Symptom or System Change?

In a little over a week and a half will be the coronation of the “Donald” as the Republican Party presidential candidate.

For all practical intents the media has coronated him though there apparently is an opposition group forming against him and willing to support another candidate.

There will be protests against the “Donald” to be sure. I wouldn't be surprised to see the military involved to keep Cleveland in peace as well as in one piece. Then again, neo-nazi groups have said that they will be in Cleveland to protect the “Donald.”

Honesty, If work allows, I would love to go and protest and (hopefully) meet up with other members of Socialist Action.

In August the Democrats will be appointing (and anointing) Hillary as their candidate. Again, the media has already put the title of nominee on her even though Bernie has not dropped out and is still fighting for the nomination (in some capacity).

Again, there will be protests against Hillary and the Democrats. Philadelphia is much farther away than Cleveland, so I doubt that I will be able to male that.

And the various groups will be protesting against the two parties' economic plans, foreign policy plans, and so on. The “Donald” and the Republicans will hear it about their social policies (anti-LGBTQ, anti immigrant, etc.) And Hillary and the Democrats will hear it about how their plans don't go far enough.

And I'm thinking – many of these protesters are protesting symptoms of the system. Many of the protests are against problems that are systemic and endemic to capitalism.

It's not enough to protest against a problem and demand that the two faces of capitalism do something to make that part of the system much friendlier. Face it – capitalism needs these problems in order to exists. Be it prejudice against immigrants or LGBTQ individuals, or unemployment (or underemployment for that matter), or homelessness. These are symptoms that the system needs to control the population.

The same goes for militarism. There is no real difference between the Democrats and Republicans on foreign policy. And yet the left (parts of it) give the Democrats and President Obama a pass on that policy when Obama has killed via drone strike more people than President (sic) GW Bush and has expanded the “War on terrorist tactics” in more countries than Bush.

The protesters need to be led to understand this and change their stance from protesting to reform some characteristic of capitalism to fighting for socialism.

Let's face the facts: And reform of the capitalist system can be undone. Look at the war on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other forms of public assistance. The two capitalist parties have been salami slicing these reform programs down to nothing.

If they want to save these programs, end the persecution of immigrants and LGBTQ individuals, and stop these mindless wars that we are in and work to save the planet and our species – they need to work to change the system from capitalism to socialism.

Anything else is just a waste of time.

We have a choice and Rosa Luxembourg said it so well when she gave us the choice between socialism and barbarism.

I choose socialism as the solution.

Do you?

Vote Socialist Action in 2016.