Hurricane Helene made landfall at Keaton Beach in Florida at 11:10 p.m. Sept. 26, then traveled north, drenching Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee. This devastating storm, with over 225 dead, an unknown number still missing and substantial damage to homes, farms and small businesses, shows nature’s potentially destructive power.
Similar catastrophes from past deadly hurricanes, wildfires and other natural disasters have wreaked havoc in the continental U.S., Hawaii, the Caribbean and elsewhere.
But the thing they share in common is not the power of nature. They were all social catastrophes, whose damage and deaths were the product of the priorities of the capitalist rulers and their governments.
Profit-driven construction bosses build working-class housing on low-lying land, prone to flooding. Governments at all levels use their armed forces, cops, courts and budgets to defend the banks and factories, not workers and our homes. Agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency have proven over and over — from Puerto Rico to North Carolina — that they are incapable of coping with these disasters and their aftermath.
As Helene’s destructive wind and rain worked its way across the Southeast, working people selflessly stepped forward in large numbers to help one another. Their solidarity is what you could rely on.
To defend their wealth and prerogatives, the ruling rich tell us working people aren’t capable or “smart enough” to take charge of society. Recent events prove the exact opposite.
Similar lessons are being drawn by workers at Boeing, on the docks and in other union battles today. Out of experience, they’re learning the power of united working-class action.
This potential class power is decisive. Workers, small farmers and others exploited by capital have, can and will again change the world.
The social consequences of every serious development today — whether from a deadly storm, a strike battle or a pandemic — poses the class struggle and a political challenge.
The solidarity shown during Helene, and in today’s strike battles, points the road for working people to build our own party, a party of labor, to organize workers in their millions to fight to take political power into our own hands. To join with working people worldwide to eliminate exploitation and oppression once and for all. A socialist revolution.
This is what the Socialist Workers Party has to offer.