March 4th strike and day of action.

international | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis Friday March 05, 2010 17:07 by john throne - labors militant voice loughfinn at aol dot com

Great success.

The beginning of a new movement and hopefully a new era.

The March 4th strike and day of action took place all over the US. In spite of the refusal of the trade union leaders to mobilize their millions of members the March 4th strike and day of action was a great success. Particularly so because the high school students took a leading role. Seeing the youth take the lead was as good as a tonic. As the old Willie Nelson song goes, we are on the road again.

For activists we now face a serious challenge. We no longer have the excuse that people will not fight. In fact we never really had. But now it is undeniable. People are prepared to fight. This was shown yesterday. For activists like us we have to help them fight and take part in this fight in such a way that helps it broaden and deepen and keep on course to confront the capitalist offensive.

We must defend the movement against the right such as the trade union leaders who are scared by it because it challenges the capitalist system which the union leaders support and it threatens their policy of capitulation to the demands of the capitalist offensive. Nothing threatens the trade union leaders more than big victories against this capitalist offensive which claim has to be accepted. Such victories would expose their policies of capitulation as being unnecessary, in fact as being as being downright betrayal and would threaten their position in the movement.

We also have to defend the movement from the damage that could be done by an ultra left approach, that is trying to take the movement forward around demands and tactics that would cut it off from the wider layers of the working class. The movement must be kept on target of taking on the rich, of taking direct confrontational action against the capitalist offensive and but this must be done around demands and tactics that are capable of bringing in the new hundreds of thousands of working class youth and workers who are so far watching the movement, yes with sympathy but still only watching, and considering what if any action they are going to take. We need a movement of hundreds of thousands and millions to win this struggle. Our policies should be looked at in this light. We are involved in serious business. We want to win. We are not into building a small protest group. We are out to win. And we can win.

John Throne.