END OF EMPIRE

Demonstrators in Portland, Oregon.

As America descends into chaos, resistance to the ruling elite will continue to grow.

THE COUNTRY THAT has historically assumed it has the right to preach to other countries on how to conduct their domestic affairs, is the same country that is now crumbling before our eyes. It is the end of Empire but it won't go down without a fight.

Thanks to the ignorance and inaction of the Trump administration the corinavirus is surging in many areas of the United States and over 146,000 people have now died as a consequence of contracting covid 19. Many of these deaths have been preventable but even now Donald Trump is still determined to send the kids back to school. Any deaths will be collateral as Trump  insanely tries to present a picture of 'normalcy' ahead of the November presidential election.

But if the coronavirus wasn't bad enough, the American economy is in meltdown. The unemployment figure are beyond catastrophic. In a most recent week in the U.S revealed a record-shattering number 6.6 million people had filed unemployment claims, which itself shattered the previous week’s record of 3.3 million. Before that, the highest number in one week was 665,000 in 2009. This is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s expected that by the peak of all of this, over 47 million people may have filed for unemployment, with unemployment rates reaching as high as 32 percent.

This is unprecedented and far beyond what was experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. At its peak, the unemployment rate back then hit 25 percent, which was 11 million people looking for employment.

It is also estimated that over 23 million Americans risk losing their homes in little more than two months with eviction moratoriums coming to an end in September. The victims, as always, will be the working class and the poor.

It is little wonder than prolonged uprisings have sprung up throughout the United States in such areas as Portland, Oregon and Chicago. Black working class youth have been at the forefront of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations but  Trump's response, the act of an authoritarian, has to been send in federal troops.

It is unlikely that Trump will listen to the concerns of the United Nations:

'Peaceful demonstrations that have been taking place in cities in the US, such as Portland, really must be able to continue. People must be able to demonstrate, and journalists must be able to cover such protests, without risking arbitrary arrest or detention, being subject to unnecessary disproportionate or discriminatory use of force or suffering other violations of their rights'

At this juncture  we should note worth that when the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the level of economic inequality and poverty was at a similar level to what it is in the United States today. The American rebellion will spread as the crisis deepens because faced with a unresponsive political system acting on behalf of capital, people have little alternative but to take to the streets.

Over three decades of neoliberalism, presided by both Democratic and Republican administrations, has left the working class with nothing left to lose but their chains. As revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg once observed,  'those who do not move, do not notice their chains.' The American working class is beginning to move.