagers.

There are numerous reasons — older workers have been hit both by the recession and globalization. They’re more likely to have been laid off from industries that are downsizing, and since their salaries tend to be higher than those of younger workers, they’re attractive targets if layoffs are needed.

One of the biggest changes in the new economy is that our corporate masters no longer value loyalty. Today’s workers can be thrown out as easily as yesterday’s trash:

“The contract used to be, ‘I am a loyal employee and you are a loyal employer. I promise to work for you my entire career and you train, promote, give benefits and a pension when I retire.’ Now you can’t count on any of that,” Nadya Fouad, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said. “The onus is all on the employee to have a portfolio of skills that can be transferable…..

….. And even more, “they should know the problem is not with them but with a system that has treated them like a commodity that can be discarded,” said David L. Blustein, a professor of counseling, developmental and educational psychology at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, who works with the older unemployed in suburb of Boston. “I try to help clients get in touch with their anger about that. They shouldn’t blame themselves.”

The bottom line is that there is no solution being sought for those over 50 and looking for work. Reality is that right now our society just doesn’t care. The Yahoo article offers absolutely no suggestions or hope at all:

But the reality is that the problem of the older unemployed “was acute during the Great Recession, and is now chronic,” (Susan Sipprelle, producer of the Web site overfiftyandoutofwork.com and the documentary “Set for Life”) said. “People’s lives have been upended by the great forces of history in a way that’s never happened before, and there’s no other example for older workers to look at. Some can’t recoup, though not through their own fault. They’re the wrong age at the wrong time. It’s cold comfort, but better than suggesting that if you just dye your hair, you’ll get that job.”

As a person at the age of 58 I would like to find a new full time job. I’m years away from retirement. But so far my prospects suck. The one bright spot in my career is this blog. It is the only outlet I have for a system that takes everything it can and gives back nothing. Our corporate masters have made it clear they don’t care about older workers and the reality is, they really don’t care about any of their workers. We are like modern day surfs for corporate masters who see themselves as modern day aristocrats who just don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves, and with all the new high tech tricks they have developed to minipulate elections to their advantage, they believe they are beyond the reach of any workers wrath. They figure there is nothing the American worker can do if they are treated badly.

Those as myself will continue to look for the Achilles' heel that will eventually bring down these corporate tyrants. As for those as myself—we have little else to do. 

-សតិវ អតុ

C.P.I.Maoist-evaluation of peoples war (celebrating legacy of Comrades C.M. and T.N. today)

By Harsh Thakor

From Kasama Project;               

It has become a fashion in some revolutionary circles to criticize or condemn the C.P.I.(Maoist) particularly in groups like the C.P.I(M.L) led by K.N.Ramchandran and the C.P.I(M.L) Class struggle group which upholds the late Kanu Sanyal who term them as  ‘terrorists.’. The  Rahul foundation  erroneously criticizes the C.P.I.(Maoist) as non-marxist.The C.P.I.(Maoist )has defied all odds with their struggle in Dandkaranya the best example .Irrespective of errors in their military line they have defended armed revolutionary resistance more than any organization in India.Whatever maybe it’s weaknesses in practice the C.P.I.(Maoist) is the most correct of all revolutionary groups. They have proved how much they are ingrained with the masses.Inspite of adverse subjective conditions they have formed revolutionary commitees or ‘Janata Sarkars.’There is an analytical article in RDF organ Jan Pratirodh by Ajay Kumar which elaborates how democratically the ‘Janata Sarkars’ are created and how they participate in the everyday struggles of the tribals. The innovations  of the Maoists Are absolutely unbelievable, literally  creating  subjective conditions for their cause. They have defied groups who professed the ‘3 stage theory’ and prolonged armed struggle. Writers like Bernard d’Mellow or filmmakers like Sanjay Kak testify this phenomenan.Inspite of Bernard not accepting India as semi-feudal and colonial he has recognized the depths of their work. within the guerilla Zones. Inspite of not following orthodox Marxism-Leninism Mao-Tse Tung Thought they have innovated unique forms of struggle. Forces condemning them are actually speaking against the revolution. The author some years ago spoke to veteran Comrade Sunder Navalkar who upheld the struggle of the C.P.I.Maoist as the only genuinely correct line apart from their lack of urban work ,wrong stand on supporting nationality struggles as armed struggles and replacing Mao Thought with ‘Maoism.’ The Central Team of the C.P.I(M.l)in 1997  inspite of not merging with the erstwhile PW.group or now the C.P.I.(Maoist) defended the movement in Dandkaranya and Bihar.and comrades from the T.Nagi Reddy stream that deferred armed struggle who merged into the C.P.R.C.I.(M.L.) tooth and nail defended the C.P.I.(Maoist) as a genuine revolutionary force.

The self criticism made b y the C.P.I.(M.L)Peoples War group in 1980 is of historical importance in the rectification of  the Charu Mazumdar line. “All forms of struggle are subordinate to, and are guided by the concrete political line. If the concrete political line deviates from the mass line, the forms of struggle cannot but be otherwise….. So in order to negate the line of annihilation, we have to negate the wrong ideology which is alien to Marxism and its consequential political and organisational manifestations. The rejection of other forms of struggle and organisation : Until then the party negated all mass organisations and all other forms of struggle, thereby isolating the party from the masses which made comrades easier targets for the enemy. In order to combat the long-standing revisionist practice of conducting mass struggles on the lines of economism and adopting legal and open forms of organisation as the only form of organisation, our party arrived at a one-sided and wrong formulation that the armed form of struggle is the only form of struggle and armed form of organisation the only form of organisation.”

 The C.P.I.(ML) peoples war  November 1995 conference was major achievement and reflected the great fighting spirit displayed by the organization from 1980.Today forces like The Communist Party of Phillipines,the most theoretically correct party since the revolutionary Chinese Communist party led by Mao have recognized the C.P.I.(Maoist) which is significant.The  inter-group self criticism  of clashes between M.C.C.and P.W in 2001 had historic significance and played major role in the formation of the Maoist Party in 2004.

For the rest click here.

Clarksville Arkansas asinine plan to arm teachers

There are a few idea s that are so stupid and asinine that it is hard to believe a human being who suggests it has anything besides pure muscle between his/her ears.

Leave it to the jack asses of Clarksville, Arkansas, to decide to put 20 armed teachers, trained as guards, in the class rooms. That begs the question, Why not just hire guards?

"The plan we've been given in the past is 'Well, lock your doors, turn off your lights and hope for the best,'" Superintendent David Hopkins said, according to Yahoo News. But as deadly incidents continued to happen in schools, he explained, the district decided, "That's not a plan."

That “not a plan” makes way more sense than a plan that is plain stupid.

Teachers have enough to do each day without trying to be armed cops. Students come to school to feel safe and they want to trust their teachers. Using armed cops for teachers defeats that purpose. How can a student trust a teacher he knows is “packing heat?” They may fear their teacher will get angry enough to shoot at them.

I work as a substitute teacher and it will be a cold day in hell before I will bring a gun to a class room. This whole thing implies that teaching is so easy we might as well stick teachers with new and even dangerous duties. It is cheaper than hiring extra guards.

"We're not tying our money up in a guard 24/7 that we won't have to have unless something happens. We've got these people who are already hired and using them in other areas," Hopkins said. "Hopefully we'll never have to use them as a security guard."

So basically they are too cheap to have real guards at the school they just use teachers. This is not only a cheap idea it is really stupid.

-សតិវ អតុ

Superintendent David Hopkins.

The future look of US schools!

Stopping voter suppression was the main agenda for KanVote, this last Saturday

From Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner;

Stopping voter suppression was the main agenda for KanVote, this last Saturday.
“About 13,000 voters have been knocked off the voting roles because of Kobach’s New Law.” said Louis Goseland, of Sunflower Community Action, who chaired the event. He was referring to Secretary of State of Kansas Kris Kobach’s voter picture ID laws which he got passed in the Kansas legislature.
“He could site less than 100 cases of voter fraud when he passed the bill,” Goseland added.
Goseland also said that voter fraud was never the key reason for that. He pointed out this was a bill that has been promoted by the conservative activist PAC the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). They want voter restriction laws that go state by state. He played a clip from Youtube where Paul Weyrich, an ALEC member said "I don't want everybody to vote." Weyrich admitted that ALEC and the conservatives leverage goes up as the voting numbers go down.
Groseland said that people are getting notes telling them they need to come in and prove they are citizens and they have to show a birth certificate. Many of the 13,000 who could not cast their votes in the last election are in a type of voter limbo.
Another fact that was brought up was the US Supreme Court has struck down a voter ID in Arizona that is similar to the one here in Kansas. People at that meeting were wondering if there is a possibility of doing that here.
There were two sessions on what can be done to fight against the voter suppression laws here in Kansas. There was a session on what kind of pressure can be brought to our elected leaders to change our laws, and the other session was to look at changes in the laws to add to the voter rolls rather than cut down on them.

As for putting pressure on elected officials, some of the ideas included writing letters to the editor, filing lawsuits against Kobach and other similar Kansas politicians, protesting at the Kansas State House offices and flooding their offices with phone calls and faxes. Also suggested was asking the opinion of Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
A group of people came up with some Ideas for changing the laws, such as letting felons vote, letting children of emigrants vote, and using social media to promote the write to vote.

60th anniversary of the Korean War

Naturally President Barack Obama gave the usually clap-trap speech of how the south of Korea has democracy and a “vibrant economy” while the north lives in poverty and tyranny. Obama even claims we “won” the war. What he doesn’t say is that the south is a puppet completely created by the US and that economy does not include all South Koreans. The democracy (as phony as in the US) has only been there about 15 years after decades of military dictatorship.

Here is what the North says about all of this:

-សតិវ អតុ

News From KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY of DPRK(Democratic People's Republic of Korea):

Pyongyang, July 28 (KCNA) -- A lecture was given by the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) at the Korean Hall in Tokyo on July 26 for celebrating the 60th anniversary of the victory in the Fatherland Liberation War.

Present there were Ho Jong Man, chairman of the Central Standing Committee of Chongryon, and other Chongryon officials.

The participants in the lecture watched a video showing the solemn ceremony of completing the Fatherland Liberation War Martyrs Cemetery that was held in the presence of the dear respected Kim Jong Un.

Also shown were Korean films showing Marshal Kim Jong Un receiving Chinese and Syrian delegations on visits to the DPRK to take part in the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the victory in the war.

Then there was a lecture titled "Songun Korea demonstrating victories in the confrontation with the U.S."

The lecturer said that the final victory in the all-out confrontation with the U.S. is certain as there is Kim Jong Un who is successfully carrying forward the feats the great Generalissimo Kim Il Sung performed by winning the victory in the war and the Songun leadership feat of the great Generalissimo Kim Jong Il.

To hell with being a victim—let’s arm ourselves!

It’s time we left-wingers get our own conceal and carry permits so we can defend ourselves from the George Zimmerman’s of the US. We, 21 and older, can carry guns and we should.

There is no reason that we should be victims to the gun-toting vigilantes to this country. If one of these John Wayne wanna-bes tries to shoot us for taking their parking space, walking through their neighborhood or just getting into an argument with them, we should respond and end their miserable lives.

I for one am planning to get a conceal carry permit and I may carry a derringer or some other easy to conceal gun. I will probably only carry it when there is a chance I will be around right-wing vigilantes, but that is one reason to have it. I know enough about guns to know how a small gun, with a small caliber bullet can do as much or more damage than those small cannons the idiot right-wingers carry for “so called self defense.” Bullets can also be modified for more effectiveness. There are derringers that can shoot 410 shot gun shells to maximize their potential for hitting the target, which is usually some right-wing punk standing a few feet away.

-សតិវ អតុ

Mike Ely of Kasama Project wrote about the blatant racism ofgun laws that seem to favor white people having guns over black people:

 Gun control? 

The question of who has guns, and who is deprived of guns has always been closely connected in the U.S. with the domination and exploitation of Black people.

Look at where there is "gun control" and where there isn't. "Gun control" is encouraged in urban areas where black people are concentrated. Vast military arsenals are legal in rural areas where white people predominate (western mountain areas etc.)

Guns in the hands of black people (especially black youth) are portrayed as terrifying. While guns in the hand of crewcutted middleclass white guys is portrayed as normal, reasonable and self-defense.

You can't look at the history of the 2nd amendment without looking at the wholesale militarization of Southern white men against possible slave uprisings -- in militia and paddyroller patrols. Who were these "well regulated militia" existing to crush?

And similarly, the rightwing arsenal mania is (if you scratch them twice) a stockpiling against some future nightmare scenario of Black people and black helicopters.

It is a civil war locked in pre-position. And the mounting hysteria of the right has to do with the fact that they see the world (that they want and love) slipping away from them (demographically, culturally, through internationalization of life). In my mind I call this "the ghost dance of the white man."

The U.S. state demands a monopoly of violence (for its police and military agents). And the white racist segments demand their part of that monopoly of violence. It is a conflict among reactionary forces -- over what mix of forces in America will have the means of extreme violence.

Revolution is (at one level of abstraction) the overthrow of one social system by another. But it is also (in political reality) an all-out struggle between two sections of the people -- over power and the future. In this conflict of gun control, you can see the faces and organization of those we will be forced to defeat (and disarm).

In a separate article Ely expands on that theme. Here are some excerpts from that:

….This was never about hunting in America. It is about "political power flows from the barrels of guns."

And there is, to be clear, a radicalizing rightwing section of white people who believe they once ruled this country, and that they are losing it. "Give us our country back" is a racist, backward, quasi-fascist demand for a country dominated by white, Christian, English-only, patriachal, property focused culture. This demand, and the forces clinging to it are a central mass obstacle to any progressive (and much needed) change in north america. Any progress requires their historic defeat.

And lets take this further: These forces (who I estimate to be about 15 percent of the population overall, and concentrated in the former Confederate states at about 25 or 30%) feel the future slipping away from them. Gay marriage! Immigration from third world countries! Path to citizenship! 

And they are (with their usual grim hateful calculation) making plans to stop this. If they can't win in national elections (Obama!), they will shift to states rights and non-electoral means. If the Republicans don't serve as a platform for their hatred and goals, they will go "lone wolf" and consider forming a new party (Rand Paul plays George Wallace)…..

….They must be broken -- in a profound historic sense. So they cannot rise again.

Their klan-like networks must be broken (regardless of what political facade they adopt: Tea Party, Defense of Marriage committees, local militias, Aryan Nations, or whatever comes next).Their attempts at armed preparation and attack must be exposed and met. Their kids must be won over to rejecting them and take a different path. 

They must be exposed, delegitimized, and they must be broken up….

Perhaps the most important part of the article is when Ely suggest we arm ourselves and defend ourselves from these fascist vigilantes who seem to act as the equivalent of “black shirts” for groups such as the Tea Party:

….The left is utterly unprepared for this task today. Getting into position to confront the radical and racist right will be a process. It will involve regroupment, fusion of radical and mass forces... in short, it will take real progress in the political work of building a revolutionary movement. But it is worth it to be clear now (among revolutionaries and among the people) that this is one of the tasks that such a movement will take up -- to protect the people, to organize the people in self-defense, to confront and defeat those who would attack them.

For the moment, let's start with trying to be clear about right and wrong: The oppressed have both a legal and moral right to defend themselves. They have (in this country) a legal and moral right to arm themselves, politically and collectively. 

"We are all Trayvon Martin!"

From  A World to Win News Service; 

The acquittal of George Zimmerman, the gun-carrying neighbourhood vigilante who murdered the Black teenager Trayvon Martin, sent waves of anger rolling across the U.S. 

During the hours while the jury was deliberating the case, vigils and rallies were held in many American cities to await the verdict. The jury accepted Zimmerman's argument that he shot Martin in self-defence. As soon as the judge told Zimmerman he could take back his gun and walk out of the courtroom a free man on the night of 13 July, marches, demonstrations and other forms of protest broke out, including in Sanford, Florida, the small Southern town where the killing took place.

That night there were major protests in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles in California; Chicago, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia; Washington; Harlem, New York; and many other places. The following day some 5,000 people marched through various parts of Manhattan, gathering support as they went.

As reported here in this blog earlier, Wichita had its own rally.

As described by Revolution, newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, "At times the march went against the traffic, people walking between the cars as drivers honked in support. People chanted, 'We are all Trayvon Martin' and 'No Justice, No Peace'. Started by revolutionaries, hundreds took up the chant 'The whole system is guilty' on their own. As the march went through the crowded streets of Manhattan into Times Square, many of the onlookers cheered in agreement.

"The marchers were an incredibly diverse array of people – young and older, from the 'hood, including hard-edged youth, along with people of all nationalities. For many, this was their first political action. There seemed to be a pleasant surprise among many Black people that many white people had come out to demonstrate.

"Protesters filled the streets of Times Square with thousands of tourists taking pictures and video recording the march. A rally was held in the middle of Times Square with people climbing on top of five-foot-high garbage containers with a bullhorn. Twice revolutionaries addressed the crowd, calling on people to resist this open season on Black and Latino youth… pointing to the reality that stopping outrages like the murder of Trayvon Martin, the slow genocide against Black people, and all the system's crimes once and for all requires revolution, nothing less… and calling on people to get into Bob Avakian. At one point, several hundred people continued the march, heading for Harlem."

Following are excerpts from an article on the eve of the trial, before the verdict. "Lies, Slanders... and the Cold-Blooded Lynching of Trayvon Martin" appeared in the issue of Revolution dated 14 July. (www.revcom.us)

****

...Trayvon Martin was a Black teenager gunned down by a vigilante killer just after 7 pm on the evening of February 26, 2012. He was walking to his father's house with a can of ice tea and a bag of candy.

George Zimmerman knew nothing about Trayvon Martin, never even heard of him. But he thought he knew him. All Zimmerman had to see was a young Black man in a hoodie [hooded sweatshirt] walking home with a snack, and he "knew" that Trayvon Martin was a "suspect". He "knew" Trayvon Martin was a "fucking punk." He "knew" Trayvon was "a fucking asshole" who "always gets away with it."

...And through this all, Zimmerman has acted as if he has a whole system behind him. For good reason. The Trayvon Martins of this country (and this world) have been branded suspects by a system that has no future for them. From endless depictions of them as thugs on TV and in the movies, to the institutionalized criminalization of them through "stop-and-frisk", to the schools-to-prison pipeline to mass incarceration, they are a generation for whom this system has no future.

...But Trayvon Martin was a human being! He had a right to live, to have a future, and so do millions like him. And so the stakes of this trial are truly decisive to the kind of world people will live in.

...As the prosecution presented its case in this trial, over and over it has been revealed how Zimmerman coldly murdered Trayvon. Evidence has come out that Zimmerman got out of his car, followed Trayvon when the non-emergency dispatch operator told him not to, lied to the dispatch operator to cover his tracks as he stalked Trayvon, and shot Trayvon Martin point-blank through the heart.

...This was most true of Rachel Jeantel, Trayvon's friend since grade school, who was talking on the phone with him when Zimmerman began stalking Trayvon. Rachel Jeantel's testimony is some of the most substantial in this case, and she is one of the more credible witnesses. The time and length of her phone calls with Trayvon as he walked towards his father's home are well documented, and they corroborate most closely with all the available evidence. And these are precisely the facts that are "lost"or "forgotten" in much of the media commentary on Rachel that has focused instead on her appearance, her demeanour and her attitude.

...What made the murder of Trayvon Martin different from the murders of other Black and Latino youth was that despite the police treatment of Trayvon's murder as legitimate self-defence by George Zimmerman, despite the fact that no charges were immediately filed against Zimmerman, despite the treatment of this case in the Florida media as "just another killing of a Black youth who was somewhere he shouldn't have been", the story of a 17-year-old kid wearing a hoodie who was shot down while he was walking to his father's home with a soft drink and a bag of candy became national news – and a focus of national outrage and protest. 

...In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black youth from Chicago was lynched by white men while visiting relatives in Mississippi. His body was horribly mutilated, weighted with a 70-pound fan, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. The killers were not charged.

...Emmett's mother, Mamie Till, courageously insisted on an open casket at her son's funeral, so people could see what had happened to him. The widespread outrage and anger that spread throughout the country over the savage death of Emmett Till became a spark that catalysed thousands of people in a growing struggle to end the injustices perpetrated on Black people. 

...The cold-blooded murder – the modern-day lynching – of Trayvon Martin also sparked deep and widespread outrage throughout U.S. society. And now we're at a crucial turning point in the struggle for Justice for Trayvon.

Anthony Weiner (the big dick) won’t give up the race!

Maoist Third Worldism—a dangerous fantasy

There is a trend among Maoists called “third worldism,” which makes the claim that there really is no proletariat in the first world and that all the workers  here get more money than they actually earn, compared to those who live in the third world, because they all reap the rewards from the imperialist exploitation of third world people.  They use words like “bourgeois proletariat” or “labor “aristocracy,” implying that these classes have too much to lose to defend the rights and aspirations of proletariats of the third world.

There are some serious problems with this idea and I almost have to wonder how many of these people have ever been to a ghetto or been around a soup kitchen with all of the bourgeoisie’s discarded human refuse—or have they ever even been in a first world country very long?

In the US the middle class workers make up the majority, although that class has been shrinking for the last 30 years. It has also been losing out on wealth to the point where they are only slightly better than the actual working class.  As was pointed out during the Occupation movement 1% of the population has 40% of all US wealth. The bottom 80% has about 7% of the wealth. The bottom 40% has almost no wealth at all.

The following video explains how the US wealth is distributed today:

The working middle class could be classified as a labor aristocracy. They have jobs that allow them to buy smart phones, TVs, computers, cars or trucks and to buy a home, as long as they can keep their jobs. This does put them way ahead of workers in the third world who may not have electricity, running water, flush pluming, cars or any luxury items listed above. So yes, these workers really do have it much better. There is also an element of the middle class, some doctors and lawyers, for example, who are actually petite bourgeoisie, which the mainstream US press is referred to as “upper-middle class."

But there are two classes of workers who have been virtually excluded from the benefits of imperialism; the working poor and those poor who don’t work, including the US lumpen-proletariat.

The working poor earn minimum wage or slightly more. They do usually own cars, but they are always bought used, and always need repairs. Their cars are usually their main expense, next to rent. They have electricity and running water, but it is sometimes interrupted because the bills can’t be paid on time. They earn enough to go from paycheck to paycheck and earn no benefits, and absolutely no health care. They are often the victims of predatory lenders, such as Payday Loans, LoanMax and Speedy Cash. This places offer easy loans for a car title, but make it hard for the borrower to actually pay back the loan, yet they simply keep paying interest for the rest of their lives. There are other legal hucksters and the working poor often end up with a life time of debt they can’t repay. If they have any computers or luxury items, they have old—out of date—items they can barely use. They do earn more than many people in the third world and they do have more luxuries than people in the third world, but their cars and electricity become needs, not privileges. They work hard, have little to show for it and many get sick and die at an earlier age than people with more money and means.

The poorest in the US are often homeless or live in or squat in homes that may not have electricity or running water. They usually don’t own cars or any of the other luxury items the rest of the US has. They often live in ghettos set aside for such poor people. Some sell and use drugs. Some of the women are prostitutes. Some of these people are on the ever dwindling public assistant programs. These people are completely left out of the US economic system and they get NO benefits from the imperialist system at all. They are cast off as human refuse by the rest of this society.

When considering the last two classes of people, it sounds ridiculous to just brush off all workers and US citizens as living off the wealth of the third world. The bottoms 40% of wage earners and non-workers are suffering and need revolution just as much as the people in the third world. These people are ripped off by the system and they need revolution as much as anyone living anywhere. And who can seriously claim that first world people gain so much from exploiting third world workers, when 40% of the people get virtually nothing and the top !% are getting 40% of the wealth in the US.

As for the middle class who actually do benefit from the imperialist exploitation of the third world, Mao Zedong said in ANALYSIS OF THE CLASSES IN CHINESE SOCIETY:

“The middle bourgeoisie (This can be compared to the US middle class workers). This class represents the capitalist relations of production in China in town and country. The middle bourgeoisie, by which is meant chiefly the national bourgeoisie, is inconsistent in its attitude towards the Chinese revolution: they feel the need for revolution and favour the revolutionary movement against imperialism and the warlords when they are smarting under the blows of foreign capital and the oppression of the warlords, but they become suspicious of the revolution when they sense that, with the militant participation of the proletariat at home and the active support of the international proletariat abroad, the revolution is threatening the hope of their class to attain the status of a big bourgeoisie….   

…. The intermediate classes are bound to disintegrate quickly, some sections turning left to join the revolution, others turning right to join the counter-revolution; there is no room for them to remain "independent". Therefore the idea cherished by China's middle bourgeoisie of an "independent" revolution in which it would play the primary role is a mere illusion.”

So Mao recognized that sectors of the middle classes, even with all the privileges and aspirations to be the big bourgeoisie can still become revolutionaries as some realize that middle class society is really just a bourgeoisie illusionary trick.

There also needs to be a realization among the third wordlists that there is no way the poorest countries can win a people’s war against the first world. In the article below they write:

“The illusion that Third World peoples can ‘catch up’ with imperialist countries through various reforms is objectively aided by the common yet false First Worldist belief that First World workers are exploited as a class.”

Of course in certain key countries, such as India, the Philippines and Nepal, revolution may be possible. But for the entire third world proletariat to overcome the first world is a ridiculous fantasy. The first world has high tech arms, most of the world’s resources and most of the modern technology. For poor countries lacking these things; people’s war directly against the first world could lead to suicide. Third Worlders should ask themselves why Nicaragua, Angola and Mozambique gave up on Marxism. These countries were poor and lacked development resources so they just realigned themselves with European Democratic Socialists. They had little choice. Cuba is one of the few holdouts and they have paid a heavy price for being outside the world economic system.

The idea of the third world taking over the first world is a foolish fantasy. It can’t be done. For world revolution to work, some of the developed countries have to have either a revolution, or a large enough people’s movement to attack the imperialist system.

As Mao said we need to look for all the potential revolutionaries. In the US, this would mean the working poor and poor is our obvious promoting grounds. These people are the losers of this society and they have nothing to lose from a revolution. The middle class is more difficult. As Mao said, some will see that change can’t be prevented and they will support revolution. Others will continue to stick to the bourgeoisie and their system, hoping they can hold out and win. They will be our natural enemies. If we can get most of the poor and at least 1/3 or the middle class, we have a chance of forcing change in this country.

Third worldism is just a dangerous fantasy.

-សតិវ អតុ

The international significance of First Worldism

From the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement/Maoist Revolution;

A Letter to Maoist and Revolutionary Organizations

Recently the Communist Party of Italy (Maoist) called for the convening of an international meeting of Maoist organizations. This call comes some years after the RIM collapsed following the development of evident revisionism within two of its leading organizations, the RCP-USA and the UCPN.

Comrades! Let us carry out and celebrate the firm break with the revisionism emanating from the leadership of the RCP-USA and the UCPN. In doing so, let us reaffirm our defining points of unity based on the experience of class struggle and distilled into Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

These include:

-All of history is the result of the development of the means of production and the struggle between classes over their ownership and use.

-Under capitalism, labor is utilized for the sake of profit. Capital is accumulated surplus labor turned against the masses of workers.

-That capitalist-imperialism entails the indirect and direct exploitation of the majority of people by dominant monopoly capital and reveals widening contradictions inherent in capitalism.

-The only alternative to the continued barbarism of imperialism is the struggle for socialism and communism. Broadly speaking, people’s wars and united fronts are the most immediate, reliable means to struggle for communism.

-Socialism entails the forceful seizure of power by the proletariat. However, socialism is not the end of the struggle. Under socialism, the conditions exist for the development of a ‘new bourgeoisie’ which will seek to establish itself as a new ruling class. In order to counter this tendency, class struggle must be waged relentlessly under socialism through the development of communism.

These are points all Maoists can agree on. Yet these do not capture all significant features of today’s world.

Comrades! A discourse and struggle over the nature of class under imperialism is sorely needed.

The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement puts forward a line that includes the understanding that a majority section of the populations of imperialist countries are embourgeoisfied.

This embourgeoification often contours around national oppression cast in the history of colonialism and settler-colonialism. It is most wholly construed, however, as an ongoing global distinction between parasitic workers in imperialist core economies and exploited workers in the vast Third World periphery.

Though understandings of this split in the working class was popularized as the ‘labor-aristocracy’ by Lenin, the phenomenon itself was first noted by Friedrich Engels in a letter to Karl Marx:

“[T]he English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that the ultimate aim of this most bourgeois of all nations would appear to be the possession, alongside the bourgeoisie, of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat. In the case of a nation which exploits the entire world this is, of course, justified to some extent.”

With some exceptions, Marxists have focused and debated primarily on the ideological effects of the controversial ‘theory of the labor aristocracy.’ Unfortunately, less attention has been paid to the economic dimensions of the ‘labor aristocracy.’

Within the imperialist world-economy, First World workers (a minority of workers in the world) receive compensation which exceeds the monetary rate of the full value of labor. In effect, First World workers are a section of the petty-bourgeoisie due to the fact that they consume a greater portion of social labor than they concretely expend. This difference is made up with the super-exploitation of Third World workers. Because prices (including those of labor power) deviate from values, this allows First World firms to obtain profits at equivalent rates while still paying ‘their’ workers a wage above the full monetary rate of labor value. The First World workers’ compensation above the monetary rate of the full labor value is also an investment, i.e., a structural means of by which surplus value is saturated and concentrated in the core at the expense of the periphery.

The structural elevation of First World workers also has strong implications for the struggle for communism.

One of the most dangerous and devastatingly popular misconceptions is that social and political reforms can raise the material standard of living for Third World workers up to the level enjoyed by First World workers.

The illusion that Third World peoples can ‘catch up’ with imperialist countries through various reforms is objectively aided by the common yet false First Worldist belief that First World workers are exploited as a class.

If, as the First Worldist line states, First Worlder workers have attained high wages through reformist class struggle and advanced technology, then Third World workers should be able to follow a similar route towards a capitalism modeled after ‘advanced capitalist countries.’ By claiming that a majority of First Worlders are exploited proletarians, First Worldism creates the illusion that all workers could create a similar deal for themselves without overturning capitalism. By obscuring the fundamental relationship between imperialist exploitation of Third World workers and embourgeoisfication of First World workers, First Worldism actually serves to hinder the tide of proletarian revolution internationally.

Another long-term implication of the global division of workers is the ecological consequences of the inflated petty-bourgeois lifestyles enjoyed by the world’s richest 15-20%. First World workers currently consume and generate waste at a far greater rate than is ecologically sustainable. The First Worldist line, which effectively states First World workers should have even greater capacity to consume under a future socialism (that is, First Worldists believe First Worlders are entitled to an even greater share of social product than they currently receive), has obvious utopian qualities which can only misguide the proletariat over the long term.

It is safe to say that First Worldism is the root cause of the problems associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party-USA (RCP-USA) and the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (UCPN).

The RCP-USA, desiring some positive significance to offset its terminal failure to organize what it sees as a U.S. proletariat, chose to intervene in various international issues. This typically occurred to the disservice of the proletarian struggle. Now the RCP-USA heavily promotes Bob Avakian and his ‘New Synthesis.’ This ‘New Synthesis’ is better describes as an old bag of revisionisms. Today, the RCP-USA, Bob Avakian, and his revisionist ‘New Synthesis’ is a distraction from many of the important issues facing the international proletariat.

The UCPN has given up the path of global socialism and communism. It has instead sought to conciliate and collude with imperialism in hopes of achieving conditions for class-neutral development. It foolishly assumes monopoly capital will allow it be anything but ‘red’ compradors or that Nepal will become anything other than a source of super-exploited labor. The UCPN has abrogated the task of constructing an independent economic base and socialist foreign policy. It has instead embarked hand-in-hand with monopoly capital on a path they wrongly believe will lead to progressive capitalist development.

Through the examples set forth by both the RCP-USA and the UCPN, it is evident how First Worldism corrupts even nominal Maoists into becoming promulgators of the most backwards revisionisms. The RCP-USA is deceptive and wrong in its claim that it is organizing a U.S. proletariat. In reality it wrecks the international communist movement for the sake of the U.S. petty-bourgeois masses. The UCPN, whose leadership falsely believes capitalist development will bring positive material effects for the masses of Nepal, has abandoned the struggle for socialism and communism. The RCP-USA claims to represent what it wrongly describes as an exploited U.S. proletariat. The UCPN takes great inspiration in the level of material wealth attained by what it wrongly assumes to be an exploited First World proletariat.

Comrades! Our analysis must start with the questions, “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?” These questions must be answered foremost in the structural sense (i.e., how do groups fundamentally relate to the process of capital accumulation), secondly in the historical sense (i.e. what can history tell us about such class divisions and their implications for today), and lastly in a political sense, (i.e., given what we know about the complex nature of class structures of modern imperialism, how can we best organize class alliances so as to advance the revolutionary interests of the proletariat at large).

First Worldism is a fatal flaw. It is both a hegemonic narrative within the ‘left’ and a trademark of reformism, revisionism, and chauvinism. Unfortunately, First Worldism is all-too-common within international Maoism.

Comrades! The consistent struggle against First Worldism is an extension of the communist struggle against both social chauvinism and the theory of the productive forces. As such, it is the duty of all genuine Communists to struggle against First Worldism.

Comrades! First Worldism has already done enough damage to our forces internationally. Now is the time to struggle against First Worldism and decisively break with the errors of the past.

The importance of knowing “who are our enemies?” and “who are our friends” never goes away. Instead, those who fail in these understandings are prone to wider deviations. Gone unchecked, First Worldism sets back the struggle for communism.

Comrades! We hope the topics of class under imperialism and the necessity of the struggle against First Worldism come up as specific points of future discussion within and between Maoist organizations. The raising of these questions and the firm refutation of First Worldism will mark a qualitative advance for international communism.

Death to imperialism!

Long live the victories of people’s wars!

Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement