15 December 2007
“The time is now, why must we wait?” was the title of a recording by Dean Martin in 1953. The record-buying public soon let Martin know that they were content to wait. One could well apply that today concerning the pressing need for a socialist society. All one needs to do is read a newspaper, (or simply scan the headlines) or watch television news to be aware that the world is in one heck of a mess, and then some!
A senseless war is being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan that benefits no one except the major oil companies and the capitalist class that gains effective control.
Global warming continues to wreak havoc with the environment. As a consequence, for example, the spruce beetle, no longer faced with winter temperatures that normally kill it off, has left 40 million trees dead or dying in the Yukon and they are likely to kill millions more in Alaska. One can imagine what that will do to the climate.
The slump in the American economy in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage debacle has been further aggravated by a corresponding decline in construction activity and loss of jobs. In fact, house construction has fallen for the last 20 consecutive months. Considering the extent of American global investments, and particularly in Canada, the future does not look bright. Capitalists and their high priced apologists say, “Don’t worry folks, invest with us and let the good times roll.” So people invested in Bre-X, Livent, Nortel, Holinger, and other lemons.
Religious fanaticism has reached such a ridiculous level that a woman has been arrested, while an angry mob yelled for the death sentence, for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Mohammed.
As for the Middle East, what is the likelihood of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians while global capitalism pursues its normal course of conflicts and war based on economic competition.
The latest report on the auto industry predicts that over the next five years production in Ontario will decrease by 600 000 vehicles. How many jobs directly and indirectly will that mean? Government cut-backs on social programs exacerbate poverty that, in turn, drives crime statistics. This year looks to be a record year for homicides in Toronto. It’s an ‘everyone for himself’ society. The Toronto Star of December 1st. speaks of its 106 year War on Poverty and its contention to continue the fight. Ontario Premier, Dalton McGuinty, has pledged himself to fight this societal blight. For over a century, politicians have tried to abolish it. What they cannot see, like countless others, is that is it’s a fight they have no chance of winning because it is a natural consequence of the capitalist mode of production, and while this lasts, so will poverty.
The Socialist Party of Canada has clearly explained for a century that poverty and all the above economic and social evils are caused by the ownership of the tools of production by a tiny minority with the consequent need for the vast majority to sell their mental and physical capabilities and work for wages with which to buy back some of what they produce. If that sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is! Production for profit has created the mess we are in.
All this can be changed simply and quickly for the better by the world’s working class organizing politically for a socialist world in which the means of production will be owned and used for the benefit of all humanity. Many may argue, ‘that sounds fine, but it won’t happen yet and in the meantime we need reforms to make our lives better in capitalism.’ Our answer is that we have had a century of reforms and reform parties and still we struggle and fight for the crumbs. ‘In the meantime’ has become forever, and the only alternative to socialism, the only solution to our major problems of war, poverty, and want, has been put aside. No, my friend, the time is NOW!
