From A World To Win News Service

“Stop the whole system wrecking the planet: this means revolution!”

December 21, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

December 14, 2015. A World to Win News Service. In Paris, Brussels, Berlin, and London, revolutionaries distributed the following text in French, English, German, Farsi, and Turkish during the two weeks of climate protests against the CoP21 in Europe. Signed Planet Resistance, it is dated 16 November 2015.

The massive flow of migrants and refugees struggling to reach Europe to survive, two outmoded political systems and ideologies clashing all over the world and most recently in the terrible events in Paris, Beirut, Ankara, Kunduz Hospital, Sinai... the urgent state of the planet endangering the global ecosystem: these dramatic scenes are the theatre of a whole rotten system that has to go.

Even if the CoP21 leaders pledge to reduce carbon emissions, this meeting of ministers and experts is not going to shake the empire(s) they represent and apologise for: the “intended contributions” show that, as do the heated debates over which parts of an agreement could be legally binding.

Why should we have any faith that those governing the capitalist world order, hogging most of the globe’s resources and “leading” in destroying the environment will “lead” in taking major steps that go against their basic interests? Against their compulsion to fiercely beat out their competitors in accumulating wealth and strengthening their domination and control over countries that goes with it, regardless of the consequences? How can we leave the health of the planet, the beauty of nature and the future of human society in the hands of the world’s biggest murderers of people – let alone of the physical environment itself?

After a CoP21 agreement is argued and signed they will resume the frenzied race among them to find new fossil fuels and to further exploit all resources – and people: that is capitalism’s lifeblood. If one of them starts using biofuels the other will undercut his production costs with cheaper fossil fuels. Countries like France spend billion$ to set up nuclear plants (but not to make them “safe” from Fukushimas or Chernobyls), and how long before they have to spend million$ more to dismantle them when they are no longer profitable (enough)? Obama did cancel part of one of a dozen pipelines after prolonged protest and just before the CoP21, but he has not stopped coal production and, as the president of the number one planetary carbon emitter of all times, has moved ahead on pursuing new oil and gas, preferably “national”, sources, in line with “our national interests”.

Rich countries promising to cut greenhouse gases will continue to “off-load” much of their emissions to poorer countries producing many of the wealthier countries’ goods. This is not just about will or good intentions: it is the logic of capitalism, it must expand or die – for essentially everything it produces. The main arteries of the world economy depend on fossil fuels – transport, steel production, oil, agribusiness – the list is long. Add the geo-strategic rivalry of the monster energy consumers in the imperialist armed forces and the scale of powerful forces working against confronting the environmental crisis is all too clear. This system works as an interconnected whole, preventing rational and sustainable planning, and we can’t just clean up its dirty toenails.

Many worthy and creative local projects implementing green alternatives are sprouting up that may not want to depend on capitalist markets. Unfortunately they won’t significantly affect these main dynamics of capitalist growth, crisis and the ruthless ways it exacerbates the harsh inequalities among countries and peoples. It is also true that the CoP21 captains will accept to put in place some measures. There will always be disagreements among rival imperialists. The trouble is, even if as individuals they wanted to do what is necessary to reverse the climate crisis, they cannot, because the system they are locked into cannot operate in any other way. And if we are not willing to “get” this cold truth and to challenge capitalism’s rulers leading the earth towards catastrophe, we end up helping provide the political “fuel” to keep it going, unpleasant as that is.

Don’t we have to stop the whole system that is speeding up climate change? Real system change means revolution!

Dare to think radically! What is really unrealistic anyway?

We have to both imagine and fight for genuine and complete system change. We need to build a powerful resistance movement against the source of the problem and take responsibility for organising society in a radically different way.

Confronting today’s environmental crisis can only occur on a world scale, with a global perspective, and it can only happen under a different social system. Revolution by the oppressed and proletarian people proceeds from the interests of humanity as a whole and the planet as a whole. It replaces the people- and planet-ravaging logic of profit and private ownership blocking solutions to all social ills plaguing the people of the world and holding them back from transforming it. Not by wishing will the current rulers see reason, but by seizing power to enable a socialist state to lead this complex process towards communism. This type of socialist revolution, whatever form it may first take in different types of countries – imperialist or those dominated by imperialism – can with political power address environmental issues and reorganise the economy in a sustainable, rational, and socially just way. It can establish new global norms and begin to repair and reverse the devastation of the earth.

A socialist state can produce and distribute food based on social need, long-term land use planning, protecting ecosystems and developing biodiversity. Industrial production so wasteful and damaging to the environment today will be restructured, planned and regulated, together with re-envisioned modes of transport, human habitat and burgeoning cities. Renewable forms of energy and green technologies will be further developed and implemented on a mass scale: only a state aiming to transform all of society and the world can unlock the human potential to accomplish this. Consumer culture can be transformed. Truly innovative scientific knowledge can be fully put to use together with the conscious activity of people ourselves to solve the vast array of social problems facing humanity.

The 20th century socialist revolutions in the Soviet Union and revolutionary China made unparalleled breakthroughs but also suffered from shortcomings conceptually and practically. The new synthesis of communism developed by Bob Avakian summarises both these advances and problems with an eye to the future we need to build. With this perspective and in this global framework that “the whole world comes first”, socialist revolution will also lead people to overcome the huge differences between oppressed and oppressor countries. This other world is possible; in fact seen from this angle, the possibilities for transforming the world are almost unlimited. And the needs are way past urgent.

Unrealistic? What is realistic about continuing on the current path careening towards destruction of the planet and subordinating most of the world’s people to the dictates of a bloody and merciless system that will never “dismantle” or “green” itself, some of whose statesmen may pass resolutions but never enforce them? How realistic is it not to act on the reality that a Cop71 (or whatever they call it by then) will be necessary in 50 years time after the Polynesian islands and Bangladesh are underwater, many more species and life forms have disappeared, and millions more people are left on the sidelines in a much worse scenario than today: those who are not decimated will be trying to survive and to migrate to countries that have built a ring of walls and barbed wire fences to exclude them at gunpoint. Is this the “realistic” world we want?

We cannot be satisfied with the illusion that partial steps by industrialists or lifestyle alternatives are sufficient, that “degrowth” is a real option: in short, that confronting the capitalist-imperialist system is not necessary. The guardians of the current social order will constantly come up with new promises – packaged in a variety of shapes, colours and liberal democratic messages for as long as they are allowed to rule.

Society has to be revolutionized. We need a movement for revolution that acts to put an end to every injustice and every crime this system commits, including climate change. The movement against the destruction of the planet must become part of this revolutionary solution. A movement that both resists capitalism and works towards breaking with its cold-hearted calculations that will continue to prevent any serious clean energy and green technologies from ever being implemented on the scale needed. We shouldn’t tolerate, in any way, the strengthening of the great lopsidedness of this world and the suffering that capitalism brings down daily on the people. We need to become a force for revolution for a new world that approaches this climate crisis and every social problem completely differently in the interests of humanity as a whole. Look for our Planet Resistance banner and t-shirts: Only revolution can save the planet! We have a world to win!

 

 

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