FORT WORTH, Texas — “The imperialist epoch we are living through today is characterized by deepening cutthroat competition between rival powers for resources, markets and labor to exploit,” Norton Sandler, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor of California, told participants at an Aug. 23 Militant Labor Forum here.
“The imperialist world order, dominated for 80 years by the U.S. ruling class, is marching humanity toward World War III. Only the working class taking political power through revolutionary struggle can end this,” Sandler said.
“The wealthiest ruling class in the world, backed by its vast military strength, is using tariffs as a battering ram against its competitors, especially China,” Sandler explained. “We should take seriously the Trump administration’s push to rebuild U.S. industry. This is part of its war preparations. Steel, aluminum, shipbuilding, auto, oil resources, rare earth reserves, chips and semiconductors are all necessary for military purposes.
“When SWP members talk to workers at their doorsteps, co-workers on the job, or strikers on picket lines, there is no optimism about the economy. There’s no enthusiasm about the offerings from the bosses’ two political parties and a foreboding that more wars are coming,” he said.
Sandler described the scope of the U.S. rulers’ military buildup around the world, from the Pacific, to the Middle East, to the naval armada being dispatched off the coast of Venezuela. He pointed to the Northern Command, established by the government in 2002, which gives Washington greater power to use military force domestically, as well as in Canada and Mexico.
“The government has recently deployed Marines and the National Guard in Los Angeles,” he said. “The guard is being used now to police Washington, D.C. Troops are stationed at the U.S. southern border to go after anyone who should try to cross, supposedly to target drug cartels in Mexico and elsewhere.
“The U.S. working class is the ultimate target of Washington’s deployment of military forces at home.”
Sandler said, “The heart of understanding what is taking place in the Middle East is understanding the Jewish question. The goal of Hamas and Tehran is another Holocaust, to wipe out the Jews in Israel, half of the world’s Jewish population.
“Jew-hatred is built into the imperialist epoch,” he pointed out. “There will be no refuge as long as capitalism exists. Jew-hatred will increase as the world capitalist system decays. The growing call for a ‘two-state solution’ today means a Hamas state in Gaza, pointing a dagger at Israel’s existence. Getting rid of Hamas is necessary to give space to workers in Gaza and in Israel to allow for the unfolding of the class struggle.
“The biggest ally of workers in Israel is the working class in Iran. They’re continuing to organize strikes, protest working and living conditions and oppose Tehran’s drive to destroy Israel,” he said.
Need for a revolutionary leadership
Sandler explained that Stalinist forces have been in the forefront of opposing Israel’s defensive war to defeat Hamas. Joined by many liberals, they call Israel’s war “genocide,” burying the depth of what was done to the world’s Jewish population during the Holocaust. But the Stalinists political course is nothing new. Their sabotage of real opportunities to unite the workers’ movement in Germany to fight to prevent Hitler from coming to power in 1933 is a prime example.
Sandler also cited their betrayal of revolutionary openings in 1936 in France, and in the 1936-39 Spanish Revolution. These defeats made the second imperialist world war inevitable and opened the door to the Holocaust.
“So-called socialist organizations today defend Hamas and Vladimir Putin’s deadly war against the Ukrainian people. The heirs of Stalin and Mao are active on campuses and elsewhere,” he said. As they did in the past, the same Stalinist forces today promote a “Popular Front” against fascism, based on class collaboration with the two parties of the bosses and bankers.
Sandler described the scope of the government’s immigration raids, which are leading to the jailing and deportation of thousands of workers. “Socialist Workers Party candidates across the country are calling for amnesty for undocumented workers, as a step to prevent the bosses from dividing us. The labor movement must take the lead on this life-and-death question.” He cited the example of the SMART union’s backing of their fellow union member, Kilmar Abrego García, and his supporters in their fight against the government’s drive to deport him and intimidate other workers without papers.
“There is serious resistance growing in the working class as exhibited by the striking flight attendants at Air Canada who refused to buckle to government orders to return to work, and by Republic Services garbage workers on strike for equal pay, who are holding firm after more than 50 days on the picket lines,” Sandler said. Organizing solidarity with these fights is crucial.
“SWP candidates across the country are getting a serious hearing. What we raise makes more sense now to workers than in previous years,” he said. At the heart of what the SWP presents “is the necessity of the working class to take political power and begin to transform society top to bottom. Building revolutionary parties is decisive to advancing this perspective worldwide.
“We are urging working people to join the Socialist Workers Party.”
