Scott Walker, Motherfucker

[2011]
Lyrics by Sam Rasiotis
Music by Sam Rasiotis, Sean Wiggins and John Coakley
Album: 30th Ave. Heartache



February 2011 - Republican Wisconsin's governor, Scott Walker, provided the starkest expression of the real state of class relations in the United States by vowing that he would answer any resistance by mobilizing the National Guard..
The last time that the National Guard was employed this way in Wisconsin was after the 1886 Haymarket massacre in Chicago, when state militiamen were called out to shoot striking steelworkers in Milwaukee.
Scott Walker's threat is not idle. Class tensions in the United States today are sharper than at any time in the past three quarters of a century. Social inequality and the concentration of wealth by the top 1 percent – which now controls well over one third of the country's wealth – are more extreme today than at any time since the “Gilded Age”, when state violence against the workers movement was common.

The events in Wisconsin are a clear indication that the United States is entering a new period of social upheaval. The working class is driven into struggle by the objective crisis of capitalism and by the determination of the ruling class to defend its wealth through a ruthless attack on all the rights of working people – the right to a job, to a living wage, to education, health care and a secure retirement.
A new political perspective is required to carry forward these struggles. First, absolutely no confidence can be placed in the trade unions, which have done everything they can to bolster the Democratic Party and suppress any genuine movement of workers. In Wisconsin, union executives are saying that they accept the need for cuts, but do not want to give up their seat at the bargaining table. In fact, their main goal is to preserve their financial base through the dues check-off system.
Workers must reject out of hand the concessions called for by union leaders and the entire political establishment. The budget deficit in Wisconsin is a tiny fraction of the wealth of the country's billionaires. Indeed, the total budget deficit of all 50 states is about one-tenth of the net wealth of only the 400 richest Americans. This wealth, and the trillions expended to bail out the banks, must be reclaimed to meet the basic social needs of vast majority of the population.
A struggle against budget cuts requires the unification of the entire working class and youth in Wisconsin and throughout the country. Organizations independent of the trade unions must be built-rank and file committees of workers and students to unite public sector and private sector workers as well as youth in the workplaces, schools and neighborhoods of Wisconsin and beyond. Preparations should be made now for a general strike of all workers against the cutbacks.
Above all, what is required is a political struggle, which begins from the understanding that nothing can be defended so long as the working class is subordinated to the Democratic Party and the capitalist two-party system. The representatives of the capitalist class, in proclaiming that the preservation of capitalism requires the destruction of the jobs and living conditions of the vast majority of the population, are in fact acknowledging the historical bankruptcy of the system they defend.
The re-emergence of the class struggle will bring with it a revival of the fight for socialism. As the American working class enters a new era of social upheaval, the critical task now is the building of a revolutionary socialist party to lead these struggles.

A song of solidarity from the band Dirty Wings and their friends in Astoria. We all stand with Wisconsin workers!