This article is referring to the 2022 Ontario Provincial Election won by Rob Fords Conservative party.
There’s class warfare, all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning. Warren Buffet in Class Warfare, November 2006
Rob Ford did not win
Rob Ford won today’s election, more importantly Andrea Horwath lost it for the fourth time in a row trying to wake the woke. Steven Del Duca the liberal leader was not even elected in his home riding and the Greens continued to talk about extreme weather rather than organizing.
Corporatisms “Boy Ford” had success because he could feed the ruling class while portraying himself as understanding the suffering of the working class. That is todays recipe for political success.
The Ford Dodge
Ford managed to not be blamed for:
-30% increase in food costs on his watch as he approves the paving over of Ontario farm land
-30% increase in housing costs as the province plans for a flood of 2 million immigrants from around the world.
-30% rent increases for tenants who face being evicted at the end of their term leases, or face 30% rent increases
-for the continued third worldization of Canada; loosely described as the end of the middle class.
Fords promise
The billionaire class and thier media supported Doug Ford because of what he gave them:
-$25.1 billion to support highway 413,
-$10 billion to build hospital infrastructure,
-$1 billion to privatize home care.
-subsidies to industry for domestic production of personal protection equipment and vaccines.
-subsidies to industry for the building of electric vehicles, forget that he removed the subsidy to citizens only 6 years earlier.
-subsidy to industry in a new science and technology curriculum,
The billionaire class made off like bandits. Doug Ford just made it so you do not have to stand in line at the vehicle registration on your birthday anymore. Brilliant.
Lets piss off working white males
Andrea Horwath pissed off white working males with a thousand little pricks:
-offers of helping internationally trained nurses; what about workers here?
-more social housing….who paid for my house… I did!
-$20 minimum wage….in 4 years,
-scrap Bill 124 which capped wage increases for public sector workers…. most in private industry see as overpaid and under performing,
-proposing a “mixed member proportional voting system…something only the small parties want, that helps me how?
Seeking Power 101
If progressives want power they are going to have to reject attempts to be reasonable with the rich. A “cordial relationships” with big business, establishment political parties and business lobbyists is having a relationship with the enemy. There is no “talking nicely” to “convince rich people to hand crumbs to those of us who don’t have any.
The capitalists along with the media outlets they control, promote the idea of cooperation so that the public is lulled into this idea that we’re all on the same side, this is a shared situation, that Covid for example was a shared sacrifice.
This belief dis-empowers working men and women. The very essence of capitalism in North America today is as it always has been. As Bertrand Russel observed in 1890 “Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.” This is the way of the very wealthy at the top who make enormous profit at the expense of ordinary people. The only way to address the class war is through class struggle.”
Our Liberal, Conservative, NDP and Green provincial and federal political parties repeatedly join forces with the oligarchs, many of whom are their donors who have the single minded goal to destroy democracy.
Woke progressives are a problem
Self-identified woke progressives play a role which is contrary to the interests of working people. Pushing agendas of race and gender are roadblocks every step of the way in the path of winning victories. It’s all well and good to rouse the gender confused rabble but you will never get elected until you rouse the working rabbel with issues of sharing the wealth of production. In a few words its a socialist revolution we are working towards.
The extent to which the right populism of Doug Ford and Pierre Pollieve succeeds is in proportion to the concern the left has for race and gender issues. The failures of the progressives is because they do not focus on the key issues of our time.
-overpopulation and the misery it creates
-Unjust tax laws and the resulting loss of income from a wage not adjusted for inflation,
The reason working people and young people are not voting in record numbers is becuse of the complete failure and disarray that the mainline parties are in. The problem is not that people are not mobilized but rather because there’s nothing for them to vote for.
The barrier to progressive change
It is only thru workers organizing in the workplace and an abandonment of identity politics that there is a chance at winning over the working class. The liberal class have replaced a genuine political agenda with “woke soundbites. Which is tragic, they are preaching to the choir and do not realize that most of the working people are already won over to the ideas of a society that genuinely respects everybody around us, Two-thirds of Americans, for example, support Roe v. Wade. The barrier for progressive change is not racism its identity politics. Identity politics is handing a weapon to the right wing on a golden platter.
Organizers need to be wary of celebrity social activists who are allied with the big parties who only exist for photo-ops and because they are part of the establishment and knowingly or not want to co-opt labour movements.
It is only thru the work of rank-and-file workers, like Amazon Labor Union (ALU) that change will happen. Its about a $30/hr contract not self-identified progressive politicians who have made peace with the capitalist system, people who falsely believe that they can negotiate with the billionaire class and barter for a few progressive reforms. This tactic has failed.
Organization and Process
Campaigns need to be organized around specific labour demands, not around personality politics. The way to run a strong electoral campaign is to organize, around a structure to be sure but mostly around specific demands. Demands that will seem completely impractical to the mainline press and decried as disruptive. Yes that is what you are going for.
The challenge is to reject, completely reject careerism, and build political organizations with clearly articulated demands and scalable processes. Leaders are needed but most importantly it is needed that those in the organization are accountable in the program of demands that are being fought for.
This becomes the central focus, not those individuals who could then use those positions to build their own careers by making themselves useful to the ruling class. That’s what we need to reject. In short what is needed, what works is a force of change that will be a revival of the militant labor movement.
Leaderless groups
Infiltrators from the ruling class and police operatives will try to corrupt your movement with the idea of leaderless groups and consensus decision making. It has been tried and does not work. For a complete examination of that topic:
THE TYRANNY of STRUCTURELESSNESS
by Jo Freeman aka Joreen
The cards are stacked against us
The cards are stacked against the working class as the law itself is the instrument of the ruling class; hence it is almost impossible for change to occur legally thru the electoral process. This is why the change has to take place in the workplace, thru organized labour gaining some control of the means of production.
We have a very small window in which we need to make a fundamental shift away from capitalism being controlled by a few. And for that, we will need mass movements of workers. We will need mass revolutionary struggle led by working people, ordinary people, to bring about that kind of change that is flowing from the needs of the planet itself. Those changes will probably not happen through elections.
Weird Sly Kip
Post Election day June 3 2022
This article was inspired by two things, firstly the utter failure of the NDP as a political organization to organize workers in the province of Ontario and secondly by the political success of Kshama Sawant and the Socialist Alternative (SA) party in Seattle as articulated in the following article by Chris Hedges
Got to Vote! or Vote?
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