From Sarah Sachs-Eldridge
Day 5: Young people in struggle across the world and the struggle for socialism
What is so inspiring today is the huge number of young people who are fighting back against this attack on their future, and increasingly against the system, capitalism, which will always mean crisis and will always try to make the working and poor masses pay. The occupy movements are correct – we are the 99%, the mass of the population. Their slogan exposes the huge and brutal inequality that exists under capitalism. The 1% takes everything, in a time of austerity they get richer and richer while lives are destroyed. I listened to a news item on increasing suicides in Greece this morning. I am marching in solidarity with the indignados, the occupiers of Wall Street and the Stock Exchange and all the protesters across the world, in Chile, in Israel, in north Africa and the Middle East and with the trade unions that are in struggle for workers’ rights, to defend public services and living standards. We are the 99%. We produce the wealth, the ideas, the 99% has huge potential power. In Britain, as elsewhere, we are in for the fight of our lives and the public sector general strike on 30 November is key. The Jarrow march is important because it stands in solidarity with the organised working class, bringing young people and trade unions together to fight the cuts. The Socialist Party stands for a socialist alternative to the cuts, a system where the massive resources could be planned to meet the needs of both people and the environment not merely to further enrich the obscenely wealthy elite. The potential to carry through such change lies in the hands of the producers of the resources, of the wealth, the international working class with socialist ideas and leadership.
Jarrow March 2011 