The Current Situation
The situation in the world currently is very hard on working-class and other low-income people but is a situation offering great opportunities for world changing. It is a time when RC thinking and policies can quickly become widely accepted.
The contemptible motivations that have always guided the governments of the leading powers of the world are being exposed more and more rapidly. The striking advances in communication through satellites, cable, cellular phones, and computing networks are creating an informed population. The old methods of oppression in secrecy cannot cope with this. (Of course, the oppressive society attempts to misuse these new information channels . . . for misinformation and oppression.)
The old “psychologies” are bankrupt. The current results of classist oppression and the breakdown of society are immediate and devastating. The costs of this press heavily upon working people everywhere—with unemployment, hunger, health difficulties, and demoralization. However, the ruling circles of the present societies are themselves terrified and, behind their bluster, have no ideas of what to do about this general collapse beyond desperately competing with each other for the shrinking profits.
We in RC, of course, also feel the economic pressure. We are having a tough time but probably, in general, are surviving better than the populations around us, just because of our better-informed status and our greater flexibility in the face of crises. For our personal interests, however, as well as for the interests of the general population, we need to break through the timidity and passivity that have been conditioned upon us as part of the general population. We need to meet together and discuss our current situations with each other. We need to face the fact that things will not “get better” on their own. Only bold, innovative initiatives and determined struggle can bring an end to the deterioration of living standards, environmental quality, and health care. . . .
The need for international working-class unity is becoming more and more apparent.
October 1993
From pages 99 to 101 of “Excerpts from Letters
to RC Leaders,” in The Kind, Friendly Universe