Remember U.S. workers didn't start the class war

A protester holds a sign that reads "Let Us Fish" on a boat on Lake Union near Gas Works Park in Seattle, U.S., April 26, 2020. /AP

**Editor's note: **Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. He has been featured on Press TV, Russia Today and Radio Sputnik. The article reflects the author's opinions, not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Today, the day historically revered by the left as International Workers' Day or "May Day", employees at hundreds of workplaces owned by many of the largest companies in the United States will stage an unprecedented mass strike action.

Their goal is to grow momentum for a general strike, something unheard of in American history, that could set the stage for a class war fought in the streets and not quietly in the Beltway.

Workers, however, did not stumble upon this newfound class consciousness by some historical accident. They were forced into it out of sheer desperation as employers pushed essential workers to continue churning out labor with little hazard compensation, protection, or benefits.

Analogous with this mass walk out is the largest rent strike in decades that will be launched today in Los Angeles, New York City, and Philadelphia. This movement represents the disenfranchised working class that has been swept aside and forgotten by the tens of millions.

Many states and cities, including New York, have not yet passed rent moratoriums or eviction halts, meaning many of these now jobless workers will face eviction and potentially homelessness now as rents are due.

Workers are being cornered at a time when the unprecedented wealth of the country could have been distributed fairly, allowing people to absorb some losses. But U.S. President Donald Trump's "greatest economy of the world" turned out to be a house of cards.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed, in all of its ugliness, the inherent contradictions of capitalism especially as it exists in the United States. As Trump has made clear - his administration will sacrifice the lives and safety of the working class in order to fill the pockets of Wall Street oligarchs who viciously strive to suck as much value from workers as they can to enrich themselves.

In this March 29, 2020 file photo provided by the U.S. Navy, medical personnel assigned to the hospital ship USNS Mercy docked at the Port of Los Angeles treat a non-COVID-19 patient from a Los Angeles-area medical facility. /AP

At the same time, Trump has activated a large swath of his base to do his dirty work and protest against effective social distancing policies in order to get back to business as usual and save Wall Street. His MAGA hat brown shirt armies, unwittingly acting as volunteer corporate mercenaries, are becoming more militant by the day and becoming a coercive measure against workers desperately fighting for their lives.

Congress has also failed workers, with the Democrat controlled House of Representatives adjourned for recess until further notice as many face eviction and potential loss of their employer-sponsored health insurance.

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell's Senate is drafting legislation that will all but ensure corporate tyranny with companies being bulletproof from any legal action due to unsafe practices that could result in the spread of COVID-19 in workplaces.

A majority of Republicans, including McConnell who is dominating negotiations for Stimulus 4.0, are cautious to give away any big spending that would benefit workers or help states maintain their social safety nets, seeing this as "kicking the can down the road" for "irresponsible" spending. The reality is that what is really, continuously being kicked down the road with platitudes and failed promises is an angry and organized working class.

Let's not forget that revolution was on the minds of many during the economic collapse of the Great Depression, the most relevant historical example to compare to what is currently happening. It was President Franklin D. Roosevelt that essentially saved capitalism from itself.

In that period, even intellectuals in the United States were advancing the economic model of the Soviet Union because of the socialist system's superiority and imperviousness to bust. Eventually they settled on Keynesianism - the idea that governments ought to intervene to stabilize an economy while maintaining private ownership over production and, voila, social democratic policies became mainstream to keep the streets from running red.

D.C. must not forget that the achievements won under the New Deal, very similar to the social democratic policies supported by Bernie Sanders and his movement, were the compromise. If they continue to ignore the plight of workers and kick the can down the road, they will wish for the days of "communist" Bernie again. He was the true middle ground.

This global pandemic, unprecedented in modern history, has the world faced with the realization that the world as we know may have just ended. But the reality is that the world has already ended for many Americans, and even before COVID-19, as tens of thousands die without access to health care every year, millions go bankrupt from student loans and health care debt, many are killed in the streets by police, and a litany of other crimes.

Whatever transformation happens, and it will happen - there can be no question, will fall squarely on the contradictions of the system as it currently exists. Workers are merely defending themselves.

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