Matthew 22:1-10 And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said: “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” ’ But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them [a]spitefully, and killed them. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.
Why do I bring this up? Because Marco Rubio backs the Amazon warehouse unionization drive in Bessemer, Alabama as a way to own Amazon for having woke PR departments. His reason to back this is not my reason to back this, to put it mildly. He doesn't like the idea of unions in principle, doesn't have anything against billionaires in principle, but is so triggered by culture war bullshit that he's gotta own the libs by organizing Bessemer.
Before you turn up your nose at such meager offerings, consider that the most Joe Biden could muster is endorsing the idea of workers voting in the unionization ballot. He didn't say how to vote, because Lord knows the Dems need their Bezosbux.
For the most worldly of reasons, the mainstream Dems didn't show up to the wedding feast in Bessemer. For the most foolish of reasons, at least some Republicans did.
Marxists are to care about what happens in reality, not what people say. Rubio is closer to Bernie in practice on this issue than most of the Democratic Party is, and on this issue, Bernie is right. Instead of looking for reasons to be disgusted by this support, we should understand it for what it is: an opportunist politician's understanding that most of the Republican base hates Amazon and wants a union, and figuring out a way to square the Party line with those desires. Rubio is an opportunist applying the conservative mass line to unionizing workers, but he's supporting the struggle in order to do it.
On a conceptual level, unions are not the answer to how to get to socialism from capitalism. No owners will ever give away the ownership of the means of production in a negotiation, and nothing short of that is socialism. However, on a practical level, unionization gives us an opportunity to reach the workers with the truth through the union, it teaches them class consciousness just by existing, and it allows individual MLs to better fund their political activities by having the wherewithal to make larger donations to their organization. As communists, we should very much hope this unionization effort succeeds, while not mistaking a beginning for an end.
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