Gary Walkowicz, WCP candidate for U.S. Congress in Michigan's 12th district, spoke at an October rally.
Gary's remarks are reproduced below.
In our campaign we have to talk about something else. We must tell workers about what is coming, something that most people don’t see, something that is being hidden from people. We have to tell workers how the world is moving toward war, a bigger war, possibly a world war, a war that people in this country won’t escape.
Much of the world is already suffering from war, but the capitalist ruling class in this country doesn’t want us to pay attention to it, or be concerned about it. Last week, while the Israeli government, backed by the U.S., was escalating the war in the Middle East, the corporate-owned media only wanted us to be concerned about a debate for vice president. When Israeli prime minister Netanyahu went before the UN and outright declared a bigger war, possibly a war against Iran, the media barely mentioned it, even though a bigger war would mean direct U.S. involvement.
Today people in Lebanon are being bombed and killed by this Israeli escalation, including many children. At the same time, in Gaza, over 40,000 people have already been killed, the majority of them women and children. The Israeli regime is carrying out these massacres with weapons supplied by the U.S. In addition to that, the U.S. military has over 40,000 troops stationed in the region, as well as naval task forces and sea and land-based warplanes, threatening and ready to engage its own forces. We don’t know if the current Israeli attacks are going to lead directly and immediately to a bigger war. But every escalation of this war in the Middle East brings with it the possibility of a bigger war..
The war in Ukraine continues, for over 2 and-a-half-years now, with over a million people killed and wounded, soldiers and civilians, Ukrainian and Russian. This war started when Putin invaded Ukraine. But that’s not the whole story and what led up to this war. Putin’s invasion was in response to years of the U.S. and its NATO allies threatening Russia by putting troops and weapons on Russia’s border. The war in Ukraine continues today only because of the weapons and money that U.S. and NATO keep supplying to Ukraine. The U.S. is conducting this war from behind the scenes, planning strategy and providing intelligence. This war is, in reality, a U.S. war against Russia, using Ukrainian soldiers. The U.S. is trying to weaken Russia. It is a war that that continues to carry the risk of escalating into a direct war between the U.S. and Russia, both countries armed with nuclear weapons.
Today there are also other wars going on in Africa and Asia, where millions have died. Again, these wars are barely mentioned here, if at all. But the big powers, including the U.S., are involved behind the scenes, arming and supporting one side or the other. These wars also carry the risks involve the risk of escalating and bringing in the major powers.
Even if people here know about these wars, they can seem far away, so we can think they are not affecting us and will not affect us. But it would be a big mistake for us to think this way. Because a bigger war, even a world war, is staring us in the face. The capitalist system is bringing us to the brink of a world war.
The very nature of the capitalist system pits the capitalists of one country against the capitalists of other countries. They compete against each other for access to natural resources, they compete against each other for markets to sell things, they compete against each other to exploit workers all over the world. U.S. imperialism uses Israel as its cop in the Middle East and has its own troops stationed there because of oil and important trade routes.
The capitalists of every country have a government and military which represents their own interests in this competition for profits. And this competition for profits leads to military clashes between governments. This competition leads to war. The whole history of capitalism has been a history of regional war and world wars. World War One and World War Two were a result of this competition between capitalists.
Those world wars came out of a situation very much like what we see today. Capitalism has gone through many years of economic crisis. There are wars in different regions of the world. Each of these wars involve the major powers, either directly or behind the scenes. The major powers are building up their military forces. That is exactly what things looked like before WWII.
The working class here is already paying for the push toward war. The politicians of both the Republican and Democratic parties have been increasing the U.S. military budget every year. Even after accounting for inflation, the U.S. military budget has gone up by 48% since 2000. Today it is close to one Trillion dollars a year, and that amount doesn’t even include spending for past wars and future wars that comes out of other parts of the budget. The U.S. spends more on the military than the next 9 countries in the world, combined. And that doesn’t even count the money the U.S. is spending today for wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, which comes out of “emergency” funding. The working class is paying for all that military buildup. We are paying for it because that money comes from our tax money. Workers are facing our own emergency because the money spent on war is money taken away from our children’s schools. Workers are facing an emergency because money spent on war is money is taken away from health care and affordable housing. Our roads are crumbling, and our sewer systems are backing up because money is taken away from public needs and given to corporations who produce weapons at lucrative profit. And after the election, no matter who wins, we are going to see things get worse. The ruling class wants even more money for war, and they are not going to take it out of their own pockets, they want to take it put of ours. They want to take money away from what we need, whether it is from Social Security, or Medicare, or other social spending.
And the price that the working class is paying now will be small compared to the price we will pay when there is a bigger war, and the U.S. is directly involved. We will pay the price in our own lives. The working class here doesn’t see this coming catastrophe and in our campaign for WCP, we must talk about it and warn people. We have to say what this war is about and why is it happening. We have to say this because workers will pay the full price for war, unless the working class takes control away from the capitalists who are leading us into war. It is important for us to say these things because nobody else is saying this.
In our campaign, we have to say to workers what nobody else does. We have to say how workers are all part of one class – black and white, women and men, union and non-union, immigrants who come here and people who were born here. We have to say how they are trying to divide us and weaken us by blaming problems on immigrants in order to cover for the capitalists, the people who are really cutting wages and raising prices and eliminating jobs.
We have to talk about how workers have the power to fight for what we need right now and impose on the bosses what we need – wages that keep up with inflation and jobs for everyone who wants to work. We have to say why the working class needs its own party – a mass party that can help organize a fight of the whole working class, not separate fights like we see going on right now.
In our campaign for WCP, we are doing something that needs to be done. We are doing something that is important.